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. 

Very rarely do I get a high-demand item on Day One. I just got lucky with Apple's Airpods. 

It was early December 2016, and I was sitting in my office getting some work done when Twitter refreshed and several people and sites started saying that Airpods pre-orders were now open. I had $160 saved for months, so I was ready. I went directly to Apple's site and placed my order. 

They sold out very quickly, but I got a package a few days before Christmas containing what would be the best Apple accessory I've ever owned. 

For the last 7 months, there has literally not been a day when I haven't used Apple's Airpods. It is not an understatement for me to say that, aside from the iPhone, they are my favorite Apple product of all time. 

Imagine my surprise a couple of weeks ago when a friend was asking me questions about them. "Why do you just get some and try them out?" I asked. 

"Because I can't find them to buy them!"

The search for Airpods had completely fallen off my radar - after all, I wasn't looking anymore. But I wrongly assumed that six months after the official release that they would have been readily available. Turns out, they were still pretty scarce. My friend was able to get some at a local Verizon store, but Apple.com still says 6 weeks for shipping as of July 2017. 

But if you are able to get your hands on some, I feel strongly that you will not be disappointed. 

From the date of this post - 24 July 2017 - and still shipping in 6 weeks from Apple.com. 

 

The Best Wireless Earbuds By Far

To me, it was astonishing at how small these devices were. The case is no bigger than a small dental floss case, and some people have even made stickers for the Airpods case to camouflage it. It opens and reveals the tops of the actual Airpods and clicks closed with far too much fun. Apple clearly spent lots of time on the design of how this all fit together. The case also charges the Airpods - you'll find a lightning connector on the bottom of the case to charge the case. 

The battery life is outstanding - and if it wasn't, this would be far less of a product in my opinion. I regularly get 4-5 hours of listening in both ears on one charge. The Airpods case gives me another 2-3 full charges for a total of about 16-20 hours of continuous listening. Most times I'm not using them 20 hours a day, though, and I usually go a few days without even charging the case. If you're someone that talks on the phone all day, you could probably talk for 50 hours straight just using one Airpod, and then charge that one and use the other one. 

Oh, and that's one of the cool features - you can use each Airpod independently if you like. Sometimes it's nice to use just one. You can hear your surroundings or talk to someone else. 

When you have both Airpods in your ears, there's a number of things you can do. If you pull on out of your ear, your music automatically stops. Put it back in and it resumes. Same for any audio coming from your device, not just music. 

Double-tap on either Airpod and you get one of two things: 1) Siri - which can control volume, do an internet search, or initiate a phone call or 2) simply start/stop your audio. I opted for the second option (which you can change in Settings), because I don't want to have to take the Airpods out of my ear to stop the music because I have little kids around. 

One of the coolest features was simple syncing. I jump back and forth from using my Airpods with my iPhone and my iPad. All you have to do is simply open the case with the Airpods inside near the device of choice and you get a little box that pops up and says you're connected. No jumping through Settings, no going through Bluetooth hoops. There have been occasions when this doesn't work, and in that event I just swipe up to Airplay controls and manually connect from there. There's a tone on your Airpods when a device is connected. 

Airpods are shaped exactly like Earpods, and they will fit the same. And they don't fall out easily at all. You can shake your head, ride a bike, or go for a run and they don't fall out. And keep in mind, these are completely independent headphones, 

 

Drawbacks

There are a few drawbacks to having Airpods. None of them dealbreakers (for me, at least), but some you should watch out for. 

Size. Like I said, these things are tiny. So tiny that they are very easy to lose. On some occasions, I've dropped the case with the Airpods inside on a tile floor and the case and the Airpods when all different directions. Best to keep them in the case when you're not using them - because if you don't, you will lose them. 

Exterior sounds. Airpods will not be good in high noise environments like for mowing the grass or in factory situations. Crowded rooms and subways or buses should be fine. But you will want some noise-cancelling headphones for these loud places - Airpods probably won't cut it for you. 

Earpod compatibilty. If Apple's regular Earpod earbuds don't fit your ears, these probably won't either. However, that being said, if you're always getting your headphones jerked out of your ears, give Airpods a chance. It may be the headphone cable that was the culprit. I have heard from people that couldn't wear Apple's regular headphones that were able to wear Airpods just fine because there wasn't a cable to snag them out of their ears.  

Conclusion

If you are looking for a great pair of truly wireless earphones and you have $160, Apple's Airpods may be for you. If you like the regular Earpods but want something more convenient and fancy, check out the Airpods. And lastly, if you want to be on the bleeding edge of tech and have true wireless freedom, Apple's Airpods may just be the ticket for you. 

"Post-Truth" is Oxford's Word of the Year. Defined by the dictionary as an adjective “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”, editors said that use of the term “post-truth” had increased by around 2,000% in 2016 compared to last year.

How interesting. Steve Tesich, a playwright, wrote an essay for Nation magazine in 1992 and coined the term "post-truth" with this phrase:

"We, as a free people, have freely decided that we want to live in some post-truth world."

Do we care what the truth is anymore? Do we even know what the truth is anymore?

On both sides of the aisle, Republican and Democrat fake news articles have permeated Facebook. Whether you're conservative right or liberal left, you probably succumbed to reading, believing, and even sharing these fake news stories that have cropped up over the last few months, especially in this election cycle. I know this is true - many of my friends on Facebook are conservatives, and they have fallen victim to these fake news stories and misinformation.

We seem like, on the surface, that we don't care what the truth is anymore, so long as it goes along with what we believe. And that's wrong.

Because as Christians, we know what the truth is. The Bible word for this is discernment or to discern.

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1.9-11)

This scripture flies in the face of post-truth. We should always be testing, always be seeking the truth in all things.

Closely related with post-truth is post-modern. This is a mindset that there is no absolute truth, and that whatever I feel is subjective to myself only. Both of these mindsets do not align with Scripture.

Our discernment in this age of misinformation has never been more important. In an era when we can instantly share a story or video, fake or true, with one tap of our finger and potentially send that message to thousands of people, what message are you sending?

Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. (2 Timothy 4.2-5)

Like it or not, the future is up to us. And I don't mean the future of America. I mean the future of the Kingdom.

It depends on us. So many of us would be content to sit back and let someone else make the stand and let someone else do the work. That can't happen. Christ's church will always have a future, but it will be in our hands. It depends on good men and women to work in the kingdom.

It depends on our willingness to serve. How far will you go to serve your fellow man? Will you step out in faith or sit tightly by yourself, hoping that no one asks you to help?

It depends on our homes. If there is anything that parenting is teaching me, it's that Satan's battle for this world starts in our homes. Our core teaching for the future of the church isn't neccessarily in church. It's right at home.

Hold Christ's truth above all other truths.

Have the attitude of Christ Jesus in all things, and show that to your children.

Serve others sacrificially from a true heart.

This is where forming our future starts. Not from some man or woman sitting the Oval Office. But in our homes. In our children's hearts.

Stop trusting in men and women to lead you and look to God and His Word. Start forming the future for the kingdom, not just a nation.

The completed Bibliotheca set. Shipping early December 2016.

Over 24 months ago, I was able to speak through emails to Adam Lewis Greene, the creator of the Kickstarter project named Bibliotheca. It was an exciting project that explored a revision of the American Standard Version into a reader's version with no typical verse breaks or references. Just the text, presented with a custom font, in a four-volume clothbound set. 

The initial ask was that of $37,000. Greene got $1.4 million. 

I was privileged to be backer number 469 out of 14,884. 

Greene said the initial project should just take months, and should be delivered sometime that next year. That was in 2014, and that never happened. 

As it turns out, getting a new Bible printed in four volumes is hard work. The initial project was pushed back a little over two years. Some of that was delays; most of it was just to get things right.

Greene announced last Friday that the project is finished. The announcement video, complete with a tearful Greene:

From a personal standpoint, I look at this video and see just how much that Adam poured his heart into this project. It almost makes me angry that people would criticize him for wanting to do this right and not instantly. Good things come to those who wait. 

If you were one of the backers, you should be receiving your shipment of your set in December. If not, there are a limited run of copies available at bibliotheca.co.

There is a special place on my desk for this set, and I look forward to sitting down every day and reading the Word of God from these volumes. Truly, Adam Greene has changed the face of Biblical printing.