Blog from MS Word

If you have Microsoft Word 2000 or higher and your computer's Operating System (OS) is Windows 2000 or higher, Blogger offers a free plug-in for Word that lets you create, edit, and post blog entries.

Blogger for Word

Feed Reader reviews

You don't really have to come to this web page to read the latest posts. All you have to do is set up your computer to receive the "feed" from this page.

A "feed" is the information about a posting here -- the title, date/time, and text of the post. You can access those via a "FeedReader" (also called an "news aggregator"). Most are free.

Once you "subscribe" to a feed, your NewsReader automatically checks for new posts when you open it. Of course, you can still just check back here now and then.

cnet has reviews of several feed readers. An executive summary... if you use Internet Explorer, it looks like Pluck is a good one to try. [ Download Pluck ]

If you'd like to read blog feeds via a separate web page that collects "feeds" from different blogs for you, try the Google Reader or NewsGator.

If you are a FireFox user, you can "drag" a web address for a blog to your bookmark bar and it adds an orange "feed" icon. Clicking on that icon lets you see all current posts for that blog. Internet Explorer 7 is reported to also add this feature.

You've got mail - Sunday School Lesson

How cool would it be if a Sunday School teacher could get a pre-done lesson plan that also related to current news -- all without spending hours on research and preparation?

Well, Communications Resources has a new commercial product that fills the bill: The Wired Word. You get a ready-for-use, adult lesson sent to your email inbox each Thursday.

Communications Resources also offers several other church-related products, including Church Art Online (the "Plus" version includes an online calendar). Avondale Pattillo UMC makes use of Church Art Online Plus.

Free online web school

OK, it's not technically a school, but W3Schools online has tutorials, sample code, interactive code you can test, references, etc. A few beginners may find useful:

• Learn HTML
• Web building primer
• HTML 4.01 reference
• HTML examples
• CSS examples
• HTML quiz
• My first HTML
• My first CSS

A United Methodist Glossary

What do you know about United Methodist Doctrinal Heritage? Not much, I'd guess. You may want to offer this link to our Doctrinal Heritage for your web site visitors.

Uses for the glossary

• Add a brief definition to the word such as "Intinction" on a web page by inserting the "TITLE" attribute in a span that covers the text to be defined. In such a case, when the visitor holds the mouse cursor over the word, the definition pops up in a small "tooltip" type box. For example, hold your mouse over "Intinction" above in this paragraph. This example also assigns a background style of yellow to make the defined word stand out.


• Add a separate glossary or "terms" web page that links to terms like below or else uses your own phrasing (have the pastor check for accuracy).

Below is a pretty decent link collection, mostly from the Intrepreter Magazine Glossary.

• United Methodist Social creed
• Glossary of terms related to Sharing Our Gifts
• Acolyte
• Aldersgate
• Annual Conference
• Apostles' Creed
• Apportionment
• Book of Discipline
• Chancel
• Confirmation
• Covenant
• Charge Conference
• Discipleship
• District
• District Superintendent
• Doctrinal Standards
• Episcopal area
• Evangelism
• General Conference
• GBGM
• Golden Cross Sunday
• Heritage Sunday
• Human Relations Day
• Inclusiveness
• Intinction
• Jurisdiction
• Lay Leader
• Lectern
• Lectionary
• Litany
• Narthex
• Native American Ministries Sunday
• Nicene Creed
• One Great Hour of Sharing
• Parish
• Pastor
• Peace with Justice Sunday
• Pentecost
• Postlude
• Committee on Lay Leadership (formerly called the PPR or SPR Committee)
• Prelude
• Psalter
• Pulpit
• Sacrament
• Sacrament of the Lord's Supper
• Special Sundays
• Stewardship
• Stole
• Tenebrae
• Trustees, Board of
• UMCOR
• UM Student Day
• "The Upper Room"
• Vesper service
• vestments
• World Communion Sunday
• World Service Fund
• Youth Services Fund

Church business cards

Business cards are an important part of church identity. Here are a few important factors when designing business cards for churches:

• Use type that's easy to read without squinting or holding the card closer than normal reading distance. "Squint print" is a negative factor.
• Use a typeface ("font") that's easy to read at small sizes. Usually this means what's called a "sans-serif" font (ones without the little "feet") like Arial, Tahoma, or Verdana. By small sizes, we're talking 9 or 8 points. Even an 8 point size is getting pretty small for easy reading, but is sometimes used (with a Sans-serif font).
• When using a map, make the text size easily readable.
• Look for ways to minimize text so that the card is not "crammed" ("tight" to the edges). One way is to reduce text to the essentials. For example, you only need to include a web address, not an email address if the email address is already on the web. Besides, you do want to encourage people to check the web site, as it tells a lot about "who you are" that you can't squeeze onto a business card.
• Use a tag line if your church has one. Consider making it prominent on the business card as well as other identity media.
• Use color, but don't go overboard. One inexpensive alternative is to buy sheets of micro-perf business card blanks, then print from your church's laser printer (or color printer). You can find dignified and colorful business cards online, now. One such company is Paper Direct. More online business card sources »

Church branding

Churches use branding as do many non-profit and commercial businesses. What's branding? Well, it doesn't have anything to do with hot iron, though the general concept does relate to cowboys' branding of livestock to identify the owner.

BRAND EQUITY (Branding): "The intangible, but real, value of words, graphics or symbols that are associated with the products or services offered by a business."
-- U.S. Small Business Association.

Here are some general quotes about branding and identity:

• "Your logo. Your business cards. Your advertising. They're all a reflection of you and your company. Properly designed, they communicate to your employees and your customers that your company is credible, trustworthy and professional. Your business image depends on a logo design that is polished and distinctive. Your logo is the cornerstone of your brand.
  Not only does a high quality logo show your customers that your business is professional, but it also differentiates you from your competitors and creates a powerful memory in the minds of your customers. When they need your product or service, they'll think of you.
  Imagine as you hand out your next business card."
  [Excerpted from "Professional logo design"]
• "Creating your business identity is an important step in building your company. Above all, your logo is key to your company look and message. ...The logo is a powerful branding tool. It is on every piece of your company material, and it visually defines the company."
  [from Larta University's Online Resources"]
• "An effective corporate logo identity design or ideation concept represents the all-important first step to creating an effective brand that will proudly represent your company. ... We work to develop a unique brand that integrates all of your online marketing practices with your traditional print marketing techniques. Items such as business cards, brochures, fliers and mailers should already distinguish you from your competition. "
  [Spicore Business Solutions]
• "Once complete, your new corporate identity is ready to go to market on business cards, signs, print, media, the web, cd and so much more!"
  [excerpted from Profiles Digital Media, Logo/Identity Design]
• "What makes a good logo?
• A simple logo design is often better than a "fancy" one
• Being unique is better than trying to imitate a competitor
• A single color logo design is more versatile "
[Excerpted from "Dynamite Web" logo service]

General branding tip - avoid buildings
People react much more positively to a logo or to actual people in an image than they do to a picture or drawing of a building, including a church building. The building image/line art is seen as "cold" and impersonal. Logos are usually seen as neutral or "warm" (depending on exactly what they are), and images of people are seen as "warm" and inviting. While many Christians like to see images of church buildings, we need to let concrete business-world research lead the way here, especially if we are approaching unchurched people.

The last thing we want to do is convey, in any way, a sterile or cold feeling, which an image of a building does. A member of a former church was fond of reminding the church leaders that "The Church is not a building -- it's the assembled people, who can worship in a great many places." His point was that people are more important than any building. (Check out the header of New Heights Community Church). So why on earth emphasize a building in our identity?

Promote a church feature
A building feature may be distinctive enough for use as a church logo. One example is Avondale Pattillo UMC, where the logo closely resembles the unique top of the sanctuary facade that's easily seen from the road. A logo can also be tied to the church name or the area, like the one for Oak Grove UMC. If your church steeple is unique and readily seen by passers-by, it might be a good logo. Just shun drawings or photos of a building as a logo.

Compare fonts on-screen

The Typesetter web site is itself a great utility. You can choose up to three fonts, specify all kinds of attributes such as size, word space, background and foreground color and then see the results on-screen in regular, bold, italic, and bold italic.

This is superb for deciding which fonts are more easily readable or have the desired emotional effect you are looking for.

Use CSS to design without tables

Dan Shafer has an excerpt of his book, "HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS", online at Sitepoint. The excerpt makes several points about the benefits of using CSS for layout and formatting.

• Increased stylistic control
• Centralized design information
• HTML files that are easier to read (code view)
• HTML files that get better search engine rankings
• Better accessibility by the handicapped
• Compliance with standards

A sample site designed to show CSS at work: Footbag Freaks

Fonts' anatomy

Sitepoint has a good couple of pages explaining the basics about fonts and those that look nice on-screen. The world of print is greatly different from the web world in many respects. Resolution is one big difference. Another aspect to consider is the x-height of fonts. A small x-height will make the on-screen text harder to read. In that respect, Georgia will be easier to read than Times New Roman, for example.

Here's a few common fonts that were especially designed for on-screen viewing:

• Trebuchet MS
• Georgia
• Verdana

One last aspect is the content of your site. A church site probably won't want to use a freaky font like "Chiller", for example, and even Comic Sans MS might not convey the right image.

Read more about "The Anatomy of Web Fonts"

Millennials will change the web

A generation of youth who came of age in 2000 are called "millennials" by some sociologists. And these young ones will change how the web is designed ... by the way they use web pages, the way they search, their attention spans, their multi-tasking, and more. These factors will all influence future web sites.

Does your church web site take millennials into account?

Read "The 'Millennials' usher in a new era" (cnet news)

Forms: counting down characters

You can help users when they have to type a password that has a maximum number of allowed characters. Dynamic Drive shows a technique for counting down characters as the visitor types in a form field. Follow the on-screen directions to copy the script and insert in your HTML.

Evangelism & Outreach: Google movies

Want to energize people for evangelism and outreach? Take a look at these downloadable (and playable online) video clips linked at two different blogs:

• The Task Virals
• Viral life

An online UPS selector

The APC web site has a neat selector for uninterruptible power supplies (UPS). First you specify what types of equipment you have, select features such as minutes of power protection you want, then you click a button. The site then displays a page with choices that fit your needs. The company also offers other selectors.

I'm not shilling for the company (though I do own a Back-UPS Office 280). I just thought this feature was great and wish more manufacturers would offer such services.

Where visitors expect links to be

A link location study by The Software Usability Research Laboratory of Wichita State University gave very useful results. Major findings:

• Most people expect links within the site to be in a column on the left side.
• People expect the "back to home" link to be at the top of the left column.

The study included over 300 people with an average web experience of three years and an average age of 20 (but varying from 18 to 63). Participants were asked to indicate where on an 8x7 grid of a web page they would expect to find certain types of links.

The link location study »

Can your church offer "feeds"?

If you are interested in more advanced web offerings, consider making some of your content available as "feeds". Right now, the number of sites offering feeds like RSS are a small percentage, but the number is growing daily. The United Methodist Communications site also offers RSS feeds.

No clue what that means? Check out the Feedburner page "About Syndication, RSS, and Other Web-Altering Chemicals". That Blog-format page also has links to other good background information in the top of the right column.

What could your church offer as a feed? Keep in mind that such feeds are a way to distribute new information. Also note that the person who wants to see that feed may need to install RSS Reader software, for example. If all your information on the web is static, there's no need for a feed. Here are a few quick ideas...

• Sermons
• Church news
• Youth news
• Church event reminders
• _____
  [Go ahead -- click on the "comments" link at the bottom of this entry and add your ideas.]

If you subscribe to a web page development service, ask if they have can handle RSS or other feeds.

Choose from blended colors

Color Blender is cute and useful online color tool. Pick two colors, pick how many midpoints between them, then "blend". The free online Color Blender at Meyerweb lets you do this with ease. This is handy for looking at color shades as well as picking two that work well on the same page.

Meyerweb is also a great place to look around for web ideas.

Post the Colors

You know the color "burnt sienna"? Well, I wondered what plain old "sienna" was. A coworker poked around the internet and came up with a mention of "raw sienna" color. Hmm ... is "raw" sienna the same as plain sienna? Not that's it's really important, you understand, but I have a natural curiosity.

It turns out that sienna is a type of clay that's yelow-brown in color. When it's fired (burnt), it looks like the color burnt sienna. Here's the Webster's definition (annoyance: a pop-up ad appears on the Websters site). OK, so why even bring it up? Well, in addition to it being interesting in its own right, it's a segue into colors in general.

The Pantone site has a series of color pallettes that they say represents popular colors different periods in recent American History -- "40 Years of Color". You might try using these colors and see how they work together to set a visual "tone" for a page. You'll notice that these are not specifically grouped to be an all-inclusive web pallette. You'd a better range of contrast. But these groupings of four could be a great start to developing a pallete for your web site. You do have one, don't you?

Compact your CSS code

Another aspect of Optimization is compacting the code itself. There are two different aspects to compacting -- using CSS shorthand and reducing white space in the final HTML file. Today's topic deals with compacting CSS by use of shorthand.

Basically, CSS "shorthand" means that you can combine several different element attributes into one line. An example of one that should get heavy use is "font". You can specify the font weight, size, and family separately or all together, as a shorthand version. Here's a long version:

H1 {
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 0.9em;
font-family: arial, sans-serif;
}
And here's the same CSS but using shorthand:

H1 {
font: bold 0.9em arial, sans-serif;
}

The second (shorthand) method uses less code. Reducing code this way speeds up the display time for the affected page. If the CSS code is in a separate (external) style sheet affecting several pages, you get the benefit across those pages from just one editing session.

For more on code optimization, see "CSS Semantics and Optimisation" on the "Develop the Web" site.

For an "Introduction to CSS Shorthand", try that part of the SitePoint site. Other good pages include the CSS Shorthand Guide and CSS Shorthand Properties. And remember to always go to the "source" -- the World Wide Web Consortium's CSS pages. ... Not for the faint of heart, perhaps, but if you look over the information, you'll have plenty of ideas to try out.