The Grantsmanship Center’s signature Grantsmanship Training Program is coming to Hartford, Connecticut, August 13-17, 2007. The program will be hosted by the Watkinson School.

The Grantsmanship Training Program covers all aspects of researching grants, writing grant proposals and negotiating with funding sources. More than 100,000 nonprofit and government personnel have attended this comprehensive 5-day workshop, which now includes a full year of valuable membership services.

During the workshop, participants learn The Grantsmanship Center’s proposal writing format, the most widely used in the world. In addition to practicing the most advanced techniques for pursuing government, foundation, and corporate grants, they develop real grant proposals for their own agencies.

Upon completion of the training, participants receive free follow-up, including professional proposal review, access to The Grantsmanship Center’s exclusive online funding databases, and an array of other benefits.

Tuition for the Grantsmanship Training Program is $875 ($825 for each additional registrant from the same organization).

To ensure personalized attention, class size is limited to 30 participants. To register online, to learn about scholarship opportunities for qualifying organizations, or for more information, visit http://www.tgci.com/gtptraining.shtml. Or call The Grantsmanship Center’s Registrar at (800) 421-9512.

If you’re wondering why the Grantsmanship Training Program is five days (when other grantwriting classes are shorter)…

• The Grantsmanship Training Program is not a quick overview of “grantwriting.”

• The Grantsmanship Training Program is an intensive, small-group, total-immersion workshop that covers funding research, program planning and proposal writing.

• By integrating program planning into our curriculum when we first created grantsmanship training, The Grantsmanship Center anticipated the increased demand by grantmakers for more accountability, smarter programming, and a stronger, more demonstrable return on granted funds.

• Grantsmanship Training Program participants prepare and critique real grant proposals under expert guidance during the class.

• You can’t get this quality of in-depth training, personal attention and hands-on experience in a two-, three- or even a four-day workshop!

Welcome to Tech for Non-Profits, the unplugged version of Microdesign Consulting. Part lab-notebook, part brain-extension, it is a repository for new and half-baked ideas that we run across as we provide software and database development, network support, and R&D for a growing list of clients in education, health care and non-profit organizations.

Occasional features include Tech Friday, which may include code(!), our (mostly) annotated VoIP resource guide, Stuff That Works for hardware and software items that have passed the Five Minute Test, and Chron This Week, which is a synopsis of technology articles of interest in the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Topics on grantwritng and fundraising appear as we seem to have one or more grant application in progress most of the time.

The emphasis this month will be on open source telephone systems, specifically TrixBox, as we are implementing our own small system.

Here is an article from ComputerWorld about the first HIPAA audit.

Installing the Windows XPe —

The installation files come on 4 CDs.

Includes the database of Windows XP components. This is installed in a MSCE (older version of SQL-Server Express.) The installer doesn’t appear to be smart enough to use existing SQL-Server or SQL-Express that may be present from other Microsoft Developer products.

Once the database engine is installed, it then puts in the components. These include all of the third-party hardware drivers that are included in Windows XP… even things like support for U.S. Robotics modems.

Once XP SP1 is installed, the SP2 is installed over it. This updates the Windows binaries, and refreshes the database.

Install includes a remote boot service which allows PXE and TFTP updates to remote devices. This could be interesting, as it would allow automatic updates to deployed devices.

Working through the tutorials, it assumes that you want to incorporate a “Hello World” .exe file into the final image that is to be loaded on the target hardware. The sample file is a simple .exe which uses the Microsoft C runtime. Both of these items are packaged as a “component” by using the component designer.

Component files are stored with an .sld extension
Configuration files are stored with an .slx extension

Microsoft touts XPe as having the ability to run existing Windows applications without having to port (rewrite, or recompile) the application. Still, assuming an application requires registry entries, when it is installed, you have to figure out what all the registry entries are, and how the application is configured.
MSDN to the rescue:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms838332.aspx

The Configuration Manager includes several pre-configured devices, including:
Kiosk,
Network Appliance
Rich Media Player
Basic Media Player
Set-Top Box

Welcome to Tech for Non-Profits, the unplugged version of Microdesign Consulting. Part lab-notebook, part brain-extension, it is a repository for new and half-baked ideas that we run across as we provide software and database development, network support, and R&D for a growing list of clients in education, health care and non-profit organizations.

Occasional features include Tech Friday, which may include code(!), our (mostly) annotated VoIP resource guide, Stuff That Works for hardware and software items that have passed the Five Minute Test, and Chron This Week, which is a synopsis of technology articles of interest in the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Topics on grantwritng and fundraising appear as we seem to have one or more grant application in progress most of the time.

I’ve just come back from the TrixBox Fonality Training in Boston, and will be posting a lot more about open source communications adn telephone systems.

Comments and suggestions are welcome. They are moderated, so will show up shortly after you add them.

We’re winding up the fifth season of the year, mud season, the period after the snow melts, and before the ground dries out a little, in spite of April showers. In our neck of the woods, this also means legislature season, when the part-time Vermont legislature goes at it hammer and tongs for the first five or so months of the year. They are supposed to be finished in a couple of weeks, but the session often slides till the end of May and even into June.

I’ve been paying more attention this year, because somewhere buried in the budget bill H0347, (that means the bill orginated in the House of Representatives) between Section 218 and Section 224, is an appropriation for the Vermont Software Developer’s Alliance. This group, which has been running on volunteer power for almost three years, now wants to hire an executive director, and we have crafted a message about workforce development and job creation which seems quite compelling. More on the vtSDA some other time, maybe.

But tracking the progress of our budget line item on the Vermont Legislature web site has proved challenging. The first problem are the search screens. If you know the bill number, you are in good shape, but if not, you can attempt a keyword search.The application, apparently written using Macromedia ColdFusion, (based on the .cfm extension of the web pages), seems snappy, but rudimentary. But it is a good start.

Virtually all senators and representatives use eMail. You can also call the Sargeant-At-Arms at the statehouse, I gather this is sort of a concierge, and they will write down a phone message on a pink slip of paper which will then be delivered by a fifth grader (yes…a the state version of a congressional page) to the legislator on the floor. You can even eMail the S of A, and they will print out the eMail and send it along with the pink slip for delivery. And you send copies to multiple legislators. For some reason, this quaint process reminds me of the X-ray wallah in India. If you have a bone fracture, you can get an X-ray from a guy with a portable X-ray machine on the street in Mumbai. You get your film, and then you go to the doctor to get your broken bone seen to.

So then, you track down the eMail addresses and phone numbers of those representatives to whom you wish to contact directly. Many, maybe most, won’t respond to eMail or return phone calls unless you are a constituant from their district. But, if they did…

The Vermont Public Interest Research Group uses an application from Capital Advantage which allows them to set up “action alerts”, with talking points, which then will walk you through the process of creating an eMail for your legislators. You can, of course also put in your own text.

Welcome to Tech for Non-Profits, the unplugged version of Microdesign Consulting. Part lab-notebook, part brain-extension, it is a repository for new and half-baked ideas that we run across as we provide software and database development, network support, and R&D for a growing list of clients in education, health care and non-profit organizations.

Occasional features include Tech Friday, which may include code(!), our (mostly) annotated VoIP resource guide, Stuff That Works for hardware and software items that have passed the Five Minute Test, and Chron This Week, which is synopsis of technology articles of interest in the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Topics on grantwritng and fundraising appear as we seem to have one or more grant application in progress most of the time.

Comments and suggestions are welcome. They are moderated, so will show up shortly after you add them.