ComputerMinistry Blog

Using PayPal for ACH type Transactions

Nov 6

Posted by admin in Hints & Tips | No Comments

If you wanted to use the church’s PayPal account to process ACH type transactions (giving regularly on a schedule), here are the instructions to provide to people who want to do ACH type transactions with your church. PayPal does NOT do ACH transactions directly.

PROVIDE THE FOLLOWING TO THE INDIVIDUAL:
1. I will email you a link to setup your ACH type payment.
2. If you have PayPal.com account, then you can pay with your PayPal.com account. If not, then setup a free www.PayPal.com account. (if one does not already exist that is associated with your checking account).
3. Associate the PayPal account with the checking account you want to use for your “ACH” type transaction.

STEPS FOR WEDGWOOD FINANCIAL STAFF:
1. Login to your PayPal account.
2. Click: https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_subscr-intro-outside
3. Click on the “Create your button now”
4. Type in a Item Name like: Monthy Gift to Your Church Name or whatever you want)
5. Click on Customize Appearance
6. Unclick: Display credit card logos
7. Type in the amount for the regular transaction in the “Recurring amount to be billed”
8. Select the frequency of the payment/giving with the “Billing cycle”
9. Select “Plain text e-mail address:” for the Merchant ID for purchase transactions:
10. Click on Create Button.
11. You will be taken to a new page… click on the Email tab.
12. Click Select Code to select all the button code.
13. Copy the code (CTRL+C)
14. Email this link to the church staff person who will authorize this payment. Open Outlook and paste it in the body of the email.

This is for informational purposes and it is up to you whether or not you would want to use this information. That’s it. Let me know if you have any questions.

Free Useful Software for Websites

Aug 11

Posted by admin in Software | No Comments

Free. The word that we all look forward to seeing when we find a software application that we like. But is anything really for free? I have found some applications that I personally like that I wanted to share with you that are free to use and they will make your website just that much better.

Website: http://www.ispringsolutions.com/
Product: ISpring Free
Main Purpose: PowerPoint to Flash in One Click.

If you create PowerPoint (PP) presentations and want to share your PowerPoint presentations on the web, than putting the large, often clunky PowerPoint file online can be a bit frustrating. PP files can be quite large, especially if there are many pictures. You have to download either a free player or have PowerPoint to play the presentation. In comes ISpring Solutions. They have a great FREE application called ISpring Free that will convert your PowerPoint presentation to Flash (.flv or .swf) in a few moments. I tried both PP 2003 & PP 2007 files and they both worked out great with their transitions and even sound files. Oh yes, you can place into your PP slides another Flash file or a YouTube file… ridiculously easy. Then select the various options for output and push a button and a few moments later you have a fully functional flash file that is quite compressed. I took a 122 MB PP file and it squeezed it down to 3.5 MB… yes, 3.5 MB.

I then place that file on the website with ease. It was really that simple. ISpring Solutions of course sells a Pro version ($299) but if you are simply wanting to do conversions, you can not go wrong with the free version.

Another company that makes a similar product is called:

Website: http://www.authorgen.com/
Product: AuthorGEN Technologies
Main Purpose: PowerPoint to Flash Converter.

I tried this software as well and it has some features that ISpring did not have, but for whatever reason, the converted presentation into Flash file did not show the PP slide transitions. I liked many of its features, but the free version does not have a built in YouTube/Flash insert feature. Otherwise, the software worked quite well.

Each of these two applications have the plug-ins in PowerPoint, so when you opened PowerPoint, you could convert to Flash right from inside of PowerPoint. I suggest you try both (their free, so why not).

Why Your Church Must IPhone

Aug 3

Posted by admin in IPhone, Social Networking | No Comments

Okay, I know that is not exactly proper English, but this is the web, can’t we say whatever we want? I don’t believe that everyone must have an IPhone to find this article useful, but for those that have an IPhone and are in ministry, than you will certainly find some nugget of value here.

I have not had my IPhone very long, but once I got mine, I wanted to be an IPhone expert. Okay, that still has not really happened, but one thing I have found is that there are many Applications and uses for this incredible phone. Over the years, I have been a Palm and a Windows Mobile user and was actually quite opposed to the IPhone in a ministry environment till version 2.x came out. Now with version 3.x, it is hard to argue its value. I have recently used the Palm Pre and if this is Palm’s attempt to compete with Apple’s IPhone then I think it is safe to say that we are going to see the final end of Palm technologies. There is no comparison. I digress.

If you are not using social networking in your ministry, you are seriously missing out. Read some of the other articles in this blog to read my thoughts on those technologies. But the IPhone is so much more than a phone. With this technology, you can update your Twitter account, your blog (like this one), your Facebook account and oh yes, even your email. If you want to get in touch with your “community” (however you define that) then your IPhone has the tools to make that happen.

I use the Facebook app to keep the account status/photos/video/etc updated daily. There are many different Twitter apps (some free, others not) that will let you focus on the message and less about the technology. If you are as mobile as I am (and more of course) than having your IPhone able to gleam from just about any electronic source out there, than you never have to keep from knowing what is going on. Now if you are planning a trip to the beach, leave the phone off the sand and out of the ocean, but why not share your experience with others as you do experience the relaxing experience before you.

One of my clients recently purchased each minister and church secretary an IPhone. Why because they wanted each of the staff to be on the same page when it comes to the technologies that they will be using. No one on the staff can’t say something like “I did not know” because the church can so quickly communicate to the whole staff with the touch of a button.

I am pondering the idea of what if the church purchased an IPhone account for each adult member of their church (or those that would “qualify”). Could the church actually justify such a crazy purchase with we can really quickly and efficiently communicate with our members and part of the deal is that the members must communicate back. Certainly there are many logistical issues not counting the costs but I believe if done correctly, a church could easily “pay back” their costs if they had a way to get the word out to their members of any event, online tithing options, registration, “news bits” and whatever you can imagine. Just think about the possibilities. Certainly there are costs, but if you had each member who would participate in the free “IPhone” program, go through a 4 week course on how they are expected to use this technology, covering Twitter, Facebook, Email, and Text Messages. Once they complete the course with an understanding of why they are getting this incredible offer, then they would “qualify” for the free phone.

Okay, this is a little strange, but at least think about it. I have run some numbers and for a church with say 100 qualifying partipants, the monthly costs may be around $5000. If played right, you should be able to make that back. Of course that does not work out the cost of the phone costs themselves, but I am sure ATT may work out some deal. Just a thought.

I am curious how crazy you think this idea is. Share you thoughts either from a minister’s point of view or from the members point of view. Would you even consider participating in such a program?

Mobile blogging

Jul 14

Posted by admin in IPhone | No Comments

Blogging on a mobile device has not always been an option but now with (Wordpress) and the iPhone app (http://iphone.wordpress.org) I am using you can blog from anywhere.

We installed the wordpress blog on our own server but you do not have too, you can setup one on the Wordpress website. Then we installed this iPhone app. The reality is if you are able to write a quick blog from where you are at the more you are likely to write the blog. For example with this post I am sitting on the couch holding my 9 month old son since I just made my wife breakfast and she just needs a few minutes to eat.

You can save your blog as a draft so it does not have to be posted right away in case your doctor calls you back sooner than you think. You are now blogging on your schedule, not just when you can get in front of a desktop.

This app makes it so I can still blog wherever, such as the the waiting room at the doctors office. There is always time to kill in a doctor’s office.

Either way, take advantage of such tools as this to provide you more options in your blogging experience.

Tim Baker

Tags: blog, IPhone

Online Storage of Documents

Jul 8

Posted by admin in Support | No Comments

I am a very mobile user. As a consultant, I am either on my iPhone, laptop, a server, or someone’s workstation (which is often not my own). I learned real quickly that I need to have some flexibility to have my documents with me at all times. I have changed laptops at least 3 times in the past few years and I have always been concerned about loosing files or for that matter, the laptop itself. So I started to look into online documents. Our firm decided to switch from hosting our own email to having our email hosted with Google’s Email Hosted Service (http://www.google.com/apps). It has turned out to be one of the best decisions we have every made. In this post and others to come, I’ll discuss with you various online services that host documents (various types) and what I like and don’t like about them.

Since we host our email with Google, they offer what is called Google Docs. Yes it is free. My favorite feature of Google Docs is the ability to access the files just about anywhere… okay, anywhere I have internet access. I can just click on a link, create, upload, edit, review, share or even collaborate with my Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents. Google Docs has it’s many weaknesses and I will point some of those out as I see fit, but having access to the files online just makes sense. How many times have you saved a file on your desktop (or even the server’s file shared folder or user folder) and realized that you are across town or at home and don’t have access to your files. Using Google Docs or other services like Box.net (I’ll dicuss this one later) your “problem” is no longer a problem but just something that works… you have access to your files.

As usual, I look forward to your questions, comments and reviews of technologies related to online storage, collaboration and such.

Tags: Social Networking