It’s true I recently got the Apple iPad to use as another communication and connection device when away from the office or home.  While I’m still learning the different apps I’ll want to complete the different tasks I do, obviously one of the main things I want to easily access is my contacts and calendar.  I went through and added my account on the ipad using the GMail button as we use GApps.  It loaded email just fine but my calendar and contacts did not work.  After some further googleing and searching I found and did the following which allowed me to properly do a Google Apps sync on my iPad (instructions i found said Apple device so I assume this will work as well for iphones and touches though I only did on ipad). This is all found on Google’s site on a couple different pages but I want to make sure it was easily found the next time I needed it.

All instructions found on Google’s Support site:

Mail, Calendar, & Contacts:

Set Up Your Apple Device for Google Sync

If your business, school, or organization uses Google Apps, your administrator will first need to enable Google Sync before you can take advantage of this feature.

1. Open the Settings application on your device’s home screen.
2. Open Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
3. Tap Add Account….
4. Select Microsoft Exchange. Yes, choose this even if you are not using Exchange

Enter Account Info

5. In the Email field, enter your full Google Account email address. If you use an @googlemail.com address, you may see an “Unable to verify certificate” warning when you proceed to the next step.
6. Leave the Domain field blank.
7. Enter your full Google Account email address as the Username.
8. Enter your Google Account password as the Password.
9. Tap Next at the top of your screen.
9a. Choose Cancel if the Unable to Verify Certificate dialog appears.
10. When the new Server field appears, enter m.google.com.
11. Press Next at the top of your screen again.

12. Select the Google services (Mail, Calendar, and Contacts) you want to sync.

13. Unless you want to delete all the existing Contacts and Calendars on your phone, select the Keep on my iPhone option when prompted. This will also allow you to keep syncing with your computer via iTunes.

If you want to sync only the My Contacts group, you must choose to Delete Existing Contacts during the Google Sync install when prompted. If you choose to keep existing contacts, it will sync the contents of the “All Contacts” group instead. If there are no contacts on your phone, the latter will happen — the contents of your All Contacts group will be synced.

You’ve set up Google Sync! Synchronization will begin automatically if you have Push enabled on your device. You can also open the Mail, Calendar or Contacts app and wait a few seconds to start a sync.

Choosing Which Calendars to Sync

One of the things I got our senior pastor to do was a video blog on a semi-regular basis.  The are ususally short, funny, and provide a unique spirtual viewpoint that helps reinforce a biblical truth.  I was in the very first one (which you can see here) and am now becoming a regular person to interact with Tim.  See the first of the latest videos below and keep up with me (twitter and facebook) and Tim too (twitter and facebook).

Click the picture above for the album of pictures from the 2009 Navajo trip

Navajo Mission 2010
Black Mesa, NM & Window Rock, AZ
June 11th – 19th

Each year Woodland sends a team to New Mexico to minister at the Navajo Reservation. They work mainly with three organizations: Western Indian Ministries, Forest Lake Baptist Church in Black Mesa, and Rez Refuge. Ministry opportunities include: construction and renovation, distribution of clothing and health care supplies, outreach at local orphanages, and senior craft seminars, as well as many other opportunities to serve.

This summer a group from Woodland will once again be heading out including, Shana (my wife), and I. This years project list isn’t finalized as we try to find out from the people what the greatest need is and assist in those areas. along with the projects listed above. I will once again be helping out with their wireless networking, computers repairs and upgrades, and implementing a backup system at the school. We ask for your prayers and financial support as we prepare for this trip. We also are looking for computer, monitor and networking equipment donations.

I stole this from a long slew of people who had posted it before me, so it must be good.  Before RSS I would actually have had to go to someone’s blog to have seen this, Thanks Technology!

Thanks Technology from John on Vimeo.

If you are Anyone responsible for Information Technology in a ministry setting … Business Admins, IT Directors, Network Admins, Helpdesk, staff or volunteers … regardless of church/organization size, then You will NOT want to miss this amazing opportunity to learn from your IT peers from across the country!  Check out the CITRT website for all the latest details:

http://citrt.pbworks.com/Spring-2010-National-Church-IT-Roundtable

This is a simple and easy blog post, I have 8 Wave invites and 2 Voice invites.  Leave a comment with what you want and i’ll give them out.  Enjoy!

I’ve had a couple people ask me how to get this setup and I also want to make sure I don’t forget so here goes:

• In the Connect screen:
• Nickname: you choose
  Real name: your paren’ts chose
  Default channels: #citrt
  Ident: I put same as nickname
  IRC Server: chat.freenode.net
  Port: 6667
• Hit the Connect button, you will then see a pop-up telling you it’s connecting to server.
• Then click on #chat button, once there hit on settings button(4 line button) to choose “Join Channel”
• Add citrt and enter
• Then click on the #citrt button to be entered into chat

I’m always looking for ways to better remember things that I come across online or in twitter.  Well it seems you can use a mention or DM of @myen in twitter once you have your account registered and it will automatically enter that info into Evernote.  I find this to be a quick and easy way to save stuff for later, I just hit the Retweet button (so i don’t have to type it all out) and switch it to a “d myen”

What do you use to help stay organized?

I was one of those people who was at the store at 7am on Friday, i couldn’t wait to get the Droid plus I was hoping to get back to give my wife her phone before her work day started (that didn’t happen). So far I’ve been very impressed with the Droid, it’s quick, it got a great screen, i’ve had no coverage isssues, and i’ve found an app for everything i’ve looked for so far.  The difficulty with apps so far is no one knows which ones to get, it’s a new device for most and there are still a lot of apps to choose from. So far my must have apps for the Droid in no particular order are:

• Facebook – well for Facebook
• Twidroid – yup, you guessed it for Twitter, latest version already has lists
• Bible –  from YouVersion, can’t wait till Live is integrated (hint, hint)
• Calorie Counter – great app to track what you’re eating and it’s nutrional information, use your camera to scan the barcode and the info will be added automatically
• CardioTrainer – another great health app that uses your phone’s GPS and as a pedometer to track your routes, call off pace, set goals, etc
• fIRC chat – As a Church IT guy you always have to be connected to our IRC chat to get your questions answered quickly
• Key Ring - So you don’t have to carry around all your rewards cards, gym tags, etc
• OurGroceries – syncs automatically between my phone and the wifes phone, also stores recipes so you can make sure you are picking up everything you need.
• Slacker – gotta have your radio
• wpToGo – Mobile access to my blog, hopefully i’ll use this to actually write posts more often

So what apps are you using? What have you tried that just don’t work the way it should? What apps do you wish you could find?

I didn’t plan on making this a top 10 list, but when i got done and had 10 well I had to name it that way.