Tag Archives: itunes

Can We Actually Know the Attributes of God?

Can We Actually Know God?

I think too often today we take a more pluralistic (or post-modern if you like) view of this question, and answer “who are we to think we can know God?”, and then push it off to the back burner and say why bother trying something impossible. To answer in that manner is to excuse oneself from the rigors of pursuing a relationship with God, but it is more than that, it is to deny scripture itself.

In Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians he talks to the church about Christ’s judgment at the second coming (2 Thessalonians 1:8). At the time of the second coming, Christ will punish two distinct classes of people; those who “do not know God” (cf. Romans 1:18-32), and those who “do not obey the gospel” (cf. John 3:36). Jeremiah the Prophet spoke to Judah just before the impending invasion of the Babylonian army and told them they were fools because they didn’t know God, but instead certainly knew the way of evil (Jeremiah 4:22, Isaiah 1:3 and Psalm 82:5).

There are many other examples, but the point is, if we are called by His name, we are called to know God. We can spend a lifetime doing this, but God loves those, and has made Himself known, to those who seek Him out (Proverbs 8:17).

Great Resource for Audiobooks

A quick plug to those who enjoy digging in deeper to these and other topics of faith. Christian Audio (christianaudio.com) has one of the largest selections of Christian audiobooks, and each month they give away a free audiobook. This month happens to be The Pursuit Of God (Unabridged) by A. W. Tozer, and you can download it for free until July 31st. Not only is this title free, but all of A. W. Tozer’s other books are only $4.95 until the end of the month. This is a fantastic resource, and I would recommend Christianaudio to anyone interested in audiobooks (you can listen on your iPod, MP3 player, iPad, iPhone, whatever, and you can also follow them on Twitter @ChristianAudio).

I have no stake in the company or know anyone personally over there, I have just used their resources and have never had any issues with quality or service (only wish they had even more titles than they do). I often depend on a wide range of resources for studying, but even iTunes can’t beat an unabridged book like that for $4.95. That’s my plug for the month, if audiobooks are not your thing, get a copy of Tozer’s books in print, you won’t be disappointed.

Lala.com Now Shutdown and Discontinued

How to Convert PDF to ePub File for an eBook Reader

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I recently purchased a copy of John Shaw’s eBook called John Shaw’s Digital Processing, A Personal Workflow using Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4 (a great book if you are a photographer looking for some insight into post-processing and the digital workflow process, well worth he $25) hoping I would be able to convert it to an ePub file and read it in iBooks on my iPad. I was able to convert his previous eBook, John Shaw’s Photoshop Field Guide, but have just about given up on his new one, the structure of the PDF looks to be just too complicated to convert, but I am going to use his two eBooks as the example since one will convert and one won’t.

I have searched long and hard for a how-to on converting PDF files to ePub files so you can read them in iBooks or a variety of eBook readers, and have found almost no consolidated information, so here it is. There are several reasons why converting PDF files to an ePub file is not the easiest thing to do, and they often seem to error out or format improperly. This how-to guide is written for the intention of taking a PDF eBook (or any PDF file) for loading it into iBooks in iTunes for use on your iPad, but the same process can be used for most all eBook readers.

Some Basic PDF Info

All PDF’s are not made the same. They all have different formatting, some have images, some are just plain text, some are print screen save-as files, you can basically take anything you can see or print on the Internet and turn it into a PDF. The reason is most everyone everywhere can read a PDF, and most have the free version Adobe PDF reader (at this writing the current version is Adobe Reader 9.3.2).

Because these files can be created by almost any means, often they do not make the greatest, prettiest looking, eBooks, and it is not an exact science to get a PDF to an ePub file, even harder to get it to look nice on your eBook reader. Your final outcome is going to depend on how the file was created in the first place, not something you have control over most of the time. Some PDF files because of their structure will never be able to be converted to an ePub file and you will have to look at alternatives like a good PDF reader like Goodreader on the iPad.

Ways to Convert PDF’s to ePub Using ePub2Go or Stanza

Once you have your PDF file you want to convert, you can try the quickest and easiest PDF to ePub converter first, and if that doesn’t work, then move on to the next alternative. First thing to try is a site called ePub2Go. This is basically the ONLY online PDF to ePub conversion tool you can access for free and without downloading another stand alone app or program.

Step 1 :: ePub2Go The process is pretty simple, just click the link the pdf is on my computer then let them convert the file. Once it’s finished just click on view or save it on my computer and your done.

If you get finished with the conversion and you get an error message you pretty much have to move on at this point. You can get a variety of errors like the screen shot below. That is just one of the error message you could get, but once you get that, you won’t be able to convert the file using ePub2Go.

Step 2 :: Stanza The next thing to try would be to download a free copy of Stanza by Lexcycle (download available for Windows or Mac), a great generic type eBook reader, and convert the file using the desktop app or program. Stanza has moved their main product line to the mobile eBook reader but they have a great conversion tool in the desktop app.

After you download and install the program it will prompt you to open a file. Just open your preferred PDF file. You will probably need to adjust the number of columns and on larger screens, depending on how the PDF is created, it may or may not look formatted properly, but this will be similar to your final ePub output file.

Next just go to the file menu and choose –> file –> export book as –> ePub. You can also see there are a host of options available to convert the PDF to a Kindle file and many others. If that works, great, if it doesn’t, you are quickly running out of options. Stanza also has a tutorial on how to convert files as well that is very helpful.

Step 3 :: Adobe Acrobat / HTML / Word / Plain Text If step 1 or 2 doesn’t work then you are left with trying to manipulate the file into behaving properly enough to do a conversion, but even that may not work at this point, this is the last ditch effort before you have to just stick with reading the PDF.

If you have Adobe Acrobat (not the free reader but the full version of Acrobat) you can export the PDF as a variety of file types (but not an ePub). Many times you can export a file as an HTML file and fix the issues the PDF had that caused the conversion to ePub error and then try step 1 or step 2 above after you have corrected the problem. Explaining how to correct the file in HTML is beyond the scope of this article but it’s often easy to see where the conversion is getting hung.

In the case of my above issues with Shaw’s newest eBook, I tried to export it as a Word Doc, RTF, HTML, and Plain Text and due to the complexity of the PDF it just wasn’t feasible to convert the file in a readable format. In that case, I am going to just pull it over to my iPad using Goodreader and read it as a PDF.

I was surprised how few PDF to ePub file converters were really available. I did leave off several paid for programs that convert these file types but most of them just use the same process as step 1 and 2 above and I really wouldn’t pay for the programs myself. You can get a PDF to ePub Converter trial from CNET, PDFtoEPUB from DNAML Software, or PDF to ePub from DONGSOFT, but all are pricy alternatives after the trial runs out.

Coming up I will finish this article with taking the new ePub file you have created (or the PDF that you couldn’t get converted) and showing how to load it into iBooks using iTunes. How do you convert your PDF’s?

Do Miracles Still Happen Today?

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Yesterday, as part of the 8PE series called the Mystical Elephant, we had a discussion on the mystery of miracles. Those unique times in history when God visibly entered into someone’s life, and changed it forever by seemingly breaking God’s own laws of nature. Many scholars and skeptics alike view the impossibility of miracles or absence of miracles in our 21st century world proof of a fallible Christianity. Many scholars who do believe the miracles of scripture believe it was a unique time in history that has since finished, is completed, like the canonization, not something that takes place today. Today, our miracles are trivial, they don’t need God, they happen ever day, on Twitter.

Actually if i did great for other subjects, it’s like a miracle, cause i studied a wk before mye anyway 12 minutes ago via MobiTweet via SMS
I actually got up on time today. It’s a miracle 18 minutes ago via TweetDeck
It’s a miracle. Monday morning and I was wide awake at 5:30 am.about 2 hours ago via HootSuite
In bed by 10, it’s a miracle!about 2 hours ago via TweetDeck
IT’S A MIRACLE! You can actually lose weight by drinking cups of tea!!! about 3 hours ago via web
As my 3-yr-old would say ‘it’s a miracle!’about 4 hours ago via Echofon

The list could go on and on, we all do it. The miracles of Moses in Exodus, or the disciples and Jesus in the New Testament were earth shattering, but they also didn’t happen every day, all the time, as a common occurrence. The subject of miracles is so broad, so huge, that it was necessary to narrow it down for a meaningful discussion yesterday, and the focus stayed on one single miracle, the resurrection.

After many proofs and logical arguments that explain the proofs behind the resurrection (not how God raised Jesus from the dead, but that God did raised Jesus from the dead) Brian we into two examples from a friend of his and I wanted to share one of them with you.

Mexico in the Summer of 1997

Kathryn, my wife, and I were in a village going from door to door sharing the message of Christ and His LOVE. Kathryn had a divine encounter with a young man on the street. This young man told Kathryn that His sister needed to know about this “Jesus” and would she please go talk to his sister. Kathryn asked him to please take him to his sister and they would talk.

As they walked the young man and Kathryn continued their conversation. Once they arrived at the house Kathryn began to speak with the sister. Kathryn explained that the girl she, Kathryn, and the girl’s brother had been talking for awhile and the brother had said that it would be a good idea for Kathryn to speak to his sister. The girl began to cry uncontrollably.

Through her tears, the girl began to explain that her brother had been mute his entire life. Kathryn, overcome with the miracle before her eyes, continued to speak with the girl and explain that Christ loved her family so much, that he enabled her brother to speak so that he, the brother, could lead Kathryn to their home.

By the way, Kathryn didn’t speak spanish at the time and the girl didn’t speak english…

Do miracles still happen in our world today? Did God just wind up His creation and sit back and let it play out, or is He an active participant in the lives of His creation? Psalm 115:3 says it the best, “our God is in the heavens, and he does whatever He pleases.” The photo? What does it remind you of? I took it, I was an eye witness, and it reminds me of beauty that only the miracle of God can create.

You can listen to the entire audio message or even download it to iTunes and listen to it on your iPod, iPhone, iPad, or mp3 player, what a miracle.

The 5 Most Useful Twitter Apps and Clients

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We are just about to launch a new website (details coming closer to the end of the week) and Twitter is highly integrated into the framework of the website, so I thought I would highlight some of the better applications you can use with Twitter for Free (mostly).

People often ask me, “what is twitter”. I should just write a post about that, but this is assuming you already know about Twitter, at least a little bit. Some of you Twitterholics will recognize most of the top 5, but be sure to check out the ones at the bottom which I consider up and coming.

What Is Twitter?

If not, I have determined there is no one answer to “what is Twitter“, but for me, it is a free flowing exchange of ideas and thoughts with people who may have never been able to meet or contact in any other way. I have talked to musicians, politicians, and a lot of other ians that I would never have access to before Twitter. It is a two way street of course, but Twitter is far more than just “what am I doing”.

Because Twitter has made their service somewhat open (meaning they provide an API for their systems) there have been many people and companies that have developed great applications and services for twitter. On a side note, I would argue (slightly) that Twitter is at risk of becoming the next AOL without making themselves a true open source project, but that is also for another post.

So if you are looking for some great things to do with Twitter, here is my short list.

1. The Ultimate Desktop Application, TweetDeck

If you read no farther than this first item, you have hit the best right off the top. Tweetdeck is THE desktop application that pulls out the potential that is Twitter. Tweetdeck really deserves a post all its own so I will make this recap brief. Once you get to the point where you are following more than about 25 people on Twitter it is time to install Tweetdeck.

It allows you to add twitter groups to filter out different users (I have a group just for news where all Twitter news feeds like CNN, AP, etc, go so I can see them independently of all my other tweets. You can view Twitscoup which is a live running tag cloud of converstions on Twitter, and of course you can send out new tweets with a shorten URL field for posting links.

2a. Mobile iPhone Apps :: Twitterific

If you have an iPhone (or Blackberry), that will really unlock the potential of Twitter (a Blackberry will do but honestly, the apps really don’t compare to the iPhone, but they do have corresponding Blackberry apps too). Twitterific is the place to start. This free iPhone app is one of the best ways to follow a larger number of people with basic @reply, direct, and tweet functions. You can also see user info and tag favorites within the iPhone app.

Some of the features I like about Twitterific is you can click through to links and photos and they open in a twitterific type browser on your iPhone that allow you to open and close without having to launch Safari. What I have found that you can’t do, is see a list of your favorites, which is something I would like to do, but that is minor for what this app does.

2b. Mobile iPhone Apps :: Tweetie

If you can ignore the name, Tweetie is probably hands down the best iPhone Twitter app available. It costs $3.00 through your iTunes account but is well worth the price. It has far more functionality than Twitterific (the free version) but I don’t find it quite as fast to use. What you can do with this iPhone app that I have not found with any other desktop or mobile app is manage multiple accounts.

If managing multiple accounts is important to you, this is about the only way I know to do it without having to log out and log back into the other account. For that I would have paid $10 for this mobile app. Some of the other things you can do with Tweetie is view @replies on one page. For those who complain that they are overwhelmed by the people following them and replying to them, Tweetie is built just for these popular Twitter divas (I love you. I really do€¦but€¦) who are just so popular on Twitter it is impossible to keep up with effectively on anything else. I am going to pick on Anne Jackson just because I love her blog and her work in general (sorry Anne).

Tweetie is one application that will allow you to still follow the conversation with anyone and everyone that wants to send you an @reply without actually following them. Just tap the button at the bottom for @replies and see all those replies coming in from people you don’t follow. Tweetie also has several unique functions under the “more” section. One that is really wild is the “nearby” link. This will allow you to see who is close to your location by using the GPS on the phone. I used this last time Deb and I went to Gulf Shores and it worked great.

3. Tweet Grader

Do you love stats. Then Tweet Grader is for you. Find out how you are doing amongst all the other Twitter users, find local people using Twitter, and see a host of different stats about your own usage. This and the next one may be the vain uses of Twitter but I find them very very useful to help improve everything about how I use Twitter.

Tweet Grader, if you notice, is a user entered stat grade, and you can check anyone, not just your own Twitter ID (like mine here, still sitting at #6 in Twitter Auburn behind some great people). This has several uses as well but all in all a great stat tool for Twitter.

4. Mr Tweet, the Networking Assistant

This is the most recent addition to my Twitter life. Mr Tweet is quickly becoming the most useful tool that I have found for Twitter. Tag lined as “Your Personal Networking Assistant for Twitter”, it allows you to do three things. (a) find new people based on my recent activities, (b) find recent followers I am not following, and (c) check my own profile and usage stats.

What this does is pull data that you can probably not find by just surfing around. It gives you useful information like how likely the person is to reply to your tweets, how many tweet per day they average, and what their network of followers looks like. You have to follow Mr Tweet on twitter before they will start calculating your information, and it is updated every two weeks.

5. TwitPic

Being a photographer (even one on Twitter), this is my favorite of all Twitter uses. Twitpic has become an incredible source of information. That actually posted one of the first photos of the US Air flight that crashed in Hudson river here http://twitpic.com/135xa. It ended up almost crashing the Twitpic servers but it showed how useful Twitter is as a journalistic tool for everyday people. This photo was one of the first to circulate the Internet after the crash. It wasn’t by CNN or Foxnews, or MSNBC, it was by a Twitter users using Twitpic.

Twitpic is one of the easiest Twitter tools to use. All you do is sign into Twitpic and they give you an email address that uploads to your twitter account. You can take a photo with your cell phone (for those who have cell phone cameras) and upload it to twitter on the fly, right then and there on the spot. Facebook has done this with their iPhone app so it works in a similar way if you are familiar with how that works. If you don’t have a cell phone with a camera, just use the desktop uploader and start sharing your pics.

Are You Ready for Twitter Now?

So if that isn’t enough for you to ponder on Twitter, there are a few other cool tools of note. With Twitter allowing the use of its API data there are almost endless applications available, but the great ones find a need and build upon that to make something we will find value in using.

Twhirl (desktop app)
Hashtags – a great search tool – http://hashtags.org/
Eventbox – combines all kinds of social sites
Summize – Twitter search, Summize before Twitter bought them, great job on this one
Twingly (http://www.twingly.com/) – something I am pretty hip on using right now
FriendFeed (another combining tool)
Dial2Do – very interesting tool that might prove very useful

So take the plunge and get started with Twitter. Just don’t tell me no one cares what in the world I am doing. It is far far more than just that. It is a free network to exchange ideas and thoughts with the world. Oh, and if you want to follow me on Twitter, here you go http://www.twitter.com/scottfillmer or @scottfillmer on Twitter.

iTunes Plus and DRM Free Music is a Great Thing

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I did something last night I have not ever done in all my music and digital life. Download a full length (well EP) album from the iTunes store (Prospekt’s March). You may be saying, who cares, but last week Apple dramatically changed the way their music is handled on their iTunes platform by finally offering their music in a DRM (Digital Rights Management) free version.

For those unfamiliar with DRM, in brief, it is a generic term that refers to controlling access to digital technologies (or files) to limit their use.Â Sony (Sony BMG) have led the fight with restricting use of just about everything, but basically it is what keeps you from being able to take a song that you have legally acquired and burn the CD to your iTunes library, or move the file from multiple devices like your computer to your iPod, to your iPhone (also see this post).

Years ago, instead of the music industry embracing this new thing called an iPod, they tried everything they could do to kill it.Â He we go, a way to actively spread our product to millions of users… what unbelievable potential to reach new customers, but no, they fought everything about it, and their industry has taken one of the biggest nose dives in history.

It is a lot more than that, but it is one more way the music industry has continued to try to commit suicide over the years instead of embracing technology.Â There has been such an outcry to get rid of DRM that Sony had to remove it from their physical CD’s a while back, but Amazon’s music downloads followed suit, and now, finally, iTunes has as well.

With iTunes Plus, you get high-quality, 256-Kbps AAC encoding. All free of burn limits and digital rights management (DRM). So iTunes Plus music will play on iPod, Apple TV, all Mac and Windows computers, and many other digital music players.

So what does this mean for all of us?Â Maybe nothing if you don’t buy legal music, listen to audio books, watch movies, have an ipod or digital music device.Â For the rest of us, it is huge.Â In the past I have purchased the bulk of my CD collection from Amazon’s used CD market.Â Most of the time I can buy a used CD for a few dollars and have the freedom to do whatever I want with the CD (not something the artists really love since they don’t get royalities from most of the used market).Â I can burn it in any quality I want and I always have a backup that doesn’t depend on any one company or the whim of DRM, all for a reasonable price around $5-$10 (including shipping).

For years (I would say since Napster failed), I refused to buy any music via download from Amazon or iTunes because of the DRM restrictions, and haven’t even really looked at what is available from iTunes. Â Now for the first time, I am checking out the music on iTunes instead of physical CD’s from Amazon’s used market.

A brilliant move for Apple’s bottom line when multiplied by their millions of users.Â And for Apple, that’s what it is all about, their bottom line, but it’s more than that.Â For me, now that I have the ability to buy DRM free music on iTunes, my options and alternatives have expanded dramatically, the artists will get paid on sales (so do the labels for that matter), and I can do what I want with the file.

The quality of the downloads is great, an ACC 256kbs file is fine for me.Â I am currently reburning my entire catalog into ACC 256kbs files anyway, and I can do whatever I want with the file.Â What I was amazed at is how much more you get with an iTunes album than what you get with the physical disc.

With the Prospekt’s March album, I got the digital booklet in high resolution pdf format (this is the CD artwork in digital form) and the Viva la Vida video.Â Many albums comes with additional songs only available from iTunes.Â This isn’t an end all, I will still buy some used for the price and backup, but something I have waited for from iTunes for a long time.

A Price Worth Paying For?

That was a really long way to say that more artists are going to be downloaded and heard (and hopefully paid), especially beyond the big labels.Â Just because iTunes came to an agreement with Sony doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect the independents (Indie’s).Â Some CD’s you just can’t buy a physical copy or they are some outrageous price on Amazon.Â This will help, but on iTunes it also comes with a price.Â That is $.30 per song to upgrade.Â The one last ditch to hold on to DRM.Â For those like me who never purchased anything prior to now, no big deal, don’t have any non-DRM free music.Â For those who purchased anything on iTunes, you are held hostage at $.30 per song for old music, sorry.

I love music.Â I don’t have a problem with paying for music, never have, but I won’t buy it with restrictions like DRM placed on it in the past.Â Artist put time and effort into creating and producing something I value, and to put a price on it, gives it value, and I understand and appreciate that.Â Several years ago my son told me how much music he had downloaded on his computer, some huge 50-100 gig of music files.Â He later then told me he had deleted it all.Â Not because he hadn’t purchased it all, but because he hadn’t listened (or learned) any of the music.Â Something comes with the fact that you paid for the music.Â You listen to it, learn it, understand the message the artist might be trying to give, or trash it because you don’t like it, but you listen to it.

Have you ever received a free CD and not listened to it.Â I have.Â But I can’t recall ever buying a CD and not listening to it, but ridiculous restrictions like DRM has kept me (and I am sure many others who want to obtain music legally) from buying a lot of music.Â Perhaps this move will be a good thing for the artists as well as iTunes, I know it is for those who love to listen to music.

My 8 Year Old iTunes XML Library File Got Corrupted

An Old iTunes Library File, Built Since 2001

I had been collecting this play data since I started burning mp3′s back in 2001. I could look at any one of my (approximately) 17k music files and see when it was last played, how many times it had been played, when I added the file to my collection, and what start rating it had, now, I see empty boxes. After determining that I could not recover the corrupted file, I faced a few choices. Use the latest backup I had, which was from July 13th, or start over. July 13th may not sound bad, but I have probably added 25-30 albums since that date, and I have absolutely no way in the world to determine which albums those are to add them back into my library one at a time.

Had it been a couple of days that would have worked, but to try and remember each individual cd added when they are all now alphabetically filed would be impossible for me to determine.

How iTunes Works With a PC

Just in case anyone needed a quick iTunes Library file tutorial so something like this doesn’t happen to all their hard work, he is a real brief overview (and I am in no means an expert at all). iTunes uses two main files, stored in the “music” folder of your “my documents”. These files, are the iTunes Library.itl file and the iTunes Music Library.xml file. The .itl file controls or stores all your play count data and the .xml file is the database library of music that is called from the .itl file.

What this means is the xml file can be rebuilt by the iTunes Library file (if you let it), so as long as you have a copy of this file, you can just do a quick copy and paste into the proper directory and all your historical data is there.

Backup Your iTunes Library Files, Now

The moral of this blog post would be, backup often, backup frequently, backup now. iTunes Library files are probably one of the easiest backups to make. Just go into your music –> itunes directory, copy the two library files, then paste them into a new folder called “backup”. iTunes actually does this for you every so often, but is the frequency that itunes backs up your data frequent enough? For most, probably. For me, wasn’t even close but I also wasn’t really paying attention, so now I get to start over. At least I didn’t loose the music files, only the really cool data that goes with it.

[update] I was able to use the newest saved file and then import my new music added since that file.Â At this point don’t ask me how, it was a huge mess and I really don’t know how I got it back but I did.Â Backups are now running daily.Â Can’t wait until I get a MacBook and have to try to take my pc based iTunes file and convert it.

[update 2] it seems my itunes library now will not find the songs, some 17,800 songs unless I manually point each one, one at a time to the proper location.Â I am sure this had something to do with me moving my music files to an external hard drive… but I have tried to change the drive letter iTunes looks at and that does no good.Â At this point, after being able to recreate my itunes library in July, I think now in September the library history is finally going to kick the bucket.Â I had a backup this time from yesterday, but it does no good when it won’t locate the files on the hard drive.

This is extremely frustrating but I am about to buy a MacBook Pro anyway and will have to move my itunes library over at that time without any history anyway.Â So, here’s to 5 to 8 years of music history, down the tubes.Â I am now reimporting all of my music from the external hard drive and slowly converting everything over to the Apple Lossless file format instead of mp3.Â This should improve the sound quality and hopefully work with my ipod, iphone, and mac book.

Scott Fillmer

Life in Faith & Photos