Tech Tips for Catholics

Pope Benedict XVI has declared June 28, 2008 – June 29, 2009 the year of St. Paul.  “The Apostle of the Gentiles, who dedicated himself to the spreading of the good news to all peoples, spent himself for the unity and harmony of all Christians,” the Pope said.

So in honor of St Paul, here are two of our Popes’ past homilies (sermons) at the St. Paul Outside-The-Walls Basilica:

• John Paul II (Tuesday, 18 January 2000)
• Benedict XVI (Monday, 25 April 2005)

You can read about St. Paul’s work and travels in the book of Acts.

I would also encourage all to read Paul’s epistles: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon.

Did you know?

• Historians place St. Paul’s birth between 7 and 10 AD. He was born in Tarsus (Acts 22:3).
• Unlike the Twelve Apostles, there is no indication that Paul ever met Jesus prior to the latter’s crucifixion. According to the book of Acts, his conversion took place as he was traveling the road to Damascus, and experienced a vision of the resurrected Jesus.
• The Bible does not state how Paul died. Many scholars believe he was beheaded in Rome in around 64 AD, during the reign of Roman Emperor Nero.

This past weekend I attended the first ever PodCamp Ohio.  It was great!  I learned some new stuff and, had I not had this stupid head-cold, probably made some new friends. While at the event, I heard a lot of chatter about Ping.fm, which is a new service that makes it simple to update your many social networks.

Now one of the other things that I learned while at PodCamp Ohio, in the “Orchestrating a Viral Explosion” session, was how to drive “talk” about your online program/application by making it “invite only”.  To suggest that a person is part of an elite.  Gmail is a perfect example of a company that tried this tactic and found it to be quite successful.  This is why Ping.fm is requiring a “beta key code” to join.  Notice that on their login page they give you a hint that it is pretty easy to acquire this important key code. All you need to do is simply contact them and ask for one.  So, does this type of product campaign work?  I’m blogging about, so I would have to say that in many cases it does.  Go get your beta code and see what Ping.fm is all about!

Lisa, one of our contributors to the Catholic Tech Tips Blog, posted some pictures from the inaugural Catholic New Media Celebration in Atlanta, GA!

Click the iPod trashcan below to view Lisa’s Photo Album.

You will also see some other familiar faces.  Actually, a couple of the other contributors to Catholic Tech Tips, as well as some of my fellow PodCasters!

My Brother works for one of the large cell phone companies and is always telling me different cell-phone tips.  This one, I use quite a bit, and it comes in handy too.

Let’s say that you are driving home from somewhere and you want to order supper from a local restaurant, but you don’t remember the number.  At the next stoplight (Don’t text & drive!), simply text the name of the restaurant, city, and state to 46645.  When I first tried to do this, I kept typing the letters g-o-o-g-l, rather than the number of each letter.  So be sure to use 46645.

Within a few seconds of hitting send, you should receive two text messages from Google with the closest results to your search.

You can use this feature to search for a person’s address, a business’ phone number, a definition to a word, and even the nearest Church to your specified zip code.

If you would like to try this without sending an actual text click here.

Please Note: This service is free from Google but charges from your carrier for usage may apply.  I am on a texting plan so I do not get charged per text from my local provider.

I am sure most of you are aware of how popular social networking has become in the last couple years. Millions of people are now connecting and keeping in touch with family and friends through these online services. Over the past year and a half the folks at 4marks.com have been developing just that kind of service especially for Catholics. Recently they had some major changes so they want to tell you a little about what they have been up to.

Here is a videocast that explains some of what they have done.

Who is 4marks.com for?

Really any Catholic who is looking for a great way to connect with other Catholics, stay in contact with and share things with friends and family (even non-Catholics) all in a family friendly environment.

What can I do on 4marks?

Connect with Catholics in a Catholic friendly environment. (They claim to be better than Facebook)

• Connect with your friends and family (Similar to Facebook)
• Watch and Share videos (Similar to YouTube)
• Publish and Share Articles (Similar to Digg but they claim to be better)
• Publish and Share your own Blog
• Play Catholic Trivia and Compete!
• Learn about the Temperament God gave YOU and others.

Not Enough? Okay!

You can also promote your blog, podcast or website

• Add/promote your Group (Young Adults, KofC, Pro-Life etc)
• Create a new group just on 4marks (Jenni’s Pro-Life Posse)
• Get your parish priest, nuns or deacons to join.
• Add/promote your parish…

So go check them out and let us here know what you like and dislike about 4marks.com.

Q. I have a bunch of stuff downloaded in iTunes on one computer, which I cannot access right now, because I am having issues with it.  I am loading some of my CD’s into iTunes on another computer for the time being.  If I update my iPod to include some of the songs from this computer, will that automatically erase what I previously put on my iPod from another computer?

A. I have wondered if there is a way around this as well.  iPods sync to only one computer. So to answer your question…yes, all the previous stuff on your iPod will be erased if you are using the sync setting : (  By default, iPod is set to automatically sync music to your iPod.  That said, (depending on the type of iPod you own) you have the option to manually manage your music files, which will then allow you to upload music from multiple computers : )

See the following links that may help better explain the process.

• Using iPod with multiple computers
• Search for “iPod” on Catholic Tech Tips

Blessings,
Joshua

Like Chris, I have not had a lot of time to play around with Mozilla Firefox 3, but here are just some of the new features:

• Improved Performance
  View Web pages faster, using less of your computer’s memory.
• Instant Web Site ID
  Avoid online scams, unsafe transactions and forgeries with simple site identity.
• One-Click Bookmarking
  Bookmark, search and organize Web sites quickly and easily.
• Password Manager
  Remember site passwords without ever seeing a pop-up.
• Full Zoom
  See any part of a Web page, up close and readable, in seconds.
• Smart Location Bar (Far from it! This is the most annoying feature eva!) Find the sites you love in seconds—enter a term for instant matches that make sense.
• Platform-Native Look & Feel
  Browse with a Firefox that’s integrated into your computer’s operating system.

I’m sure there will be some of these features that I will be disabling.  I am one who doesn’t like change, unless it is something really useful.  I have already seen one thing that I find annoying about Firefox 3 and I’m sure there will be plenty more, but I’ll save them for another post.  In the mean time, Check out Mozilla’s Tips & Tricks page here.

Below are some other related Tips for Mozilla Firefox 3 newbies:

• How to disable the “Smart Location Bar” in Firefox 3
• Firefox 3 Released!
  

I listen to a lot of podcasts. Many of them I listen to at work and use MediaMonkey as the music player and down loader. I listen at work on a computer and for me that is fine.

I also listen to many running podcasts (I’m a runner) while out on the road and have a Sansa e250 that supports video and audio. One thing it lacked was the ability to easily convert video for veiwing, and navigatioan was a bit clunky.

Rockbox is an open source project designed to support multiple portable media players. They include the iPod Sansa, Iriver and others.  In an offort to get away from being locked into a format for audio or video that was propritary I did some searching and discoverd RockBox.

This application has it all. It is infinatly configurable, easy to use, and open source. I have been using it for almost a year now and the upgrades are based on user input and feedback. You can also grab the source and contribute.

Some of the best features are the ability to dynamically create play lists on the device, rename files and tags, and customize the interface including adding voice menus. This can really come in handy if your on a run or you have difficulty seeing due to light or eye issues. The font size is also changeable so no more squinting to read. Battery use is excellent and by turning off the frills like album art you can really push the limits of you device for listening.
Take a moment and check it out. For runners its great it has a stopwatch plug-in you can record your time and splits with. You can even play doom, how cool is that?

One of the great features also is the ability to acces the original firmware. So if you really need to do something with it you can.

Check out the site and then head over to SQPN.com, RunningPodcasts.org or your other favorite site and grab your music and shows and listen a whole new way.

This is just a short, no-frills, no hidden message post to declare that Firefox version 3 has officially been released!

I haven’t had much time to play with it as of yet but, it is supposed to be much faster for those who love lots of tabs and multitasking.  They also overhauled the graphical interface a bit, added a favorites star right into the address bar and also made it so if it seems like you are typing one of your favorites, it will display the option to click on it below the address bar as well.

These are the things I have discovered in 2-3 minutes playing with it.  That, and 1 negative, some of your extensions may not work.  This is simply because the people who make the extensions need to re-make them for firefox 3.

Check it out at: http://www.firefox.com

God Bless,

Chris

When it comes to relationships, dating and all that, we can get all kinds of advice. Angela from the Saint School blog (don’t let the name fool you) recently did a little research project where she dissects the most popular women’s magazines on shelves.  We have all skimmed through them at least once in our lives (including us guys — don’t lie : ) .  In her post about the various articles featured in this month’s top women’s magazines: Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Glamour & Seventeen, Angela notes the common trends. What? You think I’m going to tell you what those trends are? All I will tell you is that Angela’s blog-post is a very engaging read.

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