Archive for the 'Church administration' Category

Embed a Google document as form in site or blog

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

Thanks to J.W. for pointing out a Google Docs new tool that allows forms to be embedded in sites. Comments at the official Google Docs blog suggest not all is well, but it should be useful for adding — at the very least — a straw poll capacity to blogs or an initial level of […]

For a new church, get EIN online

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

In my mind’s eye, I imagine a new congregation organizing team having working meeting with a laptop and an Internet connection knocking out all manner of little tasks that once took more time and effort.

A new church in the United States is going to need an Employee Identification Number to hire anyone or open a […]

Offering a free subdomain for emerging congregations

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

To be listed as an emerging congregation at UUA.org, “the group should have either a meeting address or working website or both.”

Hmm. One can be almost free of charge, with community support to develop and maintain and is an important communications and resources channel; the other is costly, difficult to acquire and maintain and might […]

Helping Lower Walnut: office suite

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

It’s no secret I love OpenOffice.org. It’s no secret that there’s a new 2.4 release and a beta for the 3.0 release out. Perhaps less well known is that you can run Windows and use OpenOffice.org. (The 3.0 version, with full release due in September, should benefit long-suffering Mac users.)

The Rev. Angela Mather knew her […]

Helping Lower Walnut: a free antivirus

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

You’ll recall the Rev. Angela Mather and her cash-strapped parish in Lower Walnut, Maine: a use case for free and open source software and other solutions for congregations.

One of the problems she had was an old Windows computer that was sluggish and temperamental. A friend from seminary thought it might be infected with viruses.

But anti-virus […]

Add to feed reader: Blue Avocado

Friday, May 2nd, 2008

A triad of insurance and nonprofit organizations have just launched Blue Avocado, with tips, resources and advise useful to nonprofit staffs and boards.

You might like it too.

Blue Avocado

What common distributed work would work for UUs?

Saturday, April 12th, 2008

Two givens.

My Day Job includes lots of interaction with software developers.
My hobby — effectively — is learning more about my three computers, each with its own variant of Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu Linux, like other free and open source software projects, have a open yet ordered and participatory [...]

DIY letterhead in OpenOffice.org

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

Because sometimes you need a letterhead, here are directions using a popular free and open source office suite. I’ve used OpenOffice.org for years and recommend it; also, it has recently come out in a new version. (Hat tip.)

Because the power of the Internet increases as people get connected . . .

Monday, March 10th, 2008

. . . and because faithful people are more effective when connected freely, I’ve decided to take Michelle Murrain’s suggestion and install Flock, a social networking-empowered web browser, based on Firefox.

To tell you the truth, Firefox has gotten so bloated lately that I was looking for other options, at least for occasional use. Like her, […]

Historic small Universalist church blogs

Saturday, March 8th, 2008

I almost missed the fact that members of the Pullman Memorial Universalist Church, Albion, New York (21 members) started group-blogging church events, as Chalicefire. While unofficial, I shouldn’t wonder if the blog will become the de facto church site — as Google records — in time and the tone is pleasantly and lightly outwards-reaching.

A model […]


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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States