MinistryTech Resources http://ministrytech.org Wed, 02 Jul 2014 04:28:51 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.1.18 What does your website say about you? http://ministrytech.org/?p=255 http://ministrytech.org/?p=255#respond Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:10:21 +0000 http://ministrytech.org/?p=255 Yes, it matters.  Right or wrong, people make a judgement about your church based upon your website.

“But that’s not who we are!”

“We don’t have the time, money, resources, knowledge, will, etc to pay for our website.”

“Our website isn’t a priority!  Ministry is our priority”

Imagine this.  A visitor walks up to your church and enters the narthex to find bulletins from 2 years ago.  The area is cluttered and smells musty.  What have you communicated to your new visitor?  Vitality?  Growth? Hope?

Your website is the new front door.  Visitors to your website will form an opinion about your church based solely upon your web presence.

BUT, it’s not hard to make a good first impression.  It’s not about flash and pizazz.  Communicate that you care, provide useful information, display it professionally, and keep it up to date.  Tell the story of your church in pictures.  Make prominent the things that are important to you and your ministry.  It’s a lot easier than you think.

The first step is to recognize that your website is important and you do need to do something about it.

What you’ll find in this website is resources to help.  You can do it.  It’s not beyond your reach.

We’re here to help.

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Why you should have a Dropbox account http://ministrytech.org/?p=247 http://ministrytech.org/?p=247#respond Sun, 13 Jan 2013 18:52:44 +0000 http://fishsmarter.wordpress.com/2013/01/13/why-you-should-have-a-dropbox-account/ dropbox1Convinced?  Download it here Dropbox.

For the rest of you, you can take the tour.

Here’s my simple way of understanding dropbox.

It creates a folder on your computer the syncs to your web account.  If you have more than one computer, it will also sync those files to whatever computer that you designate.  There are apps on iOS and Android that will also allow you to access your files there.

Key concept 1: Access to your files most anywhere.

Key concept 2:  Sharing your files with others.  Within dropbox you can share a folder and whatever files are in that folder will be synced between you and all who are authorized.  Great for group projects or making important files available to those who need them.

My wife is the pastor of our church.  Together we print the bulletins weekly.  She creates the bulletin and saves it in the dropbox folder.  When it’s time to print, I open the Dropbox folder on my computer and print to our color printer.  No need to attach files to emails or swap thumb drives.  Any file updates are synced within seconds or within a few minutes with large files or slow connections.

If you are wondering if Anna and I share all of our files, we don’t.  We have different tastes in ebooks therefore that folder remains unshared.  However, the folder of sample Lenten bulletin cover images is shared with the staff at my former church.

Honestly, I had no idea how many ways this would be useful when I first signed up.  Now I can’t imagine not using it.  My recommendation is to sign up and try it out.  I’m certain you will be thankful for all the ways you never imagined it would help you.

By the way did I mention it is free?  It comes with 2GB of free storage and there are ways to freely increase your capacity.  You have the option to purchase additional space as you need it.  One of the ways to increase your free storage is to refer friends.  If Dropbox sounds like a good solution for you, I’d appreciate it if you would use the following link to sign-up:  http://db.tt/bviJKbDB.  If you feel more comfortable you can also sign up dropbox.com.

Merry dropboxing!

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Step One: What the heck are we doing? http://ministrytech.org/?p=198 http://ministrytech.org/?p=198#respond Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:35:29 +0000 http://fishsmarter.wordpress.com/?p=198 After visiting the Google Apps website, there are several guides to help you get going, but the best one I found for this situation is Setting Up Google Apps for Small Business.  

So far so good.

Went through the initial sign up with no surprises.

One of the first things you are asked to do is to verify your ownership of the domain name.  There are several choices, but I opted to add google code to the DNS record.  After making the choice, Google gave me a list of domain providers and upon choosing GoDaddy, I was given very detailed directions specifically for the GoDaddy interface.  It even included screenshots from GoDaddy.

I made the changes to the record and even though both Google and Godaddy warn that it may take up to 24 hours for the record to update, it was ready as soon as I got back on the Google page and clicked to verify button.

After verifying the domain name, the wizard within Google Apps, began to take me through the remaining steps to complete the transition.  Mind you nothing at this point has changed for my Dad’s email account.  Nothing will substantially change until after I update the MX records.

Before going any further, I turned the reins over to my father so that he could get up to speed and help configure the account as he chooses.  Because the domain name is under my GoDaddy account, I will still need to make the MX record changes, but I will wait until I get the go-ahead from him.

I am very happy to report that this has been a relatively painless process.  So much better than when I signed up my first account 3 or 4 years ago.  I didn’t even know what a DNS record was or where to find it.  Now you don’t have to know, Google will guide you completely.

So, Step 1 — Success.  So far, so good.

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Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is — Setting Up A Google Apps Acount http://ministrytech.org/?p=194 http://ministrytech.org/?p=194#respond Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:55:40 +0000 http://fishsmarter.wordpress.com/?p=194 I’ve been talking up the advantages of using Google Apps for email to a lot of my friends and family.  This last week, my Dad agreed to take the plunge.  Because the details of the process seem to fade with time, I wanted to document my experience as we navigate the through the process in real-time.  Hopefully, this will be enlightening for you and not too embarrassing for me.

Goal: switch over email for Dad’s domain, daddomain.com* to Google Apps.
(*not his real domain)

Details:

Currently using secureserver through GoDaddy for email.
Already owns domain name.
Would like to use Gmail and other tools in Google Apps
Plan to transfer existing emails into new Gmail account for archival purposes

So that’s the plan and I will post updates along the way.

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Other Gmail thoughts http://ministrytech.org/?p=171 http://ministrytech.org/?p=171#respond Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:21:19 +0000 http://fishsmarter.wordpress.com/?p=171 I had a few additional Gmail thoughts that really didn’t need their own post, but needed to be covered.

1) Getting your old emails from Outlook into Gmail.

If you’re wondering why you would want to further clutter your email box, let me offer some reasons why you might want to bring the old stuff along.  First, you’ve got some important stuff in those old emails.  I search multiple times daily to recover an old conversation or bit of information that is now an archived email.  Additionally, consider the power of Google’s search to find that hidden treasure.  Secondly, you can organize your old emails into folders and hide them out of the way or anymore, I just archive it all and just use search.  Each Gmail account comes with over 5GB worth of space, so there’s no real reason to delete old emails, just archive them and then they are there when you need them.

Especially if you are upgrading a business email, you will want to have your hands on all of your old quotes and conversations with clients, so when you upgrade bring your old email with you.

If you have a Google Apps account, you can utilize their Gmail uploader, but if you don’t try using these steps to get everything in one place.  Export and Backup Emails from Outlook by Blog, from Computer and Internet Tips.

2) Use labels and filters to Automate your Email

Often when we think of mail, we think of using folders to organize it all.  Gmail implemented labels in lieu of folders to make organization simpler and more powerful.  Labels look a lot like folders in you can click on the Waiting for Response Label and you will find all of the email stored under that designation just as you would with a folder, but the magic happens when you want to have an email in the Jones Account Proposal folder and in the Waiting for Response folder.  Folders make you either copy a file to put it in multiple folders or you need to choose where you want the file to live.  Labels don’t have the same restrictions, the new proposal email can sit in Waiting for Response, the Jones Account Proposal and a number of other locations by utilizing labels.

It really gets fun when you can use labels along with the automation of filters.  Filters let you set up a set of rules with a specific action.  e.g. All files with the “Doughnuts” in the subject, add the “Police” label.  Or all emails from mywife@home.com, label “Urgent — Wife Email”.  It also can help you ignore some of the distractions,  you can filter all emails that contain “Egyptian” “Prince” and “Request to help Launder Money” to automatically delete.

One of the most useful label techniques that I use is highlighting all emails from one of my alternate email addresses.  e.g. Add the label “Trey Work” to all emails addressed to “trey@work.com.”  While all emails come to one box, those from my work email show up in the inbox with the label Trey Work.  Additionally, I can click on the Trey Work label and quickly review all emails sent to my work address.

Check out this article for more information on how to harness the power of automation:  Gmail Smart Labels Add Automatic Inbox Filters for Mass Mail, Combat Email Overload by Lifehacker.com

Ten Must-Have Gmail Filters Available for Download by Lifehacker.com

3) Getting Started with Gmail or Becoming a Gmail Ninja

Found both of these links that are helpful and wanted to share.  Happy Gmailing!

How to Get Started with Gmail by Lifehacker.com

Becoming a Gmail Ninja by Google

 

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The power of IMAP — How to simplify your email retrieval http://ministrytech.org/?p=164 http://ministrytech.org/?p=164#respond Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:45:31 +0000 http://fishsmarter.wordpress.com/?p=164 IMAP simply is email as it should be.

Long gone are the days when you only retrieved your email from the one computer in the den.  Now you access your email on your desktop, laptop, tablet, web and phone.  Soon we’ll use “Minority Report“esque hand movements and answer email projected on the wall from an implant on our forehead.  In the meantime, let’s make all of the places you receive mail work together.

If you’ve ever had to sort through the same email on your phone and your desktop, you know how frustrating it can be when life is out of sync.  There is an easy answer — IMAP.

IMAP is a mail protocol similar to pop3 that retrieves mail from a mail server.  In the simplest of terms (and not necessarily completely technically accurate) pop3 is a little like snail mail — the mail carrier drops it off at your house, but then doesn’t care what you do with it beyond that point.  You can request to delete it or make it available to another drop box, but otherwise is ambivalent about your mail.  IMAP is more like Netflix — The file is stored in one location and the server cares what you do with the file.  Just like Netflix syncs your viewing progress in a movie on your Xbox and your iPad, the mail server will let all retrievers know if you’ve read an email or will delete it from all locations if you delete it.  Additionally, it knows the disposition of the file.  If you archived an email to your “Waiting for Response” folder on your phone, that’s where you will find the email on your desktop.

Essentially, IMAP keeps everything on the mail server and your email retriever borrows the emails and reports any changes it makes so that everything stays in sync.  It’s a great way to reduce a lot of the stress in your life.

So, imagine that you have taken my advice in previous posts and are consolidating all of your email addresses into a single Gmail address and you use IMAP to retrieve your mail, then every device that you own will be set-up with one email account and they will ALL BE SYNCED!!  If you think that the use of all caps and exclamation points is a little over the top, wait until you have actually gone this route.  Or even better, once you’ve got one email to rule them all, try to go back to the old ways of pop3 and you’ll feel like you’ve traveled back to the days of Little House on the Prairie.

I’ve included some links bellow with instruction on how to set this up, but in short make sure you have IMAP enabled in Gmail, then follow the instructions on the Gmail settings page for your email client.  Now go forward and enjoy life in the 21st century!

Getting Started with IMAP and POP by Google

Supported IMAP Client List by Google

How to Make Gmail Play Nicely with Your Desktop Email Client by Lifehacker

How to Set Up Gmail with a Desktop Mail Client by Lifehacker

How to Set Up an Email Account on Your iPhone by Lifehacker

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Consolidating all of your email addresses and accounts into a Super Gmail Account http://ministrytech.org/?p=162 http://ministrytech.org/?p=162#respond Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:39:50 +0000 http://fishsmarter.wordpress.com/?p=162 I have at least a dozen active email addresses.  Some are common addresses, such as example@gmail.com, others are associated with unique domain names like me@examplecompany.com.  Even with all of these separate accounts from a number of sources, I only have to search one email account for my emails ididntwanttowritemymainemailaddressinthisblogpostsoiamusingthisexample@gmail.com.

You can achieve this result by forwarding your emails from another account or by utilizing the pop3 collection from Gmail.

1)  I often set-up forwarding emails for those you have a work email address, but are unlikely to remember to check it.  For example Jane has jane@home.com and when Jane came to work for me, she now has jane@work.com.  Her clients and coworkers will expect to email her at jane@work.com, but she’d prefer to just receive any emails with her @home account.  With her new @work email, many services have a setting to forward all email to another address.  Within the Gmail environment, you can even forward and archive any incoming email.  This was her work email account will have a record of any emails she received, but she will receive any email to her work address in her home email.

2)  The preferred method (if available) is to collect your email in your Gmail account just as you would in Outlook or other mail programs.  Basically, any email that is sent to @work will be collected in the @gmail account.  This is a great option for those internet provider email accounts that you never check, but may contain important information.  So any @verizon.net email account will immediately be collected in my Gmail account.

You might ask, why would I forward or use Pop3 to consolidate all of my mail when I can simply add additional accounts to Outlook or my iPhone, they both handle multiple email addresses.  You can use this method, but the biggest advantage to consolidation is simply that everything is consolidated.  If I need to check on an email that was sent to either my @work or @home or @random email address, I can utilize the search features in my single Gmail account to find it.  Also when you have all of your email addresses consolidated into a single Gmail account, you only need to setup a single email account on your iPhone, Outlook or other device.

One last comment about this method, if you are concerned about sending work email from your home account, Gmail allows you to send an email using your work email address.  Within settings, look for the feature to “Send Mail As.”  You will need to verify that you own the account, but then you can choose where your outgoing emails will be addressed from.

Consolidating your emails into one place makes sense logically and will save you a lot of time and heartache.

See these articles for more information:

How to use your Gmail account to access your other email accounts by Cloudeight InfoAve

Get Mail from Other Accounts by Google Help

 

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Getting the Most From Your iPhone and Google Pt 1 http://ministrytech.org/?p=148 http://ministrytech.org/?p=148#respond Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:00:25 +0000 http://fishsmarter.wordpress.com/?p=148 iPhones are cool, but recently I remembered how thankful I am for how my iPhone keeps me organized.  At the top of my list is the synchronization of contacts, calendar and mail with my phone and Google Apps.  This can require a little set-up but once it is done, it will change your life.  When I got my last iPhone, I connected up with my Google Account while walking from the Apple Store to the Mall exit and before I left, my phone had synchronized all of my contacts, my calendar and my email.  For all intents and purposes, my phone was now completely functional for all of my organizational needs and I had owned it less than 15 minutes.

iPhone provides pretty good support for syncing mail and calendar to Gmail accounts, but to get your contacts to sync as well requires a few extra steps.  I ran across a great article today on Lifehacker.com to get your contacts synced as well.  It is definitely worth checking it out.

http://lifehacker.com/5859854/how-to-set-up-gmail-google-calendar-and-google-contacts-on-ios?tag=emailabletechsupport

This post is part of their series on Emailable Tech Support.  I’ll be highlighting more of these articles in future posts, but to access their archive, use this link http://lifehacker.com/emailable-tech-support

Here are some Google topics I would like to cover in the future.

  • Consolidating all of your email addresses and accounts into a Super Gmail Account
  • The power of IMAP — How to simplify your email retrieval
  • Creating a Google Apps account for your family
  • Family Calendaring
  • Using filters and labels in Gmail
  • Delete it or Archive it?

Let me know if there’s something here that piques your interest or if there’s other topics you’d like me to address.

One final note, if you don’t have a Gmail account, get one.  You can still use your other email address, but don’t waste the opportunity to sync your life with Google’s great tools.  Don’t wait to get your life in sync.

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Wireless Internet http://ministrytech.org/?p=146 http://ministrytech.org/?p=146#respond Wed, 30 Nov 2011 22:06:08 +0000 http://fishsmarter.wordpress.com/?p=146 Recently I was asked to explain internet for mobile phones.  Specifically, what service allows you to connect to the internet at anytime/anywhere.  To follow is a simplified overview of wireless internet meant for folks who are just getting into the wireless game.

Background on wireless internet:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081117104733AAUGjcK

Cell phone companies sell three major categories of service:

  • Voice (measured in minutes) for speech communication
  • Text (measured in number of texts — unlimited is not uncommon) AKA SMS (for plain text messages) or MMS (which is messages that include pictures or video)
  • Data (measure in Megabytes or Gigabytes – eg 2GB/mo meaning 2 Gigabytes per month) this is what you would most commonly consider wireless internet.  Data covers any exchange of information including surfing the web, retrieving email, using apps (applications) that use the web for exchanging information.

The iPhone and many smartphones work on both WiFi and Mobile Internet.  To be clear you should understand WiFi as wireless internet that uses a wireless router but comes from a wired connection.  Even commercially available HotSpots, like what you would find at Starbucks, have a wireless router on premises that broadcasts and receives signals from mobile devices and routes them back to a wired connection.  In your home, you would receive internet service from a provider like Comcast or Verizon through a wired connection that you would connect to a Cable Modem or DSL Modem.  To make this connection “wireless” requires a wireless router which would either be integrated into the modem or more likely as a separate piece of equipment.  The router serves two functions — both to take a single internet access point and route it to many access points as needed and to communicate wirelessly to phones, computers, and other wireless devices.

A wireless router provides a wireless access point, in other words a way a unique point to access the internet wirelessly.  Most routers require some sort of authorization in order to utilize the access point.  Often this is through a shared password or at some commercial HotSpots after approving to the provider’s terms of agreement.

Once a phone is “authorized” to access a particular WiFi access point, it will generally automatically connect to this whenever it is in range.  For example, once you have authorized your home WiFi access point, each time you come home, your phone will automatically connect to it and will use that point for data transmission.

On the other hand, when a phone is not connected to an authorized WiFi Access Point, it will use Mobile Internet i.e. the Data Plan from the Cell phone company. So, it is advisable to use data sparingly except when connected to a WiFi Access Point.  Although, for most folks it is easy to stay under 2GB (the starting data plan for AT&T).

For more details see:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi

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Sorry for the Hiatus http://ministrytech.org/?p=144 http://ministrytech.org/?p=144#respond Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:28:28 +0000 http://fishsmarter.wordpress.com/?p=144 I’ve been away from this blog for a long time.  Recent events and conversations have offered me new impetus to return to posting again.

What you will see now is answers to questions I receive and things I’m really excited about.  Plus resources that I think will be useful for folks interested in technology all different skill levels.

There’s one more area that I hope to write about in the future — living with Attention Deficit Disorder as an adult.  I continually struggle with having ADD in a world of folks who don’t and don’t necessarily understand what it means to live with this condition.  What’s more meaningful to me lately is a slew of folks who have shared their struggle with me in hopes of finding resolution or seeking methods, means and tools to help in their journey.  If nothing else, I have spent a lot of time seeking and discovering systems and tools to help me live my life.  I hope by sharing what works for me, others may benefit as well.

This is my vision and I am writing it here to help clarify my thinking and to encourage others to hold me to it.

Here we go . . . again.

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