Last May we started thinking about the next version of OrthodoxSermons.org, we took comments from our users, studied the market, did some of our own brainstorming and put together a wish list.  We spent six months getting quotes from vendors and evaluating “out of the box” solutions.  We narrowed all the possible options from a list of 20 to 3 and then with some intense comparison and prayer we were able to select Mustardseed Media as a ministry partner for the development of OrthodoxSermons.org 2.0. There are a few things that stick out about Mustardseed:

• 99% of their work is done for Christian Churches & Ministries
• They support the online Christian technology community via their podcast community Geeks & God.
• They are a Drupal shop and are active contributors to the Drupal Community.

You are probably wondering, what did make the final cut on that wish list for OrthodoxSermons.org 2.0?  Here is some of what you can look forward to:

• Improved navigation and search.  Sermons will be categorized and tagged.  Transcripts (if available) will be searchable.
• Ability for churches and organization to upload their own content and feed their content back to their own sites via RSS.
• Support for attaching transcripts of sermons, users can volunteer to transcribe sermons.
• Full audio and video podcast support, compatible with iTunes/iPhone/iPod as well as site wide RSS feeds and RSS feeds on all tags.
• iPhone based site for browsing from mobile Safari.
• Audio and video of sermons can be embedded on your own site, also can be shared by emailing to a friend.

We started the development process a couple weeks ago and are making good headway, we are hoping for launch around the beginning of 3rd quarter, 2009.  If you want minute by minute updates on the development process, I suggest you follow us on Twitter: @amitry, @mustardseedinc, @rob_feature, @suydam.

A few of the early mockups:

Home

Sermon with video and audio

Sermon with only audio

Yesterday, I made a few mistakes and learned a few lessons.  I was at a client site helping them move to VMware.  We decided to switch one of their virtual machines from one VMware ESXi host to another.  They have shared iSCSI storage (EqualLogic SAN), so it should have been a relatively simple procedure.  I made the mistake of not taking a snapshot of the volume before the switch.  While making the switch, something happened to the volume (not sure if it was accidentally removed or if it was some kind of corruption).  We could detect the iSCSI target but it wasn’t showing in the storage list.  When we went to add storage it showed the volume as blank.  The web interface on the SAN still showed the data there, so we knew (hoped) it wasn’t gone.  After a bit of searching I found this forum thread that hints at a possible fix but lists the solution as a call to VMware support.  We called VMware and successfully used this process to restore the volume.

Via console or SSH access:

login as: root
root@XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX’s password:

Tech Support Mode successfully accessed.
The time and date of this access have been sent to the system logs.

WARNING - Tech Support Mode is not supported unless used in
consultation with VMware Tech Support.

~ # cd /tmp
/tmp # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/disks/vmhba32:1:0:0: 549.7 GB, 549763153920 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 524295 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes

Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System

Disk /dev/disks/vmhba32:0:0:0: 549.7 GB, 549763153920 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 524295 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes

Partition table entries are not in disk order
/tmp # dd if=/dev/disks/vmhba32:0:0:0 of=/tmp/ddout bs=1M count=2
2+0 records in
2+0 records out
/tmp # hexdump -C ddout |less
/tmp # fdisk -l /dev/disks/vmhba32:0:0:0

Disk /dev/disks/vmhba32:0:0:0: 549.7 GB, 549763153920 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 524295 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes

Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/tmp # fdisk /dev/disks/vmhba32:0:0:0

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 524295.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/disks/vmhba32:0:0:0: 549.7 GB, 549763153920 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 524295 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes

Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System

Command (m for help): n
Command action
e   extended
p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-524295, default 1):
Using default value 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-524295, default 524295):
Using default value 524295

Command (m for help): t
Selected partition 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): fb
Changed system type of partition 1 to fb (VMFS)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/disks/vmhba32:0:0:0: 549.7 GB, 549763153920 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 524295 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes

Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/disks/vmhba32:0:0:1             1    524295 536878064   fb  VMFS

Command (m for help): x

Expert command (m for help): b
Partition number (1-4): 1
New beginning of data (32-1073756159, default 32): 128

Expert command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/disks/vmhba32:0:0:0: 64 heads, 32 sectors, 524295 cylinders

Nr AF  Hd Sec  Cyl  Hd Sec  Cyl    Start     Size ID
1 00   1   1    0  63  32 1023        128 1073756032 fb
2 00   0   0    0   0   0    0          0          0 00
3 00   0   0    0   0   0    0          0          0 00
4 00   0   0    0   0   0    0          0          0 00

Expert command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
/tmp # vmkfstools -V
/tmp # esxcfg-vmhbadevs -m
vmhba32:0:0:1   /vmfs/devices/disks/vmhba32:0:0:1 42240509-d9375061-f3bd-0018fe7e542e
/tmp #

Twitter is a micro blogging platform that has taken off on the web, the short messages coupled with an easy to use system makes it a natural for techies and non-techies alike.  Here a few resources to get you started.  Make sure to follow me!

Twitter explained:

• Anthony Coppedge’s E-Book, “The Reason Your Church Must Twitter”
• Dean Lisenby on More reasons to Twitter!
• Matt Singley’s New Media Primer: Twitter
• Twitter in Plain English

Desktop Twitter Clients (listed in order of preference):

• TweetDeck
• Twhirl
• Disgby

iPhone Twitter Clients (listed in order of preference):

• Tweetie
• Twitelator Pro
• Twitterific

Full list of apps on the Twitter Fan Wiki

On Wednesday, Google announced they will be no longer allowing uploads to their Google Video service.  Google invites you to use YouTube or Picasa, but the issue for churches is that sermons often exceed the 10 minute cap on video length.  There are several competitors on the market that allow free uploads of any length video (although they still have file size limits).  They all have “premium” accounts available as well.

• blip.tv – 1GB file size limit
• Viddler – 500mb file size limit
• Vimeo – 1GB file size limit

There are also several sites that specialize in servicing the church market such as GodTube, LightCastMedia and TruthCasting.

Who do you use for your video hosting?

Microblogging with Twitter has taken off over the past year, many have moved from longer blog posts to frequent 140 character updates.  Twitter is amazing when you want reach an audience, but what if you want something to use with a certain niche?  Emad Ibrahim, a friend of mine saw the need and was inspired to startup Yonkly.  Yonkly is a hosted, white label solution for creating your own microblog network.

Creating your own microblog network is a good idea if you want something specific to your organization or community.  That way posts don’t get lost in all the noise.  A great example is Christtr, a Christian microblog running on Yonkly. where it asks “How are you living Christ’s word?” instead of  “What are you doing?”

Yonkly is still in beta, I have played around with it and it definitely has a lot better usability and polish then other niche microblogging services I’ve seen.  RSS support, Twitter integration (supports cross posting), an API and a desktop client are all in the works.  I think Yonkly is coming to market just in time and has a lot of potential.

Update: Yonkly now support integration with Twitter.

JellyTelly, a new Christian online video channel from Phil Vischer, the creator of VeggieTales, has launched. For those who are curious, they seem to be using Ooyala to for their video distribution.

I have been quiet over the past month or so because I have been feverishly working on three projects, two for ministry and one for fun/profit.  This week I am ready to unveil one of them, Drew’ Deals, a site where we research and make purchasing recommendations on the latest technology.  The site is geared mainly towards the not so tech savvy consumer who is looking for an educated opinion on what to buy.

God willing, I will be able to announce the release of the two ministry projects in the near future.

P.S. If you are interested in writing for Drew’s Deals, drop me a line.

Follow Drew’s Deals on Twitter.

Google released video hosting for the Premier edition yesterday, I was curious if the Education Edition was going to get any love, lo and behold I received this email today:

Greetings admins!

Video hosting and management have historically been cost-prohibitive and a challenge for IT departments and large organizations. That’s why we’re especially excited to let you know that Google Video for education will be available to Google Apps Education Edition customers starting Monday, September 8th.

With Video, faculty and staff can upload and securely share videos with their student body from within the school’s domain (similar to how people share videos with the world on YouTube). Users who are whitelisted by the administrator can share videos with either select individuals or the entire domain in a matter of minutes. Here are some of the features you’ll find on Google Video for education:

• Whitelist for granting faculty and staff the ability to upload and share videos
• Community features: adding tags, comments and ratings
• Embed videos on web pages, including on Google Sites
• High quality video streaming
• 3GB of video storage per users account for the entire domain

Google Apps Education Edition customers can use Google Video for free for the next six months. Starting March 9th, 2009, Education Edition customers with Video activated will be charged $10 per user, per year. The six month trial is intended to help you and your management team decide if Video is right for your school.

Video will be turned off by default in all Education Edition accounts; you can activate this service from within the Google Apps control panel at anytime.

Once activated, users can get started with video at http://video.google.com/a/YOURDOMAIN.com.

Learn how Video is being used inside Google:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWzwLGJ0BIo

Read the announcement on the Official Google Blog:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/video-sharing-goes-to-work.html

Read the announcement on the Google Enterprise Blog:
http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2008/09/introducing-google-video-for-business.html

Sincerely,
The Google Apps EDU Team

We recently migrated our church staff from Exchange 2003 to Google Apps (link to howto from last years school migration), here are a few things I am sending out to help ease the transition.

Google Apps Help Center - Index to all of the help documentation for Google Apps services.

Browser

• Firefox 3 seems to deliver the best experience with Gmail and the rest of the Google Apps.
• Better Gmail 2 is a Firefox add-on that adds useful extra features such as hierarchical labels, macros, file attachment icons, and more.
• Drag and drop file uploads with the dragdropupload add-on.
• Giving the various Google Apps more of a desktop feel using Prism, a site specific browser that runs on the same engine as Firefox.  Unfortunately no add-on support is available yet.
• Lifehacker: Hack Attack: Become a Gmail master
• Learning Google’s Keyboard Shortcuts, full list for Gmail here.

Docs

• Using Syncplicity to sync folders with Google Docs and vice versa.
• 10 Ways to Use the New Google Docs Productively

Mobile

• NuevaSync allows for contacts/calendar sync via emulated (I’m guessing) Exchange ActiveSync for iPhone and Windows Mobile.  Using IMAP for email.
• GooSync for contacts/calendar sync on Palm OS devices.
• Mobile web and Java interfaces to the various Google Apps.

Offline

• Outlook IMAP and OggSync for contacts/calendar sync.
• Gmail IMAP and Thunderbird
• Search Through Your Gmail Offline With Google Desktop Search
• Google Docs Offline
• Gmail and Google Calendar to Add Offline Support - Google should release this in the next couple of weeks.

Agile Ministry - Weekly Video Pick: Set Me Free

Jason Powell - VMware to release ESX3i for Free!

Protocol-level DNS Flaw via Techdirt.  Make sure your DNS servers are patched (if you are using your ISP’s DNS servers, don’t just assume that you are ok).  For a safe option, use OpenDNS or DNSResolvers.com

TechCrunch - Zimbra Releases Version 3 Of Open Source Email Client, And It’s Awesome