Subscribe to the Pursuit Via Email

Howdy friends, quick blog maintenance item. If you would like to subscribe to the Pursuit of His Best via email, that is now possible and encouraged. Just enter your email address and click the Submit link on the left side of the page.

Next enter the letters requested from FeedBurner's spam checker.

Check your email and click on the confirmation link then enjoy the Pursuit from the comfort of your inbox. When a new post is available, you'll receive it hot off the press as an email update. Feel free also to forward any article and/or post it to your Facebook page or Twitter account.

  

When Youtube videos are occasionally posted, you will need to go to the actual post in order to view the video due to limitations of the functionality.

Speed Up a Podcast or Slow Down a Song

Windows Media Player has the ability to either speed up or slow down a podcast or song. I've found this useful when listening to a podcast but want to get through it a bit faster. Of course, if you're listening to a deep sermon by a pastor that you really want to absorb, you might even consider using the slow down feature.

Another really good use of the speed settings is if you are trying to learn a music part by ear and it's crazy fast like the bass solo of Salvation Is Here by Hillsong United. (I actually learned it at normal speed but this would be a good application for the tool)

To do this, simply right click while playing the song or podcast then go to Enhancements, Play speed settings and adjust to your preferred speed. I've found most podcasts to be fine up to the 1.3 to 1.4x speed but much more than that and you feel like you're listening to a chipmunk hyped up on Mountain Dew.

If you're working on a Mac this can be done in Quick Time by going to Window, Show A/V Controls, playback speed.

In pursuit of His best,
Andrew

Twitter

You may have heard of the latest new communication tool on the web called Twitter. It's a micro blogging website similar to using Facebook updates. You can follow well known people or friends and it provides a feed of their updates. You only have 160 characters to make an update so have to be concise. It also allows you to update via text messages.

I finally decided to sign up and see what the low down is. Some people send updates constantly, some once a day or week, some infrequently. A few well known people that I'm following are Mark Richt, Lance Armstrong, and Mark Batterson. It's interesting to hear what's going on with them. You pick up on news a bit more frequently and get it straight from the horse's mouth.

If you'd like to follow me on twitter, you can select the link at the right, go to http://twitter.com/wisdomofdre, or simply read the most current updates in the widget on the sidebar to the right.

Quiere Usted Aprender Espanol?

Hola amigos. If you've ever wanted to learn Spanish, a good option for picking it up one word at a time is by subscribing to Dictionary.com's Spanish word of the day. It is completely free and they send a daily email with a new Spanish word along with a definition and a couple examples of how it is used. You won't become fluent using just this method but it's a great way to learn a few words here and there and takes very little time on a daily basis. Check out this link for the gratis learning opportunity.

Dictionary.com also has an English word of the day and tends to be more on the scale of SAT or ACT types of words. They are usually the type you might see in higher literature, The New York Times, or Time magazine.

Lost Your Cellphone?

If you ever misplace your cell phone and you know that it's close by but aren't sure where, check out Wheresmycellphone.com. It will give your phone a call so that you can hear and locate it.

Calorie King

If you are so inclined to eat healthily, are interested in getting in better shape, or would simply like to know nutritional values of different foods, check out CalorieKing.com. It provides basic nutritional information on a wide array of foods including those from restaurants. Sample information includes calories, total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbs, fiber, sugar, protein, potassium, calcium. As an example the stats on a medium sized apple are:

Calories 72
Total Fat 0.2 g
Sat. Fat 0 g
Cholesterol 0 mg
Sodium 1 mg
Total Carbs. 19.1 g
Dietary Fiber 3.3 g
Sugars 14.3 g
Protein 0.4 g
Calcium 8.3 mg
Potassium 147.7 mg

Tinyurl.com

If you ever have a long web address to give someone but would rather not send such a long string of text, consider using the website Tinyurl.com. It uses a smaller url and redirects the user to the original website. Simply enter your original url at tinyurl and they'll provide the new address.
For example,
https://communityfaces.kcstar.com/?action=viewall&id=1037&expand=0&s=1&ac=1&ct=1&pc=1&fs=1&stf=1 is a very long and unwieldy address at 96 characters. By using tinyurl, I now have the address http://tinyurl.com/2e7nu3 of only 25 characters, which will take me to the exact same ending website.

Google 411

Google now has a service which provides information to the user by dialing 1-800-GOOG-411. It functions similarly to the traditional 411 informational line but is free. Simply dial the number, and say the business name, type of business, city/state and Google will automatically connect your phone call. You can also have a directions sent to your phone which works best if you have internet access on the phone. All that is necessary for this feature is to say "map it."

Tech Tip# 3

A really nice shortcut you can implement when using Internet Explorer to surf the web is ctrl + enter. For example, let's suppose you wanted to go to www.google.com. All you would do is type in google then press the ctrl and enter button and www. .com will automatically be added to the previously entered google. This is my second favorite shortcut after alt + tab.

Tech Tip# 2

One of the best short cuts Microsoft ever invented, in my opinion, is the alt + tab functionality. This nifty trick can save significant time switching between programs. For example, if you have several sessions of Internet Explorer open, a couple Word documents, Excel, and Outlook you can easily move from the active screen to another application by pressing alt + tab. This saves the necessity of taking your hands off of the keyboard to use the mouse. I would estimate this saves me several minutes every day.