Branded With Love

And so it continues… the love hate relationship between Mac & PC users that has spilled over into the church world. “How do we learn to talk, share, print, function and just be compatible in the office & at our services we do?” After hearing Aaron’s “Apple Hate Speech” to the question, “What is on your iPod?” I figured now is as good a time as ever to battle out the current question of “Should I switch?”

It’s completely a valid question, and one I asked myself for over 10+ years of doing ministry and life with a PC. It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks and how will I be able to get work done on one of “those” things?

Let’s address question #1 that many people has asked:
1. Will I seclude myself from the rest of the office/church/world?

Even though Apple’s latest advertising campaign for Macs is very convincing and pokes fun at PCs (view the commercials here) you might still be having some reservations. Now I know the ads make a funny attempt to win you over and they make note of things you already were thinking, but there is a part of you that is still like, “Hey, hold on a sec! That’s great, hip, cool and all… but will I seclude myself from the rest of the computer world at the office/church/world with a Mac?”

Short Answer: Yes. But you should be counting your blessings. You will seclude yourself from a large amount viruses, spyware and other malware. This is something I haven’t missed a bit with ditching my PC system and moving to a Mac OS. Days spent on IT help lines have virtually disappeared and left with me much more time to do ministry.

Long Answer: No, no you will not seclude yourself from the rest of the office/church/world. Most of the reasons for this deal with compatibility and usability with a Mac. They’re built to “play nice” with a wide array of computer/tech/gadgets around the world as have TONS of free open source software to use and keep productivity flowing.

So will you be able to “play nice” with the network, printers, ms office and more? Yes, and we’ll get into that in the next post in this Great Church Tech Debate.

Until then, J-del **over and out**

[discussion/article adapted from entries by Chris Howard]

that I am sure plenty of eager musicians will jump on. This “mag-safe’esk” rip off of Apple’s Mag-safe adapter for their power supply on laptops has been taken a step further by Belkin. Now you too can be in the middle of rockin’ and have your guitar completely cut out because the magnet wouldn’t hold and just “Broke Free.”

I love this idea. The debate between tech/online relationships continues, but I am sold. The creators of Kindle are alright in my book. What do you think?

Found a new blog today that gives some great explanations of easy ways that churches can switch over to a Mac based system. Macs At Church is a fairly new blog that gives you all the easy-to-use tips and ideas on switching to Apple Computers. If you’re starting a church or have the Apple itch (which is way different than that “other” itch you’ve been having), you should totally check it out.

Okay, so it’s been a long week and posts have been sparse… so I figured I would throw you a bone until I can collect myself from a whirlwind of family stuff, church news (big news) this Sunday, and helping my hot wife find a job.

Office/Studio
Originally uploaded by jason.bedell

Here’s where we film videos for services. Things like testimonies, spoofs, video announcements, etc. This also doubles are my office during the week. We use to 2 Sony HVR-Z1U cameras with Sony hard drives, Sennheiser shot-gun microphones, Insignia 42″ Plasma, and Eiko lighting system.

Design On the GO
Originally uploaded by jason.bedell

Quite a few people were asking about what gear we use when we’re out and about for Creative Arts. We have some high end cameras for filming, but these are my staples for on the go.

I love Web 2.0, but this up and down never sure if it’s going to work is a beast. Free or not… if you are going to provide a service, you should at least keep the service rolling. I wonder if people view the church the same way.

(Dr. Evil pinky near the mouth) Hhhhmmmmmmmmm.

If I or any of you are caught wearing these… I’m pretty sure we should be shot on sight. Seriously.

So I’ve been inspired by reading the blogs of Seth Godin, Tim Stevens, Scott Hodge, Kem Meyer, Ben Arment & others who seem to only engage in certain activities on the web to keep their lives a little less cluttered (and it takes your own stinkin’ admin team of interns just to keep up with all of the accounts on Web 2.0). For this very reason I have deleted quite a few accounts.

There is something just overwhelming to have Twitter, Facebook (+ manage a couple groups), YouTube (3 accounts), Vimeo, Viddler, Anywhere.fm, Pownce, Virb, Blogger, MySpace (2 accounts, one for Forefront/Church), Flickr, iStockPhoto, & the list could go on for awhile.

I think it’s going to be a little easier only having a couple of profiles to work with as opposed to 16+ accounts, passwords, comments, spam, “please be my friend,” “check out my awesome garbage website,” “can I have your bank account info to send you millions of dollars?” etc. etc.

What are you doing to “de-clutter” your life? How are you breaking the habits of more stuff and instead making real relationships with people? Paul was in the culture and meeting people on their terms, but if he were here today he would laugh at the 20+ accounts and ask us where is the time to actually “tell people about Christ’s love?” I know I need to check myself daily. Hopefully this jumpstart will help.

J-del **over and out**