Here is a source for add-on modules for Quickbooks. They have modules for:

• accounting
• fundraising
• outcomes tracking

Link: http://www.nonprofitbooks.com

Yesterday’s Charlie Rose program had Thomas Bleha on who has written an article Down to the Wire in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. From the summary:

Once a leader in Internet innovation, the United States has fallen far behind Japan and other Asian states in deploying broadband and the latest mobile-phone technology. This lag will cost it dearly. By outdoing the United States, Japan and its neighbors are positioning themselves to be the first states to reap the benefits of the broadband era: economic growth, increased productivity, and a better quality of life.

Much of what he describes in the article is “fiber to the home”… not just providing broadband via the cable companies or the phone companies, but actually running new fiber to each home. This provides massive bandwidth… much higher capacity than what we now consider broadband in the U.S.

Where is the Tech in Tech for Non-Profits?
Lately it seems to be all administration, marketing, networking and non-tech fluff. Here are some things in the pipeline:

• Ordered a Sony W5 digital camera after enthusiastic recommendations from friends. The camera was about $279, from Amazon. Adding a lens adapter, case and additional memory card brought the total up to about $325. While I keep waiting for prices to go down, it seems that there are “price points” which stay the same, with the capability for the particular price point increasing. The W5 at 5.1 megapixels is the latest but one model. There is a W7 with 7+ megapixels for around $450.
• Am playing with Microsoft Visual Studio Beta 2 development software.
• Got several new books about Microsoft Access, and am finding new things in Access and trying to change my attitude about it. As they say in the introduction of one of the books, “If you are still hitting the wall on Access, you just don’t understand it.” Well, fair enough. But one of the absolutely maddening things about Access 2003 is the new improved (ha hah) security, which puts up two or three dire warning messages before allowing you to open a file. Add this to the FBI warnings in front of a DVD movies and the legal disclaimers turning up everywhere, and now the cover-your-ass mentality is extending to Access files that you create yourself. (?)
• Bought an additional hard drive and a floppy to be able to install Windows XP on the Pundit home-built computer. This ought to provide hours of amusement. I want to try using this machine for prototyping a videoconferencing unit using Windows XP embedded as the operating system, mostly because I can’t find Linux drivers for the Logitech Orbit camera.
• We’re now into a third week of our second videoconferencing trial, with 10 participants in the field connecting to Codian and Polycom multi-point control units, using D-Link DVC-1000 or DVC-1100 video units connected to their TVs. The DVC1100, wireless units still appear to be giving trouble, and we are at the point of converting all our wireless units back to hard-wired.

Add the above to work on a Phase II SBIR grant, and an application to our local technology incubator, we’re running as fast as we can!

Good article in the Chronicle of Philanthopy this week, Marketing the Message about public relations. Bullet points:

• Ninety percent of the respondents said their organizations do not conduct market research to better undertand their audience or test the effectiveness of their communications.
• Fifty-nine percent said their communications budgets “could be better” and another 12 percent said they have no communications budget
• Eighty percent said their board dicusses communications once a year or less
• Eighty-five percent said their groups do ot regularly include communications staff members in the decision-making process.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

Full text.

Like Voice over IP, (telephone calls over the internet) Videoconferencing over the Internet is rapidly replacing video calls that used to require digital (ISDN) phone lines. We have now accumulated several hundred hours of experience of IP videoconferencing, and have a couple of recommendations for trying things out.

For point-to-point connections between two sites, the D-Link DVC1000 at $185.00 from Amazon recommends itself. Quality control is still very much an issue for the hardware. When it works, however, it provides suprisingly good media quality, both with sound and video.

The D-Link can also be used for multi-point conferences.

The advantage of the D-Link is that it doesn’t require a personal computer to use, it interfaces with an ordinary TV and is operated using a simple remote control. If it is any consolation, they have a solid return program, so that if you do need to return a unit, the process is fairly straightforward.

For a PC-based system, the Polycom PVX software is $149.00 list, price. ($114 discounted) works with a web cam, like the Logitech Orbit. ($129.00). This unit is fully compatible with other Polycom equipment, and includes the ability to control remote cameras, and share data with other Polycom units.

For multi-point conferences, with n > 2 participants, you need to have an aggregator device, known as a multi-point control unit. The Polycom Viewstation EX with a multi-point add-on option allows for 3 simultaneous connections, and also serves as its own origination unit…bringing a theoretical number of simultanous connections to 4. We paid abou $7,000 for our unit.

We have been very impressed with a new MCU from Codian. We are using a 4200, with capacity for 12 participants. So far we’ve loaded it with 8 participants. This is a professional grade unit, with a professional price, around $30,000.

Connections require a broadband internet connection, such as DSL or cable. At the aggrator end, the connection needs to be able to accomodate the streams for all the simultaneous connections. We have our end points set at a low 256Kb inbound and outbound, which is well within the bandwidth of even a low-end home broadband connections. With 3 participants connecting to a Viewstation, a T-1 at the Viewstation end (1.5 megabits) seems to work well.

As soon as you get into multi-point, things sound expensive. There are, however, several applications which suggest themselves for this kind of hardware:

• Support groups
• Counseling
• Group therapy and exercise
• “Check-in” with home-bound patients
• Chronic disease management
• Family literacy
• Distance learning

Currently (June ‘05) we are running the second of two 15 week 3 times/week classes of exercise for seniors who have fallen or have a fear of falling. Our first group had six participants, and our second group now has 10.

Article in the The Enterprise System Spectator.

If you have not yet purchased the system, understand that your negotiating power will never be greater than before you sign on the dotted line. Maintenance fees as a percent of the license cost are not cast in stone. Everything is negotiable. For example, ask for a lower percentage. Ask for maintenance fees to be based on the discounted price of the software, not the list price. Ask for maintenance fees to be locked in, not allowing the vendor to increase fees from year to year.

Personally, I like to buy something and know that I actually own it. Quickbooks is notorious for add-on fees. Even though I paid $300.00 or so for QuickBooks Professional, there is still a $150.00/year fee for updating the payroll tables. (and I have a huge payroll of 1 person).  After two years or so, they require you to buy a  new version as the updates don’t work with the older version. Its a rip-off.   

PCRetro Computer Warehouse

We’ll return to our regularly scheduled program…TFNP, after this note, but between reading this Amnesty International Report, and recent articles in the NYT, I feel compelled to express outrage. I can’t help but believe that history will judge the United States of America’s behavior in these past few years in the same light as our behavior in Central America in the 70’s and 80’s and in Viet Nam.

Would the USA tolerate this treatment of its citizens by another government? Would the international community accept this threat to the rule of law and human rights? Surely not, and yet the USA continues to perpetrate just such abuses in the far from hypothetical Guantánamo Bay prison camp in Cuba, where almost 550 detainees of more than 30 nationalities remain detained without charge or trial. On 11 January 2005, the Guantánamo prison will enter its fourth year. In its more than 1,000 days of executive detentions, Guantánamo has become a symbol of a government’s attempt to put itself above the law. The example it sets is of a world where basic human rights are negotiable rather than universal. Such a world, although built in the name of national security, is dangerous to us all.

by Chuck Collins

Seen on the Nonprofit Quarterly web site.

Meanwhile, federal tax cuts in 2001, 2002, and 2003 have fueled massive deficits and blocked possibilities for spending on human needs. Over 70 percent of these cuts went to the richest fifth of U.S. households. These tax cuts have “trickled down” to worsen state and local budget deficits, forcing deep and immoral cuts in social spending on poverty, healthcare, and education.

Almost every state in the union has faced terrible budget gaps in the last four years. While the situation this year has improved slightly, 24 states are facing budget gaps of over $35 billion in the coming year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

As the result of budget shortfalls, localities have laid off teachers, firefighters, police officers, and social workers; closed libraries and health clinics; and cut childcare, mental health services, public transit, and pollution control. And the list goes on.

Most of these state and local tax systems are very regressive, imposing a higher burden on the poor than the wealthy. In Washington, Tennessee, and Florida, for example, the lowest 20 percent of income-tax payers pay as much as 14 percent of their income in state and local taxes, whereas the wealthiest 1 percent of income earners pay less than 5 percent.

Link