Free Countdown Timer for Churches & Public Speakers

December 17, 2007 in Religion, Tech with 14 Comments

[UPDATE 2/21/09]
I’ve made some changes to the timer. Here is the updated version. You can download the flash file here: Stage Countdown Timer.

—Original Post Below—
Earlier this year I was trying to figure out how to get a countdown clock setup for Barry, the preacher at our church. I did a lot of searching around trying to find a software program or an inexpensive decent clock. The best ideas I could find were using a clock that we use for our children’s basketball league. I didn’t really like that idea, but it was the best idea we could come up with.

Since necessity is the mother of creativity I decided I needed to make the countdown clock myself. I already had a program called SwishMax, which is basically a Flash animation program. I did some searching on some forums, made quite a few unsuccessful attempts, but finally was able to get the clock to do everything we were looking for. It’s a simple Flash animation that we run on an old laptop in the back of the Worship Center hooked up to an LCD monitor sitting on the front pew that only the people on stage can see. There are buttons to set the clock to different times. It also changes color to yellow when there are three minutes left, red with under a minute, and flashes at 30 seconds until zero.

It’s been helpful. I’ve uploaded it and you are free to download it and use it however you please. If you already have SwishMax you can download the swi file to edit the clock if you want.

Download Flash file (swf): Countdown timer
Download Swish file (requires Swish program): Countdown timer (original file)

Here is a mini-preview of the clock:

UPS = Innovate Thinking

December 12, 2007 in Current Events, Religion with 0 Comments

The NY Times has reported that UPS, the delivery company with the brown trucks, has reduced “28.5 million miles off its delivery routes, which has resulted in savings of roughly three million gallons of gas and has reduced CO2 emissions by 31,000 metric tons.” How did they accomplish this? By not turning left (when practical). The concept is that they have those huge, gas-guzzling trucks and sitting in the left-turn lane waiting for the green light needlessly uses up excess gas (and time).

This kind of thinking is brilliant. It’s not something that would be world changing for an individual, but when done at the scale of UPS it is. How many little changes like this could churches make that would have a significant impact in our culture?

Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death

December 10, 2007 in Personal with 0 Comments

I had to get my original Xbox 360 replaced because of this same problem. No more Halo 3 for me for a while. Thankfully I should be able to get this system repaired/replaced for free since it’s still under warranty.

Should the Mavs’ slow start worry you?

December 9, 2007 in Sports with 0 Comments

I’ve had a few people ask me if I’m worried about the Dallas Mavericks having trouble early in the season. They have lost games that they should have won and are not showing much chemistry. This is making some people say that they should have dismantled the team after last season’s embarrassing defeat to the Golden State Warriors. I do not think that it is time to dismantle the team, yet.

Let’s take a brief look at how the Mavs are doing in comparison to recent history. Currently they are 13-8 and trail San Antonio by 4.5 games. At this point last year, the year the Mavs won 67 games, Dallas was 14-7. Two years ago, the year the Mavs went to the NBA Finals, Dallas was 15-6. The Mavs are only 1-2 games worse this year than they were either of the two previous years.

Let’s take a quick look at San Antonio, last year’s NBA Champions.  21 games into the season last year they were 15-6. It turned out pretty well for them I would say.

Overall, I think it is way too early to hit the panic button on this season. There is just WAY TOO MUCH basketball still to be played. History has also shown us that the regular season has very little impact on what happens in the playoffs. So, should you be concerned about the Mavs’ slow start? Not yet. They definitely have a lot of areas in which they need to improve, but I would much rather they figure those things out closer to the end of the regular season to gain some momentum for the playoffs.

Hmmmm

December 4, 2007 in Humor, Religion, Tech with 0 Comments

Audible.com is an online audio book store. You can listen to the books on ipods and other devices. I was browsing their titles in their Christian book section and noticed that they have an unusual number of Christian books. Coincidence? Irony? Practical joke? See for yourself in the pic.Audible Christian Books

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