July 2006

Technically, it's not actually the week of July 10th anymore, but here are the news and articles that we found most useful for last week. In my defense, it was a particularly big week for nonprofit software articles for some reason...

A Screencast Introducing Plone
An overview, including video screenshots, of the Plone Content Management System.

Using new tools in non-tech orgs: an interview with Seth Mazow of Interplast (Netsquared)
A great, practical look at how Interplast is using Web 2.0 tools and how they are working for their needs, staff, and constituents.

Testing LAMP vs Windows environments (eWeek)
An interesting and detailed look at how a Linux/ Apache/ MySQL/ PHP environment compares to a Windows/ IIS/ SQL/ ASP environment and hybrid environments in terms of performance.

A Roundup of Mashups (Christine.net)
Christine Herron describes a number of mashups (applications that automatically draw functionality or content from multiple sources). It's a useful overview of what people are currently doing with mashups, and what the possibilities might be

Collaboration (Tools) That Work at ONE/Northwest (Jon Stahl's Blog)
A description from Jon Stahl of the tools and techniques that the ONE/NW team uses to stay in synch.

Social Bookmarking Resources (Marnie Webb, CompuMentor)
Marnie Webb at CompuMentor provides a list of social bookmarking tools (i.e. tools like del.icio.us and furl) with additional links and references. The list is hosted at H20 Playlist, an interesting website in it's own right.

What Web Analytics Do for You (Small Business Computing)
A great overview of what web site analytics tools are and how you can use them.

Skirmish Over OpenDocument Ends in Truce (ComputerWorld)
Microsoft said it plans to sponsor an open-source project to create software that will convert Office documents to OpenDocument, in apparent response to high profile government clients' support for the format

The Best Backup Solutions (PC Magazine)
You need to be backing up and you need to be using a reliable product to do it. PC Maganize tested and reviewed the tools they found to be the best.

Amazon's Mechanical Turk (Amazon)
I've been hearing a lot about the Mechanical Turk recently, and it might have some interesting nonprofit applications. The system links up small tasks that humans can easily do (for instance, doing data entry or determining if there's a pizza parlor in a photograph) with humans willing to do them for pennies a tasks.

Wufoo makes online forms easy (Netsquared)
Marshall Kirkpatrick highlights a useful new Web 2.0 service for nonprofits: Wufoo allows you to make online forms that can be inserted into your web page or used as separate pages.

The Ten Most-Ignored Email Best Practices (Email Labs)
A great overview of ten best practices for email newsletters that most people don't follow.

WHY “MASH UPS” MATTER (Outside Innovation)
From back in March, but a great overview of what a "mash up" is and why organizations should care. Focused on businesses, but very relevant for nonprofits.