On today’s Tech, No Babel: 40 tips on my 40th birthday
40 tips and tricks
1. Use png for transparency.
2. Use gif for animated graphics.
3. Jpg is a good choice when you don’t want animation or transparency.
4. There’s a reason that professional stuff costs more.
5. There’s a reason professionals are needed to run professional gear.
6. Easy to use rarely equals powerful.
7. Powerful often means hard to learn.
8. The keyboard is your friend; learn keyboard shortcuts.
9. A podcast without an RSS feed isn’t a podcast.
10. Big companies don’t see opportunities; they see threats.
11. The internet is neither evil nor virtuous. It’s a tool, like a hammer.
12. Always save the most editable version of a project you can.
13. Never buy for today; buy for as far in the future as you can (assuming it will be used then).
14. PowerPoint isn’t a great tool for lyric and sermon note projection.
15. Try openlp or opensong if you can’t get Propresenter.
16. Propresenter is worth the money.
17. If you do video, DLP projectors are better than LCD.
18. 16:9 gives you more room left and right for people (like the pastor) to walk.
19. When you’re replacing a 4:3 screen with a 16:9 one, go wider, not shorter.
20. DSLRs make beautiful videos, but their audio tends to be problematic.
21. The easiest way to sync video and audio is with a slate/clapboard.
22. Live video is harder and more expensive, but faster.
23. Postproduction is cheaper and easier, but much, much slower.
24. Know what kind of mic to use for what situation.
25. Bad video is better than bad audio.
26. If it’s appropriate to the medium, put every video you do on YouTube; it’s a very popular site.
27. If your video is particularly good, Vimeo is a great place to show off quality video work.
28. The art of live directing is in shot selection, not transition selection.
29. The money you save on a “bargain” computer rarely pays for the upgrades, repairs, and lost time it costs.
30. It’s better to trust your church leaders and be wrong than to not trust them and be wrong.
31. Always be grateful for where you get to serve; a bad day doing tech is better than a good day of persecution.
32. Pay training forward. Don’t let your art die.
33. If you can’t use a cut, you’ve probably made a mistake in your production.
34. Preproduction always saves time in production and post production.
35. Don’t view new technology as toys to play with, but tools to make your work more effective.
36. Never stop learning and never consider your skills complete.
37. There’s always someone better than you, but there’s also always someone you can teach.
38. There’s plenty of time to be mad later. Err on the side of understanding and forgiveness.
39. While you can’t consistently be perfect, you can get better and better, to the point where only you and a small number of people know your mistakes.
40. Replace every time you say “have to” with “get to,” start to believe it, and you’ll be much happier.
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