It always pays to check to see if someone else has done something with your idea before you thought of it.

I have been playing around with the open-source, Linux-based operating system Ubuntu for quite a while now and a thought came to me the other day while out at a parish doing some consultancy work…what about a Catholic-based distribution – Catholic O/S.

Turns out that someone already thought this might be a good idea and has release Ubuntu Christian Edition. The basic premise is that the core product is still Ubuntu, but they’ve added a Bible study program, and some content filtering to help restrict bad access to the naughty places on the internets.

Now, I’m obviously biased, but I do think that this is a great idea, and maybe something which we could explore? How about a Catholic Edition? Saint of the Day wallpaper? Reminders for the Divine Office? Other ideas?

I mainly like it for two reasons: 1) it’s free, which always goes down well in the parishes and dioceses, and 2) if the content filtering is any good, it may help people to stay away from the bad parts of the ‘net…especially kids! For those who haven’t tried Ubuntu at all, and who have a spare, old PC lying around, I heartily recommend trying it out. There’s free alternatives to pretty much every Windows application, and Wine for emmulating those programs you can’t replace.

Interesting stuff if you ask me.

I was poking through YouTube the other day, looking at some Catholic videos that I had stumbled across – like this testimony video called “Why am I Catholic?“

This got me thinking – why don’t we take advantage of sites like YouTube and other video submit sites to spread the Good News of Christ? I mean, if you search for Catholic on these networks, you don’t get what you’d expect. Isn’t this a great potential way of improving catechesis throughout the world? If any other Catholic.geeks know of any good video links, post them in the comments.

As seen on NZCatholic today… what are your thoughts? Is it eBay’s/Trademe’s responsibility to police the authenticity of these items? Personally, I’m not comfortable with the whole idea of selling these things for profit. It’s a dangerous slippery slope that…