Author: Bob Martens

Categories
Life Technology

Trying App.net

I’ve been a member of Twitter for a few years now and it has been very good to me. Recently, however, my curiosity has been piqued by App.net.

I’m not going to rehash what App.net is or why it even exists because I really don’t think it matters all that much. The fact is that it started off as a Twitter-like service in the wake of one of the developer agreement changes from Twitter. It is also extremely limited in number of users compared to Twitter.

With the recent introduction of free accounts, the opportunity arose for me to try out the service without having to pay for the privilege.

Riposte

So I grabbed an invite from someone offering one on Twitter (that’s funny) and then headed over and setup my account. I also went ahead and tried out a bunch of different applications from the App Store. Right now the main way I consume App.net is using an app called Riposte on my iPhone. Currently Riposte is not available on the iPad, so I’m still bouncing among a few apps on the iPad (including Netbot, which is good … but doesn’t feel quite as “at home” with App.net as Riposte does).

So, how is it going overall?

I, surprising myself at least, really like the service. I’ve been able to stay under the 40-follow mark for free accounts, but I’m already getting to the point where I could see myself paying for a year just to see how things go. The discussion has been cordial and high-concept so far, and I’m following people on App.net that I might not have followed on Twitter.

Can it replace Twitter? Probably not, but I do find the smaller audience to be a nice change. With fewer people, seemingly, come fewer problems. There are issues around a self-selecting group being on App.net because in the past there was only a paid-tier to have entry and it also is HIGHLY developer-centric (I mostly follow Apple developers on App.net at the moment), but maybe those aren’t bad things overall.

I tend to think that the Internet is big, but that smaller groups can form on the greater internet to more-easily keep in touch with each other. Not every service needs to be all-inclusive because the Internet is all-inclusive. Being a part of many different services and groups is a good thing.

Besides, you want diversity of thought, right?

Categories
Technology

Google Killing Google Reader

Good bye old friend.

Google Reader

And like that, Google has decided to kill off Google Reader after 8 years.

Google Reader is really what I cut my teeth on for RSS, and I’ve had the same account syncing my RSS subscriptions since then. First I worked with Google Reader in iGoogle (which they are also killing) and then moved to Reeder when I picked up my first iPhone in 2009.

However, come July 1, that will all come to an end. I’m going to be on the lookout for an alternative until it finally shuts completely down, but I’m hoping, like Marco Arment, that this will maybe usher in a new era of innovation for RSS. Maybe the death of the 800 pound gorilla who killed all other RSS readers will allow others to come in and really spread their wings.

Alright, that last sentence was terrible. Forgive me.

On the bright side, this is one less thing I will be relying on Google for. This really just leaves Google Talk and Google Docs/Drive as the only services Google provides that I could not easily go elsewhere for.

Maybe they will be replaced in the future … or Google will just decide to kill them off for me.

Categories
Life

Optimizing for the Maximum

As my wife and I ate our dinner tonight on one of those rare Date Nights you receive when you have two young children we talked a little about what a person might optimize their life for.

Well, that wasn’t exactly what the discussion was about at first. First, we were talking about the size of our house and the size of the house a friend of ours is thinking of purchasing. It was a discussion we had undertaken when we were contemplating purchasing our first (and current) house, and it comes up every now and then when we think of the future of our family.

What do you optimize your life for?

What should you optimize your life for?

I have no clue about the latter question for a single person needs to think through that one on their own and make a decision based on too many factors for me to even begin to contemplate.

It does seem that as a society we’ve decided to optimize for the maximum. Parking lots are built with the idea of what the maximum occupancy might be for a store. Houses are purchased with the thought of when a person might have the most amount of company over. Vehicles are acquired with the thought of what the maximum possible load might be that you would maybe need to carry.

Taking the example of purchasing a home and then looking at it from our own perspective a little, we came up with the number of maybe having people staying with us a total of 10 nights (maybe a few more or a few less). 10 nights out of a possible 364 or 365 nights of a year.

Or to put it differently, less than 3% of a given year you are at maximum.

I’m not going to pass judgement on anyone because, obviously, I don’t have all of the answers or even know all of the questions to ask. However, looking at that, is optimizing for the 3% the best use of resources? What if we instead tried to optimize for the 97% portion of our lives, what would that look like? What compromises would maybe be made if we would choose other benchmarks to judge a purchase or choice by than the maximum?

Like I said, I don’t know, but I like to think.

Categories
Business Life

Taking Pride in Local

I’m not ashamed to say it, but I am unreasonably excited about the possible $6,000,000 expansion (New Ulm Journal link) August Schell Brewing Company of New Ulm is planning on undertaking over the next couple of years.

August Schell Brewing Commpany

Why am I excited about the possibility of a brewery expanding from 130,000 barrels per year to 230,000 barrels per year capacity? I don’t work there. I don’t even know personally many people who have ties with the brewery.

However, it IS local.

Local is vitally important because local is what you see, what you feel, what you touch, what you can intimately know because of its proximity.

For me, that is more true than anything because New Ulm is the city I was born and raised in (nearby really, living on a farm you don’t really get to live IN a city) and now spend time raising a family as well. Old, very old, and established companies talking multi-million dollar expansions is at least a signal for a future in a small town when the outside world might want to write us off.

Taking pride in what is local also provides plain support for the people who are here, the people who are a part of this community, and the people who you are raising your kids with. You don’t necessarily have to have anything to DO with it, but just being excited about it and sharing it with other people is something, albeit a small something, but something.

One thing my family likes to do during the one-third of the year you can be outdoors in Minnesota is to take long walks downtown. It is a good experience to get out and walk around the town and see what is happening not just in your neighborhood, but in the whole of the city as well. You get a better feel for what is LOCAL. If you don’t get out there, you might miss some amazing things happening around you every single day.

As example of that in New Ulm is The Grand. Right now it is also undergoing an expansive remodel to turn the oldest hotel in New Ulm into a home for the arts in the area. It features live music, wine tasting, and a very unique eating experience for South-Central Minnesota.

However, you probably would miss it if you were not told about it by someone who has visited or take the time to really take a good long look at what is around you. It has no flashy sign but it contains the things you would want to find for a place to sit down and relax.

If I do restart New Ulm Wiki (which is currently offline), it will be to have tool to show off what is local to New Ulm because I can’t help but think we are missing a lot by rushing through life.

Categories
Life Technology

iOS Bible Applications

One habit I let go of after college has been reading the Bible, just myself, every day. I had my Bible on the shelf right  next to my bed and would spend about fifteen minutes reading a section of scripture before I would go to sleep.

It helped to ground me and center me.

Sadly, I let that habit fall away and even though we do family devotions every night with our sons, I have let my own personal Bible reading fall by the wayside.

So I’ve been looking at Bible apps on the iOS App Store not because I think it will be some magic bullet to get me to read the Bible more (there is still something wonderful about the tactile nature of a real printed page), but because I thought it would be beneficial t know what is out there and see if it could help in some small way to get a good habit started again.

So I have looked at two different apps and found them both to be pretty good.

Both of them fulfill the requirement of allowing you to have the Bible on your iOS device with or without a network connection. Both are also free. In that sense, you really can’t go wrong with either one.

However, I do find both lacking in some areas.

ESV Bible

ESV Bible App

As the name implies, it is simply the ESV (English Standard Version) translation of the Bible for iOS. I won’t get into translations, but if you are looking to have multiple translations available, you are going to want to look elsewhere.

The reading experience in this app is quite good. Navigation is also simple and straight forward. Overall, a very good app, if someone minimal, and a great choice is the ESV translation alone will suffice.

Bible

Bible App

Bible is another good application. While the reading experience (in my opinion) is not as good (too much chrome for my liking), and navigation can be a little cumbersome (small tap targets on individual drop downs), it has some major benefits over the ESV Bible app.

The most notable is that you have access to a number of translations, including the ESV translation. You can view the translation online or download it to your devices so that you can view it both more smoothly and without a network connection. I currently have the King James Version, English Standard Version, and the Holman Christian Standard Bible downloaded on both my iPhone and iPad and enjoy reading sections in all three to see the language differences.

You can sign up for a YouVersion account in the app to sync notes and activities and also view notes on passages made by others readers.

The big thing for me is that you can subscribe to Plans to help you choose what to read on a given day. I’ve started “The Bible in a Year” plan and I’m hoping to complete it by this time next year and then maybe move onto some more topical plans. It is nice to take away the excuse of not knowing which section of scripture to read in a given night and just tap to the next area and read.

It takes away some of the Old Adam that can get in the way.

Conclusion

As you can guess, I’m using the Bible app as my Bible application for the moment. The benefits of a YouVersion account coupled with plans is enough to overtake the somewhat mixed reading experience of the app itself. Along with multiple translations, it is the one app I would recommend to anyone on almost any platform.

Like I said, this is no magic bullet, but it is something to keep me a little more honest with my Bible reading habits.