Mister Nifty

How many times have you had a block of data you needed to keep organized, but didn’t have the tools to manage it?  For example, you’re taking your youth group on a trip overseas and you need give out applications.  How do you store all that application data?  Many times people put the data in a spreadsheet, but I’ve a lot of people use a word processor to store info.  The problem is you can’t sort it, you can’t export it or merge that information to letters, name tags, or whatever you need to print with everyone’s info on it.

Zoho Creator is an easy application designer for your specific needs.  You can design a data entry form in seconds.  It creates a data view for you that allows you to see all of your data and edit specific entries.  It allows you to upload files (photos, documents, etc.) with each record.  Plus, you can export it all as a spreadsheet, a print-ready view, and much more.  For the more techy savy, you can script the back-end to send an email whenever the form is filled out or whatever you want the form to do.   You can embed the form and data views right on your website very easily.   The beautiful part about all of this is, you got it….FREE!

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I need your help! I have had several requests from people asking about projection software. I am not the expert in that area. I have installed projection systems, but I rarely find myself behind the screen of the projection software. I have not taken the time to find out the quarks of all the softwares out there, but you have. Currently my church uses Song Show Plus. Other popular softwares are Easy Worship and Media Shout. We want to hear your opinion! Please post a comment and let us know what software your church uses and what you think of it.

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It has been exactly one month since I posted on Mister Nifty. The reason, I took a media fast. You’ve heard of fasting I’m sure. I decided to stop intaking videos, movies, blogs, news, magazines, radio, and any other form of media so that I could focus more on the more important things in life like God, my wife, church, family and friends. It was a journey that has changed my life. I found after taking those voices and noises out of my head, I was able to think clearly and I accomplished a lot that I needed to get done. I was not on information overload all day long. The cloud in my brain went away.

I found that media of any form affects our lives whether we like to think it does or not. It produces temptations in all forms for us to get our minds off what God wants us to be thinking about. The point is, we can’t get so caught up in techyness that we lose out on the simpler things and spiritual things in life. By no stretch am I going to become a hermit. I have decided to leave some forms of media out of my life because I’ve seen how pleasant life is without them. I challenge you to examine your media intake and look how it is affecting your life. You might be surprised!

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Many people ask me to post about projection software for their churches. I have been hesitatant because a lot of the software out there is $400-$1000. For smaller churches, this kind of budget is unfeasible, and I love free stuff. Enter OpenLP. This software is open source, which means if you have a programmer in your church, they can even tailor it to your specific needs. Another great thing about open source is it’s free! This seems to be an easy fix for churches without a budget. This is a list of features I found from Christian Tech:

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Several months ago I stumbled upon what I think is the best solution for broadcasting your church service. For many churches, the technicalities of online streaming video is way out of their league and budget. Truthcasting is a phenomenal solution that brings simplicity and economy to the table. They offer free bandwidth, storage, and archiving of videos and podcasts of your services forever. The only cost to the church is the purchase of a Mac mini. The retail is around $700.00. This is a one-time fee that gives your church the hardware you need to get this running. You own the equipment and have a turnkey solution almost immediately.

The process is simple. You record your services on DVD (with no singing for copyright purposes) and you insert the DVD into the Mac Mini. The TruthCasting software rips your service into a streaming video and podcast MP3 and uploads it automatically to their server. The only thing your video person needs to do is title the sermon, and enter some other information about the service. Lastly, you post a link on your website to your very own TruthCasting channel. For more information check out their informational video here.  Also, check out this interview we received from TruthCasting.com  READ MORE

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I am anxiously awaiting the printing of this promising book for church leadership. If you are a church leader, you know as well as I, how the stress and conflict of daily ministry can exhaust you of your emotional, mental, and spiritual resources (and sometimes financial). Mad Church Disease by author Anne Jackson is taking the issue of burnout in the church head-on. It is scheduled for release in February of 2009. I will write a more comprehensive book review when I get it in my hands. In the meantime, feel free to sign up for Anne’s update list or join her Facebook group. Visit her website at: www.madchurchdisease.com

As the release date gets closer, we will post an interview with Anne Jackson via Skype video or phone. Who says you can’t judge a book by its cover?

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If you are looking for a professional grade video software and don’t have a budget to buy big name products, look no further! A sister (or brother) program to the last posting of Wink is Wax. Wax allows you to do all the cool things big time video producers do. You can lay down unlimited audio and video tracks, add video effects, overlay text, create 3d video effects, and much more. The interface is not as pleasant as some of the expensive programs, but the end result is just as good.

One of the coolest features for me is the ability to export to Flash video. Most hosted church websites have the ability to embed Flash video without any techy knowledge. It’s usually an embed button on the WYSIWYG editor and viola your video appears on your website. So, get a decent capture card from your local computer retailer or on the internet. I use a firewire/analog box that connects to my firewire port. That way I can connect a firewire connection or hook up a DVD player with RCA connections. With Wax, I would just import my capture, edit the clips down to a shorter version and then create a Flash video to post on my site. There are wonderful possibilities for the little guys with this software! Have fun….it’s free!

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I’m sure you’ve watched a screen cast before. It’s where someone records a video of their desktop to teach others how to do something in a specific program. In its infant stages it was a bit technical to get those screen casts published to the web. Now, even a child could do screen casts with Wink. Wink is a freeware software that allows you to capture your screen and your voice and export into flash video to display on the web. For the less web savvy, you can create a pdf of the frames you captured (beware of large file sizes).

This is a great tool if you are trying to explain something to someone who is not at your location. For web developers, you can create a help section for technical parts of your website to show users where to go and what to do. And yes, the greatest part of all of this is that it is free for the taking!

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It is vitally important that your church has an organizational chart.  This helps you to see your organizational structure visually.  It also helps to determine downlines of communication.  Cogmap is a free web app to help you create org charts.  I hesitated placing them on Mister Nifty because all of their charts were made public.  Now, they’ve released a new version for private charts.  You can give several people access to add data and create lists.  You can make comments and send it to friends.  The only problem is you cannot export your data yet.  It’s coming in the future.  Anyhow, it’s a great tool to get you started on your own org chart.

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This is a neato online tool you can use to draw charts and diagrams for free. Once you’ve finished with your creation, you can download it in a PDF, JPG, or PNG file to be used in other documents. Among the many chart apps out there, this one looks promising for sure. Compare this free app with Gliffy. Check out our review here: http://misternifty.com/leadership/create-online-organizational-charts/

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I have opened the discussion portion of Mister Nifty to anyone who wishes to comment.  You do not have to be a registered user to comment.   All comments will be moderated and approved before they are posted.

The reason commenting has been closed to only registered users is because I have not had the time to moderate every comment coming in.  However, I have rethought my policy and feel it would better serve everyone to have your voice heard on this blog as well.  Feel free to post your questions, feelings, experience and any advice you want to share in the comments section.  It won’t appear until I approve it within 24 hours.   Thanks for being a part of this great movement to help churches become more tech savvy!

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Pastors and leaders need to be accessible to their congregations, however, I am finding more and more pastors are not giving out their numbers because they are being innundated with phone calls from just a select few people. Grand Central is the answer! This is a wonderful service that will give you a local number in your area and forward your calls to you. So, for those who may abuse your number, you can give them your Grand Central number.

With Grand Central, you can block callers, record greetings for groups of callers or specific callers, listen to voicemails online, choose different ringback tones for each caller, connect all of your current phone numbers, listen to callers as they leave a voicemail and pick up the call if you need to, switch phones during a call (from cell to home), and many more cool cool features! Get your number with this special invitation link: http://www.grandcentral.com/home/blogger_invite   Grand central is now allowing you to reserve a number when they have more openings for membership.  Signup today and get on the waiting list!

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