You can try a free trial for a month at http://www.worshipteam.com/try

Let's be honest. We all love Facebook. We all hate Facebook.  What's not to love about one place where all your various friends, family, acquaintances, work associates and relatives that live in far-away locations can all be within 15 seconds of your mouse clicks.  What's not to hate about a data collection website that knows literally more about you and your behavior than just about anyone else (except maybe Google), including yourself.

But the one thing that finds the most heated angst from users is the pervasive and intrusive nature of the applications that are built into Facebook by third party developers (FB apps).  Facebook apps have a particular kind of charm and power that make them exceedingly viral, and spread quickly when they are designed to catch the weary eye of users who have already spent 4 hours longer on Facebook than they should have in one day.  If you think Facebook apps are all fun and you love them, you might consider this well-written (though a bit dated) article that is 99% dead-on regarding the problem with FB apps:

Exclusive: The next Facebook privacy scandal

http://www.cnet.com/8301-13739_1-9854409-46.html

OK, after taking a look at that, do you still want to keep those apps on your page?  To be honest, the thing I hate most is NOT the privacy invasion (although I despise that, it is part of using the internet). The more evil thing in my mind is the constant annoyance of the APP posts to my wall- people throwing pillows, kisses and gifts that demand I respond back (which means I have to give them all my info to do so- since all APPs require it).  That alone makes me wish I could band apps from my page forever. Well, it turns out you can. Almost.  Here is what you can do.

Blocking FaceBook Apps

First, each Facebook app has its own set of protocols and settings against those protocols. You can't ban all APPs in one fell swoop (Facebook knew that would be a deathknell of beautiful responsibility to its 3rd party apps-- far too user centric a move!).  However, each time an APP posts something to your wall, you do have the ability to block it from ever doing that again.

Here is how to block an unwanted app:

STEP 1. When an APP makes a post to your wall or newsfeed, select the small grey link (how sly of them to make it small and greyed out) that links to the app itself, as you can see from the Mafia Wars post to my newsfeed below.

STEP 2. Once you have arrived at the app's main page, notice and select the "Block Application" link on the left margin. 

STEP 3. Of course, Mafia Wars wants to be certain you really don't love their excessive spam and e-vomit all over your screen, so they ask you for the obligatory confirmation.

STEP 4. Now you have blocked the app. You will note that POSTS from the app are now also gone from your newsfeed. No future posts will appear in your newsfeed either.  

STEP 5. Repeat.  Each time a new app appears on your wall or newsfeed in Facebook you can repeat this process to block that app.  Though there are hundreds of apps being used out there, only a few are used extensively, so you will find it takes just a few days and you will have encountered 99% of the apps that you will want to ban from your pages.  Yahh! for blocking! Yahh!!

You are free! Free at last!  Thank God! Free at last!

Doing my part to set the Facebook captives free,

Kim Gentes

Chord charts or Sheet Music? YOU Choose!

Some people prefer using sheet music over chord charts. Now when adding a song or creating your custom view of a song in Worshipteam.com, you no longer need to go to "Advanced Mode" to upload your PDF. After entering your song title or view title, simply click the “Upload PDF/Sheet Music” tab and drag and drop your file.

Easy Is Nice!

Adding this easy drag and drop of PDF/sheet music is another thing Worshipteam.com has done to just make life easier for worship leaders.

For more information on this new feature, go to the blog at Worshipteam.com here:

http://blog.worshipteam.com/blog5.php/2009/07/29/uploading-pdf-sheet-music-just-got-easie

Kim Gentes

New update: WT Mobile just added mobile audio to the feature list! Streamed directly to your mobile device, this is Worshipteam.com for your mobile-- and it rocks! No more burning CDs or such.. Just get the audio right on your mobile device for practicing and learning songs!

You can get more info at www.worshipteam.com 

Kim Gentes will be teaching a couple of sessions at an exciting technology and worship seminar in Phoenix, next Friday/Saturday (July 17-18). We wanted to let you know about this tech and worship event and invite you to come. Here is some more info from the seminar below! See you there! Kim

My Tech Team Needs Help!

Like it or not, technology is a part of your ministry today.

Be it lights, sound, visuals, or room dynamics, there is a lot that can go wrong if not attended to properly.

Worship! Arizona is delighted to help sponsor and promote the first ever WorshipMusicTech Seminar coming next Friday and Saturday, July 17-18 at Calvary Community Church, 12612 N. Black Canyon Highway, Phoenix, AZ.

We have assembled a team of professionals from within the Worship Technology Industries to offer valuable information that will help church staff, musicians and tech personnel advance their use of technology. A list of session tracks is available on the WorshipMusicTech website.

Registration is easy and available online for $30.00/person before July 10th. After that the cost is $40.00 at the door.

Schedules, presenters, and breakout session information is available at www.worshipmusictech.com See you there!

Kim Gentes

WorshipTeam.com

We are pleased to announce the launch of WT Mobile!

Now WorshipTeam.com is available on your iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Mobile or other smart phones and devices. With quick, easy access you will be able to view your upcoming events and sets. You can even view the lyric sheets/chord charts for songs in your set! Last minute phone calls or emails are a breeze with your teams contact information just a click away.

Simply type in "worshipteam.com" in your mobile web browser to get started with WT Mobile!

Blank Sheet Music

Anyways, if you would like to print a peice of clean sheet music to your printer and have some ready to work, old fashion paper in the gritty edge of your fingers, then look no further- simply go to a new website that lets you print out blank sheet music pages, set up according to your specs.

The site is easy enough to navigate to : http://www.blanksheetmusic.net/

There are no real hidden agendas here. Just a nice sleek tool for printing out blanks sheet music pages, that can be customized with standard musical info such as time signature, key signature, multi-staves, brakets, indentation, TAB/treble/bass and other signatures. Even the scaling is customizable, along with the orientation of the sheet.  This is a great little flash application that lets you do whatever you want to a customized blank peice of sheet music.  You can even choose from prebuilt templates for various instruments, store your own customizations and a bunch more.

The site is driven by ad words revenue and donations, but it is harmless enough and not invasive.

All in all, a nice little find on the web for musicians and songwriters.

blessings

Kim

Learning the landscape.

Before you go off and start inducing photosensitive trauma into your congregation, it might be good to understand some concepts and important why's and whatfors. Here are some good general sites for that:

several articles here: http://www.churchproduction.com/go.php/article_by_type/C14/

good articles and links here: http://www.gregatkinson.com/

a nice blog here: http://visualworshiper.com/blog/

good book : http://www.quentinschultze.com/2009/01/high-tech-worship-interview.html

more detailed info and coolness factor: http://christianvisualist.wordpress.com/

Choosing an engine.

In the scope of video/media presentation, most people in churches settle on a software driven solution that puts a program as the core engine for organizing and presenting your visuals.  In the "marketplace" there are really 4 major players in this core compentancy strata of media foundation engines:

Mediashout ( http://www.mediashout.com/ )  - the premier high-end presentation software engine. Currently runs only on PCs. 

Pro-Presenter ( www.renewedvision.com )  - another high-end presentation software engine. Currently runs only on Macs.

Easy Worship ( www.easyworship.com ) - simplicity with basic presentation functions.

Powerpoint ( www.microsoft.com ) - the most common denominator, Microsoft's presentation software meant for the office still holds the most churches in its installed base.  When flipping through linear slides is all you want, this works.

Bulking up on content.

Knowing how to use video, and having a competant tool to drive it is like good driver with a car but no gas. The visual fuel in the worshiping church is content.  Here are some top notch media sources.

iWorship DVDs  ( http://www.worshipmusic.com/dvds-integrity-iworship.html and http://www.worshipmusic.com/musician-resources-integrity-iworship.html)

iWorship FLEXX ( http://www.worshipmusic.com/flexx.html )

Work of the People (http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/)

WorshipHouseMedia (http://www.worshiphousemedia.com/)

Sermon Spice (http://www.sermonspice.com/)

Shoutable.com (http://shoutable.com/)

more info on sources from our own stuff : http://www.kimgentes.com/worship-technology-roundup/

Important Peep.

After scanning any area of knowledge, its good to learn by just watching a skilled craftsman. In the arena of visuals in worship, there is none more acclaimed than "worship vj", Stephen Proctor. I could laud the events, people, experience and kudos that Stephen garners from anyone in the media and visual arts communities, but its probably just a lot better for you to visit his site and learn how someone at the high-end of visual expression in church and event contexts thinks and does.

http://worshipvj.com/

Now, go forth and video-aphy!

Kim

For me, as a software engineer, I began using the Internet in 1993.  One thing commonly minimalized by "Internet" historians are two major points: 1) popularization of network services to home users by the CompuServe service (the first true precursor to the modern day ISP).  2) the explosion of the Internet directly attributable to the development of the Mosiac Browser and the work done at NCSA-UIUC.  Frankly, most "historians" tend to think technology drove the Internet explosion.  But that is short sighted.  We had connectivity technology long before 1993/1994.  But no one really cared much about it (except scientists, academics and military minds) before the release of the Mosaic browser.  Mosaic was the grand-daddy of all web browsers.  From it, all browsers came. Once we have a graphical viewing tool to accompany the information storage and retrieval devices of the internet, common use of the web exploded- and Internet found a lifeline to become the predominant technological and commercial wonder of the last 20 years.  These two points (CompuServe and NCSA-UIUC's Mosaic browser) are often trivialized by historians, because, frankly they see the non-academic/scientific influences as being somehow less valuable. But they are crucial. Keep that in mind as you read or watch any history of the Internet.

For those who want a somewhat extensive (and less than clearly scholarly) review of the Internet development, I would refer them to the well-kept article at Wikipedia. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

Yes, it is actually fairly accurate and is kept under close scrutiny by the myriad of people who watch over that portal.

For a more terse, though somewhat euro-centric branded, view of the growth of the Internet, there is a good web movie online at YouTube that does quite well. See below.

Hope this little informational walk-through helps you understand a little bit more about the technology we now use everyday.

Kim Gentes

It's hard to imagine the kind of plight and pain that is experienced daily by the poorest of poor in the world. Our internet-enabled western world is simply not often in touch with the reality of this kind of pain. But Dereck Williams can more than in touch conceptually.  He has been there, stayed there, ministered there. Derek is a long time ministry partner of Tommy Walker, having produced albums, run ministry ventures and written articles and books on the ins and outs of ministry, music, worship, business and the poor across the world.

My first contact with Derek was several years ago when he was running the worship/ministry efforts of Tommy Walker. Over the years, Derek is not only shown his giftedness in administering a powerful ministry, but has been somewhat of an entrepenuer in showing people ways to connect with real ministry. One such ministry is their ongoing travel and outreach to an area in the Philipines, near the capital city of Manila. In a beautiful effort to make a difference in the lives of real people in desparate need, Derek is spearheading a DVD/CD project that directly benefits 14,000 families living in a city dump outside Manila.  This benefit project is unlike any other you have heard of.  And to take it one step further, they have decided to record the audio project to a live web audience!  That is where this tech blog comes in.

This is the first time you may well have the opportunity to WATCH, listen and feedback to the live crew of veterans recording this project.  And this is no out-of-work list of musicians who are looking for PR.  The recording cast includes Jerry Watts, Sergio Gonzalez, Tom Strahle and Troy Welstad have played for artists such as MercyMe, Shane & Shane, Phil Wickham, Tommy Walker, Vicki Beeching, Evan Wickham, The Kry, Adam Watts, Pink, Hillary Duff, Jennifer Lopez, Herbie Hancock, Justo Almario, Peter Cetera, Sergio Mendes, Sheryl Crow and Simon Phillips.  This team is brought together to support Paul Stephens, a prominent worship leader from West Covina, CA.

This is not a one-track-at-a-time recording-- this is "live" in the studio. And you can be a part of it.  Amazing!  Kudos to the staff Derek has put together on this project for having the technical chops to make this an online webcast.

So please check it out live at http://www.forgottenstories.org/

Derek makes no apologies for this being a benefit project and encourages you to give towards it. I highly recommend Derek and this project and couldn't agree more with this encouragement to have people get involved in making a real difference.

Go check it out! 

Blessings

Kim Gentes

Recently, I took a couple of courses online and both were managed through groups on Facebook.

Shortly thereafter, the relatives started finding me.  Then the friends. Then the church folks... and on it goes. Pretty soon everyone I had ever known or met in real life (in any capacity or to any degree) was becoming my friend on Facebook.  I thought that was pretty cool.  Occasionally there is some wackoness with all that, but hey, so is real life.  In general, it was cool.

Then I saw something that made all that Facebook stuff kinda freakishly fun.  A new brash promotion from Burger King-- I could sacrifice a few of my Facebook friends and get a free Whopper. What !?  Really!

Ya. Really. You can read all about it (and actually do it) right here:

WhopperSacrifice.com

It's corny, cool, weird, stupid, fun, sad and tasty all at the same time. Can't say that about a lot of things!

I did it! :) And while I felt sad at the time, I couldn't help thinking how the victims would feel who I sacrificed for the whopper.  It's a test of your mettle for sure.  You might consider politely asking 10 nice friends to be your sacrificial patties, so they get your warning prior rather than just the Burger King notification they will get automatically for anyone you delete as a friend for the sake of a Whopper. I found that I had more than enough folks who thought it was funny that I got my quota, got my burger, and re-added the friends soon enough :).

Check it out! 

Happy eating!

Kim

The goal of much software is to find things.  A way to find stuff in computer languages is a sub-language called "Regular Expressions".  Most regular expressions deal with finding specific instances of data inside of a larger string. When looking for those instances of data, we often use "patterns" to match what we intend to look for with the data we are looking through to find our desired information.  Those patterns often indicate what we are looking for, as in ".*Kim.*" (without the quotes) is a regex pattern that would look for my first name inside of any string.  Any string that contained my name would match that pattern.

But in real life, we don't always know what we are looking for in a positive fashion.  Sometimes we are looking for things simply because they AREN'T something else.  Let's go back to me name, Kim.  If I want to create a regex pattern that would match every string that did NOT contain my name, regex has a way to do that as well.  It is called "negative lookaround".  There are two types of negative lookaround- "negative lookahead" and "negative lookbehind".  One is for looking forward into a string, the other is for looking past the current position we are at in a string.  For simplicity sake, lets simply look forward, since that will be the most obvious case.

So let me clarify- what we want to do is write a pattern that will find every string that does NOT contain my name, Kim.  Ok, here you go:

^(?:(?!Kim).)*$

The core of the "negativeness" of this expression is (?!Kim), which simply says match the next thing forward that doesn't equal exactly "Kim".  The rest of the expression allows us to capture the entire string, from start to end. And if all you are doing is trying to make sure that you match a string that doesn't contain a specific pattern, then you are good.

However, sometimes what you are actually looking for is to find any part of any string that does not contain the negative pattern (the name for a pattern that finds a string avoiding a specific pattern).  In other words, what you want to do, is look through and extract all the data from any string, except avoid the data from the negative pattern.  This is actually a little more complicated, but here is one option:

^(((?:(?! Kim).)*)|((.*)Kim(.*)))$

This pattern will find lines of data that contain nothing to do with Kim, and it will capture data that is on a line with Kim (but can programmatically ignore Kim itself).  But in order for this to work, you must actually use what is called captured groups. Regex programmers will understand this as the chunks of identified data that matched groups in their expression.  A group in a regex expression is formed each time you use a pair of parenthesis.  Using numbered groups, you can get just the information you intended. In the above case, you will need a little user code to get the right data out.  So, in PHP, you would have the following code using the above pattern:

if (preg_match('/^(((?:(?!Kim).)*)|((.*)Kim(.*)))$/im', $rawstring, $regexps)) {
  $clean_line= $regexps[2];
  $clean_before_patt= $regexps[4];
  $clean_after_patt= $regexps[5];
} else {
  //failure
}

What you end up with is 3 variables as you parse through your strings. The variable "$clean_line" will contain the string that matches data that has no "Kim" in it at all.  The variable "$clean_before_patt" will contain the portion of a string which preceeds the the word "Kim". The variable "$clean_after_patt" will contain the portion of a string which follows the the word "Kim".  Simply evaluate the values off of those variables to determine what you want to use as you search through your strings.

Of course, you would replace "Kim" with whatever pattern you DON'T want to find in your strings.

Also, my examples use both matching ^ and $ at lines breaks and search case insensitive (on the PHP preg_match).  If you want to search case sensitive simply remove the "i" flag on the preg_match pattern. Similarly, if you don't want ^ and $ to match at lines breaks, just remove the "m" flag in the same preg_match situation (your use and regex engine may have its own flavor on both these flags). 

God bless, and happy coding

Kim Gentes

*YOU ARE FREE to use this algorithm in any application (commercial or personal or whatever). It comes with no warrantees.  If you DO end up using this REGEX pattern, please do so with the following considerations:

• make this notation in your source code:  ©2008 Kim Anthony Gentes - FREE TO USE ANYWHERE.
• Please post a response on this blog entry below (you do that by clicking on the "Comments" link at the bottom of this entry), saying you found this and are using it. I'd just like to know if its helping people and how people are using it.

When using the regex, some important things to know:

Options (turned on in your language/utility): ^ and $ match at line breaks

iWORSHIP FLEXX highlights very progressive video styling and graphics which may be a notch or two above what you are currently using in your services with adding static lyrics on some stock motion backgrounds.  The folks producing iWORSHIP FLEXX have done a spectacular job at making the videos very crisp for their purpose- upbeat songs pop, while balads pull back and let the image breathe without disturbing the visuals too much.  One thing I liked about the offering is that it provides intro segments, which let you cue up the song musically before the lyrics start hitting the screen.  There is also a great extended video segment, letting you run consistently on the screen, even if your band is playing an instrumental section.

Technically speaking, you will want to make sure you are using a relatively new machine with FLEXX video demands.  This model of doing VJ or worship lyric presentation removes the lyrics COMPLETELY from the process-- they are all embedded in the FLEXX video segments.  And that is the point- what you are doing here is simply running a single video for each section of the song.  The concept is brilliant, but does mean you can't have the old PC that ran powerpoint try to chug along on these meaty MPEG or Quicktime videos as you swap through song segments.

Churches that want a more progressive, higher level video experience will love FLEXX.  I would say that some churches may find FLEXX a little too progressive, depending on their song selection.  Over the years I have heard churches get more and more articulate about too much happening on the video screen during worship.  I think FLEXX could be used well, but I am guessing some churches will want to be sure to watch a demo before purchasing for their more conservative environments.

Overall, its a great product, beautifully and artfully rendered, with a perfect mix of technical chops to make it "plug and play" with MediaShout or other higher end presentation software. 

Check it out. Here is where you can see the product and watch a video demo:

http://www.worshipmusic.com/43461.html

Kim Gentes

I recently had the opportunity to try out Masterwriter personally and enjoyed it so much, I wanted to meet the people behind it.  A few weeks later, I had the opportunity to talk with Barry De Vorzon who created the software.  I caught up with him at a songwriters conference out in California. Barry is a wonderful guy and has a real heart to see songwriters equipped with a tool that is both helpful and easy to use.  

If you get a chance to check out Masterwriter, I encourage you to do so.  Several well known songwriters are using it and it can be literally mastered by wathcing the amazingly well-though 18 minute flash tutorial.  

Songwriters- MasterWriter is a slam dunk for you.  Add it to your toolkit. You'll glad you did!

Check it out at :

http://www.worshipmusic.com/mstrwrtr.html

Kim Gentes