Posted by jeremyscheller | 2 Comments

Time Capsule

Time Capsule will be my new wireless network at home. It will also be the first layer back-up for the family photos, the music library, and all those Redwire Files that are just waiting to be zapped by a hard drive crash. Still need some redundancy and offsite back-up, but I’m excited about this first layer being accomplished with the style and intuitive usability of an Apple product.

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I've been re-thinking the kindle

I have previously bashed the Amazon Kindle as being “not quite there yet.”

Basically, when the Kindle first came out, I wasn’t for it. But, I’ve been reading a lot of thick heavy hardcover books lately. I’d love to have a lightweight handheld device to read on. I just think the kindle still needs a design overhaul. It’s simply not elegant. I don’t buy a lot of tech products, mostly because I can’t afford to, but when I do, I revert to Apple products every time. The products look superior and generally run the way I want them to. 

I wish Amazon would change the look, modify some of the quirky buttons and give it a new ad campaign. Then, I think I would be in. And I would use it all the time. (oh, and cut the price, or give me 10 free books with my $359 device)

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Grab up – Amazing Screen Shot Software

I saw this software over at The Apple Blog.

Grab up is a Screen Shot software that allows you to take a screenshot, upload it to the grab up server and get a url within a matter of 3 seconds. I love this. 

Here’s my first screenshot as I was working on a refresh of the logo for our Youth Ministry:

This is incredible. I will start using this for customer proofs right away…I can’t believe how simple it is.

Posted by jeremyscheller | 4 Comments

$12 (+ a Nintendo Wii) Interactive Whiteboard

This dude is ridiculous.
Hot. You could actually have some real world use with this now that Apple iPhoto is running in multi-touch (though, I don’t know if Johnny is mac-ready).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ&hl=en]

Johnny Lee

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Starting a fire under kindle sales…

The Amazon Kindle© (which, I’ve previously bashed here before) is growing with potential in my mind. I’ve recently gotten into audio books. I wonder if I could get into the ebooks?

I like that it is a wifi device, so you can browse the net, look at blogs, and listen to audio through it.

So far, the problem with Amazon’s business model with the kindle is the lack of ability to get it in my hands.

Ebooks have been the promise of the future for a long time. Unlike the ipod though, I can’t take it for a test run. I can’t sit in an Apple Store or Target or Best Buy and give it a go…I’m not spending $400 on a device that I can’t get into my hands and take a test drive first.

So, as brilliant as Amazon has been at creating the online marketplace, they have missed the mark so far with this one. I just don’t think you can create a revolutionary hand-held device and not give people a way to get it in their hands…

Eventually, Apple will release a device that makes this look like a piece of plastic nonsense.

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I think LoudTwitter

is too loud for me. I’m out.

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The ups and few downs of Keynote.

I hate sounding like an Apple fanboy all the time, but it’s hard when you’ve worked on both sides and can easily see the advantage of the Apple experience. I don’t usually have to do much in Power Point, but when I do, I hate it.  

Today, I had to throw together a “state of the church” slideshow for a meeting on Sunday. I decided to use Keynote instead of Power Point. 

Wow. What a better user experience. Almost everything is easier in Keynote than on PP. Apple did a great job. I’m using one of their built in templates. When it came down to making a chart, I could believe how simple they made it. It was also so easy to make it look professional, that I didn’t even try to “design” a slideshow, I just used the template.

Ups:

• Fast
• Intuitive
• Clean and Uncluttered
• Puts the polish on for me
• Nice built in templates
• Animation is a hundred times easier on Keynote than PP
• Font consistency. A dream come true. PP is always trying to resize things

Downs:

• Still not crazy about how Apple deals with the font pallet. It seems clunky for the most widely used tool in the program.
• Floating pallets are still a clutter factor when you have 5 of them open and they don’t lock into a position. 

Posted by jeremyscheller | 2 Comments

2008 – Get ready, or eat Sanctuary's dust.

Things that are happening at Sanctuary this year:

1.  We launched Love Minneapolis. A place for people to “just show up and serve.” There’s been two events and already we’re extending far beyond our doors. 
2. We have a series of Amazing Hip Hop Sunday’s featuring the 3 of the hottest acts in Hip Hop. Starting this weekend with The Ambassador also of Cross Movement. This guy is amazing. The real deal. Not “Christian Hip Hop,” but Hip Hop that’s Christian. We can’t advertise it, because we already know that there won’t be any open seats unless the temps drop below 0 again. Soon to come Phil Jackson and his crew from Tha House. Urban D and others from Crossover Church (#21).
3. We’re adding another service. We’ve been maxed at 1000 for a long time. It’s time to open the doors a little earlier. I’m betting we’ll double in size this year.
4. Efrem will be speaking somewhere that might shine a bit of a spotlight on what we’re doing.
5. We’re tightening the belt. We’re moving to a new office. We’ll start a capitol campaign for our first semi-permanent facility. 

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Leopard Feature Love Update: Quicklook is changing my productivity level.

On the days when I’m a designer, I’m in Adobe Illustrator all day long. Until now, finding the exact version of a file I want has been somewhat cumbersome. With this Quicklook Plugin for Illustrator, it’s a breeze.  Now I cruise along finding things more efficiently…because I can see inside all of these files without ever opening Illustrator…Sweet!  

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It's about time. Office for Mac 2008.

Ars Technica has a first look review of the new Microsoft Office for Mac 2008.

I’m oddly excited about this. Everyone knows I’m an Apple Fanboy, and I love Pages, I’m just not so keen on Numbers.  Overall though, Microsoft has done something smart with their Mac line of products for years…Office for Windows and Office for Mac are developed separately. Not that they aren’t talking and including similar features, but if you’ve been on both platforms, you would recognize that some features (Mail Merge for one) have been much easier and more robust on the Mac for years.

The not so smart thing that Microsoft did, was they didn’t talk internally about cross-platform compatibility. They released the Office for Windows update last year, with no compatibility on the Mac for the .docx file format. — Not so brilliant.  

Anywho…it really looks like this is a huge upgrade and extremely well designed from a Mac perspective.

Can’t wait to get my hands on it…should be available at Macworld next week or sometime in January…