AT&T: Think Again « iOSessive
Are you struggling with AT&T as a wireless provider? If so, you’re not alone. For years my opinion was that AT&T was the only provider worth having, but that was before the new normal pushed my call success ratio into the basement. I actually have to rely on Skype to make calls in some areas, including but not limited to my office and home (who needs to make calls there?) Found this post below written by a once fellow struggler who seems to have found a solution.
Frustration, Disappointment And Apathy: My Years At Microsoft – TechCrunch
Just saw this awesome blog post from TechCrunch which gives insight to life at Microsoft, and why Apple is running circles around them. Microsoft made a clever OS purchase decades ago and has been complacently riding the wave ever since. Apple is developing game-changing products by not settling for anything less than greatness. If you don’t believe that, have a look at the stock ticker tomorrow.
Frustration, Disappointment And Apathy: My Years At Microsoft – TechCrunch.
Great App: Bible Audio Pronunciations
I was waiting to board a flight out of DFW recently when I (as I entertained myself with my iPad) found an app that instantly caught my eye. “Wow.” I thought. Why didn’t I think of that?
The app is called Bible Audio Pronunciations by a company of the same name. The purpose is to help those of us who are not necessarily Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic scholars accurately pronounce difficult biblical names and terms. I quickly reached out to the apps creators and asked to feature them on this site. Here is their story:
My wife and I are the parents of 5 wonderful children. I am a professional musician – a saxophonist in the U.S. Army Band in Washington D.C. My wife, also a musician, is a stay at home mom. We are active in our church and in our community.For many years, we have talked about making an iPhone app – one that could be helpful to others, if even in a small way.In 2011, we determined to make it happen. Neither of us know anything about writing code; however, we found that it was possible to outsource the project via elance.com. We simply had to come up with the concept of the app and flesh it out on paper.After several brainstorming sessions, we came up with many “brilliant” ideas, only to find that these ideas were already converted into apps. Except for one.I said to my wife, “What if there was an app that pronounced all of those challenging words in the Bible? Surely we are not the only ones that struggle with this.”We did a search on the iTunes store for “Bible Pronunciation” in all its various forms, and each search came back with 0 results!Immediately, we purchased as many Bible Pronunciation Guides as we could find and began doing our homework. We settled on a list of 1000 Bible names and began recording them. For better or for worse, it is my voice on the app. 🙂Our target audience for this app was the lay member – families reading the Bible together, members of Bible study groups, and so forth. However, our most enthusiastic customers have been theological students and pastors! (It never occurred to my wife and I that THEY struggled with these words as well. I guess we thought it was covered in seminary!)After version 1.0 was released, we immediately recognized that the app would have to be expanded to include every proper noun in the Bible. There are now over 4100 words included in the app – and counting.We have also had many requests to expand the app to the Android platform. We anticipate that it will be released by the fall of 2012.What challenges have we faced in creating the app?1. The incredible amount of time and energy that goes into recording and editing all of the names. I recorded each word 4-10 times. We would then go back and choose the best one. This has taken thousands of hours! It’s a slow process with a two person team doing this on the side.2. The inherent challenges of compiling a Bible pronunciation guide. As noted in the preface of the HarperCollins Bible Pronunciation Guide, many of the biblical terms that appear in English “are the results of passage through several languages [e.g., Greek and Latin] with their own distinctive patterns of pronunciation. Thus it is impossible to say what is ‘correct’ pronunciation of many biblical terms, especially of names from the Old Testament.”Our goal in creating this app is to provide quick, easy, and accurate access to correct pronunciations of challenging Biblical terms. However, in doing so, I offer the same disclaimer found in the HarperCollins preface: “The editors would not claim that the pronunciations given are, in every case, the only or even necessarily the best pronunciations; they do believe, however, that each pronunciation given is an acceptable and defensible one.”3. Getting the word out! As mentioned before, there is no other app in the Appstore that provides this particular service. This is both good news and bad news. The good news- there is no competition. The bad news- Most people aren’t looking for it because they don’t know it exists.The feedback we have received has been extremely positive. We have been featured on a dozen Christian Radio shows, a TV segment, and numerous newspaper and online articles and blogs. We have been ranked as high as #6 in the Reference Category of the iTunes store in the U.S. We also using Twitter and Facebook, and are still looking for other ways to get the word out.
Website: http://www.biblepronunciations.comTwitter: http://twitter.com/BibleSpeakiTunes link, both the Lite (free) version and full ($2.99): http://itunes.com/apps/pronunciationappsReviews:
BELKIN offers 50% off Everything
BELKIN is offering 50% off everything at belkin.com today, FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 16, 2011 only. Use coupon code FB50 at checkout.
They are perhaps best known for approved iPod, iPhone, and iPad accesories.
Hat tip to MacRumors.com and Gizmodo.
UPDATE: I was just on the phone with Belkin customer service. The site is basically useless right now because of the flood of traffic, but the agent I spoke with advised that the 50% promotion will be valid until the end of the month of September.
Guest Post: Travis Unger and the future of MPGs
Want a car that gets better than 50 mpg and isn’t some overpriced hybrid? How about a normal sized BMW that gets nearly 60 mpg without an outrageous price tag? Maybe a new Fiat 500, Ford Fiesta, or just about any other small car on the market today that will get between 70 and 85 mpg without the expensive hybrid technology? Well if you live here in the US, don’t hold your breath, but if you lived just about anywhere in europe you would already have these options and more. That’s right, across the pond all of the major automakers are selling cars that get unbelievable fuel economy at a price that rivals and sometimes undercuts what we currently have available here. Fiat offers their new 500 with a 1.3l diesel engine over there that gets 76 mpg, and a gasoline powered version called the twinair that gets 69 mpg. But for whatever reason we do not get these versions, instead we get one that eeks out a measly 38mpg hwy. The diesel gets 72.4 combined avg. Now you may say that these must be a couple of gutless pigs, but they aren’t. While not exactly sporty the 2-cylinder “TwinAir” manages to do 0-60 in about 11 seconds, that’s faster than the ford escort was able to manage in the 80’s and early 90’s while still only returning about half the fuel economy. That’s also not much slower than the Toyota Prius while still getting 20+ mpg better. Plus it’s not a Prius so you won’t feel like a tool as you drive along. WHY, WHY, WHY can’t we get cars like this over here? I wish I could tell you, but there are some people that make way more money than I do that think they know what we want better than we do. Oh and it’s not just Fiat that makes these cars, it’s Ford, GM, Chrysler (well Fiat so ignore that last one,) VW, and many others. I say let’s start a letter writing campaign to the headquarters of all these respective companies and tell them what we want. Will it do any good? I don’t know, but it will make us feel a little better to complain to some suit in a corner office with a massive cuban in his hand and a rolex on his arm. Get ready, get set, WRITE….
For more info on who to complain to about our lack of fuel efficient options check this website out
http://www.nextgreencar.com. There are some cars on there that we will never have chance of seeing by automakers you’ve probably never heard of, but write them too, it feels good to throw a fit.
Travis S. Unger
Travis Unger is an automotive expert with many years experience in the automotive service industry. Comment here to connect or share your opinions with Travis.
A Bold Prediction Concerning WWDC
Apple kicks off the WWDC today with the much anticipated Keynote at 12:00PM central. The announcement that the man himself, legendary Steve Jobs will deliver the Keynote in spite of a medical leave has many excited, but virtually everyone agrees there will be no iPhone announcement today.
There is still unprecedented interest in exactly what Apple will unveil today. We know a new iCloud initiative will be discussed (though we are not at all certain what iCloud will entail). We know that iOS 5 will be a major focus. We have reason to think the latest OS X offering, Lion will be previewed and perhaps even made available, but the world stands resolute proclaiming with seemingly with one voice that this year’s WWDC will feature no new hardware.
Count me out. I am clinging to a hope, and sneaking suspicion that today we will see a “one more thing” that yields the next generation iPhone. How huge would that be? Think about it, that’s Apple’s style. That’s one of the many things that makes Apple who they are, and I’m willing to be the only voice calling out, “Don’t count new iPhone out just yet.”
New 11 inch Macbook Air
For this past Christmas (2010) I got my wife the new Apple Macbook Air. The machine replaced her tired 17″ HP Pavillion (actually a hand-me-down from my Mac upgrade in 2009). Our new addition has been in service four months now, more than enough time for me to share with you my thoughts.
This machine is incredible. It is certainly the easiest notebook computer to transport. I recently placed it inside a folder with some papers on the way to a meeting. If you are working with it in you lap, you hardly know it’s there. If portability is key, this is the way to go.
With daily use, the Macbook Air has not failed once in its four months. My wife, accustomed to freezes, blue-screens, and frequent re-starts in the PC realm has been beside herself. Another big win has been the air play functionality, which is available on any OS X Mac and every iOS device. If she wants to listen to music throughout the house, one click sends her entire iTunes library to our Apple TV and out to the home theater.
This machine is incredibly fast. The current gen Macbook Airs come equipped with all flash storage instead of a HDD, which means super fast boot speeds. It will go from start-up (after being completely shut down) to surfing Safari in about eight seconds. This blessing can be a curse however. If you need a large amount of internal storage you may find the on-board 64GB inadequate. There is no way I could get by with that, I have trouble with my Macs 250 GB HDD. If you do not need a large storage capacity though, the speedy and compact flash storage is fantastic.
This machine is a Mac, and sports everything you would expect from a Mac. Absolutely no regrets from us. Some balk at the $999 price point, but remember this is a purchase that will have no problem doing its job 6 or 7 years and even beyond. My last PC notebook cost nearly as much and was ready for retirement two years later. If you can, and the form factor of the Macbook Air suits you, I do not believe you will wish you had bought a less expensive machine.
Podcasts I Dig
Do you subscribe to any podcasts? I love them. If I’m in the car, working in the office, or doing something around the house I’m generally kept company by a podcast or two. I thought I’d let you know what I’m currently getting in my feed.
SIMPLY YOUTH MINISTRY PODCAST
A must if you are in youth ministry. Doug Fields and friends talk about all things students and the life we share with them. And some other stuff too. Their slogan is “Just enough youth ministry that you don’t feel guilty for listening.” Available in both audio and video.
SUBSCRIBE TO THE SIMPLY YOUTH MINISTRY PODCAST
THE MACCAST BY ADAM CHRISTIANSON
“For Mac Geeks, by Mac Geeks. The show where we discuss all things Macintosh.” What else needs to be said. If your not just a Mac user, but a serious Mac user (a.k.a. nerd) you need this podcast in your life. My wife is a Mac user, but she doesn’t want to talk about Macs all day, or anything else that requires recharging for that matter. This show is not for her. For the rest of us, Adam Christianson does a great job sharing the latest Apple news, tips, tricks, and anything else relevant to the Apple cult. I mean community.
THE MACCAST MEMBERS PODCAST
It’s just like THE MACCAST, but more so. Extra shows and content for members only. Available for $5.00 US per month, and it’s money well spent. Don’t tell my wife.
SUBSCRIBE TO THE MACCAST MEMBERS PODCAST
MAC OS KEN
Another Mac podcast. I do what I want. Mac OS Ken is a daily weekday Mac podcast focusing on bringing you Apple and Mac news. I have only recently subscribed to Mac OS Ken, but I’m loving it.
The New Apple TV
image from apple.com
Like any other devoted Apple, Inc. follower when the new Apple TV (or Apple TV II as it is sometimes called) came out a few months ago I was terribly excited. I do not own the previous gen Apple TV, but I felt I was ready for Apple to invade my home theater experience, and the results have been nothing short of life changing.
The price point of the previous model had prevented me from even considering it, if memory serves it was over $400 U.S. but in typical Apple, Inc. fashion they increase technology and somehow the price falls. At $99 it is hard to justify not buying one of these little black boxes. This thing is amazing. In our house, the source for video rental has come from two formats, Netflix and iTunes. We have a Netflix subscription via which we receive three disks at a time from our queue, and can stream unlimited content. This we often accomplished via a xbox on our home network. iTunes rentals would be downloaded via a macbook, then sync’d to either an iPhone our iPod Classic and connected to the t.v. with the Apple iPod to t.v. cable. This worked fine, although even with my pretty darn fast connection (25 mbps) it would still take 20-30 minutes to download a full-length movie. Also, with iTunes rentals delivered this way, we were unable to view high definition video.
The new Apple TV changes all that, and setup could not be simpler. Plug in the power supply and HDMI (HDMI is the only connection offered on this device, but honestly why would you need anything else?), connect to your network via ethernet or wireless and your done. iTunes rentals stream instantly to your television, and HD content is no longer an issue. I cannot imagine a better way to stream Netflix video. Also on demand in YouTube.
Yet another incredible feature of this interface is Airplay. With one click you can stream virtually any media from your mac or iOS device (iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch). Photos, music, or even entire movies can be streamed wirelessly straight from my iPhone. Very cool. Also, since it’s on the network, I can listen to music and control it from anywhere in the house with Airplay or using Apple’s Remote app.
Granted, you will need a decent high speed internet connection to have this device achieve it’s fullest potential, but that is true of any method of streaming video delivery. I am so impressed with this device, I honestly think I will end up buying one for every t.v. in my home. If you ask me, you should too, and you’ll not be disappointed.
Do you Txt Blast? My review of two youth ministry txt message services
If your too young to vote, email is a thing of the past. Actually, today’s teens would probably never have an email account at all if it wasn’t necessary to create a facebook page… So how do you stay connected with your students? How do you notify kids, parents, and volunteers of this and that? For example: North Texas is in the throws of a winter storm which has canceled life as we know it for two days, and it’s Wednesday, so although it’s not been decided yet the question on many minds is “Will we have church tonight?” As soon as the powers that be make a call I can send one text message to all my students and leaders and everyone is on the same page instantly.
Some people are using resources like facebook or twitter to accomplish this task. While I can see the benefit, I find that both have a few shortfalls, at least for this purpose. Everyone is on facebook it seems, but people must log in to check your update. I know, I know, the iPhone app supports push notifications and facebook will send txt updates if enabled, but that will probably not include the majority of your involved people. I love twitter, but I seems to be a social experience embraced by the older crowd. Maybe your experience is different, but at least in my student ministry, almost none of our students use twitter. For us, text messaging has been a fantastic solution. We have used a couple different services to accomplish this, and I’ll share the pros and cons of each.
Simply Txt from Doug Fields' Simply Youth Ministry
The first text messaging service we used was Simply Txt from Doug Fields’ Simply Youth Ministry. I first became aware of Simply Txt at a Simply Youth Ministry Conference a couple years ago, and was excited to give it a try. I was not disappointed. In fact, it really improved the way we notified students, parents, and leaders of what was going on. Registration for an event due soon? Text blast to everyone. Guest speaker or worship leader tomorrow night? Everyone gets a text. Want to just send everyone a quick little encouragement? Well, you get it. Here is a screen cast from the guys at Simply Txt showing off their product.
Ok there are some great features there. After using Simply Txt for almost two years though I can tell you, having first hand experience how much of this is true. Simply Txt is a overall great product. I did have some reliability issues however, primarily in exactly when a message or blast would be delivered. The way Simply Txt works is they are actually sending an email to your carrier which is being delivered to your mobile device via SMS. You can actually do the same thing with your mail client of choice, such as Outlook or in my case Apple’s Mail.app, but it’s slightly too involved to be practical in my opinion. You probably would never care how it’s delivered, and your students certainly won’t, to them it’s just a text. The significance is however that delivering this way is sometimes, not always, unpredictable. I have seen it take hours, or in extreme cases even days for messages to arrive. More than once a message sent the previous day has shown up on everyone’s device in the wee hours of the morning, which doesn’t always bode well, especially with parents. Also if you are trying to communicate time-sensitive information you might be very disappointed. Let me be clear, the service worked as designed much of the time. I would estimate, and this is only an estimation, that in my experience message delivery was significantly delayed 15-20% of the time.
Another very mild complaint I could voice is that Simply Txt always shows as coming from a different number. Let’s be honest, this is probably not a deal breaker for most, but it can be an inconvenience. I’ve found many students want to add the number in their contacts so that it clearly displays who it from, this would also help with devices which log message conversations. If the number is always the same, it shows up as coming from your student ministry (I do this on my own device with texts from Twitter). Simply Txt always shows up as something different, which I assume has to do with the email delivery discussed above.
Now some of the really cool features of Simply Txt:
1. When you send a txt blast, you can have it go to a linked facebook or twitter account as well.
This is an amazing feature. In my case, my twitter updates go directly to my facebook, so I can have a blast go to my twitter which then goes to my facebook. Txt blast, twitter update, facebook status all with one click. This was not available when we first started using Simply Txt, but when they added it, I was very impressed. This is not available on Duffled.com, which will be discussed later.
2. Student replies sent to your device as a text.
Another incredible feature. You send a message and a kid has a question or comment. He/she can simply reply to your text, and it goes straight to your mobile device. This is great because your usually not logged into Simply Txt and staring at your screen waiting to see if any replies pour in. Another great feature. I have often used this with giveaways and contest, “the 4th person to reply to this wins such and such.” Also a great way to have students sign up for the text service.
3. Cost.
With plans starting at just $10 per month, Simply txt is simply the most affordable product I’ve found.
Duffled.com
We are currently using Duffled.com. I first heard of this service over at Saddleback High School Pastor Josh Griffin’s MORETHANDODGEBALL.COM . Duffled is a very cool service designed for anyone with a need for marketing, not specifically youth ministry. Below is a video from Duffled about what they “bring to the party.”
<i
Duffled-What will YOU do with it? from Duffled.com on Vimeo.
We have been using Duffled.com for around eight months, and like our experience with Simply Txt, we have been very happy. Some of the key improvements have been:
1. Reliability. Messages delivered instantly. Every time.
Text blasts sent via Duffled have arrived on time every time. Whether a message is scheduled for delivery sometime in the future or right now, I have never had a message delayed. I believe this is due to Duffled’s delivery method. Unlike Simply’s email system, Duffled actually sends via SMS, resulting in much greater reliability. This method is more expensive, however, which we will see soon.
2. Text to join.
A big selling point for us was students or other interested parties can simply send a text to enroll in your text service. It’s very easy to put up an announcement on a screen or on a poster saying “Text SUBMERGE to 33970 to receive txt updates.” Simply Txt requires you to log in and fill out a form for each member.
3. Birthdays
Duffled allows you to enter your students birthdays, and will automatically send them a happy birthday text, without waiting for you to forget. Even better, with one mouse click you can have Duffled send each of your students a message asking their birthday and/or name if you don’t already have it without you having to enter it all.
Duffled is great, and so is Simply Txt. I must warn you though, Duffled is much more expensive. Duffled begins at $35 a month, but if you go over your allotted messages (which can happen quite easily) your automatically bumped up an additional $35, whether you send one message over or up to the allotted number until you get to the next price bracket. In other words, you buy messages in blocks, and use what you will.
If we could take the great features of both these services and combine them into one product we would hardly be able to contain ourselves. Reality dictates, however, that you weight the pros and cons of each and see what works best for you. One thing I can say though is that a text blast service of any kind has vastly improved the way we communicate in our student ministry.
UPDATE: We are in a new church/new student ministry, and for budget reasons chose to go with Simply Txt this time. We are only a couple weeks into this user experience, but so far it has been flawless. The folks at Simply Txt seem to be constantly improving their product, and while I was certainly a fan before, we have not experienced any of the reliability concerns mentioned above. Well played Simply.
UPDATE 6/12/2011: Maybe I spoke too soon? After sending a sum total of 19 messages since we have been using Simply Txt this go around, we have experienced our first major failure. I sent a message at 3:15PM today to all involved in our student ministry reminding them about our outreach service tonight. All messages are sent to my device as well so I can monitor the delivery, which sadly in this case happened exactly 5 hours late. The message arrived shortly after 8Pm, a full 3 hours after the event it was intend to inform students and volunteers about. I am sorely disappointed in this, and this just might be a deal breaker, AGAIN. I plan on calling Simply tomorrow. NOTE: It seems the message that was delivered 5 hours to late was posted to Twitter on time…
delighted to share. 