technology

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My New Technology Doesn’t Work With The Old

Trying to use new technology with old technology doesn’t always work very well. Sometimes the two are incompatible.

I found that out recently when I got myself involved in a project just to be nice. By the time I had finished, however, I didn’t feel all that nice! 

I was asked to lend my video camera to someone for a project they wanted to film. Someone else was also asked the same thing.  

When it came time to film, the person doing the project chose to use the other camera. That was fine with me. 

But a few days later, that camera owner informed me that her camera would no longer hook up to her computer and that the person who had done the filming had assumed she would edit the film for him.

I agreed to help and to get the files off the camera and to edit the video for her. 

Bad call on my part! The camera wouldn’t hook up to her computer because the video files were recorded in an old format.

… I remember many years ago wanting to add front shocks to my mountain bike, thinking they would be a great feature to add.

When I went to the bike shop to ask how much the transformation would cost, I was informed that my bike was too old. The old front end construction didn’t allow for the addition of a new fork with shocks.

I ended up purchasing a new bike with front shocks. It cost a lot more money than my original plan, but the old bike construction was just too restrictive to keep using it.

I was facing the same problem with the camera, except for one difference: I thought that somehow there would be a way to get those video files into a useable format.

I worked on it, searched the internet and found some solutions … or what at first looked like solutions but weren’t.

I did discover that I could buy an application that would do the work for me, but it would cost $50 … not worth it for a six minute movie, especially since I would have no use for the program once this project was finished.

I spent over five hours working on this project that I was only asked to lend my camera to! 

I’m not sure you sense my frustration here, but if steam could come out of my ears … well, you’d maybe have a picture of my frustration.

In the end, I used a free program that read the files and converted them to a useable format … except it didn’t save the sound. I had to use that program to interpret the files, then replay the files while recording the sound from my computer screen. 

It was not perfect, but it worked. … I will definitely tell the owner of that camera to throw it out and not use it again.

Here’s the thing: The problem with technology is that it is continuously changing. If something is over five years old, you might find it no longer works or you can not get replacement parts for it.

God never changes. You can always connect with Him and relate to Him using the same means we have used for centuries: continue to pray, worship and serve Him. We may keep adding new formats, but the means remain the same. God longs to connect with us, and we never have to look for a new way. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you had to replace because the original was outdated? Leave your comments below.

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All My Technology Failed Me

This past Sunday I discovered how dependent and a slave I have become to technology.

It’s not like I’m going to pull the plug on my tech, but it was an eye-opener.

This is what my Sunday looked like …

I use notes on my iPad to preach from; I transfer PowerPoint slides from my computer to the church computer to be projected on the screen during the service. And this Sunday I was going to connect my computer to a big screen TV to present my report at our annual meeting.

Here’s a quick summary of what happened …

First, I was unable to transfer my PowerPoint slides to the church computer. In the process of trying, I wiped out all the music slides and created a mess for our tech person.

Next my computer screen would not show up on the big screen TV.

After twenty minutes of trying, in a bit of a panic, I decided to go home, get my old computer and use a projector instead of a TV.

On my way to my car, it was like God spoke to me and said, “Don’t do it”.

I stopped, looked at my watch and realized I didn’t have enough time.

I answered God, “You’re right; I just wont use it.”

And you know, immediately I felt peace – not worry, not panic – just peace.

I went back into the church, and simply prayed about the service and the annual meeting for then next twenty minutes. When the Sunday service began, there were still no slides for the sermon, but the music lyrics came up on the screen.

During the song just before my message, I turned on my iPad, like I always do just to make sure my sermon notes are open and ready.

Well, it would not open for some reason. At that point I didn’t really have time to problem solve. I got up quickly, went to my office while the song was being sung, grabbed my printed copy of my sermon notes and came back.

I preached from my printed notes (first time I’ve had to use those), had no visuals on the screen, and in the afternoon gave my annual report, also from printed notes without visuals.

Later that day, I checked my computer to see if it would hook up to my TV at home and it did – no problem.

After rebooting my iPad, it worked fine.

And the slides for the sermon? The next day I was able to transfer them over to the church computer without issue. It’s still a mystery why that happened.

It was a very strange day with three tech issues happening at the same time. I realized how dependent I am on technology.

You could chock all that up to coincidence, or you might say God was trying to teach me not to be so dependent on technology.

A third option would be that evil wanted to disrupt me and our service by putting me in a panic.

Once I stopped reacting to what was happening, the Lord gave me peace about it all. I was able to calmly and successfully complete my work without any disruption.

Here’s the thing: There are times when problems happen; it is just natural. There are also times when God wants to get your attention. And there are times that Satan wants to rattle you. The best solution is to stop yourself from reacting, turn to God, listen to him and find peace to move forward.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How have you dealt with domino-like problems in the past? Leave your comments below.

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Is Technology Making You Irrelevant? 

I’m a little concerned with where technology is leading us. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all “teched” up to the hilt in my world, but I don’t know how long I can keep going.

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I’m not concerned that computers stop being more and more useful; it’s that I don’t like the changes I have to keep making.

Software has to continually be kept up with or we appear to be old fashioned.

I experienced that the other day. People looked at me like I was from the dark ages because I didn’t have a certain app on my phone.

I was making arrangements to pay a guy for hockey, and he said, “Just send the money via etransfer.”

I replied that I didn’t really do that kind of thing … that’s when the looks started flashing around the room.

It seemed like I was the only one who didn’t use this form of money transfer.

My son just smiled and shook his head. He didn’t say it but I knew he was thinking, “Man, my dad is an old guy”.

He did ask, “Don’t you have the banking app?”, to which I responded, “What’s the banking app?” At that point I could tell his thoughts were, “It’s useless. He’s too old to understand this stuff.”

I know, in that moment, Mike was contemplating the next 20 years of helping me, holding my hand as the computer age passes me by.

I’ve watched that movie before! … only I was the one who had to hold my dad’s hand as he struggled to do some of the simple things on a computer.

I guess it happens to us all eventually. But I’m a computer guy and I don’t feel like I’m out of touch with what’s going on in the computer world.

I just don’t think I need to jump down every rabbit hole that technology is taking us on.

There are areas that I’m quite happy to leave alone, and leave for others to use. One of those areas has to do with my money and transactions.

There is something in me that likes to be the one who takes MY money out of MY bank account. I don’t like it when someone else – either the bank or a merchant – takes my money out of my account for me.

Now I’ll have to get used to etransfer or the computer age will pass me by.

I just don’t like where computers are leading us. I shouldn’t be considered out of touch or too old to figure it out because I don’t use a certain method of payment.

At the end of our conversation, Mike said he would do the transfer. That sounded perfect to me because the money would be coming out of his bank account!

I told him, “That works for me. I’ll just subtract that amount from the tab you’ve got going with me.”

Here’s the thing: Most of us want to remain relevant in this world. As you consider staying relevant spiritually, remember that God never changes. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. You can always reach Him in the same way; He’s always reachable by prayer.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: In what area do you fear becoming irrelevant? Leave your comment below.

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We Need To Connect

Something has changed in my family that I’m not really excited about. There are a host of changes I have been thrilled about over the years, like being done with diapers, and driving the kids everywhere, whenever. But this new change doesn’t thrill me.

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The other day was my wife’s birthday (not the change I’m referring to) and she received the usual greetings via the telephone from family members who live out of town. If you answer the phone when these calls come in, you know they just want to talk to the birthday girl, so you try to quickly pass the handset off to her.

But when our daughter calls, usually we all get into the conversation a little bit. It’s like we are all together again as a family. There have been some years when our daughter (who has been out west for six years) has video chatted during birthdays: we have set a laptop in her normal place at the table and then met as a family for birthday dinner.

That didn’t happen this year. I didn’t even talk to my daughter on my wife’s birthday.  It was like she wasn’t part of our birthday celebrations; she just had an insider conversation with her mom.

It’s partly my fault. I should have told Karlie what our plans were for the day and then had her join us for part of it. I missed not having another voice to tease my wife. When the three of us gang up on Lily, it’s even better than when just my son and I do it!

Maybe this is just a change that’s inevitable and there is nothing we can do about it. Maybe it happened because my daughter used up her data plan in the first two weeks of the month and is now internetless (new word) until the first week of May.

At any rate, Karlie was missing from the celebration this year … and that’s a change I don’t really like. I’ve noticed that changes in the family just seem to happen. You don’t really anticipate them; they just sort of slide in on you and you deal with them.

… Like when your son decides to move in with some buddies downtown for the summer. You don’t preplan to turn his room into a home gym because he may be back by the fall.  But when the room is empty for a while, the thought crosses your mind for a second … or two.

To be honest, I like change. I’ve enjoyed watching my kids grow up, face new challenges, and transform before my eyes into full fledged adults (mostly). But for some reason, I like my family to remain the same around special occasions.

Maybe that’s weird; maybe that’s trying to hold on to something that keeps the family members from truly becoming their own individuals. But to me, it seems with the technology we have today, if we used it to maintain family gatherings, it could keep the family closer.

Here’s the thing: We are able to travel great distances at a moment’s notice. And that can take us away from the special occasion of meeting with God’s family at church on Sundays. We can even get used to being away from this special occasion on a regular basis. But we miss out on celebrating with the family when we aren’t present. We have technology to keep us connected. We should make sure we do what we can to remain close to our church family.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How do you remain close to family when you’re not present?  Leave your comment below.