Video courtesy of Cultured Code

For a while now, you may have noticed that I’ve been radio silent on Omnifocus. I love Omnifocus and all that the Omnigroup do for apps and productivity, but about 6 months ago I decided to try something simpler. I thought a power user like myself needed something like Omnifocus - that the myriad of great features and settings was a nerd’s playground for me. But I got to where I was more frustrated by Omnifocus rather than happy with it, which, turns out, was more of a reflection upon myself rather than the app. I was getting bogged down in the structure and features rather than actually getting anything done. 

Things by Cultured Code has a long iOS history - they were one of the first Task Manager apps I remember on the iPhone. They were an app on the App Store before iOS was called iOS, circa 2008, in the first round of application on the release of the App Store. And while years passed and I had forgotten about it, Things version 3 had me taking another look. I had given popular apps like Todoist a try and get didn’t feel them. Things 3 clicked almost immediately for me and my needs. 

Every To Do List app has a philosophy, and Things 3 uses a concept called Areas to manage your different lists. You can, of course, choose not to break your tasks down into Areas, but I find it extremely helpful to do so, since I’m involved with so many different organizations and projects. But if you’re not always everywhere like me (most times I wish I wasn’t), you can break down your Areas into different areas of responsibility, such as Preaching, Teaching, Housekeeping, etc. 

Areas help you organize your different Project lists, and you can be as specific or as broad as you like. For example, in my Graymere Area, I have a number of different Project lists - one for this week and next week, one for different initiatives I’m working on, and so on. If I need to move one of these, it’s a simple as dragging and dropping on macOS, or simply tapping and hitting Move on iOS. 

Some of my favorites are in the details. For example, every task has a couple of options: Set a Due Date, set a Deadline, Tag a task, or make a Sub-List. I love the Sub-List feature because if I have a relatively low-priority set of tasks like say, a shopping list, I can make those checklists under one task and not clog up the works. 

Another dead simple feature is the Notes section - not just under Project headings but also each individual task as well. This is helpful for say a speaking engagement where I want to put the topic and scripture, but also for simple things like links to check out. 

There’s also a number of categorization features that help you in organization as well. The Inbox is simply any task you thrown into Things 3 without being assigned to a specific project. You can use this how you wish, but I use it as a holding area to move those tasks to the appropriate Projects. Today is, well, self-explanatory. This is anything in any list that you specify needs to be done today. Upcoming is a helpful list view with a calendar that shows you tasks that you have put Due Dates on and when they are due. 

The best part is that Things 3 looks seamless and fluid with the same user interface across all three platforms: iOS, iPad, and macOS. Unfortunately for Windows and Android users, Cultured Code has no plans to come to those platforms. 

If you're looking for a clean, simple task manager with a few features but not a hundreds options, Things 3 may be for you. It doesn't break the mold and offer tons of new stuff, but it gets the job done cleanly and easily. Check out all the features at the Cultured Code website. 

This is part two of my three-part series on Understanding Instagram. Read part one here.

What in the round world is a Finstagram?

Well, if you think about it, Instagram is nothing but perfectly curated photo posts making life appear pretty perfect. At least, with teens. Because with teenagers who won’t speak up in Bible class because they’re afraid they’ll be made fun of for what they say would never post anything on Instagram that wasn’t perfect. 

There’s a side to everyone that we see represented on social media - the perfect selfies, the glamorous events, the beautiful friends. But there’s also a side that we don’t take pictures of - the time we spilled a whole gallon of milk on the kitchen floor or just waking up with bed head in the morning. The latter is more real life, and teens have taken to creating Finstagrams (or fake Instagrams) as a way of sharing photos from their lives that they may not want anyone to see. 

Don’t jump to conclusions here - most teens aren’t creating these to share inappropriate or naked photos of themselves - Instagram is pretty good at not allowing that. But the thing to remember here is that even if everything they are sharing is harmless, they still have an account that you as a parent do not know about. 

Ask your kids if they have a Finstagram and you’re likely to get some raised eyebrows. 

Think about this. As a teen, you never wanted to hang out with your parents - in fact, it was the last thing you wanted to do. You just wanted to be wherever they were not, even if that meant hanging out in the grocery store parking lot. 

Teens have moved that mentality to the digital space. They have made false identities and fake accounts because they want to express their creativity and their independence. The fear with something like Finstagram is that they can so easily be lured to something that is detrimental to their Christian walk - and that they are keeping something from you. 

Finstagrams should be a teaching tool for us as parents to tell our kids that it’s completely okay to be just who you are on social media just as in real life. There is a growing disconnect in young people where they separate their digital lives with their real ones - and we need to be teaching the opposite. That your digital life and real life go hand in hand. We’re all living on these devices now, and if we’re trying to hide something, that’s wrong.

If you think your child may have a Finstagram, simply open the Instagram account on their phone, tap on the Profile icon at the bottom right corner, and see if they have any additional accounts listed under their main account. Kids are likely following their own Finstagrams and so are their close friends, so looking at who they follow is important as well. 

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Apple's new iPhone X. 

Apple today conducted a jam-packed keynote for the first time in their new Steve Jobs Theater, a separate space on their new Apple Park Campus, slated to officially open later this year. 

Apple announced new Apple Watches, new Apple TVs, and three new iPhones. Let's dive in. 

Apple Watch: Series 3 with the biggest feature of cellular LTE built right in. That means you can answer phone calls and texts (even stream Apple Music) while being completely separated from your phone. The Apple Watch S3 still gives you all-day battery life, twice as fast performance, and is still at the nice price of $329 without LTE and $399 with it. Apple touted the Watch as the #1 watch in the world. Available September 22. 

Apple TV: 4K finally comes to Apple TV, but that's not all - Apple TV now supports HDR. If you don't know what HDR is, go into a Best Buy and check it out. You won't believe the difference. The new Apple TV comes with a A10X Fusion chip to deliver twice as fast processing. In addition to 4K HDR movies on the iTunes store for the price of regular HD movies, all your HD movies now get upgraded to 4K+HDR for free. Live sports and news channels are coming later this year, with Apple Music and Homekit access built in right away. Available September 22. 

iPhone 8/8+: The base iPhones got a big upgrade in a number of areas, and are going to be a fantastic new edition to the iPhone line. The 8 now features a glass front and back, a True Tone display (like the iPad Pros), new stereo speakers, a new A11 Bionic chip which is 70% faster than the iPhone 7, and an updated 12-megapixel camera with a slew of new features. New portrait modes and lighting effects, new 4K and Slo-Mo video upgrades, and new hardware inside the cameras designed specifically for Augmented Reality. Oh, and the glass back not only looks nice, but it let's you wirelessly charge the phone as well. Both models start at 64GB storage standard, and the 8 will be $699 and the 8+ $799. Available on September 22. 

iPhone X: The brand-new flagship phone for Apple is now the iPhone X (pronounced iPhone Ten). The screen is the biggest difference - it's edge-to-edge and fills up the entire front of the phone, minus a cutout at the top for the True Depth Camera System. The TDCS allows you to unlock you phone with your face. That's it. No fingerprint sensor on this phone - not even a home button. You swipe up from the bottom of the screen to return home. The screen is a 5.8" Super Retina OLED, the first OLED in an iPhone. This one is the premium, expensive model, starting at $999 for the 64GB model. Available November 3. 

My Quick Thoughts: Apple Watch and Apple TV updates are wonderful, especially the HD content I've invested in on Apple TV now getting an auto-upgrade to 4K. If I'm a "regular" consumer and not a nerd, I go for the iPhone 8. It's a great upgrade for what you get. If you're nursing a old iPhone right now and need a new one, iPhone 8/8+ is the way to go. You get a great screen, new colors, and a phenomenal camera. For those that say "I'm getting the X," I'll say that demand for this phone, despite the price tag, will be incredibly high. You will be extremely lucky to get one by Christmas this year. Most of us will be waiting until March to get one. 

Overall, a strong keynote from Apple in my opinion. Good to see that they're pushing the envelope a bit again. 

This is part one of my three-part series about Understanding Instagram. 

Instagram is my happy place. It's where my perfectly curated collection of things I like to look at is all consolidated into one feed. I go there not only to just keep up with friends, but also look at things that interest me. 

A ministry friend called me up recently and told me that he was speaking with someone in his congregation about an addiction to pornography. Oddly enough, he said that he was told by this individual that the thing that kept tripping him up was the Search & Explore section on Instagram. 

I'll be honest - very rarely do I use this feature on the Instagram app. I pretty much follow who and what I want to follow and I look through my Stories and Feed daily. But if you tap on that tab at the bottom of the app (labeled as a simple magnifying glass), you might be surprised what you find. 

A screenshot of the Search & Explore tab on my account. Basically just Star Wars, Nintendo, and knives. 

According to Instagram, the Search & Explore section does this: 

Posts are selected automatically based on things like the people you follow or the posts you like. You may also see video channels, which can include posts from a mixture of hand-picked and automatically sourced accounts based on topics we think you’ll enjoy.

Instagram, just like an social network, doesn't have people picking stuff out for you, it allows an algorithm to do that. And that algorithm is basing what it shows you in that Search & Explore section based upon who you're following and the posts that you have liked. That second part is much more telling: Instagram will inject their own hand-picked accounts into your Search & Explore tab based upon what they think you might enjoy. 

So, let's say a 21-year old young man follows just a few Instagram accounts that contain violence, vulgar music, or scantily-clad women. And based upon his likes on those accounts that he follows, the Search & Explore feed is going to show him more and more of that kind of stuff. 

So is there any way to disable the S&E feed? No. Is there any way to keep it locked down so you can still use Instagram? No, not unless you use Instagram through the browser, which doesn't let you use the S&E feature but also doesn't allow you to post anything. 

So what's the solution here? Just as I've said before on countless occasions, there is no substitute for you having your child's username and password and logging into their account every week. If you allow your children to have an Instagram account, you need to be making sure that you know everything that happens on said account. 

The most obvious way to avoid seeing content you don't want is to unfollow the accounts in question. You probably don't want to go unlike every photo, but eventually the algorithm will figure out that this content isn't of interest to you any longer. Creating a new account and archiving the old one is also an option, but make sure your child doesn't create extra Finstagrams, or fake Instagram accounts (which I'll talk about in an upcoming post) nor should your child have access to the old account. 

Obviously, digital parenting is a real thing. We as parents are getting dizzy on the ever-shifting landscape of apps and social media trying to keep up with our teens. But don't give up and don't give in. Protect your child, bring them up in the Lord. 

You can follow exactly what I'm reading right here on the site with my Reading List, and make sure you follow me on Twitter and Instagram as well.  

For years I have lauded Dropbox as my one-stop shop for all of my limited backup, file organization and access, and even podcast hosting needs. But for the first time since 2009, Dropbox made a decision that I did not like at all. 

Dropbox announced earlier this year that they would be ending support for the Public folder in favor of shareable links. The Public folder inside of your Dropbox was originally the place to share public links - files that you wanted anyone with that link to have access to - such as MP3 files for podcasts. 

I've written about it before, but being the cheap person I am, I opted to host all of my podcast files for Ministry Bits inside of the Public folder in 2014 when I got started. Making the files Public enabled me to be able to have them in a podcast feed on my Squarespace site, but also allowed for direct streaming of those MP3 files without having to download them. 

Now, this is mostly my fault for not being on top of this, but I guess I missed the email from Dropbox saying that support would end on September 1. When it did end, my podcast no longer functioned. People couldn't download or stream episodes in any podcast app nor could they even listen directly at the feed here on my Squarespace site. 

I'm angry for two reasons: 1) Because I wasn't paying attention, people can no longer access my podcast until I fix it, and 2) Why would Dropbox end support for a feature that's so widely used? Look on any of the Dropbox forums and you'll hundreds of people who aren't happy about this. 

But all that being said - it's happened, it's done, and it's time to move on. 

I've looked into lots of Podcast hosting services this week, and none are as cost effective as Dropbox. For $9.99 a month, I get 1TB of storage, more than I will ever use or need (currently only using about 49GB). But now with the Public folder gone, a lot of the functionality that I relied on is gone. 

If I was starting a new podcast, I would happily pay for Fireside.fm. It's an excellent all-in-one management system for your podcast. However, the way I wanted to integrate my files with my Squarespace account simply wasn't going to work. 

There's other services like the popular LibSyn and PodBean, but both have pretty small storage caps per month (LibSyn is 50MB per month for $5). So importing all 58 episodes of Ministry Bits would not be possible. 

So I turned to Amazon S3. S3 stands for super simple storage, and it does a pretty good job. I've hosted files there before - like the AIM Series videos for the Apple TV app. But never really did think about it for my podcast. 

The best thing about S3 is that it's very cheap, and you only pay for what you use. Right now I'm paying about 24 cents a month to host 6-8GB of files and pay for the bandwidth when those files are streamed/downloaded. So since audio files are much smaller (about 30-40MB each) and the bandwidth to stream them is much lower, I expect I won't be paying more than 50-60 cents each month when all is said and done. 

If you have an Amazon account, you can sign into S3. It's a little less user-friendly than Dropbox or Google Drive, but it's cheap, it hosts and streams my files, and I don't have to worry about them sunsetting a feature that will disable my podcast. 

I'll continue to host text files and other small files on Dropbox, but for all my public files with audio and video, I'll be using S3 from now on.