Church IT RoundTable

July 28, 2010

Jeff Suever

jeffsuever

You must have landed here by mistake. I think where you MEANT to go was www.jeffsuever.com. Just go ahead and ditch that “wordpress” part of the url.

Thanks and see you over there!


by jeffsuever at July 28, 2010 10:34 PM

July 27, 2010

Joel Lingenfelter

Deep Church

I've been trying to catch up on my reading (and my reviews) and recently finished Deep Church by Jim Belcher. In reading this book, I think it's important to understand a bit about who Jim Belcher is. Jim is a graduate of Fuller and Georgetown, and someone who included postmodernism in his doctoral thesis. This is key to me, as I believe Belcher has credibility in this area. A lot of people are

by renewingmind (noreply@blogger.com) at July 27, 2010 06:37 PM

July 26, 2010

Tony Dye

SOHO Backup, Part 3 - Backup Set Selection

Continuing on ideas for the "Perfect" SOHO Backup System.

Previously:
1. Local Backup
2. 3-2-1 Rule
3. Off-Site doesn't have to be instant
4. Reporting

Today:
5. Backup Set Selection
Almost as bad as finding out that your backup isn't running, is finding out that it is running, but it's not backup up some important files. I would sure like to see a backup program that is "self auditing?" By that, I mean I'd like to see a system that has a little intelligence and will give ample warning if you're not backing up files that seem like they would be important. I don't want to pretend like that would be easy, but I'm also pretty sure it's not all that hard. For a SOHO situation, the backup system only needs to care about the files on specific machines whereas for an Enterprise solution, the system would need to be able to find all the machines on the network (including NAS devices and the like) and deal with all the files on each of them. Let's stick with the simple for now.

Let me go down a rabbit trail for just a moment here. When backing up a system (or a network), there is a major decision to make: back up EVERYTHING, or back up just SOME things. In years past, it wasn't very practical to back up everything -- disk wasn't quite cheap enough, and tape & bandwidth were too slow. Today, it's probably still not an obvious decision to back up everything, but it's to the point that it's worth considering. Also, an everything backup doesn't really have to be everything, to be all inclusive. Consider, other than for the FBI to do forensics, why would you ever need to back up the paging file? Or any of various temp directories and temp files? And, would everyone agree that backing up unallocated disk sectors is a waste? Likewise for sectors that aren't currently in use? All this to say, that a true disk image backup rarely makes any sense -- even what we call an image can have some logic applied to slim it down.

So, if we're not going to back up everything, then what are the selections we might backup? Here are my suggestions, and I'd like to see the program implement these as checkboxes so you could mix and match:

  1. System files. Can I get away with saying this is self explanatory? And, that if not doing an EVERYTHING backup, these are also the most obvious files to NOT backup?
  2. Applications. Hopefully this is self explanatory too, with the complication that there are some types of utilities and "come with the system" things that are actually applications, but since they come with the operating system, we may lump them into System.
  3. Configuration files. I'll let the guys writing the software dig into the details here, but all .ini files, for instance, and the registry. Many text files in system or application directories are also configuration files. A lot of the stuff that has Unix roots, like all the .../etc/* files probably fit this category. A lot of html files in system directories are also configuration files. One way to think about these files is to look in the system directories for any files that are changing and learn why. (If they aren't configuration files, they're possibly indications of viruses!)
  4. Documents. Spreadsheets, word processing documents, presentations, and text files that are in any (all!) user directories define the basics of this category. Another way to look at it is *any* file that's in a user directory that's not considered a media file should probably be considered a document. (*exception situation below)
  5. Databases. From a user perspective, there's not much difference between a document and a database. (for this purpose, I'm considering things like Exchange to be a database, along the more obvious things like SQL) From the backup program perspective, databases are more challenging since they tend to get big and they also tend to always be in use (open file backup issues). These issues have been solved, let's move on!
  6. Media. Audio and Video files. Those huge files that easily might exist somewhere else, like on a CD or a DVD. Or they may be the carefully edited recording you've spent weeks on. How should a backup system determine what's a copy (legitimate or otherwise) of something commercially available vs. something created by you? IMHO, until there is a great algorithm, the backup program should not try to make that determination. A file is either media, or it's not media, and if you're backing up media, you back it up. Argument welcomed here. (I like the idea of multiple checksum/CRC/LRC/size stamps on a file and if they all match some database, then it's an indication of a commercially available media file. Would you be satisfied with that solution?) Per my comment at the end of #2, if a file in user storage isn't a document, then it should probably be considered media, and again, there might be an exception*.

* OK, what doesn't fit within the 6 types above? I can think of three special classes of files that can be extra difficult to classify:

First is backup files! MS-DOS had .bak files, and they still exist, along with some other friends. Should a backup file be backed-up? At what point does redundancy become redundant?

Second is compressed/collection files. Zip, cab, msi, tar, etc. Are ARC files still around?

Finally, what about archive files? Files that are specifically "marked" with a system attribute to say that they are suitable for rolling off to archive media.

My suggestion for backup software is that the above be treated as if they were any other file in the same directory structure. A .zip file in an iTunes directory should be treated as a media file. A .bak in a user data directory should be treated as a document. Cabs, MSIs, etc. that are in application or system directories should be treated as applications or systems. If users typically download new software into a user directory, then install it, it means we may backup those installation files. That seems preferable to risking not backing up a zip file that's a set of legal papers, for instance.

If the backup program's configuration gave the above six levels of granularity, and the program was responsible for walking all the directory structure to ensure compliance with the checkboxes, what would be missing? Would there ever be a need to really specify every file or directory to be backed up? Since every commercial backup program I've ever seen has the nasty tree/selection grid, then there must be a reason for it. OK, easy: we only want to back up user files for some users, and not others. Or we don't want to backup "template" user files. How much trouble are we going through to avoid backing up these relatively small data sets?

So, I'll leave my proposal out there: Six check boxes would define a complete backup plan. Please argue. I'm expecting it. I want it!

Next: Off-site redundancy?

by TonyDye at July 26, 2010 11:20 PM

Jonathan Smith

Red Rover Should be Outlawed, part 2

Eric had a follow-up appointment with his pediatrician today and she was very concerned about the lack of movement in the arm. Eric is very sensitive to specific movement in the elbow so she ordered another round of x-rays. When they got to the x-ray room Eric asked if they could just x-ray his other arm instead.

After the x-rays we had an appointment setup with an orthopedic specialist. It turned out to be the same doctor who did my grandfather’s hip surgery back in January. He looked at the x-rays and was unable to see any breaks. Since Eric is only 5 his bones are not done developing so they are not hardened yet therefore it is difficult to see breaks in the cartilage. He examined the arm, with Eric screaming most of the time, and determined based on the limited range of motion that the radial head of the elbow probably has a small fracture in it that you won’t see on the x-ray. Either way the treatment is the same it is broken or not.

They immobilized his elbow and wrist this time in a splint and then put his arm in a sling to prevent any motion. We go back in 2 weeks to see how it has healed. Fortunately if there is a break it is small enough that it won’t create any alignment problems as his arm continues to grow and develop.

The saga continues.

by Jonathan Smith (jsmith@faithlafayette.org) at July 26, 2010 05:47 PM

Watermark Geeks

Twitter updates for the week of 2010-07-26

by watermarkgeek at July 26, 2010 10:45 AM

July 25, 2010

Scott Fillmer

Can We Actually Know the Attributes of God?

This coming Sunday our church moves into their fall schedule with the start of a new series on the attributes of God. This should be a great look at a few of the many elements that make up the existence and nature of God Himself. I was thrilled when I found out this was the next series since I had just finished my own research on the attributes of God, specifically that of God’s love (research post as The Attributes of God: Analysis on the Basic Dimensions of God’s Love if you are bored), but there are an infinite number attributes that could be studied in detail.  Paul says it best in Romans when he asks “who has known the mind of the Lord?”, for the depth of the riches, wisdom, and knowledge of God is so great, that we could never fully exhaust our understanding of God’s greatness (Romans 11:33-34).

One of the more recent theological champions of the attributes of God is the author, theologian, and pastor, A. W. Tozer (April 21, 1897 – May 12, 1963). Tozer wrote a book entitled The Attributes of God (Volume 1): A Journey Into the Father’s Heart, which takes a look at God’s infinitude, immensity, goodness, justice, mercy, grace, omnipresence, immanence, holiness and perfection, and this is the reference book for our upcoming series on the attributes of God.  Tozer spent much of his ministry studying what he deemed to be one of the most important questions to ask, what is God like?

Can We Actually Know God?

I think too often today we take a more pluralistic (or post-modern if you like) view of this question, and answer “who are we to think we can know God?”, and then push it off to the back burner and say why bother trying something impossible.  To answer in that manner is to excuse oneself from the rigors of pursuing a relationship with God, but it is more than that, it is to deny scripture itself.

In Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians he talks to the church about Christ’s judgment at the second coming (2 Thessalonians 1:8).  At the time of the second coming, Christ will punish two distinct classes of people; those who “do not know God” (cf. Romans 1:18-32), and those who “do not obey the gospel” (cf. John 3:36).  Jeremiah the Prophet spoke to Judah just before the impending invasion of the Babylonian army and told them they were fools because they didn’t know God, but instead certainly knew the way of evil (Jeremiah 4:22Isaiah 1:3 and Psalm 82:5).

There are many other examples, but the point is, if we are called by His name, we are called to know God.  We can spend a lifetime doing this, but God loves those, and has made Himself known, to those who seek Him out (Proverbs 8:17).

Great Resource for Audiobooks

A quick plug to those who enjoy digging in deeper to these and other topics of faith.  Christian Audio (christianaudio.com) has one of the largest selections of Christian audiobooks, and each month they give away a free audiobook.  This month happens to be The Pursuit Of God (Unabridged) by A. W. Tozer, and you can download it for free until July 31st.  Not only is this title free, but all of A. W. Tozer’s other books are only $4.95 until the end of the month.  This is a fantastic resource, and I would recommend Christianaudio to anyone interested in audiobooks (you can listen on your iPod, MP3 player, iPad, iPhone, whatever, and you can also follow them on Twitter @ChristianAudio).

I have no stake in the company or know anyone personally over there, I have just used their resources and have never had any issues with quality or service (only wish they had even more titles than they do).  I often depend on a wide range of resources for studying, but even iTunes can’t beat an unabridged book like that for $4.95.  That’s my plug for the month, if audiobooks are not your thing, get a copy of Tozer’s books in print, you won’t be disappointed.

Other Posts Related to this Topic

by Scott Fillmer at July 25, 2010 09:00 PM

Bryson Medlock

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-25

  • The day I don't feel well and don't go to Church early, the network completely fails. So much for sick days. #

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by admin at July 25, 2010 04:34 PM

Stuart Dyckhoff

Protect Against ID Fraud

Image from http://www.sileo.comIdentity or ID fraud is huge.

Here are some facts to make you think ….

90% of users never check all their transactions on their bank or credit card statements. (ID Theft Protect, Aug 2007)

89% of users do not use a password manager to store their online and offline usernames and passwords. (ID Theft Protect, Sept 2007)

Identity theft is costing the British economy over £1.7 billion annually. (2006 – CIFAS)

Impersonation of the dead is growing at a rate of increase of 60% each year. (2004 – UK Home Office)

In 2004 most UK card fraud was committed via face-to-face transactions in shops. (2004 – Cardwatch)

These are just UK figures.

So what can you or should you do to help protect your ID in an ever increasingly connected and online world?

  • Keep personal information secure.
  • Keep all your plastic (credit / debit / identity) cards safe.
  • Keep your documents safe.
  • Keep your passwords and PINs safe.
  • Use individual passwords for anything that requires online transactions – monetary or not.
  • Protect the identity of deceased family members.
  • Shred letters / documents that contain identifying information.

I will almost certainly expand on some of these in the weeks and months to come, but if you need any specific information or answers now then please do ask via the comments section or via my contact form or even by using the Skribit suggestions tab.

Protect Against ID Fraud is a post from: Church Techy

by Stuart at July 25, 2010 08:30 AM

July 23, 2010

Tony Dye

Still Looking for a "Perfect" SOHO Backup Solution

Backup1 I'm still looking for that perfect solution for small office / home office backup needs. It's amazing to me that there are so many potential solutions out there, but none seem to quite hit the trust + simplicity + speed + cost points that I somehow feel are reasonable. Maybe I'm being unreasonable. Maybe I just haven't looked the right place yet. Or maybe I just haven't defined well enough what I want, so I think I'll start there.

.

1. The starting point - back up locally
Perhaps, above all else, I think a key requirement of backup is that is *start* with a local backup. Client systems, especially notebook users, need to be able to get their data backed up locally, at LAN speeds, without any delays caused by Internet bandwidth. Likewise, when you need to restore something, especially something big (or rebuild a complete machine), having the backup data local is a key. The local backup is ideally some sort of appliance, or mostly-dedicated system, such that you can trust it to be there an on all the time. Barracuda's backup does this, so does Zenith's BDR & ARCA, SonicWall's CDP, and I'm sure many others do as well. Based on other points to follow, this doesn't have to be the most expensive piece of hardware in the world because it's not a single-point system.

2. 3-2-1 rule
This isn't my rule. I learned of the term from the SecurityNow podcast, and they actually got it from Peter Krogh, and it probably has origins even further back. The concept: Data needs to always be [at least] three places, it needs to be on two different types of media, and one of those should be off-site.

3. Off-site SOON, but doesn't have to be NOW
My opinion only! For most SOHOs, near-real-time off-site backup is NOT a requirement. If you have an eCommerce site, that's different, but that's probably not located at your office. If it is, you have a whole different set of problems that I'm not addressing here. If you are getting frequent backups, per #1 above, then if the off-site backup lags by a few hours, to maybe even a full day, you are in a pretty low risk situation. Fire, flood, theft, or other local catastrophe would be bad, but at worst case you'd lose approximately 1 day's worth of data updates. Compared to the rest of your loss, that's not a big deal.

The local backup device should take advantage of unused bandwidth, so it would be nice if it knew how to monitor bandwidth, but simple throttling based on days/hours is probably plenty good for most organizations. What is important is that the off-site backup process is handled by the local backup device, not by the clients. If client machines are turned off overnight, or in the case of notebooks, not on the LAN, the local backup to remote backup process still happens.

Next up: reporting needs, then more.

 

by TonyDye at July 23, 2010 07:10 PM

SOHO Backup, Part 2

Continuing on ideas for the "Perfect" SOHO Backup System.

Previously:
1. Local Backup
2. 3-2-1 Rule
3. Off-Site doesn't have to be instant

Today:
4. Reporting
Have you ever discovered (usually at a very unfortunate time) that the backup you thought you were running every day hasn't actually run in several weeks? A key of a great backup solution is that you can tell that a backup has happened, and what was included, but even more importantly, if something goes wrong, make sure that somebody knows there's a problem.

Personally, I don't care to get flooded with success reports. When those start coming in daily (or more often?) then they become noise and I don't look at them much, so they actually have a negative value. I do like the idea of being able to audit success, but I don't need to have it flashed in my face every day. On the other hand, if something is NOT working right, I'd like to make sure that anyone and everyone knows it. Should that be an email, or a text message, or a pop-up on every station, or something else? Yes!

Another nit I have with some existing systems. When a "reasonable exception" occurs, don't call that a failure. For instance, let's say that some desktop is turned off for a few days, so it's not getting backed up. That is NOT a daily failure! When a machine hasn't been backed up in several days, that's another story and is worth reporting.

Next: Backup set selection

by TonyDye at July 23, 2010 07:04 PM

Joel Lingenfelter

ShadeTree

A while back Mark with BigBadCollab gave us a demo of ShadeTree. ShadeTree is a platform being developed that seeks to integrate church members into church life through social networking, spiritual formation, etc. In some ways ShadeTree could lead to a full blown ChMS at some point, but right now it's really meant to augment what you currently have in place. I was privileged to look "behind the

by renewingmind (noreply@blogger.com) at July 23, 2010 04:49 PM

Jonathan Smith

Red Rover Should be Outlawed

Today was a fairly normal day, aside from getting some bad news regarding the compatibility of our MSA 1000 series SAN and Windows Server 2008 Core. I was looking forward to a quiet evening at home when around 4:30pm my wife calls me and tells me that Eric fell at school and they think he broke his arm.

Since we are all at Faith each day, she had picked Eric up and brought him over to the building I work in. He was crying like I’ve not seen him cry before and any attention we tried to pay to his arm only made things work. We called our pediatrician and Heather and Eric headed to Urgent Care.

I went back to my office to grab a few things and then followed behind them. By the time I got to Urgent Care, they were already back seeing the doctor. Apparently, I still look a lot like Eric because when I walked in the receptionist immediately asked if I was with the little boy that had just come in. She took me back and I could hear Eric crying in the exam room. I really appreciate the quick service the staff provided us although I don’t know if they were helping us out of concern for Eric or concern for their ears. Have I mentioned I’ve never seen Eric that upset?

While they were taking his vitals, Heather explained the story details. They were playing Red Rover and Eric was trying to break through the other team but instead of breaking through, he fell backwards and tried to catch himself landing on his arm. This got my attention as I had received a tweet earlier in the day from someone saying Red Rover should be called “Get Stitches”. Yet another example of Twitter predicting the future.

They took him back to x-ray and even from the lobby I could hear Eric screaming as they tried to get his arm in position for several pictures. The doctor was concerned about the wrist, arm, and elbow areas. Based on the amount of pain I was assuming a break of some sort.

We got back to the exam room and the doctor arrived a few minutes later after reading the films. His arm was not broke. The swelling and pain were caused by contusions and over extensions of the tendons and ligaments. I was surprised to say the least but very relieved. They put his arm in a splint (through Monday’s follow-up appointment), another enjoyable process, and we were on our way.

It is pictures like this that I make public that will inevitably scar Eric for life.

Later I asked Eric how he hurt his arm and he started crying and said, “I was trying to break through the line and I couldn’t.” I’m not sure if he was upset because his arm hurt or because he lost at the game.

We want to thank everyone for the kind words we received via many technology means and their prayers for Eric.

by Jonathan Smith (jsmith@faithlafayette.org) at July 23, 2010 01:12 AM

July 22, 2010

Joel Lingenfelter

Deliberate Simplicity

I am way behind on book reviews, so it's time to get caught up. The first book I read recently is Deliberate Simplicity. This book is written by Dave Browning, who is a friend of our senior pastor's. We read this book as a staff, and I expected a lot from it. Perhaps my expectations are part of why i was disappointed (a theme you will find repeats itself in this round of reviews). The book

by renewingmind (noreply@blogger.com) at July 22, 2010 07:01 PM

Jim Walton

Digital Training

One of my audio trainees recently had his first time at the helm during a Sunday morning service. Because we have a digital sound board (Yamaha’s LS9), I was able to do a few things to make his first time a little less hectic. I start out my newbies during rehearsals and working our Sunday night service. But there is a sharp contrast between our morning and evening services. Mornings involve four vocalists and a full band, videos all quickly moving from one element to the next. Evenings are more laid back with just the Music Minister and keyboardist.

My trainee’s job didn’t allow him to attend the weekly band rehearsal, and that concerned me, but since I’ve been moving toward saving a scene on the board for each song during the service, I decided to do that for him. I linked each scene for the service to a user defined key and noted on the worship flow which UDK to press for each song.

Next I sat my laptop beside the board that morning to make changes that his trainee user profile on the LS9 doesn’t allow him to do yet, like save settings. So while he was driving with his limited permissions, I had full use of my administrator permissions from my laptop using Yamaha’s LS9 Editor in Studio Manager. Kind of like the instructor in Driver’s Ed with the brake peddle on his side of the car.

We have used this method for a weeks, and it has worked very well. It allows the trainee to focus on timing and mechanics over mixing changes from one song to the next. Now that he is getting broken in to the Sunday routine, we can migrate to focusing on mixing.

Studio Manager and the LS9 Editor are free. All you need is a network connection, preferably wireless so you can move around. Mike Sessler has some great setup info here.

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by acmull at July 22, 2010 05:55 PM