Bagels & Bytes on a Boat – June 2009 Meeting

Ahoy! We had a great time this month at Bagels & Bytes on a Boat!  RiverQuest’s new boat Explorer is everything we hoped it would be.

Talkin' Tech at B&B on a Boat

A big “thank you” to the RiverQuest staff and crew who were so helpful and gracious before and during our meeting.

We held a drawing for two tech-related books at our meeting.  Rose McKee from the Benedum Foundation won “Momentum” by Allison Fine and Mike Papas from Three Rivers Youth won “Wired for Good” by Joni Podolsky.

Speaking of the book “Wired for Good” – I can get this for $10 per copy, but have to order at least five at a time.  Please email me at leonard@rmu.edu if you are interested in being added to a list.

Regardless of the setting, you can’t stop NP techies from talking about tech!  Here are some of the resources discussed during our meeting:

• Giveawayoftheday.com (http://www.giveawayoftheday.com) – a new, free software package each day for download
• Grants Management Software – A free comparison report from Solpath.com is available here – http://www.solpath.org/results.html
• Harmony Information Services (http://www.harmonyis.com/) – human services database software
• Stimulus funding information – http://www.recovery.gov/

One last tidbit from the meeting…Sandy S. brought her little tech guy-to-be along for us to meet.  This little dude attended Bagels & Bytes in utero all last year and we finally got to meet him!

Our Bagels & Bytes Baby!

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Next Bagels & Bytes Meetings

Note:  There are no B&B meetings in July.

• Allegheny group – Wednesday, August 5 at Easter Seals in the Strip District, 8 am – 9:30 am.
• Downtown group – Thursday, August 6 at the Bayer Center office in the Regional Enterprise Tower, 8 am – 9:30 am.

I know we discussed changing the meeting start times to 8:30 am.  Since the Bayer Center calendar and course catalog have been published and widely distributed through August, let’s keep the original start time through that month.  I’ll change it in our fall course catalog and we’ll give an 8:30 am start time a try for a few months.

2009 Bagels & Bytes Calendar is here

 

Allegheny & Downtown – May 2009 Meetings

We had some small (but good) groups this month!  Everyone must be in recovery from doing their taxes. 

The Downtown group viewed a demo of OpenOffice software.  A big thanks to Joe Allen from PULSE for guiding us through this with ease!  Learn more and download this free productivity software package at http://www.openoffice.org.

The Allegheny group discussed Keeping Up with Trends.  Here are a bunch of ideas and resources:

Books

• The Accidental Techie, by Sue Bennett
• Wired for Good, by Joni Podolsky  (I can probably get this for you for $10 per copy – let me know if interested.)
• Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission, edited by Holly Ross, multiple authors

Email subscriptions

• Techsoup.org
• NPT Technobuzz
• NTEN Connect
• TechNotes (Bayer Center)
• Idealist.org
• Grassroots.org
• Various vendors (Microsoft, Adobe, etc.)

Memberships/groups

• Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN.org) ($85 for individual, $60-300 for entire org based on budget)

Web 2.0

• NTEN blog
• Beth’s Blog: How NPs can use Social Media
• Facebook – NTEN group and “All the NP Techies” group
• John Kenyon’s blog
• BCNM blog (My articles are normally about tech stuff.)
• We Are Media
• Twitter – network with other np techies and follow NPtech group
• Frogloop Blog
• Idealware Blog

Listservs

• Yahoo groups – information_systems_forum &
• Careernptechies wiki
• Google group – ctcnet-listserv

Other

• Google Alerts – try “nonprofit technology”
• Women Who Tech

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Next Meeting:  Bagels & Bytes on a BOAT!

Our next meeting is on Riverquest’s boat “Explorer” on the second Wednesday of June (6/10/09).  The meeting is the usual time – from 8 am – 9:30 am.  Riverquest’s dock is just a little west of the Carnegie Science Center, in fact, you will park in the CSC lot ($3).

Both the Allegheny and Downtown groups’ meetings will be held in this location so we can share our annual summer outing together!  (I will also invite the Westmoreland and West groups.)

2009 Bagels & Bytes Calendar is here

 

Downtown B&B – April 2009 Meeting

We met once again at the Bayer Center’s office in the Regional Enterprise Tower. Our “starter” topic was New Features in Office 2007.

Other tools and resources discussed included:

• Article by Mark Shaw of NPower Michigan “The Purposeful Techie“
• Office 2007 Interactive Command Reference Guides
• Free speech recognition software – e-Speaking.com (it only costs if you want the ability to add/delete/customize commands)
• Sierra w/o Wires – http://www.sierrawowires.com/ - (discounted software for those who don’t qualify for TechSoup’s program)

Our starter topic for May will be OpenOffice.  The group voted to move the June 2009 meeting to Wednesday, June 10, so that we can have the meeting on the same day as the Allegheny group and partake in the “Bagels & Bytes on a Boat” event that day.

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Next Meeting:

Our next meeting is May 6 at the Bayer Center office on the 26th Floor of the Regional Enterprise Tower. If anyone has any topic suggestions or any issues you’d like to discuss at the meeting, please email them to me at leonard@rmu.edu. The meeting is, as usual, from 8 am – 9:30 am.

2009 Bagels & Bytes Calendar is here

 

Allegheny B&B – April 2009 Meeting Notes

This month, we traveled to the North Side’s warm and friendly Amani International Coffee House.  Our starter topic for the month, troubleshooting hardware and software, was extremely interesting and produced some great stories.  At one point, I laughed so hard my eyes started to tear up (over the one about the user who was hiding a key in the CD-ROM tray).

 

Here are the resources and issues we discussed during the meeting:

 

Resources 

• TrendMicro - http://us.trendmicro.com/us/home/ – good antivirus, not-so-good spam catcher
• Google Postini - http://www.google.com/postini/index.html – they filter email then forward non-spam to you
• Sonicwall Barracuda - http://www.sonicguard.com/barracuda.asp – network appliance
• EIT Store - (whoever mentioned this needs to send me the link because I can’t find this!) - discounted hardware/software based in Houston
• Data Bazaar - http://www.databazaar.com/ – inexpensive printer toner
• SmartPrint - http://smartprinttechnologiesinc.com/spt.php – will match toner prices, provides printer service free of charge if you are buying their cartridges
• Consistent Computer Bargains - http://www.ccbnonprofits.com/ – discounted hardware and software
• Sierra w/o Wires - http://www.sierrawowires.com/- local company that is a reseller for Microsoft, Adobe, et al, and has prices lower than retail, but higher than TechSoup (good if you don’t qualify for TechSoup)
• Harmony - http://www.harmonyis.com/ – a client information management system
• Spiceworks - http://www.spiceworks.com/ – network monitoring and support ticketing system
• Viewpoint software - http://www.sonicwall.com/us/support/3340.html – comes with Sonic firewall products, and has good report capabilities built in

Troubleshooting Tips

• It is important to probe the users thoroughly for information and ask the right questions.
• If you can train users to write down errors or create screenshots, that’s great too.
• Start at the lowest level, most basic level, with the simplest possible thing.  (Is it plugged in?)  Only try one thing at a time so you know what worked and what didn’t.
• A cable tester can save you a lot of time and energy. http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/tools/8510/

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Next Meeting:

• Our next meeting is May 6 at Amani International Coffeehouse on the North Side. Our starter topic will be “Keeping Up with Trends.” The meeting is, as usual, from 8 am – 9:30 am.

2009 Bagels & Bytes Calendar is here!

 

Downtown B&B – March 2009 Meeting Notes

We met once again at the Bayer Center’s office in the Regional Enterprise Tower. Our “starter” topic was Exploring Google Apps. 

We created a new Google Apps account (projector and laptop hooked up and displaying onscreen) and went digging around.  We determined that most of the programs - word processing, spreadsheet, database, presentation – were similar to Microsoft Office, enough so that an existing Office user could generally find his or her way around with too much training.  We explored the Google Sites feature to see what it had to offer.  One could make a very basic website or intranet with this tool.  There didn’t seem to be many possibilities for customization.  The link to our faux Bagels & Bytes Google Site is:  http://sites.google.com/a/rmu.edu/bagels-bytes/

Other tools discussed (most of the online collaboration type) included:

• Wikispaces (http://www.wikispaces.com)
• Acrobat Connect (http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnect/)
• Webex (http://www.webex.com)
• Skype (http://www.skype.com)
• ReadyTalk (http://www.readytalk.com)

For upcoming months, we decided to do a series of starter topics:  April will be New Capabilities in Office 2007 and May will be OpenOffice.  The group also discussed the desire for a Bagels & Bytes Facebook group.

Note from editor:  I accidentally deleted the February 2009 meeting notes last week and don’t retain the paper copies once I’ve written the blog post.  Sorry!!

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Next Meeting:

Our next meeting is April 2 at the Bayer Center office on the 26th Floor of the Regional Enterprise Tower. If anyone has any topic suggestions or any issues you’d like to discuss at the meeting, please email them to me at leonard@rmu.edu. The meeting is, as usual, from 8 am – 9:30 am.

2009 Bagels & Bytes Calendar is here

 

Allegheny B&B – March 2009 Meeting Notes

This was our last month at Rodef Shalom in Shadyside. Our starter topic for the month was the ever-popular “social networking.”  Here are the resources and issues we discussed during the meeting:

 

Social Networking Sites and Utilities

• Twitter (http://www.twitter.com)
• Facebook (http://www.facebook.com)
• Blogs (there are many to choose from, some popular tools are http://www.wordpress.com and http://www.blogspot.com)
• YouTube (http://www.youtube.com)
• Flickr (http://www.flickr.com)

We discussed the management of these sites and generally agreed that it typically falls upon one or two people within the organization.  Social networking tasks also tend to be lumped onto existing duties.  We touched upon the importance of gaining competence with these tools now in order to reach the socially conscious 13-18 year old set that will be volunteers in the near future and donors later on.

 

Selling Tickets Online to International Customers

 

The Great Pittsburgh Food Bank does a Blues Festival fundraiser each year for which they sell online tickets and merchandise.  They’ve experienced periodic attempts at credit card fraud by international users with their current online transactional system.  The group suggested Paypal for international orders, which guarantees the money is available and that a “real” bank account is funding the purchase.

 

Spam

 

We hate spam!  One can cut down on spam by subscribing to new online accounts using a hotmail or other free email address until one knows whether or not the new account will bring an onslaught of spam.  We have also experienced having our email addresses pulled out of web submission forms, sometimes even if one hits the “cancel” button.

 

Other Sites and Tools Mentioned During the Meeting

• Restaurants.com (http://www.restaurants.com) – an index of all the restaurants in the world, supposedly – not sure how this came up in conversation
• Retailmenot.com (http://www.retailmenot.com) – site for finding all kinds of coupons for all types of retail establishments, both brick and click
• Yahoo! Store (http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/ecommerce/) – for online shopping cart, only $40 per month and a fee assessed per sale
• Brownpapertickets.com (  ) – for selling tickets online; free to nonprofits and a small fee assessed to customers purchasing tickets
• Wikispaces.com (http://www.wikispaces.com) – for creating a wiki, public or private
• Madeleine Stanionis and her book “The Mercifully Brief, Real World Guide to Raising Thousands (if Not Tens of Thousands) of Dollars with Email” (http://www.madelinestanionis.com/)
• FISA Foundation (http://www.fisafoundation.org) – local foundation that gives grants as a potential source for obtaining a website accessibility improvement grant

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Next Meeting:

• Our next meeting is April 1 (that ought to be interesting, eh?) at Amani International Coffeehouse on the North Side. Our topic for April will be “General Hardware and Software Troubleshooting.”  The meeting is, as usual, from 8 am – 9:30 am.

2009 Bagels & Bytes Calendar is here!

 

Allegheny B&B – February 2009 Meeting Notes

Happy New Year!  We took a break in January and are back to our monthly Bagels & Bytes meetings! 

 

This month, we met at Rodef Shalom in Shadyside.  Our starter topic was “ways to save money on (and with) IT.”  Here are the resources and issues we discussed during the meeting:

 

Discounted hardware and software

• Techsoup (http://www.techsoup.org) – runs a great software donation program and has a nice “Learning Center” resource
• Consistent Computer Bargains (http://www.ccbnonprofits.com/) - sells discounted equipment and software to nonprofits
• Dell’s auction site (http://www.dellauction.com/) – just like the name says, Dell auctions off its hardware on this site – sometimes for super cheap!

Freeware

• Giveawayoftheday.com (http://www.giveawayoftheday.com) – can download a different full version piece of software every 24 hours
• Comodo (http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/) – free anti-virus/firewall software

Vendors Used by Meeting Attendees

• Ideal Integrations (http://www.idealintegrations.net/)
• Red Square (http://www.redsquaresystems.com/)
• Innovative Technologies Plus (http://www.innotechplus.com/)
• 3 Rivers Connect (http://www.3rc.org/)
• DonorPro Software by TowerCare Technologies – (http://www.towercare.com/)

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Next Meeting:

• Our next meeting is March 4at Rodef Shalom in Shadyside.  Our topic for March will be Web 2.0/Social Networking.  The meeting is, as usual, from 8 am – 9:30 am.

2009 Bagels & Bytes Calendar is here!

 

Downtown B&B – December 2008 Meeting Notes

We met once again at the Bayer Center’s office in the Regional Enterprise Tower.  The discussion went beyond tech tools and practices into some tech philosophy.  Here are the highlights and resources discussed:

• Technology doesn’t fix “people problems.” An organization’s technological inertia cannot be solved by throwing volunteers, interns, or consultants at it (or more tech, for that matter).
• Technology fear prohibits progress.  It can be very difficult to deal with users who don’t use tech and remain convinced that other people don’t either.  Sometimes you have to prod people a little to get them to embrace and use technology.  Including scared non-techies in the entire tech planning and implementation process helps to gain their buy-in.
• It is extremely important to find out what the end users really need and to not assume or guess what they need.
• When dealing with technology, you have to look forward and backward at the same time. 
• The “right” technology isn’t always the newest, fastest, best technology.
• Websites do best when there is an organizational champion or advocate pushing them forward.

Open Source Software
Lotus Symphony – http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.nsf/home

Online Registration Tools
Regonline – http://www.regonline.com/
Thriva – http://www.thriva.com/
Certain – http://www.certain.com

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Next Meeting:

Please remember that we have no meeting in January.  Our next meeting is February 5 at the Bayer Center office on the 26th Floor of the Regional Enterprise Tower. If anyone has any topic suggestions or any issues you’d like to discuss at the meeting, please email them to me at leonard@rmu.edu. The meeting is, as usual, from 8 am – 9:30 am.

2009 Bagels & Bytes Calendar is here

 

Allegheny B&B – December 2008 Meeting Notes

This was our third and last month at ACHIEVA on the South Side.  Here are the resources and issues we discussed during the meeting:

Google Apps – http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html
People are having difficulty registering an agency (vs. an individual) and do not care for the fact that you have to use Gmail for the email accounts with this service or that Gmail doesn’t support retaining email/archiving (for legal purposes).

Equipment Recycling
Goodwill - http://www.goodwillpitt.org/retailServices/computers.jsp
Construction Junction – http://www.constructionjunction.org/

Keeping up with tech trends
www.cio.com
www.wired.com
 
SaaS and potential MS Office replacements
www.ibackup.com
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/collaboration.html
http://www.zoho.com/
https://www.salesforce.com/
 
Talked about remote control
Hamachi -https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi/vpn.asp?lang=en
LogMeIn – https://secure.logmein.com/

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Next Meeting:

• Please remember that we have no meeting in January.  Our next meeting is February 4 at Rodef Shalom in Shadyside.  If anyone has any topic suggestions or any issues you’d like to discuss at the meeting, please email them to me at leonard@rmu.edu. The meeting is, as usual, from 8 am – 9:30 am.

2009 Bagels & Bytes Calendar is here!

 

Downtown B&B – November 2008 Meeting Notes

We had our second-ever meeting of this group at the Bayer Center’s office in the Regional Enterprise Tower.  A lively and interesting discussion of Web 2.0 and social networking ensued!

Web 2.0 Tools and Resources

• Facebook – www.facebook.com
• YouTube – www.youtube.com
• MySpace – www.myspace.com
• Blogging – www.blogger.com, www.wordpress.com (note – there are many, many blogging tools out there, try Googling the word ‘blogging tools’)
• JuicyCampus – www.juicycampus.com (not a ‘nice’ site – it’s an example of negative social networking)
• SocialEdge – www.socialedge.com
• Ravelry.com – www.ravelry.com (a fine example of social networking)
• Ruby on Rails – www.rubyonrails.com (the web dev platform that Ravelry.com uses)

Other Commentary on Web 2.0

• It can be scary.  Social networking means a certain amount of loss of control over your site’s content and usage.
• Behavioral standards should be enforced – social interaction is social interaction, whether its in person or online.  Online interactions should not be treated any differently.
• If you want to maintain behavioral standards on a social networking site, you must spell those out on some kind of obvious community standards/guidelines document or page.  One cannot assume that people automatically know how to behave themselves online.  Setting standards and (enumerating penalties for violations) also gives you some legal backing for enforcement actions.  (Even better if you make people read and check a box to agree to standards when they sign up for their accounts.)

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Next Meeting:

• Our next meeting is December 4 at the Bayer Center office on the 26th Floor of the Regional Enterprise Tower. If anyone has any topic suggestions or any issues you’d like to discuss at the meeting, please email them to me at leonard@rmu.edu. The meeting is, as usual, from 8 am – 9:30 am.

Download Bagels & Bytes 2008 Calendar & Directions