announcements are fun…

Posted on July 7, 2012 by Darren

I always like hearing from people about new things happening in their lives and I’m excited to share something new happening in mine. For most of the last year as a part of my web development business I’ve been helping a company called Event Espresso with their website redesign and some bits and pieces that are running their automatic plugin updates and membership system. It was a really fun project to work on and we just launched their website two weeks ago.

In the process, I was working closely with the Event Espresso team and we realized that we worked well together. I was invited to join their team as their core developer and I’ve accepted.

I’m REALLY excited about this transition because I get to keep building cool stuff and I really see Event Espresso becoming THE “go to” plugin for events and ticket sales and I’m looking forward to being a part of and contributing to their growth.

Are you running events? Are you looking for an easy way to manage registrations and ticket sales? You really need to check them out.

Oh and you know what else is cool? My family and I don’t have to move. EE’s team is a distributed team working from locations all over. Fun stuff!

...This is a preview of announcements are fun….
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(212 words, estimated 51 secs reading time)

Early Adopter Disease

Posted on July 5, 2010 by Darren

Here’s some symptoms of early adopter’s disease…

you subscribe to multiple tech blog feeds. Even worse, you follow all their twitter feeds. Even worse than that, you are a fan of their facebook page. Oh and by “multiple”, I mean so many that you have 100 new posts an hour coming into your feed reader.
All non essential activity stops and you drool when watching an announcement on the latest gadget. Essential activity is breathing.
When a new gadget is released you read every article that get’s written on it. Anything else is old news. What oil spill?
You know of gadgets that no one else you know has heard of.
You begin a lot of conversations with, “Hey did you hear about this? ___________” and proceed to describe in glorious detail the incredible features of the gadget that will save the world. Well, at least make the world a better place to live. Well, at least make YOUR world a better place to live….
Things aren’t cool, they are magical.
You don’t understand why people get frustrated when something doesn’t work. Your patience level is god-like when working with new stuff. Which is probably why….

...This is a preview of Early Adopter Disease.
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(322 words, estimated 1:17 mins reading time)

How is Mobile Technology Changing the church and the Non-Profit Sector?

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Darren

The title of this post is taken from a question posed over at ChurchDrop a while ago (along with an iPhone giveaway – great way of generating comments on the subject!) and I left a comment there so good I thought I’d repost it here [tongue in cheek] and add to it. Actually, there’s a lot of great comments over at the original post, feel free to add to the conversation there, or here! So here’s what I wrote:

Mobile technology is changing the church and non-profit sector in the following ways:

1. Real-time communication

People react quicker to what they are experiencing. (especially applicable to multi-site discussions -> see tony morgan’s observations) This also applies to the reporting of people on the field (i.e. missionaries, short term missions trips etc). It can be easier to communicate via mobile than any other technology from a user standpoint and this means that the message gets out and is widely distributed in a matter of seconds rather than minutes or days. Sometimes whether we want it to or not.

...This is a preview of How is Mobile Technology Changing the church and the Non-Profit Sector?.
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(600 words, estimated 2:24 mins reading time)

Desktop Application from Web URL’s via Google Chrome

Posted on February 22, 2010 by Darren

I came across this article on Church Crunch and thought, “this is something I’m already doing!” – but then I realized after watching the video there that I’m actually doing it differently than they suggested. So I just thought I’d throw up this short screencast on how to create a desktop application using Google Chrome. Just for you:

The Nightmare of a Techie…

Posted on December 9, 2009 by Darren

I had a scary thought this morning. For all of us techie, early adopter, and internet civvies – what would we do if somehow we were lifted out of our life in modern society and transplanted 100 years ago (circa 1908)? Doesn’t that make you shudder?

Here’s what I’d be doing…

[photo from public.resource.org]

New Website Release: VOHMalawi.org

Posted on December 5, 2009 by Darren

A couple of days ago I released a new website that I designed for some friends of mine who are the new directors of the Village of Hope in Malawi, Africa. David and Connie Buzikievich are an awesome couple who are following through with their offer to God to take them wherever He wants and use them however He wants. Their example of selfless service is inspiring!

Ever since my short term missions trip to the Village of Hope in Zimbabwe my heart has been captured by the work the Village’s of Hope are doing in Africa to make a difference in children’s lives (and indeed in the communities where the Villages of Hope are planted!). One of the exciting ways I’ve been able to contribute to the work they are doing is by hosting and designing websites for both the Village of Hope, Zimbabwe, and now the Village of Hope, Malawi. Getting the word out and keeping supporters informed is always one of the bigger challenges facing those working at the Villages and doing this helps free time and resources for focusing on what they need to do.

...This is a preview of New Website Release: VOHMalawi.org.
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(304 words, 2 images, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)

Socialnomics ROI? Another look at Crowd Influence

Posted on December 5, 2009 by Darren

Here’s another video about the influence of Social Media that’s making it’s rounds. I’m intrigued by these videos because I often think about whether its important for the church to be on the leading edge of this. What do you think?

Some Google Fu – Getting searches to work for you.

Posted on November 3, 2009 by Darren

[image from macten]

Knowing how to find things is a good skill to have in this information based society. Knowing how to find things fast is even better. There is a world of information at our fingertips but knowing how to access it quickly is a valuable skill. Why? Because there’s so MUCH information that you can easily waste hours of time looking for something.

Occasionally, not always, but every now and then someone will email me or ask me a question that they’ve been trying to find the answer to and I’ll flip open my laptop, fire off a few keywords to Google and come back with the answer. Nifty. But what BLOWS ME AWAY is how often I’ll get, “WOW, that was fast!” Ummm…yeah, how slow were you expecting it to be? Which makes me wonder, does this person know how fast finding out stuff can be? Or are they still stuck in analog?

So I decided I’d write a quick article with a list of a few tips I’ve picked up a long the way for using our favorite neighborhood information finder to get what you’re looking for without wasting a lot of time.

...This is a preview of Some Google Fu – Getting searches to work for you..
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(816 words, 1 image, estimated 3:16 mins reading time)

How I Keep Track of Printed Articles [EverNote Usage]

Posted on October 28, 2009 by Darren

For nearly 10 years now I’ve been gone through many different systems of organizing and keeping track of the printed material I read (that is magazine articles, photocopies, pamphlets etc.). I used to just keep the magazines I read in boxes, but then my stash got too big and it would take me forever to find something I remembered reading. However, this is the system I used for nearly 5 years.

Next, I started keeping only articles I thought were worth keeping and keeping a database/spreadsheet of the articles on my old Palm IIIe. It was a system that worked quite good for about two years. I would file the articles in a binder alphabetically and by number (using stick on tabs) and then in the database I’d include keywords and short blurbs from the articles with the article information. To find articles around a subject I just had to do a search and then I could locate the article in my “article binder”.

...This is a preview of How I Keep Track of Printed Articles [EverNote Usage].
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(813 words, 1 image, estimated 3:15 mins reading time)

Unfolding Neurons

Category Archives: Talkin Tech