Slashdot | Hosting Web Communities A somewhat geeky review of a book about…um…hosting web communities. An excerpt:

Hosts are essential to the building of relationships, he insists. They not only openly maintain the meeeting place — arranging chat room schedules, starting and naming new discussion topics, keeping order and serving as librarian for online resources — but they also act as “social adhesives” between the people who meet there. They help create certain essentials, including an interwoven web of relationships that last through time.

Computer User’s Bill of Rights

…first draft
A friend asked the other day, what are “reasonable expectations” for ordinary computer users in an organization, (not just just non-profits) and wondered if it might make sense to work out this out on paper to use both as guidelines for computer support personel, as well as the users themselves. In general, my thought is that the computer should become like the telephone; a reliable piece of hardware that can be interchanged with another model if there are problems.

1. I should be able to arrive at work each day, turn on my computer, and expect it to function the same today as it did yesterday
2. I should have the following basic applications available: Electronic mail, word-processing, web browsing
3. I should have a reliable internet connection which is always turned on, or readily available via modem.
4. I should expect reasonable protection against security breaches and computer viruses.
5. I should be able to store my data in some kind fashion so that it can be recovered if the computer fails.
6. I should have written or web-based help tools that would give directions for solving computer problems.

This is a short list. I added and then removed things like minimal hardware requirements (17″ screen, Pentium 200 or faster, 64 megabits of RAM), because the needs and capabilities of each organization are so different. Is a staff member better off without any computer if they can’t have a 17″ screen?

Groove is a collaboration application which was designed by Ray Ozzie, the original designer of Lotus Notes. One of the major differences between Groove and Notes, is that Groove is designed to be peer-to-peer; data is stored locally.

Groove provides a series of applications that allow you to share information and functions. These include a calendar, a “conversation space”, which is like a bulletin board, file sharing and audioconferencing. None of these are unique; there are many web applications that do some or all of these things. However, the peer-to-peer aspect of Groove is a major departure from most web-based applications. As an added bonus, the Groove interface is attractive, and novel, without being difficult to use.

I tested Groove late last year, using a three-user workgroup, (myself and two colleagues) and as a member a larger group of about 30 german-speaking Groove enthusiasts. I found it to be interesting, but not functional or fast enough for regular use, at least over a modem. The most disconcerting thing about it was that the function which synchronizes the data between all participants seemed to run non-stop whenever I was connected. This swamped my modem connection on a constant basis, making it almost impossible to do anything else at the same time. If users have a high-bandwidth connection, within a corporate internetwork, say, or DSL or a cable modem, the software might work better.

However, it is worth watching. Groove, like Napster, another peer-to-peer application is the wave of the future in many ways. Currently Groove is in beta testing, and it may be downloaded and tried for free. There are a series of lively conferences about Groove, with timely and helpful tech support.

Sizing Up NPO Software was published in the November 2000 AICPA Journal of Accountancy. This details evaluations of 10 fund-accounting software packages, and offers guidelines about selecting software.

Consultant and Independent Contractor Agreements by Stephen Fishman is another book from Nolo Press which contains sample agreements and contracts for independent contractors in a variety of professions. The book is useful both for independent contractors as well as those who hire them as it outlines the interests that are served by various clauses that might appear in a contract.

Table of Contents
How to Use This Book
Hiring Consultants and Independent Contractors
Working as a Consultant or Independent Contractor
General Independent Contractor Agreements
Consultant Agreements
Agreements for Household Services
Agreements for Salespeople
Agreements for Accounting and Bookkeeping Services
Agreements for Software Consultants
Agreements for Creative Independent Contractors
Agreements for Construction Contractors

Appendix I : Sample agreeements for Use by Hiring Firm
Appendix II: Sample agreements for use by Independent Contractor

The book includes a floppy diskette with all of the text of the agreements.

Seems like it was a big day in technology-land. A space probe landed on the asteroid Eros. Astronauts attached the largest piece of hardware to the international space station, and there was a court ruling against Napster, the music-sharing software.

Napster is an example of peer-to-peer sharing of the internet. Actually, it is more of a hybrid, as Napster, the company, maintains servers on the Internet which index all of the files that are shared by each person as they are logged in. It is, in fact the server aspect of Napster that allows it to be dealt with as a business entity, i.e. be sued for abetting copyright infringement.

Jameco is a favorite company for buying computer parts. However, my most recent order experience was similar to playing pinball, with me, on hold as the ball. I was bounced through several different recordings, finally reached a sales rep after 10 minutes of waiting, only to be cut off. Gritting my teeth, I placed the call again and immediately got through to a helpful rep who had the order done within 3 minutes, including some additional explanation and research. This is why customers still order over the phone, and why we should insist on decent service.

Voxeo Interfaces with ColdFusion to make a web-enabled phone applications.
The web site also has several Voxeo tutorials, from a “hello world” type of application, to ones that are more complicated.

Article in the February Wired magazine outlines a method by which advertisers and spammers can trace your movements on the web through html eMail. This is an incentive to keep eMail to plain text, rather than use the more attractive html mail.

The LEO English/German Dictionary is a convenient resource to have up and running while working through a translation in either direction. Enter either a german or english word and the equivalent in the other language appears, usually with many examples, including slang.