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I haven't written about technology in over 2 months. Even then the post was about how to enter into the Technology conversation using all of the tech toys and apps that are out but that wasn't that exciting. Here is the problem. There has been nothing since then that has really peaked my interest. Nothing has gotten me stirred up to the point of excitement. As the picture above states, I have been looking for true innovation.

What has happened over the last 2 months:

1. The G1 or Google Phone was announced by T-Mobile, but I really don't think it is going to take over the iPhone anytime soon. Boring!

2. Electric cars were announced by Chrysler. This isn't new, the capabilities have been there for over 25 years.

3. I had to pay for Jott.com to use it like I normally do. Willing because I love it but come on.

4. Our church started using Planning Center Online. Good but boring.

5. I now have downloaded over 50 apps on my iPhone. None have changed my life. Many are fun and amusing but not that exciting. Boring!

I really think those are the highlights for me over the last 2 months. Look, I know that the economy is in a wasteland and the markets all over the world are looking like lead balloons but if we don't start innovating then nothing is going to change. Innovation is the key. So please tech world, do something absolutely amazing for all of us. We could use it right about now.

Are you having trouble keeping up with the Tech World and all of the services out there? I know that I read about technology and use technology like crazy and I feel like I am behind most of the time. In my efforts to keep up I came across this excellent graph called the The Conversation Prism. Check it out:



Now of course this is not all of the services but I think you will find many that you didn't know about. There are many that are being created today and some that just didn't make the list but overall this is an incredible start.

Why is this important?

1. You have to know where the conversation is going on to be able to join in.
2. You have to be willing to share on multiple platforms to get the full picture (at least today you do.)
3. You have to be able to digest information quickly to stay up to date.

I hope this at least gives you an idea of where to look today for something new. The more people we have in the conversation the better we will all be in the end. I just can't wait for someone to condense the platform so that the conversation can be changed more efficiently and effectively.

(Hat Tip to Robert Scoble's FriendFeed and to Brian Solis and Jess3)

This cartoon was on my door when I walked in today:



Technology is great when it works and is the most frustrating thing in the world when it doesn't.

I did something crazy yesterday. I locked my gen. 1 iPhone and gave it away, to my wife. That's correct, I am walking around right now with an old Nokia flip phone in my pocket. I signed a 2 year contract with AT&T and dropped T-Mobile. My former iPhone is now legit. That means today I don't XM on my phone. I don't have a cool twitter client. I don't have much of anything including phone numbers. I can make and recieve calls and texts and that is it.

Why in the world would I do this? I need today to be a day where I get a ton done. I am out of town next week at a camp in Georgetown, KY. I need to make sure and have everything done today because tomorrow I will be occupied. I won't be worth anything on Saturday and Sunday besides church will be a wash. What will I be doing over the next 3 days?

ENJOYING my NEW iPHONE 3G!

I don't know if you have read yet but the App Store is live in iTunes. You can already buy your favorite Apps but of course you can't do anything with them until you upgrade to iPhone 2.0 or buy the new iPhone 3G. Many of the Apps in the store are very similar or the same as the ones in Installer of a jailbroken iPhone. The sad thing is that the ones that are the same are of course not free like they were in Installer. There are Apps that are not in the store as well. In the Installer you could add a video camera app that turned the camera of the iPhone into a recording device. You could also changed the theme of your phone through Installer and I don't see that in the App Store. There was also a voice dial App that I will miss. I will also miss the Touchpad Pro that allowed you to use your iPhone as your mouse.

As with any change I will have to adapt. I will have to contact AT&T now which I am not really excited about. I will have to be ready to download web pages faster. I will have to get use to real GPS. I will also have to get ready to pay for my Apps.

Here I come iPhone 3G. I can't wait for our friendship to begin.

As many of you know, I am a huge fan of Jott.com. Well they just came out with a new feature that will let you listen to my post on your cell phone while you are away from your computer. I don't know about you but I think this is really cool. I talked to my wife today and she didn't see the coolness but that is okay. If you want to listen to my post click on the button below.



You do have to have a Jott account and from there it is easy to set up. If you don't have a Jott account, then what are you waiting for? It really is an incredible piece of technology for use on the go.

The WWDC is the World Wide Developer Conference by Apple. Yes this is the famous conference that Steve Jobs announces the new stuff that fanboys like myself must have. The conference starts at 1:00pm eastern time. Do you think that it is a coincidence that Smash Camp will end at 1:00pm? Maybe but I would say that someone was thinking. Of course there are rumors upon rumors about all kinds of stuff that will happen at WWDC. The way Engadget puts it is like this:

Rumor roll call: 3G iPhone: check. Mid-range Mac desktop: check. Tablet MacBook: check. Tablet iPod touch: check. New MacBook Pros: check. Wait. You do realize that this is WWDC, and Apple usually only announces one, maybe two new pieces of hardware, right? They really just tend to focus on the software being that it's their, um, worldwide developer conference. (iPhone 2.0 firmware: check. OS X 10.6: check. Me.com: check.)

What do I think will happen? I think there will be an announcement about the iPhone 2.0. It will have 3G on it but you won't be able to buy it until the 1st of July. There won't by a Tablet MacBook even thought I would buy one in a heart beat. There will be a lot of new software updates that will make things simpler for almost everyone. The Apple stock will go up $3.07 on Monday and will fall $10.37 by the end of the week. I won't get an iPhone 2.0 for at least another year.

There you have it. My predictions for WWDC 08. I hope that there is more but I doubt it.

What do you think Steve Jobs is going to announce?

Did you know that Google started their conference yesterday? It is called the Google I/0 conference and it for developers. Of course there has been some big news come out of the conference already. You can read about the Android news here and the App Engine news here. I was following most of the news through TechCrunch.com and Twitter. (Side note: Twitter received another 15 Million in funding putting it's valuation at 60 Million. I hope this money goes to servers and fixes the downtime issues.) Terry Storch had the best tweets about the conference.

The best thing for me though was this story from TechCrunch.com:

With all the thousands of engineers at google, you’d think someone speaks binary. But perhaps not. Attendees of the Google I/O conference today were given t-shirts that, presumably, were supposed to spell GOOGLEIO on the front in binary. Just one problem, the actual message printed spells GOOGLEKO:

G: 01000111
O: 01001111
O: 01001111
G: 01000111
L: 01001100
E: 01000101
K: 01001011
O: 01001111

The “I” that should’ve been in place of the “K” would’ve been 01001001.

If you got one of these, save it. It’s definitely a collector’s item now. I’ll pay $50 for an XL, if anyone’s selling.

Check for yourself here - and remember that upper and lower case letters have different binary spellings. Thanks for the tip Randy.

I am a sucker for clothing and technology and I too really want one of these shirts. T-shirts are just signs that you wear so it all makes perfect sense to me.

Here is my thought about my next birthday. If I have to turn 30 on May 20th and get ridiculed and made fun of then I should at least tell you what you could get me. So here goes nothing.

There was some very exciting news that came out this past week from a company named Orb Networks. What was the news?

Orb Networks brings you another world's first:
play live TV, Internet TV, and webcams
on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

We've optimized media streaming so it works great over WiFi
and even over AT&T, O2, and Vodafone

Yes you read that right. I could have live TV on my iPhone. Jessica's first question was, "Why do you need live TV?" I said, "Need?" But how cool is it that you can do this?

How does it work?

Here's How

Step 1: On your PC Works on Windows PCs or on Macs running Parallels or Fusion Install the Orb streaming application Create your login and password To watch live TV or a webcam you will need a TV turner card or webcam attached to your PC Need a tuner card? Get the Hauppauge WinTV PVR USB2 Or get the Diamond XtremeTV PVR 660 Leave your PC on and connected to the Internet so it can stream stuff to your iPhone or iPod touch

Step 2: On your jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch You must have a jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch to get OrbLive (Haven't yet jailbroken your iPhone? We like ZiPhone*) Click on the Installer icon in your iPhone app menu Click the Install icon at the bottom Scroll through the list of categories and click on Multimedia Click on OrbLive Click Install at top right Click Install in the popup that appears When the package has installed, go to your iPhone app menu and click the OrbLive icon Enter the login and password you created when you installed Orb on your PC Enjoy!

So for my 30th birthday I want not only a Diamond XtremeTV PVR 660 but I want someone to set it all up for me as well. Is that to much to ask for someone who is turning old?

There you have it. New technology and to much information.

Here are the things that I am excited about in the tech world today:

• You can place a TV ad by using Google. Their stock is up 13 points because of that announcement.
• Facebook has it's own instant messenger. Nice interface and easy to use. Doesn't integrate yet.
• I have updated Twitter 70 times since last week. I am addicted.
  

Here is something that was sent to me by Andy Ribaudo that is very strange:

You can turn your Mii from your Wii into a doll for $75.



Who is buying this?


And the thing that I think is about time is:

iTunes is going to be able to sell movies the same day they hit DVD. Seriously why did it take this long.

I started using Twitter on March 4th, 2007 and blogged about it on March 9th, 2007. Since then, I have used Twitter 2 different ways under 2 different accounts. The first way I used Twitter was the way it was intended. Meaning I used it as a personal updating service and followed a bunch of people. Then I tried to use it as a parent involvement tool for Children's Ministry. This means I tried to leverage this new technology for ministry purposes by updating parents with what their kids were learning in church. You can read more about the second way here and here.

After seeing and using this service both ways as a personal tool and as a ministry tool or parent involvement tool I have come to conclusion that it is much better as a personal tool for now. Maybe in time when the next generation becomes parents then it would be very beneficial as a interactive tool for parents and ministry but not yet. Or maybe I should say not yet for Horizon's parents.

So what does this mean? This means that yesterday I started from scratch with Twitter. I deleted all of my old accounts and I am starting fresh. You could call it a personal Twitter Relaunch. If you are on Twitter than let me know. I would love to see what you are doing. If you want to follow me then you can find my Twitter page at http://www.twitter.com/mattmckee.

What are you doing right now?

Update: Sorry for those of you who still don't know what Twitter is, please watch this video:



Now go sign up for Twitter.

The Good News: 2 Min Tuesdays will be returning next week. I promise. I know some of you are saying, "YES!", and the majority are saying, "WHY?", but with my new iMac I can't wait to get back to video blogging.

The Bad News: I am not in the following video but it will only take you a minute to watch. I think you will enjoy it in my absence.

UPDATE: The following video was an April Fool's joke by Google. I know some of you didn't get that but now that you know, I think you will find the video much more amusing.




Want to know more about this project? Go to www.google.com/virgle

When I sit down at someone else's computer, I feel lost. They arrange their desktop differently then I do. They especially use the web differently than I do. When I sit down to my office computer or my home computer I want everything to look and feel the same. In my goal to become the most efficient, effective person I can become, I have tried to streamline as much as possible. One key area of streamlining has become my use of Mozilla Firefox, or in other words, how I use the web. As you may know, I am converting between Mac and PC right now and this transition has been made much easier with a little tool called Google Browser Sync. Firefox works with both Mac and PC. It has become my only browser and Google Browser Sync makes it even better.

What is it?
Google Browser Sync for Firefox is an extension that continuously synchronizes your browser settings – including bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords – across your computers. It also allows you to restore open tabs and windows across different machines and browser sessions.


Why is this important?
Let's say I have to leave the office and I am working on something on a website. I can open that website up and pick right up where I left off because of the Browser Sync. I also have all of the same bookmarks and saved passwords. Seriously, why do something multiple times when everything can be synced and you only have to do it once. It has also helped Jessica make the transition because everything within Firefox looks the same and acts the same.


How do you get Firefox? (go here)

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/


How do you get Google Browser Sync? (go here)

http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/browsersync

Yesterday was a huge day for me and my family. As you know I am making the transition from a PC to a Mac. It has not been as fast as I would have hoped but money always comes into play. My first step was with the iPhone. I have had my phone for a month and I love it. It has become one of my good friends. My second step came via UPS yesterday. Yes ladies and gentlemen I got my first Mac yesterday.

Which Mac did I get?


After many thoughts, I decided on the 20" iMac with a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 duo processor. I upgraded to 2GB of Ram and the wireless mouse and keyboard.

Why iMac instead of one of the MacBooks?

This computer will be replacing a desktop that I built over 3 years ago. Yes myself and Justin Tapp built a computer together. I have already had to replace the mother board, the sound card, and the graphics card is going out on this one. The desktop I built is also making some great noises now as well. Needless to say, I went the logic of Apple can build a much better machine and their software is kicking everyone else's tale. Also there will be no need for a MacBook at the house since I have a laptop at my work.

Where did I get it?

I could have gone to the local Apple store but I chose to order from MacMall .com instead. They had some great rebates and specials that I got some nice perks by going with them instead. They had great customer service and helped me get the best deal possible.

So there you have it. I now have my first Mac. What are some of the best tricks of the trade that I need to know? What will make my conversion the easiest?

How do you plan on watching/keeping up with all of the basketball games over the next several weeks/weekends? Conference tournaments started yesterday and today and people are using technology to keep up like crazy. Yes it is to check scores on your favorite sports site but I want an experience not just a score. I want to watch as much basketball as possible but I don't want to have to pay for the March Madness package on DirecTV, especially since I have Dish Network. I might be willing to switch though if they threw in that package and their HD channels, but that is a different post.

So back to the question at hand, how do you plan to keep up? Here are some ways that I plan on and you can chime in on the comments about your plan of attack.

1. All games are going to be streamed live through Joost. Get your Joost player at Joost.com and you to can watch basketball while you do prep work for other things. (Don't want to do Joost then sign up for a free VIP pass at CBS Sportsline.com watch it that way.)

2. I am going to be following certain people on Twitter. Knowing how the crowds are at games helps with the experience.

3. I am hoping to get a new HDTV and have it set up by next Thursday. Why watch it on an old TV.

So there are my top 3. What are yours?



2. Don't

Google Apps has been around for a little while now but is just now making some traction within the business world. Here is a nice article about the new Team Edition of their apps. It has a nice video to go with it. Hat Tip to Mashable for the article.

Why is this important? Our church staff just switched to Google Apps. As a non-profit it was free. It is hard to pass up Google and Free. Especially when we were paying $400 a month on outsourcing e-mail. Now e-mail is free for us and we get the added bonuses of Google Docs, Calendars, Talk, and Start Page. This means that all of our pastors and support staff are Googlefied. (OK, maybe not a word but still say it out loud and it is fun) No more worries about getting e-mail at home or not being able to access their calendar or the churches' main calendar. All of our staff can do that from anywhere. It is much easier to access this information from our cell phones as well. Now that Google supports IMAP as well, it is easy to set up GMail in Outlook if someone just has to have it instead of the web version.

This transition hasn't been flawless but even our non-technology people are doing well just after a couple of days. Thank you Google once again for leading in a way that helps out non-profits and gives us cutting edge tools to do our work.

Last night my friend Andy and I had an idea that we want to turn into a book. Both of us use Jott.com and use it quite often. We are basically evangelist for this company and they don't even know it. If you don't know what Jott.com is then read this post and this post to find out.

Our idea is to become a partner with Jott like blogger.com or zillow.com but our site is godjott.com. You see, if you jott to Blogger it goes to your blog or if you jott to Zillow then it gives you real estate information, but if you jott to godjott then you know that you are being prayed for. Of course your jott would be anonymous and you would be able to let someone know what you are going through. You would also know that your prayer was heard and someone is praying for you. We would take these jotts/prayers and turn them into a book to encourage people that they are not the only ones with struggles in their lives. Most people are going through the same things and it helps if them know that they are not the only one with this problem.

Don't worry we have already bought www.godjott.com. The site as of right now is nothing to brag about but give me some time. We have set up e-mail already and if you want to send your prayers before the Jott thing happens you can. You can e-mail us at pray@godjott.com.

So what do you think? Would you GodJott?

As you know from last week's post, the MacBook Air is coming out in a couple of weeks. It is the thinnest of all notebooks. This is basically because it doesn't have an optical drive or in other words a built in CD/DVD/HD drive in it. There is one option though that made me doing a little research when looking at MacBook Air. There are 2 options when it comes to its hard drive. One option is a traditional hard disk drive that will store 80GB of info. The other option is a flash-based drive or solid state drive that will store 64GB of info. The traditional 80GB version starts at $1799 and the newer 64GB version starts at $3098.

Now why would you want to pay more for less memory?
What are the advantages of the newer hard drive?

A traditional hard drive has moving parts. It uses magnets and wheels to right the information on the disk. This is why you must be careful not to drop your laptop. You could damage those moving parts and loose all of the information that is on the disk. The newer flashed based drives have no moving parts. They are chip based and write the information in a much safer manner and if dropped less likely to be damaged. Also the newer drives access the information more quickly. Because there are no moving parts it doesn't have to "work" as hard. So a solid state drive is a bit faster, more reliable, and a little bit lighter.

Is it worth worth an additional $1300?

I am going to say NO. For $300 I can buy an external hard drive that holds 750GB and software that will back up all my information automatically. I can have the piece of mind of saving $1000 and if needed I could replace the traditional drive and still save money. Now is the future of drives flash-based? Yes and in years to come the traditional drive will become obsolete but not before I am ready for a new laptop that is thinner, more reliable, and has wireless power. I can't wait for that day either.

I have been a PC guy for way to long. I am being persuaded by many of my friends that I should go Mac. Sam Luce, I know that you would be extremely happy to have someone else join the light/dark side.

So what do I think of the new MacBook Air that will be shipping in 2-3 weeks? I want one. It is that plain and that simple. I want to convert. I want to be a Mac geek. Is that bad? By the way if you don't know what I am talking about here is the new ad.

I know that today is not Thursday but it feels like it to me. I have been out of commission since Tuesday afternoon with a stomach flu. Not pretty but I am back to at least give what I think we the highlights of CES 2008.

5. GPS goes Internet with the Dash Express



This handy little device gives real time traffic, directions, and lets you search the internet all at once. Yes Google has maps for mobile but I don't want my phone screen to be that large and my wife would prefer real GPS over the "My Location" feature. This device will sale for $599. A little pricey but give it a year.

4. High Tech Gutter Cleaner




When you think of CES you don't think of gutter cleaners but what about one that is a wireless remote control one that will clean 60 feet in 10 minutes. Maybe I just really need to clean my gutters right now and don't want to have to climb up and down a ladder a hundred times but this is impressive. It is also has a really cool name: iRobot Looj. This will sale for $99-$169. That is a lot cheaper and more fun than installing those gutter guards.

3. Fabric PC of the Future


This little beauty is made by Fujitsu on their e-paper or flexible display paper. So technically not fabric but it folds and works like fabric. The idea is that if you wanted a bigger screen that you would just unfold it more and wham you now have a bigger screen. Of course this is only a concept right now and they don't expect it to hit the public for 5 years. I would love to have a shirt that was also a video display. Now that would be awesome.

2. Blu-Ray wins



If you didn't hear Blu-Ray is going to be the disc of the next generation. Years ago Sony lost the battle to VHS but win this one. How do you know? Not by they crowd or the 103" plasma or even the name. Warner Bros. studios came out and said that they are only producing their movies on Blu-Ray and not HD DVD. So if you bought a HD DVD player I am sorry.

1. 150 inch Plasma



Earlier this week I said that I would take the 108 in LCD by Samsung. This statement is still true but who could turn down a 150 inch plasma by Panasonic. Last year Panasonic was trumped because their 103 inch plasma was outdone. This year they wanted to make sure that didn't happen. There is no price on this TV yet but the 103 inch little brother sold for $69,000. I am betting six figures easy. By they way if you buy a HDTV today more than likely the best quality that you can get is 1080. This set has a resolution of over 4000. Now that is impressive.

If you didn't know the biggest and most exciting gadget expo started yesterday. It is called CES and it is covered by many sites but none better than Engadget.com. From what I understand there are 10 guys on the floor of the exhibit hall looking at every device. They have already covered the big news of Warner going with Blu-Ray instead of HD DVD and that Target may be going that way as well. There are some other great stories coming out as well but I thought I would take a moment and highlight some of the coolest gadgets that I have noticed up to this point. These are in random order:

1. The LG Watch Phone.















I would love to be James Bond and this is the first step.


2. Sony's Rolly: a robot/music player/really cool stage prop





Who really knows what this thing is but I bet you that it will be given away at a 2009 Children's Conference if Reggie Joiner as anything to say about it.

3. Sharp 108in LCD: available to buy in 2008



What guy doesn't dream of having this in their family room? It would be my room, but that is even better.


So there are three devices for now. Many more to come this Tech Thursday for sure. If you are keeping count, I have 3 things on my 30th birthday list already.

Also if you are wondering why I didn't give Apple any love. They don't come to this. They are to good for this. They have their own show called MacWorld. I am looking forward to that as well, but until then. . .