Alice: My Shopping Robot

Given all the babies arriving this year, I imagine shopping for even mundane items can turn into a major production for growing families. Alice is a new service that works with manufacturers to sell directly to consumers. The site makes money from advertising, not from a retail markup, so the typical retail middleman is cut out of the equation. Of course, the manufacturers will want to capture some of that margin, so don’t expect wholesale pricing.

Anyway, shoppers can define a basket of everyday goods (e.g., diapers, trash bags, etc.) and Alice will remind you when you may be running low. Shipping is also free. I haven’t used the service yet, but it looks promising —  read this TechCrunch review to get a more in-depth look. This isn’t a web/consumer blog, but there are so many people with toddlers and kids now, I’ve got to believe someone is interested. Good luck!

Gmail Ninja

What belt are you?

A quick scan of our email lists indicates the majority of NHF uses gmail (or Google Apps email). Google has added features to Gmail steadily over the past year or so, and recently compiled a helpful tip sheet. Given the amount of email I receive every day from all sorts of sources, I rely heavily on Gmail’s advanced features to find and organize stuff.

So take a look at the tips, you’ll probably s find something useful.

Gospel Coalition Live Webcast

Well, technology progresses faster than expected…again.

The liveblog today is still a go for those of you who’d rather skim text and enjoy Cathy’s color commentary. Nevertheless, check out the announcement below, care of  the Desiring God blog:

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The Gospel Coalition’s 2009 National Conference begins today in Chicago. But if you didn’t get a ticket, no worries. They have gone the extra mile (or miles and miles) to include all of us who can’t be there in person.

• All ten of the plenary sessions will be broadcast live on the web, including John Piper’s message at 2pm this afternoon titled “Feed the Flame of God’s Gift: Unashamed Courage in the Gospel” (2 Timothy 1:1-12).

• At their website you’ll be able to download the audio and video for each session within a day after it’s given. Yes, for free.

• And if you want to see what conference attendees are paging through between sessions, the entire conference program (PDF) is downloadable as well. (Bonus: the program also lists the text for all of the conference hymns.)

Politics and Religion

Here’s an interesting graphic, care of Verifiable, a relatively new data visualization website. Data visualization websites host public data sets (e.g. US GDP time series) and allow users to upload their own data sets. The idea is to “democratize data” so information is easier to access and analyze.

The graphic below was generated from data gathered by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life:

brought to you by the number seven

Did You Know?

This is a dramatic presentation on the rapid pace of technological development and it’s potential impact on society. What do these facts imply for the Great Commission?

Gas Station Optimization…Engage!

The equity markets rallied several percent after the latest bailout plan announcement, but the little people are often concerned with more important things:

1. Is the milk in this carton still good?
2. Where can I get cheap gas?

Well, NHF Financial has you covered. We save more so we can give ’til it hurts!

Nerds of the World, Unite!

I got no book learnin', must...watch...video...

For those of you looking to retain your expensive undergraduate and graduate education, check out Academic Earth. This website is similar to Hulu, but for freely available course lectures. The service aggregates material from MIT, Stanford, Yale, etc. Linear algebra? Check. History of the Civil War? Check. Ancient Greek Civilization? Check. Entrepreneurship? Check. Academic Earth has it all!

The site features ratings for each course and there are plans to improve viewer interaction. I’ve used iTunes to download a few videos from courses from iTunesU (both services actually offer many of the same courses), but Academic Earth is easier to use. Syllabus and quiz materials are also offered on the site.

Now all we need is something similar for sermons and lectures! (though the Gospel Coalition website is pretty close).

CompTooter Addiction Begone!

I’ve heard that there are a few of us, usually men, that mysteriously disappear into a magic box when they get home. This box is sometimes called a “Computer” or “Kingdom Domination Simulator” or “Responsibility Compactor” or “I’m Actually Working Reflector.” For those of us <!cough!> that occasionally lose track of time when surfing the InterWebs, etc., the following tool can help: E.ggTimer.com!

The Power of Christ compels you!

EggTimer is about as simple as you can get. The cool thing is, you can control how long of a countdown you want by typing directly into the URL (e.g., http://E.ggTimer.com/1hour). As the “/1minute” screenshot suggests, the black lines at the top and bottom of your browser window will gradually move to the right as time runs out. I find the timer helps me structure my time. I don’t keep it on-screen all the time (that would be too stressful!), but the knowledge that E.ggTimer is ticking down subdues my more insidious procrastination tendencies.

So go ahead, disappear into the magic box! Just set a boundary condition. E.ggTimer’s ounce of prevention will  help you avoid a ‘we have to talk’ moment.

Nerds + Church = Tony Steward

In researching various potential web-related products for our church, I ran across Unifyer,  a social-networking service. More interesting, however, are some of the interviews offered on the site. If you are interested in how technology and the church intersect, take a look at the video interview with Tony Steward. He discusses how the internet is redefining traditional definitions of community. I can’t link to the video directly because the site is flash based, but I’ve included a screenshot of the site below. Just surf to the Unifyer site, click on Demo Videos, and look for the guy in the red circle.

Web 2.0

Bible + Google = Accordance 8 [Mac only]

Greek? Hebrew? no problem!

I was looking around for some Bible study software and came across a heavy duty piece of programming, Accordance 8.  This bad boy offers a comprehensive collection of Bible translations, commentaries, maps, and other reference materials that scale all the way up to texts in the original Greek and Hebrew.  The full blown package is great for the theologian, but there are packages for those of us that don’t absolutely need to have the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The basic package starts at $50 but can quickly reach several hundred dollars, depending on the add-ons you purchase. Not necessarily cheap (as in FREE), but I’m not doing justice to the functionality of the product. Read a comprehensive review of the software here.

Should I get it?