I want to say a special word of thanks to Travis Boudreaux, who recently helped me with a bit of php scripting.
Travis is a web and mobile developer who does contract and freelance development.
He was very fast, delivered the results quickly, and was very flexible. I found him a pleasure to work with and would gladly do so again in the future.
If you would like to see some of his work or contact him, visit www.TravisBoudreaux.com.
Cool!
I just got word that my Android App is now available in the Amazon.com App Store.
This app is based on my podcast, and makes it easy for you to download the podcast to your Android device (phone, Kindle Fire, etc.). It adds additional bonus features, such as easy, integrated ways to contact the show, favoriting, and additional exclusive material that I will be producing just for the app (so I'd, like, better get started on that).
The name of the app is "Jimmy Akin Cast" (they wouldn't let me use the word "podcast" in the title), and I was interested to see that Amazon ranked it ages 9 and up.
The app should also be coming to the Google's Android Marketplace very soon.In the meantime,
More information soon . . .
A while back I pre-ordered a Kindle Fire
I'm very interested to see it. I've used Kindles for a long time–ever since the Kindle 2 added text-to-speech functionality (the absence of which kept me from buying the first generation Kindle). Overall, I've been quite impressed with the experience, and I enjoy using my current Kindle–and its associated apps. I spend at least as much time using Kindle for PC or Kindle for Mac as I do the actual Kindle itself. On the computers I appreciate the search and note taking functions, and on the device I appreciate text-to-speech.
So my prior experiences with Kindles has me looking forward to the new version, which is billed as a major upgrade. It's color, has a touch screen, and is supposed to have a very fast web browser.
The shift to color and the touch screen puts it in competition with Barnes and Noble's Nook, which I also have and am not as impressed with, though in part that may be because of the trouble I've had getting my books formatted for it, which was much more difficult than getting them formatted for Kindle.
I might like the Nook more if I used it just as a reader, but I don't. I find myself using Kindle for reading and research purposes.
A device that I don't have (yet, anyway) is the iPad. I already have an iPod Touch (which I use to do my square and contra dance calling), and an iPad is basically a giant iPod Touch. That means that the price point for an iPad is too high for me. I've certainly been tempted by the larger screen, but I can't justify spending that much money just for a larger screen (and a few specialized apps that only work on the iPad).
If the price comes down on iPads in the future to where I can justify the price, I'd love to get one, but we ain't there yet.
The Kindle Fire, though, seems to be Amazon's answer to the iPad–at least in broad terms. It's going to allow ebook reading, web surfing, music and video playback, and Droid apps.
It's also vastly cheaper than an iPad.
The new software they've designed also means that it's likely to affect how ebooks, such as The Fathers Know Best and Mass Revision, will display on it, so between the price break and the need to check out how my books format on it, I decided it was worth the price, and I pre-ordered one.
I'll let you know how I like it!
The demand for these is supposed to be high, though, and they're shipping on a first-come-first-served basis, so if you think you might want to get one–either for yourself or as a Christmas present for someone–you might want to go ahead and order.
There is also a new generation of more traditional (and even more inexpensive) Kindles, too, so if you aren't interested in the Fire right now, you might want to . . . CHECK THEM OUT.
I've been looking at the statistics on the countries where people who belong to the Secret Information Club live, and the results are interesting.
Not surprisingly, the majority live in the U.S. I was startled to see, though, that AWeber (the service I use to send out the secret information by email) listed the second most common country as "unknown." That's a little ominous if you take the Unknown Country as a Shakespearean reference, though it's more optimistic if you take it as a Star Trek reference. Or . . . wait, I guess that was "Undiscovered Country."
Since I write in English, it's not surprising that many countries after the U.S. and "unknown" were part of the Anglosphere: Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa.
In addition, there are also now members in these countries:
So it's really cool to see the Secret Info Club becoming a global phenomenon! Thanks, folks!
Have you joined Jimmy's Secret Information Club?
Have you joined Jimmy’s Secret Information Club yet?
You don’t want to miss out on any of the Secret Information action!
There’s still a spot for you so . . .
We live in an age in which computers are changing countless aspects of our lives. One of the things they are changing for people of faith is the way that we study the Bible.
Over the last few decades, I’ve watched how Bible study software has developed, and it’s reached a point at which it’s capable of doing truly amazing things—things that were practically impossible only a few years ago, even for people with extensive research libraries at their disposal.
Among these things is the ability of biblical scholars to do complex studies of the way words and grammar are used in the biblical texts. These have shed new light on how the authors of the sacred books wrote and what they meant.
But Bible software isn’t just helping high-level scholars. It has something to offer everyone. Whether you are a priest, a deacon, a DRE, a catechist, a student, or just an ordinary person, Bible study software has ways of helping you learn God’s word better and grow closer to him.
In this episode of my show, I interview an expert on Bible software for Catholics and explore the many ways it can be of benefit to you and enrich your faith life.
Click Play to listen . . .
or you can . . .
 CLICK HERE! |
|---|
. . . or subscribe another way (one of many ways!) at JimmyAkinPodcast.Com.
SHOW NOTES:
JIMMY AKIN PODCAST EPISODE 019 (11/04/11)
Bible Software Special: How Can Bible Software Help *You*?
Special Guest: Andrew Jones of Logos Bible Software.
Site: Logos.com/jimmy
Coupon Code to save 15%: jimmy
Also, Jimmy Akin Secret Info Club announced.
Site: SecretInfoClub.com
WHAT’S YOUR QUESTION? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO ASK?
Call me at 512-222-3389!
jimmyakinpodcast@gmail.com
I am starting a new Secret Information Club by email. I hope you'll join. If you do, you'll receive exclusive material that I'm not going to be making available anywhere else online for free. Not on my blog. Not on my podcast. Not on Facebook. Just for club members.
My plan is to make it fun and informative for everyone!
Here are some of the things you'll get information on if you join:
Sign up now to get in on all the secret information action! Best of all, it's FREE!
Also, tell your friends, because secret clubs are cool, and mine is one that anyone can join! Send them here or to secretinfoclub.com.
I want to give a shout-out to the folks who are putting on this year's Catholic New Media Conference (the 4th annual one!), coming up September 30-October 2 in Kansas City.
In case you're wondering, the "new media" covers things like web pages, blogging, podcasting, and social networking. Since they have a guy from Vatican Radio speaking, it also apparently includes radio, so everything since Marconi is in! (Sorry, newspapers; you're out. Anything radio, television, Internet, mobile device, or other telecommunications, though, you're good!)
I'm afraid that I won't be there (this year . . . cue ominous music), but the organizers are really good people who are trying to employ the latest tools that technology has made available for Pope Benedict and Blessed John Paul II's call for a new evangelization.
If you at all can, I hope you'll attend the conference and find it an immensely enriching experience!
You know those little things on web sites where it shows you two distorted words and you have to type them in to prove that you're a human and not a spambot?
I *hate* those things!
Sometimes I can't even read the two words.
I'm sure you hate them as much as I do.
But those things–which are called "captchas"–play a role in keeping spambots out, which is important for all of us. Spambots are *EEEEEEvil."
Of course, now many spammers are hiring humans in third world countries to do their spamming by hand, thus making captchas less useful.
I have to delete spam supplied by such humans all the time.
So the captchas are now somewhat less effective for their annoyance factor.
I've been trying to find a better solution, and I recently discovered that TypePad has an option that will let me get rid of the captcha without flinging the doors of the combox open to every spambot on the planet.
That option is to require an email address instead of a captcha, and I've decided to experiment with this option.
I hope the experiment pays off, because I want to provide as comment-friendly an environment as I can, which means finding a balance between preventing combox spam, which is no fun for anyone, and making it as easy for readers to comment as possible.
The email address solution may do that better than the captcha solution at this point.
When I posted a comment earlier tonight, as soon as I put my cursor in the email field, my browser recognized it as an email field and gave me a dropdown menu of some of my email addresses, so all I'd need to do is click one if I wanted to use it.
I don't know whether your browser will do that. The first time you might have to type the email address out, and then it might recognize it in the future.
Worst case scenario, typing an email address is easier than squinting to figure out two distorted nonsense words and then typing them out, so it looks like this should make it easier for folks to comment.
BTW, the email addresses are TOTALLY PRIVATE. Only I see them, and then only if I go looking for them, which I only do for a special reason. You can, of course, put in a phony email address, but I hope you won't because there are times I need to get ahold of someone who has commented.
I hope you'll try the new system out and let me know what you think!
Of course, if we get overrun by spambots, I may have to go back to the captcha, but I'm optimistic that won't be necessary.
Here's hoping!
