Logos Bible Software is giving away thousands of dollars of prizes to celebrate the launch of Logos Bible Software 4 Mac on October 1. Prizes include an iMac, a MacBook Pro, an iPad, an iPod Touch, and more than 100 other prizes!
They’re also having a special limited-time sale on their Mac and PC base packages and upgrades. Check it out!
For my birthday, my wife decided to splurge and get me the latest object of my interest.
An iPad.
I must say, this is quit an amazing tool. That’s how I like to view computers and their brethren, as tools. They cost too much and I use them and gladly put them down when done to think of them as anything else. They are certainly not toys as some might insist.
Nevertheless, it should be pointed how I plan on using this new tool. Well, it immediately relegate my MacBook Pro to development. And other processor intensive duties. Is this. Good idea given my purchase of this expensive laptop? I think so. Every tool has it’s use and I plan on using my laptop and pad when the job suits me. (The fact I am fortunate to have both is not lost on me.)
In addition, I will use it to conduct my Sunday School lessons for the youth group. It will be much easier to carry this into class instead of my laptop. Whoo hoo!
Finally, I will teach my kids to use it. They immediately wanted to play with me at the Apple store when I showed them what it could do. My son and I played “air hockey” and then I showed my daughter the Dora the Explorer paint app. They were hooked.
I’ll update often how this new experience feels for someone who has transitioned from multiple desktop systems, to a laptop and finally, a pad device. Technology is truly advancing, even within my short lifetime.
I just read this article about “More teens becoming ‘fake’ Christians”. As a youth minister, I couldn’t disagree more. We aren’t raising “fake Christians”. Most kids can handle both substantive and deep conversations about salvation, Christ and God. Few of them want watered down recitations of our faith. The fact most youth want to help make the world a better place should be used to help them understand this facet of our beliefs. Youth ministers and members of the congregation should feel comfortable telling the truths about Christianity to kids with little fear they are unable to digest superficial meaning.
While they may not be able to delve too deep without additional help, that is really the case for all new members of Christianity. Trust them with the truth and don’t be surprised when they grow up and lead the church with a fuller understanding of our mission as Christians.
I recently me with our new vicar about the church website. Since he had his own ideas about what we should put up, we had much to discuss. To that end, we decided, among other changes, to re-brand our church website. Not just a new template, but also a new domain. If you have ever done something like this, it can be frightening to those unaware of the technical changes. For those comfortable with editing BIND files, its just an edit, reload and you’re on your way.
I admit, before today, I had never heard of a Local Shared Object (LSO). But, once I read about them on ArsTechnica (Ad firm sued for allegedly re-creating deleted cookies), I took their advice and installed the Better Privacy plugin for Mozilla Firefox.
Why would anyone intentionally make it hard (or essentially impossible) for average non-techies to delete these cookies is beyond me. Most folks are afraid of doing business on the Internet for just this reason. What is to prevent an unscrupulous website from saving much more personal information? Nothing.
Once of the first questions I receive from folks when they learn what I do for a living is, “I want to setup a website for my self/business/ministry, but it looks too hard. Can you do it?”. My typical response is, yes, I will help. It’s really not hard to setup websites these days and you have a plethora of options.
I can vouch for Joomla (personal favorite) and Drupal as fine CMS options with a large, active developer base. I also use WordPress for this blog and have been very pleased. No matter how you slice it, options abound.
It appears as though Apple has made it even easier to get into the self-publishing game. According to MacRumors, the just released update to Pages will allow users to export files to the ePub format. This is a welcome addition to any writer’s toolset. Now, instead of using InDesign CS5 or some unknown upload service, you can write, edit and create your own iBooks compatible ePub documents. Bravo Apple!
It looks like someone has 1) lots of time and 2) lots of imagination. Enjoy.
I just read the latest post from a self-styled newbie book writer and found his thoughts interesting (Changing Face of Publishing). While I can’t comment from his perspective, I can certainly offer my thoughts as a book reader. He believes the new electronic publishing wave will eventually eclipse traditional paper printing.
I wouldn’t say so.
From my perspective, the reason traditional books are suffering a lag in sales is because most folks (even voracious readers) consider the price of new books to be too high. $29.99 for hardback or wait until next year and pay $19.99 for paperback. Still a lot of money when you consider the monthly $100 cable and $50 Internet bills. Add to that the growth of pad devices after you have purchased a gaming console and most families today do not want to spend more money on entertainment. We live in a fast paced world. Personal time needed for reading is scarce and precious. If you have kids like I do, your reading time will be limited to late evening and very early mornings (read post below). When you consider the time and expense of reading a book, it’s just easier to do something else.
I assume we’ll eventually reach some compromise that allows us to have both paper and electronic formats of books. You can’t lend or check out electronic books, but they can be distributed cheaper. Once publishers make their peace with the market’s desire for lower prices, we may move in that direction. Unless that happens, we will continue to see a volatile electronic marketplace struggling to carve our space.
We woke up early this morning in order to get the kids ready for school. Overnight, I had already woken up to my daughter crying to go to the bathroom. While she can go by herself, we have been forced to put an alarm on her door so she can not get out at night. She tends to go into the kitchen, eat food, climb up on things and generally gets into things that are not allowed. We don’t like the solution, but have been unable to solve the problem.
Anyway, back to today. After the late night potty visit, my daughter also decided to open her backpack during the night and get into her new crayons and glue. We also had to restrict these items under normal circumstances due to her insistence that walls and furniture can take the place of drawing paper. We are still waiting for the budding Picasso in our midst to accepts our terms regarding the proper use of note paper vs. furniture as writing surfaces.
This morning, my wife got the oldest two dressed while I took care of the baby. He was in a good mood, which I appreciated. Lately, it’s been hit or miss whether Nacho or Mr. Hyde would show up.
My wife got the kids to school and I dropped off Nacho at daycare. The year’s first drop off was successfully accomplished. Let’s see how this afternoon’s pickup will go.
