Monthly Archives: November 2009

12 Months With An iPhone

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I have had my iPhone for just over 12 months now. I know because when the volume button fell off I rang up to get it replaced and I was a week too late… oops…

This really is one impressive little tool and I thought I’d highlight what I like about it as well as what I don’t

The Good

Diversity – I use mine for everything from email, to personal finances, to playing scrabble

Wifi/Net – Great to be able to have access almost anywhere anytime

Screen – great size and visibility

Synching – I synch with Outlook, Google Calendar and Dropbox and it does a great job

App Store – there is such a diverse range of apps for almost every imaginable need. (I just downloaded a ‘Vehicle Log’ app for recording my business kms for tax purposes).

The Bad

Camera – the quality is crappy

Itunes – I don’t think its very simple to use

The Case – my case has cracks and crazing all thru it. I don’t think it will be a problem getting another 12 months out of it, but it doesn’t look good – and that’s with a full case over it for the whole time

Battery life – it’d be great to have about 3 times the battery life…

My Most Used Apps

Netnewswire

– a blog newsreader. I read most of my feeds on the phone now

Notes – I use this nearly everyday and it syncs with Outlook. I usually write ideas or do quotes with it.

Maps – I use it nearly every day to find customers homes. It was great when we were travelling as the GPS was sometimes out of date.

Coastalwatch – surf reports, with video and still images. Great for daydreaming…

Facebook – works well and saves me booting up the laptop

CashTrails – we are currently tracking our spending and income. This is a brilliant little tool for that.

Pocket Weather – great weather reports with rain radar and synoptic charts

AutoStitch – good tool for creating panoramic photos

Around me – this has been a life saver at time. Where is the nearest Bunnings?… Ask the phone…

IceTV – a local TV guide on my phone so I don’t need to get Saturday’s paper now

GPS Sport – great for tracking where you have been. When I delivery retic flyers it shows me where I have been and how far I have walked. I’m sure its much more use to bushwalkers. You can use it to chart where you parked your car if you are worried you might get lost!

Scrabble – fun on the ‘normal’ setting, but I always get my butt kicked when I try to play against the phone on ‘hard’ setting.

Dropbox – a great way to synch hard drive with phone for essential items

Its a pretty damn sophisticated little piece of equipment and if you are willing to take the time to learn how it works it can be very very useful. i just hope I don’t ever lose it now!

I have been known to make the odd phone call on it too…)

The Memory Effect

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Today I am a pastor of a pretty regular church again – Quinns Community Baptist Church – and I imagine I will need to do some adjusting.

The last time I did this was at Lesmurdie where I was the pastoral team leader for a couple of years before heading off to Brighton. It wasn’t a long enough stint to really settle into the role and the last 6 years have been very different from what is required here.

As I have alluded to before ‘Pastor’ is a pretty bad description for my role, but there you have it. I describe myself as a ‘church leader’ rather than pastor, but perhaps that’s just me being pedantic.

Two of the challenges I face immediately are those of trying to balance a normal working life with church leadership responsibilities as well as trying to become a little better at having a regular day off. I am not seeing myself going back into full time church work as I reckon it is of real value to be working in the community and to be experiencing the stuff everyone else does.

Last night we had our monthly leaders meeting and I had just spent 8 hours digging and fixing people retic. I was pretty wiped by 7pm and happy to see a short agenda. These days I am reminded that most people come to meetings after a hard days work and don’t have the option full time pastors do of having a ‘quiet afternoon’ in lieue of an evening meeting. It has increased my sympathy for the non-paid leaders!

Taking a day off will also be a challenge. Because we have lived at such a steady pace over the last 6 years I haven’t been too concerned to be highly regulated with a sabbath. I have had plenty of rest spaces and life has never got too busy. I don’t expect it will ever get ‘too’ busy again, but I would like to be a little more dedicated to a sabbath.

Currently Saturday looks like the best day to fit with the rhythm of our family and community. It just means I have to get my act together early in the week if I have a teaching role on Sundays as its easy to leave stuff to the last minute and then wipe out what was going to be a day off.

A week day off would be nice, but its prime earning time for my business and Saturday is part of our rhythm as a family now and is probably where we should stay.

I just need to get organised earlier to make sure it actually works…