IT People Skills

One of the blogs I subscribe to is called Life of a one-man IT department - can I get a witness?. I have gained valuable time-saving tips from Mike McBride and have learned that even though many of us are solo acts in tech, we are definitely not alone. Earlier this week Mike had a link to an "In The Trenches" podcast with guest Chuck Tomasi. The topic was about building strong relationships between the IT department and the user community and being aware of how the department is perceived by those we serve.

Really good stuff.

Blog Statistics

At Terry Storch's blog, I was reading about how he is using StatCounter to track his viewership. I'm usually a take-it-or-leave-it person when it comes to tracking statistics, so I guess that explains why I'm not a sports guy. But I digress. So, I was mildly intrigued in my own stats as a fledgling blogger when I noticed that, according to Bloglines, I have 7 subscribers!!! Not just 7 visitors, but 7 people who have deemed my blog interesting enough to actually read it regularly. B But, I've only been in the blogosphere less than a week! The only thing I can think of that caused this veritable blogstorm, was the introduction by Jim Walton a few days on his blog. WOW - THE POWER OF LINKING!!

Now that I have instantly become a statistics covert, I just signed up to use StatCounter and will be tracking my traffic closer. Who knows, maybe my interest in sports will increase. "Go... SPORTS!!!"

Show Me Some Love...

Even though I haven't been blogging long (mere days), I didn't think it was strange that any of my posts had received a single comment. But the good Jim Walton GMailed me and said, " Hey Dude, you must have your Blogger Comment settings torqued too tight" (severe paraphrase; apologies Jim). So with a flick of my wrist, I have opened up the comment floodgates wide open. Welcome One and All!

Table and Fire

Remember 'My Home Away from Life"? I've just learned that Irving Bible Church recently launched a "digital community" called Table and Fire. They have a thriving forum, digital prayer room, recommended books list and many other offerings. Another incredible (and visionary) way that this local church is broadening their horizons and how God is enlarging their territory.

Holy Matrimony, Batman!

Congratulations Kyle & Britt! Yet another one of our invaluable Ministry Support Staff (Britt) got married and you know what that means? I've got to change her name on the Windows domain and Exchange. For a well-established employee, changing the name is actually easier than creating a new account, but there are a number of places where the name must be changed within Active Directory. For those who are new at this, here's a quick 'n' dirty guide that you can bookmark.

1. Launch Active Directory Users & Computers
2. Navigate to the Users container
3. Right-click on the account and choose and 'Rename'
4. Change the last name and a 'Rename user' dialog box will be presented
5. Change Full Name, Last Name, Display Name, User Login Name and the Pre-windows 2000 User Login Name - Click OK.
6. Right-click new name, choose 'properties'
7. 'General' tab, change the email address
8. 'Exchange General' tab, change the Alias
9. 'Email Addresses' tab, change:
• cc:mail address
• Ms Mail address
• x.400 address
• SMTP address will have been updated already
10. 'Email Addresses' tab - add a pre-marital SMTP address to catch emails.

NOTE: Deep within the NT subsystem, the original account alias still exists and will crop up from time to time, especially when Outlook automatically suggests an email address. You cannot change this, but it does NOT affect the full functionality or the external appearance of the new, renamed user.

Bon appetite!

iTunes 4.9 with Podcatching Support is Here!

Thanks to Engadget for this late-breaking post! I downloaded it, and instantly transferred my subscribed feeds. Apparently the podcast directories are not all online, but you can start catching the feeds right now. I my opinion, this is gonna be huge for podcasting and future podcasters: iTunes is already on millions of PCs and Macs, so when everybody gets updated... Whoa - watch out! BTW, right before I downloaded version 4.9, my PC version of iTunes 4.8 still thought it was the latest and greatest.

Now that Apple is in the podcatching game, I want to thank the good folks at ipodder.org (Lemon) and many others who paved the way that enabled people like me to enjoy the podcasting wave. I wish there was a "Thank You" chicklet for them that I could place on my site.

Pastor Podcast?

I had an email discussion with a Pastor friend of mine who has started a church that has already grown to 200 regular attenders in just 20 weeks. It's Southern Baptist, but because the area is developing rapidly and young couples are moving in that are mostly unchurched, they are free to create an experience that is more like the First Century church and seeker friendly.

So, on the staff bio page of their website, they have "favorite things", "what I'm reading now" and also "what's on my iPod". Browsing around some more on their site, I see that you can listen to MP3 sermons. Hmmm, I thought. Why not combine the audio sermons with the effort to reach out to the iPod savvy and publish podcasts?. He said that they were watching the podcast phenomenon to see if it was right for themit, but afterward, I wondered if he should offer podcasts?

So the question is now directed to you on the blogosphere and podosphere: would it help an emerging church to publish podcasts that someone could merely subscribe to? As a believer, would it make your connection with that church seem impersonal or would it enhance the relationship? As someone searching for God, would it help you to determine which church you would visit. Or would be adverse to even GO to a church if you could have it RSSed to your computer? I'd like to hear feedback from preachers, Christians and those who don't go to church at all. I'm curious - let's talk.

My Home Away from Life

When people say "What do you do for a living?", you usually say what you do at your full-time job, right? So if your job is synonymous withliving or your life, then you need a home away from it (stay with me here, the payoff might be worth it). Even though I do tech work for my church and have an incredible passion for using technology to connect others with God's people, I actually have a full-time job as a Database Administrator in the financial industry.

My Home Away from Life is Irving Bible Church, just a 2 minute walk from the office. They have a "Town Square" concept which is phenomenal. A huge play area for the kids that is like 3 McDonald's PlayPlaces stacked on top of one another. Lots of nice comfy leather couches, armchairs and tables for serious study, engaging conversation or sleep (I've seen it). A coffee shop called the Mo Cafe which is the next best thing to a Starbucks. Local Christian artists regularly display their art for limited engagements. Very cool music is piped throughout the whole place and (drum roll please) FREE WI-FI - yeah Baby, that's what I'm talking about!!!

Seriously, though, my kids love it, I love it, my wife loves it - it's a perfect getaway from the daily grind. But it's a great outreach to the residential and the busy professional community. Throughout the day, you'll find people from all walks of life, soaking up the love of Jesus from all who volunteer. The IT Guy out there is Austin McCollum - he makes things happen at IBC and is an incredible MS Exchange guru who has saved my bacon a couple of times.

If you're in the D/FW area, make a stop in Irving and go check it out!

Starbucks - Welcome to Bedford, TX

I admit it - I'm a hopeless Starbucks afficionaddict. So when Starbucks FINALLY opened up a location (complete with drive-thru) in Bedford, I took it upon myself as the self proclaimed "Ambassador of Bedford to Starbucks" to stop in this morning and with head held high I said, "Welcome to Bedford! Oh and a triple venti latte, please."

My work here is done. After all, the good citizens of Bedford have been waiting for years as adjacent cities parked their Starbucks, mere inches from the Bedford border only to claim it as theirs (boo-hiss). Bedford, you can now sleep easy tonight - or as easy as you can with a caffeine buzz.

A "High Five" to Excellence in our Midst

Jim Walton at Church Tech Matters slipped a "high five" to a business owned by Christians in his last post. Not that we should only give kudos to business or individuals who share our beliefs, but I thought it was a nice touch and it moves me to follow his lead. Here's my high five...

We had always taken my wife's minivan to the dealership for service, because I had it stuck in my mind that the very best people to service anything are the one's who made it. That paradigm shifted when, after an eight month back and forth ordeal with the serpentine belt constantly slipping, we took the nearly 5-year old Town and Country to Mitch Baugus, a guy in our church who owns DFW Frame and Alignment in Hurst, Texas. Not only did his team fix it right, but they noticed that many things other weren't done by the dealership at our 100,000 mile tune up. They were fast, very reasonably priced, super friendly and probably the most thorough mechanics I've ever dealt with.

Today, I dropped of my car for much needed A/C and brake repair and Jim's post reminded me to take time to share with you my impressions of this business doing excellent work in our community as unto the Lord. Thanks Mitch - you guys are the best!!

Lyric of the Day

You saved me one time,
You save me every day.
From hands that won't be still,
From the one who wants to kill me.
From a twisted human will,
You save me every day.

You forgave me one time,
You forgive me every day.
For a mouth that is profane,
For a heart so full of anger.
For the sin I will not change,
You forgive me every day.

You filled me one time,
You fill me every day.
With a love that just won't go,
With a hunger just to know You.
With the precious Holy Ghost,
You fill me every day.
You fill me every day.
Come and fill me every day.

> 100 Portraits > Time Will Be The Tell > One Time Every Day

Thanks to Brian Bailey for the Idea!

Mac 'n' Windows Frustrations

Churches love Microsoft because of the huge discounts they get on software through the Open Charity licensing program. But, churches in metropolitan areas (not necessarily "mega" churches) are feeling the need to be on the bleeding creative edge in their publicity, outreach, and overall Sunday morning presentation. Enter the computing platform synonymous with audio/visual creativity - the Macintosh.

I just spent two hours with a Mac and a very hefty Panther Unleashed book trying to get it to integrate with a Windows 2000 domain. All I could get it to do was mount and browse shares on the Windows server. OS X has an Active Directory plugin, but I couldn't get it to see the domain. Entourage and Mail were no-go's also. What's interesting is the more dead ends I hit, the more it seems like the Windows domain needs to be optimized for Macs. Lots of learning opportunities.

Family Day!

I haven't had a whole day dedicated 100% to the family in a while - what a glorious time we had. First, we took a trip into Dallas to do the Dallas World Aquarium. This is definitely one of the things you must do if you ever come to Dallas. It truly is a 21st Century aquarium and the planners, architects, conservationists and underwriters have done a great job. They've been open since 1992, but last year they completed a mega-expansion - simply awesome.

Then we ate lunch at On The Border on Knox Street, which, coincidentally, is right by the Apple Store (we walked really sloooowwly past it). We tried to go to a Tex-Mex restaurant called Chuy's which is muy popular and it was mucho, mucho busy. Better luck next time.

When we came home, they boys wanted to show me a new Justice League video they bought last week at the half price book store - Green Lantern ROCKS! Then we finished out our time playing Legos, Playmobil pirates and castles, and Transformers. All of this was set to a mix of rocking kids praise songs, hosted by the new iPod with the FM modulator. Can't say too much about the iPod - can you tell?

Bottom line: a great day was had by all.

Who am I?

My name is Stuart Cowen and I live in a city between Dallas and Fort Worth in Texas called Euless (pronounced 'yoo-luss'). I am a Christian who received God's gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ 14 years ago at the age of 22. That's right, I'm presently 36 years old. I am husband to an awesome woman, Lisa, and father to three incredible boys; Ian 7, Trevor 5 and Myles 3. I am also a Tech Guy and unashamed geek. I have worked in the IT field professionally for almost 10 years, 7 of which have been serving my local church as part-time IT Director (although not an official title).

Recently, God has opened doors within the church and faith-based community that allows me to serve other churches in Information Technology as my schedule permits. My passion for technology has grown over the years and I am excited to see how people can be reached for Jesus using creative mediums, like the Internet.

Oh yeah, I'm also learning how to blog. My inspirations in blogging are Terry Storch at Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Brian Bailey, also of Fellowship Church and, of course, Robert Scoble.

Daddy got an iPod!

About six months ago, my wife - the non-tech person in our home - was staring at a pile of CDs on the floor when she posed this question: "Can't we put all of our music on the computer and store all of these CDs in the attic?" I'd been passively avoiding the topic, but knew it was only a matter of time before we'd have to suck it up and just do it. But rather than just do it, I wanted to be sure I got the highest quality compression and that the MP3 management program was easy to use. Bottom line is I settled on iTunes and within a month all of our CDs were digitized on to hard disk. About 15 Gig worth to be exact.

Now which player? Or, more specifically, which iPod (?) since iTunes only "plays with" the iPod. Well, last Sunday (Father's Day) my family totally surprised me with a 30GB iPod Photo. Yes, I was totally surprised since we had planned to wait until after the summer to get one. I must say, this is one cool device and now, I TOTALLY GET IT! This past week, I added the Griffin iTrip and simply couldn't be more pleased.

Thank you my wonderful family - I Love You and, yes, I'll share :)

Blog Launch: castingmynet.blogspot.com

The purpose of this blog is to "cast my net" and connect with people who are passionate about technology. Conversations will range from technnology within the local church, the Christian life, technology news, and, of course, my family. Welcome to castingmynet.blogspot.com.