Geeks and God Podcast

Drupalcon Denver

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 19:11:02 +0000

In this special edition podcast, Rob Feature and Matt Farina return, joining Shrop and Hans, with special guest Brian Lewis (from Modules Unraveled). We wrap up Drupalcon in a roundtable discussion where we discuss highs and lows of the conference. The guys discuss a wide range of topics including the Drupal Churches conference meet up, integrating Facebook with your church site, responsive web design, and Rob gets harassed for being a Negative Nancy.

Volunteering in Your Local Church

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 21:10:43 +0000

In this month's podcast, Shrop, Hans and Micah talk about volunteering in your local church.

Burnout

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 22:36:45 +0000

In this month's podcast, Ed and Micah talk with Josiah Ritchie about burnout.

Additional links can be found in the show transcript.

Web Performance Optimization

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 20:23:42 +0000

On this week's podcast, Rob and Matt return to talk about the importance of making the front end of your website faster with things like CSS sprites and minimized javascript, ebooks vs. print books, and other completely unrelated ramblings. Oh, and Rob reminds you that if you're reading this, you should probably be outside instead.

Summer Break

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 01:18:40 +0000

It's June 2011 and the Geeks and God crew are taking a summer break. We'll be back in September with all new episodes. In the meantime, we're filling the summer months with previously unreleased material.

We've worked really hard to keep Geeks and God focused on topics to help the local church, but our hosts love to talk about a lot of geeky topics that don't always fit the show's regular format. This month's episode was recorded during the March 2010 (Episode 130) session, way back when Drupal 7 was still in alpha and the iPad (the first one) was brand new.

Spiceworks Network Management

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Tue, 03 May 2011 01:42:58 +0000

In this month’s episode we’ll discuss managing your Church network with Spiceworks, and then Shrop tells us more about the Aegir Project for managing Drupal sites.

Screen images for the Spiceworks topic can be found on the transcript page.

Edit 5/3/11: Sorry everyone there were some mistakes in the audio and problems with the title length. We've uploaded new audio files and renamed this episode. We apologize for any inconvenience.

DrupalCon Chicago Wrap Up

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 16:08:51 +0000

Welcome to the April 2011 edition of the Geeks and God Podcast. We missed last month, but we're back with an episode that's all about the 2011 North American DrupalCon in Chicago, what we learned, and our takeaways from the conference.

Check the transcript page for links!

An Interview with Paul Boag

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:42:22 +0000

Welcome to the February 2011 edition of The Geeks and God Podcast. In this month’s episode we talk with Paul Boag about local church ministry and the Internet, and the Drupal Spotlight discusses using the Rules Module to enhance functionality on your site.

Drupal 7 Release

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 16:54:40 +0000

The January 2011 episode is all about Drupal. We'll cover DrupalCon Chicago in March, the release of Drupal 7 on Wednesday, January 5, 2011, building a digital signage system, and the wrap up of the Drupal Spotlight series on building a community website. We also talk for a few minutes about managing your site's source code with git.

Edit: Additional links and info are now in the transcript. Drupal Spotlight notes are in Google Docs.

Rules of Engagement

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 15:50:24 +0000

In the December 2010 episode, Ed Ross talks about the Social Media Boot Camp that he attended with Pastor Joe Burnham in September, then we talk with Milan Klusacek about the Rules of Engagement for churches using social media. We’ll also hear part two of NonProfit’s Drupal Spotlight series on building online communities.

Update: more links and notes now available in the transcript.

The Preacher's Library

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 13:55:32 +0000

Welcome to the November 2010 edition of The Geeks and God Podcast. In this month’s episode, Techmate interviews Jacob Abshire about The Preacher’s Library, and NonProfit’s Drupal Spotlight discusses building online communities.

OpenLP

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 15:56:34 +0000

Welcome to the October 2010 edition of The Geeks and God Podcast. In this month’s episode, Shrop interviews Raoul Snyman, the project lead for OpenLP Free Church Presentation Software, and we have part two of NonProfit’s Drupal Spotlight on Accessibility.

Getting Things Done

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 02:42:11 +0000

Welcome to the September 2010 edition of The Geeks and God Podcast. In this month’s episode we'll talk about Getting Things Done. In this month's Drupal Spotlight, we'll look at part one of our spotlight on accessibility, and why it's important for all websites.

Update: Links and details now available in the transcript.

Gurus of Tech Conference

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:58:56 +0000

Welcome to the August 2010 edition of The Geeks and God Podcast. In this month’s episode, ChurchTechGuy reports on the Gurus of Tech Conference, a couple of pieces of quick Drupal news, and in the Drupal Spotlight, part two of Going Live with your Drupal Website.

Content (Portability) is King

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:01:34 +0000

Welcome to the July 2010 edition of The Geeks and God Podcast. This month, we'll talk about Calls to Action, Blogging with Posterous, and Going Live; what to do as you move your Drupal Website from development to live.

Before we get into our main topics, Mark and Micah discuss the Southeast Linux Fest / DrupalCamp, then Ed takes a look at Posterous. We discuss calls to action on your church website, then Hans brings us part one of his series on going live with Drupal.

Podcasting with Buzzsprout

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:22:37 +0000

Welcome to the June 2010 edition of The Geeks and God Podcast. This month, Mark interviews Tom Rossi and Kevin Finn from Molehill about podcasting with Buzzsprout, and Hans talks about giving back to the community in the Drupal Spotlight. We also mention the return of The Six Podcast, for anyone who missed Matt's previous announcement.

700MHz

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 03 May 2010 17:22:33 +0000

Welcome to the May 2010 edition of The Geeks and God Podcast. This month, we'll talk about tips for supporting our end users, changes to the FCC rules for wireless microphones, and news from DrupalCon San Francisco. We'll also throw in some comments about the Apple iPad and the Facebook f8 conference.

Offline and Unleashed

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:24:54 +0000

Welcome to the April 2010 edition of The Geeks and God Podcast. This month, we talk about keeping our offline members in the loop as we move more and more resources online, some lessons learned from NewSpring's Unleash conference, and how Drupal fits in to the idea of Software as a Service.

Reboot

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:58:57 +0000

Yes, it's true, the Geeks and God Podcast is back! An all new hosting crew will be bringing you new episodes on the first Monday of every month. This month, Rob Feature and Matt Farina introduce the new team, followed by a great interview with Pastor Lucas Forsthoff on the benefits of embracing technology to further the Gospel. We wrap up this month with a Drupal Spotlight on selecting modules.

Compassion365 and Upgrading

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:34:21 +0000

Yes, it's true...a Geeks & God podcast has arrived when you least expected it. But, it's here for a very good reason: The promotion of the Compassion365.com podcast! On this week's episode we talk all about this podcast which is raising awareness of Compassion International, and we spend time talking about why YOU should get involved and sponsor a kid today!

The End

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:13:09 +0000

In this final Geeks & God podcast, Rob and Matt say their farewells. We talk about what we've learned, what we've loved, and how far this podcast has come since it's first episode over 3 1/2 years ago. We also tease what's coming next for The Geeks and talk about some new life directions.

Thank you all for the awesome years in this podcast community. God bless you and your ministries!

Drupal Church Distribution

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:20:20 +0000

Drupal is a powerful tool to build websites. But, for most church tech volunteers and staff looking to build a good church website it isn't the easiest tool for the job. Drupal provides a framework to build a site. For developers this is fantastic flexibility to build amazing sites. Your typical church tech person isn't a developer crafting sites for a living.

Nathan Smith, 960gs, & Fellowship Tech

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:13:03 +0000

While we were attending the Design 4 Drupal Boston Drupalcamp we had a chance to sit down with Nathan Smith the creator of the 960 grid system and a developer for Fellowship Tech the company behind the popular church management system Fellowship One. In the interview Nathan talks about grids, learning drupal, and some of the new developer stuff going on with Fellowship One and their new REST API.

The Church-School Dilemma

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:18:23 +0000

On this week's podcast we deal with a topic that's much more difficult than it sounds: What to do when you have a combined church and school ministry organization and you need to build a website? We lay out all the decisions, issues, and dilemmas that occur when you try and reconcile these and actually code your website. But, before all that, we tackle a listener's heavy theological question with a very non-theological answer.

User Aware Websites

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:11:54 +0000

Have you ever felt like a website was able to help you make the decisions you wanted to make without work on your part? That it was aware of who you are and fed you the right context sensitive information for you. That's what we talk about in this weeks episode. When we share content on the web it can often be one message displayed in one way. That can be hard to do because different people come from different places. This week we talk about being user aware and give some simple ways we can all get started.

Politics & Your Website

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:04:52 +0000

Are you ready to talk about something controversial? This week we talk about church politics and your site. Church politics are apart of virtually every church project and it's something many people dread. Church politics are often unavoidable. This week we talk this dirty little world, how it can affect your site, and what you can do about it.

E-Newsletters

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:11:10 +0000

What looks simple but is really a complicated costly pain? Electronic Newsletters. While they look simple and straight forward on the surface they've been known to cause developers to shriek and have sleepless nights. But, churches want them and rightfully so. This week we talk about electronic newsletters, what works, what doesn't, and how to do them effectively.

Before we dive into E-Newsletters we talk about the book "The Reason Your Church Must Twitter" and we have Dean Simmer on as a guest.

60 Tips To Improve Your Website

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:30:37 +0000

On this week's Geeks & God, we get down to some nuts and bolts of basic website design concepts in an effort to help you improve your church or ministry website. We give 60 tips from the utter basics to more advanced concepts that will tweak your brain or remind you of some long-forgotten standard practices. Before we dive into the tips, Rob talks about his extended time away from technology and challenges you to consider an extended technology sabbath for the health of yourself and those around you.

Underutilized Tech

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:25:31 +0000

In a recent episode we talked about our top 10 technology concerns in the church. One of our points was the underutilized technology in churches. This week, we dive into that topic and talk about underutilized technology in areas that are generally not focused on. Some places the church is on the cutting edge. Some other areas are virtually ignored and have so much potential to aid in the mission of the church.

Joomla! with Amy Stephen

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:29:35 +0000

Joomla! is powerful and popular Content Management System. In the world of Content Management Systems, Joomla! is the primary competition to drupal. This week we sit down with Amy Stephen of the Joomla! community to talk about Joomla!, where it's going, where you can learn about it, and how you can get involved with Joomla! development.

Before we dive into Joomla! we have an interview about the American Bible Society. Come join us on another Geeks and God podcast.

Logos Bible Software

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:45:37 +0000

When it comes to bible software Logos is considered by many to be the choice. For two decades their software only ran on Windows and that was enough to keep many people from switching to a Mac. Last year they released a Mac version of their popular software and this week we review it. The fun with Logos doesn't stop there. Rob talks about speaking and attending the BibleTech09 conference, put on by Logos, and we have an interview with Logos founder and President Bob Pritchett.

Listener Feedback Special

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:24:31 +0000

Listener feedback is one of the elements to the Geeks and God community we love the most. The podcasts listeners have so many great things of their own to share. We had so much good listener feedback we decided to turn it into this special edition episode.

If you have something to share with us please give us a call at (206) 984-3694 or send us a email at geeksandgod at gmail dot com.

Joomla Basics

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:10:05 +0000

On this week's podcast which was recorded at the Bibletech 2009 Conference, Rob is joined by Gabe Taviano from the God's Mac podcast. We start by talking all about the work that Gabe is doing in the realm of Christian tech, including a focus on his new meetups called Digital Disciples. After that we talk about the role of technology in our lives as believers.

APIs

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:33:30 +0000

Web services are powering the next generation of popular and useful Internet tools. When you think of twitter in an Adobe AIR app, Facebook on an iPhone, or reading blogs though Google Reader you're thinking of API's in action. This week we dive into the world of web service APIs, what they are, and how developers can take advantage of them. This is where they web is going, are you on board?

Facebook for Churches

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:27:12 +0000

Facebook is all the rage in our culture. Facebook usage seems to be jumping in leaps and bounds. With its popularity is it a place your church should be active? If you church decides to setup a presence on Facebook how should it do that? In this weeks episode we try to help you answer these questions while talking about statistics, culture, and the technology powering these solutions.

Geek World Tour

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:40:04 +0000

For the past few weeks we have been on the Geeks World Tour. Well, it didn't really cover the world but, we did rack up thousands of airline miles. In this tour we covered 2 conferences that each had a unique vibe and atmosphere. The first was the Interactive Church Conference where we focused on talking to church leaders about technology. The second was drupalcon dc which is the drupal developer conference. This week we talked about what we learned, the importance of Christians being at secular conferences, and where we are taking the Geeks and God Conferences from here.

Mobile Church Websites

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:03:26 +0000

Let's face it, the world is going mobile. While there are hundreds of millions of people with broadband internet there are billions of people with mobile phones. As mobile phones get high speed internet and people start to use it more the number of people who access high speed internet on mobile phones is expected to pass the number of people who access it from a desktop. The world is going mobile. This means mobile phones are really important to churches. In this episode we start the conversation about mobile devices and church websites.

What Makes It Good?

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:09:52 +0000

Have you ever wondered what makes a good website theme? Ever wondered what makes a module or plugin good? How about what makes a good site architecture? In the episode we attempt to describe what makes these good solid designs. The things we talk about are things anyone can do. They aren't some special technique or secret knowledge that only the elite of web development know.

Drupal Church Recipes

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 12:32:13 +0000

Are you ready to learn some of our drupal building secrets? In this episode we dive into the drupal 6 modules we use and provide some recipes for how we combine and configure them to create the features we build into sites. Or, you can think of this as Rob giving away a bunch of his drupaly secrets.

Before we dive into this fun topic we talk about Free Mission Websites, a new Geeks and God community initiative to help missionaries with their web presence. This isn't just the Rob and Matt working on another project. This is something that every member of the community can get involved with. Curious how you can help? Head on over to ##########.com and find out.

Edit 12-Apr-2011 by micah: Link removed because the Free Missionary Website Project mentioned in this post no longer exists, and the domain name was taken by people with less than honorable intentions.

Security

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:47:57 +0000

This week on the podcast we hack your iPod and force you to listen to an episode about Security. After seeing way too many websites and web servers become compromised this year, Rob and Matt decide to tackle the basics of what you can do to keep your site and server secure. We talk about generating, storing, and remembering passwords, locking down your server environment, keeping your website up on it's security releases and finally what to do if you get hacked.

Communication

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 12:25:51 +0000

Communication is a cornerstone to a successful ministry. No where is this more apparent than in tech related ministry where geeks and leadership staff have to communicate well to be successful. In this weeks episode we look at communication between tech teams and leadership staff, talk about some of the pitfalls, and dive into how we can do it well.

Tech We Can't Live Without

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 17:30:26 +0000

Have you ever wondered what pieces of technology you can't live without? We were recently asked this question and decided to dive into the topic. In this episode we talk about the tech we can't live without, what tech we wish we could live without but can't, and more.

We want to know what technology you can't live without and what technology you wish you could live without. We shared ours and now we would love to know what you think. Please let us know in the comments to this episode.

Why Church Tech Projects Fail

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 13:40:22 +0000

Have you ever seen a tech project go up in flames? I'm not talking about an exploding server but when a whole project simply fails. We've experienced failure and watched train wrecks happen on projects over the years. In this episode we dig into different causes we've seen for tech projects to fail. Our intention isn't share train wreck stories to but share the failures we know of so you can learn from them.

Oh, and did we mention, there are two free drupal theme training seminars coming up? One in New York and one in Metro Detroit? Details in this episode.

DNS

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:10:14 +0000

Ever wondered how DNS works? If you don't know what DNS is you're not alone. It's one of the important keys to making the Internet work. Without it you wouldn't be able to type geeksandgod.com into your browser and get here. In this weeks episode we talk about what DNS is and some different ways it touches churches and ministries.

The Whiz-Bang Factor

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:25:41 +0000

Are you ready for a controversial topic? One you could possibly disagree with. If so, fasten your seat belts and prepare to dive into the Whiz-Bang factor.

In this episode we dive into the topic of church marketing, how it compares to communication, and where that hits on technology. Marketing and technology seem to be two of the hot topics of the day and have a rather large intersection church. In this episode we dissect that intersection.

Drupal Insider: GeeksandGod.com

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 10:19:50 +0000

Are you ready to learn what's under the hood in the new look Geeks and God website? In this episode, that's packed full of juicy details, we talk about upgrading the site, how we built the new features, migrating away from the drupal audio module, some modules that made what we did a lot easier, and so much more. So, come join us for a drupal case study as we walk through GeeksandGod.com.

The New Community

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:00:00 +0000

We're back with a whole new look! After weeks of neglecting our day-jobs, we've hammered the geeksandgod.com website into submission, moved it to Drupal 6, added a bunch of new features, and hopefully made it more useful for everyone. On this comeback episode of G&G, we talk about everything we changed and updated and exactly why we did it. Before we talk about the site, however, we have an exciting announcement! I'll give you some hints but you'll have to listen for the details.

Predicting The Future

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:09:05 +0000

We made it! Yes, we've finally arrived at the century mark here on Geeks & God: It's episode 100! On this week's episode, we celebrate this milestone by looking into the future of both Geeks & God and technology as a whole.

We start the episode with some more talk about free Dreamhost web hosting for non-profits then continue with some talk about the future of the podcast and this website! We're taking some time off until December 1, 2008 while we redesign the site.

CMS vs. ChMS

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:23:06 +0000

Church Management Systems, also known as ChMS, are used daily but thousands of church leaders all over the world. They help churches organize the information floating around their churches and manage the activities that can quickly clutter your brain. But, what happens when churches want to tie their Church Management Systems in with the Content Management Systems that run their websites? Or, when a church is curious about building a Church Management System with a Content Management System?

Excellence

geeksandgod@gmail.com (Rob Feature and Matt Farina) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 22:49:32 +0000

How often do we sit back and do just enough to get by? In school it's easy to be a C student. At work it's easy to do enough to keep your job. But, is that what we should strive to do? This week we discuss excellence, what the bible teaches about it, and how that applies to our everyday life and that job that most of us don't like.