Church IT RoundTable

Looking to Jump to HD?

2008-09-08T10:44:01+00:00

Sony is running some nice rebates on their HVR line of HDV cameras. You can score a $300 to $500 rebate, depending upon the camera you buy. We have their HVR-A1U, and it is a remarkable little camera that you can pick up for less than $2000. I've also used the Z1 and it's amazing as well. Qualify for the Sony rebates on their website, right here!

Perimeter Church is Seeking a Director of IT

2008-09-08T09:13:06+00:00

As posted on the employment page Perimeter's website:

Seeking a person with management experience in the field of information technology that can direct both staff and contract employees in the development and maintenance of Perimeter's IT infrastructure (network, systems, phones). Please send resumes to AllisonG [at] perimeter [dot] org. You must be a member to be considered for employment.

Now wait...some of you may be asking...isn't the *my* job? Um...well...yes...I mean...no...I mean, well, it was my job. Yes, it's true, I am no longer the IT Director at Perimeter Church. It's a story I'll unveil over the next few days. Meanwhile, I'll just refer back to an old post: don't you want to hire me?

Weekly Twitter Roundup

2008-09-08T04:18:18+00:00

This past weeks tweets filtered for mainly IT content for your viewing pleasure...

9/1/08

01:50 Spent some time researching Project Management apps. Gotta find a good solid solution for my team. Besides Basecamp, other options 2 check?
14:29 Oh Firefox. Why must thou chew up so much of my processor? I only have 60 tabs open! Be nice 2 me!

9/2/08

00:44 @davidrussell Is activecollab what your teams are using?
09:59 Attempting to close the last few tickets assigned to me..great way to get the week started IMO
11:03 $175 to repair a Zebra check-in printer..boooo. Glad they don't break often. Think this is the first repair I've paid for in 3+ years of use
12:24 Just heard @ebuford quoting some Macbeth ... strange things are afoot today in IT
15:48 Just finished up a webex with Stoneware desktop virtualization. Pretty slick, but not exactly what I'm looking for. stonewarewebos.com
16:44 Like most of my geek peers I'm testing Google Chrome. Pretty good for their first browser. Needs IE plugin and something like tabmixplus

9/3/08

00:30 @jeffwilson crossloop.com
22:15 twitpic.com/a5hd - Server rack is dark and we're making space for more storage. Plus making cables neater
22:15 twitpic.com/a5hf - Trying to make our ghettotastic backup look more pro. Does it work? :)
22:51 twitpic.com/a5l8 - Rack has twinkling lights so email should start following again shortly.

9/4/08

00:24 We should have checked but I think tonight was the first time in at least 6months we've powered down one of our VMware Server win2k3 hosts.
01:13 @diamonddave can you make the podcast Thursday at 10pm Eastern? www.churchITpodcast.com Great place to ask questions.
08:36 Today is "take out the trash" day for the IT dept. We've accumulated lots of old "stuff" in storage..time for a cleansing purge!
08:48 REMINDER: Church IT Podcast is live tonight. Topics: helpdesk solutions, project and change management, mRemote, and open discussion.
09:11 Shoot..forgot that tonight is McCain's speech. Podcast canceled. I'll resched for next week. Thanks @ gotmoore for the reminder
09:35 twitpic.com/a6l2 - The purge has begun!
09:47 twitpic.com/a6m6 - Seems almost a shame to toss this old Apple clone
12:30 twitpic.com/a745 - And it's nice and clean ... w00t!
14:28 Multisite meeting..picking through the final details..soft preview Sept 14th!!!
18:19 REMINDER: Church IT Podcast cancelled for tonight due to McCain
20:52 Retweet @wantmoore: twitpic.com/a707 - Who wants to have some photoshop fun with JasonPowell? Be sure and tag it with @JasonPowell
20:52 Retweet @themattyg: @JasonPowell My first photoshop attempt. twitpic.com/a8pc
23:29 my "new" inbox has stayed under 20 for 2 weeks straight! Maybe I should just delete the "old" 1800+ inbox..hmm. It's tempting for sure.

9/5/08

09:52 Didn't fall asleep until 4am..I HATE THAT!! Missed the power outage at GCC this morning. Now getting ready for another Elkhart campus visit
14:25 twitpic.com/abqc - Very happy to see these EVDO stats. Full bars and nice speeds! Elkhart checkin is gonna rock
15:08 @ebuford is my hero. 2nd time coming in today when he's dawg sick to fix stuff.
17:52 twitpic.com/acoh - Baptism pools setup and ready for the weekend

9/6/08

01:10 Finally got myself @ebuford and @wantmoore registered for the Fall Church IT Roundtable at Seacoast Church in October. Now for flight&rooms
16:52 Working on a Kiosk Support Volunteer job description..I have no gift for crafting such things.
18:38 twitpic.com/ais5 - Smilie McPigtails
19:13 twitpic.com/aj02 - Crowd watching baptism after 5pm service
20:52 twitpic.com/ajp7 - Nighttime baptisms at GCC!!!

9/7/08

no IT tweets this day

Whiteboards and Projects

2008-09-08T03:18:51+00:00

I know many of readers who are a huge fan of using whiteboards to track IT projects and keep a list of to do's and changes for infrastructure and future plans. When I worked at Geonetric in IT a year and a half ago - we had one hanging in our IT office.

It was always full of things to do (when I left I think it said "build SAN, configure share point, test ESX server, test Vista, deploy Office 2007, install and configure Exchange 2007, replace UPS batteries", and many other things) and we really did not have time to them all.

The problem I think we ran into the most was not prioritizing them.

I had a tendency to just choose what ever I felt like working on for the day and start it- but never finished.

To me they were just a list of things we needed to do - on a whiteboard. Sure it helps to have a list - but it did nothing having it looming over our heads all the time.

In my office at NCBC - I have always refused to hang a whiteboard - for the same reason.

I do have an Excel sheet I use to track major project and break them down in to 1's, 2's and 3's - and always break them down into each having a "next step" clearly identified - so when and if I do have time to work down the list - I have a place to start.

There is generally enough to do that I do not need the projects list in front of me.

I know where to look when I need to - and have time to work on them. - For me, I think it has even helped to remove some stress knowing they are going to get done in the order they need to be done.

I would encourage you if you are in IT to take your project list and write down a "next step" to everything you have on it. I think you will find it to help significantly and you will even see some of your projects completed faster than you ever thought possible.

Busy busy busy!

2008-09-08T03:02:04+00:00

Well I have not been able to write frequently the past two months because I simply have not had the time. In a week my daughter, Brady, will be 2 months old and that is staggering to think about. She’s still in the hospital but hopefully she can come home soon. With all of the [...]

Barracuda

2008-09-07T16:06:59+00:00

No, I am not talking about Ann and Nancy Wilson (just flushed out the over 40’s in the crowd). Nor the nasty fish which, if cooked right, is really not too bad. I am talking about the Barracuda webfilter.
We have one of these at work and I refer to it as “the nasty playground lady”. Every piece of internet traffic, email, etc. goes through here first. It keeps our kids safe. It cuts down spam. It is a wonderful thing. It watches everything. Most things it settles right there. If it needs to, it’ll rat you out.
The other thing I really like is when you call support, you leave a message and they call you back from….drum roll….California! I don’t mean to be hyper critical, but I have NEVER had a positive experience when dealing with support from overseas. The best I have ever had was “acceptable”. It invariable takes too long, is too patronizing and just a general waste of my time. Now, if I am looking at two competitive products, if one is 20% more, but support is USA, I will think hard about it. Just buying my time back.
Just the threat of it stops the “creative types” in our youth group from experimenting. The youth director informs them that “If they go anywhere they aren’t supposed to, Barracuda will stop them and the Business Office will know where they went, what time they went there, and from what computer.”
We have had it for a year and have had only one instance where bad stuff got through. A teacher was researching a local community college website that had been hijacked. As a result of the reports, we could verify that that was what she was doing. Not that we had any doubts at all. But it was nice to be able to tell here that we could prove to her that we had no doubts that she was a victim. After that incident, a new “rule” in the filter was set up, and that prevents the same thing from happening.
I really love this thing because it is easy to manage. Granted the report log is a little detailed because not only does it give you every page that is visited by everyone, but it gives you every add, hyperlink, image, etc. on every page. Reports are fairly cutomizable. If I had a complaint it would be the length of time it takes to filter reports. Say you have the log of EVERYTHING. But you just want “Blocked sites”. Well, it takes a bit to filter those out and return the results to you. (I know, take my meds and lay off the Monster drinks and it won’t seem so long).

With our new school building opening and a whole slew of new teachers, we are naturally assigning each their own user name and password to override. This will allow them to go to an uncategorized site. Many sites are too new to be categorized as “education” “entertainment” etc. That is how the bad one got through. Also, some of the educational sites the teachers use are classified as “games” by Barracuda. These password accesses allow the teachers to go where they need to, but if they walk away from their computer and it sits idle for just a few minutes, it automatically logs them out. That way if they forget to log out, and little Jimmy happens by, he can’t be a victim of his own curious mind on our property. We take this stuff seriously.

There is a lot of good stuff out there. There is a lot of bad stuff out there. When it comes to the employees, we trust them and have no reason not to. If we couldn’t trust them with this, we would have much bigger issues. But having a secure filter is like having multiple people in the room when counting the Sunday offering. Doesn’t mean you don’t trust Ed who has been the head usher for 20 years. You want to protect him and you want him to know you are protecting him from false accusation.
And when it comes to the kids, there is no substitute for the “Nasty Playground Lady”.

Dodged a big one

2008-09-07T09:32:00+00:00

Well, it appears South Florida dodged a big one, however, Cuba and the gulf coast do not appear so lucky.

Ike has turned to a major Category 4 storm. It will certainly weaken as it goes over Cuba, but then there is a lot of open water from which to regain strength.
There is certainly going to be some widespread devastation when this thing rolls through.

Security 101

2008-09-07T09:03:22+00:00

Jim’s post about over at Church Tech Matters about the bogus security software Antivirus XP 2008 has set me to thinking - again.

I remain amazed that some people consider it still ok to surf the web without adequate protection. Let me clarify that - here I mean machines with Windows installed - before the *nix and Mac crowd start hollering. I can understand that some people don’t have access to cheap, free and useful advice but when that same set of people are my family and friends then I shake my head in anguish.

These same folks (bar one) all ask for my assistance in their purchases and as part of my patter I always tell them not to be swayed into buying the AV / Firewall / Whatever App that the store wants to push and we will do better with freebies. So, they get their shiny new box set it up and then I come along and do my magic for them. Whilst there I spend a fair bit of time on ’safe surfing’, what to look out for, what to beware of, what not to do and so on.

Only the other day my best buddy confessed that his PC was messed up and he was fed up with it so was going to buy a laptop all for himself. He mostly blames the messed up PC on his children (teens) and the junk they download. After he’d finished his rant my first question was what AV was he using and after getting a puzzled shake of the head followed it up with well what firewall then. So then ensued the lecture … but I don’t feel convinced that he’s going to listen and what’s more he’s now gone wireless and I’ll lay good odds that it isn’t secured either!

So, and getting back to my point, all this has got me to thinking about my advice. Rather than repeating it ad nauseam, why don’t I document it and then just update it as prevailing thoughts or technology change? To that end I’m going to work on a, I hope, fairly simple and straight forward document and publish it here. I may even give it its own page or similar. If any of you have anything to add or suggest changes then please do email me.

Oh, and once done I’ll put a link to it from this post.

The Pixar Model for Consistent Creativity

2008-09-07T09:48:00+00:00

Ever wonder how Pixar Studios manages to hit home run after home run with their animated features? The Harvard Business Review has a fascinating piece by Pixar president Ed Catmull on how the nurture organizational creativity.

According to Catmull, it is all about smart people, NOT the ideas:

"If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up; if you give a mediocre idea to a great team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something that works."

Pixar’s operating principles focus entirely on the team.

1. Everyone has the freedom to communicate with anyone.

"The decision-making hierarchy and communication structure in organizations are two different things. Members of any department should be able to approach anyone in another department to solve problems without having to go through “proper” channels. It also means that managers need to learn that they don’t always have to be the first to know about something going on in their realm."

2. It must be safe for everyone to offer ideas.

"We make a concerted effort to make it safe to criticize."

3. Stay close to innovation in the academic community.

"Connection is worth far more than any ideas we may have revealed: It helps us attract exceptional talent and reinforces the belief throughout the company that people are more important than ideas."

HT to Scott Hodge for pointing out the article.

Friday 5 (late’ish)

2008-09-07T07:09:06+00:00

Two days late but no one’s perfect …

1. Are you going to school this fall? If not, what was the most recent year of school you completed?

Not going. Last finished any schooling in July 2007.

2. If yes, what kind of schooling are you doing (middle school, high school, undergraduate, graduate, etc.)?

I was doing an HNC (now attained) in Design for Interactive Media - just because I could and not for any professional reasons, need or ambition.

3. Are you someone who enjoys/enjoyed going back to school?

I loved my school days and returning always involved solo flight and train journeys. Plus all those pretty BOAC (that shows my age) stewardesses got to mother me ….!

4. Do/did you like back-to-school shopping? Why or why not?

Shopping - meh. Never enjoy shopping.

5. Are/were you a good student?

What do you mean by good? Was I intelligent and got high grades, then yes. Was I well behaved and a model to my fellow inmates, then not at all!

Antivirus XP 2008 - Is It For Real?

2008-09-06T23:32:46+00:00

Have you seen a pop-up or an e-mail prompting you to download a program call Antivirus XP 2008? It looks legitimate and for the uninformed, it seems like the wise thing to do. However, it is bogus. What it is doing is tricking you into thinking you have a virus and need this software to clean it. The ultimate goal of this type of attack is to get your money, not steal it from you behind your back, but prompt you to give it to them. According to the message you are given, you need to buy their legitimate looking product to clean the virus. CA explains it best here in their security advisor:

The most recent, and unfortunately most prolific, rogue security product to be installed is “Antivirus XP 2008″, but that could change. Past downloads have included rogue security products like Antivirus 2009, WinFixer 2006 and Malware Protector 2008. Most variants hijack the user’s desktop and screensaver. They also use what look like legitimate Windows alerts (balloon windows), but are actually fake alerts, to scare the user into thinking they are infected with spyware. Unfortunately, the actual infection is FakeAlert and related components. The same alerts offer a remedy to the infection, a rogue security product, that will remove the “spyware” for a fee. The entire scheme is meant to get your money. All components need to be removed to neutralize the threat.

I have heard of many instances of this virus popping up and it’s an easy sell, apparently, especially if you know you have let your anti-virus subscription lag or don’t even have AV. My pastor got it and I just finished cleaning his laptop up last night. There are basically 2 fixes:

Make several registry edits, deleting several values that were added
Re-image your hard drive (reformat and reinstall Windows)

Doing anything with the registry is somewhat tricky and not for the faint at heart and if you don’t know what a registry is, then don’t go there. (Unless you are wanting to learn and can follow some simple instructions. Just know that you may end up at the second fix above if you are not careful.

Here’s CA’s step by step instruction to clean this bad boy up:

This threat alters the users desktop and registry. To restore the system’s background and screensaver, the user has to manually edit the registry as below after performing a full scan with CA Anti-Spyware:
Warning: CA encourages users to back up their registry before making any changes. To backup the registry, please refer to Microsoft’s page here. The registry is critical to the proper function of the operating system and incorrect changes can result in a variety of problems like the loss data, dysfunctional programs, etc.

1. Click Start
2. Click Run
3. Type regedit
4. Click OK.
5. Navigate to the following registry subkey:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

Delete the following registry values under this subkey:

• “NoDispBackgroundPage”
• “NoDispScrSavPage”

6. Navigate to and delete the following registry subkey:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sysinternals\Bluescreen Screen Saver

7. Navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Colors

And set the value data of the following value to null by clicking on it and deleting its contents:

“Background”

8. Exit the Registry Editor.
After performing the above steps, the Desktop and Screen Saver tabs should be visible in Display Properties window (Right click on desktop and then click on Properties from Context Menu). From here, the user can restore any previous wallpaper/screensaver settings.

This threat is not self replicating and it must be manually installed, which occurs when you opt in to use or buy their AV software. It sure is making the rounds though.

Have you had a run in with Antivirus XP 2008 yet?

MinistryCOM Countdown - 11 days

2008-09-06T18:54:19+00:00

Sorry for the quiet this week. Things are not conducive to consistent writing at the moment. I have about a half a dozen posts in development, and am a bit frustrated I haven't been able to make time to get them fleshed out. Here's a quick hit, though.

Make some time week after next to get to Oklahoma City for MinistryCOM. It's worth the time, and the trip. It's the very best place you can be if your passion is communications for the church.

If you will be there, drop me a line. I'd love to connect.

Dunkin' Mason!

2008-09-06T16:23:39+00:00

Thursday night Mason prayed to accept Jesus as his personal savior. This weekend he'll be baptized at our Pines Campus following the Saturday night service. It is quite cool that this is the inauguration of the new fountain (pictured here).

Suzie and I are very excited and grateful that our wonderful, near-7-year-old son has made a decision to follow Christ!

On a related note, Suzie is baking in celebration of the occasion which is quite literally the icing on this already great day.

File Migration is Complete

2008-09-06T12:49:03+00:00

Just a quick update, we have officially completed our migration off of our old file server and on to our new, virtualized solution. I turned our old file server off this week. We will be re-tasking this box, deploying it to our Worship Arts ministry for them to use as a 'bit bucket' of sorts. It will be theirs to use, and manage, as they see fit.

As for our new file storage solution, I think it is working quite well. I have blogged numerous times in the past about the various aspects of this change. Along the way, I have built a suite of tools for managing our new file server. I wrote a Powershell script to create new shared areas, another script to reset security on existing shared resources, and started a library of tools for reporting purposes.

Over all, I think this project has gone well. While it is, in a very real sense, never-ending, I do feel like we have reached a point where we can call this job "done". The old server is off and the new solution is purring along.

Exceptions....

2008-09-06T02:22:34+00:00

There are many times in IT where we have policies and procedures to keep things standard and to better be able to serve all of the users in your environment - but there are also times when they do not make sense for every situation.

I have always struggled with trying to treat everyone the same way as far as there computer goes. We have a standard image, and pretty much everyone should live by it - with really no exceptions. This is just being fair.... right?

I have been reading though John Wooden's book - Wooden on Leadership. John brings up the point that this is neither fair or impartial. Its the opposite.

There are rules and guidelines that you must stay firm on - but there are also some in which you must observe the situation and have the flexibility to make exceptions depending on the user or staff member and what they are doing.

We must be firm in the areas that matter - but we still need to be flexible - and listen to our users, being able to discern what they really need.

If we in IT are genuine and care about our users, they will know we are for them - and are not just trying to push policies down there throat to make there life any harder or trying to control how they go about their day.

We need to be fair - but that does not mean we treat every situation the same way.

This Is NOT Holy Water

2008-09-05T21:17:16+00:00

We need a sign that says:

NOT HOLY WATER, MAY CONTAIN COOTIES

You see, we've had a decorative fountain in the lobby of our Pines Campus for almost 8 years. Every little kid that comes through our doors wants to put their fingers in the water. Some, like my kid when he was little, don't stop at fingers. They'll jump in if their parents aren't watching.

So I got a chuckle the other day when a lady was filling a water bottle from the fountain. Clearly she was thinking it was holy water. There is a drinking fountain just around the corner. She was probably on her way to Mass in our auditorium.

Thing is we are a Baptist church. We will dunk you in water, but that water need not be blessed by a priest.

This illustrates that South Floridians make their own sort of religious experience at our church every week. It is funny when one tries to impose that on everyone else like the guy who insisted our pastors should wear robes. I told him some of us do at home at night before bed.

So, if you come to my church you'll enter through the lobby walk past a decorative fountain and go into the auditorium for worship. If you encounter one of our parishioners though, they may tell you to go through the narthex, past the holy water font, and on in for Mass! It is all good.

SharePoint Services and a Merciful God

2008-09-05T19:24:24+00:00

We use SharePoint here, I mean we USE the heck out of it. From staff documents, calanders, department websites, and our IT ticketing system just to name a few. Yesterday morning our SharePoint server went down hard. It appeared to be a SCSI disk drive but we are still not 100% sure that it isn’t a Perc card instead. we are still working with Dell who has dispatched someone to replace both drives. Maybe we did lose 3 drives but it justseems unlikely.

When I found out yesterday SharePoint was down, my chest sunk as I realized I had not backed it up in nearly a year. We did have an older version of the DB but we would have lost so much data. This is where God comes in. James, my excellent trust 2nd in command, does manage to get the server to boot up after playing with the SCSI inetrface and forcing them online. As soon as it was up I got a good backup. The server stayed up the rest of the day but failed later in the evening, about one hour after the last succesful backup.

I was missing a few important CAB files but now I have found them all now. I have even re-built the SharePoint site on to another server. We will hold off on letting that server loose on the staff in hopes we can get our regular SharePoint server operational. I’m confident we can get it back to the way folks expect it to be, with the exception of making it available to the outside world right away. I just want it up and do not want to mess with certificates today. We have so much on our plates right now. Next weekend we have our first service in the new worship center and we have way too much to do already.

It is odd that we have had so many server issues lately. I blame the “enemy” on this as with our growth going on he wants to throw a wrench in our work here. I messed up big time by not having a good backup of SharePoint, but God took mercy on me and allowed me to be able to get it back. We will not make that mistake again. We are actually very good at backups and this is the only server we didn’t have a current backup of.

So now James and I get to wait for Dell to replace the drives, which may not even be our problem. Once the server is back up we only need to reinstall Server 2003. After that I need to rebuild SharePoint, after the dry run on another server I’m confident I can rebuild it in under 1 hour. I may end up coming in tomorrow or just attempt it from home.

ShareThis

Dirt (of the Mouse Kind) Where it Hurts

2008-09-05T18:21:49+00:00

My brother Gordon is at it again. This time, it's a mouse, the Communion table, and a scene that would send my mother into an hysterical cleaning frenzy. Gordon says it was really a blessing. I tend to agree.

Read about it here.

Some Vendor Love

2008-09-05T15:48:44+00:00

Recently we have started doing a little business with Zones (including the $300 Sony laptop Deal) and while talking to our rep Nathan I was giving him a hard time and said he should be showing us more love… He asked if a box of widgets was a good first step and we said we love free stuff so a few day later a box arrived with some cool widgets… including my favorites.. the Crucial Memory Hog and the Kaspersky Dancing robot.

CITRT & Events

2008-09-05T09:25:08+00:00

For all things Church IT related, check out CITRT.org. Please join the CITRT group on LinkedIn.

Events Ahead:

Sept 18, 2008: Lunch & Learn: IP Trunks, Tools for Ministry
Sept 18, 2008, 10:00 PM: Church IT Podcast
October 6, 2008 (afternoon/evening): Pre-roundtable Tour of Atlanta-area churches
October 7, 2008: Pre-roundtable Tour of North Point Church, Alpharetta GA
Oct 8-10, 2008: Fall 2008 Church IT Roundtable, Charleston SC

Custom Outlook And Windows Vista Previews

2008-09-05T05:14:25+00:00

In Outlook 2007 and Windows Vista- one of the features I enjoy the most is the option to preview an attachment file or document in a folder before you open it.

One of the things that has bothered me is the in-ability to preview and non-text file (such as ZIP, and SQL files).

After a bit of research I found the Vista and Office 2007 Preview Handler Pack (for the SQL and other developer type files) and the Microsoft sample previewers for ZIP, PDF, MSI, etc files.

I have continued to be impressed by this tool, for example- previewing a SQL file in Windows Vista (looks very similar in Outlook 2007).

Or how about previewing a PDF file:

To enable the preview in Windows Vista - you can follow the instructions located on My Digital Life

Hopefully this can save you as much time as it has saved me.

Tracking Passwords

2008-09-05T04:39:12+00:00

One of the things I have always struggled with is tracking usernames and passwords for services we subscribe to at NCBC as well as some of our general network passwords.

Up until a couple weeks ago - we tracked this information in an Excel sheet. It worked, but not well.

The Excel sheet was cluttered- and lacked organization. I found my self using ctrl+f all to often searching for a service.

A couple of the requirements I had for switching away from the Excel sheet were:

1. The solution had to be in-expensive (Under $50.00)

2. The solution must be encrypted

3. The solution must allow tagging / categories

4. The solution should be able to sync to multiple computers.

Enter KeePass.

KeePass it free, encrypted, uses categories, and can even sync to multiple computers!

If you are looking for a solution for tracking usernames and passwords for your network or even at home give this a shot. The only thing it does not due (yet) is Sync to the iPhone.

Big News in Virtualization - Red Hat aquires KVM inventor, maintainer Qumranet

2008-09-04T22:42:15+00:00

Red Hat announced today the acquisition of Qumranet, the inventor and maintainer of KVM: http://www.redhat.com/promo/qumranet/

Red Hat has been involved with the ongoing efforts to develop and maintain KVM. I think this will give additional focus, resources, and credibility to the KVM project. Red Hat's virtual management project, oVirt will probably pick up the pace as well.

So long as Red Hat keeps development of KVM as free and open-source, this should be a big plus. I don't know why they wouldn't.

It's been clear to me for over a year now that KVM was the future of virtualization, that VMWare and Xen would fade as the Hypervisor becomes a commodity. Ubuntu moving to KVM as it's primary platform for virtualization was the first validation, and now Red Hat. KVM already has a broader set of capabilities than ESX and Xen. It'll blow the doors off of virtualization with the upcoming PCI passthrough capabilties (more news on that to follow).

I'll keep you apprised of what I see going on in the developer community for KVM

Well this may not be good!

2008-09-04T21:41:20+00:00

Just checked out the recent update from NOAA on Hurricane Ike. You can find it www.nhc.noaa.gov. Another good source is www.wunderground.com. Anyway, the five day forecast is out and it looks like this:

That red arrow you see to the bottom right of Lake Okeechobee points to my house. Not to make it all about me, but…
Fortunately, five days is a long way out. They are predicting it to weaken some in the next 24-48 hrs. Which would be good because a Cat 4 would probably be worth leaving town for.
The path can likely change a lot in that time. Especially given that the models show three different paths. Unfortunately, they all end up at the same place. If it still holds true by Saturday, you can bet I will be filling up the gas cans for the generator and getting t the window a/c unit ready.

Nothing to panic over, but certainly worth watching.

Politics

2008-09-04T13:02:41+00:00

This is a topic I don't usually talk about in forums like this because it can be so polarizing. But I must say that I'm pretty fed up with politics, and I don't think I'm alone. In fact, I changed my party affiliation this year in protest. I'm no longer tied to any party; in California it's called decline to state.

Here are a some of my observations:

Most politicians have lost nearly all interest in representing their constituencies and are now focused almost entirely on representing their political parties and their special interests. Evidence of this is in the details of every bill passed by congress at the state and federal levels. They always have myriads of provisions used to buy supporting votes; they never just address the issue they purport to address.
Most news broadcasters no longer report, they influence. I listened to the major speeches of both party conventions and was disgusted with those who tried to interpret what I just heard as though I couldn't figure it out for myself. Even worse was the obvious bias they displayed in doing so! It was not objective reporting in any way.
I was impressed by Obama's speech at his convention by his inspiring words. I was disappointed, though, when he made promises that no politician could ever accomplish! I've heard such promises before, and then heard politicians later say they didn't realize how complicated the issues were and how hard it is to move such a large bureaucracy. He was very inspiring, but I concluded that his promises were empty. Then I watched the Saddleback Civil Forum where he said one thing that I didn't like: faith-based organizations who accept federal funds will not be able to discriminate in their hiring based on religious beliefs. In the same forum, McCain said they need to be able to hire only those of like faith or their effectiveness will be severely compromised.
I was surprised as I listened to Palin's speech last night-- she is a strong player who reminded me a lot of Ronald Reagan. Then I got to thinking of the promise for change Obama made, realizing he hasn't done anything in the Senate yet that reached across party lines on our behalf... but McCain's done that so much that he's been a thorn to his party. Obama's running mate has been in the Senate for nearly 30 years, so he seems like part of the problem; McCain's running mate effectively shook up the politics of her state and likely has the character to do the same in Washington.

Well, I feel like a revolution of sorts needs to take place in our political system. Politicians need to rededicate themselves to serving their constituencies and not their parties and special interests. If that doesn't happen, the Democratic and Republican parties are doomed to be replaced.

Google Chrome - Initial Thoughts

2008-09-04T08:47:26+00:00

So I’ve been playing with chrome - google’s new broswser project - and my initial thought is one of yuck.

I’m desperately trying to be impartial but I find it ugly, incomplete (ok, ok so it’s a beta) and too rigid. Call me a stick in the mud but I like my seperate search box, though I can see the ease of use factor for being able to search direct from the URL box.

I’m a lover of firefox and a despiser of IE. If I’m forced to use IE by a site (my bank thinks firefox is less secure than IE - way too funny) then I just use IE Tab to make firefox appear as IE and I’m in. Will chrome have these problems? I love firefox’s tabs, stability, constant updates, support, skins and plugins. I’m sure there’s more as well but I can’t think of them right now. I’m sure chrome will adapt and change and allow 3rd party plugins, etc but for now this is a show stopper for me.

Right now chrome seems dull, insipid and a poor, though much faster at rendering than IE cousin. Though it would seem to currently share IE’s security problems. Have a look at this PC World article.

Also - where’s my status bar gone. I like being able to see - though I accept it is but a poor representation of reality - what is happening to a page load, etc.

Next on my hit list is the lack of integration with Roboform. I guess a workaround will be along some day but I don’t hold my breath for it and if it isn’t, then sadly chrome won’t make it for long on my systems. Robo-Form Blogspot says it best for me.

Finally, for now, I’m not an immediate fan of my history or downloads history being opened in a new tab, but this is a minor issue and just a matter of getting used to it.

Oh, and if you’re still an IE fan, then go take a look see at the Chrome v IE site and cast your votes but please remember that this is not fact just peoples gut feelings being voted on.

I reserve my judgement, but will fiddle some more with it.

Imagine

2008-09-04T03:48:25+00:00

The last few weeks have been crazy with our church’s spiritual campaign called Imagine getting ready to kick-off. It’s going to be an awesome 9 weeks as we look at what it’s like to have a fully devoted life. One of our intro videos tells it best. This weekend it all starts, if you’re [...]

Apple uses Windows Mobile in its stores

2008-09-04T01:17:31+00:00

I was in an Apple store at lunch today (don't tell anybody) with a friend picking up a Nano for his wife. I have always been curious about the little PDA checkout devices they use. My buddy was even impressed with how quickly he was able to checkout, since the clerk scanned the bar code right where we were standing, and swipped the credit card, all from the PDA. I have been trying for a while to get a good look at it, but the clerks always seem to actively hide the face of the device. Until today, when I was able to see it clearly...

Funny thing is, the PDA she was using was running Microsoft Pocket PC. I even pointed it out to my buddy, to which the clerk just laughed and said 'don't tell anybody'.

I just thought that was ironic. What do you think?

Google Video for Business/Education (Churches too??)

2008-09-04T01:06:06+00:00

VERY INTERESTING!!! Here is a carrott for you. Could this be an alternative to hosting on YouTube so as to avoid the bad stuff. They also have an education edition. Not sure which category churches may fall under by Google's definition, but definitely worth looking at!

Straight from Google Enterprise blog:

Introducing Google Video for business

Monday, September 01, 2008 at 8:30 PM

People have been discussing the promise of corporate video for years. But to date it hasn't met expectations. Doing it well meant investing tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in specialized video hardware and software that are difficult to set up, maintain and use. It was out of reach to all but the largest companies, and even for them, justifying the ROI of an enterprise video deployment was a challenge.

Thanks to cloud computing these barriers are now surmountable. Today we're announcing Google Video for business, the latest addition to the Google Apps collaboration suite for Premier Edition customers. Now you can share videos securely and affordably within your organization. There's no need to deploy new hardware or software: your videos are securely stored, processed and managed in Google's powerful, distributed cloud computing infrastructure.

Video for business enables your users to upload and share videos with a few easy steps. Once your videos are uploaded, using them across Google Apps is a breeze. You can share your videos with the entire domain, or with specific users. Video sharing is not just about distributing official corporate videos to the whole organization. It's also about enabling your employees to use video easily as an effective medium for communication and collaboration. Create engaging training portals or team spaces using Google Sites with video embeds, or bring a complex financial spreadsheet to life with a video highlighting the key achievements for the quarter. As an admin, you have owner-level access to all the videos in your domain, which means you can monitor your domain for inappropriate content and remove videos where necessary. Admins can also track how much video storage the domain has used, and who the top uploaders are.

Here's how we're using video inside Google:

VIDEO 1

Learn how customers are using Google Video for business:

Video is another example of how cloud computing enables entire new ways of communication and collaboration. We believe that Video for business will transform the way you and your organization use video the same way that YouTube has transformed the consumer video space.

You can learn more about video sharing and other innovative collaboration apps for businesses at www.google.com/apps/collaboration.

Posted by Kuan Yong, Product Manager, and Nick Dower, Tech Lead for Google Video for business team

Hurricane Proof Prayer Closet

2008-09-03T18:46:45+00:00

It is amazing I am not yet a millionaire with ideas like this...

While others are sufing the web for porn or sermon illustrations, I was surfing for blog ideas and found this...

http://www.prayerclosets.net/prayer_closets

and then I found this...

http://eecoexcavation.com/7.html (storm closet)

By combining these two business opportunities into one, I can eliminate 99.5% of the market and focus on my target .5% of people who have more money than faith so they need a safe room, but don't have enough faith in the safe room so that they will want to pray while they are in that safe room.

With a business plan like this, how can I fail?

Please email me if you are a carpenter and happen not to appreciate my admittedly poor sense of humor therefore thinking this is a real idea.

Are You a Limping Christian?

2008-09-03T18:45:15+00:00

Dad on Christians who limp... Don't miss it.

Group Leader Toolbox Aids Ministry

2008-09-03T18:30:20+00:00

I recently had a great conversation with Julie Curry, the Membership Data Director at The Church at Brook Hills. I was excited to hear how their church is using Arena, specifically the Group Leader Toolbox. The Toolbox assists group leaders in keeping track of and communicating with group participants through the church’s website.

Brook Hills tried something new this year by hosting their Backyard Bible Club in homes as opposed to a traditional summer Vacation Bible School at the church. They had 50 host homes and 500 kids! Julie noted that in the past, the church provided hand-written lists of kids to their group leaders. “Leaders liked the toolbox… because now they can just log into our site and touch base with these kids effortlessly,” said Julie.

The Arena Group Leader Toolbox allows leaders to track attendance, add new attendees, and assign certain security roles. Also, leaders are able to send e-mails to their groups and have the option of using e-mail templates.

As I ended the call with Julie, I was pleased to hear that, even though Backyard Bible Club is over for the summer, leaders and participants have continued to use the Group Leader Toolbox to stay in touch via e-mail.

If you would like to see how this Group Leader Toolbox works, please call us. It costs nothing to see this powerful Arena feature and, who knows, you may find “just the ticket” for empowering your group leaders and connecting your community.

Christopher Rivers

How To Be Productive On Your Computer

2008-09-03T17:39:53+00:00

Step 1: Turn it on.

Setp 2: Disconnect from the Internet

Step 3: Work

Let me know how that goes. If I could take that advice myself I wouldn't have written this post.

New in Google Apps: Google Video for education

2008-09-03T16:45:37+00:00

Google released video hosting for the Premier edition yesterday, I was curious if the Education Edition was going to get any love, lo and behold I received this email today:

Greetings admins!

Video hosting and management have historically been cost-prohibitive and a challenge for IT departments and large organizations. That’s why we’re especially excited to let you know that Google Video for education will be available to Google Apps Education Edition customers starting Monday, September 8th.

With Video, faculty and staff can upload and securely share videos with their student body from within the school’s domain (similar to how people share videos with the world on YouTube). Users who are whitelisted by the administrator can share videos with either select individuals or the entire domain in a matter of minutes. Here are some of the features you’ll find on Google Video for education:

Whitelist for granting faculty and staff the ability to upload and share videos

Community features: adding tags, comments and ratings

Embed videos on web pages, including on Google Sites

High quality video streaming

3GB of video storage per users account for the entire domain

Google Apps Education Edition customers can use Google Video for free for the next six months. Starting March 9th, 2009, Education Edition customers with Video activated will be charged $10 per user, per year. The six month trial is intended to help you and your management team decide if Video is right for your school.

Video will be turned off by default in all Education Edition accounts; you can activate this service from within the Google Apps control panel at anytime.

Once activated, users can get started with video at http://video.google.com/a/YOURDOMAIN.com.

Learn how Video is being used inside Google:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWzwLGJ0BIo

Read the announcement on the Official Google Blog:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/video-sharing-goes-to-work.html

Read the announcement on the Google Enterprise Blog:
http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2008/09/introducing-google-video-for-business.html

Sincerely,
The Google Apps EDU Team

ShareThis

Lunch & Learn: IP Infrastructure & Tools for Ministry

2008-09-03T15:46:50+00:00

cSeptember 18, Perimeter Church, Uptown Auditorium, starting at 11:00 AM

Important: please let Gail Richards, GailR [at] Perimeter [dot] org know if you can make it. Note: lunch is free!

Lunch & Learn: IP Infrastructure & Tools for Ministry
w/PAETEC & Fellowship Technologies

Why go IP? Dynamic IP service provides cost efficiency, combined with the flexibility to optimize your bandwith - without expensive network upgrades or increased IT support. PAETEC will share the pro's & con's of VOIP, SIP and applications in the network as well as discussing current trends. We'll also cover capital outlay and hardware requirements for transitioning to an IP infrastructure from a traditional TDM architecture. PAETEC is a $1.7 billion nationwide voice & data carrier with a comprehensive suite of products and services provided with an industry leading level of service and support.

Fellowship Technologies will discuss their internet based enterprise level Church Management Solution. This tool allows churches to reduce costs & workload and increase efficiency while integrating the internet into your chuch culture.

PAETEC and Fellowship will be providing lunch!

Schedule:
11:00-12:00: IP - PAETEC (George Dunn, Jeremy Schell, and Terry Noriega from Adcap)
12:00-12:30: Lunch/Q&A with PAETEC
12:30-1:15 - Fellowship Tech (Errol Coner)
1:15-1:30 - Q&A

Some IT folks may not care about church management software so this schedule allows them to leave after the IP discussion. Also, if anyone comes that doesn't care about IP, they could arrive at 12:00.

Fellowship will be available for followup appts. thru Friday Sept. 19th.

It's Hard to Dunk a Horse

2008-09-03T12:04:19+00:00

Customer: “I need some help with the animal watering troughs.”

Me: “Sure, they are outside. Let’s go look at them.”

(Outside…)

Customer: “Can I see if I fit in it?”

Me: “Um, ok.”

(The customer climbs in.)

Customer to companion: “Ok, now you get in too, see if we will both fit.”

(The customer’s companion climbs in.)

Customer: “Ok, this will work, but do you have any nicer looking ones, without dents? We are using it for a baptismal font.”

From "Not Always Right"... an hilarious blog that you should read every day, just to remember why you don't want to work retail.

The Post Without A Name

2008-09-03T05:14:30+00:00

I haven’t written much lately and I’m trying to get back in the game here. I have been extremely busy and things are starting to fall into place. I have been busy at church lately but also getting tired and kinda burned out. So, I have slowed down there and I have taken time to think through what I really want. I have also considered if serving in the church in this way is worth it. I do this every once in awhile and from what I hear, people that serve in tech ministry and probably any ministry, find themselves wondering from time to time if what they are doing is worth it.

Being a volunteer, I have the luxury of picking and choosing what I do and when I do it, so lately, I haven’t done much and it’s been nice. I’ve also drawn some conclusions and in the end, I have no idea what it all means.

A little over a year ago, I was tasked with being responsible for everything tech in the church. As Kirk Longhofer says, “if it plugs in to a wall, I’m responsible for it.” (except the typewriter, that’s where I draw the line!) That has been my role and it has brought some interesting opportunities.

For a long time, church was my outlet because my job wasn’t fullfilling me, then the prospect of a new job came along. Now that I’m in a new job, it challenges me and it pushes me in ways that I haven’t been pushed in a long time, plus it requires a lot of my time.

Now that I’m getting settled into my job, I’m re-assessing my other priorities. Family comes first, of course, then after that comes the job and several other things, church is in their somewhere too. As I consider my role in my church, I realize that it is draining me and that’s not good. Things I know I need to do are slipping and things I don’t really want to do are kind of halfway getting done, and draining me. It’s draining me because I’m not focused in the right way and doing things that God has gifted me to do.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have had the opportunity to hand off some of my responsibilities and that is a huge relief. I have also considered why I am doing this and what’s my role in the church tech world.

To me, there’s my role in my local church and there is also my role through this blog and among my peers from all over the U.S. and beyond. My role in my local church is my decision to make, I can decide how to serve in the best way God has gifted me and even seek His leading to the church He wants me to attend.

Then there’s the role of me with this blog and with other like minded servants in churches a lot like mine, some larger, some smaller, some with better equipment, some with worse equipment, some with more volunteers, some with fewer volunteers. That’s one thing I have never had a problem with is volunteers, I generally have plenty of volunteers. Of course, I would always like a few more but things are pretty well covered in the areas I’m responsible for. God has been good to me in that area. I don’t over complicate things, I just talk to people, invite them to give it a try.

I guess what I’m saying is, it’s up to me to decide how God wants me to serve in my own church, but the other element is my role in the church IT world as a whole. There are a lot of times that I truly wonder how I fit into this larger church IT world and I wonder what business I have being associated with these people. A lot of them are so smart and know so much and I stand to learn a ton from them but I can also look around and see people that think I know what I’m talking about and at times others learn from me. It’s a great community, very friendly and one that I am honored to be part of. It’s time for me to step up and continue following God, even to places that are beyond me.

Enough rambling, here is what I have concluded. I think this blog is an extension of who I am and what I am doing. Lately, I haven’t really been doing much that seems to fullfill me and apparently that’s why I’m not writing. The reason I got into all this in the first place was church I.T. and that means computers, networks, servers, users, troubleshooting, wi-fi, including teaching and training and supporting ministry leaders and pastors. In other words, equipping the church to effectively use technology to reach people for Christ. That’s why I do this, both locally and globally. That statement has been my driving force since the beginning of this blog and generally lives in the sidebar. (I don’t know if it’s there now, I should look, I guess.)

After taking quite of bit of time off from everything church related, I have determined that is what I need to get back to. That’s what gets me going, that’s what charges me up is church I.T. and that’s what I need to do. Tonight I went to church to reboot the server and ended up spending a couple of hours troubleshooting a couple of pressing issues and I also sent in the order for our new SonicWall firewall, switch and additional access point. That is very much needed for many reasons and I am looking forward to getting that in place.

Going forward, something I’m going to try to make a priority is to join the church I.T. roundtable weekly podcast that happens every Thursday evening. Now that it’s in the evening, I don’t have as much of an excuse not to take part. If I don’t do it, it’s on me now.

Finally, I don’t think I have mentioned that I was at Saddleback Church last week. I’ve been meaning to write about it and will soon. I even got to hang out in the soundbooth for one of the services. Check back soon and I’ll share about that, it was very cool!

Finally, (again) I know good bloggers include links to people and churches and things they mention but I’m not doing that this time and I know that. Easing back into this writing thing, plus it’s very late and I’ve got to be on the road in 6 hours.

It’s good to be back, I think.

Google’s Chrome Beta

2008-09-02T20:45:34+00:00

David Szpunar did a post earlier about Google’s new beta web browser Chrome. When David posted it was not out yet but there was a comic released explaining it. I thought it was cool they did a “manual” in comic form. On one hand as a wanna-be cartoonist it was cool and on the other hand it was created by Scott McCloud of whom I’m a fan. If you are a wanna-be cartoonist like me you would instantly know who McCloud is. He has written several books about cartooning. His approach has always been interesting. He writes it in a fully fleshed out cartoon way. After reading “Understanding Comics” by McCloud I had wondered if a techy manual would work in the same style. It’s something I may want to tackle someday. It makes an easier read and being a visual person I can see what he is trying to say. Take a look at the comic of Chrome, and you will see what I mean and the possible potential of a Computer training comic. I have not fully beat up on Chrome yet but I’m using it. If you want to download it find it here.

ShareThis

Google Chrome

2008-09-02T20:35:47+00:00

Google Chrome

Yep, trying this out. I looked at Google Docs what seems like two years ago and decided against it. Much as I like having new stuff-especially free new stuff, the editor just seemed to be too stripped down. Reminded me too much of WordPad. Very few people I knew were using gmail, so sharing docs was not going to happen. The big functionality was a non-issue for me.

When I first looked at Chrome, I thought the same thing. Too basic. But I have now monkeyed around on it for about an hour and I kind of like it. I am even experimenting with Google Docs again. In fact, this very post is on Google docs and should post directly to WordPress.

Things I like so far about Chrome:

1. Being able to pull a tab into its own window. Kind of cool and useful for me.

2. The app launcher. We do our website through ACS Extend. That was my first app shortcut. It worked well. It certainly looks different without the address bar etc at the top. Extend now really does look like an application. The thing I don’t like is that in this mode, there is no “back” button. I use that button a lot.

3. By being somewhat “stripped down” I gain about 3/4″ of real estate at the top. On the Fox News Home Page I get six more lines of headlines from the center section just by gaining all that space at the top back. Less scrolling up and down. Good.

At this time, it doesn’t look like you can turn off the pop-up blocker or allow pop-ups from certain sites. This seems odd as web based apps use pop-ups. I am sure someone will correct me on this.

Other than that, it is kind of cool. It is new. And free. Which is good.