Technology, Tips, and NPower Seattle
Microsoft launched Forefront Security today, their first foray into the anti virus, spam, and other mal-ware world. How’s that for a mouthful?!
This tool is designed to work with Exchange 2007, the newest release from Microsoft. We haven’t had a chance to implement yet - most of our customers are using Small Business Server 2003 or Exchange Server (2000 and newer) - but we’ll let you know as we find out more about this tool.
The team at Idealware continues to turn out great information - and I particularly like that they rank, if you get what I mean. Not just a “consideder these tools” but also a “we think this is best if you are (fill in the blank)’. They have two new articles for public consumption, one about RSVP tools, and the other about Assessing the wide range of onlilne participatory tools that are available. Read them both!
I’m a bit of a skeptic about the efficacy of online communties - not because I don’t beleive that they CAN work, but because I think that they take a LOT of work. When I consider where it seems to be working - it is mosly in advocacy based agencies (think www.moveon.org) or agencies with a clear call to action such as the Susan Komen (www.komen.org) cancer awareness walks and so on.
In any case, I’ve recently stumbled across a terrific “rule of thumb” for calculating online participation - and it looks like this:
If you have 100 people online:
You can review the entire article for more information!
Design is an inherently subjective area - taste matters. When it comes to your website, though - it isn’t just YOUR taste that matters - you’ll want to set aside your personal preferences, and think about the image of your organization that you are presenting to the rest of the world. And make no mistake about it -both your site navigation, your use of color, pictures, graphics AND content matter.
In general, you’ll want to:
Okay, so you have a website designer, and they’ve asked you to look at a comp. What does that mean? Comp is short for composition, or for design composition. Your designer will give you one or two (or more!) comps to review. They’ll take your feedback, make changes, and give you a final comp for review.
When reviewing the first round of designs, we are looking to hone the look and feel and do a review of the technical and content requirements of the site to ensure that your goals, brand, communication and otherwise are being met. If more then one concept has been presented, you can usually mix and match ideas from each, ultimately deciding on the final direction.
The next and final round of review is less about big changes, and more about finalizing details. No big changes here - not new colors, not a new logo, not a new navigation structure. So - what are you looking for?
At this point, the desinger will make any last minute “small” changes, if there are indeed any changes at this point, and delvier a final to you for sign-off. After your sign off - it moves to the devleopment or coding expert!
How Do I Let My Designer Know What to Change?
It’s generally easier to provide ALL of the information at once. Instead of calling to say “I want a new blue”, you’d be better off writing an email or creating a document that details
That’s right -and it looks like a pretty nice package, too. I’m hoping that Dreamhost did their homework first - I’m expecting that they’ll see a flurry of activity. In the meantime, you can read all about it at on the Dreamhost website.
Probably not - at least if the recent United Nations study holds true. Although there are a LOT of ways to measure accessibility, there are also a LOT of standards - and compliance isn’t that tough.
Here at NPower Seattle, we’re using Plone, a tool that is in compliance with the World Wide Web Consortium - one of the agencies that sets those standards - it’s nice to be doing our part.
Our Executive Director, Jaime Greene is fond of talking about curb cuts. That’s right - curb cuts - and it goes like this:
When cities decide that it is imortant to remove barriers to those with restricted mobility, and cut out sections of the curb so that wheelchairs can more easily move from the sidewalk, into the street, and back on to the other sidewalk - guess what happens?
It’s better for everyone! Although it SEEMS like those curb cuts (or making your website accessible) is only for a few, it’s not - the benefit is for everyone.
Here in my neighborhood, that means I see moms and dads with strollers, kids with training wheels on their bikes, people with a temporary set of crutches and almost every other sort of person you can imagine making the very most of those curb cuts.
So - make sure you do what you can to make your website accessible - it will be good for everyone, including you!
With many of the major computer manufacturers’ discounting hardware for the holiday season and agencies wanting to spend budgets before 2007 - you might be considering acquiring a new workstation! That’s great! Here are some quick tips for getting ready for moving your settings and your data from one workstation to the other.
General Tips:
Windows Tips and Tricks:
Other Information to Have on Hand:
Another article that has implications for nonprofits using technology, this time from Yahoo News. There is a service being provided that promises to deliver your email - even when your email server goes out.
It’s called MessageOne, and while I didn’t see a price list for this service - I’m guessing that it’s expensive. Nevertheless - they are one to something: The delivery and receipt of email is probably the most crucial piece of our information technology systems - and when we don’t have access to send and receive - that means trouble!
The NYT is reporting a DOUBLING of spam - and while and extra serving during the holiday season might sound great for apple pie - no one is happy about the burden this is placing on end users, let alone IT professionals who are charged with trying to keep inboxes both lean and meaningful.
Unfortunately, there aren’t any one size fits all solutions. But here are some quick tips:
Visit www.techsoup.org and check out Teck Soup Stock. They routinely offer a host of tools that can help.
If you are hosting your own mail via Exchange Server or SBS 2003, ask your IT professional about Intelligent Message Filtering, or IMF. We implementat that here at NPower, and that helped a lot!
At the begining of the year, there was a lot of conversation in the nonprofit community about Spam, mail delivery and the like, spurred on by a bill in Congress (which didn’t pass) about Network Neutrality (which had some implications) as well as by a new service offered by Goodmail - we’ll see if either of those items rise to the top with the recent news about spam volumes.