It’s midnight, and I’m finally getting around to blogging about the day. It was a profitable day, having the opportunity to network with a group of other church IT professionals as well as the IT-curious. One lady was completely blown away that any church had even one full-time IT professional.

Here’s some of the topics we covered:

• Training - How do you train your users on technology topics?
  • Cool tool for training: Sony AirBoard - Get people involved in the training. Write on AirBoard and it shows up on the projector screen.
• E-mail marketing - Constant Contact is coming soon with 2-way sync to ACS. Another alternative solution used is ChurchPost.com.
• Text messaging - ChurchCast was discussed as a solution to send out a mass text to selected church groups. For instance, if the bus brakes down on the way back from youth camp, the youth pastor could activate ChurchCast to send an SMS to all parents telling them, “Flat tire on bus. All kids are safe. Delayed 2 hours.”
• Network monitoring / filtering / etc
  • Barracuda 210
  • GTA Firewall and GB-Ware
  • Wireshark University
  • PRTG - I’m definitely looking into this
  • What’s Up
  • IP Monitor - supposedly better than What’s Up
• Worship Attendance - what creative methods are you using to measure worship attendance? Directional infrared cameras to count number in and out of worship center, pew pads, individual cards, overhead cameras, installing chairs instead of pews in order to more easily count.

Last week, I upgraded our network from AVG 7.5 to AVG 8.0.  It was a mostly painless process.  The 8.0 version of the software looks slick and seems to be using less resources than the previous version.  I haven’t noticed any slowdowns on machines because of it.

I was able to easily push the software to about half of the workstations through the admin console.  It works by first installing an AVG Agent which is the tool that actually does the software installation.  This process uninstalls 7.5 and installs 8.0.

For the other half of the workstations, I created an install script and had to run those on each of the machines.  I could have scripted it to run on their next log-in, but it was just as easy for me to go around the building and get it done.

I’m not sure why I couldn’t push the install to every station as I had all the appropriate ports open in their firewalls, but for some reason it didn’t work.  Unfortunately, the stations that run the install script do not fully appear in the Admin Console either.

Overall, not too bad.  We’re all protected from the latest threats, and I like the new edition.

On many projects that I have started in my position as the first IT guy at a nearly-megachurch church, I have had the opportunity to experience a shift from understanding the projects conceptually to understanding them experientially.

With our network overhaul, currently underway, I am doing just that. I knew it would be a booger to run new Cat-6 to the entire plant, but now I’m seeing that it’s nearly impossible to get it to happen.

Some of the challenges that we face:

1. 5 distinct different buildings, all melded together into one behemoth of a structure. Each of the 5 were built about a decade after the previous, and built on a budget without much consideration for networking and future wiring needs. Plus, the earliest was built in ‘48 with no drop ceilings and full of asbestos.
2. No current IDF’s are in place, switches are strewn about in various offices and mechanical closets.
3. The room that I have secured for an IDF is centrally located, but is upstairs and requires massive conduit to be placed on the roof to get downstairs.
4. Though the physical distance from the main IDF to the offices in the front of the building is less than 300-feet, the path the cable must take is about 400-feet, which means I need to find room for another IDF - however, 350 of the 400 feet are in the attic above the sanctuary.
5. I’m an IT guy, not a construction expert, and our maintenance guys have been giving me a hard time about that because I think things would work that just wouldn’t.
6. I can’t afford to pay a contractor.

So, this will be a fun project, with a capital F-U-N. You may wonder why I feel the need to rerun the entire network, I’ll post about that soon.

Sending this update with Safari on my new iPhone.

We’ve started our network overhaul at church. We are so far overdue with this, and it’s not going to be fun, but I’m glad we’re finally doing it.

More to come from a regular keyboard later.

I’ve got to say that I love Nick Nicholaou. He was indeed my favorite part of the Shelby convention last week, and I gained a ton of valuable information from him. Today, here’s some insights from one of his classes.

Here are some of the things that I found noteworthy in Nick’s class:

• Short-term fixes are more costly than long-term strategies. As I try to lead our church to create and approve policies and procedures for IT, I am learning quickly that when you don’t have a plan you end up spending a lot more on technology than you should.
• When possible, avoid wireless networking. Much like abstinence, the easiest way to avoid viruses (and other bad stuff) through a wireless network is to avoid it. If wireless is a necessity for your organization, keep the AP behind the firewall (edit: outside of the firewall, thanks JRob for your comment). Our APs are a horrible example and are a huge risk to our organization. However, since there wasn’t a long-term strategy for wireless, it will be MUCH more expensive to re-cable these devices than it would have when they were installed.
• Standardization. Though not really about new building/expansion, it’s essential to standardize the software, hardware, PDAs, etc that will be used by your church. It is cost-prohibitive to support multiple word processing applications, PDA platforms, and printers. Standardize, and save today.
• Cable specs. When running new cable, go Cat 6. The cable costs more than Cat 5/5e, but it’s more future-proof, though Cat 6a/7 is on the way. Plus, the real cost is in labor, not in the cable.
• Run cable EVERYWHERE. When running cable, run it everywhere. Double the amount of conduit you think you’ll need when at 100% of current needs. Run cable to the platform (stage), to the worship center lobby, all classrooms, custodial office, and even the conference room table (not just the room, the actual table). If you may need it sometime, run it when you’ve already got the labor paid for.

Thanks Nick for a great session!