Sword Saints

In need of convergence

I've fallen into digital overload. I've got Flickr and Picasa pages for pictures, YouTube and Vimeo pages for videos, Facebook as kind of aggregator for everything, a Twitter account, and this (tumbleweeds and crickets) TypePad site. Then I decided to add a Posterous site for ease of crossposting things like pics and videos of the kids to the various other sites. And finally I went ahead and added a (currently unused) TypePad Micro site to the mix.

I like Posterous for the one-post-goes-everywhere thing. But it's become just one more site to manage. I kind of like the idea of TypePad Micro (post-by-email, Twitter and Facebook integration) as a way of coming back to TypePad. I can post videos there, but it leaves YouTube and Vimeo out in the cold. (EDIT: I can post videos, but it doesn't automatically embed them. Advantage, Posterous.)

So, a question for all you friends and family who want to watch the kids grow up: what is going to work best for YOU? And a question for the digerati: any advice on how best to converge?

Feed me, Seymour

I obviously don't take the time to post, but I frequently run across stuff that I like. Interested? Then here's my Google Reader Shared Items. Hm. Maybe I should put a feed in the sidebar, too.

Technobabble

I'm happy to report that the post Halloween party hard drive transplant seems to have fixed my PowerBook woes. The patient made a full recovery over the weekend and is happily backing up to the TIme Machine again. And that was just in time for NaNoWriMo, too! My battery's sitting at 60% of its original capacity, alas, but that's what the power plug is for.

On the even more portable side of things, I finally broke down and paid for an iPhone application: Classics. At $2.99 it's an utter steal. Slick and snappy interface, great books, very usable. If you're a fan of classic literature, go and grab it!

Speaking of NaNoWriMo and books, I'm way behind already. On a positive note, I was expecting that to be the case. The X360 is still out for repair, so it's not like I'm being distracted by games or movies or all that. It's just that right now the only thing I can cut into for writing time is sleep, and there's only so much of that I'm willing and able to sacrifice. I'll keep plugging away at it, though, if only for the discipline of writing a little bit every day.

Catch up on the classics

Are you subscribed to The Classic Tales Podcast? Do you need the iTunes link? You can get the last four episodes for free in the iTunes feed, and three of those four are an unabridged recording of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. The rest of the back catalog is available on the cheap at Audible.com (do a narrator search for B. J. Harrison). It is the single best story podcast I've found for both quality and story selection. Go on, get downloading already.

Rant

I am not Floyd, and I do not want Dish Network. Since getting the iPhone I've gotten at least one call a day from 866-659-3474. I've answered three times, and every time they ask for Floyd. The first time they hung up. The second time I answered the man on the other end said, "Well, since I have you on the line, would you like to hear about the offers from Dish Network?" After that I ignored the phone when I saw that number, until today.

I was strolling through Target with the lad when another call from them came in. It was good that we were in public, as it forced me to be somewhat more civil: "Look, I'm not Floyd. This number has never belonged to anyone named Floyd. You say someone named Floyd entered this number for more information on Dish Network? You and I both know that that is at best a half-truth and at worst an outright lie. Cut the bulshytt and do not call me again, EVER. I do not want your dish, and I will inveigh against it and your sleazy underhanded sales tactics any chance I get. Good day!"

And let it be noted that in the ten years I have had this number I received exactly no telemarketing or sales calls. Not one. In the week since we've ported our numbers to AT&T I've had almost a dozen, from several different numbers. Advantage: T-Mobile.

(Just to be on the safe side, I put the mobile numbers in the Do Not Call registry.)

Switch (again)

Our mobile contract has expired, and the time has come to switch providers and get his 'n hers iPhones ... and sign another mobile contract. (Mobile contracts annoy me. Provide good service and I won't want to switch to another provider. Simple, eh? I'd have stuck with T-Mobile without a contract because I always had good service with them. Pity they didn't pick up the iPhone.) But, we've switched just about everything else to Apple in the past four years or so, so why not the mobile phones computing platforms?

I've started collecting some of the more highly recommended free apps for the inevitable arrival. There's an even dozen waiting to sync:

• Air Sharing: Document viewing on the iPhone. Free for a limited time. Can't wait to try it out!
• Aurora Feint The Beginning: Recommended as a fun diversion.
• Evernote: Remember Everything. I haven't used it a whole lot yet, other than the web-based version. Figure it's worth a try for the iPhone.
• Facebook: I know, I don't do a whole lot with Facebook at the moment. Maybe that'll change with the iPhone. Maybe.
• Last.fm: I have a profile, and I scrobble, so I figured it'd be worth a download.
• LinkedIn: Facebook for professionals. Yeah, I don't do a lot there, either, but it's free.
• Pandora Radio: Pandora is all kinds of awesome. Portable streaming radio? OK.
• Remote: Use the iPhone as a remote control for the iMac. Cool.
• Twitterriffic: The free version has infrequent ads, but it's been my favorite Twitter client on the iMac.
• TypePad: Home of Sword Saints. I've been using ecto on the Mac, but I'll gladly give the TypePad app a try.
• Zenbe Lists: Sounds like a great way to take to-do lists (grocery, hardware store, whatever) with me.
• 1Password: I got this for the Mac as part of the MacHeist bundle and quite like it. Hopefully the iPhone version will work just as well.

I'm also realizing that my music library is entirely too big for the iPhone (I've been used to having 60 GB of space to play with), so I've been paring down the music and video libraries to the essentials.

Saturday is iPhone Day (late birthday presents for both of us). Should be fun!

Thursday freebies

I love free stuff. Especially good free stuff.

First there's NoiseTrade.com. Tell three friends, legally download CDs from indie artists for free. Or download without spamming your friends with a "name your price" model. Bonus: a new EP from Sixpence None The Richer.

And the free audiobook of the month of July at ChristianAudio.com is Brother Lawrence's "The Practice of the Presence of God." Good stuff, go and get it.

Gonna be a long wait

Two downloads for Tuesday

Mozilla Firefox has reached version 3.0. Combined with the new and improved del.icio.us plugin it's browsing bliss, and fast enough even on the ancient PowerBook. It's the best browser out there, in my opinion.

Coldplay's Viva La Vida is out. On my second listen. I like it, though not as much as X & Y (yet). Available at Amazon or iTunes (link opens in iTunes) for immediate download.

Found while lost

A few quick bits before the weekend rears up again. I don't know how it got to be Friday already, but I'm certainly looking forward to sleeping late tomorrow.

First off, Justin Taylor posts that John Piper's new book, What Jesus Demands From The World, is freely available as a PDF download. I'm more inclined to spend the $13 and buy the "real" book, but for those who can't afford it or prefer to have something more portable, this is really slick. (Why can't we display PDFs on iPods yet? And why can't we import PDFs into MacSword? Huh? Huh? How come?)

Next up, Google offers a great upgrade to the user interface for Google Reader, their online RSS tool. I never liked the "river of news items" in the original UI, which kept me from using it for any length of time. It's usable enough now that I'm switching back to Firefox from Flock (it was the integrated news reader that moved me toward Flock in the first place). Oh, and Google Reader supposedly works with Safari as well. Bonus.

Finally, if you're wondering about the poster from earlier in the week, it was made with one of fd's flickr toys. I'm particularly fond of the motivational poster. And yes, that movie poster was made from an actual ultrasound photo of the head and hands of The Baby (or Third Bear, if you prefer) Dolas. Coming soon!

Technorati Tags: Firefox, Flock, Google, Google Reader, John Piper