In case you missed my post earlier this week, I asked the question "What's Wrong With This Picture, Microsoft?" in reference to why the iPad doesn't have Office yet. Apparently there's more than one person that agrees with me. And they said it better too. 

Ben Thompson writing for Statechery:

So to summarize, Office is not available everywhere, and probably won’t be anytime soon, because Microsoft has a devices business to prop up. Oh, and Microsoft’s business needs are a priority over user needs. 

Even Windows fanboy Paul Thurrott writing for Supersite for Windows:

The reason this happened is that while Sinofsky had the maniacal power and force of will of a Steve Jobs, he lacked Jobs' best gift: An innate understanding of good design. Windows 8 is not well-designed. It's a mess. But Windows 8 is a bigger problem than that. Windows 8 is a disaster in every sense of the word.

This is not open to debate, is not part of some cute imaginary world where everyone's opinion is equally valid or whatever. Windows 8 is a disaster. Period.

When your own cheerleaders are now condemning your products and strategies, it's time for a major overhaul. 

Or you could just switch to Mac. 

First I want to confess that no, I am not a user of anything Microsoft. I have a Mac and I use Mac-equivalent programs for such things as word processing and spreadsheets. Before you write me off as an "Apple Fanboy" who just hates everything Microsoft, hear me out. 

I know lots of people who depend of Microsoft programs and apps (like Outlook, Exchange, and Office) every single day. I know people who write everything in MS Word, and just because this is what they like to use should not mean that I should judge them. 

What got me thinking about this was a few articles posted this week about MS Office finally coming to the iPad. My question is: why wasn't this done years ago? What's wrong with this picture, Microsoft? 

I don't depend on Office, but I know lots of people who do. The iPad is an undeniable success when it comes to content creation. It's been a force in the tablet market nearly since the day it was released. So why didn't Microsoft rush in and get Office done for the iPad? 

1) Because Microsoft doesn't care about customers. They haven't for a while. They care about profit margins and making money. They care about maintaining domination in the PC market. The customer has become the casualty here.

2) They have a bunch of engineers writing their systems and programs, not designers designing user interfaces that people can actually use. 

3) They want, at the expense and convenience of the customer, to push their own OS and tablets like Windows 8 and the Surface. Don't get me wrong - these are great machines and I even like Windows 8, but it's too late to the game. Lifelong PC users hate Windows 8. Everyone who owns a tablet has an iPad or an Android device. 

It's time for Microsoft to stop ignoring what's happening in the real world. It's time for them to admit that Office needs to be on all platforms, not just theirs. Because, based upon the latest impressions of Windows 8 and Windows 8 PC and Tablet sales, customers have spoken. Loudly. 

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Well that was fast. 

I am privileged and honored to announce today that Ministry Bits, my new audio podcast, is going to be a part of the AIM Network. The AIM Network, or Adventures in Ministry, is a network run by Paul Spurlin in Montgomery, Alabama. They offer lots of free materials through their AIM Project website, as well as Podcasts, Devotional Songs, links, articles, and many other things. They work in close conjunction with Faulkner University and the Southern Evangelism Conference. 

It's a huge, wonderful step for Ministry Bits. We hope that even more people can become part of the network of ministers helping each other use the tools of technology for the betterment of the Kingdom of God. 

Nothing will change on the podcast - you'll still see and be able to listen to the shows here on the site or through iTunes. The shows will shortly be available on the AIM site as well as the AIM app. 

In addition to joining AIM's complement of podcasts, Paul and his gang are bringing me on in a design capacity as well. I hope that I can help them out and get these great materials and resources to the most ministers and youth ministers possible. 

The AIM Network is growing and expanding. I'm glad to be aboard. 

 

• Be sure to check out Ministry Bits on iTunes
• Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ministrybits
• Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/ministrybits
• And soon on the AIM Network!

One of the things God has blessed me with was the ability to know stuff about technology that most other people don't know. I don't say this because I'm an expert (because I'm not), I say this because every day I come across someone who surprises me with either their knowledge or lack thereof about technology.

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Youth Ministry Workshop at the Freed-Hardeman Lectureships this past week - and I was on the other side of the table. I know a lot of stuff about technology - maybe too much. But I learned about new ways of doing things, new apps, new ways to create apps - stuff I had literally never heard before. 

So my new podcast I (re)started about 2 weeks ago is just that. It's about technology - both the tools we can use and the lessons we can learn from it in ministry. It's called Ministry Bits, and you don't have to go too far to listen. 

There are lots of people in the ministry that you and I know that are good at a lot of different things. Some are good at graphics. Some are good at using technology to preach and teach. So how can we use their knowledge to make our ministries better? We can see how they did it. 

If we want to be like Christ, we need to do the things he did. If we want to use technology effectively in our ministries, then we need to do the things that effective people do. 

Ministry Bits is an attempt to cobble together all this knowledge into one weekly podcast, so that everyone can listen and benefit. We will have guests in the coming weeks talk about perspectives on technology in ministry, reading, writing, and teaching and preaching in ministry. I hope that you the listener will benefit greatly from their knowledge and experience. We'll have shows on apps, workflows, and gadgets to use in ministry. 

Thank you in advance for supporting the new podcast. It's going to be a great ride. 

You can check out Ministry Bits right here on the website, or you can subscribe with iTunes in your favorite podcast client for easy listening. Shows run 25-30 minutes, no more. Your time is valuable. If you have a request, a comment, or would even like to be on the show, give me a shout at chad.landman@gmail.com. 

I was honored last year when Michael Whitworth approached me about a special book he was putting together called Thoughts From The Mound, a collection of writings by Jeff Jenkins. I was thrilled and honored when he asked me to design the cover. 

He wanted something simple, and actually used the phrase "maybe one of those comfy chairs overlooking some rolling hills." I was happy to oblige. 

Photography normally isn't my strong suit, so in order to make the cover as great as possible, I need to make technology work for me. 

I start out with sheer volume. I shot over 60 photos for the cover and picked only one. Professionals would actually shoot a lot more, perhaps hundreds of shots before settling on one that they could use. Overall, I took just over 100 total photos from about 3 different views. 

Location and time of day were extremely important as well. Whereas some photographers would be able to shoot in a variety of different types of weather, I realize that I'm not that good - neither at Photoshop or at shooting in variable weather. I wait for a clear day before I go shoot. 

The location happned to be in a church member's front yard, so it worked out for me to stay there and do what I needed to do that afternoon for as long as I needed. The chair was actually the church secretary's. The Bible on the edge of the chair was mine. 

The photos were shot using a standard 18-55mm lens on a Canon D3100. The original resolution was 4608 x 3072 and I shot in RAW+JPEG format. There are lots of benefits to shooting in RAW that I won't go into, but basically you shoot with all the data available to you to edit later. Much larger photos in size, but you get all that data to work with. This is a great thing especially if you know you're going to take something into Photoshop. 

I took a variety of shots stooping, sitting, and standing. I didn't fiddle with light settings too much at all, and I let the camera and its auto-focus do most of the work. 

One of my fallacies in shooting photography is to want to compose the actual cover in my shot while I'm shooting. What I mean by that is I'm trying to frame the cover and make it look like the final product while I'm shooting. You're not supposed to do this, but I did anyways. Given the fact that I only had one lens, I pretty much had to. 

I wanted to compose the cover with the chair facing what would be the spine of the book. I don't know if this a rule or not, but it seems to be a good one. 

After shooting the photos I take them into Photoshop. This is where the transformation begins. I make sure to set my canvas to the appropriate size and resolution (in this case 5.5 inches wide by 8.5 inches tall, CMYK mode for printing, at 300 dpi). After cropping to appropriate size, I first I run Unsharp Mask to make sure everything on the picture is as sharp as it can be. I then make a Levels Adjustment Layer and bring the levels on the photo up or down based on the Levels Histogram. This evens out brightness and contrast pretty well usually, and I don't have to fiddle with that anymore. 

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Next is color adjustment. I really want the hills to pop and be the most significant thing you see besides the title. I make a seperate Color Adjustment Layer and slighly adjust the hills to look more green. Not too much, since they're already very green anyways. 

The next thing I focus on is the blue sky. I use the Burn tool with a pretty high brush size (usually about 200 pixels or higher) in the Midtones range with an Exposure at 50%. I have "Protect Tones" checked while doing this. I lightly touch up the top of the sky just enough but not enough to interfere with the overall look. I've already decided the title is going to go in the top left. 

I then work on the blur at the bottom right. I didn't need the blur to be obvious, I actually needed it to be subtle enough that you could ignore it. Jeff's author title will go here, so I need you to see the bottom of the chair but not be distracted by the detail of the chair. I use the Blur tool and a big brush to get the desired effect that I want. The Blur tool will layer on top of the effect you just made, so making the blur on top of another blur will just intensify that blur. I make sure the blur is most intense at the corner and work out. 

Titling comes last. I used the font PerpetuaTitlingMT Light and varied the sizes in the title to make sure it was a well-designed layout. Simple and effective. I place a very subtle Drop Shadow under the text (about 4 pixels distance). 

After saving into a variety of formats (PNG, JPEG, PDF) I send it to Michael. Cover is done. 

So I hope you've enjoyed this step-by-step process for designing a book cover. I'd designed covers before, but never for a publication and never with my own photography. I think it turned out pretty great.