Jason Powell - Church IT and Other Musings

Microsoft Exchange 2010 Charity Pricing

2009-11-03T12:51:10-05:00

While I’m neck deep in budgeting for 2010, I noticed that Microsoft has released official charity pricing and SKU’s for Exchange 2010. You can find the entire Microsoft MSRP charity lineup and pricing list here

For those too lazy to go look :-) …

Exchange Server 2010 Standard = $186 charity MSRP
Standard CALs = $4/each charity MSRP

Gotta love Microsoft’s crazy cheap pricing for us non-profit/charity orgs!

Microsoft Home Use Program - Office for $9.95 for home!

2009-10-30T15:31:35-04:00

Regardless of your opinion about Microsoft – they give us non-profits some PHENOMINAL price breaks! How about Office2007 Enterprise Edition with Software Assurance at around $100!

Recently MS dropped their Office Home Use Program price down to $9.95! That means if you have an active software assurance license for your organization, your staff can purchase Office2007Enterprise or Office2008 for Mac for $10 for home use! What an amazing deal. Another benefit of Software Assurance is that your staff has access to some pretty slick online Office training via Microsoft.

And don’t forget that Software Assurance also gives you upgrade rights .. so for GCC when Office2010 is released we’ll get it at no charge .. sweetness!

So next time you purchase Microsoft Office for you organization I’d strongly encourage you to check out adding Software Assurance .. and FWIW, we get our software through Dell.

Info on Microsoft Charity Licensing and here’s the Charity MSRP price list

Info on Microsoft Software Assurance

Church Techies Biggest Loser #5

2009-10-12T10:39:47-04:00

That's right ... firing up another church techie biggest loser contest!

Here are our guidelines/rules based off our prior BL1 , BL2 , BL3 and BL4 contests ...

Eligibility

Any church IT, Web, AV, Tech/Production Arts staff (full, part-time, or volunteer role). Church ChMS peeps and other Church tech consultants are encouraged to join as well.

Don't fit the above roles, but want to join too? Shoot me an email and we can discuss.

$25 to register ... no refunds … period!

Dates

Starts Friday Oct 16... but you can join at ANY TIME. Just means you have less time to burn off the flab.

Ends March 5th (~4 months) … this date may change slightly to coincide with the Spring Church IT Roundtable date.

Winners get a split of the total registration pot less paypal transaction fees (~2.5%) ... breakdown of 75%, 20%, 5% ... hopefully we'll also get vendors to kick in prizes too and those well be in the mix to choose from as well.

Weigh Ins

Weigh ins must occur each Friday at the same time of day. You can only miss a weigh in or 2 before you'll start getting nasty emails from me!

Missing 2 weigh ins in a row IS BAD!! and will most likely get you booted from the contest (no refund). It's not fair to others who are keeping their stats updated, especially once the contest is getting down the wire.

Participants will record their weekly weigh each Friday in our online Zoho Spreadsheet (you'll get an email after you register).

The same scale must be used for each weigh in.

The same clothes or lack thereof must be worn at each weigh in.

Weigh ins will be recorded in whole pounds. If your scale reports partial pounds just drop the fraction.

In the final 2 weeks there will be a cap on how much weight you can drop in a given week period ... to keep away from large dehydration techniques ;-)

Winning

It's not very fancy, but whoever has the largest weight loss % wins. (max weight - min weight) / max weight

Honor System

The contest assumes that all participants will follow the teachings of the Bible ... you know ... don't lie, don't cheat! If you are dishonest God will deal with you justly.

If you're in ... hit this link to register. If you prefer to send $ another way just shoot me an email (gccjason at gmail) and we'll discuss.

prior BL1 results and BL2 results and BL3 results and BL4 results

Less than 30 days 'til Fall 09 Regional CITRT events!

2009-09-30T07:35:00-04:00

That's right ... less than 30 days until most of the fall 09 host sites hold their Church IT Roundtable events! I've got my team signed up ... how about you???

Fall 09 National Church IT Roundtable - This year instead of one location where everyone will meet we're going to have multiple locations across the country. Follow announcements at http://twitter.com/citrt and http://facebook.com/citrt

VIEW SITE LOCATIONS IN GOOGLE MAPS

- Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, KS on 10/27 info/register
- McLean Bible Church in Vienna, VA on 10/26 info/register
- North Point Community Church in Atlanta on 10/27 info/register
- Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA on 10/27 info/register
- Second Baptist Church in Houston, TX on 11/2 info/register
- The Chapel in Grayslake, IL (Chicago) on 10/27 info/register
- Woodland Baptist Church in Bradenton, FL on 10/27, info/register

AND don't forget ...

Spring 2010 National Church IT Roundtable - at Saddleback Church late Feb / Early March 2010. Budget NOW to make it to this "must attend" kickin' 2 day event!

as always CITRT.org is the one stop shop for all 'official' info

How Do You Define Church Technology?

2009-09-04T08:45:00-04:00

I had a chat with DJ Chuang recently about what Church Technology means ... here's an excerpt from his blog post over on digital.leadnet.org

In a recent conversation with Jason Powell, we talked about the various words we use to talk about technology and the church. There are all kinds of terms used, like "church technology," "church and technology," "church tech," "church IT," "church media," and "church technical arts". It sounds to me like people use these terms differently or interchangably sometimes. And if I'm getting confused by it, maybe some others might be too.

This blog post is an attempt to clear up the meaning of some terms we often hear used around church and technology. [read entire post at digital.leadnet.org]

All Staff Presentation on Passwords and Online Security

2009-09-03T21:34:02-04:00

I was really excited last Wednesday to deliver another All Staff IT presentation .. first, because I enjoy presenting .. second, because it was an important topic .. and third because it marked the start of a new monthly "IT Spotlight" at our All Staff meetings .. w00t!

So in 15mins I tried to raise awareness of why passwords are so critically important ... and also to announce to our staff that we were starting a global password change that very day.

Our new password (aka passphrase) guidelines:

11 characters or more
be a phrase ... should be fun to type, easy to remember, hard for others to guess
should have nothing to do with info most poor passwords include such as: family names, important dates (bdays, anniv), pet names, nick names, hobbies, sports teams
your GCC passphrase should be unique to GCC only ... not something you will use at any other site on the internet ... including Fellowship One
never share your passphrase with ANYONE ... period! Your passphrase is YOUR passphrase
We will require passphrase changes each summer ... industry standard is 30-45 days so once a year is a good compromise :-)

I've included the streaming audio below for your listening enjoyment. The audio isn't great, but it's acceptable. I'm working to get the audio transcribed as well for future publishing.

There's of course much more I would like to have included, but that's all the time I had this month ... I may do some follow-up next month.

What's been fun is listening to all the staff excited about what they've changed their passphrase to! I've many times heard comments like, "I wish I could tell you my passphrase because it's so clever!" I'd call that good 'buy in'. :-)

If you haven't heard my prior All Staff IT Best Practices presentation you can get it here
And for more info about the recent Twitter hack go here
You can also download the audio here

Apple Snow Leopard Upgrade for $21.80

2009-08-24T14:48:17-04:00

I'm sure many current OSX users are eager to upgrade to Apple's lastest OS 'Snow Leapard' which is available this Friday (8/28).

For the general public the cost is $29 to upgrade, but if you're part of the Willow Creek Association or have your own discount Apple webstore (we do at GCC), the price is only $21.80 ... I just ordered 2 copies :-)

Since many churches are already WCA members, figured I'd remind you to take advantage of those discounts available.

"WCA/Apple Web Store
In cooperation with Apple Inc, this new Web store offers WCA Members significant discounts rarely found elsewhere on computers, software, monitors, printers, scanners, etc"

** EDIT 8/25 9:30am - Appears Apple must have made an error discounting the Snow Leopard upgrade price .. today it's now listed as $29. I'm interested to see if Apple contacts me to say I owe them more $.

Live Church IT Podcast Starts Again Friday 8/21 11am Eastern

2009-08-19T01:10:13-04:00

After a lengthy summer break we're firing up the live interactive Church IT Podcast again and MOVING it to daytime hours ... now at 11am Eastern! w00t!

So mark your calendars for every 1st and 3rd Friday of each month at 11am Eastern to join the discussion on all manner of IT and it's leverage in the Church! We encourage Church staff and volunteers to participate ... regardless of your size, denom, etc. We're all here to learn from each other and help further the Kingdom!

To participate hop over to http://citrt.org and hit the podcast link for more details.

Geeks for Jesus!

Church Techies Biggest Loser #4 Results

2009-08-08T11:23:22-04:00

Friday marked the end of our 4th installment of Church Tech’s Biggest Loser contest. Check out the prior BL1 results and BL2 results and BL3 results

This time 16 contestants plunked down $25 to join the fun which started May 8th and ended August 7th (3mos)

Here are our winners!

1st – Jason Reynolds – Director of Information Systems - Christian Fellowship – Jason lost 29lbs which equates to a 10.82% loss! Way to go dude … you are THE biggest loser :-)

2nd – Andrew Mitry – IT Consultant / Volunteer – InnoCloud / St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church – Andrew lost 22lbs or 10.42%

3rd – Bill Sheeler – IT / Web Admin – Glad Tidings Assembly of God Church – Bill lost 26lbs or 7.85%

The pot ended up at $400 (less paypals fees) ... and will be divided up at 1st = 75%, 2nd = 20%, 3rd = 5%

Thanks to all that participated in doing their part to make the earth a less massive place to live … we’ll fire up another biggest loser in the fall if there’s interest.

Fall Church IT Roundtable Locations and Info

2009-08-05T07:01:00-04:00

http://citrt.org site has just been updated with the 7 confirmed locations for this fall's Church IT Roundtable. If you haven't already heard, this fall instead of 1 location we're having many locations across the country. Why? To save people travel $$ and hopefully build stronger regional groups in the process. It's going to be awesome!

3 locations are still pending, but these are the confirmed sites (and dates if known).

Church of the Resurrection in Leewood, KS

McLean Bible Church in Vienna, VA

North Point Community Church in Atlanta on 10/27

Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA

Second Baptist Church in Houston, TX on 11/2

Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, KY on 10/29

Woodland Baptist Church in Bradenton, FL on 10/27

To keep up to date with the latest Church IT Roundtable info check twitter.com/citrt or facebook.com/citrt

I'm excited to see what God does this fall with so many sites engaged ... more info coming ... Geeks for Jesus! :-)

IT Support Openings at North Point Church

2009-07-29T22:52:05-04:00

Fellow Church IT peep Ryan sent me the following job openings at North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, GA ... yup, home of Andy Stanley :-)

If you or someone you know is interested contact ryan.clevenger at northpoint dot org for more info ... they are hiring 2 people

TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT – NORTH POINT
North Point Ministries

Job Title:    Technology Support – North Point
Reports To:    Support Systems Manager
FLSA Status:    Exempt

SUMMARY
Provides excellent customer service to the North Point Ministries staff by resolving end-user
hardware and software issues, and by proactively pursuing technology solutions to improve the
efficiency and effectiveness of the organization

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
• Provides excellent end-user hardware and software support
• Uses phone, live chat and issue tracking tools to interact with the staff, manage issues and
log activities
• Manages processes and systems that insure technology services, including computers,
software and phones, are being delivered, managed and maintained to exceed service level
agreements
• Coordinates with the technology support team to insure all campuses are consistently
receiving excellent customer service
• Keeps team informed of trends in user issues, concerns and needs
• Provides routine reports to the Support Systems Manager on all assigned budgets and
projects, and on service level measurables, including response times, resolution times and
customer satisfaction
• Oversees contracted Customer Support Engineers and volunteers as assigned by the
Support Systems Manager
• Proactively seeks subject matter expertise in areas that help the organization improve
efficiency, including PDA syncing, calendar and contact management, and software
functionality
• Completes other projects as assigned by the Support Systems Manager

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES
Oversees day-to-day activities of contracted Customer Support Engineers and volunteers (as
assigned by the Support Systems Manager).

QUALIFICATIONS
• Bachelors Degree in relevant field and two years of experience in customer service and IT, or
equivalent combination of education and experience
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with an emphasis on direct customer
interaction

PHYSICAL DEMANDS
Minimal

WORK ENVIRONMENT
Business/Professional

HOURS
Typically 40 hours a week, Sunday through Thursday, during normal business hours. Occasional
event support outside of typical hours.

Church IT/IS/Web Positions at Christ Fellowship in sunny Florida

2009-07-09T13:21:57-04:00

Jason Reynolds just sent me this info on 3 positions open on his team at Christ Fellowhip. If you know of someone with the right heart and skills and would like to live in Flordia (duh! who wouldn't!) please send them this info.

You chasing Jesus?

Love Jesus and have serious technology skills too? Want to make a contribution to something big? Does the idea of leaving a legacy spark something in your soul?

If the above fits and you are either an IT, IS, or Web superman or superwoman, one of our three manager spots at Christ Fellowship church in Palm Beach Gardens may be of interest to you. Our Information Systems department is a team of ten focused on serving our church staff and attendees with great skill and great heart.

Factoids

Something you may be interested to know about our church is that we run a large Mac network and Mac computers with 16T of storage. We use open source any time we can, which allows us to share what works with other churches around the nation. Oh, and we are considering now the decision to go HD Video in the next few years, which will change the way we approach multimedia, storage, networks, digital community, resourcing our volunteers with video training, etc.

Contribution Opportunities

If you have five or more years of management experience leading Interactive, Information Systems, or Information Technology teams, check out:

* Interactive Platform Manager - All things web and web marketing, except content creation and management.
* Information Systems Manager - All things database, enterprise software, analytics, and reporting.
* Information Technology Manager - All things hardware, network, help-desk, and asset management.

Some Notes from Friday's GCC IT Roundtable

2009-06-29T10:40:32-04:00

Big thanks to Craig Stein for sending me his notes from Friday's roundtable discussion to post here. I also noticed that Jason Lee has his notes posted online as well here
As the facilitator I rely on everyone else to take notes for me :-)

ALSO ... here's a bunch of pics from the event courtesy of Jon Lambert

CITRT “Best Effort” notes regarding discussions

When is the right time to go to a SAN

o Centralizing storage, virtualization, increasing need for space for applications such as video

o Talked about costs, high availability and DR

Storage, touched on this on a number of other discussion topics

Managing IM traffic, blocking policies

o Open DNS is being used by a number of people

o IP cop

o Sonicwall CMS, Bing was being blocked, Bing created a subdomain to fix issue

o Facetime is an app that will archive IM traffic but not block it

Content Filtering, SPAM

o Good discussion on products and policies

o Open DNS, safeeyes, ethershield

o Legality and vulnerability

o Netsweeper, daily reporting

o Question about mobile support, safeeyes

o Triple X Church offers some resources also

o Untangle recommended also

o Astaro was another to check out

DR planning, best practices, whitepaper or guide

o MozyPro

o CrashPlan, peer to peer backup, supports encryption, brings up some

o CERT, DR, AUP, etc. Jason wants to get wiki page on this as a shared resource

Virtualization

o Many folks are embracing, group talked about benefits and some costs, Jason referred those looking for more info to talk to anyone else in the group for how to get started

Collaboration

o Sharing information among pastor groups

o Live Mesh

o Skype Beta does desktop sharing

o Adobe connect

Conference Call

o Freeconferencecall.com

Email Filtering, SPAM

o Postini, $1500 is min cost per year

o MXLogic

o Barracuda, several people using with mixed results

o Exchange Defender

o Using for inbound and outbound filtering

o Education, many users are still sending CC info over email, etc

Internal network security, VLAN, Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance

o Cornell "spider" crawls network for SS numbers, CC info etc.

o Good discussion on drive encryption

o Have to determine level of acceptable risk

o Network is never secure enough

o Need to balance security with ease of use

Desktop System Lockdown

o Discussed local admin rights for users,

o Unauthorized use/installation of software

o Need to keep in mind functionality

o Support of non-official software, most do best effort or sometimes move to bottom of support list

o Approved software list is basis for determining support

o Rights elevation tools were discussed, steelsonic.com,

o Encrypted runas

Malicious Software Removal

o Sys internals tool

o Malware Bytes

OS deployment

o Windows there are lot of choices

o Clonezilla, reported as far from awesome

o Fogproject.org, image system to check out

o Caspersuite, mac only

VDI/TC

o Vmware View

o Windows Server 2008

Passwords, Security policies

o Most are requiring complex passwords

o Keeping Admin passwords, ewallet, passpack.com

o Discussed policies on changing passwords

o Discussed need to identifying all of the passwords and authorizations for all of IT

Technology /Social networking to promote the gospel

o Discussed pitfalls of managing social media accounts and usage

o Usage should tie into leadership's vision of church outreach

o Many church leaders do not know of social media tools or potential

o This is a wave of the future and allows communications and relationships

VOIP

o Several people are using SIP trunks from bandwidth.com, adtran unit came to connect to phone switch

o Some config for setting up reverse 911 for locations

o Reported excellent support as well

o Lenghty discussion on VOIP, QoS. Serveral good resources in the group if more information is needed

Internal, Outsourcing, Colo

o Most agreed hosting websites offsite was the way to go

Google Apps

o Several people are using or piloting

o Northpoint Church is using GA

Hosted Exchange

o Cannot discount for non-profit, this rumored to change in Ex 2010

o Sherweb is one hosting provider mentioned

Approachability, Friendly IT

o Ticketing system, zendesk is a suggested application

o Facilitytree

o Good discussion on tracking time spent on tickets to determine resources needed to support

o Also can help to predict downtime periods for scheduling larger projects

GCC IT Roundtable June 26th .. still space for you to attend .. but hurry

2009-06-16T07:30:00-04:00

Just a quick reminder that the IT Roundtable at GCC is approaching quickly! But, there's still time for you to register :-)

I believe we're up to 20 attendees now We're pushing 30 now! ... and can take another 5-10 ... if you're riding the fence go sign up now to claim your spot!

Sorry - to keep things manageable we've closed the registration.

All the juicy info is here http://citrt.pbworks.com/GCC-IT-Roundtable

The underbelly of technology nobody talks about...

2009-06-10T18:05:34-04:00

In case you missed it or you're not following my boss Kem Meyer ... she recently delivered a keynote for the Dynamic Church Conference entitled "The underbelly of technology nobody talks about"

If your role has something to do with IT (and even it if doesn't) I'd strongly recommend you watch her presentation. Great stuff to chew on.

DC09: Kem Meyer Keynote from Fellowship Technologies on Vimeo.

Want a FREE WiredChurches.com Workshop/Practicum?!

2009-05-19T21:00:37-04:00

That's right! I've been authorized to give the following deal to one lucky person: buy one workshop/practicum get one free!

Give the free one away as a gift or come with a friend/teammate and split the cost. You can use the buy one/get one on any workshop or practicum (includes the IT Roundtable) that's being hosted on June 25 or 26.

You interested? You should be! Just leave a comment below and I'll pick a random winner from the comments left next Tuesday.

How I use Priceline to get great hotel deals

2009-05-19T08:13:00-04:00

A number of people have asked how I use Priceline to get crazy good deals on hotels ... most recently 3.5 star Hyatt Regency for $34 ($45 after tax and fees). Well, here's a video of the process I use combining biddingfortravel.com and priceline.com ... happy bidding! (thanks denon.cx for hosting the video)

Here's the video

Church IT Roundtable at GCC June 26th!

2009-05-19T07:30:00-04:00

It's that time ... time for our annual GCC Church IT Roundtable! If you've not been to a roundtable yet you are flat missing out!

What:

A roundtable is a peer-learning event where the participants are both teachers and learners. A roundtable is:

Small enough to emphasize interactive learning
Led by a facilitator and peer
Includes participants who have an affinity with each other
Does not include a strong agenda beyond sharing knowledge

Where:

Granger Community Church, Granger, IN (South Bend area)

When:

June 25th - evening dinner meet-n-greet (dinner courtesty of SPONSOR SLOT STILL OPEN) ... perhaps some xbox gaming afterwards?

June 26th - roundtable 9am - 4pm

June 26th - post roundtable dinner and chat time (dinner courtesy of VR6 Systems - Dell EqualLogic Storage)

Who:

Anyone responsible for Information Technology in a ministry setting ... Business Admins, IT Directors, Network Admins, Helpdesk, staff or volunteers ... regardless of church/organization size.

Purpose

To meet other IT staff and volunteers

Encouragement - "I am not alone." "Here I am understood."
Confidence - "I'm not so crazy after all."
Relationship - Develop on-going friendships

To advance the diffusion of innovation in a given topic area

Sharing knowledge, lessons learned, and experiences
Sorting out the big picture. How does it all fit? Where are we going?
Synergy of new ideas, new perspectives, and new dreams

To facilitate collaboration

Explore opportunities for teaming up to accomplish common goals
"Network" - Learn who knows what and who is doing what

How much:

$99 (includes lunch, snacks and both dinners)

signup here (note WiredChurches calls this the IT Practicum)

Hurry up and sign up today! You won't regret it. Check out some info from last year's event

Cast Your Vote - Church IT Podcast moving back to daytime?

2009-05-13T00:58:42-04:00

A number of people have been requesting we move at least one of the 2 monthly podcasts back to a daytime time slot. I've heard you laments! :-)

Here's your chance to vote on the day and time for the next podcast coming up next week. Just follow the simple directions here http://whenisgood.net/mSeCUz

The power is yours!

Didn't know we do a podcast? Go here and learn http://churchITpodcast.com

Willow Creek Community Church - Technical Support Specialist Opening

2009-05-11T16:07:39-04:00

Beth over at Willow Creek sent this job opening to us recently. Pretty sweet opportunity for some lucky guy/gal :-)

Willow Creek Community Church - Information Systems - Technical Support Specialist (FT)
This position is responsible for identifying and resolving hardware and software problems on PC and Mac computers at the church. Additionally, this position can include new software installation, new equipment distribution, user training, and tracking of inventory. We are seeking a person who is passionate about leveraging technology in the church for the cause of Christ. Those with previous experience in hardware/software support, PC and Mac operating systems, and spiritual gifts of Helps and Administration should apply.

Install microcomputer hardware and peripheral components on both PC and Macintosh platforms. Load and verify correct operation of operating systems and other software.

Provide user training and technical assistance. Identify and resolve hardware, software, and operator problems and make repairs to refer to outside vendors. Maintain consistent customer service attitude

Maintain accurate and up-to-date documentation and records to track inventory and work activity.

Maintain up-to-date awareness of PC and Macintosh hardware and software developments and make recommendation for upgrades to existing platforms or replacement with new platforms, based on cost effective uses of technology to meet identified user needs. Maintain relationships with outside vendors and technical advisors to ensure access to information on new development and optimum pricing.

Coordinate the work of volunteer teams, ensuring definition and assignment of task, quality assurance of completion while building caring relationships.

Beth Hayes
Information Technology Operations Manager
Willow Creek Community Church
224-512-1101