I have been using Google Priority Inbox for a couple of days now and I love it! I never really used the stars before in my Gmail because in order to see a message that was important to me I needed to actually remember to go to the stars tab. No more! Gmail is still learning what I consider a priority and what I don’t. But it is already helping me out in a big way!

Google Wave < Google Priority Inbox!

Have you activated it yet? What do you think?

If you’ve been following along… you are aware that I recently switched from a Blackberry to the new Droid X on Verzion. I had been a Blackberry user for some time and was disappointed with the devices they had to offer. I wanted something sexy. Check out their latest addition to the Blackberry family! The Blackberry Torch 9800. That’s sexy! I’m happy with my Droid X for now, however I will never tie myself down to a specific OS. When I’m in the market again for a new device… I’ll go with whatever is able to deliver on what I need at the time.

This new Blackberry looks like it’s got some great potential! The UI has been cleaned up a lot and it’s pretty clear, as the video is quick to point out, that RIM is trying to show the world they can do more than just email and text. Since RIM opened up their Push API to all developers beyond just Blackberry Alliance members last March… apps have been able to be more effective at getting information to the user in real time. The new operating system, OS 6, looks like it’s finally going to allow the user to take advantage of multiple apps at the same time.

Now here’s the video review from Crackberry.com.

The crazy black and white boxes below each app’s name is called a QR code. App #1 on my list is the app that will allow you to scan and download the following apps easily using your phone’s camera.

Okay here’s my list:

1. Barcode Scanner

Just go to the Android Market app on your Android device and search for this app. With it you can scan barcodes on CDs, books, and other products, when look up prices and reviews. You can also scan QR codes containing URLs, contact info, calendar events and as I’m displaying on the following apps in this list… URLs to the Android Market.

2. Advanced Task Killer

This is a must have app for any Android device. It is a tool to kill applications that are running in the background. One of the things that sets the Android OS apart from say, iOS… is that it is true multi-tasking. Which is great! Except for your battery life. You should manually run this app periodically to kill off apps that are running in the background… even after you’ve stopped using them.

(more after the jump)

3. doubleTwist Player

The doubleTwist Player is a fully featured music and video app. It basically looks a lot better on the screen than the stock Android music player.

4. Smooth Calendar

This is a simple and good looking calendar widget. Along the lines of app #3 on this list… it just makes your phone’s home screen look a lot nicer. Links right to your Google Calendar.

5. Beautiful Widgets

This app makes your widgets look better than the stock widgets. It has nice toggle widgets for WiFi, Airplane Mode, GPS, Bluetooth etc… also makes your clock look cool.

6. Beautiful Live Weather

This is a Live wallpaper app. When combined with Beautiful Widgets (#5), you will be able to watch the real weather conditions, rain, snow, storms, all right on your device.

7. AppBrain App Market

This app can replace the stock Android Market app that comes pre-installed on your device. This market app will give you app recommendations based off of your current list of installed apps. You can share apps via facebook and twitter and install/uninstall apps from it just like you can from the original market app.

8. ASTRO File Manager

This is a great way to keep your files organized on your Android device. It allows you to manage your devices internal hard drive as well as your SD card. You can create new folders and copy/cut paste files into other folders. This is really a must-have app.

9. Mini Info

This is a simple and hassle free way of checking the health of your device. With one click… it’ll show you batter percent and status, total and available internal storage, external memory (SD card). I primarily use it to check how much battery I am working with. Much faster than going through settings.

10. Seesmic

Seesmic is my Twitter app of choice. I’m able to manage my twitter profile (and also Google Buzz… if you still use that)… view photos and videos and get notifications for new messages. I like it… There are many other Twitter apps out there. Another one I’ve heard good things about is HootSuite but I haven’t used it yet.

11. Dropbox

I cannot say enough about this app! I use Dropbox all the time now at work. I’ve got it synced with 4 of my macs in my office and I love it! Such a great service. With this app I can access the files in my Dropbox. Now I can browse the files in my Dropbox folder from anywhere. Share links to files with my friends, save photos and video from my device to my computers, and open files using my favorite apps. It’s also how I transfer music from my iTunes library on my MacBook Pro to my device.

12. Photoshop.com Mobile

Photoshop on your mobile device!!! WHAT?!?! Now you can edit and transform photos easily on the go. Touch to crop, rotate, blur, add photo effects. It needs an SD card to run. So sweet!

13. Bible

This is the best Bible app for Android (they also make it for the iPhone). It’s so sweet! It’s the full Bible wherever you go! Made by the cool people over at Lifechurch.tv. (Where this guy is from)

14. ESPN ScoreCenter

Never miss another goal, pitch, basket, try, touchdown or wicket. Whether you follow the NFL or the Premiere League, the Ashes or MLB, NASCAR, or Formula One, ScoreCenter offers the most comprehensive sports coverage available on your Android Device.

15. Facebook

Oh man… almost forgot the Facebook app. It’s not as good as the Facebook app on the iPhone but it’s decent. Allows you to upload pictures and all that. I pretty much just use the browser for my facebookness on the go, but this app is still good to have.

16. Dolphin Browser HD

This is a great browser for Android. There are plenty of browsers out there for Android systems but I like this one the best. Allows you to go full-screen… pan left to get to your bookmarks. It’s got tabbed browsing… and may other cool features I haven’t really played with yet.

I have had my new Droid X for a full week now. It’s about time I did a review of this beast! First things first… I love this device. I can’t really call it a phone because it is so much more than that. The first day I had it, I neglected my laptop the entire day. I hooked my office with Google Apps at the beginning of the year, so having an Android phone just made sense to me. The Gmail app is wonderful. Threaded emails just like in your computer’s browser… able to easily attach files from the device’s 16GB SD card, and a huge on-screen keyboard when in landscape mode.

The landscape keyboard is one of my favorite features. I rarely have a typo or anything when using it because it is so big! I have not switched over to SWYPE text input yet. Played with it a little and got frustrated. My thumbs are pretty fast on the landscape keyboard.

One of the things I really like about this phone is widgets. This is the biggest difference between Android and iOS. As you can tell by the picture above, I’ve got the ESPN Score Center widget right on my home screen. This allows me to keep up with my sports teams without even opening an app! I’ve also got my Google Calendar right there as well. I would be completely lost if my DROID didn’t tell me what I was supposed to be doing. I mean… completely lost… probably wandering the Australian outback or something. Thank you DROID! You saved my life!

Of course I love Verizon’s 3G network. When I’m on the go, it is super fast and I can pull up pages and YouTube videos whenever I want. I was downtown Chicago visiting a couple friends and one of them made reference to a funny YouTube video. By the time he was finished explaining the video… I had it pulled up on my 4.3 in screen which was plenty big for the three of us to watch and laugh it up.

I love the WiFi when I’m at work and at home… or Starbucks (my other home). I read the news on my Droid through various news source apps. This device is doing a great job of phasing out my laptop. Which is a double edged sword… because I absolutely love my MacBook Pro. Of course I’ll still need my computer for work and blogging and all that. But many of my simple tasks have been taken over by my Droid X.

I’ll be doing a post or two very soon with a list of Android apps I recommend.

What mobile device are you using? Do you like it? Are you in the market for a new one?

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Wow! I don’t really know what else to say.

What is your favorite thing about your church’s control room?

I read an interesting article called 6 Brilliantly Designed Mobile Sites the other day talking about… well… mobile sites, and how they’re quickly becoming just as important as “regular” websites.

It’s true: the mobile web is taking over the world, and by 2015, many predict it will be larger than desktop internet use. It’s no wonder everybody’s racing to build mobile versions of their websites.

- Ben Parr

I’m excited about having flash on my phone. Think of the possibilities!

What are some ways to build our ministry presence through mobile sites?

WARNING: This post is pretty nerdy

There has been a lot of talk lately about the DroidX which is set for release on July 15th on Verizon. I’ve been looking forward to a new touchscreen smart phone on Verizon for a long time. This will be my next phone. I’m especially excited about it because it runs on Google’s Android operating system and just last December, I switched our entire office over to Google Apps.

I have been following a good number of church tech people on twitter for a couple years now and have noticed a large trend in switching their churches to Google Apps. I have even discussed with a few church tech people how I went about implementing Google Apps at my church. With the release of this new DroidX it just makes sense that I get it. I’ll be able to sync my calendar and contacts list as well as have easy access to all my email messages in the same way I view them through the browser. Collaborating on Google Docs will be a breeze as well. Not to mention all the cool features that come with it.

(click image to enlarge)

We all know that smart phones are changing the way we do business. Many church positions require a fair amount of mobility throughout a normal work day. Off-site meetings at Starbucks, home visits, brainstorming retreats, mission trips, and many more reasons why we aren’t at our desks from 9-5 on a regular basis. I have been working with a Blackberry for the last couple of years. I can’t count the number of times having instant access to my email has saved my behind and allowed a project to continue even when I’m away from my desk. When we are off doing all those things… we still must produce worship services for the following weekend, no matter if we’re in-town or not. A smart phone is the obvious solution.

I realize that I’m preaching to the choir here… as the demographic that reads this blog is a lot of church workers who are up on technology. So I would like to take this opportunity to ask a question.

Who pays your cell phone bill?

If we truly are using our smart phone capabilities for ministry… who is paying for that?

*Discuss*

1. New Media Player

Clover has created one of the easiest online media players out there. It is easy for us to upload new sermons and very easy for you to listen to them. It allows us to upload audio files as well as video files. We currently do not video tape our worship services, therefore we only offer audio of our sermons so far. However, video messages is something that we are hoping to offer in the near future. The media player is also a simple way to podcast via iTunes! This thing really is the cat’s pajamas.

2. Image Slideshow

The ability to loop multiple images on a page is very important to us. OSLC has many ministries and when designing our new site, they were given their own page based on age group. For example the Junior High page is now able to showcase some of our Junior High youth growing together at one of our most recent retreats! Instead of being tied to a static image on a ministry page, we are able to be a little more dynamic and show more smiling faces!

3. Linkable Pictures

I couldn’t think of a better way to link to OSLC’s social media properties than by simply showing off the logos. Users don’t always think to click on images when visiting websites. For example, have you thought to click on the thumbnails for each of these features? It will bring up the full-size image for you to view. Another place we are going to be using linkable pictures on our new website is when we scroll announcements on the front page. Sometimes you will be able to click on an announcement and it will take you to the ministry page for that event or the registration page.

4. New Calendar

The Clover calendar is really easy to navigate as well as update. It has the ability to have events repeat on a weeky, monthly and/or yearly basis. OSLC’s website calendar has never truly represented what all goes on here and we are very excited about keeping this calendar up-to-date. We are so excited about the cleanness and user-friendly Clover calendar that we are giving key ministries their own calendar link on their ministry pages. For example, if you visit our Child Faith Formation page, you will be able to click on their calendar and find out when their events are happening and not have to sift through other ministry events.

5. Font Sizing Options

The ability to change the font size of text seems like a simple thing but it was not included in the original Greenhouse. We are excited about this ability so that we can highlight certain words, names, etc over others. When we launch our site in a couple weeks and you navigate it, you will see different font sizes throughout the site. Hooray!

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6. Linking Within the Site

Clover now allows each page of our site to have it’s own custom URL. This way we can include links in our weekly e-newsletters (eConnections) directly to the registration page or any other page. We are also able to include lines of text in ministry pages that read, “See News.Calendar.Resources for registration information” and make “News.Calendar.Resources” a link to that page of the site.

These are just some of the ways we are using the new Greenhouse 2.0 with our new website. Since we are a larger/older church, we were used to some of these features in our previous (current as of this post) website. We are very happy with Clover and the simplicity of their design and site navigation, however without these features we probably would not have purchased a Cloversite. If this review helped you in any way please let me know in the comments section. Also, if you are thinking about purchasing a Cloversite for your church, please purchase it after CLICKING HERE, I am part of an affiliate program with Clover and get a percentage of the sale for referring you. Thank you!

“Clover Walkthrough Video” after the jump

I will say that I use Google for a lot of stuff.

• It’s my homepage
• It’s the home of my work and personal email accounts.
• It’s where I look for news.
• It’s how I find where I’m going.
• It’s how I sync my calendar with my phone.
• It’s where I keep all my contacts.
• It might be how you got to this blog.
• It’s how I track website stats.
• It’s where I watch funny videos.
• It’s one of the ways I connect with friends.

So how do you feel about this?

Discuss.

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What stat surprised you the most? For me it’s that MySpace still gets 24 Billion page views per month. Really?

What didn’t surprise you? The amount of spam bot computers built in a day…