Internet Nonprofit Center : The Nonprofit FAQ
In their own words:
Scores of items of information and advice about nonprofits are included in this online resource. The items come from discussions on email lists, in UseNet, and other sources.
The list of articles on automation is extensive.
Nonprofit Online News: Frictionless Fundraising
A thoughtful article by Michael Gilbert of the Nonprofit Online News. Just as relevant now, as it was when written in January 2003.
Survey results on use of videoconferencing.
Priceless – Frank Ackerman & Lisa Heinzerling interview – cost-benefit analysis
about their book Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing
Seen on Stay Free!
Dan’s Data – PC hardware and gadget reviews!
A fun down-under take on the build-it-yourself hardware scene. Kind of like Don Lancaster with more humor, (and frankly a little less mumbo-jumbo) or Jerry Pournelle but not as serious. His note from April 28th, is about home-built or off-brand rack mount servers. And indeed, as soon as you start thinking about these, the hardware people get $$$ -signs in their eyes. Not entirely without reason, as the cooling in rack mount is a huge problem, when compared to the same motherboard and components in a generously-sized tower case. A little excerpt:
There’s nothing magic about this kind of server hardware; if you’re talking four or more CPUs and/or non-x86 architecture then there’s a considerable real baseline price increase, but any old PC can do many server tasks. And a PC built with better-than-average components – good PSU, motherboard that you didn’t buy at an open air market, maybe a 10,000RPM drive – should be just as durable as a purpose-built x86 server.
Once you start talking rackmount, though, you also start talking excitingly pumped-up prices. Maybe you’re paying for a serious support contract, but disturbingly often, you’re not (or the contract you do pay for turns out not to be worth what you pay…).
Server makers also have an annoying tendency to assume you want a “server class” CPU. Now, if you want multiple processors in an x86 server, then you definitely do want a Xeon or Opteron box. But a lot of people buying up-to-two-processor Xeon and Opteron machines with only one chip in them will never add another processor – or will, by the time they do need more speed, be able to buy another single-chip box that’s faster than upgrading their current machine.
My own home server, for the past six months, has been a repurposed Dell Dimension 100TX (if memory serves) workstation, that had one or two motherboard upgrades. It currently has a 450Mhz Pentium III or IV processor, and 256Kb of RAM. Its running Windows 2003 Enterprise (!) Since the on-off switch broke, I removed the cover, and it is sitting there, in all its utilitarian glory in my wire shelf…which almost looks like a rack mount. As Don Lancaster says in his classic book The Incredible Secret Money Machine II “Think cheap. Think skungy”.
And while we’re on the subject, don’t forget the O’Reilly publication Make which according to its home page, says, “we’ll also show you how to make a video camera stabilizer, a do-it-yourself alternative to an expensive Steadicam.” Don’t miss their round-up of sonic clothing…wearable clothing which generates sounds.
TechFoundation – TechFoundation Homepage
http://www.techfoundation.org/
As described in a VON magazine interview of Brian Allain:
TechFoundation is a non-profit organization headquartered in Cambridge that is focused on providing technology support to other non-profit organizations. That market segment has been technologically underserved and often lacks the internal skills to optimally utilize technology. TechFoundation supports non-profits thorough technology education, subsidized technology staff, discounted products, and assistance with obtaining technology grants.
HBS Working Knowledge: Social Enterprise: Nonprofit Networking: The New Way to Grow
book review from Harvard Business School.
Microsoft has released a new junk eMail filter for OutLook. This one is dated May 10th. I’m finding that the combination of OutLook (not Express), with its Microsoft-supplied junk mail filter, and basic filtering of my eMail at my ISP, seems to be effective.
What’s odd, is that just this weekend, I got four spams in German…and they weren’t even obscene.
Over at Everything Sysadmin, there is an interesting discussion of laptop economics.
However laptops are different. Laptops seem to be treated like crap by even the daintiest of users. People drop them, slam them, toss them into the trunk of the car before speeding off bouncing it around. That’s a lot of wear-and-tear. Even if you have a fancy carrying case, there can never be enough padding in my opinion.
True, not everyone is badly paid. In 1968, the head of General Motors received about $4 million in today’s dollars – and that was considered extravagant. But last year Scott Lee Jr., Wal-Mart’s chief executive, was paid $17.5 million. That is, every two weeks Mr. Lee was paid about as much as his average employee will earn in a lifetime.
Italics mine.
From Paul Krugman’s column in The New York Times
tfnp 