Month: February 2022

I continue to upgrade aspects of the AIC Web Site. I’m still looking for those little “glitches” that can frustrate visitors to the site. If you should find others on the site, please email me at frron.aic@earthlink.net with the details. Here, as noted in earlier Blog postings, the objective is to have the site as easy to use as possible and as free as I can make it of technical jargon. To use the site, go to the appropriate page and click a link to see a video, listen to or download a podcast, or purchase a book from the Bookstore (using my Amazon Author Central page).

Some visitors are not interested in the fine points of running a web site, but for those who want to know, here’s just a few of the changes that have been made during the week beginning with St. Valentine’s Day:

• An outdated message concerning our change of video site hosts to Vimeo.com has been removed from the Bible Study page. As far as I can tell, every video series on the Digital Library or Bible Study pages is linked to the most recent version.
• Inaccurate or incomplete links to the Podcast version of AIC Seasonal Videos have been replaced with links to the most recent versions (2018, 2021 or 2022 A.D.). If you’ve visited the Digital Library recently, you’ll want to know that links to Podcast versions of Christmas 1 and Christmas 2, Epiphany 3, “Gesima” 1 & 2, Lent 1, 2 & 3, Easter 1, 2 & 3, and Trinity 1 through Trinity 9 were replaced with 2021-2022 versions. Further, all twelve episoides of The Twelve Days of Christmas, which had been updated in December 2021 A.D., have been given a facelift, with adjustments to the voice track and all slides conformed to the most recent standard size and style. For that series, I have (I hope) also resolved the problem of the music track being louder than the voice track.
• The appearance of the lower half of the HOME page (linked from the tabs at the top and bottom of each page) has been modified so that all titles and subtitles should now show up in white against the background image (a fresco of saints, St. Tikon Monastery, Russia). The reason for the difficulties is highly-technical but, I hope, has been resolved. The same is true for the revised “Learn Your Way” material that you see when scrolling down from the top portion of the HOME page. There should be white type against the saints images mentioned above, plus an image of the Home page with the WATCH/LISTEN/READ graphic.
• The WELCOME page includes links to study materials relevent to the current season on the Anglican Church Calendar. The entries currently available are to the episodes of the Seasonal Video series for “Gesima” season. I expect to add an internal link to the Podcast Homilies page so that viewers can easily reach the Podcast Homily for all three Sundays in the season.
• In last week’s Blog posting concerning the AIC Bookstore I noted that all but one book has been updated to the 2022 A.D. edition. As of yesterday (2/14/2022 A.D.), all 17 books have now been updated to the new versions. Please note that not all books are available in both paperback and Kindle editions. The five newest books, including the four Gospels and The Acts of the Apostles will not be converted into Kindle editions. These five books were prepared with the objective of making high-resolution versions of Christian art from the 5th to the 21st C. available to the public at reasonable cost both to the AIC and to the reader. At the present time, only the print edition satisfies that standard.
• Finally, I continue working on development of plans for the future of the site. These involve legal, accounting and technical issues that still must be resolved.

A new Church season opens on Sunday, February 13th, with Septuagesima Sunday. For more on the name and its meaning, see Episode One in the AIC Seasonal Video series, Gesima: the Pre-Lenten Season. The Episode is linked from the Digital Library page, with the MP3 Podcast version linked from the Podcast Archive page. I’ve always linked the idea of a transition season from the various teaching aspects of Epiphany into the more solemn season of Lent.

The AIC Bookstore Publications, with a single exception, have been updated with a new dedication page using the Epiphany date. The Other AIC Resources section has been updated to include all the current books. Cross reference has been added to many of the books to acknowledge relevent material in other books.

The site itself has been improved (I hope) by on-going cross-checking of the many internal links. I continue to find minor errors (such as non-operative links or incorrect links) and a few spelling errors (which have been pointed out by site visitors in the last several months. There was a serious mistake in the bookstore section in which the same material appeared several times. The duplicative material was removed earlier this week and late last week.

I continue to work on the details of how the site will be owned and operated in the future. Initial plans to create a trust have been abandoned in favor of a less-expensive and less administatively burdensome alternative. As soon as details have been finalized, I will share them on this site.

As always, thank you for your interest and support. May God continue to bless you in all that you do in His Name! Amen!

Glory be to God for all things! Amen.

I’m really pleased to share with you an update on improvements to the AIC Web Site and to the AIC Bookstore Publications that are part of the on-going celebration of the start of the AIC’s 2nd decade on the Web.

My objective has always been to offer viewer/readers a site where they don’t have to learn the mechanics of electronic communication to access and benefit from the teaching materials on the site. Today I updated the LEARN YOUR WAY page to give it a cleaner look with a new graphic that emphasizes the ease of choosing from each viewer/listener learning preference. There is a tab for this page at the top and bottom of all pages.

WATCH: We now over Christian Education, Bible Study and Seasonal Videos in eighteen series with about 200 episodes. Each of these has been updated to reflect new features and new content.

LISTEN: The voice and music track to each of these videos is linked on the Podcast Archive page, which displays each series placed in the order of the Church Calendar from Advent to Trinity and Sunday next before Advent.

READ: During 2020 and 2021 A.D. I created books which incorporate much of the teaching material in the videos but which also gives readers access to an unparalleled scope and quality of images of historic Christian art from the 5th to the 21st C. At considerable expensive, I located sources for high-resolution images of icons, mosaics, frescoes, engravings, paintings, enamels, watercolors, pen or pencil sketches and woodcuts. I urge viewers to take a look at the details of the final book in the series, The Acts of the Apostles: Annotated & Illustrated, which is found on my Amazon Author Central page. The cover illustration is a photograph of a mosaic installed at the Capella Palatina, Palermo, Sicily, in the thirty years following the consecration of the chapel in 1140 A.D. during the reign of Roger II, the first Norman King of Sicily. The image, and two others, was shared by the photographer, John Schermann. Finally, all the older books in the AIC Bookstore have now been updated, with new introductions and information about all seventeen books offered through our Virtual Bookstore. Please note that during these updates some publications will be unavailable until final review and approval, usually within 2-3 days.

As always, thank you for your interest and support. May God bless you in all that you do in His Name. Amen! Glory be to God for all things! Amen!