As part of our ongoing mandate to provide churches and ministries with the best service possible, we are pleased to announce five new updates to AdvancedMinistry.

1. Media Player: You can now choose a different media player background image. Before today, even though you could skin your media player however you wanted, you were stuck with a purple/blue image for your media player background. Now you can choose from one of seven backgrounds (that include a wide variety of color options). To choose a different background, login, edit your AM 3.0 template and click on the “Media Player” tab. You will now see an option to choose a different Media Player Style.

2. Media Player: When you upload an audio/video file to your website, you have the option to choose a “Supplementary File” to go with it (i.e. a Sermon Notes PDF file, etc.). When a user visits your site, they can listen/watch your file and download the Supplementary File. The problem with this is that many users don't know what “Supplementary File” means, so we've now given you the option to rename to something more user-friendly (i.e. “Sermon Notes”). To make this change, login and click on “Edit My Media Files”. Then edit the media file that you want to change and scroll toward the bottom of the page. There you will see a new field called “Supplementary Download Friendly Name”. Change the name and click on Submit.

3 Media Player: For those of you that like to embed AdvancedMinistry videos throughout your website, you will notice that AdvancedMinistry chooses a still-frame from your video to use as the thumbnail image. You can now change that thumbnail to one of your choosing. To make this change, login and click on “Edit My Media Files”. Then edit the media file that you want to change and scroll to the bottom of the page. There you will see a new field called “Alternative Preview Image (for Embedded Media)”. Choose the JPEG image that you would like to use.

4. Blogs: Instead of just featuring the names of your blogs on your front page, you can now feature your most recent posts, listed by title. This should help substantially for those users who are trying to use their front page as a relevant portal to their blog. To make this change, login and click on “Edit My Blogs”. You will see the option listed under “Home Page View”.

5. Forms: Rather than just sorting all of the custom forms on your Forms page by the date that they were created, you can now sort them any way you like. To make this change, login and click on “Edit My Forms” followed by “Sort Forms”. You can then drag and drop the forms in the order that you'd like them to appear.

Enjoy!

Welcome to Show & Tell, a weekly feature that focuses on the work of ministries within the Electricurrent and AdvancedMinistry clientele.

This week's feature is Tunbridge Wells Christian Fellowship, a vibrant, growing church in Tunbridge Wells, UK. Tunbridge Wells Christian Fellowship has been using the AdvancedMinistry platform for about a month now, and in our opinion, are making great use the AM 3.0 template flexibility.

You can read more about their church by visiting www.twcf.org.

After reading this weeks post you're probably going to want to refer to me as Professor Stickler, but I'm ok with that because right is right.

Building or creating a logo in Adobe Photoshop is wrong. Before I go into the specifics of why I will give you a moment to consider the reasoning for this yourself. If you have been following these posts on Monday mornings you have enough info to figure this out, let's see if you've been paying attention.

Got the answer yet? Think for a moment, I know you can get it.

The answer lies in the difference between bitmap and vector art files. Photoshop is a bitmap program which limits the usability of your logo. Admittedly Photoshop has become a lot more handy in the last few versions imitating some vector functionalities, but it still isn't Adobe Illustrator.

Technically you could get away with building your logo in Photoshop in a lot of instances. This is especially true if you're primarily a web-based operation. After all, most web graphics are created/assembled in Photoshop so why can't the logo be part of that? Well it can. When I'm making a site, I open my logo in Illustrator, then copy and paste it into Photoshop.

But if there comes a time when I need to do something for print I have that same logo from Illustrator and work with it in my print file. Now again, this could be accomplished with Photoshop if you made your logo large enough and at 300dpi, but chances are not too many people are going to do that. On a side-note, creating a logo in Photoshop creates the temptation to do to many complex tricks with their logo using filters or other intricate things that shouldn't be done in logo design.

Suppose furthermore that at some point you need to create some promo material and the production company asks for a vector file because that is all they work with. Now you're in a bind and may be facing time constraints to solve this problem or additional costs.

Lastly, an Illustrator file can be easily made into any bitmap format but Photoshop doesn't translate into vector so well. There are some techniques, but they are not super reliable. Illustrator is completely universal so that is why I hold to the position that all logos should be created in Illustrator.

The last thing I want to share is the thought that owning proper files and having them organized is a key component to managing your brand. I continue to be surprised how many organizations do not have proper logo files or images that are integral parts of their brand. If reading that sentence hurt in any way, it might be an indicator that you have a pretty important item to put on your to-do list. It might not seem important now, but it's the kind of thing that can sneak up and hurt you later.

Our new toy in the office that encourages a bit of creative release and team building is a Ping Pong table that doubles as our board room table. This new addition to our work environment has given rise to a marked increase in our interest of YouTube videos featuring amazing or just plain cool Ping Pong moments. Today we bring you one such video. Enjoy!

We are pleased to announce another AdvancedMinistry Easter template entitled "Victory on the Cross". You can view a preview of the new template here.

As usual, all AM 3.0 templates are fully customizable including the ability to change the number of columns, colors, fonts, etc. If you would like to use a simplified version of your home page, edit your template, click the Layout Tab and choose "Hide All Columns (Simplified Home Page)". Resource files for the new template can be found in the "Download Materials" menu under "Template Resource Files".

To change your template at any time, login to your AdvancedMinistry account and select “Choose My Template”.

Knee-jerk reactions. We all have them, both individually and corporately.

It's something we constantly warn our clients about. One of the challenges that a knee-jerk reaction presents is that it's tough to identify. Because it's such an innate reaction, we treat it like an idea and develop rationale around it which translates into not realizing that what we're doing is in fact, a knee-jerk response to some catalyst.

That being the case, when I read this article on CNN the other day about how Facebook overtook Google as the most trafficked site on the Internet, my mind immediately went to thinking about how many people would read that and if they weren't already at their desk, they would run back to their office, jump on Facebook and build a fan page for their organization...because after all, you've got to be where the people are, right?

Not necessarily.

Social Media is, at heart, social. Seems obvious right? But the implications of that truth don't seem to be.

Imagine showing up to a party and yelling, “Hey everyone, I'm here!” and then just standing in the corner for the rest of the time and when people approach you to talk, you stare blankly into space ignoring them. The only exception to that is that at random times, you shout out something that's important to you and might be important to them like “I like apples!”.

The reality is that many organizations do exactly that on Facebook. They create a fan page and get loads of people following them, but they don't generate or contribute to conversations that are occurring on it and as such, start looking a lot more like the guy in the corner at a party than someone who's truly interested in socializing.

As such, my suggestion is to either:

A) Leave Facebook and other social media platforms alone until you are truly ready to socialize, OR
B) Commit to being sociable and enjoy all the benefits that Facebook can bring.

The key to remember is that there's no real middle ground there.

Welcome to Show & Tell, a weekly feature that focuses on the work of ministries within the Electricurrent and AdvancedMinistry clientele.

This week's feature is Inspiried Individuals, an AdvancedMinistry client located in the United Kingdom. The Inspired Individuals initiative seeks to identify, support and resource social entrepreneurs – change agents whose unique vision has the potential to transform the lives of millions living in poverty.

You can read more about their ministry by visiting www.inspiredindividuals.org.

Monday Morning Misdemeanors is a series of weekly posts written by Graphic Designer, Derek Gyssels. In this series, Derek is going to hone in on a number of common problems that crop up in graphic designs and then give you the tools to avoid them which will give your designs a professional polish.

This weeks misdemeanor is a simple one. We have noticed on our end that some AM users are uploading extremely large graphics for use on their websites. I find it good timing that this is coming on the heels of last week's post because this issue is pretty well the exact opposite problem. Although designers need to work with the highest-quality image possible (which translates into large file sizes), images for the web need to be quite small to be practical.

The particular issue here is that some of the images being uploaded for AM are over one megabyte in size. The AM software resizes images for where ever it is being used in the site, however this doesn't make the file size any smaller. The result is a 200 pixel by 300 pixel image that takes a long time to download.

What needs to happen is if you have a large image it needs to be shrunk before uploading. This will save time on loading pages and it will save storage space on your account. The auto-resizing that AM provides is intended to help you not have to resize all your images if they are slightly off the size that the platform will display. All you need to do is check the file size of your image before you use it. You can do this in Windows by right-clicking on the file and selecting “Properties” in the menu that appears. On a Mac you can select your file and press Command + I. Your Internet-bound images should not be over 100KB.

At the end of the day it is up to you what you do. As I said above the only thing at jeopardy here is your sites performance and the file space you have associated to your account. I say that tongue-in-cheek to make a point, because both of those things are very important. If you don't have Photoshop to help you resize your images there are options.

One that some people around here have used is Pixlr which allows you to perform basic editing of images for free. But if that doesn't work you, search Google for free software that can get the job done.

As always, I welcome your questions and comments. I'll be back next week!

If you don't already have any plans for retirement, might I suggest...

In preparation for Easter, we have launched our latest AdvancedMinistry template -- "Mocked to Crowned". The design begins with a hand-drawn image of the mockery that Jesus received and then proceeds to show the subsequent scenes, finally leading to Jesus being crowned with glory and honor (Hebrews 2:9). You can view a preview of the animation sequence here.

As usual, all AM 3.0 templates are fully customizable including the ability to change the number of columns, colors, fonts, etc. If you would like to use an enhanced version of your home page, edit your template, click the Layout Tab and choose "Show All Columns (Enhanced Home Page)". Resource files for the new template can be found in the "Download Materials" menu under "Template Resource Files".

To change your template at any time, login to your AdvancedMinistry account and select “Choose My Template”.

One of the items that has been requested a lot over the last few months is the ability to embed audio/video files (within an AdvancedMinistry website), without having to categorize them.

For example, Church X has two media categories: Sermons and Featured Speakers. The youth pastor of Church X wants to upload a Flash Video file to AdvancedMinistry and embed it within their ministry section. Before today, the only way to do this would be to upload the file, categorize it (in either Sermons or Featured Speakers) and then embed it within the Youth section of the website. As of today, you can now upload a file, and categorize it under “Don't Put in any category” and then embed it.

For instructions on embedding videos or audio files, click here.

Welcome to Show & Tell, a weekly feature that focuses on the work of ministries within the Electricurrent and AdvancedMinistry clientele.

This week's feature is Church of the Harvest, an AdvancedMinistry client located in Olathe, KS. We always love it when churches and ministries come up with creative ways to use AdvancedMinistry. In the case of Church of the Harvest, they have created a unique homepage that focuses on pointing users in the right direction using a series of images that are updated on a regular basis.

You can read more about their ministry by visiting www.churchoftheharvest.org.

Monday Morning Misdemeanors is a series of weekly posts written by Graphic Designer, Derek Gyssels. In this series, Derek is going to hone in on a number of common problems that crop up in graphic designs and then give you the tools to avoid them which will give your designs a professional polish.

This is a crime we face quite often in our office when working on print projects. Many times we will be working on a project and a client will have some photography they want utilized. We say; “Great, please send it!” When it arrives, the fun begins.

A while ago I wrote a post on this call Resolution Revelation which I recommend you read to get the bulk of what you need to know about this matter.

But in short, all you really need to know is one thing. If you are wanting to use any images (jpg or tiff) and the file size is under 500KB in size you are in jeopardy of committing this crime. This is especially true if your wanting to use the image(s) at a large size. But if you want to be safe, 1-2 MB is best to start with. Really at the end of the day any image can be used, how good the finished piece looks is the only thing that will suffer.

So before you send images to a designer or agency to be used, look at the file size and gauge if the quality is good enough. If your still not sure, open the image and be sure to look at it at 100% the size. If you can see individual pixels or any blurriness, you will need to find a better picture(s).

FYI - This is not the original video by the band dcTalk for this song, but it's the only thing I could find on YouTube that had the song. Enjoy.

We are pleased to announce our latest AdvancedMinistry 3.0 template entitled "The Narrow Gate" (view preview), modeled from Xpiritmental Wallpaper #66.

As usual, all AM 3.0 templates are fully customizable including the ability to change the number of columns, colors, fonts, etc. If you would like to use a simplified version of your home page, edit your template, click the Layout Tab and choose "Show All Columns (Simplified Home Page)". Resource files for the new template can be found in the "Download Materials" menu under "Template Resource Files".

To change your template at any time, login to your AdvancedMinistry account and select “Choose My Template”.

Welcome to the first edition of Show & Tell, a new weekly feature that focuses on the work of ministries within the Electricurrent and AdvancedMinistry clientele.

This week's feature is SEND International, a missions organization that serves in over 20 countries throughout the world.

We have had the privilege of working with SEND for the last couple of years on branding and web initiatives.

You can read more about their ministry by visiting www.send.org.

Monday Morning Misdemeanors is a series of weekly posts written by Graphic Designer, Derek Gyssels. In this series, Derek is going to hone in on a number of common problems that crop up in graphic designs and then give you the tools to avoid them which will give your designs a professional polish.

This case is a little obscure, but I know there are a handful of you out there that are going to appreciate me covering this. This topic is a bit of a nitty-gritty detail but it is also one that can cause quite a bit of grief if it is overlooked. It is a bit of a head scratcher, but the color black needs to be treated with some care in your design projects, especially print projects. Let's start by looking at a few fundamentals.

All design projects can reside in a number of color modes but the one we are concerned with is CMYK which stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and black. What you need to understand is that all printed materials, unless specified by pantone colors, are made by those four colors in various halftones and line screens. All four of those colors can have a value between 0 and 100 which is a range of intensity of application from least to greatest.

Now through no fault of your own, if you were working in photoshop and wanted to fill the background of your design with black your natural compulsion would be to set the black value to 100 and all the other color values to zero, however this would be wrong. That result would give you a very dark grey. If your looking for a black as dark as the night sky it requires a color formula involving all four colors (as seen in the image provided).

There was a time that this was a huge problem in the printing world because the software would display black the same way regardless of the color formula involved. Then Adobe made an improvement in their software to account for this making sure that a black with a value of only K100 would appear grey in nature (again see the image provided). This leads me into the first of two points I want to leave you with.

It doesn't matter what the black looks like on your screen, the numbers making up the black are king. If you're not sure about the values involved in a color, use the 'eye dropper' tool in Photoshop to find out what the formula is. The numbers are going to be fed into a computer or printer and those numbers will be translated into ink coverage so always keep that in mind.

The last point is only use K100 for type. If your have a print piece and there is a lot of black text at 10 or 12 point you should never us a black made up of more than one color. On a press the four colors are printed separately and the registration will be to hard to line up accurately and you will end up with some ghosting around your copy. The only time you can use a true black formula on type is for a large headlines of more than 24 points or so.

At the end of the day if you have any questions talk to your service provider and have them help you out. You shouldn't be on your own with this, especially if you're unsure about what your doing. Just be careful with the color black because if you impersonate it with the wrong values you could be disappointed in your final printed work. As I have learned in my career, once ink is on paper there is no going back. Don't learn it the hard way.

As reported on CNN, a funeral was held last night for Internet Explorer 6 (better known as IE6). “Attendees were expected to eulogize the Microsoft browser by sharing remembrances, some of which have already been posted on the company's website – see www.ie6funeral.com.

"The early 2000's will go down as the MC Hammer of decades. It started out all confident and flash, and ended in bankruptcy. Then came the grunge era. The global economic meltdown might give us the distance we need to fully absorb the absurdity of dog jewelry, pimped rides and man-made island resorts in the desert. As a generation of young people cope with the double-digit unemployment, they might embrace a new set of values that are a break from the past. A break from status that can be bought and mortgaged. People may once again start looking for things that are 'real'. Status may once again have to be earned. I'm already seeing a lot of people wearing plaid."

- Barry Quinn, executive creative director, brand design, Juniper Park

I love this quote. In no small part because plaid is in fact, making a comeback.

For the last couple of days I've been carrying a cold around with me and among the other unpleasantness of a good virus, the one thing most noticable over the last day and a half has been the fact that I lose my voice if I talk for a while.

It gets frustrating too for a guy who's job it is to communicate all day. But my situation pales in comparison to what I just read about film critic, Roger Ebert and the cool new technology in his life. Click here to check it out.

Once you get back from visiting, reading and viewing that link, I'm guessing at least some of you are also immediately thankful for the voice that you take for granted each and every day...and it's true, we all do it. Our voices are an amazing tool for us to communicate with and we take for granted that it will always be there...that we'll always have a chance to use that wonder of communication to clearly convey the thoughts that we want to.

But what if you were to lose it? What if you weren't able to communicate using your voice anymore? Would you regret how you had used it when you had it? Would you wish you'd done more with it?

I think the same attitude needs to be taken with all our communications, personal and organizational. Don't treat what and how you communicate as just something that's a throw away. Value it. Treat it with respect by communicating well. Don't let neglect lead you to regret. We have a plethora of communication options these days - let's use them for all their worth to communicate the greatness of our God and His calling in our lives!

Last week I wrote about the “Own the Podium” program that the Canadian Olympic Committee, VANOC (Vancouver Organizing Committee) and Canada's sport federations established back in 2005 which involved greater funding for our athletes than they had ever had before and also provided a really aggressive goal for the athletes.

Thing is, it just wasn't us. It isn't a Canadian thing to go around chanting, “We're #1! We're #1!”.

Then, halfway through the Olympics, the “Own the Podium” program was rescinded because it was clear that there was no way that we would actually end up winning the Olympic games which quite frankly, was embarrassing. So, even though after the program was rescinded our athletes went on an unbelievable run to win the most gold medals by a country in the history of the Winter Olympic games, our bold strategy at winning the Olympic games outright left us with a bit of mud on our faces.

Enter the closing ceremonies and at one point, a small, kinda shaky guy in glasses, jeans and a sport coat stood in the middle of the ice and said: “Hi, I'm Mike”.

BC Place erupted with cheers and applause.

“Mike” in this case, was Michael J. Fox, one of Canada's most famous actors having starred in shows like Family Ties, Spin City and Boston Legal and films like the Back to the Future trilogy. But what many know him for today is his courageous battle with Parkinson's and advocacy on behalf of finding a cure for that disease.

So here's a guy with a lot to brag about if he wanted, but instead, he kinda humbly, almost sheepishly gets out on the ice of BC Place and introduces himself to a global audience as if we were all standing in his front foyer and he was welcoming us individually.

And immediately, I was struck with the thought that the reason everyone was cheering was not just because it was Michael J. Fox, but it was also because that in that demure statement, he embodied so much of who Canadians are. We identified as a nation and we cheered at how refreshing it was to just be ourselves along with Mike down on the ice.

But that kind of identity isn't just a Canadian trait. It's a human one.

Wouldn't it be refreshing if we would just drop all the pomp and circumstance around our brands (personal, corporate and organizational) and just approach the people we interact with in our personal lives and at our work by saying our own version of “Hi, I'm Mike”?

It's a long way from “Own the Podium”, but it goes a lot longer of a way to creating trust and a lasting positive brand impression.

Monday Morning Misdemeanors is a series of weekly posts written by Graphic Designer, Derek Gyssels. In this series, Derek is going to hone in on a number of common problems that crop up in graphic designs and then give you the tools to avoid them which will give your designs a professional polish.

This crime is certainly a petty one but it is one that I want to call attention to nonetheless. For some reason in high school keyboarding classes we were taught that it is correct to put two spaces after a sentence. This was a lesson that I carried with me into my college years in graphic design, where I was taught that this practice is actually incorrect. So what's the deal? After having been taught both and having implemented both practices, I live by what I was taught in design school. Let me give you a couple of reasons why.

From an aesthetic point of view, it looks better to use one space instead of two. When you leave two spaces after a sentence you end up having little holes in your blocks of type. This is especially true if you are laying out a brochure with some large blocks of body copy. The image at right demonstrates this.

Another reason to not use two spaces is space itself. If you happen to be type setting a large report or book, you end up saving pages worth of space. Over the course of a 100 pages of type you can save hundreds of spaces which can end up saving a few pages by the end of the report or book. To be honest with you, most of the copy we receive from our clients comes with double spaces, and we remove them. My coworker type sets books and says its not uncommon to save well over 500 spaces from a book's worth of type.

At the end of the day, its going to be your call as to whether or not you push the space bar once or twice after a period. The graphics police aren't going to write you a ticket, but I suggest that it is more professional to use single spaces. Any knowledgeable designer or agency you provide copy to will remove double spaces. Truthfully, double spacing is more of an old-school, typewriter-era practice.

So stop abusing your space bar and start loving your designs!