Apple today released newly-designed MacBook Pros with brand new M1 "Pro" and "Max" chipsets. For creatives, this changes everything.

No longer held down by Intel, Apple has been allowed to "unleash" it's in-house silicon to heights that it we would never have seen when they were waiting on Intel to catch up. With the introduction of the M1 chip earlier this year, Apple was already well ahead of the entire industry when it came to raw processing and graphics power. Now they're just leaving everyone in the dust.

Apple is not one to over-promise and under-deliver. In fact, most times, they do the opposite. These new computers, on average, are 5-7 times faster than the regular M1. Apple has clearly done a lot of optimization with these chips for limited power consumption and to minimize heat issues. The star of the show might have been the new processors, but it was the MacBook Pros that stole the show.

On the new MacBook Pros, they have new screens with an iPhone-like notch at the top to maximize screen real estate. The new screens also have 120Hz ProMotion, as well as take on the XDR moniker now. The new chassis is like something from 2005, and I love it. I couldn't help but look at the new laptops and think about my first Apple notebook - the iBook G4. When you see it, you'll get what I mean. Gone is the Touch Bar, a less-than-revolutionary tiny touch strip above the keyboard that almost no one used. In it's place is a full size black keyboard, surrounded by black on the case as well. Last but not least, Apple claims to have "advanced connectivity" - which really means they brought back some ports. Full-size HDMI, SD Card slot, as well as three Thunderbolt ports now blanket both sides of the computer. Even the prodigal son, Magsafe, has returned!

There wasn't too much to not like about Apple's event today. We got new AirPods, new colors of HomePod mini, and even a new "voice-only" Apple Music plan (we'll have to see more about that later).

Apple is clearly listening. It's good to see. If you would have told me just two years ago we'd have ports added back to the laptop line, I'd have said you were outside your mind.

Just goes to show that you never say never.

I feel like I've had a lot of people message me or seen a lot of people asking about "Christian" podcasts to listen to. While it's relatively easy to find podcasts about anything you want to listen to, it seems difficult to find good Christian podcasts to listen to. I've assembled a short list of what I'm listening to right now. Maybe you'll find something you like.

Holy Ghost Stories - told by Justin Gerhardt, self-described as "telling Bible stories in all their weird, haunting fantastic-ness." This podcast is frankly amazing. It's more than just dramatic readings of Scripture, it's almost Scripture novelized. This is one of those podcasts you should definitely listen to at least one episode of just to hear it. My bet is that you'll be hooked. > holyghoststories.org

Preachers in Training - with 13 seasons of catalog to listen to, The Light Network's Preachers in Training is one of my favorites. And you don't need to be a preacher to listen, but it's especially helpful for ministers out there. Different guests and different topics every week. > thelightnetwork.tv/tag/preachers

Bible Project Podcast - I've loved nearly everything Tim and Jon at the Bible Project have put out, so it's no surprise I'd love their official podcast. It's a very diverse topical show, featuring series' of study as well as interviews. Highly recommended. > bibleproject.com/podcasts/the-bible-project-podcast/

Bible Study Podcast with Wes McAdams - formerly the CrossTalk podcast, Wes McAdams hosts this show about Biblical topics, usually with a guest on every show. Just like his writing at Radically Christian, Wes offers practical discussion and insights on difficult topics in a loving but bold way. > radicallychristian.com/category/podcast

Thinking in Public with Albert Mohler - I've been a fan of Mohler for a long time, and his podcast is wonderful. He talks mostly about sensitive subjects but from a Christian perspective, with great guests and a humble attitude. > albertmohler.com/category/podcast

If you happen to be a non-techie and don’t follow tech news, you may have heard the hubbub around Apple’s new Macs with M1 chips and you may wonder what that means. Basically, they’re really great and you should get one if you need a new Mac. I made a video explaining it all in more detail below. Enjoy!

Several people have reached out to me and told me that this lesson, both before and after the election, has helped them. I'm very appreciative and thankful for that.

I hope this lesson helps you as much as it helped me studying about it.

Do you ever need to log in to the same service or site but don’t want to have to log out and log back in every time, still using the same browser? Me too.

I don't know if it's a new feature or not, but I was listening the the recent episode of Mac Power Users with guest Brett Terpstra, and they had a discussion about browsers on the desktop, and Brett said that he had primarily switched to Firefox. Mozilla’s Firefox had been forgotten for a while but has received a bit of a resurgence among the Privacy Wars.

I have Firefox on my Mac, but I never liked the aesthetic. It looked too squared off and unfinished. I absolutely love the design of Google Chrome, but can’t get around the fact that it’s tracking my every move online and that it chews up battery power faster than all other browsers. I had settled on Safari as an “I guess I’ll just use this” because of the fact that it’s Mac-native and syncs with Safari on my phone.

Then Brett mentioned Fencing and Containers, two features that I had never looked into in Firefox. Fencing is an extension, say for Facebook, that keeps all activity, tracking, and cookies within that tab. You can even have multiple Facebook logins in separate tabs. And I thought to myself, “Man, that would be really handy if I could do that for other websites as well.” And it turns out that you can.

Containers in action after you right-click on a tab.

Firefox Containers is an option when you right-click on a tab, you can open that tab in a self-contained tab called a Container. It’s the same thing as Fencing, without the tracking protections from what I can tell.

For the past few months during the pandemic I have had to log out of my personal Squarespace site and log back into Graymere’s, log out and log into one that I’m working on for a church, and so on. Now, I can have all those tabs available at a click in Firefox. It saves great deal of time.

I can also run separate YouTube logins. Because I don’t want to watch retro video game videos on Graymere’s account, I can easily have my personal YouTube and YouTube Studio for the church in seperate tabs now, and they don’t switch back on me automatically.

For the longest time I tried to use this within Private or Incognito Modes, but since those modes are designed to keep your web browing private, they didn’t give you any of the features like password logins and remembered histories. Firefox Containers solves that.