Curt Trout's blog

Like many of you, Sheri and I have been praying for God's intervention in Ukraine. In fact, some very specific intervention to stop Russia's indescribable and unjustifiable atrocities against the Ukrainian people.

We're supporters of a local ministry that has been working in Ukraine, Shepherd's Foundation, ministering to the Ukrainian people for about 30 years, essentially since the fall of the old Soviet Union. Their ministry was the focus of a report on KARE 11, our local NBC affiliated TV station.

I created a version of the attached image, without the text, to use as a Zoom virtual background and, maybe, as desktop wallpaper. It works as a virtual background; it's a lot of bright yellow for wallpaper. The version you see here is what I'm now using as my Zoom virtual background. Since I started "Zooming" about two years ago, I've been changing my background to suit the meeting I'm in. I'm now using this image in all Zoom meetings I attend, either as a host or participant.

If you have a Zoom account, either free or paid, then you can set your displayed name in your Zoom profile on the Zoom website.  However, most Zoom participants in meetings sponsored by non-profit groups don’t have, and don’t need, Zoom accounts.  The name displayed for these people, by default, probably isn’t very user friendly.  Let’s see how Zoom gets the default displayed name and, more importantly, how we can change it to better suit all meeting participants.

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated Stay At Home orders have disrupted the way we get together in person, both formally and informally.  While there are many platforms that facilitate person-to-person connections "in the cloud," Zoom is definitely one of the most, if not the most, popular.  In this blog post, and a few more to follow, I'm going to look at this platform, address an unusual problem that will stump some potential users, and encourage more people to use Zoom to host their own "meetings in the cloud."

We have just learned that Acquia, the parent company of Mollom, has announced that they will no longer support or maintain the Mollom service as of April 2, 2018.

We are sorry to see this Spam fighting service go.  We particularly liked the way the service worked, frequently invisibly, to block Spam submissions.

Please join me in remembering:

America is the Home of the Free
Because of the Brave
 
Thank you, Veterans

Please click the Read More link to see a very touching tribute.