Computers Servers and Software at EWCMI - Church office setup

Category: Technology Information

Pastor Chris

Published: June 26, 2016

Read Time: 7 mins

Article Index

Page 3 of 3

The Setup of the Church Office

1. Cost

The cost for a complete setup without printer would be aproximately $150.00 starting at $99.00 and we could go up as high as we think would be responsible.
(don't forget, you can spend God's money only once)

2. Security

Security of Linux is much stronger then that of windows and even Apple Macintosh, it was designed with a high security level in mind.
Virus protection comes with the Linux distribution for free.
Network filtering and security is also that comes for free with Linux distributions, you can install dansguardian for free on each machine, or dedicate one specific (old barrel) computer with two network cars as a filtering computer.

3. Choice of Desktop

For all kinds of work we ofcourse have also different kinds of requirements.
However for an office machine running a word processor and spreadsheet, scheduling and email we truly do not need more then a machine with a pentium 4 type of processor which would have been able to run Windows XP with 1 or 2 Gb of memory.
This would at the time of this writing (Dec 2014) be a 5-6 year old computer.

4. Software

The minimum software needed to run a church office are;

Ubuntu (office or studio)
Openoffice
Gmail or equivalent access

5. Hardware

The minimum hardware needed to operate a church office are;

Computer
Printer

6. Installation

See the following pages;

The Setup of a Christian Radio Station

1. Cost

A Radio Station will cost you money. (period) You will need a computer with a good sound card, a little sound mixer, a decent quality microphone, telephone hookup, Computer Bandwidth, Broadcast server, (Licensing ? ) Will it cost you an arm and a leg, no not really, the cost will certainly not overwhelm the outreach possibilities.

2. Security

Security of Linux is much stronger then that of windows and even Apple Macintosh, it was designed with a high security level in mind. Virus protection comes with the Linux distribution for free. Network filtering and security is also that comes for free with Linux distributions, you can install dansguardian for free on each machine, or dedicate one specific (old barrel) computer with two network cars as a filtering computer.

3. Choice of Desktop

Our first Desktop for the Radio Station was the equivalent of our office machine, but due to a lightning strike issue it was up for replacement. This was a blessing, becuase the Radio Station machine will work properly on a machine like this, the computer cpu was continuously running at 85 % or higher. (And this is really not a good thing) Our upgrade became a Dell Optiplex 745 from discounts electronics which came with a memory upgrade to 4Gb to a price of $150.00 The Audio Library is located on a 1Tb external WD USB drive.