Archive for June 14th, 2005

If you’re reading this…

Tuesday, June 14th, 2005

….the we have (finally!) moved to our new server. DNS propogation takes a wee while, so not everyone will get here immediately, but if you can see this, then you’re allowed to post again…..

[edit] Whoops – there was a little mixup with regards to how much space we had, which meant that there may have been issues last night for some people wanting to add stuff. Should all be resolved now. [/edit]

mrBen

New software

Tuesday, June 14th, 2005

I’ve been playing with a couple of bits of new software, and I thought I’d share the joy ;)

Bitlbee is a clever little server program that acts as a gateway between your IRC client and Instant Messaging protocols (Jabber, MSN, AIM, Yahoo!, ICQ, etc) – what this means in reality is that you can chat to people on IM as if you were PMing them in IRC. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but actually it’s very handy. And the software works really well. If you’re already an IRC user, then I would definitely recommend you try it out. (If not, then check out GAIM for all your IM needs instead)

OpenSong is a lyric projection system for churches. This is a little gem of a piece of software – it manages all your songs, including chord charts for musicians (transposition included), and is then able to present them in a proper dual-screen arrangement. It lacks a couple of features I would like (in-presentation slide editing, for example), but overall it is one of the most polished I have tried. Definitely one to try, especially if your church is currently forking out a yearly license for a commercial alternative.

[sidenote] We used OpenSong in church on Sunday for the first time, and by all accounts it worked well. The slide transition is a little slow, but not too noticeable. The ability to jump back quickly to early slides at a single mouseclick/keypress is invaluable. [/sidenote]

mrBen