Book: The Accidental Techie

This isn't a book review, because I just ordered the book The Accidental Techie by Sue Bennett. Looks promising. A partial list of the table of contents:

Chapter Four: Assessing and Purchasing Technology

• Assessing New Technology
  
• Purchasing Technology and Choosing Vendors
  
• Identifying Maintenance Contracts and Fees
  
• Managing Consultants and Volunteers
  
• Volunteers
  

Chapter Five: Protecting Your Organization from Disasters and Data Loss

• Virus Protection
  
• Protecting Your System from Adware and Spyware
  
• Ongoing Software Maintenance
  
• Backup Systems
  
• Security Systems
  
• User Workstation Security
  
• Network Security
  
• Technology Policies
  

The Foundation Center

The Foundation Center offers an searchable online grant database. Much of this is available in CD-ROM format. They offer National Guides to Funding for certain segments such as health, AIDS, religion, and library and information services. Link

YAISP -- Yet Another Internet Soft Phone

Another week, another Internet Soft Phone. Gizmo competes with Vonage and Skype. I've had this working for a week installed on my laptop, and using a headset with microphone. Here are the FAQs.

1. What is a soft phone?
A soft phone is a "phone in software", or a phone emulator. It runs on the computer and interacts with the computer's on-board sound hardware. A soft phone requires a microphone and speakers, at a minimum, or, ideally, some kind of headset.

2. Any other requirements?
You really need a broadband connection, DSL, Cable, T1, whatever.

The Gizmo software is available for Linux, Mac and Windows. I've been playing with the Windows version.

3. What about firewalls?
So far so good...the application seems to be able to go through my router/firewall without any difficulties.

3. What does it cost?
Gizmo is a free download. Once you have installed it, you can make calls to other Gizmo users (i.e. from computer to computer) for free. To call regular phone numbers, you need to purchase their Call-Out service of pre-paid minutes. A minimum purchase is US$10.00. Domestic U.S. calls are counted down at 1.8 cents per minute. U.S. to Europe are 2.9 cents.

I was interested in Gizmo, because I have an MCI WorldCom account for business long distance calls. These are billed at 8 cents/minute, and I usually run about $20.00/month. European overseas calls are expensive under the WorldCom plan, or my ATT plan on my home phone line, running about $1.20 per minute.

4. What is the call quality?
Variable, but generally good. The connection does not appear to always be full-duplex, that is, if both parties are trying to talk then somebody has to back off until the other person has stopped. I've tried this on:
a. a 90 minute tech support call from Vermont to Maryland
b. a call to my mother-in-law in Albany N.Y.
c. several calls home from various client sites.
d. an in-state call to my brother.
e. several calls from home to in-state clients.

In each case, when I've made a connection, I've asked the other party about the call quality. All reported that there was no difference in quality compared to a "regular" phone call. A couple people thought that the call "sounded like a cell phone call", with some echo or breakup.

5. Any connection problems?
Several. Enough to make me not want to rely on this as my only phone. One problem is the whole caller id thing. The calls will either show an empty ID, or will show a "weird" ID. This was enough of a problem for my brother's cordless phone, which deals with caller-id, to reject my call from an unknown or invalid ID. A second problem came up when I was calling home from a site that had a DSL broadband connection. For some reason this call triggered a direct call into my voice mailbox, and didn't allow the called party to pick up. This happened twice in one day, a third time I got through.

Gizmo appears to be a follow-on project from SipPhone. SipPhone originally used the XLite software program, however, Gizmo is much more user friendly than XLite. I'm looking forward to continue trying it, especially via a wireless connection. If it works, I'll be able to work in the coffee shop not only with an internet connection but a phone connection as well.

Hold meetings without leaving home with web conferencing

Web conferencing allows you to hold meetings between multiple participants over the internet. These are typically hosted applications, you pay by the minute or hour to host the conference. As an example, I was on-site at a client on a Friday, with the intention of doing a program walk-through. One thing led to another and we were unable to complete our task together, so the following week, we scheduled a web conference using Macromedia Breeze and Premier Global Services.

Breeze provides computer integration. Sitting in front of their own computers, participants can share programs, share a whiteboard, and see each other over a videoconferencing link. Macromedia has an overview of Breeze.

Breeze integrates with Premier Global Services which is a telephone audio conference provider. Participants are given a toll-free telephone number to call along with a "conference number", a five-digit number for the conference. Once connected to the toll-free number , an auto-attendent asks for the conference number, and then directs you to the conference. The conference moderator has the ability to accept new participants, and to dial out to "retrieve" conference participants.

What does this cost?
Pricing is confusing. The base price for a meeting is 32 cents per minute per participant. So, a three-way conference will cost about almost $1.00 per minute. Clearly this becomes justifiable when there are distances to travel, or several participants involved. Telephone audio conferencing adds six cents per minute for participants who connect using a telephone. Monthly/Yearly plans are also available.

Another alternative is Microsoft's LiveMeeting, which is a re-branded version of PlaceWare.

Both services offer two-week free trials.

A review of simpler and less expensive web-conferencing systems such as GoTo Meeting appeared in PC Magazine

My Virus Checker Eats Your Remote Access Program

Latest Norton/Symantec antivirus program appears to eat the executable files from RADMIN. The solution is to exclude the directory where the RADMIN program is located from both the Symantec full scan list and the Auto-Protect (real-time scan).

There was also a reference to the fact that Microsoft forbids the use of anything other than Terminal Services for remote access, in the license for Windows. I hope this is only an urban legend.

More at the Famatech web site.

Update 10/24 Still doing it!
Here is a fix from Symantec.

Wicked Witch Melts !

Kansas girl douses western tyrant, freeing Oz from terror

An example of the "inverted pyramid" of journalistic writing.

From the Phantom Professor's web site. The article is about half-way down the page.

VoIP to the rescue --- E911 Useless

Its no secret that the ILECS (that's the incumbent telephone network providers like Verizon) have been trying desperately to throttle back the march of ViUP or Voice over the Internet. One of their tactics has been to convince the Congress and FCC to require all internet voice nodes be compatible with the E-911 system. This has indeed slowed down the progress of companies like Vonage and Skype as they attempt to put in place an infrastructure that can identify the location of any call placed from one of their nodes. So I thought it interesting to find this over at Jerry Pournelle's column from 9/12/2005:

In New Orleans both those communications broke down, largely due to lack of electric power. When the power grid shut down the City crisis control center communications depended on emergency generators, and those had insufficient fuel to run for more than a few hours. Within a day or so the city officials had no communications whatever. Their telephone systems were gone, and so were their radios.

An ingenious office worker discovered a working broadband Internet connection in the crisis center. He was able to connect to that, then use a Vonage VOIP system to connect to the rest of the world. For more than a day the only way the Mayor of New Orleans had for communicating (other than when CNN or Fox News teams with remotes could briefly reach him) was that Vonage VOIP. Moreover, not long after the VOIP system was set up, the telephone rang; it was the President of the United States calling from Air Force One.

Leaving aside the privacy issues of E911, the above story, if true, suggests that having working broadband connection might in fact be safer than E911. Indeed, not only could you use a VoIP node to place voice calls, but also send and receive eMail, and video.

A real small business server

Recipe for a real small business server that will provide basic file and printer services for up to ten workstations.

1. Obtain hardware by repurposing a relatively up-to-date workstation or buy an inexpensive server from Dell or HP (or a refurbished small server).
   
2. Install standard copy of Microsoft Windows XP Professional
   
3. Create a Data folder Share it.
   
4. Install printer(s) Share it/them.
   
5. At each workstation, map a drive letter to the shared folder.
   MAP G: \\server\data
   
6. At each workstation go into the printers folder, select "Add new printer" and select the server printer.

Don't use this machine as a workstation. Put it off in a corner somewhere.
Replace in two years.

More on SBS

Ok...so it is mid-afternoon on Monday, and I have spent parts of the past three days transfering our five workstations to Small Business Server 2003. And my overriding conclusion, is...this would be a very cool solution for a small business creating a new office, or a larger business establishing a new office. In other words, it is great if you can start from scratch. Otherwise, if you have to move things over from another combination of server/router/IP connection, it gets ugly.

I think the ideal would be to purchase a new server from Dell or HP with SBS installed. Be sure that this server has two network connections, thereby allowing the machine to serve as the office firewall. Set up the server and then set up the workstations, and I hope that they are new workstations, because the migration to a new domain will cause headaches, as the File and Transfer Settings Wizard is highly unreliable when dealing with important things, like...oh...your OutLook rules, and your OutLook eMail.

Finally, give up on centralized virus management, if using Symantec Anti-Virus, and just install the workstations as unmanaged. SBS's default for the Windows XP Firewall, is to nail it down in the group policy, so you can't turn it off at the workstation. And you have to be a local administrator on the workstation, (thereby eliminating a lot of the advantage of ratcheded down security policy) to be able to take advantage of things like the automated client installation of programs from the server to the workstations.
Also, while there may be some advantage to using Exchange as an eMail server, it seems to add another layer into chain of eMail, when you have existing POP accounts.

SBS wants it all. It has to be the first server in the domain. You must have DNS installed, and the server has to be the default DNS server listed in the IP settings for the workstations. (This DNS issue is the same with any Windows 2003 server using Active Directory as far as I can tell). Your life will be easier, if you are not attempting to integrate an external router, as SBS 2003 would prefer also, to be the router, the firewall, and DHCP server.

So what do you get with SBS 2003?

• A very nice server management interface
  
• A SharePoint server which looks very good for managing all kinds of internal business, such as document management with versions, a help desk application, and form repository. This is essentially an "internal" web site.
  
• Exchange, if you want it, for eMail, and also for group scheduling
  
• Microsoft OutLook 2003, (same as included in Office).
  
• 5 client (workstation) licenses
  
• A shared fax server, if you have a modem in the server, and a spare phone line. (who needs this? ) You can allocate faxes to eMail boxes.
  
• Windows 2003 server
  
• Terminal Services (in Management Mode)
  
• VPN and Remote Access
  

Like all server software, the more users and workstations that are spread out over the installation, the more cost-effective the installation will be. The basic list price for SBS is somewhere between $450 - $700. The basic server comes with 5 user access licenses.

On top of this, you need to have an Anti-Virus program. Most sites will have an external router, from Linksys or DLink.

At TFNP world headquarters, we're not out of the woods yet. The UPS is still beeping, and the USB connection to the new server from the UPS doesn't appear to be working. The Windows Update service is perpetually saying that we need to install updates, but they are always the same updates. I haven't figured out how to use the VPN connections yet. But we do have a nice new (old...repurposed workstation), as our server which is running quietly, has working on/off switches, and a case which is completely enclosed.

I admit, I was a little surprised. I was thinking that the SBS setup would be considerably less involved than a Linux server with SAMBA, which has also got a lot of bits and pieces to get right.

Moving to a new domain

I don't know if anyone remembers what it used to be like when you installed a program on your computer. The steps were:
1. Unzip program into a folder
2. Start using program.

And from an old article in Network World:

First, where did the registry come from? Microsoft introduced it in Windows 95 to get away from INI file hell. Back in Windows 3.X days, system settings were stored in dozens of separate INI files, and figuring out which setting was stored where could be difficult. Thus it was that Microsoft, in its wisdom, invented something even more complicated: the registry.

I know it is churlish to ask...but what is wrong with editing an ASCII file to find out how a particular program works, or to change a parameter?

Anyway, I find it particularly irritating to have to create a new desktop profile (in effect...a whole new user registry) for the same person, on the same machine, if they are going to move that machine to a new domain.

And so it is this weekend. Given a rainy Saturday and an unexplained beeping on my old server, I decided that this really is the time to change to our new Windows 2003 Small Business Server. So, I'm running the "Files and Settings Transfer Wizard" on all four attached machines to see to it that as many files and settings are indeed transferred.

With all the hype about the successor version of Windows XP: Windows Vista, the Operation System You'll Never Need, with Features You Never Asked For one hopes that some of the insane effort required to manage desktop machines in a networked setting will be addressed. Please Bill....we're asking for it. A new toolbar and 3D views may be nice, but managing desktops and occasionally attached laptops should be Job 1.

Functional Requirements for a Donor Database

The following requirements are paraphrased/modified from a feature comparison of eBase, a free non-profit management database application that is written using FileMaker Pro . These strike me as a good start for determining what information needs to be managed when dealing with donors and volunteers. A couple of additional thoughts:

• The requirements are very broad, and to handle everything in one system is probably unusual. For example, a good event-management system is itself an ambitious stand-alone program.
  
  
• This set of requirements has nothing to do with service delivery. Depending on clients, activities, and reporting requirements to regulators and funders, you may have a separate system that handles that aspect of your business.

Contact Mangement

• Multiple locations with address, eMail and URL
• Links between contacts
• Action scheduling and assignment to staff
• Demographics
• Special roll, as board member, volunteer, donor, etc.
  

Donation management

• Date, amount, deductible
• Gift acknowledgement, batches and individual
• Association of gifts to campaigns, solicitations, or events
• Income summary by campaign, solicitation or event
• Online donation processing

Pledge management

• Current outstanding pledge balance
• Automatic and customized pledge payment scheduling
• Transactions related to a particular pledge

Membership management

• Find lapsed members
• Calculate member status: expired, grace, current

Volunteer and Activist management

• Volunteer interests, action and availability
• Association of actions to solications and events

Event management

• Create events or conferences
• Allow registration to events
• Manage seating and room assignments
• On-line registrations
• Printing of name tags
• Create event packages: single-day, multi-day, with or without meals/receptions
• Interface to hotel system
• Manage speakers, staff, VIPs
• Managing pricing, "early-bird" registrations
  

Data entry and import

• Keyboard shortcuts for common tasks
• Import basic gift and donor data from other systems

Mail and Email

• Personalize bulk eMail
• Automatically mange eMail and subscription lists
• Track eMail correspondance with database contacts
• Target mailings to subset of database
• Mail-merge letters and labels
• Analyze effectiveness of mailings
• 
  

Reporting and search features

• A variety of standard reports
• Ability to create custom reports
• Export ability to Excel or data formats
• Store custom search criteria (queries)
• Store custom search results

Internet Explorer Hegemony

1. Surveymonkey surveys doesn't work in FireFox. I was about to take a survey, and couldn't check the checkboxes.

2. Turns out that the FEMA web site doesn't work correctly, with non-IE web browsers. Here is a funny discussion about the problem, FEMA to Mac, Linux Users: drop dead. Hurricane victims who attempted to register with FEMA were unable to do so, unless they were running a Windows computer, using Internet Explorer.

3. Our local library (whose staff, work, and contents I cherish, and will therefore not further identify or embarrass) has a web site that only works in IE. When I asked the director why this was the case, she said, "the site is maintained by a staff member who received training in a particular piece of software." (probably FrontPage). Anyone using a non-Windows computer, will have difficulty with this web site.

Where there is a problem, there is are also solutions. Two examples from Macromedia:

1. Macromedia Contribute is a web site builder which does not require knowledge of html code. Works on Macs, and Windows computers. FrontPage users that have run into compatibility problems should take a look at this product.

2. Macromedia Dreamweaver is a sophisticated web site builder that creates web sites compatible with multiple browsers.

Especially for academic and non-profit sites, browser agnosticism is a positive.

Other web/internet tool ideas:

Build your own mail-in web forms with the Form Assembly Project.

Disaster IT for Emergency Shelters

Article from Ars Technica describing a self-booting CD which can be used for creating a public computer lab stations.

Discussion of Public Web Stations set up for Katrina.