by Bret Capranica | May 23, 2009 | Featured Articles, Ordinary Pastor, Pastoral Ministry, Technology
More on my wrap up of Cheap Technology and the Ordinary Pastor Excel is a tool I regularly use, especially since I oversee our church”™s finances. The ability to quickly create charts and graphs in Word and extensively manipulate them to fit your desired look and express your information as you desire is easy. Word has vastly improved the styles of their charts and graphs, adding more 3D effects and sharper colors and backgrounds. Numbers is the Mac version, and it simply produces a better-looking product than does Excel and is very easy to use. I”™m no Excel power user, but what I do with it was not as easy to accomplish in the OpenOffice platform. Let me say a word about PowerPoint. I used to despise PowerPoint. They have the WORST looking templates. Another area Microsoft just simply does not do well in ““ really professional, modern, crisp, clean, sharp presentations. PowerPoint 07 is a great improvement over previous versions. I do a PPT presentation almost every week that I teach my mid-week class. OpenOffice is a joke. I also extensively tried out the free (and the paid versions) of Sliderocket. Sliderocket has some real potential, but was so buggy that it created some major headaches for me. I also called their customer support for help because once it was out of beta, I couldn”™t seem to get anyone to respond via e-mail. The guy was awesome on the phone and assured me that someone would follow up with my problems ““ I have yet to hear from them. While it still irks me that PowerPoint is so...
by Bret Capranica | May 22, 2009 | Twitter
Getting started on what should be a full and fun day-first up: prayer, Scripture, and a half pot of French Roast. # Sermon Prep time! Romans 16:3-16! # Just made it home from teaching at a new members’ class and pastors discussion. Now to do a little sermon prep # Off to a Sunday School class fellowship-Cinco de Mayo celebration-just a little late. It’s like our celebrating Christmas on New Year’s eve # Home from the Sunday School bash-was very wet, well at least for me and Christian. Fun time. Now time for more sermon prep. # Beginning the Lord’s Day thinking on His word-thankful for fresh mercies each morning. # Off to enjoy the Lord’s Day with the Lord’s people. # Pretty good sized jolt-seemed to last awhile-I DESPISE earthquakes. # Kids are down-time for a small dinner and a West Wing episode-we just started season 7-for the third time. # Praying through the word and my schedule for the week-looks to be full of opportunities for increased sanctification. # Deep into study for Wednesday’s class on The Baptists-have to cut it short-time to head to the office. # Flurry of a day so far-great Pastors’ Council meeting, then a quick lunch watching Meet the Press, then an hour on financial admin-now email # uh oh – puter is about to crash again-I smell a certain sort of fruit in my technological future. # Checking some headlines and about to read the Word-but we have a little 17 mo old who really does not want to sleep and really wants to cry. # What?! Only one Tweet all...
by Bret Capranica | May 22, 2009 | Featured Articles, Ordinary Pastor, Pastoral Ministry, Technology
I”™m going to wrap up (belatedly) my little series on pastoral ministry and the quest for inexpensive technology. Honestly, this is not really an issue for some pastors (or others). Some are in the position where expense is not really an issue. Or they are willing to forgo something else in order to have the better technology. After evaluating the free side of life, I think it is worth spending some money in order to have the better technology and thus a more productive time accomplishing what you do and yet there are a few apps. Let me start with productivity suites. Word Processing, Number Crunching and Presentations. Hands down, MS Office: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are your best bets (all of these in the world of PC). For a basic suite, of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote (more on this one later), you”™ll pay about $150.00. If you are a student, you can get the Ultimate Office suite for about $60.00. That”™s really the way to go for the power and ease of use you will gain over the zero-priced material like OpenOffice.org. Why pay the money for these? Word is the universal powerhouse of word processing. Other programs, including WordPerfect and Pages with the Mac, have to adjust to it. It is the standard platform. Office has become much more user friendly. Though it did take me awhile to adjust to the new ribbon format, the UI is much cleaner, easier to use, faster to navigate, and even pleasing to the eyes. As said before, OpenOffice reminds me of Windows 98. In Word (Excel, PowerPoint) you can...
by Bret Capranica | May 21, 2009 | Featured Articles, Personal
Check out the mastery of photographer Chad Martin. Last week, Kelly, Brie, Mya and I had the joy of doing a photo shoot with the very talented Chad Martin. I cannot say enough about how pleased we were with Chad and his graciousness to come to our home, set up and do the photo shoot. I highly recommend him. Take a look ““ he really makes us look good (well, the others look good ““ Chad really helps me out). See Chad’s other work and contact him...
by Bret Capranica | May 15, 2009 | Twitter
Headed for Disney Land-Brie has been talking about it non-stop for several days-already a cult member before ever going. All hail the rat! # Let the mayhem begin http://twitpic.com/4uu44 # A nine hour day-4 rides, lunch, dessert, a sea of humanity, and a pic with Winne the Pooh (Brie’s fav)-now to recover. # Just enjoyed an In-and-Out picnic in our front yard-what a georgeous evening. # I’m outa here-bed time for me. # Happy mother’s day to my beloved-who has shown herself a steady mother through and unsteady family time so far this year. We are blessed. # Just made it home from a great night of fellowship at church-now to help get the kids down and relax my mind a bit with Kel-full & good day. # Prayer then prep for my class on the Baptists-live this study. # Computer just crashed-blue screen-this has been happening a lot lately-3 times last Tuesday. Uh Oh! # Crash # 2 Today! Not good for a 7 mo old laptop. # Here’s my crash issue-not hopeful, not helpful: http://is.gd/yXUM # Had an enjoyable night out with Kel. Beautiful close of a long day. # Up to begin the day-prayer and more work for my class on the Baptists-covering The Southern Baptist Convention. # RT: @productivity501: It is those who make the worst use of their time who most complain of its shortness.~ Jean de la Bruyere in reply to productivity501 # At the church office digging into ministry projects-some fun stuff ahead! Praying for no crashes today. # Up early for a good time in the word-now being tested with technical...
