I want to cheat a little bit, and include another video from The Common Craft Show.  I love what Lee has done with these videos - his product is explanation, and he does a great job at it!

Why is social bookmarking important for a church staff?  It’s simple really - the same reason it’s important for anyone.  Social bookmarking’s biggest benefit, in my opinion, is that your bookmarks (or favorites) travel with you everywhere.  Since they’re not tied to a specific computer, you can easily access your important sites wherever you go.

I started using social bookmarking when I wanted to track people.  For instance, I would learn about a missionary’s Web page while I was at work, and I would bookmark it.  When I went home and wanted to look at the site, I would think, “What happened?  I know I bookmarked this.”  Finally, I would always come to the realization that it was on the other computer that I bookmarked the site.  So, in comes del.icio.us to the rescue - now my bookmarks are shared between both computers (and any other computer in the world at the same time).  AWESOME!

Matt Singley has a great series going on now about New Media.  One of the things that I have begun advocating to our staff and others is the idea of following bloggers.  I know how much power comes with my (albeit limited) interaction with the CITRT.  While I’ve never been to an in-person round table meeting, I read like crazy.  The interaction I’ve received between other Church IT professionals has enable me to function much better in my job.

So, does your children’s minister follow children’s ministry blogs?  Does your missions pastor read missions blogs?  Why not?  Have them read Matt’s post about Google Reader and start subscribing to blogs.

So, according to C|Net’s News Blog, Photobucket admits to screwing up in censoring diapered babies. Lots of thoughts come to mind.

1. I’m glad that Photobucket is filtering out porn as those image services make it difficult for parental controls
2. I bet they have an algorithm that picks up skin tones in an image and automatically flags them as spam, which is cool. I wonder when that will become widely available to parents?
3. I’d rather they block too much than too little. But, I guess there’s other less scrupulous image services out there as it is.

So, I’ve used Jott for a while, and I like it. However, the little notes e-mailed to my inbox aren’t too helpful to me as my inbox gets quite full and it makes the notes easy to miss.

Well, Jott got me real excited when they introduced their Jott Links. Now you can call in and Jott a Twitter update, post to your blog, add an event to your Google Calendar, or even get Sandy to do something for you (I think I’ll start using Sandy soon!).

One of my biggest difficulties is remembering to do things that fellow staff ask of me in the hall. I usually encourage them to fill out a HelpDesk to ensure it gets done, but we all know that doesn’t always happen. It’s in my evening walk that I remember these things, the only time in my day that I have no computer to take action. Tonight, I got to thinking, “I wish they would add a Jott Link for Spiceworks, our awesome (and free) network inventory and HelpDesk software.”  This would allow me to pick up my cell phone and begin a ticket about the problem that came to memory.

Eureka! It doesn’t need a Jott Link - I just need to add the HelpDesk e-mail to my Jott contacts. Doing so allows me to call Jott, announce that I want to Jott “HelpDesk,” and begin spelling out the problem that needs solving. In doing so, I create a workflow on the Spiceworks HelpDesk that gets recorded for history and can be attributed to an individual machine at a later time.  Then, the problem gets solved faster, and you get applauded for your good memory (well, maybe not that far).

This would work on any HelpDesk software that checks an e-mail account. Give it a try - it could help you out as well.

We’ve been using OpenDNS at our church for quite a while. They actually began using it as our external DNS before I was employed, so I’m not sure how long we’ve been with them. I’ve got to say that I’m very impressed by their service.

I don’t have the energy to prove this, but the OpenDNS service is a TON faster than our RoadRunner Business Class external DNS. (More on RoadRunner in future posts… I don’t think a lot of their “business class” service).

In addition to rock solid, reliable DNS lookups, OpenDNS offers a host of features, many of them added in the last two months. When you sign up for an account with them, you can get a number of stats regarding your network’s Internet usage. There’s not a whole lot of detail, but the graphs and information can be helpful.

For instance, at a quick glance, I can see that the number two resolved domain yesterday was “mlb.com.” It looks like a number of our staff members weren’t completely focused on work.

They also block phishing sites and fix common domain typos. Plus, it’s all free. And, by now, you know that I like that - a lot. They do this by offering text ads on the guide page when a domain cannot be resolved. They even allow you to change the logo on that page.

But, the reason I wanted to post about OpenDNS today is this sweet new “shortcuts” feature they’ve recently added (actually about a month ago). As part of your account settings, you can enable and use shortcuts which are similar in function to AOL’s keywords.

So, I can set up a shortcut “fbc” that launches our Web site, and it saves time typing. Sure, that’s a novely, not really that big of a deal. But, how ’bout this one. Today, I set up the shortcut “bible” that launches the BibleGateway site. However, it goes one step farther. The actual shortcut redirects to http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=%s

So, users can type in “bible resurrection” to search for information about the resurrection or passages that contain the word resurrection. OR, they can type in “bible John 3:16″ to look up the passage John 3:16.

They’re launched network-wide immediately. No need to restart machines or wait for DNS caches to clear. It’s fast, it works well, and it’s worth a try at home or at work.