Monday, June 23, 2008

Tiny Church Budget #2

In my first post, Tiny Church Budget, I wrote about how the entry-level MacBook with Apple's iWork software can provide high quality output for your foundational media needs. I also promised to discuss some of the additional bonuses that you get for that small investment and how they can help you in your ministry.

In one word - iLife.

In that standard suite of media applications you get a rich and impressive collection of tools. iPhoto. iDVD. iMovie. Garageband. iWeb.

Have a bunch of digital photos that you want to create a photo montage with music? Connect your digital camera to your MacBook, download the photos seamlessly. Highlight the new album, pick your song and hit play. Wow! High quality photo montage with top quality, seamless transitions. In seconds.

Just shot some video and want to put together a polished video story? iMovie makes it easy and has standard high quality themes that a professional studio would use.

Want to record your sermons and create podcasts? Or want to augment your inner musician by adding a variety of instruments, styles, beats, riffs? Garageband is the perfect tool for the auteur on a shoe string.

Now, need a polished looking website that hosts your podcasted sermons, your video creations, photo albums, and blog of things happening around your church? iWeb makes putting together great looking sites and content easily and quickly with professionally designed themes and what-you-see-is-what-you-get layout capability. You don't have to have a cheesy-looking website and pay thousands for your sermons online.

Duplicating this functionality in stand alone applications would cost much more than a few hundred dollars. And none of those applications are integrated like the iLife applications are at any price. In fact, your iWork applications (including Keynote) can also access your content that you created in iLife in a seamless way.

Next in this series I'm going to talk about MobileMe and the impact that it can have on church operations.

iLife. Standard with all new Macs.


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