Category: Technology

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 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.

Categories
Business Technology

Change from Within

Nate Beran writes about how it is time for IT to start trying to change business from within. I have to say that I agree.

Changes

This is where companies are going to rise or fall. When there is a partnership between IT and the business, big things will happen because IT does not have all of the answers … but IT does have some different answers or at least some different questions.

The future is coming.

Categories
Technology

OpenVPN on iOS

OpenVPN Connect was released for iOS recently (January 17, 2013) … and I completely missed it.

OpenVPN Logo

I’m not sure how many people will be excited by this, but I know I am one. While the app won’t win any awards for design, it does do one thing really well:

It allows you to connect your iOS device to connect via VPN if you are using OpenVPN in your organization!

You have been able to do this in the past if you were willing to jailbreak your device, but I am unwilling to do that. However, now I don’t have to and it works really well. I am hoping that this will  mean I won’t need to take a laptop with me on some shorter trips just to handle any emergencies that pop up while I am away.

I’ll just connect via our OpenVPN server and then administrate on the servers from the comfort of my iPhone or iPad.

Not bad.

Categories
Life Technology

A Year of Podcasting

I probably should have written this up earlier, but I’ll go ahead and toss it up now because … well … I’m lazy.

TOP Logo

Over a year ago my friend, Phil Wels, and I started a podcast called This One Podcast. I just posted Episode 55: Unjump the Shark and it is crazy to think we have 55 episodes out there for the world to listen to.

Frightening because we keep doing it and we still have no idea what we are going.

We’ve added another host, Jonas Leyrer, and have also upped the quality of the program’s audio by having Phil handle the editing. He has a lot more experience than I do and I think he’s done an admirable job handling out audio that we toss at him.

We have also been working with a multiple-Skype setup recently to see if we would be able to centralize the recording at a single station where the mixing can happen instead of each of us recording out own audio and then sending it, via Dropbox, to Phil where he needs to import it into his editing program of choice (I think either Garageband or Pro Tools) where he can edit things for us.

I’m using a Blue Snowball microphone for most of my recording and it has worked very well. I would like to purchase something a little more “high end” in the future, but money is too tight for that right now.

The hardest thing for us has been keeping the topics lively, especially because we need to record in the evening when we have all put in a full day of work. While every show hasn’t been phenomenal, we continue to record because it is fun to get together with your friends and see where things go.

If you are considering trying out your own podcast here are my recommendations:

  • Start with what you have because you can always get something better. If you have a microphone on-hand, just go for it.
  • Amazon S3 has been really nice for hosting the files. I don’t have to worry about transfer speeds  because that is on Amazon and using Transmit, from Panic, to upload the files couldn’t be easier. The only problem is that I haven’t been able to figure out how to let Phil also upload the files.
  • If there is more than one host, just try out having each person record their own audio and then mixing it together in Audacity or Garageband. You don’t need to get too fancy.
  • Download Levelator and use it.
  • Keep at it. Set a schedule and keep to it as best as you can.

I don’t have any affiliate links or anything because this is mostly a brain dump. I’m hoping, though, that within the year I’ll be posting about Episode 100 and the delicious cake my wife is going to bake for us.