How To Automatically Silence Your Phone Before Church

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For many generations, the twisting and crinkling of a peppermint being unwrapped was the undeniable leader of sounds that cause the most disruption during church services. Today, the most distracting sound is, by far, the sound of an iPhone's default ringtone.

The next leading sound? The rustling produced by non-offenders of the congregation when making sure their phones are properly silenced.

Through the assistance of this post, you'll never have to remember to silence your phone before church again. This is accomplished through a service called IFTTT (If That Then This).

WHAT IS IFTTT?

When you think of IFTTT, think of "the internet of things". IFTTT is a platform used to make your belongings work effortlessly in today's technical world. Through an ever-growing library of programs, you can create tasks that can be automatically accomplished via certain events.

Here are a few examples of the tasks that can be completed through IFTTT:

• Receive a notification if there's going to be snow in tomorrow's forecast.
• Change the color of your living room lights when your Domino's pizza order is in the oven.
• Have your Christmas tree lights turn on when you return home.
• Automatically silence your phone when you're at church.

HOW TO SILENCE YOUR PHONE USING IFTTT

I know the following works for Android phones and it should work for iPhones, too. There are a lot of ways to get to this solution. You can solve by muting your phone for a specific time each Sunday but I feel it is easier for my phone to silence itself when it knows I'm at church*.

Step 1 - Get the IFTTT app on Google Play or the App Store.

Step 2 - Create your IFTTT profile.

Step 3 - Click on "My Applets" in the lower, right-hand corner then click the "+" sign at that top of your screen. 

Step 4 - Click the blue "+" sign and search for "Location". Click on "Location".

Step 5 - Select "You enter an area".

Step 6 - Type your church's name or address into the "Locate an area" field.

Step 7 - Tap the check mark in the upper left corner. 

Step 8 - Tap the "Create Trigger" button.

Step 9 - Now that you've set the trigger, tap the blue "+" sign to indicate what should happen.

Step 10 - Search for "Android Device" or "iOS" and select "Mute Ringtone".

Step 11 - Determine if you want your phone to vibrate when silenced then tap the "Create action" button.

Step 12 - Click the "Finish" button.

*Your phone is automatically silenced when it begins pulling a signal from the cell tower nearest the area you indicated (aka your church). Your phone will automatically mute when you enter that area and unmute when you leave!

I hope this helps!

3 More Social Media Wishes

I was satisfied with my post about my Top-3 social media wishes but since then, I've come up with a few more wishes. Just like my original wishes, these wishes are a little nitpicky but relevant enough to really enhance my experience with these particular social media outlets. Let's get right to it.

Pandora – List the Year! 

I'm not big on music. It doesn't dictate my life as much as it did when I was in high school. However, I do enjoy playing a radio in the background when I'm working on a project at home. Pandora does the trick for me. Hearing some of my favorite songs my own 90's Alternative channel really takes me back to days with fewer responsibilities (yet more angst). Pandora is great about providing details of songs such as the artists, the cover art from the album on which the song originally appeared and even the lyrics to the song. What isn’t provided is the release year of the song – and that sorta bugs me. XM Sirius displays the year of songs currently played by users and my DRV guide lists the release year of movies in the channel description. I always catch myself looking at the screen and searching for the year when Pandora plays a great song. I'm sure they have their reason for excluding the year but this would be a great addition, in my opinion.

(By the way, Pandora is a social media network because it requires a unique, personalized profile and custom channels can be shared with other users. Also, if you're in the Birmingham area and like 90's alternative music too, check out 94.9 The Alt FM. They play a lot of songs from the 90's and 00's with a tolerable amount of late 00's Emo music and today's "HEY" music.)

Google+ - Let the People Hoot! 

I enjoy using Hootsuite to schedule social media posts. It's very flexible and allows me to send messages from all of my social media messages – except Google+. Yes, you can send and schedule messages for your Google+ business page with Hootsuite, but not your personal profile. From what I've determined, this is a Google decision – they won't permit users the ability to manage their personal G+ posts with Hootsuite (or any other social media dashboard, from what I can tell). This is a real head-scratcher. It seems that Google would allow this type of connectivity if it ever wanted Google+ to shake its "ghost town" image. Sure, there are workarounds available through IFTTT but they're too convoluted. I'll just continue to keep my fingers crossed in hope of day when Google throws Hootsuite users a bone. Facebook does…just sayin'. Then again, it may not matter as Google seems to be repositioning Google+ as a business tool, according to this recent

video.


Tumblr & IFTTT – Can't We All Just Get Along? 

I use Tumblr primarily as a place to share content from others. IFTTT helps streamline a lot of "sharing steps" for many of my social media profiles. For a reason I cannot determine, YouTube and Tumblr do not want to connect via IFTTT for me. I've tried several recipes that are built to take the YouTube videos I like and instantly share them on my Tumblr. I've even tried building my own recipe to accomplish this but to no avail. It just…does…not…work. It's the only recipe I have trouble with and, even though it won't cause me to quit YouTube (never!) or Tumblr, my Tumblr experience sure would be a lot cooler if there was more harmony in this relationship.

Share your social media wishes with me in the comments below or with me on Twitter! Who knows? I may add even more wishes soon!

My Return to Facebook

Unlike a lot of people, Facebook was not my introduction to social media. I actually used Twitter first and it wasn't until I created a fan page for my employer that I started dabbling with Facebook on a personal level. Twitter quickly became my favorite outlet and, just as quickly, I came to see Facebook as a collection of photos of other people’s babies and cats. Lots of cats.

One of the purposes for my blog is to give readers an opportunity to learn more about me by providing access to my social media pages via the widget in sidebar. Until recently, I didn't include my Facebook profile on that widget because...well, there wasn't much to share. Not only have I not posted much to my Facebook timeline over the past few years, I rarely even look at it. Facebook was so unappealing to me that I turned off all notifications and didn't have the app on my phone.

“OH WOW” MOMENT

I was content with continuing this approach to Facebook until a recent reminder that lots of people (especially Boston Red Sox fans) use Facebook. There’s no denying the fact that Facebook is still the top dog and if I want to be known as someone worth his social media marketing salt, it’s would behoove me to get active on Facebook again - and fast.

WHERE TO START? 

I decided that my first step would be to boost my Facebook activity with a combination of manual posts and cross-posting from other social media apps like Instagram. Automating posts using IFTTT recipes has also helped.

Side note: it's been interesting to see how the cross-posting has helped me gain Instagram followers. Many are already Facebook friends.

STAY ACTIVE

Earlier in my career, I worked in a marketing role for a financial institution in south Alabama. Each week, the local newspaper featured interviews with citizens having fun at the Escambia County Senior Center. The questions were always the same, including one about the secret to a long life. So many of the responses explained that the key was remaining physically active.

I try to apply this mantra to a lot of areas of my life - including blogging. It makes sense to keep my writing muscles in shape. Even though I don’t really know Carson V. Heady, his recent tweet reaffirms this notion.

Keeping your mind alert provides longevity.
— Carson V. Heady (@cvheady007) April 1, 2015

I have enjoyed my return to Facebook, even though I'm still seeing a lot of cat photos. That's OK - I look forward to catching up on some of the features that millions of other people have already discovered.