Shameless Plug Friday 2-27-09
1. Vigilance and meekness.
This is what three Rhodesian Ridgebacks look like when they are searching for something to chase. The cute one on the right is Tam the Wonderdog. In case you are not familiar, these dogs were formerly used to hunt lions in Africa. Three of them could keep a lion at bay until the hunters could walk up and shoot or spear it. These dogs are bred mostly for companionship now, but still have some of that instinct in them. This is possibly the best definition of Jesus’ example of meekness being “strength under control” I have seen. I would trust them with an infant any day of the week. If the infant was a family member and someone tried to harm it-that is another story.
2. The life change that can happen ONLY in the local church.
This past Sunday at church, the pastor talked about how at one of the Spanish services, someone invited a couple of leaders from local gangs. They gave their lives to Christ and are now in the process of making new decisions. They asked for prayer for these two men. Please join with me in that.
3. Derek Berg and Scott Goodger. Couple of all around nice guys in the church IT world. Their blogs are worth reading. As an added bonus: If there is free food to be had anywhere in Florida-these guys know about it. That alone makes them worth the cost of following them on twitter.
4. Ted Dekker-Christian fiction writer. C.S.Lewis said “What the world needs is NOT more Christian authors. What the world needs is more GOOD authors who happen to be Christian.” Dekker fits that mold. I finished his book “Adam” over the weekend. Gives great insight into spiritual warfare and demonic possesion. All wrapped up as an FBI crime thriller. Saturday night around midnight I couldn’t sleep so I thought I would read for a little while. By 2:30 am the book was done. I still couldn’t sleep plus I now I was scared! Got another of his novels from the library on Monday.
Shameless plug Friday 2-20-09
1. Getting out and enjoying nature. Shameless plug back to my own post here.
2. My wife baking chocolate cookies on Valentine’s Day. w00t!
3. Dean Lisenby has begun posting regularly again. In the last couple weeks he has posted two theological questions, news that Church Tech Matters is back up, and a series about his family. Previously he did one about New Employee Orientation. You should definitely check his blog out and encourage him to write more.
4. Twitter as tech support. Saw a partial conversation from a twitter user asking for help on creating pivot tables in Excel. A day or so later, he thanked another twitter user for contacting him and helping him through it. Twitter: it isn’t just for meaningless drivel anymore.
The T-Mobile Saga
A twitter friend posted that he was going to get a G-1. I thought it pertinent to send him and email with some “little known facts”. After reading it, I thought I would post it here as well:
Just wanted to share some frustrations and expectations with the G-1.
I had a Dash with the data plan. Worked great for email and text. All twitters came in as texts, so there was a charge for that. Web browsing was useless. Twitpic would not display. Also had three handsets go bad in a year.
Wife got an ATT phone via ATT phone order about a year ago. They messed with our home phone bill even though we specifically told them not to link it, slammed us with $1,000 in wireless charges on our home phone before the cell phone was even out of the box, rep took our Amex card and bought stereo equipment and had it shipped to New York and Minnesota. Major pain. Not a happy ATT person.
Bought the G-1.
1. You MUST have a Gmail account to make your first call. The phone MUST be linked to it. All your phone contacts come from your Gmail account. So any Outlook contacts, etc. they will need to be in your Gmail address book. This will be your primary email account. No ifs ands or buts.
2. I also have hotmail and a second Gmail for work. These are listed under “other email accounts”. Hotmail is a typical POP3. I really got used to the hotmail connector with outlook as well as the WM6 synching. Forgot what a pain POP3 is.
Both the hotmail and secondary Gmail accounts have problems. Engineering is working on it. Claim they will have it fixed by the 23rd. Doubtful. Issues are:
· Consistent connection error message
· Messages that were previously read will return to unread status
· No notification of incoming messages or intermittent notification
· Previously deleted messages will re-download
Their fix is to just access those accounts via the browser for now.
3. Data plan. The G-1 uses a different data network. Hence the $10 add on if you want to access T-Mobile hotspots via laptop. The plan is called “Hot Spot Anywhere”. I HIGHLY recommend bringing your laptop into the store with you. I had multiple reps tell me anything from:
· You already have the service
· You can’t get the service
· That was a service we used to offer, but you can no longer be “grandfathered in”
· That will be an additional service at $40/month plus you have to buy a data card
I believe I finally got it sorted out last night. I will try to hit a SBUX to verify. Again, bring your laptop to the store. If you get a “username and password error” they don’t have it set right.
4. I got just the basic G-1 data plan for $25. Same data usage, only difference is 400 text messages verses unlimited. With twitter and “twidroid” I get almost no texts so 400 is fine.
5. G-1 cannot be tethered as a modem as yet.
6. There is no app for MS documents as yet. OpenOffice claims they will port their service over later this year. That will be a one-time fee of $40. Google docs of course do work.
7. GPS locator is off by about a mile. Convenient in case you are the target of a missile strike. I heard there is a way to improve the accuracy.
8. Have not located a flash player yet. I heard it exists. As do unicorns and tax cuts for the middle class.
9. Maps, navigation, etc do work well
10. 3g service is phenomenal. Even the EDGE network is better than it was on the Dash.
11. Facebook and twitter apps solid
All in all it is a good piece. If you are a Gmail account user, this is perfect as the calendar, email and contacts all synch directly. It is def. more consumer oriented than enterprise.
Trackball is worth its weight in gold.
Plan is significantly cheaper than ATT.
I believe the keyboard is a major plus over iPhone. Also, there is a package called “cupcake” that will include a slide-up keyboard like the iPhone among other things.
Hope this helps.
