It is frustrating to have to allow some app to compress you video or image files before you can upload them to your intended destination. Also frustrating is the cap on “over the air” uploading from your iPhone even when it is connected to WIFI. To top it all off, I like to have my video residing natively on YouTube and Facebook, but hate having to go through the painful uploading process twice. PixelPipe solves all of those problems.

PixelPipe focuses on one thing: publish photos, video, audio, text and files on over 100 online destinations. Basically that means it will put your media on every blogging, social media, and online storage site you can imagine.

Once you register for an account, you set up “destinations” like YouTube and Facebook and it adds them to your list of destinations.  Then, once you are ready to upload, you select the media you would like to upload, click upload and it does the rest (one upload to multiple destinations).  It has a 250MB cap which should make most of your HD clips uploadable; though, if you have edited them into a snazzy video, it may exceed the limit.

Its one flaw is its UI.  Once you fire it up, it is not obvious how to go about selecting which destination you are uploading to at that particular moment (you have to go into settings>edit destinations and then select “enable default” or “disable default” in a drop-down next to each destination).  It is this kind of unfriendly UI that would make you think twice before buying it, but is worth putting up with in this free version.

The bad UI aside, this app should be on everyone’s iPhone who does ministry as it allows you to easily upload media to lots of locations on the spot without having to wait until you get back in the office and have the time to sync it with your computer.

We just recently used this to upload videos of our kids on a mission trip every day while we were on the trip, and got rave reviews about our communication from parents as soon as we stepped off the busses.  Do yourself a favor and try PixelPipe out today.  There are versions available for tons of phones and operating systems (iPhone, Android, Nokia, Palm, IM clients, Windows, Mac, and Linux).

This past tuesday I got an email that told me I would be one of the lucky few to receive my iPhone 4 the day before it was released. I was more than a little bit pumped about that fact and waited somewhat patiently for it to arrive. Now that I’ve had it for a week, I feel fairly prepared to answer the question of whether or not you should rush out and get one.

The Basics
The phone is a substantial upgrade from the 3G, but far less of an upgrade from the 3Gs than apple would have you believe.

Topping the list of upgrades is the phone’s camera. Not only is it now 5 megapixels for stills, it added an LED flash. Video taken with the camera is now HD quality and can be illuminated by that same LED in dark situations. I will say that the camera quality is by far the best phone camera I have ever seen. It is on par with any 5 megapixel point and shoot I have used, and the video coming off is just as good, if not better, than any of the Flip models. AND, there is a smaller, lower quality camera that is front facing which will enable you to do easy self-portraits, video chat and FaceTime.

FaceTime is Apple’s video chat service that is built into the phone app, but it only works on WiFi.  In my tests it is good, but nothing to run out and buy a phone over.   As you can expect, it all depends on the quality of your WiFi connection.

One of the biggest updates is the processor. The iPhone 4 now has the same processor in it as the iPad which makes a noticeable difference in app performance and load times. It also ensures that when apps are running in the background that the rest of the phone doesn’t slow to a crawl.

The other big update is the display. It will blow you away. With a pixel density higher than the human eye can perceive at a normal distance, Apple’s “retina” display looks like nothing you’ve ever seen. Perfect shading, incredible viewing radius, and brilliant colors make it the stand out feature for me. I can’t wait until my laptop has one!

Good, Bad, and Ugly
All of those improvements are welcome and follow along with the rest of Apple’s excellence in implementation.  When you combine the video features with the $5 iMovie app, it becomes incredibly compelling.  I have been shooting short clips at our youth events, editing them in about two minutes with iMovie and uploading them to faceboook immediately.  That will rock your face off!  It will also allow you to make parents really feel like they know what’s going on at camps and retreats.

Though the phone is very attractive, it is glass on both sides, and that is a problem.  It will crack if you drop it on the right place at the right speed.  Since the screen is fused to the front glass, replacing the iPhone’s front glass will probably mean replacing the whole glass, screen, digitizer combo.  Pretty, but expensive.

There have been tons of reports about the iPhone 4′s antennae being able to be messed up by holding it a certain way.  That is 100% true.  Ask anyone with an iPhone 4 to hold it by cupping the bottom (usually using your left hand) and you can watch the bars drop to little or nothing at all.  However, you can do this same trick with the 3G or the 3Gs if you hold them properly.  It seems to be more pronounced with the iPhone 4, but is remedied by using a case that covers the edges (which you will need because of the glass design mentioned in the previous paragraph).

Should I Buy One?

Assuming you’ve got the dough, I would say it depends on two factors: what you are using now, and how much you want to use video.  If you, like me, had and liked the 3G and it’s time to upgrade, do it.  You will notice an amazing performance boost along with the incredible new features we discussed here.  If you really want to use video to up the communication in your ministry, do it.  The tools this phone has video-wise are incredible and will be worth every cent if you utilize them to communicate with your kids/parents.

If you have a 3Gs, I’d caution you to be careful.  This is not as much of a performance boost as you might need to justify the expense.  You can probably just update to iOS4 and download the iMovie app.  If you have a 3Gs or an 3G and will have to pay full price because you are not eligible for an upgrade, PUT THE CREDIT CARD DOWN AND STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER!  If you are patient there will be another revision next year, and you can save yourself about $400.

I gave into temptation tonight and downloaded and installed the gold master of the new iPhone operating system tonight. I’ve held off on the earlier betas, but after seeing the Apple keynote this week I wanted to check it out for myself. After the first few hours there are a couple of features that are a huge improvement.

1. Folders for apps. I’ve really been annoyed lately with how many apps I’ve had on my phone and how to organize them. This new feature goes a long way to fix it. I think the process of actually making the folders is a little janky though. You create or add an app to a fold by dropping an app on another. The problem with this is the apps like to jump away from each other during this process. I haven’t tried to do this in iTunes, maybe it’s easier there.

2. Background apps. This is one going that people have been asking for since day one of the iPhone. I always hated this on my old windows phones because it constantly caused crashes and battery drains. It was also always a pain to close running apps. Apple really got the implementation of this right, switching is easy and I can see that this will be a huge click saver.

3. UI. They’ve really put some polish on the look of things.  Transitions between screens is nicer.  I like the ability to put pictures as backgrounds behind the app icons, but you really need to be careful what you use, the wrong picture can make it almost un-usable. The visual flow between the new folder apps and background apps works really well.

4. Unified Inbox. I don’t know how many of you have multiple email accounts, but i have 4 setup on my phone and sometimes it was tiring going between each one to check new messages.  Now you can get all your accounts in one central inbox.  But don’t worry, you can still access each one individually also if you like the old way.  The only problem I had with this was looking at my email almost became overwhelming, but I think I deal with more email than the average person.

There are a few things I still wish they would deal with (notifications, more info on the lock screen) but overall it’s a solid upgrade.  I already miss some of the new features when I switch over to my iPad.  Looking forward to that upgrade this fall.

What do you think is still missing?

I will be honest.  Today I took a longer than normal lunch so that I could watch live coverage of the Apple event on TWiT.  As a self-proclaimed fanboi, I was excited and intrigued by the latest thing I didn’t know I needed until Steve Jobs told me I did.

All joking aside, this is an interesting device.  Apple is positioning it as a media player, content creator, book reader, and TV.  It’s a lot to fit into something .5″ thick, but they seem to have done a pretty good job.  You can go to Apple’s iPad site for all the gory details and places like Engadget and TUAW for even more.  But here’s a brief overview:

1. It has a pretty 9.5 x 7.5″ LCD screen with an iPhone-style capacitive touch interface (there is a pretty wide bezel, but the people who have played with it say that it makes sense because you have to have some place to hold it without touching the multi-touch screen).
2. The screen is 1024 x 768 pixels which mean that HD movies are going to look pretty good on your lap.
3. It will have a full browser, email app, photo app, notes app, etc (think iphone standard apps).
4. They have totally revamped iWork’s UI to make it intuitive on a touch screen. Even keynote’s graphics-intensive elements seem to work without a strain.
5. It will have a new app called iBooks that is a book reader as well as an iBook Store.  They have already secured major US publishers and are adding more.
6. It has built in speakers (and 3.5mm headphone jack), mic and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR but no camera (there is no way this will be absent from the 2.0 release)
7. It will output VGA and standard A/V cable.
8. There will be models with 16, 32 and 64 GB of storage available.
9. It will have wifi built in and an optional 3G modem.
10. There will be a dock, keyboard dock, and case (with stand) available.
11. Though they released an updated SDK today, almost all iPhone apps will work on the device and can be used in their native size or at 2x to come closer to filling the screen..
12. Apple says it has 10 Hours of battery life (doesn’t seem like this is possible, but no one has them to test as of yet).
13. It will ship in 60 days starting at an un-Apple price point: $499

What it doesn’t have:

1. Multi-tasking
2. Support for flash
3. Across the board true GPS (only available in 3g model which is $130 more)
4. USB ports
5. Did I mention camera!??!

Now, that is a lot, but there are several things that are unclear:

1. Will it have the ability for external storage?  There are adapters that allow you to connect  USB and SD to the 30-pin iPod connector, but Apple says they are for importing pictures.
2. Will it sync with Mobile Me?  They say it will sync with a computer, but did not mention their “cloud” service.
3. Will there be magazines?  It seems logical, but was not announced.
4. The hands on experience.  This one is big, until people get to really sit down with it, we won’t know exactly how reality stacks up with apple’s claims

Overall, I am interested in the product, but I will probably not buy one for one simple reason: Apple’s second generation is usually far better than the first.  I did the same thing with the iPhone, and I got the 3G, and am not disappointed.

Apple generally sacrifices features for stability and user experience on the 1.0.  After they work out all the bugs, they release a product that seems complete.  The iPhone 3g added GPS, third party apps, streaming audio over 3g, push e-mail, and other niceties.  I fully expect the iPad 2.0 to have a camera, (maybe even two) some form of external storage (if that is not part of this version), higher quality screen (OLED?), and a couple more pieces of glory that I can’t forsee right now.

Bottom line: should you seriously consider buying it?

• If you were considering a netbook because of it’s size: yes.
• If you wanted a netbook because of its price and storage capacity: no.
• If you were considering a new laptop and do not need video editing or large amounts of storage (in other words you primarily use it for email and word processing): yes.
• If you have a church administrator who loves Apple and will let you play with $500: yes
• If you use keynote for your talks and cant afford a macbook but want something more portable than a mac mini: yes.
• If you need to run any traditional apps like Photoshop, Final Cut, etc.: no.
• If you were considering an ebook reader but couldn’t justify almost $300 on something for that single purpose: yes.
• If you are secretly in love with Steve Jobs and want to show him your undying devotion: yes.

There you have it.  Let us know what you think!  Although I said I was not buying one for myself, you are more than welcome to send me one in the mail, I would not even come close to turning it down… I am a fanboi after all.

Well 2009 is officially over, and I was thinking about some of the tech that made it’s way into my world during the year. Here’s some of my favorites:

Software:
Mozy – I committed to online backup this year having deciding that my time machine wasn’t enough.  Mostly because if something happened at my house the chances of losing both were pretty high.  I went with Mozy, and after having a harddrive crash while on a trip and I was still able to access my data, I’m sold.  It’s definitely worth the $5 a month it costs.

Dropbox – This has become a tool I use daily.  Great for online storage and sharing.  And it’s FREE!

Teleport – This little bit of software allows you to share one keyboard and mouse between 2 macs without any extra hardware.  It’s really cleaned up my desk and I love the way it works.  Price: FREE

Hardware:
iPhone 3gs – This is so much more than a phone to me. It allows me to be away from the office but still take care of quite a bit of my daily tasks.  I love it.

MacBook Pro Uni-body – My old Macbook Pro was great for almost 3 years, but my recent upgrade to one of the new Uni-body models has been a great one.  The power is awesome.  To compare, my old machine took 90 minutes to export the SYM podcast that I produce each week, and the new laptop does the same video in 35.  I love it.  Although if you are thinking about upgrading, I would wait to see if there are any upgrades early in the year.

Flip MinoHD Camcorder – This is such a great little camera.  So easy to use and a great picture for what it costs.  You aren’t going to produce a major motion picture with this, but to capture camp memory, quick event highlights, and fun family moments, I love it.  Read my full review here: review-flip-minohd.

Kindle 2 -I upgraded my ebook reader to the Kindle this year.  I really enjoy reading on it.  A few things that make it great:

1. Battery life
2. Amazon Store – so many titles, and great prices.
3. Always connected – I can download books where ever I am, and it doesn’t cost any extra

Web:
Gdgt.com: Great new gadget site.  I do a lot of my gadget research here.  I also really enjoy their podcast.

LIVE Curriculum: I think most of you know, I am the web manager for Simply Youth Ministry, and one of the big projects I worked on this year was this online curriculum. I am really proud of what we put together, and when I think of 2009 it was a huge part of it.

Now on to 2010.

Here’s an update to the post about the iPhone Band.  Josh posted an update listing out the apps used (all links open iTunes):

Guitars: (Electric and Bass)
Pocket Guitar ($.99)

Piano #1:
Virtuoso Piano Lite (Free)

or
Virtuoso Piano

Piano #2:
Pianist ($3.99)

Drums:
DigiDrummer Lite (Free)

or
Digidrummer ($1.99)

A few other things to keep in mind:

1. If your students are using an iPhone have them put it on Airplane mode, so they can still get to apps without having to receive phone calls.
2. Also turn off all notifications in the settings app on itouches.
3. If you do the bit with the phone call, make sure the one person getting the phone call has their phone set to receive calls. Also, the person calling has to be in another room because the sound system will echo through the phone and the main house.

This should give you everything you need to do your iPhone band.

My main computer that I use for all my day to day work is pushing 3 years old, and it’s really starting to show it’s age. I realize that 3 years doesn’t sound like that long, but it’s the longest I’ve used a computer since the 386 I built my freshmen year of college. But in these economic times I’m sure most of us aren’t able to replace our computers as often as we would like. I find myself in a constant battle in keeping mine from crashing and losing hours of work. I’m sure I’m not the only one, but is there anything we can do that can help prolong the life of our aging machines? Here are a few things that I have found that has helped:

1. Hardware Upgrades: Sometimes over time we can develop some hardware problems that are easy to tackle ourselves.  Two upgrades we can do that make a huge difference are RAM and Harddrive.  If you find your aging computer slowing down, make sure you have the maximum amount of RAM your computer can handle.  If you don’t know the maximum amount for your machine head over to Crucial.com, and run their memory scanner and they will tell you how much your computer can take.  You can also buy the upgrade from them, and their prices are some of the best around.  Another upgrade that can make a big difference is upgrading your hard drive.  Chances are your computer came with a small, slow drive that upgrading can make a huge difference.  If you drive is too full it can slow you down, also upgrading to a faster drive can make a big difference in performance.

2. Clean up the hard drive. You may not feel comfortable swapping out your harddrive, and if you have a laptop it may not be easy.  But that doesn’t mean you’re out of luck.  You can defrag your drive to help speed it up.  I would also clean off unneeded programs and files to free up space.

3. Clean install. This is much more drastic, but often times using the system restore disks your computer came with reinstalling everything often helps fix problems that can be difficult to find and fix another way.  Now if you feel you need to take this step make sure you have a good backup and all the install files for your software because this will result in erasing your hard drive back to the way it came from the factory.  If you are planning to upgrade your computer to the latest operating system (Windows 7 or Snow Leopard) this can be a great time to do this.

4. Find a New Use For It.  You may find that your old computer is just not worth upgrading or fixing so you do take the step to get a new one.  That doesn’t mean the old computer is now completely useless.  You may be able to turn it into a home server to keep your photos or music on so you can share them with other computers in your house.  Or maybe that old laptop will be perfect to your spouse, parent, or child.  I find often times other people in my life don’t have the same requirements that I have, and while my old computer may not be great for editing video anymore, it may be perfect to check facebook or playing webkinz.

What do you do with your old computers?  How old is too old?

Have you ever asked your self that question?  I know I have.  In fact I keep asking myself about it every time I see a netbook.  Here’s a little flow chart to help with the decision:

(Click to see full size.)

Source: Scordit.com

I love my TomTom GPS unit.  I’ve had it for 3 or 4 years now and it’s been great, the software is easy to use and the directions easy to follow.  For someone who seems to have trouble navigating from point A to point B this has been a lifesaver.  One problem.  We only have one TomTom and my wife and I often want to use it when we are off to different places.  That’s why I was so excited to hear that TomTom was working on an iPhone App during the WWDC keynote this year, and tonight it hit the streets.

The TomTom App is now available in the app store.  One thing you must know is, it’s a little more spendy than most Apps, at $99 it’s the most expensive app that I’ve ever contemplated, but when you think of the cost of an entire GPS unit, $99 is a steal.  Considering that AT & T is trying to sell you a service at $10 a month, a 1 time $99 charge doesn’t sound that bad.  It also looks like it’s the software is just as easy to use as my TomTom 1, plus I can pull addresses from my contact list and have TomTom direct me there.

If you’ve never had a GPS and own an iPhone this is one app that you will use everyday.  Even when I’m going places I know how to get there it gives me estimated arrival times which makes answering the question “Are we there yet?” so much easier.  This is the perfect companion for a youth ministry road trip to find restaurants, gas stations, rest stops and other points of interest along the way.  Never get lost in that church shuttle again.

So I finally did it, I got a Kindle.  A used one mind you, but that doesn’t bother me.  I’ve only had it a few hours now, so I’m sure that I will still learn lots of little things about it.  But the first big hurdle I came to was getting documents I already have on to it.  Sure it’s super easy to download new books, or even try out sample chapters.  I’ve even collected a few free ones that I’ve found in the links to over the last few months that I’ve been reading on the iPhone app, but what about other documents I have that I would like to take with me.

I’ve been a ebook fan for a long time going back to the small library I have from my Microsoft Reader days on my old iPaq. Now I would love to be able to read some of these again on the Kindle.  I know I could email them to my Kindle, but don’t really want to pay amazon for the conversion, and I was happy to find there’s a really easy way.

There’s a free piece of software called Stanza (both Windows and Mac versions available), and it will open almost any text document you have (including the old .lit files from my iPaq) and convert them to a number of different ebook formats, including Kindle.

Here’s how to do it.

1. Plug in your Kindle to your computer via USB and let the computer mount it as a drive
2. Open stanza and select the file you wish to convert for your Kindle
3. From the file menu select export as and choose Kindle as the output.  Choose the document folder on the kindle as the save location
4. Disconnect the Kindle and now the document shows up as a library item.

You may be thinking this is a great way to get ebooks and other documents on your iPhone into the Kindle App as well, but you can’t access the kindle library the same way on the iPhone.  Never fear, Stanza has a free iPhone App as well that you can share books between your computer and phone or ipod.  It’s a great way to transfer documents to your phone for reference, or maybe even your teaching notes for Youth Group. This app is so great, it really deserves it’s own post, but I’ve got some reading to do.