Mark Brunell is back and he's playing for Washington. While he may have gotten displaced by a young QB at Jacksonville, he says it was part of God's plan.

I'm not a football player who happens to be a Christian. I'm a Christian who happens to be a football player. I could be a doctor, a teacher. But this is what God has called me to do.

In an interview with the Washington Times, Brunell says Jesus is looked upon as softer than he actually was during his time on Earth. “[If] Jesus [played football], who knows? He'd probably be a linebacker,” Brunell says. “He was much tougher than people give him credit for.”

Apple recently revealed through a note on the online Store that iMacs were planned to be released soon. It has been delayed, though, and stocks of the now old model are shrinking fast. Then in a conference call to investors and analysts, Apple revealed that the iMacs will feature a G5 processor and that IBMs trouble making them fast enough is a key reason for the delay.

AppleInsider, though, has sources that claim heat issues are also a big reason for the delay. Heat has been an issue for the G5 from the get-go and any new enclosure for an iMac was likely redesigned a few times to let it breathe properly.

This week, Apple is going to release the 4th generation of the iPod, as evidenced by this image from the next issue of Newsweek. In fact, ThinkSecret believes that the article itself is the announcement. On the cover, the Steve is pictured holding the new iPod. It sports a control wheel much like the one on the iPod Mini and is said to be thinner. Other rumors claim they may even be cheaper. Note the new "Shuffle Songs" option. I hope it is in a software update that works with my 30GB 3G iPod! [Shuffle is available now but not on the level that it is in iTunes]

Update - 7/18: Newsweek's profile on the new iPod and an article on iPod Nation are up.

Update - 7/19: New iPod now available on Apple's site.

To little fanfare, Apple recently released an updated Power Mac G5 lineup. While Mac fans were expecting the top speed of the processor to jump from 2GHz to 3GHz (due to a statement by Steve Jobs at last year's WWDC), the company was forced into only moving up to 2.5 GHz.

Tom Boger, Apple's Director of Power Mac Product Marketing, said in a MacCentral article that noone realized the technical complications the move to a 90-nanometer processor would cause. Apparently, IBM (the company produces Apple's chips) is not the only victim of the surprise.

Roger Kay, an analyst for IDC, told MacCentral "the whole market has hit this 90-nanometer wall at the same time." Intel was only able to boost their processor speed from 3.2 to 3.4 GHz while Apple's 0.5 GHz boost is an increase of 25%. That top model also requires some serious liquid cooling.

Now, of course, Intel is claiming the "gigahertz myth" just like Apple has been doing for a few years now.

As I try to remove a trojan horse from a Win98 PC at church, the following caught my eye:

Initial reports say that the free song promo is and will be a big success. According to a MacWorld UK article, market researcher IDC says that if only half of the winning codes are redeemed, Apple will have doubled its number of downloads (and met its 100 million song goal early) and solidified its position as the market leader.

In their newest music video, P.O.D.'s director went worldwide to bring the message that everyone listening can change the world. P.O.D. is a band of Christians that does not call themselves a Christian band. The name Payable On Death (referring to the penalty for our sin) should point to who their Master is! The new video was filmed in several places around the world and features local people holding signs with words from the lyrics. Sonny (lead singer) said in an interview with MTV.com:

The song says you can change the world with love. It speaks for itself.

I've been pretty busy the past month, both at work and at church and I have really missed posting here during that time.

I work at the McKnight Brain Institute at the University of Florida as the Data Manager for the Movement Disorders Program. Another neurologist joined us recently and has been seeing patients which has resulted in a significant amount more data to process. We enter information from the visits with the patients into a SQL server and edit videos of the visits in iMovie.

At my church, North Central Baptist, we have just moved into a brand new multi-purpose building. And of course, we have several new pieces of technology to work with and are combining it with some of our old electronics.

In this post, I will just list them off and talk about them breifly in the next few posts. We have added:

• 40-channel Allen & Heath soundboard
• Aviom Personal Monitoring System
• Colortran Innovator lightboard and 20 lights
• FSR Compass Video switcher for projection system
• Compaq 8000T Pentium 4 system with XP Pro
• EasyWorship Software
• Dual 2GHz G5 with Final Cut Pro 4
• Sony Prosumer MiniDV Camera
• Digital Video Switcher for television recording

Unless you live under a rock, you know Apple released iTunes for Windows and version 2 of the online store last week. The company also sold one million songs in the 3 and a half days after the release (see MacCentral story). Several pundits have written that none of the other online stores is matching up.

A new voice recording mic and photo media reader for the new iPods also came along during that announcement. According to CNet.com, Apple assisting Altec Lansing and Belkin in the pre-iPod-release development of their attachments represents a change of direction by the company. With past iPod hardware updates, developers had to wait until release to begin working on a product. This time Apple gave the companies just enough information on the third generation to start developing the attachments released last week. Now if only we can get a developers kit.

Well, if you are much of a follower of Mr. Gates, you probably heard he said that "to say a system is secure because no one is attacking it is very dangerous." (Read the quotes at CNET) And he has a point. Windows should be more secure because there is a huge company and many users interested in it being secure. But should and is are two different things. Macs and Linux are also less vulnerable to the majority of attacks because attackers want the prime targets.

Meanwhile, Apple and the open source community continue to update their operating systems against security flaws that they find. Apple does this about once a month just like Microsoft does.

So what are we to do? I do not think we should fear a serious Mac OS X virus coming anytime soon. We should however be ready for numerous other attacks. If you are on broadband and you do not have a firewall (router, software, whatever) you are asking for trouble even if you use a Mac or Linux.

Bethany Hamilton, 13-year-old surfer and shark bite victim, is thankful to God for sparing her life. The native of Hawaii had surgery today and is said to be doing well. This weekend her website reported:

Bethany was up and walking today, conversive, and very optimistic about her future. She says she has many things she wants to do when she is fully recovered.

Learn more about Bethany and her faith and leave her a message at www.bethanyhamilton.com. MSNBC.com has more info on the attack.