So with the recent announcement by the increasingly awesome Google Reader team of a note taking ability for Shared Google Reader items, I have figured out a way to automatically add my comments to posts I read and post it on my wordpress blog. For those like me that struggle with finding time to blog, this is AWESOME! I can now do all my blogging instantly from where I do most of my research! You can even post a shared item directly to my shared feed without subscribing to it! Does it get any better?

WARNING: This means that I will be posting a LOT more articles, that will predominantly be just pointing you to good resources I have found on the internet! (Hey, that’s what I do now!)

For those that might want to also do so, I am using a really nice plugin called FeedWordPress. I can then just put my RSS feed for my shared page in there and off we go.

It’s Friday, so I am going to jump out on the edge a bit and write about something fun and out there… You may have seen the e-mail going around as of late about “AMAZING TECHNOLOGY FROM JAPAN” about a pen that projects a keyboard and a screen.  It includes this image.

It then goes on to say something to the effect of…

In the revolution of miniature computers, scientists have made great developments with bluetooth technology… This is the forthcoming computers you can carry within your pockets.

This “pen sort of instrument” produces both the monitor as well as the keyboard on any flat surfaces from where you can carry out functions you would normally do on your desktop computer.  Can anyone say, “Good-bye laptops!”

When I first saw this I was super impressed… then I did some digging.  Apparently this has been around since at least 2006.  And some people say that it doesn’t exist at all.

I know for a fact that the infrared type keyboards do exist (I have personally played with one), but what about the projection monitors?  I heard a rumor that they exist… but I have not been able to find a reference for them… so I turn to you dear reader’s.  Does anyone know if this exists?

If it does exist, this is pretty awesome.  I’m not sure it is any better than mobile phones, in fact, it is probably not, because not as many people will have these as people that have mobile phones, but it’s cool.

Just read about a new Google Chat option that I think is pretty sweet.  You can now embed a widget on a blog that will allow ANYONE, even those without Google accounts to chat with you.  I have embedded one on my blog, so feel free to chat with me.

Uses for church?  Could be used by missionaries as another communication method.  Mostly I just think it is cool. 

As we more more and more toward a completely paperless society we really need to address digital reading.  There are some great new device’s coming out (like Amazon’s Kindle), but most people, can’t afford a dedicated reading device, especially a $400 one. :) 

So, what do you do?  Use your laptop! :)  Yesterday I read a great article on Lifehacker about doubling your reading speed. They introduced three new programs to me that will flash words on a screen at a high rate. 

• ZAP Reader
• Spreeder
• WordFlashReader (You don’t have to be online for this one)

Why this is Better than books!

To me, this is using technology to help us.  So often we look down at reading online, but this would actually be BETTER than a regular book because it keeps your undivided attention.  And I know we can all read faster than we do, when we have to. 

Of course, if your goal is to ENJOY the book… this might not be the best solution…

Personal Experience

When I was in grad school I had to read LARGE books, and several a week.  When I was drowning in stuff to do, I found a way to download books on my palm pilot and using the auto scroll feature read entire books in half the time it would normally take me.  I have not tried these particular programs yet, but I can imagine how awesome this would be.

Church Applications

There is a TON of information on LDS.org.  I struggle to keep up with it all of my readings for church each and still have meaningful personal study.  Using one of these programs will allow you to get a lot of information at once… of course that might not be the goal… then they aren’t that good.

Another option is for all those classic books out there that general authorities keep quoting.  I have a long list of books I want to read… this would allow me to work my way through them faster…

Has anyone else out there tried using these programs?  What about another program?  What other ideas do you have for making reading online easier?  Do share your thoughts in the comments section!

I have been very impressed with Google Translate for a while.  The ability to translate chat’s, and pretty much anything is changing the way I can do research at work and especially for my family history.

I recently started getting more into family history, but my family roots come from Holland.  I speak German, but that is only good to a small extent.  A distant relative in France sent me several books, but some of them are written in Dutch.  I tried reading them, but could only get the basics.  I pasted the words in google translate and was able to easily follow the story.  Granted, it’s not the best translation, but you certainly can follow it!  Awesome!  

Today I read about a new Firefox extension today called gTranslate.  It allows you to select text on any page and translate it to any of the languages that GoogleTranslate supports.  That could be useful… :) 

Yesterday Alan Brown posted on LDSTech Forums asking for a Wiki for Clerk’s.  His argument is that the forum’s are a great place for discussion, but we need a place for reference materials for increasing number of techie problems the church faces.

There was a good discussion about it and in the end Tom (I believe he started the forum’s) said that they were working on getting approval for a wiki now.  That seems like an awesome idea.  :)  I look forward to seeing what they come up with!

LDS Living had a great article about the use if iPod’s, both for education and within the church. I have had an iPod for about a year and use it almost exclusively for great LDS talks, podcasts, and other great stuff.

That reminds me… I have never posted about another great service, ScriptureCast.net. With this service you can create your own podcast schedules for the scriptures or conference! Awesome. It is ReadTheScriptures. for iPod’s. You can also use it to just get updates in iTunes every day if you don’t have an iPod.

So there was been a lot of talk in the media lately about live blogging… CoverItLive seems to be a big player in this field.

What about the idea of LiveBlogging a church meeting? Or perhaps Stake Conference. This could allow us to reach people that are further away. I’m pretty sure there is an audio feed in the family-history library (at least in our building) where there is internet connection.

What do you think?

So as I mentioned in an earlier post, I had to give a talk a couple of weeks ago in church.  Like any true techie, I wrote my talk in OneNote and took my tabletPC.  I was going to print it out… I really was, but I had to go to meetings at 6AM and knew I would have an hour to finish up my talk after my meetings before church. 

(The bishopric snickered when I got up to talk and put my tablet on the pulpit… they know by now that I am a bit of a geek, but they love me for it. )

Anway, it was a bit weird to page down, but the tablet made it at least seem normal.  Then I came across this teleprompter program.  You could potentially use this to keep you at a good speed.  I didn’t try it offline… but the idea is cool.  I am constantly talking too fast when I get nervous.  This could be nice…

… …

Okay, no one is probably ever going to use this, but perhaps… just perhaps this might be of use to someone.

So I have been writing about ReadTheScriptures a lot lately, but they have been doing a lot of great things… :) 

I’m sure it was not in response to my post about independent developers from a couple of days ago, but ReadTheScriptures decided to discontinue the use of Google Ads on their website because of all the anti-mormon links that were popping up. 

They also recently did some updates to the team functionality that could be very useful in seminary classes.  This is from a comment they left on all team pages:

• A percentage of the overall team progess is now displayed beside the team name.
• Team comments and Member progress are now available in seperate tabs for better viewing.
• Each team member can add their own profile picture to be displayed with their reading progress. Clicking on the thumbnail will open the picture in a larger view.
• Team members can now edit and delete their own posted team comments, while the team owner has the ability to edit or delete any comment.
• The team owner will notice 3 additional tabs: Invite, Settings, and Challenges.
• Within the Settings tab, the owner can select which readings will display and be included in the team.
• The Challenges section is under development. This will be a new feature to allow teams to challenge each other.

Way to go Wayne and Deann!  Keep it up!