Let’s be honest, we all have biases. For those of us who have had a part in ministry that includes active evangelism, it’s a part of every day life; people look at and interact with the world differently.

There is a similar truth in technology. People have differing uses and preferences when it comes to how they want their technology to look, work and approach the tasks they have to do. As I have looked at the list of people who have subscribed to these posts I notice that there are some people who will not always find my posts interesting because they’re using programs, platforms or operating systems that I don’t use and therefore know very little about.

CruTech is an outgrowth of a mentality of getting the most out of your technology without having artificial limits placed on you; this leads me personally to advocate for a number of technologies and systems that may or may not catch you in stride. While I don’t have the time (or much interest) in getting to know these systems, I do want CruTech to serve you as well as possible; if you are (or know someone on staff who is) better versed in things that I don’t know about or use I would love to have you (or them) become a the second author of content here. Feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below.

As a semi-pro wrestler I once heard about once said, “Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty.”

Stuff I am a fan of:
• Open Source software
• the Windows operating systems
• Google products and services
• being able to tell my computer what to do rather than having artificial limits placed upon me
• web-based technologies

Tech stuff I know little about or don’t particularly like:
• Macs
• Internet Explorer or Opera
• Microsoft itself
• proprietary software
• overpriced technology that is available for free or cheap

Yes, I said I don’t really like Macs, I do understand that they can be very useful for those of you who are doing visual design, audio or video editing. They are not really any more useful or easy to use than Windows machines and are far more susceptible to viruses and other attacks than they were in previous generations. On the other hand, I would love to have someone writing for CruTech that knows Macs well and can help those of you who read to use them more powerfully as well.

I just wanted to make sure you all knew where I was coming from. I will focus a lot on web-based technologies which are open to use on Windows, Macs or Linux machines so don’t click that unsubscribe link just yet!

Some of my most-used features of Firefox are the advanced bookmarking techniques. First is the “Keyword” feature. Let’s go through bookmarking a site and setting up and using the keyword feature to get into StaffWeb fast.

Click on the Bookmarks menu and choose Organize Bookmarks. If you click on the New Bookmarks button at the top left.

This box will pop up.

In Name you can put StaffWeb. In Location http://staffweb.ccci.org (or http://staff.uscm.org if you go there more often). Here’s the awesome part – just put the word “staff” in the Keyword box and hit OK.

Close the bookmark window, type “staff” into your location bar and hit Enter. Voilà! It goes right to the GCX login screen and to the staff site of your choice.

In my Firefox I have this set up for my email login, my feedreader, church website, router settings, ebay, online voicemail access, calendar and a number of other sites… if you combine this with the CTRL-L (or CMD-L for Macs) shortcut that takes your cursor directly to the Location Bar I can be to my Inbox in 5 keystrokes!

Whenever you get a new program to learn it can be a little overwhelming; sometimes the learning curve can be pretty steep, other times it just looks like it until you get the basics down. Here are some tips that will help you to get a basic knowledge of just about any new program.

1. Use to learn the Help menu – the quickest way to get to it in virtually any program is by hitting the F1 button. This may seem easy, but more often than not people don’t even think about looking here before they call for help from someone else. Most people learn by doing something themselves – you’ll become a better user of your computer if you begin here. (Windows and most Linux distributions have this as well; minimize all of your windows, click somewhere on the desktop and hit F1. Macs may have this feature as well, I’m not sure though – can someone confirm or deny this for me?)
2. Google it! You’ll be surprised what you can find out there. If you’re trying to figure out how to move a Textbox in MS Word and can’t find it in the Help file (it’s probably there too) just go to Google and type:
   

   Microsoft Word move textbox

   I will virtually guarantee that you’ll find your answer in the first two or three links. When I’m trying to figure out a program or a feature for someone else, this is where I’ll go to find the answer. (Soon you’ll realize that I’m a huge fan of Google on the whole).

3. Go to the website. If you click on most programs Help menu, there will be an About InsertProgramNameHere option that will tell you about the program and where the webpage is that you can go to for more information.

That’s it. Those are the three most basic things you can do to learn any program better. Good luck!

I do already have a number of ideas for what I hope to post here, a couple of them are actually already being covered by former staff Rob Williams over at 170spoons.

• My own tech-biases (or “why I need someone who can write about Macs”)
• Firefox, why it’s better than what you’re using.
• Google, and why they’re the opposite of evil
• Gmail
• GReader
• GCalendar
• Google Apps
• How to learn to use any program
• Why your mouse is not always best (or “Keyboard shortcuts are your friends”)
• Basic computer upgrading
• Social networking tips
• iTunes, MP3s and Podcasts
• Open Source programs (or “Techno-Democracy”)

I do already have a number of ideas for what I hope to post here when I’m back from Florida and North Carolina, a couple of them are actually already being covered by Rob over at 170spoons.

• My own tech-biases (or “why I need someone who can write about Macs”)
• Firefox, why it’s better than what you’re using.
• Google, and why they’re the opposite of evil
• Gmail
• Greader
• Gcal
• Google Apps
• How to learn to use any program
• Why your mouse is not always best (or “Shortcuts are your friends”)
• Basic computer upgrading
• Social networking tips
• iTunes, MP3s and Podcasts
• Open Source programs (or “Techno-Democracy”

In the mean time, I will be soaking up some rays at Cape Canaveral and then D-ing some MPs in North Carolina.

Welcome to CruTech.

We’ll see what this turns into; in the mean time check out the about section.

Cheers,
Jayson