Advent Calendar On Your Mac - The Festive Mac 2008 [Updated]
Advent begins on the Sunday nearest to 30th November (St. Andrew's Day) and lasts until midnight on Christmas Eve. This year it began on Sunday, November 30.
• November 30 - First Sunday of Advent 2008
• December 7 - Second Sunday of Advent 2008
• December 14 - Third Sunday of Advent 2008
• December 21 - Fourth Sunday of Advent 2008
• 25 December: Christmas 2008
During Advent, it has been a tradition (that seems to be more popular than ever recently) to make or buy Advent calendars to mark the days leading up to Christmas. Usually these calendars have twenty-four "windows." Traditional calendar windows open up to show a picture of something pertaining to the time of year. The last window opened usually depicts the Christ Child lying in a manger.
It is also possible to enjoy an Advent calendar on your computer or iPhone. Here are several ways.
iAdvent gives Advent Calendars an iPhone Makeover
iAdvent is a Christmas Countdown calendar that helps you keep track of how many days left until Christmas. Like traditional advent calendars, each day has a box for you to click on. Inside each box is a fun Christmas fact, which you can email to your friends and family if you choose. The boxes are designed to emulate the look of iPhone app icons, giving Advent a modern look that goes with the sleek design of your favorite gadget.
Also like traditional calendars, iAdvent begins counting down on December 1st. Until then, play the fun Christmas word game included and download 5 Christmas-themed wallpapers for your iPhone!
iAdvent is only 1.6 mb, leaving you plenty of space for all the other organizational, entertainment and game apps you’ll need this holiday season. Enjoy Advent! And Merry Christmas!
There are other Advent calendar apps out there, but Josh gave iAdvent the look and feel of the iPhone interface.
iAdvent will work next Christmas too, so it can be removed and reloaded this time next year or just kept on the phone until it's time to use it again in 2009.
Each day offers a new piece of trivia about Christmas, which can be emailed to friends and family.
But the most important part is just knowing how many days are left to Christmas.
For more information, visit:
http://www.jnjosh.com/advent/
iAdvent, the first iPhone app from software developer Josh Johnson of Apptly Coded.
Get iAdvent in the App Store
Full Homely Divinity Advent Calendar
The Traditional Anglican Organization Full Homely Divinity says:
As the culture of the Church yields more and more to the priorities and the attitudes of the secular culture, and as Christmas becomes for many people a secular holiday that begins at Thanksgiving (at the end of November in the U.S.) and comes to an end shortly after dinner on December 25th, it becomes more and more difficult to observe the season of Advent with any integrity, even within the Church. Christmas concerts, Christmas parties, even Christmas services of lessons and carols are held from early December on, building to an almost anti-climactic series of services on December 24th and 25th. Those who insist on waiting to celebrate Christmas when it actually arrives are regarded as dreary pedants who are simply out-of-step with reality or insensitive to the feelings of those who prefer to follow their own traditions rather than the ancient cadences of the Church year. Although they have a high view of the faith and the feast, they are often dismissed as modern day Ebenezer Scrooges, who thought Christmas was humbug and did not even care that Advent existed.
Finding ourselves a bit frustrated by Advent Calendars that are more about Christmas than Advent, we decided to try our hand at creating our own online Advent Calendar. The background for our calendar is a Jesse Tree on an ivory panel from Bavaria, c. 1200, which is now at the Louvre Museum in Paris.
As is the case with most Advent calendars, ours begins on December 1st, rather than the First Sunday of Advent. That simply means that in some years you will have to start the calendar a day or two before Advent begins, while in other years, it will not have enough days. Click on the numbers to follow a link for each day of December leading up to Christmas. The numbers beyond the current day are not yet linked to the page of the day. You can look back at days you have missed, but you will have to come back for the days that are still ahead.
The Jesse Tree provides one of the themes of the project: the ancient faith history of the people of God as the forebears of the Messiah lived it. The calendar also looks forward to the culmination of God's plan at the end of time, linking the faith history of the past with John's grand apocalyptic vision in the Book of Revelation.
You can check it out at:
http://fullhomelydivinity.org/articles/Advent%20Calendar/advent%20calendar.htm
If you're interested in learning more about the Advent tradition, visit here:
http://fullhomelydivinity.org/articles/advent%20fullpage.htm
and here:
http://fullhomelydivinity.org/index.html
iChristmas Advent Calendar iPhone/iTouch Application
Advent Calendar iChristmas is a simple, easy to use app that will help you relive your childhood and the anticipation of opening a gift every day in the lead up to Christmas.
Advent Calendar - iChristmas application is just like the Traditional Advent Calendars with something to open each day, just it is on your iPhone/iTouch. It also has the added benefit of a countdown timer to Christmas so you always know how long till Christmas.
Advent Calendar - iChristmas has two themes:
1. iChristmas - based on the principle of receiving a gift everyday to decorate your Christmas Tree
2. iCute - for lovers of animals - each day they can open a unique Christmas image.
You can switch between these two themes at any time.
Don't forget you can't open any of your gifts until the 1st of December. But if you really cant wait - you can change your date settings to December and have a sneek peak.
So what are you waiting for? Download this great application now and enjoy the thrill and anticipation of your own iPhone/iTouch advent calendar in the lead up to Christmas 2008.
For more information, visit:
http://www.mattersoftware.com/
PhotoAdvent 2.0
An Advent Calendar is a special Christmas calendar with 25 numbered windows. Behind each window is a picture. You open one window on each day of December leading up to Christmas.
What makes PhotoAdvent special is that it runs on your computer using your pictures.
The program opens on a snow scene with 25 numbered boxes. You click on the dates in order to expand them and then click and drag your mouse to gradually reveal the pictures hidden behind the dates.
PhotoAdvent comes with 25 pictures built in. So even if you never import a single picture, you'll still have a working advent calendar this Christmas!
But what makes PhotoAdvent special is that the pictures behind the numbers can be your pictures. PhotoAdvent comes with the ability to import picture files from your computer (BMPs for Windows, PICTs for Macintosh). Pictures of your kids, your pets, birthdays, weddings, Halloween...any pictures you have!
Registered users can import pictures for all 25 days of the calendar. Unregistered copies of PhotoAdvent are limited to importing 5 pictures.
Although PhotoAdvent is not a screen saver, certain entertaining things do happen when PhotoAdvent is left idle for a period of time.
Minimum System Requirements for Macintosh:
System: System 7.0 or later
Processor: 68030 or better (PowerPC or better strongly recommended.)
Memory: 8 Mb RAM
Monitor: 640x480, 256 colors (Thousands of colors strongly recommended.)
Disk Space: Around 1 MB
System support:
PPC
PhotoAdvent is now freeware (formerly $20).
For more information, visit:
http://www.photoadvent.com/
Adventskranz Dashboard Wreath Widget 1.1
This widget decorates your Dashboard at Christmas time. Light a candle on your virtual Advent wreath each Sunday in Advent season.
System Requirements
Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later
Freeware
For more information, visit:
http://www.widgetworld.nl/widget-downloads/games/122-adventskranz.html
or
http://www.merl.ws/adventskranz.html
JAlbum Skin: Advent Calendar
This skin allows you to create your own advent calendars. Point it at a directory with 25 or more images in it and generate. It will take the first image as the background for the calendar, and the next 24 as the window pictures. The web page will only allow you to open each door when you have passed the appropriate day, and it uses a cookie to remember which doors you have already opened. For the real icing on the cake, it has snowflakes drifiting down the screen.
Runs just on javascript, so does not require php
Works with Firefox, possibly other browsers (Mac compatibility not yet established).
To check it out, click here.
http://jalbum.net/skins/skin.jsp?id=54
Charles W. Moore
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