I got to have a great conversation with Robert Hatfield over at The Light Network about Getting a New Computer this week on his show Preachers In Training. It's very similar to the episode of Ministry Bits on Moving to a Mac this week as well, only Robert said and mentioned everything I didn't and in a much more eloquent way. So that's good.
Give episode 40 a listen over at TheLightNetwork.tv or listen in iTunes.
Below is the audio, notes, and slides for a sermon I preached this past Sunday evening at Church Street. It was originally first taught as a class at Restore, a family conference put on by Chase Park Church of Christ in Huntsville, AL back in August 2013. I'm happy to share it with you today.
Well that was fast.
I am privileged and honored to announce today that Ministry Bits, my new audio podcast, is going to be a part of the AIM Network. The AIM Network, or Adventures in Ministry, is a network run by Paul Spurlin in Montgomery, Alabama. They offer lots of free materials through their AIM Project website, as well as Podcasts, Devotional Songs, links, articles, and many other things. They work in close conjunction with Faulkner University and the Southern Evangelism Conference.
It's a huge, wonderful step for Ministry Bits. We hope that even more people can become part of the network of ministers helping each other use the tools of technology for the betterment of the Kingdom of God.
Nothing will change on the podcast - you'll still see and be able to listen to the shows here on the site or through iTunes. The shows will shortly be available on the AIM site as well as the AIM app.
In addition to joining AIM's complement of podcasts, Paul and his gang are bringing me on in a design capacity as well. I hope that I can help them out and get these great materials and resources to the most ministers and youth ministers possible.
The AIM Network is growing and expanding. I'm glad to be aboard.
One of the things God has blessed me with was the ability to know stuff about technology that most other people don't know. I don't say this because I'm an expert (because I'm not), I say this because every day I come across someone who surprises me with either their knowledge or lack thereof about technology.
I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Youth Ministry Workshop at the Freed-Hardeman Lectureships this past week - and I was on the other side of the table. I know a lot of stuff about technology - maybe too much. But I learned about new ways of doing things, new apps, new ways to create apps - stuff I had literally never heard before.
So my new podcast I (re)started about 2 weeks ago is just that. It's about technology - both the tools we can use and the lessons we can learn from it in ministry. It's called Ministry Bits, and you don't have to go too far to listen.
There are lots of people in the ministry that you and I know that are good at a lot of different things. Some are good at graphics. Some are good at using technology to preach and teach. So how can we use their knowledge to make our ministries better? We can see how they did it.
If we want to be like Christ, we need to do the things he did. If we want to use technology effectively in our ministries, then we need to do the things that effective people do.
Ministry Bits is an attempt to cobble together all this knowledge into one weekly podcast, so that everyone can listen and benefit. We will have guests in the coming weeks talk about perspectives on technology in ministry, reading, writing, and teaching and preaching in ministry. I hope that you the listener will benefit greatly from their knowledge and experience. We'll have shows on apps, workflows, and gadgets to use in ministry.
Thank you in advance for supporting the new podcast. It's going to be a great ride.
You can check out Ministry Bits right here on the website, or you can subscribe with iTunes in your favorite podcast client for easy listening. Shows run 25-30 minutes, no more. Your time is valuable. If you have a request, a comment, or would even like to be on the show, give me a shout at chad.landman@gmail.com.
Ten or fifteen years ago, you could have gotten away with not backing up your computer. Digital photos and great smartphone cameras we're quite common yet, we still used paper for things, and with the exception of a few things, our lives weren't yet totally on our computers. Fast-forward 15 years, and here we are with portable computers in our pockets. We have thousands upon thousands of digital photos and videos. We communicate through email and messaging. We live on social networks.
And very few of us back all that data up.
One out of every two computer users (which is pretty much everyone) will have a negative computer event in their lives every year. That could mean a computer crashing, a hard drive failing, or some natural disaster like flood or fire taking out your digital devices.
The cardinal rule with backups is three backups on every machine - two on-site and one off. That means you need to have a backup, a backup for your backup, and an off-site backup (either on another HD at another physical location or through a service online like Crashplan).
But most of us won't do it, because we're too busy to do it and too lazy to figure it out. And one day, it will cost you.
Don't let 2014 be the year that you lost everything.
With the cheapness of hard drives these days (even ultra-fast Solid State Drives are coming way down in price) you can get a lot of storage for not a lot of money.
First, identify your needs. If you're a grandparent and have a bunch of documents to keep up with, but not a lot of photos or videos, then you probably don't need a Drobo storage array with 10 terabytes of storage. If, on the other hand, you're like me and you have small children and a wife that documents their every move, then you may need a 2 terabyte drive to backup all those photos and videos. Those are things you can't get back.
Determine the size of your computer and devices. If you have a 500 gigabyte HD on your main laptop or desktop at home, using an external hard drive to store your photos isn't considered a backup. You need those files somewhere else. Make copies of all your important stuff (documents, photos, videos) and have them on a separate HD that you update on a regular basis, like every week. Keep that HD in a waterproof and fireproof safe for extra security.
Utilize off-site services. All of my documents are stored in Dropbox because I have referred enough people to the service that I have ample storage space for project files, Photoshop documents, Word and Excel files, and other things. I know that my computer could be absolutely destroyed and I could fire up Dropbox on another computer and my files would be there. But I don't ever trust services fully either - I make a copy of my Dropbox folder to an external HD every month on top of my weekly backups. As far as photos and videos, you need a copy of those on an external HD, but you can also utilize services like Flickr and Shutterfly as an off-site backup for your photos and YouTube and Vimeo for videos. One bit of advice on that: don't use new services. Only use services that have been established. You don't want to put all your eggs into one basket and have that service go bankrupt or fail. Just ask users of Everpix what I'm talking about.
Make it happen. Write it on the calendar, put a note on the fridge - do whatever you have to do to make a regular backup of your computers and devices. Most devices will back up to your computer and then you can, in turn, restore them from that backup. Most HDs offer plug-and-play features to where you can just plug the HD in and it does its thing to make a full backup. And if you can't figure it out, find someone who can or watch a YouTube video about it.
Again, don't let 2014 be "that year we lost all our family photos."
Back up. Today.