mbjones

• Pat Robertson is always in the news and it never seems to be good. This is horrible actually. Raising tons of money for refugee work, and funneling it into a diamond mining venture? I hope this gets the attention that it deserves.
• Like webcomics? This one is pretty good, consistently. It's faith based, so keep that in mind. I particularly like the one linked (although its not "haha" funny).
• I've had my eyes on Kenya since deciding to move there. Accordingly, I found this short article to be interesting: Kenya is developing their own Goth subculture.
• iOS 7 is out! Check out this article For some of the finer details, tips & tricks.
• It's hard not to like the blog of Jaime (the very worst missionary). Here, she discusses openly and honestly a recent trip with WorldVision. It's a worthwhile read that looks at the good and the bad.
• Midlake is one of my favorites and they have new music coming out!
• I'm a bit impressed with this dialect survey. It pegged my dialect as most similar to Norman, OK (where I spent 10 formative years). And that's without telling "it" I'd ever been there, and that I currently live in South Africa.

• Found this to be a helpful post on eating well in the midst of poverty. There are simple things to do that go miles.

• eBible.com is under new ownership, and launched a new version. It would seem they are looking to compete with YouVersion.

• Neoliberal economic theory, and it’s grip on American Politics is something I’ve found disturbing over the past few years. This is a pretty good article on it (and some of the reasons why I’m not much of a fan).

• In the web-startup-world, Lanbito appears to be an interesting competitor to Wufoo. Like the pricing, but don’t yet like the feature list. Add some things, and I’d consider migrating over.

• If you are on facebook, then you’ve at least heard tell of a the forthcoming changes. Here’s a good round up of what to expect. It doesn’t appear that they are changing pages much yet, just profiles (this is important if you are managing several).

Well this seems like a good enough roundup for now. Hopefully you can find some good reading material there!

To give examples of what I mean, before I stepped into my role there was little in the way of a data backup plan (this still needs work), contacts are stored in an old physical book that is following apart, and any time a mass email is sent out everyone scrambles to find all of the addresses to send to.

There are other issues that need dealing with as well — this is just a sampling — but it (hopefully) gives you an idea of why SaaS is a serious consideration.

In the search for tools to use I’ve gotten to experiment with a lot and so thought I’d start a series reviewing them from the perspective of a small non-profit working in Africa. This might give a bit of a different review than typically written as multiple factors will come into play:

• Ease of use for non-westerners and those for whom English is not their primary language.
• Price, which is very important for a non-profit with little operating budget.
• Access speed locally in Africa (and along with this, reliance on bandwidth heavy images).
• Does it solve an issue we have in a way that we would (does the tool fit our needs or are we trying to fit the tool to our needs?)?

These are a smattering of the questions that I have to ask before considering presenting a tool to our leadership. Hopefully you’ll find these reviews interesting and, if you are the developer(s) or owner(s), you won’t take offense if we don’t like your app due to our unique circumstances.

I thought I’d followup my Must Have iPhone Apps post with a mac version.

• Accordance — It may not be the prettiest but this is the best Bible software on the mac. It does everything you need — notes, highlights, word search, passage/translation correlations, deep searches, etc. Using this, I’m able to highlight and annotate the Bible to my hearts content, making it the perfect decentralized journal.

• Safari — You’ve got to browse the web with something. I keep wanting to go with a different browser but Safari is the best looking and easiest for me to use; after a day or two or five, I always come back to it.

• iTunes — I listen to a lot of music so music management is necessary. This app does it best on the mac. I don’t think it needs much more explanation.

• Adium — Chat software is a must in my job as a system administrator. It’s an easy way to keep in contact with co-workers and others that might be experiencing problems. As we don’t have a centralized chat service, it’s necessary to have a client that will allow me to connect to everything without a ton of windows. It’s fully themeable (contact list and chat windows) and keeps detailed logs (which comes in handy more often than you’d think). Skip iChat and check Adium out if you do any chatting.

• Tweetie — This is “must have” because it’s a twitter client and its just so nice to microblog the day (and keep up with others doing the same). I’m not convinced that this is the one I’d settle on in the long one. I’ve tried it, Twitterific, TweetDeck, SeismicDesktop and others not worth mentioning; of these Tweetie is the best for me so far. You should consider the others as well if you are looking for a twitter client.

• TextMate — This is a text editor and so much more. I use it daily — all of my blogs are written here, daily notes are written here, random bits of info are collected here and even coding is done here. It has an extensive bundle system that extends functionality (converting Markdown into HTML, highlighting code and turning a text document into a wiki are just 3 examples). I say it is a must have, even though it’s not free.

• Terminal — Another built in app and another must for sysadmins. It’s the command line interface that not only allows you insight into the inner workings of your computer but allows you to easily connect to other systems to do administrative tasks. It’s another daily use app.

• Espresso — This app is new on my radar. I used to use Coda for web development but am really impressed by Espresso. It feels lighter, but is just as powerful, still doing everything that Coda did.

• Dropbox — 2 GB of free for online backups (with paid upgrades that aren’t exorbitantly expensive). It autosyncs all of your machines and allows access online. It’s super easy to share folders and files with friends too. All in all, Dropbox is the best that I’ve seen in this genre of app.

• Calibre — This program became necessary as my pdf library increased and I found myself with mobile devices (kindle and iPhone) that worked as ereaders. It allows for as seamless as you can get conversions from one format to another and easy transfer to external devices. It’s also open source and multi-platform. If ebooks are something you care about, this is the software to check out.

• DaisyDisk — This is a slick app that’s often handy in basic computer tuning exercises. It graphical gives you a look at all of the files on your machine, allowing you to visualize the amount of space they take up. It makes identifying run away log files or those old home videos you’d thought you’d archived easy so that you can reclaim the space.

• DateLine — DateLine is simple in its function: it provides a calendar that sits on top of your desktop, as a line, and distinguishes the current day so that you always know the date. Visually it’s stunning in its simplicity and its utility is well worth the download.

• DrawIt — For professional design work, Adobe products tend to be the standard. They are expensive and have a steep learning curve for non professionals though. Thankfully, there are some very rich, easy to use and independent design apps out there for the mac. This is my favorite. It focuses on vector based designs and is incredibly handy in making quick design mockups for web sites and other such things. As an added bonus — it won’t break the bank either!

• LightZone — This is another graphic app, focused on photography rather than vector based design. It’s easy to use and quite powerful. Less expensive than a lot of the competition makes it a good choice to get your photo editing needs done.

• Pixelmator — While LightZone focuses solely on photo editing, Pixelmator will do any other bitmapped based editing, making it comparable to (but not yet as powerful as) Adobe Photoshop. If you need something cheap and relatively easy to use, check it out!

• Scrivener — Scrivener is one of those hidden gems. It’s a writing tool designed specifically for screenwriting but has application beyond that. I use it as a collection place for topical notes and scripture thoughts and discussion. Often longer essays will be formulated in this app first. One if its bonuses as well is a full screen mode (the word processor becomes the screen, hiding all other open programs, including the dock and taskbar). If you do much writing, you really should check it out.

• VirtualBox — Sometimes you need to be able to run another operating system without new hardware or without rebooting your machine. Virtualization software allows you to do this from within your running OS. VirtualBox is Sun’s, and it is open source (read: free) and on par with the apps you’d normally have to pay to use. I run both a windows VM and a linux VM without issue on it. If this is something you need to do — check it out before spending your money.

And there you have it — a good list of apps to check out. A lot of these are freely available, but not all. Most of the commercial ones though have demos and should still be considered if they solve a problem you currently have. Suggestions about other apps to look at or opinions about the ones mentioned? Leave them in the comments!

A friend that has an iPhone on the way recently asked me what my “must have” applications were. I thought about it for a minute and he mentioned blogging it. Thinking that was a good idea, I made a list of my must haves, and then a few that I’m watching with anticipation. Note: The following are in no particular order.

• YouVersion Bible — Right now, this is the best iPhone Bible application. It’s fairly straight forward and easy to use and allows for bookmarks (and emailing and tweeting verses). And the killer feature: downloadable translations so that I don’t have to have a network connection to access the Bible. It comes in handy in church, on the bus, or really anywhere I might be and puts about every translation at your fingertips.

• Flixster Movies — You got to have a movies app if you love going to the theater. My wife and I do, and if we are out and about, this app will quickly tell us the near by theaters, what’s playing at them (and when), and even give links to buy online on the phone. It’s quite convenient — you won’t have to worry about missing a movie again (or ending up at a theater only to find that your movie isn’t playing or is sold out).

• Amazon Kindle/Stanza — An ebook reader is another good thing to have for those times when you are stuck on an elevator or in a meeting that doesn’t relate to what you do. There are a plethora of free ebooks out their and software like Calibre will let you convert any document (or ebook) into a format readable by either of these apps. Both allow for bookmarking and notes (a must for a reader like myself). Stanza is more feature rich but the Kindle app is easier to use. Also, if you have a real life kindle, you can sync your libraries wirelessly, which is a bonus (this includes notes and highlights).

• Shazam — This is one of those “fun” apps that you don’t use all the time (but more than you might have thought). It’s a music discovery service that listens to ~30 seconds of whatever might be playing on the radio or stereo of where ever you are, cross references it on the ‘net and comes back with the artist, album and title. It gets it right more often than not (and I’ve even seen it successfully work in loud bar environments). As an added bonus you can “tweet it” if you so desire.

• Facebook — This one only makes sense if you use facebook. It’s a customized mobile interface with much of the features of the webapp. It’s “killer” feature though that makes it a must is the ability to call friends from your friends list if they list their phone number. This has come in handy numerous times as MobileMe had a tendency of randomly deleting phone numbers from my actual address book.

• NPR News — News tends to depress me as the dark, dreary and depressing stuff is generally all that’s reported as its more sensationalistic. But there are events and happenings that are nice to know about, occasionally. I’ve found the NPR app to be the slickest and easiest to use. As a bonus it gives access to some of the cooler shows, like All Songs Considered.

• PicPosterous — This one is really only useful if you use Posterous. This blog runs on it and this app gives me a way to post mobile pics on the move. If you are a Wordpress user, they have an app (as does Tumblr).

• Cartoon Wars — As the name would imply, this is a game. It’s got a pinch of tower defense and a lot of strategy and stick figures. They have a lite version available for free (but the full is totally worth it). It’s one of those games that you start and can spend days on (it autosaves so you can play a level here and a level there) which is a must have feature for someone busy with life and always on the move.

• Tweetie — This is probably my most used app. It’s a standalone twitter client, has lots of features (pic, video, location tweeting, to name a few) and looks nice and works great. It’s fast, is persistent and is the best twitter experience on the iPhone (that I’ve found). It does cost money though.

• TowerMadness Zero — Another game. This one is tower defense and, because its free, is one of the better ones. It’s 3d, has numerous tower and map options (including downloadable maps).

• Dropbox — I use Dropbox to backup my documents and share other such things between computers. This app gives me access to those items directly from my phone, thereby making it quite useful.

• Tripit — TripIt is another webapp I use to keep track of and cleanly organize travel plans. It really works well and I can’t recommend it highly enough. It does a better job than most of the other apps I’ve seen and used — I keep going back to it after seeing and trying others. Anyways, this gives me direct access to my trip information directly on the phone, making it very convenient and incredibly useful while traveling (having access to trip information on my phone saved my and 10 friends butts the first time I went to Cape Town).

There are a few other apps that I’m actively watching development on. They aren’t yet useful enough to me to be “must haves” but they do have future potential. They are:

• Logos — This is a newcomer to the iPhone Bible apps. Currently the only modern translation available is the ESV (which is a great translation but not my preferred). It doesn’t do highlighting/bookmarking yet (that I can tell) and is pretty clunky to use. If you own Logos 4 though it does allow you access to your full library which makes it infinitely more useful; that’s a several hundred dollar investment though and not a viable option to the majority of users.

• Evernote — This app ties you into your Evernote library and allows you to add new notes, as well as view and modify existing. I occasionally use it but find it clunky; I find myself using email or the built in notes app more often than not.

So there you have it — A list to get you started on an iPhone perhaps. All of the above apps are free or cheap so there isn’t any reason not to try them out!