Alternote is an Evernote client–yes! an Evernote client does exist–for Mac. If you use Evernote and have any level of dissatisfaction, especially with its layout, you should consider Alternote. It may not be a fully suitable replacement for Evernote, though. I explain why in my review below.
The Basics
As with Evernote, Alternote gives you three panes: the sidebar, the Notes pane, and the editor window with Note content. You can hide the sidebar to have two panes, or go into distraction-free mode, where you simply view the note you’re writing in.
There are some nice font options, as well as the option to get into a visually pleasing Night Mode:
This makes Alternote a much more appealing app for writing on a Mac. If you use Evernote to organize substantial amounts of text (i.e., more than just Web links), you’ll appreciate the look and feel of Alternote.
Evaluation
You can successfully drag a file or image into a Note in Alternote. What does not work in Alternote is dragging a PDF, for example, into the app to make it its own Note. I hope a future update adds this feature, as I consider it to be somewhat basic Evernote functionality.
You cannot create Notebook Shortcuts in the left sidebar–which is another big part of how I use Evernote. You can star certain Notes for easy access—and can just drag the Notes into the sidebar to do it–but not Notebooks.
This means Notebooks—especially the few you use most—are a little trickier to navigate in Alternote. You can scroll down the sidebar list, of course, or—what may be quicker—access them via a drop-down menu.
Alternote feels lighter than Evernote, for which I appreciate it, but it’s not necessarily faster or higher-performing. I had expected it would be. On the other hand, if you’re using the Basic Evernote level, you won’t get bombarded in Alternote with a steady stream of upgrade ads!
One nice touch in Alternote is that you can selectively sync your Evernote content.
That said, automatic sync maxes out at every 15 minutes in Alternote, which will not be automatic *enough* for some. I was worried when I was writing this review (in Alternote!) and it crashed without having finished a sync. (Alternote is pretty good but still a little buggy on El Cap.) Fortunately my text was still there in Alternote, but I was eager to force a manual sync after that. I’d had some initial sync misses with my initial setup, which a revision had fixed, so hopefully Alternote will sort all this out soon. I haven’t lost any data, however, so you’re safe in using it, for the most part.
The greatest asset in Alternote is its more uncluttered interface, which makes it better than Evernote for just plain writing. If Alternote would improve its sync issues, overall speed, and add other bits of core Evernote functionality, it could easily become your go-to app for managing Evernote.
An Alternote iOS app is in the works and slated for Spring 2016. Get it in the Mac App Store here, and check out the Alternote site here. If you don’t have an Evernote account, I recommend it; learn more here.
Thanks to the people at Alternote for the app download for the purposes of review.
Words on the Word is barely monetized. I’ve said before that I write the blog for love of the game, i.e., because:
it’s a creative outlet for me
I enjoy writing
I want to help resource others with the best books, biblical commentaries, apps, workflows, music, toys, and so on… whether it be for their parenting, pastoring, or personal enjoyment of life
other reasons, probably
In the monetization department, I participate in a couple of affiliate programs, most recently the one through iTunes, where I receive a tiny commision from Apple on any apps or tunes you readers purchase through affiliate links. I think I’m up to $0.70 now!
It’s not impossible to just go and fetch an affiliate link through a Web browser, but John and Owen Voorhees of Squibner LLC have a first-rate app, Blink, that allows you to effortlessly make affiliate links. It works for the App Store (iOS), the Mac App Store (OS X), the iTunes Store (music, videos, etc.), and the iBooks store.
Here’s what it looks like:
I find that I mostly use the plain text links, and then copy them over to a writing app (I’m writing this blog post in 1Writer, and yes, that hyperlink was generated via Blink in about two seconds). But Markdown formats are also available.
You can use Blink’s extension to a create a link with your affiliate ID from the App Store itself. In other words, you don’t have to go into Blink and look up the app you’re already viewing in the App Store:
They’ve just updated the app, too, to 2.0. Here are the highlights of what’s new:
• Blink now requires iOS 9
• iPad split screen multitasking on supported devices
• External keyboard shortcuts
• Multiple affiliate token support with nicknaming for easy management
• Ability to change geo linking and music settings from Blink’s extension
• Edit links within Blink’s extension
• For apps, view app type and price information within Blink and its extension
• Also view pricing information for music and books in Blink and its extension
• Podcast app support
I don’t use campaign tokens, but those who do will find it easy to manage specific campaign tokens via Blink. Also cool is the App Store view, which you can access from within Blink:
The attention to detail is evident in the app, as shown here, for example, when a music search differentiates between Song and Album before you have to click through:
You can use multiple affiliate IDs, if you need to.
My sole negative/constructive critique of this app is that I wish there were a way in-app to save searches and/or links you create. This is not insurmountalbe, though, since link generation is so fast.
Pay for Blink once, and you get it for both iPad and iPhone. You’ll probably earn back the $4.99 cost of the app in affiliate links anyway, which will now be quite hassle-free.
Five stars and two emoji thumbs up for this simple, focused, and perfectly executed app. Which, by the way, you can find here.
Thanks to the good folks at Squibner for the app download for the purposes of review.
I have seen a lot of Tweets about Foxing in the last year, so when I learned they had a new album releasing, I was eager to listen and write about it. The five-piece from St. Louis put out a very good first record, The Albatross, in 2013. On Friday, Triple Crown Records, home to Caspian, released Foxing’s follow-up, Dealer.
Dealer begins with “Weave,” a gorgeous track that builds and builds and builds… until at last clean guitars give way to (just enough!) distortion. The high register of vocalist Conor Murphy calls to mind that of Copeland’s Aaron Marsh, though maybe is a little grittier. “Weave” is the easily the best song on the album and one of the best rock tracks of 2015.
On “The Magdalene,” Murphy sings, “I’m going down… with the rosary,” part of the ongoing post-Catholic sentiment the album expresses. To be clear: I don’t want to minimize someone’s actually painful experience, which the lyrics and music throughout the record seek to express in a heartfelt way. But it’s hard not to hear this and other such lyrics as anti-Catholic, which felt to me a little bit of a tired trope as I listened through.
The third track’s piano and opening lyric—“We danced naked outside of your bathroom”—marks a significant departure from the first two songs and feels like a loss of built-up momentum. What emo kid can’t empathize with the chorus’s “Future love, don’t fall apart”? But the lush and largely upbeat feel of the first tracks gives way to a more morose tone for the middle section of the album. “Night Channels” does end with a nice full-band groove, but tracks 3 through 7 (supple string arrangements of track 6, “Winding Cloth,” notwithstanding) required more patience than expected for at least this listener to engage and keep listening.
The eighth track, “Glass Coughs,” finds the band picking things back up again, especially by the end of the track. On “Eiffel” (the following song) the drums let loose shortly after the two-minute mark, making me want more of that Foxing on future recordings.
Concluding Thoughts and Where to Get It
I don’t think Dealer is an album that will be on steady repeat for me from here on out. But Dealer is getting rave reviews already, even though it just released Friday. And Foxing’s fans are of the die-hard variety. That’s a credit to the band.
For me, I loved the first two tracks and then found the album had a hard time fully re-capturing my interest after the start of the third track. But I’m open to the possibility I’m just missing something, and am willing to give it another chance.
Either way, Foxing is early in their music-making career and has a lot of people excited about what they’re doing. (And I hear their live shows bring an intense energy to the crowd.) So it’s at least worth a listen or two for you to see what you think.
Check out Dealer on Amazon here, or here at iTunes.
Thank you to the kind folks at Brixton/Triple Crown for early access to the album for review!
The forthcoming Rain for Roots Advent album is phenomenal. Read more about it here.
Today I’m posting with the results of the giveaway contest my review post included. I’m pleased to congratulate the two winners, Ruth Ohlman and Elisabeth Kvernen! Nice one!
(I will be in touch with both of you via email to make sure the CD gets sent to the right place.)
In case you’re curious… I didn’t count duplicate comments, but did count one entry for a comment and one additional entry for a comment that said a person shared on Facebook or Twitter. There were 59 entries total. I used a random number generator to pick.
Thanks to all who commented! There were a lot of really meaningful reflections on Advent that folks shared, and I only wish I could more fully engaged with each of them, but I read them all and loved it. Rain for Roots has some pretty great fans.
And thanks again to the good folks at Rain for Roots for sponsoring the giveaway and–more importantly–for writing, recording, producing, and releasing this fabulous record for a season of waiting.
Conybeare and Stock’s Selections from the Septuagint According to the Text of Swete is a classic–if somewhat dated–work in Septuagint studies. You may also know it as Grammar of Septuagint Greek.
The grammar section is short, and leaves one desiring a properly full grammar of Septuagint Greek. But it’s the best starting point there is, so the Septuagint student will still want to read it. It is chock-full of Scripture references (and quotations), which in the print edition will require a fair amount of looking things up. (The need for this is obviated if you buy the Accordance or Logos edition.)
The grammar section is dense–if selective in its treatment–but not overly obtuse. There is a 20+-page introduction on the Septuagint, its origin, the Letter of Aristeas, transmission, and so on. It offers succinct coverage of the “long process” of the “making of the Septuagint.”
After the introduction there are “Accidence” and “Syntax” sections, the former covering morphology and the latter addressing sentence structure. To get a feel for how much coverage a section has, here is part of a page on “number” in Septuagint Greek:
Click or open in new tab to enlarge
One oddity that appears to be a printing error is that the Table of Contents for the Grammar appears after the Grammar, on about page 100 or so.
The grammar, then, is a good enough starting point, but won’t really take one deeply into study of a particular grammatical or syntactical feature of the text. Would that T. Muraoka might give us a full Septuagint grammar! (Wait–the day after I drafted that sentence, I saw this. Awesome.)
However, Conybeare and Stock more than make up for any lack in the comprehensiveness of the grammar proper with their guided reading section. It is still the most thorough resource of its kind available for the Septuagint. (Though that looks set to change this fall.)
With the Septuagint texts there are reading helps at the bottom of each page. Especially for those who have only read New Testament Greek, this is a great next step. Here is what “The Story of Joseph” looks like (click to enlarge):
From the reading on Joseph
You’ll note the attention to grammatical detail, especially, in the notes. And the introductory mini-essays before each reading were a pleasant surprise. These selected readings have definitely helped me keep my Greek going, or ramp it back up after some delays in using it.
You can find Conybeare and Stock’s little gem at Amazon here, or at Wipf and Stock’s product page here.
Another LXX print resource from Wipf and Stock is A Handy Concordance of the Septuagint: Giving Various Readings from Codices Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, Sinaiticus, and Ephraemi.
It’s what you’d expect: a compact, easy-to-carry-around concordance to words found in the Greek Old Testament. To boot: there is an appendix featuring words from Origen’s Hexapla that are “not found in the above manuscripts.”
Of course, a “handy” concordance cannot include every LXX word. Pronouns and prepositions and the like do not occur here. Those engaged in academic study of the Septuagint will probably cringe at this line:
All reference to the Apocrypha has been omitted; principally because it was judged that the Apocryphal books should never have a place with the Holy Scriptures.
There is the offer that if “the apocryphal parts are thought to be needed, any one so disposed can carry out that work.” (Bible software to the rescue!) But Codex Vaticanus, on which the concordance is primarily based, includes what Protestants consider “Apocrypha.” That those books should be omitted on theological grounds seems an unfortunate decision.
Otherwise the book is easy to carry and doesn’t require electricity or software updates, so Apocryphal omission aside, it could have its place in the LXX student’s library. Here’s what part of a page looks like:
You can find the LXX concordance at Amazon here, or at Wipf and Stock’s product page here.
Thanks to Wipf and Stock for the review copies of both books, given to me for the purposes of reviewing them, but with no expectation as to the content of this post.
Rain for Root’s Waiting Songs releases November 10. You can pre-order it here now with a 20% off discount using code WotW.
Also, Rain for Roots is performing an online/streaming concert to celebrate the album’s release, about which you can learn more here.
Finally, there are a few more days left to enter to win a physical copy of the CD, courtesy of Rain for Roots. I’ll randomly select two winners from comments made at this link. For one entry, simply answer the question, “What is Advent to you?” For a second entry, share a link to that post on Facebook or Twitter, and come back to the comments to tell me you did. I’ll announce the two winners Thursday.
There are notoriously few tools for parents to use in engaging Advent with their kids. Rain for Roots this year offers a new and creative resource, Waiting Songs. The album is a joy to listen to, even as it draws out the difficulty of waiting, and helps the listeners to enter into the sometimes awkward liminal space of Advent.
The band explains the genesis of the album:
Here’s a brief, track-by-track overview.
1. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
The album begins with a beautiful, stripped down version of my favorite Advent hymn. I’ve always taken this song to be the quintessential articulation of both Advents (so far!) of Christ. What better place to begin a season of waiting (“until the Son of God appear”) than with this classic prayer-hymn?
2. Come Light Our Hearts
The full band is in on track 2: guitars, piano, lots of great harmonies, bass, banjo, drums…. Sandra McCracken affirms,
For you, O Lord, our souls in stillness wait
Truly our hope is in you
It’s a compelling and reassuring waltz, giving language to those who wait.
3. Isaiah 11
Next is a twangy, string-bending, rollicking country-ish number. “A little child will lead them,” sing some wonderful mothers! Partway through there is a child reading from Isaiah 11:10, using Eugene Peterson’s Message. The song goes from, “A good, good king will lead them” to, “A good, good king will lead us.”
4. Every Valley (It’s Hard to Wait)
Have you ever wondered how to explain Advent to a child? This gentle bluesy, soulful song does a great job:
When you write a letter to a friend
And you don’t know when
You’ll hear back again
It’s hard to wait
It’s hard to wait
So hard to wait
When the one you love leaves on a plane
And you’ll know that she’ll
Come back some day
It’s hard to wait
It’s hard to wait
So hard to wait
BUT!
There is gonna to be a day
Every low valley he will raise
There is gonna to be a day
Hills and mountains gonna be made plain
There is gonna be a day
Winding roads gonna be made straight
Comfort, comfort, comfort, comfort!
I noticed it was getting awfully dusty in my room as that song played.
5. The Weight of the World
I’m not a lover of the kind of the stylized vocals that carry this track, but the song itself is—like all the others—a good one: memorable, meaningful, and singable.
6. Mary Consoles Eve
First of all, I just saw this “Mary Consoles Eve” image last Advent for the first time ever.
And now there’s a song that accompanies it perfectly:
Almost, not yet, already
Almost, not yet, already
And
Eve, it’s Mary
Now I’m a mother, too
The child I carry
A promise coming true
This baby comes to save us from our sin
A servant King, his kingdom without end
This whole album is so catchy and well-written–even more so than their previous album on the Kingdom of God, if that were possible!–and this is perhaps the song that will stick with listeners the most.
7. Zechariah
“Zechariah” is pretty funny, because not only is the story of Zechariah’s speechlessness kind of funny (in retrospect! probably wasn’t for him), but this song gives kids and parents a chance to talk and sing in a babbling, tongue-tied manner.
8. Magnificat
“Magnificat” is another catchy—if somewhat somber—tune. This track stands out less to me than some of the others, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be hitting fast-forward when it comes to track 8 on the album. Flo Paris Oakes’s vocals and Kenny Hutson’s guitar and mandolin work call to mind Lead Me On-era Amy Grant… which is, now that I think about it, the album I am going to listen to while I work on my sermon this morning.
9. Great Rejoicing
Yet more beautiful lyrics:
The troubles of this world
Will wither up and die
That river of tears made by the lonely
Someday will be dry
There’s gonna be a great rejoicing
Also, while playing this song with my wife and three-year-old in the room, I asked my wife, “Do you like this music?” To which my three-year-old replied, “I DO like this music!” The pedal steel and Skye Peterson’s lead vocals partway through the song are icing on the cake.
Don’t you want to hang out with these awesome people? Next best thing: put this album on repeat
10. Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus
Waiting Songs ends much as it began: with a beautiful, stripped down version of a classic Advent hymn. (Side note to worship leaders: yes, there are Advent hymns in the hymnal! And you should sing the few of them that exist as many times as you can in the four Sundays leading up to Christmas.)
Rain for Roots’s addition to the hymn will stay with you for days, even after your first time hearing it:
We are waiting
We are waiting
We are waiting for You.
McCracken’s “Hallelujah, what a Savior!” background vocals float above the “We are waiting,” bringing the album to a satisfying close. Advent purists ought to be able to overlook the use of “the H-word” during Advent here. Or does “Hallelujah” sung on top of “We are waiting for you” deliberately point to Christ’s third Advent, when he comes again in glory?
Final Thoughts and Where to Get It (or Win It)
I really love this record, not just for myself, but for my kids, and for any other kids and families that have the privilege of hearing it! Also, I’m totally going to teach some of these songs to our congregation during our intergenerational Sunday school hour this Advent. They’re excellent.
I was a big fan of Rain for Roots’s previous album, too–it is still on regular rotation in our house, especially on road trips. But Waiting Songs even tops The Kingdom of Heaven is Like This. It’s a remarkable record.
The album releases November 10. You can (and should) pre-order it here. AND… three more cool things for you before you go:
Rain for Roots is performing an online/streaming concert to celebrate the album’s release. Find out more here.
If you use the discount code WotW you can get 20% off the album when you pre-order (in various formats) here. That code is good through November 9, the day before the album releases. (EDIT: Should have clarified–the code is applicable just to the digital download option.)
Want to have a chance to win a physical copy of the CD, courtesy of Rain for Roots? I’ll randomly select two winners from the comments below. For one entry, simply answer the question, “What is Advent to you?” Or, you know, just say, “Yo.” For a second entry, share a link to this post on Facebook or Twitter, and come back here to the comments to tell me you did. I’ll announce the two winners in a week.
Thanks so much for the good folks at Rain for Roots for the pre-release stream of the album so I could review it.
There won’t be flying cars, but the next best thing: today at 1:00 p.m. (EST) I’ll be leading a free Accordance Webinar covering basic Greek word study and setting up Workspaces. You can sign up here to join in. See the rest of Accordance’s upcoming Webinars here.
Ever wonder how to do intermediate and advanced Greek searches and set up some high-octane Greek Workspaces in Accordance? Yesterday I led a Webinar on that very topic.
Here is the .pdf handout of what I covered, which includes some links to helpful resources. And Accordance allows you to share Workspaces with others, so if you want any of the Workspaces mentioned in the .pdf (notation is WS), just let me know in the comments or reach me here and I’ll set you up!
The last Innocence Mission release was 2010’s My Room in the Trees. I’ve been a big fan of the band since I inquired about my youth minister’s copy of Glow on top of the youth group boombox in the mid-90s. My Room in the Trees, however, stood out to me as one of their best. It featured the amazing “God is Love”:
God is love, and love will never fail me
God is love, and love will never fail me
If I’m driving there today
And I really am this afraid
God is love, and love will never fail me.
I’ve quoted it from the pulpit before and have sung it to myself not a few times.
I listened to that song and album in the midst of some dear friends moving out of our triple-decker community house (“Some birds I know are moving on this weekend”). I needed to hear “God is Love,” because we were in the midst of a major transition: our second child was soon to be born.
Without recounting the entire birth story here, I can simply say that his safe arrival left us in tears–more than the “usual” baby-being-born kind of tears. Some last-minute delivery challenges gave us quite a scare–but then there was baby #2, safely being cuddled by his mom and me. It may seem a small thing to The Innocence Mission to sing, “Stay calm… stay calm,” but that line from North American Field Song carried me through some shared moments of difficulty. I still think that is the best song they’ve ever recorded, and one of the very few songs I would ever consider calling “perfect.”
* * * * * * *
This Friday The Innocence Mission releases Hello I Feel the Same, their first album since My Room in the Trees.
If you are still, 20 years later, longing for the killer drums of 1995’s “That Was Another Country” (my second favorite track of theirs), or the opening track to 1991’s Umbrella, you will be left waiting again till next time. (Every new Innocence Mission I harbor a secret hope that Karen and Don Peris will ply their trade with a rocking band behind them. I’m long-suffering.) Mr. Peris does, however, lay down a sweet drum groove on “Barcelona,” the album’s fourth track. It’s like a fresh-water version of recent Mark Kozelek. The drums make another cameo before the album ends.
The first two tracks are classic Innocence Mission, with just a touch of drums and subtle bass harmonica (!) coming in a minute or so into the second song. Don Peris’s high-register guitar arpeggios and pleasingly breathy background vocals complement Karen Paris’s good-as-they’ve-ever-sounded vocals.
Track 3, “Washington Field Trip,” is this album’s “North American Field Song”–at least as I listen to it. Here is the band, only “wanting to be helpful in this life,” helping–whether they mean to or not–by laying down a devastatingly beautiful song with actually perfect piano tone. Never was a three-note melody in a chorus so haunting. The Perises, again, get into soul territory:
I do not want fear to hold me
I don’t want to be kept from loving at all
The longest song on the album is 3:43. Four songs don’t even reach the three-minute mark. You want all of these songs to keep going, but therein lies the duo’s approach and artistry.
Highlights include “Blue and Yellow” (what The Truman Show might have sounded like had Karen and Don Peris scored the movie) as well as the moving (and highly singable) tribute, “Fred Rogers,” which calls to mind Lancaster, PA (and, now that I think about it, maybe also heaven):
And you know I hate to drive
Maybe I’ll see you at the station
“The Color Green” features viola and violin and closes the album in a wonderfully fitting way–ascending piano with gorgeous melody in the right hand, joined by all manner of longing-inducing string parts.
And darn it if the song doesn’t resolve to the tonic at the end! One hopes The Innocence Mission will not make their listeners wait five more years to hear what’s next.
Hello I Feel the Same is another excellent effort from some beautiful makers of art and music.
Thanks to The Innocence Mission’s publicity team for early access to the album for the review. I’m sure it’s available on Amazon and iTunes, but why not support the band more directly? Check out the album at their Bandcamp page here.
Alternote is an Evernote client–yes! an Evernote client does exist–for Mac. If you use Evernote and have any level of dissatisfaction, especially with its layout, you should consider Alternote. It may not be a fully suitable replacement for Evernote, though. I explain why in my review below.
You cannot create Notebook Shortcuts in the left sidebar–which is another big part of how I use Evernote. You can star certain Notes for easy access—and can just drag the Notes into the sidebar to do it–but not Notebooks.
That said, automatic sync maxes out at every 15 minutes in Alternote, which will not be automatic *enough* for some. I was worried when I was writing this review (in Alternote!) and it crashed without having finished a sync. (Alternote is pretty good but still a little buggy on El Cap.) Fortunately my text was still there in Alternote, but I was eager to force a manual sync after that. I’d had some initial sync misses with my initial setup, which a revision had fixed, so hopefully Alternote will sort all this out soon. I haven’t lost any data, however, so you’re safe in using it, for the most part.
Words on the Word 