Is This A Possibility - Time Capsule

Dillenger · Mar 29, 2012

I'm on staff at a large church as their Executive Minister that is pretty progressive and I've noticed more and more people following along on their iPhone and iPad's with our Lead Pastor as he preaches and reads scriptures. I had an idea of, "what if we had a Time Capsule or would it need to be a server, where as people could log on via WiFi and get .PDF's of the sermon outline and notes, that Sunday's bulletin, our current weekly newsletter, Podcasts, just about any publication we have made." Our church has a coffee and bagel cafe, so the unit could be set up for that area and also blanket our Worship Center. What would I need to do something like this? Also and just for the time being I really don't want to let this WiFi unit have internet access so I'm looking at more of an internal dedicated server/storage drive only.

Thanks for your thoughts and ideas on this.

hafr · Mar 29, 2012

Dillenger said:
I'm on staff at a large church as their Executive Minister that is pretty progressive and I've noticed more and more people following along on their iPhone and iPad's with our Lead Pastor as he preaches and reads scriptures. I had an idea of, "what if we had a Time Capsule or would it need to be a server, where as people could log on via WiFi and get .PDF's of the sermon outline and notes, that Sunday's bulletin, our current weekly newsletter, Podcasts, just about any publication we have made." Our church has a coffee and bagel cafe, so the unit could be set up for that area and also blanket our Worship Center. What would I need to do something like this? Also and just for the time being I really don't want to let this WiFi unit have internet access so I'm looking at more of an internal dedicated server/storage drive only.

Thanks for your thoughts and ideas on this.

I have no answer to your question, but it sounds like Dropbox would be perfect for you. If you haven't already, maybe you'd want to check it out?

blueroom · Mar 29, 2012

Get a Synology NAS, as an added bonus you can setup Wordpress on it.

Dillenger · Mar 29, 2012

hafr said:
I have no answer to your question, but it sounds like Dropbox would be perfect for you. If you haven't already, maybe you'd want to check it out?

I have Drop Box on my MBP and also iPad/iPhone but I'm not sure if that would do what I'm thinking off. I'm looking at more of a dedicated internal wireless accessible hard drive that people could see a thumb nail of say the Sunday Bulletin, click on it and read it/down load it. Also do the same with any other publications we produce weekly.

ftaok · Mar 29, 2012

Dillenger said:
I have Drop Box on my MBP and also iPad/iPhone but I'm not sure if that would do what I'm thinking off. I'm looking at more of a dedicated internal wireless accessible hard drive that people could see a thumb nail of say the Sunday Bulletin, click on it and read it/down load it. Also do the same with any other publications we produce weekly.

Wouldn't it be easier to have a website? The church could still offer a wifi network so that folks on limited data plans can partake without using up their data.

Dillenger · Mar 29, 2012

ftaok said:
Wouldn't it be easier to have a website? The church could still offer a wifi network so that folks on limited data plans can partake without using up their data.

We have one but it is not very mobile friendly and I guess I was looking at more of an "in house, on campus only" approach to accessibility of just certain .PDF's and Podcasts.

BrianBaughn · Mar 29, 2012

The best-looking way to do this would be via a local web server. You can set up a web server on any "Web Sharing" enabled Mac.

Easiest would be to install Wordpress or something similar. Make it mobile friendly via a plugin.

hafr · Mar 29, 2012

Dillenger said:
We have one but it is not very mobile friendly and I guess I was looking at more of an "in house, on campus only" approach to accessibility of just certain .PDF's and Podcasts.

Ah, now I understand why Dropbox isn't a good solution for you

In that case, I'd say BrianBaughn's idea sounds like it's what you're looking for

Dillenger · Mar 30, 2012

BrianBaughn said:
The best-looking way to do this would be via a local web server. You can set up a web server on any "Web Sharing" enabled Mac.

Easiest would be to install Wordpress or something similar. Make it mobile friendly via a plugin.

Since the Time Capsule I have has a 1TB drive in it, could it also be set up that way? Or would I need, say a Mac Mini hooked to it?

JayInNJ · Apr 3, 2012

Dillenger said:
Since the Time Capsule I have has a 1TB drive in it, could it also be set up that way? Or would I need, say a Mac Mini hooked to it?

You need something to be the server like a laptop or desktop, Mac mini would work. The time capsule could store the files, but really no reason that the server couldn't do that. I really think a basic web site, either local or otherwise would work best. I think making it public would be great so people could get the sermons afterwards if they wanted to share with friends.

Dillenger · Apr 3, 2012

JayInNJ said:
You need something to be the server like a laptop or desktop, Mac mini would work. The time capsule could store the files, but really no reason that the server couldn't do that. I really think a basic web site, either local or otherwise would work best. I think making it public would be great so people could get the sermons afterwards if they wanted to share with friends.

Thanks for the reply. I'm still looking at a few options and the one that I think I'm going to run with is an older Mac Mini (that has Snow Leopard installed) that I have and use it as the server, then use the Time Capsule for storage and the built in WiFi. I've talked to a few of the guys on our Leadership Team and a few church members and they are sort of so-so on the idea, but I was encourage that they too have noticed many more folks using their iPhones and iPads to look up scriptures and such, so I'm going to proceed.

marzer · Apr 4, 2012

hafr said:
I have no answer to your question, but it sounds like Dropbox would be perfect for you. If you haven't already, maybe you'd want to check it out?

For an entire congregation? That'd be quite a headache to get users on board and coordinated. Unfortunately, Time Capsule is limited to about 50 users, probably wouldn't be efficient depending on the size of your congregation.

nutmac · Apr 4, 2012

Trying to restrict contents to "in house, on campus only" would introduce more headaches than benefits. And requiring members to connect to local WiFi could introduce more headaches (e.g., making sure it has enough Internet bandwidth for everyone)

I would just setup WordPress, Tumblr, or similar and publish contents using the tool.

hafr · Apr 4, 2012

marzer said:
For an entire congregation? That'd be quite a headache to get users on board and coordinated. Unfortunately, Time Capsule is limited to about 50 users, probably wouldn't be efficient depending on the size of your congregation.

"An entire congregation" isn't a fixed number, but of course it could be a very large one where he works. Then again, you have to consider not all of them have a smartphone, and amongst those who do, there will already be a lot of people that know how DropBox works.

Well, it wasn't for him so the discussion is pretty useless either way

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