I was able to pick up a Nexus One last year and it’s been great – I’ve even started making my own apps (none are ready for publication – yet).  However as more and more people are picking up Android phones – everyone keeps asking what apps they should get.  So I thought I would share some of the different apps that I have loaded on my phone –  oh, and I’ve only paid for a couple of these (and I’ll mark those) so consider everything here free unless otherwise marked (use a barcode scanner to scan the QR codes to download the software to your phone):

General Use:

• ChompSMS  - just wanted something more than the regular SMS system and this does it
• Google Voice – gives me a number  that rings my mobile and my house phone, voicemail that transcribes the messages and sends them to me in email & text, and also allows for free texting within the US
• Locale (Costs money)  - Allows you to have settings based on location – so you can set it up to silence your phone when at the church or in my case, turn off my Google Voice line from ringing the house phone when I’m not there (requires an additional plugin that costs a few bucks more)
• Remember the Milk (requires a paid RTM Pro account)  - great todo list organizer or create lists that for just about anything on it.  I’m able to manage my lists online or from my laptop as well.
• Evernote  - Great way to note taking app that synchronizes our notes with your PC (Mac or Windows).  Notes can be written, they can be audio recordings, URL clippings, etc.  You can also tag them for easy classification and retrieval.
• Apps Organizer – helps in creating groups for your different apps so you can easily find them without doing a ton of scrolling through all your app icons
• Memento – helps you store any kind of information you want on your droid from video libraries to medical information.  You can design your own template for how you enter information. Very versatile.
• My Docs – Allows you to easily access your Google Docs online
• Dropbox – easy way to send files from your computer to your droid & back again.  Free account allows up to 2 GB of storage space.
• Amazon Appstore - Its an alternative to the Google Marketplace.  They give away a daily “paid” app so there’s free stuff there however the downside is that you have to open up a security block in Android to run it so be careful after loading this.
• Lookout – This is security for your phone – it easily scans for viruses when installing new apps, does weekly scanning and backups & has a way to try and locate your phone if it is lost.
• C25K Lite – Couch to 5k is a great help in preparing to run a 5k (which I’ve done a few times now).  Helps you build up running endurance through running in intervals
• My Coffee Card – Easily manage your Starbucks card as well as use your phone to pay for your drink – no card is actually needed once you have it all set up.

Social Media:

• Facebook for Android – obvious what it does
• Hootsuite – great for managing multiple twitter accounts, facebook profiles & pages.  Also has a desktop application so I can easily manage these things on the road or at my desk
• Yammer – Yammer is like a corporate twitter.  You yammer feeds aren’t open to the public but only to those within your group.  Very nice for large collaboration groups.
• WordPress – helps me manage this blog and others.  I can write posts, moderate comments, etc.
• LinkedIn (still in Beta release so no link) – I’m beta testing the upcoming LinkedIn app and it is better than the 3rd party apps out there for LinkedIn.
• Diet & Food – allows you to interact with your account on SparkPeople.com (I’ve heard it called “Facebook for Fat People”)

Reading & Information:

• Pulse – this is a great way to ready various news sources & blogs.  It will even connect to your Google Reader account & you can bring in blogs from there.
• IMDB – great way to read up on movies and the Parental Guide on movies is very helpful for every age

Tools & Multimedia:

• Car Mode – Automatically sets to speakerphone when enabled so that all incoming and outgoing calls can be hands free.  STOP DRIVING WITH YOUR PHONE IN YOUR HAND.
• Car Home – sets up an easier to use home page for your droid while driving.  You can easily add easy to hit auto dials and it keeps your droid from sleeping so know trying to turn it on, swipe it, and then enter your unlock code while driving
• OI Safe – Great password keeper and password generator.  Encrypts all your passwords under one master password.  You can export everything to a file to read on your computer (although not encrypted so be careful with it)
• Meridian (couldn’t find it in the Market now though) – great way to watch and organize videos and other media
• Flickroid – Adds a Flickr share to link in different places which you click on “Share” like in the photo gallery and allows easy upload of photos to your Flickr account
• aCCleaner Free – Easy way to clean out cache files in all your apps to open up more space
• App 2 SD Free – Helps you easily move Apps to your SD card if you have Android 2.2 or higher to free up more space
• GAnalyticz – great way to be able to review your Google Analytics information about your websites while on the go
• OI File Manager – manage files through this great interface
• StopWatch & Timer – simple yet effective
• Wifi Analyzer – shows you all the wifi signals you are picking up and what channels they are on so you can configure your wifi router to the setting with the least interference
• Speed Test – run this to test your Internet connections speeds
• Advanced Task Killer – Some apps just keep running taking up memory.  Use this to automatically stop them when they’re not in use
• Bubble – use your droid to hang that picture level or verify the table is level before placing the really fully hot water pot on it.
• ConnectBot – for us geeks that want to use SSH from anywhere.  Here’s the client for you.  If you don’t know what SSH is, don’t worry about this one.
• Currency – Keep up with currency rates easily with this app
• Soundhound – Hear a song but don’t know its name – let SoundHound listen to it and it will tell you the name & artist.  Similar to Shazam app but I got it free on one of the Amazon App freebies.
• TuneIn Radio – Listen to radio stations from around the world and in all sorts of genres and languages.  Awesome.
• YouTube – Definitely the better way to watch videos than in the browser
• ShopSavvy – Barcode scanner that allows you to scan bar codes & QR codes (2-d bar codes).  If its a product, it will tell you where you can buy it and for how much online & locally.  It also allows you to save them in lists.  This helps me from impulse buying as I can see its cheaper online, file it away and then I forget that I wanted it.  ;-)
• Movela Netflix – Helps you manage your Netflix queues
• Movies – check movie times, watch previews, see what’s coming soon.
• Runkeeper – This will use the GPS to plot your running giving you great stats.  Not just for stats but is good for hiking, walking, cycling, etc.  Plots it all out on a google map for you and can save them up on their website in an account for you.
• Workout Tracker – easy to use workout manager that can even export your stats for reference or scrutiny

Games:

• Angry Birds – just addictive
• Coin Flip – for when I just can’t make a decision
• Cribbage Pro – I like it!
• Daily Dilbert – I so relate to these!!
• Shortyz – free crossword puzzles
• Spades Free – played a lot of spades in college.
• Sudoku Daily – challenge with numbers
• Texas Hold’em – gotta stay sharp.
• Traffic Jam – get the car out of the crowded parking lot
• TriviaBurst – trivia at its best
• Wordup – find as many words as you can in the timeframe
• X Construct – build bridges that the train can cross – don’t let the screaming people discourage you though when you fail

Travel:

• TripIt – Use the TripIt.com site to manage your travel arrangements and use this apps to connect to all the info while on the road
• TripCase – What is in the paid version of TripIt is in the free version of TripCase and vice versa.  Use the free version of both to get all the paid stuff free.
• FlightStats Lite – easily check flight statuses by flight numbers with this app.  Saves them for when you are checking over and over due to delays or anxious to see a loved one.

Know of any others?  Please share them in the comments area.

We’re really excited to announce the release of our new eDOT website .  Being a technology ministry, our website gets scrutinzied a little bit more than most peoples’ sites so its nice have a refreshing look and interaction.  For being an information website, I really like our new place.  Our goal is that this will help us recruit more people into working with us both in full time capacities, short term capacities and even as volunteers.  Based on WordPress (just like this site), it includes a blog (which I’ll be one of the writers on) and other changing parts.

This is a bitter sweet project as it’s Laura’s (our web developer) first major project since getting out of German Language school.  And will be her last major eDOT project (at least for a while) as she’s about to have her first baby.  Check out the blog she did about what it took to make this website work.  Not only did she do a lot of custom code for it, but she originally used so many different WordPress plug-ins (add-ons of code that people make specifically to work with WordPress) that the system would crash.  We actually had to scale back how many plugins we were using but it still works wonderfully.

The really cool part of this project was that everything we used was free. WordPress is open-source and so are all the plugins (we did make some donations to some of the plugin writers just becase they saved us some much by already having the code).

So please check it out and feel free to pass the link along to any friends or family that may be interested in using their technical abilities for helping build up the church in Greater Europe.

Above is pictured one of the cheaper gas stations that is in our area (and on a good gas price day since it fluctuates daily, sometimes it seems hourly). At first glance you might think we have it great here in Germany with gas prices (and compared to some places in the world, it is good). However let me explain the prices to those of you in the states.

The first price (the really cheap one) is for Erdgas, which is pretty much only used in certain farm vehicles. The second price there is for diesel (yes, diesel is cheaper than gas in Germany). The bottom three prices are for gas and equate to the levels of “Regular, Plus and Premium” found in the states. So the price of regular gas looks pretty good at 1.349 but you have to remember that that is Euros per liter. So to get that to Dollars per Gallon, we have to multiply the 1.349 by 3.7854118 (the amount of liters in a gallon) and then multiply the result by 1.35 (the current rate of Dollars to Euros) which means gas currently goes for $6.89/gallon for the cheap gas.

That is one of the reasons cars are smaller here and why bicycles and walking are favored in town transportation (and why we bought a diesel)

Are you an RSS freak like me? (RSS – Real Simple Syndication) I look at a ton of different websites and I don’t have to go through my favorites to get to them. I use RSS to read them. I use a RSS Aggrigator to read them all (see my post about using these from a while back to learn more)

One of my recent adds is a new feed from Greater Europe Mission that gives daily prayer requests from all around Europe. To view the daily feed, check it out here or if you just want to get the feed, use http://www.gemission.org/praying/RSSFeed.asp.

Another great thing is to sign up for eDOT’s monthly newsletter – eDOT Connect! It’s delivered monthly to your email box and keeps you up-to-date on what is happening with our ministry eDOT. Click here to sign up or go here to view some past issues of eDOT Connect!

Alex and I had a wonderful time today hiking up the hill behind us to a gazebo and taking a few photos. It was truly beautiful. Above is a panorama view of the city of Kandern (where we live). There’s about 4000 people who live in this town with about another 4000 living in the villages around it. Click on the photo to go to much larger version and I’ve labeled it with where we live and some other places of interest. You can see some of the other photos in the Photo Album

Season’s Greetings –

Highlights:
1) Need help loading our crate
2) Max and Erma’s Restaurant night results
3) Departure date
4) Goodbye party
5) Need a car?
6) Prayer Requests

We’re delighted to share some amazing things that God has been doing for us,
in us and through us.

1) Our shipping container is coming to be loaded Thursday, December 21. We
only have 2 free hours to load and then they start charging by the hour so
we need lots of strong backs and prayer for no rain. We need lots of help
here so if you can come from 12:30-4 we would really appreciate it! Please
respond if you think you can make it.

2)On Monday, December 4 a local restaurant donated 20% of the meal prices of
the people who came to support our ministry. We had over $1,528.58 in sales
which gave our ministry a check for $305.72. Although the amount was
significant, our greatest joy was to walk around and have a chance to greet
all those who made that such a special night. Thank you.

3)Hopefully you’ve all heard our departure date – JANUARY 9, 2007. We were
able to find AMAZING tickets to Zurich for about $425 each! Even though
it’s in Switzerland it’s about an hour drive from our place in Germany.
We’ll recoup for a few days at our team leader’s home and then our shipping
container should arrive around January 15. Alex’s kindergarten (2 houses
away) is currently full but they are going to try to squeeze him in – please
pray. We’ll probably start language school in February.

4) Sunday, January 7- 11:30-3pm at Lake Forest you are invited to a goodbye
party. A light lunch will be served right after church or you can “drop in”
before 3. We hope to see most of you from the NC/SC area if you are able.
We’ve sent separate e-invites or you can RSVP to this e-mail by January 1.
Children are welcome. For those of you further away, we know you are with
us in spirit!

5) Our car is for sale. 1995 Toyota Camry LE Sedan – 127K miles – $3,500

As you can imagine this is a time of delight and a bit of stress :0! Please
pray for our family, for our marriage, for our stuff and for our nerves -
especially that we can get everything boxed up before next Thursday.
Another BIG prayer request is that the Euro/Dollar conversion is at the all
time high again which will really hurt us as we will lose .25 cents on every
dollar just in conversion. Please pray for the dollar to strengthen against
the Euro, and for the last bit of our support to be provided.

Your friends,

Courtney and Krista Roes
www.RoesGarden.com

Donations to Greater Europe Mission, PO Box 1669 Monument, CO 80132-1669
Account #38200 or online at
https://www.gemission.org/supporting/givingcard.asp

If you need the Max & Erma’s coupon, click on the picture of it to down load a pdf version. Remember, its only good for today for lunch, dinner or take-out at the Exit 25 Max & Erma’s.

Thanks!!!

Muellheim is where the Greater Europe Mission European Headquarters is and where our eDOT Teams offices are. Kandern is where Black Forest Academy is where Alex will go to school once he is in first grade. Until then, he will attend true Kindergarten (Kindergarten is a product of Germany and Kinder means child while Garten is garden) in one of the local schools.

As you can see, where we are in Germany is great for our ministry as it is in the middle of Europe allowing easy travel to anywhere our ministry takes us.

Please continue to pray for the following:

• Praise God that our house sold and that God has removed all obstacles to our move except our monthly support which He is working on on a daily basis — We currently have commitments for 70% of our monthly needs and almost 100% of our moving expenses
• Pray that more people and churches would want to be a part of this ministry using Technology to reach and train people for God.
• Pray for family, friends and us as we start the good bye process. We have many deep and meaningful relationships that we know are going to change due to being long distance.

God bless!!!

From Yahoo.com –> Tailor made for you – RSS

Did you ever wonder why I have all those button across the bottom on the website? What is that orange “XML” or “RSS” box on all these websites anyway?

RSS stands for Real Simple (or Standard) Syndication. That means that the content from those websites is put into a special format that can be imported into other websites or things call RSS Aggregators.

This technology allows you to monitor the content of a multitude of websites all on a single page. This is such a growing technology, that the next version of Windows (“Vista”) is going to have RSS reading capabilities built into it.

Personally, I use “My Yahoo” as my RSS Aggregator. That means on a single page, I can see the headlines from my favorite bloggers (Write some more djchuang!!), the latest photos uploaded from Ken Liu, what is shipping next from our Netflix queue, and the sermons from my home church, Lake Forest, and our sister church Warehouse 242. Anytime I see a headline that I am interested in, I just click on it and it takes me right to that post on the website.

So if you are a person that goes web surfing and finds a site that you really like – instead of adding it to your “favorites”, add the RSS or XML feed to your Aggregator so you not only know about the website, but can see instantly if there are any new articles that are worth reading/hearing/or viewing.

Read the article from Yahoo to learn even more about this way of experiencing the web.