Dennis P. Osorio’s Blog
Technology, E-Activism, and Other Items of Interest
October 16, 2008 at 4:47 pm · Filed under blogging, web design and development
There are many advantages to building a site on top of WordPress. RSS. Blogging. Calendaring. Simple editing done by authors rather than by a webmaster. Plugins like: ShareThis; Secure Form Mailer; Akismet; Wordpress Automatic Upgrade; and many others. For nonprofits, this means a site can be built and handed over to the organization to update. That as the world moves and plugins develop, your site moves with it.
I have personally struggled a bit trying to decipher how WordPress sites are put together. The folks at WPDesigner.com put together a great series of articles that instruct users how to create WordPress themes from scratch. Finally, the veil is lifted.
October 16, 2008 at 2:48 pm · Filed under CRM
I am looking to implement a CRM for my workplace. Why are we bothering at all? Here are our goals (draft):
- to consolidate and make available contacts which are stored in each staffer’s Outlook
- to create a platform where membership information can be kept and used as needed
- membership information will track geography, issue identification, events attended, levels of engagement, organizational affiliations
- be able to perform mass emailing like action alerts
- be able to generate address labels, call-lists, walk-lists
- possibly store our organizational “story bank”
- keep media contacts
- store donor information
My first impressions of Salesforce have filled me with dread. It’s certainly not an out-of-the-box CRM, at least not for our purposes. I have found myself repeatedly looking at SugarCRM and vTiger to see if they might be easier to implement. But, for now I will proceed on faith. After all, the smart and reputable folks over at OneNW have a lot of good things to say about Saleforce.
The first thing I learned, thanks to this blog, was to create a developer account, rather than a trial non-profit account. The reason being that it doesn’t expire unlike the 30-day trial. I do also have a non-profit 30 day trial, so hopefully, I can learn everything I can to move forward.
October 7, 2008 at 9:14 pm · Filed under linux software
In an earlier post, I wrote about the joys of linux, specifically Ubuntu. Just a quick expansion here.
KPDF has two features that are just so great. When using the “Select Tool” you can draw a rectangle over a selection and are given options for saving: text with copy to clipboard; image with copy to clipboard, image with save to file. Oh, and under the settings menu, you can ask it to disregard any foolish DRM limitations.
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September 2, 2008 at 8:24 pm · Filed under blogging, web design and development
Here’s a very cool slideshow framework that I found. It’s called JQuery Cycle Plugin. It offers so many cool effects! Don’t even think of Microsoft’s PowerPoint (hey, what’d I just tell you!) I’m working on something that incorporates it & I’m so jazzed. I can’t wait for its unveiling!
It a plug-in to something called, JQuery. JQuery is a library that makes cool JavaScript effects easier to code. Both can be integrated with WordPress.
August 8, 2008 at 11:44 am · Filed under linux software
You’re thinking about moving to Linux, or you recently have done so, and you’re wondering, “what is the Linux or open source alternative to xxx software I loved when I used Windows?” This has got to be one of the most common questions for Linux users.
A lot of this software has dominated our ways of thinking that it’s hard for some to imagine a world without Microsoft Word, Outlook, MovieMaker, Adobe Reader, iTunes, or whatever.
Well, here are two great resources for open source software. Break free of the old ways of thinking and explore these two helpful sites. Much of the software listed is also available for Windows and Mac users.
http://www.linuxalt.com/
http://www.osalt.com/
July 28, 2008 at 5:20 pm · Filed under Remote Access
While I was assisting a friend and client with the setup of his new email account, I was frustrated that I couldn’t simply access his computer remotely. “Whoa, hold on there”, he said. “Go to LogMeIn.com”
I was skeptical because I was using a computer running Linux and sometimes weird web apps don’t play nicely with me.
No worries, everything worked like a charm. I entered his email and password, and pow!, I was controlling his computer. It was a bit creepy, he later said, as he watched me control his mouse, keyboard - his whole computer. I quickly set up his Thunderbird email client so as to send and receive using his new email address.
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July 18, 2008 at 6:00 pm · Filed under blogging, e-activist tools
So, uh, I’m new to this whole blogging thing. But, I recently attended a “Blogger Summit” hosted by Center for Civic Policy. Below are some of the tips (style, soliciting comments, strategy) I picked up from folks who know a lot more about this than me.
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July 13, 2008 at 1:15 am · Filed under e-activist tools
At 1000 Friends of New Mexico, I experimented with two free solutions that should be of interest to folks wanting to initiate sign-on letters or petitions to legislators.
First, we created a letter using CitizenSpeak that we wanted our members and supporters to sign on to.
Then, it was a matter of getting the word out.
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April 19, 2008 at 8:14 pm · Filed under website spoofing
Here’s a great example of web activism.
Upset with absurd attempts by the coal industry to clean up it’s image (rather than it’s smokestacks), the National Resource Defense Council created a spoof website. Who’s to say that you have to take corporate disinformation lying down?
The original is found here: http://www.americaspower.org/ (boo! hiss!)
The spoof is found here: http://www.americascoalpower.org/blog.html (how awesome is this?)
April 19, 2008 at 7:49 pm · Filed under linux software
Ubuntu, for those of you who may not know, is a flavor of Linux. There is no one single Linux, but a zillion varieties. Ubuntu is one of the most popular distributions (if not the most popular). For the fearful Windows users out there, let me tell you: it’s graphical, it has windows, and it is not like using DOS. (Although it can be if you want). Read the rest of this entry »
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