Monthly Archive for August, 2006

Mp3 player, camera, video, DVR

Published on August 18, 2006 in Podcasting. 0 Comments

I have been checking out Mach Speed TV5 from Trio.

While I hate the current Trio I am using, this one looks more interesting.

I like the camera and DVR features built in. I also like that it has 512 internal + an SD expansion slot so I could buy 512 of Kingston flash for about $15 and get a gig or buy a few extra for more storage.

I’m not sure it has the best picture quality, but I would rather have a so-so camera with me all the time than the best camera in the world with me only on rare occasions. Even a crummy picture will bring back memories in the future.

Drawbacks:

  • No FM
  • No flash
  • No zoom
  • Uncertain about its focusing capabilities (doubtful)
  • The instructions show a picture of the screen where they spell Calendar as “Calenda” and I may be Southern, but I can still spel.

I am also interested in having a portable item with a wifi capable web browser so I can check out church security cameras while walking around the building. This is making the phone option look better, but I have already been issued a phone that is rubberized and durable since there are many opportunities for it to fall while working (Motorola i530).

Get a Vista Beta 2 CD

Published on August 16, 2006 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

I just downloaded the previous beta, now I get a CD.

Just go get it from Microsoft India. Consider it a bit of insourcing.

I do have a few words for you:

1.Vista
2.Clarity
3.November 2006
4.True
5.Aero
6.All
7.All
8.512

The Security Forum

Published on August 15, 2006 in Security. 0 Comments

I has finally started to happen, more security people are finding the Church Security Forum.

If you ever have the feeling that perhaps you are not paranoid enough about church security I recommend you stop in. As more people who are interested in security are joining in there are more perspectives and resources available.

Blogs are nice. They allow an author to focus on a topic and write in a personal manner. I still prefer forums though. They open up the conversation in a way that a self focused blog cannot.

If you are an active learner then I invite you to stop in at the Open Source Ministry Forum and join in.

It isn’t a place focused on software or Linux (although those are regular topics), it is focused on opening knowledge for ministry. I believe that Open Source is not about software, it’s about people helping people accomplish great things.

Shelby Center

Published on August 10, 2006 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

Well, uh, I don’t have much to say about it, but I wandered across Shelby Center today (didn’t step on anything though, I was careful).

It runs on Ruby on Rails and does best on Windows. It helps with information thingies and the like.

They have a demo that sort of does stuff and it is free. There is almost some information here: Shelby Center Wiki. I’m mainly noting this to look at it later.

I Killed my MP3 Player

Published on August 9, 2006 in Misc Othr Stuf and Techie. 4 Comments

On Monday I committed involuntary mp3slaughter. We were pulling into the narrow driveway of a friend’s house and my wife realized that she couldn’t open her door without hitting their truck. I had started to get out of my door and had forgotten that my mp3 player had been on my lap. It fell out the door and when I backed up to let my wife out I flattened it with the front wheel.

I don’t think I can fix it, but I am going to see if I can do anything with the parts.

deadmp3.jpg

For all the shortcomings my Sansa m240 had, I really enjoyed it. Fortunately I have a backup mp3 player. It is a pretty lousy and only holds 128MB (I listen to about 200MB of podcasts most days).

Below are some I am considering (although I will probably get something completely different) in no particular order:

  1. Truly MP310PLUS 1GB Color MP3 Player
  2. iRiver H10 / 5GB MP3 Player
  3. KASER 1GB Mambo Nano MP3 Player
  4. RjTECH 1GB MPEG-4 Pocket Movie Theater Model RJ-1100PMP
  5. RjTECH 1GB Portable MP3 and Video Player Model RJ-200OLED-1
  6. SUPER TALENT 2GB Super Talent 2GB MEGA Screen MP3/FM/Recorder Player Model MP3/4-2GBK
  7. Kingston 1GB Portable Media Player Model KPEX100/1GB

Basically something that is under $120 with at least 1GB of memory, an FM tuner, and a recorder. I would really like it to show pictures and even movies would be neat (perhaps some technical how-to videos would be useful while working). It needs to be easily carryable, I carry my mp3 player in my shirt pocket or tucked into my belt usually since the bottom of my pocket is too far for the earpiece cord. I also need to be able to move between files without looking at it and by pushing buttons through cloth. A holster would be nice too.

I take my mp3 player everywhere and I couldn’t risk anything too expensive. However, if I had an iPod then I would have a tiny hard drive to play with right now instead of just some flash chips.

Update: I plugged it into my computer and while it sees a USB device it does not recognize it. Perhaps I could toss it up onto eBay and sell it for a buck. There is no private  information on it, only 250MB of podcasts.

Don’t buy anything from Zebra

Published on August 7, 2006 in Security. 1 Comment

I have posted about the Zebra p330i before (use the search box if you are interested), so there is a history of problems here.

The print quality on the ID cards has been pretty much hit or miss. I had a big pile of poorly printed cards before, but lately every single one of them looks like it has a coffee stain on it. For an expensive printer it is pretty lousy. On top of that, the continued service contract is more than $500 per year and when it comes to the print head that only brings about a discount which drops the repair price to a few hundred dollars.

I admit that I am cheap, but I don’t know anyone who likes to pay a premium for garbage with bad support.

There has got to be a better company out there for printers.

I Plagiarized the Sermon on the Mount!

Published on August 5, 2006 in Religion. 1 Comment

Out Of Ur has a post on Preachers Plagiarizing Sermons. I don’t think this is new, or necessarily wrong.

During my graduation, the speaker gave a nod to the preacher of the church where the service was being held (I graduated through a Christian school) and then proceded to use a wonderful illustration that preacher had used in a sermon. The funny thing was that the illustration was a key part from one of my dad’s regular sermons (he was often called as a guest preacher so he culled his sermons down to just his favorite few). The preacher then leaned over to my dad and said, “by the way, thanks for the semon.”

As a preacher myself I had some rules for “sermon stealing”

  • Make it your own. Don’t just use a sermon, understand it and get behind it with your heart. Care about what you are preaching. Otherwise you have that resounding gong / clanging cymbals thing going on and nobody like to listen to that.
  • Check for accuracy. (see post on Rick Warren)
  • Don’t use it verbatim. If you talk about your childhood in West Virginia and the congregation knows you grew up in Indiana (I’m a Hoosier), then you are not only busted but you just distracted people from the point.
  • Stick the original preacher’s name into the sermon where you use their content. They will probably figure you got it from someone else anyway, this at least makes you sound well read.
  • Remember that the point of a sermon is not to make yourself look better, but to bring people closer to God than they were before the opening prayer.

I spent a lot of time digging through SermonCentral.com and SermonIllustrations.com and got a lot of great inspiration, indeed Google was my friend as well. I cannot remember actually taking someone else’s sermon and presenting it word for word as my own. I usually disagreed too much with how they did it to do that. I did stick pretty close to the 40 Days of Purpose sample sermons, but only because they were to be presented as one part of the full package for the week. I preached on the 5 purposes a couple years before 40 DoP came out and actually preferred those sermons to Rick Warrens, but I might be biased.

Latest XP Install CD?

Published on August 2, 2006 in Techie. 3 Comments

Maybe someone out there knows about whether Microsoft offers something like this.

Our Windows XP install CD is from August 10, 2004. That means it is really out of date.

Does Microsoft offer newer CDs on occasion with the added patches? Ours does have SP2, but that was 2 years ago.

Extracting jpg images from IvisPlus

Published on August 2, 2006 in Security. 0 Comments

We use Ivis Plus 1000 (Motto: 32-Bit Software . . . faster & more reliable than 16-bit systems) from Identicard for our ID Card printing.

One of the features we really wanted was to be able to use the images from the ID cards for other uses, but the documentation for IP 1000 didn’t include info on how to get the images out. Ivis Plus 2000 advertises standard jpeg images as a feature, but the 1000 does not.

It was after about 1 week of starting on the ID cardsthat I decided to look into how the images are stored. They are kept in \IVISPLUS\PHOTOS\PIC1 and they are named as p1.pc where “1″ is the incremented number of the image. Don’t let the .pc fool you, they are really jpeg images and once I associated .pc files with Firefox they open up immediately.

We use a separate program for controlling the maglocks, and it was able to import the .pc images for the picture IDs associated with the cards in the system.

The fact that the images are stored in jpg format meant that I was able to open one of the images in photoshop and use it as a template for creating my own ID images. I used the proportions of that image and created other pictures for the loaner cards (Yoda: “Return this card you must”, General MacArthur: “I Shall Return”, The Terminator: “I’ll be back”, and President Bush: just in case he ever visits). I used a picture of communion trays for our communion prep ministry card, a picture of an audio cassette for the message ministry card, and pretty notes for the worship department loaner card. I saved them as .jpg files and then took a picture with the camera through the ID card program to create an associated image and then renamed the .jpg to match the .pc name in the picture directory.

I also used this option for bringing in pictures of people who were not available to get their picture taken when I had the system set up for regular operation. There were a few times when I had to edit images in photoshop and drop in the default background before importing.

The best feature with this is that we also have a place where staff can look at pictures of all the other staff, ministry leaders, custodians, and regular contractors to know what they look like. I got around to tht after 100 pictures had already been taken so I ended up pulling out a section of the Ivis Plus database and writing a php script to associate the person’s name and position with their image, resizing the images to make them all the same size, and saving the images as FirstName_LastName.jpg for easier future reference.

These pictures look like mugshots so they did not turn out well when a couple were used during service at the last minute (if you want to recognize people they need a more flattering image), but they were used to identify people in security camera video, and one was used in a police investigation. The security hosts have a direct link to the images on the front desk computer so they can identify people by name very quickly.

Grouping Your Taskbar Tabs

Published on August 2, 2006 in Techie. 0 Comments

After all these years using Windows I only found out about this great feature recently.

One of the most obnoxious features on the taskbar (or toolbar) is the default setting  “Group Similar Taskbar Buttons.” I turn this off immediately when on a new system. Since I use Firefox and its tabbing it is not as much trouble as it used to be, but I still don’t like having a bunch of buttons fuse together suddenly.

One of the nice features of the grouped taskbar buttons is that you can have the windows tiled horizontally, vertically, or cascaded. I had no idea you could do that without having the automated groupings. Add onto that the possibility of grouping dissimilar items (an Excel window and a browser window).

Open a group of windows (I’ll wait . . . ) now, hold down the [ctrl] key and click on several taskbar buttons. This will look like any other multiple selection you have ever done on Windows so no need to describe it.  Now, right-click on one of the windows a voilà, you have a context menu with options to try. You can figure it out from there.