I'm going to skip ahead of my blog with this post and simply list all the useful tech 'stuff' that I use in my (church) work life. In future posts I shall go into more detail about each one.
There is a slight Mac bias here, but a number of them are certainly available cross-platform. Most of them are free with a charge for some. I list them in no particular order, but just as they come to mind as I write:
- Buffer (bufferapp.com) - A great way to bring your social media life into line with free or pay monthly accounts.
- Audacity (audacity.sourceforge.net/download) - Don't pay for an expensive audio editor when you can get an amazing one for free! For putting together podcasts this is ideal.
- iMovie (apple.com/uk/imovie) - Simple, easy, does the job of editing video really well with a few hidden surprises that can give your finished movie a professional look. Depending on platform and when you got your Apple device this app is free.
- Keynote (apple.com/uk/keynote) - Don't get stuck with a steep PowerPoint learning curve and wonderful transitions and effects that you'll probably never use. Get stuck into Keynote and begin preparing professional looking slides in seconds. (Just try and avoid using bullet points right... right?)
- Sermon.Net (sermon.net) - With various account packages which include a generous free account this is the easiest way to get your (Audacity) edited podcasts online. You've also got the option of releasing video podcasts into the wild also!
- Clipping Magic (clippingmagic.com) - Available for free, but only for use on the Chrome browser (google.com/chrome) this is an incredibly simple way to get rid of any pesky backgrounds from your images. You may not need to use it often, but when you do it's a time saver.
- Feedly (feedly.com) - Although you can pay for some extra features the free version of this news aggregator does the job for most folks. Access, share and save all your favourite websites, RSS feeds etc in one place.
- Pocket (getpocket.com) - Come across a website article, but haven't time to read it? Send it to Pocket. Find yourself skimming through stories using Feedly, but not really taking them in? Send the ones you're most interested in to Pocket. With offline access for all the stories and articles you save you'll find this is a real boredom buster, or something to help catch-up with the world when you've got that spare few minutes. Pocket is free.
- IFTTT (ifttt.com) - 'If This Then That' proclaims to "get the internet to work for you..." and it does, with aplomb. Hard to explain IFTTT in a few sentences, easier just to visit and experiment. You'll understand when you give it a go. IFTTT is free.
- Evernote (evernote.com) - Quite simply the best note taking tech out there. Available on pretty much any platform, and integrated into many other apps and services, this will (if you let it) quickly become your second brain! Choose the free account or pay yearly for more options.
- Fantastical (flexibits.com/fantastical) - This app quickly replaced my default calendar on all devices. It's not so much that it looks good and displays information well, it's more it's easy to input style of event and to-do list creation. Using natural language to input your information and syncing smoothly with your devices default calendar you'll never look back. Fantastical isn't free, but it's worth the cost.
- Blogger (blogger.com) - There are other good blog providers out there, but I found Blogger (from Google) to be the easiest to set-up with little fuss. Customisable to your unique tastes you'll be sharing your nuggets of wisdom with the world probably within 15 minutes. Best of all - it's free (okay, okay I know you've had to set-up a Google account and they want to advertise stuff to you so in a way you're the product, but... it's free!).
- Squarespace (squarespace.com) - Squarespace isn't free and at its heart it's a fancy blogging service, but the reality is that it's the easiest and simplest way to set up a modern (on-trend?) website with little or no coding needed! Their customer service is second to none and it will ensure you always have a neat, tidy and fresh looking website adaptable to all devices and platforms. Check out their two week trial offer and see what you think.
That's enough for now I think. In a few months I'll generate another list with more great apps and services!
So onwards into our journey of useful stuff for you to try...
First up on this epic quest is the ubiquitous Evernote. Why ubiquitous? Because Evernote really is everywhere! However before I get into that I should briefly explain what it is and why you should use it.*
Evernote has been described by many as 'your second brain', a place to put stuff that you don't want clogging up your everyday brain. You know, the one that's reading this, though I'm hoping by the end of this piece you may very well place this blog post in Evernote too.
- Want to take a quick note? - Use Evernote.
- Want to jot down some thoughts and inspirational ideas but haven't got time to type? - Use your voice and record via Evernote.
- Want to take a quick picture to annotate later? - Use Evernote (and possibly Skitch - but more of that in a future post).
- Want to save an email with it's attachment? - You could use Evernote.
And so on and so on.
You see, coming back to the ubiquity of Evernote, you could access all the above and more regardless of device you're using or platform you're on. Smartphones, tablets, PC's - if you've got it Evernote is probably available on it. And the backbone to this is Evernote's ability to sync your saved information across all these devices and so access to your stuff that you've crammed into your 'second brain' is just a few taps or clicks away.
So how does it work?
You save your stuff on Evernote in virtual Notebooks, and you can place notebooks into other notebooks and create a 'stack' of notebooks. This is useful if you create many notebooks and they are related. For example: I have a stack of notebooks called 'City Church Leeds' and within this stack are all the notebooks I've created that contain City Church Leeds stuff. Notebooks with names like: Receipts, Preaching Notes, Media Inspiration, Ideas... and there's more, this particular notebook stack is large.
This is the key to Evernote in my opinion and why I like the 'second brain' analogy, because I use it to just dump stuff that I need a record of and want to access later. I'm not afraid to keep on making as many notebooks as I need to keep my many, many ideas, links, notes, pictures, PDF's and spreadsheets. Again the list goes on. My 'first' brain then can happily forget this stuff until the need arises that I need to remember (access) it again.
It would probably be best to run you through in a bit more detail how I use Evernote day to day. I use it as a way to store a digital copy of all the receipts that I need to also send onto our church accountant. I do this by either scanning the receipt with a dedicated scanner (in my case a slimline scanner from Doxie), or use a PDF 'scanner' on my iPhone. I use the Genius Scan app primarily - I take a picture of my receipt through the app and through magic Genius Scan trickery it converts it to a PDF and then from this I give it a more sensible name (scan009866722 just isn't cool!), tag it, send to Evernote (you can tell it which notebook to put it in) and at the same time send to our aforementioned accountant.
I also use Evernote to save links and stories that I've found on the web that I know I'm going to want to keep for a while and refer to when writing a talk, blog or simply use as inspiration. This is incredibly easy to do when using all the mainstream browsers: Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Explorer as Evernote provide a 'plug-in' for these (a plug-in is essentially an app for your browser), and then it's just one click on the Evernote icon in your browser tool bar to save. The same functionality can be added to your smartphone browser, though due to the lockdown nature of Apple you need a few more steps to set it up on iOS initially, but once it's done, it's done. More info about that HERE.
Occasionally I use Evernote as a 'to do' list, record a meeting audibly as well as taking notes at the same time, and to send annotated pictures or drawing (though as I wrote earlier I use Skitch in conjunction with Evernote to do this). All notes are automatically saved into my primary notebook (which I named - '_MAIN' so it would appear at the top of my notebooks list) and when I have a spare few mins here and there I just work through '_MAIN' putting the different notes in their correct notebooks until '_MAIN' is empty. When it's empty there is a very satisfied feeling of accomplishment!
On another blog I will talk about an amazing tool you can use called: IFTTT (If This Then That), which enables you to create 'recipes' so if you do one thing online you can make another thing happen automatically. Actually it's a bit more than just that, but I'll write in detail another day, suffice I say I use it in conjunction with Evernote this way: If I tag myself at a place using Foursquare (again, another day - I have so much to share!), it will automatically (via IFTTT) send this information to Evernote, so in effect I have created digital time sheet of my location and activity should anyone ever be that interested to look and gives me a history of where I've been and who I've met.
This post could go on and on about different ways of using Evernote, but then it would get incredibly long and some of you, understandably, might start to click away. The best thing to do is to just get online, sign up and then also download the app to your smart devices. Just practice using it. However, here is a word of warning and I can't say this strongly enough - YOU NEED TO GET INTO THE HABIT OF USING IT OTHERWISE YOU WILL NOT FEEL THE BENEFIT. Create as many notebooks as you need and tag away. Evernote has a powerful search engine and you'll be able to find most things that you've filed away within seconds.
How much is Evernote?
Well as with most things I'm going to write about... it's free! You can pay for a premium service, but for most folks the free version will be more than adequate, you can always upgrade. If you do pay for the premium service you'll get the following:
- Share notebooks and collaborate with other Evernote users.
- Download notebooks for offline use.
- Passcode lock on mobile devices.
- Increased upload capacity per month and increased note upload size.
- Search within documents (such as PDF's) and related notes discovery.
Premium is £4 per month or £35 per year, though at the mo (until October 2014) O2 customers can get this free for a year. Not bad eh?
As a footnote to this post, I'm not getting paid to promote Evernote above any other services, it's just the one I use and have become comfortable with. If you use other apps / services I'd love to hear from you after all the internet age is all about communication!
(*other note taking apps are out there so if you wish to look here are a few 'notable' others recommend by IT WORLD.)
