On Monday, January 8, 2007, the TANs took the time to gather for our monthly conference call.   

Cheryl entertained us with an informative and interesting presentation on Disaster Recovery Planning.  An issue applicable to anyone and everyone, she told us what a disaster recovery plan is, why to have one, and gave us a step-by-step guide to creating one!  

Comment from Corey Funderburk on January 29, 2007 - 2:15pm

Definitely like this:   :) (which I believe is to the left?)

I am right-handed.

However, I am also goofy-footed and shoot pool left handed, so maybe I am the exception to whatever conclusions come from this survey :). <--see

I suppose I could have just done a half-swivel in my chair and told you this.

Comment from cheryl jerozal on January 31, 2007 - 7:01pm

my answers: right and right.

i think left smilies are more often from people who strongly value uniqueness, and that is a trait i have sometimes noticed in lefties (to make themselves feel special? :p ).

i think some people would have been left handed if they weren't forced into being righies by our right-hand world, so maybe the lefties who we see as lefties (as opposed to the suppressed lefties) are the ones who are less influenced by outside factors and so are also more likely to express their nontraditional smiley directions (left being the nontraditional direction - since we read/write left-right top-bottom, and eyes are before mouth top-bottom they should be typed that way when going left-right).

however, we (at least those in our age group) were older on average when making smiley "choices" than when making hand "choices" so maybe different factors would influence these decisions.

also i have seen left smileys develop as a reaction to chat programs that by default automatically make right but not left smileys into icons.

can you tell i'm putting off some work i don't really want to do? guess i'll get to it now though.

 

Whoops...so I realized that I haven't posted the notes from our conference call on 12/8/06.  Here it is 1/7/07 and our next conference call is tomorrow.  My apologies for the delay in posting these.  I promise to be more quick in posting tomorrow's notes (if you let me!), do a better job, and be more interesting.

Tim got us started out with a very informative, interesting, and later entertaining, presentation on using on-line collaboration software, specifically Vyew.  He did a better job than I could ever do explaining it in his blog.  If you haven’t checked it out already, you really should…it’s neat stuff! 

Last Friday, November 3rd, 2006, the Technical Assistance for Nonprofits group (aka TANs - technical assistants for nonprofits...at least in my book) had a conference call to make sure that everyone was still alive and kicking and doing well with their projects. Although Kamala was out sick (hope you're feeling better!!), and John was....well, honestly I don't know (hmmm)...at least, I don't think he was there, but it can be hard to tell over the phone (sorry John if you were actually on the call!), the rest of us spoke for about an hour about VISTA life, our terms of service, and whatever else came to mind. Below are some of the results:

Comment from Kamala Kalluri on November 17, 2006 - 11:24am

Laura;

Thanks for giving a detailed account of what has happened in last
monthly teleconference meeting for Technology Assistance for Non-profits group.
Unfortunately I had to miss that meeting on account of being sick with cold and therefore it fills me in on what I have missed. I am doing O.K and my downtime project work is progressing at a reasonable pace.

kamala

These might help when you are looking for answers to common non-profit and technology issues. Sign up for newsletters or just browse when you have a question:

http://nationalserviceresources.org/
"The Resource Center is your one-stop shop for online tools and training resources to strengthen your volunteer or service program...contains online training tools, event calendars, and effective practices, as well as a catalogue of printed publications and videos available on loan."

http://www.techsoup.org/
"TechSoup.org offers nonprofits a one-stop resource for technology needs by providing free information, resources, and support. In addition to online information and resources, we offer a product philanthropy service called TechSoup Stock. Here, nonprofits can access donated and discounted technology products, generously provided by corporate and nonprofit technology partners."

10/06/06

We are in MA (2), NC (2), and CA (4)

We are working on a variety of projects:
organizing and maintaining computer labs
setting-up a samba server,
creating utilities to document system downtimes,
planning and designing websites,
contributing to existing free and open source software,
comparing existing software and suggesting a best-fit to npos,
usage guide/documentation for clients,
writing articles and improvising workshops.

We are interest in:
Free and Open Source Software - (tag FOSS)
Beta-Testing the www.ctcvista.org - (tag suggestions)
Fundraising for Technology - (tag fundraising)
Website Development (not CMS) - (tag webdesign)