Adventures In Barcoding

Peggy and I have been discussing many aspects of the children check in/out process and speed and efficiency is a paramount to this. The current system that the church has will not scale . . . so we're looking at introducing some concepts and things that will certainly appear to be overkill for our size now. One of the things that is on the forefront of thoughts is the accuracy of who goes where and when. If we just have a number attached to a child, will someone be diligent in checking that number? If they're not, then the whole system is just a hollow facade of warm fuzzies that offers no more benefit then our current "grab a snowflake" one.

Once upon a time, I worked at Xerox and it's kind of amazing to see (at that time) the level of operations that existed. My first task there was to design an inventory control system for paper going out on our production floor at the Xerox Business Services unit here in Kansas City. At the time we had no idea of what we had in stock, how quickly it was being used, or anything. There would be reams and boxes of paper just sitting for years before being cleared out and tossed. To put it in perspective, Xerox at that time didn't even barcode their own paper inventory. When the paper was delivered to our facility we had to go in and print our own barcode labels and stick on the various paper boxes. Then when the paper would leave our storeroom we would scan it out, that way we could track how it was being used and estable reorder levels. It was pretty cutting edge technology back then . . . in 1993.

Getting into the barcoding thing also led to another first for our office, and that was meter readings for machines via a portable bar code reader. We had one facility management client with a lot of Xerox machines spread over a wide range of locations. The old way was to write down the serial number, or match the serial number on a list/clipboard arrangement and write the ending meter reading. That information would then be manually input into a spreadsheet. You can only guess the mayhem that would ensue with that system. It would literally take over 3+ days to get all the machines final month end meter readings. I found a portable voice prompting barcode scanner that would allow us to affix a barcode label with the serial number and then input the meter reading via the keypad. All those scans/inputs could then be downloaded via a CSV file into our system to match up the meter readings for that month. Talk about time savings! (Alas, I never saw the spoils of time savings in monetary form!)

So that leads me back to where I'm thinking we should go with the new system. One way or another, a hand scanner and bar coded labels for the parents/children would be used to get them in/out as quickly as possible. With 30-50 students right now it will appear like total overkill, but add another zero on those numbers and suddenly you have a HUGE time savings. Most importantly peace of mind on following procedures will be the best thing. My hope and prayer is that all of this is to never have to use it for the intended purpose of getting the kids information in an emergency.

Sprint Steps Up

So I was debating the whole phone issue. My contract isn't up until November. My son's contract (Cingular/AT&T) isn't up until September, and my wife . . well she's been a very happy customer for Cingular (now AT&T) for a very long time. I was on the fence on what to do and started looking at costs vs. want/need. A retention person from Sprint called me back to see if I had made a decision yet on contracts and what I was going to do. I hadn't but he offered to at least make things a bit easier for me -- giving me a 1000 minute plan (up from the 900 I had) and dropping the rate $20. (!) Yeah . . . I was pretty amazed at that too. My wife has been with AT&T since 1995, but I don't know that they'll be quite that flexible (desperate perhaps?) compared with Sprint. My phone does everything I need it to, I just have some problems with syncing it to my Mac . . . but that's a feature of the software and not any fault of the phone nor the Mac. For $20 cheaper bill, and perhaps an overall savings of $80/month (figuring out plans/etc... for when we're all swapped over) I'll definitely keep my Sprint contract.

On tech matters with the church . . . we're working diligently on the sign-in information for the kids program. We have a target to get the sign-in portion done by, since it would fall in line with one of our big gatherings where we have the whole congregation together for food and worship. That would be a fantastic time to announce the new security features of the child check-in program. I guess the only boundary now is getting the whole thing wrote and implemented! God will provide the talent/skill/time I think . . . I just need to work on the trusting and planning a bit here and there. I've already figured out what I'm going to use for the system -- the LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) stack, but I will forgo the MySQL database for my more familiar and robust (IMHO) Postgres one. I was very spoiled using it since my VOIP billing days at a local provider.

I know it's a bit of the cart before the horse, but I've already came up with one name idea for the program: Akoloutheo (http://www.studylight.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=190) - to follow one who precedes, join him as his attendant, accompany him

Tech Wants/Needs

I'm experiencing a bit of a delimma, balancing what my needs are for a cell phone versus what I want. I've currently got the Palm 700wx on Sprint, and it's been a great little phone. I can surf the web, text, and do everything I need to. I had a Pocket PC 6300 and hated it . . . not to mention it would crash, bomb, and was as stable as a leaf in a whirlwind. (Can you tell I hated it? LOL) It did have one redeeming feature, a macro mode for taking pics with the built in camera. I'm a bit of a photography buff, so being able to take a picture anytime/anywhere is nice. But I know better than trusting that duty to my phone . . . still it would be nice to have a camera at a whim. I used to carry a voice recorder for taking notes of phone numbers or things while driving, but I don't carry that anymore. I haven't used that feature on my phone either.

I can open up PDF documents with my phone, and do Excel/Word, but again . . . I haven't done either of those. My phone was meant to be a laptop replacement at times, allowing me to check mail and do other tasks, but in some ways it's not necessary so much now for those tasks. Of course, all this changes rapidly when my work projects (and church project) come online and require monitoring/intervention. With my phone I have done a remote desktop connection into our work systems to fix a problem in the past -- talk about fun while in a park having lunch!

I'm on the fence with what I want to do versus what I really need a phone to do. If I look at what I really want (an iPhone, because it would integrate with my Mac stuff) then my monthly costs would be significantly more. I suspect they would be at least $50/month more. That's $600 a year, and $1200 for the life of a contract (2 years). That's just ADDITIONAL. Hmm.

Connectivity is a huge bonus in my life to keep track of what is going on . . . but then interacting and doing things online is a key component to that. I wish I had a crystal ball to peer into the future two years to see what technology will be available and worth the changes now. Oh the decisions in life . . . LOL.

One Body

1 Corinthians 12 (New International Version)

I'm going to pull a few punches here and there in my commentary, and these things are my observations and don't necessarily reflect the views of Heartland Church. This passage seems to echo what I feel we as a church body need to work on for opportunities for growth. We have a lot of parts and pieces all functioning and doing their particular roles, but I don't think we have communication or a spirit of one within. I know there has been dissension in the church about who has what resources, or what is important at any particular one time. Before we start thinking too much on the "my part" or the "my team" we need to think of the "OUR CHURCH" and "GOD'S WILL" part of what we're focusing on. Just as each part of our body has a specific role and nothing can elevate itself higher than other parts, we should take the same mentality in our church ministries. Just because one particular ministry isn't the same or have the same level of enthusiasm/participation/etc... doesn't mean it's not a vital part or something that isn't worth effort. Those words offered up from that verse should weigh heavily enough on their own. Let's connect hearts to God and to one another - how ever God leads us.

Amazing Grace

I think this picture sums up the fun filled week of Vacation Bible School at Heartland Church this week. Peggy and I were team leaders and had responsibility for kids in games, learning, and other fun. The culmination was presenting the songs we learned to the congregation at the 9 AM and 10:45 services, and then an outdoor carnival. Our church is growing, and we're in a fantastic area for more growth potential. One of my goals is to allow the technology to be so transparent and easy to use that our pastors and leaders can simply use it as another tool to bring hearts to God. Our church motto is connecting hearts to God and to one another, and I think a solid technology team will be able to help in that one small aspect. I'm very blessed by God in every aspect of my life, so giving my life's priorities up for his work is exactly what I believe in.

Tech Needs

This week has been a very hectic one, my wife and I have been volunteering with the Vacation Bible School at Heartland Church this week. We've been in Power Lab giving our kids in our crews the power of Jesus in their lives. It's been a very moving and emotional time for me as I look at these faces and wonder what lies in store for them. I know how attending church and VBS influenced my life, so I'm praying that someday these kids will have the same experience and come to know Christ in a deeper relationship also.

On the tech front, Peggy (my wife) and I had an eye opening experience as we volunteered to help with the Kids For The King (K4K) part of Heartland Church -- our Sunday school times. We were relegated to the sign-in desk and we could see a lot of opportunities. They've progressed very rapidly, from not having any system to working on continually refining the system they have now, but it's still paper based and in it's current form it's not very scalable at all. It's been weighing on my heart a lot and I've already made a flowchart and been bouncing ideas between Peggy and I on how it could work. I had a very wonderful "A HA!" moment last night too when Peggy had the exact same suggestion that I had thought about for getting the kids out of the classroom and to their parents. For privacy and security purposes, I won't divulge any information on how the current system works, but there are a lot of opportunities to make the kids safer and reassure parents also.

In addition to that, a request that has been out there for a while has been to get an ethernet cable or wireless signal down to the older sanctuary at the church. The new part of the facility was built on and there is a long fire-break hall between the two structures called "the Link". The problem is the new facility is concrete walls and the old sanctuary was a brick faced building also, so there are a lot of solid walls to bounce a poor wireless signal through. It depends on the day on how far down the hall the signal actually reaches, and sometimes our youth director can get a signal in his office, and sometimes not. He ends up working down the hall from his office wherever he can catch a signal.

My plan is to at least get a hardwired cable down the hallway to connect the two buildings and then address putting a second wireless router to give adequate coverage in that area. I've tapped the resources of our "Tool Time" ministry to get the manpower to help me run cablign down there. This is a project that has been on the back burner for a very long time and I feel very remiss for not moving forward sooner on it. This would actually be a very good time to tackle the project because our youth team will be out of town in Memphis, Tennessee next week so a nice suprise for our youth leader would be a fully functional network.

Current State

I think it's appropriate to start this off by documenting where we are first, and then as we are led by God into where he sees fit, we can then look back on our progress and see what has changed. I've been attending Heartland Church since 2005. When I first started attending, I started to get involved with the web site for the church. I went to several web team meetings and then personal issues arose and I dropped out from attending both church and the meetings. Some time went by and after more personal issues, I went back to church. The same web site was still online, but they were spearheading a new effort to get the site updated. I offered up a solution based on an open source content management system (Mambo) and worked with the new web designer for the project. Together we finally got an entirely new web site online.

Around the same time frame, the sermon podcasts were put online by Jim Hoopingarner using the .Mac platform. Jim was able to get that project up and going, and then I worked with him to take over the podcast of the sermon portion of our worship service. I added an open source podcasting software to allow people to access the podcasts via either a web page, a download, or an iTunes compatible RSS feed. Jim continue to put the worship music online via his .Mac account for now.

About Me

Bradley Miller
(Pictured left to right - daughter, son, myself, Peggy, son)