NOTE: In February 2010, I started working at PC Help Services and left my full-time position at Lakeview Church. This blog will eventually be moved to a new location with some changes (when I have time and figure out where I want to put it). One of the great things about my new position is that I get to work with even more churches than before (including Lakeview) in addition to helping other small businesses in the greater Indianapolis area! (PC Help Services does residential in-store and on-site service in addition to supporting small businesses on a walk-in or contractual basis, if you happen to need computer help!)

On December 4th, 2010, I moved this blog to http://infotech.davidszpunar.com from http://infotech.davidszpunar.com. All historical posts are intact and all of the old URLs redirect to the new ones, so for now at least it doesn’t matter how you got here. I haven’t decided for sure, but if I continue blogging, I may start a new one and leave this one as-is for posterity. Or I may continue here, you’ll just have to wait and see :-) The rest of this About page has not been updated since 2009.

Last Name: My last name is polish (although I was born and live in the US), and it’s unlikely that if you live in the US you can pronounce it on your first guess. Or second. Or third. But it’s easy. First ignore the Z. It doesn’t make any sound, but it usually tries to trip up your tongue anyway. Now, say the word “spoon,” like the eating utensil. Then the word “are,” like “Are we there yet?” Then put them together and say “spoon are.” That’s it. Amazingly simple, huh? Once you know the secret :-) If you have problems pronouncing my first name…you need more help than I can provide!

I started my job as the IT Technician at Lakeview Church in August of 2003. I was initially part time, the first ever paid IT staff at the church. In March of 2004 I was hired full time. My title was changed in 2006 to accurately reflect my position of Network and Systems Manager, which is the capacity I currently serve in, still as the sole paid IT staff.

I try to focus on and examine things from a security perspective. I have a huge amount to learn about security, but over a third of the blog feeds I regularly read are blogs focused solely on security; currently numbering sixteen (update: I still read the same security blogs, but my total blog count has grown and security blogs no longer make up one-third!). Security is a hard balance to strike at a church, which is naturally a more open and trusting environment than many corporations. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing most of the time (who can argue that well-placed trust is bad?), but it does mean working extra hard to make sure security is in place where it’s important, and figuring out just where that is can be challenging.

I was married in 2005 to my beautiful and lovely wife Ruth and she gave birth to our amazing son, Nathaniel David, in December of 2006.

My primary focus on this blog is to build a community with other Church IT staff members and volunteers. I’m jumping in a bit late in the game, starting at the tail end of February 2007. There are already many other church bloggers out there, some just starting and others have been around for years. It’s a growing and exciting community that I’m glad to be a part of. I’m also a regular on the live Church IT Podcast, hosted by Jason Powell twice a month over at TalkShoe.

I was recently invited to sit on the Advisory Board of the Ministry Technology Institute, a new IT certification focusing specifically on Church IT, and I am looking forward to my small part in this new venture.

I primarily focus on technology, and I try to provide as much technical information as possible with original content to help my readers discover new and great things. I also occasionally post links, reviews, news, and sometimes even some personal stuff, especially about my son (although usually I’ll point you to his blog) or the house that my wife and I built and moved into this fall.

I read every comment posted on this blog and I’ll happily respond to comments when I have something to say (or sometimes if I don’t). My posting frequency varies from once or twice a week up to once or twice per day, depending on how much time I have and what sort of new and interesting things I can find to post about.

If you find my posts interesting, I would encourage you to subscribe to my blog’s feed in your favorite RSS feed reader (try Google Reader or Bloglines if you don’t have one, but there are plenty of others). If you’re new to RSS feeds, it’s an easy way to keep track of new posts on your favorite blogs or news sites, most of which publish a feed for this purpose. There are many, many guides and feed readers out there, do some Google searching and testing to find one you like! If you subscribe and find you don’t like my posts, unsubscribing is easy so you have nothing to lose!