So you get an email message that looks really, really legitimate. There are no typos, the subject matter could easily apply to you or your organization. You check the domain name of the sender's email address and it is a legitimate organization. Do you go ahead and open the attached Word document?  No!  Instead, forward the message to VirusTotal, a free scannign service.

There is a lot of hype about "the cloud" these days. We have just begun to explore it's potential. The utility of the cloud that attracted us is in the ability for distributed systems to multiply computing power to serve an important cause. Green Moon has signed up on a trial basis to participate in Stanford University's Folding@Home protein research project.

As a follow-up to our participation in the Day of Service at the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC), I am posting an excerpt of our slide presentation. Our project was to work with an Atlanta-based nonprofit organization and identify technologies and strategies for them to begin receiving online donations. The crux of our presentation was focused on donation systems that we felt were the right fit for the specific organization we were helping. The part of our presentation that was focused on marketing donation systems is posted on Slide Share where you can view it. 

Tronn Carson was a friend and an invaluable contributor to Green Moon Solutions. It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to him and extend our sympathies to his family. 

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-basedBasecamp (Milestones, To-Do Lists, File Repository): www.basecamphq.comProject Spaces (Document library/version control, task lists, calendar): www.projectspaces.comBox (Workspaces, document sharing/version history, document commenting): www.box.netDrop.io (a free service up to 100 MB, private shared spaces): drop.ioFiles Anywhere (Synchronization, version control): www.filesanywhere.comiCloud  (store, organize, open,...

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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 exactly what 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...

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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 an 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...

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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...

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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:

↑...

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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...

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