News items from Hot Topics from TechSoup.org

Dear All,

I am CEO/Founder of Computyer Assistance in Cameroon a Not-for-profit organisation created by a Ministerial Order of 29 May, 2009. Its headquarters is in Yaounde, Republic of Cameroon.

Its main programmes are training of disadvantaged communities (elderly computer illiterates in the public, private and civil society sectors, prion inmates and warders, school dropouts, women in socio-economic associations aand cooperatives, refugees and their children etc on the use of Information and Cpommunications Technologies ( ICTs) for self-empowerment,

acquisition of refurbished computers at discounted rates from oversea partners and distribution to all those trained on the use of computers in Cameroon as above;

E-Waste Management issues in Cameroon noting the health and environmental threats posed by dangerous substances contained in e-products such as mobile phones, computers and laptops, printers, CDs and DVDs players, analogue televisions sets etc

Organisation of workshops and seminars for awareness of the use of ICTs and policy development in the enhancement of the use of ICTs.

I shall certainly be soliciting partnerships from all Techsoup members in free soft and hard wares to meet the above objectives.

Any candidates to start signing up partnership for mutual benefits with Computer Assistance in Cameroon?

Our contacts:

E-Mail-computerassistanceincameroon@gmail.com;

lekebetechuoh.casimir@yahoo.co.uk

Telephone:+237 22315979

Mobile+225 66 19 56 56

Hi,

The bulk of our online transactions come from periodic event ticket sales.  Does anyone know of any Authorize.net providers who offer a 'no monthly fee' structure for non-profits with a low number of  transactions per month?  I know it may sound crazy, but you never know until you ask!

We currently use PayPal via CiviCRM.  Even though PayPal no longer requires an account, their user interface is still confusing to would be ticket buyers.  They don't want to sign-up with PayPal and decide to just buy at the door, or not at all.

Thanks for any leads...

Hi All,

Thought you'd like to check out this web site that's giving away a free interactive website to a nonprofit. They're accepting nominations until October 15th, 2009. This from their site:

To do GOOD work you have to have GOOD tools. In today’s technologically advanced world, it’s imperative to have a website that gives voice to your cause. We want to recognize unsung heroes for all the GOOD they do by giving away a dynamic, interactive website that allows you to reach your supporters, donors and the world.

We’ll highlight six deserving finalists and ask you to choose one you believe does the most GOOD. We’ll hold a public vote, letting you narrow the choice to the top two finalists.  We’ll determine the winner from those two finalists and our world-class designers and developers will build them a website.

Anyone can nominate a deserving non-profit.  Follow our GOOD guidelines and nominate your favorite non-profit.

Each year we select a non-profit organization to donate a website to, giving back to our community and our world. It’s just one of the GOOD things we do. We are currently accepting nominations until October 15th, 2009.

Here's the link:

http://designforsocialgood.com/?q=wsg

Hi,

 I am recently laid off and have the opportunity to earn a certificate in computer technology. I have a BA in social work, can find my way around the internet, and I'm familiar with Windows applications - well, obviously not that familiar based on my formatting and pasting abilities.  I have no other computer experience.  I hope to find a job with a nonprofit organization or a start up business – maybe something in consumer protection or relating to international issues.

While trying to learn more about the certificates, (copied below), I have become overwhelmed and discouraged. I had hoped to gain a skill that with some practice, would be an additional asset when looking for a job.

I am asking for some feedback about which of the options would be seen as a bonus when applying at a nonprofit?

Or, would I need much more experience and advanced training before I could consider this opportunity to be a real asset? I would love to learn more, but at age 44, my intent is not to start a new career, but to gain an additional skill.

Thank you very much for your feedback.

Sherry

WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT

basic technologies that integrate the Web browser and server into an organization's application environment. You will be on your way to assuming responsibility for the design, development, and delivery of successful Web-based solutions and program interactive Web sites using technologies and languages including HTML, Java Script, Perl, PHP & MySQL, and AJAX

WEBSITE DESIGN

techniques and principles of Web design, HTML and HTML-authoring tools like Adobe's Dreamweaver. Design graphics and animations for the Web using Fireworks and Flash

IT FOUNDATIONS

training for four IT certifications. In the hands-on, interactive classroom, you will receive training for the 2006 A+ Essentials, 2006 A+ IT Technician, Network+ and Security+ exams.

A+

broad base of knowledge and competency in core hardware and operating system technologies including installation, configuration, diagnosing, preventive maintenance and basic networking. Our program prepares you to take the 2006 A+ Essentials and IT Technician exams

JAVA

As an Object Oriented Programming Language, the learning curve for Java can be steep for those who want learn from scratch. Our hands-on Java Programmer series will give you the tools to succeed by taking you through our Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced Java courses

I use the TechSoup price versus the retail prices to indicate the level of savings and how much easier it is to do things that they might not have considered otherwise due to cost.

I'm from a small nonprofit organization that has one paid employee and many volunteers.  We are currently using Outlook and Excel spreadsheets to manage information.

We seem to need a database, but don't appear to have the capacity to manage a database.  How do we know when we are ready to take on a database?  What would indicate that we have the capacity?  We want to use our limited time and resources in the best way possible.

I have a Juniper ssg 5 , I am unable to WAN , I can LAN.

I am printing postcards to mail out and they are 4up on a letter size sheet.

I have managed to figure out how to use Word to address these in sequence (i.e first sheet, record #1 is. top left, #2 top right, #3 bottom left, #4 bottom right).  What I want is for the records to be sorted down through the stack.  In otherwords, top left position on the top sheet is record #1, top left on the next sheet down is record #2 and so on.

Does anyone know of a program that can do this?  I used to work for a printing company and they had a program that could do this with a variable data press they had there but my google searches so far are fruitless.

Hi Everyone,

I work for a grant program at Grand Valley State University and we help empower and assist low income, first-generation college students succeed in college.  We work with a number of students who have no computer and rely on the on-campus computer labs for their technology.  The problem with is the computer labs are overcrowded and many of these students try to live at home (with no computer access) or commute from off-campus for cheaper housing.

I am working to get some laptops that we can gift our most impoverished students.  This would help them achieve academic success without the obstacle limited access to computer technology.

Would anyone know of any organization that donates laptops or any grants that may be available to help me help these students?  Any help would be greatly appreciated~!

Marnie Parris, Educational Support Program at GVSU in west Michigan

I run Office 2007 and Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional (which I transferred from my old computer).  I can not open a pdf. file without going through "Open with" and selecting Adobe Acrobat.  It is very irritating because I can't do that from Outlook without first saving the file somewhere else.  Suggestions?

Does anyone know when (if) we will be able to purchase Windows 7 upgrades via TechSoup Stock? We don't want to us up an order now if Windows 7 is close.

Hi my name is Marnie Parris and I work for Grand Valley State University in west Michigan.  I work as an program Advisor for a TRiO program called the Educational Support program.  This program services first generation, low-income students to succeed in college.  We have many students who get ZERO money from anyone to go to college.  They rely on scholarships, loans, and grants to attend school.  They have little money for the 'extras' like much needed laptops!

I am looking at writing a grant and/or asking for laptop donations (minimum 4) for students in our program.  Anyone have an idea who I can contact or where to start looking? 

Any help is appreciated!  Thanks, Marnie

Back in 2005, I made some predictions about Google here on TechSoup, one of them being that Google would develop their own operating system. Well, now it's official.  Google announced the Google Chrome OS yesterday on its blog, which is an operating system based on the company's Chrome web browser.

Google Chrome OS will be an open source and lightweight operating system that will first be used in netbooks.  The OS will be available to consumers in the second half of 2010, according to Google.  Here's more of what Google has to say about their operating system:

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

I love Google's fearless attitude when it comes to stepping into areas dominated by other companies, and its ability to shake the status quo.  In this case, Microsoft and the Windows OS. (I wonder how many lawsuits Microsoft plans to file against Google.)

Clearly Windows isn't just gonna disappear any time soon, but I like the idea of any kind of competition between a Google vs. Windows based operating system -- especially if Google's Chrome OS manages to outshine Windows in terms of users not having to deal with viruses, malware and security updates.

Very interesting.

Hello i received an email from a client with a .dat file extension but not sure how to open it. any suggestions?

We are an engineering-oriented non-profit with a significant number of Linux and Mac OS desktop users. We are looking to move our email / calendaring solution to an hosting provider.  The question is, which solution is best?  Here are leading considerations:

• Exchange 2007 / Microsoft Business suite:  Good for Windows and IE users; hard for others. Expensive. Does not come fully loaded with document management, etc. Extras cost more. Has enormous market share.
• Google Apps: Affordable. Not biased towards any specific operating system. For Windows / IE users, it could take away features they like (i.e., provided by Exchange).  Not proven in the marketplace.
• Zimbra, Zoho and other similar solutions: Very much like Google Apps.  Is there something about these that makes them better than Google Apps?  Zimbra is owned by Yahoo and that makes me nervous.

Does anyone work for or know of a company like us?  Have you seen Linux users that use Microsoft Exchange and really like it?  Have you seen Windows / IE users that use Google Apps (or similar) for work and love it?

We are a smaller organization, but we are going to be opening a remote office nearby. What I'm trying to find out is this. We have a server in our current office, but when we open the remote office, we wanted to place a server there and connected to the 1st office. We also are running Exchange and the remote office will need to access the shared files. We do require a username/password and want the "1st Server" to handle the authentication and user restrictions without having to maintain this information in 2 places. I know the "Big" Organizations do it, but is there a cost effective solution for us smaller ones?

We considered using VPN, but wanted to simplfy the process, including having to try and get all the settings to work with outlook and remote loging into Exchange from off site.

I overheard someone talking about a "Thin Client" and have no idea what they are talking about. Any suggestions / comments? 

Thanks,

David Ramey

Hey there, thought I would try this forum to see if anyone has any experience with either sendmail or postfix (very similar to sendmail, actually uses the sendmail file to execute).

I have postfix installed on this Mac OS X machine that we run as a webserver with php installed. We have webforms that I created using php that send information to our database server, when the application is completed it sends the data and then sends the person mail through this php script and the postfix applicaiton. Most emails go through but some are giving me errors like #451 4.1.3 "sender address does not resolve" and #450 4.7.1 "client host rejected: cannot find your reverse hostname".

I figure it has something to do with DNS and the client side being unable to find out host name.

If anyone has any suggestions that would be ever so wonderful.

Thanks!

Ben.

I'm looking for a chat program that could possibly work off of AD and be deployed GP.  Something like MSN that employees can put away messages, auto idle after a certain amount of time etc.  the reason I do not want to use AIM or MSN or the like is because this should be for work only.  Thanks in advance for your help :)

My name is Louis and I represent South Side Community Health Services. My hope is to delevop new technical contacts to ask questions. I also hope that I may be able to post a resonable relpy to technical questions posted on this site.

I almost exclusively use Firefox as my browser of choice these days, except for certain applications that can only run in Internet Explorer (IE). I recently saw this post about how Firefox may not be the mainstream browser for very long.

The state of the browser market pretty much proves that it’s impossible for an open source project to remain a popular front-end application for too long.

What do you think? I'm not sure that I agree with the above conclusion, but there's definitely stiff competition among browser options and more to come ahead as new features roll out.