Category: Tech

Stuff I like: LibraryThing.com

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I’m a book junkie. I’ve bought way too many books in my life. I read a lot of them, but some of them I just read a few chapters and then get bored with it. Part of my problem is that I didn’t have a good system in place to keep track of books. That is until recently

A little over a month ago I discovered the website librarything.com. It’s basically a web-based cataloging system for your books. It’s very easy to add books to your library. You simply type in some of the information (title, author, ISBN, etc.) and the site searched Amazon.com, the Library of Congress, or a host of other databases to pull information about the book. It’s very easy and convenient.

To make it even easier you can scan the bar-code of the book and it will automatically add that book to your library. They even sell a cheap bar-code scanner on the site (the failed CueCat from the late 90s). I bought one and was able to catalog over 500 books in a matter of hours. It was great!

My next goal is to get the small groups curriculum of the church catalogged so that I can give leaders a place to go when they are looking for ideas on what to teach their groups. I’ll post a link to that when I make it live.

For now you can check out my library here.

Stuff I Like: WalkJogRun.net

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I just got back from a run tonight that was frustrating. I wasn’t frustrated with my performance, but with my lack of direction. About 20 minutes into the run I realized that I was turned around and at that point I knew that I wasn’t sure how far my run was going to end up being. That’s about when I almost stopped running just to walk the rest of the way. I did walk for about 4-5 minutes, but got moving again when I realized that my body had the capacity to keep going, but my mind wanted to give up because of the frustration.

You see, I like to know how far my runs are going to be before I go. The tool that I like to use is WalkJogRun.net. It’s basically a Google Maps mash-up that lets you plot the route your are going to run/walk based on all the turns you’re going to take. Basically it’s the modern day version of driving around the neighborhood with your car to see how many miles a route is.

The cool part about the service, other than it being free, is that it uses the hybrid view, which lets you see both street names and landmarks. I’ve really enjoyed using it to make up new runs for me to go on. It’s kept me from getting bored with the same old run every day.

Oh, and when I got home, after I cleaned up, I logged back on to see how far I ended up running. It was 3.25 miles, which was .25 further than I planned to go, but not an excessive distance.

Web Business Model: Jott.com update.

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One of my favorite web services, jott.com, which I recently blogged about has come out of beta and has unveiled their pricing plans. I don’t feel like going into the details of their prices, but the basic concept that they have is that there is a free service (ad-supported), a low-price for some basic functionality, and a premium plan with extra features.

This business model seems to be the norm for web startups. Launch as a private beta, build a following of users who fall in love with the service, then come out of beta with different price points. I’m not sure how good of a model it is, but it’s fairly popular so it probably works.

As for me I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to pay for the service. It’s been convenient, but I haven’t been paying yet.

Stuff I Like: Mint.com

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I’ve never been a fan of spending a long time tracking my money. I have not balanced my checkbook in over five years, but I have not once bounced a check or overdrawn my account. Most of this is due to the fact that I’ve been using Quicken for a while.

But I even got tired of using Quicken. My bank doesn’t play well with Quicken, so anytime I wanted to update it I would have to manually download the transactions and import them. I would typically do this for a couple months, but then get tired of doing that. I really needed something automated.

Mint.com has filled that role for me. It’s a free service that makes money through partner ads that are designed to help you get a better interest rate for your savings accounts or credit cards. It’s an incredibly easy service to use that automatically updates all of your accounts that have web access and then gives you a financial snapshot of your money.

I’ve been using it for a few months now and have been very satisfied. If you’re paranoid about online security you’ll probably avoid it, but I’ve read enough reviews from reliable sources to know it’s a legit service. Check it out.

See also: Why Mint works

Stuff I Like: Delicious.com

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There are many times that I come across a website or article online that I find useful and want to be able to find it again later. Early on in my web-surfing days I would simply bookmark it using the built-in tool of Internet Explorer or Firefox. But for the past years I’ve been using the web-based “social-bookmarking” service called delicious.com (formerly del.icio.us).

The initial thing that appealed to me with delicious was the fact that I could easily access my bookmarks from whatever computer (with web access, of course) I was using. This proved to be very valuable, as I was splitting time between my work desktop, personal laptop, and home desktop. Firefox and Internet Explorer have addons to the browser that easily integrates my bookmarks and essentially replaces the built-in bookmarks feature.

Two other features of delicous that I now find useful, but didn’t really utilize at first, are tagging and notes. Tagging a bookmark is entering a one-word description of the link or site that your saving. You can tag a stie with multiple tags, too. What this does is it gives you an easy way to remember something relevant about the site you’re saving and allows you to categorize your bookmarks together, so you can get to multiple related sites quickly. Notes let you write out general ideas about that site or anything else you want to remember. A common usage of this feature is by bloggers who want to start working on a new post, but don’t want to write out the whole thing right then.

What I’ve recently started to find very useful about the site is the social aspect. While I usually go to Google when I want to find something there are times that I want to know what other people are using or finding on a topic. Google tends to give the best, most relevant links based on your searches, but you really don’t know until you go to the link. Delicious, on the other hand, shows you how many people have saved a particular link. You know for certain that a particular site is popular based on how many tags it has.

To get started all you have to do is go on over to the site, start a new account, and then start saving links. You can also import your saved bookmarks/favorites from your local browser, so you’ll be able to get started very quickly. Check out my bookmarks while you’re at it.

See also: Yahoo gives Delicious more speed, fewer punctuation marks

Stuff I like: Jott.com

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One of the most important things to do when you’re trying to be productive is to have an effective and efficient system in place to capture all the ideas you have and actions you need accomplish. David Allen talks about this in his book Getting Things Done, which I’m in the early chapters of reading. For a long time I used my Palm device to do this, but it was limited. If I was driving it was difficult and unsafe to use it and I’ve never been a fan of the note-taking capabilities of the Palm OS or its task management.

In the past year I’ve started using Jott.com. It’s a service that allows you to call their number and it will record what you say, transcribe it for you, and then post it in one of a number of different places. For me, this has been an incredible help. I use it multiple times per week to add things to my task list, capture ideas that come to me, or to set a reminder about something that I need to do later.

The reminders are one of the best features of the service. You call in, say “reminder” and it asks when you want the reminder and a note to attach to it. When that time comes around the service will send you a text message with the brief note.

I’ve found the service to be fairly accurate at transcribing what I say, but not 100%. It doesn’t really bother me that it’s not perfect mainly because it’s a FREE SERVICE!!! You definitely get more than you pay for with Jott. I’d suggest trying it out and if you have any thoughts about it let me know in the comments.

See also: How to Get Things Done with Jott.

Tweet, Tweet: Why I use twitter

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Twitter has gained popularity over the past few years, but still many people have never heard of it. I got into to twitter about a year ago almost by accident. I had heard of it, but really didn’t seem interested at all. That is until I realized that I could add tasks to the new online task management service that I had just started using (more on that in another post).

The basic idea behind twitter is that you simply answer the question, “What are you doing?” It’s very similar to facebook’s status updates. In fact you can have twitter automatically update your status on facebook, too. You can share your thoughts, what you had for lunch, or just random nothingness throughout the day.

When I really started being a frequent user of twitter, many of my facebook friends were wondering why I was updating my status so often. I told that I was using twitter and they basically gave me blank stares. The event that really changed my use of twitter the most was when Emory was born. I decided that I would keep people updated by sending frequent updates via twitter. I figured that would be the easiest and best way to keep everyone informed without having to make a bunch of callas or texts. It turned out to be a really cool experience both for me and for the dozens of people that told me they were following along with my updates.

To get started with twitter just go to the site, sign up, and link your account to your phone (that way you can send updates with text messages). Then find some people to follow. Here’s a few to get you started: me, my older brother, Terry Storch from lifechurch.tv, ESPN, and Mark Lee from Third Day. I also recommend using an application like Twhirl. It’s a much better experience than going to the main website. Also, check out this newbie’s guide to twitter.

I can’t fully nail down why I’m hooked to twitter now, but after using it this long I know I’m hooked. It’s fun and it’s also an outlet for me to post my thoughts that aren’t really long enough for a blog post.

Best Thing About Being a New Dad

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My daughter is now ten weeks old. It’s been an incredible start to her life, so I decided I’d share some of the best things that I can think of about being a dad.

IMG_2446First off, it’s an amazing feeling seeing Emory smile (but really hard to get a good picture of her smiling). I can’t possibly describe the great feeling that it brings to my heart seeing that precious little grin that she gets on her face. It’s amazing.

It’s also amazing to know how unconditionally she trusts me and is intrigued by every last little thing that I do. I know for certain that she loves me, in whatever way a ten week old can.

There are so many other reason that it’s great to be a dad, but that will be another post and I need to go change her diaper.

Useful Free Software

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I’ve recently come across a couple of very useful software programs (for Windows). The first is VideoSpin by Pinnacle. It’s basically a dumbed down version of their commercial Pinnacle Software. The good thing about this program is that it’s freeware. It does all of the basic timeline editing that I need and it handles titles very well. I was looking for a program that could edit mp4 files and this does it. The downside to the program is that to keep using mp4 (or maybe just to export to it) I’ll have to upgrade to the “advanced codecs” for $15. Other than that, I’ve found it to be decent and meet all my basic video editing needs, which I’ll be doing more of when the baby comes. Read Download Squad’s review of VideoSpin here.

videospin screenshot

The other program that I just started using is called DVD Flick. It’s another freeware program that allows you to create basic DVDs that you can either burn to DVD or save as an image file (ISO). It’s very simple to use. All you have to do is drag and drop the video files you want to be on the DVD (maybe that you’ve edited using VideoSpin) and then click “Create DVD.” Check your “Project Settings” first, though, because I think the program was written in Europe, so it defaults to PAL format that won’t work in the USA. Change this to NTSC and you’ll be good to go.

The program separates the video files into separate titles on the disc, which will allow you to skip through the DVD if you have multiple files. One thing it doesn’t have is any way to create DVD menus, which would make it a perfect program if it had this feature. However, if you’re just looking for a quick and easy way to make DVDs to play in a DVD player, this program may be what you’ve been looking for.

dvdflick screenshot

A last piece of software that I’ve found is the Reverse Order Comments plugin for WordPress blogs (like my blog). After uploading and activating the plugin, a simple edit of your theme makes the comments that people make on your posts to appear at the top of the comments section. This is the order order I wanted comments to appear on my blog because I have a couple of posts that have quite a few comments and this makes sure people see the freshest comments first.