I have added a new feature to my theme, namely a “side blog” (also called “asides”). You can see it in the right sidebar, under “News and Notes.” This is a place for brief comments about something that I have seen on the web, along with a link. These side blog posts will apear only in the side blog so that they won’t clutter up the main page.

For any interested WordPress users, to create this side blog I used the sideblog plugin by Kates Gasis, with a few modifications of my own to make it work the way I wanted to.

I finally found the problem with the title graphic in Internet Explorer.  Since the majoriy of my readers use IE 6, now you can see the “Reflections” title correctly instead of just the water graphic.

The title uses a .png graphic file with a transparent background.  Until IE 7 is released, you need a workaround to get it to display properly. If you are interested, this is where I got the script to correct the problem.

I have started a new technology blog called TechSpeak. It seems better to put the technology posts in a separate blog, so that this one does not have such a wide range of topics.

All future technology posts will be there. The posts from that blog will not be crossposted to my Xanga, so if you are interested in tech posts you will have to look there. If you want to follow that blog, I suggest that you subscribe via RSS or email.

I have made a few improvements to the site:

• added a “Most Popular” post section in the right sidebar
• put in new feed links for those who want to use RSS to subscribe
• added a link to subscribe by email
• installed a new Bible text tool tip plugin that shows the passage when you move the mouse over a Scripture reference such as John 3:16

The Bible text plugin uses the ESV (English Standard Version), which is a new more literal translation somewhat like the NASB. Read about their translation philosophy. Thanks for Chris Roberts, another Christian WordPress blogger, for a great plugin, and for his help in resolving a conflict with another plugin I was using.

Update: The Bible text plugin only works part of the time. I’m not sure why…

Those who read the cross-post on my Xanga will need to come to the main site to see these improvments. (The Bible text plugin won’t function on Xanga.)

I have been working on a better theme for my site. Yesterday I finally made enough progress that I am able to start using the new theme. I have never been that good at doing graphics, so that was the biggest challenge.

*** Begin Geek Section ***

For those interested in the technical details, I wanted the water background in the banner to resize to the screen width at any resolution but I did not want the title and subtitle to resize because it would look distorted. So I needed to learn how to use DIV to overlay the images. I couldn’t find a way to make the background transparent on a .jpg, and a .gif wouldn’t do because the words were not sharp enough. I also wanted the reflected portion of the title to be partially transparent so that the water would show through, which didn’t work with a .gif. Finally I found out how to use a .png graphics file and make the background on the graphic transparent. But this does not render correctly with IE, so I had to find a work around for that. That’s why you see a brief flash of grey around the graphics for the title and subtitle when you view the site with IE.

*** End Geek Section ***

There are still changes that I want to make, especially to how the side bars work. Let me know if you have any suggestions for improvement. (Those of you reading this as a cross-posted message on my xanga will need to come to my real site to see the new look.)

With this post I have added a new category: Dissertation. This will be the place for posts related to work on my D.Min. dissertation (more about that later).

The past few days I have been trying to come to a decision about the method I will use to manage citations and bibliographic information from my research. The programs that are used for this are usually called Bibliographic Software. These programs generally do some or all of the following:

• use a database to keep track of referenced works which will eventually appear in the bibliography
• generate properly formatted footnotes according to MLA, Chicago, etc.
• when the paper is finished, generate a properly formatted bibliography
• some also provide a way to take notes (quotations) from resources, and a way to organize and search them

Those are the basic functions. Some programs also include a word processor. Others are integrated with MS Word, and will insert a footnote with a single mouse click.

Here are the criteria that I decided to look for in a program for my use:

• generate properly formatted footnotes directly into MS Word
• support for a variety of styles (MLA, etc.), and ability to define custom styles (for all those journal articles I hope to write some day )
• when the paper is finished, automatically scan through and correct footnote references to the proper form for first references and subsequent references to a source (this is a very cool feature found in some of these programs)
• provide a way to take notes, and link the notes to the source so that when I paste in the note the footnote automatically appears
• cost no more than $100 (some of these programs cost $400 or more!)

It’s difficult to find a program that meets all of my criteria, but some are pretty close.
Here are the main contenders so far:

1. Scholar’s Aid — A very capable program, with a free version that is useful. Unlike most, this program has an integrated note manager. The only missing feature is the ability to adjust the footnotes at the end. The web site has a note saying that this will be added in the next version. I sent them an email asking when that might be available, but as of yet I have not received a reply.
2. Biblioscape – The Standard edition looks good, but there is not a demo that I can download and test. They do have a free version, but does not seem to adjust the footnotes as the Standard version apparently does.
3. Bibliographix – This one also looks interesteing. It inserts footnotes in a temporary format, which allows it to come back and update them to final form when the paper is finished. There is a free basic version which is actually quite powerful. There is a module to manage ideas, which could be used to record quotations, but it doesn’t seem to provide the one click functionality that Scholar’s Aid does for inserting quotations with a footnote. It does provide the update footnotes feature, but I had a lot of trouble trying to get it to work properly.

I will add to this post as I continue to work on this. . .

Added 10-13-05
Here is a good overview of this type of software and what it can do.
I have downloaded a trial version of Endnote, a popular bibliographic program. The academic version is about $100 on line. So far I really like it.

This post has been moved to my technology blog.