h1. NASCO Institute 2009 Handout h3. Andy Wolber * Email andy@mnaonline.org * Phone 313-394-1991 * Twitter http://www.twitter.com/awolber * TechGuide http://techguide.npowermichigan.org * Slides http://www.slideshare.net/npowermichigan * Bookmarks http://www.delicious.com/npowermichigan h3. Introduction * "Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker guide to working smarter, faster, better." http://www.lifehacker.com/. Link to the book on Amazon.com: http://j.mp/4scqPx. * "Connect! A Guide to a New Way of Working from GigaOM's Web Worker Daily." http://www.webworkerdaily.com/. Link to the book on Amazon.com: http://j.mp/4teZly. * URL shorteners enable link shortening (obviously). More importantly, they enable tracking: http://j.mp/ * Resources http://www.drop.io/andywolber h3. Some Basics... * "A Guide to Managing ICT in the Voluntary and Community Sector" http://j.mp/1d5Huz * Scan for viruses, spyware and malware ** Do a complete system scan for viruses using http://housecall.trendmicro.com * Protect against viruses and malware ** If you do not already have current anti-virus software, install Microsoft Security Essentials at http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/. This may be installed on all up-to-date Microsoft Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 systems. * Configure OpenDNS.com ** OpenDNS improves security by providing web content filtering and anti-phishing. Follow the instructions at https://www.opendns.com/start/ to configure DNS for your computer, router or DNS server. * Defragment your hard drive ** Download and install Auslogics' Disk Defrag program from http://j.mp/4ofVX8. Install and use this program to defragment your hard drive. The program typically completes defragmenting your files much more quickly than Microsoft's built-in defragmentation software. * Backup ** Small and mid-sized nonprofits commonly used tape or external hard drives for backup purposes. New alternatives, such as Mozy Pro (http://mozy.com/non-profit) and JungleDisk (http://www.jungledisk.com/) provide affordable, off-site, automated backup over the Internet. * Network Attached Storage ** Synology (http://www.synology.com/) ** QNAP (http://www.qnap.com/) * Purchasing at a discount ** http://www.TechSoup.com/products provides discounted software (and a small amount of hardware, such as the Flip videocamera) to registered nonprofits. Be sure to check the vendor restrictions! ** http://www.giftsinkind.org/ ** http://www.cdw.com/content/segments/nonprofit.aspx ** http://www.ccbnonprofits.com/ * Remote access to a computer for free:http://www.logmein.com. Note that this does require software installation and the computer to be on. (For on-the-go troubleshooting of another person computer, consider http://www.zolved.com/remote_control.) * http://www.getdropbox.com simplifies file syncing across multiple computers and mobile devices. * http://www.xmarks.com/ syncs bookmarks between browsers on multiple computers. h3. Meetings * http://www.MeetingWizard.com/ streamlines the process of scheduling a multi-person meeting. * http://www.tungle.com/ enables calendar syncing, with the intent of making it simpler for others to schedule a meeting with you. * http://www.FreeConferenceCall.com/ provides free conference calling. The dial-in number is typically a long-distance number, so the parties involved in the conference each pay whatever long-distance fees they would typically incur by dialing that number. * Idealware.org provides a variety of reports of software and tools relevant to the nonprofit sector. A typical article is their "A Few Good Online Conferencing Tools" at http://j.mp/lPQnl. * http://www.DimDim.com/ and http://www.Yugma.com/ both provide free web conferencing tools for small groups (up to 15-20 participants). Paid versions typically support up to 50 participants at a cost of around $250 annually. h3. Google Apps * The Google Apps Education Edition is available free if you have fewer than 3,000 users. More information on all of Google Nonprofit offerings at http://www.google.com/nonprofits/. * Support for setting up Google Apps is available online: http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=22229&topic=22241#148995. * Video explanations of Google Apps can be found at http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleApps. * For additional tips, take a look at the book Google Apps Hacks by Philipp Lenssen. h3. Website * Link to participating organizations' websites: http://LinkBun.ch/g8jo. Note that Linkbun.ch enables you to share a SINGLE link that opens a page with LOTS of other links. It's a great way to share a list of resources with one link. * Dreamhost provides free hosting for approved nonprofits (see http://j.mp/DreamhostFree). They have a very easy-to-deploy process for setting up Wordpress and several other content management systems. * Many small nonprofits use Paypal to accept donations. The process for setting this up is online at https://www.paypal.com/nonprofits * Overview of many other alternatives and resources at TechSoup: http://blog.techsoup.org/node/530. (The TechSoup blog is in transition. If this link doesn't work, see resources available about online donations at www.Idealware.org, as well.) * Website traffic information ** Google Analytics provides useful information about your website traffic: http://analytics.google.com. Even better, it is free. ** "50 Resources for Getting the Most Out of Google Analytics" posting at Network For Good's website: http://j.mp/21PZWL. * Email ** Email remains the most effective way to drive traffic to a site. Useful analysis of email campaigns and tactics found in the eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, online at http://www.e-benchmarksstudy.com/ ** Training on various online campaign strategies at http://www.fundraising123.org/training/ ** Vertical Response provides some nonprofits with free email campaign tools: http://bit.ly/4nxmHs ** http://www.ConstantContact.com is also widely used. (They also just entered the event registration market.) * http://www.AllForGood.org is an aggregator of volunteer opportunities h3. Social Media * Solid research and case studies of social media adoption from Forrester Reseach. Book is titled Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. More info here: http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell. * The Case Foundation resources and example site: http://j.mp/3gVTse * American Red Cross guide: http://j.mp/2FKJsn * Widely read nonprofit blogger, Beth Kanter (http://j.mp/NxTzk) posted a great video showing advanced RSS feed manipulating "Filtering Your Feeds: Marshall's Yahoo Pipes Screencast". Her main blog is at http://beth.typepad.com. * Twitter ** http://www.FutureTweets.com/ enables scheduled Twittering. ** http://www.coTweet.com/ enables multiple users and multiple accounts to use Twitter. * http://Ping.fm/ simplifies publishing your posts to multiple social networks. * http://www.posterous.com/ can aggregate postings FROM multiple sites and/or simplify posting TO multiple social media sites. It also enables simple posting from email. * SMS ** http://www.Textmarks.com provides ad-supported text response or broadcast services, or paid-versions are available. Try sending "npowermi" to 41411, for example. ** Sample of how these type of apps are evolving on campuses: http://www.mbusreloaded.com/. * Social media policies ** Top 10 Guidelines: http://j.mp/HHfRa ** Social Media Governance policy examples: http://j.mp/3z9mDS. * Private, Twitter-like collaboration available at http://www.yammer.com, http://www.present.ly, and http://j.mp/Socialtext. h3. Databases * www.HelpSpot.com example software available for purchase or hosting (http://j.mp/HostedHelpSpot). * Low-cost, integrated membership management, event and website software as a service: http://www.WildApricot.com * Hosted database platform ** http://www.SalesforceFoundation.org provides up to 10 Enterprise user licenses to nonprofit organizations for their online database service. ** http://www.SalesforceFoundation.org/resources has links to most of the key resources you'll need to learn more or leverage Salesforce for your nonprofit. h3. Mashups * http://www.flickr.com/map provide geographic mapping of shared photos. * http://www.mapalist.com takes addresses from a Google spreadsheet, then maps them using Google Maps (or Google Earth). * More mapping resources in this article from CNET: http://j.mp/aBoGc. h3. Great resource for Web 2.0-type apps: http://go2web20.net. h3. On-going resource bookmarking at http://www.delicious.com/NPowerMichigan