I found this video on YouTube through Facebook. I do not know much about the charity, but I will be using the video as a stand alone at our large group gathering. If you are planning on doing more than watching them on YouTube there are several apps that will help you do just that. Check out the mac users forum for links (at the bottom of the article) or Chris’ article on downloading YouTube videos for more info. Hope this bubbles something useful up to the top for you.
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Mac Users Forum, Pittsburgh
Sorry it’s so late, but here’s the notes from our gathering in Pittsburgh Sunday night. Thanks for everyone who came, it was a great time:
Things we love about OS X:
Bonjour: great for quick connections to other macs for file sharing, chating
Print to PDF: useful for so many things
Spotlight: super quick way to find files, also solves equations, gives definitions
TimeMachine: Great for Backups, Mozy also a good alternative
Take advantage of iLife:
Garage Band: super easy to make songs, students love to play around with it.
iPhoto: great quick slide shows
iDVD: use to make highlight DVD of events for students and parents.
Is it worth upgrading to the newest version?
- Yes, only iMovie isn’t as good, but they still give you the old version.
Learn the keystrokes
This could save you a bunch of time. Find them in System Preferences under mouse and keyboard settings. You can even reset them to things you might remember better.
Take advantage of the community
Favorite Sites:
Podcasts:
- MacCast (great forums, too)
- MacBreak Weekly
- Screencasts Online
Cheap Software:
Other Tools:
ChurchMetrics.com
I saw this on the twitter stream this morning, and thought I would pass it along. The folks over at LifeChurch.tv launched a new free service this morning called ChurchMetrics.com to help track attendance, giving, and other key indicators of how things are going. It looks pretty cool, I haven’t had a chance to create an account and dig into it, but it looks promising. It’s all online and the interface looks super easy to jump in and use. It’s also mobile friendly, which I love. It kinda looks like Google analytics for your church (and that’s a good thing).
Check out this link for more info: www.churchmetrics.com/features.
Introducing ChurchMetrics from ChurchMetrics on Vimeo.
Six Tools for Twitter
This is for all you twitter users out there. I saw this over on CNET today, it’s a listing of Six “Social Secretaries for Twitter.” I thought it was a pretty good list. I use some of them and some of them I haven’t heard of but are worth taking a look at (like the temporary unfollow).
I just love twitter. You can follow me at Twitter.com/crd55. If you aren’t sure what twitter is and would like to learn more here’s a post I wrote on SimplyInsider.com about it: What is Twitter.
Evernote: My Extra Brain
Not only am I ADD, I am forgetful and somewhat disorganized. This often leads to a scenario where I can’t find the receipt for our church accountant, can’t remember who it was that wrote “I can help with the silent auction” next to their name on the sign-up sheet, or how the great illustration about a gorilla I saw online went. Evernote fixes all that for me (assuming I remember to use it).
Evernote starts as a clipping service. When installed on your machine (or when logged on to the web app), you can highlight a portion of a page and save it to evernote. You can then search your clippings for the bit you remember (say “gorilla” for example), and find that choice tidbit you found earlier online.
But that only solves one of my problems. The real genius comes in as you take a photo through a webcam, camera phone, or other device. You can sync through your computer, upload from your phone or e-mail it as an attachment to your Evernote address. Evernote then runs a character recognition on the image and stores that information on their servers (and syncs with any computers that are running the desktop app) ready to be searched by you at a later date. In my experience, the character recognition does an excellent job with slightly fuzzy images and even handwriting.
Here’s what I do. I capture receipts with a camera, upload them to evernote, and when it comes time to reconcile my church card statement, I have a way to search and find the missing receipts. I can even print a copy to put the mind of our church accountant at ease. I also take pictures of important whiteboard brainstorming sessions to look back on later and business cards I need to remember. There is a desktop client (mac and windows), iphone app, windows mobile app, and web app if you don’t have any of those available.
It also has a sharing feature, capture from clipboard, and several ways of categorizing and searching that are all interesting and useful, but the best part is that Evernote is free! The basic (free) plan gives you 40MB a month in uploads. If you need more than that it’s only $5 a month or $45 a year for a 500MB monthly allowance.
The one downside I could find with the program is that the text that has been interpreted from the character recognition is not selectable. In other words, you cant copy and paste it into your excel reconciliation form. Overall, it is a slick and geeky way to store that which my brain seems to loose, forget, or misplace, and makes me look far more organized than I am which is a truly amazng feat!
Free Resources
I love free resources…did I even need to say that? Obviously some free
stuff is free for a reason but you still might be able to glean something
form it. Maybe there is a usable series title, or a lesson to pass off to
leader, or there could be a graphic to grab for a talk. Here are some links
to some solid finished resources and a few things to dissect for the little
nuggets. Please add links that you frequent in the comment section.
http://vineresources.com/swag
http://www.muddyrivermedia.org/
http://www.openresources.org/
http://open.lifechurch.tv/
http://www.simplyyouthministry.com/freebies.html
http://content.simplyyouthministry.com/ffa08/
http://www.crazychurch.com/
http://www.newspringonline.com/
http://www.pastor2youth.com/
http://www.thesource4ym.com/
http://www.youthministry.com/?q=freebie-library/popularity/
http://www.youthspecialties.com/freeresources/articles/
http://www.dare2share.org/
http://timschmoyer.com/category/friday-freebie/
http://studentministryresources.com/
12 Seconds
Recently, thanks to some twitter friends and tweetdeck, I have been exposed to a new little website called 12seconds. 12seconds.tv is like twitter, in video form. As in, you only have a small amount of space (12 seconds, duh) in which to express a thought or idea. You really only have enough time to focus on one topic. You can also respond to other people’s videos with your own video response.
As a youth worker, I think 12 seconds has many possibilities for use within youth ministry. Keep in mind (and I am well aware of this fact) that the video quality is not going to be HD quality when you make these videos. But I think the amount of time it will take you to use this resource will outweigh that slight negative.
10 Ways to use 12seconds.tv in youth ministry:
1. Quick announcements
2. Daily/weekly devo
3. Goofy videos of the students
4. Student of the week – maybe they can give their acceptance speech (make sure to spread the love and get everyone on video)
5. Ask the youth worker – answer the students questions on a regular basis
6. Ask the student – you ask a question you want answered
7. Event/Class Teaser – Promote an upcoming event with a short teaser about what they can expect (maybe even “cut yourself off” at the end right when you were going to reveal the big secret)
8. Meet the youth coaches – have the youth coaches (other adults who help) share a little about themselves
9. Recap of last lesson/message – you would be forced to really narrow down your focus, because you only have 12 seconds
10. Tip of the week – it could be a parent tip, youth worker tip, teenager tip or a tip for any other group you can think of (ie. 1 tip on how to contact a student during the week – for the youth coaches)
There are lots of other ways you could use 12seconds.tv in your youth ministry. I’d love to hear what you think. Leave a comment with your thoughts. Or better yet, make a 12 second video with your thoughts (just put the link to the video or your 12 second profile in the comments so we can see the video).
12seconds.tv is free, but you have to be invited. If you want an invite just email me (mkupferer(at)gmail(dot)com) or leave a comment with your email address and I will send you an invite.
Here is an example of a quick video I did with my kids.
Here is a 12second video of the 10 ways to use 12seconds.tv in youth ministry
10 Ways to Use 12seconds.tv in youth ministry on 12seconds.tv
Guest Blogger: Mike Kupferer, a child of God, husband of Amy, father of Nathan & Wes, friend of some, worker of youth and reader of books. You can also read Mike at reflectionministry.blogspot.com.
Determining Legitimacy
It seems that every time I take my kids to a conference, concert, or other large ministry event, I am offered an opportunity to support one or more Christian charities. Some of them want money, some sponsorship, or some want me to take my group on their branded mission trip. They generally have a great looking booth and some gut-wrenching presentation, but all of that could be smoke and mirrors right? The thought that is always racing through my head is “Are these guys Legit?” By that I mean, how are they spending their money, what is their theology, and how do they do what it is they say they do?
Enter ministrywatch.com. The people at Ministry Watch have a passion for educating and empowering donors to support Christian ministries. You can search there for those charities you are considering supporting and find out what they are all about. Since they believe that accountability is a great measure of what is going on behind closed doors, they give all the charities a grade on transparency “A” through “F.” They then give various levels of analysis based on the organizations financials and statements of belief. Most pages also feature a section entitled “Supporters might say…” as well as one entitled “Critics might say.”
They also discuss theology and worldview. These observations are not as free from bias as the rest of the resources. Although their conservative, evangelical leaning is not extreme by my standards, it is still present in their terminology and choice of focus areas.
This site is a must-visit for anyone who is or is considering supporting a minstry financially or through service. As far as I am concerned, it is always best to go into these types of situations with your eyes open, and Ministry Watch is a great place to go to get the information you need to make the important decsions of where to use the finite amount of resources under your control.
New Browser Coming from Google
If you’re like me you’re always on the look our for a shiny new toy. Well today Google is releasing it’s own web browser, named Chrome (how’s that for shiny?). It’s based on webkit, the same technology under the hood of Safari. They’ve released a comic book to describe it.
The PC version is suppose to release today, with the Mac and Linux version coming soon.
Project home. (as I write this, it’s not live yet.)
iStock Photo
I am constantly amazed at the number of people who are still not aware of this awesome resource. For a long time I was constantly envying the big-budget ministry across the street’s awesome t-shirts, logos, etc. and was convinced they had a top dollar graphics person on staff. I know it’s hard to believe, but I was breaking one of the commandments because of another ministry. Then I discovered iStock, and was delivered.
Maybe that is a little much, but after a couple of browses through their catalogue you begin to see how pervasive this is in the world of graphic design. For five bucks (or more for higher quality images) you get an amazing, professional image that you can throw your text on and call it a day, and with over three million images, it is practically impossible to not find something you can use.
The best thing you can do right now is go surf around the iStock collection and see how awesome their stuff really is. Hint: Sort results by downloads to pull the best images to the top.
Before you go, here’s a little sample of what 10 minutes of searching and a bit of text can do:
