Memento Browser for iOS now available

My WAC research team is proud to announce that the Memento Browser is now available for the iPhone, iPod, and iPad. The browser has been available for Android for a few years, but Heather Tweedy, one of my undergraduate research assistants, just finished work on the iOS version this summer.

If you're not familiar with Memento, it is an enhancement to the HTTP protocol which allows web clients to make requests for web pages that once existed in the past. The Memento Browser allows you to see how a web page might have looked last week, last month, or last year.

The screenshot below shows what the website memento.org looked like on August 10, 2012. You can select the Date button and choose any date to see what the web page looked like on that day. The old web pages come from a number of web archives, especially from the Internet Archive. If an archived page cannot be found in an archive, it cannot be displayed.

Check out the app and let me know what you think. You can also download a Firefox add-on called MementoFox if you'd like to add Memento capabilities to your Firefox browser.

New Jersey mission trip

Last week my family joined with three other families (8 adults and 7 kids) on a mission trip to New Jersey. We worked with Carl and Alicia Williamson, missionaries sponsored by our Cloverdale church, who have been planting a new church in Holmdel, NJ, called the Gateway Church of Christ.

The trip involved 2 days of travel by bus each way (yes, it was quite an experience with 7 little kids) which gave us 6 full days of working. We held a carnival and cookout at a housing project, did crafts with seniors at a nursing home, painted the community center where the Gateway church is currently meeting, did some cleaning for seniors at a retirement facility, shoveled dirt and split logs for a church member, conducted a Bible study, and did a few other miscellaneous tasks. We also worshiped with the Gateway and Brunswick Church of Christ and took a day off to visit New York City.

My wife is writing up a more detailed narrative of our time, and I'll post a link to her story when it is available. We were very thankful to have made the trip and were blessed with making many new friends and seeing God working in the lives of others. Now that we're back, it's time to focus on wrapping up some research and getting ready for another semester!

Update on 8/14/2012 - Becky's article about our trip is now available on the Cloverdale Church of Christ website.