Technology has the power to change the world in incredible ways – bringing information to the masses in a more immediate fashion then ever before. While there is,as with anything in the world, the potential for this resource to be abused, every so often something comes along which reminds you that technology can be a wonderful thing. A case in point is the “Prayer Companion” that the Poor Clares of York have added to their daily prayer life.

The Convent of the Poor Clares of York was founded in 1865, and in those past 155 years they have always prayed for the outside world, with requests for prayer coming to them by post, phone and as of very recently email, via a single solitary computer. However, the Prayer Companion, known as Goldie to the nuns, has changed all this – making the nuns very up-to-the-minute.

The Prayer Companion is a piece of technology that has been designed by the
Interaction Design Studio at Goldsmiths, University of London. It is built to scroll news headlines delivered by RSS to the ticker display along the top from a range of news sites. When the Poor Clares see the messages, they pray for the people they read about.
“It is not there because we’re desperate for news,” says Sister Paul, one of the Poor Clares. “We are here for prayer, for channelling people’s needs to God.”
Not only has this proved to be a boon for the Poor Clares, but it has also had an influence on the designers as well. “This is not a dispassionate thing. We’re certainly not humouring the nuns” says project co-ordinator Bill Gaver, who goes on to concede that his spiritual side sees the impact that prayer can have.

Have you seen technology being used in new and interesting ways? Get in contact with the team at www.catholic.geek.nz and we’ll include it in an upcoming issue!

The internet is a continually changing environment. There are always new websites and technologies launching on an almost daily basis; the pace of change is that quick! And as adoption of the internet as a part of “normal” life continues unabated, it’s a good idea to look at the need to stay current.

Take, for example, websites. While recently planning a night out with my wife, I checked out the website of a restaurant near the cinema we were going to. According to the website, everything was looking good – the food, the location, the prices: all were on target. Even the design of the website impressed.
However, upon calling to make a reservation, I discovered that the restaurant had gone out of business. I was more than a little surprised! Such a professional looking site, still up and running like nothing had happened.

While, thankfully, the Church doesn’t close parishes on a regular basis, the number of Church organisations that have websites that have not been updated for months or even years is astonishing. This is almost as bad as not having a website presence at all! Almost.

For parishes in New Zealand, there really isn’t a technical reason why they cannot have an easily updatable website. Free content management systems – like Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal – provide the ability to establish websites that can be updated by non-technical folk without too much trouble at all. In fact, in Auckland, the Spoke Project (www.spoke.net.nz) was established a number of years ago specifically with the mission of bringing this technology to our parishes and Church organisations.

It’s strange, therefore, that even with the ease of use and low cost of these options, some websites are static snapshots of the history of a parish, rather than dynamic pointers to the present and future.

As the internet and other digital technologies take an increasingly firmer hold upon many aspects of our lives, it’s important to think about your security in this new ‘digital continent’. There have been plenty of Catholic.geek pieces in the past talking about the need to protect yourself with anti-virus applications as well as tools for spyware and malware detection and removal, not to mention firewalls. And these are all important pieces of the online security puzzle.

But of even more importance (arguably) are your passwords. With a few exceptions, your password is the only thing between your personal data and nearly 2 billion other internet users. So why is it that so many of us have such weak passwords? There will be some of you reading this that have your personal financial data protected by some variation of “Password1”. There will be others who have their entire email archive – as well as the ability to impersonate them by sending email from their address – protected by nothing but their last name, or ‘1234’, or some other equally weak variation.

Such passwords are crackable in seconds. But complex passwords are hard to remember. So, what to do? Well, how about some divine inspiration? Even a simple bible reference makes a much stronger password than “Password1”. “Corinthians 1:10-16” makes for a pretty strong password. Even better is a concatenated, first letter Bible quote. Take, for example, “Itb,Gcth&te Gen1:1”, which is the first letters from Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” – with an ampersand and the reference at the end.

And, as an extra bonus, every time you log on to your email, you’ll be reflecting on God’s word – now that’s a holy password!

As a new parent of a budding little Catholic Geek it doesn’t take long to figure out that the internet is teeming with websites to help you with your new baby. You can get totally stocked up without even having to leave your computer – great for geeks! A couple of the most popular sites are www.kiwibaby.co.nz or www.kiwibaby.com or www.winkalotts.co.nz. Between those sites you can get almost anything… You can use www.priceme.co.nz to make sure you get the best deal. And most places do free shopping if you spend more than $100 (which sadly isn’t hard). There are frequent specials on so it pays to plan ahead and keep an eye out on price so you can pounce when the price is right, rather than being forced to pay full retail.

Plunket is New Zealand’s biggest well child provider – and a household name. Their site www.plunket.org.nz has information ranging from their services (which include courses for parents), age specific resources and safety guidelines. Two of Plunket’s key sponsors, Huggies and Watties also provide a great deal of useful information for first time parents on their websites www.huggies.co.nz and www.forbaby.co.nz, in addition to all the expected product information. And when you’re ready to travel with your little one then you can find out great information about child restraints on both www.childrestraints.co.nz and www.safe2go.co.nz – giving you the low down, so you buy what’s best for you and your littlie.

For your new child’s stimulation, Sparc has information up about a fantastic programme called Active Movement which helps parents help their littlies develop. Go to http://www.sparc.org.nz/education/active-movement/overview to download their brochures.

The list goes on and on – so remember to look around and ask around to keep your eye out for good information and great prices!

In the past we’ve talked about how technology is changing the way entertainment is delivered to your door. However, some recent innovations available to us in New Zealand justify revisiting this topic, to look at the new ways you can keep up with your weekly entertainment fix.

To begin, both the major broadcast networks in New Zealand are providing a large amount of TV shows online from their websites. If you missed last nights Fair Go because you were at a PTA meeting – you don’t need to worry. Just head to TVNZ.co.nz and stream the episode straight to your computer. Similarly TV3 offer a number of their shows online too at tv3.co.nz and c4tv.co.nz.

Secondly, the movie store is becoming redundant thanks to services like the iTunes Movie store. Rather then having to go out to buy or rent your movies, a large range of films are available through iTunes – both as rentals and to purchase. Once you’ve got them, these can be watched on your computer, iPod, or Apple TV device.

Finally, coming in November to New Zealand is the Zune Marketplace – Microsoft’s answer to the iTunes store. This offers the added benefit of not only having movies but also a range of TV shows available for download. You can download these both to your PC and also to your Xbox 360 – making it easy to watch in the comfort of your lounge and extending the usefulness of your games console. Unfortunately the Zune MP3 player isn’t officially available in New Zealand, meaning you won’t be able to take your videos on the run with you.

Cooking… it can become a chore and probably you don’t think it has a lot to do with your faith. Well there is a Catholic Cooking website and show (available online) that shows this need not be the case. Yes, a Catholic Cooking show!

Fr Leo is currently based at Mount Saint Mary’s Seminary in Maryland where he directs the Pastoral Field Education Programs for future priests. His love of food and cooking led to the creation of a Catholic Cooking show – Grace Before Meals (www.gracebeforemeals.com). The website reveals his motto “Stronger family. Better food”. His idea is that the “simple act of creating and sharing a meal can strength all kinds of relationship”. He has webisodes for download both from the website, and also syndicated at www.sqpn.com, where you can watch him cook a range of dishes.

Series One is particularly appropriate for the Catholic Geek team – liturgically themed pasta sauces, Italian food being a cG favourite. He starts with a green sauce, based on pesto, green being the colour used by the church during ordinary time. The second is a red, tomato sauce, with the red representing the Holy Spirit and the blood of martyrs. The white sauce starts with sautéing aromatic onion and garlic. White is the colour used for Christmas day, holidays and saint days. The fourth colour sauce is purple – used during the season of Lent and advent – we will leave you to find out what that one is for yourself! These four fantastic meals are a great starter for lively dinner table discussion.

If this has you hungry for more, SQPN has a whole section devoted to Food and Leisure which has a range of other programmes which may interest you. Check it out, and don’t forget to say your Grace before Meals!

Summer is upon us, and as the weather improves it becomes more palatable to get out and get some exercise, and shed that winter weight. As always, technology is here to help you with motivation, tips, and support.

To get you started, our friends over at SQPN have the Healthy Catholic podcast. Recorded by the indomitable Podfather, Fr Roderick, Healthy Catholic offers tips and support for those looking to improve their physical wellbeing from a great Catholic priest. Check out www.tinyurl.com/healthycatholic to hear more.

Once you’ve been sufficiently motivated to get out the front door, technology is there to help you track your progress. There’s a bunch of great exercise logging websites, and one of the front runners is www.mapmyfitness.com. This is a fantastic network of sites that lets you record your journeys and tracks your performance online – helping you to keep track of your fitness goals. If you have an iPhone or Blackberry with GPS, there’s even software available you can install on your phone to track your exercise in real time, which you can then upload to the site.

And when New Zealand’s inclement spring weather forces you indoors, technology can still help you keep on track. The Nintendo Wii has created a whole new market of fitness games. With Wii Fit and My Fitness Coach, your games console can become your personal trainer! Much cheaper than a gym membership. Check out www.nintendo.co.nz for more information.

It’s a changing world – no doubt about it! Technology is bridging gaps which, in the past, may have seemed too wide to close. Whether it is tools like Skype allowing people on opposite ends of the globe to talk, or sites like YouTube providing free access to a world of video and creative content, the internet surely has pride of place when it comes to technologies that have closed gaps.

Take the papacy for another example. We know that popes of the past were often distant, removed people who, due to their office and vocation were often not seen in public by the masses…unless being carried on a papal throne as part of their coronation. Then, bit by bit, as technology evolved, the gap between the common man and the pope started to close.

From the first address of Pope Pius XI on Vatican Radio in 1931, to Pope Pius XII in 1946 being the first pope to appear on TV – technology has brought us closer to a man who means so much to us as Catholics, but who lives so far away from New Zealand!

This trend continues with the features of pope2you.net, established earlier this year with the idea of tapping into the newer, “social media” technologies in order to form stronger connections between Catholics around the world and Pope Benedict XVI. The site provides links to the Vatican YouTube site, as well as an application on Facebook which allows you to send virtual postcards to your friends, and another application for iPhones/iPods which provides video and audio of the pope’s addresses and other Vatican-related video.

It’s a great start into this area of new media and technologies, and one which should make Catholic geeks around the world happy that the Vatican is moving with these technological times.

Long-time readers of Catholic.geek may already be familiar with Father Roderick Vonhögen. For those who are new here, though, we’ll bring you up to speed.

Fr Roderick is based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. In 2005, he helped launch a revolution in Catholic media with the creation of the first episode of the Catholic Insider podcast. In the first episode, he was outside St Peter’s Basilica as thousands of Catholics said farewell to the late Pope John Paul II. Fr Roderick’s first episode was a “soundseeing tour” of the surroundings, including interviewing some of the young students who had come to farewell the late pontiff.

To say that things took off from there would be quite an understatement. Fr Roderick was soon launching a number of new podcasts – such as the award-winning Daily Breakfast – and it wasn’t long before he was starting a new organisation to take things to the next level. He is the CEO and founder of the Star Quest Production Network which now has over a dozen different video and audio programmes regularly providing free episodes on everything from health and fitness to news and entertainment.

One of the reasons why we’re talking about Fr Roderick in this column is that he is coming to New Zealand in September to speak at the NZ Catholic lecture. He’ll also be appearing as a guest on the 15th Station – New Zealand’s first Catholic podcast network, and one which was directly inspired by the work of SQPN.

We encourage everyone reading this to come along to the “New Media for New Apostles” lecture on September 15 to meet Fr Roderick and hear more about his amazing work in transforming Catholic new media.

The internet has broken down barriers to communication in ways that has never been seen before. Where previously calling friends and family could quickly break the bank if not restricted to short periods, today one can call up your nearest and dearest for a fraction of the cost – and if they’re on the internet, it can be free too! So this week, we’ll look at some of the different ways you can use technology to reach out and touch someone – beyond your everyday email.

Skype (www.skype.com) is the probably the best known internet telephony program. First released in 2003, there are now 42 million people using Skype on a day-to-day basis. Originally just a computer-to-computer system, Skype has grown now to the point where you can make calls not just to normal telephones but also receive calls via a normal phone number and even send text messages to cellphones around the globe. Skype also supports conference calling, so you can get your whole family in on the conversation. Additionally Skype supports video chat using a webcam on your PC, meaning you can not only talk but see the person on the other side of the world.

Of course, Skype isn’t the only option for talking to far remote places. There’s a range of instant messenger clients available that are ideal for long (and short) distance communication, including: Windows Live Messenger (messenger.live.com), Yahoo! Messenger (messenger.yahoo.com) and Google Talk (talk.google.com) – like many things on the web, the decision is often driven by what your friends and family use.