www.creativemyk.com
CreativeMYK is a number of things, but it is very useful t0 the Church design staff.
“Gallery – A place for anyone looking for free, quality Christian graphics and photos shared by Christian artists around the world.
(via ChurchCrunch.com)
Interesting article in USA today on evangelical internet based church campuses in the USA.
USA Today article on Internet Campuses
via @jasondaye
Ceri Longville
Ceri Longville, a student at Redcliffe Bible College in Gloucester UK, has just published her college dissertation on church websites.
Having been a church webmaster for five years, Ceri saw the clear need for research. She says, “While working as web developer of a church website, I could see the potential for it to be used as a tool to make the church more accessible and relevant to the non-Christian/unchurched folk in the local community.”
Her ‘Reaching the Community with Church Websites’ is a valuable insight into the potential for making church sites truly ‘outsider friendly’. Very little research has been published recently on church sites, as far as we know. Download this free 95-page PDF e-book, and also add your comments when you have read it:
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/blog/archives/945
This morning I set up a Twitter account for my church (@ParkieChurch). Probably nothing spectacular about that, but it got me thinking about how useful a tool of could be in a church community. Now I am reasonably sure that I am probably the only person at my church who uses Twitter in any real way, so will it be useful? Well my plan is to embed the feed onto the webpage and therefore we can have an easily updateable section of the front page which can answer the perenial question \”what are you doing\”? So we will follow the experiment and see if we have any positive results! I\’ll keep you posted.
In today’s demanding online world, churches are being asked by their communities to increasingly provide new, exciting and engaging content on the web. Many traditional church web sites are little more than an electronic brochure which only allow static content and require personnel trained in html to make the simplest of modifications.
Enter a different kind of web technology that allows the owner to enter content at will, change settings as well as look and feel, all with the click of a button. The Content Management System [1](usually called a CMS) is a technology which uses a database to store all the content and then dynamically creates the page when it is requested. The all important feature however is that all content creation and site management can be performed in a web browser using a word processor like interface and tools.
This means that any authorised person can add, delete, move and edit content anywhere they can get online. It can be edited at home, work, school and increasingly anywhere you have access to the web via your phone. No longer is the school tied to a particular web developer each time they wish to modify their page. This releases them (and significant portions of their budget) to focus on their key purpose, learning and teaching.
CMS’s come in many flavours. Fortunately many are available under the GNU General Public License [2] which means the basic setup is available for download at no financial cost. Two popular CMS’s available under the GPL licence are Drupal[3] and Joomla[4]. Both use the common MySQL[5] database which is also available under the GPL licence and available on most web hosting services.
Setup of both of these systems is easy and some hosting services (such as Media Temple[6]) even include “1 click installs†which takes out most of the pain.
Design however is not the usual domain of a code monkey and you will require the services of a suitable graphic designer who works closely with the developer to ensure good design. In the current global economy and with the nature of this kind of work, it can be done anywhere in the world!
VidBlaster is a relatively new product from Mike Versteeg, well known for his work on CastBlaster, a podcast production tool.
I tiraled the product with a simple 2 camera set-up using ambient light. Have a look and see for yourself!
Leave a comment about how you think you could use this product?
BTW, if you are using Firefox (as I would recommend!) you may need this plugin which allows you to run windows media inside of firefox.
http://port25.technet.com/pages/windows-media-player-firefox-plugin-download.aspx
Ok, this may not be big news for any reader outside of Australia, but the fact that today iTunes announced that it was going to start selling TV shows locally is HUGE! The price is $2.99 per episode which is bearable, but with exchange rates what they are it doesn’t compare to the US1.99 that is paid in the US. I’ll let you figure that one out!
The really interesting thing to note is that a number of the programs have been available for download for FREE up untill now, whether they continue to be or not is another question, that I cannot yet answer! But certainly the ability to get shows such as Lost at good quality and ad free for 2.99, it might just be worth it, especially for the die-hard fan.
You can of course add a Tv-tuner card to your PC, schedule recordings and then use a program like MCE-buddy to go through and extract the ads, and convert it inot an ipod compatible format, but really that is for Geeks only and yourt average iPod owner wouldn’t want to go to the trouble! Not to mention that technically it is illegal (whether the law is right or not is another question!)
Anyway my friends…go and download your fav TV show for 2.99 right here in Oz (finally we are catching up with the rest of the world!!!)
I really like Twitter, but I am getting a little tired of seeign this…
Since recently getting back into blogging, tweeting etc, I find that I am keenly following Twitter moreso than Google Reader, if fact Twhirl and Alert Thingy have become perminant residents of my desktop and keep me company!
Whilst I don’t think that twitter an replace the extended blog post (well it can’t can it) but what it does allow is an exchange in real time on things, so like right now I am discussing monitors with a couple of people…I know really exciting stuff, but its happening!
Twitter is strangely engaging, a bit like getting txt messages from lots of friends all the time…the only trouble with being in .au is that most of the action happens when I’m alseep!
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