Mormon Bloggers

“The Lord’s plan is to advance ever more rapidly His word and His works and the effects of His gospel throughout the world,” President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency, said. He noted that the Lord “has revealed the technology that enables the Church to take full advantage of these advances,” but added that while technology can and does bless lives, “never forget that while we have computers, cameras, microphones, fiber-optic networks, clouds, and satellites, we have failed if we do not rely on the Holy Ghost.” He said, “If our technology does not improve the lives of others and help bring them home to [the Lord], we have missed the mark.” President Eyring made the comments at the dedication of the Broadcasting Building and the Information Technology Building at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, on Friday, August 12, 2011. Sources: LDS.org and LDS Newsroom How have you recently used technology in your personal or church life that furthered... Read the rest of this entry »

LDSTech has announced that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is planing to make high-speed Internet available in about 85% of LDS meetinghouses worldwide by the end of this year. Why provide Internet access in LDS buildings? Teachers can more easily supplement their lessons with online Church-produced media. Job seekers will have easier access to the Church’s employment website LDSjobs.org. More people will be able to participate in family history work. Ward/branch leaders will use Church Internet tools to manage membership and financial records, submit applications for missionary service, and watch leadership training broadcasts. Members can access general conference at gc.lds.org. (In some remote areas, Saints have waited 4–6 weeks to view general conference on DVD.) Next year, members and leaders around the world will be able to connect to meetinghouse Internet using their LDS Account, making it much easier to gain access to online LDS resources in... Read the rest of this entry »

As we navigate the physical world, most of us have some awareness about accessibility features in place to help the disabled: ramps, elevators and lifts, adapted washrooms, and parking spaces close to buildings. However, far fewer people are aware of the equivalent features for websites. When website accessibility features are neglected, it can prevent people with visual disabilities and the deaf or hard-of-hearing from having a useful browsing experience. Imagine visiting a website and finding the following: All the images look like a grey square to you, because you are red-green colorblind. The content includes podcasts and videos that you can’t hear, because of an auditory disability. The font is too small for you to read. The Accessibility Testing – Mormon.org project aims to make Mormon.org more accessible, and ultimately to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to more people than ever. The accessibility principles and techniques used on Mormon.org can be used for other Church... Read the rest of this entry »

The “My Study Notebook” is your own personal, private space on LDS.org to organize and study your notes from living prophets, scriptures, and the gospel library. The following video provides a short introduction to My Study Notebook. For more tutorial videos, see the help page for My Study Notebook. Share on Facebook  Read More →

Beginning in September 2011, the Church will release a beta program allowing third-party developers to apply for approved access to the Church’s repository of gospel content. The access will require developers to sign an intellectual property license agreement and will specify what content is approved for distribution. The third-party developers will then receive an API that allows them to access Church content (such as magazines, manuals, scriptures, conference addresses, and other gospel resources) for use in their applications. Currently, some third-party developers are using backdoor methods to screen-scrape the Church’s copyrighted content. At the end of the first quarter of 2012, the Church will require all third parties to have permission prior to using copyrighted material. Note that this API access to the Church’s content will not extend to membership data. Membership data is always private and never integrated through APIs. Additionally, third-party developers are restricted... Read the rest of this entry »

An article in this week’s Mormon Times talks about using technology to do family history (genealogy) work. There are thousands of blogs related to genealogy and family history used by Mormons, Catholics, Jews, Baptists, atheists, and others to study and find their ancestors. People are starting to recognize that blogs and other forms of social media work really well for genealogy. Read the Mormon Times story about people finding their relatives through the pages of their blogs. The story includes tips on creating and managing a blog. Share on Facebook  Read More →

Today, there are various ways to stream movies, shows, news, radio, and other entertainment on your television using a high-speed Internet connection. Roku, Boxee, and Apple TV are examples of services that provide access to this online streaming content, referred to as “over-the-top” (OTT). For example, you can hook up a Roku device to your TV and get access to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant Video, and other news, sports, entertainment, and religious channels. Now, Roku offers the Mormon Channel, where you’ll find LDS content such as Mormon messages, Church films, general conference, firesides, radio series, and more. For example, you can watch the new Joseph Smith movie, which is only available through the Mormon Channel. Although the Mormon Channel has been available for years on the Internet (learn more), you can now watch its content on the television in your living room. Sample of Mormon Channel content on Roku: Mormon Messages LDS General Conference Mormon Youth... Read the rest of this entry »

If you use an e-reader, you will be happy to know that there is a plethora of materials available now on LDS.org that are provided in ePub format. You can access the ePub materials here (or to go LDS.org, select ‘Menu’ at the top, and then ‘Manuals’ (under ‘Study’), and then look on the right sidebar for the ePub link. Larry Richman explains more at LDS Media Talk: The list of publications includes scriptures, general conference, and manuals for Melchizedek Priesthood, Relief Society, Aaronic Priesthood, Young Women, Primary, Sunday School, and optional courses. Other languages and other materials will be forthcoming. There are no current plans for creating Kindle versions, but there are a number of free programs available to convert ePub books for use on Kindle.  Read More →

The Rohrschach-type blob you see at the top of my right sidebar is the permanent QR code for this blog. The significance of this feature will be addressed in this post; the idea for this post came from the Beginnings New blog, which illustrated how QR codes are being appended to stories in the New Era magazine. I’ve now learned that LDS Media Talk also discussed this issue on May 28th. Search Engine Land provided an explanation of QR codes back in October 2009. They are used to take a piece of information from a transitory media and put it into your cell phone, or, more specifically, a smartphone. They are more useful than a standard barcode because they can store and digitally present much more data, including url links, geo coordinates, and text. To read QR codes, the cell phone needs a QR code reader, like this one from Kaywa. It takes about one minute for someone with an iPhone or Android phone to find and install the reader. The two most painless ways to generate QR codes are... Read the rest of this entry »

The May issue of the New Era magazine contains several quick-response (QR) codes that, when scanned with a barcode application on a smartphone, take you directly to videos, articles, and websites. For example, on page 3, there is a QR code that takes you to the video of President Monson’s address from the Sunday morning session of general conference. (If you don’t have a smartphone, you can access the same video on a computer by going to lds.org/go/511. Did you find these QR codes helpful? Do you think the magazines should continue to use them? What suggestions do you have to make them more helpful? Share on Facebook  Read More →

 I felt like it would be interesting to explore the potential benefits of technology on parenting — leaving parenting websites out of the equation due to their obvious role in helping parents.  You know that old saying, “It takes a village to raise a child”? Our world seems increasingly more hands off than it used to be, but perhaps it is all about changing with the times and adjusting. More hands off, maybe, but people are more accessible. Perhaps our “village” is enormous, perhaps our “village” can reach across the globe because of the technology we have, and perhaps we get to pick and choose who is in our “village”. My main example will be Facebook and blogs. I use these tools as an example because they are the tools I use in my life, but as you read, think about the other devices you use and how this same principle might apply. Both Facebook and blogs (and e-mail too) open our world, and provide us with access to advice, support, and empathy if... Read the rest of this entry »

Many congregations throughout the world face challenges trying to view general conference and other Church broadcasts in a timely manner. But new technology is changing that. Previously, there were two main ways for congregations around the world to view conference. Many stake centers throughout the world have satellite dishes to receive Church broadcasts. These satellite dishes and receivers are very expensive to install and maintain. It also requires members to travel–sometimes great distances–to stake centers where the dishes are available. A second way to receive conference was to wait several weeks for conference sessions to be copies onto DVDs and shipped to congregations around the world. Once the DVDs arrived, members would gather in Church buildings to view the DVDs. But Church technology employees are working on solutions to deliver conference and other broadcasts more quickly and less expensively. Today, videos of general conference are available online in many... Read the rest of this entry »