We recently released two dark-background skins (templates) for the WEC Starter Package. They are called Lightsout and Brushstrokes. Like our other new templates for TYPO3 4.3+, they are released as TYPO3 extensions and based on the Busy Noggin, Inc. template framework. In addition, we released updates to our other new templates. If you host with WEC then the templates will be added to your website and updated automatically. You can view all our templates in action on the WEC Demo Website.

The Greater New Jersey Annual Conference is in session this week and WEC has teamed with their Conference Communications Committee to provide a live video stream of the event. The conference website uses WEC as do many of their churches, so it is only fitting that the conference event website uses WEC as well. We also included a live Twitter feed that shows tweets with the event tag #gnjac2010. We encourage you to check it out. 

If you would like to live stream your event or weekly worship then we offer live streaming services that can help you. We use commercial cloud computing so we have instant scalability to hundreds or even thousands of simultaneous viewers watching the video.

Today, I was blessed to provide a Web-Empowered Church presentation to approximately 180 people from 11 presbyteries of the Church of Scotland. The event was held at Broom Parish Church in Glasgow, Scotland and hosted by our own WEC community member, Calum MacLeod from Cardonald Parish Church. (By the way, check out his website. It uses our new templates and looks great!) The presentation was especially easy for me because it was conducted from my living room at my home in Ohio. We used Skype audio, video, and desktop sharing to show the live presentation. Calum set up a microphone and camera so I could see the audience and could answer questions. More...

We have moved our online classes to our new website. These classes help you learn the WEC (TYPO3) system. We recommend that you start with WEC 101. Our classes are made up of a series of short tutorials that provide step-by-step instructions with screen shots that show you the steps. Please visit the classes page at: http://webempoweredchurch.org/support/classes/

We recently released two more skins (templates) for the WEC Starter Package. They are called Regal and Sketchbook. Like our other new templates for TYPO3 4.3+, they are released as TYPO3 extensions and based on the Busy Noggin, Inc. template framework. In addition, we released updates to our other new templates. If you host with WEC then the templates will be added to your website and updated automatically. You can view all our templates in action on the WEC Demo Website.

We have increased the disk storage capacity for all of our WEC-hosted accounts without changing rates. If you have a hosting account with WEC, we have already made the upgrade. The additional capacity will allow you to store more files including audio and video depending on your plan. See the plan comparison page for more details.

The WEC team has released a minor update to the WEC Staff extension. We 1) fixed photo image sizing for certain configurations, 2) fixed display issues with 2-column view, 3) added support for quotes in department names, 4) added separators to the list of departments and 5) improved the output when search results are empty.

WEC has upgraded and enhanced several extensions recently including:

WEC eBible has been updated to include the scripture styling locally to reduce the overhead on the eBible servers and to speed up the display. (3/1/2010)

WEC Button was updated to add a Dutch translation and to fix a minor bug in Typoscript. (3/29/2010)

 WEC Connector was enhanced to support the Captcha plugin to help stop automated spam programs from posting to the connector page. We also fixed some minor issues. (4/7/2010)

WEC Discussion Forum was updated to correct an issue with an image attachment and the image height and width. We also set a default width and height for large images, and fixed an issue with the RSS feed link. (4/12/2010)

The new WEC Content elements extension adds several new content elements for use in TYPO3. These content elements are found alongside the built in content elements such as Text with Image. Like the built in content elements, they use simple editing forms to add and update content. Power users have the ability to configure them further with Typoscript. Currently, WEC Content Elements contains four new content elements.

We have now released version 4.3.3 of the WEC Starter Package. This new version incorporates the latest version of TYPO3 as well as updates to several extensions and enhancements to the package configuration. Install packages are available for web servers as well as for local demonstration/testing/learning on your Mac or PC. All the downloads are available on the Download Packages Page. Note: The web server version of the Starter Package is designed for first-time installations. If you already have a WEC website then you should just upgrade TYPO3 and individual extensions.