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DigitalEl · Aug 31, 2003, 03:40 PM

Okay... It didn't ruin the service, per se... But it distract everybody for about 10 minutes.

Our church uses a projector, hooked up to a laptop, to display song lyrics, Bible verses being read, whatever. The guy usually uses an IBM ThinkPad. Today he had a tired-looking Pismo.

I was happy to see the Mac and joked to my wife that it better not crash and "embarrass me."

Midway through the service, Microsoft PowerPoint caused a bomb in 9.2. My wife jabbed me and my shoulders were shaking because for some reason it was just funny. Then the loud "BONG!" as the guy rebooted the machine during a quiet part of the service almost made me lose it. There was just something funny about it.

This thing must've had the minimum of RAM and full extensions, because rebooting took forever. It must've been like 5 or 7 minutes before he was back at the OS 9 desktop... The ordeal distracting the whole congregation on the big screen.

Eventually, the guy got back into PowerPoint and the thing finished the service like a champ. Of course, the wife knows how to needle me. She pointed out "the usual laptop never crashed."

I'm not sure why the guy had the Pismo today, but the Wintel machine was probably at home with a virus.

Just thought I'd share.

The Godfather · Aug 31, 2003, 07:34 PM

Imagine the "1984" Apple commercial, only with Steve Ballmer running through the center aisle, being chased by the altair boys, and finally tossing a banana toward a big Steve Jobs' face.

superlarry · Aug 31, 2003, 09:56 PM

Originally posted by The Godfather:
Imagine the "1984" Apple commercial, only with Steve Ballmer running through the center aisle, being chased by the altair boys, and finally tossing a banana toward a big Steve Jobs' face.

lol

Fellow2000 · Sep 2, 2003, 02:53 AM

Originally posted by DigitalEl:
Okay... It didn't ruin the service, per se... But it distract everybody for about 10 minutes.

Our church uses a projector, hooked up to a laptop, to display song lyrics, Bible verses being read, whatever. The guy usually uses an IBM ThinkPad. Today he had a tired-looking Pismo.

I was happy to see the Mac and joked to my wife that it better not crash and "embarrass me."

Midway through the service, Microsoft PowerPoint caused a bomb in 9.2. My wife jabbed me and my shoulders were shaking because for some reason it was just funny. Then the loud "BONG!" as the guy rebooted the machine during a quiet part of the service almost made me lose it. There was just something funny about it.

This thing must've had the minimum of RAM and full extensions, because rebooting took forever. It must've been like 5 or 7 minutes before he was back at the OS 9 desktop... The ordeal distracting the whole congregation on the big screen.

Eventually, the guy got back into PowerPoint and the thing finished the service like a champ. Of course, the wife knows how to needle me. She pointed out "the usual laptop never crashed."

I'm not sure why the guy had the Pismo today, but the Wintel machine was probably at home with a virus.

Just thought I'd share.

That is so funny. I love church bloopers. Aren't they great?

Crusoe · Sep 2, 2003, 09:04 AM

... but he was running a M$ application. The only thing that has crashed more than once on my TiBook is M$ Word v.X (and Shadowbane). Besides that crashes are few and far between.

djjava · Sep 2, 2003, 09:28 AM

Originally posted by DigitalEl:
Okay... It didn't ruin the service, per se... But it distract everybody for about 10 minutes.

Our church uses a projector, hooked up to a laptop, to display song lyrics, Bible verses being read, whatever. The guy usually uses an IBM ThinkPad. Today he had a tired-looking Pismo.

I was happy to see the Mac and joked to my wife that it better not crash and "embarrass me."

Midway through the service, Microsoft PowerPoint caused a bomb in 9.2. My wife jabbed me and my shoulders were shaking because for some reason it was just funny. Then the loud "BONG!" as the guy rebooted the machine during a quiet part of the service almost made me lose it. There was just something funny about it.

This thing must've had the minimum of RAM and full extensions, because rebooting took forever. It must've been like 5 or 7 minutes before he was back at the OS 9 desktop... The ordeal distracting the whole congregation on the big screen.

Eventually, the guy got back into PowerPoint and the thing finished the service like a champ. Of course, the wife knows how to needle me. She pointed out "the usual laptop never crashed."

I'm not sure why the guy had the Pismo today, but the Wintel machine was probably at home with a virus.

Just thought I'd share.

It's a sign.... it says, "buy a new powerbook for christ's sake!"

ewiser · Sep 2, 2003, 10:30 AM

I turned my church on to a professional program called
Scala. I have been using it for 10 years started out as a Amiga application. Powerpoint is pretty lame and is not bulletproof. In Ten years I have never had it crash. An I do slides in front of 20,000 people all the time.

vmarks · Sep 2, 2003, 11:23 AM

I presented in front of the IEEE using a Lombard running OS X and PowerPoint.

The machine didn't crash, but PowerPoint wasn't particularly happy about running at the resolution the projector and laptop had settled on.

A comment from the audience was, "after all, it is a MS application"

Now I use Keynote.

coolmacdude · Sep 2, 2003, 04:02 PM

This is why you should have a backup system for things like this. I helped out with projection at one church I was at and we always had another computer on the same screen hooked up to a signal switcher. If the primary one crashed (which happened more than once), there was a backup to switch to.

goMac · Sep 2, 2003, 05:02 PM

I haven't really ever had trouble with presentations. I've just been using Keynote/Media Remote with my TiBook. I love Apple.

Before that I actually used Hypercard.