today's what I eat in a day on WW personal points. It's the new program. I have to say that it's only been a couple of days but I'm really really liking it so far. So today I'm going to be sharing with you all of the food that I'm eating on the new personal points plan. We're gonna talk about how I feel about the zero point foods as we go throughout the day today. I'm just really excited to share today's what I eat in a day. So if you're excited give this video a big huge thumbs up and don't forget if you're new or you haven't yet subscribed I would love to have you here. Hit the subscribe button and click the bell next to it so you never miss a single video. If you haven't checked out my video all about personal points that was released on Monday definitely check that out. I'll link it down below for you. In the description box you're also going to find my four recipe ebooks. The entire four recipe ebook collection is released so make sure you get your hands on those. I do offer a course nutrition coaching personalized macros and calories and one-on-one coaching if you want to ask questions or chat with me directly. Links discounts to all my favorite things and my Facebook group is also down in that description box. I'm really excited for today's what I eat in a day so let's jump in. So here is my breakfast for today. I just refilled my water some of my second cup of water. I have some raspberries for zero points eggs for zero points that is one of the foods that I chose to be on my zero point food list and then the hash browns from Trader Joe's are four points.  I have been getting some questions on putting the hash browns in the toaster. So you do have to put it in the toaster through several cycles to get it hot and crispy but it's just easier than throwing them in the oven. It's great for kids after school. A lot of you said your kids love the little hash brown so this whole toaster situation is a bit of a game-changer so I just put it in there several times until it's hot and crispy but that is my four point breakfast. Perfect hot, perfect crispy. So as you saw I actually just finished my breakfast. I got ready for the day. I actually have a zoom call this afternoon with my Facebook group. I also have a coaching call so I got fully ready today hair makeup all the nine yards but now I need a little bit of perfume to make me feel completely put together. I shared dossier with you guys in a video a few weeks ago and I have been loving my perfumes. They are really really good alternatives for high-end perfumes. They're much more affordable. Perfumes on the market that are two or three hundred dollars you can get from dossier for twenty nine to thirty nine dollars. I shared with you in my last video that I had purchased the dossier alternative to my favorite perfume which is the La Vie Belle from Lancome and I've been loving it like I said I haven't noticed much difference between the high-end one and the dossier one. The lasting power is fantastic so I say save your money and pick your perfumes up from dossier so I decided to go ahead and get two more scents and again this is the dossier version of my favorite high-end perfumes. A high-end perfume I love is the Victor & Rolf flower bomb. Now I actually got this one in my glossy box advent calendar and I've been savoring it because it's such mmm such a delicious smell and it is such a high-end expensive perfume so I decided to go ahead and get the dossier version and again we're going to compare them to see how similar they are. I'm going to wear it all day. I'll be able to share with you here on the screen the lasting power of this one but this is dossier's Gourmand white flowers which is inspired by the Victor & Rolf flower bomb perfume. So the notes in this one are bergamot, green tea, fresh berries, there's some middle notes of white flowers, orchid and rose and then the base notes are musk, patchouli, caramel and vanilla. It smells so good it's that perfect floral musky sweet. I love it so again this is the Victor & Rolf and here's the dossier Gourmand white flowers. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to spray the dossier on my left wrist and I'm going to apply the Victor & Rolf flower bomb on my right wrist and we're gonna test them. So the dossier oh it's so good. Wow I'm shook you guys. The Victor & Rolf and the dossier it smells exactly the same. No difference. Wow that completely blows my mind. I mean this little tiny one is more expensive than the dossier. Wow I'm literally shocked. I can't believe that I can get this for a fraction of the price of this. So I'm going to wear the Victor & Rolf dossier version all day today and like I said I did go ahead and put here on the screen my overall thoughts but I am so surprised at the similarities. And the second perfume that I decided to try is another one of my favorite high end scents and this is the Juliet has a gun not a perfume. Now I got a sample of that perfume in a subscription box and I fell in love. If you don't follow me on my beauty channel I unboxed it there and told you just how much I loved this perfume and this is the dossier version it is called the musky musk. Now the Juliet has a gun not a perfume is so expensive. It's one of the most expensive perfumes. So the musky musk the dossier version has the same notes as the Juliet has a gun not a perfume which the top note there is no top note on this fragrance. The middle notes are Settle Oaks, ISOE Super and the base notes are Habanolide and Musk. So I'm going to smell this. Wow it smells as good as the Juliet has a gun. I am floored every time I get a new dossier fragrance that it's so affordable and it is such a perfect match to the high-end ones. I'm really excited to have one of my other favorite high-end scents in the dossier. I will go ahead and link dossier down in the description box for you with a discount code. I plan on picking up lots and lots more perfumes so of course I'll share those with you guys but highly recommend if you love fragrance but you hate spending tons and tons of money these are great great alternatives and in my opinion they smell exactly the same. Hi bud what are you doing? Barking at the people at the gate? Hey will you bark at people? It's a nice day it's chilly but it's sunny. Hi buddy. Hi handsome. Are you guys going to hang out out here for a bit? Morning snack time. Today I'm actually going to have an RX bar. This is the pecan. There's three egg whites, four cashews, five pecans, two dates, no BS. These are really really really delicious. I'm about to go sit down and edit my new plan video that's going out tomorrow. It's currently Sunday that I'm filming today's video so I know that these are a little bit higher in points but these are nice and clean. The only thing that's in these bars that I don't love is natural flavors but I'm really focused on ingredients. I kind of mentioned this when I shared a little bit about some of the health issues that I have going on so I'm really really focused on better ingredients for a lot of my food so I'm going to have this and I'm going to have a bottle of brew doctor kombucha. This is the island in mango. This is three points technically I counted as one point. I count this as the normal points that it's counted for of course on the new personal points plan so I will go ahead and put here on the screen the points and calories but I'm going to dig into my morning snack and go and edit some videos. So here's my lunch for today. I am loving the creamy dill pickle salad kit. I did haul that from Costco. I've never seen it at my local grocery store but you can buy two bags at Costco for like six dollars. It is such a delicious salad. Such an easy lunch and then I just topped it with some of my earth best chicken nuggets. I buy those at Walmart. Great ingredients for a chicken nugget. I have protein. I have veggies. I'm really excited for this and then I do have glass I think number four of my water so this is my lunch for today. I was sitting down to take my supplement. I take my Thrive custom to me probiotic every single day and it reminded me to share with you some information about the Thrive Gut Health Test. So what used to be Thrive this is what their logo looked like. You're new to my channel. This is a personalized probiotic for me. So Thrive offers a gut health test. Essentially you submit a sample. It goes through some testing and then it comes back and lets you know what probiotics you're deficient in and how those affect your body. So for me when I took my gut health test it let me know that some of the probiotics that I was deficient in were things that led to weight loss. Makes perfect sense. Chronic fatigue which I have. Sleep. All of those issues that I have came back in my test and then Thrive puts together a personal probiotic for you. Now my husband who's quite the skeptic took the test and takes his probiotic as well every single day and says that he noticed a huge huge difference. So we've been taking these for quite a while. Well I've been taking mine for well over six months and every six months or so you should retake the test to make sure that everything's the same. Has this been helping? If this has been helping and those levels are back to normal is there anything else that I should be concerned about? So Thrive reached out to me oh gosh two weeks ago and let me know that they were changing their name. They are now Ombre and that is the new name of the company and they are still a gut health test. So they so kindly sent me one of their new tests. I mean it looks pretty similar to the Thrive. Other than the name change nothing else has changed. So if you currently get your probiotics through Thrive you'll continue to get those. They'll just come with the name Ombre on them instead of Thrive. So I know that Troy's probiotics are about to renew so those will be shipped back out. So they went ahead and sent me one of their test kits. So when you order the test kit this is basically what it looks like. It has a postage paid label that will send it back to the company. We're gonna open it like this and then here is all of the information on the gut health test.  Your sample actually goes into this little vial here which then goes into the envelope which is sealed up and sent to Ombre. So I'm actually going to retake my gut health test today and get this sent off. Again just to see if anything needs to be changed in my probiotics I can tell a huge difference. Troy can tell a huge difference. So there's a good possibility that maybe I need different probiotics or things need to be tweaked. So I'm really excited to take another gut health test and see exactly what may need to change in my personal probiotic. When Ombre let me know about the name change and then let me know that my probiotics were on the way. Are also offering a discount for you guys. I've talked about this so many times on my channel. We love our gut health test. We love our probiotics. With the link in the description box you actually get $30 off of your gut health test which makes it only $69 which is not bad at all. I did a little bit of research and normal gut health tests are between $100 and $300. So the fact that Ombre is only $69 is a fantastic deal. So I'll link it down below for you so that you can order your gut health test. Figure out what needs to go in your personal probiotics but like I said this has been a total total game changer for me and for Troy. So definitely check out Ombre in the description box. I thought I would take you guys around my house and show you my Thanksgiving fall decor.  So we have changed our house over to fall slash Halloween. So I'm gonna take you on a little home tour and at least show you what we did for fall and Thanksgiving. We're going to start outside. I have very minimal decorations. I have a little bit in my living room, my kitchen, a little bit outside and in my office. So let's go take a little home tour for Thanksgiving and fall. Saw that I went ahead and made myself another coffee. Boy you guys this afternoon I have been, I mentioned that I have some health things kind of going on or some health things that I'm really trying to figure out and fatigue is one of those things and today I have just been so tired and in about 15 minutes I have to get on a zoom call with my challenge group. So I'm giving myself like a double dose of energy for the afternoon. So I did use my Javi pumpkin spice coffee concentrate. The regular Javi is really good but the pumpkin spice is incredible. It has such good pumpkin spice flavor. It's a concentrate so two teaspoons to do a big 32 ounce coffee so it lasts forever. I'll link them down below with a discount for you and then again for more energy I'm all about the energy. I'm having my verb pumpkin spice latte bar three points 90 calories 65 milligrams of caffeine about the same of what's in a shot of espresso so I have caffeine in my verb bar I have caffeine in my coffee I have all the pumpkin spice vibes going on which is perfect. I will also link verb down below right now you can pick up a starter pack which is 12 bars flavor of your choice for only $10 and then verb actually throws in three or four other bars so you can try some of their other flavors so I'm going to have my snack sip on my coffee get ready for my zoom call and then as soon as that's over I am going to go ahead and get started on dinner for dinner tonight I'm making baked ziti now I think ziti generally has penne pasta I'm going to use elbows because I'm out of my fiber gourmet penne pasta but pasta is pasta in my opinion so let me show you what's in our recipe you're going to need one pound or 16 ounces of pasta so I'm going to use two bags of the fiber gourmet light elbows if you watch my channel you already know how much we love a fiber gourmet in this house it is such great pasta and not only does it taste good the texture is really good it's only a hundred calories per two ounce serving versus 210 it contains 25 grams of fiber it has 17 net carbs and 7 grams of protein so it's just such a great pasta alternative it is so good I mean the taste the texture everything is amazing on this pasta and you can save a lot of points and calories and still enjoy pasta so I will link fiber gourmet down below I buy it on nettrition they generally have all the four shapes that it comes in and they generally have it in stock so highly recommend checking out nettrition definitely definitely get your hands on fiber gourmet I'm going to be using the organic marinara sauce Costco I count this is zero points I do not count points for marinara that doesn't contain a lot of added oil you can also make a zero-point marinara one great recipe is the skinny-ish dish I'll link that recipe in the description box for you guys and then you'll need some low fat ricotta 99% extra lean ground beef turkey lots of fresh basil mozzarella cheese parmesan cheese salt pepper one egg and then back here I have poultry seasoning and Italian seasoning so the first thing I'm going to do is bring quite a large stock pot of water to a boil so we can add in our pasta and then in a large skillet I've added my pound of 99% extra lean ground turkey about a tablespoon tablespoon and a half of poultry seasoning we're going to allow that to cook down completely and allow our pasta to boil al dente so my ground turkey is just about done I'm just going to remove it from the heat we're going to head over to the counter and put together the cheesy mixture of our dish and then I have my noodles at a very very slow boil again I want these al dente so fiber gourmet generally cooks a little bit faster so it's just going to be a couple more minutes on the noodles so for the cheesy goodness of our ziti to a medium-sized bowl I'm adding one cup of light mozzarella half of a cup of parmesan 15 ounces or this whole container of low fat ricotta cheese some Italian seasoning one egg I went ahead and chopped up some basil this is just a couple of tablespoons and then some salt and pepper and then we're going to stir that together until fully combined to the ricotta mixture we're going to add in the ground turkey the entire jar of marinara I'm going to give that a quick stir before we add in the pasta we're going to add in all of the pasta now the recipe set a medium bowl but my medium bowl is not big enough so I'm transferring to a large bowl there we go now we're talking mix that together you want to make sure it's combined fully all those noodles are covered in that sauce and that cheese we're going to transfer all of this goodness into a sprayed 9 by 13 baking dish this you guys looks really delicious this baking dish is full to the bram of all of this and this looks so delicious then we're sprinkling over half of a cup of parmesan and the other cup of mozzarella we're going to pop this into a 375 degree oven for about 25 to 30 minutes or until our cheese is golden brown and the pasta is nice and bubbly I'm really excited and it's out of the oven you guys can I just tell you how delicious this looks look at all that bubbly pasta cheesy goodness I'm going to let this rest for just a couple of minutes I have some frozen peas in the microwave I'll plate my dinner up and I'll be back to share points and calories so here is my dinner for tonight the recipe makes 10 servings so this is one 10th it is six points and I'll put the calories here on the screen for you and then of course I have some peas with some salt and pepper I'm really excited for this who doesn't love a good pasta night so here's my dessert for tonight I'm going to have one of my Blake's birthday cake rice crispy treats these are amazing I got them on the thrive market I'll link the thrive down below with a discount and a free gift for you on your first order that's the only place I've ever seen these I picked up a couple different flavors and they are so good let me show you the size so here's the size of them they really truly are the perfect little rice crispy treat but they have really good ingredients really really like thank you so much for joining me on today's what I eat in a day on the new WW personal points program I hope you enjoyed seeing all the good food that I ate throughout the day today I will go ahead and link my recipe website down in the description box so that you can head over make tonight's dinner recipe it was so incredibly delicious I'll also make sure that I leave my two videos that I put out about personal points if you haven't seen those yet links discounts to all my favorite things nutrition coaching my four recipe ebooks don't forget to head on over join me on Facebook that's the best way to keep up with me as well as over on Instagram thank you guys so much for watching happy Wednesday and I'll see you in my next video bye


Welcome! My name is Marie and it is the second quarter of the teens cornerstone connections Bible study lesson. In lesson four we have Baraka with a mission story. In the orchestra we have Shadrach on the piano, Sakai on the trumpet, George and Lee on the saxophones, Subira on the clarinet, Amy and myself on the violins. Lastly we have the sabbath school panel which is done by the Nairobi Central teens along with their teens teachers. Enjoy! Hi my name is Baraka and I'll be taking us through the fourth mission story for this quarter. This story will be coming from the country of Portugal and some interesting facts about Portugal are Portugal is one of the oldest countries in Europe dating back to the year 1143. In 2001 Portugal decriminalized drugs and the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Portugal has only 9,611 members. Today's story will be centering around nine-year-old Carlos who goes to a seventh day Adventist elementary school in Portugal. The only reason he does this is because it's closest to his home. Other than that neither he nor his family are Adventists. Upon after being in the school for some time he began to notice that the Adventist Church is different from most churches that he was used to going. They had no saints they didn't baptize the babies and they were born and Carlos found this very strange. He began to ask himself many questions. Why do we have Sunday and you have Saturday? He asked why do we have saints and you don't have saints? Why do we baptize when we are born and you do not? He asked his questions to his parents who answered to the best of their ability however he wasn't satisfied with their answers. He began to have debates with many of his classmates back at school to try and understand more about the Seventh Day Adventist Church and why they're different. He soon began to realize that no matter how much he tried he wasn't able to come up with answers from the Bible as to why their church was different from the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Unlike him his classmates were able to back up what they said from the scripture. Carlos began to realize that the Seventh Day Adventists do this out of love for God. They follow God's commandments. They follow the Bible and that's why he and that's why he wasn't able to win any of the debates with them. In the book of John chapter 14 verse 15 it says if you love me keep my commandments. Carlos also loved God very much and at the age of 16 he gave his heart to Jesus and was baptized. His entire family came to watch and now Carlos is a leader in the Seventh Day Adventist Church. He also joined the Pathfinders and he really enjoyed earning the honors and participating in other activities. This quarter your thirteenth Sabbath offering will help open a new Seventh Day Adventist Elementary School in Sattuba, Portugal so other children's lives can be changed just like Carlos. Happy Sabbath. Happy day. It's another day that we are going to seek the face of the Lord through our lesson discussion but before we jump into the lesson of the day I would like us to have a word of prayer through by our brother Salman. Let's pray. Our kind and loving father thank you for being with us this Sabbath. Please guide us and protect us as we go through this lesson that you may be known. Jesus' name we pray and believe. Amen. Apply the blood. That's the topic of our lesson for today but before we start the lesson discussion I would like us to introduce ourselves and then we jump into the lesson. I'll start from my far right. Right. Happy Sabbath everyone. Happy day. And welcome to a lesson. My name is Jonan Magana. Happy Sabbath. Happy day. I am Salman Sipakaji. Happy Sabbath. Happy day. I'm Ben-Dikyan Silas. Happy Sabbath. Happy day. I'm Grace Waseke. And my name is Senet Moshe, one of the panelists of the day. Okay thank you so much teacher Senet. One of our teachers here at Nairobi Central teens class. So our lesson today as we've been told it's apply the blood. Apply the blood. The previous lesson we studied about you know I see I hear I know talking about the way the Lord sent Moses to deliver the Israelites from captivity. Now in our lesson today we're going to touch on how the Israelites finally come out of Egypt. Well before we get into that I'm always the story guy. So we have a story I'm going to share before we get into the story. So sometime in around 2003 there were some three young missionaries okay. They were in a theology school you know starting to become pastors and missionaries but these guys were a bit naughty so to speak. So they were supposed to be in class this was somewhere in South Africa. But these three young men that was Chris Norman and young man called Busi. So Chris Norman and Busi decided that they want to go swimming alright somewhere in the the beach. So on the day that they were supposed to be in class they decided to skip class and go to the beach. So two of them that is Busi and Norman went to the car but Chris remained behind because he went to get his surfboard. He wanted to go surf in the waves and he knew some very good place that he'd been told by his friends he could go surf. So the three of them they snuck out of the meeting and went there. But some of the other students saw them sneaking out. So this guy just went they just assumed no one saw them but something funny happened along the way they got lost. They did not know where they were going and Chris had the number of someone who was in charge of that beach so he called that number asking for directions but no response. They still kept getting lost. So they asked some of the petrol station to give them the direction to where they were going to and the guy just told them but he wasn't so sure about the directions. So they went drove a bit very very good BMW but then they got on a rough road and this is a place you know sorry to speak this but BMWs are really meant to handle and the car was shaking in some ways that it's not supposed to shake and they realized that they were really lost. So time went two hours in they decided let's just turn back to the college. This is a hopeless course. So they go back to the college. They're late for lunch. Lunch is over. They didn't go for class and once they arrived Chris was on who was driving the car. He just reaches under his car seat to pick his wallet as he's going out and guess what he finds. A booklet of the place they were going with a detailed map of directions every single place they were supposed to pass through including contacts of people they should have called in case they got lost. I can imagine how bad these people felt. Now how does this connect to our story today? Can apply the blood. Now the Israelites also had a blueprint a sort of a map as to what they needed to do to avoid calamity or getting lost and this was when the Lord was bringing the 10th plague. We know the 10 plagues the Lord showed in Egypt to get ferrute release Israelites. So for the 10th plague as you'll see in our lesson they were to apply blood somewhere. We'll read that in the lesson. So the Israelites actually followed the map or the guideline to what they were supposed to do and they did not get lost. Okay so now that we have a bit of a background to what is happening I'd like to ask Salmon to read us Matthew 26 verse 28. Matthew chapter 26 verse 28 and probably you can give us some highlights on what do you think about that. Okay Matthew 26 verse 28 for this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins. That is Christ talking about his own blood. Christ's blood was a sign that we've been cleansed from our sins. Salmon kindly just take us with the what do you think section as we get more insight into this. Okay so we're told to say whether we prefer what we prefer in the what do you think sections which I'm going to go through and why you prefer the question. So tell us do you prefer to have money in your bank account but not have access to it. You have the money it's in your account but you can't use it. You can't it's there it's sitting in your bank in your bank account. Why? Because it's frustrating like you have money money is what everyone needs. You have it but you don't have access to it. You can't use it. Yeah. Look Grace would you prefer to have a car without the keys to start it or license to drive it. No because it would be useless I mean you don't have the license so even if you did have the keys you're you're not like fit to drive legally speaking and even if you did have the license but you don't have the keys there is no way you can get that car anywhere so no. I'd like to say this if you have the car you don't have the keys and you don't have a license. If you don't have a license it's not a big problem because you can hire but without the keys even the driver is useless. But I think in this case what my friends trying to say is that like you own this car it's yours. So the thing is like yes you have a car but you don't have the driving license and then the key. These are two key things that you need to have for you to drive this car. Once you don't have them then it's it's like you don't have a car or you have it but it's like those things that sometimes you buy for the kids and then they play with it's like a toy. Yeah so the thing is like once you have this car you must have the driving license and then you must have the keys. Yeah so without the two then you're nothing. Yeah. Let's take a little illustration here. So you can hire a driver right but you don't have the keys. This story is about applying the lamp, the blood, the blood from the lamp, the final lamp which was the final sacrifice was Jesus. You can't replace Jesus. You cannot replace because his blood is what matters. The keys are what matters. The driving license, driving license is like holy people like angels. Angels do not sin. There are other worlds out there. The people they do not sin but here none of those people because they have the driving license they cannot come. None of them are eligible to die for a sins. Only Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. So the most important thing here is to have the Holy Spirit in your life so you can be light to those in the darkness. Amen. Amen. Amen. I like it. Exactly. So maybe I can add on to what you said. It talks something about the blood, the blood of Jesus. It's what we need. We look at Jesus to be like his blood is like our hope of salvation.  So if you look at the Israelites they were given like it was like a covenant. Like they had to use the blood of the lamb and now this lamb is the hope of salvation. Therefore us Christians we see like our God. So once you take this blood it's like your soul has been changed. Your soul has been purified once you take it and your life will never be the same. So with these things if we observe the covenant of God then it's like we'll be the light the way he has put it and the light once the light it's on everyone can be able to see. Amen. True. The world can be able to see the light through our deeds. Only we will be obedient to God and our faith in him. Amen. So I think the point the whole point of the what do you think section thank you Salmond for taking us through that is to show us that we might have some things in this life but as long as you don't have the very the most important part of that thing it's practically useless to us. Now it applies to us in this way right what is the point of Jesus Christ dying for you and me if we don't accept the gift. You know a gift doesn't a gift is not a gift until you receive it. I may just bring a whole car to you Salmond right now but what's the point of it being a gift to you if you don't accept it. That is the same thing in our lives right now. Now the blood of Christ was built for our sins but we have to accept it. The moment you do not accept it it sees this being as important as it's supposed to be. Okay so let us move on to our story and I'll ask Silas to read that but before we get there Grace you can kindly read for us Revelation chapter 1 verse 5 it's also in the punch lines. Okay it says Jesus Christ who is the faithful witness the first born from the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth to him who loved who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood. Amen now that verse talks about Jesus Christ and so does our story so let us see what our story talks and how it connects to Jesus Christ Silas take us through the into the story today. So in this story we are talking about it's from the book of Exodus chapter 12 the whole of that chapter. So in this story we are learning about they tell how the Israelites live. So here Moses is being given the book. On what to do so that they cannot be the first borns of the family are not given. So these are the directions. This month is to be the for you the first month the first month of the year tell the whole community of Israel. So they were supposed to take a lamp for each family one for each household. If a household is too small they should join with another so that they can eat all the the whole lamb and finish it in that night. So they were told to kill the lamb and apply the blood on their dopest that when the angel of death comes you can see the marks and so the animal they were supposed to choose must be a year old and it shouldn't have any defect so we learned that they needed the best. They were supposed to take care of them until the 14th day of the month when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them. I think we can draw some parallels from what you've said Silas thank you. So the animals that were chosen right there were also some more instructions about it they were not supposed their bones are not supposed to be broken and then they were supposed to be chosen on the 10th day of the month but they're supposed to be slaughtered four days later. Now here's a very interesting thing if you can all flip to the did you know section of our lesson we will see why this is very interesting okay so this is the first point the did you know section we're told that Jesus came into the city of Jerusalem four days before the Lamb was killed in the temple as a Passover sacrifice. So Jesus literally the Passover in the Israeli time there when the Israelites in Egypt was a parallel to what Jesus was supposed to do right because we see what the Israelites supposed to do they're supposed to pick the Lamb 10 days on the 10th day of the month that's four days before they kill it and Christ came to Jerusalem four days before he was sacrificed before he was crucified okay that shows that Christ is a Lamb and then we also have the second thing right the second thing is that the bones of the Lamb are not supposed to be broken and we see in Jesus' death in John chapter 19 verse 33 when Christ died not a single bone in his body was broken so it is a literal parallel between the Lamb offered in the Passover and Jesus Christ and the way he died okay Silas probably can finish to us what what they did to the blood where did they apply it and probably some questions from out of the story. Okay so we'll head to the questions what is the significance of the blood? The blood was a symbol to show of what was coming as she said a parallel of the end and which was Jesus Christ on the cross so the blood was also a sign at that time was a sign for the angel of death to pass over the houses but it symbolized Jesus blood on the cross as a final sacrifice and I think also we can get some insights from Greece you just to lead you through it you can open Genesis chapter 9 I already have and from out of seeing that especially if you read the fourth verse no need to even go any further but you shall not eat flesh with its life that is blood so blood has been kind of paralleled with life and as you can see in the story of the Passover if they smeared blood on the doorposts of their houses the lives of the first born are spared so like blood like kind of like led to life something like that for another question Silas what emerges as the central lesson of this it can give us why what's the main lesson from this story okay thank you to John and we may think the whole thing of blood once you take the blood of Jesus Christ it's like it gives you life not like the way we know like this life after after death so once you take the blood of Christ it's like your life has been purified it has been changed and that's the main reason as to why they were commanded like they have to apply blood are there doorposts one thing it was like when the angel of death will come and it's like you will jump go to the next door and then we kill like the first born of the Egyptians but in this case one thing it was like this blood it kind of it sanctifies you it changes your life it changes your soul makes you a new being once you take on the blood of Jesus Christ and this it shows you how powerful the blood of the lamb is amen amen and just it's a good thing you've mentioned about the Passover and jumping over the house actually that's a very great misconception that we've grown to you know be knowing no lies but studying this lesson I came across something very interesting so the English translation of the word to Passover does not do justice to the Hebrew word the Hebrew word is Pesa and Pesa it's a verb which refers to protection so the Lord did not cost the blood did not cost the angel of death to jump over the house but rather what it means is that the Lord shielded that house from death okay so Passover doesn't literally mean like Passover as we used to but it means like the Lord shielded those houses with the blood on the dopos thank you for that so we'll have a brief song from the orchestra song hymn 294 power in the blood and then we'll proceed from there power in the blood that is the hymn we've just listened to and it really speaks to us and connects the lesson we were talking about you know the power of the blood of Christ in this late time we've seen it had the power to save the lives of the fast-born children but in our lives right now it has the power to save each and every one of us Alaska Salmon to read for us revelations after 3 verse 20 revelation 3 verse 20 and probably before you go to that you can read the key text for today okay the key text is from Exodus 12 7 and 13 then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and on the tops of the door frames of the houses where they eat the lambs the blood will be assigned for you from the house is where you are and when I see the blood I will pass over you no destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt hmm okay before you give us your insight into that I can just read through revelation chapter 3 verse 20 then you can combine those two verses so revelation 3 20 says look I stand at the door and knock if you hear my voice and open the door I will come in and we will share a meal together as friends now these are two doors we see in these two verses Salmon probably can throw some questions from those two verses okay I have one question here so home what then do you think it means to have the blood of the lamb on your door so you're just from saying that in Hebrew it meant protection yes protection being shielded having the blood is having a shield it's it's not just a normal shield it's a spiritual shield mm-hmm which protects you from all sorts of evil in this case in the Bible it was protecting them from it was protecting the Israelites and anyone else who applied it from the plague in our time we are not really meant we are not we cannot just apply blood on our door friends so what you need to do is grace Jesus died for us he'll save us by grace not by work so we have grace we have faith that he'll protect us and shield us you will do that for us amen amen and speaking of grace grace can give us from some inside what she thinks about that question I've also seen that this blood is also it's like an allegory of our works in order to explain I'm gonna have to go to the flashlight section mm-hmm which as usual comes from patriarchs and prophets this particular quote comes from page 278 stretching all the way to 279 and it says before obtaining freedom the bond man must show their faith in the great deliverance about to be accomplished the token of blood must be placed upon their houses had the Israelites disregarded in any particular the directions given them they would not have been secure by obedience the people were to give evidence of their faith so all who hope to be saved by the merits of the blood of Christ should realize that they themselves have something to do in securing their salvation man is to be saved by faith not by works yet his faith must be shown by his works he must appreciate and use the helps that God has provided so basically what what she's trying to say here that is that in the case of the Israelite it is not exactly doing all that stuff that would save them the fact that they were trusting in God and doing what they told him to do what what he told them to do is what actually saved them and if they could have you know done everything but missed one thing like let's say got in the right lamp slaughtered it the right way cooked it the right way but failed to apply the blood on the doorposts for example they the first born in that family would have died so here what they're trying to say is in order for us to be delivered there is a part we must play now don't get me wrong we are not saved by our works we are saved exclusively by grace through faith but there is something we must do yes Jesus blood cleanses us but it can't cleanse us unless we accept and trust him and do as he says so this is what it's trying to tell us here and also something to what she said and also what said sometimes our obedience I think it's the key thing here we cannot be saved if you're not obedient to him we have to believe in him our faith in him and then believe like this the one was given in this chance to spread the word of God so once we obey whatever it tells us then it comes easier for us to be saved also because we cannot do what he has directors to do and then we relax like yeah now we are going to be saved by God the way she said it like we have to play our part and our part it's actually to obey the name and then to be obedience to him also because if you look at the call of the Moses and then the task that he was given the first thing that we told the children of Israel was like yes I'm here I've been sent by by the most high but for me to do this you have to be obedient amen and also just before we move on to the next part as grace had said you know we are not saved by our works we're saved by the faith and the grace you know the Christ has given unto us but how do we really show our faith you know James said that faith without actions is dead right we are saved by grace through faith but we demonstrate our faith through works you guys got that right we have said by grace through faith but that faith is demonstrated in our works so our actions speak to showing that we have faith in God and that's how we accept his saving grace for us yes someone as you have said that our actions define our faith by doing the wrong thing you're not defining God's faith you're defining the wrong faith that's what grace was trying to say we are not saved by our work so you're doing good but you don't have any faith in God really it's one and the other faith and works have to go hand in hand they have to go hand in hand but for you to be in heaven you will not go there because of what you did you give people food why did you give them because you wanted them to elect you not quite a good example but it shows you helping them were not you didn't have the right intentions for people you can be helping people to lure them into a trap but by having faith in God and showing that faith which is works that's how you're going to be in heaven amen amen and thank you for that insight yes if I were to add on that even let's say that it's all good mode of not helping people to get them into a trap like in the end I think it boils down to who you're doing it for because you could be doing it to make yourself look good or you could be doing it to you know as God said when you feed the hungry close the naked visit those in prison you're doing it for me either doing it for your glory or his glory and if you're doing it for your glory that's not gonna count amen and I like you brought that in because that also ties up into our fundamental belief for this lesson and our fundamental belief is belief number let me get it belief number eight that is a great controversy alright this is one of the few things that the Adventist faith has unique and that's the fight between good and evil God and the devil and in previous lessons in our class we had learnt about you know where Lucifer came from and who he is okay and as Grace has said this is a fight where you don't get to sit on the fence you either choose one side or another you either on God's side or on the devil's side if there's a light time you either did what God asked you to do that is to apply blood on the dopos or you did not there was no in between even God says in Revelation you are lukewarm I will pu you out of my mouth God is not like people who are indecisive you have to take a stand in this life so for us it's either do you accept the blood of Jesus or do you not now the Senate you can give us as we move to the punch lines because of time you can give us probably one of the verses which speaks to you mostly and then I can choose two other people can give us those verses okay for me I will go with the first John 1 7 and it says but if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son purifies us from all sin yeah man man if you walk in the light you know we have the blood of Jesus thank for that you can choose like two other people just give them the other one I can go with the salmon and then so for me what speaks to me is Hebrews 13 12 and 13 and so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood let us then go to him outside the camp bearing the disgrace he bore Jesus is God this is God coming to us suffering staying at see the city gate which was a disgrace because of you and the other one really don't care really just imagining just imagine the president of whatever country come from I wouldn't imagine the president living outside the best of the place the most secure place I wouldn't imagine him living in the border of the country which is very rough and there was sometimes he's sitting in the most secure place true but this is God the creator he came down to us to give us his blood because over our own we made the problem he brought the solution but still don't want to take the solution so this just just speaks to me because at the end he says let us then go out outside the camp bearing the disgrace he bore let's be like Jesus amen thank you Salomon yes we can now get word from Silas which voice speaks to you Matthew 26 says this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out of many for the forgiveness of the blood of Christ is cleanses us you know this power in the blood to cleanses and also if I may also really liked Romans 5 8 to 9 which says but God demonstrates his own love for us in this while we were still sinners Christ died for us since we have now been justified by his blood how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him like this reminds me of something I read in patriarchs and prophets when God delivered the Israelites they were not perfect I mean they had lived in Egypt for so long and in and they had like so much influence from the heathen culture that the Egyptians had they had so many gods and you know had they had no no respect for God's laws or anything like in the fact that they made them slaves that means that they totally forgot about the Sabbath for example and also worshiped the Egyptian gods if they like if the pressure became too much for them God not wait for them to you know keep the Sabbath again or like turn away from the idols completely although of course he showed them through the plagues that you know heathenism is fake like these gods are not real I'm the true God but he didn't wait for them to like fully become perfect in order for him to save them he saved them first and now that's when he revealed his law to them amen amen and while you still added grace thank you for that we can read for us the quote from about the third this section by someone called Edan Akhbez you probably that quote for us it's a very profound word okay so the quote reads the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return and there's no greater thing that we human beings desire just love the more the feeling of belonging somewhere and that that could just encompasses it all to send it as you close up you can read for us first Corinthians chapter 5 verse 7 and 8 and I give us what what you think about it okay our first Corinthians chapter 5 7 to 8 and a matrix God has made full provision for us to be saved we are headed for for heaven when we turn to him take his provision and they start moving in that direction in this week's lesson we have been looking at our apply the blood something very interesting and when you look at our during the times of Moses when he went like to deliver the children of Israel from from Egypt and then to the promised land as I said earlier one thing that he was told was like it all the children was like obedience is the key for your salvation they had to believe like in God was given was given the chance to live so when Moses was in the house of the Pharaoh this one thing he did when he told the Pharaoh like I've been given a message by Jehovah to come and deliver to you one thing he asked me like who is this Jehovah who is superior than me and my gods Moses had to perform the miracle that he did of the road that he had made it a serpent one thing that the Pharaoh did he brought his his people those people from the devil and they were like they produced their own serpents but God had to to show them like I'm the God who created you the serpent of Moses swallowed all the other Egyptian serpents that they had you tell us one thing all the things that God can give except life even the death wall has a counterfeit of it even the when we have looked at the fundamental belief number eight the great controversy this day controversy that we have today between the people who believe in God and those people who believe in the world the children of Israel they lived in Egypt and they became they believed in the culture of the Egyptians but that was not what God wanted God wanted them to worship him and believe in him when we look at our lives today we are in this world and the only thing that keeps coming into our lives is that God is warning us like yes you are in this world but don't be of this world God has given us the channels and the avenues for us to be to be saved and he's telling us like you have to believe in me take my blood and your life will never be the same if only we can believe in him and follow him then things will be easier for us we have to be obedience to him and then we have to have faith in him and trust in him and then we move from the lives of this world and believe in the lamb and the blood of Jesus Christ amen amen thank you so much for your insights panelists so we've come to the end of the lesson today and I'd like just the panelists to just give one word parting short as as we close up for 30 seconds or so because that from someone okay so for me I'd say follow directions strictly grace said that if they hadn't just followed one one strict direction the world the first one would have ended up dead so let's just try and follow instructions follow instructions thank you for that Silas your last word what do you learn from this story today about the blood of Jesus even if it is free you have to accept it and there are always terms and conditions you have to accept the gift of the blood of Jesus Christ thank you for that grace the last word faith and works go hand-in-hand I mean the Israelites after seeing all the plagues believed that God is indeed going to rescue them from bondage but if they had just believed and not have done what they were told by God to do apply blood on the doorpost get the right lamp slaughtered the right way cook at the right way and all those instructions they wouldn't have like their firstborn would have died so faith and works have to go thank you that she said it my parting shot is God has given us different gifts for these gifts to be seen in our lives we have to show them to the world God has given us this gift to deliver other people out of bondage the obstacles are there but one thing God has given us a sign people can harden their hearts the way the Pharaoh did but they start thing that we can whisper to them and they will change their lives God will come and we'll ask you like I gave you this gift what did you do with it we have the blood just after faith in him and be obedient to our maker that's the only way we can be able to be saved from the hands of this world amen amen and for me the Lord gave the blood of his son Jesus Christ so it can be saved the only thing we need to do is accept it so there is power in the blood of Jesus and Jesus blood just saves us from so many things those you know addictions you have right now those pains you have in your life right now just accept the blood of Jesus in your life and all it's going to be well so thank you so much for being with us for this session and I'd like to ask Silas to pray with us as we close let's pray thank you for the love you've given us even your blood we pray that you may help us accept it in Jesus name I pray amen amen


Hi everyone, Joe for jazby's case brace calm coming at you with our last random number block randomizer featuring this big group of teams Right here for four box pick your team for which is coming up in a separate video Think everyone knows how the number block works by now with the zero spot and the non numbered cards. I think this group gets it Thank you for getting in appreciate it. There are the numbers right there and I Promise that if we fill this we'll give a hundred dollars of break credit away to someone in this break So there'll be a second dice or at the end for that break credit So stay tuned for that as well, but for the names and numbers. Let's roll it randomize it three and a six nine times one two three four five six seven eight and ninth and final time Mark down a Jess after nine and nine times for the numbers one two three four five six seven eight and Ninth and final time Three and a six nine times nine times seven down to two All right mark with seven roto with nine Eric with four Robert with three zero and five Arthur King with one Mark with six Peter with eight Jess with two member zero gets any and all redemption of that big group of teams down there Including one-of-one redemptions Arthur you'll still get live one-of-ones that are pulled Let's order this numerically and coming up in a separate video will be the break itself We'll see you for that. Jasper's case breaks.com


Hi, this is Allison Sheridan of the NoCellicast podcast, hosted at podfeed.com, a technology podcast with an ever so slight Apple bias. Today is Sunday, August 13th, 2023, and this is show number 953. Well, we had a great time off in Mammoth for the week, but thanks to some very kind NoCellicast ways, we have a big show for you today. I need to tell you though that this coming Sunday, we will not have a live show. So let me check the date here. On Sunday the 20th, there will not be a live show because the show is going to come out on Wednesday the 16th because we're off again this time to Houston to meet our brand new grandson, Teddy. So things are gonna be a little crazy for the next few weeks and because we got another trip planned after that, but in case there will be a show next week, but it will not be a live show, will not be live on the 20th. All right, with that, let's go ahead and kick into the show. We're gonna start out with Kurt Liebeszeit. My adult children think I'm an anachronism. I write paper checks to pay my utility bills. I have an iPhone, but it's an oldish iPhone XR, or maybe that's 10R, and I don't even use half of my three gigabyte data allotment. I don't do social media other than to sign into Discord on Sunday nights to check in with the friendly and enthusiastic no-silicasterways. And I still use a real desktop computer, not even a cool Apple Silicon laptop. As detailed in an earlier submission, I'm still using a 2010 Mac Pro as a daily driver for reasons that will soon be revealed. I have a lot of 33 and a third LP records, nearly all of them in the folk music genre. I haven't counted them lately, but there's about 35 linear feet of LPs stacked tightly in four bookcases. I have an ongoing project of transferring content from these spinning vinyl disks to digital formats so that I can play them on the radio program that I host bi-weekly at the local radio station, KBOO-FM Portland. This is why I need a real desktop computer with a CD, DVD, burner drive. I could easily rip the LPs to digital files and call that sufficient, but I'm kind of old school and anachronistic. I like to make CDs that include not only the audio files, but also the liner notes and the artwork. This is possible with programs like Toast, which you can use to create what are called enhanced audio CDs that have separate sub volumes for the musical tracks and the digital data. It also turns out that when you create a CD that closely replicates the order and timing of an original LP, it will often be recognized by Apple Music, or iTunes, as a commercially produced CD, and music will automatically download the metadata, like performer, song title, and album, from Grace Note, saving a lot of manual data entry. My workflow for the project goes something like this. Play an LP while recording it through a Scarlett 24-bit stereo A-to-D converter. The stereo digital stream is captured by Amadeus Pro, a sound editing program. Send the resulting AIFF file through a unfortunately now obsolete program called Click Repair to clean up the clicks and pops of the vinyl record, restoring it to near CD audio quality. Adjust the levels of the tracks and split the tracks out to individual files in 16-bit AIFF format back in Amadeus Pro again. Photograph the album covers front and back along with any enclosed liner notes. Then burn the whole dataset to a CD using a CD burner program. I'm careful to use the highest quality discs that I can lay my hands on and run the burning program at minimum speed, usually 4X. With good quality Tio Euden or JVC discs, now superseded by CMC discs, I've had good luck with CD still being readable after 15 years. Once the CD has been burned, I mount it so that music sees it and tries to match it up to a commercial CD product. Often, it will find an appropriate match and then I just direct music to rip the CD to MP3 format within music. If it doesn't find a match with Grace Note, then I have to manually enter the metadata in music before ripping the CD to an MP3. Now when I sync with my iPhone, the MP3 gets transferred to the phone where I can listen to it on the go, in the car, or at work. I archive the AIFF files and the photo documentation on network attached storage for safekeeping. Now you might be listening to this thinking, optical media is dead, Apple got rid of it 10 years ago, why should I care? One reason that I can think of is that I still think that it is a good idea to have a layered defense against data loss. There's a technology out there called the MDisk, which is supposedly archival quality. The manufacturer has put their discs through rigorous testing and they make the claim that data stored on an MDisk should last a thousand years. Even if you discount that specific claim, it seems likely that an MDisk will hold your data through the next generation or two. So maybe it makes sense to put together a couple of MDisk DVDs containing your most irreplaceable family photos, videos, and oral histories. You can get a portable CD DVD burner from Otherworld Computer for about $35, and the MDisks themselves are available from Amazon. So what is the problem to be solved then? In one word, toast. I started using toast 5 back in 2003 when it ran on a titanium power book G4. Corel, formerly Roxio, has continued to issue new versions of toast that correspond roughly to major operating system changes. They're now up to version 20, and although they have added features to the suite of software that they ship with toast, the underlying main program hasn't changed much. In fact, I would say that the main program has actually regressed. I used to repurchase the whole shooting match under duress every three or four years when Apple's operating system changes made the old toast unusable and I was often disappointed to note that the old reliable features that were critical to my workflow were either hidden or bug ridden. Honestly, if toast 5 were able to run on my current hardware, that's what I would be using. I forget what exactly it was that was the final straw for me. It might have been the more stringent licensing check that was unable to handle allowing more than one user on a given computer to be able to run the program. There was a workaround involving a directory copy in terminal which I was perfectly capable of doing but I was annoyed. I decided to go looking for a replacement for toast. I want to mention here a useful resource that perhaps our listeners might not be familiar with or perhaps were aware of at one time but have forgotten. That resource is the website alternative2.net. You can go to that website, type in the name of a program and it will show you crowdsourced alternatives that provide a similar function. When I did that for toast, it showed me a bunch of Windows programs that burn CDs but not much for the Mac operating system. The main standout that pops up for the Mac operating system is a free software package called Burn from Martin Foucair hosted on Sourceforge. It turns out that Burn is a straightforward, perfectly capable solution for burning audio CDs. It even supports burning enhanced audio format CDs. Burn has a simple interface. You drag audio cuts into a window in the order you desire for them to play and then you are given an opportunity to set the burn parameters such as burn speed which I always set at minimum.  Putting together an enhanced CD requires two steps. You burn the audio files first but check a box that says to leave the session open, meaning not finalized. Then you burn the data files in a second burn step and this time uncheck the box so that the catalog is finalized. Burn has never given me a problem as far as working with various disc manufacturers or even various CD burner hardware. Burn also has the capability to burn DVD discs. My needs are almost exclusively in the audio only side so I've only made a couple of data DVD discs and one DVD player disc. Burning a data DVD is essentially the same as burning a data CD simple and straightforward or as one reviewer on alternative.net put it non-fussy. Burning a DVD for playback on a DVD player is one area where burn comes up decidedly short compared to toast. Toast gives you a choice of multiple themes for a playback DVD along with various menu style options. With burn there really is only a single theme and it's best if you only have a single video feature. If you drop a video file on burn that isn't quite what a DVD should have burn will invoke its own copy of the open source FF MPEG program in the background to reprocess the file into a compatible format with possible loss of quality it should be noted. It all works but it's not going to win any academy awards. I found a glitch in burn when I first started using it several years ago. It was leaving an audible click in each CD audio file very close to the end of the playback period. I wrote to Martin about it and he quickly issued a fix within about a week. He continues to update the program periodically in response to Apple's ever-changing API interface. There is a user form on his source forage page where you can ask questions and report bugs. You may find this funny but the worst thing about burn is the name. Try typing burn or even burn for Mac into a search engine and be prepared to scroll through pages of non-useful results before finding Martin's program. If you're like me and work with audio CD almost exclusively then switching to burn is a no-brainer. If you're a person who only occasionally has the need to put together a playback DVD with say home movies for your parents or non-techie friends then burn will get the job done at zero cost. I've already mentioned the usefulness of being able to burn a data DVD of precious memories. You won't have to get dragged along on toast's relentless upgrade cycles with the attendant cost and risk. And of course if you want to put together many different video projects then you're better off with toast I would say. I can say that I've been happier since I switched to burn and left toast behind. There's the money saved of course but the greater issue was putting up with the seemingly pointless user interface changes for the sake of quote modernizing the app. Adios toast hello burn. Well thanks so much for that Kurt. You know to the audience we put up the post that Kurt wrote that goes along with this audio recording quite a few days ago and it's gotten a lot of traction. People are saying well I've got a stack of CDs too so maybe Kurt isn't so different from everybody else in looking for a solution to this easier way to burn CDs. You've been hearing me complain at length about trying to get Apple's help figuring out why the battery doesn't last as long as it should in my 14 inch M1 MacBook Pro. You also probably remember that they had me doing so many time-based experiments on it that I bought an M2 MacBook Air so I could continue to get work done while they made me do these experiments. The good news is that I'm in love with the MacBook Air and I've been stretching its capabilities and I've yet to find a limit to what it can do. I have to tell you it seriously has me questioning whether I even need a Pro machine. I decided to see whether I could conduct my part of the live show while on the road at Lindsey's house using only the MacBook Air. Now my first attempt I carried both laptops just in case the MacBook Air wasn't actually up to the task. The main limitation for my work with the MacBook Air is that it has only two Thunderbolt USB-C ports. I use a lot of peripherals when I'm doing the live show and at home I have a CalDigit TS3 Plus dock and an OWC Thunderbolt hub which together manage all of those connections. But when I'm on the road, that'd be a lot to carry along. Let's review the listed devices I need to plug into my traveling Mac for the live show. First I have a ShureMvi USB interface for my XLR microphone. Now that's not my standard interface but it's the one I take on the road. I also have an Ethernet since Wi-Fi makes video a bit unpredictable. The third thing I need is an external USB-C display which is currently the 15-inch 4K KYY display. With all of the different windows I have to have open I simply can't do it on a single display so having that external USB-C display is perfect for doing the live show. Next I have the Logitech Litroglo LED USB light panel. I could do without that and technically the show would still come out but the lighting in Forbes's room where I do the recordings is absolutely hideous so hideous for this. It's fine for a bedroom but it's hideous for getting a good video display and you've got to have good lighting on your face. Finally I'm now using my iPhone for continuity camera when I'm on the road. The first time I tried using the MacBook Air for the live show I used the Satechi 4 port USB-C hub that I reviewed a few months ago. This hub provides 4 USB-C 3.0 Gen1 data ports. It doesn't provide pass-through power delivery but I can use the MagSafe charger on the MacBook Air and not take up a USB-C port. Now remember my very recent article when I talked about the difference between a hub and a dock and we said that a hub just multiplies the existing ports. In this case a hub is the right choice because the MacBook Air only has those two Thunderbolt USB-C ports on it. I'm really comfortable using dongles to make those USB-C ports into anything I want so I don't need a dock to change the functionality. I only need more USB-C ports. Now the challenge of using a USB-C hub was that many devices don't work properly if plugged in through a USB-C hub or any kind of USB hub. Especially if it's a bus powered hub like my Satechi. For example the KYY USB-C display simply will not function if it's plugged in via a USB-C hub. In my testing at home I realized that the microphone interface also required a direct connection in my Mac. If both of those devices have to connect directly then that's both of my USB-C ports used up and I can't add any other peripherals including that Satechi hub. Well around the time I was preparing for this exercise I heard Pilot Pete say on the Mac Geek Gab that he figured out how to trick his mic interface into working through a USB-C hub. He said if the Mac was off or at least asleep when you plug in the interface when you awaken the Mac the interface will work through a hub. This solution actually worked for me. This bent I could have the external display take one port and the USB-C hub from Satechi take the second port and I'd gain those three USB-C ports. This allowed me to plug in all of my devices while at Lindsay's. Now it did require a lot of pre-thinking and organizing of my devices but everything worked. However we experienced some instability in my audio during the live show. This very likely could have been a problem with StreamYard or the local network but I was worried that maybe the USB-C hub might have been the problem. Perhaps a Thunderbolt hub would do a better job. Now the ability to have a hub for Thunderbolt only came out with Mac OS Big Sur in 2020. Before then Thunderbolt devices ended the Thunderbolt chain. But with Thunderbolt 3 or 4 equipped Macs and Thunderbolt 4 equipped PCs we can now all enjoy Thunderbolt hubs multiplying the number of Thunderbolt ports. In my article from January 2022 entitled The Wonder of Thunderbolt Hubbing with the OWC Thunderbolt hub I explained how on my desktop I have that OWC Thunderbolt hub connected to the CalDigit TS3 Plus dock which adds two more Thunderbolt ports to my Mac setup. But for travel I'd need something with even more ports. Back when I wrote the article about the OWC Thunderbolt hub David Price commented on the post asking me did you consider the CalDigit Element Thunderbolt hub? I had to confess at the time I didn't even realize that existed when I wrote about the one from OWC. But a few months ago when Steve and I visited David Roth and his lovely wife Jennifer and more importantly their Darling Golden Retrievers Luna and Melody I noticed a tiny box on David's desk next to his Mac. It was the CalDigit Element Thunderbolt hub that David Price had asked me about. This hub is about the size of a deck of playing cards and is similar in size to the OWC Thunderbolt hub.  I tried to take David's from his house but he caught me so instead he sent me a note when the CalDigit Thunderbolt Element hub was on sale. I picked one up to see if it would make my travel setup any easier. The great news is that on our first test there were zero glitches with my audio or video using the CalDigit Element hub along with the MacBook Air. Not only that this hub has so many ports I actually had some left over. The CalDigit Thunderbolt Element hub has one Thunderbolt port on the end and that's where you connect your computer and it gives you three Thunderbolt ports in return. Like the OWC Thunderbolt hub that means you really only gain two Thunderbolt ports. But where the OWC hub throws in one 10 gigabit per second USB 3.2 port the CalDigit Thunderbolt Element hub gives you four USB 3.2 ports at 10 gigabits per second. So you end up with a lot more ports with the CalDigit than you do on the OWC. Now the side effect of this embarrassment of riches in ports was that I actually had to remove some of the dongles I keep attached to my USB-A devices because those were USB-A ports. Since all Thunderbolt 4 ports are also USB-4 I plugged all of my USB-C devices into the Thunderbolt side and then the USB-A devices into the USB 3.2 side. So I have three USB-C ports on this and in there I put the Ethernet to USB-C dongle the KYI display and the Logitech Lighter Glow for power only. On the four USB-A ports side I put the Shure MVI interface for my XLR microphone and the USB-A to lightning to iPhone for continuity camera. The included Thunderbolt cable connects the CalDigit Thunderbolt element hub for all of the data transfer of all of those devices. Since it's a powered hub I didn't even have to plug the MacBook Air into power using MagSafe. One cable to rule them all. Now I know that's a lot of stuff to keep in your head so in the show notes I included a handy-dandy diagram of the setup along with a photo of exactly how messy but awesome this was. There are two things I want to mention about this setup. By our new handy-dandy definition of a hub versus a dock a hub should multiply the existing ports but both the OWCI use at home and the CalDigit I bought for the road multiply Thunderbolt hubs but they also add USB-A ports. Now I guess we're going to allow it in our definition since Thunderbolt 4 is also USB 4 but it did make me smile to kind of think that through. There's also one downside of a Thunderbolt hub for traveling like this. As I said earlier seeing the CalDigit Thunderbolt element hub on David's desk attracted me because it was so tiny but what I didn't take into account was how huge the power supplies are for these devices. This tiny CalDigit Thunderbolt element hub by itself only weighs 6.5 ounces but the power supply with its power cable weighs an additional 17 ounces. Now the whole reason to get a MacBook Air is because they're so thin and light so you don't have a lot to carry around but adding this huge weight in size to my bag gave me pause. I started thinking about whether it makes sense to travel with the MacBook Air when I'm going to do the live show or whether I should just carry the MacBook Pro since it doesn't need a hub because it has more ports. It was time for some math. MacBook Pro weighs 54 ounces but the MacBook Air plus the CalDigit Thunderbolt element hub including its massive power supply weighs 66 ounces so that makes the MacBook Air combo kit 22% heavier. Now it may be illogical but I'll still travel with the MacBook Air. It's easy to take out in the car to get some work done. It's easier to carry between rooms. It's easier in just about every way to use than the 14-inch MacBook Pro. I'm willing to pay the price of the extra weight of the hub just to have that convenience the rest of the time when I'm away from home and I'm not recording.  The final reason I won't travel with my MacBook Pro is that the battery life problem still has not been resolved. I'm afraid it may live out the rest of its days as a desktop. The MacBook Air has a longer battery life even if the MacBook Pro didn't have problems so it wins on all of those counts. I have to say that the CalDigit Thunderbolt element hub is a great little device for expanding the Thunderbolt and USB ports you have on your computer whether it's a MacBook Air, a MacBook Pro, or a Thunderbolt 4 equipped PC. You can buy it on Amazon for $230 right now and as of the time of this article there's a $20 off coupon. Did you know that buying things like the CalDigit Thunderbolt element hub actually cost me money in order to make the show for you and keep it going? Well, there's a way you can help support the show to help me pay those bills and that's by going to podfeed.com slash Patreon if you wanted to be a patron of the Podfeed Podcast and do a weekly or monthly donation to help support the show. You can also go to podfeed.com slash PayPal if you'd rather do a one-time donation. I really appreciate your support and it really does help make this podcast possible. Hi, this is Jill from the Northwoods. I mentioned before I just got a new job and I decided to get myself a present. I got the Anker Power Comp S3 speakerphone. The reason I did this is that during the pandemic I've been on Zoom calls all day long. It's part of my job to be on so many meetings but now I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my working career. I decided it was time to get away from those headphones that were just tethering me down. Sometimes I'd like to stand maybe pace a little bit while I'm in these long meetings. I'm sitting way too much. So my present for this job is that I got the speakerphone and it's amazing. I sound good in it. I asked various people to test things with me and they were able to hear me very well not only that I'm able to hear the calls very well. No longer tether to any headphones no longer having anything on my head. Again this is going to be the rest of my working career so I wanted something else. This particular speaking phone has six microphones. I noticed that when I'm talking I think it's meant for a conference room it'll point to the direction it hears. Sometimes my bird sets it off a little but nobody says that they hear my bird. So it enhances the voice and gets rid of the bird. And I noticed it even can be a little farther away and people still hear me very well. The voice tracking it does is really good. It also has Bluetooth capability or you can plug it in directly into your computer. I found for myself in general I found Bluetooth items don't work as well as plugging directly into your computer when it comes to latency and other types of issues like that. But I even tried the Bluetooth and this did pretty well too. There's no reason why I shouldn't plug it in so I do. But I can also use it in the future for things like my iPhone if I'm having any kind of call on it to just sound even better. It works with every type of call software that you use Skype, FaceTime, it has Zoom, WebEx, GoToMeeting and it works like a charm. In my job I work with a couple of different pieces of software and when I log into an app it automatically recognizes I'm in an app and gives me controls right on the face of the speaker phone itself. There is an app you can get for it too if you need to do that gives you some more controls like volume, firmware updates, other types of settings but I haven't found so far that I need it. Plus it has a handy travel case. This last week when I traveled out to California I brought it with me. Sometimes I take calls in my hotel room and it was small enough easy enough for me to use that I could just use it everywhere. It also has a built-in battery so if I'm in my hotel room not looking to plug it in it says it can work for up to 24 hours on a fully charged battery and has the ability to act as a battery pack for one other device. I haven't found that to be necessary I don't need another battery but I guess it's good to know I have something else there. Of course like most types of headphones and other types of speaker phones it has a mute button which also synchronizes with the mute on Teams that's the one I've been using and other applications so I can either click on the button in Teams or use the mute button right on the device itself make things louder, quieter and it has a quick response. During the pandemic I bought a terrible speakerphone but that was because everyone was going crazy with the Zoom meeting stuff it was the only one I was able to find and get right away. It was pretty terrible people couldn't hear me and I didn't think I heard other people very well at all but this one top notch and for everything I was looking for it just did a great job. I noticed there are a couple of different models out there this one ran me $99 on sale if you heard Amazon just had a big sale going on last week and right now it is still $99 but they also have other models with different features and different costs but for me this one's just been great it had great reviews and when I got it it worked exactly as expected I'm certain that these other models out there are primarily about how big is your conference room again I'm just using it for myself or when I'm in a hotel so I didn't need anything for a large room I sell bigger models for sure this one for just me and maybe a couple other people is perfect so I got this as a gift for myself and I love it already it's going to make the rest of my working life so much better and I recommended it to people I work with who struggled to find good ways of getting people to hear them while they're on calls either they're using their laptop microphone this is so much better than that and people can hear you and when you work remotely and the entire impression people get from you is how you sound whether or not you forget to unmute your phone or whether you forget to mute your phone and you're crunching on your chips while your boss is talking this is the perfect device to helping you sound amazing and be that employee you hope to be while working remotely if you have any questions you're always welcome to ask me either on the blog article itself or on Allison Slack channel so I hope you enjoy the Anker PowerConf S3 speakerphone as much as I do that was great Jill I love it it's funny it just doesn't seem like something we would buy nowadays is a speakerphone but I completely understand why that works Lindsay has one and I know she really likes it for her calls but I'd like to throw in a few extra comments I talked to Jill about the Anker PowerConf 3 and I asked her if the internal battery charges when it's tethered to the computer and she confirmed that it does the other question I had was whether this is a full duplex device now you care about full duplex because that's the technology that allows you to talk and hear from the device at the same time rather than one getting cut off single duplex uses the same channel for send and receive so you can talk or listen but not do both at the same time finding the answer to this took a wee bit more digging as the amazon listing for the Anker PowerConf 3 didn't say I was able to find a support article on support.ankerwork.com where they confirmed that it is definitely a full duplex device Hi this is husband Steve with a review of the Insta360X3 action camera a few months ago our good friend Pat Dengler showed us her news spherical camera the Insta360X3 and after seeing its capabilities I knew I wanted one being the thoughtful wife she is Allison kindly bought me one as a gift her one condition was that I write a review of the camera to make sure I really learned how to use it Insta360 cameras come in a few models and the latest is the X3 to simplify things in this review going forward I'll refer to the camera simply as the X3 before I begin I have to mention one item that as an engineer bothers me about the name 360 used for these types of cameras the field of view for 360 cameras is actually four pi steridians meaning the captured image covers a full sphere including top and bottom not just a 360 degree cylinder as the name implies but we'll just stay with a 360 naming convention here said since generally accepted terminology my first 360 camera was a RICO theta 5 from a few years ago I learned the basics of 360 photography and videography with the theta and I thought the camera was well engineered however the X3 stands well above the theta in many respects overall I really like the X3 for its style controls and functionality the X3 is relatively small measuring four and a half inches tall by 1.8 inches wide by 1.3 inches thick including the hemispherical lenses which bulge out quite a bit from the body it weighs 180 grams which is about 6.3 ounces the camera body is nice to the touch with rounded edges and sides that are slightly ridged for a more sure grip the rear face has a crisp 2.3 inch display which is super bright bright enough for use in direct sunlight prominent on the camera are the dual fisheye f1.9 lenses the X3 seamlessly stitches the two lenses output and creates a cohesive spherical view for both photos and videos on the bottom of the camera is a standard 1.25x20 screw mount allowing it to be attached to most camera mounts and tripods when mounted to a selfie stick or any long narrow support the X3 has enough coverage from the two separate lenses to automatically remove the camera and stick from the image this results in 360 photos and videos from a perspective that appears to be floating in mid-air not supported by anything a pretty cool effect the camera comes with a removable rechargeable 1800 mAh battery that supports 81 minutes of continuous video recording you can fully charge the battery from zero in about 90 minutes using a standard USB-C cable the X3 has onboard storage but also supports a microSD card for additional storage and for offloading photos and videos more quickly to eliminate shakes and jitters and provide very good motion stabilized images the X3 uses gyroscopes and advanced algorithms since the camera has a full 360-degree view the image perspective is held in the same direction regardless of how you move rotate or reorient the camera some of the other key features of the X3 are it's waterproof down to 10 meters and rated IPX8 it offers easy-to-use reframing tools after shooting 360 so you don't need to worry about the camera's viewing angle while shooting it also has four built-in microphones which support stereo wind noise reduction and direction focus that's where the camera enhances the audio in the direction of the viewing angle when reframing 360 video it is Wi-Fi enabled at both 2.4 and 5 GHz bands and it supports Bluetooth 5.0 and it supports voice commands the X3 is fairly easy to use but some of the on-camera menu selections are buried a couple levels down you can use the X3 standalone but its utility goes way up if you pair it with your phone using the 360 app on your phone either iPhone or Android you connect the camera via an ad hoc Wi-Fi network that supports high data transfer speeds which are needed for the large 360 photo and video files the app provides full photo video control and image viewing of the X3 from your phone viewing on the phone allows you to spin the image or video by dragging it to see the full 360-degree view from any perspective you want you can also view the 360 image in a wide crop rectangular version instead of the full 360 view the Insta app is very handy if you want to take a photo while the X3 is at the end of a long selfie stick and is hard to reach it also lets you get a larger view of the images and videos you've captured with your phone's display you can download your photos and videos directly from the X3 into your photo library one of the coolest features of the Insta app are the many special animation effects it provides since most photo viewers don't allow the user to manipulate and view a full 360-degree image the Insta app provides five animation effects which automatically spin, zoom, and reorient the 360 image in various ways to create a video of your still image from many perspectives they also offer background music of various styles that you can add to the video of your animated 360 still photo the X3 offers several video and photo shooting modes for video you can record up to 5.7k resolution at 30 frames per second and you can select standard, active HDR time lapse time shift which is like a hyperlapse video bullet time which is slow-mo video with a 360-degree spin popularized on the matrix loop recording which overwrites the earliest content after reaching a maximum length and the new pre-recording mode which records video up to 15 to 30 seconds before you even hit the record button for photos you can shoot up to 72 megapixels resolution and you can select standard, HDR, burst, and interval it also has a very cool starlapse mode that I haven't used yet but will by placing the X3 on a tripod at night in starlapse mode it will record the streaks left by stars planets and meteors as the earth rotates under the heavens a couple of other nifty features of the X3 are that you can connect it directly to your apple watch instead of your phone to control the camera you can take photos start stop videos and change shooting modes however you cannot view images or videos on your watch you can also in real time stream 360 videos from your X3 to Facebook, YouTube, and a few other platforms through your phone however I was not successful in performing this because during my test I did not have a good cell signal the X3 uses a cell connection for streaming to the internet since wifi is being used to connect the X3 to the phone the X3 comes with a usb-c cable one battery and a soft pouch type case I also got a few extra accessories that have come in handy first is a semi-hard case that zips open and close to better protect the camera probably one of the most useful accessories is the selfie stick which is important for removing your hand and arm from a 360 photo or video one version of the selfie stick that insta offers has three small legs that unfold at the bottom of the stick so you can free standard on a surface like a tripod I also got a two-sided lens protector which is easy to slide on and off just the lens portion of the camera it's very important to use this cover when you're not shooting since the lenses on both sides of the X3 bulge out significantly from the camera body if the camera falls or scrapes on a hard surface the bulging lenses will be one of the first things to get scratched so I highly recommend getting the two-sided lens protector that covers both front and back lenses I make a point of putting the cover back on the camera whenever I finish shooting with it finally I got a dual battery pack charger that supports USB-C charging along with a spare battery okay bottom line the insta 360 x3 is the most capable portable 360 action can that I've seen so far at about $450 on amazon the x3 is not inexpensive but I think it's worth it it's rugged fully featured has great software support and produces high quality photos and videos the camera has so many features I haven't discovered let alone used them all yet so I have a lot of fun ahead of me finding out what this action camera can really do well I know many of you whenever you tell me about some cool new gadget you got the first thing I say is so when's the review coming I realized after doing my talk at max stock of learn by teaching that if I could get Steve to do the review then he would learn how to use it and it does seem to have worked I'm really happy that he got this because we just got back from mammoth and he did a lot of work learning to use it before we left and being able to write this article and so he was able to take some really really cool pictures and videos while we were on our trip I think my favorite one was when he actually stuck the camera under water I think he mentioned it's waterproof he stuck a hat one lens underwater and one out of the water and got this really cool picture in and out of the water in 360 or in four pi steradian as we like to say around this house the other thing I wanted to say was he mentioned the lens protector and I was really happy that I was able to find that good lens protector that's so easy to put on and take off but will never fall off because when he had the Ricoh theta he did get a scratch on one of the lenses and as a result I got really good at going opening his photos in affinity photo and opening the recto linear editing function that they have where you can actually edit 360 photos and I was able to go in and just you know use inpainting to get rid of that little smudge on every single one of his photos so I'm really glad that we were able to get that that lens cover form and it does take really cool pictures and videos Lindsay asked me for a very unusual present for her birthday this year she asked for a motion book from themotionbooks.com the motion book is a video screen inside a book that automatically plays any videos or slideshows you put on its internal storage she wanted one of the motion books so she could have her wedding video and maybe some slideshows as a coffee table book that design sounds simple enough but the execution and elegance of the software in the instructions really made me want to tell you about the motion books the motion book is a very elegant linen covered book that's eight and a half by six by point five inches when you open the book inside is a six and a half inch diagonal 16 by nine aspect ratio screen with five buttons below it there's one for rewind play pause fast forward and volume up and down opening the motion book auto plays the video from the beginning after about five seconds during that few seconds of wait time you'll see the battery charge level of the book before the video starts to play now that you understand what it looks like and have a feeling for how it plays let's talk about the elegant setup inside the box is a little card with a qr code that will take you to themotionbooks.com slash learn where you can watch a very short two and a half minute video on how to set up the device it's a really well done screen cast with a simultaneous split screen of windows on the left and macOS on the right with the voiceover giving very clear instructions now those instructions explain to connect the motion book to your computer using the included nine inch long micro usb cable boo that it's not usb-c anyway the motion book then shows up like a normal usb attached drive there are two little video files on the motion book one is a welcome file and one is the same help video to explain the setup after I'd followed the instructions it occurred to me that I probably could have watched the videos right on the motion book the instructions tell you to delete those two videos from the book and empty the trash and only then to drag your own videos to the motion book the last part of the instructions and another included card in the box both say in giant letters do not format it goes on to say formatting the motion books will remove our unique software and break the video playback functionalities to free up memory on your device move the files you want to delete into the trash and empty the trash do not format the motion books needless to say I chose not to format the motion book I got for Lindsay after I dragged Lindsay's wedding video onto the device I opened the book and it instantly played well after five seconds the audio was just fine about what you would expect from a six inch tablet it was perfect for the device if you hold down the fast forward and rewind buttons it easily moves forward and back through your video the instructions also explain that if you want to control which video plays first in your book simply change the names of the files with a leading numerical prefix to alphabetize them on the device easy peasy if you know someone who is tech phobic the motion books will preload your video for free before delivery you upload your video to YouTube, Vimeo, Dropbox, Google Drive or pretty much anywhere with a URL and they'll upload it and install it on your book the motion book website I should say the motion books website have many different options on which book you buy but in reality they're pretty much all the same they're the same size they're the same storage they're the same color of linen but you do get to choose what one line of text appears on the front and the font for that you can choose from our wedding best day ever we do or memories you could also personalize your cover message now the pricing is interesting every single book option is priced currently at one hundred and five to one hundred and twenty five dollars now I assume that would be two different sizes or two different amounts of storage but it's actually whether or not you have the motion book branding on the back of the book you know how if you have a calendar made it'll say Mimeo photos or Shutterfly in the back it's just like that I gladly took the $20 cheaper price for two reasons firstly because it doesn't detract from the beauty of the book at all and secondly I believe there should be a law across the land that all good products have the name of the company imprinted on them so you can figure out how to buy another one can't tell you how long I spent trying to figure out who made this one kind of plastic spatula I like so much the motion books have free shipping in the continental US as of the time of this writing and they have a long list of countries they ship to as well I think the motion book is a wonderful gift if you take the time to create videos or slide shows to remember an event by the way the reason I keep saying the motion book so that you remember the URL is themotionbook.com now if you've been listening I said earlier themotionbooks.com and luckily for us they bought both of those URLs but you do have to remember the word the at the beginning so themotionbook.com well that is going to wind us up for this week did you know you can email me at allisonatpodfee.com anytime you like if you have a question or suggestion just send it on over heck if you got a new gadget do a review got a new piece of software you like do a review I love reviews and you can send them to allisonatpodfee.com you can follow me on mastodontatpodfee.com at kast.social remember everything good starts with podfee.com if you want to join the fun of the conversation you can join our Slack community at podfee.com slash slack where you can talk to me and all of the other lovely no-cellicast ways that are in there you can support the show at podfee.com slash patreon or with one-time donation at podfee.com slash paypal and if you want to join in the fun of the live show wait until August 27th and then head on over to podfee.com slash live on Sunday nights at 5 p.m. pacific time and join the friendly and enthusiastic no-cellicast ways thanks for listening and stay subscribed