We just made a video illustration for a series we did on the 10 Commandments. Thought I'd post it for some feedback and a laugh hopefully. It was fun to make because we tried to make it really basic without special effects and flash. We tried to shoot it in a "that 70s show" style, but then I started cutting it like "ask a ninja". The good part was, people learned from it and remember their 10 commandments now.

It was filmed with an old camcorder using the built in mic, so the sound was pretty bad, and the contrast was even worse. The contrast adjustment was broken, so the backlighting made the people very dark. Guess it's time to look for a camera and an external mic!! Editing was done with Sony's Vegas 7, with some audio cleanup using Sound Forge. Tell me what you think...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

That's right. I just can't help it. In a past podcast, our two leaders made fun of the Broncos, so I must ask a simple question... How are the Lions doing now? This is in regards to the draft. Hope the Lions know something the rest of the world doesn't...

Here is an interesting article about IT and Tech in churches. Look at the list of items this church employs and then post what your church uses.

Fellowship Church

I just finished a book last night called The Blogging Church. I saw it advertised on a Christianity Today email, and then finally bought it after listening to the blogging podcasts here. I was very surprised. It is a very good resource, taking you through the entire process of the who, what, why, and how.

It lists many successful church blogs, and also has many interviews from those church leaders, as well as some big time non-church bloggers. It also goes through the entire nuts and bolts of creating, posting, and viewing blogs.

If you are thinking of having a church blog, it is a good read for you, but a must read for your head pastor or vision caster at your church. If they think it might be a good idea, this will take them well over the finish line.

I mentioned in another post that I've had laptop issues. And this is part of the reason why macs are so cool.

I bought a Dell XPS lappy, only to find that it buzzed when used for audio in a live situation. The audio shares IRQs with other stuff, and it causes ground loops. Lame. And you can't fix it in the computer. I have to use a ground hum eliminator.

The solution would have been to spend an extra grand on a mac, or and extra couple hundred on a laptop built for audio. Again, don't buy off the shelf or from a big name joint if you care about stability or other things like audio. And this goes for desktops as well.

Ok, I know this has been hit before, but I wasn't here then and don't want to dig up the old post. This stuff applies strictly to using either machine at a church. Also note that I have been a PC user, and am saving up for a new MacBook Pro, though it will take me a long time before I can afford it. I post this in response to many comments on this forum asking about whether they should change over a computer at church to a mac.

Up until a few months ago, we had someone using a mac on our network while the other eight computers were PCs. It was a newer G5. It was also a bad experience. Most of the files produced from it would not work on the other machines. Text docs, power point files, audio files. We would go through the same dialogue - Did you convert it correctly? Are you sure? Is the software current? Would you like to start over on one of the other machines? It happened far too often. And this from a life long mac user who scored very high on the techie scale.

Now the PCs were all running XP pro, and were current. I know it is supposed to work fine, but that was not our experience.

Next problem - The mac guy is not in the building, and someone needs to get something off the machine. They would try it, and then quit. Why? Because they don't know macs, and already have a hard time with PCs. The general user is already bogged down with what they have. Expecting them to learn another system is fine if everyone scores somewhat high on the geek scale, but otherwise they will be frustrated, no matter how easy the other system is. Now add to that the volunteers who will be cycling through your area. Will you need to now look for volunteers with more/different computer experience? Remember that 97% of the users are PC (according to Christian Computing last month).

I listened to the podcast on PC vs Mac, and I disagree on a couple of items. A comment was made that if you do video work, a mac is the only way to go, and that is flat out untrue. There are a huge number of professional video editors using PCs. And the same goes for audio. This statement would have been true some years back, but not now. If you read audio magazines, you will find them comparing the software of the month on both platforms, and the PCs have been winning the plug-in war as of late. But that should change now that Mac is building machines with PC components.

The key is not the system, but the quality of components and how it is configured. A Dell is a second rate machine. It isn't stable like a mac because it is cheaper to make. If you buy a machine made from "the good stuff", then you will have a sweet rig. I spent a couple of hundred more on a machine made specifically for video editing, with quality components, and optimized settings in XP. It works awesome. It renders video faster than the top mac of it's born on date. But the other key is the configuration. There are a few settings that need to be adjusted in XP, and you can find those on http://www.pcaudiolabs.com/ , as well as http://www.adkvideoediting.com/ . Be sure to thank them for the free help. I bought the ADK btw.

That is my rant, and I will expand if needed in regards to audio and video. That said, I can't wait to get a MacBook Pro! A Mac with speed and power? It's about time! (just a little jab there...)

Great cast on modules! I'm mentally planning out the site now, and have one feature that I need to include. Our Home Groups (read Small Groups) are designed to actually live out their faith by doing things, instead of just filling their heads with more info and sitting on it. So I need to get a list of information out to the leaders, and have them pick an item that will then change on the list so others can see that it has already been picked. Example - Skippy the Home Group leader goes on to the leaders area of the site and sees that his group is supposed to adopt an international missionary from a list of 15 missionaries supported by the church (they then connect with them and try to care for them as they can in many creative ways as well as prayer). So skippy clicks on a missionary family from peru since a woman in his group travels there once a year for business. Now when other leaders go to the site, they see that peru has been taken, but they know by whom. wow I'm wordy today. I'm guessing the answer is I must learn taxonomy, cck, as well as php, mysql, css, ajax... and of course will have to wait for the next podcast! Yeah, I just named a ton of stuff I don't know much about... aside from ajax. Everyone knows ajax is a cleaning company that branched out into the tech world, making software that detects if dust and grime are preventing air from reaching your cpu. I love clicking the digitize dust button. cool graphics. I usually email my dust to someone else.

I asked for some feedback about our church site a couple of weeks ago, and techmate had some great input. It has led me to a big question. What is the best route to go in building a menu? Ok, I now understand Flash = bad. Yes, tables = old school, and not the good kind of old school. And in the Dreamweaver tutorials, they are still suggesting you start with tables, which is what I did... which = bad. Anyways, the one I made for our site is bad (ugly) and hard to edit. It was generated in Fireworks, and then altered by me. So where should I start in re-creating it. And the next step would be, what is best for Drupal as I move in that direction. My goal is to = good. or even cool, as in good "old school", not in Duran Duran old school as Rob suggested though, but The Police or The Clash. no offense Rob.

Ok, here is a question I sent to the G&G gmail, but our resident hosts are too busy actually working to get back. Here is my question.

How best can I do a phone conversation between a small group of people, and one person. We need to have the group all able to hear and talk, but not at all to the extent that we need more than a couple of mics. We also want to record it.

Do we use Skype with a recording program, and is that program different from a plain audio recording program which I have plenty of? How reliable is it if we have a good connection, and is there latency (delay) issues?

The uses for this are interviews, and connecting with missionaries. We are doing both. It will be great when a small group of people can connect with folks over seas.

Well, I just started messing around with Drupal yesterday, and am designing a site that has no purpose other than to experiment and get comfy. As soon as I do that a bit I will be moving on to a redesign of a current site that is in need of much work. I'm pretty pumped with the coolness of Drupal, and more than that our resident Geeks for getting me on board.

I would like to get some opinions on modules not included in the standard issue which I should look at. The site www.shepherdskeep.org is for a ministry my wife and I have been slowly developing over the past 10 years (along with my parents who moved down here five years ago in order to join us). We are needing one functionality on the site which will allow us to accept donations, especially in the form of monthly automatic withdrawal. The rest of the site is purely to show what we have to offer. Having database driven information may be very cool for us, though I'm sure I will discover how cool later. There will be different pricing schedules for pastors as opposed to the general layperson. A viewable calendar will also be very cool, both for those browsing, and for us as we look at the schedule from different locations, though I haven't set one of those up before. Another very important thing is search engine optimization. Anyways, let me know of any modules to check out, and also feel very free to point out other cool things we might need on the site.

If you ever come through Colorado, stop by!

Just wanted to give you some feedback on the podcasts. I have been listening to a ton of your shows in the last week since I've been building a new sound booth and moving the equipment over. It has given me a lot of time to listen and get smart.

I built our church website with Dreamweaver and Fireworks, and though it is immensely superior to what was replaced, it still has a ways to go in terms of coolness and extras. So the "websites that don't suck" series was great. Now the Drupal series has me very intrigued, and I am thinking of jumping in. I just don't know if I have the time to learn a new piece of software right now. But I guess if I play around with it, I will find out what it will really take. So yes, the series is great, even for a non drupal user.

Great site btw!