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Archive for the ‘Technologic’ Category

USB Ports Will Change the Way You Charge

Sunday, December 6th, 2009

I found this little gem via Mashable and thought it too awesome to not pass on to you:

What you’re looking at is a new power outlet developed by True Power that integrates two USB ports into a standard power outlet. This, in a word, is awesome.

I’ve already got a perfect spot for one of these picked out in my house. The outlet by my bedside is what I usually use to power my iPhone at night. No more adapters, just plug that baby right into the wall!

For those nervous about power usage and expensive electronics not mixing well, True Power offers this assurance:

Please also note that the USB ports only draw power when something is physically connected to the port. We didn’t want a vampire port that continually sucks and wastes power when not in use so this was one of the features on the top of our priority list during the design phase.

These start shipping in early 2010. You better believe I’ll be on the pre-order list!

Tags: charge, mashable, true power, usb port
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Deathmatch of the Steves: Ballmer or Jobs?

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

This is a video of Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, discussing Apple’s unveiling of the iPhone back in 2008. Watch, then discuss:

I almost can’t help but feel bad for ol’ Steve (Windows Steve, not Apple Steve). Here’s a man who truly believes in his product, yet is directing a company that is clearly missing the “it” factor.

Need some proof? Ballmer’s own words:

In six months [Apple] will have the most expensive phone by far in the marketplace, and, let’s see! Let’s see how the competition goes.

I wonder if he’s still wanting to “see” how the competition is going. The iPhone doubled it’s market share in the first quarter of 2009, a jump that heretofore has been unheard of. The iPhone has busted the doors off the mobile device market, so much so that competitors are being forced to copy in order to survive.

Ballmer is right: The iPhone is one of the most expensive mobile devices on the market today. My question is this: Why does cost not matter to consumers when it comes to the iPhone? What does it have that other competing products do not?

Tags: Apple, ballmer, iPhone, windows
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Top 3 Reasons the iPhone is Like the Bible

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

In preparation for a sermonette I’m giving later today, here’s a quick peek into how the iPhone is like the Bible.

1. Practical. The iPhone has thousands of practical uses: Find your way through a city; rent a movie from RedBox; check your bank balance; get a quote for an oil change. The Bible is practical as well–profoundly so: Don’t go in debt; work hard;

2. Artistic. From a visual standpoint, the iPhone is gorgeous. Curves in all the right places, a beautiful UI, and an OS that is second-to-none. The Bible, of course, is primarily a work of art. Did you know that? When comparing poetry to prose, most of the Bible is a poem! How wonderful. The literary rhythm of Scripture

3. Simple. The iPhone is so appealing because it is, in a word, simple. It has one button to get you to the places you need to go. Everything comes up on one screen. It is delightfully easy to use. The Bible is also simple. Very simple: God created. Jesus wept. God loved the world. All things will be made new. Dead simple.

So there you have it. Some of the reasons why the iPhone is like the Bible.

Tags: bible, iPhone, Technology
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Evernote Rocks Da House!

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

I know it’s not a new service, but Evernote is kickin’ it up a notch lately. If you’re unfamiliar with Evernote, it is billed as a cloud app that allows you to “remember everything.” It may not get everything, but it gets pretty darn close.

I just started using the “email to Evernote” feature (which is under “Settings” in case you don’t want to spend 20 minutes looking for it like I did!) which gives me a unique email address to send notes to. For instance, I just emailed a PayPal receipt to Evernote from my iPhone (they have a sweet iPhone app). It converts it to a PDF and zaps it to my Evernote account, nice and neat like.

I use Evernote for:

Receipts. Evernote has OCR built into it, so I can snap a quick photo of a receipt with my iPhone, send it to Evernote, and search for it later. I also rely heavily on the tag feature to find receipts for end-of-the-month statements at work.
Blog Fodder. Find something you read or watched online that you really like? Use Evernote’s web clipper to save it for later to include in a blog post.
Note taking. I found myself needing to take notes while in front of a computer that was not mine. Enter Evernote. I logged onto my web account, pounded out my notes, synced up with the cloud server, and there they were when I needed them. Mobile computing, baby.

Evernote has a lot more uses than that. Sign up for an account and start playing around with it. The future is mobility and Evernote is way ahead of the game. Don’t say I never gave you anything! If you don’t know, now you know…

If you’re an Evernote user, how do you utilize it?

Tags: app, evernote, Technology
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Breathable Technology

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

I hopped into a conversation on FriendFeed started by Tony Steward yesterday and it got me thinking.

Tony asked the question,

What technology and insights are you most excited about in the church world right now?

I had a few things to add, mostly regarding the iPhone. I thought I’d expound a bit on some of them and see what you all think. I realize that most of these are currently completely unfeasible, but a geek can dream, can’t he?

1. Let me embed hyperlinks into my Keynote slides (or PowerPoint, for you Windoze users) that beams the Scripture references I am using to web-enabled cell phones automatically over WiFi. This could, essentially, eliminate the “I forgot my Bible at home” syndrome, and would allow me as the communicator to pick one translation so everyone can be on the same page, literally.

2. Open up a web-based communication channel that would allow me, as communicator, to see real-time feedback from the audience on my iPhone. It would need to be “closed” and identity-based to allow some accountability.

3. “What song did the band play tonight? It was that one song… You know, with the chorus and the guitar? That one.” Ever heard that as a ministry or worship leader? What if you provide a real-time tracking system for your worship songs that allowed iPhone users to be notified of each song played at your service and a link to iTunes to download immediately? If one were so inclined, you could have the entire night’s worship set in your iPhone before you leave the church.

4. Give me an app that generates tag clouds of the preachers and teachers I am listening to. Type in their name (or build voice-recognition into the app so it can automatically identify who it is you are listening to) and the app goes to work, collecting tags about the speaker from Amazon reviews, blogs, Twitter, etc.

This is “Web4” type stuff, requiring data that can “sense and react” to the real-world environment around us. It’s possible, just not right now. Ask Seth Godin–he knows.

So let’s continue to conversation that Tony started, right here. What technology and insights are you most excited about in the church world?

Tags: friendfeed, iPhone, Seth Godin, Technology, Tony Steward
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