For some reason I can’t fully explain, I abandoned updating LibraryThing in the last year and became an active user on goodreads. I think it is because goodreads let’s me feel more connected and up to date with what others are reading. It’s been a helpful place to be introduced to new or interesting books being read by others.

Maybe I can do the same for you. If you are on Goodreads, or if you join, you can find my profile here.

By the way, it was easy to add my entire library since I track it on my computer with Delicious Library. I was able to export the ISBN numbers of my library and import them into Goodreads with little effort.

A few days ago, he posted the interview below with author/activist Tom Davis. You can read more background about Tom’s excellent work in this entry on Chris’ blog.

Tom Davis Interview from Chris Marlow on Vimeo.

TextExpander is a handy little program that let’s you assign abbreviations to longer pieces of text. When you type the abbreviation, no matter what program you are in, it expands it out to the longer text.

The first time I saw TextExpander, it looked pretty doggone neat. But I couldn’t bring myself to spend $30 on it. I was so naive. Somewhere along the way, I got it at a discount — like the one at the bottom of this post! But after being reminded of what life without TextExpander was like, I wouldn’t hesitate to spend $30 on it now. (I say that only as a happy customer — I wasn’t asked to make that statement and I’m receiving nothing in return.)

As a celebration of recovering my TextExpander preferences, I thought I’d share my favorite uses for TextExpander with you:

• Email address: For one reason or another, I have to type my email address every day. A simple snippet like ‘eemail’ means that I can make sure I type it accurately and quickly everytime.
• Email signatures: I have a few different email signatures I use, depending on the context of the email. Each has a 5-6 letter snippet that will drop in my name and other appropriate information like an email address or URL.
• Amazon links: That Amazon associates program has helped provide a number of books for my library…and a few diapers for our changing table as well. All I need to do is copy the ASIN from an Amazon product, and then type a snippet, and as associates link is dropped in place in my blog post, email, etc.
• TinyURL: TextExpander can also activate an AppleScript. With the snippet describe here, I can copy a long URL and have TextExpander automatically convert it to a TinyURL for me.
• Footnotes/References: I don’t need this one so much anymore, but it was fantastic when writing papers in grad school. Because TextExpander can remember text styles, I had a default format for footnotes or reference pages with appropriate punctuation, etc. I could just type ffoot and it would drop the format in. I just then needed to place the author, title, etc in the appropriate place.

I have a number of others, but these are the snippets I’ve found most useful. For other TextExpander users out there, how have you put it to use?

If you are interested in purchasing TextExpander, here’s a coupon code you can use for 20% off a single license or family pack: CREATE0709. The code is good through the entire month of July. (And a special thanks to SmileOnMyMac who agreed to make this offer available after I told them I was going to run this post.)

Update: SmileOnMyMac also directed me to this post on their blog that shows how to sync TextExpander preferences using DropBox instead of MobileMe. Beautiful.

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life without textexpander…oh the horror!

• This month is the fifth anniversary of this blog. I haven’t been as consistent in sharing my thoughts here as I was in the early days, but the thoughts I’ve shared and comments of others have made this a significant part of our journey. I don’t agree with everything I’ve written, yet I know that much of what we are doing in Austin is shaped by ideas that formed as I typed these words. If I can find the time, I’m going to highlight a few posts from the archives that continue to shape how we are thinking and living today.
• This month is also the one year anniversary of our move to Austin. With that, I’m preparing another letter to mail out to our prayer and financial partners later this month. That’s left me reflecting on how the dreams that we shared a year ago are taking shape now. (If you’re not on our mailing list, let me know and I’ll add you.)
• Last week our family made a return visit to Seattle. It was good to spend time with familiar faces (though there were far too many of you we didn’t get to see in our brief visit). Of course, there was the constant question about how things are going or how we are doing. And in the midst of those conversations, I found myself very aware of the point of this post…

We are right were we need to be. We began a journey 5-6 years ago after spending a decade in the same place. It’s been a long season with a lot of transition…some of it hard, some of it fun, but most of it is beautiful in reflection. But out of all that thinking, praying, dreaming, wondering, and aching, I feel like God has brought us to the place we were being pointed toward.

That’s not to say we’ve arrived. Not at all. We are merely at the starting point of another journey. But it’s one that God has been shaping us for. I’m sure there is more thinking, praying, wondering, wondering, and aching ahead, but it will be done out of a defined context of shaping this church community in this place at this time.

Thanks for being part of what brought us here.

I’ve alluded to it before — I think I find as much inspiration in books written for children as I do in books written for ‘grown-ups’. Perhaps it is because the tone helps the reader, or at least me, put down our guard enough to open ourselves up to what the content might have to say to us.

The same holds true for Problem Solving 101. It was originally written for schoolchildren in Japan. Because of this, the examples might seem a little silly, and the illustrations are, well, whimsical. But all of this only helps to make the message more appealing. So appealing, in fact, that the book quickly became popular with adults in Japan as well.

The story behind the book that is as interesting to me as the book itself. Ken Watanabe was a consultant in a global firm. But as Japan felt the need to rework their educational system to move from memorization to developing more critical thinking skills, Ken wanted to do his part. This book is the result. It comes out of his hope, and desire, that he might be able to make a significant impact for the common good.

For some, this book will a big help. Even in schools in the USA, critical thinking skills aren’t fully developed, and this book will be of great value. For others, Problem Solving 101 might seem overly simple. That was my early impression, but as I continued to work through it, I was challenged to rethink how I approach some of the challenges I face in my own life.

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problem solving 101

Since that time, Paul was gracious enough to invite me to participate in a Post2Post book tour. One year ago, I hosted Roger von Oech and A Whack on the Side of the Head. Next week, I’m excited to be able to do it again.

This time around, the Post2Post Book tour is featuring Problem Solving 101: A Simple Book for Smart People, by Ken Watanabe. On Wednesday, I’ll be posting some thoughts from the book and a brief interview with the author. But I’m just one stop on the tour…take some time to see how each of the bloggers interacted with Ken and his ideas throughout next week:

Monday, June 21 — ThinkDifferently
Tuesday, June 22 — Get Fresh Minds
Wednesday, June 23 — Creativityist
Thursday, June 24 — The Center for Graphic Facilitation
Friday, June 25 — Idea Sandbox

See you next week!

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post2post tour next week: problem solving 101

spotlight. I try to keep my apps down to about three screens just so I don’t have to scroll. Spotlight will change that. Assuming I get used to using it, this will be the most helpful update to the iPhone.

2x podcast playback. I was aware of most of these other features, but I stumbled on this one by accident. I find that most spoken word can be listened to at double speed with little effect on my comprehension.

landscape mode. I’ve always avoided typing more than a sentence or two on my iPhone. Being able to use landscape mode will probably change that.

cut/copy/paste. I’ve managed without cut/copy/paste just fine. But I suspect that in a few months, I will wonder how I ever lived without it.

send multiple images. This came in handy even as I sent these screengrabs from my iPhone to my laptop.

find my iphone. I don’t tend to misplace my iPhone, but I like knowing that I can track it down if I do.

tethering. Yes, I know…tethering isn’t available in the United States yet. But…it looks like some have found a workaround.

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seven features i love in iphone 3.0

From my experience, pockets of Christianity are becoming more aware of this tension and there is less stereotyping happening. But there is still a long way to go and this is one of the most important conversations for churches to engage with, not in the next few years, but now.

When I received Love is an Orientation, by Andrew Marin, for review, I began reading as a skeptic. I feared it would be a watered down effort to say that Christians should be nice. But I finished reading it knowing that it was helping to bring the conversation to where it needed to be.

Andrew’s experience is not like my own and based only on a few friendships. As a straight Christian man, he has immersed himself in the GLBT subculture. Out of that experience, he started The Marin Foundation to help build bridges between Christians and the GLBT community.

The subtitle of the book is “Elevating the Conversation with the Gay Community”. The tone of the book does that, and I hope it will be widely read.

Our Sunday gatherings for Austin Mustard Seed have had a number of different looks in the nine months we’ve been together. Sometimes, it’s been a matter of spending time talking and praying with each other after a particularly hard week. Some weeks have been very structured as I lead us through a more in-depth study of a Scripture text or theme. At times, we have just enjoyed getting acquainted with new faces that God has brought our way.

On Easter, we did something new for our community that has become a favorite Sunday rhythm for me. Rather than talk about the importance of the Easter holiday, or proofs for the Resurrection, or explain theological implications, we just…read the story. We opened a Bible to John 20, and passed it around the room. Adults and children alike read a few verses and passed it along.

Since Easter, we’ve used this same means of hearing Scripture more often than not. A shared reading, usually from the screen, followed by a time of discussion as we talk about how we are challenged, confused, encouraged, or troubled by what we read. Too often, Scripture is given a brief spotlight in a church gathering. Perhaps it gets an extended reading prior to a sermon, or maybe a few brief passages are raised in the course of a topical sermon. But I’m hungry to learn what it can look like when a community engages with the story of Scripture.

If it is part of the privilege and duty of each Christian to study scripture, and to read it devotionally, it is important that the wider church should be able to hear what individual readers are discovering in the text. Of course, not all private readings will come up with significant new insights; but many will. The church needs to facilitate, through small groups, and other means, this bring of particular viewpoints to the attention of the whole body, both so that the larger community may be enriched and so that maverick or clearly misleading readings can be gently and appropriately corrected. — NT Wright

This doesn’t, of course, mean less preparation for me. I still spend the same amount of time studying the text in advance, and usually have a few points of discussion in mind. I come prepared to engage questions about the text, or offer insights from the studies of those who have come before us. But the course of our group study is guided by how the Spirit in engaging the text with the hearts of those who are present.

I don’t know what this way of engaging the text can look like as our community continues to grow. But I know there is something with this that I hope we can always capture. I long to help shape a community to listens to the story of the Scriptures together, and learns from each other what it means to continue with God in the writing of that story.

Both of the quotes above were taken from The Last Word, by NT Wright. You should read it.

What’s troubling to me is how much effort that will take! Can you relate?

A few recent experiences have left me thinking about my email habits:

• This spring, I was at a conference where there was no wifi. I became aware of this compulsive need to pull out my iPhone and see if I had any email. It’s not that I was expecting anything important. How much, I wondered to myself, do I need to receive email as some kind of affirmation that I’m important?
• Recently, I was hard at work on a project and needed to send a quick, related email. I made my way to space four, where my Mail.app resides, and sent the email. And then proceeded to lose an hour reading, responding and fiddling with the other emails that had collected in my inbox.

Now I have long been an advocate of inbox zero — keeping my inbox empty — and I’m pretty good at it. But isn’t it something one can be too good at? The need to read and deal with what sits in your inbox can be more of a disruption than ten, or fifty, unread emails.

In the midst of the events described above have come a few timely conversations. One came from my friend Todd. Another came from David Sparks via the Mac Power Users podcast, and then in our Creative Practices interview last week. Both of these respectable gentleman have taken up the practice of only looking at their email two or three times a day.

And so, I’ve been trying a new thing. I still practice Inbox Zero, but it is now superseded by Inbox Off. I’m limiting when I open my inbox and read email. When I do, I still use my standard practices to reduce my inbox to zero by replying, filing, or making a task out of each. Or by deleting, of course!

I’ve been trying this for a few weeks. I’ve had some great results…and some miserable failures. (The second story mentioned above only happened yesterday!) I’ve not yet been so rigid as to schedule when I read email, but I might need to try that.

How about you? What practices do you have to be the master of your email?

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inbox off