Tech Tips for Catholics

Today, you may have noticed that the leading, trending topic around lunchtime was “No God”.  Apparently, Christians all over Twitter tried to get the trending topic to be “No God, no peace; know God, know peace.”  Not a bad goal, except for the fact that Twitter only picked up “No God” and “Know Peace”.

But, I don’t think all has #failed.  More and more people are talking about it now than had the plan worked as intended.  It’s funny how God works.  He can take something bad and turn it into something good.

As always, feel free to comment. God Bless : )

Many of you know that my son Eric is in the throes of applying to college. It’s likely during the next several months that I’ll be writing a great deal on this topic, not only for those of you with high school seniors, but also for those with younger children too. You’d be amazed how quickly this process sneaks up on you, and it seems impossible to be “overprepared” to apply to college.

So many things have changed since I applied to college, including the many technological advances that now exist. So when I ran across this USA Today article this week entitled To friend or not to friend? College admissions in the age of Facebook, it caught my eye immediately. This article deals with the ethical issues that surround college admissions officers’ use of social networking sites. Here’s an amazing statistic from the article:

While 86% of college students have a Facebook account, according to a 2008 survey by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, only 13% of the 401 admissions officials surveyed this year say their schools have a policy about interacting with students on social networking sites, Olson says. “That’s the picture of the changing landscape that we are in right now.”

I’m certain that most of you with teens who are online are carefully supervising your kids’ use of tools such as Facebook. But it’s worth having a discussion today about the types of “friends” your child should be accepting online. We had a personal experience of this during the summer, when Eric received a personal letter from the Dean of Admissions at an Ivy League school. This professional shared all of the usual information about their wonderful college and then invited Eric to be his “friend” on Facebook. Thankfully, I was standing nearby when my son zealously grabbed the letter and headed to the computer. I was able to stop him and have an immediate conversation about the propriety of this use of Facebook. While I’m certain that the college official in question is likely simply using Facebook as another marketing tool, we were able to discuss the importance of Eric’s personal profile – both his own postings there and what his friends write on his profile.

It seems that history is now being written about the role of Social Networking profiles in the college admissions process. We’ve always discussed around our home the need for Eric to have the attitude that his Facebook profile serves in a way as his “online resume”. In other words, don’t post (or allow the posting of) anything you wouldn’t want a potential college or future employer to consider.

For those of you who use Facebook or have teens who are on any social networking site, I’m curious to hear how you handle these issues around your home. How do you regularly monitor your child’s online presence? Do you feel it is ethical for colleges and universities to consider information posted online as part of the application process? Please chime in with your thoughts!

This post is courtesy of the Productivity @ Home Blog.

If you’ve been using MyChurch.org for an extensive amount of time, as I have, then you’ve probably seen the site go through many changes over the years.  I really miss some of the old features!  One of the features that I really miss is the capability to search blogs.

I contacted the admins and they said that, though you won’t be able to access the feature directly from the site, you can still search blogs by Clicking Here.

A co-worker of mine showed me this video today, and I can’t not share it with you : )

I love the part when the phone rings!

Below are some related links to this topic:

• Is the Net changing the way our brains process information?
• Tune Your Catholic Brain

Over at UniversityParent.com, there is a terrific article entitled Social Media Do’s and Don’ts for College Students.  The facts and ideas presented in this column are important to review with your children of any age who may be using Social Media.  Around our house, my kids are constantly reminded that their Facebook pages are their “online resumes” — future college choices, employers, and even their own parents will be closely watching their online activities and judging their characters as a result.

The information in this article is also pertinent to adults of any age who are active online.  Think twice before you type, post a photo or video, or hit “send”.

This post is courtesy of the Productivity @ Home Blog.

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.

I’ve been a fan of Google’s Calendar feature for a few years, as well as a user of Gmail for all of my email needs since before it came out of beta testing.  Google recently answered one of my personal productivity “wish list” items with its launch of a new “Tasks” management system.

The Tasks, available from Google Labs, enables you to add items to a virtual “to do” list, assign due dates, and document details in notes.  The feature even gives “type A” personalities like me the satisfaction of checking a box when you’ve completed a task and seeing it crossed off your list.

I have been using Google Tasks with both my Google Calendar and with Gmail.  A wonderful feature of the application is the ability to quickly and easily create a task from an email in just a few clicks using keyboard shortcuts.  I tend to keep my email inbox stocked up with items that need my attention, so this new Task feature enables me to confidently add them to my “to do” list and then move them out of the inbox and into files without fearing that I will forget to complete the necessary action item if it’s not sitting in my inbox.

If you are already using Gmail, you will need to go to the “Settings”, click on the “Labs” tab, find “Tasks”, select “enable” and then scroll to the bottom of the page and save your changes.  Once you’ve done this, you can add a task either by keyboard shortcut or by selecting “Add to Tasks” from the “More Actions” menu directly above the email you are reading.

Because the task list resides online, you can access it anywhere you have internet access simply by signing into your Gmail account. If you are fortunate enough to own an iPhone, you can easily access your Google Tasks from your phone.

For a complete overview of the Tasks feature, complete with images and easy to follow directions, visit the Official Gmail Blog.  To integrate Google Tasks with your Google Calendar, visit this post.  The simple integration of these powerful tools and their ready access continues to please this Geek Gal.  I love having access to my data and to do list at any time.  It turns waiting situations into opportunities to cross tasks off of my list, which is always a good thing in my book!

This post is courtesy of the Productivity @ Home Blog.

The #fixreplies hash tag is picking up steam.  A while back, Twitter tested out its new features on noobie users, while older users were pretty much unaware.  Well, the older users have since been introduced to these new features and are not liking them.  And thus, the #fixreplies was born.

I knew of the features, because CatholicTechTip was concidered one of these noobie accounts, while my personal Twitter profile was much older.  So I was aware of the pros and cons to both the old and new systems.

The pros and cons between the old and new Twitter reply settings:

(from the perspective of each side of the argument)

The #fixreplies Tweeple:

• The old system would allow you to see the @replies of your followees directed at tweeple you do not follow.  I may want to join their conversation.
• I like to find new people to follow through my friends’ conversations with other people I don’t already follow.  With the new system, I am unable to do this without having to physically click onto my followee’s profile page.
• If you want your conversations to be private, why not use the Message button?

The #donotfixreplies Tweeple:

• The new system hides the @replies of your followees to tweeple you do not follow.
• I like to reply to my tweeple’s tweets — a lot! And I don’t think you old system people would appreciate seeing all my posts to other people you do not follow.
• The new system keeps really good tweets from being bumped down so quickly.

Which side do you come down on this debate? Tweet us with your response, followed by the #fixreplies or the #donotfixreplies.

How the new reply system works:

(as I understand it)

If you begin a tweet with @user, only the people who are following both twersons will see the tweet.  This cuts down on the clutter.  Chances are, that you would unfollow someone who takes over your browser window with tweets (I would).  But, at the same time we are encourage to have conversations on Twitter.  The new system seems to make sense to me.

So how can we take advantage of the new system? Simple.  If you want your followers to see a conversations whether they are following that person or not, put something in front of the @user.  The new system only hides tweets that begin with @user, but if something preceeds it, all will see.  You could even put the @user at the end of your tweet, which would also allow all to see.  However you decide to do it, the person involved in the conversation will still get a notification on their personal @user page.

I like the new system, and I’ve used both systems.  Some have commented that Twitter should make this an optional feature.  I think this is a good idea.  Then the debate would be, which should Twitter use as the default setting?

Hope I have shed some light on this topic.  God Bless.