Thoughts and Non-Thoughts

as you can probably tell

It’s true, because this is on the internet

Thought it was time to get some certifications so I took my A+ exam and passed with no problems (still got nervous enough)

Well yesterday was an exciting day, I set up a video conference call during the morning worship service at church with one of our missionaries in the Republic of Georgia. Juan had come from our church and his family still attends so it was an exciting time for all. A couple weeks ago, I had set up his sister’s notebook on the church’s wireless connection so that she could video conference with him with skype. While I was setting up the laptop, he happened to be online and I initiated a video chat with him. Pretty soon the whole church office was in the sound booth talking with Juan and Shirley. I made the comment that we could do this on the projector and that got things started.

The sound booth computer already had an internet connection and a hookup to the audio from the soundboard (both in and out). All I need was a video capture card so that Juan and Shirley could see us. After pricing some cards on newegg.com, I remembered that I had a TV card with video-in lying around my computer work area. So I popped that in and we were good to go.

In an interesting twist, Shirley’s Grandfather had passed away the week before. So she was actually in the congregation as we talked to Juan on the big screen. After Juan got done talking and answering some questions, Shirley got up to speak. At this point it dawned on me that there was no reason to hang up on Juan. So I just moved his video off the projector screen and allowed him to watch and listen to his wife speak, and he continued to watch the rest of the service.

Now Juan and Shirley may be watching all our services online.

Well I installed skype about a year ago or so to try it out. While I wasn’t unhappy about the quality, I didn’t like being tied to the computer and wasn’t quite ready to buy a skype phone or a gateway. Well that just changed. I called my sister on Skype the other day and noticed that my skype credit did not decrease. Skype is cheap, but it wasn’t free, so I did a little checking and lo and behold, Skype is free for US and Canadian calls until the end of the year. So now I am buying a gateway so that I can use my regular cordless phone with skype. My wife will never stop talking to her sisters now 😛

www.skype.com

Well my webhost (www.1and1.com) has started offering a blog with all their packages. So I thought I’d give blogging a chance.

If you want a good, inexpense webhost, I would definitely recommend 1and1.com. After setting up my church’s website (www.evangelaog.com) with 1and1, I was so impressed with the value, I got myself a domain.

Well anyway, this is my first post. Hopefully there will be more to follow.

Darryl out