Today is the last day to enter to win an iPad over at Simply Youth Ministry.
Also it’s the last day to save 40% off on almost 300 resources. It’s only good till 3 PM PST today, so hurry over.
First Look: Apple iOS 4
I gave into temptation tonight and downloaded and installed the gold master of the new iPhone operating system tonight. I’ve held off on the earlier betas, but after seeing the Apple keynote this week I wanted to check it out for myself. After the first few hours there are a couple of features that are a huge improvement.
1. Folders for apps. I’ve really been annoyed lately with how many apps I’ve had on my phone and how to organize them. This new feature goes a long way to fix it. I think the process of actually making the folders is a little janky though. You create or add an app to a fold by dropping an app on another. The problem with this is the apps like to jump away from each other during this process. I haven’t tried to do this in iTunes, maybe it’s easier there.
2. Background apps. This is one going that people have been asking for since day one of the iPhone. I always hated this on my old windows phones because it constantly caused crashes and battery drains. It was also always a pain to close running apps. Apple really got the implementation of this right, switching is easy and I can see that this will be a huge click saver.
3. UI. They’ve really put some polish on the look of things. Transitions between screens is nicer. I like the ability to put pictures as backgrounds behind the app icons, but you really need to be careful what you use, the wrong picture can make it almost un-usable. The visual flow between the new folder apps and background apps works really well.
4. Unified Inbox. I don’t know how many of you have multiple email accounts, but i have 4 setup on my phone and sometimes it was tiring going between each one to check new messages. Now you can get all your accounts in one central inbox. But don’t worry, you can still access each one individually also if you like the old way. The only problem I had with this was looking at my email almost became overwhelming, but I think I deal with more email than the average person.
There are a few things I still wish they would deal with (notifications, more info on the lock screen) but overall it’s a solid upgrade. I already miss some of the new features when I switch over to my iPad. Looking forward to that upgrade this fall.
What do you think is still missing?
40% off at SimplyYouthMinistry.com
It’s time for the anual 40 40 40 sale at SimplyYouthMinistry.com. You can get 40% off tons of great resources. There’s also $1 off select books. It only lasts for 40 hours so hurry.
There are a couple of other bonuses:
-40 Free Backgrounds – 40 great summer backgrounds for your ministry.
-Win an Ipad – Who doesn’t want this magical device. Just fill out the form to enter. Good Luck!
Stats on Internet Pornography – Online MBA
LOST: The End
One of my favorite TV shows is coming to an end this weekend. After Sunday we won’t have the survivors of Flight 815 to lead us through a mysterious island complete with time travel and side-ways universes. I admit I was a little late to the LOST party, I didn’t start watching it till last fall, and thanks to Netflix streaming I got through the first 5 seasons in time to join in with everyone else when the season 6 premiered in February.
I love the story of these messy people and the journey they have been on. I look forward to the final act and see how they end up. I hoping I’m not disappointed, I’m trying to keep my expectations in check.
If you need one final LOST fix your should check out this amazing art by former Simply Youth Ministry creative director, Ty Mattson. They are great.
If you want to dive into theology and what we can learn from LOST, there’s a great book by Chris Seay. His book covers some of the ideas of faith and connection that are expressed on the show.
Check it out HERE: The Gospel According to Lost
For all you lost fans, enjoy the finale, I know I will.
Quick Tip: Use Spotlight (Mac)
For long-term mac users, this may seem ridiculous. For those converts from the PC universe, be prepared to have your world rocked. Spotlight is Apple’s search feature built into OSX, and if you’ve converted from a PC throw all ideas about how search on large file systems works out of the window.
Without going into mega-geeky details, the way that the Mac formats hard disks allows for incredibly quick search (instantaneous in comparison to the PC). Just click your little magnifying glass at the top right of your screen, type what you’re looking for an voila; (in 1-2 seconds) it’s there! Emails, applications, text files, images… everything!
And here’s the best part: it searches the contents of files as well as filenames! There are lots of other tools that seek to improve on spotlight. I’ve tried them, but keep coming back to spotlight because it is so solid, and it’s on every mac at which I sit down.
Star Wars Fun
I realize I missed posting on Star Wars Day this year (May the 4th be with you.) But I still thought these were fun even if I’m a day late.
The star wars saga told in Legos in less that 2 and a half minutes:
and if that’s not enough, visit JibJab to put your self in the saga!
May the 4th be with You!
Happy Earth Day: Save the Planet
There’s no denying the fact the you see and hear about environmental issues every where these days. In fact we’ve even set aside a day to remind us (just so happens today is the day).
I don’t really hear much from Christians on the subject, and even fewer teaching resources to show our students a Biblical perspective. If it’s some a topic you’ve ever thought abut tackling, here’s a great resource:
Save the Planet
Green is in. Recycling, driving hybrid cars, and conserving energy gas, and water have become just a few of the ways that we’re able to care for the environment. But what does the Bible have to say about caring for the environment? This 3-week series by Josh Griffin, high school pastor at Saddleback Church, is designed to help students get a glimpse of how to care for the environment through a biblical perspective. And with everything you need to teach them included inside, it’s easy enough for you to dive in and use tonight. Lessons include: Creation Speaks about what God is Like 5 Little Ways Make a Big Difference Perfection. Sin. Hope.
Link:
Save the Planet
Failsafe Backup (The 321 System)
Peter Krough has written an excellent article on backup in which he suggests the 321 system. It says that you should have three copies (one primary and two backups) on two different media with one off-site. Not only is this incredibly easy to remember, it really helps me sift through the myriad of backup solutions to get what I need and not a lot more.
For my on-site backup, I have mentioned before that I like to use Chronosync to automatically backup selected files whenever I mount a specific hard disc or thumb drive though Apple’s Backup (free with Mobile Me) or Time Machine will meet most mac user’s needs. On the PC side of things, I have heard good things about Paragon Drive Backup and NovaBackup.
For offsite backup, I use and am really satisfied with Carbonite while Chris has written a bit about his preferred offsite backup service: Mozy. Both are great and both support Mac and Windows. The point is that you need to have your mission critical files and irreplaceable memories (photos, videos) stored somewhere that fire or flood will not cause you to lose money or memories.
I think Peter Krough said it best in his article, “There are two types of people, those who have experienced hard drive failure and those who will.” Do yourself a favor and get your 321 system in place today.
From Web to Ebook with Calibre
It was a perfect storm: 1. I realized I could save well over $200 a year on seminary text books purchasing them on the kindle store. 2. I found $100 off deal when you subscribe to Audible 3. I made the decision to wait until the next revision to buy the iPad. It culminated in the purchase of a kindle. The first question I had was, how do I get news and free books onto it without having to manually copy and paste, and transcode into the Amazon format blah blah blah.
That is the problem for which Calibre is the solution. Calibre is an ebook management program that allows you to automate all the tedium of dealing with ebooks. After doing some basic setup, all you do is import files and then click the “send to device” button and voila! It appears on your reader.
But it does more than convert and upload ebooks; it will also manage fetching your favorite news and blogs. It comes preconfigured with a myriad of news sources in 25 languages complete with a place for login information if that service has a paywall. Once you select the news source, you tell Calibre how often you want it to be retrieved, and it will download the news and automatically send it after it is obtained.
Want to keep up with your favorite blogs that are not listed already in Calibre? No problem! Just click on the triangle next to the “fetch news” icon and you can choose to add a custom news source (think rss) and it will then appear in your list.
The only problem I could find is that the user interface is not totally transparent. For example, you should be able to click and hold the icons that have the dropdown options. Add to that several other oddly located things and you see where the future improvements will need to be focused.
That being said, it is the best implementation I could find of these features. And it’s free!
