Every once in a while we dispense with the news about church and Bible technology and don’t talk about Bible software and only deal with what we call Our Favorite Things. These are recommendations of a tool, accessory, gadget, software, app, service or really anything that we enjoy using in our lives. They come from our ministries in church and Bible tech, church life, family, entertainment or hobbies. We’ll each shared some of our favorite things in this edition of the Theotek Podcast.
Here’s everyone’s list of recommendations with links.
Wes Allen’s Our Favorite Things
Wes talked about using a tablet for note taking purposes and recommended the app Notes Plus for iPad. You can write in your own handwriting and take advantage of Apple Pencil support.
It’s great for recording the meeting and for adding images, drawings and text as well.
Second, Wes recommended Adobe Spark, one of the great Adobe mobile apps. Spark puts together your images and videos into a nice presentation on the web or on mobile devices. See more about the Adobe Mobile apps over at GottaBeMobile where I wrote a full article about the most useful of the Adobe Mobile apps.
LaRosa Johnson’s Our Favorite Things
LaRosa recommended two great alternatives to Adobe Photoshop and Indesign from a company called Serif. Affinity Photo Editor is a great cheaper alternative to Photoshop with layered photo editing tools without the expensive subscription. Get it for $49.99 in the Mac App Store or download the free trial available at their website.
We also learned about Affinity Designer, a pro-level graphic design tool. Both of these tools work with Adobe file formats making it easy to work with others who also use Adobe products. Get a free trial or buy it on the Mac App Store for $49.99 also.
LaRosa’s last recommendation is the iPhone app Over, another graphic tool. It lets users create nice slides with images and text. He uses this to make some nice images for his website devos.hiphop which will launch soon. Get Over on iPhone for free.
Rick Mansfield’s Our Favorite Things
Rick shared a couple of tools. First, he likes his 4TB Seagate Backup Plus Fast drive. It’s an external hard drive that costs $179.99 and connects via USB 3.o and runs at 220MB/s.
Sonny Software’s Bookends software helps students with their research. The software helps you keep tabs on your reference works for writing projects.
Finally, Rick doesn’t recommend Verizon Wireless, but he talked about why he and his wife returned to the service. As a tip he said make sure to ask if you can get a discount based on your job. For example, my wife works for the local school district and that means she gets a discount on all the major wireless carriers.
Kevin Purcell’s Our Favorite Things
I focused on apps for my recommendations. This started with some not taking apps. The first is MyScript Nebo for Surface Pro or Surface Book and iPad. It takes advantage of the Surface Pen or the Apple Pencil. Write in your own handwriting and quickly convert it to text. Add drawings and diagrams. Draw complex math equations and then tap to have the problem solved. The app’s free now for a limited time and $8.99 later.
Another note taking app works on Android. DioNote also writes in your own handwriting. Add drawings and diagrams. It’s simple and free.
I recommended a program called Noteburner, which strips iTunes DRM so you can use the movies and videos you’ve purchased through Apple and watch them on any other device or platform. It’s not cheap at $69.99, but there’s a free trial version.
