Category Archives: Technology

Church administration, FOSS, Technology

The free and open-source tools I use the most (that non-Linux users can also use)

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After the call for tools, what can you get today?

Free software, as defined by the Free Software Foundation — their office is halfway between old 25 and new 24 — is

means software that respects users’ freedom and community. Roughly, it means that the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. Thus, “free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer”.

Open-source software is software which has code you can review; no hidden “black box” blobs. These aren’t the same thing, even though one often defends the other, and one kind of software is often the other. (But some defenders of one camp will also pick apart the other with a zeal that might be called religious. We won’t be getting into that here.)

In any case, both free and open-source software (together, FOSS) have defined meanings and a set of defined obligations though a family of licenses, the ramifications of which are not particularly clear to newcomers, thus I am suspicious when a non-software project is described as “free and open source” as fuzzy branding and jargon.

Here are the tools.

  • Firefox. Yes, the browser. You may be using it already, and it has developer tools and add-ons (not necessarily FOSS) I use. 
  • LibreOffice. Word processing, spreadsheet, presentation (a la Power Point) and other tools. Makes PDFs natively. I use it daily at work and home. A fork (offhoot project) of OpenOffice.org; the development community seems to have sided with it.
  • VLC Media Player. Plays just about anything you can throw at it, including streams and converts between formats.
  • Inkscape. A vector graphics editor, analogous to Adobe Illustrator. It’s what I’ve used to make the flaming nectarine, the double rings and other oddments.
  • KeePassX. Password creator and manager. Can’t live without it.
  • Brackets. An HTML editor, in rapid development. I’ve not created any sites with it — I don’t write sites from scratch anymore — but I have been noodling with it, and looks promising. A proper review when I use it more.

What’s needed across platforms? (Please comment if you know one that’s cross-platform and free and open-source.)

  • PDF reader (though there’s a plugin for Firefox)
  • a good low-distraction text editor (like iA for Mac; I use UberWriter)
  • FTP client (though there’s a plugin for Firefox) Filezilla, see comments.
  • color themer (can use certain web services)
  • photo manager
  • score editor (for that new hymnal)
FOSS, Freedom, Technology

We need free and open-source tools for our work

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It’s not enough for some of us to sprinkle a handful of digital resources into liberally-licensed common use. I think we should be more demanding about the kind of tools we use to wake them: software that is free to use, free to share and (if we have the skill) free to build upon. Our output should be in formats unencumbered by patents; we need te free to open our files in the future.

This kind of freedom is often expressed as term like “free as in freedom” but they are also usually free of charge. This allows us to experiment with no added financial risk: no small thing.

And it’s not a pipe-dream. I’ve used Linux on the desktop at home and work for almost a decade. But I know the Linux market-share is still pretty small, so I intend to point out tools that are available for Linux (so I can test them) and at least Windows or Mac, but preferably both. (And considering that the still-popular Windows XP is coming to its end of life in April, considering a Linux future for those machines will keep them useful and out of landfills. Like in China. Or Germany.)

I’ll be writing about these tools in the future. But the Hungarian-Transylvanian Unitarians do this today.

Design and typography, Technology

This blog in five themes, on my phone

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So, continuing the thread about the “twenties” default WordPress themes, I thought I’d see what this blog would look like in an untouched version, Twenty Ten to Twenty Fourteen. (I’ve already tweeked Twenty Thirteen for this blog, and while I adore each of you, I’m not reverting it for this blog post.)

I chose this blog so I wouldn’t be thought to be picking on (or praising) a particular congregation. Will pick up on what this may mean later.

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Mobile view of this blog in Twenty Fourteen
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This blog in Twenty Twelve

 

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This blog in Twenty Eleven

 

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This blog in Twenty Ten, as it loaded
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This blog in Twenty Ten, pinched to make it readable
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The Twenty Thirteen theme, with some text sizing modifications
Technology, Unitarian Universalist family matters

What do these Unitarian Universalist websites have in common?

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Since 2010, the WordPress blogging and content management platform has released a special, eponymous theme for the year. Why is this important? WordPress is easy to stand up, free for the cost of your hosting and domain registration, easy to add content to and easy to integrate with some other services. I’ve used it for this blog for years; organizations great and small use it for their webpage. Including Unitarian Universalist churches.

These are only the ones who use a featured “annual” default theme. And if you can get a good (or good-enough) website without a lot of fuss, why not?

So what themes do congregations use? What features do they leave untapped? What’s best for mobile devices? All of those questions can wait for later; for now, see the congregational sites that use one of these default themes. (I’ve put the membership count in parentheses; quite a nice range.) See how each makes the theme their own.

Twenty Ten (a sample version of the template)

  1. Auckland (New Zealand) Unitarian Church (38)
  2. Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Paris (66)
  3. Unitarian Universalists of Petaluma, California (86)
  4. Pagosa Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Pagosa Springs, Colorado (36)
  5. Magic Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Twin Falls, Idaho (24)
  6. Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Madison County, Richmond, Kentucky (36)
  7. All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church of Shreveport, Louisiana (109)
  8. Unitarian Universalist Congregational Society of Westborough, Massachusetts (111)
  9. Red Hill Universalist Church, Clinton, North Carolina (16)
  10. The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Sandhills, Whispering Pines, North Carolina (emerging)
  11. Durham (New Hampshire) Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (52)
  12. Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Franklin, New Hampshire (35)
  13. Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Otero County, Alamogordo, New Mexico (28)
  14. Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Klamath Falls, Oregon (33)
  15. Unitarian Universalist Church of the North Hills, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (210)
  16. Unitarian Universalist Church of Chattanooga, Tennessee (133)
  17. First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Antonio, Texas (407)
  18. Washington, Vermont Universalist (UU) Church (19)
  19. North Chapel, a Universalist Congregation located in Woodstock, Vermont (162) (Twenty Ten variant)
  20. Olympia Brown Unitarian Universalist Church, Racine Wisconsin (319)
  21. Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Charleston, West Virginia (105)

Twenty Eleven (sample version of the template)

  1. Marquette (Michigan) Unitarian Universalist Congregation (53)
  2. Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Duluth, Minnesota (225)
  3. Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Upper Valley, Norwich, Vermont (79) (Twenty Eleven variant)

Twenty Twelve (sample version of the template)

  1. Unitarian Universalist Church, West Lafayette, Indiana (176)
  2. Unitarian Universalist Church of Roanoke, Virginia (195)

The Council of Christian Churches Within the Unitarian Universalist Association site, which I manage, and my universalistchurch.net also uses this theme.

Twenty Fourteen (sample version of the template)

  1. All Souls UU Church, Brownville, Texas (5)

You may ask about thu Twenty Thirteen theme; you’re looking at it. I haven’t found a church that uses it for their main site; and I don’t think it’s best suited for it anyway.

Design and typography, Technology

Reviewing Unitarian Universalist websites

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For the last three days, I’ve made quick-and-dirty survey of all Unitarian Universalist congregational websites. Most are acceptable, if improvable. Some very good. But too many are homely, underpowered or just plain ugly. About 18 are down or broken, at least right now. Two or three have let their domains expire. And some congregations have no web presence at all. And what about mobile devices?

As I go through the hundreds of websites — getting an impression of the front pages — I’m sorting some of them into the following categories:

  • The very basic (though not necessarily bad)
  • The shockingly ugly (though perhaps technologically serviceable)
  • Those which use very slightly altered WordPress default templates
  • Lost or non-loading sites

In addition I’ve been taking notes; I’ve found three examples of the new UUA logo already in use, in case anyone was curious. One. Two. Three.

Without embarrassing any particular congregation (but I might praise a couple) I’ll report on what I found later. An actionable step away our too-common culture of shabbiness.

Liminal places, Technology

Crazy snow coming? Download Pocket

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To my dear Southern friends, family and readers:

A once-in-a-generation snow and ice storm is coming in on you. You have plenty of bread and milk (right?) but now face Internet-free boredom.

My suggestion? Put the Pocket app on every mobile device you have. Then add the plug-in for your browser and store as many interesting webpages — might I suggest this blog? — you can. You’ll have them even when the Internet goes down. More entertainment value than the weather-band radio. (Which you should have, too.)

I also use Pocket as a scrapbook to come back to stories I want learn more about, or write on. I also use it for in-flight (and on-train) entertainment.

Also, are your power lines prone to come down? Stay off your laptop. Save the battery to charge your phone instead. Stay safe.

Blog administration, Technology

Quick lessons for web site builders

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Or perhaps I should say, “quickly learn some tools because a part of the church website isn’t doing what it should and I can’t find help” or “I don’t want to sound like an idiot when meeting with the web person we got.” Or, “I want a hobby and jet aircraft are expensive.”

Don’t Fear the Internet is a charming series of seven short videos that outline the basics. It’s clearly a work in progress (or halted in its tracks) so don’t expect to use PHP and you won’t need the FTP program mentioned early on. But it describes some things that took me much more effort to learn the first time, and shows how less can be more.Prepare to use skills between each video before starting the next. But even with a bit of noodling, you can get through much or all of it in two hours. And how many learning experiences can you say that of?