Technology

Angel Tree Tags - using barcodes to track

cshelton — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:41:14 GMT

Our church is looking into how we could use barcode tags to track families that take an angel tree tag at Christmas. We would like the ability to assign the tag to a family so that we know that family has taken a tag. We would also like the ability to scan the tag on the gift when it comes back to us, so that we know that the family has returned the tag with a gift. We would also like to be able to assign the tag to the family in need so that we know who the gifts go to. I would like to hear any ideas from all churches as to how your church handles Christmas Angel Tree tags. F1 doesn't seem to allow us the flexibility we need to do something like this, but I could be wrong. I am by no means an expert on F1, so if you have any ideas on how this could be handled in F1 or if you know of a system that could handle this, please let me know. Thank you!

cshelton

The Cove Church

Data Structure Question

djohnson — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:47:00 GMT

We participate in several annual events/outreach in our community where we invite people to give us their information so that they can be on our mailing list and potentially come to our church. We want the ability to contact an event attendee through the event name.

What is the best way to structure our data without it becoming clunky in two to three years?

Your suggestions would be great.

Thanks,

Denise

Online Membership Directory-has anyone attempted this?

katiesmith — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:35:16 GMT

We are in the discussion of creating an online membership directory as a part of a website that would also be for connecting members together. We would be posting the information for each member on on the website (address, phone number, email), and the website would only be available to members and regular attenders via an individual account with a login and password.

For the protection of privacy for each of our members, I am kind of hesitant in attempting this. However, I was wondering if any of you had attempted this successfully at your church. Any advice you have for me would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks so much,

Katie Smith, Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church, Knoxville, TN

Visual Paging system

BBennett — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:03:26 GMT

We currently have a microframe brand visual paging system for our Kid's Church. It is numeric display only. Unfortunately, F1 assigns random alpha-numeric codes to each child. What are other churches using. The microframe alpha-numeric display is atrociously expensive and requires computers in each room. UGH!. Please help.

Securing check-in computers

helpdesk — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:17:48 GMT

In the massive amount of reading I did early on I recall seeing a paper on securing a check-in station. Does anyone have a pointer to a paper like that?

How are you securing your check-in stations? How would you do it if you did not have reliable access to a domain?

Thanks,

Dan

Computer Monitors - Touch Screen or not? Laptops or not?

cshelton — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:10:29 GMT

We as a church are getting ready for the opening of our expanded facilities that have been under construction for the last 18 months. We are more than doubling the size of our facilities at our main campus. We currently have 6 check-in stations (4 dell desktops & 2 laptops). We are researching check-in stations and are going to be doubling the amount of check-in stations we have. I would like to hear feedback from churches 3000+ in size as to the kinds of check-in stations you use and whether you use touch screens or not, laptops or not. If you do use touch screens I would like to hear what kind of touchscreens you use, whether they are troublesome or not. I would also like to know how you keep your check-in stations mobile, i.e. what kind of workstation cart you use, if any.

Thanks so much for any input you can give me!

Blessings,

cshelton

Label printers with cutters

helpdesk — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:43:48 GMT

We are choosing which printer to use for our check-in stations. It has been suggested that we get printers with cutters on them.

Can anyone give a specific recommendation? The Zebra GX420d looks similar to the GK420d, but it can take an optional printer. Or do we need to stick with the Zebra LP2844-Z, which is slower and less attractive?

TIA,

Dan

Website content mangement systems?

mspidle — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 22:08:13 GMT

What content management system does your church use for website management? Ie. Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, phpNuke, custom code, faithhighway, cloversites, etc.

We are in the process of redesigning our website and would like to know what other churches are doing.

Thanks

Mark

Question re Scanner set up via USB port

omihailov — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 02:38:47 GMT

I have a Magtek check scanner that we are trying to connect to a laptop via a USB port. The scanner has serial cable so I am hoping an USB adapter will do the trick. Has anyone successfully done this using a serial to USB adapter?

I worry that the F1 software will not allow it to work.

Thanks!

Ovidiu

ovidiumihailov@eastlakecc.com

Incorporating Macintosh Computers into 2003 Server with Active Directory

Kevinito — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 12:55:07 GMT

Hi,

We have about 20 Macintosh computers runnning OS X in our Windows 2003 network with Active Directory. What software can we use to fully incorporate them without disabling Digital Signatures and without using AdmitMac software? If we do disable Digital Signatures, what security protocol(s) will we be losing?

Many thanks,

Kevin

Is the services2.fellowshipone.com server down?

csterritt — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 19:07:48 GMT

Hello,

Trying to do some development today, and services2.fellowshipone.com is refusing to answer SOAP requests. Anyone else seeing this?

Thanks!

--chris sterritt

iPhone

jaredfarnum — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 15:01:56 GMT

I was curious to see if anyone on 3cords also has an iPhone.

Read my blog about it.
http://tammanyweb.com/blog/tech-ology/2007/07/iphone-part-1.html

Although Safari is NOT supported for Fellowship One, I am open to discussion / questions about use of the iPhone with Fellowship One (or just in general).

What barcode scanner are you using?

mspidle — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:08:14 GMT

We have some old scanners that won't scan a barcode at all. I'd really like to look at setting up self-checkin for our youth ministry using barcodes.

Just wondered what everyone is using that actually works.

Thanks

Mark

Forwarding emails to groups

sbradley — Wed, 21 May 2008 14:36:07 GMT

We have several missionaries who keep in touch with the congregation through our Prayer Chain. In the past I could simply forward their emails to the Prayer Chain group I had in Outlook. How do I do it with F1?

Zebra LP2844-Z

jfarnum — Thu, 08 May 2008 01:59:25 GMT

I have a couple Zebra LP2844-Z printers for sale on eBay.

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZfarnumjared
http://myworld.ebay.com/farnumjared

Jared

USB Printer Cable at Checkin

lnoah — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 01:12:00 GMT

We are setting up our new check in systems....with new computers...and we are having trouble using the USB cable with our printers. Every time we boot up the printer is not recognized and we then struggle through getting it to work. My IT department put in a support ticket to F1 and they said USB is not supported and the check in software is written to identify a LPTI port only. What are other churches doing to work around this?

Thank you.

Linda

CMS

LOFer — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 19:56:49 GMT

Hola!

We are at the stage where we need to get on with re-doing our website (www.leapoffaithministry.org) and have been looking longingly at Typo3. Anyone had any experience in using this over say Joomla/Mambo or Boast etc.?

It looks great but, it's something we need to hit the ground running on so time to "get to know it" is at a premium, I'd rather spend time designing a template lol!.

Any other possibilities for a LAMP based CMS?

Cheers :)

Web/Technology

ejaffe — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 16:01:28 GMT

We are looking to take our website to new heights.

What church websites and web technologies do you think are the cutting edge best sites, best technologies that lie ahead?

What are you called to do?

hillmark — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 18:59:18 GMT

If you enjoy listening to sermons on-line I would highly recommend John Piper at http://www.desiringgod.org/ especially the sermons on the book of Romans, the sermons cover a span of several years so it might take several months to get through them all, you will be richly blessed by them. At the end of every (on-line) sermon there is an announcers who says “Thank you for listening to this message by John Piper, Pastor for Preaching…”. Pastor for Preaching? What does that mean, does that mean that his job is to preach preach and only preach? Does he run the church also, does he make the big decisions? I am a member at Gateway Church in Southlake Texas and Pastor Robert Morris seems to follow the same model, I have heard him say that he spends 20 hours per week praying and preparing his sermons and with 6 services on the weekend the rest of the time seems to be spent preaching. I’m rather new to the whole mega-church scene so I am used to a small congregation of maybe 100 members and one pastor who did everything from preach to mow the grass, with the exception of the little old lady who cleaned the church, the pastor took care of everything. How many churches out there are struggling because the pastor or preacher is stretched so thin that the sermon is prepared at 10:00 PM the night before the church service?

And what about the model that Jesus left for us, yes he performed miracles, cast out daemons and healed the sick but he spent most of his time preaching and seeking God in prayer. Jesus did not try to do all the work himself, instead he appointed disciples to "Go into all the world and preach the good news” Mark 16:15. Jesus preached using words and gave us an example by his actions to provide us with instructions on how to live our lives.

Now lets take that same model and apply it to technology, specifically data. The people at the church could take the initiative to learn effective ways to manage data, or they could use their currently level of computer knowledge and create a spreadsheet with all the kids names, addresses, parent name, allergies, attendance. They could hire someone internally who has experience in the area of managing data, or they could hire the services of a company who specializes in managing church congregation data. Would you ask the person you hired to do lawn maintenance come in and run the youth ministry? Or would you ask the person who cleans the restrooms to prepare someone’s giving statement? Then why is the person who was hired to run the children’s department in charge of managing the data for that department?

I know that the people who are doing ministry have a heart to serve God and further the Kingdom, and they manage things to the best of their ability but would that task be better suited for someone who specializes in it? I work as a database administrator and managing data is my job, that is what I have done for the last 9 years. In the past I have worked for various companies and there have been departments like sales or human resources that were bound and determined to manage their own customer data or employee information. Then the next problems that they faced was how to share the data, how to keep it secure, how to handle the backups, how to maintain the data, how to merge the data together when 10 people are all working on their own copy of the data, which copy of the data is most current, the list goes on and on, perhaps you have seen some of these same problems in your organization.

In Mark 10:45 the Word tells us that the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus came to bare the burden of sin for us; Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." Galatians 3:13. What would have happened if Jesus had gotten caught up in administrative tasks? Or what would happen if you and I tried to be our own savior and bare the burden of our own sins? In summary, (I love it when preachers say that) let the preacher do what he is called to do; preach and to minister to the needs of the congregation, let the people in [Insert ministry here] ministry do what they are called to do, let the database guy handle the data, let Jesus bare the burden of your sin instead of trying to be your own savior.

Evolution for Gnome desktop

Kevinito — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 12:41:13 GMT

Has anyone had any experience with Evolution on a Linux box? I am using SuSE linux version 9 pro, and I was wondering about the implications of making Evolution a mail server for Macintosh clients on a 2003 Server network using AD.

-K

Samba versus CUPS broadcasting

Kevinito — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 18:43:49 GMT

Hi,

We are currently in the middle of configuring a Linux print server (Fedora Core) for our Macintosh clients. What do you recommend as a Linux print service: Samba or CUPS broadcasting?

-K

I hope this isn't too difficult for anyone to follow . . . OpenGL

Kevinito — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 15:15:47 GMT

Greetings,

I am currently coding a screensaver for our church using MSVC++. I am loading a 256x256 bitmap graphic and using glBindTexture with glTexCoord2f to apply the texture on the cube. The screensaver compiles and executes perfectly, but without the texture applied to the cube!!! Here is the code for the OpenGL screensaver. I left out the screensaver code . . .

Thanks,

Kevinito

#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <scrnsave.h>
#include <commctrl.h>
#include <gl\gl.h> // Header for OpenGL32 Lib
#include <gl\glu.h> // GLu32 Lib
#include <gl\glaux.h> // GLaux Lib

#pragma comment(lib, "OpenGL32.lib")
#pragma comment(lib, "GLu32.lib")
#pragma comment(lib, "GLaux.lib")
#pragma comment(lib, "ScrnSave.lib")
#pragma comment(lib, "comctl32.lib")

GLuint texture[1];

AUX_RGBImageRec *LoadBMP(char *Filename)
{
FILE *File=NULL;

if (!Filename)
{
return NULL;
}

File=fopen(Filename,"r");

if (File)
{
fclose(File);
return auxDIBImageLoad(Filename);
}

return NULL;
}

int LoadGLTextures()
{
int Status=FALSE;

AUX_RGBImageRec *TextureImage[1];

memset(TextureImage,0,sizeof(void *)*1);
if (TextureImage[0]=LoadBMP("Data/image1.bmp"))
{
Status=TRUE;

glGenTextures(1, &texture[0]);
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, texture[0]);
glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, 3, TextureImage[0]->sizeX, TextureImage[0]->sizeY, 0, GL_RGB, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, TextureImage[0]->data);
glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D,GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER,GL_LINEAR);
glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D,GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER,GL_LINEAR);
}

if (TextureImage[0])
{
if (TextureImage[0]->data)
{
free(TextureImage[0]->data);
}

free(TextureImage[0]);
}

return Status;
}

void SetupAnimation(int Width, int Height)
{
// Current viewport:x, y, width, height
glViewport(0, 0, (GLsizei)Width, (GLsizei)Height);

// Next we set up for a perspective view

glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION); // Select the Projection Matrix
glLoadIdentity(); // Reset(init) the Projection Matrix

gluPerspective(45.0f, (GLfloat)Width/(GLfloat)Height, 0.1f, 100.0f);
glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW); // Select the modelview matrix
glLoadIdentity(); // Reset (init) the modelview matrix
gluLookAt(0.0f, 0.0f, 10.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f);

glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_2D);

glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); // Set background to black
glPolygonMode(GL_FRONT_AND_BACK, GL_FILL);
glShadeModel(GL_SMOOTH); // Enable smooth shading
glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.5f);
glClearDepth(1.0f); // Clear depth buffer
glEnable(GL_DEPTH_TEST); // Enables depth test
glDepthFunc(GL_LEQUAL); // Type of depth test to perform

// Enhances image quality
glHint(GL_PERSPECTIVE_CORRECTION_HINT, GL_NICEST);

// glColor3f(0.5f, 0.5f, 1.0f);
}

// Declare rotation variables
static GLfloat spinx, spiny, spinz;

// OpenGL drawing and animation
void OnTimer(HDC hDC)
{
glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);

// Rotation variables
spinx = 0.1f;
spiny = -0.2f;
spinz = 0.3f;
// glTranslatef(-1.5f,0.0f,-6.0f); // Move Left And Into The Screen
glRotatef(spinx, 1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f);
glRotatef(spiny, 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f);
glRotatef(spinz, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f);

glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, texture[0]);

glBegin(GL_QUADS);
// Front Face
glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 0.0f); glVertex3f(-1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f); // Bottom Left
glTexCoord2f(1.0f, 0.0f); glVertex3f( 1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f); // Bottom Right
glTexCoord2f(1.0f, 1.0f); glVertex3f( 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f); // Top Right
glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 1.0f); glVertex3f(-1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f); // Top Left
// Back Face
glTexCoord2f(1.0f, 0.0f); glVertex3f(-1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f);
glTexCoord2f(1.0f, 1.0f); glVertex3f(-1.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f);
glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 1.0f); glVertex3f( 1.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f);
glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 0.0f); glVertex3f( 1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f);
// Top Face
glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 1.0f); glVertex3f(-1.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f);
glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 0.0f); glVertex3f(-1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f);
glTexCoord2f(1.0f, 0.0f); glVertex3f( 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f);
glTexCoord2f(1.0f, 1.0f); glVertex3f( 1.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f);
// Bottom Face
glTexCoord2f(1.0f, 1.0f); glVertex3f(-1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f);
glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 1.0f); glVertex3f( 1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f);
glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 0.0f); glVertex3f( 1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f);
glTexCoord2f(1.0f, 0.0f); glVertex3f(-1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f);
// Right face
glTexCoord2f(1.0f, 0.0f); glVertex3f( 1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f);
glTexCoord2f(1.0f, 1.0f); glVertex3f( 1.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f);
glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 1.0f); glVertex3f( 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f);
glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 0.0f); glVertex3f( 1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f);
// Left Face
glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 0.0f); glVertex3f(-1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f);
glTexCoord2f(1.0f, 0.0f); glVertex3f(-1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f);
glTexCoord2f(1.0f, 1.0f); glVertex3f(-1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f);
glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 1.0f); glVertex3f(-1.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f);
glEnd();

SwapBuffers(hDC);

}