Update: the HTTPS piece talked about here has been turned off for the moment as it was the reason for the downtime today. It will come back. So please take note of the below as a bit of a preemptive note.

As if there isn’t enough news going around these days about data, access, and security, one of the more recent pieces that has sounded an alarm is the news of a botnet (automated scripts that act like tiny computers within programs) that is aiming to use WordPress-powered blogs for generally making a bit of nasty noise around the web. Since MMM is among many faith/tech sites that uses WordPress, we’ve been going about adding some measures of security to the site here – and its noticable that it will have an effect on how you consume information around here.

If you are coming here direcly by typing in the URL (as about 45% of our visitors do), you will have noticed a note about the security certificate for the page, and then you would have noticed that we are now running the site with SSL enabled. You notice this specifically by the https:// that is in the URL field of this page. That’s the biggest piece of friction and has actually resulted in about 2/3 of the traffic that we normally see in that organic fashion going away. Crazy drop I know, but if it means that the information here remains usable in a secure manner, that’s going to have to be the case.

Enabling SSL, along with a few other features behind the scenes, happened to be enabled by the use of the WordPress plugin Better WP Security. Better WP Security enables all kinds of neat features that you would normally need to know a bit about network security to implement, while also adding some semblance of sanity through log reviews, IP blocking, and site database backups. Being that MMM is no stranger to strange visitors, this is a very important measure of security that we needed to implement, and frankly probably comes at a great time. Our server admin also considers it a good thing to add, even though its not necessarily the route they would have gone with (they are admins, they know things too).

The SSL tweak has broken pages for a number of visitors. The biggest break is actually on the side of our RSS feeds. You will need to check your feed address – its needs the https:// then mobileministrymagazine.com/feed in order to work properly. Yes, I’m still using Feedburner (feeds.feedburner.com/mobileminmag – I think that’s it), but if that service was also to be cut off by Google, you need to know how to get our content in the most direct way as possible.

For those of you not coming to MMM through any of our apps/experiments, you can still get to MMM content through our HTML5/jQuery web app, or by the (only?) mobile ministry portal out there – MobMin.Info. Either one puts our content in front of you in a mobile-friendly, quick, and contextually-relevant manner. Who knows… we might just let those stay as the entry points while the rest of the web works itself out.

Other than that, content will still flow to and through our Twitter feed (@mobileminmag). And there will also be a slew of content posted by others at Twitter, Pinterest, and other social media outlets if you search for #mobmin. There’s a growing body of conversations and works happening, and MMM is proud to be a part of that conversation.

I’m sure that our folks who work in the mobile security space will have more to add to this thread, and that conversation remains open here and other places. If anyone has continued advice for MMM, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line.

For some other tips on how to secure your WordPress blogs, visit this recent article at Internet Evangelism Day – with IE Day coming up in a few days (April 21st) this makes even more sense to be on top of for your ministry communications.

Its been a bit of a slow news week, but there are always notes being passed this worth passing along to you.

• WorldBibles is a website that has a collection of text and audio Bibles in a few thousand languages. Much of the content is sourced from other websites, but its all collected in one place with a decent search facility
• In an article over at Fast Company, its talked about why good intentions aren’t enough to make people use your app. That’s a lesson that many in the faith space don’t want to hear (that there’s not as much demand for this content as we want folks to believe). The solution is in part better marketing, but another part building stuff that matters before building the rationale for traditional messaging
• Also at Fast Company, a article looks at problem solving electronic toys for kids and how one solution points at ways that existing software and hardware can be better purposed for engaging brains and activities… not just entertainment or passive learning as is usually the case
• Continuing down the kids meme, the Huffington Post looks at tech in schools when kids are able to bring their own device and how that fosters different expectations and results in terms of the tech and lessons from those kids. Lessons here for missions work as well as understanding the educational advantages and constraints of mobile (in ministry).

There are a good deal more articles out there. Much of the week’s notes have already been passed along via Twitter (use the hastag #mobmin to see these). What news and notes have you found worth sharing?

As we’ve done the past months, here’s a video(cast) about those things related to mobile ministry. We talk a bit about the Mobile Ministry Forum, as well as some newly acquired tech and how that’s being used here at MMM. Take a peek and let us know what you think of these videos.

Watch previous months videocasts:

• Mobile Ministry Trends and Questions (Jan ’13)
• The Big Picture of Mobile Apps in Ministry (Feb ’13)

Also, you can check out other videos about mobile ministry.

As the USA has witnesses in light of the Boston Marathon bombing, there are some signifiant failings towards mobile that tend to rear their heads. And certainly there are things that can (and won’t) be done to address that. Fast Company went through a litnay of possible ways that carriers have addressed the issue of call/data/messaging volume during emergencies in a recent article:

…Mobile networks have bandwidth that is more than sufficient 99% of the time. However, when disaster strikes, the decentralized nature of the network means that whole geographic regions can be knocked out by increased call volume. Whenever the generous-but-finite bandwidth at carrier site buildings are strained, users are prevented from making voice calls. Because SMS text messages take up far less bandwidth, mobile carriers instead encourage users to text message each other. As Pica put it to Fast Company, “text requires less dedicated real-time capacity than voice. Data networks including LTE and EVDO were not impacted due to the nature of the way data systems are used.”…

Read the rest of Why Your Phone Doesn’t Work During Disasters and How to Fix It at Fast Company

As much as I liked the idea of the article, and have thought about similar here in light of the recent bombings in Boston and Bagdad, I don’t necessarily think of the nature of the network in the same way. In emergency situations, I think of communications channelling going from utility-controlled to P2P-types of methods. We talked about the quick-setup and versatile voice/data network put up at the Burning Man festival each year. And have also talked about the mesh-networking-based product Serval – which acts a lot like the way Skype used to work (several nodes connecting to each other rather than all pointing to a single node).

In many of the conversations about mobile ministry in the missions and security spaces, this idea of P2P communications gets a slightly larger share of attention (from IT folks) than it does in the general conversation. Manily because our normal behaviors have been shaped to expect utilities to be managed from a regional or govermental central point. And indeed, the governance and poolicies set on those levels creates a quality of service level that just isn’t matched by other methods. However, when there aree emergencies, this central-focus becomes a failure point to which its literally a tech and behavior shift to do something different.

In some respects, I’m proposing that we start doing things like sharing communications over Bluetooth (passing notes, contact cards, events, etc.) in normal situations so that when emergencies do come up such as Boston/Bagdad that we are more or less equipped to keep going, rather than feel like the tech limits us to wait until a gatekeeper says its ok to connect in a specific way.

Of the major news items to hit the internet in the past weeks, the shutting down of Google Reader seems to have hit many journalists, bloggers, and information gatherers pretty hard. Google Reader is a website by which you can collect website subscriptions and view them all in one place. Google Reader is based on a technology called RSS (developed by Dave Winer) that’s pretty much a core feature for many kinds of applications around the web (Facebook newsfeeds, Flipboard, etc. all use RSS or its technologies in whole or part).

With Google Reader shutting down though, its going to become a bit harder for some folks to keep up with those things happening in spaces they pay attention to. I’ve thought about this as it relates to mobile minsitry – which would be described by many as the long-tail of faith-based conversations, mobile, or technology new. Long-tail means that it happens at the edge, and there’s not a great maiinstream media component to it. Those whom are involved in keeping the subject handy are few, and therefore the audience is usually made up of people who go out to find the source, more than news driving them there.

Google Reader has been a key component towards following up on many news bits that make it here. But, I’ve started to take steps to ween myself from there as I look for a better solution that fits my multi-device lifestyle. Part of my solution has been to invent my own RSS reader. That’s something that’s going along well, but I clearly don’t have the coding chops to make Google Reader, so I’m working along the features that I want, and the features that I can build. Doing so had me thinking about the audience here, and what you all might do.

We have this property called MobMin.Info which is a portal page towards those things about mobile minsitry – and it could be updated to point to RSS feeds of the sites featured there, in addition to being more dynamic towards showing the latest articles from those featured sites. Having coded something similar to this on my personal site, I see where it could work, and where it could probably cause a problem for some folks.

And for MMM, we’ve got this HTML5-based, dynamic landing page that does similar. The only real issue there is that it only points to content here, and only to a snippet of the latest posts. It does hav e a working search feature though. That could be something.

Still, that’s solutions made for one person, not a movement. So, the question stands: “how do you keep up with mobile ministry topics?” And what could be done better if you have stopped doing so?

Perhaps there’s an answer out there that doesn’t look like anything proposed,, but gives us all something to look forward to as information and connectivity become even more embedded into how this space evolves.

While its rare that we do these lists, its something that comes up from time to time from our partners. The latest of these recomended apps listings comes from FaithVilliage, with many apps on here that we’ve not seen highlighted as often before (which is good). Here’s a snippet:

4. Postagram: iPhone / Android

There’s nothing spiritual about the free Postagram app, per se, but we love to send encouraging postcards to our friends through it. The way it works: You choose a picture from your camera roll, upload it to Postagram, add a message, and Postagram will create the postcard and mail it to the recipient for 99 cents. They’re just a fun way to tell someone you’re thinking about them, praying for them or for sending them a verse of encouragement.

5. OverDrive: iPhone / Android

This free app allows you to download books from your public, school, or college library. The cool part, though, is not that it’s an eReader, but it’s also an audio book reader. So if you’re on a road trip or commuting to work, you can find your library (over 18,000 libraries use OverDrive), check out a title (you need a valid library card first), and listen to it while you drive. While school libraries might not have Christian literature, public libraries often do. What’s even better: You don’t have to worry about returning the title. It expires at the end of the lending period.

Readof the rest of 10 Highly Recommended Mobile Apps for Christians at FaithVilliage

Disclaimer: MMM’s content is syndicated at FaithVilliage. They are a content partner.

Many of the user interfaces that I come across on the various mobile devices that I interact with are not all that neat. Let me correct that. They were novel and neat when I first acquired the device or application. But, that quikcly got old and stale – especially in those applications that I interacted with the most. What would be neat in many of those cases is the interface adapting to my increased usage and then changing to either expose more of itself, or trimming to only exposing the features that I use the most.

I’ve taken to calling it adaptive intelligence or an adaptive interface. Basically that as I spend time in the application or program, that it adapts to my greater comfort with some features, and recommends or trims what I see based on what is learned about my usage. This was some of what when into my UI design for All Books – as you went into a book/chapter, the book name/chapter number would “age,” dimming itself compared to what you haven’t read as much. In time, you could see what areas of the Bible it was that you didn’t read much easier than you could get to the parts you did read more often.

I’m not the only one thinking along these lines, but I do think that its something that we can do a good bit more of in this space of faith-based content. It seems like a new UI idea, and even has been proposed as much in an article at FastCo Design:

…In 1975, the Hungarian psychology professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi outlined his theory of “flow” in his seminal work, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. He defined the concept as ‘‘the holistic experience that people feel when they act with total involvement.’’ When in the flow state, people become absorbed in their activity, narrowing their awareness to the activity itself, losing self-consciousness, and feeling in control of their environment. Flow is also proven to have a positive impact on learning. In skiing, novice practitioners are advised to spend the first few days at the green beginner slopes to get the best learning experience. On the other hand, experienced skiers will find themselves bored at the beginner slopes and must seek their optimal experience on the black expert slopes. This individual balance between skill and challenge is, according to Csikszentmihalyi, called the “flow zone” and staying in this flow zone is the best possible way to learn and make progress while still feeling constantly challenged and intrinsically motivated.

While flow has been extensively applied in studying a broad range of contexts, such as sports, shopping, rock climbing, dancing and others, I believe that, by drawing inspiration from video games, flow can be used to improve the user experience in interactive electronic consumer products…

It takes a lot of foresight to make an interface like this. Similar to the classic “choose your own adventure” books, the application author has to be content with designing many paths to a solution, and doing so in a way that doesn’t break up the story. What would a bible look like if it adapted to our reading tendencies? Or better, what about a Bible app that started off doing simple search and reading, then evolved to something like a full-blown study/sermon companion like Logos/Olive Tree’s products? Would be kind of neat IMO.

Despite the frequency of posts slowing down a bit here, there’s still a lot of thinking and positining towrards this idea that mobile devices, services, and expereinces facilitate part of the lens by which we should look at faith in these times. In a most recent reading about steamboats, landlines, and cars, the challenge was not to think about it in terms of creating something new, but what it looks like when technologies and practices decay. Here’s a snippet:

…Some niches eventually grow to replace the prevailing regime, as cars themselves once did. But that process is equally dependent on so much more than technological invention. Look at how the cell phone has evolved to replace the landline. Our need for cell phones didn’t arise in a vacuum. Work practices changed. Commuting times got longer, creating the need for communication inside cars. Batteries got smaller. Cell phone towers proliferated.

These are the unnoticed events that happen in the slow course of technological transition. We didn’t even recognize that the car was a fundamentally new thing until around World War I, Cohen says. Until then, many people viewed the car as just a carriage without a horse.

“The replacement of the car is probably out there,” Cohen adds. “We just don’t fully recognize it yet.”

In fact, he predicts, it will probably come from China, which would make for an ironic comeuppance by history. The car was largely developed in America to fit the American landscape, with our wide-open spaces and brand-new communities. And then the car was awkwardly grafted onto other places, like dense, old European cities and developing countries. If the car’s replacement comes out of China, it will be designed to fit the particular needs and conditions of China, and then it will spread from there. The result probably won’t work as well in the U.S., Cohen says, in the same way that the car never worked as well in Florence as it did in Detroit…

What Steamships and Landlines Can Tell Us About the Decline of the Private Car at Atlantic Cities

In thinking about the implications of this tech, are we also paying attention to what decays in order for mobile to rise? And then futher, when mobile decays, what will arise from there?

A few years ago, we published an account of Good Friday and Easter/Resurrection Sunday in the context of what that story would look like if mobiles were present. Like a God piece of chocolate, It’s good to have a repeat. Here’s a snippet of what happened on Easter/Resurrection Sunday in that story:

…The brothers planned to meet near the place were ate with Jesus last. The keeper of that room also received the message from the women and assured us that we would be taken care of and fine there. We had to think and act quickly. And somehow, if Jesus is risen, get in contact with him. I’m sure that he couldn’t get a mobile – but I’ve seen him produce all kinds of things out of thin air, anything is possible with him.

The plans came along quickly. This was much different than in times past. It seemed like this time that we just wanted to be on one accord. Some of us reclined in our seats to breathe, some had been on the run a lot longer than just the past three days. Then something strange happened. The mobiles in the center of the table turned on at the same time, then vibrated, then turned off. That was weird, and we all seemed to see it at the same time. It got quiet, really quiet…

Read the rest of Easter/Resurrection Sunday, Narrated Through a Mobile Lens, and the previous installment, Good Friday Narrated Through a Mobile Lens

A few years ago, we composed an account of this Easter weekend, but told through the perspective of what things could look like if mobile was a part of the story. It makes sense to make this like the movie The Ten Commandments and it again for those who might have missed it. Here’s a snippet of the story:

It was only a 30 second clip. But that was all that we needed to see. There he was, I think. In the face it looked like him, but the body was badily bruised. He had something on his head, but I couldn’t tell – I’ve got a simple mobile without a good screen. It looked like he nearly fell with some beam on his back, but then some other guy grabs the beam from him and then the scene cuts. We all looked at one another terrified. We knew what was next. This kind of message only comes out for certain kinds of capital punishments.

My mobile had been off for a few hours. I needed to relocate and didn’t need any cell towers tracking my movements. Better that myIMEI simply shows up in a different region with a different SIM than traveling across regions. It was around noon when mine and all the mobile around me beeped again. There was another MMS. This one felt different. The sky had darkened before it came in. I had this feeling in my stomach that I lost something very important.

Read the rest of Good Friday, Narrated Through a Mobile Lens, this story continues on Easter Sunday.