How to put Gmail Tasks on your Desktop

1.) Open up Google Chrome, and input the following in your address box: 
*note:  You can use any browser, but Chrome works so fast and is very easy to do for this tutorial.

2.) Open the file in Google Chrome, and select “Create application shortcut…” from the Page menu.


3.) Resize the window and move it to your desired position. Chrome will remember it.

4.) Ta-da! Now just drag the shortcut to somewhere handy, like Quick Launch.  Or on your desktop.

Ooma - The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Free telephone service via internet connection at home, or at work. Sounds great? You bet! There's a lot of information out there, but my experiences are not available yet on the net. So I thought I'd help people Google current and informative hits by adding my two cents.ooma_telo_and_handset_large

The Good:

Great cost savings! Kiss your monthly bills goodbye. Just what is their business model? Apparently they are NFP, non-for-profit... NFP, wow someone really has a vendetta against plain ol' copper lines, POCs. (Getting your acronyms yet?)

Yes it's different than the VOIP (voice-over-internet-protocol) you've heard before. Unlike Skype or magic jack, you don't need a PC.

So unlike Vonage, there is no monthly fee.  Except for overseas.

How do I distribute the phone lines outside just one room?  The easy way is if you are wireless in the first place.  But if you are wired, there’s a neat trick into using your in-wall lines.  Plug the “phone” line into not just a handset, but into your home system.  This will distribute the signal to the rest of the plugged in devices, but make sure you turn off your POC lines or you’ll get two dial tones, like I did!

The Bad:

It's not free yet.  Gotta pay for the hardware.  The start-up costs are quickly taken care of, after a few months.  Less if you do a lot of long distance calls!

Now there is a regulatory fee.  Wasn't there before.  Considering getting the new Ooma Telo from an old hub, like I did?  There are new terms and conditions that affect current and new customers differently.  Now it gets complicated, but still not ugly yet.  At least old hub owners like myself can get grandfathered to the extinct non-regulatory fee.  Still $1 a month?  Not great.

Got a special switching system at the office?  Have multiple lines from an 10 year old+ system?  Multiple locations, multiple businesses on site?  I did.  It’s been a headache.  Please take into full account your topography, including if you have an alarm system in multiple locations.  Test everything before and after, noting any differences in operation.  I want to save money and am willing to put the effort, but you may end up becoming the target of frustration and complaints for implementing something all alone.  Get a board and understand how this works and whose responsible for what.

The Ugly:

The following clearly states that “each Ooma Telo can support up to 4 handsets.”  It can, but it can’t.  That is, not yet.  They’ve been promising since it was announced.

ooma supports 4handsets lie

Fact:  The Ooma Telo can only support 1 Ooma Telo handset.  That's right.  Good thing I bought at Costco, so I return these extra handsets that’s been wasting my money.

Doesn't work with security systems that need POC lines.  Don't ever expect it to.  It may in time.  After all, it can fax, but I couldn't get it to function at the office for our alarm system.  So, we have a combination:  Ooma for voice and POC line from AT&T for just the alarm.  Therefore cost savings and recoup are slower, but over a stretch of time it pays back for sure.  Just nice to know ahead of time.

Lies about the screen.  Just look at the box or on the net, and you'll see it.  Makes a difference because the letters are small enough, they don't need to be dark grey on light grey.  Missed the boat here.  Mistakes happen, PR slips and generates one thing while engineers are creative at keeping costs down and with it some usability. realdisplayoomatelohandset

No handsets to plug in, nor Bluetooth for hands free around the house.  Solution:  plug in my old non-Ooma telephone handset system into the Ooma Telo directly.

Easy enough, but now you can't be hands free on that cool 2nd line you get with a premier service.  In fact, the 2nd line is the only compelling reason to get the Telo Handset.  You can get the usefully features like a hands-free in a multi-pack elsewhere. handsetcart

Ooma at least has this now as public knowledge, off their servers, not buried in a support forum.  But please, don't put up with wasting your money on half-baked goods.

Troublesome registration of Handset to Telo.
You may have to re-register your handset:

(1.) Reboot the ooma Telo by removing the power, waiting 5 seconds and powering back up.
(2.) Hold the RED hang up button on the handset until the phone powers off.
(3.) Press the antenna key on the Telo for 5 seconds until it blinks.
(4.) Hold the left soft key and 0 on the handset and tap the RED hangup button.
(5.) The phone should go into registering mode and the Telo should pick it up and ask for pin.

Whacky Telo full reset:  What happened to the old paper-clip push?

You could try performing a factory reset on the Telo, this will return all settings to default and wipe the previous handset registration, so re-registering the handset may then work.

1. Unplug the Telo power cord for 30 seconds, then plug back in.

2. As the Telo begins its startup, the 1 & 2 buttons will light up for a short while, followed briefly by the trash and envelope buttons, and then the bottom row of buttons will begin to flash in a scrolling sequence, which will continue approximately 28 times.

3. At the end of the blue flashing bottom row period, the Ooma logo will begin to flash red - IMMEDIATELY hold down the "stop" and "trash" buttons and the Ooma logo will alternatively flash red and blue. Continue to hold down the "stop" and "trash" buttons until the logo turns solid red and then goes out. After the logo goes out release the buttons and the Telo will restart.

You can see a poor quality video of the proceedure here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNW7BqAftQw

With all it’s faults, I’m glad I got it at Costco just in case I need to return it.  I’m thankful for having a “wired” telly line at the house and it doesn’t cost me anything monthly.  At work, we ported the old number and are saving monthly.  Now when budgeting, I don’t have to choose between internet or a telephone service.  Fire your phone company!  Save minutes on your cell phone plan, invest it.  Whatever you do, be informed and know the weakness of the system along with all it’s strengths.

iPod touch for greek and hebrew bible study

One of my favorite things about my PocketPC Windows Mobile Smart Phone (What a mouth full!) is that I keep my Greek and Hebrew on it to check in when ever the moment demands it ...especially dealing with cults and their translations.  Now that the iPod touch and iPhone has dropped to less than $200, I'm considering the device, but don't want to lose the handy Greek and Hebrew.  Well here's are two demonstrations to almost make me a convert.



I'd like to get one and practice with it for awhile and see if it helps me in my ministry before I give a recommendation.



Please note that the recent bug list on Apple shows that the split screen is slowing the reader down to a crawl, so there's a work around. So I just may walk around this slow down until they resolve it. For any of you with an iPhone, please let us know in the comments what you think of Olive Tree's free Bible Software for the iPhone and how you use it.

Uploading and recordings sermons


For the sakes of their people who sometimes are away from service, pastors today record and upload their sermons to the internet.  Members may listen to these sermons on their computer or on their PMM (portable music player, such as an iPod or even cell phone) so perhaps during a commute Monday morning catch what they missed on Sunday.  Additionally visitors may find your site and may want to hear what "the preacher is like."  So we should put our best foot forward.


At BestBuy or Costco, these can be had for anywhere between $30 - $100, provide lots of recording time and a good microphone and is easy to use.

Do hit record early and end late, so you don't miss your introductory lessons (such as children's lessons if they are important and connect to the main sermon) and the blessing immediately post-sermon.  An ideal spot to leave it to record would be on the pulpit, with the microphone facing your mouth, but level and out of the way so it doesn't slide away, not easily hit by long wizard sleeves.

After recording, before uploading, please make edit and put your best foot forward.  Your people don't need to hear noise, hiss, ruffling with the mic, or clicking loud buttons.  So get rid of it by cutting those noises out, using a free program such as Audacity to fix your audio post-production.  Trim out the unwanted sections before and after the sermon.  Then, normalize.  Click the menu Effect, then Normalize.  This will even out the sound levels and prevent "cracking."

Save your file often during the process.  But keep a copy of the original file untouched until your are done.

When exporting for others to listen to your output, you may instead of stereo just use a mono output, in order to save storage space.  It helps that sermons can fit on an 8gb music player or less, so keep the file sizes small and manageable.  One way to do this is to control the format settings.

Firstly I use the MP3 format because it is very compatible between a variety of music players.  WMA and AAC is very exclusive for Microsoft and Apple products respectively, but MP3 is the compatible grand-daddy even if it isn't the most effecient. Using Audacity, go to Edit / Preferences / Quality.


Default sampling rate:  22050 Hz
Default Sample Format:16-bit

If you are recording purely in mono, with no musical introductions and exits as I do, then make sure all your tracks are Stereo Track to Mono.  This will optimize file size so you only have one channel instead of two, which is suitable for most sermon broadcasts.


Then click File / Export.  Please, fill out the bottom so it's easy to download, find, and play your sermons.  Once you've got it right, save the tag information but saving the template, and even setting it as default so it auto-loads the tags the next time you do this.  The genre setting of "podcast" allows some music players to auto-resume from the same point, much like an audio book.

Your MP3 export options should be variable, quality of "9, 45-85 kbps" (Smaller files), with Joint Stereo checked.  This will give you an appropriate file size but will keep the sound quality relatively high.


Since the file is finished, we upload.  I uploaded these to a server, such as CTS MemberConnect.  After that's all filled out, I also post a link to a blog which turns these files into an RSS feed, so they can either be subscribed via your news catcher, or podcatcher of choice.  That makes it automatically available to your member's preferred method of listening to it, such as on on iTunes.  Be prepared to get rated there for not playing nice with people's easily offended feelings, and ...preach on!

For further reading of what a blog and a sermon online can do, here's "supercharging sermons with a blog."  Interactivity is a key point there.

Please comment below with responses, what you use to record, what settings you've found useful, any compatibility issues, efficient ways to make ministry better.