How did I miss this? Back in February, LibreOffice 4 added the ability to import Microsoft Publisher files, even on a Mac. This is huge for me. I have years and years of youth ministry and church resources created in Publisher that I haven’t been able to access on my Mac. If you haven’t heard of LibreOffice, it spun off from OpenOffice and is a great free Office Suite.

LibreOffice is a comprehensive, professional-quality productivity suite that you can download and install for free. There is a large base of satisfied LibreOffice users worldwide, and it is available in more than 30 languages and for all major operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and GNU/Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Suse, …).

Check out http://www.libreoffice.org/features/ for a full listing of features.

I am in the process of moving all the websites I manage over to a new web host. Over the last few years, I have learned a lot and I wanted to share with you what I have learned. Hopefully, this will be helpful to some of you as you decide how to host your websites.

First Step

Starting out, I created my blog on blogger.com. It was free and it introduced me to the world of blogging. It worked great, but I quickly outgrew it and decided to switch to WordPress. If you are starting out and only want to blog, I would now recommend you go with the free WordPress.com. If you decide to go with a self-hosted WordPress.org account, you will need your own hosting account. That leads me to the second step.

Second Step

I setup a Bluehost account for my blog and several other websites I managed. I paid around $4.95 per month at the time for a shared hosting account, and it worked fine for over a year for me. But I started noticing my websites were loading slowly, and I encountered CPU throttling for using too many resources from Bluehost, so I realized I needed to take the next step.

Third Step

After much research, I decided to open a reseller account at Site5. I decided on going with their Cloud Reseller Hosting for $50 per month due to their high reviews and reputation for good customer support and uptime. I’ve been with Site5 for over a year and have used their customer support several times. I have been impressed with their company and would highly recommend them. I’m now up to hosting around 15 WordPress sites, and I have been reaching my resource limits for my hosting account. So I decided to take the next step. I wasn’t impressed by the VPS (Virtual Private Server) accounts that Site5 offered, so I started my research again for a new host.

Fourth Step

Last week, I created a new account with Knownhost.com. They offer a high degree of customization. I went with a Managed VPS account. VPS accounts allow you to easily upgrade or downgrade the resources for your site. So as I add more sites, or if my sites start receiving more traffic, I can add memory or disk space to my account as needed. VPS really allows you to grow and expand. I customized my account with the WHM/Cpanel and a Litespeed webserver with APC Opcode caching and I couldn’t be happier. My sites are loading much faster and I still have room to add additional sites. I have much more control of my hosting now and I’m not paying much more than I did with reseller hosting from Site5. VPS hosting can be a little overwhelming if you don’t have experience in linux or website configuration, but Knownhost does a great job of managing the complicated parts for you.

Conclusion

The four steps listed took place over seven years, so this has not been a speedy process. I don’t know what my next step is, but with VPS hosting, I should have a lot of room to grow.

What do you use to host your sites? Feel free to add any comments or suggestions.

Update: Check out this link for a great infographic about the different types of hosting.

note: All links in this post are advertiser free. No affiliate links will be permitted in the comments.

Along with many other bloggers, I was disappointed when Google announced the end of their Google Reader service. I have used Google Reader for years to keep up with church and technology news from around the internet. So, I decided to check out Google Reader alternatives. Almost every article I read pointed me to a service called Feedly. I’ve been using it for the past week and I love it, so I wanted to share about how you can make the switch.

First, read their blog post about how to migrate to Feedly. Second, sign up for their service. It will automatically import your Google Reader Subscriptions.  And finally, you can switch to the Titles View if you want it to appear more like Google Reader. Feedly also has great mobile apps for your phone or iPad. The best part is that Feedly will continue working after Google shuts down Google Reader.

After a week of using it, I can honestly say that I like it better than Google Reader. Sometimes, it takes a surprise to move us out of a rut and try something new. That’s true in technology and in faith. Feedly is fast, and their iPhone and iPad apps work great. The ability to quickly swipe through posts is a real time saver. Their user-interface is also clean, sleek, and contemporary.

If you want to stay connected to FaithEngineer and you aren’t currently using Google Reader, you can subscribe to my RSS Feed using Feedly or you can even subscribe to my posts by Email. 

I’m waiting to start using a new Mail app that looks promising. The Mailbox app works with Gmail on your iPhone to help keep your email box organized and uncluttered. The app uses quick gestures to archive, delete, or postpone viewing the email until a later date. I’m a little OCD when it comes to keeping my emails organized, so this app really caught my attention. I’ve been using the Gmail app from Google, but it looks slow and old-fashioned compared to this. This app approaches a problem that most of us struggle with, keeping our inbox cleared out so we find, reply, and act on the emails that are important. I’m always fighting to get to Inbox Zero, and this app will really help.

Now for the frustrating part. You have to get in line and wait before you can start using it. They are using a reservation system to slowly roll out invitations for the app. You can see from the image, I still have some time to wait. This is how they describe the app.

We redesigned the inbox to make email light, fast, and mobile-friendly. Quickly swipe messages to your archive or trash. Scan an entire conversation at once with chat-like organization. Snooze emails until later with the tap of a button.

It’s a whole new inbox.

The best way to understand it is to see it in action. I’ll let you know how it truly works once I get to the front of the line.

We’ve used Planning Center Online for church scheduling for several years. We use it now for scheduling our praise team, and we use it for scheduling the flow of our worship service each week. We’ve even used it in the past for children’s ministry volunteer scheduling. It’s a great product, and I wanted to share that they have just released a new service in beta. Planning Center Resources is an online service to manage reservations for rooms and resources in your church. I could see this helping churches who don’t have a full-featured church management software solution.

Check it out at PlanningCenterResources.com and request a beta invite. It’s free until July 1, and they also have a free plan to manage only two rooms. This would work great to handle a community room or fellowship hall.

Twenty years ago, I remember using my 14.4 kbit/s dial-up modem in my college apartment to connect to a server and download Mosaic on the first day it became available on January 23rd, 1993. It was the first real web browser (you can read about the history on Wikipedia). I started using the internet several years before that, but at the time, the content was all text based. If you remember how to use Archie and Gopher, then you are truly an internet dinosaur. The ability to see text and graphics together was groundbreaking, and you could sense that something dramatic had taken place. Instead of private access bulletin boards, information was now available to everyone on the web. Fast-forward through the early web years, HTML, AOL, and increasing connection speeds, and we now have something that is far beyond what anybody could have imagined.

Now, most of us use the internet everyday. We have more computing power in our phones than entire supercomputers twenty years ago. We have wireless broadband internet, and the internet has expanded world wide. Where will the next twenty years take us? Can we even begin to imagine what new technologies will look like in twenty years? I admit that I am somewhat of a technophile, but I am constantly amazed at how life has changed. Now we have a wealth of information immediately available, but we also deal with internet addiction problems, and many are addicted to online services, online porn, and even Facebook.

Do you remember the first time you logged in and “browsed” the internet? Think about how your life has changed. Is it for the better?

If you spend a large amount of time at your computer, it is helpful to consider applications that simplify repetitive tasks and simplify your workflow. Maybe it is my engineering background, but I am constantly on the lookout for apps that make my life easier. Over the last year, I have found these apps to be the ones I use daily. Most of these have free or trial versions, with a paid version offering full functionality. Here are 5 great productivity apps for Mac users.

Alfred

Alfred is a search app that allows you to quickly search for any file on your mac. But it also goes far beyond a search tool and serves as a powerful application launcher. I started with the free version and quickly updated to the Powerpack version to add even more functionality. The powerpack version has a great iTunes miniplayer, contact viewer, global hotkeys, and clipboard history viewer. Visit www.alfredapp.com for more information.

I saw this on Engadget a few days ago and I thought this might be helpful to smaller churches interested in Live-Streaming. Logitech has created a wireless 720p Video Webcam that works with iPods, iPads, and Mac computers.

A church could setup this camera in a convenient location to stream and record through a computer or laptop. Logitech also offers an iPad and iPhone app to control the broadcast . You can then stream the video live through Ustream or Skype. It broadcasts up to 50 feet away from a computer and the retail price is $200.

I can see this being helpful to stream small groups, youth meetings, or even worship services for smaller churches. You can watch the video below to find out more info.

Logitech Broadcaster Wi-Fi Webcam makes it easy to share your passions and interests with the world. Whether it’s streaming a live performance of your band, recording a cooking demo for a blog or showing off a home improvement project over a video call, the Broadcaster lets you present yourself like a pro.