Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 23, 2010

Both projects were attempting to accomplish pretty sophisticated database functionality (such as case management). But simpler projects generally don’t need custom databases. Look at other custom database work they’ve done. Obviously, simpler projects won’t need a budget of this sort.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 20, 2009

It has to do with the fact that many, many nonprofit websites and web applications are built using MySQL, the most popular open source database management system. And, ultimately there is a great open source database alternative called PostgreSQL, but support for it is not universal.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 7, 2011

It does have a drawing program, an XML editor, as well as a math equation editor, in addition to the standard word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool and database. The database has not come anywhere near the functionality of Access. It reads and writes all MS Office formats (except for Access files.)

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 1, 2009

As you know, I have built a long-time expertise in open source software and web applications, particularly Content Management Systems (CMS) and online database systems, including CRM. Tags: CMS CRM Consulting Database technology Nonprofit Tech civcrm drupal nptech salesforce. And you can follow us on twitter.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JUNE 17, 2008

It has the kind of functionality you’d expect from a donor database. Leverage the power of the open platform of Salesforce.com, and do the work that nonprofits (and consultants) have been having to do to bang Salesforce.com into shape as a donor database. It seems in a business sense, to be a brilliant move.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 25, 2009

So how do you get SMS data into a database system like CiviCRM? Use J2ME to write applications for mobile phones, and send the data via SMS to a central database. Smartphones haven’t made it into most of the developing world, nor have 3G networks. You need an SMS gateway, and systems such as RapidSMS to gather data.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

FEBRUARY 21, 2011

It actually has more to it than that, there is a drawing program, a database, a math equation editor and more. OpenOffice.org is a free and open source cross-platform office suite, which can read and write MS Office.doc,xls, and.ppt files.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

In Cake, the database build is separate from the application building (you do it yourself), whereas in Symfony, you use Symfony to build the database with schema files written in YAML. The approaches are similar and different to each other. I set up both on my laptop, and tried out some really simply app development.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JULY 25, 2008

Is this a bad thing? Myspace is going with OpenID ! More on that in a later post. { Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 19, 2008

The description: “ Talk with Michelle about internal software systems – document and knowledge management, CRM, client management databases, intranets, etc.&# I volunteered to be the “expert&# in residence for the “Program&# track of Office Hours. So, come join me.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 27, 2008

But I help them plan their technology initiatives (a new database, a new website, etc.,) I’ll be the project manager on their big new client database project, and help them think about how far to dip their toes into Web 2.0. help them find the vendors that will do the work by helping them craft good RFPs.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JANUARY 26, 2009

This means that since the code sits in the same exact place, and the databases could even be shared (or not, it’s your choice) in effect, CiviCRM is becoming part of your CMS.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MAY 6, 2011

It’s a wiki, but everything is stored in files instead of a database. Dokuwiki – my woefully neglected and out of date technology wiki is on Dokuwiki. Dokuwiki is a very cool tool. It makes it quicker, and also much more easily migratable.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

DECEMBER 14, 2006

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology Things that make me feel better December 14, 2006 As someone who has developed web database applications for clients, I always hate when they get errors. Things like this make me feel so much better.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 26, 2007

I love it because it’s really easy to set up and back up (it’s all files, not in a database,) and it’s has draft autosaves (yay!). I have become a complete devotee of Dokuwiki , which I use locally on my laptop, for my to do lists, notes, etc. And I contribute to varied other wikis, which are on varied other wiki platforms.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 12, 2007

My favorite quote: “A mutual understanding between the nonprofit organization and the database implementer that converting a database involves organizational change, and this can be stressful and threatening for employees. I wish all nonprofits understood this!

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 12, 2007

My favorite quote: “A mutual understanding between the nonprofit organization and the database implementer that converting a database involves organizational change, and this can be stressful and threatening for employees. I wish all nonprofits understood this!

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

DECEMBER 12, 2007

Finally, Organizer’s Database is open source, but written on top of a proprietary platform (Microsoft Access). CiviCRM was first in satisfaction, SugarCRM, Organizer’s Database, and Democracy in Action were 3rd, 4th, and 5th, respectively. 201 out of 665 users used these 6 open source tools. That’s pretty impressive.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 21, 2008

But, it turns out that with Drupal 7 (the development branch) it’s virtually impossible to install Drupal, and even though I did wrangle an install (all of the right tables seem to show up in the database), it doesn’t actually work, and I can’t yet figure out why.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 13, 2007

I wrote an article on OpenOffice.org for LASA’s knowledgebase, and I wrote another one on Base specifically (Base is the database component to OOo, new in 2.0, and pretty good, and improving fast.) that will be published in Linux Identity Magazine. I hope to start doing OpenOffice.org training soon.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 22, 2010

If you’re running database applications (tracking donations, events, programs, clients) and want deep integration between your web content and your data, it is an approach that is hard to beat. What are the advantages?

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 6, 2007

That was one of the big reasons I had been looking for good web conferencing a while back (I’m still looking…) I’m starting my foray into this territory by giving a free course in the database management system, PostgreSQL. The course is a 12 week course, starting on November 19th (with time off for the holidaze.)

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JANUARY 15, 2008

Dokuwiki is different in a number of ways, most primarily in that it is one of the wiki systems that stores things in files, not databases. I’ve always liked wikis, and I have used MediaWiki a lot in the past, and I do like it. This means that it is easier to back up and migrate, but doesn’t scale well.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MAY 29, 2008

Update: Allan Benamer has some more information that’s worth reading. { 2 comments… read them below or add one } 1 Peter Gulka 05.30.08 2 Anonymous 06.13.08 Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite. 2 Anonymous 06.13.08

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MAY 3, 2009

A legacy client database requires a certain order of data entry, and your intake forms have been produced to copy that order. Human processes mold around software. We see this all the time. A CRM gives you these 5 canned reports, and you get used to making do with what’s there.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 15, 2007

Open has 3 components, APIs, Database Connectors, and Extensions. Database Connectors are specific tools to help people connect Convio and specific apps, including Blackbaud’s Raiser’s edge, and … Salesforce! Convio has, seemingly, gotten some serious Web 2.0 They work by REST via POST, or JSON. apps out there.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 15, 2007

I started to do databases for organizations, and then, in 1999, I flew headlong into web application development, which became my specialty and mainstay until I took a break to go to seminary in 2005. I put in a few networks in the late ’90s (ugh, really, I pulled cable.) I stumbled a fair bit along the way.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

DECEMBER 20, 2007

However, the bounce rate on that one was well below average, so maybe not. I wish all a holiday season full of fun, quality time with family (chosen or otherwise), and joy. { 1 trackback } Free and open source tool #1: Thunderbird » Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology 01.03.08

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JULY 10, 2008

The role I play most often currently is providing a clear and understandable avenue between the client and a technology vendor (such as web or database development shop). This is also an ongoing process. Intermediation. Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 11, 2008

It still requires the hardware and operating systems, and databases that more traditional applications that are inside your network require, but, generally, you hand off that responsibility to the folks that host your application, and access the application through the internet.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

FEBRUARY 14, 2008

Also, to be fair, SourceForge supplies a lot more “raw resources&# to its projects — web space, databases, login servers, compile farms, and so on. It’s not intended to scale up to the proportions one would need for a major project like Python or Amanda. Depending on the project, those can be really useful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

FEBRUARY 5, 2008

It’s being billed as the “easiest database&# and I pretty much have to agree. Think of Blist as a really interesting combination of really pretty Excel, with some very cool features thrown in from FileMakerPro, in a sweet looking interface, that works in any web browser. Have a look at the demo.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 24, 2008

For example, we (DonorPerfect Online), use Microsoft SQL Server 2005 for the database engine. I believe eTapestry runs on a database package called Versant. Yes, there are licensing fees, but they pale in comparison to what it would cost if we had to rely on an open source product and maintain it ourselves.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 8, 2008

And, on top of all of that, I’m re-writing in PHP some core functions of a web-database/CMS framework I wrote in Perl a gazillion years ago (and still is in use for an application called EASE.) That’s been fun.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 17, 2006

These are using data in your own databases, and grabbing maps from google maps and putting them inside your application. Like the freedom that RSS gives to end users in terms of getting the data that you want in your hands, to read when and how you want it, APIs give programmers (and, at times, end users) the freedom to get data from Web 2.0

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JULY 27, 2007

The first article, on Mac database options , just got published last week. I am glad some people are enjoying themselves. And LOLnptech seems to have quite the following (just not me.) I’ve been writing a series of articles for LASA’s ICT Knowledgebase. One on Open Office, and FOSS on the Mac are forthcoming.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MAY 12, 2008

I’ll be on hiatus for about another week, and will have some long awaited new FOSS tools, as well as other posts that have been brewing for a while. { Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite.

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