Tag Archives: Evernote

7in of Near Perfection

iPad (1st gen) and Amazon Kindle Fire HD

There are just so many new gadgets out there, and for the most part, its a crazier world when it comes to tablets. For those who might have been coming from a PDA or eReader background, the idea of a 10in tablet is wrought with some significant risks (weight, platform lock-in, etc.) alongside the obvious gains. And so the 7in tablet begins to take some root as a potential alternative. From a physical standpoint, we’re talking about something with a bent towards reading (unless you’ve got a Samsung or HTC model with a stylus and those neat styli tricks). From a software perspective, we are mostly talking about Android (I’m still wishing for something solid to come from the Mer/MeeGo camp). And then from a usability and faith end, we get that really interesting ask of how this shape of device fosters a maturing faith perspective and a life lived in light of such perspectives.

I’ve recently purchased a Kindle Fire HD to potentially replace my 1st gen iPad. And while I’ve begun to note some of my impressions about it, I’m not yet completely comfortable giving the KF-HD all the work that I gave my iPad. These are different devices, and not everything that one tablet can do should be done on all others. At least how they have come across so far, the iPad is more of a canvas (you can’t do much until you add the paint of various applications), and the KF-HD is a catalog (the 21st century Sears/JC Penny catalog) – I dig into that distinction some on my personal blog.

Still, I can’t help but thinking that there’s a legitimate space for this size of device, and what we can continue to refine about our understandings about mobile as it relates to faith. For example, a few days ago Mobile Advance asked (via Twitter) something specific towards the Google Nexus 7 tablet for an upcoming African trip. Of note to his question was this ability to utilize a device in a mostly offline context. Here were some of the apps recommended in that conversation stream:

Essentially, these are apps which enable taking a 7in tablet and treating it more like a Moleskine notebook and not just a browser/ebook device. I don’t know that anyone can disagree with that perspective. But, its neat that in a device that is this size, that such a use-case isn’t so far away from normalcy. (And in rethinking about it, I forgot to mention a multi-language dictionary; too many years going online for those moments, whoops)

And besides that, you’ve got to think about how that shifts how you use your mobile device. In my case, having the KF-HD makes me use my smartphone more. I don’t know if its because I haven’t adapted to using it as easily as I have my iPad, or that its just faster to continue on this current workflow by using my N8 (and a recently acquired Lumia 900). I can see how someone who has a laptop and doesn’t want to remove that from their lifestyle will use a 7in tablet alongside a low or mid-range smartphone and be just fine in some of their computing pursuits. At least with the Kindle Fire/FireHD, I’m not sure that this is a perfect size to be a netbook/laptop replacement – even though the range of solid 7in tablets and their attending software points in that direction. I do think that its a near-perfect size though to replace a high-end smartphone and larger tablet. Which might make for some interesting decisions for many when it comes to costs of computing over time.

As with the iPad, I expect use and perspectives to mature over time with this new tablet. And to be honest, I’m not totally sold on it just yet either. Its nearly perfect, but as I’ve said in some other ramblings, my usage could be better done with a phablet (phone+tablet) like the Galaxy Note II, or a solution like the Asus Padfone 2. I’m a weird one though. My device choice here is honed for a question to be answered much later. For you, the 7in (or even 8.9in and 10in) tablets might fit your usage needs a bit better. Much like we’ve talked about building a Bible app from the perspective of a layman, not a pastor, there’s something to be said for a smaller screen that might fit the usage and mental models of a different type of person that just isn’t as widely heard. We’re listening for that here now, and whatsoever the results of adding this to the #mobmin utility belt might bring.

Handwriting in A Mobile Age

As I read this post at The Guardian, I became enamored (again) with some of the comments that I hear from people who resist or whom are adverse to digital accessories to activities and behaviors they count as necessary (writing notes in the margin of a print Bible, Post-It notes on the desk monitor/cork board/desk/anywhere they’d stick, etc.). This alluding that to lose handwriting these aspects of their threads of life means that they lose their attachment to themselves or their thoughts:

…These attempts to modify ourselves through our handwriting become a part of who we are. So too do the rituals and pleasurable pieces of small behaviour attached to writing with a pen. On a finger of my right hand, just on the joint, there is a callus which has been there for 40 years, where my pen rests. I used to call it “my carbuncle”. “Turn right” someone would say, and I would feel the hard little lump, like a leather pad, ink-stained, which showed what side that was on. And between words or sentences, to encourage thought, I might give it a small, comforting rub with my thumb.

In the same way, you could call up exactly the right word by pen-chewing, an entertainment which every different pen contributed to in its own way. The clear-cased plastic ballpoint, the Bic Cristal, had a plug you could work free with your teeth and discard, or spit competitive distances. The casing was the perfect shape to turn into an Amazonian blowpipe for spitting wet paper at your enemies.

Our rituals and sensory engagement with the pen bind us to it. The other ways in which we write nowadays don’t bind us in the same way. Like everyone else, I write a lot on a computer, and have done for more than 20 years…

When I started schooling, penmanship was a primary portion of the day. And like many, getting into 4th grade meant that I no longer was held to print and wide-ruled paper, but could do college rule paper and cursive. By 6th grade, we were swapping Bic and other pens for the best writing quality – with the popular folks knowing that only the cool kids wrote with black ink all the time. However, by the time I got to my 1st semester of college, I wondered why we stuck onto handwriting for so long. I could type faster, and my teachers were more interested in my writing style than in my style of handwriting. No longer was it penmanship, but it was authorship that reigned important (amazing the things we were passed down).

Fast forward to these days where I do handwriting because its one part a relic of a generation of life past, and because it can fit the context just a little bit better. There’s nothing special about my handwriting, I just kind of make sure that its solid enough that if I put it into Evernote, that its OCR algorithms can read it well enough to search. Occasionally, I’d get comments from others talking about the quality of my handwriting, or the fact that I even do it in this age. For them, its a bit of a wonderment because there is a truth to handwriting being a lost art. I don’t have the same wonder until I look at Mandarin or Arabic script. Handwriting there seems to be as much an exercise of the identity as it is one of the mind (there are just so many characters, for everything). There’s a difference in this context now for me than it was then – and I think that this age makes us ask questions of what makes one’s identity moreso than others had before.

When I sit with my mobile, I can usually get away with typing with one hand. My device is thin enough that a QWERTY on-screen keyboard makes no sense. I use T9 on my Nokia N8 and it works great – right until there’s a word that it doesn’t recognize. But there are moments that I wonder what it would be like to take that space where those numbers and letters are and do something like handwriting, but perhaps with my thumb. I wasn’t taught to do script with my thumb (so to that fine motor action, I am not showing much intelligence). It would be something though to get a text message, scribbled with one’s thumb or index finger, which is able to be read easily (or at least translated to type/speech by on-board software). That would take things back to grade school for sure… especially when a parent or someone older tells me that I need to write something 1000 times as some type of disciplinary action.

The story at the end of that Guardian piece is a good one. If for no other reason that it should have us think a bit more about this digital exhaust, and what exactly people will be able to know of us once we stop spewing it.

Tweets from Monday

Here are the tweets from Monday:

Yep, lots of retweets. Perhaps today might find a bit more nuggets in here. Never know what the day’s social streams offer ;)

Goodbye Analog, Hello Digital

This article was originally posted as a blog post at Urban Scholar:

Earlier today I was contemplating the thought of purchasing a new print Bible. One of the first posts I made on this site was about my switching to the ESV. Well, the only print ESV I own is a 2001 text edition, and there have been a number of changes since then with the 2007 & now 2011 update. So, I started to think that I should purchase a new ESV to have on me, especially for when the opportunity presents itself to teach again. I thought about it to the point that I even tweeted about the kind of Bible I wanted, saying the following:

considering buying a new print Bible… yes, a print Bible… thinking it’ll likely be a new thinline ESV w/2011 text updates

As the day went on, with the thought still on my mind, I wondered if the local Lifeway store had any 2011 ESV Bibles in stock. Then, as I thought about it some more, I was thinking, “Oh, I need a nice ‘preaching’ Bible too, to go with the thinline as my everyday ‘handy’ Bible!” After a while, I finally paused and asked myself a question. If I do all of my studying of the Bible digitally, why should I have a Bible that I only use for teaching? Shouldn’t the same Bible I study with be the same Bible I teach from? The answer was: why not?!

As I thought through this some more, I wondered what this would look like for me. Preaching from a tablet is nothing new and has become more popular in the last couple of years, so it’s not like I’d be breaking new ground or anything; yet, there could be something that better suits how I do things. In my thought process, I quickly realized that the way I teach requires lots of “page flipping” because I typically cross reference a lot of Scriptures. How could I leverage a tablet to my advantage? Right now Logos is my primary tool for study, but their mobile app doesn’t support a split screen of Bible & notes; so, that wouldn’t work. Then, I remembered that I have Olive Tree, which does & can also sync with Evernote. Having Evernote means that I can simply copy/paste or dump my passages or notes into an Evernote note and sync it with Olive Tree quite easily. Then, I can have my notes split with my Bible, and tap to open a reference. Now that could work! That would completely eliminate the need for a print Bible & printed notes.

So, let’s take this further because now I’m thinking about completely getting rid of my laptop from the pulpit. This proves tricky because that’s how I run my PowerPoint slideshow for the congregation to follow along. If you’re asking, yes, I usually run my own PowerPoint. Then I started thinking that this is somewhere that Logos could come back into play. They recently released Proclaim Church Presentation Software and it is built for this kind of thing. So, I just get a computer, any computer, connected to the overhead projector (whether it be my own or the one in the sound booth) and load it up; then, I can use my phone (or the tablet) as a remote to progress the slides as needed. Now that would be cool!

I could really see myself teaching in that fashion, and it’s right up my alley. I’m a digital guy, so working in this fashion keeps all of my notes accessible to me from multiple devices and I’m not in a jam if I ever forget or lose my print Bible. Plus, there’s always the freedom of being able to switch translations on the fly, which is nice. I also feel that technology is at a point now that it is fairly reliable, especially in terms of battery life, where no real red flags are raised for me anymore. I truly think that this is the route that I’m going to go in the future, however the Lord sees fit for that to happen.

Share: Sunday Notes from @WellspringCLT

Notes from today's @wellspringclt service - discussion/f... on TwitpicToday I visited my old church in Charlotte, Wellspring Community Church (@wellspringCLT) and recorded these notes on my iPad using Tactilis, storing afterwards in Evernote (using YouVersion on my iPad as well). How do you record your notes for sermons or Bible studies? Do you do anything unique with your digital notes that you didn’t/couldn’t do with paper notes?

Update: Wellspring has an Android application available. Check it out and give them some feedback.

Fostering Meditation by Journaling and Sharing by Mobile

We scribble sermon notes w/Tactilis, @YouVersion, @evernote, ... on TwitpicOne of my favorite verses of Scripture is found in the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures (Joshua 1:8 KJV):

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

There’s something direct and simple about that command that the Lord gave to Joshua. And it also happens to be effective to us in these days as well. Many people have the behavior of reading the Bible (I won’t get into statistics about this), but we don’t always hear as much outside of those whom are published what it looks like to meditate – contemplate, consider, debate within ourselves – the meaning of Scripture. 

This is something we’d hear from time to time with those in the pastorate. But, to hear the same from a layperson – someone not with some kind of official capacity to be teaching one or more people – is a bit different than what we are used to. Looking at this verse though, it would seem that its not just meant for the newly established leader, but for those who walk alongside that leader (even if not in a noted capacity) as well.

This past weekend, I had two experiences that brought to my forefront this idea of contemplation with Scripture, and there was an interesting intersection with mobile tech in both cases. In the first, I was speaking with a former pastor of mine (I visited my old church in Philadelphia) and spoke about what it is I’ve been doing with MMM. One of the questions that I asked him was, “how do you use your smartphone besides calls, texts, and an occasional game?” His mention was that he doesn’t do much at this time and my responses was something to the effect of, “have you considered using your smartphone as a means to share your sermon outline before you teach?” I gave him an example of how he could upload all of those sermons to Google Docs, and then simply text the members in attendance right before he gets up to preach the URL for that outline.

The second moment came later on in the same day. My mother had seen my notes in Evernote (especially the handwritten ones, via Tactilis) and remarked that she’d like to try that app on her Nook Color if that were available. So, I took her Nook Color, and showed her how to search for the app then download it. She then got a message noting she needed a memory card. So I took an 8GB memory card that I’d been using as an archive of my previous mobile, copied its contents to my 32GB USB memory key using just my Nokia N8 (the N8 can connect to a USB memory key and also has a microSD card slot), and formatted the card so that she could use it in her Nook Color. After doing that, I walked with her through the setup process of her Evernote account and she was ready to start writing her notes in Evernote. I had also added the Evernote app to her Windows laptop so that she’d have her notes in both places ready to access as needed. 

In both cases, the central point was notes. How do we utilize this mobile and web technology to endear us towards contemplative moments in faith? I think that both situations give us two ways to approach it. We can play the role of a pastor-teacher and have some kind of outline or memory points ready to share that are simply shared directly to a mobile using SMS or MMS. And then we have the second where a person should be able to leverage their computing devices, network-services, and various methods of writing notes (pictures, typed text, etc.) to record and retrieve those notes.

One of the things my mother liked in my use of Evernote was that I had the ability to search across all of my notes from any device I was on. My pastor mentioned that he has over a half decade of sermons typed up, but they are simply sitting on his computer not shared with anyone unless he directly sends it to them. What can we realize in this life of faith when we take both of those matters and put ourselves towards utilizing the tools we have to be in that position ot meditate on the text everyday? Could you imagine the kinds of walls that would be ready to come down in our lives if that were to happen?

Addition of Ink Makes Tablet a Better Bible?

HTC Flyer screenshot of Bible app with ink, via Mobile GadgeteerThis past weekend, Matt Miller opined that the new HTC Flyer Tablet might make for the right approach to being a digital bible replacement because of it’s inking ability. During this specific look at the HTC Flyer, Matt notes just how well the ability to ink on the screen adds to the experience that many Bible reading applications already offer.

Spending much of my reading time on a tablet, I can relate to how well this can work within many application environments and communities. And as Matt also shows, using a service like Evernote along with is could also pull some of those behaviors that some are used to (writing in margins, etc.) into a digital domain to take advantage of some of the capabilities that paper just wouldn’t have.

This is a use case more centric to tablet (and even laptop) use. And so we should be careful not extrapolating it to every mobile device that can handle ink. Inking, specifically as we are looking at it here, takes advantage of the larger screen spaces tablets offer, and could also blend some spatial interfaces not used as well on small mobiles.

If inking could work, what are some ways that you could see the exploration of Scripture draw someone into a better understanding of it, or even help a small community better understand how to study the bible together (a community sketchnote if you will)?

Failing to Remember the Bible App Experience

Screenshot of Palm Bible+ running on Palm T5Over at my personal website, I threw open a thought about how I forgot about the experience aspect of Bible applications because of changes in how I engaged the content. Here’s a snippet:

It used to be the case with Bible apps that I was very tied to the user experience within the application. But, I that changed a bit as I got involved with the Katana project. Yes, there is/was a need for getting a solid and usable experience for Bibles on the Maemo platform, but it wasn’t a pressing need for me. In fact, I wanted that project more because of the needs a visitor to MMM had more than my own. By the time the application got to a testing state, I was already steering away from the collection of Bibles that I owned, the application(s) that accessed them, and spent more time in-between the text pasting snippets of Scripture to notes and linking comments to pages and commentary online.

Read the rest of Failing to Remember the Bible App Experience.

Many of you have talked about the juggling of Bible software platforms because of different content offerings. Because of that juggling (of applications or libraries), does the software platform matter more or less than the content and what you can do with it?