One of the greatest leaps in technology in recent years was the ability to share my work calendar with my wife. No longer did we have to have long conversations of when I might be available, but instead, she’d just make appointments on my calendar for me.While I was on a PC, there were some good syncing apps between outlook (what I used) and google calendars (what she used). When I switched to a Mac, it got hard again. Then when we switched to Google Apps at Gateway, all was well. However, now my wife uses her iPhone 90% of the time rather than her computer.

For the past 18 months (at least), Sara has had an iPhone and she’s had access to my calendar and all has been well. However, for the past 2-3 months, she’s not had access to my calendar. I’m not sure what happened, maybe Apple or Google changed something. After about 15 questions in a row this morning about my calendar I snapped, “Don’t you have my calendar on your phone?” Not my finest moment. She reminded me that she’s been telling me this for months. Oops. So, I jumped on her phone to fix it quickly, but kept getting stuck and it wasn’t doing what I wanted. Here was the situation.

She has her gmail account on the phone and we’ve set it up under the Exchange settings. The reason for this is that using the gmail settings allows you to sync email and calendar, but not contacts. When you used the Exchange settings, you can sync email, calendar and contacts. What was important though is that once her gmail account was all set up, I could only seem to access her one main calendar. I followed all the steps I’ve done before by going to  http://m.google.com/sync and authorize your phone and select the calendars you want to sync, but it just wasn’t working at all. After messing around for a while I came to the conclusion that perhaps you can only sync one calendar through Exchange. Again, I could be wrong, but I just couldn’t get it to work.

The solution was to set up Sara’s email and calendars through the gmail settings. I was having problems getting  http://m.google.com/sync to work, so I ended up going to  https://www.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect instead and picked the calendars that I wanted to sync. Once it all loaded, all the calendars came through perfectly. Ah, but what about her contacts? That was easy enough. I just set up another account using the Exchange settings and told it to only sync contacts. So in the mail/calendar/contacts, she has one account (gmail settings) for mail and calendar and one account (exchange settings) for contacts only.

Feel free to comment, maybe you know something I missed… or can explain why this was working just fine a few months ago, but isn’t anymore.

However, the Obama administration is still voicing support of SOPA. Wired noted recently that:

“The White House did say that it wouldn’t endorse a bill that endangers freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risks, or negatively affects the DNS system. On the other hand, it says elsewhere that “combating online infringement” — not protecting free speech — is a governmental priority “of the highest order.“

I got an email from Fight the Future yesterday stating that:

What is the White House working on exactly? Just the other day, the administration sent a letter to Congress to demonstrate their support for new internet censorship legislation. A few weeks ago, the White House struck a deal to give corporations private powers to shut down your internet connection (after “six strikes” without due process or judicial review), completely in secret.

Obama’s internet would let private companies block sites and turn off our web connections. Blocking websites censors free speech, hurts jobs, and breaks the internet. These are tactics used by totalitarian governments and we believe they’re never ok.

So, it’s time to act again. Let the current administration know that this kind of support isn’t okay. Click here to sign the petition urging Obama not to support SOPA. The goal is to get more than 151,000 signatures, which will make it the highest signed petition on whitehouse.gov right now.

So, don’t delay, take 30 seconds to make your voice count right now.

Sure, there are many downsides to this kind of technology. With these, we’ll become the multi-tasking addicts we’re already becoming comfortable with as it is. However, if you look around, most people are wandering around the city goofing off with their phone, looking for directions, checking in and listening to music… these augmented reality glasses just put it all on a more convenient screen.

Here’s what I’m seeing though. Remember when the bluetooth headsets became really popular and everyone was talking hands free as they walked down the street. It quickly became a social turn-off. You didn’t want to be “that guy” with the headset. I kind of see the same deal with this. You’re going to think that the guy across the way is intently staring at you and you’re not sure if you should say something… but he’s just checking his email. Better yet, it will look like he’s looking right at you and then suddenly he’ll start talking to you, but really it’s his buddy in France. Yeah, that will be annoying.

Click here to read the article.

I got it last night and I’m in love. I call it printing freedom because I can print from just about anything I care to print from. iPads, iPhone, Macs and PCs. What could be better than that. It’s black and white, which is what I wanted and it’s a laser which means I only don’t have to replace the toner very often. It’s also wireless, so I can put this printer anywhere in my house. The best part of all, the printer only cost $100.

I’ll be honest though, it wasn’t easy to set-up. Actually, it wasn’t hard, it just took a long time. The printer’s firmware needs to be upgraded to support AirPrint and upgrading the firmware from a Mac was NOT easy. Actually, I got frustrated enough that I just set up my wife’s PC on the printer so that I could upgrade the printer’s firmware from her computer. Once that was done, it was easy adding it to my computer

So, if you’re in the market for a new printer, I highly recommend this one. After getting this one, I’m picking up at least one for ministry and I’ve recommended it to several others. Click here to pick this one up.

If you have a iPad, I highly recommend the app. Here’s the best way I can describe how it is different from all the other Bible apps.

Remember when Google Earth first came out. We were amazed by it and spend hours zooming around the world, looking at our old house from childhood and zipping over to foreign sites you’ve dreamed of visiting. I feel that Glo is similar to that, but with the Bible. It has a very refreshing layout that makes “discovering” the Bible very informative and fun. When you first open up the Bible lens, you see all the book of the Bible in the proper order, but grouped together by genre. You get a little glimpse of the entire Bible all on one page. It looks very much like a periodic table of elements. Each chapter in each book is represented as a white box, so you can visually see how long a book is just by looking at the overview.

Then, as you dive into an actual book, you see an overview of the entire book with major themes and chapter descriptions. It still holds the periodic table look, but with a few words describing the chapters below each chapter box and brackets linking multiple chapters above describing major themes.

Once you dive into an actual chapter, you can read the text in multiple translations, see artwork, photos, maps, videos and virtual tours that may be associated with the passage you are reading as well as add notes or read other people’s notes tagged to that particular passage. It seems that they’ve worked with YouVersion where you can see the notes you’ve made in YouVersion within Glo.

I’m certainly enjoying the app, so be sure to check it out and enjoy discovering the Bible in a new and fresh way.

A digital application
I can see two versions. An editable PDf where the volunteers downloads, fills out and either emails the application back or uploads it via a wufoo form or something like that. No printing or scanning.

A digital background check
We can already do this, although we don’t do it very much. Fellowship One provides a volunteer pipeline where individuals can log in and submit their own background check. We don’t use it very much because everything else is paper-based, so it seems less confusing to keep the background check process analog as well. I included what a volunteer fills out to get a background check though Fellowship One below.

A digital ministry agreement
There are a few significant bits of information that I want every volunteer to know and understand before they begin volunteering. I actually even want them to sign off that they know and understand… even agree to comply with. This may include our expectations as well as core policies such as appropriate touch, suspected child abuse and other key issues.

All of these “physical” documents we already keep in their file with Fellowship One which is secure and private, but almost all of these documents are scanned from a paper copy.

The Big Question
What does a digital signature look like in these cases? Could I simply add a disclaimer at the end of each document saying that filling out the following fields gives us consent that the information submitted was true, accurate and from you. The fields would request their full name, date of birth and maybe even the last four digits of their social security number… making that harder for someone to randomly fake. I know that Fellowship One does a background check completely digitally (I included the screenshot below) and no one has to “sign” anything. You have to give your social (which is required to run a check) which maybe helps validate that the person filling out the form is who they say they are.

So, what can we do? What legal issues do we need to consider? What issues might we run into if someone did something inappropriate and claimed that they didn’t know and that they didn’t sign the document that we have digitally signed by them. Also, if we use a Wufoo form to transmit files electronically, the form is a secure page (signified by the https at the front of the URL). Does that then provide a safe transport of files with documents of a more sensitive nature (although we’ll not ask for people’s full social security number on these forms)?

Let me know. I’m really curious as to what our options might be.

1. The printer needs to be a simple B & W laser. Color doesn’t matter to me and I don’t want to pay the premium on ink. I’m not interested in those three in one printers… just a simple B & W laser.
2. It has to be mac compatible. I guess that if it’s a wireless printer, it’s easier for a mac to talk to it, but I just would prefer to have something that’s simple and doesn’t require me to hire an IT guy to set up the printer. So, mac compatibility is essential.
3. It needs to have the AirPrint option. I have iPhones and iPads galore in my house now and I want to print without having to use a computer.

So, that’s my situation and that’s all I’m asking for. Let me know some options and I’ll be forever grateful!

The unique aspect about Keynote Remote is that as long as the computer and your device are on the same WiFi signal, they can communicate and you can control the slideshow. It’s brilliant. Depending on how you set up your slideshow, you can easily teach from the notes on your iPad or iPhone built into the presentation which makes controlling the slideshow so natural. You can easily see what slide is next before sending it to the display, you you really can be free of the laptop and just give your presentation.

Here’s two cool things I did with this app. I was in one location where there wasn’t WiFi. I actually signed up for tethering through ATT (it is prorated, so you can turn it on for a few days and then turn it off and not pay very much money. Then, I connected my laptop, the presentation computer to my phone on a local tethering WiFi signal and through that signal, I could control the presentation from my phone. At the Nashville Illuminate Conference, I had Jim Wideman give a presentation from a room that had built in 42 inch TV’s for displays. Unfortunately, the computer connection to get the signal to those TV’s was about 150 feet away. With Keynote Remote, this was a simple solution. I plugged in his laptop to the TV’s on the other side of the building and Brother Jim was able to control the slideshow from an iPad that was on the same WiFi connection as the computer. Genius.

So, I highly recommend this app, it’s wonderful to work with and may help you out when in a jam.

However, I listened to one on Saturday that has shaken me. The pure beauty of the innovation and thinking outside of the box both excites me and challenges me. It made me wish and pray for this kind of innovative thought for ministry. In this talk, Luis von Ahn explains how he’s leveraging the masses for incredibly massive collaborative projects, even when the masses have no idea how they are contributing.

Louis talks about his involvement in creating CAPTCHA. You know, the odd numbers and letters on websites when logging in to a website or buying something online. The point of CAPTCHA is to keep nefarious programs from logging into a site thousands of times or buying out all of a product. After CAPTCHA caught on, a process that takes about 10 seconds of your time, it is calculated that humanity as a whole wastes about 500,000 hours of their time EVERY DAY. Louis actually felt bad about this and started thinking about how to recapture those 10 seconds and do something great with that time, which adds up to 500,000 hours daily. What he came up with was brilliant and it was called reCAPTCHA.

You’ve seen this as now when entering a CAPTCHA, you have to enter two words. Here’s what you’re actually doing. One of the words is the code word that verifies that you are in fact human, but the other word is a single scanned word from a printed book. When you type in that word (as dozens of other people randomly are also typing in that same word), you are actually digitizing printed books. Books that do not exist in digital form are scanned and the images of the words are being typed out by us (the additional CAPTCHA word) and all these words are being put back in the correct order and the end result is an entire book being digitized by the masses. The end result is that reCAPTCHA is digitizing 1.5 million books a year. That is collaboration on a whole new level. You should watch the video and see how they’re using a new project to translate the internet into multiple languages in a highly accurate and collaborative movement with amazing speed.

Ideas like this truly inspire me. I see so many great things happening in ministry and kidmin specifically, but I also see that so many things haven’t yet been created or innovated. Somehow, I feel we should spend more time than we do dreaming up what doesn’t yet exist instead of always being overwhelmed by the task at hand. Just a thought. What do you think?

In case you’re not able to view the video above, you can find it here.

This April I’ll be attending my 5th Orange Conference and I must say that I’m very excited. Last year was an incredibly experience from connecting with some of my favorite people, learning from some of the greatest leaders in ministry and being honored with the opportunity to lead a handful of breakouts.

Well, I must have done all right as I’ve been invited back again to lead another breakout. I’ll be leading Preconference Workshop #3 “How To: Connect with Parents Via Social Networking.” This is on Wednesday at 1:30 PM. Here’s what I’m excited about.

• If you select the “Social Media in Ministry” track, you’ll find four workshops being taught by Matt McKee, Gina McClain and me. I think it’s a fun that I get to be a part of this track with some of my best friends in ministry.
• I led this same workshop with Matt McKee this year, but don’t you worry, this breakout is getting a total overhaul. So even if you attended this breakout last year, you’ll get all new content.
• Only a week after breakout registration opened up, this breakout is already over half-way full. If you want in, you better sign up before it’s full (and no, I will not tell you what the breakout is about later… ha!).

Here’s the description:

HOW TO: Connect with Parents Via Social Media
What would be the ultimate take home for parents when they leave your ministry? Parents need more than a take home sheet of paper. Use Social Media instead to spread ideas, communication, and create strategies that will enable you to better connect and partner with parents. Leverage social technology to broaden your impact.