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Microsoft Movie Maker 2 - this program comes with Windows XP. At first I blew it off. However, after downloading the updated version (for free) I've become very impressed. It's a very simple program with great transitions and some advanced video effects. It also worked very well with my ATI video card and digital video camera. You definitely want to get the updated download. It adds several great features like transitions and easy addition of titles, credits and background music. Video Wave. I purchased the Roxio Suite and it came with Video Wave. I've put together many great looking videos using this program. It's biggest draw back, like so many lower end programs is you can only work with one video track, but it works very well. What I like most that you can create great looking DVD menus and how Video Wave works seamlessly with all the programs in the Roxio Suite. I use this program almost weekly! Adobe Premiere Elements 1.0 - I just purchased this program and am still playing with it, but so far it's worked well. A few things that were never mentioned on promotional material or the box itself is that you can add multiple video layers along with multiple audio layers. It will let you use blue or green screen effects to name just a few. Elements also has some pre-made DVD menus included to build fun DVDs without a separate program. MULTIQUENCE - This is a program from the makers of Goldwave. It is flexible multi-track digital audio and video mixing program. This is great when prerecording puppet scripts and creating a Audio CD.
I've got a few Bible programs, but really haven't gotten use to using them a lot. PC Study Bible 3.0 Ok, if you are to only have one program you want one like this. PC Study Bible has a macro that launches in Microsoft Word. Simply type the Bible reference, click the icon, and the specific text is dropped into your document. You can define your default Bible version for the program to use. If you spend much time writing your own lessons, this program or one like it is well worth the money. This program is created by the folks at Bible Soft. Lucado LifeWorks Library - This has complete various works of Max Lucado. These are electronic versions of his books, several of the books have audio versions that you can listen to. There are also Max Lucado's Study and devotional books, plus many references books (commentaries, Bible dictionaries, and much more). I picked this two CD set up at my local Family Christian Store for about $50.00 a few years ago. A great library addition for a great price. You can probably find this software at your local Christian bookstore, if not, you can find it all over the internet. iLumina - You've simple got to see this program to appreciate it. It combines electronic Bibles, commentaries, and other resource works with virtual and video tours of the holy lands. Video footage include interviews with Bible Archaeologists, satellite images of the holy lands and much more. Also included, are some incredible computer generated animations of some of your favorite Bible stories. Hook up a projector or TV to your computer and you've got one incredible teaching tool. e-sword - Here's a incredible little Bible program. Okay, it's not really that little, but it is incredible. You can download various Bible translations, commentaries, dictionaries, and graphics files for this program. You can read a translation, parallel two translations or compare a verse in various translations and much more. Oh, and did I mention it's free! There's also a download for those of us with a Pocket PC PDA.
Animation Station - though not actual software, this is a membership site with some of the highest quality animated pictures for your every web need. Well worth the yearly membership. They have also started posting great Power Point templates and backgrounds, not to mention their still photo selections. Animation Station has now added video backgrounds for DVD menus (though I've been using them to make intro videos and commercials for our children's church - just dump them into your favorite video editing program!). Templates
To Go Over 500 Ready To Use PowerPoint Templates on one CD from
Animation Station. There are some great power point templates both with and
without animated elements. Adobe Photoshop Elements - Here's an incredible digital picture editor! This is a scaled down version to the full program (which was much more expensive!) and does what I need it to do. Check out what your needing in an editing program and see if Elements will work. The only thing I've run into is designing printed ads for our outside printing, I can't set the graphic colors so they can be separated out later. But the printer was able to use what I gave them and do a good job! Lots of tools in the package. Look for it on sale and save even more! I'm finding out, this program will do a lot of what they full version does, it's just a little more complicated to do (I guess so you'll buy the full version.)
N Spire - This software lets you keep up to date info on all your kids, volunteers, record event stats, keep up with your personal library, create a resource database, and track attendance. Add on their attendance program (Attenda Plus) and check kids in and out of programs, create automatic roll sheets, name tags incorporating barcode scanning capabilities with all. N Spire lets you ad photos to each kid's file, associate households, families and has user defined tabs and menus. The Messenger program comes in really handy to remind me of birthdays. I've found if I set the Messenger to look ahead two days, then I have time get a card in the mail and to their house before their birthday. [May 2003] - We have just gone with NSpire for our entire church database, not just the children. Our office computers are networked together. So far, we're still getting data entered. Already I can see the great resources it will provide when all the ministers can access information on families, find out who's not been at services. I know for my ministry to children it's great! [Nov. 2004] We've completely integrated NSpire. We are now generating weekly absentee lists and list of those who've missed 4 weeks in a row. It's really helping us keep up with people. We've also begun using their new contribution addition. Still waiting to be able to download to my Pocket PC .[2005] They now have a way to sync customizable info on my kids to my Pocket PC. I love it. Our secretary loves the contributions element, it's so much easier to use and print out info than what we had before. Microsoft Outlook - Now this is not only an email program, but also lets you keep up with all your contacts, calendar, notes and tasks. With the start page, you can get a week over view, see all your scheduled tasks, notes and appointments. The great thing about your contact list, is all the info is at your finger tips. When you record dates in the contact lists, they are automatically put into your calendar. A great way to remember birthdays and anniversaries. I also love it because it can sync all my info to my Pocket PC.
Easy CD Creator 7 - I have been using Roxio's Easy CD Creator for a couple of years. I upgraded to the Roxio 7 Suite. It's awesome! It will do just about anything with any kind of media I have. I can burn DVD's, CD's, edit digital pictures and audio. Cute PDF Printer - Ok, here's something I've been looking for, for a long time. You've likely seen the Adobe Acrobat files (the international file format) on websites. This program will convert your document into a format that will preserve your fonts, graphics and arrangement. Anyone can open PDF documents with the free download of Adobe Reader. Any windows program that will print will work with Cute PDF. Simple create your document, select Cute PDF as your printer and it lets you save the document as a PDF file. The great part is it's free. Adobe Acrobat will cost you a couple hundred dollars (or more). I've got all of my permission slips and forms online now in this format for parents, kids & volunteers to download from home and fill out. This is a great program, but on one of my computers it would take forever to process a document, but this may have very well been a computer problem! Perfect PDF Creator - I'm now using this program to create all my PDF documents. It gives me more control over the final project and the ability to control who can do what with the document. I picked it up for about $20.00 at my local Office Depot store. This is Cosmi product. DVD Profiler - I love this program. I've just got the freebie version, but it's wonderful to have my entire DVD collection recorded on my computer. My friend's love to browse what they call "Greg's DVD Library." I can keep up with who has what DVD with the loan feature. I love that it looks up every bit of information just from the UPC number. Prompt Media Shout! - I just purchased this software, so check back as I figure it out. I was in a workshop hosted by the creator and the program's results look incredible! We'll see what I can do with it! Microsoft Power Point - Likely the most valuable program I own is Power Point. Currently, my entire children's church is run out of Power Point. I have all video, sound effects, background music, song lyrics, lessons notes, and Pictures in a weekly Power Point Presentation. Then, whoever is running our audio/video, simply just goes right through the presentation, with everything starting where it's suppose to (as long as they are paying attention!). :) Power Point is a part of the Microsoft Office Suite. I am using the 2003 version. Zion Workx -
Check this out! If you've been looking for a program to take your children's
church projections a step further, but not ready to spend the big bucks, here's
your answer. Zion Workx is a display program made for churches to handle song
displays. It not only lets you create a song database you can use to create
"play lists" for your service, and also use your already made Power
Point slides. Oh, did I mention it's free? Try it out and see how it works for
you. Front Page - This is a Microsoft's web page program. I use it to create all of my web pages. If you're like me and want things simple and easy to update this program works great. If you can use a desktop publishing program then you can use Front Page. This is all I use and have three pages up and running at all times.
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