X-Oriente

What if God used Facebook?

Oh, this is good. 

In the beginning, the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved over the waters. And the Ego of God realized that creating a universe would lead to the Best Status Update Ever. And so the divine Voice rang out: 

Trust me, it is worth the click. Hi-larious.

034: An Evening With Brother Hodapp

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In this episode, some discussion around the goings on at the annual communication of the Grand Lodge of Minnesota and the motion to investigate the goings-on in West Virginia. Also, I managed to catch up with my friend and Brother Christopher Hodapp, noted Masonic author of several books including Freemasons for Dummies, The Templar Code for Dummies and Solomon's Builders: Freemasons, Founding Fathers and the Secrets of Washington D.C. I caught up with Bro. Hodapp at the Valley of Chicago's Scottish Rite Degree day on Feb. 21, 2009 at the Shriner Hospital in Chicago and managed to record his talk.

Skype is being released for iPhone

One thing I noticed when I was at Masonic Week in DC was the astounding number of iPhones I saw. SO for those of you guys who are endowed with the iPhone, you should know that my information is that tomorrow Skype will be available on iTunes. What that means is that if you have a Skype account you can talk to tother Skype users for free and make domestic and international calls much more cheaply and not use your mobile minutes. You do need a good wifi connection, as Skype will not work over EDGE/3G.

Still that is pretty good news for those of us who like to use Skype to keep in touch with our brothers. I discovered Skype right about the time I started X-Oriente and found it so good, that I use it as my primary business phone too. There are a couple of things that I did that made my Skype experience better. One is that I use hardware from a company called IPEVO. IPEVO makes inexpensive hardware meant to work with Skype.

I use an IPEVO S0-20, which looks like a small cell phone and allows me to access Skype from any open Wifi network. It doesn't require a computer, just a wi-fi connection. It doesn't have a browser unfortunately so those hotspots that require browser authentication will not work with it. Still it is nice to have around the house and at most cafes or if you want to have a personal phone in your office. (get your IT admin's permission first. I don't want you getting in trouble at work!)

I also love my IPEVO TR-10, which is a USB powered, speakerphone for Skype. Call quality is as good as those Polycom conference room phones that cost around US$600, but the TR-10 can be had for around US$80. It also records calls at the push of a button which is great for us podcasters.

I have no relationship with these guys other than as a happy user. It really makes Skype much more viable as a communication platform.

Skype is one of those tools that is an X-Oriente essential and is a powerful addition to the Freemasons' 21st century working tools!

033: Masonic AntiPatterns 2-Small Group Dynamics

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In this episode we look at the dynamics of small teams (that is "Committees" in Masonic parlance) and how understanding the dynamics of the life-cycle of teams can help make your team or committee run much more smoothly. 

We've also got some music that simply blew me away with its ingenuity and talent. Kutiman is an Israeli Musician, Producer and DJ who has put together music from unrelated videos found on YouTube. You can find his work on his site. We're playing the first cut off his collection called "The Mother of All Funk Chords." It has to be seen to be believed!

 

Would you like X-Oriente on your site?

X-Oriente now has a player widget that can play episodes of the show right from your site. It is a small piece of code that you place on your site and the player does the rest. There is nothing to upload, nothing is stored on your servers or computer. As new episodes are published they will automatically appear in the player. To see the player in action, look at the left sidebar of this site.

Now you can offer X-Oriente to your brothers and increase traffic to your lodge website. It's totally free and if you put the player on your site, I'll provide a reciprocal link to your site here on X-Oriente.

If you are interested, drop me a line.