So my job this evening was to recreate a little PHP script I wrote a little while ago that would automatically display the streets that a church is praying for in any given month. It’s actually very simple to do, though you will need to install a plugin in WordPress as the standard Text widget doesn’t work with PHP.

Continue Reading

This was a quite exciting find. It’s a plugin for OpenOffice that gives it the ability to access MySQL databases online.

Databases for websites such as this one are something I regard as a means to an end rather than something I’m an expert in. The usual tool, phpMyadmin, is very powerful but not always the  most friendly to the newcomer. An alternative that works with a familiar program got me quite excited.

Installation is as simple as installing any other OpenOffice extension although you will need to do this from a different program in OpenOffice than Base, unless you are willing to create a database first.

After that, there’s an option for MySQL in the ‘Connect to an existing database’ menu. You can test the connection before finishing the wizard. A useful touch I’m always pleased to see as it avoids significant frustration in the event of typos.

You can find my day job review and the download link here.

OK, I probably shouldn’t get excited about such things, I’m only human.

PCEO-DGB-PUBLIC-DR01-EditedTSStuff Christians Like
Stuff Christians like is what blogging is meant to be. Some of the posts are laugh out loud funny (a good way to start conversations in the office I suppose) but others are more challenging. A common post is a questionnaire with points to score, such as you might find in a magazine.

For example, one attempts to solve the problem of two apparently contradictory statements in the Bible. Passages from the Old Testament score 1 point, New Testament 2 points, something Jesus actually said 3 points. Another offers advice on what people think about your prayers (5. Your wife or husband give you the “wrap it up” tap during your prayer = minus 2 points).

Collide Magazine
Collide is a good place to look if you are interested in using computers and technology in or around church. Sadly there is no print magazine in the UK but you can subscribe to the blog that includes regular round ups of internet news and videos.

LifeHacker
This isn’t a Christian website, but is still worth a mention. Lifehacker is a blog with advice on getting the most from your computer and the internet. The tips cover everything from new ways to use software such as Office, free stuff on line and new software that you might not have heard of before.

Magnatune
Magnatune.com is an online music shop that proudly announces “We are not evil”. They certainly don’t look that way from the customer’s point of view. You can listen to the music on the site and then choose exactly how much to spend on albums from £3 to £10. Delivery is by download only but CD quality versions are available at no extra cost. The range is somewhat eclectic but is worth the search as there are some real gems. I can strongly recommend the American Bach Soloists, or Drop Trio, if your tastes include jazz.

Internet Evangelism Day
Held on the 26 April every year, this day aims to get us talking about our faith online, be it on social networking sites like Facebook, or by giving local websites a brush up. There is a monthly newsletter that is full of interesting links and stories, some spiritual and others of a more technical bias. If you are thinking about reviewing your church website, there is a very useful questionaire and checklist.

First published on The Sheep Dip,  a Christian-run website offering quality material for church newsletter and magazine editors to use for a small fee.

As many of us seem to get ever busier and mobile, it can be hard to take Bible notes along too. There’s only so much I can carry in my laptop bag and that’s if I remember to transfer everything across. Wordlive is a new service from Scripture Union that offers a daily reading via email, RSS news feed, podcast or a web browser, either on a computer or mobile phone at no cost.

The rationale behind the email version makes a lot of sense. Those of use who rely on email check it regulary so it will always get through. It makes a lot of sense with the idea I picked up at Spring Harvest about the 3 minute quiet time. Even at my busiest I should be able to take the time to read through a quick Bible study.

The mobile phone version is a good idea for taking advantage of quiet moments in the day when a computer may not be to hand. It is well thought out and split into sections to help keep data costs down. If you plan on using the service a lot with a mobile it would be wise to check how much your mobile phone company charges.

A cheaper (and faster) way to listen to the bible notes is to sign up to the Podcast via iTunes. Don’t worry if you don’t have an iPod (I don’t either) as you can find the downloaded podcasts in the folder iTunes creates in your My Music or Music folder for Windows XP and Vista respectively.

WordLive is an excellent alternative to traditional Bible note books. It won’t suit everyone but should certainly be given a try if you are looking for a new start in personal devotional times.

If you do use WordLive and find it helpful, it might be a good thing to help support Scripture Union with the costs of producing this material. I discovered the service via an appeal leaflet so it only seems fair to mention this. You can donate online or by filling out a form to post.

First published on The Sheep Dip,  a Christian-run website offering quality material for church newsletter and magazine editors to use for a small fee.

Now that projectors have given churches the freedom to show words and scripture with a little more panache than the humble overhead projector, the next challenge is to find a good background. This can be harder than you might think as I found when preparing slides for my church’s Carol Service. Reelworship.com is a good place to look for images as they have been specifically chosen for this purpose.

It is possible to find photos on the internet, but it no easy task, even with photo sharing websites like Flickr. The reason for this is that a composition that looks good in the photo album does not necessarily make a good background image as they need to be relatively unobtrusive.

ReelWorship has a large collection of over 800 images that can be downloaded and used at no cost. This is an impressive number, given that there are many sites that want payment for fewer images. Continue Reading

Why was I throwing myself at the mercy of Adobe’s automated ‘help’ last week?

Well I’ve been helping out moving the church website I used to administer over to a new design and platform. Joomla was just too capable for the parish and was putting people off. Myself included, trying to sort out both sections and categories for a relatively simple site became quite a headache.

Anyway, given the current situation a static website seemed the best plan with Dreamweaver the editor in use. I use Microsoft Expression Web myself so I sorted out the template first and then had a go at transferring it over.

To my delight it worked very well. The template file, .dwt, was opened without any comment and we got started creating pages very quickly.

Dreamweaver was pretty impressive just in some basic editing over a couple of hours, hence I considered the change. It’s a shame there’s no crossgrade path from Expression Web, £400 is just too much to make it a possible buy.

I can’t be sure, but I think Adobe’s Live Chat is automated. What follows should have been a simple request. Or so I thought….

• Welcome to Adobe! You are now chatting with ‘Perkins’
• Perkins: Hello, how can I help you?
• you: hi, are there upgrades for dreamweaver from competiting products?
  specifically ms expression web?
• Perkins: I’d be glad to help you with that information.
• Perkins: Do you have any previous version of Dreamweaver?
• you: no
• you: I’m using ms expression web and would like to move to dreamweaver
• Perkins: Are you there with me in chatting?
• Perkins: As we are from Adobe Retail Sales Chat, I recommend you to
  buy Adobe Dreamweaver, which is a good competitor for all other Web
  Design products.
• Perkins: Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 is a web development tool that lets
  users design, develop, and maintain websites using visual editor or by
  coding directly.
• Perkins: You can create and maintain basic websites to dynamic,
  advanced applications that support best practices and the latest web
  standards and technologies.
• Perkins: We recommend the purchase of Adobe software on our web site.
• Perkins: Because, there are many advantages of buying the software on Adobe.com
• Perkins: Most importantly, you can be sure that you’re getting
  authorized software from us.
• you: yes, but is ms expression web a qualifying upgrade / crossgrade product?
• Perkins: No, from MS Expression Web there is not upgrade path.
• Perkins: What kinds of tasks would you like the software to help you
  accomplish?

I can’t say that this makes the thought of parting with over £400 any more attractive, even after my good experiences with Dreamweaver last night.

I’m in the process of redesigning our church’s web site. Having realised that spending £10 for a proper template (thanks to JoomlaShack and their online template builder) rather than trying to do it myself and wasting a lot of time, the main work has been deciding how to organise the articles and what should be on the front page.

Church Relevance has a regular chart of well designed church web sites and this provides a useful counter balance to my desire to get as much content on the front page, often at the expense of visual eye candy. Hopefully the new homepage will do this much better than the current one.

Even so it’s hard to know what sort of information should take pride of place on the web site and this goes to the root of what the web site is for. It is an advertisement for the church to the world, but it can also provide huge benefits for existing members.

I read a great article tonight on the subject at digital.leadnet.org, ‘Does your church website serve two masters?‘. For a long time the majority of our traffic has been from new visitors. Some new traffic is good but this suggests that it’s not really a community site. I’d also love to see the site used by more people but that doesn’t seem to happen. But that’s a good reminder for me that many people do not use the web and computers like I do. So I think for the moment we should concentrate on bringing people in on the main website, and maybe set up a subdomain for all the internal stuff. 

I think I shall add have added the author’s blog, healyourchurchwebsite.com to my blogroll.

Now I need is approval and sign off….

I got a comment the other day recommending the website Audiotuts. I’ve kept an eye on it over the last few weeks and it does seem rather good. The latest post has caught my eye especially, 50 Great Lyric Writing Resources. I have to say I have a soft spot for web link lists and I’ve just finished reading God Songs by Paul Baloche that has a lot about writing songs.

Composition was never my strong point at school when I did music, so I’ve been trying to brush up on these skills. There’s plenty of stuff to keep me occupied for a while.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll have probably stuck with the same Bible translation for years. In my case, my church’s choice has a lot to do with it. That and the fact that the pictures in the Good News are an excellent way of finding passages!

Those wanting some suggestions will find the Bible Version Selection Tool most helpful. The basic version offers serveral different aims from private study to public reading. The detailed options offer a lot more control, such as whether cultural references are translated.

You can view the records for each Bible too, which is a useful way of getting some background on unfamiliar translations, as I was with the Message.