Keep your Mac Tip-Top with OnyX
Have you heard of OnyX? It’s a free utility that lets you maintain and tweak your Mac to keep it healthy and squeeze every drop of processing power from it.
In their own words:
OnyX is a multifunction utility that enables you to verify the startup disk and the structure of its system files, to run miscellaneous maintenance and cleaning tasks, to configure parameters in Finder, Dock and some of the Apple-own applications, to delete caches, to remove certain problematic folders and files, to rebuild various databases and indexes and more.
I use it at home on my 7-year-old PowerMac G5. Without OnyX, I would have junked this computer years ago, but it’s still humming along and works well enough for some light Photoshop and Illustrator work.
Whether you’ve got a late model Mac Pro or something a little more vintage, OnyX can help you out and might even save your hide some day.
twistori: Twitter Visualization on Your Desktop
Ever wish you could put cool looking animation of tweets about your event or organization up on the screens for everyone to see? Now you can with twistori Desktop Edition!
I saw this sweet screen saver while visiting the Element Fusion offices a few weeks ago.
For around $14 you get an app that lets you search twitter for keywords, filter out the naughty stuff or other things, and display them in a fun, full screen manner. Want to customize the look? Know some CSS? Make your own twistori theme! Awesome!
Twistori even lets you export your searches as screen savers to share with the office or your friends. Go get it!
Get a Facebook App for your Church!
A couple weeks ago, Henderson Hills Baptist Church, with the help of Terrell Sanders and Adam White of Main Street Enterprises launched a new feature on their Facebook Fan Page. If you visit the HHBC Facebook Fan Page and you are not yet a fan, you’ll be presented with a customized page via a custom Facebook App.
On this custom Facebook App you see items from the HHBC RSS feed, service times, a banner advertising an upcoming event, a link to our weekly newsletter and a link to our media player. Cool!
The magic happens when you realize that all the content in the app is tied to a Wordpress website where you can add new content very quickly and easily! And if your church’s website already runs on Wordpress, you’re Facebook App’s content can sync automatically with your website. Update the website…update the Facebook App.
Here’s some more examples of what Main Street has been able to do with these sorts of Facebook Apps:
- http://www.facebook.com/crossingsokc
- http://www.facebook.com/CommissionStories
- http://www.facebook.com/unitedbrethren
The only downside to these apps is, once you become a fan of the page the app is on, it only appears when you click on it’s tab at the top of the fan page. However, with that in mind, it’s the perfect opportunity to make a great first impression for Facebook users who make it to your page. It’s important to note that tis is due to a limitation in Facebook’s API.
So, how much will one of these bad boys set you back? Adam tells me that they start at $500 plus customization and you can expect it to take about two weeks to turn one of these around. So, if you’re looking to add something fresh to your church’s Facebook strategy, check into Main Street!
Wicked clever idea coming from @thejrod over at NewSpring.cc. IT people, take note.
Free NAB Registration for CTD Readers
I just got an email from someone on the NAB Show Team letting me know of a couple of exhibits at this year’s show that might be of interest to some of you.
The Technologies for Worship Pavilion offers comprehensive training for house of worship staff and technical volunteers and is the focal point for all things related to worship technology at the NAB Show. In addition, you may be interested in Destination Broadband - the newest broadband-centric exhibit at the 2010 NAB Show. It will be featuring technologies like online video platforms, streaming video, mobile video distribution, and much more.
Technologies for Worship Schedule: http://ow.ly/1fCqd
Destination Broadband: http://ow.ly/14hgA
Check out that first link. Looks like some informative and fun stuff!
Want to get into NAB for free? Save yourself $150 by visiting http://nabshow.com/register and using promo code A913
animoto Releases API
I love animoto like I love Apple. It just makes things easier. Now they’ve released a developer API! I’m looking forward to seeing what people do with that!
Editing a Multicam Program Shot on Canon 5Ds
If you’re into digital photography or videography you may have heard that shooting video on your HD capable DSLR is all the rage. This post from the ProVideo Coalition provides a great case study in how using these cameras to shoot an entire program can work. I need to get me one of these cameras!
Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog: The End of Ebooks
There’s been a lot talk about the publishing industry and how eBooks and other technologies will change things. This brief article from Joe Wikert, GM at O’Reilly publishing, has some interesting thoughts on what the step beyond eBooks might look like and a company you may be familiar with that has been doing it for years. Thought provoking stuff.
Less Framework: An HTML5-powered CSS framework for building smart website layouts for varying screen widths.
Looking to build a mobile website? Hoping to take advantage of huge screen sizes without leaving out the little guy? Check into Less Framework. It’s pretty cool!
Facebook Launches Zero, A Text-Only Mobile Site For Carriers
With mobile sites being all the rage, don’t forget your visitors who, like me, are still rocking their non-iPhones and non-Androids and whose mobile browsers are limited by speed, rendering and bandwidth issues. If the group of mobile browsers in this situation is big enough for Facebook to consider, I’ll bet it’s big enough for your church to consider.
Don’t have the skills or time to set it up? There are services that make creating a mobile site quick and easy!
