Hi, I'm Jeff. This is my personal blog – random thoughts on Media, the church, the arts, popular culture, being a husband and father and about any other thought that comes to mind.
So Google fiber is here, you would think that would be enough. But consider our crowdedhouse. Our network not only serves our family (which admittedly is larger than average, ranging between 9 and 11 people depending on the day, your definition of family and my general attitude), but the network also serves our carriage house apartment, 3 guest rooms being used by long and short term guest and whoever is couch-surfing in the basement at the time. Add up all these users and all their devices plus the odd server or six we tend to run, and we have 25-35 devices on the network at any one time. Supporting this network has become quite the job.
Trash everywhere. That is one thing I am noticing about this urban living. Sure, Main street is nice and clean, but that is because people are paid to keep the trash cleaned up. What about the rest of the streets we live on? Who is responsible to cleaning them up? Full Story
Working on some detailed post, but in boiled down to God prepared our hearts, then we attended this little conference called verge and everything we knew was wrecked as we were fast-tracked to where we were suppose to be. This 7 minute video from the conference is a good introduction to our journey.
At the Verge 10 conference we were introduced to each main session by a very creative video featuring Alan Hirsch introducing the topic. Besides incredible content in the videos, I was impressed by how easy we can be trained to read from right to left, bottom to top, randomly, etc while watching the videos. And even more, how easy it is to catch pieces of words, fast moving word and silly phrases while we are exposed to the content in multiple media (video, text, sound, lighting) at the same time. How often do we limit ourselves based on what is normal for us when we could be more creative, produce pieces that would inspire, hold the audience attention and get the message across in a memorable way? How can you make your next video better? [Sorry, the original video has been removed – I will update this when it becomes available again, but here is somebody’s cell phone version.]
The need for people to connect across race and class lines, among neighbors and churches, and between urban and suburban neighborhoods is urgent. We’re designed for one another, and there is joy in diversity. We believe there is yet-to-be-discovered imagination between us, meaning that our full God-given creativity is found when diverse people learn from one another, building mutual, give-and-take relationships. – Nate Ledbetter, metromerge.org
For most of the last 6 months, I have been considering the coworking movement, shared office space and ways to work together as a community. Full Story
“Free” software is heavily relied upon in church ministry, but by using this software the church is often seen as being “cheap-skates” and “free-loaders” – not a very Christ honoring image. This image is portrayed because the ministry is often only thinking of themselves, selfishly using the software but not giving back to the computing community, not abiding by the software use terms and even stealing the software by not paying for appropriate use. Not all “free” software is free and we as Christians need to be careful that we are honoring Christ in all we do, including our use of technology in ministry.
Amy and I had a very encouraging time in Atlanta this last weekend and met some incredible folks. I wanted to give a shout out to these ministries and people and thank them again for their encouragement and their faithfulness in serving Jesus where they have been called.
Okay, this was so great I just had to blog about it.
Late last week the trackpad button on my MacBook Pro was stuck… would not click. While investigating, I found my battery was swollen up, bulging up against the underside of the trackpad, keeping it from clicking. I removed the battery – it showed a full charge, but it has not been working right, dying at 30% charge, so I now knew what the real problem was. I put off calling Apple as I was busy.
So Today (Monday) I realize I have a trip coming up and I really need a battery. A quick look online, nope, will not get here in time – guess I need to run over to the Apple Store. I have heard some people have had good luck getting their batteries replaced under warranty, but those were newer computers, and most as old as mine just had to pay for a replacement battery (although my computer is still under the Applecare warranty.)
I arrived at The Domain around 1, and it is crowded – everyone is enjoying the nice weather after a couple days of winter. The Apple store is really crowded. I make my way towards the back when I get stopped by a guy in an orange shirt, “Can I help you sir?” “Um yea, I have a little problem” as I show him the battery, which is now split open. “Right over here, we can help you.”
My battery gets handed to a couple Geniuses, one to the next, finally a young lady says she just needs to check with a manager real quick, glances across the room and apparently got the nod – okay. The she explains to me that I really need an appointment, but since they don’t have any appointments available in the near future (SXSW maybe?) she would get someone to take care of it, just wait right there, it may be a few minutes.
Well before I can even get my iPhone unlocked, someone ask me for my battery, grabs a new one off the shelf behind me and ask me to go ahead and open it up as I follow him. We walk back to the counter, I snap the new battery in my MacBook as he scans the info, gets my name, zipcode and verifies my laptop is still under warranty. There you are, good to go.
And all of that took less time than it took for you to read this post. I am happy. My computer is happy.
Loving the “Paperless” mobile boarding passes on Continental (more info here) and have learned a few tips. 1) they are a pain to pull up live off the web when you are traveling – much easier to load them in your browser (on your phone / pda) ahead of time and take a picture or snap-shot of that webpage (or save it to a file), and then just load that picture when you get to the gate. 2) Don’t zoom in too much when you put your phone under the scanner – they seem to work best small -like what is shown in the picture to the side. I usually just zoom in enough to see the traveler info (name / conf number – it makes it easier to get thru security) and this seems to work best at the gate scanners. 3) the one thing I don’t like is sending my phone thru the security x-ray by itself. I wish they would figure out a way to scan it at the metal detectors before I put the rest of my bags thru. 4) if you have a baggage attendant help you at the counter, you have to tell them NOT to print your boarding pass, otherwise they will.
Step 1: Managed network switch – Netgear GS108Tv2 switch will allow setup of multiple VLANs for managing network traffic.
Step 2: Small PC to setup as a firewall / router – Jetway Quad Lan / Fanless Case (don’t forget to add a small SSD harddrive)
Step 3: Install and Setup PFSense as the firewall software / OS
Now here is where the trouble begins: the Google Fiber Network box can’t be put into bridge mode… so it looked like the only answer was to double NAT, not a good solution…. until this came along:
Spent a good part of my weekend improving our online security. One big part of this improvement was to tighten up some of my online accounts. We have all seen the new stories of the massive data breeches, the stolen credit card data, the big hacks & wide scale identity theft. And while we need to be careful, there is not a lot we can do with our data that other people have. But what we can improve is the security of the small things.
So Google fiber is here, you would think that would be enough. But consider our crowdedhouse. Our network not only serves our family (which admittedly is larger than average, ranging between 9 and 11 people depending on the day, your definition of family and my general attitude), but the network also serves our carriage house apartment, 3 guest rooms being used by long and short term guest and whoever is couch-surfing in the basement at the time. Add up all these users and all their devices plus the odd server or six we tend to run, and we have 25-35 devices on the network at any one time. Supporting this network has become quite the job.
Trash everywhere. That is one thing I am noticing about this urban living. Sure, Main street is nice and clean, but that is because people are paid to keep the trash cleaned up. What about the rest of the streets we live on? Who is responsible to cleaning them up?
In general, we have found that the median life cycle of audio equipment is around 10 years. Some pieces will last longer, others will require maintenance or refreshing to continue to perform to specs and some things will need replaced much sooner. Environment, handling and maintenance, and materials and workmanship directly affect longevity of components. Indirectly, the experiences and expectations of people effectively shorten product efficacy.You could call this the “inside, outside, upside down” theory of life cycle of audio systems.
A worship facility is not just another performing arts space. As the spoken Word- the sermon- is at once equal to and yet higher than the “singing of hymns, psalms and spiritual songs” it is therefore neither lecture hall nor concert space, but Worship Facility. Designing the Worship Facility means to design a space that supports speech as well as music.
Church bulletins are calling people to the Lenten season of reflection and preparation for Holy Week and the most important Christian holy day, Resurrection Sunday. This season is a time when the technical staff can get stressed out, because we know if anything goes wrong, everyone will look at us.
During our last move we left behind a spotlight that had been used for a college touring choir since 1976. It was a used donation when they got it, and it was still being used for special productions in a technologically geriatric setting [stored under risers and used once a year] at a large Baptist church. In finance circles, there has long been a mantra that leasing is not good stewardship. People want to own homes, not lease, to build equity. Buying a car, not leasing, is said to be less expensive in the long run. So why would I promote leasing equipment? You do want to purchase the durable workhorse whose technology remains steady- predictable and reliable. Things susceptible to needing upgrades and becoming outdated should be leased. Here are four points to consider when deciding to buy or lease equipment.
If technology used in the church is of poor quality (in the eyes of those attending), it will tend to reflect poorly on the message, evening cheapening the message. If the technology is too glitzy and fancy (again, in the eyes of those attending), it will make the message feel more like a story, entertainment, even fantasy. We want to get the right system into the right church to give the right message while recognizing that the real question being asked is, “But, how can we make the most of available resources?”
How can I mic our choir so we can hear them? We are hearing the orchastra / band through the choir mics and if we turn up the choir any more we get feedback. We currently have six AKG CK47 mics suspended above the choirloft. Do we need new mics?
… I wanted to talk through a couple of the issues and my thoughts on the solution of your choir mic problem. Your setup and arrangement is very similar to what we had at High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin where I was on staff and we battled with some of the same issues.
