This isn’t the first time you will hear me say that “I Really Love Technology.” But it’s true. In March of this year, I got a chance to remember how technology has saved my life. I had my first defibrillator replaced at that time. I got a shiny new Medtronic Virtuoso II unit. And things were fine for over six months.
And then I got a new bike. OK, it isn’t the bike’s fault. But it always seems that I find out more about these units when I’m cycling. And here is where the story begins…
Eight years ago, I was riding my bike when I learned that there was a problem with the lead that was inserted into my left ventricle. That problem resulted in a total of eight (8) unnecessary shocks. And the resolution was a surgery to have the leads replaced.
Last week, I was riding home from work when my new ICD proved its existence by nudging me with a 300V shock. OK, it wasn’t a nudge. It was more like a really big th-wack in the middle of my chest. But it only happened once. After making it home, I sent the digital data via modem to my cardiologist. And the EP tech told me I had experienced another inappropriate shock due to t-wave over-sensing by the ICD.
If you take a look at the EKG strip (above), you will see what happened. My heart was beating at about 130 bpm. But my device thought that my heart was beating at over 200 bpm. So in the first row, you will see where the device tried to pace my heart back down to a “normal” rhythm. And in the second row, you see what happens when your heart get a 300V shock.
So I went to the cardiologist today. The EP tech and a kindly Medtronic tech sat with me and re-programmed my ICD. It was no big deal. It took about five minutes of real work and about fifteen minutes of discussing everything with the overly curious patient. The device was reprogrammed to ensure that my t-wave won’t be mis-identified as a QRS-wave. I then asked for a printout of the strip so I could post it for your review.
Two dozen years ago, I would have died – on numerous occasions. A dozen years ago, I might have gotten an ICD; but I wouldn’t have been able to maintain my active lifestyle. Now I have a next-generation device. And this technology will someday save my life. It is quite cool. It can communicate wirelessly. It can be reprogrammed while I’m awake and sitting in a chair wearing my normal clothes. And I can be part of the entire process. Couple that with the computer technology in my house and I can share part of the experience with you.
But despite all of the advances found in this device, I still live with the product of man’s ever-increasing knowledge. It’s not perfect. But it does save lives. And with each generation, we know more and more. But as I think about the Creator who designed and built us, I realize just how far we’ve come – and just how far we have to go to approach the healing power that is in His hands. I really like my doctor. But I really love my Creator, my Savior and my Lord.
Last week, I got a tangible reminder of how fragile and how temporary my current life is. Tomorrow, I am on my bike again. And I will be reminded of what a blessing every day truly is.
I want to thank each and every one of you for the prayers you’ve raised before our Lord. He has heard them. And He has answered your prayers through technology, through doctors and through His unparalleled mercy and grace.
-Roo
Month: September 2010
Let’s Proclaim the Unknown God
To Terry Jones (Dove World Outreach, Gainesville, Florida), Bob Old (Springfield, Tennessee), and Fred Phelps (Westboro Baptist Church, Topeka, Kansas):
I am a devoted follower of Jesus Christ. And I believe that everyone must accept His sacrifice in order to obtain God’s forgiveness. I am also an ardent Christian apologist. So I understand that even the most pacific of Muslims will not enter into heaven. That’s not because they are MORE evil (in man’s eyes) than Christians are. Their fate is the same as our fate: it is totally dependent upon whether or not they accept the unmerited gift of forgiveness offered through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
The only real difference between Muslims and Christians is where we are on our walk towards God.
- Authentic Christians have accepted the fact that they have sinned.
- Authentic Christians realize that those sins have separated them from God.
- Authentic Christians recognize that there is nothing that they can do to bridge that separation.
- Finally, authentic Christians have accepted the simple fact that God offered Himself to become the bridge between our fallen nature and God’s perfect nature.
A child raised in a “Muslim” nation is no different than a child raised in a “Christian” nation: both need to take the same path through the same four basic steps if they want to know God. On these facts, Ithink we are in agreement.
But I cannot comprehend why you believe that antagonism and hatred are a means of drawing people into the loving and compassionate arms of Christ. When Paul visited Athens (in Acts 17), I don’t see any evidence of the kind of exhortation that you are practicing.
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”
If you want to draw people to Christ, act as Paul acted. Find common ground and exploit that common ground as a means of demonstrating our unity as God’s creations – and our unfortunate unity as fallen creatures. Don’t let your anger, frustration and zeal be your weapons. These are weapons forged by your own hands. Instead, let the Word of God be your two-edged sword. God is just. And God will judge both the righteous and the unrighteous (including ourselves). Let that be God’s job. Your job is to proclaim the unfailing love of Jesus Christ.
May the peace of our Lord and Savior be with you. And may God open the ears of all men so that we can proclaim His Word with His Spirit.
-Roo
Let's Proclaim the Unknown God
To Terry Jones (Dove World Outreach, Gainesville, Florida), Bob Old (Springfield, Tennessee), and Fred Phelps (Westboro Baptist Church, Topeka, Kansas):
I am a devoted follower of Jesus Christ. And I believe that everyone must accept His sacrifice in order to obtain God’s forgiveness. I am also an ardent Christian apologist. So I understand that even the most pacific of Muslims will not enter into heaven. That’s not because they are MORE evil (in man’s eyes) than Christians are. Their fate is the same as our fate: it is totally dependent upon whether or not they accept the unmerited gift of forgiveness offered through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
The only real difference between Muslims and Christians is where we are on our walk towards God.
- Authentic Christians have accepted the fact that they have sinned.
- Authentic Christians realize that those sins have separated them from God.
- Authentic Christians recognize that there is nothing that they can do to bridge that separation.
- Finally, authentic Christians have accepted the simple fact that God offered Himself to become the bridge between our fallen nature and God’s perfect nature.
A child raised in a “Muslim” nation is no different than a child raised in a “Christian” nation: both need to take the same path through the same four basic steps if they want to know God. On these facts, Ithink we are in agreement.
But I cannot comprehend why you believe that antagonism and hatred are a means of drawing people into the loving and compassionate arms of Christ. When Paul visited Athens (in Acts 17), I don’t see any evidence of the kind of exhortation that you are practicing.
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”
If you want to draw people to Christ, act as Paul acted. Find common ground and exploit that common ground as a means of demonstrating our unity as God’s creations – and our unfortunate unity as fallen creatures. Don’t let your anger, frustration and zeal be your weapons. These are weapons forged by your own hands. Instead, let the Word of God be your two-edged sword. God is just. And God will judge both the righteous and the unrighteous (including ourselves). Let that be God’s job. Your job is to proclaim the unfailing love of Jesus Christ.
May the peace of our Lord and Savior be with you. And may God open the ears of all men so that we can proclaim His Word with His Spirit.
-Roo
What’s On Your Home Screen
Now that I have a smartphone of my very own, it’s time to highlight what is on my home screen. But before I do that, I need to note how I got the screen capture.
For those who have rooted their system, the process of a screen capture is quite simple. But for those who are still clinging to a stock firmware build (like me), the process is slightly different. Nevertheless, the process is relatively straightforward. You need to update your device driver on the computer system that will be connected to your phone. Then you need to download and install the Android SDK. Finally, you need to make sure you update your copy of the Java Development Kit. [Note: The current Java build as I write this is JDK SE 1.6.21.] The entire process is fully documented over at Simple Help. And the results of my first screen capture are shown above.
So what do I have on my home screen? Well the current favorite apps are as follows:
Location-based tools: Navigation (from Google), Places Directory (from Google), Yelp, and Foursquare.
- With Navigation, my phone can literally answer the question of “Where Do I Want To Go Today?” And it can tell me how to get there.
- I use Places and Yelp to find cool places to visit and explore. Places is very simplistic. But its simple approach saves time when you’re in a hurry. And for those times when you absolutely, positively need to know everything that is around you, Yelp is an astonishingly good tool to find all the hidden things that are close by. Finally, I am like many techophiles.
- I use Foursquare to tell folks where I am. And I have fun trying to be the mayor of someplace other than my household.
Messaging Tools: Google Voice (from Google), GMail (from Google), Text Messaging (from Google), and Seesmic.
- I use Google Voice for all my voice integration needs. Indeed, it is my voicemail – even for the mobile phone itself.
- As everyone know, GMail is my email client. I love and use it for everything – including integrating other mailboxes across the net.
- I used Text Messaging for just that: texting. For the most part, SMS messaging is a dying art. But my kids still use it a great deal. I use Google Voice for most of my SMS needs. But if someone does send an SMS message to my carrier, this app fills the bill.
- Finally, I use Seesmic as my main tool for Twitter. Have I used other tools? Of course I have. But Seesmic is always current. It allows me to integrate multiple Twitter accounts. And it look quite good.
Commerce-related Tools: Mobile Banking (from BoA, of course), Barcode Scanner (from Google), AppBrain, and Google Goggles (from Google).
- I like having instant access to my bank statement. So the banking app is self-explanatory.
- The barcode scanner allows me to read UPC codes and determine the best prices in my local area. It also reads QR codes. So you can point your phone at a QR code and jump to the URL embedded within the code.
- The AppBrain tool is an excellent market system for Android apps. It won’t replace the Android market. But AppBrain has a great review system to go along with the software inventory it houses.
- Finally, I do use Google Googles to take pictures of things and see what the web has to say about the things that I snap pictures of.
Words and Thoughts: Dolphin Browser, Congress (from Sunlight Foundation), Kindle (from Amazon) and DailyBible (from Joansoft).
- The Dolphin Browser runs circles around the basic Android browser. When I needed to download an email attachment whose extension wasn’t registered, the basic browser failed while Dolphin succeeded.
- Congress is an exceptional app that can tell you how your representatives are doing in Washington. You can see pending and passed laws. You can see what your Congressman or Senator has done. And you can get their direct phone number – and call them directly.
- The Kindle app is an excellent tool for e-reading. For me, I have downloaded a few important books – but not my whole library. For that, I still need my Kindle.
- Finally, I use DailyBible to ensure that I geta great Bible verse to start each and every day.
There are a few other apps that I should note. First, I use NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for my screen saver. I use ConnectBot to securely log into my servers at home. I use Astro to perform miscellaneous file management tasks. I use the Astrid Task Manager for my day-to-day task entry. I use Google Sky Map for really cool nighttime star-gazing. I use Pandora for streaming music. Finally, I use Shazam for recognizing music and buying miscellaneous songs while I’m on the go.
All in all, my Droid 2 is getting a good workout. I’ve even updated the SD card already. This is so reminiscent of PC systems in the nineties. It’s kind of like the wild west and Star Trek – all at the same time. I guess that means that the first movie I must play on my phone will be Joss Whedon’s “Serenity.”
-Roo
What's On Your Home Screen
Now that I have a smartphone of my very own, it’s time to highlight what is on my home screen. But before I do that, I need to note how I got the screen capture.
For those who have rooted their system, the process of a screen capture is quite simple. But for those who are still clinging to a stock firmware build (like me), the process is slightly different. Nevertheless, the process is relatively straightforward. You need to update your device driver on the computer system that will be connected to your phone. Then you need to download and install the Android SDK. Finally, you need to make sure you update your copy of the Java Development Kit. [Note: The current Java build as I write this is JDK SE 1.6.21.] The entire process is fully documented over at Simple Help. And the results of my first screen capture are shown above.
So what do I have on my home screen? Well the current favorite apps are as follows:
Location-based tools: Navigation (from Google), Places Directory (from Google), Yelp, and Foursquare.
- With Navigation, my phone can literally answer the question of “Where Do I Want To Go Today?” And it can tell me how to get there.
- I use Places and Yelp to find cool places to visit and explore. Places is very simplistic. But its simple approach saves time when you’re in a hurry. And for those times when you absolutely, positively need to know everything that is around you, Yelp is an astonishingly good tool to find all the hidden things that are close by. Finally, I am like many techophiles.
- I use Foursquare to tell folks where I am. And I have fun trying to be the mayor of someplace other than my household.
Messaging Tools: Google Voice (from Google), GMail (from Google), Text Messaging (from Google), and Seesmic.
- I use Google Voice for all my voice integration needs. Indeed, it is my voicemail – even for the mobile phone itself.
- As everyone know, GMail is my email client. I love and use it for everything – including integrating other mailboxes across the net.
- I used Text Messaging for just that: texting. For the most part, SMS messaging is a dying art. But my kids still use it a great deal. I use Google Voice for most of my SMS needs. But if someone does send an SMS message to my carrier, this app fills the bill.
- Finally, I use Seesmic as my main tool for Twitter. Have I used other tools? Of course I have. But Seesmic is always current. It allows me to integrate multiple Twitter accounts. And it look quite good.
Commerce-related Tools: Mobile Banking (from BoA, of course), Barcode Scanner (from Google), AppBrain, and Google Goggles (from Google).
- I like having instant access to my bank statement. So the banking app is self-explanatory.
- The barcode scanner allows me to read UPC codes and determine the best prices in my local area. It also reads QR codes. So you can point your phone at a QR code and jump to the URL embedded within the code.
- The AppBrain tool is an excellent market system for Android apps. It won’t replace the Android market. But AppBrain has a great review system to go along with the software inventory it houses.
- Finally, I do use Google Googles to take pictures of things and see what the web has to say about the things that I snap pictures of.
Words and Thoughts: Dolphin Browser, Congress (from Sunlight Foundation), Kindle (from Amazon) and DailyBible (from Joansoft).
- The Dolphin Browser runs circles around the basic Android browser. When I needed to download an email attachment whose extension wasn’t registered, the basic browser failed while Dolphin succeeded.
- Congress is an exceptional app that can tell you how your representatives are doing in Washington. You can see pending and passed laws. You can see what your Congressman or Senator has done. And you can get their direct phone number – and call them directly.
- The Kindle app is an excellent tool for e-reading. For me, I have downloaded a few important books – but not my whole library. For that, I still need my Kindle.
- Finally, I use DailyBible to ensure that I geta great Bible verse to start each and every day.
There are a few other apps that I should note. First, I use NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for my screen saver. I use ConnectBot to securely log into my servers at home. I use Astro to perform miscellaneous file management tasks. I use the Astrid Task Manager for my day-to-day task entry. I use Google Sky Map for really cool nighttime star-gazing. I use Pandora for streaming music. Finally, I use Shazam for recognizing music and buying miscellaneous songs while I’m on the go.
All in all, my Droid 2 is getting a good workout. I’ve even updated the SD card already. This is so reminiscent of PC systems in the nineties. It’s kind of like the wild west and Star Trek – all at the same time. I guess that means that the first movie I must play on my phone will be Joss Whedon’s “Serenity.”
-Roo
These May Be Your Droids
With the new job came a need for a new phone. The natural and obvious choice for me was the Verizon Droid 2. Why was it obvious? That’s easy: we are now replaying the ascendancy of Microsoft over Apple that culminated in 1995.
This time, Google is playing the part of Microsoft. Google has the more “open” platform. No, I’m not talking about open source. But I am talking about the fact that Android runs on far more platforms. Because of this, it is open for others to use, customize and extend. And this fact places Android in a position where it can claim both continuing market share growth as well as increasing developer loyalty.
Is Google still interested in a competitive advantage over Apple? Of course it is. And is Google gaining the attention of regulators as well as state and federal judiciaries? It most certainly is. If you’re not sure of this fact, just read the headlines.
But this is all political theater. For me, I wanted the platform that would be the most “open” to new apps and new possibilities. And I wanted a platform with more developers. While Android isn’t there just yet, it will be there very shortly. And for now, I can do everything I want with Android.
So here is my application manifest:
- Advance Task Killer: A good utility to kill errant processes
- Amazon Browser/Store: ‘Nuff said
- Astrid Tasks: A great (and simple) task manager
- Astro: A oool file manager for Android
- Astronomy Picture of the Day: Great pics make great backgrounds for my smartphone’s desktop
- Bookmarks to SD: Great bookmark manager for the Dolphin Browser
- Chrome to Phone: Post links from my desktop instance of the Chrome browser
- Congress: A phenomenal tool to know what your representatives are doing while in DC – and how to contact them (to provide praise or criticism)
- DailyBible: A great little verse-of-the-day program
- Dolphin Browser HD: A phenomenal browser
- Google Goggles: This tool allows you to take pictures and have your phone scour the Net for info about the picture you take.
- Google Voice: Great tool for consolidating your voice communications needs
- Kindle for Android: I love my Kindle – and I’m glad to have some of my books on my phone (e.g., the NIV Bible).
- Mobile Banking (for BoA): Great way to check your balances
- Seesmic: A great cross-platform Twitter client
- Shazam: An audio tool that can identify songs and even buy MP3 instances for your phone
- WordPress for Android: Blogging just got a whole lot more mobile
And these apps are just the apps that I’ve added. There are a plethora of apps that come on the Droid 2 itself. Chief among them is the Barcode Scanner. This app is fantastic. You can use it to scan any UPC symbols and bring up a wealth of important data – including where it can be purchased and for what price.
I’ve also been impressed with the Navigation tool. This tool allowed us to find a bike shop in Pittburg, Kansas. And it also let us know that the store was closed Saturday because the store was sponsoring the Gorilla Century Ride. Next year, I think I’ll have to do this ride with my son!
So am I psyched about my new phone? Absolutely, I am. Would I recommend it for other people? Well, I just bought another Droid 2 for my wife (who is replacing a BlackBerry Storm). So we now have double the pleasure of Android at the Olsen residence. So far, Cindy likes the phone almost as much as I do.
If you need a new phone, get an Android phone. If you need a phone with a real keyboard, consider the Droid 2.
-Roo