Google Apps (for Ministry)

February 23, 2011, by No comments yet

As a follow-up to my previous post, this post and next few will explain how I moved from using Apple’s MobileMe service to Google Sync Services and how they relate to using technology in ministry. In my case, I took my family’s personal domain and transferred all email services to Google. In order to do that, I signed up for Google Apps for free.

The setup is fairly straight forward with plenty of hand holding from Google. Just remember, you must have at least one email address that is not related to your domain in order to set up the new addresses. For example, if you are setting up me@mydomain.com, you will need to have something like me@gmail.com. This is necessary because if there are any problems during setup, you can still get into the domain management tools. In fact, Google requires it and you can not complete the registration process without one.

Once you have set up your new domain, you should have the following services: email, calendar, documents and groups. This will come with calendar sharing and the ability to sync with your smart phone and desktop. Not bad for free.

Now, if you are setting up a domain for your ministry, you might try using Google Apps for Non-Profits. While I have not used this yes, I will when I transfer our church email over from our current hosting provider.

Just make sure that before you finish, you enable Google Sync for Mobile Devices.

Google Sync Services for Ministry

February 23, 2011, by No comments yet

GMailIf you read this blog, you are likely someone I know personally (and I thank you for reading it) or are interested in technology and its application to ministry. If you are like me, you have several email addresses and groups of people you interact with on a given day or week. Work, home, family, friends, church, each of those groups come with their own questions and requests for help as it relates to computers and technology. In my case, I have my wife, family, co-workers (it’s actually my job), personal clients, church and diocese to consider. It’s often hard to keep track of all the people and what they are asking you to do.

Because of this, I have found invaluable the syncing ability of MobileMe over the last few years. Keeping track of people and their contact information is one of the hardest things to do if you have a smart phone, work computer, personal laptop and an iPad. You make a change on one device and then you have to keep all the others updated. Enter MobileMe. I have been a subscriber to this service since it was called iTools (technically, they are not the same, but it is the predecessor).

The best thing about MobileMe, in my estimation, is its ability to keep all your contact information synced across a myriad of devices. It works best on OS X and iOS devices, but you can use it on a PC as well. I have two computers at work (Mac and PC) and have used MobileMe on both. With few problems, it just works. I make a change on my iPhone and it propagates to my MacBook Pro, iMac, and iPad with no problem. If I login and make a change via the MobileMe website, it will filter down to all my devices as well. While MobileMe did have some rather large hiccups when Apple first rolled it out, I have found it to be a stable offering since.

So, it’s a big thing that I have decided to move away from MobileMe to Google’s Sync Services. Now, I have thought about this for quite a while. MobileMe is largely built around this particular feature while Google offers it only as an add-on to their myriad services. I am also well aware that Google will not entirely replace MobileMe’s offering or linked resources. For example, MobileMe will also sync your email accounts and rules. This is helpful when setting up a new computer and keeping your rules copied from one machine to another. Third party vendors also use MobileMe to sync their product across machines, for example Transmit and iBank. As I mentioned, I have not made this decision without considering what I am losing. But, the cost of MobileMe, $99/year, is untenable when you consider it really only does one thing well that you can get somewhere else for free. Sure, MobileMe also offers email, calendaring, back to your Mac, find my iPhone/iPad and free disk space as part of the package. But, I can use GMail, Google Calendaring, LogMeIn, find my iPhone/iPad and Dropbox for free. Why pay $99 when all I really gain is syncing capabilities?

My next few posts will explain how I have gone from MobileMe to Google Sync Services and what experience it offers.

Twilight Dimension, A.K.A. The Parable of the Master and the Servant

February 6, 2011, by No comments yet

The Parable of the Master and Servant is a parable told by Jesus in the New Testament, found in Luke 17:7-10. The parable teaches that when somebody “has done what God expects, he or she is only doing his or her duty.”

Church Marketing and Why Nobody Likes Doing It

January 19, 2011, by No comments yet

Last night at our monthly Bishop’s Committee meeting, the topic of updating our sign came up. We have a run of the mill church sign that lights up on both sides with black plastic letters. Once a week, someone has to go out and knock off the old message and put up the new one. I have done it many times and it takes about an hour start to finish. The reason it came up last night is that because it takes a bit of time to organize all the letters, take the old ones down and then put up the new ones, no one wants to do it. It is currently falling to our vicar and that’s not really fair to him. He has plenty to do and sign duty should not be added.

My friend who brought it up, wanted to get a newer sign that has scrolling text. These signs can be updated from within the church office and do not require someone to go outside. Not only that, but it is much faster to update. The only problem is the cost. Somewhere between 10-15K.

Not surprisingly, there was some discussion and disagreement. Now, we are fortunate to be in a family neighborhood, literally right next to an elementary school with a high school a block away. We get a lot of foot and car traffic in front of the church. No doubt the sign will attract attention. The real question is whether or not this is a good choice for advertising. Personally, I have mixed feelings. I can see where it would benefit us. The only thing worse than having no sign, is having one that does not get changed often. As I mentioned, we suffer from the latter.

So, what are the alternatives in today’s marketplace? Well, you can still purchase print advertising. Even with the decline in readership, our church demographic would still be targeted by newspaper or neighborhood newsletter advertising. But, that only gets the older members of our community that do not use the Internet or prefer traditional methods of news gathering. In order to reach younger, web-connected persons, you will invariably end up advertising on Google or Facebook. Their reach into almost any online news source or social networking site can not be ignored. After using Google to successfully market events on our campus, I know their reach is powerful. My suggestion is to use a mix of traditional and online advertising to reach a broad and diverse audience.

WP throws up “Briefly unavailable for Scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute”

January 4, 2011, by No comments yet

This morning my WordPress blog dutifully informed me that I should update to the most current version and would I like to do it automatically? Well, as is my typical response, I clicked the automated update and let it go. Usually, I am met with another screen that informs me of the progress and the ultimate result, fully updated, within a few seconds.

This time, I got something else.

Briefly unavailable for Scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute

That is what I got and I didn’t know what it meant. Was my hosting company down? Did my update fail? No idea.

After checking another site on the same machine, I knew it was not the hosting company. It had to be WordPress. So, I quickly searched for the error in Google and came up with a result. A faulty upgrade. Oops.

In order to fix it, you need to delete a file named ‘.maintenance’ from your main blog folder. I also read some folks being unable to find the file because it is hidden. You may not be aware, but file prepended with a dot (.) are read by file systems as hidden and typically not shown to the user. Thankfully, you can see them by changing a setting in your OS or in my case, an FTP client. I use Transmit and all I had to do was go to the “View->Show Invisible Files setting” and voila, I could see the ‘.maintenance’ file. I deleted it and my blog came back to life.

Morale of the story? Even WordPress can have a faulty update. Thankfully, they are very few and far between.