Time-Lapse pack #1 // Download now for free
Earlier on I posted some photos took while experimenting while on recent holidays. I did a fair bit of mucking around with my iPhone during the week. I also shot a bunch of time-lapses while camping at Lake Glenbawn.
I believe that there is no point shooting stuff if it is just going to sit on your hard drive for eternity. So I though I would just give the eight of them away. You can use them for what ever you want. I would love it if you could let me know if you use them, just so I can see the cool videos you will make.
Download link is below.
Timelapse Pack #1
556.1 MB (9 files)
Branding a US election.
While I was doing exams for college, America re-elected Barack Obama as their president.
I noticed that Obama’s twitter team – just like they did in 2009 – implemented some pretty cool typographical design to get their message across.
Here are some that caught my eye.
Win a free copy of “Group Games”
If you are in youth or children’s ministry this might excite you.
When I was a youth group leader I had to prepare talks, prayers, supper to eat and games to play at the beginning of the meeting. Usually the latter of these things were done with much less preparation than the first things. Your experience might be the same.
It’s probably a good thing. Preparing your talk and the prayers should demand much of your attention. You don’t want to say incorrect things while you teach the kids. The games were usually under prepared, and not really thought out.
To fix this problem, my friend, Calum has created an iPhone app. It’s called “Group Games”.
The app is brilliant. Simply put, it helps you prepare for the game time of youth group by providing you a list of games that you can play easily, with or without resources. I especially like that way that you can select a game using a search involving the size of the group and the time a game is needed to run.
If you are involved in youth or children’s ministry, you should definitely check it out.
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I’m giving 2 copies away for free. The first 2 comments win. Simple.
Resources to use this Easter.
Easter is one of those times in the year where churches try to connect with those in their community who do not usually go to church.
In my experience, churches try to do things differently during Easter and Christmas. Sometime this involves singing different songs, having a special focus on welcoming and follow up of new people. Lots of churches try to show a video or two during the service.
If you want to do things differently, visually, he are some handy resources you can use. They are all free.
The Easter Story, by The Bible Society
You can download all of these for FREE by logging into vimeo.
Interactive Stories, by Church Media Videos
This is a little program you can download to use in your kids’ spot. It basically works as a animation creator. It is FREE, and is great for teaching bible stories to kids.
Easter at CreationSwap
This site has heaps of FREE resources. They are all still images, vectors and powerpoints.
Here is the link for their easter reasources.
Mirror Mirror by New Spring Church
This isn’t free. But it is brilliant. Might give you an idea for a video you could do yourself.
Easter, by Bjorn Amundsen
This video is a visual manifestation of some poetry by Sharon Irving.
You can download if from vimeo here.
Let me know if you have seen anything else out there. Ill be happy to add it to this post.
*** Update. Some extra resources. ***
The Last Supper, by SandBible.com
These videos aren’t free, but If you are in Australia you will be supporting a great Christian content producer.
You can see all their Easter videos here.
Tyro Designs is open for business.
It seems like ages since I first posted about tyro designs. A little design project that a mate and I have been working on.
Well this week, after many months of clarifying our direction and designing everything to suit, we went live. We are pretty excited about what might come out of this. We already have a few exciting things lined up for the next month in the lead up to christmas. But ill let you know about them when the time is right.
In the meantime you can check out our website.
Let us know if you need anything designed.
Have Faith. An update.
One of the reasons I started this site was to keep our friends updated of how life was going while Kirsty and I go through Bible college. (Kirsty isn’t actually studying at college, but she is still heavily involved. If you catch my drift. Hence, we are both going through college)
I wanted to write an update to tell you how things have been going recently for us. So here goes. Sorry, this post is long and doesn’t have a fancy video.
College has been busy, much busier than I had thought it would be. Managing college work, seeing family, seeing friends, church work, secular holiday work, starting tyro designs and spending time together as a married couple has been a steep learning curve. I don’t pretend to have mastered this yet, but our friends are gracious when we can’t see them, and our families are even more forgiving when we seem absent or exhausted. We are extremely thankful for this.
At the same time as being busy, this year has been excellent. The stuff I have learnt this year will prove to be valuable into the future, and the friendships we have made at college have been a real encouragement to us both. Our Church this year has been a real highlight of our ministry together. Ministering to the people of St Ives Family Church has been a delight and a privilege, and we have been greatly encouraged by our brothers and sisters there.
One of the most difficult parts of this year has been the status of Kirsty’s job. Kirsty works in the public health system, where she is a Speech Pathologist, helping young kids speak. Kirsty got the job at the end of 2010, and it has been a blessing. Both financially and relationally (She is working as a locum for another speechie on maternity leave). A difficultly presented itself a few months ago when we heard the news that the woman Kirsty was replacing was returning to work. Because of this Kirsty’s job looked like it might be terminated. The prospects of this were scary. We were tentatively making arrangements to move back in with one of our parents.
In the midst of this, there was a slight prospect that her job might be extended for a period of time, but we sat in limbo for weeks. Not knowing what the outcome might be, we did what we have always done in times of uncertainty. We prayed. We prayed, and trusted that God would work the situation out in the way that he wanted. Trusting in and having faith in God is not something that is foreign to us. In faith, Kirsty and I have made all of our plans in the last few years focused on God and based on what we think God would have us do. There have been numerous times that these decisions have caused stress, mostly financial stress, but still stress. This was another period of that. God has always worked things out for us. Wether it has been where we are going to live or work, God has always provided for us.
To cut a really long story, long. Once again God has answered our prayers by once again providing Kirsty with work in the form of an extension. Her contract has been cut from 5 days to 3, but it is still some work. The health sector is a really difficult area to find work in at the moment, so we are thankful for the 3 days she has been given.
I have written this, not to make you think that we are excellent Christian people. Instead I write this so that, if you are a Christian, you might be encouraged by God’s goodness to us in a time where we had faith in him. If you are not a Christian, I would love to encourage you to check out 2 ways to live, in it you will discover that God has done so much more than just provide materially for Kirsty and I. He has done so much more than that for people who have faith in him.
Sorry for the long post. Thanks for reading it.
Love, Tim and Kirsty
Infographic: Google Earth hits one billion
Back in 2005 google introduced a program called google earth. You can read all about it here.
Today google are celebrating the one billionth download of google earth. To celebrate they made this infographic.
Rebranding a phone company
Recently Australia’s biggest telecommunications company, Telstra, undertook a major rebranding exercise.
I really like what they have come up with. Lots of colour and liveliness. Here is one of their previous ad campaigns, and following is their new one. I like the new one best.
Angry Birds: An infographic of addiction.
Like like to play the occasional video game. I mostly play FIFA and F1, anything else and I just get bored. That is until Angry Birds came along.
I own all three of the Angry Birds games on my iPhone, and I think they are quite enjoyable. I am in no way addicted to playing it, but I know others who probably are.
AYTM have recently done a study into the addiction of Angry Birds and they put together a handy infographic to show their results to people like me who like pictures. You can find the original post here.
Space travel According to John
Recently I’ve developed a real interest in space exploration.
This is mostly sue to the recent retiring of the space shuttle program, and also the future plans for sending robots/satellites to places like Mars and Jupiter. My recent interest in all things space has made me remember times when I was a kid, when I would just be struck my the sheer enormity of space, and how my mind would imagine things about that the other planets would be like.
This week I stumbled upon a video that encapsulates perfectly the imagination of a child. His name is John, and this is what he thinks about space. Enjoy.
Something unexpected: A cool government website
Governments are not known for their cool websites. In fact every single one I have ever had the privilege of visiting has made me consider gouging my eyes out.
This changed last night when I found a cool website from the Australian Bureau of Statistics to promote this years census.
Basically you put a minimal amount of info into a nice looking interface, and it explains some stats relating to you. It also creates a nice info-graphic so you can show your mum. Mine is below. You can do it for yourself here.
Video: ‘Scars’ by Dan Stevers
I love finding good videos in the web. I also love it when I find a good video that is about christianity, and even better when that video is about Jesus. Dan Stevers continues to deliver great videos about both of these things.
Check this one out. It is called ‘Scars’.
Scars from DanStevers.com on Vimeo.
The Beast File: Apple
I love stuff apple make. My MacBook and iPhone have made my communication much easier that it would of been without them. It also means that I’m on twitter and facebook more than I should. I love apple because they make software that is really easy to use, and they also make hardware that looks quite nice.
Hungry Beast recently did a Beast File on apple, and I found it to be interesting, so I thought I would share it with you. Enjoy.
Voices of the Cross – A video from danstevers.com
I love great videos. Especially when they communicate something really well. In the lead up to easter i came across this great video by Dan Stevers and his team over at danstevers.com. They do heaps of awesome videos, and everyone they produce seems to get a little better than the last.
Anyway this one is all about easter. Enjoy
Wallpaper for April
With mission on last week I completely forgot that the month had changed. Smashing Magazine have another set of brand spankin’ wallpapers this month. This is the one I chose, there are lots of season related ones this month. And because I’m in the southern hemisphere, they don’t really apply. But there are still a bunch of cool ones that Australian’s can use.
Infomercials are bad, Infographics are good.
Im not at all a fan of infomercials. I am however, a massive fan of infographics.
Recently I had the great opportunity to go away for a weekend with a group of Guys from our church. The reason we went away was to go along to Men’s Katoomba Convention. MKC is run by KCC. It was a really great weekend.
The weekend was titled “Men Facing Temptation”. One of the things that was highlighted during the weekend, was how pornography is something that seems to be constantly invading the minds and marriages of many Christian men.
Recently I came across this infographic which highlights the prevalence of pornography, particularly in America, but it also has some interesting points that can be applied outside of America.
Introducing Qwiki – Wikipedia, but better. Way better.
This week has been a weird one. Kirsty and I spent most of this week in bed sick with some kind of winter lurgy. I know its autumn, but still we were sick. Along with trying to keep up to date with college work, my mind wandered several times.
This involved several attempts at trying to get 3 stars on every level of both Angry Bird games, trying to complete a season in Formula 1 2010 and looking around the web for some cool websites to entertain me.
I came across a website called Qwiki. Basically speaking, a normal wikipedia entry is pretty plain, in most cases they contain only text, and one or two images. What the warlocks over at Qwiki do is turn those plain text entries into an interactive movie slideshow thingy.
Seriously, have a look, and you will know exactly what I’m talking about. Or not talking about.
Newtown in Photo Pt.2
Following on from my photo post the other day, I thought I would post some other photos I’ve taken recently on my daily trips into Newtown and back. I really am starting to love Newtown. There is so much cool stuff there to take photos of. I’m constantly reminded about the great music culture that exists there, there are posters for music gigs literally everywhere you look.
I hope you enjoy these pictures.
Newtown in Photo Pt.1
During the week I catch the train from Hornsby (where Kirsty and I live) to Redfern and then walk to Newtown (where college lives). One of the things that I love about the walk is all the great architecture that I see along the way.
In high school I studied photography from year 8 till year 12, which involved it being a part of my HSC. There are various different genres of photography, but the one type that I really liked was photos of Architecture.
On my walks to college each day, I have started taking photos of the great buildings that I see. These were all shot using my iPhone 4, and edited using the Photoshop Express iOS app.
I hope you enjoy them.
Need a new desktop?
Time for a desktop refresh. This month smashing mag has another great set of wallpapers for you to download and freshen up your computer.
I chose this wallpaper for this month, mostly because it has the symbol (π) featured. I’m learning Greek at college at the moment, and I need all the visual help I can get.
So if you need a desktop refresh, head over to smashingmag, and let me know what you picked and why.
Introducing, SIFC online.
I heard recently that “if it isn’t online, then it doesn’t exist”. While being wrong, the phrase is also right.
One of the things I’m responsible for at my new church has been developing a new web presence for them. Something worthy enough that you would be proud of it enough to actually want to show someone. Still with me?
We meet in a school hall, and have very strong ties to the school in which we meet. We are running various community events during this year, and in the essence of the quote above. To exist, we needed to get online, and quick.
Anyway, I thought I would share it with you. There are still a few things to iron out with it, but here it is.
I introduce to you. St Ives Family Church online.
