Blog
New Zealand in my sights
Just about to start packing for New Zealand. I’m up early and off to the airport for a morning flight that sees me in NZ by mid afternoon. Although a Pom from birth, growing up in New Zealand has a profound affect on a person and I always love coming home to NZ. Whether its the isolation from the rest of the world or the sense of comadarie that is birthed in a ‘can do’ country where everything can be fixed with a length of number eigth fencing wire the nation has a homing pigeon DNA that you get free on sign-up.
This trip is a very special one for me as discussions within UCB are about a subject very close to my heart. The direction of our discussions surround the internet and the subject of social networking. Can we see the idea developed for the cause of discipleship and the driver for online media as a congruent and encompassing pathway for Online Ministry. Right now I feel that some see a problem needing a solution instead of a goal needing a strategy. My prayer (and I’d appreciate yours) is for the problem to become a dream and for like minds to be attuned to it’s fulfillment.
Jumpin’ on the iPhone ride
Today was my first run with the new Apple iPhone. After three months I have been totally enveloped in my iPod Touch 32GB. But just recently an opportunity arose to upgrade to a new phone so out with my HTC TyTnII and on to blissville.
So far it has been an uneventful introduction… I haven’t received any calls 
The thing I am looking forward to is integrating my social networking life via twitter on my iphone which posts to Facebook and then I’ll use the Wordpress app to enhance my blog.
Boy, even reading that makes me tired.
Now I’m off to setup a few apps… Call me!!
Mark Driscoll turns on the heat in Sydney
Mark Driscoll has been spending the last month in Australia holidaying with his family on the back of a very busy period of international travel that saw him on extended speaking engagements in England and then in Australia.
Here is a taste of the meeting that was held last Wednesday the 27th August in at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. The evening was called “Burn your Plastic Jesus” and came on the back of the Katoomba Convention’s Engage conference which this year had Mark Driscoll and D. A. Carson speaking.
When a public opportunity was presented for anyone to attend a one night evening with Mark Driscoll the Burn Your Plastic Jesus meeting quickly outsold the KCC conference centres’s facility and had to be moved to the Sydney Entertainment centre. Here Mark spoke to 10,000 courtesy of the team at KCC and Sydney Anglicans.
I attended the day time and night time sessions in Brisbane. An MP3 from the evening is now available at www.300menfoejesus.com I’ll come back to you with some additional thoughts from the inspirational day with Mark shortly.
The Android has Landed
Prepare to be amazed. We will need to see what the ‘Boys’ from Google have in store for us. Some issues seemed to be argued across the Blogosphere over the last few months but in the last week it appears that the efforts of HTC, Google and T-Mobile will be released around November 2008.
If you have dreams of development in the mobile phone arena then soon you will see an SDK come out from Google.
For more details check this article by Eric Schonfeld from TechCrunch.
iPhone Bible Reader from Olivetree
This is the one I was waiting for. I tried the Bible web-apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch (which I use) and it just wasn’t the same as my favourite Bible reader from my friends at Olivetree. I’ve been using their software for sometime on my Windows Mobile (formerly Pocket PC) devices.
The beauty and attraction of the Olivetree software for me has always been their approach to distribution. They provide their base software reader with a number of (150+) of free library resources and Bibles to get you started.
Not only can you beautifully read your Bible on your mobile device of choice from the over 100 mobile versions of the software but additionally you can download ebooks for the software like John Piper’s "A Hunger for God".
I encourage you to try the software and enjoy the benefits of having God’s word as your most used app on your PDA or mobile phone. I find that now the ability to bookmark verses at high speed during Sunday morning services is a great way to ‘keep up’. The other night I was able to pull out my phone and show friends the great challenge of reading Matthew 24 v 23-28 using the quick three touch verse finder system.
One of the missing aspects that Olivetree are having to work with Apple on is that you can buy books from their library and then download them into your PDA or Phone. However as this app has to be installed through iTunes there currently doesn’t appear to be a way for past users to get their hands on their past library purchases. Olivetree tell us they’re working on that one and hopefully they get good support from the team at Apple because I have some purchased Bible versions and books I want to install
Now don’t feel you have to stand still on this one. The first release of the software has a few missing features from the standard Windows Mobile version but they’re coming and quickly. I’ve checked online and the feature list will be growing with options like;
- Greek and Hebrew Bible translations
- Lexicons, reference works, and fonts
- There will be more commentaries, study tools, and Christian eBooks Olive Tree plans to release over 500 titles for iPhone
- Phrase Search
- Bookmarks
- Auto-Scrolling
- Hyperlinked Table of Contents for eBooks
- Personal Notes
- Support for Images
- Highlighting
- Split-Screen, to view multiple documents at once
- Notes and Cross-References
If you haven’t picked up already, I’m recommending you visit Olivetree and download a version of the software. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have an iPhone get the version for your Motorola, Nokia or other phone and take the Word with you.
Thanks Olivetree!