Green Moon Blog

File Sharing Tools

I was recently asked to provide a summary of online file sharing tools. I thought I'd post that summary here. I touched on some of these tools in a previous blog about collaboration, but I will describe more resources here.

I have listed the tools in two categories: web-based and desktop-based.

Web-based

Basecamp (Milestones, To-Do Lists, File Repository): www.basecamphq.com
Project Spaces (Document library/version control, task lists, calendar): www.projectspaces.com
Box (Workspaces, document sharing/version history, document commenting): www.box.net
Drop.io (a free service up to 100 MB, private shared spaces): drop.io
Files Anywhere (Synchronization, version control): www.filesanywhere.com
iCloud (store, organize, open, share files) www.icloud.com

Desktop -- synchronize/collaborate files across multiple computers

Dropbox (Free, includes version tracking, Windows-Mac-Linux): www.getdropbox.com
Windows Live Sync (free, but requires free Windows Live account, Mac & PC): sync.live.com
Mesh – another Microsoft Live tool (free, but only does synchronizing, but can also sync your phone with your pc): www.mesh.com
NomaDesk: http://www.nomadesk.com/
Microsoft Groove (PC only): office.microsoft.com/en-us/groove/HA101656331033.aspx

Conficker Worm due to strike April 1st -- no joke!

Many Windows computers are believed to be infected by the "Conficker" worm virus. The worm is due to activate on April 1st, 2009. No one seems to know what exactly it will do. However, its ability to duplicate itself and avoid detection has many security experts worried. You can read more about it here and here and here.

It is pretty easy to protect yourself against it. First, make sure you have installed Windows updates and patches: http://update.microsoft.com (you must access this site by using Internet Explorer).

Second, make sure your antivirus program is updated.

Third if you cannot reach both of the following pages from your browser, you are likely infected:

Source:
http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA09-088A.html

PowerShift - Activist Tools

I only recently heard of PowerShift because a friend of mine was involved in it and he thought I should go. On first glance at the information posted on the event website, I wondered why -- the event was geared toward high school and college aged environmental activists. Now, I consider myself and environmentalist, but it seemed like I would be out of place at the conference.

However, as I looked through the many workshops and panel discussions, I realized that I could learn a lot by attending. Young adults are very technologically savvy and they are now driving changes in how the Internet is being used. I thought that surrounded by 12,000 enthusiastic, smart, young people, it was quite likely that I would hear or see something that would benefit my work and the work of other non-profit organizations.

So, are there any breakthrough technologies that these young people are using that we don't know about? No. However, what I did find is that they seem to use the technologies in ways that are more open and creative than some of us may be used to. PowerShift itself was organized on the Internet -- email, Facebook, MySpace, blogs, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr were employed to get the word out, organize workshops, invite participants, and encourage community.

During the conference, participants were encouraged to post to Twitter and Flickr. Twitter updates were embedded into the PowerShift website and that page was displayed on flatpanel screens all around the convention center.

However, I have seen all of the above done before (e.g., last year at the NTC). Even though the technologies being used have been around for most of Web 2.0's duration, I did find that the PowerShifters thought about them a little differently.

First, regarding Facebook, we know about using Facebook to set up groups and pages, from which events can be created and sent to members. We know about posting photos and videos and having discussions on Facebook. But, the PowerShifters were savvy about using Facebook's Causes application. Anyone with a Facebook account can start a cause (or many causes). Causes help people to make others aware of an issue and to track their "impact" -- the number of people who joined the cause and the total dollars donated (Facebook processes donations through Network for Good). Causes can also be used to gather petition signatures that can then be sent to elected officials.

A key point that I heard discussed multiple times at PowerShift was that local, grassroots efforts were the most effective. One example of this is the Humane Society. Although a large national (and international) organization, it works at a very local level. Instead of having one Cause for the society, it has over 1,200 local causes. That allows volunteers in Wichita, Kansas or Rochester, New York to connect with local people and make good things happen. It is important for large organizations to find a way to appeal to people on a more personal basis -- and having local causes is one way to do that.

Another technology being heavily used was cell phones. Attendees were asked to volunteer to be state or local organizers by sending a text message to a 5-digit number. The idea was that the attendees were there, energized, and wanting to participate -- so they were asked to immediately take on leadership roles. They weren't asked to go home and think about it and then reply later -- PowerShift asked them to take immediate action. Imagine the network that was instantly created -- a network of leaders.

Throughout the conference, attendees were asked to take action, to take responsibility, and to show leadership. They were not talked at -- their voices were requested to be heard.

One final concept that was evident at PowerShift -- speakers and presenters said that it was important for organizers not to wed themselves to any specific technology, as no one knows what the next Facebook or Twitter might be, nor when it will appear. It was stressed that organizers needed to remain flexible and be able to adapt to whatever future technologies might provide the greatest leverage and efficiencies.

PowerShift organizers were able to bring 12,000 young people from across the country together for one weekend. This was only their second conference. The first one in 2007 had 6,000 attendees -- they were able to double attendance from one conference to the next.

Yes, they used the latest technology -- but nothing more exotic than we already know about. But, they harnessed that technology and used it quickly, locally, and effectively.

2009 -- The Year of Collaborative Tools

I have been attending technology conferences, reading articles, following blogs, and working with my own clients and if I had to make a prediction for the best use of technology for organizational efficiency in 2009 it would be in the area of collaboration.

Hot on the nonprofit technology arena are ideas for collaboration. I cannot tell you how many of my clients e-mail Word documents around and ask people to review and update them. Most don't take advantage of Word's "track changes" features (which allow multiple people to comment on and edit a document, color-coding their changes, and provide for a central person to accept or reject their changes). It becomes a nightmare of figuring out what the changes are and how to resolve conflicting changes.

Some organizations have embraced Google Documents (word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, forms). Once a document is created (or uploaded), it can be shared with others. However, each individual sharing/collaborating on the document must establish a Google account. The word processing and spreadsheet documents are also quite limited in their complexity. If you have an Excel file that requires Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code for some of its functionality (most of the spreadsheet work that Green Moon does has such code involved), that won't translate to Google. If you have a Word document that relies on styles for formatting, the formatting will translate to a Google Document, but the styles disappear. Also, if the document is greater than 500 KB in size (1 MB for spreadsheets, and 10 MB for presentations), it cannot be uploaded. Images, equations, and footnotes cause strange viewing and formatting experiences if a Word file containing them is uploaded to Google Documents. Finally, each document that is set up must have the sharing set up for it each time -- although Google has a folder system, people cannot be given permission to share at the folder level. Therefore, if you have very basic documents that need to be shared, Google Documents could work for you -- but if you have large and/or sophisticated documents to share, Google can't currently handle them.

Many organizations have been using Wikis for collaboration. Wikis are great for documents such as user guides, since they have built in page hierarchy structures and by nature can easily cross-reference to related pages via hypertext links. The better wikis also have "recent changes" pages, to allow the main author or integrator to view changes made to wiki pages and keep them or restore the previous version if they don't agree with the changes. Most wikis also offer search features. Wikis are designed to live on the Web, so if an organization wants to use them to create a document that will eventually be converted back into print media, a lot of reformatting will be required to convert the wiki into a format such as Word.

Instead of e-mailing documents from colleague to colleague, or requiring everyone to log in to a Google account or a wiki, there is a desktop solution called Groove. In 2007, Microsoft bought Groove Networks and folded Groove into its Office 2007 suite. However, Groove can be purchased separately and can be used for sharing and collaborating on any type of document. Once Groove is installed, you can set up a workspace and invite anyone with an email address to join (they will also need to have Groove installed). All file sharing is done using encryption and the system is very secure. Within the workspace, folders can be set up. As soon as a file is added to a workspace, it updates everyone else who is part of that workspace. If they are offline, they will receive the update the next time they go online. In addition to file sharing, Groove comes with a chat feature, whiteboard, discussion board, and many other tools.

Microsoft has also recently introduced Office Live. It comes in two flavors: Office Live Workspace and Office Live Small Business. Both are free. Within each system, once you can create workspaces and invite others to join in. Everyone will need to have a Microsoft Windows Live ID, which can be based on an existing e-mail address. (I am hoping they move toward accepting OpenID in the near future.) Once you have a Windows Live ID, you have access to SkyDrive, which is web-based storage of up to 1 GB for free. Once signed up, Office Live allows people to share documents, manage schedules, add notes, and to-do lists, among other features. If you use Microsoft Office products on your desktop, you can save documents to the workspace directly from your PC. The Small Business suite includes the previously-mentioned features, plus it includes time lines, chat tools, issue-tracking tools, and a free web site.

A bit more elaborate is Microsoft Sharepoint. The platform (Sharepoint Services) comes with Windows Server (2003 & 2008). The glitzy functionality comes with Microsoft Office Sharepoint Services, which can be quite costly depending on the package purchased. For non-profits with large technology budgets, Sharepoint provides corporate-level, enterprise solutions for collaboration. Forms, workflows, sophisticated tracking, and other features are part of Sharepoint. In addition to it being expensive software, it requires a smart technology engineer to set up customized solutions. This tool is not for every organization, but for those that can afford it, it provides advanced features that can make collaboration much smoother.

Finally, I would like to briefly mention Cloud Services or Cloud Computing. The previous two links describe the concept in detail, but essentially "the cloud" is hundreds or thousands of servers at various locations that you can leverage for their computing and storage power. Several of the giants, for a small fee, provide their servers to developers and organizations. You can take advantage of their vast storage space and computing power and you have no infrastructure costs. The major cloud service providers are listed here:

Each cloud service is somewhat different, has different capabilities, hosts different technologies, and has different pricing structures. This InfoWorld article compares several of them. I will look into these in more detail in the future, from the perspective of applications to the non-profit sector.

As you can see, there are many options for collaboration. There are free options and expensive solutions. There are simple web-based systems, complicated client-server set-ups, and desktop tools. In 2009 we have a wide variety of capabilities for collaboration. Non-profit organizations need to gauge their needs and the complexity of the collaboration they need, and then choose the appropriate tool for their needs.

net2thinktank

Webnode vs. Weebly

Free website templates are advertised all over the internet, so how do you know which one(s) are reliable, don’t involve any hidden fees and are, most importantly, easy to maintain? Recently I’ve been experimenting with two sites that fit these exact criteria…free, reliable and easy. In an afternoon you can have a new website for your organization. Webnode and Weebly are two popular free website building tools. The sites are quick and easy to use because within hours the results are immediately live on your site, without having to upload and transfer files. Thanks to the use of WYSIWYG, you don’t have to have any previous website building knowledge to construct a professional looking website. Whether you’re looking for a website for your business, a nonprofit or to highlight your hobby, you can’t go wrong by choosing Webnode or Weebly.

Below I’ve listed the key features of both tools on separate charts, followed by my recommendations and finally, how a few experts have reviewed each website building tool.

Webnode’s Key Features

General Features	Support – Free Service	Page Features	Widgets	Design Options	Premium Subscription	Premium Cost/Storage

100% Free	FAQ	Text & Images on Pages	FAQ	Templates - 40 choices	Email Support	$2.95/month 300 MB
No Ads	Forums	Polls	Tag Cloud	Layouts – 5 choices	Password Protection	$9.95/month 1000 MB
No Download		Forum & Blog	Maps	Fonts – 10 choices	Multiple Languages	$24.95/month 4000 MB
Customizable		Photo Gallery	Photo & File Sharing	Edit CSS	Customize Footer
Free Domain – or own Domain		News & Events	Widgets Gallery		Increased Bandwidth
Interactive Editing		Lists	E-commerce		Email Addresses
Drag-&-Drop technology		Security Protect Pages	Ads, Rss and Stocks
		Statistics	Embedded Code

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

Interested in social Networking? Blogs , YouTube and Flickr are also available to add under the widgets section
Ecommerce- PayPal, Google Checkout and Wordplay (credit cards) are all options on Webnode.
Need design ideas? Webnode provides a Projects page that categorizes and displays different sites built on Webnode.

Pro that turned into a Con:

Webnode provides demos on their site: introduction demo, photo gallery demo and a how to make a blog demo. Normally this would be great asset to the user, but at the time of publishing this article, the sound was not working on the videos, which defeats the purpose. You can still view them, but you have to have stellar eyesight to see the details. I’ve been checking back over the span of a few days to see if they fix this bug, but I’m not having any luck. I posted this concern on their forums bugs thread.

Con:

The Help feature is in the form of forums. – You aren’t guaranteed that someone will answer your question, let alone in a timely manner.

Weebly’s Key Features

Basic Features	Support	Page Features	Widgets	Design Options	Premium Subscription	Premium Cost/Storage

No download	Online Tutorial	Paragraph w/ picture or title	Picture	55 Templates	Premium Support	$4.00/month 100 MB uploads
Customizable	Email support	Upload Files	Photo Gallery	Layouts – 2 choices	Password Protection
Free Domain		Two Column layout	Audio Player		10 Sites per Account
Interactive Editing		Custom HTML	You Tube		Audio Player
Drag-& Drop Technology		Contact Form	Flickr Slideshow		Customize Footer
			Google Maps
			Google Ad Sense
			Feed Reader
			Games
			Forums
			Online Bookings

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

They do offer online “How To” tutorial with screenshots to teach you how to add more content to your site which include the following:

Pro or Con: You Decide:

Weebly has fewer options to choose from when compared to Webnode. That can be perceived as good or bad, depending on the vision you have of your website. The page designs are limited to a few page layouts, so it’s easier to make your decision, or on the other hand, it’s limited. Your selections are a two column content block or a page break. Other choices concern the style of your paragraphs. You must decide if you want your paragraph lead with a title, a picture or neither. That makes it quick and simple. The simplicity makes it quick to have a site up and running in no time.

Cool Tools on each site:

Weebly – Online Booking

“Through a partnership with HourTown, Weebly is able to offer your customers the ability to book appointments online. HourTown puts your business' open time slots on the web and attracts new customers to schedule with you.”

Webnode – Widgets Gallery

Add widgets from Google Gadgets, YourMinis Gadgets, SpringWidgets or your own source.

My Recommendation

To me it was an easy pick. Webnode just seemed easier to navigate and I liked having more options on the page layouts. The navigation menu includes all of your design elements listed in front of you at all times. You have more choices to customize your site, and I preferred their website design template options better than Weebly.

Weebly is simple to use, and it’s quicker to get a site up and running because it has less options to choose from, so you end up having less time invested in trial and error process and with experimenting.

My advice would be to try out each demo site to see which tool fits your comfort level. If you want a website that has more bells and whistles and one that can grow with your organization go with Webnode. In my opinion Webnode provides a more professional looking site. However, you can’t ignore the positive reviews that’s Weebly has received in the last year. In this week that they have added new templates and they’ve reached 1 million users. Weebly’s committed to earning their praise.

Compare the Key Feature charts and pay attention to product’s Premium Services. It’s important to vision how you want your site to look now, and to plan on how you want your site to evolve in the future. After careful consideration, decide now if a Premium Service package is in your future. Remember that websites must contain content that will continue to bring customers/viewers back to your site.

What Others are Saying

Webnode:

Here’s what TechCrunch says about Webnode:
“It’s a very clean and easy to use page creator which is much easier than blogs. Not as much functionality as something like Ning but there are lots of options to change the layout and general structure of the site. It’s more for building websites than social networks or blogs. Weirdly they are on a trend - two website creators have been financed in Germany, e.g. Jimdo and Homepage Baukasten. {The presentation was good}”

Read the entire article here.

Weebly:

Time Magazine voted Weebly on of their 50 Best Websites of 2007:

This clever WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) website building tool for non-techies offers a one-step process for adding content that's already somewhere else on the Web, such as Flickr photos, YouTube videos and Google maps. You can also add RSS feed readers that will display headlines that link back to the latest posts on your favorite blogs (just be sure to type in the site's feed URL, not the home page URL). When you click-and-drag a YouTube video onto your page, a flash player appears with it, and you can adjust the viewing screen size. (This is different than posting a link that takes you back to the source; you're literally copying the content and pulling it into your site.) Creating a blog is as easy as creating a new page and the page design templates let you hit the ground running; you can mouse over a particular layout to get a preview. Weebly also lets you use your own domain name, if you've got one, otherwise your site URL will be yourname.weebly.com.

Read the rest of the article here.

RSS Headline Display Widgets

I've been looking for a simple RSS widget to replace the one on the Green Moon homepage. The one we use is a roll-your-own version, using JavaScript and classic ASP technology. It's fine for now, but as we look to redesign our website, we need something that is more portable since we won't be staying with classic ASP. Additionally, each time we find a new character being used by the RSS source, we've got to go in and manually escape it.

Feedburner provides a clean way to show rotating headlines. It's not quite what I am looking for, as I'd also like to include a short summary of the article. However, if you have limited space and the rotating headlines will work for you, the Feedburner may provide what you need. I don't care for the branding, but they have reduced the font size and starkness of it over the years. An example is here:

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

I just came across SpringWidgets, which are pretty close to what I think we need. SpringWidgets provides a clean design that can be tailored a bit on their website. They also offer a full development platform and SDK so that you can really make it your own. Most of the development requires Flash, so you need to have that software already in your toolbox.

Here's a quick version that I just threw together in a matter of minutes, using the online Express Widgets tool :

Those are just a couple of the free RSS headline widgets that are available. I'll continue to add to this article as I find others that fit my needs.

Use Technology on Election Day

I have been messing with Twitter on and off for a few months, not being really sure what to do with it. Lisa and I used it at the N-TEN conference last spring to do real-time commenting on a plenary session. It was interesting to see how others were responding to the speaker and the environment, but not sure how truly useful that was. Similarly, I plugged in during the U.S. presidential debates last month to see what other viewers were thinking. Again, interesting but also it seemed to just add to the general chatter.

Today I received an e-mail that pointed to what looks like a very practical application of Twitter: using it to report problems and issues at U.S. polling places on election day (tomorrow).

Thanks to early voting in many states, there have already been more than 80,000 calls to a voter hotline. The calls came in on the toll-free number 1.866.OUR.VOTE (1.866.687.8683). However, if they have already received 80,000 calls during early voting (during which less than 10% of citizens have voted), the phone lines could get swamped tomorrow. So, the organization (OurVoteLive.org) has made two additional technologies available for people to report problems:

E-mail: help@866ourvote.org
Twitter

The complete instructions for tweeting your issue can be found here. But here's an example tweet that I'll explain below:

@866ourvote Long line est. wait of 2hrs. Some leaving after seeing the line #22205 precinct4 #EPVA #votereport

@866ourvote - sends the note to the 866ourvote Twitter account (required)
#22205 - # followed by the zip code of the polling place (optional)
precinct4 - precinct number (optional - obviously, change the number to match the precinct you are at)
#EPVA - # followed by "EP" for election problem, followed by two-character abbreviation for your stated (e.g., Pennsylvania would be #EPPA, Ohio would be #EPOH) (required)
#votereport - feeds your tweet to the Twitter Vote Report website (which uses a Google map to plot incidents) (optional)

Some of the above parameters are optional, but the more you provide the better results you may get. In a perfect world we would not need anything like this. However, I think it is a great application of Twitter and I will be interested to see how it all works out. I'll post a blog in a few days when the dust settles so that we can see how Twitter was used during this election.

Now, get out there and vote!

NTEN’s Content Management Survey Results

NTEN just released their survey results from the 2008 Content Management System Satisfaction Survey. The report is free to NTEN members and it’s available for $50 to non-members. They also provide a sample of the report on their site. Their purpose for publishing the report was to help non profits in their CMS decision making process. “Once you have identified two or three systems that meet your organization's needs, this report can help you to make your final decision as to which system is right for your organization.”

Over 1000 people took their survey. This caught our attention at Green Moon Solutions because we have implemented and recommended Drupal in the past, and we wanted to see how it fared when compared to their competition consisting of other opens source software, such as, Joomla! and Plone.

We’ve analyzed the report, and we agree with how our peers have rated Drupal. We’d also like to add that from our experience as Drupal novices, we found Drupal to be easy to use once you familiarize yourself with their terminology, and of course, nothing beats trial and error. For example, Drupal uses the terms “taxonomy” and “nodes” which mean classification and a unit of content, respectively. We won’t lie, there was so much information on Drupal.org that it did seem overwhelming at first, but if you keep peeling back the layers you’ll be extremely satisfied with your results. Here is a glossary for important Drupal terms.

A tip for Drupal newcomers: buy a book on Drupal. It’s a wonderful resource, and there have been several published since we developed our first Drupal website. Additionally, reread the book about six months after you have your site up and running. You’ll have a greater understanding and more hands-on experience with Drupal, and you will find more nuggets in the book that may not have pertained to your initial set up. Online handbooks are also a great reference tool.

Some of the best features of Drupal are the support and contributions from the Drupal community. Not only does the community contribute updated versions of Drupal, it also adds new themes and updated modules. They even produce several Drupal podcasts on iTunes. The Art Lab produces Drupal School, and for the most up-to-date Drupal information, look into Lullabot’s audio and video podcasts. Whether you are new to Drupal or looking to add more modules to you site, it’s helpful to view all the resources that are available to you. With the active Drupal community, there are always new and exciting updates and modules being generated.

Basically what we’ve learned from our experience is that Drupal is a great piece of software that’s constantly evolving and it is well supported. The best part is that Drupal works well on many levels. NTEN survey results bore out those conclusions.