Tech Tips for Catholics

If you’re like me you probably have a hard time managing the barrage of information hurled at you via Twitter, Facebook, and every other web2.0 social media platform. And even though it’s estimated that we only use a small portion of our brain capacity, let’s face reality: there is just not enough brain cells to remember everything we want. So while there are lots of tools to help us keep a reference of things (Evernote, NoteScraps, spiral notebooks, stickies, etc.), I find that many people have a hard time keeping in their mind the things that really matter to them. As a Catholic, it’s important to me to leave at least a little bit of room in my brain for things related to my faith. That’s why I use Evernote as an external memory, which allows me to free up my memory for other things.

Still, I need some way to get all of the Catholic goodness into my brain. Let’s say I want to memorize scripture, or quotes from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Or say I want to remember all the incredible things that Padre Pio said. The best way to remember something is by repetition (though language experts might disagree with that) and for repetition and memorization, the best tool possible is the old flash card. But since this is a tech site, let’s talk about a tech version of the flash card that can help all Catholic tech heads: FlashcardExchange.

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Not to be confused with “iMissle”, the portable thermonuclear warhead launcher for the iPhone, iMissal, from Cantcha Inc. (www.cantcha.com) is the iPhone’s first digital Sunday Missal.

Cheese and crackers! What’s a Missal?!? That’s what I often heard as a youth minister working with Catholic teens. A Missal is, according to Wikipedia, a liturgical book containing all instructions and texts necessary for the celebration of Mass throughout the year. Plain and simple, it lets you follow the Mass from beginning to end including the Mass readings and all the text of the prayers said in the Order of the Mass. It’s a tradition that goes way back to at least 1570. So how does iMissal work as a Missal in the digital age? Read on to find out.

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Ever get one of those disastrously long URL’s to copy and paste into your browser? Something like this:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveMoney  /SaveMoneyDyn.aspx?cp-documentid=9298194&GT1=33007

There’s a really easy simple way to give your friends small short URL’s so that they don’t have to type them in, or worry about getting them cut off in an email or twitter message.

The TinyURL service lets you put in the URL above and get this as an output:

http://tinyurl.com/6lmuzl

TinyURL has been around for a long time and is a reliable service. If you use Firefox, you can download the plugin which lets you right-click a URL and get the tiny version in your clipboard. Very useful for twitter messages.

I use email. Alot. In my line of work nearly 70% of all my client communication is done through my Inbox. Because of this I make it a point that all of my emails, even the quick ones to say “thanks” are formatted properly, with a signature, and are written with care taken to grammar, and spelling. As someone who has made their living on being able to work with customers of all types (tech types to VP’s), I can honestly say that my email writing skills have played a role in my success in IT.

I can’t tell you how many emails I have seen come across that just made me say “huh?”. Here are some VERY experienced IT pro’s who can’t tell the difference between “there” and “their”. I’m not kidding, some of these engineers, doctors, and executives that I work with really look stupid in their emails. If an alien were to come and judge them by their emails they would definitely NOT take them on their mothership with them. So how do you avoid this, here are some really simple tips:

• Sentence fragments. Close them up! Use complete sentences, even if responding to a question from a previous email.
• Bda sepllign. Nearly every email application has a spell checker. Use Firefox’s built-in one for web-based email. It’s embarassing and makes you look stupid, so just be careful.
• Bad grammar. Take the time to read your email out loud, or at least in your head. If it sounds funky, it probably is (funky, that is).
• Address the person correctly. Take a look at this article.
• Make sure you have a signature with your current and correct contact information. It could be as simple as your name and your email address. If you want people to depend on you, you better be reachable.

These are just some tips for you. I am sure that there are countless other similar posts on the web, so look around and see what others have to say.