Rob & Julie Snow Family Blog

Ellen or Liz, Please contact me by sending email to contact@rjsnow.com

Isn't patience the most amazing attribute and blessing?  Being surrounded by patient people is one of the greatest blessings I have and I really do try to be patient myself.  It is really interesting that patience is so closely related to charity and that charity is the most important of attributes!  These remarks by Elder Robert C. Oaks of the Presidency of the Seventy are very insightfull. 

The Book of Mormon provides insight into the relationship between patience and charity. Mormon, after pointing out that if a man "have not charity he is nothing; wherefore he must needs have charity," goes on to name the 13 elements of charity, or the pure love of Christ. I find it most interesting that 4 of the 13 elements of this must-have virtue relate to patience (see Moroni 7:44–45).

First, "charity suffereth long." That is what patience is all about. Charity "is not easily provoked" is another aspect of this quality, as is charity "beareth all things." And finally, charity "endureth all things" is certainly an expression of patience (Moroni 7:45). From these defining elements it is evident that without patience gracing our soul, we would be seriously lacking with respect to a Christlike character.

Next time something tests your patience - and if you're like me that is at least somewhat often - try to embrace patience which is one of the most important attributes that we can embody.  To those people who show so much patience for me, thank you.

So I have been searching for a long time for a replacement for MSN Messenger and it now MSN Live Messenger.  My issues with messenger?  It is too big and bulky, it doesn't look nice (UI is bad), ads (I really hate these), and all the extra stuff that I don't need.

So I tried a few different alternatives such as GAIM, aMSN, and Instan-T Messenger, before I found an alternative that I liked.  I should say that I found Kopete for Linux (that is the app I use in Linux) that is really nice but it doesn't work on Windows. 

Gaim and aMSN both had pretty old looking UI's as well so I was not all for those.  Instan-T was pretty good but file transfers had problems and I kept getting invitations from strange people.

Finally I thought about how much I used to like Google Talk when it first came out.  I stopped using it because it didn't have file transfer capabilities and none of my friends used it.  Bummer. 

I recently heard that Google Talk had added file transfer support so I decided to look into it again and see if I could get my msn contacts in Google Talk.  I'm happy to report that Google talks UI is even better than before.  GTalk is small, simple and elegant in use.  It is easy to configure and doesn't a ton of other stupid stuff like games.  It is just a chat client that doesn't get in my way.  I'm even happier to report that there is a way to get any chat protocols contacts in GTalk.  Yeah!!!!

I have found this to be so cool that I decided to post the instructions here for everyone to use if they want some of the same things that I was looking for.  I must warn you that it is not super easy.  It is a little tricky but I think I have put together a pretty good little guide. 

First of all, GTalk is based on the Jabber Open Source XML technology that is mainly used for instant messaging.  So there are like a million different jabber clients that can be used for instant messaging.  The problem is that many of the other IM clients use other languages or protocols or whatever - they just don't work together.   

We need to use a transport sever that can convert the messages from one IM system to another.  So using a transport sever we can now use any of the jabber applications for msn, yahoo, or whatever other type of messaging system we have friends on.  Very cool!

So here is the hard part, we need to locate a transport sever for the sevice that we want to transport to google talk and then we need to configure it to work with google talk.  This is a little more difficult because google talk does not have an interface to configure a transport.  We have to use another jabber client to accomplish that step, but it isn't too hard. 

So to get started, download and install both Google Talk, and Psi.  So I did like Psi as well so if you end up liking that one I recommend it.  Launch Google talk and login.  So if you already have gmail accound then you already have a login and password for google talk.  Otherwise you can set one up through google talk. 

Now to configure Psi and set up the transport.  Launch Psi and see the instructions here to configure it for use with google talk.  A couple of the menus changed so let me know if you have any questions about that part. 

Now to setup a transport.  You need to decide how many you will need.  For instance if you only have friends on msn, then you just need a msn tranport.  If you have them on other systems such as yahoo then you will need another one to work with yahoo.  This part will make or break you experince.  These transports run on servers that anyone can set up.  So some work better than others.  You can set up your own if you want!!  Here is a list of some available transport servers.  I have tried a few and I have now found one that seems to work pretty well which I will share with you soon.  More to come so stay tuned!!

So we have those one-piece plastic inserts for both of our upstairs bathrooms.  I didn't think that I was heavy enough to actually crack the bottom of the tub but it has happened in our master bath.  What is up with that!  So here we are scrabbling to replace the plastic crap with a real tub, tile on the backsplash area and floor, and do some painting as well.  If anyone would like to offer a hand, I could really use some help for some parts of this remodel.  I'll be doing this over the thanksgiving weekend starting Friday.  If anyone would like to help then drop me a line.

Much to our amazement, our son took his first steps today!  We are so proud!  Julie was conversing with her sister who said, "when is he going to start walking?"  Julie thought to herself, "he still has a ways to go."  Then Julie turned to look at Nate and he was walking towards her!  Holy Cow!  That is so amazing and we are so proud of him.  He thinks that walking is super cool and he always smiles while doing it.  Julie thinks that Nate was waiting for the perfect moment to show off.  Can you believe that?

One day I was sitting on the couch while Nate was playing.  I heard a weird noise so I went into the kitchen where Nate had gotten into the slightly opened pantry and pulled all the food within his reach down.  He'd decided to try Doritos! He actually really liked them, contrary to the last picture in this set. Check out those pictures and his Halloween pictures, too!

Today is election day.  Remember to do your civic duty and go vote.  Most candidates have webpages which makes it much easier to gather information on them.  Some don't however and it is really frustrating! 

Let's be sure not to vote for a democrat or a republican just because that is what we do.  That doesn't work anymore and there is too much corruption on both sides.  We must look at each candidate and make a specific decision based on their platform and value set; not on their party.