When it comes to Evernote, I am a hopeless fanboy. It has become an indispensable part of my productivity tool box. I use it as much as I use email or my calendar.

While it is easy enough to get started with Evernote, it is a program that is incredibly deep and rich. Just when I think I have mastered it, I discover a new tip or trick. In addition, the company regularly issues new updates with additional features.

Enlightenment is not about knowing as much as it is about unknowing; it is not so much learning as unlearning. It is about surrendering and letting go rather than achieving and possessing. It’s more about entering the mystery than arriving at a mental certitude.”

— Richard Rohr
On the Threshold of Transformation (p. 38)

To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”

— Joseph Chilton Pearce

In an effort to make Handel’s “Messiah” more accessible to a younger audience, Grant Woolard recorded this auto-tuned version of the “7th Chorus.” Enjoy!

I tell you, sir,” he whispered, “it is the end of the world. Never were known such excesses of the scholars: it is the cursed inventions of the age that ruin everything: artillery, serpentines, bombards, and above all, printing, that other pestilence from Germany. No more manuscripts! No more books! Printing is cutting up the bookselling trade. The end of the world is certainly at hand!”

— Victor Hugo
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, p. 11
Originally published in 1831

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be the miracle.”

— Phillips Brooks
U.S. Episcopal bishop (1835–1893)

A soul that is close to despair doesn’t know that it’s already standing on the brink, beyond which there lies a new path.”

— Elder Barsanuphius of Optina

If we stop learning today, we stop teaching tomorrow.”

— Howard Hendricks

Meet Nelson, Coupland, and Alice, three concepts for the book of the future. These don’t yet exist, but they might in the near future. I love what technology is making possible for the future of reading.

Life is like riding a bicycle, in order to keep your balance, you must keep moving.”

— Albert Einstein

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”

— Winston Churchill

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

— George Orwell

Yes, the iPhone 4 is a very cool device. Two cameras, front and back; LED flash, retina display, and the cool new iOS 4 software. But how tough is it, really? This is the question Blendtec seeks to answer in this episode of Will It Blend?

The man of action has the present, but the thinker commands the future from his study.”

— Oliver Wendell Holmes

A successful executive is one that solves bigger problems than he/she creates.”

— David Allen
GTD Times

This short video is aptly titled. It is a presentation by Daniel Pink, author of Drive. The video summarizes the content of the book.

The video all by itself is very cleverly done. But the message is very powerful, especially for leaders who are trying to figure out how to motivate their teams. The results he presents are indeed surprising. Think you know what motivates people? Think again.

I have been using Laurel Pankratz to photograph me and my family for a couple of years now. Her business and Web site is called Eilas Photography. She also has her own photo blog.

Laurel took the shots currently on my blog. She has also taken our family pictures for the past two Christmas seasons. She is a superb photographer and reasonably priced. I highly recommend her.

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.”

— Albert Einstein

It is often said that children are the wealth of the poor. This was not my experience. But books are without question the wealth of the poor’s children. Books are a guiding light out of the underworld, a secret passageway, an escape hatch. To the affluent, books are ornaments. To the poor, books are siege weapons.”

— Joe Queenan
Closing Time

I have held many things in my hand and I have lost them all. But whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.”

— Martin Luther