IconizeMe

I am a fan of the old TechTV shows 'Call for Help' and 'The ScreenSavers'. They were total geek shows. Their company was bought out and eventually everyone got sacked. About a year ago some of them started a podcast. The podcast was basically the same as their old shows, but without the demonstrations. It was pretty cool. On their site ( http://twit.tv ), they have basically a blog like this with comments. I noticed that the head twit, Leo Laporte, had a cool cartoon-like graphic of himself for his profile icon. Later on another podcast (http://commandn.tv, similar geek thing) they did a spot about a site called IconizeMe ( http://www.iconizeme.com ). This site did exactly what I was looking for. They take a photo and make what amounts to a caricature-like image for use as an icon or blog profile picture, etc. They charge $40. Other sites offer a similar service. You just need to like the way a particular artist does their pictures. You could do a similar thing using Photoshop, but a hand drawn version is really nice. What better imaging for a kid than a cartoon image. I had them do one of my wife, the CM, and combined it with her logo from LogoBee. I have them working on one for me also. You'll see it here on my blog when its complete.

LogoBee

Here was our problem. How can we find a logo for the Children's ministry that isn't taken from the same source of clip art as everyone else is using. A very typical CM logo is 'the hand' or more appropriately the hand print. Not that anything is wrong with 'the hand'. If you are looking for it, you can find it as a standard template in Microsoft Publisher (Kid Stuff Newsletter). We wanted something a bit more distinctive. This meant paying a professional.

The first thing I did was a quick Google search for 'logo'. The number of returns was amazing. I started searching through them to see about what we could expect to pay and what degree of freedom we'd have to make changes. I finally settled on LogoBee ( http://www.logobee.com ).

For under $300 they designed six logos based on our input. From those six we picked one and began to refine it. They were easy to work with even when we suggested something we ended up hating. They removed it... no problem. Best of all the entire process took under two weeks. The first six design were ready for us to evaluate in just five days.

Sorry if this article is too much of a commercial. I feel this was a reasonably priced item, service was fast and were completely satisfied with the output. It was a good experience so we thought we'd pass it on.

Woot Anyone?

Maybe you’ve heard of this. The web site is http://www.woot.com/. It is a neat concept. At midnight, Monday through Friday, they post an item for sale. It can be anything from a blender to a High Definition television. There price is usually quite competitive. Shipping is ALWAYS $5. The sale goes on until their supply is depleted. Once depleted, you have to wait until midnight again.

There is a special event now and then called a "Woot Off". It lasts for 24 hours. Once one item is sold out they place a new one on sale.

Be sure to run whatever item they are selling through Froogle to be sure you can't get a better price elsewhere. I used them to get a 20 GB MP3 player for my car. It was a pleasant experience. Also check the 'condition' field, they do sell some items as reconditioned.

Beware: The people that run the site can get racy in their language at times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woot.com

Microsoft Photo Story

Soon after I started this blog I got a tip from my sister (goddess of knowledge, college homework helper, guidance coucilor, coding genius, bigger nerd than me). She told me about Photo Story. I wanted to wait until I gave it a try before posting anything on it. Today I downloaded it (5MB). I grabbed a bunch of pictures from a recent lock-in and added to the project, selected a track of music and hit finish. All told including the download, it took about 20 minutes total. The actual rendering (making the movie in its final form) of this this two minute movie took just under one minute. I am impressed.

I highly recommend this to Children's Ministers. I know you have little time. You probably have lots of pictures and there is nothing better than the kids to let other know about your ministry. This is quick and will make YOU look like the genius.

There various options won't get in the way of a novice. On the other hand you can do a fair bit of customizing if you choose. The program will, if you want, correct for contrast, color and red eye. You can add captions, change the transitions, change the time a picture is displayed and narrate. You can output to many different formats depending on what you want to do. Give it a try!

Download it FREE from Microsoft:
Photo Story 3

Papa John's Movie Maker and Photo Story Site:
http://www.papajohn.org/PS3-Intro.html

My sample movie:
subZone Lock-in

You can afford a PA System

We host an evening program at Church called Bible Hour. This is a combination of praise, drama, and puppets. This program is hosted in a large room. This is not a modern large auditoium or drama area, but rather a large classroom. A few years ago we needed to upgrade our PA system. We wanted to be able to handle microphones as well as music (in stereo). At the time PA systems were about $250. Speakers were extra. The entire budget for this program annually is only $500. We decided to be invetive and and use a prepackaged stereo with surround sound speakers. Today you can get these for around $100 at Walmart or Target. Just be sure the system has the capability for an external audio input. That would be the red and white RCA type jacks. I purchased my son a system like this for about $70 for Christmas. The nice thing about some of these new cheap systems is that you can use them to play CD and DVD directly. It's all included in that price for the surround sound DVD player. Depending on the size of room you have you can upgrade the system to a higher powered system for a while before you have to consider buying a real PA system.

With the external input you can attach a mixer. The mixer will allow you to connect microphones, a CD player and MP3 player, a DVD or just about anything else you have that produces audio. Just pump it all through the stereo. The mixer you can get for under $100. I like the Behringer brand for being good quality and low price. At the time we did this we used a brand called Mackie. It was a few hundred dollars and great quality. If we did it over again we'd have gone with the cheaper version. It just wasn't avaiable a few years ago.

We were able to capitalize on microphones when our worship team upgraded. We were able to get four wireless microphones for nothing. You can also use wired microphone. They can be as cheap as $100. I know it doesn't sound cheap. In reality, for our group we can get by with one wired microphone for introductions and narration. The group isn't so large that we mic all of our actors or even the leader (but his voice does carry).

Data Cables

Here is a good source of frustration for non-techies. I hope I don't confuse you further. In the end it's all about pushing around bits of data. Different connection types are used to capitalize on their features. Most things that Children's Ministers will connect to a computer will be either USB (Universal Serial Bus) or FireWire. FireWire must be a low life of some sort because it has many aliases including i.Link (Sony) and IEEE 1394, the original committee specification name.

USB

USB, which stand for Universal Serial Bus, comes in two flavors; 1) Version 1.0 and 2) Version 2.0. The distinction between the two is typically only made for version 2.0. Version 1.0 is just referred to as USB. All new computers have version 2.0 as standard connectors. They look exactly the same. Luckily Windows added a feature that let's you know when you plugged a Version 2.0 device into a Version 1.0 connector. It will give you a little warning that the newly connected device could perform faster blah blah blah.

USB 1.0 had a data rate of 12 Megabits per second. It seemed pretty speedy at the time. Version 2.0 came along and offered 488 Megabits per second. In fact there are now three data rates for USB. The lowest is used for Keyboards and mice. The second is the old USB 1.0 standard. Finally, the high speed version mentioned above. This is the enabler to allow connection to external hard drives and downloading pictures from your camera. USB is now the most common type of connector on most PC and Macs alike.

USB hubs are small boxes that allow you to connect more USB devices than the number of connectors your computer could originally handle. Think of it as one of those devices you use to turn your electrical outlet in three. Most hubs require their own power source. This means you'll need another electrical outlet.

FireWire

This is an IEEE specification from the 1980's. It was revived and renewed in the 90's and ultimately released by Apple in 1995. This version contains 6 pins. The Sony version or i.Link contains only four pins. The two pins lost by Sony were to provide power. The nice feature of FireWire is its data rate or how fast it can push bit down the wire to your computer. It can do this at a rate of 488 Megabits per second. This was by far the leader and the only way to go for digital video until USB 2.0 came out.

A typical use of FireWire by you would be to connect a camcorder or external hard drive to your computer. The camcorder end of the cable is quite small and usually only contains four pins. The end you connect to a computer or external hard drive is much larger and is shaped like a rectangle with a triangle on the short end end.

Flash Drives

With prices starting around $20 for 128 Megabytes, these are the most useful tech devices in recent years. I know your think they aren't so great and in many ways your right. Memory sticks or Flash drives or USB drives aren't really that special. They are glorified floppy disk. (Do you even remember floppy disks?) The difference is even the 128 MB version I mentioned above hold the equivalent of 92 floppy disks. Also they fit in your pocket. Everyone has at least one USB (Universal Serial Bus) connector on their computer. USB has become the standard for a huge array of devices. You are thinking "So What?" This means they aren't going away very soon. They are also smaller and more resilient than the old floppy disk. They had a ton of form factors. I put some pictures of various Flash drives at the bottom.

To give some perspective, I always carry my memory stick with me. I have a 1 GB memory stick. That is a little less than two CD's worth of information in my pocket. I have all of my lesson plans, videos, music, pictures, PowerPoint files and other documents on the stick. If I ever need it I just pull it out. When you need to give someone a file at a meeting just pop it out and point them in the direction of the file.

When you plug one into you computer you can access it the same way you would any of your hard drives. Another benefit over floppies or CD's for that matter is speed. Depending on the technology of the USB connector you plug into you can move data at speeds approaching 480 MB per second. This mean you don't need to copy the file off to your desktop for a smooth presentation.

Want more info on Flash drives? Check out this wikipedia link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_drive