Week 1-Cheap Technology and the Ordinary Pastor

Week 1-Cheap Technology and the Ordinary Pastor

by | Apr 6, 2009 | Featured Articles, Ordinary Pastor, Pastoral Ministry, Technology

Word Processing I’m wiggling out of the Microsoft strangle hold ““ well at least for a month. My goal is to live in the world of the free (or close to free) market of desktop and web apps, looking to see if cheaper, but high quality alternatives exist for the ordinary pastor. Ordinary pastors do not have IT departments at their church. IT budgets are small, perhaps non-existent in the majority of ordinary churches. But, technology is a given and a necessity in the world of today’s ministry. April is my time to test the alternatives. First up: word processing (I’ll include spreadsheets, presentation, and publication software). Microsoft Word (Excel, Power Point) is (are) the standard. Every other program tends to look up to it and pattern themselves after it. A few alternatives exist. I will be using Open Office during my trial (I may look at Zoho). I am impressed with Office 2007. It took me a little while to find all the features since they significantly changed the user interface. But, I’ve adapted and find it helpful and productive. Compared to free, it is quite expensive. Yes, you can get a copy for less than $100.00 (especially if you are a student). Many educational institutions require it. Can the free sources meet the challenge and provide an equally good product for the needs of an ordinary pastor? I find myself typing on a word processor many hours of most days of my week. Writing, taking notes, producing documents for meetings fills my time ““ a word processor is essential. Here’s what I use a word processor for...
Cheap Technology and The Ordinary Pastor

Cheap Technology and The Ordinary Pastor

by | Mar 30, 2009 | Featured Articles, Pastoral Ministry, Technology, Time/Life Management

I’m seriously considering leaving the world of Microsoft behind and going for something less expensive, easier to use, and more portable?  Does anything out there exist like this? And if I leave my Office 2007 behind, will I be left behind in a whirlwind of little productivity? I really do enjoy using Microsoft Office 2007. It has been a very helpful system for me since the day it came out. They’ve really done a bang-up job on the bells and whistles. I love being able to post blog entries from Word. The visual enhancements to pictures, charts, and graphs are so far beyond previous versions of Office (not near the quality of the Mac world, but then again, few ordinary pastors can afford to live in the Mac world). I’m addicted to Outlook. I’ve never quite understood why people are down on Outlook. It’s been my right hand man for years. Outlook is one of the best organizational tools I have employed in ministry. I could go on. I really enjoy Office. But there is one thing I do not like about it. It is expensive. Whether the Mac version or the PC version, it is simply downright expensive. Until recently, Microsoft had us right where they wanted us. There were no other truly inexpensive options. True, Word Perfect was out there, but then again, you were stuck in the Corel Corral and could not interact with the rest of the world who was using and sharing Word docs. That may not be so now. Google is hot on their trail. Calendar is excellent and now boasts of offline...

iPhone Office

by | Mar 16, 2009 | Technology

Yep, the iPhone has my technological smartphone heart.  I should really blog about it-so, until then, here’s 100 ways to productively use your iPhone (or 100 reasons why you should switch to one). iPhone Office: 100 Ways to Turn Your Device into the Ultimate Productivity Tool | Internet Service...