Tech Geek

Google Drive

Tue, 08 May 2012 03:56:00 GMT

One of the things that I find both enjoyable and frustrating about trying to keep up with technology is that it's always changing. The tool I use today may not be the tool I use tomorrow, either because it gets completely changed or because something better comes along. For years now I've been using Google Docs for all my basic documents and anything I want to collaborate on with others. I've also been using Dropbox (just wrote about it again here six months ago) for those more complicated documents that I needed to work on from different places. I'll probably keep using it, and it's a great way to collect pictures from my phone now that it supports uploads, but I'll probably find myself shifting more and more to the new Google Drive.

There have been rumors for years of a new cloud storage system called gDrive. Some folks have even built software to let you use gMail as such a system. Recently, however, Google announced the culmination of those rumors, Google Drive. It's not only the new interface for Google Docs, but it's also much more than that. When you install the software on your computer it creates a new folder on your desktop and downloads all of your regular Google Documents so that you can view them even when you're offline. You can also drag any file into this folder and it will be accessible from the Google Drive website as well as any other computers, phones, tablets, or abacuses you've set to synchronize with.

That's all pretty much the same stuff as the other cloud storage services. With Google Drive there are some extras, like the impressive sharing settings as well. Just like you have been able to do with Google Docs, you can invite people to view or edit your documents. They can also download them to their system.

The extra that you might really find valuable, especially if you get a file from somewhere and need to view it but don't have the right software, is the Google Drive Viewer. According to the help pages, it supports viewing of over 16 file types, including:

Microsoft Word (.DOC and .DOCX)

Microsoft Excel (.XLS and .XLSX)

Microsoft PowerPoint (.PPT and .PPTX)

Adobe Portable Document Format (.PDF)

Apple Pages (.PAGES)

Adobe Illustrator (.AI)

Adobe Photoshop (.PSD)

Tagged Image File Format (.TIFF)

Autodesk AutoCad (.DXF)

Scalable Vector Graphics (.SVG)

PostScript (.EPS, .PS)

TrueType (.TTF)

XML Paper Specification (.XPS)

Archive file types (.ZIP and .RAR)

Text files (.TXT)

Markup/Code (.CSS, .HTML, .PHP, .C, .CPP, .H, .HPP, .JS)

I know I've struggled a time or two with an AutoCad file, so this is a great new tool in the internet toolbox. If you want to start using Google Drive, go to drive.google.com and log in, then click the link to Download Google Drive.

Restaurant.com

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:40:00 GMT

I ran into my friend Bryan Jaster at the Extravaganza last February. Bryan, according to his Facebook profile, works at "keeping things weird, passionate, and filled with wild love" in his youth ministry position at Peace Lutheran Church in Beavercreek, Ohio. He was just returning from a big dinner and started telling me about having eaten an extravagant meal because he was using certificates from restaurant.com and you have to spend $35 for the $25 coupon to be valid. Even with tax and tip (which is often calculated for you on the total bill as a condition of the certificate), he had spent less than $20 on a $40+ meal. I asked Bryan to write a Tech Geek Post so we could all learn how to add this trick to our Youth Ministry Travel Toolboxes. Thanks Bryan!

Restaurant.com in New Orleans:

One way to save money on eating out in New Orleans is to pre-order certificates through restaurant.com. The site runs specials almost every week for sixty to eighty percent off their listed prices. The current promotion code is celebrate, a seventy percent off code. The largest percent off seems to be around holidays (Mother's Day, Memorial Day, etc) where discounts can be as great as ninety percent. Google restaurant.com coupons to find the most current offer. Typically, you purchase a certificate for two or three dollars that allows you to take twenty-five dollars off a thirty-five dollar meal. If you are traveling with a larger group, for about twelve dollars you can take one hundred dollars off a two hundred dollar meal.

To find restaurants close to your hotel, enter the zip code and narrow the search to within one mile. If the certificate you are interested in is out of stock, check back at the beginning of the month when certificates are restocked.

Some restaurants to consider:

The Sugar House, 315 Julia Street, (Inside the Courtyard) $9 = $75 off $150 certificate, $3 = $25 off $35
Star Steak and Lobster, 237 Decatur St. (French Quarter) $6 = $50 off $100 certificate, $3 = $25 off $35
Tomas Bistro, 755 Tchoupatoulas (Warehouse District) $12 = $100 off $200 certificate, $3= $25 off $35

*These are sample amounts, many other denominations are available on the website.

**If you don't use the certificates while in New Orleans, keep in mind they never expire and can be exchanged for another certificate anywhere in the country (of the same value).

Google Plus

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 17:36:00 GMT

Google Plus, also knows as Google+ or just G+, is a social network that aims to make " connecting on the web more like connecting in the real world" (from http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/) G+ uses the concept of Circles, which lets you pull people into one or more circles using a graphical interface. You aren't limited to having people in the same circles as they put you in. Therefore even if someone considers you a good friend, you can leave them in the acquaintance circle. It is a whole lot easier to coordinate who sees what when you post on G+. Part of that is the fact that not all that many people are on G+, which is good and bad.

G+ lets you do all the things you'd expect, like check-in from your phone, post photos and videos, comment on things, share articles and stories (+1) from around the web, play games, and post status updates. You can share things either to specific individuals, specific circles, or publicly. This makes it much easier to keep your posts organized than the features that Facebook provides. I also appreciate the integration right into all the other Google services, like chat, photos, maps, etc. In some ways it's not another site to check, it's part of what I'm already doing using Gmail and all of the other Google services.

Aside from the circles, there are two main features that I've really enjoyed about G+. When I take a picture or video on my phone, it gets uploaded automatically. It stays in a private place until I post it to my stream. Some items I just delete and others get shared. But it's really nice to not have to wait for it to upload or remember to go back and do it. I'll have a little red 1 at the top of my Gmail telling me there is a notification from G+ that photos/videos have been updated and I can share them if I want.

The second feature that I've been exploring is the G+ Hangout. This lets you have up to nine people in a video conference. You can even wear funny virtual masks that move around with your head. The audio and video quality are quite good and it's a great way to get things planned. There is also a chat window, plus you can also share your desktop or a YouTube video with the Hangout. There might be something here for virtual youth group, but I'm not sure yet. I like it better than the full-fledged virtual world.

Sign up for you own Google+ account by visiting plus.google.com and add me to your circles!

I just found an e-book about G+ called What the Plus by Guy Kawasaki. Find it at www.whattheplus.com. Currently it's available for free download, but that may not last long.

Adding Individual Number to Tickets

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 04:21:00 GMT

Although I serve as the Communication Media Team Leader for the 2012 ELCA Youth Gathering, I also serve as the pastor of a congregation in Montana and I am taking a group of 18 young people and 3 adults to the Gathering. As such, like I'm sure is true for many of you, I'm knee-deep in fundraising. It certainly does impact my perspective as a team leader to know where so many of the dollars we spend in our team budgets are coming from. I feel your car washing, breakfast serving, pie auctioning pain! Most recently, I was trying to come up with a way to put individual numbers on tickets without resorting to actually writing them on the tickets. That's just too old school for me!

I had designed tickets for our upcoming Irish Dinner and Talent Show that printed, four to a page, and had a stub for us to keep. That way one ticket could cover multiple adults and children, but we could also have a way of keeping track of which tickets got sold. I wanted to be able to tell who had bought Ticket #21, for example, but pulling the stub up for Ticket #21. I knew it had to be possible to make the computer do the heavy lifting here, but I couldn't find an option in Microsoft Publisher to actually make that happen.

I did a little searching and found this page - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher-help/add-tracking-numbers-to-gift-certificates-or-coupons-HA010120816.aspx - which helped me understand how to use a mail merge to do what I wanted and also how to use a feature in Excel to quickly create the list of numbers. One thing that I had to figure out in addition to what this help page suggests is how to have different numbers for each of the four tickets on a single page.

You can do things in either order, but I chose to get the thing I didn't understand out of the way first. I created a new Excel file and, across the top, typed Ticket A, Ticket B, Ticket C, Ticket D.

Then, on row 2, I type 1, 2, 3, 4 and on row 3, I typed 5, 6, 7, 8. See where this is going? Here's the new thing, at least to me with my limited Excel skills. Then I selected rows 2 and 3 and moved the cursor to the bottom right. It changed from the larger hollow plus sign to a small plus sign. Then I dragged down to row 101 and had number for 400 tickets! I saved this file somewhere easy to remember.

After I had designed my tickets in Microsoft Publisher 2007, I selected Tools-->Mailings and Catalogs-->Mail Merge. I followed the steps in the left pane, first choosing Use an Existing List, then hitting Next and selecting the file I'd saved above.

When it asked me to select a table, I selected Sheet1$. Excel always creates 3 tables in a worksheet. The items I created above were on the first sheet and I hadn't renamed it. I left the box checked that said, First row of data contains column headers and pressed Okay.

It defaults to using all the filled rows in your spreadsheet, which is what I wanted, so I just pressed Okay again. Then you have to drag your merge data fields from the left toolbar into the document. I worked from top to bottom, first dragging in Ticket A to the top ticket and stub, Ticket B to the next, and so on. When you drag it in, you'll see a placeholder like «Ticket A» on your document. Hit next in the left toolbar and you're presented with the option to print or save in a new document.

I kept losing formatting when I saved in a new document, so I chose to Save As a PDF file from within Publisher. This created a new merged document with all the ticket numbers intact. Then I could print just the tickets I wanted to using my PDF software, without having to run the mail merge again. Here's the final product below:

I hope I covered all the steps and that this is helpful to you in your fundraising!

Olive Tree Bible Reader

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 23:20:00 GMT

This past week I saw the same question from a friend in my inbox and from a seminary classmate in the ELCA Clergy Group on Facebook. The question was around what Bible software did folks use and why? I actually haven't been all that keen on desktop Bible study software, as I do like books and I often want to have my Bible with me in other parts of the building for leading classes and Bible studies. The times I've wanted access to the NRSV or The Message or other texts on my desktop, I've just used http://bible.oremus.org/ or www.biblestudytools.com to get to them.

Years ago, however, I decided that I'd like to have a Bible to carry with me. I knew I wouldn't be any good at carrying even a slim-and-trim bible in my jacket pocket, as much of the time I don't wear a jacket. I suppose it could have fit in the cargo pocket of my pants (or shorts), but I really didn't want yet another thing to carry around. In those days, I was using a Palm IIIc as my personal organizer. I came across a program called Olive Tree Bible Reader which was free, although the NRSV cost $12 or so. I decided that this was reasonable and installed the app (although in those days we didn't call them apps) onto my Palm Pilot and downloaded the files necessary to use the NRSV Bible. Life was good.

A few years later, I upgraded to a Palm Tungsten E. I re-installed Olive Tree Bible Reader onto this and worried about whether I'd have to pay for the NRSV again or not. Turns out, once I signed into my Olive Tree account, the files were automatically downloaded and I had access to them again. This was also true when I cracked the screen on my Tungsten E and got a second model of that device. A year or two later, I got an iPod Touch and found that the Olive Tree Bible Reader app was available for that device as well. I installed the app to that and still had the NRSV! Most recently, I installed the app on my Droid X and once I logged into my account, the NRSV was there!

A couple of weeks ago, Olive Tree announced that they were coming out with a Windows 7 version of their software, in addition to the Mac version that they already had. I downloaded the PC version of the software, which does also run on Windows Vista, and once I had logged in, true to form, my NRSV and other purchased books were accessible.

Bible Reader also supports note taking and syncing via Evernote, another fine cross-platform and web application. I haven't used it much but, in theory, I could make notes on my PC and access them via my Droid X. I usually reserve the split screen for Greek, but it's nice to know that I could put notes there from my PC if I wanted to!

The other new resource available via Olive Tree is the Lutheran Study Bible from Augsburg Fortress. You can buy just the notes, if you already own the NRSV text, or you can buy it with the NRSV text. Visit www.olivetree.com and type Lutheran Study Bible into the search field. To download the app or program for iOS, Android, Mac or PC (it did used to be available for Blackberry and Palm as well), visit www.olivetree.com and click on your device.

Do you have a favorite Bible software or tip for Bible Reader?

Google Docs for Medical Forms

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:19:00 GMT

Pardon a personal post this week, but perhaps you'll find this helpful in your family as well. Recently my parents have moved halfway across the country, from Toledo, Ohio, to Liberty Lake, Wash. (near Spokane). This puts them about halfway between my brother in Seattle and me (well, our daughter) in Kalispell, Mont. As they are now a couple of years into retirement, they are starting to deal with some of the health issues that aging brings and have both had surgeries in the past few months.

My father is very good at tracking all sorts of details, but I sometimes am not as good as he is at doing that. So I asked him to stop telling me things like what medications they are on and what doctors they are seeing and to start putting those things into a Google Doc. Now I don't have to worry about if I have saved the most recent version of their information. I know that I always have access via a shared Google Document to an up-to-date list of medications and doctors for each of my parents. They've even discovered that it's worth it to print them out and take this list with them to the hospital as the medical staff keep asking questions that are answered on these lists.

I've thought about trying to do the same thing with members of my youth group, but I'm not so sure that would work out, as I don't know if parents would update the information as faithfully as my father does. Ideally, I would like to house everything on one big Google Spreadsheet, but there are issues with privacy and allowing others to view. So it would probably need to be housed as a collection of Google Documents, each shared with only the family that has their child's health information in it. I may do this as a verification of the information that I've collected this fall before our trip to New Orleans this summer, in order to make sure that everything is still up-to-date.

As with all my posts, I hope you might find this little tip helpful in your life and ministry.

Happy New Year!

(And, just in case you missed it with the Christmas rush, be sure and read my post from a couple weeks ago on A Website that is Guaranteed to Save You Money for all Extravaganza and ELCA Youth Gathering participants!)

A Website that is guaranteed to save you money

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 05:54:00 GMT

It's hard to believe, but it's been over four years since Pastor Todd Buegler, the ELCA Youth Ministry Network's Executive Director, called me up and asked if I'd tackle the challenge of writing Tech Geek posts. According to my archives, the first TGIF was written for an early December 2007 issue of the network's e-news.

One of the things that Todd asked me to do is share interesting and, often, free website that could make the life and ministry of a youth worker easier. I've talked about some sites that provide free services, many sites that are still with us, and some that have gone to the great beyond since I wrote about them. Many of them have the potential to save money, but few of them are as guaranteed to save you money as the one that I'm going to share today.

This site will knock $13-15 per person off what you'd otherwise pay. It's not Groupon or some other Deal of the Day website, although I like many of those! It doesn't have a fancy name at all, but just a cryptic URL which I've posted below. But if you're going to the Extravaganza, the ELCA Youth Gathering - citizens with the saints, or both, and you're flying, you need to know about this site.

Normally a trip from the New Orleans Airport to any of the downtown hotels is $20 each way. If you prepay for your round-trip ticket when you buy it, they knock a whopping (sarcasm alert) $2 off the price of two one-way tickets. But, thanks to the fine work of the Gathering's Transportation Team, there is a special rate of $25 round-trip available to us.

Visit the 2012 ELCA Youth Gathering Special Discounted Airport Shuttle page to sign up for a shuttle for yourself or your group. There are a few simple rules that you must follow to get this discounted rate:

In order to book your discounted airport/hotel shuttle reservations online, you must book no later than 24 hours prior to your flight arrival time.
Changes to an existing reservation can be made by phone (866-596-2699) only if you made your original reservation online.
The round trip ticket discount is only for tickets bought through this web page.

This rate is good from now until the end of the Gathering, so you can use it for your trip to the Extravaganza, even if you aren't going to the Gathering!

There you have it, a website absolutely guaranteed to save you money - http://airportshuttleneworleans.hudsonltd.net/res?USERIDENTRY=ELCAYG0712&LOGON=GO

As someone who has used this shuttle service on multiple occasions, I can tell you that it has always been a fine ride, but you do sometimes have to get up pretty early to meet their timeline for getting back to the airport for your return flight! Of course, living in an area where our airport only gets about two flights a day from each of our carriers might have something to do with my lack of flight options as well!

Smartphone Comments

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 22:14:00 GMT

A few weeks ago I asked for some comments about smartphones and smartphone apps. There was some feedback from that which I'd like to share here and also comment on briefly as this week's post. To see the complete comments, visit the original post's comment section at http://elcaymnet.org/_blog/Tech_Geek/post/Smartphones/#comments.

Eric Deibler wrote about the ways his phone helps him stay organized:

My smartphone has been "a tremendous help in keeping myself better organized (a perpetual challenge). I use quite a few apps, focusing primarily on those which increase organization and/or productivity."

Agreed, agreed, and agreed. I, too, struggle to keep organized and on top of all the information that I need to keep track of. I appreciate the easy connection to my information and the fact that it's all synchronized between places. Eric, what are your top three most used apps? Mine would be Business Calendar (obtained as a paid free-app-of-the-day from the Amazon Appstore), the built-in Gmail app, and I'm starting to use Out of Milk Shopping List to keep track of grocery lists and other lists.

Lisa Herlocker commented on some of the difficulties she saw with only having material available on a smartphone app:

Last summer at Western States they put all most of their info, including nightly devos online -- with the idea folks would read things on their phone. While nice to have on the phone and certainly a paper saver -- most of my youth weren't able to access the info. Two of eight had internet on their phones. One didn't even have a cell phone. I have trouble reading off of the screen as my eyes age -- yes I can make it bigger, but then I'm scrolling every few words which is tough if the signal is weak.

Great points Lisa. The Gathering's Communication Media team is not envisioning replacing anything with an app, only providing the app as an additional way of accessing content that is also available in printed form and via websites in a form that you could print out yourself. So if you find yourself without your Guidebook for some reason, you could still access the Final Fifteen devotions.

Courtney Cover, who doesn't own a smartphone because of the cost and way it over-connects here to work (both good points), had some great ideas for a Gathering app:

Maybe such things as attendance statistics updates or check ins etc. Sort of like Disney's Mousewait for the Theme Parks. I am curious to see other responses!

I'm not sure if we'll be able to do that, but I love the idea. Perhaps we'll at least suggest that people check-in on Facebook or Google+.

Harold Peetoom and others were concerned with a Gathering app for youth, as they generally don't allow youth to use cell phones on trips. He suggested that if there were to be an app, it be focused and marketed to adults as a way of communicating updates.

We hope to make your group's personal schedule available in a mobile-friendly site and, in case of significant changes or emergencies, the Gathering will be sending text messages to all registered participants informing them of plans.

Jason Fisher, who tells us he is quite possibly the only youth leader in the country who has never owned a cell phone (I can't vouch for that, but he could be), does like the idea of reaching out to young people via apps that tie into curriculum.

Kayla Stenstrom has some great suggestions for answering the "How was it? question when youth get back home. She writes:

I think it'd be awesome to have a blog that's open to all who attend, so they can post their experiences as they're happening. I've started a blog for my youth which I will have them take turns posting on while we're in New Orleans. When you get home from an amazing trip and people ask "How was it?", you usually just say "Good," 'cuz you can't explain it. But if we had youth write (or even record themselves) telling their stories right when they happen, we could powerfully share their experiences to parents and other adults/youth across the country who aren't there. Or, it allows youth to process the experience together.

Great idea! This is one of the primary goals we have for an app, if a separate one gets developed. I think that a site like Tumblr or Posterous might be a perfect way to collect information/posts from a youth group and hold them all in one place. I need to do some more research about those sites and look forward to writing a post about them in the future.

Another goal that we have for this Gathering is to have participants consistently tag photos, videos, and other posts with the #cwts12 hashtag so that members of our team can find them.

Kaya continues:

Also, I recommend that those who have smartphones check out the app Dropbox. It allows you to sync word documents and pictures between your computer and phone, so you always have your work with you.

This is exactly what I wrote about last time! It's available over here at http://elcaymnet.org/_blog/Tech_Geek/post/Dropbox_Revisited/.

And to wrap it up, Amy Wagner writes both about her own use of her phone and how she tries to manage her youth in their usage:

I can't tell you the number of times I have had to use my Google Maps to get us from point A to point B. It works for walking/driving/public transportation. That eliminates the maps I need to carry around. Not to mention the ability to record memories as they happen with twitter/facebook and picture and video capabilities with that. That way we can help keep our congregation/parents in the loop, and automatically have a journal of our experiences. Also, I can input my youth's emergency contact info as well as any info I need to have at the time of an emergency on a Google Doc and have it at a moment's notice...the phone is a great back up. You could also potentially just scan in copies of release forms and have the info for when you are at the emergency room, and can create a folder on your home screen. Plus then each adult gets a copy, either paper or electronic. That's my sales pitch for a smartphone.

Very well said. I want to lift up the idea of using Google Docs or Dropbox as a way of keeping electronic backup copies of release and medical forms. Great idea and way to always have them, even if you left the binder at the worksite or something like that.

I know the expectation for the students I work with is to engage in face to face conversations, and not to use their phones (which they already are non-stop attached to)...It's helpful for students to have their phones--should they become separated from the group (which in the masses of 2009, we had happen), but phones also become a crutch for students to not fully engage in the here and now, because "Susie broke up with Johnny back home", and now that's student's attention is back home instead of with our group. So basically, I don't want my students to have "an excuse" to be on their phones--so they can fully engage in the group's experience. That's my two cents, for what it's worth.

When we were younger, my brother was genuinely fascinated by The Weather Channel. He would watch it for hours. My parents, who weren't generally enthusiastic about television watching and didn't let us watch a ton of TV, figured that this was a pretty good channel to be watching. While he did watch it much of the time, he also learned that he could watch something else and then switch back to The Weather Channel if someone came into the room! I think you're right to worry that some young people would take advantage of having an "authorized" use of their phones during the Gathering.

Thanks for the comments and conversation. They will be taken into consideration as we move forward on our plans for how to help group leaders tell their story of the Gathering.

Does anyone know Tumblr or Posterous well and want to help me learn about them? Drop me a note at techgeek - at - elcaymnet - dot - org.

Dropbox Revisited

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 23:35:00 GMT

How many different computers do you use? On a pretty regular basis I use two or three different computers. I have my desktop at home, my laptop at church, my netbook in the coffee shop, and I also find myself on one of the other church computers with some regularity. I hate not having the file handy that I need and so I often use Google Docs to work on files because then I can access them from any computer and even my Droid X smartphone. But there are documents that are too complicated to use Google Docs for. That's where Dropbox comes in.

Dropbox is a service which allows you to backup files online. The free version has 2 GB of storage and there are paid options for those who need additional storage. Once you upload a file, you can access it from any machine that has the client software on it or or directly via their website. The client software is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux computers and it handles sharing files between different operating systems. It is also available for all of the major smartphone and tablet operating systems and there is an easy web client that you can use if you are on a machine that you don't want to install the synchronization software on. Additionally, you can share large files easily with other users by uploading them to Dropbox and sending the sharing information to them.

The real magic though is that, in addition to backing up files, the service syncs files across multiple computers. So if I'm working on a complicated presentation I can put in in the My Dropbox folder and work on it easily from home or church. Any changes I make in either place will by automatically synchronized to the other machines. The files are also stored locally, so if I don't have Internet access, I can still work on them.

Installing the software was pretty straightforward. I went to https://www.getdropbox.com/install and downloaded the software for my computer. I installed it and as part of that process it asked me to create an account, which I did. Then it created a My Dropbox folder on my computer. The next day, I installed the software on my laptop at church and linked it to the same account. Since then I've installed it on my netbook and my phone. I now have access to all the files I've uploaded into the My Dropbox folder from a variety of computers. Sure beats e-mailing files to myself!

If this sounds like something you'd use, take the Dropbox tour at: https://www.getdropbox.com/tour and check out how it might work for you. If you like Dropbox, join via this link and we'll both get some extra free space in our accounts.

For the eagle-eyed among you, yes, this is a re-write of a post from over 2 years ago. Dropbox is a service that I've used on a regular basis since I discovered it and I was reminded again this past weekend how valuable it is to others as well. So, in case you didn't try it two years ago, I wanted to bring it to your attention again!

Smartphones?

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 01:51:00 GMT

I was a bit of a smartphone holdout. Due to the fact that I live in an area where my only national options are Verizon, Alltel (now AT&T), and Cellular One, I had limited options. Cellular One had ripped me off when I left Alaska and I promised them they'd never get another dime of mine! I probably would have jumped on the iPhone bandwagon, since I had an iPod Touch and liked it, but two years ago that wasn't an option. So I pressed on with my old flip phone for years after the iPhone came out, since I never could quite understand the appeal of Blackberrys.

Eventually, however, the Android operating system developed to the point of being usable. I got myself a Droid X and I've been pleased with it overall. The app selection is just fine. I like the face that I can configure everything and download all sorts of apps from both the Google Market and the free app of the day from the Amazon App Store. I love having the built in GPS, synchronized contacts with my Gmail, and it's a decent phone as well.

Since I've gotten my phone, I've noticed more others with smartphones. I've been wondering if smartphones have passed a tipping point as I've noticed more and more people using them. I'm curious what percentage of us youth-worker-type-folk carry smart phones. I'm curious if we can design an app for the ELCA Youth Gathering and assume that people will have smartphones to use it. Or am I only noticing them because I have one?

So I'd love some feedback in the comments. Do you have a smartphone? Do you still use a standard phone? Do you install lots of apps? What's your favorite app? Would you use a Gathering app? Is it too busy at the Gathering to even bother? What features would you like in such an app? Comment below or send me a note at techgeek@elcaymnet.org.

When the lint hits the fan

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 22:00:00 GMT

It happens to all computers over time. They get slower and slower and eventually it becomes painful to accomplish tasks that used to be quite quick. Some of this is that software becomes more and more complex. No matter what you do, you can't run the latest software on a computer well over a decade old. At least you can't without a coffee pot very nearby! Some of this is generic software slowdown caused by things like the residual software gunk that gets left behind when you install and un-install programs. Using a program like Revo Uninstaller can help with this, as can running all the updates available for your software and drivers.

I'd done all of this. I'd made sure that everything, especially my video card, was running the latest drivers. I'd removed all non-essential programs and made sure there wasn't too much running in the background. But my system was still lagging. Skype video conferencing was painful. Google Video Chat no longer was a good way to share my infant daughter's smiles with her grandparents. Things would start out fine, but then we would get frozen screens and the video would get choppyI was frustrated! I didn't know what else to try short of buying a new computer.

Then, last night, while trying to video-chat with my mom, my laptop just shut down with absolutely no warning. That's when it hit me. I'd tried all sorts of software and driver solutions to this problem, but I hadn't thought about hardware! When a system shuts down with no warning it often means the power is gone (which is unlikely on a laptop with a good battery). The other thing I knew it could mean was that the CPU had gotten too hot and the computer itself (not Windows) had shut down the system immediately to keep the CPU from literally melting.

Eureka! I was pretty sure that I hadn't cleaned the fan on this laptop in quite awhile. I rushed upstairs for my computer toolkit with its little screwdriver and tore into the laptop (after unplugging it and pulling out the battery). I pulled the cover off and then pulled the cooling fan out. In this case, it's designed to push air across a series of heat exchanging metal fins. The place where the fan pushed air onto the fins was absolutely clogged with dust. I grabbed that little crevice attachment for the vacuum cleaner and, making sure all the tiny screws were a safe distance away, sucked out all the yucky dust.

Then I put it all back together and, voila, it turned right back on. Then I spent about half an hour Skyping with my brother and didn't have any problems. The chat held high quality and I could even multi-task while it was running. I haven't been able to do that in months! I'm thrilled! And I'm no longer trying to figure out if I can justify getting rid of this 4-year-old machine!

Apparently the same protections that eventually shut the whole system down were throttling back performance in order to keep things from getting too hot and melting. It never occurred to me that the problem was actually being caused by lint! So the tip of the day is to make sure you clean the fans and heat sinks of your computers and keep them clear of lint. One word of warning, make sure that you unplug the power before taking any covers off and make sure that you don't let the vacuum cleaner spin a fan too fast or it could burn out a bearing on the fan. I always hold a fan blade in place and prevent it from spinning at all.

2012 ELCA Youth Gathering Registration Information

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 03:48:00 GMT

In less than a month registration opens for the 2012 ELCA Youth Gathering. If your congregation is planning on participating, or considering participating, you need to bookmark the new 2012 ELCA Youth Gathering website at www.elca.org/gathering. You'll find up-to-the-minute information about the Gathering, registration details, and a page all about FREE youth ministry training opportunities for all adults, not just those going to the Gathering, sponsored by the Gathering and the ELCA Youth Ministry Network.

If you are planning on going to the Gathering and are looking ahead to registration opening on October 9th, the resources below might be helpful to you. The Gathering has put together paper forms to help you collect the information you'll need to complete the online participant data entry and registration processes.

Primary Leader and Adult Counselor Registration Information Form -- all the information needed to complete online registration for the congregation and from each adult counselor, including the primary leader.
Youth Registration Information Form -- all the information needed to complete online registration for youth participants from your congregation.

Distribute these forms to your adults and youth so you can start collecting and entering data. (Visit the Gathering website and click the button to Enter Participant Data NOW!) When full registration opens on October 9 at 2 p.m. EDT, all you'll have to do is click "submit"! Please note, these forms are for your use only, they are not meant to be sent to the ELCA Youth Gathering office.

For those of you who are not going to have all your data for registration by October 9, don't fret. All registrations received in a timely fashion, by December 9, will be treated equally. While the Gathering staff appreciates those who register at the first opportunity because it helps with the planning process, they want you to know that there is plenty of space in New Orleans for your group.

In addition to the Registration Information Forms above, the Gathering requires that each participant, youth and adult, complete and bring with their group to New Orleans some additional forms. The Adult Leader Agreement and Release of Liability Form is for adults and the Youth Agreement and Release of Liability Form is, not surprisingly, for youth.

These forms should be filled out and signed by each participant, and, in the case of youth, a parent or guardian. The Gathering Medical Form has been carefully designed by the Gathering's Safety and Security Team to have the relevant information required by medical personnel in the case of an emergency and needs to be filled out by each participant, youth and adult. It is used for the Gathering, MYLE and DAYLE.

The Primary Leader should carry each of these forms during the Gathering as well as while traveling to and from New Orleans. You will be required to show that you have them with you prior to participation in certain Gathering activities and to complete registration. It is also a good idea to make copies for each adult leader to have, particularly if your group is splitting up into smaller groups in the evening.

The Gathering is also inviting you and your congregation to participate in a special Registration Day Celebrating. The opening time for Gathering registration has changed from midnight on the east coast to 2:00 p.m. EDT, Sunday, October 9, 2011. That is 1:00 p.m. CDT, 12:00 noon MDT, 11:00 a.m. PDT, 10:00 a.m. AKDT (Alaska) and 8:00 a.m. HST (Hawaii).

By shifting this time to midday on a Sunday, the Gathering hopes that congregational leaders can make Registration Day an event that involves the whole congregation. There is a prayer to be used in worship that day and sermon notes available on the Gathering website at the Registration Day Celebration Resources page.

WhatTheFont and Identifont

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 22:06:00 GMT

Before you read the rest of this article you must make a promise that you will only use this information for good. Two or three fonts on a poster is the most you should ever use. Please do not use these tools to find twelve different fonts to put on the same piece of paper. That is overwhelming! But what do you do when you have a certain font in mind but you just can't figure out what it is? What if you want to match the font in something you've seen online or on a glossy poster? Today I'd like to share two tools that I've come across for taking a font that you have and finding out its name and, perhaps, a free version that's close enough for a youth group poster.

My first stop is WhatTheFont, a service of MyFonts.com. To use it you upload an image, which can be something you've scanned yourself, to the service and it tries to identify what font is in the image. The service suggests that, when possible, each character be about 100 pixels high. Once you upload, or link to, an image file containing you font, you're taken to a screen where it shows you what letters it thinks it found and you can fill in others. Click continue and it will give you its five best guesses as to what the font is that you've uploaded. Clicking on any of these will show you options as to where you can buy the font in question.

The next place to try is Identifont.com. This service lets you try and find fonts by searching based on:

Design/Publisher
Picture - find a font containing a certain picture
Similarity - fonts similar to another specified font
Name - search based on all or part of a font's name
Appearance - answer a series of questions about a font

It's the last of these that I've used the most often. You can even tell the system if you have only a limited set of letters and it will only ask you questions that can be answered based on the letters that you have in your possession. It will ask you questions like whether or not the font has serifs, what the capital Q looks like, and what the dollar-sign looks like. Sometimes it has been right on and other times it's been fairly far off, but it can be helpful. If it finds the font you're looking for, it will list places you can buy it from.

Once you have found the name of the font you're looking for, try searching for it on FontPark.net, which I wrote about last year, and see if you can find something that's free for non-commercial use. Often times there will be a clever mis-spelling of the original font name or a shortened version of the original name. For example, the font used for the body of the 2012 ELCA Youth Gathering registration flyer was Lubalin Graph but the similar one on FontPark.net was LubalinDemi. It doesn't look as pretty on screen, but so far it's printed just fine when I've used it.

Check out my post from last September if you need a review on how to install fonts on your system.

MartinsList

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 00:33:00 GMT

Did you see the e-mail the Todd Buegler, ELCA Youth Ministry Network Executive Director, sent out a few weeks back about Martins List? Did you read it? Be honest, no one knows but you. If you did, and went to the site, maybe you found it useful. If you didn’t, you might want to visit http://www.elcaymnet.org/martinslist and login with your ELCA YM Net username and password.

Once there, you’ll discover a plethora of Open Source Youth Ministry resources. Now, these aren’t the kinds of things you go looking at while the youth group is eating pizza in the other room, because they’re going to take some adaptation to use in your context. These aren’t professionally produced resources by a famous author (although some of them could be). These are your fellow Network members sharing resources they’ve created in their contexts. Martins list is founded on the belief that there is an amazing amount of talent, expertise and skill within our community. And we have all developed resources for use in our congregations. Many of us are willing to share those resources that we have created. MartinsList is a place to do that. Here, we can share our work with each other...and can create a community of mutual support in our ministry.

“Hey there! All who are thirsty, come to the water! Are you penniless? Come anyway - buy and eat! Come, buy your drinks, buy wine and milk. Buy without money - everything's free!” (Isaiah 55:1 - The Message).

Well, maybe not quite free. See, MartinsList depends on all of us sharing what we have. Maybe it’s just a simple idea like a talk based around a song. Maybe it’s your minute by minute plan for a retreat around the spirituality of teenagers. Share it! Keep the rest of the network from having to start from scratch. Let us build on what you’ve started.

To upload an original (and do make sure it’s your own work and it is original), go to http://elcaymnet.org/martinslist and click on the icon just like the one below to upload your stuff.

Please convert it to a .DOC (not .DOCX, Microsoft Works, Open Office Document, or any other format) or a .PDF before uploading so that others can make good use of copy and paste (see the keyboard shortcuts for Windows and Macs) to customize your work for their context.

If you’ve come across a great copyrighted resource that you want to share with the rest of us, click on the link like this one and post it in the MartinsList Forum.

Thank for sharing the best of what you’ve created and discovered so that we can all strive for the best in our ministries with and among young people.

Cloud Music Players

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 20:13:00 GMT

I have a few songs that I’ve purchased via Amazon.com’s MP3 Store or Apple’s iTunes stored on my computer. There are also some other CDs that I own which I’ve ripped to my hard drive. When I switched to a new desktop last December, I remembered to move the music files over, but it can be kind of a pain. When I switched from an iPod Touch to a Droid X phone, I had to copy all the music back again. Then there’s the fact that I’ve got one set of music stored on my laptop, another set stored on my desktop at home, some of both sets on my Droid X, and who knows what on the little Sansa Clip I use when mowing the yard. Little pieces of my collection in a variety of different places. The solution? A cloud player. Both Amazon.com and Google are attempting to give us a solution to this problem, and Apple will soon be launching their own version as well.

I have been messing around with both of these services as I’ve been trying to get a better handle on my digital music. Amazon Cloud Drive gives you 5GB of storage for free and 20GB of storage for a year if you purchase any Amazon MP3 Album. In addition, music purchased from Amazon’s MP3 Store does not count against your limit. You can actually upload and store anything you want on the Cloud Drive, not just music. For music files, the Amazon Cloud Player looks more or less like you’d expect it to, supporting Album, Song, Artist, and Genre views, as well as playlists. You can also download your music, as well as play it with the shuffle and random options. There is also a Cloud Player client for Android phones. The Cloud Drive web client is actually different from the Cloud Player one, as it allows you to upload any file, whereas the Cloud Player will only accept music files.

The best part of this service, in my mind, is that it gives you a place to store any music you’ve ever purchased from the Amazon MP3 store. I often find myself purchasing single MP3 tracks in order to add something to a lesson and then, because I don’t really care to listen to them again, I delete them. It’s only 99-cents if I ever need to buy them again, but...it’s nicer to know they’re stored securely and I can get back to them. When you buy an album from Amazon’s MP3 Store and choose to have it delivered to your Cloud Drive, it’s stored there instantly. You can also download to your computer, using the Amazon MP3 Downloader, any music or playlists stored on your Amazon Cloud Drive.

Music Beta by Google is free, for the time being, and provides storage of up to 20,000 songs. I think this should keep any of us going for quite some time, but I know a few folks will be constricted by this limit! The web player has similar functionality and there is also an Android client. The web player also support some automagic playlists, including Thumbs Up, Recently Added, and Free Songs. In order to upload songs to Music Beta by Google, you need to install a Music Manager program that scans for music on your computer and uploads it to the cloud. From then on, any playlists that you have on the web will be accessible from your phone or other computers. When you set up your account you have the ability to import some free songs, but there is not currently a way to buy music using this service.

Each of these systems only allows you to use up to eight devices, but that should be more than enough for most of us. Just like the other ways we use the cloud, music storage in the cloud is a good way to keep from forgetting a song on one device that we need on another.