Music for Concentration and Relaxation

I find Music for Aiports a very good set of music album to listen to. It consists of long tracks that aids in both mind relaxation and mind concentration. It can be looped and you won't even notice the start and end of each track. I first found this out in YouTube, and I'm impressed on the composition. It's quite different from those classical musical pieces, and it's truly suitable to be played in venues like airport or coffee shops.

Comparison of Free Bible Apps for iPhone and Ipod Touch

I downloaded some free Bible Apps for my iPod Touch. Most of them share the same set of features like highlighting verses, bookmarking verses, adding your own notes, performing searches, and viewing reading history. Here is the list of apps (ordered) installed with their corresponding links to iTunes for you to see the screenshots of the programs. But among the freely available apps, I like the ESV Bible most, followed by Bible by Youversion, BibleReader by Olive Tree, and Holy Bible by Paul Avery.

1. ESV Bible


2. Bible by YouVersion.com


3. Holy Bible by Paul Avery


4. BibleReader


5. Blue Letter Bible


6. CCEL Devotional Bible


7. Mantis Study Bible


8. The Holy Bible - King James Version


9. Bible.is


10. Bible+1


11. Logos Bible Software

Best and Free Diagram and Graph Maker

I've been finding a good, free, and easy to use diagram or graph making software. I'm doing some experiments on visualizing some natural language representation. I need to do this manually so I can easily study and compare different representations. I need a tool that can allow me to easily add nodes and edges, and customize the colors. The program must be able to arrange or to layout the nodes and the edges. I was able to try yEd Graph Editor, a free Java program, that allows me to create something like the one below.

[caption id="attachment_748" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="John 3:6 using YEd Graph Editor"][/caption]

Looking Back at 2010

This is probably among the first posts about my personal life. I look back at 2010, for tomorrow is 2011. Happy New Year! 2010 is just full of different experiences from joy to grief, and from academic success, work experiences, relationships, and earning money, to facing failures and disappointments. I see my own success, recognitions, skills, and everything I did and was able to accomplish. All of these are completely nothing and a waste when compared to the greater things.

Just this 2010, I was clearly able to see the seriousness of sin. How sinful I am. How sinful were my desires. What a waste if for my entire life I only pursue the dreams of success, recognition, money, skill, and all these technology and worldliness. Sin dominates and covers. I certainly hate God when I sin, and I certainly wanted God to vanish so not to face His wrath. I certainly wanted God not to exist and my dreams and life to live forever. How foolish I am in the eyes of God, and yet He loves me.

A Local and Private Microblog using StatusNet

This is a continuation/additional post for my previous entry "A Local and Private Microblog using Laconica". Please see the previous post as well. Laconica has changed it's name to StatusNet and has been constantly active in improving their open source code.

Best Wordpress Plugins Part 2

This is a part 2 of the list of some of the best Wordpress plugins that I've been using. See Part 1 , which was written last year, December 2009, for more plugins. I'm no longer using some of the plugins in Part 1, and some I have replaced by those listed below.

Advanced Most Recent Posts Mod

Display most recent posts from selected categories or current category or all posts with thumbnail images (optional).

Backupify for WordPress

Backup of WordPress database and all files to your Backupify account.

Facebook Like

Add the new Facebook Like button and Facebook Recommendations widget to your wordpress blog.

Understanding the Bible

Is there a contradiction between James and Paul?

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. (Romans 3:28)

You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. (James 2:24)

Many do not want to believe in the Bible because they "found" existing "contradictions". They did not really find it themselves, but read it from websites established by atheists. There's no really contradiction in those verses, but rather our lack of understanding. How can we be swayed by atheists who not only do not believe in the Bible but do not understand what was written?

John Piper's sermon entitled "Does James Contradict Paul" helps me understand that the two verses do not contradict each other. Piper did not formulate some explanations or reasonings, he only connected the verses  and helped us to understand what was written. It is the truth and the message in the Bible, rather than the syntax and the characters that try to represent them that matters most.