Heal Your Church WebSite

Category: Theology

  • Submissive Volunteerism versus Spiritual Abuse

    Jesus defined the elements of volunteerism in Mark 10:42-43 and Matthew 23:8. There is only one Master, the rest of us are servants of whom the least will be the greatest. Problem is, when it comes to highly visible ministries such as the church’s web page, parties involved tend to forget that Christ is the Master, and being the least does not mean being a door mat to bullies and blow-hards.

    It’s been almost 12 years since I involved myself in any study of spiritual abuse. No need to since I was helped out the door of a church suffering said ailment in the form of pastoral worship. Here’s the short story:

    • A pastor of 39 years gets the heave-ho by the deacons, and is soon replaced with a new, charismatic personality guy pastor arrives
    • I teach a Sunday school class where I generically warn the 10th graders to test everything, including a pastoral message
    • I get a note on New Year’s Eve telling me I’m no longer a teacher, a week later followed-up by a ‘lay staff’ member, also a Secret Service agent by day, who explains to me that I’m not qualified as I insist my students bring their Bibles to Bible study (he, NOT noting that I gave free Bibles at my own expense to those who didn’t own one &/or were still equipped with a ‘kids’ version).
    • I’m told I need to change my attitude. Others are similarly given the boot for equally bogus reasons.
    • Later it comes out the pastor has a past in the form of an SEC investigation and a personal bankruptcy.
    • Pastor gets up in pulpit and divides church with “those who are with me come forward and show your support” … pastor of singles ministry takes note/names of those who don’t go forward.
    • Five years later, the Washington Post reports said pastor resigns, something about a very, very large sum of money missing due to a tuition scandal/scheme involved with the church’s Christian school.
    • Going back in hopes to see if thing can be healed, I’m excoriated along with others as being the cause for the pastor’s demise.

    So when I read a comment regarding volunteerism being an issue of authority – understand that while I agree one must have a servant’s heart – on the other hand one must be careful of church and charity organizations that exhibit some of the following qualities based on Jeff Van Vonderen’s book, ‘Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse:’

    Out-loud shaming
    basically belittling born out of “something is wrong with you” if you don’t step into line with your attitude.
    Focus on Performance
    how important you are is based upon earning favor w/those in charge, rather than by administering God’s Grace
    Manipulation
    relationships and behaviors are manipulated by very powerful unspoken rules that facilitate shaming messages
    Idolatry
    focus on performance is facilitated by impossible-to-please judges who distort the image of God to get their goals
    Preoccupation with Fault and Blame
    responsibility and accountability are not the issues here: Fault and blame are the issues. The shame-based system wants a confession in order to know whom to shame.
    Obscured Reality
    if you’re thinking critical about those in authority – even if it is based on truth, then something is wrong with you, you need to change your attitude bub; this starts by ignoring and/or obscuring the actual truth.
    Unbalanced Interrelatedness
    rules take the place of people that feeds upon one’s fears and need for structure in the form of placing the burden of all problems on your shoulders, making you feel selfish and guilty for having needs, not submitting entirely to pastoral authority and/or noting that anything is wrong.

    Note – I’m not asserting that said commenter implied any of the above, but rather their comment jogged my mind into putting the topic of volunteerism and spiritual abuse together. A topic which I could write and speak about for hours, but for the sake of brevity – there are three simple solutions to overcoming spiritual abuse masquerading as volunteerism:

    • Scripture
    • personal boundaries
    • technical specifications

    One need only read about Christ’s interaction with the authority figures of His time to see how ancient the problem of Spiritual Abuse is – and how a single Master, servant-hearted Body focused on loving one another by Grace will get around said problems;

    I might start with Matthew 23, where Christ defines some serious boundaries so the volunteering of your time and technical talents isn’t turned into an opportunity to shame and guilt you into adding animated gifs, auto-loading audio, and a huge image worshiping the pastors proboscis on the front page.

    I’d then do some reading on how to structure a software design description (SDD); the IEEE 1016-1998 has always been my favorite. Having such a formalized process – and an established timeline – will further keep glory seekers and self-appointed ‘experts’ in check, while protecting you from enslavement to never-ending feature creep.

    I’d also then consider reading my post entitled “Mr. Zeldman meet Mike Boyink, one of ‘The New Samaritans’” – and realizing then the need to structure your relationship with your church as you would with any web project and client; even if it means running it like a business. Trust me, the alternative only provides the evil-one with opportunity to ruin your walk, and divide your church.

    There’s more on the topic, much more on this topic that can be found at Watchman.org – starting here:

    Some other useful URLs on this topic as well:

    Again, let me make it clear that I do not interpret last night’s comment was from the spiritual abuse camp, I don’t interpret it that way. It just merely made me think about the topic of where a good servant attitude ends and where spiritual abuse begins; and how perhaps some good old fashioned technical specifications might help avoid the whole mess.

    Yes, please feel free to discuss this topic freely here – disagreement in love is always welcome here!

  • George Orwell: 12 blogging tips

    According to George Orwell, a scrupulous blogger, in every sentence they write, should ask if their words and images attain their site’s conversion goals. If not, then perhaps there are some instances of Spurgeon-esque church-speak and/or kitschy imagery and cliches getting in your reader’s way.

    For those of use who graduated high school before 1984, we remember with both eager anticipation and fearful foresight the George Orwell classic of the said year. A book that not one of my friends, nor I, could put down once started in part due to Orwell’s crisp, concise and to-the-point power-writing on such an important and always relevant topic. A style of writing nicely summed up by an article on WritingClasses.com entitled ‘George Orwell: 12 Writing Tips.’

    The above article, quoting from essay ‘Politics and the English Language,’ reformats Orwell’s points in a way that should speak to bloggers and church webmasters alike:

    A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:

    • What am I trying to say?
    • What words will express it?
    • What image or idiom will make it clearer?
    • Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

    And he will probably ask himself two more:

    • Could I put it more shortly?
    • Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

    But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in.

    Similarly, for those of you providing compelling content for your church, charity and/or lay ministry, ask yourselves this:

    • What is my organization trying to say?
    • What are the shortest number of words we can use to express this message?
    • Are there any images, either in metaphor or media that will speak 1000 words?
    • Is this picture I’m trying to paint relevant and fresh enough to meet our site’s conversion goals?

    Not sure? No problem, in the same document Orwell also leaves us with some rules we can employ to provide more compelling content on our blogs, websites and emails:

    • Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
    • Never use a long word where a short one will do.
    • If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
    • Never use the passive where you can use the active.
    • Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
    • Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.

    If this is still all unclear to you, then allow me to redirect your attention to the following action items, in order:

    1. consider the conversion goals of your website – what are you trying to get the reader to do when done reading your stuff?
    2. knock-off the church speak – speaking in TBN-ish platitudes may preach to the choir, but may also be painting an irrelevant and confusing pictures to potential congregants.

    If all else fails, just remember this tried and true adage: “You’re not Spurgeon, quit trying to write like him.”

    Oh and finally, a big hat top to Kevin Pierpont who turned me onto these tips on his blog. Yes folks, it pays to aggregate!

  • What to do when your homepage becomes an splash page

    What does it profit your church or charity’s website to have the most beautiful web pages ever designed if it doesn’t convince people to visit your church, engage in your ministries, or at least inquire for more information? Today I review a graphically and technically impressive church website that is more an entertaining art project than effective ministry tool.

    In an article entitled “Turning visitors into users,” Gillian Carson asserts:

    Thousands of people may be visiting your site every day, but if you don’t convince them that they should be using your product, subscribing to your service, or registering in some way, then your web app’s homepage is simply not doing its job.

    Amen sister! Point well stated, and one that immediately came to my mind when I was recently emailed a link to a church website by a talented graphic designer excited with their work. The site is beautiful to behold, displays advanced CSS and Flash techniques, and certainly the result of hours of pain-staking labor.

    Unfortunately, somewhere in the process, this art project has also functionally rendered most of the web pages into a series of eye-candy splash pages.

    Art Project versus Functionality

    I’m talking about the Northside Christian Church of New Albany, Indiana church web site (herein NCC-ws).

    Unlike most sites I review here, this labor of love obviously ‘breaks a vase’ … unfortunately it also appears to pour its contents onto the feet of potential parish participants, instead preaching to a choir of cool people. Perhaps this sentiment from Jeffrey Eisenberg, the author of “Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results” who writes:

    You have goals for your business. You have goals for your prospects, whether those prospects are businesses or consumers. You want them to make purchases, or subscribe, or register, or become a lead online or have your online presence compliment your offline efforts. Your goals should be reflected in your conversion rate;…

    Meaning, Christ uniquely charged the Body with the task of serving one another in our efforts to save one another through the mercy and grace of His sacrifice on the Cross. This happens when we get to know one another, and getting to know one another doesn’t happen until we meet one another many times until we understand how to serve one another.

    Hip-hop versus Classic Rock

    As someone who not to long ago himself moved to a new community – I cannot described in words the functional frustration I felt when encountering gorgeous graphic design sites such as the NCC-ws.

    IE6 Ooops on the Northside Christian Church ministries page

    Perhaps because along with alot of ‘pop’ presented also made me feel like they were calling me ‘pop’ … in the pejorative. That is that I was not young, hip nor cool enough to be part of such Christian bodies.

    Here are just some of the factors on the NCC-ws that brings me to this opinion:

    • Assumption that 1280×1024 resolution rules the roost;
    • Assumption that everyone has a high-speed connection;
    • Assumption everyone’s installation of Explorer is version 7;
    • Menus and context include quite a bit of NCC-specific church speak;
    • None of the 800×342 images on each page show anyone over age of 30;
    • Employs tiny dark gray text against black background is hard for those of us over 30 to read;
    • Home Page uses Flash-animated slide show on the home page to deliver search-engine type information;
    • Puts the most compelling content is below the fold, rendering location & service time information at the very bottom, using graphics to display text.

    There are other elements, but these are the ones that jumped out at me within the first 90 seconds … fifteen of which were spent waiting for the page to load, another 15 figuring out that there was actual context hidden below the huge, splash-page like graphics atop each page … and this only after switching browsers to accommodate the Flash animation on the home page.

    Graphic Design versus Web Development

    Considering that close to 50% of the New Albany population is over the age of 25 … I think the NCC-ws needs to reconsider it’s online approach in terms of conversion goals.

    That’s actually not going to be so hard for NCC because it’s obvious to me that there’s a talented graphic designer at work here. That said, there is also quite a bit of compelling content whose light at this time is unfortunately hidden beneath a Flash-driven basket.

    Below is a generic list of conversion goals I’d suggest the folks at NCC-ws tweak to meet the needs of their particular community:

    1. get seekers in the door
    2. get relocated visitors in the door
    3. get casual visitors to dig into the web site
    4. provide online support for lay ministries
    5. provide online support for staff ministries
    6. provide a provide a platform for congregation-wide communications

    Once these goals have been refined, I’d spend some time considering how to better highlight the large body of content that already exists. It took some time, but I found it – yet like a light hidden under a bowl – its utility was minimized by the overuse of over-sized imagery.

    I’d see if there was a way of adding sermon notes to accompany the podcasts. Not everyone has an iPod yet, let alone understand how to lock-n-load last week’s sermon via iTunes. Some compelling textual content would help such individuals understand the theology of the church, while making it much more visible to search engines than it currently is currently the case. Oh, and don’t forget to link up the RSS feeds for both those information streams.

    I think employing some more direct metaphors for essential information would help. Don’t be clever with the times of the service, rather as dull as it sounds, use an unordered list block so that information is easy to easy to cut, paste, SMS and/or print. Likewise, leverage some Google API goodness, deliverng a calendar for events, and maps for the directions page.

    The small white text against a black background is almost as unreadable as the gray menus against the black background. Be kind to us older laptop users – I know the new gamer generation is more visually oriented – but some of us still prefer printed text when it comes to making important decisions such as which church to attend.

    As for all the Flash – don’t force it on the user – rather put them in control. If the object here is to provide fresh content, do it with excerpts describing upcoming events, studies, and sermons. That said, I see a ‘graphics’ page here, so make that a place to view the ‘Animation’ of the week. Syndicate that as well.
    Finally, a bit of testing wouldn’t hurt. For example: using one of the browser testing tools I wrote about the other day, I see that the Ministries page has some issues with the still popular Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.n.

    Moreover, I’d not make the mistake of assuming I’m the user – but rather have the site functionally vetted by having members across all ages and platforms give the site a whirl. I’d implement this both in the comfort of their homes, but also by pulling some aside into a classroom one Wednesday night to observe them attempt to accomplish simple-but-common tasks associated with the site’s conversion goals.

    Additional Reading

    As always, I’m not offering these ideas in a vacuum, but rather as a result of 25 years experience and alot of reading. Here are some interesting related links I came across while putting together this post:

    Got an opinion? Don’t’ be shy. Register once, comment often!

  • How to test your site across multiple browsers

    Before you write a single line of HTML, before you render curved menu tabs using CSS, before you Flashinate your users with slideshows … remember one thing: unless you’re designing a church website for a bunch of over-clocked, Mac-inspired, graphic artists then your users’ browsing platform, configuration and/usage isn’t the same as yours. Probably not even close.

    My apologies for the artistic license applied to FTPOnline author Terrence O’Donnell who quoted, David S. Platt, president of Rolling Thunder Computing as saying:

    “Unless you’re writing programs for a bunch of burned out computer geeks, your user isn’t you. … This is very hard to get through somebody’s head; it’s very hard to get rid of this notion that what you like your user is going to like … Again, your user is not you”

    Yet both statements ring true. Let me spell that out in case you didn’t the gist of what I said the first two times, this time in the logical stylings of modus tollens:

    1. If your users were exactly like you, they’d configure their computer exactly like you
    2. Your users are not exactly like you
    3. Therefore, your users do not own a computer configured exactly like yours

    Putting this logical truth into action, we are faced with the dilemma:

    If my users are not me, and their configuration not like mine, how do I insure my users’ browser renders my church’s web site similar to mine?

    Good question, glad you asked – especially as the answer is easy as cake:

    • Test, testing, and yet more testing. In this case, testing across as many browser platforms as possible.

    How do I cross-browser test thee you ask? Let me count the ways:

    • The hard way – install and manage multiple operating systems with multiple browsers, made a bit easier via commercial products such as VMWare or MS Virtual PC.
    • The even harder way – download and install as many browsers as you can, mangling your registry (for those on Windows) as often as you need, making sure you have a Mac and Linux imbued buddy do the same on theirs.
    • The easy way – let someone else sweat the details by employing a software as a service offering which usually requires you submit your URL, select the target browsers, and asks for an email address it can use to notify you when all the screenshots are done and are available online.

    Yes, the hard ways are arguably less expensive – provided you either want to put your development platform through all that, or have the spare machines and bandwidth available , but the easy way does get the job done for you just as fast, often with results shareable with the rest of your crack development team located anywhere on the planet. Just like I’m about to share some screenshots of this site with you:
    See Screenshots of HYCW on via SeaMonkey 1.1.2 on PLD Linux

    For those who’d rather work the smart-n-easy way, here are some services you might want to consider:

    BrowserCam
    a Screen Capture Service lets you submit multiple URL’s, choose the browsers and operating systems you want to see, and in about a minute returns screen captures of your webpage loaded in the different browsers and operating systems you selected. It costs $19.95 for one day, $59.95 for a month, $399.95 for a year, $999.95 for priority/premium service per year
    BrowsrCamp.com
    A place to test your websites on the MacOSX platform. $3 for 2 days testing, $7 for a week, $19 for a month, $99 for a year.
    BrowserPool
    a service for testing different browsers on a number of Mac, Windows and Linux platforms. About $40.41 (29.99 Euros) per month for 40 hours testing per month, about $471.50 (350 Euros) per year for 40 hours testing per month.
    BrowserShots
    a free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rocholl. When you submit your web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will open your website in their browser. Because it’s free, there the results aren’t instant
    IE NetRenderer
    allows you to check how a website is rendered by Internet Explorer 7, 6 or 5.5, as seen from a high speed datacenter located in Germany. Just type in a URL in the field above and try it out – it’s free!
    iCapture
    a free, user-supported service developed by Dan Vine that captures and displays your web site using OS X 10.4.8 and Safari 2.0.4 (419.3)
    ieCapture
    a free, more user-supported service developed by Dan Vine that captures and displays your web site using Microsoft Internet Explorer, versions unknown at this time as the queue seems hours longin rendering
    SiteVista
    See how your entire pages look in a wide range of different web browsers, at different screen resolutions, and different color depths. You receive two screen captures for each test – one of the browser window. $9 for one day of 25 tests, $19 for week of 100 tests, $29 for a month of unlimited tests, $299 for a year. A test is one screenshot/per browser.

    Personally, I’d strongly recommend either BrowserCam or SiteVist as if they’d offer a 501(c) price tier … though I did find IENetRenderer and BrowserShot got enough of the job done provided I didn’t try test against all browsers during peak times. Still, you most certainly get what you pay for in this arena.

    All that said, I know some of you propeller-headed geeks out there are just champing at the bit to shoot your foot clean off … so here are a few other related articles I visited while putting this post together:

    • Link Thumbnail – a little javascript to see your site on some popular browsers
    • Taming Your Multiple IE Standalones – mangling your registry for fun and profit
    • SiteWizard – How to Check Your Website with Multiple Browsers on a Single Machine (Cross-Browser Compatibility Checking)
    • IEs4Linux is the simpler way to have Microsoft Internet Explorer running on Linux (or any OS running Wine).
    • BrowserTesting – an incutio.com discussion on ‘How do you test in many browsers?’
    • Cross browser testing using VMWare’s MultiBrowser Appliance.

    Got another service or product to suggest? Share the love, leave a comment and let us know.

  • Note to Dr. Nielsen – quality is everyone’s job

    Today’s Alertbox entitled ‘Should Designers and Developers Do Usability?’ Jakob Nielsen asserts “Having a specialized usability person is best, but smaller design teams can still benefit when designers do their own user testing and other usability work.”

    How do I disagree with thee, let me count the ways … modus ponens style:

    1. good quality is everybody’s job
    2. good quality includes good usability
    3. therefore good usability is everyone’s job

    In other words, despite the good efforts of the good doctor, the more people on your church or charity’s web development team who understand usability the better.

    Sure, not everyone has to have the same level of expertise, but said expert should conduct periodic tutorials for staff and lay persons on small, 15 minute-a-piece topics such as:

    • defensive design
    • how usability increases page delivery
    • usability features built into WordPress
    • useful usability URLs online

    If you’re reading this, I suspect you are that expert – or at least know whom he or she is.

    That in mind, what have you done to infuse the quality of usability not only in terms of web site design, but in building your church’s “institutional memory?”

  • 10 blogging mistakes pastors & laypersons should avoid

    Scenario – church uber geek gets the pastor all hooked-up with WordPress with Google Analytics. No long afterwards, pastor begins to pontificate like Spurgeon (or at least Phil Johnson). After a month, both geek-boy and the pastor are shocked to find out that the site averages 0.75 visits a day, with a bounce rate of 95%. What happened?

    I think a good number, specifically 10, of the reasons are best summed up by Jason Kaneshiro in his Webomatica post entitled “Ten Blogging Mistakes I’ve Made,” where he writes:

    “After several long months of blogging with steadily increasing results, I’ve encountered some bumps along the road. I thought I’d post some mistakes that I now regret and am working to rectify in my quest to improve this blog. Save yourself some pain and frustration: avoid doing these things; I wish I had!”

    I’ve modified his list a bit for application (and relevence) to your church and/or charity’s website – but here they are in no particular order of preference:

    1. Getting hung up on high-tech instead of compelling content;
    2. Assuming Google will do all of your site’s ‘networking’ and ‘advertising’ for you;
    3. Shoot-off-mouth first, ask questions later;
    4. Shotgun topics – too many points (pellets) in one post;
    5. Anemic headlines that have no zing;
    6. Ignored or devalued commenters and their input;
    7. Shotgun categories – not taking control of your niche of expertise;
    8. Assumed it would be easy;
    9. An ugly URL that is hard to remember (lest spell)
    10. Know-it-all-itis

    My personal favs of the above enumeration is anemic headlines and shotgun topics & categories … and with apologies to Kaneshiro, I’ll add one more to his most excellent list:

    1. poorly constructed exceprts and/or lead paragraphs.

    Three things I keep repeating here, and will continue to repeat:

    • People don’t read the web, they scan it;
    • Aggregators and search engines index and list titles and excerpts (or lead paragraphs where excerpts aren’t present) – write to that;
    • We cannot serve two (or more) masters – write to a single topic, if you have more, post more tomorrow.

    What about you, any other suggestions on how to drive in traffic through compelling, well-focused content?

  • Conversion Goals part ‘Duex’ – 1st impressions count!

    “It is vitally important that the first contact someone has with our church is a positive one. Andy Stanley says it this way, “Your sermon starts in the parking lot.” As more and more people begin their search for a church by looking online, the “sermon” could very well start with your church’s Web site. When I look at your church’s Web site, I can immediately tell you a lot about your church, your values, your mentality, your approach, and whether or not I’d want to be a part.” – Todd Rhoades, MondayMorningInsight.com

    Let me translate the above quote for those of you who still think a long animated Flash splash page leading to a huge image of your church’s empty parking lot is the way to go …

    … as more and more individuals shop for church homes online, the greater the risk your church runs into never seeing them visit if your church website sucks!

    Jesus saved me, the rest of you are going to h-e-double tooth picksYeah, pretty brutal – but enough of the ‘meme’ that God content is important, that aesthetics aren’t important.

    If you pull into the church parking lot and you’re greeted by a smelly, un-bathed, 3x-large individual wearing a dirty medium sized t-shirt and speedos, that the former reads in between the filth and holes reads “Jesus Saved me, the rest of you are going to H-E-Double Tooth Picks!” .. I’ll guarantee a majority of you will spend some quality family time at the local Perkins or Waffle House that morning.

    Same is true with the internet.

    If you have a web site that looks like you don’t care about their needs – then individuals seeking a new church home, or a conversion-conversion experience will go some place that does look like they care. It is that simple. Or as Rhoades writes:

    ‘Researchers in Canada have shown that the snap decisions Internet users make about the quality of a Web page have a lasting impact on their opinions. According to a nature.com article, “Web Users Judge Sites in the Blink of an Eye,” by Michael Hopkin’

    In other words solve their problems; don’t show off your fancy-schmancy solutions. Solving their needs is as simple and common sense as making the following information easy to find, read and render in print:

    • Church denomination
    • Geographic location
    • Days and times of services and studies
    • What stuff you have for their kids
    • Example sermons that show you’re not some slathering cult
    • Smiling, inviting faces instead of stony facades
    • Email contact
    • Phone number

    Yeah, you’d think the above list is obvious … but in the next few weeks, we’ll be referring back to this article as I show yet more good examples of bad church web design by well meaning webmaster type individuals who don’t have a clue as to what the conversion goals are for their cool church web site.

    Oh yeah, and a super-huge hat-tip and ‘terima kasih banyak-banyak‘ to one of my Malaysian friends: Wilful Sunflower for forwarding this article/link – keep’m coming folks!

  • Coolness does not equal conversion

    Wow, this commuter plane to JFK is freezing cold – as are attitudes by some church web masters to the needs of their congregation … and staff.

    What am I talking about? Usability and utility.

    I get quite a bit of search engine traffic along the phrase ‘coolest church website’ – a meme that bugs me a bit as I’d take useful and informative over cool anyday.

    Not so though with many sites I are cited on various compendiums of church website coolness.

    Without naming names, there I often find enumerations of sites that are more set project than a communications tool that either bestows knowledge on the local members of the body and/or drive persons into the pews, Bible studies and/or other ministries whose benefits have more permanent impact than a pretty Flash presentation.

    Mind you, this is not to suggest mediocre manifestations of HTML uglieness – we should always attempt to field high quality work – but rather the work should be geared and focused around ‘conversion’ goals. And I mean that in both the marketing and evangelical sense as both are far more measurable than cool.

    Anyway, something to consider when discussing the direction of one’s church and/or charity website.

    Bah – I hate it when these dinky commuter planes land – my ears!!!

    UPDATE – I couldn’t get this message out from my BlackBerry while at JFK, not due to anything geek, but rather because I was in a constant state of ‘sprint’ as timing between planes didn’t go exactly as planned.

    All that said, I’m now in a Malaysian Starbucks. The coffee isn’t so good – but the bandwidth is free. Tomorrow I’ll switch to tea!