YouTube is now automatically using speech-recognition technology to automatically add captions to videos. This is great for deaf people, but the real reason is because it will allow Google to index video in search results based on the video's actual content, not just based on the title and description.

While I applaud their efforts and the future potential of the technology, I checked a couple of my videos and it definitely does not appear to be ready for public release yet.

Here's one of my videos with no background noise. It's just me talking. It's kinda funny to see how they transcribed my English. This is the only video where I'll enable captions with YouTube's default guess. I could edit the captions file if I wanted to and correct all the English, but that would be too much work, although it might be necessary in the future if you want your videos to rank decently.

As more and more of us are playing Foursquare together, I figured it's probably about time to set some guidelines for when NOT to check-in. I appreciate that Foursquare doesn't really enforce much themselves -- I can check-in to a venue in Wyoming despite being in Minnesota -- so it's up to the community to develop some guidelines. After playing for over a month, here are the guidelines I recommend based on what I see as the spirit of the game: to earn points and badges by making your physical location known at venues where friends could join you to socialize.

Since everyone's posting "top posts of 2009" kinda stuff around on blogs and Twitter, figured I'd join the bandwagon by posting some stats about Life In Student Ministry from 2009.

I've only had my Motorola Droid for about 10 days since my initial review about the device. The experience has been overwhelmingly positive. Some thoughts:

• I'm traveling around the US a lot from this December through March, so I'll be testing it's 3G coverage area more in the upcoming months, but so far I haven't roamed outside of a 3G connection.
• Going from the iPod Touch's keyboard to the Droid keyboard wasn't as smooth a transition as I expected, but I'm becoming more and more proficient with it all the time. I feel almost as comfortable with the Droid's on-screen keyboard as I do with my iPod Touch's keyboard now. (I'm not a fan of the Droid's physical keyboard. I rarely use it.)
• The glare issue I experienced at first was because I had the screen on it's lowest setting. I set it to automatically adjust the brightness and the glare issue went away. No problems there.
• The battery life was surprisingly poor at first. In fact, the first two days the phone died by evening even with relatively low usage. Fortunately, the Droid can show you what's using the battery. It turns out that Skype and Remember The Milk were both the culprits of sucking the life out of my phone. I uninstalled Remember The Milk because I wasn't using it too much and keep Skype closed unless I need it and the battery life is great now.
• The voice command feature is surprisingly accurate and works pretty intuitively with whatever you tell the phone to do. Pretty handy.

I've been playing with a lot of apps and have landed on a couple that are my favorites.

• PixelPipe Pro (free version available, Pro costs $0.99) - Allows me to upload videos, pictures, compose blog posts, do status updates, and more all from one app, even over the 3G network (by default, the phone makes you wait until you're connected to wifi to upload large video files). Best media sharing app I've seen. I have it setup with Facebook, Posterous, Twitpic, Twitvid, Twitter, Vimeo, and YouTube. I'm just waiting for support for Facebook Pages to come soon.
• TaskPanel (free) - Definitely a must-have for Droid users. I love that the Droid allows background processes to run, like uploading a large video in one app while composing an email in another. The problem, however, is that when you have too many apps open at once the system can become bogged down, just like a normal computer. TaskPanel lets you see everything that's running and easily kill processes to free up your phone's resources.
• Robo Defense (free version available, full version costs $2.99) - I love this game! I upgraded from the free version for more maps and such. Basically you gotta setup an army while tanks, soldiers and aircraft are constantly storming your base.
• Twidroid Pro (free version available, Pro costs $5.06) - This is a pretty solid Twitter app. The free version may be sufficient for most people, but I upgraded to the Pro version because I wanted to have integration with my bit.ly account, my video sharing and picture sharing services.
• Skype (free) - I think I use Skype on my computer to talk with people more than I do my home phone line, so having it on my phone is awesome! As I already mentioned, just can't keep it running 24/7.
• Barcode Scanner (free) - It's great to be in a store comparing products when I can quickly scan the barcode with my phone and instantly have Google pop up tons of reviews and current prices for the product.
• Bible (free) - Great app from YouVersion.com, except I can't add my own notes and contributions to passages while listening to a sermon or something. Hopefully that comes soon.
• Google Voice (free) - Love using it as my voicemail replacement. It creates a transcript of my messages that pops up on my phone almost instantly after someone leaves a message. Plus, I can just hit "play" and listen to it without having to call in to voicemail.
• PicSay Pro (free version available, Pro costs $2.97) - It's basically a photoshop that lets you add props to your pictures, add balloon bubble comments, tweaks, edits, and tons of fun stuff. Another app where the free version might be sufficient. I upgraded to be able to save my pics in full resolution.
• Qik/Ustream (both free) - Last weekend I live streamed the video of a dodgeball tournament for about 20 minutes using Qik. Qik worked great and the beta version takes advantage of the DVD resolution video camera. I also have the Ustream app, which is definitely more robust, but doesn't stream in the quality that Qik does (yet). This will be great for streaming interviews and conversations during the Simply Youth Ministry Conference this February.
• Voice Recorder (free) - Simple little app that lets me quickly record a note or memo and email it to myself. I'll also use it to post little audio clips on my Posterous blog.
• Where (free) - It uses GPS to grab your location and then show you all the local restaurants, gas stations (including prices), hotels, news, reviews, movies, traffic, and more. Very handy when traveling or if I just wanna quickly see who has the cheapest gas around me.
• Where's My Droid (free) - If I ever loose my Droid, this handy app lets me send my phone a text message (from Google Voice online or any cell phone) with a special code I set up. If my phone is on silent, it will take it off of silent and start ringing at the loudest volume possible for 30 or 60 seconds. It can also text me back with my Droid's GPS coordinates so I can pin-point it's location exactly.

My only other thought is that the Droid is definitely playing catch-up to the iPhone in some ways, but the iPhone has also been under development for years. I remember what the iPhone was like when it first released and the Droid is WAY beyond that. Given some time, I'm very optimistic that there's a bright future for the Android OS, it's apps and the hardware that powers it.

First of all, I've used my iPod Touch almost every day for about a year and a half now, maybe two, so it's probably a bit unfair to compare the two operating systems so soon, but it's hard not to because I often looked at my iPod Touch and wished it doubled as my phone. AT&T's lousy service and my loyalty to Verizon kept me using my old 2005 flip phone, though. So when Verizon finally got a phone that was comparable to the iPhone, it just made sense for me to check it out.

My first impressions with my Droid:

• If you use Google Voice, this is a must-have phone. I haven't used the service much in the past, but now that it integrates with the phone so intuitively, I definitely plan to use it more. It's pretty sweet!
• It integrates beautifully with most things Google, except it's oddly missing apps for Google Reader, Google Photos (Picasaweb), Google Docs, and Google Wave. I figured those would be gimmies, but I guess not. I'm sure those apps will become available in the future, though.
• The interface isn't quite as intuitive as the iPod Touch. There's no pinch gestures and you can't swipe through photos and such.
• When you reach the beginning or end of a long menu, it doesn't bounce into place like the iPod Touch, indicating that you're at the end. Sometimes I think the Droid just locked up for a second because the scrolling just stops. Gotta check the scroll bar to confirm that it's the bottom or top of the menu.
• The Droid is FAR more customizable than my iPod Touch. My iPod doesn't even have anything that compares to widgets. The settings for the Droid and individual apps provide much more control over the look, feel, layout, functionality, responses, alerts, everything. No contest here. In fact, in my opinion, the customizable options alone make it worth getting a Droid over an iPhone.
• The media player's sound quality doesn't seem to be quite as good as my iPod. Granted, the Droid is primarily a phone, not an mp3 player, unlike the iPod, and although the quality sounds the same when using headphones, the iPod sounds slightly better through my car's stereo system. Same with the Pandora app -- it sounds fine through headphones, but not through my car's stereo system.
• There's no intuitive way to sync podcasts, pictures, and videos to the Droid. The free software, DoubleTake, does an admirable job, but ya still gotta set up your media in iTunes first.
• I love swiping a security pattern on the Droid's initial unlock screen instead of entering a passcode on my iPod Touch. It's a lot quicker and just feels cooler.
• I wish Tweetdeck was available as a Droid app. Hopefully soon!
• It took me a little bit to get used to my iPod's keyboard and, unfortunately, it doesn't look like my on-screen keyboard skills are going to carry over to the Droid. I'm gonna have to get used to their on-screen and physical keyboard, too.
• When listening to music on my iPod Touch, I can double-press the home button and quickly access some media controls. With my Droid, I have to manually unlock it every time first before I can adjust volume, skip a track, or pause the song (at least as far as I know).
• I'm not sure if it's the phone or my screen protector, but there was a lot of glare when looking at the Droid in the car this morning. I could hardly read the screen. I'll turn up the brightness later today and see if that makes a difference.
• The directional pad on the Droid's physical keyboard seems pretty pointless. I mean, it works and all, but why would anyone think to even include it when you have a touch screen? I would've preferred to have a wider keyboard.
• The speaker on the Droid is surprisingly clear for phone calls, videos and music. Even at it's highest volume, there's no distortion and it sounds great.
• Google Maps definitely has a lot more functionality and features, as you might expect from a Google OS. Definitely much slicker than the iPod Touch/iPhone's Google Maps app.
• I gotta be a bit more firm when I touch the screen on the Droid than on the iPod Touch. It's not a big deal - just gotta get used to it.
• Why doesn't the default Gallery app on the Droid let me create albums like the iPod Touch does? It automatically groups pictures by date and there doesn't seem to be a way to change that.
• Google Lattitude seems to be pretty cool on the Droid, but I don't know anyone else around here to use it with me. Bummer.
• I really like having all my Droid contacts automatically sync with my Google address book and Facebook. Now I just gotta clean out my Google contacts because I have it set to automatically add everyone whose email I reply to. That's well over 1,000 people I don't remember anymore than need to be removed.
• I wish the Droid's Facebook app would let me manage my Facebook Pages and not just my personal profile. I expect that will come later with future updates, though, just like it did with the iPhone's Facebook app.
• I'm guessing that the included 16 GB mini SD card isn't really the highest quality card on the market. I transferred almost 12 GB of music to it last night and several times the transfer just stopped for no apparent reason. Forums indicate that buying a better card fixes that problem, but I just transferred data in smaller chunks instead.
• The Droid screen has a higher resolution than my iPod Touch. Its doesn't make much of a difference during normal usage of the phone, but there's a noticeably higher image quality when viewing videos on the Droid.
• Sharing media seems to be a key feature on the Droid I didn't see in other reviews. Every picture, video, and audio file has quick and easy options to share it with other people: Facebook, Gmail, MMS, Picasa, Twitter, Bluetooth, and more.

Bottom line: Given that more people will be developing apps for the Android 2.0 OS now, that Flash is soon coming to the browser, that I can multi-task several apps at once, and that Verizon's network is so solid and fast, I'm glad I held out for the Droid through the iPhone craze. I'll probably continue to use my iPod Touch for media, though.

This weekend I'll be at a youth pastor retreat for the Christian Missionary Alliance denomination doing a seminar on, "Web tools for youth ministry." Although we'll probably cover a lot more than what's on this handout, this is what we'll start with and kinda see which direction we go from here.

Any glaring oversights of a service or tool I missed?

Hannah is surprisingly good with sitting in front of the computer with me. When she's fussy, I'll bring her in front of the computer with me and she's pretty content. That's a good sign that she's gonna be a nerd like her daddy. :)

Although I've primarily used Macs for the past couple years, today was my first time to use Apple Care. I guess that's a good thing.

Having been the I.T. guy for a company while in seminary, I know what it's like to have to call Microsoft for support, too. My experiences with each are pretty glaringly different.

Microsoft: Hold time is typically 10 minutes to an hour.
Apple: No wait time at all.

Microsoft: The support agent sounds like he or she is in India and barely speaks English.
Apple: Sounded like I was talking to a 20-something year old guy in my hometown.

Microsoft: Resolving the issue usually takes a while.
Apple: Issue fixed in 17 minutes (length of time from dialing to hang-up)

Microsoft: Hold music is classical and soft jazz.
Apple: I was briefly on hold while my support agent got the case ID for me. The music was punk rock, like Sum 41 and Green Day.

Granted, I've called Microsoft many times and Apple only once, so the evaluation sample size may be a little imbalanced, but at least Apple is off to a good start.

Got my Google Wave invite last night thanks to Russel Martin. Been playing around with it a little and it's pretty bare-bones right now, which is to be expected since it's still in closed invite-only beta.

I used the Tweety bot to add Twitter to my Wave account. It's definitely does not replace Tweetdeck, but hey, it's a start for a new technology that's still under heavy development.

If you don't know what Wave is, it's Google's suggestion for replacing email. This YouTube video explains more.

Played the new co-op mode, Firefight, in Halo 3: ODST tonight on Xbox Live with another youth pastor. I finally figured out how to take screenshots of the action in Halo Theater, so here are some highlights from one of the maps tonight. Gotta figure out how to record short films next.