For my fellow programmers out there, I just wanted to inform you that Adobe has released the initial beta of ColdFusion 8 (Codename: Scorpio) this week. Lots of new features being added to this version, including enhanced PDF integration, Flex and AJAX integration, image manipulation and a new debugger.

Since I'm a ColdFusion developer by trade (and yes, that includes this site), I'm very excited about this new release that will make the things that I do even easier. Granted, we're probably at least 6 months from the final release, but it's exciting to finally see it in action. It's really nice to see the progression of ColdFusion over the years, and it's come a long way very quickly with a growing, helpful community. Hopefully big things are still to come.

So, if you're in the CF crowd, it's time to get playing with all our new toys. And if you're interested in seeing what ColdFusion has to offer, you can always download the developers version of the server and development tools (both free, and they run on Windows, Mac, and Linux) from the link on this page, and pair them up with the Eclipse development environment for a full free test.

I'd strongly recommend it, but I might be just a tad biased.

In case you missed it over the weekend, Google will now be reporting subscriber counts for Google Reader and Google Personalized Homepage to feed managers like FeedBurner. As long as I've been using FeedBurner, I've known about the inaccurate counts for Google subscribers, so it's nice to now see that the numbers are much more accurate (in fact, I found that IJHAW has about 20 more subscribers than I realized, pushing it well over the 50 subscriber mark...thanks everyone!).

So, if you've been using FeedBurner for your church website, this should be a good explanation of why you may have noticed a big jump in your counts. Thanks to everyone who helped improve this feature for all us users!

Ok, this is one of those interactive topics where I'm going to ask a question, answer it for myself, and you can respond as well in the comments below. Here it goes:

What tools/software do you use to help you develop and maintain your church website?

Here's my list:

• ColdFusion - The backbone behind all my sites, which I picked up at an old job and get to get back to full-time this coming Monday (YAY! ). Here's some more background if you're interested: Coldfusion @ Wikipedia. I'm currently using version 7, which has built-in features like generating the graphs that I use for the poll results.
• Eclipse and cfeclipse - Eclipse is a great open source development platform for all kinds of languages, including Java, HTML, and CSS. cfeclipse is the plug-in/package that allows for ColdFusion development in Eclipse.
• mySQL - For my databases, staying with the tried and true (and popular) open source database.
• SQyog Community Edition - A great GUI front-end for managing mySQL. This version only has the basic features, but it's still very good. For MS SQL 2000 people, think Enterprise Manager and Query Analyzer in one.
• IrfanView - I'm no graphics guru by any means, but IrfanView is my favorite image manipulator. It's small and powerful enough for most of my use.
• TinyMCE - This little package handles the textareas in my sites (like the comment area below) to both ease of input (WYSIWYG) and security (restricting allowable tags in the input). Two birds with one stone, and very customizable (each textarea can have it's own settings).
• Web Developer Extension - I use this Firefox toolbar to help me test, debug, and validate my code. Also works with several other browsers.

Well, that's everything I can think of now, at least for the bulk of my work. What do you use? Got any packages you really like you think others could use?

I got an e-mail a recently from Justin Carboneau who runs a site called ShareMyTestimony.org, which gives people a place to "share their temoimony about how they came to have faith in Christ". What's very nice about their site is that they offer a customizable widget that you can place on your site.

So, on your church website, you could place this widget somewhere to allow congregation members to share their testimonies with each other and the world. They only have to put up as much information as they feel comfortable (and aliases can be used instead of real names),so it's not a security risk either. The "Report as Inappropriate" feature is also nice in case the feature is abused as well.

What's nice about it is that it get's people involved and invested in the church website when they get to share a bit of themselves. While giving a visitor some insert into the makeup of the congregation, it also alows members to get to know one another on a deeper level. Very useful and powerful stuff!

Kudos to Justin, for putting together such a convenient and useful widget. This is a great way to start getting that community feel into your church website if you haven't already.

And if you'd like to know a little more about Justin, here is his testimony!

I have to thank Frank Johnson over at Strategic Digital Outreach for pointing me in the direction of an article from Gadgetopia entitled What Content Management Won't Do. As you've probably read before, I'm a semi-advocate of the CMS. I am strongly in favor of the ease of use and plug-in capabilities of most CMS software, but then there is the problem of cookie cutter websites where they can all begin to look the same.

The above article also lists some other potential pitfalls of CMS, and it could have easily been titled Content Management Won't Save You From Yourself. It points out that a CMS cannot write for you, edit for you, format your text, prevent you from writing something, or force you to update your site. These human errors are outside the realm of Content Management, so they must be addressed by other means, such as human editors, screening processes, or some other management structure to make sure only appropriate content appears on your website.

Like the name suggests, a CMS simply manages content. Controlling what that content consists of is up to you.

Most of the time here at IJHAW, we spend our time examining how we can make our web sites more effective. However, there are things we can do which, despite all the bells and whistles we can add, can make a church website completely useless. Pardon my tongu-in-cheek humor.

• Don't Post Your Service Times - After all, why would anyone want to know when the service started?
• Don't Post Your Location/Address - This is especially ineffective for churches that do not have their own buildings.
• Don't Post Any Contact Information - If they really want to get a hold of you, they can just use the phone book, right? No chance they'd just move on to the next church website.
• Use A "My First Website" Design - No, this doesn't make it look like we're not even trying, or that we're completely behind the times.
• Write About What Your Church Won't Stand For - Nothing oozes love like singling out all the things your church hates.
• Have Broken Links - Because people can just look at the Status Bar and figure out where the link was supposed to go.
• Have Music Playing In The Background - If they don't like the same music you do, then you don't want them at your church anyway.
• Don't Keep Your Website Content Up-to-Date - Surely, visitors will realize that you just don't have the time to get them information.
• Don't Even Bother Having A Website - We like our members like we like our Senators, over 30!

Remember all the little things that you look for in a website when putting your site together. While the above list was meant to be funny, I have seen real cases of each! Making sure you take care of all the details will help to ensure that your website is a more effective tool for your church.

It's been a contemplative week for me, as I've been taking a step back out of my little programming world and taking a look at how others do their work.

Today, I wanted to ask where you get your ideas and inspirations in your designs and site development. We all have our tried and true resources, but oftentimes there isn't too much in common from one developer/designer to another. Sometimes, it's good to come together and share our resources, and maybe see things a bit differently.

Here's a quick list of some of my inspirations:

• Open Source Web Design - For a bunch of "starting points" in the layout and design process.
• Andreas Viklund - Who reminds me that both form and function are important.
• Ray Camden's Coldfusion Blog - Covering a lot of the little things in ColdFusion development that help make a better end-product.
• Blog Ministry Lab - A small group, but trying to move Christian blog design forward.
• The Church Webmasters' Forum - Sharing experiences and ideas with other church webmasters with a wide range of experiences.

Checking in today, I find myself with more questions than I do knowledge to share. Therefore, I have decided to post a set of open questions to you all:

• Do you have any experience using Content Management Systems (CMS, like PHPNuke or Joomla) or Church Management Systems (ChMS, like the Web Empowered Church)? If so, which one(s)?
• Do you have any experience installing and/or maintaining a CMS or ChMS? If so, which one(s)?
• What are your overall opinions of CMS and ChMS setups? What are the advantages and disadvantages of them?

I've just been thinking a lot about these types of systems recently. I have experience with both PHPNuke and PostNuke in the past on other projects, but I've never been fully satisfied with the results. Being a developer myself, that's why I wrote the blog software for this site. I wanted more control over things than any CMS could give me.

I have yet to try any of the ChMS systems currently out there because I figure I'll run into the same kind of situation.

I look forward to hearing from all of you about your experiences.

EDIT: Wednesday, Ruben over at BlogMinistry added his thoughts on Drupal and Joomla.

Back in May, I wrote an article on Utilization as part of my Key Site Concepts series, and while I am still a big proponent of taking advantages of services provided by other sites, I learned a rough lesson this week.

I maintain a personal blog called Further Up and Further In (it's a Chronicles of Narnia reference from The Last Battle in case you were interested). One of the features I have on there is my weekly "most listened" lists for my music. These lists are populated by XML documents provided by Last.FM, and this week they did a major upgrade of their systems and services.

And guess what happened? There was an error with one of the XML documents, and my script that was carefully crafted around them choked. Since I did not build in any way to catch such an exception (nor had I needed one in nearly six months), my site came to a screeching halt when it tried to read from the XML. After more than two days with my blog out of commission (I would have fixed it sooner, but I was busy with work and helping a friend move), Last.FM fixed the XML and my site was back in business.

However, it made me realize the cascading nature of errors when it comes to utilizing the services of those sites. If that service goes down, so does everything that uses it. Because of this, we should always try to build our sites to deal with these failures if at all possible. If you're using a maps service for your church's website, make sure your site can have a map image (or at least just load without the map) if that service goes down or makes an upgrade where the service location changes.

If there's anything worse than out-of-date websites, it's broken websites. Don't let what happened to me happen to you too!

eBible is one of those things I've been following for a while now, but didn't get a chance to play with until recently. If you haven't heard of it yet, it's the latest electronic incarnation of the Bible, this time as a web2.0 application. Honestly, when I first heard of it, I wasn't all that excited, but now I'm beginning to see why it would be very useful.

Because eBible is available in beta by invitation only for right now, I had a hard time getting my first invitation, but finally got to the head of their waiting list on the site and got a direct invitation. The timing of my invitation couldn't have been better either, because I was invited to preach at my church July 9th while our pastor is out of town. So earlier this week, I was doing some searches for verses to compliment my sermon, and I decided to use eBible to do so.

Two features stuck out to me right away:

• Tagging verses allowed me to place labels on each verse regarding to the topic of the verse as well as why I was tagging it. For a pastor, this could be very useful because you could tag verses by sermon (by date, title, or some other label) to better keep track of when you last used that verse and why.
  
• Searching eBible was also much easier because it not only searches the actual text, but all commentaries you have as well. Not only that, but it searches for all forms of a word and not just a straight text search (for example, a search for "anxiety" will search for "anxious" and "anxiousness" among other variations). This makes searching for verses related to a topic much easier.

There are also several versions of the Bible available right now, so you can have your King James or your NASB, among others. You can also purchase commentaries, dictionaries and encyclopedias to search through as well, so the information may never end.

For now, eBible is a great tool to look into if you can get an invitation. While it may not have too many church website applications at this time, if you get in and look at the forums, you'll see there are a lot of add-ons and features that will be coming that could be great resources for any church website (Verse of the Day, RSS Feeds, Reading Checklists, etc.), so eBible is definately a resource to keep an eye one.

Oh, and if anyone would like an invitation to check out eBible, I've got one to spare, so please leave a note below with your e-mail address (in the name at thatplace dot com format so you don't get spammed) and I can get that out to you. All I ask is that you pass on at least one of your invitations (you get 3) to anyone else who leaves a comment below. Then we can share the wealth of this great new resource.