Now this is Fellowship One check-in, but because they’re using remote desktop to accomplish this, they could really use this with almost any check-in system. You can read all about how they did this on the Fellowship One developer’s blog.

In some ways, I see this being a really cool way to offer an assisted check-in that is cool and personable. We currently don’t do any self check-in, but this would allow us to still do assisted check-in without it feeling like the volunteer is on the other side of the counter. I’d be curious if anyone else has seen or tried something like this.

Here’s what I do know. Fellowship One REALLY knows check-in. Trust me, I’ve seen and used many of the other leading check-in solutions and I’ve not experienced any that come very close to Fellowship One. Seriously, I love Fellowship One. Even if you’re not using F1 and it’s unlikely that you will switch, I’m sure there’s something you can learn from the guys who do it best.

So, here are the details:

Free webinar on the Secrets of Check-in For Children, Events and Rapid Follow-Up.

Fellowship Technologies will host its next webinar on July 21, 2010 at 1:00 PM (CDT) about the Secrets of Successful Check-In. This helpful and informative online session will reveal how to use Check-In for children’s ministry, activities and events with rapid follow-up!

The webinar is free, but registration is required. To register visit https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/675236104. This hour-long webinar includes insight from the staff of Fellowship Technologies on helping your church take check-in to a whole new level! One registered webinar attendee will win a FREE Godex DT-4 label printer, courtesy of POS Computer Corporation.

So I just found a killer new app. It’s called Firefox Home. I’m a pretty big fan of Firefox and it’s my default browser. I don’t know if any of you are like this, but I’ve got tab issues. I like to have lots and lots of tabs open at the same time. When I say lots of tabs, I really mean A LOT of tabs. It’s a problem I certainly need help with, but that’s a different blog post.

So, have you ever been on your iPhone and you can’t remember a site you need to go to that you even have bookmarked on your computer at home? Maybe that page is even open on your computer at the office right now. Wouldn’t it be great to actually easily pull up that page you were looking at yesterday on your home computer  on your iPhone? Well, with Firefox Home, you can and it’s pretty impressive.

You have to enable the Firefox Add-On “Firefox Sync” and setup an account. With this Firefox Add-On, you can sync your tabs, history and bookmarks across computers. With the Firefox Home iPhone app, you can have access to all of that data right on your phone. It’s absolutely beautiful!

So, it’s really simple. One page is dedicated to search. Type in any term that may have been on a page you were viewing in the past few weeks and you’ll be quickly given open tabs, history and bookmarks that contain that term. Another page is dedicated to tabs. The tabs are in a list. See one that interests you and it opens up. One more page is dedicated to your bookmarks. I don’t really use bookmarks anymore (which I think is why I have so many tabs open), but they’re all there. The settings page will allow you to sign in and out of your sync account and give you an overview of how many tabs you have open, how many bookmarks you have or how many pages you have indexed in your history.

Just to clarify though. This is not Firefox on the iPhone. Any tab, bookmark or indexed page you click on will simply open that page in a Safari browser within the Firefox Home app. I guess it’s the next best thing to having Firefox on your iPhone.

So, if you use Firefox (and you should) and you have an iPhone, download this free app today.

BTW, I’m laying down another preemptive ban on Smart Alec comments from Jonathan Cliff on how many tabs I have open. This is starting to become a regular thing here.

So, as of last night I had 16 emails that had come in, but zero emails in my inbox. I love gmail’s archive feature. The emails are there, just not in the inbox. They’re searchable and if I click on “all mail,” I can see them all. The idea of starting fresh is really appealing. Do any of you out there use the GTD or Inbox Zero method. Any thought? Any advice?

Don’t make fun of the silly theme (Jonathan Cliff), it’s a temporary thing.

I’ll be honest, it’s a little hard to play on the little screen that is my iPhone. However, I think the experience would be considerably different on the iPad. So, if you have an iPad and you’d like to check out a very unique but fun game, pick up the Catan app. The board game actually costs $40, so you might want to try out the digital version first to make sure you’re going to like it.

Check out more on this iPhone app right here.

Oh, but before I leave you though, I saw another bit of Catan goodness. A version of the game has been developed for the Microsoft Surface. We first learned about the Surface 3 years ago and over the years we’ve seen videos and bits of news about it, but nothing widespread. However, playing Catan on the Surface looks unread. Check it out!

If you feel you need to trust me that this is an awesome game, then buy it right here… the real board game version.

A few days ago I came across this new ministry site called churchboost.com. Sounds fun, right? It’s currently a blog with plans to become a full-featured site. The idea behind it is to harness technology to boost the quality of ministry we have for kids. I love it.

I probably wouldn’t normally endorse a site that has not track record. I don’t know the people behind it, although I do know some of the people they know and I have a lot of respect for them. However, I just love the idea of this site and I really hope that it takes off and that there is more content than I have time to devour. I love technology and ministry to kids, so I’m a fan of anyone writing about both.

So, this site only has two posts and one of them is for an App called team viewer. I haven’t personally tried it out yet (although I will this week), but Church Boost did. Read it here.

Not anymore. Eye-Fi just released a new line of cards. The one I have my eye on is the Connect X2. It is a 4GB card that does all the things I mentioned above. Best of all, it only cost $49. You’d be crazy to not get one of these. CRAZY!

The explore feature is getting pretty good too. You can buy an explore card or upgrade the Connect x2, but it allows you to upload your photos automatically at Starbucks, MacDonalds, hotels and hundreds of thousands of other places. All of that for only $30 for the year I think.

If you haven’t considered getting one of these yet, you really should. Go ahead and order one here!

Here’s the template I’ve been using (click on image to see full page):

Here’s the new template (blue version, not sure we’re going to use this one):

Here’s another new template (green version, probably going to go with this one):

I’ll be using this new template this week, so any input you have would be much appreciated. Thanks!

BTW, I think I’m going to have to extra things done this week. I’m going to have my graphic designer tweak the header “The KQ Update” so it doesn’t look so plain. In addition I think I’m going to have her tweak the “Join Our Mailing List” as well so it looks a little better designed.

I first heard about Pandora almost four years ago when it just launched. A lot of people like Pandora, without really knowing why it works or any of the mechanisms behind it… which I think is beyond fascinating. Several years before Pandora Launched, a bigger project got underway which was called the Music Genome Project. Essentially, all music was broken down into simpler components. These components were classified into the building blocks that make up the music we listen to. Music researchers listened to song after song after song, categorizing what elements and components made up that song. A database was created to keep up with all this information. The idea is that most of us like certain kinds of music. We usually like the music becasue we like certain elements. Maybe we like music with strong acoustic guitar or music with techno base lines. If there was a database that kept track of these elements, then it could recommend songs that we didn’t know about based on the elements we like. That’s Pandora.

So, with Pandora, you create a “station” by recommending an artist or song. Pandora serves up a song. If you like the song, you click on the “like” button and Pandora learns that you like the elements in that song. If it presents a song that you don’t like, then Pandora determines what elements that song has that the song you liked didn’t. It learns with every “like” or “dislike” you make and creates a stations that plays the perfect playlist. How amazing is that?

So, I’m not a huge music guy and I never know what’s popular or not. Pandora’s perfect for that. I list a song I know I like and I “discover” all kinds of new music. One thing they fixed from before is that it can distinguish from certain genres. When Pandora first came out, I was really big into Chris Tomlin and Jeremy Camp. I liked that worship rock genre. However, there’s a lot a non-worship rock music that sounds just like them. Pandora couldn’t tell the difference from what was worship or not. Now it seems to do a great job with that.

So, if you haven’t discovered, check out Pandora today. It’s free, unless you listen to way too much, but then it’s only a buck or two to listen to more.

The old music system hates Pandora because it represents the death of terrestrial radio. I say bring it. As long as you have a data-enabled phone and a method to connect your phone to your stereo, you never have to search for bad radio stations again. If it hasn’t happened already, cars will likely offer options like connecting to your favorite Pandora station. It won’t be long before kids ask us about the good old days when we’d scan through dozens of radio stations to find music to listen to.

I highly suggest you go to your phone’s app store and download the app today. Just search “Orange Leaders.” If you like this app and would be curious what an app like this would do for your ministry, check out the architect of this tool here.