Tech Wednesdy is back!  Well for now.  It has been a long time since I got my iPhone.  So long that the warranty has actually gone out on it.  So with that in mind I decided to jailbreak it.  Jailbreakng an iPhone simply allows you to do whatever you want with it.

You can put whatever third-pary programs you want on it.  You can access the OS.  You easily add new ring tones.  It is a beautiful thing.  But the most beautiful thing about it was using Pwnage Tool.  Pwnage Tool made what could be a headache of a process really simple.

I love my iPhone, but I love it even more now.  My favorite thing is the ability to do video with my phone now.  One of the first programs I installed was Qik.  It’s a program that allows you to do live video from your phone.  I’m loving it!!!!!!

If you have an iPhone and you aren’t worried about voiding your warranty, I highly recomend jailbreaking it.  If you decide to, use this guide.  It was really helpful and walked me through the process step-by-step (and it didn’t even have Suzanne Somers).

This is just a short rant I had to get out of my system.  I don’t know if this happens to you, but it seems to happen pretty frequently to me.  The people change, but the conversation seems to stay about the same.

Them: Hey can I talk to you.

Me: Sure.

Them: God has really been convicting me lately of _________ sin in my life.

Me: Ok.

Them:  I’m telling you this because I’ve seen you do the same thing to me.

Me: um…..

I’m just a little confused, when did the fact that God is convicting you of your deep sinful character flaw, give you the right to nit pick my flaws.  I kind of remember Jesus talking about taking the log out of your own eye….not leave the log in your eye, pick up a sniper rifle, and start shooting everyone with specks in their eyes.   It just doesn’t make sense.

So here’s my recomendation.  The next time God convicts you of something, stop! Don’t start looking around to see if anyone else has the same sin. Don’t start thinking about how you’ve been hurt by others in the same way.  Don’t start calling every Tom, Dick and Sally.  Instead, put the gun down and go to Jesus.  Let him take the log out of your eye and give it some time to heal (logs in your eyes tend to cause a lot of damage). Otherwise you might end up shooting some close friends….

1. Post these rules on your blog
2. Write 6 random things about yourself.
3. Tag 6 people at the end of you post
4. If you tagged, DO IT and pass on the tag.

So here I go….

1. I can wiggle my ears…independently.  I can wiggle just my right ear, or I can wiggle just my left ear.  This is what happens when you have no life.
2. I had a dog named Vern when I was growing up.  It was so dumb that it would run into the fence when you would call it from the other side….needless to say this would happen often.
3. In Jr. High I was the stinky kid.  I hit puberty and no one really told me that I needed to take a bath more than once a week.  I’ve gotten better though.
4. I was a die hard anti-Apple until about 2 years ago.  I saw the errors of my ways and converted to the one true computer…and I’ll never go back.
5. I have a tattoo on my back of a cross with tribal print behind it.  I would get two sleeves too if UPS and my wife would let me.
6. I’m my own uncle….yep…try to figure that one out.  Just so you know…there was no incest involved and everything was legal.

So there you go….now here are my six.

Shannon, Dustin, Brad, CJ, Clayton, and BK

Ok so I honestly have no clue how I’m going to vote for.  This election year has really left me disappointed.  I think both canidates have great dreams and goals, but their plans are horrible.  It’s like they said what are some of the greatest things we could do to change this country….ok now what’s the worst way to get there.  I had honestly thought about not even voting at all this year.  That was until I came across glassbooth.com.

Now I still don’t know who I’m going to vote for exactly, but now I know that I have some options.  It was interesting to learn about the third party canidates and how much I agree with them.  Now some of you might say that I’m trowing away my vote if I vote for a third party canidate, but I would say you’re throwing away your vote if you don’t vote for someone you agree with.

So take the quiz at glassbooth.com and see if you even line up with you choice for president, or are you just going with the flow.

Today changed all that. With the release of the iPhone 2.0 software, WordPress was able to create an app to write posts with my iPhone. In fact this is actually from my iPhone.

Whether you have an iPhone or not (of a blog), you have to admit that is pretty cool.

If you’ve been keeping track, Shannon only has 10 more days until Asa is due to enter this world (June 1st…make sure to put your guess in for the pool). With this on my mind I’ve been noticing a lot of fathers-to-be on twitter. These are guys that have either just had a kid or are in the pregnancy stage. It’s like there is baby boom in the twitterverse.

So on this Tech Wednesday, I thought I would compile a quick list of all the twitter dads that I know of to date. These are either links to their dedicated blogs or their twitter accounts…whichever one they have.

Erik Anderson – Any man that has more grills than children is ok in my books. Erik has a 2-year-old and another kid due in September.

Joe Day – Joe is a pastor at Mars Hill in Seattle and is about to have twin girls. I’m freaking out about having one…may God give you the strength Joe.

Dustin DeKoekkoek – Dustin’s kid isn’t due until August, but he already has his own twitter account.

Jack Moffitt – Jack’s son was born in January and has already started blogging.

CJ Mills – CJ’s wife just had their son Asher on the 16th….oh yeah…Asher was two month early and they were on vacation. You need to go to his site and read the story. Also pray for Asher and his parents as you can imagine all the things that go along with having a kid that premature.

That’s all the fathers-to-be and recent-fathers in the tech world that I know of right now. If I missed you on the list, make sure to let me know in the comments below. It’s cool to know that I’m not in this crazy process alone.

I did however want to take a quick break and share with you a new site that twitter friend of mine came out with called WetheChuch.org. This is a really cool idea that you should go check out. It is basically a prayer wall where you can share your prayer requests/praises and pray for others that need prayer. I really love the idea and it can become addictive watching prayers go up and praying for them.

So take a few minutes out of your day and go check out WetheChurch.org.

I’m going to come right out and say it…I love Google. Yes. I’m totally sold out for Google. I use Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Search, Google Image Search, and Youtube (owned by Google). Now most of these are well known to people, but on this Tech Wednesday I want to share a few Google features that aren’t as well known.

These are like the red-headed-step-children of the Google world. They’re just as good as the other Google features. They’re just not as widely known. So let me introduce you to the step-kids of Google.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts automatically updates you with an email when something is added to the internet based on the search terms you give it. I mainly use this for two things. One, to see if anything is put up on the net about me (yeah it’s egotistical…but kinda helpful too). Two, to see when someone talks about beer and Christianity (I use this search term for theBeerean.com).

Goog411

I haven’t used this one that much since I got my iPhone (Google Maps on the iPhone replaced it), but before the iPhone it was a staple. It’s basically a free 411 service. I would explain it some more, but the video below explains it a lot better than I could.

Google Reader

I’ve talked about this a little bit in the past, but I felt the need to bring it up again. Google Reader is a feed reading program offered by Google. It allows you to keep up with all of your blogs in one place. Once again I’ll let Google tell you more about it (if you start using Google Reader make sure to add me as your friend glqualls [at] gmail [dot] com and to subscribe to my feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/gregquallsfeed).

This is the reason I won’t have the Beer Tip of the Day on this site anymore. But don’t worry, I will continue to write on this blog. GregQualls.com will be where I will share my spiritual/theological/biblical/personal/youtube.comical insights. TheBeerean.com is where I plan so share all my beerical/theological/cultural insights.

I also plan to do a weekly video podcast on theBeerean.com called Beer Tip of the Week. I’ll give a new tip each week to help people enjoy their beer more.

This is a new venture for me and I’m really excited. I would ask you as a friend if you have your own blog, would you give theBeerean.com a little shout out. It’s hard getting a blog started from scratch. You need all the help you can get. For those of you don’t have a blog if you cold please tell everyone you know, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for all your love and support, and I hope you to see your shining faces at theBeerean.com soon (I know I can’t really see you…or can I?)

Ok I know…it’s a book.  Some might say that a book isn’t technology, but I say tell that to Gutenberg.  Anyways back to the point at hand.  Crossway recently annouced it is coming out with an ESV Study Bible in Ocober.  For most of you this won’t be a big deal, but I’m totally geeking out on this one.

Let me give you a run down of the authors in this Study Bible:

That’s just the authors.  This thing has:

I’ve also heard that buyng this study Bible will garuntee a place in heaven and a new BMW.  Ok maybe not.  But the free online version is a nice plus.  All I have to say is I own too many Bibles already, but I might have to add one more to my collection.

The idea behind Evernote is to be a place where you can store all the information that you come across in day and easily pull it back up through search features and tags later down the road. There are other things out there that can do this, but the main thing that wowed me was the fact it can search text in pictures (even handwriting).

I’ve just started using it (and only the web side since I don’t have Leopard), but I’m liking it so far. For a person like me that ingests copious amounts of information every day, this is great. I’m pretty good at remembering things, but this will make things easier.

I’ve included the video from their site below. I have 9 invites left. If anyone is interested, send me an email through my contact page.

It’s Wednesday and that means it’s time for my top picks of new tech that I’ve come across this week. Today is mainly going to be a few fun sites that I like to frequent. But before I get into that, I want to talk about a.viary.com

This online sweet is feakin awesome. The picture above was made in their online image editor – Pheonix. I haven’t had a lot of time to play with it, but it looks pretty sweet. Read this blog post that compares it to other online image editors. It blows Photoshop Express out of the water. If you’re interested in trying it out, I still have five invitations that I can share. Just shoot me an email through my contact page.

Now on to my top pics for websites to waste time at.

Songtowearpantsto.com can easily take three hours out of your day without blinking an eye. This guy takes requests from his readers and creates songs based on those requests. It’s to Loud is one of my favorite songs right now. This guy is just a simple everyday genius.

The next two are recommendations from my friend Dave Ortega.

icanhascheezburger.com How can you not laugh at pictures of animals with funny captions? You can’t.

photoshopd.blogspot.com This guy finds obvious (to those that are looking) over-photoshoped pictures. When he points them out…it’s pretty darn funny.

Ok that’s it for this week. I have some other’s up my sleeve, but I’m going to save them for a future post. If you have some websites that you think I should check out or a cool new product, shoot me a comment.

]]> http://gregqualls.com/2008/04/02/good-time-time-wasters/feed/ 1 http://gregqualls.com/2008/03/31/join-the-fun/ http://gregqualls.com/2008/03/31/join-the-fun/#comments Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:41:26 +0000 GregQualls http://gregqualls.com/?p=218 I came across this video and had to share. I’ve been blogging for a few years now, and I must say that I really enjoy it. It allows me a place to share whats happening in my life and the things that I think or come across (hence this post). If you haven’t thought I about doing a blog, I would recommend it. If you have a blog and want to share, leave a link in the comments. I’ll probably post in a few days some tips for those that want to start their own blog. Until then watch the video.

I don’t know why this is.  Does my writting style lead to people being passive readers?  Are my posts not commentable?  Are people to lazy to write something back?  Is the comment form to hard to fill out? 

I really don’t have a clue.  My stats tell me that I have a steady flow of people reading my blog.  But the number of people who comment are nearly non-existant.  Like my dog asking for a treat, I have to beg to get comments (hence this post).   The top commenter on my blog has commented on three posts (you go Dave).

I really don’t know why no one wants to comment on my site.  The same is true for Shannon and her blog.  She’s only had three people leave her a comment since she sarted (and technically mine doesn’t count).

So whats the deal people.  Are you afraid?  Is my writting so intimidating and perfect that you can’t leave a comment.  I’m just going to assume this until you prove me otherwise. 

So until next time, have a good day you pansy non-commentators.

photo by: tinou bao

I don’t know if you’re like me, but I’m the type of person who likes to rearrange their house every few months. That’s why when Shannon said, “we should redo the office and put the desk here and the bed here…” I was all for it. Well I’m starting to see that I’m the same way with my web site. A few months ago I switched from Joomla to WordPress (before that it was from MySpace to my own domain).

Now I want to change the look of my web site. I’m just feeling like it is too cluttered and that it doesn’t fit my personality (the logo looks like it could be for a Fortune 500 company). So I’ve been kicking around the idea of redesigning the look of my site. I’m going to try to keep the same clean look, but go with a little more grunge of a feel to it (it makes sense in my head). I don’t know though.

Here is my question to all 10 of my loyal readers…do you think I should go with a different look for the site? Do you feel like the current one fits my personality? If you where to change my site, how would you change it? Let me know what you think in the comments below (don’t send me an email through my contact page Jason).My mind is pretty set on changing…but maybe you can change my mind…man that’s a lot of change.

FriendFeed allows you to set up a feed to share with all of your friends that includes your activity at all of your social networking sites. This way they can go to one place and see what you are doing at all of the sites. It’s kind of like a feed reader for your social networking sites. The one nice feature that I like about it also is that you can set up imaginary friends.

Yes you heard me right imaginary friends. This way if one of your friends (or most of your friends if you’re like me) don’t want to use FriendFeed you can set up and imaginary friend in their place and add their social networking activity to see what they are doing. You’re able to bypass having them sign up. Imaginary friends rock cause you get to make them just the way you want them (unless you’re like me and your imaginary friends no longer want to be your friend and decide to be a male model instead).

So check out FriendFeed.com if you do a lot of social networking or if you want to have an army of imaginary friends.

P.S. Don’t forget to add me as a friend!

So for one of the first times in my life I’m in the “In Crowd.” Yesterday Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle posted a video on his Facebook letting everyone know that he had capped out on the number of friends that he could have. Apparently Facebook only allows you to have 5,000 friends (I don’t think I would ever find this out), and he hit the limit. Now I’m normally not one to be prideful (yeah right), but I must say it feels kinda cool to know that I’m a friend with Mark Driscoll on Facebook and nobody else can do that now.

I know it’s lame…but you’re only saying that because you aren’t one of the 5,000.

I normally save technology posts for Wednesday’s, but I wanted to tell you about this while I was in Seattle.  I got set up on twitter.com yeterday.  Twitter is a mini-blogging system.  It’s like your status in Myspace and Facebook, but it is on its own.  It alows you to give friends short updates to what you are doing/thinking.  They can subscribe to your feed and recieve a text message or IM message every time you update it (here is a full tutorial on twitter).

It’s been pretty fun using it yesterday and today.  I like it because I’ve been able to send my wife Shannon the emails too.  So she is able to share in my experience while I’m here.  You can go to my profile at twitter.com/gregqualls and be able to keep up with me as I’m updating it frequently with what I’m doing and thinking.

There is one thing that is mandatory in our walks at the mall. We have to stop at Brookstone and use the iSqueez. The iSqueez is a foot massager that does more than the usual moving nodules and vibrations. As the name states, it actually squeezes you feet.

At first this might sound like a cheap gimmick, but then you try it and you are stuck (literally and figuratively). There is a reason it is $399. Because people will pay that much for a few minutes in heaven (two minutes in heaven is better than one minute in heaven). It has taken a lot of self control to not pony up the money right there on the spot (and from the look in the salesman’s eyes…he expects me to).

Shannon and I actually planned on buying it (on ebay for much cheaper) as our Valentines day gift. It didn’t work out though. So now I’m thinking about trying to register for it for our baby shower. We registered for a 50″ plasma screen TV (what else is the kid going to watch Baby Einstein on). Why not this?

So when I was waiting in line for Obama the other day, I looked over at my friend and noticed that his iPhone was hanging from his belt loop. He had just recently went to MacWorld (the punk) and picked up a new item called the Hangman. Now I’ve tried a few different carrying cases since I’ve gotten my iPhone, but I must say this is the coolest one that I’ve seen so far. The best part is that it works with any iPodish product.

It actually connects to the dock part of the iPhone/iPod. Then the other side connects to a belt loop or anything else that you would want to connect it to. It also has a built in feature to help wrap up the extra slack from you head phones. Very nice. Right now I’m broke. But I plan on getting one soon…if I can’t steal one first.