Kerner.net

Google Apps

We're in the process of a major internet infrastructure shift at Schweitzer. By the end of June we should have migrated our connectivity from a T1 (part of which is used for voice lines) and a 100mb fiber connection. The resulting shift has a several of important implications. The first is that our day-to-day usage will be incredibly fast - other customers have told us that more often than not remote sites are the bandwidth bottleneck. The second is that we'll no longer need to off-site our bandwidth intensive materials because of the increased speed. Third we'll have to migrate all of our email away from our current provider (the subject of this post).

I've looked at a lot of options for our email infrastructure and ultimately I think we're going to go with the free Google Apps solution. Since we decided to make the connectivity switch I've been looking at a variety of solutions. Here was my basic evaluation path:

1. Look at setting up the same infrastructure we've used very reliably at Educara for years. This is a linux system with postfix, courier imap/pop, dspam spam filtering, clam-av virus scanning.
   
   Pros: Great level of control, storage limited by drive space, in-house administration, low cash start-up cost (can run on our existing internet server)
   
   Cons: Continuous maintenance to keep spam/virus filters current, loss of connectivity impacts email, limits administration to IT staff, high staff-time start-up cost
   
   
2. Look at other in-house solutions with outsourced spam/av filtering.
   
   Pros: Generally the same as #1 with the addition of no spam/av maintenance
   
   Cons: Similar to #1 without spam/av maintenance, monthly cost
   
   
3. Zimbra. This was my initial decision until I got a chance to play with Google Apps. I currently have a zimbra server running in a VM handling mail for one of our domains. Setup was quick, administration is easy.
   
   Pros: Easy set up, all the perks of running it on our own server,
   
   Cons: Same as #1
   
   
4. Hosted solution. I looked at a variety of hosted options from those using Zimbra to those at our domain registrar. Ultimately none of them really had the flexibility I was looking for without a cost that would be prohibitive this year. The main wall I kept hitting was storage space (we regularly hit the 100mb ceiling with our current provider).
    
5. Google Apps. Google Apps basically provides all of the services of Zimbra in a free (or paid) hosted
   solution. Most people have some experience with Gmail so training is minimized as well (there are also great docs online).
   
   Pros: No dependence on IT staff, proven infrastructure, option for paid support, large amount of storage, options for upgrades/support, google powered search, calendaring, etc
   
   Cons: Advertising in free version, no IMAP, dependent on google

Ultimately Google wins out for us. The free version provides fairly unobtrusive advertising, 2gb of storage/account, all the power of gmail, google documents, a branded start-page, it also gives us the ability to upgrade to the pro version when required/budget allows. We currently only need 30 mailboxes which makes the workload and infrastructure for dedicated hardware (or even a VM) seem like overkill.

The two big factors for me are cost and dependence on the IT team. We hadn't budgeted for this upgrade even though it is greatly needed - SpringNet worked with us to keep our monthly expenditure the same until next year's budget starts. Not having additional fees for email is a big plus. Secondly the IT team right now is me, a consultant, and a couple of volunteers. My biggest concern with hosting email ourselves was the IT requirement for support and contingency plans in the event of a server failure. 

A completely unrelated bonus is that we'll be able to migrate our email before all of the IP switching craziness starts. While we're going to overlap connectivity for awhile it will be nice for email to not disappear during that transition. 

Everybody I've talked to has been happy with Google's solution - I've never had any trouble with my mail there. Anybody have a different experience to share before I commit to this path?

 

On The Lot - Comedy Shorts

I've been watching On The Lot on Fox. I wasn't sure how well I would like it after the first week, but the show tonight showed that most of the contestants are very good. Now that the focus of the show is the films created by each of the contestants I think it's going to be a lot of fun to watch. My big complaint about the show is the judging and the host.

While I think it's important to have some professional commentary about each of the films on the show I'm not sure that Carrie Fisher and Garry Marshall were the best choices. I'm by no means a trained or experienced film-maker, but I expect the commentary about a film to be more substantive than the "it was really good" type of comments most often provided. Fisher seems to be filling the same role as Paula on American Idol - generally nice about everything unless something just really stinks. Marshall has the type of experience I would hope to provide a critical eye to the judging, but he doesn't seem like he is filling this need.

What disappoints me most about the show is how sexist Marshall is with regard to the women contestants. He repeatedly felt the need to say that he "likes women filmmakers." Almost every woman on the show tonight was told that she should tackle themes that are "different from a man" or to focus on their "passion as a woman" or "women's problems" one was even told that he liked her "sensibility as a woman." The kicker though was when he said he was waiting for "Adrianna to come out and do the phone numbers" because he wanted something sexy. I know it's Fox, but seriously can't they do better than this?

My votes for the night:
Best: Danger Zone (Zach Lipovsky), Soft (Mateen Kemet)
Worst: Wack Alley Cab (Kenny Luby), ...To Screw In A Light Bulb (Jessica Brillhart)

Perian & ProPresenter

Perian is a great tool for playing various media types within Quicktime natively, including FLV. For some reason I'd never bothered to try it with ProPresenter. Turns out that you can natively play an FLV file quite well in ProPresenter. It obviously has the same quality as the FLV, but if you need to use videos published for the web in worship this is a perfect solution. This morning just as a test, I pulled an FLV straight from our web site, imported into ProPresenter and it worked flawlessly. Outstanding.

Contribute Blog Editing

Contribute may be responsible for increased blogging. Not sure how I'll feel having it open regularly, but the native editing is VERY slick. This post is really just a test of the functionality. I'll try posting some pictures at some point too.

So far, it's impressive though. I may get Contribute licenses for everybody in the church that is going to blog. It will probably make training and support much easier.

CS3 Goodness

After a week of having serial numbers for our CS3 licenses the media finally showed up yesterday. It's been a long week as I stripped my Powerbook of all the products that would be replaced by CS3 when I got the serials, assuming the media wouldn't be far behind. I'm glad it's the only computer that got the uninstall. For some reason our reseller didn't list ESD as an option for our volume license. In just a few hours of working I'm enjoying the integration that surpasses previous versions. The software I had access to during beta made me anticipate the entire suite. I can't wait to get the Master Collection when it ships - for now I'm making due in the media department with Web Premium (we also got Design Standard for our publication person). The performance on an Intel iMac makes me want to upgrade my Powerbook badly, but I can wait until the next machine update from Apple. The overall installation process makes me happy for two things: 1) Adobe offering non-profit pricing to churches and 2) how the fairly smooth integration of these apps is going to make me more productive.