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Tech Geek

Advice and new 'finds' in the tech world for those doing Youth and Family Ministry. Read about what's the latest and get your questions answered!

Google Tasks

Andy Arnold - Monday, November 30, 2009
As I have freely admitted before, I am a Google fan, and I think they get how the internet should be used in a way that I agree with. I am excited about the Android operating system that they have brought to mobile phones and how open that is. I look forward to having one of those phones myself, but I'm holding out to see if something better than the Droid comes around. It looks great, but there are some rumors I'm waiting on.

I have used, and still do use, Remember the Milk for much of my task management. It's a great product and I only scratch the surface of what it can do. I haven't gotten into using tags, locations, contacts, or many of the other features. I just add things to my list, often using Dial2Do, and then I take them off when they're finished. Or, sometimes I just leave them there forever, like my oldest task of setting up an annual physical which is over a year old, which sort of defeats the annual part! I also use the Remember the Milk for Gmail gadget and Firefox extension, available at http://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/gmail/, so that I can see my tasks from within my Gmail account.

Remember the Milk does also have some integration with Google Calendar, but I found it wasn't for me. I wanted something that would sit alongside my calendar and let me add things easily and have them show up both in the list and on the relevant calendar date. I also wanted to be able to modify the list from my iPod Touch, whether I had internet access or not. I could have paid for a pro membership to Remember the Milk in order to use their iPod Touch application, but I didn't feel I was using the service enough to justify paying for it.

Awhile back, Google came out with Google Tasks, a task manager of their own. It isn't nearly as robust as Remember the Milk, but it does much of what I was looking for. I've found myself using it more and more, even though it doesn't have Dial2Do integration, yet. (I have contacted Dial2Do and asked them to consider adding Google Tasks to their service.) I find that Google Tasks also works well for the check-off lists that we probably all use to keep track of things like who has paid for a retreat! I just create a new list and add the names of everyone who needs to pay. Then, when they pay, I check them off. I don't "clear completed items" until everyone has paid. If I need to make a note, I can leave the name as the "task" and add a note in the Notes field.

To access Google Tasks from Gmail, click on Tasks, which should be right under your Contacts. This pops up a Google Talk style window with your tasks listed in it. You can add notes and due dates by clicking on the > at the right hand of each item. If you click on the pop-out arrow, your task list will float in a new window.

To access it from Google Calendar, click on Tasks, which should be right under Quick Add. This will open a sidebar to the right of your calendar screen and it will have the same tasks in it as you see from any other method of accessing Google Tasks. Once you start using Google Tasks, you'll also notice a new calendar under My Calenders which is, appropriately enough, called Tasks. Selecting or un-selecting this will control whether or not your tasks are displayed on your calendars.

You can also add Google Tasks to your iGoogle page, if you use that, by adding the Tasks gadget. Or you can visit gmail.com/tasks from your mobile phone or iPod Touch and access your list that way.

Finally, I found an iPhone/iPod app called GeeTasks which lets me quickly add tasks to any of my lists whether or not I'm connected to the internet. There is a YouTube video explaining the application at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXy5jY5lSUQ&feature=player_embedded. It's a $2.99 application, but that's close enough to free for me! There is always a chance that Google will change the API enough that the developer won't be able to keep it working, but it has worked well for me for a couple of months and there have been a couple of new versions that have improved the user experience.

Good luck with whatever you end up doing, and get rid of those sticky notes!
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Dial2Do

Andy Arnold - Sunday, November 22, 2009
If you've been following my posts since the beginning, you probably remember me talking about the Jott services. Jott offers a set of voice-to-text services that give you the ability to call a number and have a text message sent to any one of a number of services. Jott Voicemail will also convert incoming voicemails into text messages and send them to you. I used both services and even paid for a one-year subscription to Jott Assistant, but when it came time to renew, I decided I'd try and see what else was out there that might still be free.

When I started searching, I came across Dublin, Ireland based Dial2Do, a similar service to Jott. They don't have an 800 number, but my cell phone has free long distance anyways, so that isn't a consideration for me. I dial the number that they gave me, a 213 (Los Angeles) and say what I want to do. There are an extensive list of services that Dial2Do support, some of which are new to me and some of which I will be looking at in upcoming posts.

Here is the list of services that Dial2Do support today:

I have not explored the capability, but it may be the case that you could use Dial2Do to send text messages to a group of people for free. Tatango used to provide this service, but they are now charging for it as the market for text-message advertising has collapsed. I'm currently using Dial2Do to send expenses to Xpenser and calendar items to Google Calendar and it's working well for both!

Do any of you have a similar free service that you've been using?
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North Carolina Synod Youth and Family Ministry Resources

Andy Arnold - Monday, November 02, 2009
It's just about time to turn the calendar over to a new liturgical year in the Christian church. For many of us, Advent also means mid-week services and yummy potlucks. (Lenten soup suppers are always so reserved by comparison.) Instead of using blank white place-mats, this year, start families into using Family Table Devotions. I'm going to print them out onto 11x17 paper and put a few of them on each table. If you don't have a printer/copier that can do that, print them on letter sized paper and leave a few on each table.

Family Table Devotions are one of the many resources available from the North Carolina Synod, through the work of their most excellent Youth and Family Ministry Coordinator, Tammy Jones West. If the devotions don't work for you, they also have Table Talk sheets available, with a series of questions designed to spur conversation around the table. While you're on the North Carolina Synod Youth & Family Ministry website, be sure and poke around the links in the left hand column. There are a number of great resources available.

I hope to see some of you this weekend at CSLYOPs. There may not be new post next week, since I'll be gathered with many of our young church leaders and the adults who work with them.

Pastor Andy Arnold
ELCA Youth Ministry Network Tech Geek

P.S. - If you're in need of some encouragement about what our church is called to be, check out Tammy's report at her synod assembly - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l1PzU8CA_Y




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Optical Character Recognition Options

Andy Arnold - Tuesday, October 20, 2009
I'm sure this has happened to many of us before. We have something printed out on a sheet of paper that we want to get on the computer so we can edit it or use it in a presentation. We poke around trying to find the original file, but it's gone, or you never had it in the first place. You've got two options, either you can start typing, or, if you have a scanner, you can dabble in OCR, Optical Character Recognition.

If you have a scanner or an all-in-one printer in your home or office, it may have came with some OCR software bundled with the machine. If it did, and that works for you, great. Go ahead and use it! If it didn't come with any software, or if you find that software less than ideal, read on for some other options.

Microsoft Office comes with a tool, found in the Microsoft Office Tools folder, called Microsoft Office Document Imaging. It was introduced in Office XP, so if you're still using Office 97, you're probably out of luck on this front! This program, along with a variety of other features, allows you to created editable text from a scanned image. Since it is a Microsoft Office tool, it will also send the text straight into a Microsoft Word document, if that's what you'd like to have happen.

You can either scan the document as a TIF(F) file and then use the File-->Open command to open it, or you can run the program and use the File-->Scan New Document command and the program will scan your document and perform OCR on it. If you opened a file, you need to also use the Tools-->Recognize Text Using OCR command. Once you've done that, you can copy and paste the text from that program into any other program. You can also copy images by selecting the image and selecting Edit-->Copy Image.

If you don't have Microsoft Office or your installation doesn't have that tool, you can try a new Google Docs example application that performs OCR on files that you upload. Visit the applicationwebpage at http://googlecodesamples.com/docs/php/ocr.php and click the sign in box. It will then ask if you want to grant access using your Google account.

On the next page, pick a JPG, GIF, or PNG file  and click the Start OCR Import button to perform OCR on. When it finished, it will display the result of your scan in a new Google Docs file. Here are the results of scanning this document, which many of us may have seen already, into each program.


Microsoft's program came up with:
Oii e rn 011th left
Take the 2009 health assessment by Sept. 30
FACT: You hove $1 00 to put toward health care biWs. The money’s waiting for you. lt% yours.
SO: Claim it by Sept. 30. Register at vvww.elcoforwe/Iness.org with your Blue Cross and BFue Shield ID number and take the health assessment.
FACT: Another $300 is waiting for you if you spend
more time at www.e/coforwel/ness.org.
SO: Log in daily, learn something, grow your health.
First you’ve heard of all this? Visit wwwelcobop.org/assessment.
Got web jitters? Contact a health care ddvacate for help at (8001 352-2876.
Already taken the health assessment? Pass this postcard to another ELCA-primory plan
member and ask, “Hove you token it?”

And Google's application came up with:

Cne month left
Toke the 2009 health assessment by Sept. 30

... you've heard of all this? ... www. e/cabop.org/ assessment.
Got web jiifers? Contact cz health core Cdvocoîe for help at (800) 352-2876.
Already taken the healih assessment? Pass this posïcard to another ELCA-primary plan
member and ask, "Have you raken H?"


Conclusion:
Maybe this wasn't the easiest document for either of the programs to recognize, since it had a variety of sans serif fonts. There is also a test document on the Google Application page and it did a better job recognizing that document, although it still wasn't perfect. As with all Google applications, this is a work in progress and will likely get better over time. And there's always the pledge: Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. Given the price, we can't quibble too much! :)

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The Little Red Book

Andy Arnold - Saturday, October 03, 2009
If you've been around the Lutheran church for awhile, you've seen the Augsburg Fortress Little Red Books. They are the smaller cousins to the Thrivent Big Red Books, also known as the Lutheran Pastor's Desk Diary. Go to a meeting of any Lutheran clergy and you're sure to see someone reach into their shirt pocket or briefcase and pull one one of these Red Books out to scribble a note or write down an appointment. Both of them have info about the lectionary texts assigned for each Sunday, which saints go with which days, and when Easter and Ash Wednesday actually fall this year! Both of them are very paper based, and not all that useful for people like me, who haven't used a paper based calendar in over 15 years!

Today I received this tweet from @bethalewis: Free downloadable "Little Red Book" is available for 2010. http://www.augsburgfortress.org/redbook/ (Beth is the CEO of Augsburg Fortress, along with being a wife, mother, grandmother, daughter, sister,  and KY Wildcats basketball fan.) I didn't think I'd have any use for a downloadable book, then my curiosity got the best of me, and I clicked the link.

Augusburg Fortress has provided a DBA and a CSV file that can be downloaded and used within Palm Desktop (DBA) and Microsoft Outlook (CSV). There is a helpful link for additional instructions on how to insert the dates into either of these software programs. Great! But I use Google Calendar. Can I use them too? Yes!

I downloaded the CSV version of the file to my computer and saved it on the desktop as Year_C_2010.csv. I opened my Google Calendar and Click Add --> Import calendar at the bottom right of the Other calendars box at the bottom of the left column. This brings up a new window which asks for the file name (the Year_C_2010.csv file I just saved) and what calendar I want to import the file into. I used my daily calendar. After clicking the Import button, I waited a few seconds, and then my calendar had lots of new entries. Some of these are duplicates to things I'd already put there, but most of them are new entries. You could also create a new calendar (before starting the import process) and import all of these dates to that calendar, if you wanted to keep them separate from your regular events.

Updates:
Paul Amlin has provided this comment below, but so you don't miss it, I'm moving it up here.
Hey gang, for the mac users out there who are google challenged or don't use that amazing tool, but who wish to use the LRB calendar in iCal, I've converted an iCal friendly version and posted it for download on my website: http://www.paulamlin.com/downloads/ This has been a popular request by many on the facebook group I admin, hope it's helpful to others here as well. peace, Paul :o)

Beth Lewis, who I mentioned above, also posted some more information on her blog, available at http://blogs.augsburgfortress.org/?p=210 .

Thanks to Rev. Matthew A. Smith (Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church, Lansing, MI) for compiling this information for us into the Downloadable Little Red Book.
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elca.feautor.org

Andy Arnold - Monday, September 21, 2009
This past week I stumbled across a new-to-me, and relatively new overall, website named elca.feautor.org. It is a free, multi-lingual, open space to share resources. Over the years I have been part of a couple of conversations about creating such a space, but have never had the time to bring such a resource sharing space to fruition. So I was quite excited to see that one now exists!

Here is some information straight from the site:
Welcome to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America shared resources group at Feautor.org. Resources on this site have been created by individuals and congregations for your use. Most resources are available in a word processor file that can be edited, and as an Adobe Acrobat file that is ideal for printing. Freely sharing locally produced materials is practicing a 'Stewardship of Ideas.' Use these ideas, modify them for your purposes as allowed, share them with others, and in turn share some of your best ideas by uploading them here. Thanks for browsing and contributing.

While you are in the ELCA portion of Feautor, click the little people icon to the left to see more information about this group, tips for using the site, and instructions on how to contribute resources you have created. View a short video clip on how to contribute a resource: www.feautor.org/id/12155442903 Here's one with general tips on using this site: www.feautor.org/id/12180509478
There are currently over 900 contributions in the ELCA section of this site. This could be a great resource for those who write their own curriculum and wish to share it and those who need a push in their own planning. I know that we, as a church, have lots of great programming ideas and there are many ways where others can help fill in our own growth areas. Thanks to the resource center directors who are members of the Association of Lutheran Resource Centers who serve as caretakers for the venture. Learn more about them at: http://elca.feautor.org/en/aboutus/index

Another high quality and free resource I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you of is the weekly Faith Lens Bible Study posted by the ELCA at http://blogs.elca.org/faithlens/ . These weekly Bible studies engage youth and young adults in connecting world events with the Bible, faith, and everyday life. Many of the authors are folks that are also active in the ELCA Youth Ministry Network. I have struggled a bit to get the new blog-based version to print and I miss the old PDF versions that used to be available. I wonder if there's any chance those will come back.

Within the current format, I have had the best results by highlighting the entire text of the week's Bible study and then selecting Print Selection. In Firefox, I highlight the text, select File-->Print, and then click the Selection radio button.
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Dropbox

Andy Arnold - Sunday, September 13, 2009
How many different computers do you use? On a pretty regular basis I use two or three different computers. I have my desktop at home and my laptop at church and will also find myself on one of the other church computers with some regularity. I hate not having the file handy that I need and so I often use Google Docs to work on files because then I can access them from any computer and even my iPod Touch. But there are documents that are too complicated to use Google Docs for. That's where Dropbox comes in.

Dropbox is a service which allows you to backup files online. The free version has 2 GB of storage and there are paid options for those who need additional storage. Once you upload a file, you can access it from any machine that has the client software on it or or directly via their website. The client software is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux computers and it handles sharing files between different operating systems. You can also share large files easily with other users by uploading them to Dropbox and sending the sharing information to others. 

The real magic though is that, in addition to backing up files, the service syncs files across multiple computers. So if I'm working on a complicated presentation I can put in in the My Dropbox folder and work on it easily from home or church. Any changes I make in either place will by automatically synchronized to the other machines. The files are also stored locally, so if I don't have Internet access, I can still work on them.

Installing the software was pretty straightforward. I went to https://www.getdropbox.com/install and downloaded the software for my computer. I installed it and as part of that process it asked me to create an account, which I did. Then it created a My Dropbox folder on my computer. The next day, I installed the software on my laptop at church and linked it to the same account. Instantly I had access to all the files I'd uploaded the day before into the My Dropbox folder. Sure beats e-mailing files to myself!

If this sounds like something you'd use, take the Dropbox tour at: https://www.getdropbox.com/tour and check out how it might work for you. If you like Dropbox, join via this link and we'll both get some extra free space in our accounts.
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Blogging Your Summer Trips (Part 2) by Andy Sahl

Andy Arnold - Monday, July 13, 2009
Last time we talked about some of the logistics of planning for a blog.  Today I’m going to talk about how to go about setting up an actual blog.  There are many tools out there that you can use.  Two free tools that I use for blogging are Blogger (which is owned by Google) and Wordpress.com.
 
We will also be talking about incorporating pictures into these blogs, which are great for helping to tell the story.
 
All of these tools are what we would call cloud computing, that is the information lives on a server somewhere owned by a company.  You don’t need any special software on your computer, just something to write text and move pictures from your camera to your computer.
 
Using Blogger, I set up a quick blog for our youth group’s trip to New Orleans.  I first went to Blogger.com and clicked on create a blog.

 

After signing in, I chose a name for the blog (that appears on the top bar of your browser window, this web page your reading should say Tech Geek).  You will also choose the blog address.  Try to make the blog address as simple as possible because it will go at the beginning of the website address for your blog.  Using Blogger your website address will be [your blog address].blogger.com.

 

After getting your blog named, you can then choose a pre-set template for colors and layout. There are many choices.
 

 
After that, you can begin writing your first post.
 


Amazingly simple, huh?  Wordpress.com is very similar, except your address will end in Wordpress.org.  Writing a post is much like writing an email in Gmail or Yahoo Mail or other online email editors, or to say another way a simple version of Microsoft Word.
 
**Wordpress.org is a different service, to create a free and simple blog you want wordpress.com.  For a small fee you can get a very high functioning pay blog with your own custom address at wordpress.com
 
Pictures
You will likely have some pictures that you want to highlight, say a great group photo or a kid with a great smile, and then there are probably going to be photos that are good but not great.  I want to show you ways to post both of those photos.
 
To post a photo you want to highlight, simply click on the add image box on the toolbar.  You will then get a simple wizard that will help you choose the file off of your hard drive to upload and set the layout for. This is a good method for the 2-5 photos that sum up the day.
 
However, you will likely have many pictures you want to show to your friends.  The best way to do this is to upload the pictures to a photo sharing website such as Picasa (http://www.google.com/picasa/) or Flickr (Flickr.com).
 
Both of these services exist in “the cloud,” however you can download some software called Picasa from the same website that will help you organize and upload your photos (you don’t have to do this, however).
 
Uploading the photos to these website is pretty self explanatory, but the neat trick comes in embedding a slide show.  In Flickr, I chose an album and then clicked on Slideshow.  In the upper right corner I clicked on share and saw this:


 
What are we seeing here?  The first line, “Grab the URL,” is the address to the slide show that you could insert in your blog to send people here to see the slideshow.
 
The second line is the code that will embed this slideshow directly into your blog.
 
To embed the slideshow, click copy to clipboard for the second line, “Grab the embed HTML:”
 
Then go back to your blog, and in the top right corner of the writing window click on Edit HTML.  This changes what you are writing from regular text (where the computer adds code around it) to actual code.  Insert the text you have copied to your clipboard in the writing window (ctrl+v or left click on the mouse).  The code should be embedded.
 

 
When you click back to Compose (the regular editing mode), you may not see anything, but if you click on Publish this is what you will see:
 

 
Now the entire album will be visible and playable right there in the blog.  This is a great way to document the trip day by day.
 
Picasa and Wordpress both function in very similar ways, as will the other tools that are out there.
 
Good luck blogging, and be sure to let your congregation know where they can read about your trip.

Andy Sahl will be blogging about Bethlehem's trip to the ELCA Youth Gathering - Jesus, Justice, Jazz 2009.
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Apple Safari 4 Beta

Andy Arnold - Saturday, May 16, 2009
Justin Snider, our Mac geek, writes this week about his experience with Apple Safari on both the Mac and the PC.

I had my first experience with Safari on a PC when Internet Explorer was struggling to surf the Web.  A friend of mine said "Internet Explorer is so 90's!"  He told me how Safari had been released for PC, I installed it, and I was blown away by the speed, clean looking design, and power to load the most flash heavy sites.  Now that I have been using a Mac as my fulltime work computer, Safari 3.1 is the default web browser, but I spent months using Firefox as my default web browser, trying out different add-ons, loved the easily customizable interface, and the great toolbar search engines.  

A couple of months ago Safari 4 Beta (http://www.apple.com/safari/) was released to the public, and seeing the new speed tests versus other browsers, I downloaded, and it is now my default web browser once again.  Safari 4 Beta uses a screaming fast java script engine called, Nitro Engine, which places it 30 times faster than Internet Explorer 7, and 3 times faster than Firefox 3 (but a new, faster version of Firefox is under beta testing currently).  Safari also handles new types of web design well, scoring 100% in the Acid 3 Web Browser Test (you can try your own web browser at http://acid3.acidtests.org /).  Safari 4 Beta also has Top Sites, an optional homepage that visually displays thumbnails of your most visited sites, where you can also pin your favorite sites too.  There is also a new history window where you can visually thumb through sites you have visited using Cover Flow, like you can in iTunes and newer iPods.  

Though you can't install supported add-ons like Firefox can, I have installed a free ad-blocking program, AdBlock (http://burgersoftware.com/en/safariadblock ), that blocks most ads from loading on webpages, creating a clean, fast loading experience.  Like I said, Safari is very clean looking, short, text based menu bar, with tabs, address bar, predictive Google search bar, and a customizable bookmark bar.  Other options include instant "E-Mail Contents of This Page," private browsing (so if you are at someone else's computer, it won't remember your history or login items), built in RSS Reader, and a handy download menu to easily find and manage current and past downloads.  All these features look and work identical on both the Mac or Windows version.  

I recommend this browser, if you want a fast, clean looking, easy-to-use browser, that can handle any feature rich website.

Justin Snider is a full-time Director of Youth & Family Ministry at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Olympia, Washington.  He loves technology and had to choose between working in the tech industry or youth ministry, and certainly chose the right profession!  YouthDirector - at - GloriaDeiOlympia - dot - org

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Internet Explorer 7

Andy Arnold - Monday, April 27, 2009
The majority of Internet users access the Internet using Windows Internet Explorer as their web browser. Depending on whose statistics you believe, between two out of every three and three out of every four people are using IE. The majority of those who use IE are using IE 7, with a fair amount still using IE 6 and the early adopters having moved over to IE 8. IE used to be available on Linux and Macintosh platforms, but now is Windows-only with a mobile version as well.

I think the biggest reason that folks use IE 7 is that it's easy. When you open your Windows-based computer up from its box, Internet Explorer is already installed. It's a part of Windows and it's ready to go. Windows/Microsoft Update keeps it up to date and it's installed on virtually every PC running Windows XP or later. It may very well not be the best, but it's familiar to many users and displays almost every website as it was intended to be displayed. Some website are indeed written especially for IE 7's quirks and therefore don't display perfectly in other browsers! IE 7 only gets a bad looking 12/100 on the Acid3 Browser Test, which is designed to measure how well a browser adheres to Web Standards.

IE 7 supports tabbed browsing, which means that you can have multiple web pages open within one browser window. I find these tabs to be annoyingly slow to open, but yourmileage may vary. It also supports toolbars which give you a variety of customizable buttons across the top of your window. Google Toolbar and Yahoo Toolbar are two popular bars that integrate with their respective sites and provide features such as bookmark synchronization across multiple browsers. ActiveX controls provide other functionality within the browser window.

I used IE for many years as my primary browser, largely because I figured it was already on my system and parts of it get loaded to run Windows anyways. But I couldn't shake the sneaking suspicion that it was getting slower and slower and bogging down my system when I used it. Soon after upgrading to IE 7, Iabandoned IE as my primary browser. I still use it occasionally, both on its own and within FireFox, but not nearly as much as I once did. I'll talk more about using IE within FireFox next week!

If you use IE, I'd suggest upgrading to at least IE 7. Microsoft is constantly releasing patches to prevent malicious users from exploiting vulnerabilities in the code. Even if you don't regularly use IE, I'd still suggest upgrading to IE 7 because IE code can also be used by other programs in their mini-browsers. Some developers make the assumption that all Windows systems have an up-to-date version of IE on them.

If you use IE and are sick of it, stay tuned. We'll be exploring some other alternatives in the coming weeks.

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