The Curse of the Missing Keyboard and Mouse
Posted on August 18, 2008
This past Sunday, we hit some major snags during our first service. We have had some glitchy video issues that come and go and are usually easily resolved. The display goes out on the screen, I reach back and do something highly technical, I wiggle the connection. All is good. That happened once early in the game Sunday morning, it might have even been during sound check and it was quick fix. Then, it happened again in the middle of the worship time and it happened during a song that nobody knew. What an opportune time for the screens to go black, not that there is ever a good time for that.
My first attempt didn’t work, the wiggle it back and forth fix. I checked both ends of the wire and plugged and unplugged and tried to reset the mixer and got nothing. Daniel looked at it and still, we had nothing. After a reboot and a little more tweaking, we were back! The computer was on it’s nose and that’s where we left it through both services.
So, Daniel, Donna and I came in tonight to do some things that were very much needed in the sound booth. We have 3 PC’s in there, only two functioning right now, the third has an inactivated version of winXP on it and no keyboard and mouse. I’m not sure what happened to the keyboard and mouse but at least one other time, we came in, intending to get it up and running, only to be stalled out by the missing keyboard and mouse.
Last week, I said I would get a new keyboard and mouse and sure enough, I didn’t. So, we came in tonight and I said tonight is the night we will get this done….then we realized we still needed a keyboard and mouse. So, instead of just whining and complaining about it, we got off our butts, went to WalMart and picked up not 1 keyboard and mouse but 2.
We have also had an issue with networking in the sound booth and when we got that third computer re-imaged, we didn’t have it on the network, hence the unactivated XP. I have now installed a switch in the sound booth which allows us to network all of our gear, plus any guest laptops.
Once we unpackaged the keyboards and mice, we turned on #3 and it came up prompting us to activate it, as expected, and we let it do that and all is good now.
Our primary computer, that runs EasyWorship had a wireless keyboard and mouse and the keyboard batteries died so a while back, I slapped another one on there, wired. But tonight we replaced it too.
We also did some streaming and revived the idea of our Jim and Daniel show, which is basically a show of 2 guys rambling about random tech stuff while we work. We are looking for a cool name, to add some pizazz and make us more marketable. So, if you have any ideas, let me know.
We plan to stream again on Thursday evening so check it out. Just go to www.ustream.tv and search on Fairview Christian Church, there are 2 streams and one will show ‘live’ when we are live. Just click on that and you can watch.
To add to our mess this past Sunday, I had full intention of streaming and thought we were but when I went to stop it, I realized, I never hit the broadcast button.
On Thursday, we plan to reposition all 3 computers and either end up with 2 or 3 fully functioning. In doing this, we will have a dedicated streaming computer, which, up til now, we have always used a laptop. We also will make the streaming computer be the podcasting computer as well. We will also have our original powerhouse EasyWorship computer back in place, plus have a fully functioning backup computer.
So, watch us Thursday as we stream our work. Maybe our show will begin to take shape. Maybe not.
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Hey — that’s a lot better than not having a keyboard at all! One guy had his wireless keyboard (Mac) go bad, and he’s been shuffling the working one between the church and his home. Then to add insult to injury (speadking of video problems) I had them record the services this week, but by the time I got done working the kids check-in table, the tape was MIA. I called and was told the tape would be dropped off after worship practice. I was running late and got back to church to see them taping the other event we had that night. The instructions left was that the tapes in the bag (all previously used and labeled) were ready to go. I looked and sure enough . . the earlier worship service in the day was the one being taped OVER. DOH! It was communicated wrong, and not very clear since all the tapes had previous dates on them.
Just one of the days of trials in the IT ministry field right? *Sigh*