- Oct 8-10: Fall '08 Church IT Roundtable at Seacoast Church
- (past) Sept 17: Fall '08 GCC IT Roundtable
- (past) April 5: Spring '08 Roundtable Oklahoma City
- Fall '07 Roundtable recap
- Fall '07 Roundtable at GCC recap
- Other Roundtable news
- Take the Church IT Survey
- Listen/join the Church IT Podcast
- Join the Church IT IRC channel
Church IT Stuff To Note
October 04, 2008
Church IT Resource List
In thinking about next week's Church IT Roundtable, I started to list all the various resources us church IT folks are using to stay informed and connected ... and wow the list kept going and going! This is both great and challenging :-)
It's great in that our grassroots movement is growing rapidly and jumping on any technology that could benefit the greater good. The challenge is that these resources are scattered ALL over the place making them often hard to find and easy to forget about. So I'm making this list mainly for myself at this point, but assume it will be helpful for some of you as well.
AND I've recommitted myself to help lead the charge in creating an easy to use one-stop-shop portal for all our resources. So far google apps and ning.com would be great possible tools to make this happen. Let me know if you're interested in helping.
So here's the list I've compiled so far in the order they popped into my head ... what have I forgotten?
CITRT.org - We're planning to continue to make this THE FUNNEL for all things Church IT related (see CITRT Summary and Vision). A place to capture everything from events to resources to prayer requests to stuff to buy/sell. As mentioned above, an extreme site makeover is coming in the near future. [site hosted/maintained by Jeffrey Thompson]
Church IT Podcast - www.churchITpodcast.com Twice a month CITRT folks "meet" online and via phone to discuss all manner of IT topics. The call is recorded and then made available as a podcast. We even have transcriptions of each call to aid in searching for something in particular. [maintained by Jason Powell]
Twitter - There are a number of Church IT peeps on Twitter. I've not yet found a good way to "group" us together, but you can search for CITRT to find some. After the roundtable next week I'm sure #citrt will be hoppin'
Facebook - We have over 200 people in our CITRT group on facebook. It's a place to find other facebook CITRT peeps and get occasional CITRT news updates. [maintained by Jason Powell]
Linkedin - We have almost 200 people in our Linkedin CITRT group. Recommend you join it to find other CITRT peeps. Linkedin now has discussion threads which could be useful to gather feedback. [Created by Ian Beyer]
Blog Aggregator - We have aggregated a number of church IT related blogs. Here's how to add yours to the list. [maintained by Jeffrey Thompson?]
Blog Search Engine - Andrew Mitry made a handy google search that searches through the blogs listed in the above blog aggregator. It's found at the top of the CITRT.org main page or hit Andrew's link above to use the code on your own site.
Blogroll - Clif Guy maintains a large blogroll of church technology related blogs
Roundtable Guidelines - Thinking about starting your own local roundtable meetings? You should! Here's the basic guidelines we work from for each roundtable.
Discussion Topics - Here's a large list of all the different topics that have been discussed at our prior events.
IT Discuss Forum - Ministry IT focused forum that's been around several years. [site hosted/maintained by Jeffrey Thompson]
IT Discuss Email List - Ministry IT focused email list that's been around several years with fully searchable archives. [site hosted/maintained by Jeffrey Thompson]
Church IT Survey - Ever wonder what churches similar to you are doing IT wise? How many computers do they support? What's their IT staff size? Do they support multi-site, etc? Or what about those churches several steps ahead of you - what's their IT makeup look like? How should you plan now to be at that size in the future? What about trying to find churches around you with experience in VoIP, Virtualization, etc? Wouldn't it be sweet to have a resource that helped shed some light on these questions? That's what this is for. (note to self to get more current data into the survey and find a better way to manage end user updates) [created/maintained by Jason Powell]
Church IT Survey Google Map - Derek Berg made a nice mashup between the above survey data and google maps. See where other churches that have survey data are in relationship to you. (Derek's working on a newer mashup version)
ChMS Google Group - Discussion of needs and ideas for Church Management Systems. [maintained by Tony Dye]
Flickr Group - We even have a group on Flickr where you can browse Church IT related photos and pics from our actual Roundtable events. [created/maintained by Justin Moore]
IRC / Chat Room - If you hadn't heard ... we have a 24/7 Church IT chat room you're invited to join. You'll find IT geeks hangin' out in there all hours of the day and into the midnight hours. It's a place to ask questions, blow off some steam, and get to know other IT peers [created by Jeffrey Thompson]
Instant IRC / Chat Room - This link takes you directly into the Church IT chat room ... nothing but a web browser required.
Webcam Aggregator - Every so often some of us will fire up our webcams for your voyeuristic pleasure :-) [created/maintained by Justin Moore]
MinistryIT Yahoo Group - Another Church IT discussion group that's relatively new. [created/maintained by Nick Nicholaou]
Texas Ministry Tech - From the site: Texas Ministry Tech is dedicated to creating and growing relationships and cooperation between ministry-minded IT folks in Texas. [created by Scott Miller]
Ministry Tech - From the site: MinistryTECH is a new national conference dedicated to church information technology professionals. Come join some of the leading church tech professionals to learn how they are using technology in their ministries.
I'm sure there's more ... as you think of other church IT related resources please leave a comment and I'll add it to the list.
October 02, 2008
6 days 'til Fall 2008 Church IT Roundtable!
I'm SOOO looking forward to this next week! Hard to believe our little un-conference will celebrate it's 2yr anniv next week! It all began on Sept 20, 2006
Here are some highlights for next weeks event at Seacoast Church in lovely South Carolina:
Attendees
We are up to 60+ attendees now!
Here are some of the churches and companies represented:
12Stone Church
ACS Technologies
Blackhawk Church
Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale
Calvary Chapel Melbourne
Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church
Christian Fellowship Church
Christian Life Center
Crossroads Community Church
Crossroads Fellowship
Grace Covenant Church
Granger Community Church
Heritage Christian Center
Johnson Ferry Baptist Church
Kingsway Christian Church
Lakeview Church
LCBC
LifeChurch.tv
Lincoln Berean Church
Margaret Salyers Transcription
MBS, Inc.
NewPointe Community Church
NewSpring Church
Northwoods Community Church
Perimeter Church
Savannah Christian Church
Second Baptist Church
ServiceU Corporation
Shades Mountain Baptist Church
Solerant
St Andrews Church
UMC of the Resurrection
Victory Family Church
Vineyard Columbus
VR6 Systems
Windsor Crossing Community Church
Woodmen Valley Chapel
Bandwidth
We are setup with high-density WiFi!
We will have 50+Mbps of internet bandwidth!
Food
Tuesday’s early arrivals dinner will be at WildWing Café(http://www.wildwingcafe.com/)
Wednesday’s lunch will be a box lunch
Wednesday’s dinner will be catered BBQ
Thursday’s lunch will be a catered Italian meal
Thursday’s dinner will be offsite at A.W. Shucks in downtown Charleston (http://www.a-w-shucks.com/)
Friday’s lunch will be catered at Blackbaud
Fun Events
Tuesday night offisite dinner
Wednesday night Worship Service
Wednesday night gaming (Wii,Xbox,PS,LAN,Pool,Foozeball,AirHockey,N64,GameCube, etc. – bring your games if you want!)
Thursday night offsite dinner
Thursday night walking tour of downtown Charleston
Friday tour of Blackbaud
Vendors
ACS
Apple
Blackbaud
CCBI
Christian Archives
DataDomain/CommVault - VR6 Systems
EqualLogic - VR6 Systems
FellowshipOne
Intel Storage
ServiceU
Shelby/Arena
Solerant
SonicWall
Sophos
SpiritTelecom
Xirrus
MORE INFO AT www.CITRT2008.com
September 29, 2008
Weekly Twitter Roundup
Last weeks tweets filtered for mainly IT content...
9/22/08
10:24 Day off work to-do list=rake yard, S-Corp doc tweaks, bank stuff, setup new home PC, buy/install ceiling fan. Guess I should start soon :-) 18:44 twitpic.com/crgn - Blue eyed girlie
9/23/08
09:12 2wks until we fly out for the Seacoast Church IT Roundtable. It's morbid to think about but Kim and I want/need a will done before we leave. 15:01 Got my tickets all acted on 2day, worked on more PM stuff, now trying to get inbox back down to 20 from 200 since Innovate storm last week 16:58 @mbsnick We went with ultimate on the laptops for the drive encryption, but it's major pain. So Vista biz would be my recommendation. 17:00 Giving XOBNI a try again. It really dogged my laptop when it first came out so I axed it. Hopefully it's much improved now? 21:11 Setting up new family PC & upgrading 2 Vista Ultimate. 4+ years since we've had a new PC. Hope to get my wife into the online social ... 22:35 Downloading new Lincoln Brewster album to the Zune. God bless subscription music!
9/24/08
12:49 twitpic.com/cywp - Staff geeked about getting their self checkin tags today! 17:21 Booo. Someone from Dell please tell me we can somehow create volumes bigger than 2TB on the MD3000i? Please? 18:03 @jeremyscheller GCC IT Best Practices Guide tinyurl.com/3r9fro Enjoy! 20:29 Self check-in phase1 rolled out tonight. The people I saw using it gave it 2 thumbs up.
9/25/08
07:24 Wow, got up to a bunch of birthday well wishers. Thanks ya'll :-) Now if only this sore throat would leave my be. 07:52 Never a good helpdesk support request to see "I need the 0 drive installed on my machine" .. ruh roh! 07:56 My wife is now on twitter. Welcome @kimpowell if you get a chance. 08:03 Happy anniv to @gotmoore and @wantmoore! You picked a great day to get married ;-) 11:39 Wonder if hot wings for lunch will help my sore throat? Looking forward to finding out. WingsETC at noon! 14:07 Wings were great..my throat actually feels a bit better believe it or not. @kimpowell even joined us 2day! 18:07 Afternoon of network traffic analysis at GCC then Seacoast CITRT planning conf call with @tracep @tonydye @clifguy and Jason Lee. 19:14 twitpic.com/d5yx - I'm 371 yrs old! 23:58 Good BDAY despite the sore throat. I'm still laughing at the battlestar galactica photoshop pic. twitpic.com/d3mq
9/26/08
09:21 New blog post: GCC IT Roundtable Recap bit.ly/4FUKKH 17:38 twitpic.com/dbj5 - Birthday $ equals ... 18:00 twitpic.com/dbnx - Day full of project management talk. We've landed on our solution and will refine as we go.
9/27/08
10:18 @ebusby Who do we engage at Saddleback about getting their involvement in our Church IT Roundtable events? 10:35 Spending some time on Facebook to respond to wall messages and invites. 20:09 twitpic.com/dk91 - Group of core elkhart campus volunteers take stage to be commissioned by Beeson and GCC
9/28/08
11:44 Making the switch from yahoo music to rhapsody for Jacob. Very happy all the songs and playlists transferred over. w00t!! 16:06 Retweet @wantmoore: twitpic.com/dog1 - The new Mary Poppins starring @jasonpowell 16:19 twitpic.com/dooo Other duties as assigned?????
September 26, 2008
Fall 08 GCC IT Roundtable Recap
The 08 GCC IT Roundtable is now a week past ... what a great time hangin' out and learning from each other. We had a number of familiar faces present and a couple folks joining us for the first time.
I meant to get a group photo and failed ... rats! In fact the whole even went by so fast that I only grabbed a few photos. Hopefully others in attendance will send me pics they took.
Dave Mast, Dean Lisenby, Sheldon Strauss showed up Tuesday afternoon to hang with us. Dave actually did some cabling work for us while he waited! Thanks Dave!
Welcome to Moe's! Roundtable peeps and some spouses (and my kids) enjoy some tasty foodage courtesy ACS Technologies. Thanks Dean!
This year we met in the "Under the Sea" room ... complete with giant whale that serves as the exit to the upper level slide :-)
Dave Mast and Justin Moore brought in some morning food for everyone.
Attendees (starting with guy in red shirt and going counter-clockwise)
Emory Mixon - Asst Tech Director - Church of the Cross
Dean Lisenby - Exec Dir of IT - ACS Technologies
Nick Nicholaou - IT Consultant - MBS, Inc.
Robert Brasier - Senior Pastor - FBC Silver City
David Szpunar - Network and Sys Mgr - Lakeview Church
Bill Green - IT Volunteer - Faircreek Church
Jon Potter - Sys Mgr - Warsaw Community Church
Blake Long - IT Intern - Christian Life Church
Troy Lindle - IT/Media Volunteer - Cross Pointe Christian Church
Bruce Allen - IT Support - Crossroads Church and Ministries
Dave Mast - IT Director - New Pointe Community Church
Jeremy Good - Network Admin - The Chapel
Sheldon Strause - IT Mgr - LCBC Church
Paula Novak - Computer Support - Faith Church
Frank Leber - IT Director - Moody Bible College
John De Souza - IT/Media Volunteer - Southlawn UMC
Jason Powell - IT Director - Granger Community Church (not pictured)
Ed Buford - Network Admin - Granger Community Church (far back)
Justin Moore - IT Specialist - Granger Community Church (far back)
Dustin Hannifin - IT Uber Volunteer - Granger Community Church (far back)
This was our on the fly generated discussion list. Would you believe we actually covered almost every single item and a few that didn't make the list! I think that's an IT roundtable first!
Afterwards those that could stay headed over to WingsETC for dinner ... again covered by Dean and ACS Technologies.
We even got some sweet CITRT T-shirts from the Arena folks right as we were packing up for dinner ... Thank you Alfred and team. I'll have to get a good pic of the shirt.
And finally thanks to everyone that came. Hope to see many of you at the Seacoast Roundtable in just a week and half.
September 23, 2008
Weekly Twitter Roundup
Last weeks tweets filtered for mainly IT content...
9/15/08
00:23 3rd week straight keeping inbox under 20. My newer inbox rules (40+) are really helping. 08:29 @tpmorgan Freemind is pretty good, but it's worth the fee for MindManager..and you can get academic pricing if you inquire. Congrats on Zak 09:17 @anthonycoppedge Have you used Mindjet's Connect to do any collaboration yet? Trying to locate some peeps actually using it 4 feedback. 09:47 A certain staff member keeps storing (we hope by accident?) many large AVI files from popular TV shows on our servers. Punishment ideas? 09:57 @jermtech LOL. No spam filter for a week sounds like a great idea! 10:41 @kemmeyer Remember IT is a "drama free" zone ... except for certain cases ;-) 11:48 twitpic.com/boxo - Must B time 4 Innovate. Just lost a drive on our main fileserv. Bad stuff always happens each yr at this time 13:56 twitpic.com/bpgr - Big tent is online 14:49 twitpic.com/bppf - MD3000i has arrived! It's much shorter depth wise than I imagined. 14:56 @DerekSchwab pulled a drive from a test server ... so far so good on RAID rebulid 17:29 @anthonycoppedge Apple Enterprise support has a LONG way to go to be called enterprise worthy 17:54 IT dept biting our tongues very hard..talk about a day of getting kicked around from many sides. Let's see what 2morrow brings. Time 4 home. 18:08 Heading home cancel..RPC issues 18:43 RPC email issues fixed. NOW I can head home? 18:45 twitpic.com/bqvt - More bad..our backup tape autoloader died this morning. A replacement was sent and it 2 is DOA. Wheeee
9/16/08
08:15 Rats! Journey classes really goofing up my plans for GCC IT Roundtable tomorrow. No place for dinner onsite. Oversight on my part. 10:05 Could REALLY use your prayers. Main fileserver won't boot this morning. 10:20 Fileserver RAID troubles. Joy. I wondered yesterday if it could get any worse. Answer = RESOUNDING YES! Guess Satan is ticked about Innovate 10:34 CITRT peeps coming to GCC today. I'm going to ask you not bother Ed or Justin 2day until we get things back online. Sorry. 11:03 Giant GOLD stars for Dell server support. This server is way out of warranty and they are still helping with gusto. 11:19 Kudos to GCC staffers. They are extending grace as best they can even though this is a critical down and impacting their work. 11:32 twitpic.com/btg4 - Server is crippled but alive..now to copy off files in case we loose yet another local disk 11:40 twitpic.com/bth9 - IBM ovrnghtd another backup tape loader..Ed's working to bring it online so we have access to backup data 12:06 Comm/Web team is bring us lunch! Team rules! 12:32 twitpic.com/btpd - Thank you! To our awesome teammates! 13:27 Backup tape unit lives! Kudos to Ed! At least now we can get access to data sitting on tapes if needed. Fileserver VM now being created. 13:30 GCC staff needing a critical file or 2 ASAP email me directly. "might" be able to get you what you seek. 13:48 twitpic.com/bu0r - Just checked the room setup 4 roundtable 2morrow. Needs more wifi signal. 15:24 twitpic.com/bufj - Dean is here! 16:03 Copying files from old server to SAN. Getting ready to start some testing to see what works/is broke. 16:20 Boo..user drives not mapping correctly yet. 17:01 GCC CITRT peeps - we're planning to met at Moe's at 6pm. Informal time to hang out and eat. Pay your own way. address: bit.ly/2TvKCL 17:03 THANK YOU JESUS! New virtual fileserver online and sharing out user files. Other shared drives copying but will take good 6+ hrs to finish 17:21 CITRT Spouses are invited to Moe's 2nite. Come meet the Powell fam 17:29 twitpic.com/buyq - Couple CITRT peeps showed up in our office this evening 18:40 twitpic.com/bvag - Welcome to Moe's! CITRT and food is good! 19:53 So proud of my team today. We prayed over the server/situation first then focused in and worked the problem like a machine. TEAM++ 20:48 Shoot. New server just stopped replying to pings. 21:07 Virtual Disk Errors = not going home yet 21:57 Bonus of working at GCC late. I get to hear all the rehearsal for Innovate. Wow! People are going to love the music! 22:12 Server back online. File copies continue and thinking about PLAN B 22:51 Heading home..back on site by 7am. Praying new VM has no glitches overnight. 22:52 @jeffwilson Yup! Every year something huge blows up right before Innovate regardless of our planning. 23:43 Melatonin in..hope for Zzz quickly. Despite recent issues I'm PUMPED for next 3 days at GCC. God is ALIVE & at work. How big is God? SO BIG!
9/17/08
06:33 up at 6am?! Now showered and ready to head in. Innovate is here! 07:43 Good news=fileserver still cranking. Bad=files STILL copying from old server and some share links not working. Now some email issues. 07:44 @deanlisenby HAPPY BIRTHDAY old dude! Glad you are sharing it with us LIVE today :-) 07:52 GCC CITRT peeps use #citrt today to post today's roundtable tweets. 07:53 Here's where to follow everyone's roundtable tweets today: search.twitter.com/search?q=citrt 09:08 twitpic.com/bxi1 - #citrt morning foodage thanks to Justin and Dave Mast 10:32 twitpic.com/bxrj - #citrt roundtable peeps 10:33 #citrt Great morning thus far. Room full of geeks talking about IT and serving the Kingdom. Love it! 10:40 twitpic.com/bxsi - #citrt Here's our list of topics to discuss today. Wonder how many we'll get through? 13:04 #citrt LUNCH was yum! Lots of talk about storage, backups, data, DR, BC, risk ... stretching the brain :-) 20:04 Great day with #citrt peeps..brain stretched very well. Hope to see many of these folks again at Seacoast in a few weeks. 20:22 Had checkin issues AGAIN tonight..GRRRR. Bandwidth maxed out yet again. Gotta figure out QOS on the Sonicwall. 20:52 Big thanks to @deanlisenby for #citrt dinner 2nite and thanks to Arena folks for the sweet CITRT black T-shirts. 20:53 Going to walk the building and make sure all the vendors setting up are happy..then heading home..before 10pm? I think it's possible! 22:49 Anyone with Sonicwall QOS setup experience? We got a 4060 that we need to QOS for F1 kiosk traffic and bookstore ACH traffic. Help us :-) 22:51 @timlytle it's a 4060 a few years old. Would love your input on ways to make checkin even better through the FW. 22:52 @austinmc Would love your input on QOS setup. 23:07 Got to meet @tiffanibarnes tonight and reconnect with @JeffPelletier. Life is so much about connections. I need to do a better job at it. 23:08 @jeremygood Thanks for coming to GCC #citrt
9/18/08
08:48 twitpic.com/c28t - INNOVATE08! GO! 09:01 @dszp thanks for coming to GCC #citrt Look forward to seeing you again in a few weeks 09:13 To follow ALL the innovate08 tweets you have to search both 'innovate' and 'innovate08' like so: bit.ly/1c4mxh 09:25 @vanncThanks for the report on the wifi. We wish it was even faster 4 ya. Just wait 'til next year :-) 09:34 Time to setup the internet cafe for #innovate08 10:22 Retweet @wantmoore: Our WAN link for public wifi is performing insanely well. twitpic.com/c2fb 10:48 twitpic.com/c2mu - #innovate08 Here's today's agenda. I'm leading 2 IT Q&A sessions. Will anyone come? 11:08 twitpic.com/c2p9 - #innovate08 band is BRINGING it. Van Halen solo was stellar! 11:08 twitpic.com/c2pa - #innovate08 IMAG director bustin' it to give everyone great shots on the big screens 11:12 Ok, I'm a moron for thinking I could fit the Church IT Podcast into the schedule today. Gotta cancel. Rats. Sorry all. 11:12 twitpic.com/c2pz - #innovate08 GCC teams that get all the kewl stuff on the screens 11:12 twitpic.com/c2q0 - #innovate08 GCC lighting operators 15:23 #innovate08 Just finished up 2 IT Q&A sessions 12:30-3pm. Met new peeps. Surprise that storage was a hot topic during each? Nope! 15:33 twitpic.com/c3vt - @innovate08 Photo from this mornings "Church is on Fire!" drama. 18:15 @innovate08 Great Day 1! Hope the guest wifi worked well for everyone. 20:22 reminder: No Church IT Podcast tonight. #citrt
9/19/08
06:32 aaarrrrr, Mateys! It's International Talk Like a Pirate Day! bit.ly/1zXnwX 07:48 twitpic.com/c72h - @innovate08 I think @deanlisenby and the ACS crew win the most creative vendor both award 09:06 #innovate08 OUCH! You guys are hammering our guest wifi this morning! 50 of you on 1 access point! No wonder I couldn't connect that one :-) 09:12 #innovate08 121 wifi users currently. 12:13 Retweet @amitry: twitpic.com/c7y6 - Samuel and his mom! CONGRATS TO the Mitry family on their new arrival! 12:41 twitpic.com/c87o - I really wish we could buy one of these Fluke network devices. It's verifying we need all the AV gear in it's ... 16:00 twitpic.com/c9bw - #innovate08 Outside wifi tent coverage brought to you by this ghettotastic access point cover 20:48 Just finished dinner with @deanlisenby of ACS. Dean is just a great guy to hang with and chat about life and some IT. Thanks bro. U Rock!
9/20/08
10:35 Gotta fix mower today! It's now been 2 weeks since last cut! Kids getting lost in yard lately. 14:25 twitpic.com/cf93 - Proof my grass is outta control! After 2 more stops at store, mower lives. Now 2 make hay. 21:28 @JeannaMiller We put new firmware on the wifi access points for Innovate. Apparently kiosks didn't like it. Ed put the prior stuff back on. 22:56 Upgraded to Zune 3.0 today. Sweet firmware features like browse and listen to entire Zune marketplace library over wifi. bit.ly/sGl79
9/21/08
09:40 twitpic.com/cl81 - @kemmeyer checking in her kiddos at our elkhart checkin station. Preview weekend #2 under way!
September 19, 2008
Spring 09 Church IT Roundtable and MinistryTECH Partnership
The Church IT RoundTable (CITRT) is excited to announce a partnership with MinistryTECH to combine the Spring 2009 National Church IT RoundTable with MinistryTECH, to be held April 23-24, 2009 at Woodmen Valley Chapel in Colorado Springs. We are collaborating with Terrell Sanders of MinistryTECH to plan the conference so that it includes the peer learning, community, and inspiration that are the hallmarks of the CITRT. The combined event will have keynote sessions, breakout sessions, RoundTable sessions, a vendor fair, and ministry tours. Mark your calendars now for an awesome time next April in Colorado Springs!
If you REGISTER before Sept 30th and use the coupon code ‘CITRT’ your early bird rate will be discounted by and additional 25%!
September 15, 2008
Weekly Twitter Roundup
This past weeks tweets filtered for mainly IT content for your viewing pleasure...
9/8/08
09:12 bit.ly/4xhqXy Perimeter Church is looking for an IT Director. Looks like Tony Dye is moving elsewhere. 09:45 Inbox pruning, Manowe and FiveStar google apps transition planning, and now I'm ready to actually head into the office. 11:50 Listening to our soon-to-be new on-hold music at GCC. It's actually pretty good. Would make good background tunes 2. bit.ly/4pvxLs 14:54 Got a very strong natural gas smell in our office space (no we did NOT eat Mexican). We are now working downstairs so we don't Xplode. 15:11 twitpic.com/aroo - GCC IT relocation space ... These chairs are nice! 17:26 Odor went away and nobody could determine where/why. Oh well. Ordered a bunch a cables to continue color coding our IDFs.
9/9/08
00:11 Doing monthly-ish Pruning of my facebook inbox. 11:40 twitpic.com/aurh - Some daddy daughter time..sick kiddo is on the couch watchin Clifford 12:25 Interesting..new SaaS offerings from Dell bit.ly/762tP Hopefully they are good AND inexpensive. Please?? 13:09 I can tell it's one week until GCC's Innovate Conf..the email flurry is up SEVERAL notches today! 14:02 Justin just suggested we make an IT Flannelgraph for network documentation ... LOL! 14:03 twitpic.com/avdr - Had 2 bring in someone from media dept to copy my whiteboard drawing :) 14:40 w00t! Got final approval to order a 15TB Dell MD3000i. Ping me if you're looking to buy Dell storage. I got da hookups via VR6systems.com 15:47 twitpic.com/avus - New drobo arrives for our AV guys to test..interesting packaging 15:52 twitpic.com/avvr - The drobo has a magnetic faceplate..interesting 15:55 twitpic.com/avw1 - The sweet studer board lit up. The drobo will find it's new home in this room. 16:49 Another afternoon of Elkhart kiosk tasks. Working on getting the router config'd for remote access and remote client management. 17:23 twitpic.com/aw87 - Is it just me or is a clean whiteboard inspiring! Almost has mystical properties :) 22:06 Planning final trip details for Seacoast IT Roundtable. Maybe leave Tue 8:22am return Sat 7:04am(yuk!) and staying at Courtyard Marriot. Hmm 23:32 The Large Hadron Collider, the largest and most expensive scientific instrument ever built, goes online tomorrow. Half-Life here we come :-)
9/10/08
18:52 twitpic.com/b0q6 - 1st every journey classes at gcc. This is just 1 of 3 classes happening 2nite 19:44 Had major check-in and bookstore issues tonight cause internet pipe was maxed out. Time to start QOS and putting the clamp down on access. 21:15 Doing another night of IT stuff at GCC. Yes, network stuff will down here and there tonight. 23:28 Wrapping up our work night. Got ESXi running on some old Dell 2650's and continued color coding IDF cables in racks.
9/11/08
00:46 Remote troubleshooting with @wantmoore @ebuford. Appears Radius is down at GCC. My call? No email/VPN until tomorrow morning ETA 8:30am. 08:35 Email flowage hath returned to GCC ... and there was much rejoicing 10:49 Off to find 2 Verizon EVDO cards. Hope Best Buy has what I want. 12:03 waited in line at best buy 2 B told not in stock..now at verizon having awesome customer experience. 13:17 twitpic.com/b3l5 - A few extra goodies came with our 4060 :) 13:18 twitpic.com/b3l8 - Got a used 4060 from R humorous friends at Northwoods ..note the ship to address :) 16:30 OMW these dance moves are OFF THE HOOK! bit.ly/3OZueq HT thejrod 17:36 twitpic.com/b4qs - Innovate must be coming..Ed's cleaning his desk! 18:58 FYI new improved version of WMwifiRouter now available. Turn your phone into a wifi router for several laptops. bit.ly/3lT6e1 19:44 Finally purchased airline tickets for me, my wife, @ebuford, @wantmoore for Church IT Roundtable at Seacoast Church. U coming? www.CITRT.org 19:58 I feel better now..my blog got a score of 95/100! :-) bit.ly/4bOr88 Some vindication for my B- twitter grade.
9/12/08
01:05 Gotta find a sitter for tomorrow night. Need a night out alone with my gal. It's been many months.Must make"Date your mate" high priority 08:41 Waking brain for 9am conf call with my Dell/EqualLogic channel reps. Trying to setup a marketing event in Northern IN. Steak and storage 10:56 Just finished 2 back2back phone confs..both with Dell..both about storage..both very different aspects. Crossing fingers GCC 2 be beta site. 15:50 Date night with Mrs Powell is a GO thanks to @gotmoore and @wantmoore. Red Lobster shirmp on radar for dinner then maybe movie then maybe... 17:45 Praying for church IT friends in the path of Ike and getting ready for date night. Oh, what to wear, what to wear. 19:44 twitpic.com/baiu - The remains of date night dinner. We are stuffed! Many sea creatures gave their lives 4 us. 22:40 Date night over. Land's End had crazy clearance sales. We closed out the mall with a bag of nice cheap clothes. Look 4ward 2 next date night 22:42 Also thanks to @wantmoore and @gotmoore for watching R kids! Our kids luv u guys .. and so do we
9/13/08
09:24 Getting ready to head 2 GCC for some IT work with @wantmoore @dhannifin and Tom Templin. I think it's been raining non-stop since last night 13:57 2pm..heading home from work morning. All AP's on lastest firmware, SSLVPN chat, SCE learning, WSS templates, Kiosk checks. Volunteers rock! 22:50 Thanks to @dhannifin think I've found our new Project Management app..nifty FREE sharepoint template we can tweak bit.ly/yQXiO
9/14/08
08:55 twitpic.com/bjdl - Couple hundred volunteers here this morning for the dry run of our Elkhart campus..can u say buzz in the in?! 10:40 twitpic.com/bjol - Child checkin was flawless this morning. And these new collapsable kiosks rock! 13:11 @ddoell Coming to Innovate? Cornerstonecabinetry.net will have them on display. I'll do a blog post soon about them and our portable setup 14:07 Help a fellow CITRT'er Retweet @cgreentx: Anyone within driving distance of Houston willing to deliver a generator? 14:46 Watch Nascar and hoping to catch a nap soon so I can brainstorm this evening about everything my team has to get ready for Innovate Weds-Fri 18:22 Nap over..feel a little better. Now for some diet coke to get me wired up for later tonight. Much MUCH 2 do over next 2 days, but worth it. 21:29 Tony Dye is starting twitter again? twitter.com/tonydye 23:40 Anyone using Mindjet's "Connect" for team collaboration? Looks pretty slick and we already use MindManager. bit.ly/4miX36
September 12, 2008
Fall 08 Church IT Roundtable .. You Coming?
Just 26 days left until the Fall Church IT RoundTable hosted by Seacoast Church in Charleston, SC. Registration is just $50 and there is plenty of space for you AND your team! Don’t miss this opportunity for peer learning and great community! If you haven’t attended a RoundTable before, you have missed some awesome events and networking with some great people… (who knows they could even be your next staff member). If you have attended a RoundTable and you haven’t registered, shame on you … you KNOW what you will be missing and there aren’t many reasons to miss our Fall 2008 event.
Top ten reasons to attend the Fall RoundTable: (written by Jason Lee)
10. The legendary Jason ‘the King’ Powell
9. Knowing that number 10 is a joke experiencing some great community and having fun with your peers.
8. Hear about some of the latest technology from key vendors and manufactures.
7. Bring an entire hotel’s WiFi to its knees in under 10 minutes.
6. Testing the limits of beta technology for crazy ideas at 1 am.
5. Cornering your favorite CHMS vendor and making them cry.
4. Hear the best and worst network war stories of 2008.
3. Be thrilled that the your worst story of 2008 wasn’t the worst in number 4.
2. Win a trip to the Spring 2009 CITRT– just kidding..
1. Wondering if 2 isn’t a joke and never knowing for sure.
What's a Roundtable? http://jpowell.blogs.com/jason_powell_church_it/2007/05/wow_theres_been.html
Past Roundtable topics http://jpowell.blogs.com/jason_powell_church_it/2007/11/it-roundtable-t.html
Some Fall 07 Roundtable links http://appianway.blogspot.com/2007/10/roundtable-posts.html
BE THERE!
September 10, 2008
Large Hadron Collider goes LIVE today!
Caution: Science and Video Game Content Ahead
The world of Quantum/Particle Physics gets a new uber powerful "toy" today ... the 16 mile long Large Hadron Collider (LHC) goes online. It's purpose? To smash protons together at energy level's never produced on Earth before and see what happens. The hope is it will create yet undiscovered particles that help explain the underlying rules that govern the universe and it's creation. The fear is it will create some bad mojo and destroy the Earth if not worse :-)
If you ever played Doom or more specifically Half-Life you know how this story plays out. Physicists "accidentally" open a wormhole/portal to Hell/Xen. And pretty much very bad things happen.
Let's pray there's no "resonance cascade" in real life or we'll all be looking for our H.E.V suits and a crowbar for starters ;-)
From The American Institute of Physics (yes, I subscribe to this)
The Large Hadron Collider, the largest and most expensive scientific instrument ever built in peacetime, begins operations on September 10 when a beam of high-speed protons begins shooting around the machine’s 16 mile (27 -kilometer) circular tunnel beneath Geneva, Switzerland. When the protons collide with each other inside the machine, one thing that scientists are certain won’t happen is the production of miniature black holes that gobble up nearby matter. A new study shows that the continuing existence of old stars in the sky is evidence that small black holes can’t swallow the Earth.
That is not to say that the new collider might not actually create mini-black holes as no one knows for sure what will emerge from the debris of the LHC collisions. Black holes are thought to represent the ultimate state of compressed matter, with gravity so powerful that any bit of matter, and even light, would be sucked inexorably inwards with no chance for escape if it gets too close to the black hole’s boundary. [more]
Actually I'm baiting you all a bit. There's really nothing to worry about. Many thousands of big brain people have studied and researched this and most believe there are no safety issues ... most ;-)
Here's a link to the LHC website (wow, can you tell this site was made by science type peeps?)
Wikipedia has some good LHC facts
The search for "the fingerprint of God" continues ... and I'm excited to see what the LHC "discovers" over time.
September 09, 2008
Next Church IT Podcast Sept 18
I know I keep moving our next podcast, but it's just the way it 'tis :-)
Let's plan to meet Thursday evening Sept 18th at 10pm Eastern over on talkshoe.com
Proposed items on the list thus far:
Tim Lytle and crew of Fellowship Technologies will talk about some of the fun IT stuff behind FTech. David Szpunar will get us a web show-n-tell on mRemote Help Desk products and best practices? Project management / Change management products and best practices? Other?
To join the live podcast see www.churchITpodcast.com ... hope to cya Sept 18th!
September 08, 2008
Weekly Twitter Roundup
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
September 01, 2008
Weekly Twitter Roundup
This past weeks tweets filtered for mainly IT content for your viewing pleasure...
8/24/08
00:29 Checking into early termination fees of our 2 line Verizon contract and looking at ATT plans. The fruitPhone is bidding me come..I might 01:16 Booo..just learned the iPhone can't tether to your laptop for internet access..unless you hack it. What the? That's a HUGE negative 2 me.hmm 00:05 @churchmedic check these posts out..should be a couple good posts for getting your CITRT going..scroll away! bit.ly/4joGRO 00:06 @jeffhook Thou shalt not speak unfavorably towards the Great Fruit. Repent now!
8/25/08
00:46 @churchmedic yup, we're hoping to do something with subdomains of citrt.org ... I don't own it so trying to figure that piece out still 01:05 Friday is our first Elkhart campus onsite test run of our new checkin thins via Verizon broadband..assuming we can get them ready in time. 11:30 Dell came WAY down on MD3000i pricing after seeing my Promise VTM610i quote. w00t! Archival storage purchase decision coming shortly. 12:17 @davesacre We're using a ZyXEL broadband router and Proxim a/b/g PCI cards in the thins. We'll know soon if it works well :-) 13:30 Looking into travel options and hotel for the Fall Church IT Roundtable in Charleston. Wife says she IS coming with :-) 14:06 Major F1 checkin roadblock! Can't install .NET3 on our new HP XPe thins! Invalid 32bit app. Anyone got .Net3 running in XPe? Anyone??? 14:37 @timlytle Yikes! They are talking about MS tools I've never heard of. 15:12 Color me IMPRESSED! Fellowship Tech has one of their IT dudes in our Church IT IRC chatroom to help with .net issue. Talk about service! 19:14 twitpic.com/91ir - Sonic is Ashlee approved! :) 23:41 More MD3000i research. Does it store the array configs on the drives or on the controllers..hoping the controllers
8/26/08
09:34 Just gave up my WSS site collection authority to @wantmoore..ahhh, passing the baton is good :-) 11:40 bit.ly/1nJGKn Using TreeSizePro to sift though user shares to figure out where all our storage space is being used/abused. Great tool 12:12 stopping backups of mp3,m4a,wma,wav,avi,mov,mpg,vob,mp4,wmv,aif files. These were taking up a ton of space we just don't have. 14:03 Retweet @wantmoore: twitpic.com/93ye -These HP t5730 thin clients are not so thin once you install the expansion module for PCI cards 14:14 Moving 22,000 jpgs out of 1 users 'my pictures' folder to a temp holding area. 16:35 Retweet @wantmoore: twitpic.com/94iq - F1 checkin working on XPe! Big thanks to @sidemory from FTech for hanging in IRC to help! 16:48 @curtissimmons just Windows for now ... though a linux version would be sweet ;-) Thanks for all the help. 17:12 Great way to end the work day. Checkin thins finally working! Next step - broadband router configs. 18:03 @kemmeyer yes, IT team rocked it today. 22:07 Rockband on XBOX live anyone? JudiciousJason is my tag
8/27/08
08:54 Off to Uptown Kitchen to meet with the Dell/EqualLogic storage guys. Hopefully I'll get some new NDA stuff :-) 10:50 twitpic.com/975o - A little new checkin hardware show N tell. Autocut printers rule! 23:35 Rockband anyone? JudiciousJason is me tag
8/28/08
09:15 @kjellnygren We use Service Desk Plus bit.ly/2Jd70H 09:52 Church Tech Biggest Loser 2 ends today. I didn't loose any, but a number of people did. Excited to see the final results at days end. 11:00 @dhannifin sweet! I think it's time for another Crowe IT tour for the GCC IT team 11:10 twitpic.com/9b36 - @kemmeyer is leading a meeting on data integrity and our continuing improvement of F1 11:42 twitpic.com/9b6h - @ebuford live and in HD .. Panasonic is demoing thier HD cams and goodies 2day 12:22 twitpic.com/9bb8 Overhead shot of the panasonic demo..courtesy the auditorium webcam that I forgot we had setup. 20:35 Just had family meet-n-eat at Uptown Kitchen with Alan Hunt (VR6systems.com) and family. Awesome food and fun conversation. I had waffles :)
8/29/08
00:22 Borrowed a Verizon PCMCIA card from IT Volunteer Tom Templin just now so we can test checkin at Elkhart campus tomorrow. Thanks Tom! 10:14 twitpic.com/9fhr - Truckload of AV and IT gear for Elkhart onsite testing this morning. Crossing fingers 11:59 Retweet @wantmoore: twitpic.com/9fu0 @JasonPowell competing in Syncronized Child Checkin 12:03 I'm so happy child checkin testing is working VERY well via our ZyXEL ZyWall Router and Verizon 595 AirCard. w00t! 14:20 @kemmeyer's new nickname is Starbuck..at least up here in the IT dept 15:01 My i760 phone batt just went flat..guess using it as wifi router for 3 laptops and 2 checkin PC's really takes it's toll. WMwifiRouter rocks 16:34 twitpic.com/9h8x - I am VERY impressed with this ZyXEL router. Lots of features,a/b/g radios,dual WAN including mobile 20:15 Church Tech Biggest Loser2 results! jpowell.blogs.com/ Congrats to all the big losers! 20:48 @BillGlick Here's the ZyXEL router I got bit.ly/2e5svb 21:13 What a busy day. Multisite testing, senior pastor minor IT emergency..now time for some Heroes with wifey to start the long weekend :-)
8/30/08
01:15 Had some good fun on Rockband with @cgreentx @mburleson @JBartowiak..they made me sing..not pretty, but it worked :-) 09:41 @deanlisenby Sadly console games are not cross platform online. So you can do rockband on Wii vs. Xbox users. Rats eh? 10:53 Kem Meyer is turning 40yrs! Go leave a comment on her blog kemmeyer.com - you can also watch my video message to her 11:37 After 9 month hiatus we're going to restart our IT Vol Team Night. Details are still being worked out, but Weds nights are looking probable. 13:32 twitpic.com/9lq8 I've discovered the date of the rapture! w00t!! 14:38 twitpic.com/9m5m - Wife brought me home a present :) 22:06 Noise from the fireplace. Investigation reveals a Raccoon! Hope it's not a she and that there are not babies. Googling Raccoons in chimney. 22:25 to clarify..raccoon is on the other side of the flue..flue opened 100% and we're can see it looking down into the fireplace. 23:21 Just filled up both cars with fuel..anticipating price going up due to hurricanes. We think raccoon has left chimney. Time to find a webcam
8/31/08
16:53 Fun afternoon at our home with @cyberentomology and the rest of the Ian Beyer clan, @wantmoore, @gotmoore, & @dhannifin
August 29, 2008
Church Tech's Biggest Loser 2 Contest Results!
Thursday was the end of our Church Tech Biggest Loser 2 contest. 37 people signed up to participate this time making the total cash pot $925! Also, Alan Hunt of VR6 Systems (EqualLogic, DataDomain, and Dell Storage) donated a Garmin Nuvi 200 as a prize as well.
BL2 ran from May 29-Aug 28 (13 weeks) and in the end the total weight lost across all participants was 444.7 lbs! Wow!
A HUGE (yes, pun intended) CONGRATS to Steve Huffman, Network Admin at Blackhawk Church, who was our biggest loser this round ... 43lbs / 17.13% loss!! Steve walks away with 75% of the cash pot!
Here are our winners and those that broke the 10% lost mark. Way to go!
17.13%
Steve Huffman 1st Place! 75% of Pot
43 lbs
13.23%
Sunny Thomas 2nd Place - 20% of Pot or Garmin
25 lbs
12.81%
Jared Barden 3rd Place - The remainder of 20% or Garmin
26 lbs
12.06%
Chris Blair 4th Place - 5% of the Pot
24 lbs
10.90%
Matthew Irvine (yes, this is the guy that won our BL1 contest)
23 lbs
10.73%
James Shultz
25 lbs
10.03%
Matthew Peters
29 lbs
And no ... I didn't loose anything this round ... in fact I went up a few lbs ... rats! Summer is a tough time to loose :-)
Congrats to all the losers and get ready for Biggest Loser 3 coming in October.
August 25, 2008
GCC IT Roundtable Sept 17th!
It's just over 3 weeks until our annual IT Roundtable event here at GCC! Are you coming? It's only $49! What a deal! :-)
Register here ... and though not listed on the registration page, we have an optional dinner (free!) the evening after the roundtable so schedule your travel accordingly.
Our IT Roundtable* is part of GCC's Innovate conference that runs Sept 17-19 ... check out the schedule and bring a friend or 3.
Big list of past roundtable topics
* not to be confused with the IT Roundtable at Seacoast in October
August 24, 2008
Weekly Twitter Roundup
This past weeks tweets filtered for mainly IT content for your viewing pleasure...
8/18/08
08:50 Heading into office. Today is close tickets day so we can create some room for brainstorming this week. 09:47 Our total ticket queue is down to 18...I am ticket man this morning! 12:58 @wantmoore just left in a rush to go grab his new iPhone :-) 13:44 Once again our backup space (7.5TB!) is maxed out..grr. My call=stop backing up ALL music and video files for now. 14:01 twitpic.com/86go - @wantmoore just arrived with his new fruitPhone! 16:00 took Ed and Justin to Ciber/IBM open house..hearing about IBM storage. 16:17 twitpic.com/86wq - Uber IT vol Tom starts giving us a tour of the new ciber datacenter 16:37 twitpic.com/86z0 - The aqua colored fiber is 10GIG! 17:05 twitpic.com/872x - This datacenter has given us ome great ideas for future 17:23 @DellTechCenter I asked if the data center was a coke free zone :-) 17:35 Heading home..even with 2hr offsite excursion this afternoon..finished the day with total open ticket count down to 11!
8/19/08
09:03 boo..got 4.5hrs sleep last night..grr..even with Melantonin :( Oh well. Time to get going. Ticket count to be single digits by end of day. 13:57 I just closed a ticket that's been open for OVER a year. That feels good :-) 15:28 @mattmetzger is hangin' with us this afternoon. Much Linux stuff happin' up here today between him and @wantmoore 17:41 loving blockbuster online..walked into store with 2 return DVDs..walked out with 2 free rentals and now my next 2 DVD's should ship pronto 19:15 @thejrod I can view twitpics on the i760 22:59 hat tip curtissimmons: this Dark Knight spoof is AWESOME! tinyurl.com/625nw6 23:04 @timlytle interested in being on the ChurchITPodcast this Thursday 10pmEST? Would love to hear about all the cool IT stuff behind F1
8/20/08
09:15 Tweaking final list of stuff to buy for multisite and self checkin. Order MUST B Placed TODAY! 09:46 @amitry I get daily MozyPro emails and check our bandwidth graphs from overnight to see that the upload ran as scheduled. 09:52 @2sean2 What are the drives for? Time Machine? User personal files? Curious minds want to know! 10:09 Lots of brainpower in the room for a meeting regarding Community Center checkin and data procedures/processes 15:29 Mega props to @deanlisenby and crew for giving us a quick show-n-tell of Promise arrays. 15:32 FYI: We've rescheduled the Fellowship Tech IT Team for the Sept 4th Church IT Podcast since DREZ is still in recovery. 16:17 Upgrading to Firefox3..I've been told it's much better for folks like me that have 40+ tabs open all the time. We'll know shortly. 16:37 twitpic.com/8e7g - Vista isn't stable? I disagree. 44 days uptime. Sadly I do need to reboot now for a firefox3 install issue. 16:54 w00t!!!! Single digit helpdesk queue!! And a couple are just waiting on other people to reply back. w00t! 17:18 Ffox3 installed and Justin has all my plugins working except for IE Tab..the d/l link is b0rked..booo. Oh well, time to head home. 17:24 @timastevens Just remember the helpdesk queue is WAY diff than the project queue! 21:09 @dawnnicole So far so good with FF3. Seems to do a better job with using less RAM. I keep LOTS of tabs open and FF2 we easily eat over 1GB 21:25 twitpic.com/8fbj Tell me we've not been bustin' a move on the helpdesk queue recently! I love seeing graphs like this :-) 22:20 @deanlisenby It's still free..you just have to dig to find it. free.grisoft.com 22:26 Anyone up for a little Rockband action on xboxlive tonight? JudiciousJason is my tag
8/21/08
09:04 This is one reason I love GCC tinyurl.com/6j3jw7 10:08 Don't forget..ChurchITPodcast tonight at 10pm EDT. Open forum. Bring your topics/questions to ask the group. Deets at www.churchITpodca ... 12:04 Interesting: Microsoft hires Seinfeld to bite Apple tinyurl.com/6rhz4e 14:36 Multisite meeting..talking through procedures/processes..Sept14th is our first preview Sunday. <GULP> 16:07 @kemmeyer Use Windows Live Writer for blog posts. You'll thank me. 17:10 twitpic.com/8ij4 - Our HP t5730 XPe thins are here! Now to figure out how to manage them and start testing checkin
8/22/08
00:54 Fun IT podcast tonight. Good dialogue on several topics. Listen at www.talkshoe.com/tc/6983 09:51 inbox zero! Of course I cheated and just moved the 1700+ items into a diff folder. But it's a start right? ;-) 11:15 Local PBS station is "looking for someone who is knowledgeable about the latest in teleconferencing and multi-media communications"any help? 13:02 College students..Office Ultimate only $60! tinyurl.com/6xogbt HT scottgagon 17:04 A new lesson in pain..try to setup iSCSI iniator in sever08 core! Shoot me now!!! Uh, give me GUI please! 17:30 Fun afternoon talking Equallogic,virtualization,and IT with guys at Pinnacle. 22:04 catching up on tweets from 2day..wondering if @ebuford and @wantmoore actually accomplished anything 2day while I was away. Hmmmmm 22:27 Weeks end reveals only 7 tickets in the helpdesk queue! Love that! Me HAPPY! Go TEAM! Now to tackle the project queue... 23:23 Glad I still remember algebra..just solved this equation T - Tp = C for p to help with a quote I'm working on. What answer do you get? :-) 23:29 I'm actually looking forward to helping my kids with math homework as they get into Algebra and Geometry and beyond. I taught both in '93/94
8/23/08
00:25 If you answered p = (T-C)/T you are correct! For those interested here's the steps involved twitpic.com/8p10 :-) 11:56 Getting advice from trusted IT peeps on the iPhone..considering the switch if I can get iPhone users to come over and test signal strength 12:15 Any Yahoo Music Jukebox users out there? Have you trans to Rhapsody yet? Did your songs actually trans over as they claim? 13:15 @beckycallender my house which is right on the IN/MI line which seems to be a black hole for good cell service :( 14:29 Meeting @wantmoore at BasneyBMW at 2:45 for Susan Komen Cancer "drive"...they have lots of new bimmers you can test drive..it's free! 15:45 twitpic.com/8rrn - My first drive the 550 .. Twas nice! 16:30 twitpic.com/8s01 - Car 2 a 750Li..a pimpmobile..AC in the seats and a massage! For a boat it moves. 18:51 twitpic.com/8stq The BMW's we got to choose from today. twitpic.com/8str only "select" people got to drive the B7..rats! 18:57 twitpic.com/8sus This 335i was my last drive..and it was the best of the bunch. Twin turbos rule! 19:15 twitpic.com/8swj My dream car..the M5..uber family hauler! Well,my M3 may be old but she makes me smile daily twitpic.com/8sz6 19:19 @beckycallender She said she got the same that Justin got..no bars to start with then suddenly like 3. What the?? Looks like ATT is good. 19:22 See when the BMW Cancer Drive is coming to your area and drive some sweet cars!bit.ly/4uniDM 19:38 twitpic.com/8t3q - My final drive of the day..not nearly as fun as the other vehicles 20:17 and for the record..beemers are BMW motorcycles..bimmers are BMW cars. 20:44 So 2 iPhone peeps stopped by house 2day. Both got no bars initially then it went to like 3. Huh??? But it appears ATT/iPhone is possibility
August 18, 2008
Weekly Twitter Roundup?
I think I'm gonna do a weekly 'Twitter Roundup' blog post of my IT related Twitter posts (Tweets) over the past week. It will require little time on my part (thanks to LoudTwitter) and it will hopefully provide some value to you all as to what we're doing at GCC ... as well as give a wider audience to some of the questions I've been asking via Twitter. Consider it a peace offering since my actual blogging content has been rare lately.
Let me know your thoughts pro/con on this. Again, I'm going to strip out most all the non-IT tweets so that should provide a good signal to noise ratio ... I'll keep in a few funny tweets here-n-there for good measure :-)
This first 'Twitter Roundup' will cover the past couple weeks ...
7/30
16:02 Something you don't hear at church everyday: "pick a porn site and try it" ... Ed Buford wanting me to test our new content filter :-) 16:20 After using it at home for long time, GCC is now using the free OpenDNS.org content filtering for our private and public internet usage. 16:28 @davidrussell Yup, sonicwall content filter disabled after causing issues ... OpenDNS.com to the rescue. Free baby! 16:59 @TRKnight From the OpenDNS site they "say" they have very large organizations using their service including school systems. So far so good. 17:04 @TRKnight as for customizable it's OK ... wish you could do more with the default blocked page look/feel. Good enough 4 our needs though. 17:04 @christiaanv I laughed when he said it and figured other would enjoy it as well :-) 17:07 During testing we blocked youtube for a few minutes and immediately our helpdesk hotline got a call about youtube being blocked ... ha 18:35 Anyone installed ESXi on a Dell 2600 or 2650 yet? Curious if it'll even install just for testing. 21:27 @Bruceericatdell Thanks! You might want to check out our www.citrt.org community site. Geeks for Jesus! 22:10 @darylmcmullen rt-click speaker icon>playback devices>speaker properties>enhancements>disable all enhancements 22:57 @darylmcmullen fixes an annoying snapping/popping issue on some D830's during audio playback
7/31
01:40 @Bruceericatdell sweet! We'd love to get Dell involved somehow at our big fall roundtable in Charleston, SC see www.citrt2008.com Thoughts? 08:56 today is kiosk updates..now to figure out how to modify this F1 'skin' we got from Terry Chapman years ago to work with v2.5 11:13 BEFORE you start talking to Dell or another VAR about EqualLogic you really need to chat with me. I have hookups and can save you $$$$$! 16:39 More kiosk updates..can't figure out custom skin app work arounds so removing it for now..bummer 19:31 Fun vchat with Don at PinnacleofIndiana.com about EqualLogic storage. A possible partnership with VR6 Systems in the makings? Hope so :-) 23:05 watching cgreentx take apart his macbook live via webcam www.ustream.tv/channel/cgreentx ..in the real world Macs DO have problems
8/1
07:20 Ashlee was up at 5:30am and I couldn't sleep afterwards ... so I'm heading into work at 7:20am. Bleh 07:45 3 last kiosks to update and I think we're fully F1 v2.5 08:34 If I don't find a mt dew this morning I'm going to be asleep by 9am..kiosk updates are not the most exciting. Need thin clients! 08:58 bit.ly/szvYj these new small Dell "studio" PC's are sweet. Hmm, wonder how consistent the hardware is for image management? 11:13 Just placed an order for 4 D830's and couple monitors. Wish I could order 2 new smokin' ESXi embedded servers. 14:12 I rarely use Skype. Just noticed they have IM function. Nice! My skype is gccjason for those that might want to IM me on occasion.
8/2
00:43 have i meantioned before how much I dig wmwifirouter.com? Curious to see if anyone else will snag my mobile hotspot since hotel charges for wifi 00:54 @mattmetzger wmwifirouter turns the phone into a wifi router. I've had 3 unique computers connected to my phone at one time no problem. 01:00 @mattmetzger ad-hoc only is a setting you can enable/disable ... see support.wmwifirouter.com/documentation/ 01:03 potentially not good..just got my 3rd TXT message from Postini today can't contact our email server and getting "undelivered" email alerts 01:18 another Postini alert at 1:15am "email spooling iniated". Hope it just a temp glitch with our ATT pipe. Guess I'll know in the morning. 09:33 ATT regional outage last night. Glad it wasn't GCC specific issue. 12:39 I'm in chicago..Ed's supposed to b off today to head to MI..now he's fighting outbound email issues thanks to ATT and I'm running comm :( 23:35 Busy day..stressing over email issues killed my Ikea experience..oh well. Field Museum was good. Now at our old neighbors in Kenosha, WI
8/3
10:37 5yrs ago on this weekend we said goodbye to our Kenosha friends and moved to Granger to join staff at GCC. NO REGRETS! 11:15 seeing a missed vmail from senior pastor always makes me freak a bit. Thankfully not a crisis just a heads up. Sheew! 13:08 Explaining to my buddy Al Kruger what Twitter is and updating his wifi router. 13:30 Watching "Twitter in Plain English" with Al..GREAT video on what Twitter is. Trying to convince him to join the cult O twitter :-) 14:03 crud..postini spooling alerts..Just asked @dhannifin to see if he can troubleshoot while Ed and I are out of state. Dustin rocks! 14:20 Looks like out ATT pipe is down. Glad we have a backup ISP for child checkin and basic surfing. 14:27 Just verified the backup pipe is working. Dustin says his ATT DSL line is down as well. 15:06 done all the troubleshooting I can do for now remotely..we're gonna go hit the local pool with the Krugers 16:58 4:45pm and ATT pipe is back online..that's 2 days in a row with downs of several hours..me not so happy. 23:31 ATT line is up but outgoing emails are not flowing once again. Of course it has to do this on a weekend when we're outta town...arrgh 23:50 @dhannifin I'm actually logged in as Ed just to see what's stuck in the queue. Go for it if you can find the problem :-)
8/4
00:30 After midnight and outbound email flowing again..at least for the moment. Here's when outsourcing support or hosted exchange would rock. 00:18 @davidrussell I've been using google IMAP for personal and some side clients for long while. Works very well. 00:40 Praying for safe travel for @wantmoore and family who will be making the trek to Indiana around in the VERY early AM. 11:36 @wantmoore's new desk area is all cleaned and ready. Sadly his new D830 is still in transit from Dell. Great days ahead for GCC IT. 11:39 NO church IT podcast this Thursday.. it's our 15yr anniv and wife takes priority :-) 16:17 Had impromptu 1.5hr meeting with Beeson(senior pastor) today. It was a total treat to get to spend that 1-on-1 time with him. w00t!! 16:44 A users laptop is having issues ... my initial diagnosis: having a completely full hard drive could be the problem? ;-) 20:52 twitpic.com/6kwk - At the @wantmoores new home doing a little unpacking 20:56 twitpic.com/6kx6 - Hmm .. What are the child labor laws in IN? 23:27 @DerekSchwab laptop goes with me everywhere. If we loose power I figure it will serve as a temp light source :-)
8/5
09:16 @ebuford If you can't get that image onto the bigger drive soon just slap the old drive in and we'll schedule another time to swap it. 10:13 Wondering if @wantmoore is gonna start that drywall project today. 11:24 Chattin' with Ryan C over at North Point about how we use Postini. Mmmm, love me some Postini! 13:36 twitpic.com/6n6l - Gettin' some lumber and drywall for @wantmoore at Lowes. Time to build some new walls for the new home. 15:00 twitpic.com/6ni5 - Powell's mobile lumber service ... 23:32 As seen at 11pm ... GCC IT/Drywall crew twitpic.com/6pa6 23:52 @davidrussell All my domains are with godaddy. What u not liking? 23:58 @davidrussell ... ahh, I only use them for domain names ... not hosting. No sFTP is stupid. Their webmail sucks too (no IMAP). 01:51 I'm awake so working on a friends laptop they dropped off for me to look at. Dell diag reports drive failure. rats. Spinrite to the rescue?
8/6
09:13 Today marks a new era for IT at GCC. @wantmoore joins our team and I couldn't be more excited about what the future holds. It's a GREAT day! 11:20 twitpic.com/6qi4 - @wantmoore day1...getting more space into our clonezilla box 12:24 twitpic.com/6qqc - Got to intro @wantmoore and @gotmoore at our all staff mtg today ... w00t! 19:42 testing PockeTwit on the phone...kinda iPhone like with a touch screen phone 20:16 twitpic.com/6sjy - Another night of drywall and painting at the Moore's. 20:28 twitpic.com/6slb - @wantmoore is hammering away on this breaker box. Will he survive? Stay tuned... 22:52 twitpic.com/6t3e - Oreo break!!
8/7
00:26 12:20am and getting home after working all night on Moore manor. Looking forward to Leadership Summit tomorrow. Wonder how many wifi users? 08:50 Celebrating 15 years of marriage today! 10:02 Leadership Summit at GCC! My big questions of the day: how many wifi users will we have and how slow will the internet be? :-) 10:42 watch the summit tweets roll in from around the globe: tinyurl.com/56fcck 11:12 Only 58 wifi users right now. Time to go setup the guest internet kiosks. 12:37 Anyone know if a Dell D830 would work well for running MediaShout? 12:50 anyone tried booting XP on macbook (not a VM) 4 mediashout? My guess is someday we'll move from MediaShout to ProPresenter or ProWorship 13:07 Mediashout IS supported on Mac hardware via bootcamp www.mediashout.com/support/mac/ ... nifty. 13:38 @kerner MS is what we use in all our classrooms currently. Gotta keep it all standardized. Yes, ProWorship created here. 13:39 @PeterBishop ProWorship/ProPresenter/ProVideo for auditorium, MediaShout for classrooms 15:26 @modernscience kewl ... thanks for the info! D830's will be option B 17:01 Retweet @dhannifin: Beijing 2008 Olympic Games - Powered by SharePoint - bit.ly/WOQrK
8/8
11:29 @beckycallender I know macs don't crash, but mine does. Of course I'm sure it's somehow my fault and not the macs. 12:28 72 wifi devices on the network currently ... 28 of them on 1 of the access points in the auditorium 16:12 twitpic.com/704f - New laptops have arrived! 17:47 ...and yes those Dell boxes contain only 1 laptop ... but do include a docking station ... thus the mongo size 17:49 @watermarkgeek thought about waiting for E series, but want to make sure new stuff plays with everything we already have in place. 17:58 Retweet @TRKnight: A rap all of us geeks, engineers and especially physicists can appreciate - bit.ly/9GwkF 23:10 thank you NBC for