John Piper has published a book for free online called “The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God.”
I haven’t read it, but I totally recommend it. The book of Job has been instrumental in Rachel’s spiritual development through the years and I’ve always loved the book of Job as well.
Get the ebook here (pdf).
I’m an avid note taker. It all started in one of Dr. Kiger’s computer science classes at DBU. Dr. Kiger said that one of an engineer’s best tools is a good note taking system. He kept all his notes indexed so that he could look up a topic and know exactly which notebook and which date he had whatever new product idea or conversation with a student.
And so I embarked upon my own note taking journey. I’ve used paper notes, daily OpenOffice.org documents (now LibreOffice), Tomboy notes, Microsoft OneNote, BasKet Note Pads, Evernote, and many others. Here are my thoughts / conclusions.
Cost: Free
Pro’s:
Con’s:
Screenshots:
I used OpenOffice for a couple years at work. I don’t have enough memory on my computer to keep it running all the time anymore. Now I just have a paper notebook on my desk. While I can’t write as quick as I type, I can write down pertinent info while I’m on the phone and it works well enough.
Cost: Free
Pro’s:
Con’s:
Screenshots:
I loved Tomboy when I was using it. It sync’ed across all my computers using the internal sync capability and my Dropbox (create an account and get 2Gigs Free! And if you do, I get 250MB more free). The sync did mess up sometimes and I’d lose some info, but all-in-all, it was pretty good. I LOVED the search and the multiple notebooks. I decided to move on
Cost: $79
Pro’s:
Con’s:
Screenshots:
OneNote came with a laptop I purchased a few years ago. It was neat, but it didn’t really fit my workflow. If you’re Windows-centric, go for it. I’m not. I don’t recommend it otherwise.
Cost: Free
Pro’s:
Con’s:
Screenshots:
BasKet is great, but the fact that I can only use it in Linux is a problem.
Cost: Basic is Free / Premium is $45/year
Pro’s:
Con’s:
Screenshots:
Evernote is my current favorite note taking solution. I wish there were an open source equivalent, but I’m happy to support good software. I won a free 1-year membership from workawesome.com, so I’m using the Premium version of evernote. I think it’s just the note storage that is increased with the premium plan. I also have the Evernote app on my iPod Touch, so I’ve always got my notebook with me.
Cost: a couple bucks at Wal-Mart
Pro’s:
Con’s:
I’m pretty kinesthetic, so I do keep a real physical notepad in my backpack all the time.
I love Tomboy and wish I could use it as my note taking app, but the fact that I can’t paste images into it or use it on my mobile device. Winning the 1-year free subscription to Evernote pushed me over the edge and I’m loving every minute of it.
My suggestion to you is to use whatever is most comfortable to your lifestyle. If paper won’t work and you’re cheap (like me), try Tomboy. The best solution overall, though is Evernote.
I’m not receiving anything from anybody to talk about these subjects. I’m doing it of my own volitional will. None of these are affiliates and I’m not getting paid for this.
So there I was… sitting at my desk, working, when I got a man-hug.
Stunned, I turned around and Matt K. (yes, there are 3 Matts in my group at work) said, “It worked. Thanks.”
I had helped him fix the problem with the dual-monitor setup on his newly reinstalled Ubuntu 10.10 system.
“You’re welcome,” I said, “But it didn’t work for me… ever,” referring to the hug.
Matt B. chimed in, “What just happened?”
K said, “Matt apparently doesn’t like hugs.”
“Are you sure of that or did he just not expect a man-hug while sitting at his desk?” B said incredulously.
“I guess he doesn’t have much of a feminine side.” said K.
To which I retorted, “Yes, I do. Her name is Rachel.”
“You know, one time, I hugged Rachel’s cousin’s husband — just to freak him out. To this day, he won’t come near me. It was pretty awesome.”
And we all laughed.
Check out Couple Money. They’re doing a giveaway right now and it ends 3⁄31. The grand prize is a netbook, but there are other really fool prizes as well.
As Dave Ramsey quotes all the time – most divorces are (supposedly) caused by money problems. So check out Couple Money, try to win some prizes, and be frugal with your spouse.
Have you ever wanted to take seminary classes, but not spend all the money and not get a degree? Now, you totally can. At these three web sites, you can take seminary quality classes in your own home. You don’t get credit for them, but you might get a nice certificate out of it (with no real meaning other than you completed the class).
You could use these in your church as a curriculum for Bible study classes or listen to them on the way to work. Check out the syllabus (if there is one), get the books, listen to the lectures, read the required sections, write the papers (and grade them yourself, I guess), take the test (if there is one).
I recommend all three.
Includes lectures from Dr. William Mounce (wrote several Greek textbooks used in seminary classes, though not the one we used in my Elementary Greek class), Dr. Bruce Ware from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Dr. John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church. Lots of good stuff here.
“BiblicalTraining.org exists to help make new and fully devoted disciples of Jesus Christ. Our vision for accomplishing this is to create world-class educational resources that can be used within the local church.”Covenant Seminary is the Presbyterian Church in America’s (PCA) seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. It’s a good school. We differ in some places, since I’m a Baptist and they’re Presbyterians, but there are more places that we agree than disagree. I especially liked the homiletics class and the youth ministry class. They even have some (if not all) their lectures up on iTunes, so you can download them to your iPod really easily.
“As a ministry of Covenant Theological Seminary, our Worldwide Classroom offers God’s people everywhere free access to biblically-based, grace-centered theological training materials for the benefit of the church. Our hope and prayer is that no matter where God has stationed you in his Kingdom or how he has gifted you to serve, you will find that these resources encourage you in your Christian walk and strengthen you in your ministry.”GCTS is a non-denominational seminary. They offer several classes in their “Dimensions of the Faith” ministry. In their own words:
“Dimensions of the Faith at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary is a free online theological education program. The Ockenga Institute of Gordon-Conwell has taken seminary level courses and adapted them to a ‘go at your own pace’ distance learning program which includes audio lectures and a study guide.”