Need a new home for genesys11
So my web server company (aplus.net) seems to really have problems hosting my TYPO3 based web site. I am using the “Web Empowered Church” for my site, and it is having yet again a problem with “out of memory” (even though I have allocated 256mb of memory, which is more than enough). Looks like I need to move my host to another site. Most likely I will move to “Vine Hosting”. Vine is the for-profit arm of the nonprofit “Web Empowered Church” group – their hosting site is customized to support WEC specifically. For those thinking about using WEC as their CMS, I highly recommend getting hosted at Vine.
So why does this blog still work? The blog is in WordPress, which runs easily on aplus.
The Lord giveth…
Many of you know that I was in a bad car accident about 18 months ago. I survived what looked to be an unsurvivable accident, but my classic 1968 Mustang did not. For the past few months I have been looking for a “new” classic Mustang to replace it. I monitored several Craigslist listings using a custom Yahoo pipes feed that I created and finally, a few weeks ago, found the exact car I wanted. For those who want details: “A” code 289, pony interior, a/c, power steering. I really feel that the Lord led me to this car and its seller, a young man working in youth ministry at a nearby church. We made the deal a few days ago and I now have my new car. While nothing can ever replace my old car with all its memories, this car is a new adventure that I plan to keep and drive as long as I am able.
I just want to use this post to publicly thank the Lord for this blessing. And to thank my wife as well for supporting me in getting this car. And yes, I will let her drive it. 
Survey closed
The Internet Ministry Survey is now officially closed. I will now begin using my trained monkeys to analyze the results!
Warning: survey closing
Oh my it’s been a long time since I’ve posted! Got sidetracked during spring break and busy with other projects. Well I’m back and will get posting again.
Warning: If you kept meaning to take my survey on Internet ministry but have not yet, take note: I will be closing the survey tomorrow! Go to the survey here. I am going to begin working over the data starting next week.
And if you haven’t registered for the Internet Ministry Conference yet, get busy.
Poll on the three categories of Internet ministry
The Church Marketing Sucks blog has just completed an online poll on the three categories of Internet ministry that I posted about a couple months back. Interesting post and results…I’m still trying to figure out what the 5% people are replacing.
Internet Evangelism Day is coming…
Internet Evangelism Day is coming on April 27th. According to the IED website:
We wish to communicate the outreach potential of the Web to the worldwide church. The site has a twin-track purpose:
- to explain the strategies needed to use the web for evangelism, along with showcase examples, and demonstrate the many ways you could be involved. One surprising fact: you do not need to be technically gifted to do web evangelism!
- to enable you to communicate these truths to others, by providing free downloads: PowerPoint, video clips, drama scripts, handouts, etc. These enable churches and other groups to build a web evangelism focus program into a service or other activities.
One of the most interesting tools the site provides is a checklist for your church website. This checklist includes 55 items that you can use to “score” your church website and then, based upon your checklist entries can generate a report to help you understand what needs to be fixed on your site. For the most part, I like the checklist and feel it provides some really good ideas for what makes a good church site. I will be using it as a way to help evaluate the redesign of my own church’s website.
TurboTax:Important Information About Your 2007 Tax Return
So I have been doing an intermittent series on using technology to improve your life. Here’s a case where relying on technology could seriously mess you up…
I received a free CD from TurboTax in the mail with their latest software. Pretty cool idea: it’s free until I decide to file. I used TT last year, so I figured that I would go ahead and use it as I wanted to get started on my taxes early to do some planning for our finances. So I start working through it and filled in my income, investments, etc. It then takes me to the “Federal Review” and tells me I owe a freaking large amount of money! I am trying to figure out what happened when I realize that I never entered in any of my deductions! We have several big deductions include mortgage interest and charitable giving, so I’m figuring I somehow missed it. After spending an hour or so looking for it I cannot find it! I finally gave up and sent an email to TurboTax support.
Today (a week later) I got the email shown below with the subject line shown at the top of this blog post. I don’t know how widespread this was, but this was a huge blunder by a very well-known company.
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Did anyone get caught by this and actually file? This could be a huge black eye for Intuit!
“Your Google account has been suspended”
Can you even imagine seeing those words? They send shivers down my spine. danah boyd over at her blog tells the story of a friend of hers who had this happen: mail, calendar, documents, social network (Orkut)… All because the person accidentally gave out some information to someone they shouldn’t have and had their account hijacked.
A couple of lessons to learn. First, if you (personally) use an online email/calendar/document management tool (such as Google), are you prepared if, for some reason, they block access to your account? Second, if you as a ministry use a vendor-supplied web site or an ISP, are you prepared if, for some reason, they block access to your account?
This gives a whole new meaning to backing up your data! I, myself, have always thought that I was rather smart for using an online email system such as gmail (and on online calendar and document tool) because then I can get to my stuff from wherever I want, as long as I can get a net connection. After all, Google is never going to die, right? But I never thought about the idea of Google canceling my account for a reason outside of my control.
Of course, there are several solutions to this problem: you can set up a mail client to keep a copy of all your mail and sync your calendar with a client package. Or you can even have one mail account forward all messages to another. But it is much more difficult to synchronize all of the customizations you have made (labels, categories, saved searches, etc.). Several interesting solutions to this have been suggested over at Lifehacker, so if you are interested, check them out.
And now for something completely different…
I have been following LarkNews for a long time. This month’s stories are especially funny.
And it was only a matter time until this.
Speaking at the Internet Ministry Conference
I guess it’s official: I will be speaking at the Internet Ministry Conference this fall in Grand Rapids, MI. The plan is to use the conference as the place to publicly “unveil” the results of my research on Internet ministry. I went to the conference last fall and was very impressed with how they gathered together key players in the world of Internet ministry and worked to understand how the Internet can be used effectively for ministry. Review their blog for summaries of last year’s sessions. Registration for the conference is coming up – check their web site for updates.
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Welcome to Lessons From Babel
This blog is where I share the latest thoughts on my research in the world of Internet ministry. Feel free to join the conversation by leaving a comment. For more information on what I am doing in 2010, see my first post of the year. To find out more about me, my company, and this web site, or to see what resources are available on this site, click on the images right below this.
- Dave Bourgeois
