Mar
17
Youthful Thinking (part 27/52)
March 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Last week we had planned to focus on the Youth Area in the FLC, but ended up being distracted for most of the evening by the more immediate need of having the KidZone checkin station functional. The checkin situation was a combination of the change in security between IE6 and IE7 in Windows XPP, the fact that the SonBlest in a MS Access application run from the network and our strict policy about users elevated above the limited user role. By the end of the evening we solved this (turns out that somewhere the security policy for the SonBlest install on the local machine was modified to be too restrictive), but there was little time left for the planned task of the night.
During the week we have managed to switch Guitar Praise to the Youth Console. We’ll test it out tomorrow eve so that the youth group can give it a going over on Friday night and hopefully give it the thumbs-up. Thanks to the Digital praise support team who are always helpful and timely in getting things right for us (yay Sid and Jason!)
We should also see the test of an image backup system. We use an eternal 2Tb SATA drive formatted as ext3 with a USB connection and a Knoppix liveCD.The setup is to boot the Knoppix and from the command line:
% su sudo
% mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb1 /mnt
% dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/mnt/.dd
If this works, then we’ll try some compression to speed up the transfer via USB.
There are no crises (at least so far) and so our plan will be to install all planned connectors and outstanding wiring in the Youth area on 3rd floor with the objective of having the console computer and the amplifier installed out-of-sight and all screens and inputs/outputs functional, including changing the AlbumPlayer song directory to be on the file server.
Carl reports that while it is ThirdThursday, the updates this month are relatively few and he’s been able to do most of them while he’s hung out waiting for the kids at junior choir/girls group and the like.
As an additional bonus to our evening, we’ll meet briefly with our new Board of Management representative. Having been assigned to our file he’s (wisely) decided to come and listen and see what we worry about and how we look after it. This is an unheard of idea and we’d like to encourage the interaction, so I’ll be sure to bring top-drawer donuts!
Mar
9
Connections (part 26/52)
March 9, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Fearless Leader and I picked up a large box of connectors and cables last weekend. These should allow us to mount a final assault on the 3rd floor youth space. The TV can be mounted, connections for the TV, the touch screen and the computer and amplifier ends can be attached (where is our prize solder-man Jed when we need him?). Hopefully by the end of the eve we’ll have a huge portion of what’s left there done and Pastor Jodie and the youth can begin to move into the gear.
Somewhere in there we’ll see about having the nursery checkin machine recognize that local network as a trusted zone and put that station back into action for Pastor Nancy.
Feb
22
A Lite Night (Part 24 of 52)
February 22, 2010 | Leave a Comment
This week the church body will come together for the Annual Meeting and will likely approve a budget that will present some challenges to those of us who provide technology support for ministry. This is perhaps good news in that it brings to the fore the importance of having our vision and management teams understand the business value of technology in ministry and presents a challenge to us to explain it in a winsome and convincing manner. Yes, there is a plan afoot and with God’s guidance we’ll figure out what it is and how to execute it over the next year -while our budgets have shrunk, I think that we have people on the various boards who are ready to think seriously about how we do ministry, what it means and are willing to colour outside of the lines (remember the seven words of a dying organization: “we’ve never done it that way before”.
Since we have the Annual Meeting, our time window for this week will be small. We have a small list of updates for ThirdThursday (which was actually last week!) and Carl thought he could get those done through the week, a bit at a time. Our focus for this week will be looking at the recording scripts and setup since it needs to be automated and error-checked (we had trouble last Sunday) and we have two bad mic lines in the Sanctuary that should be checked.
We’re at a stand-still on several other projects, awaiting families to get better (business analysts) and school to end (some recording projects), and even parts to come in (3rd Floor). We trust that we are working within God’s plan and so look for opportunities as they arrive, both in what we can’t do right now as well as what things that have been back-burnered can be brought to the front.
Feb
14
Shifting the balance (part 23/52)
February 14, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Last week was all about preparing for the Ladies’ Banquet and so we spent an evening building rocket ships and then hanging them from the ceiling in the gym (I suppose that make us Rocket Scientists…). This week we’ll get our heads back out of the clouds and our feet back down on the ground!
Although we have much of the machine complete, we’ve had some troubles connecting the Youth Console to the network shares. The other issues of preparing the 3rd Floor Youth space have made it difficult to focus on this and so I’ve arranged for Kevin to team up with Carl and trouble-shoot this early in the evening.
While they’re up to good, Fearless Leader and I will look at scripting the DVD creation process to see if we can lighten the time burden being experienced right now in creating iso files of services for on-demand DVD requests, and run a length of cat6 from the comms room to the backup server in the basement and crimp connectors in anticipation of having our backup server on the kvm switch via cat6 extenders.
Somewhere in there we need to check the BSBC-TV network. There are some reports that it isn’t functioning as it should.
With these jobs done I’d like to move our server rack from the old kitchenette to the Family Life Centre’s communications room. While it should just be matter of powering down, wheeling the rack to the new space and powering it all up, there always end up being glitches. Let’s pray not, but think carefully none the less.
Our last task for the night is to review the Family Life Centre construction plans to ensure that we have been delivered all AV/IT related components in anticipation of the building being signed off with the all parties concerned in it’s construction. This sounds like a fabulous opportunity to consider a revised shopping list to meet our needs over the next month or so. It also seems like the prefect time for donuts and more coffee, and perhaps celebrate the shift from getting started on the massive effort that has been the last six months to cleaning up the odds that niggle away at us to be remembered and completed…
Feb
7
Having a BIg Time!
February 7, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Feb
1
Time Out! (Part 21/52)
February 1, 2010 | Leave a Comment
It’s a tough ole life and sometimes things just need to be done. This weekend is the Super Bowl and so we’ll need to spend time getting the HD set up on the 9′x12′ screen in the gym along with the 5.1 surround sound. This is year three and so we should be able to drag out the box of specialty wires and have it go together like dream. Right. Like a boss in my distant past used to say, “You can’t change the plan if you haven’t got a plan to change”
Other things to fill in the time? Tom’s computer needs to be finalized in his workroom and we need to keep pluggin’ away at the 3rdFloor console. And somewhere in there I need to find some time to play with wmi and the Nod32 firewall some more. Maybe remember to take a picture of the organ internals too.
Maybe round out the night with some testing of the HD setup while we test the donuts…
Jan
18
Come Together (Part 19/52)
January 18, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Last week we managed to make KidzTown functional and except for some tweeks it’s now fully functional. We now have only the Third Floor to complete. Not that this a simple task, but it is only one area. I believe that most of the AV work is complete, or close, and so the activity will revolve around the networking and worship console.
On the maintenance front, Carl will lead the ThirdThursday effort to update desktops. Carlo will have the todo list organized for us. Part of this (I hope) is to sit and construct the build sheet for the standard worship console. Sounds like coffee and donuts to me!
Jan
12
The Beat Goes “on” (Part 18/52)
January 12, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Nine man days (person days?) in we have a strange 5.0 audio installed in the third floor. Since we’re looking for 7.1, math will tell you that we’re 2.1 shy and that tells you where part of this week will be spent: running some additional cabling for the 3rd floor. We also have some networking to clean up so that we have connections in KidzTown and Youth (3rd floor). There is a mystery to solve there (The Hardy Boys and the mystery of the bixed on both ends but no testing lights go on- hardly catchy) that’s been driving me crazy. If we get this done then we can put the two console computers on the network and begin to worry about finalizing their installs.
An additional item is some organ photography so that pastor Greg can have some functionality added to the Sanctuary organ - think of it as a biopsy prior to organ transplant! But unlike most procedures like this we’ll see it through with coffee and donuts!
Jan
5
New stuff, New Year (part 17/52)
January 5, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Happy New Year! During the holidays there were several days and evenings of AVIT construction that find us with a huge amount of installation done - thanks to some patient wives for letting us “play”!
This week we are focused on two items:
- Finishing off KidzTown:
- Trouble-shooting the big screen as a computer display
- Completing the input connections to the amplifier and labeling the system
- Complete the voice and data run into the classroom without
- Completing wiring for the Youth Floor and enabling a base-level of AV
- completing the two speaker runs to the games room
- finishing the data and voice pull and termination the kitchen are
- installing the surround sound amplifier
We also need to bix the additional voice and data lines into the comms room patch block.
I (perhaps in delusion) believe that we can finish this much off and so will be bringing a dozen donuts both to sustain us as well as celebration tools (sort of like “House Party Tools“) once we complete.
Dec
15
‘Twas the week before Christmas! (part 14/52)
December 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Given that Christmas Eve and New Year’s both fall on Thursdays, this’ll be the last get together for the year.
It is ThirdThursday, so there’ll be a Desktop Scrum. There are some “extra” desktop items for inclusion including email for the Library, updating of SonBlest on the checkin machines and installing the Sunday School printer on these machines. As well, cutter blades for the label printers have arrived and the pre-school label printer is in need.
The parts for the extension cords for the Contemporary Service have arrived and so that can be assembled. While we don’t have a solution for our nod32/Spiceworks wmi issue we do have a strategy to find it and that can be begun as well. Fearless Leader will be leading the charge to install the projector and screen for KidzTown and that will consume a most of his night!