Have you ever purchased new software applications or uploaded a new program only to find that it wasn’t at all what you expected? Congregation Builder, a developer of web based church management software, understands this dilemma and believes you should know what you are getting before you purchase the product. Congregation Builder provides sample pages for all of its software applications, which include web based church management software, web based event registration software, and web based room reservation software.

Web Based Church Management Software

By providing sample pages of its web based church management software application, Congregation Builder allows you to:

? get a feel for the church management software members’ list;
? view how Congregation Builder’s web based church management software printable directory would look;
? simulate the ease of creating small group lists; and,
? see how easy it is to send an email to the congregation or smaller internal groups.

Web Based Event Registration Software

With Congregation Builder’s sample pages you can:

? see the procedure for creating an online sign-up form for your event, using Congregation Builder’s web based event registration software;
? peruse where you would view your previously created sign-up forms and edit them for another similar event;
? view attendee and waiting lists;
? for your pay-to-attend events: see how easy it is for your members to use PayPal for payments;
? and see how easy it is for you to email members an invoice and keep track of payments.

Web Based Room Reservation Software

If you are interested in web based room reservation software that can organize and detail all of your room reservation needs, then you should view the sample pages of Congregation Builder’s church management software to see:

? how useful the administrative calendar would be for your staff;
? the ease with which you would be able to add, view, and edit entries;
? options for printing your administrative and public calendars; and,
? a page which outlines your church’s room schedules and related information.

It all comes down to this…if you want to simplify your church’s important and necessary tasks, Congregation Builder‘s church management software, which includes web based church management software, web based event registration software, and web based room reservation software, then go to Congregation Builder’s website at www.congregationbuilder.com and check out the sample pages for each application available. You’ll be glad you did!

When Starcraft 2 was announced, followers (including myself) shed tears of joy as Tychus Findlay uttered the fateful words: “Hell, it’s about time.” And when you found out about the opportunity to sign up for the open beta you jumped at the opportunity.

Jimmy Raynor, Heaven's Devils.

Like myself, you didn’t get into the beta. (If you did, congratulations and you should be proud.) So you watched videos that HD Starcraft and Husky post onto the Youtube channels, and that kept your fix in check.

Now, I am proud to announce that even you can play the Starcraft 2 beta on your computer. I’ll tell you the catch straight up front — you can’t play against other players online, only against AI bots. But what the hell, that made no difference for me and probably wouldn’t for you.

You need, of course, the Starcraft 2 beta. You can probably find it on some Torrenting sites, but I’m not going to point them out. Do your own dirty work. Haha. Or, if you’re in university, you can get it off your DC++ network! It’s approximately 1.68GB in size, shouldn’t take anymore than a night to download.

Once downloaded, head over to the Teknogods forums using this link: http://teknogods.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2229 and download the launcher (but follow the instructions on the page, please). This launcher allows you to directly start a SC2 game without going through SC2. And that’s basically it, you can now play SC2.

With that said, you will probably run into an issue. There will be an antivirus warning claiming that the launcher is a piece of spyware or a trojan. This is because it is a piece of third-party software that illegitimately accesses SC2 and forces it to start the game. So it is kind of malicious. But it shouldn’t harm you.*

So, fellow Starcraft 2 lovers, game on and enjoy. Tell me what you think of SC2!

Image source: http://us.starcraft2.com/screenshots.xml

*I am not responsible for what happens to your computer, use at your own risk. But for what it’s worth, it hasn’t harmed me yet. The juice is definitely worth the squeeze.

Not any longer. Lifehacker‘s recent post on Lucid Lynx contains screenshots that are mindblowing; they feature a new “Zune-themed” GUI, with a combination of purple, black, and orange touches. I really dig it.

Other than that, there a ton of features that should not be overlooked; new applications, new social networking capabilities, etc. I’ve only gotten a minor chance to look at this news, so by all means check it out! And download the VirtualBox image and test it for yourself (it can be found in the Lifehacker link).

For the cause.

The GUI’s acceptable (sorry, I can’t think of another word for it); the blue kind of matches Windows XP’s colour scheme (not Vista or Windows 7 though), the buttons have a light shadowed gradient and don’t have that millenium-glassy look that a lot of programs go for (thank the Lord). Everything seems pretty simple and accessible, which is a green light in my books.

Likely it’s just my virtual environment, but I found Double Anti-Spy to be awfully slow – I realize that it’s not the most fair judgment, but understand this: a lot of computers, both in corporate and small business environments, aren’t equipped with the latest dual-core processors or anything more than 512mb of RAM (my virtual environment precisely). I’d really like to see Double Anti-Spy’s client get streamlined a lot more so it performs more efficiently – heck, I’d like to see all anti-virus programs slimmed down.

A plus: Double Anti-Spy’s background process doesn’t take up that many resources (100mb is alright, right?) and doesn’t noticeably slow down my computer too much.

Double Anti-Spy automatically quarantined the EICAR test file and rendered it inaccessible; I couldn’t even locate it in the Downloads file. Kudos! (And yes, I turned it off and downloaded it and let Double Anti-Spy scan my computer – it detected the EICAR file.)

I really like the automatic quarantine; it’s been a while since I’ve used a Windows machine, and while there are many freeware antivirus programs out there, I think that Double Anti-Spy’s got some features that I’m really impressed with (automatic quarantine!). For $29.99USD on Amazon.com, the price is comparable to Norton’s Internet Security 2010 – which has a pretty good reputation. Either way, I think $30 is relatively cheap if you really want to pay – but why not give free antivirus programs a try?

Firstly, I had to buy a new version of Office. When mine was totally fine. Stupid.

Then Photoshop. Stupid.

Stupid, but at least do-able. I was able to get my hands on these items (which can be acquired by other “torrent”-ial means, I’ll just say) and install them into OS X. And they worked like a charm!

Friends over at APH Networks also introduced me to Darwine and TRiX, and I was able to get some Windows applications running. Most unfortunately, Windows Live Writer just wasn’t one of them (apparently some .NET incompatibilities were the cause or something like that).

Anyway, that was that. For a month, I’d had to write using WordPress’ built-in service. I tried Qumana, but that was mediocre (no offense) – even though it was easily the best out of all the free OS X blog publishing software I could find. Downgrading from Windows Live Writer to Qumana was probably the only negative to my transition to OS X.

So I finally took the dive and got Windows XP.

Similarly, I downloaded a piece of FREE software by the name of VirtualBox; in comparison to the software Parallels and VMware Fusion (both paid solutions), VirtualBox was free and still comparable. I finally got Windows Live Writer back on OS X, running simultaneously with all my OS X programs.

You must be wondering how I did it.

1. Get your hands on Windows XP. Preferably Professional, as always.

2. Get VirtualBox. http://www.virtualbox.org/

3. Create a new machine in VirtualBox, and don’t forget to go into Settings and make sure your computer’s optical drive is in-sync with the virtual computer.

4. Insert Windows XP into your optical drive, boot your new virtual machine and install Windows XP.

4i. Go into Devices, and install guest additions. Trust me, they’re a huge help (especially in adjusting screen resolution, whew).

That’s it! 4 simple steps, probably takes you an hour or two. And now you have Windows XP on OS X, and not using dual-boot (rebooting is so 1999). Haha.

I never really knew what to do with iCal before because I never had a need for it — I never planned my days because they were so rigid; school would be from 8AM-3PM, I’d do homework until around 6PM, and then do whatever until 8PM, when I’d eat dinner. And then, I’d do whatever.

But I’ve realized that those days are long gone, and aren’t coming back anytime soon (oh sweet summer, why won’t you arrive sooner?). And if I were to gain an edge over other students, and survive this semester of university, I would have to step up my game. Everyone’s focused, and everyone’s determined to be the best. How could I separate myself from the rest of the pack?

I decided firstly to make the most use of my time. I decided that I’d focus on whatever I was doing at the time, so I could work hard and produce good work for a series of days (getting into the flow of work), and then enjoy my time the rest of the days. How would I go about doing this?

Planning, friends. Planning.

I’ve decided to make it a habit before I go to sleep to open iCal and figure out what I would do with my day. I usually have a morning lecture (for about an hour or two), then a long break and an afternoon lecture. This can be seen as a beautiful or a disgusting thing; if I didn’t use the time wisely, then my day would end late and I’d have to do homework. If I did manage to use this time well, then I would be able to do some work, reinforce my learning, and possibly even kill the workload so I wouldn’t have to do it after my afternoon lecture.

Sweet.

What do I do with the spare time?

There are a ton of extracurriculars that I hope to be a part of at this university. Not to mention that CutEdge.org could use more updates and more content. I usually enjoy writing articles, because I find that it’s good practise and Lord knows I could use it. But my whole goal is still to be more productive — not to enjoy my time (well, there are times for that — they’re called weekends), but to kill everything so that I can recreate hard on weekends and focus on schoolwork on weekdays.

Here’s an article that I ran into today to inspire me:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203803904574429151858232582.html?mod=rss_careers

Hope I was of some help. I realize that this is taking off in an untraditional CutEdge.org direction, but I do hope to explore not only technologies, but also techniques that help people. And not just useless gadgets that people get sick of so very quickly.

photo credit: Viernest

I’m not a lawyer. Thus, I don’t counsel you on what to torrent — you’re an adult, so I leave that responsibility with you. What I am here to advise you on is how to torrent effectively and efficiently.

I apologize in advance if there’s no actual verb known as ‘torrent’-ing. If it really bothers you, just replace ‘torrenting’ with ‘downloading using a torrent client’.

How do Torrents Work?

Although this is a relevant question, I find it unnecessary to answer this. From my (very) minor understanding about Torrents, they are simply another method to share files peer-to-peer — meaning a piece of a file gets uploaded from one comptuer, transferred, and downloaded to another computer. The interesting part is that if there is a reasonable amount of uploaders (aka seeders) with excellent upload speeds, downloads will be beautifully quick.

I’m not sure I explained that correctly, but again, I don’t think that’s too important. If you insist, however, I suggest reading the following: http://lifehacker.com/285489/a-beginners-guide-to-bittorrent

Let it be known I take care of my followers. Now, to the juicy stuff.

How do I speed up my Torrents?

Firstly, you’ll need a good source — a Torrent with a good ratio of uploaders to downloaders (the greater the uploader-downloader ratio, the better; 80 uploaders and 10 downloaders will be better than 750 uploaders and 100 downloaders, from my experience). I like using Torrent aggregating websites (I prefer ScrapeTorrent.com) because they sort in order of greatest uploader count (not the same as ratio, but it’s usually good enough for me) and they sort trackers from all sorts of websites. I don’t even know what the hell a tracker is.

But, trackers are important. I’ve noticed that updating trackers speed up the torrent download consistently — so if you’re thinking download speeds can be improved, then right click your torrent and select update tracker (in some cases, this might be under Advanced — it’s not that advanced, really).

I’ll tell you something; a good torrent can hit download speeds of up to 700kb/s (again, this could be higher for some people — it all really depends on Internet download speed and whether or not your provider is throttling you — in this case, I suggest checking your client and I recommend Vuze, which notified me and performed the necessary adjustments). However, typically, torrents hit probably 75kb/s — which is respectable, I suppose. Simply leave your computer on for a night, and it’ll be done by the morning’s time (downloads are faster at night too, I figure maybe because people turn computers off — but wouldn’t this affect both uploaders and downloaders and thus cancel it out? Anyway, ignore that if it gets confusing).

Lastly, if for some reason you limited your download speed, remember to set it as “unlimited”. Haha.

Get your Engines Ready

I know that summer’s almost over, but it’s never too late to start torrenting. Whether you’re interested in new technology or distribution methods, torrenting is absolutely essential to explore and provide an interesting service — one definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Capabilities

Rockbox can do a boatload of things with the iPod that the original Apple firmware couldn’t — like using Windows Explorer to import music to your iPod (meaning you don’t have to go through iTunes to upload or download your music), more flexible customizability (you can tweak even the fonts you want to see), and a support for a huge variety of file formats (http://download.rockbox.org/manual/rockbox-h10_5gb/rockbox-buildap1.html). But amongst all these, I found the following to be the deciding factors for me:

1. Themes

There are 14 themes for the iPod Video in the Rockbox Themes Directory. Granted, a good portion of them don’t look too hot, but I think there at least one or two that are pretty eye-catching. It’s just a guess — since there used to be a lot more themes that looked a ton better — but I’m assuming that Rockbox developers removed them due to the lack of Album Art capabilities. Works fine for me. If themes are your major concern, then I’d consider using iPod Wizard to tweak the current iPod theme, and just leave Rockbox alone — but if you’re looking for more than just a theme change, read on.

2. Built-in Gameboy

What? You can play Gameboy on your iPod? Yes. For free. Rockbox can play Gameboy and Gameboy Color files by default (granted, Gameboy Color files might be a bit laggier if I’m not mistaken). All you have to do is a quick Google search for ‘Gameboy Color ROMs’ and a ton of results will pop up. I have two things to warn you about: these sites will be shady, and this is not legal if you didn’t already buy a version of the game. I’ve got a legitimate version of Pokemon Red, so I can play it on my iPod. By the way, always go with Charmander — I know it’s a pain in the ass to play against Brock and Misty, but it’ll pay off.

3. Equalizer

I think the factor that sealed the deal would be the built-in equalizer that Rockbox offers. Unlike the iPod default firmware, which only offers presets (such as ‘Bass Booster’), the Rockbox firmware offers pretty full equalizer that allows you to put more emphasis on different frequencies (I think that’s the word for it). A must-have feature for audiophiles or people that get really into their music (but if you were an audiophile, you’d already be ranting about the shortcomings of the iPod, so I can’t see why you’d have one — haha).

Installation

In the olden days, we had to drag and drop files that we downloaded and unzipped from our desktop to the iPod’s drive directory. Not anymore! With the release of Rockbox Utility, Rockbox is a lot simpler to install (not that it wasn’t simple before), so there’s really no need to write a tutorial (plus I don’t really enjoy writing tutorials that much — sorry folks, there are just too many pictures I have to create, then crop, then upload, and then link to — it’s a heck of a process just for a couple of graphics).

Take the Leap!

If you’re afraid because you haven’t done anything like this before, remember that you can always return to your old firmware via iTunes (the iPod System Restore comes in handy). It can be undone! Just remember — follow instructions to the word, don’t do anything stupid like pull out the iPod USB cord while transferring, and relax. But I’d like to say here that if you do manage to brick your iPod, I hold no responsibility for it.

Good luck.

Design

It’s very…clean.  And I like that.  I was told it ran on the Amazon Cloud OS (alright, you got me — I had no idea what it was, but it sounded really cool), which sort of explains how it stays so clean.  The background is white, and the logo can be customized (I’m saying this for those big companies out there — corporate branding, yay!).  The home page is still, despite its cleanliness, very comfortable and warm thanks to HostedFTP.com’s use of graphics.  And there’s a series of tabs located at the top for navigation, and also just six options ot choose from.  Very un-intimidating.  In fact, it’s downright charming.  I think that a customizable background would have been an interesting feature, though — but nonetheless, it’s still an interesting, “clean” design.

What’s it do?

HostedFTP.com hosts files.  Moreover, it allows a user to send files to contacts (bye-bye, slow e-mail attachments), and receive files from the public.  HostedFTP.com offers various options for both — including file limit sizes from the public.  They also warn you that you never know who’s really trying to send you that file — so buyer beware.

I was kind of disappointed with its previewing though — thumbnails didn’t work for my .doc files, nor did my media stream when I uploaded a .mp3 file.  I expected Amazon’s Cloud OS to be able to do more — but perhaps I overestimated it (it sounded really darn promising).

For slower connections (like my own — hey, I’m not particularly slow, its just that corporations can afford faster Internet), HostedFTP.com offers a “stripped-down” HTML version — and for the speed demons, you can run the Java applet.  I had a bit of trouble with the Java applet, so I tended to stick with HTML.

Speed

A 29-page Word 2003 .doc file, uploaded.  Just like that.  Probably in…two seconds.  No joke.  I was impressed, alright.  I was tempted to upload a Windows 7 beta .iso file on there, but I decided against it (I hear rumours of Rogers limiting uploading/downloading, so I’ve grown a bit paranoid — I think it’s just a phase though).

This is a pleasant change from the pain that attaching files can bring — even in Gmail, my favourite e-mail service, uploading files can take a while (again, depends on the connection).  HostedFTP.com manages to speed things up and remove the storage limit — huzzah!

But would I pay for it?

Hm, if I were a corporate business owner, I would.  If I were a small-business owner, I might not.

The fees aren’t outrageously expensive, but these services — although great — are still a bit on the “luxury” side.  If I were a small-business owner (heck, I am — anyone heard of CutEdge.org?), I’d be trying to reduce my fees, and so I’d learn to live with the slow attachments of free e-mail.  But with big businesses, every second counts — so I’d feel that the trade-off is worth it.  Plus, when I’m in big business, I can afford it (hopefully).

HTC Touch Vogue running Google Android

photo credit: Kai Hendry

Sure, it’s got a bunch of minor bugs and issues for now, but it’s still something to contemplate — once its issues and bugs are gone, I’m definitely going to have to give this a try.