“It may seem impossible to imagine that the technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing.”  The Climate of Man by Elizabeth Holbert, is a three part New Yorker article about climate change.  The first two parts on are online.   

I’ve been experimenting with SipPhone for some weeks. They offer a service that connects your internet phone to a standard telephone number  for approximately two cents per minute.  Like a pre-paid phone card or pre-paid cell service, you can purchase a block of time for $10.00 minimum. When you make a call a voice comes on the line telling you how much time you have available for the call.  I’ve been using the service when traveling to client sites. Once I connect my laptop to the client’s network, I can fire up EyeBeam (the XTen software phone)  on the laptop.  EyeBeam is configured to use SipPhone as the telephone provider. 

The EyeBeam is pretty spectacular; it includes the ability to do videoconferencing (which I haven’t even gotten around to trying yet…) However, there are numerous free softphones that you can download, including one from SipPhone itself which is a go-branded version of the X-Ten softphone.

Once the software is runing on the laptop the phone will automatically attempt to register with the SipPhone directory service, and you’ll see a message “logged in — enter phone number” and a display of your own SipPhone phone number, which is usually (?) in the 747 area code. (You can buy a customized “viritual” phone number too, in a number of different area codes.)

Other SipPhone users can dial your SipPhone number, and the call is completed over the Internet. This costs nothing. Only if you connect to a regular phone, do the SipPhone charges apply.  

Several issues as far as the calls are concerned:

1. A broadband connection is required. Both Verizon DSL and Adelphia cable seem to work fine.
2. The service appears to be much more reliable, with better voice quality, and fewer delays, in the mornings.
3. Depending on internet traffic, and presumably local LAN traffic on your office network, the software phone may not even register with SipPhone Central, and you will be unable to make calls.
4. At its best, voice quality is identical to that on a standard telephone.
5. If both parties talk at once there is a “collision”. As such, the service appears to be less than “full duplex”. 
6. There is sometimes delay between the time you speak, and the time that the other party hears your voice. 
7. The time to connect the call, that is, between the time you dial a number and the time it starts ringing can sometimes be a minute or more.
8. International rates are great. 4 cents/minute to Germany, for instance.

Note that items 1–6 are not necessarily related to SipPhone per se. I’ve had similar experience with Free World Dialup.

Alternatives: 

Maybe Skype+SkypeOut.   Phonecard minutes from Costco phonecards. (2 cents/minute)  Cellphone minutes. 

Software Project Management Resources — Columbia University: “Project management resources: templates, samples, articles, software, lecture notes on software & general PM. Updated Apr 14, 2005.”

Everything you ever wanted to know about software project management.

which could be subtitled…“Bonehead Network Manager Saves Neck With Nifty Software Utility”.

The Acronis Disk Director Suite 9.0 is an alternative to Norton Partition Magic and its ilk. What is great about this software is 1. It works
2. It is reasonable. $50.00
3. It is available as a download.

When installing Windows 2003 server, there was a default of 4 gigabytes for the system partition. Like an idiot I chose this, and about 10 days after installing it we were down to 5% free disk space. The Acronis software resized the disk partition almost effortlessly, taking free space from the main data partition and applying it to the system partition. Once the software is installed on a machine, you can create a boot disk (diskette or CD) and then boot the machine from that media.

I was a little worried about this because the “disk” is actually a RAID array… but since all of the NTFS partitioning takes place at the Windows software level, the Acronis software still treated the array as a single disk for partitioning purposes.

Recommended.

 Visual Mind is a simplified, and elegant implementation of mind-mapping. $89.00 for the basic version, $199 for a “business version” that interfaces with Microsoft Office.

 BlogJet is a desktop application for putting entries into a web log. It works with most common blogging software. Free!

 X1 is still on top for desktop indexing. About $79.00.

 Onfolio: used both reading RSS feeds, and for organizing web links and information.  About $80.00 If I had to take one piece of software to a desert island, (assuming I could still bring my office suite, operating system and development tools) this would be it.  I even like it better than …

 ITunes which I like pretty much, although I don’t care for the restrictions that they put on the use of the music that you download, and I have to say that the sound quality of CD that you create from downloaded music leaves much to be desired.

 UltraMon A great utility that manages dual monitors.

Years ago, I took what was then called The Grantsmanship Seminar. This was a three-day proposal-writing workshop held in a sweaty meeting room in a Waltham, Mass. Then, for years afterwards, I got a quarterly update from the seminar in the form of a thick newsprint tabloid. Hadn’t heard from them for a long time, but I see they are alive and well. Their web site has an outstanding series of articles on grant seeking.

There is a scary history of cable and telecom companies lobbying for laws to prevent local cities to offer broadband service. In Telco Lies and the Truth about Municipal Broadband Networks (.pdf link) Ben Scott and Frannie Wellings take several instances where cites and telecom companies have been at loggerheads and provide a rebuttal to the disinformation campaigns that have been mounted by the telcos. From the Executive Summary:

The attention of policymakers in both parties is now focused on the question of how to promote competitive broadband markets that will deliver high-speed Internet access to all Americans at affordable rates. It is a difficult problem. Present estimates are that around 30% of US households subscribe to DSL or cable modem service. This compares to over 70% in countries like South Korea. Virtually every rural state remains underserved and uncompetitive. In urban areas, many families are priced out of the market. The telecom and cable kings of the broadband industry have failed to bridge the digital divide and opted to serve the most lucrative markets at the expense of universal, affordable access. As a result, local governments and community groups across the country have started building their own broadband networks, sometimes in a purely public service and more often through public-private partnerships. The incumbents have responded with an aggressive lobbying and misinformation campaign. Advocates of cable and DSL providers have been activated in several state capitols to push new laws prohibiting or severely restricting municipalities from serving their communities. Earlier this year, Verizon circulated a “fact sheet” to lawmakers, journalists and opinion leaders proclaiming the so-called “failures” of public broadband. Many of the statistics come from a widely discredited study of municipal cable TV networks published in 1998. This paper debunks these lies case by case, juxtaposing information direct from the city networks with quotations from the telco propaganda. The results are unequivocal and damning.

 My own experience in this contretemps was about a month ago, when I testified at a public service board hearing in favor of a certificate of public good that the local municipal broadband company was seeking to offer cable television programming over its no-yet-actually-existing fiber network. Their idea is that they’ll bring fiber to the home. They will offer telephone service, broadband internet, and cable tv over the fiber. And they will allow other content providers, including commercial providers like Verizon and Adelphia access to the fiber as well. The company, Burlington Telecom, is a subsidiary of the local municipal electric company, that is, it is run by the city on a non-profit basis. As an electric company, they have provided some of the lowest rates in the state, some 10–20% less than the other state utilities. 

Since the local company is offering competition, and not replacement for Adelphia and Verizon, you have to wonder what the naysayers are thinking when they say this is unfair. Its not as if they are providing comprehensive broadband at all, in fact, many outlying areas are still using dialup. With DSL limited to three miles or so from a central office, and Adelphia cable years behind in their deployment plans (and the company is bankrupt), the municipal projects are just what the doctor ordered.   

Spent last weekend bringing up Windows 2003 server standard and attaching 10 user workstations and their accounts. Before I forget the pain, I want to get down some random observations. This was an upgrade to the server hardware, and from the Windows NT operating system to Windows 2003 Server Standard. 

1. Biggest change is adding Active Directory. AD is an order-of-magnitude increase in complexity from the old NT domain system. It is based in part on LDAP, the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, which is derived from DNS, the domain naming system used for the internet. The upshot is if you want to manage network user security, you have to have an (NT type) domain on the network, and to do that you have to install Active Directory, and to do that you have install DNS on the server. I’ve installed AD on several servers in the past but it remains a black box to a certain extent. Also, in terms of scale, AD may be great for multi-site companies, but for a single office it is way overkill. Once added there are no native client applications which access all that AD information anyway. What’s all the fuss?  

2. The fact that you have to install DNS is a pain. Everyone has an Internet Service Provider, and everyone normally uses their DNS. So why the heck would you need to install it on your small-office local area network?  The good news, is, when you do have it, and when it is working properly, your workstations will use the locally stored DNS for DNS look-ups, and that means you’ll get snappier performance when surfing the web, and doing other internet-based things that use DNS.

3. Once the server and DNS are up and running, it makes sense to change the DNS mappings of the local workstations, to include the local DNS as the first DNS server for look-ups. For Windows XP workstations, you have to do this anyway, otherwise, the workstation will take forever to find the server.

4. Attaching Windows XP machines and creating machine accounts works fairly smoothly by using the File and Settings Transfer Wizard at each workstation. Since changing the domain name requires new profiles and security settings at the workstations, the users’ desktops have to be rebuilt, unless…

5. …you don’t create machine accounts, and have the user log into the local account on their local workstation. You can still access resources on the domain, even though you are accessing them from a machine that doesn’t have a server machine account. This is the approach that you have to take anyway with any O/S other than WinXP Professional or Win 2000 Professional.

All the above reminds me of the phrase, “the beatings will stop when morale improves”. I suppose all this is “good for me” in the long run.

A couple of pleasant surprises:

Group Objects. There are dozens of ways to secure and customize desktops. Don’t like “balloon help” that comes up saying you’ve got obsolete desktop icons?  You can surpress this and other annoyances. You can turn off user access to the control panel. All these can be adjusted based on group membership.

SharePoint Services. This is among other things, a web-based content and document mangement system. Great for collaborative projects. It reminds me of the old E-Groups system    

Service Pack 1 was recently released  which includes several new security improvements.

Welcome to Tech for Non Profits. As the banner says, non-profit organizations (NGOs) need technology as much as for-profit businesses. As consultants to non-profit clients, we are interested in finding hardware and software for office networks that provides outstanding value both for the money invested but also for the time required to get them working.

Comments and suggestions are appreciated. And drop by the Microdesign Consulting web site.

Paraphrasing a couple of recent conversations with fundraisers:

——
“A major function of what a high-end fundraising software program does is track the productivity of the fundraising workers. How many calls, how many visits, how many follow-ups. In many situations, like an alumni development office, the pressure is such that the developers can’t go on vacation without being told to make a few calls on the way. ‘Going to Florida for a week? Be sure to visit prospect X in Miami while you’re there.'”

——
“We’re scrambling. It is ten times harder than it was a couple of years ago. There are more people in the fundraising game, and they are getting better at it, so the competition for grants is much greater. With federal cut-backs whole programs are closing up shop.

——
“There is an amazing amount of public-domain information out there about prospective donors. The other day, I was actually given a diskette from a town clerk that contained all the property records and valuations of everyone in the town. Before, I could get this data by looking at printed real-estate records. Now it is either available directly on the Internet, or the towns are required by law to distribute this information electronically.”

——
“The trick of course, is to use such information with sensitivity. You don’t want to call a prospective donor and say…’Hello Mr/Ms. Jones, I see by the latest property assessment that you are living in a home valued at $450,789. By our calculations, you could afford a donation this year of $12,250 to our program….what do you think?'”