How to upgrade the hard drive on your MacBook

It is very likely that, if you are using a Mac, the machine will outlast your drive. I had a 250GB hard drive a year ago, and it is fairly full, so I decided to upgrade to a 1 TB. A full disk is usually the number 1 reason for the dreaded spinning ball or generally slower performance on your Mac.

But help is at hand; fitting a bigger hard drive is really easy.

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Transforming encounters: John’s gospel

I am working with Celia Kellett at BBC Radio Nottingham on an idea to present most of the books of the Bible, one a week, during 2011 as part of the celebrations of the King James Bible. The plan is to read some verses from the book, to give a one-and-a-half minute summary, to hear a human interest story which relates, and then include a short discussion making the connections.

Here are the key verses and summary for the story of the Gospel of John (‘Transforming Encounters’), to be broadcast this Sunday 13th March from around 8.20 am:

Verses: John 8.3–11

They brought in a woman caught in adultery and made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”

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Gender in Genesis part (ii)

I am in the process of writing a Grove Biblical booklet with the title ‘Women and authority: key biblical texts’ which aims to explore all the key texts in 28 pages! Due out later this month. I am aiming to cover Gen 1, 2 and 3, Luke 24, John 20, Acts 18, Romans 16, 1 Cor 111 Cor  14, Eph 5 and 1 Tim 2.

My colleague David Firth has kindly offered to contribute the section on Genesis 2.4–25:

It is apparent that we have a parallel creation passage here. Although there are

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How to extract YouTube video clips

There is a lot of interesting material on YouTube these days, since it has moved on from being the home of dodgy student home videos to being the near-universal place for all sorts of video material. (See St John’s theology stream here.)

But how can I use these clips in a church or teaching context? If you have reliable internet access where you want to use it, the simplest thing is probably to play the clip from YouTube direct. But what if this is not possible? Or you want to keep the video clip for the longer term?

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Can women be pioneering church planters?

I am in the process of writing a Grove Biblical booklet with the title ‘Women and authority: key biblical texts’ which aims to explore all the key texts in 28 pages! Due out later this month. I am aiming to cover Gen 1, 2, 3, Luke 24, John 20, Acts 18, Romans 16, 1 Cor 111 Cor  14, Eph 5 and 1 Tim 2.

Here is the section on Acts 18.

This passage relates Paul’s first visit to Corinth and the establishment of a congregation there, followed by his first visit to Ephesus. His partners in ministry are named as Priscilla and Aquila, believing Jews with Latin names who have come from Rome following the Emperor Claudius’ edict expelling the Jews. There are some uncertainties around the dating of this edict, and whether Acts matches other contemporary accounts. But the most likely dating for the edict is 49 AD, so Paul’s visit should be dated to around 50, since Priscilla and Aquila had arrived in Corinth ‘recently’.[1] The passage is rather compressed, giving a briefer account of Paul’s 18-

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Giving it up for God: Leviticus

I am working with Sarah Julian and Celia Kellett at BBC Radio Nottingham on an idea to present most of the books of the Bible, one a week, during 2011 as part of the celebrations of the King James Bible. The plan is to read some verses from the book, to give a one-and-a-half minute summary, to hear a human interest story which relates, and then include a short discussion making the connections.

Here are the key verses and summary for the story of Leviticus (‘Giving it up for God’), to be broadcast this Sunday 6th March from around 8.20 am:

Verses: from Leviticus 19
The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.

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Genesis and Gender part (i)

I am in the process of writing a Grove Biblical booklet with the title ‘Women and authority: key biblical texts’ which aims to explore all the key texts in 28 pages! Due out later this month. I am aiming to cover Gen 1, 2, 3, Luke 24, John 20, Acts 18, Romans 16, 1 Cor 11, 1 Cor  14, Eph 5 and 1 Tim 2.

Here is the section on Genesis 1. Thanks to colleague David Firth for input; any comments welcomed.

The opening chapters of Genesis are key to this discussion (and to many others), since they set out key issues in relationships between men and women as well as between humanity and God. These chapters are frequently cited in discussions about gender roles, not least because they are frequently cited in the New Testament in the debates there about marriage, ministry and gender relations by both Paul and Jesus.

In reading these texts, there are two important things to bear in mind:

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Making sense of the Derby fostering court case

What are we to make of the court case of Eunice and Owen Johns, apparently refused permission to continue fostering because they could not tell a child that they thought homosexuality was a good thing?

Simon Vibert of Wycliffe Hall thinks that a Rubicon has been crossed. This judgement signals a fundamental change in English law. In a similar vein the blogger Cranmer sees the comments from the judges on equality and secularism as making nonsense of elements of our constitution,

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Finding our way

Footprints in the snowIt was the end of a really good week. The snow had been great, the sun had been out, and we had had a lot of fun as a family. The bags were packed, the skis returned, and all we needed to do now was find the car.

Alas, it was parked at the bottom of the hill, quite a long distance below us vertically, and an even longer way by the typically winding Swiss mountain roads. How were we going to get there? Was there a quicker way, a sure route down?

At last, we saw it. Others had had the same challenge as us, and we could see their

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What’s the use of Facebook?

I am half way through watching The Social Network (with my daughter…!) and can already see why it has won awards. So far the most interesting observation is that Mark Zuckerberg aimed to replicate online the sorts of social things that people do in real life. In the film this arises from a conversation with his friend, who is wondering who is in a relationship with whom, from which Zuckerberg adds the ‘In a relationship’ feature to his programme.

So what are the kind of ‘human relating’ things that we can use Facebook for? Here are examples of how I have used Facebook in the last few weeks. What about you?