Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

Welll, it’s not really week 2. I got the laptop a few days ago - but it was last week. I figured this was a good time to post an update, and complai… explain where I’ve gotten to so far.

I’m using it full time now, as my basic desktop. I’m reading email, posting blog entries, searching the web, working on presentations, etc.  I have definitely hit some points of pain in migration.

What’s fine:

• The web was painless. I’ve been using Firefox for a long time anyway, and all I had to do was install a few extensions (and google sync, which rocks) and I was up and running exactly as I had been before. And since so much of my workflow is in Web2.0 apps, it all works great.
• I had converted to IMAP a while back in preparation for this change, so all of my old mail and folders are now sitting on a server. Thunderbird is a bit different than Apple Mail.app, so it’s taking me a bit of time to get used to it.
• Skype seems to work fine (I haven’t tried to make a phone call, but I usually use it for chat anyway, and it works fine for that.)
• There are a lot of open source apps that I’ve already been using (XChat for IRC, Open Office, GIMP, Scribus) that work just the same, and can read and write all of the same docs I’ve been using.
• I found some good screenshot software.

What’s been problematic:

• Wireless networking - it took a bit of work to initially get it going, as I’d mentioned in my last post. Now, it seems to work fine - I’ve used it with two different open access points. I have yet to try it with a closed access point - I’ve heard that WPA can be problematic.
• Video - the video resolution that the generic driver has is lower than the resolution that my laptop can use. I had to install new drivers, and, I have not yet gotten a configuration to work yet. I posted this plea to the techtalk list on Linuxchix. Hopefully I can find a solution.
• For some really odd reason, Konqueror, the web browser that comes with Kubuntu, can’t see any external web sites. Every other program does fine (GAIM seems to flake out at times.) I haven’t solved it, and I hate Konqueror anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. But it’s quite odd.
• Proprietary media doesn’t play by default. I totally get why this is true, and it’s not Ubuntu’s fault - it’s the fault of those who license the proprietary media. I wish everyone would just switch to Ogg Vorbis - it would make life easier. But, fat chance. So I’m having to download and install all sorts of strange stuff in order to play MP3s, Quicktime, etc. Installing Flash was kind of a pain, and I had to resort to the command line.

What’s unclear:

• I haven’t done much with sound yet.
• I don’t know what I’m going to do for an address book, and I don’t know how I’m going to get that to sync with my cell phone.
• There are several key pieces of software that I use every day that I don’t know how I’m going to replace. They include the blog client, ecto - there really aren’t any good solutions for Linux. There are also Journler and Scrivener - two great apps for which there are no  Linux equivalents (actually, there are no Windows equivalents for these either.) There are also a whole host of tools and games I’ve gotten used to that there are likely no good replacements for at this time.

The bottom line - pretty much, if I were the type of person that did mostly email, the web and word processing, and the occasional spreadsheet or presentation, I’d be off and running, and doing just fine. And, actually,  I am off and running, and doing just fine. But if I hadn’t been so familiar with Linux, some of the stuff (like wireless) would have stymied me, if I couldn’t resort to the command line (Ubuntu doesn’t come out of the box with a decent wireless network application - if I were them, priority #1 for the next version would be seamless wireless, at least as good as is present in Mac and Windows.) I can’t blame them for the driver problem for my laptop, really.

But since I’m a power user, and have gotten used to Mac tools, which are great and user-friendly, it’s going to be a bit painful at times, I think. But I’ll be getting my work done, for sure.

I’ve been a part of the Nonprofit Open Source Initiative for a long time, and I’ve been advocating for the use of open source software in the nonprofit sector for years. More lately, I’ve been working to focusing my advising practice on helping people implement open source software (mostly server-side) in their organizations, providing advice and training. I’ve installed more versions of varied Linux flavors than I could even think about remembering (going all the way back to the first or second versions of Slackware in the mid-90s). I’ve been responsible for administering many Linux servers over the years, some Red Hat, some Debian.

And, for all of that time, the Macintosh has been my primary desktop. I had a (very) brief flirtation with Windows (2000) as my primary desktop, but ever since 1987, when I bought my first computer (a Mac SE) I’ve owned at least one Macintosh. I’m not about to change that.

I’ve tried making Linux my primary desktop many times (5 at last count.) It was always something that got in my way of migration. In the beginning, it was lack of software (I first tried this back in 1999), or printer drivers. More recently (last time I tried this was back in 2004) it was not being able to sync with the palm treo I had at the time.

But, Linux has changed, and I have changed. And, in some ways, NOSI has changed - we’re thinking more and more about talking about Linux on the desktop, which we thought was not ready for nonprofit primetime for a long time. I think it’s ready now. I certainly will see. This is the 6th, and last time I will do this. Why last? Because I’ve decided that no matter what, I’m not going back. Because I want to understand, in the most personal possible way, what the pains (if any) of migration to an all free and open source platform will be.

So, I did some research, and realized that the best choice for me was to get a Thinkpad - most everything works right out of the box. I have been, unfortunately, a bit hampered by the fact that my satellite modem died last week - so we’ve been on dial up at home (and broadband at the “local” cafe). But here’s Ubuntu week 1, not edited or smoothed out. I’ll understand points of pain, for sure.

Week 1

I should have taken pictures - unboxing a new laptop is a lot of fun. I got a Lenovo Thinkpad Z61m. Good specs, cheap price. My first step was to make sure the laptop booted. It booted fine. I stopped at the license agreement. I popped in my Fiesty Fawn (Kubuntu 7.04) CD that I’d burned from a downloaded ISO, and rebooted. Once Ubuntu finished booting, I clicked the wonderful “install” icon at the top. Because the recovery media for this laptop was on the hard drive, and I also wanted to create a separate /home partition, I did a manual partition, deleting both partitions on the hard drive, and creating three partitions: /, /home, and swap. (I might regret hosing the recovery media w/o getting them on CD later, but I hope not - I was in a purist mood - I would have had to have agreed to the license agreement for Vista and activated the product in order to burn the media, and I wasn’t about to do that.)

A few minutes later, I had a Ubuntu install with KDE - but it was bare bones. The next step was to get online. That’s the first snag. Ubuntu doesn’t come default with an easy GUI way to connect to a wireless access point. I had to go command line in order to get online. I imagine if I was wired, it would automagically work (that’s been my experience in the past.) So I had to dig out of my memory (and do some online looking) about iwconfig. I also ran into a weird problem with a daemon called “avahi-daemon” which is basically the Linux implementation of “Bonjour”. I’m glad it’s there, but it mucked with my network, and it seemed strange that it was on by default.

So, I got on my wireless network, finally, and got online (I had to use a CLI tool called dhclient to get an IP address. That was annoying.)

So, so far, the major pain has been the wireless stuff. We’ll see how that works once I am able to download some of the good wireless GUI tools out there (like NetworkManager, which I hear is good.)

Next up, let’s see how the details of migration (web, mail, address book, etc. work.)

Technorati Tags: linux, nptech, opensource, windows, ubuntu

I hear, in my head, the famed quote from Rodney King: “why can’t we all just get along?” Microsoft this week has started saber-rattling against Linux and other open source projects, by suggesting that they infringe on 235 patents that they hold. Of course, we all know that many of these patents were dubious to begin with - UI and business process patents that had no business being granted to anyone in the first place. It’s “Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt” all over again.

Of course, the 800 pound gorilla doesn’t actually have to sue anyone. Just threatening to sue, threatening to get license fees (which, for some open source projects would be a major problem) is enough to make people doubt the future of open source.

It’s all about fear, really. Microsoft is a powerful company, with a lot of money in the bank, and a near ubiquitous market penetration in some quarters. Why can’t they just focus on making good software? The software will speak for itself (or it won’t.) It is amazing to me how much of what happens in business and within organizations is around fear. Fear that a company will lose market share, fear that they will stop growing as fast so that the stock price will fall, fear of competition. And, then, of course, helping to make other people afraid - afraid that an open source project or company will fold because someone sues them. Afraid that they might indeed have infringed on patents.

It makes me think a lot about how much we are governed by fear - even in the realm of things that seem only technological. But, of course, underneath, and around all of those bits and bytes are just human beings, after all.

Technorati Tags: intellectualproperty, opensource

This carnival is a day late, unfortunately. Getting construction work done on your house will make life difficult sometimes. But, finally, here it is…

A couple of the posts this week are things that I’m thinking some about. For instance, I’m reading the book, Made to Stick, and this week’s post by Jeff at Donor Power talks about taglines that organizations use - how they make internal sense, but don’t make sense to people outside. He provides exactly the kind of advice that will help organizations connect with their donors.

I’ve been thinking a lot about different kinds of electronic communications, and what their advantages and disadvantages are. Solidariti has a great discussion and graph of Web 2.0 tools, and the characteristics of them, and how best to leverage one’s effort to the best effect. It’s a wonderful way of looking at these tools.

Some other great tidbits:

• Also in the Web 2.0 realm - Cause Related Marketing has an interesting discussion about a new Instant Messenger campaign.
• Don’t Tell the Donor talks about a dustup between Greenpeace and the Salvation Army.
• Kivi, of Nonprofit Communications tells us why organizations should pay attention to how we want to be listed. It makes sense that can make a difference in how people respond to appeals.
• Nancy Schwartz, of Getting Attention tells us how best to get people to fill out surveys.

Technorati Tags: npcarnival, nptech

In talking with some organizations, I’ve come to realize that they don’t have a handy list of things they should be asking of their network/desktop technology providers. (I think this might be applicable to all technology providers, but this is what is on the front of my brain at the moment.) Organizations without dedicated tech staff (and, I imagine, even some with) may feel at the mercy of providers, since they often don’t have the technical know how to determine whether or not a suggestion, advice, or a fix that a provider might do would be helpful. And, if the provider speaks only tech talk, the organization staff feel stymied in figuring out what to do. Real life example:

Outlook on a couple of Organization A’s computers is very slow to load, and slow to get email (others are fine). Very small network (<6 users), using simple POP email. Technology Provider X suggests, without actually looking at Organization A’s computers that they should “Move the POP mail from an external server to host on Exchange on the onsite windows server.” (This is not the actual words of they used, but this is the actual content and type of language used.)

To most staff, in most small nonprofit organizations without dedicated tech staff, this is completely greek. (And, for those of you that are geeks, also completely wrong.) What is Organization A to do? How are they to figure out 1) what this means 2) whether it’s right?

So off the cuff, here are some things I think a nonprofit should ask their network providers:

1) To document ongoing maintenance that will be done on the network and on desktops, and how often (including virus updates, defragmentation of hard drives, drive imaging, backups, etc.) (and the org should follow up, to make sure these happen.)

2) To explain, when changes are suggested, what the changes are in plain english, why they think it will help, what they went through to figure that out, and what the ongoing ramifications of the change will be (like a change to hosting email internally on exchange will increase maintenance costs.)

3) To document system changes.

If we really care about nonprofits being able to accomplish their missions, we should care about what they know about technology, and how they approach it. We should desire to increase the internal expertise of the organizations, so they are better empowered to make good technology choices. And nonprofits should demand this of their providers.

Really, it’s win-win. Nonprofits get better able to use technology to further their mission, and providers get clients that are active, engaged, and, likely, a lot less annoyed and less likely to find someone else.

Technorati Tags: nptech, techsupport

I’m hosting the Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants next week. It’s an open call - so just send in your best posts for the week!

Send submissions to: npc.carnival@yahoo.com. I’ll accept them until Sunday Midnight.

I look forward to seeing your posts!

Technorati Tags: npcarnival

Every time I start using the phrase “free software” instead of “open source” software in the context of people who are not familiar with what either of those terms mean, I invariably get questions about free (as in beer) software. “Where can I get free software to do x-and-such - we don’t have a technology budget.” “How can I find free software to do y-and-z?”

Yes, it is up to me to make sure people understand what “free” means (like as in “kittens”) - but it is these kinds of responses that send me back, invariably, to using the phrase “open source.”

I do think, on a philosophical level, using the term “free software” is to be preferred. But I wonder how much education we’ll have to do before people understand what that term “free software” really means, and why the word “free” is so much deeper, and so much more important, than something that doesn’t cost any money.

Technorati Tags: nptech, opensource

Jon Stahl quotes a comment by Ethan Zuckerman about “shiny” - the over attention to cool and groovy web 2.0 functionality. The punch line:

… there’s a good chance that underneath the shiny is something that isn’t very interesting. (Not always, but often.) And that some of what’s deeply, truly, long-term transformative isn’t shiny at all.

Yes!

Technorati Tags: nptech, web2.0