Tech Tips for Catholics

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a MyChurch.org tip.  Well, they have been doing some tinkering around and one the new features that I am pretty excited about is the ability to sinc your Twitter account to your MyChurch.org update status.  It is pretty easy to setup, but just in case you need a little guidance, I am posting this little how-to.

What will this do? When you post a tweet to Twitter, it will automatically update your MyChurch.org status as well.

Step 1: Log into MyChurch.org and sinc your Twitter by clicking the icon shown below from the status update page.  Then click the “Integrate Your Twitter Account” link and allow Twitter to share information with MyChurch.org.

Step 2: Post to Twitter.

Step 3: The tweet is then automatically posted to your MyChurch.org update status.

Simple as that!

Over a year ago, I suggested they figure out a way to integrate Ping.fm with MyChurch.org and they were going to look into it.  I think with this new sinc feature, there really is no need to integrate Ping.fm, unless of course the user only wanted certain key updates to their status (rather than posting all tweets to their status update).

Hope this tutorial has been beneficial to some of you.  God Bless.

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This Saturday (June 27, 2009) is the second annual Catholic New Media Celebration! This year the celebration is being held in San Antonia, Texas.

In case you missed last night’s San Antonio radio interviews about the Catholic New Media Celebration Click Here.

So whether you are attending or not, here are some great sites to follow the festivities, speakers, musicians, and anything else going on at CNMC 2009:

SQPN.com will be the headquarters for streaming video, live tweets, and a place to virtually hang out during the celebration.

TweetGrid.com is a great way to follow multiple #hashtags during an event such as #cnmc09.  If you post any pictures with the according #hashtag via TwitPic, TweetPhoto, yFrog, or the such, a thumbnail of the image will appear within TweetGrid.  Pretty cool!

HashTags.org is a great way to see stats on a particular #hashtag.  Though it does not post all tweets relating to a particular #hashtag, it is a neat way to find other people who are tweeting about specific hash-tags.

Of course there is TweetDeck and other sites that may also be useful to follow live events — What are you using?  Let us know.

About a month ago, I participated in a blog discussion where the topic of Bishops, Priests, and the Religious posting blogs, but not having the know-how came up.  Many clergy are comfortable using word processing programs (e.g. Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, ect.), but get overwhelmed when they hear the term “blog”.  This is where the Sun Weblog Publisher extension for OpenOffice 3 can bridge the gap between word processing and the blogesphere.

This tutorial will walk you through the process of installing Sun Weblog Publisher (assuming you already have OpenOffice 3 or higher installed).

Let’s get started:

Step 1: From the Sun Weblog Publisher extension page, click the “Get it!” button.

Step 2: When the following window opens, just use the default setting and click OK.

Step 3: A box will pop up asking if you are sure that you want to install the extension.  Click OK.

Step 4: After you have agreed to the terms and the installations has taken place, click the “Options” button.

Step 5: Choose the type of blog you have (assuming you have already set up a blog on one of the supported blog formats), fill in the corresponding information, and click OK.

You should now be all setup.  Feel free to ask any questions in the comments section.

Here is a screenshot of the Extension in action.

Click Here to view other How-To’s.

Every Friday I post the top 5 favorite blogposts that I’ve come across throughout the week. You have all weekend now to check them out : )

1. Twitter Co Founder Speaks to Catholic Media Convention
2. The Lost Art of Confession (Orthodox Series)
3. New Super Mario Bros Sneak Peak
4. The Stem Cell Debate is Dead?
5. New U.S. Catholic Statistics

*Bonus Tweet

If you have a blogpost that you would like to share with me feel free to contact Catholic Tech Tips and I will get it.

Have a great weekend!

Joshua

Q. Whenever I try to publish my video in Vista’s Movie Maker, the program freezes and shuts down. I get a message that says “Windows Movie Maker has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.” I restarted the computer, tried publishing to CD, etc. Nothing has worked. Any suggestions? Thanks much.

A. There are a couple of things that could be causing this error message to occur, but I would suspect that there is either a setting or another program interfering with Windows Movie Maker.  First try the “Debug” if you have not already done so.  Chances are, it won’t fix the problem.

Here are a few steps that may help:

Step 1: Open Windows Movie Maker and go up to Tools > Options…

Step 2: Once you are in the Options menu, click on the Compatibility tab.  If you have an old version of Nero installed, chances are this is what is causing the problem.  Uncheck any setting that has “Nero” in its name.  If you do not see any “Nero” decoders, then uncheck one setting at a time; testing it throughout the process.

Step 3: If this does not work, and you are still getting the error message, then try downloading: Nero General Clean Tool.

Hope this helps.

If you have a computer question, let us help!  Contact Catholic Tech Tips.

Every Friday I post the top 5 favorite blogposts that I’ve come across throughout the week. You have all weekend now to check them out : )

1. WWJD with Technology (5-Part Series)
2. Get HD WordPress Video with VideoPress
3. Kid-Friendly Computer Options
4. The Massive List of Nominations received for the 2009 Catholic New Media Awards
5. Logos Bible Software for Catholics

*Bonus Tweet

If you have a blogpost that you would like to share with me feel free to contact Catholic Tech Tips and I will get it.

Have a great weekend!

Joshua

Grassroots Films is touring their award-winning film, “The Human Experience” in Rome this week.  My wife, Shanon, and I had the privilege of screening this film last Thursday in Cleveland, Ohio.  It exceeded my expectations!  It is a movie that will make you feel somewhat uncomfortable at times, but also joyful other times.  This movie will make you laugh, cry, it will humble you, inspire you, and challenge you.  Hopefully, it will make you a better person.

After the movie, Jeffrey Azize and Michael Campo were there for a Q&A session, which I so wish I would have recorded!  There were some really good questions, and some even better answers.  Jeff and Michael were both very genuine and humble guys.  They mentioned that one of the questions often posed to them is, “Will there be a sequel?”  It is their prayer that each person who sees this film will be inspired to live out the sequel in our own lives.  I really hope that they put a sort of Best of Q&A on the DVD when it comes out.

If you get a chance to go see this movie, it is so worth the time and money.  I was surprised to see all the young people there as well.  I ran into a seminarian, who resided at our Parish all last summer.  And I was surprised to see our Parish Priest’s 2nd cousin, who is also a Priest in the Cleveland diocese there as well.  What a small world!

Oh Yeah!  You might also be interested to know that Grassroots Films are the ones who did these films as well:

Below are some related links to this topic:

• Review: The Human Experience
• R.E.C.: Catholic Filmmakers Showcase

Every Friday I post the top 5 favorite blogposts that I’ve come across throughout the week. You have all weekend now to check them out : )

1. Greg’s iPhone Apps
2. Evangelizing In the Digital Age
3. The ScamWOW! (Read the first comment left by GuitarMom too)
4. Why do Catholic Bishops wear funny hats?
5. iViaCrucis - now for iPhone!

*Bonus Tweet

If you have a blogpost that you would like to share with me feel free to contact Catholic Tech Tips and I will get it.

Have a great weekend!

Joshua

While searching my Church’s address on Google Maps, I stumbled upon some interesting things.  Firstly, I noticed that the Google 360° Mobile must have driven through our town during the Annual Free Street Fair, which meant that the main street was pretty much closed an a detour was in order.  Secondly, I noticed that two guys from the Lutheran Church were sitting in chairs, waiting to park any cars that might be attending the festivities.   Then from there, I rotated the camera and that’s when I noticed the kid from Trinity Community Church either tripping, or having a dance-off with the dudes from the Lutheran Church!

If the poor kid was tripping, then my heart goes out to him, but if he was doing the worm, then I give him props, because that is sweeeeet!

We report, you decide ; )

If you come across any weird or odd images on Google Maps’ Street View, let us know about em’!  God Bless.