Two Tips to a Safer Internet

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God...." Jesus Christ - Matt. 5:8

A real desire I have it to protect myself from being exposed to inappropriate/immoral content found in spam and on the Internet. Better to be safe than sorry. I will share a couple of them with you.

#1: Browsing
One area of the Internet that is very hard to predict is the ads. They are often banners or they are on the side. You can be very careful what sites you go to, but sometimes there will be a bad ad at an otherwise safe site. Even some 'Christian' sites have inappropriate ads as their 'sponsors' choose what ads to post.

One safe way to avoid basically ALL ads and ALL pop-ups is to use the Mozilla Firefox browser with the 'Ad-Block Plus' add-on. The ad-blocker software actually PREVENTS ads from even loading up on the page. Both are completely FREE and SAFE to download. And even if you are already used to Internet Explorer, the switch is very easy and only takes a few minutes. It is very easy to import all your bookmarks/favorites, etc.

Instructions: If you do not already use Mozilla Firefox for browsing download it from this link: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ Once downloaded add this 'extension' from this link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865

Once both are installed subscribe to the free Filter Subscription. The 'EasyList (USA)' subscription works the best. (It should automatically ask you which subscription you would like to use.)

#2. Email/Spam

Spam is another very unpredictable danger. If you receive a large amount of spam the odds are that some will have inappropriate content. Never click open a spam email and I HIGHLY recommend to turn the preview pane off on your email client. This way only those messages you deliberately open are displayed. The pictures in spam mails are usually made so spammers can see if you open them and that means a lot of spam. Also, be careful what sites you submit your email address to.

Instruction on how to turn the preview pane off: Outlook Express: Click View Menu > Layout and remove the check mark beside Show Preview Pane. Outlook Express 6.0 offers a "Read all messages as plain text" option. This is a good alternative to disabling the preview pane.

Another suggestion would be to install a spam filter. As with all spam filters, you need to watch it for a while at first to make sure the filter doesn't remove any good emails. If it does, just add the good email to the white-list. I use a software called SPAMfighter. The standard version is free to download and easy to use with Outlook. (download link here: http://www.spamfighter.com/)

Feel free to make a comment if you have any other good ideas or suggestions or questions! God bless as you all continue to honor and glorify Him in every area of your life!

Bales and Baby!

Well, first off, we heard some very exciting news over the weekend! I'm going to be an uncle again! My older brother, Jonathan and wife Sharla told us that they are expecting! Great news! The precious little Jost/s is due March 3rd. I know Jon and Sharla will make great parents.

On another point, at this time of the year we always have to deal with baling all the hay! Jonathan generally does all the swathing and baling and the rest of us pick them all up. This year there are about 1400-1700 bales to pick up. We like to start really early in the morning and get a couple loads of 100 in before breakfast. What makes it easier in the morning is the cool air AND looking forward to the breakfast that mom prepares! This morning she made french toast with homemade syrup, fruit salad with yogurt and fried ham. Mmmmm! (Pictured) Previous mornings she has made pancakes, eggs, bacon and toast, fruit, coffee, etc. Pretty sweet mom, eh?


We try to arrange our schedule so that we don't have to get any loads in the afternoon heat. The combination of sweat and alfalfa flakes going down your back does NOT bring a warm fuzzy feeling! We aren't exactly singing mom's song, "Country Sunshine" when that happens. :-)

This past Friday we got up early and picked up a couple loads before breakfast, but by 8:00 it was already close to 30 C above! And by the afternoon it hit 43 C above (about 108 F)! I just about sweat all day even in the house. Fortunately we didn't have to pick up any bales up after breakfast.

God bless!

-Josiah