Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 18, 2012

Data archeology: recover data from ancient files in odd formats. We use free and open source software whenever possible, but we're pragmatic and work with what our human rights monitoring and advocacy partners need, so our environment is a pretty eclectic mix. Please use open file formats (PDF is fine).

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JULY 9, 2007

July 9, 2007 So I talk a lot about both open source software, and the preciousness of one’s own data. I tout the benefits of open source software. Open source projects do get better. I could dump all my addresses into one big flat file, and use grep. That’s open source, no?

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 13, 2008

I “live the open source lifestyle.&# First, they are putting the wraps on a new version, and there are some interesting projects happening, like integrating voter files, phone banking , and my favorite, case management. 1 comment… read it below or add one } 1 Alanna 08.13.08 I was profiled on Linux.com.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 7, 2007

Office Open XML is Microsoft’s XML-based file format which is now native in Office 2007. Instead of adopting the already ISO approved Open Document format, it attempted to get through ISO a standard that, among other things, depends too much on non-standard, non-publicly available legacy file formats. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

DECEMBER 20, 2007

Many nonprofits have Linux file servers in their back offices. So next year, I’ll be doing 100 posts on particular free and open source tools. 1 trackback } Free and open source tool #1: Thunderbird » Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology 01.03.08 This was to appease the European Commission.

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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!). 2 comments… read them below or add one } 1 Andreas Gohr 11.26.07 I have become a complete devotee of Dokuwiki , which I use locally on my laptop, for my to do lists, notes, etc.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 18, 2007

Technorati Tags: microsoft , web2.0 { 4 comments… read them below or add one } 1 Scott Wells 04.18.07 at 6:14 am Thanks for the comment. What I’d really like to see though is a true, enthusiastic Open Source community get behind a “better&# spreadsheet for its own sake, not for the sake of copying Office.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 16, 2006

I’m reading this book at the same time as I’ve been working on the Nonprofit Open Source Initiative. I’m realizing that all of the justifications for why I am so into open source and free software is right here in this book! Thanks for the comments! So here’s the summary for Chapter 3.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JULY 15, 2007

Choosing a theme Migrate the posts and comments (exporting it from typepad, importing into wordpress – all web gui based, very easy. All importing requires now is just going to the Wordpress import tool and specifying the file. I’d recommend it to anyone. Modifying a few things (see this link.) There are a few changes.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 13, 2007

It’s stable, feature rich, uses open standards, reads and writes MS files, and, did I mention it’s free? Of course, like all open source software, it is “free as in kittens&# – but this particular kitten is pretty grown up, and already spayed and litter trained. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

FEBRUARY 20, 2007

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one } 1 Dustin J. If my house is clean, my filing done, and my laundry folded, you can bet the ‘net is down and I’m grumpy about it. If my house is clean, my filing done, and my laundry folded, you can bet the ‘net is down and I’m grumpy about it. Be Helpful.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 9, 2008

It took me a couple of frustrating hours or so to configure samba (editing the samba.conf file and testing) so that I could share my home directory, with music and video, with my other computers, and share my printer. Of course with my mac, I opened up the system preferences, checked a button, and, voila! This is my dilemma.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 29, 2007

They have a site, with the URL: [link] which is a link to a windows.exe file, which is a simple, sweet Debian installer. Changing one file (/etc/apt/sources.list) and running a few commands, should do the trick. Technorati Tags: 07NTC , nptech , linux { 2 comments… read them below or add one } 1 Scott Wells 03.30.07

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Amy Sample Ward

DECEMBER 15, 2010

You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying. Shareable: The Open Source Guitar – So many good pieces to think on from this post (thanks for sharing it with me, Billy!)

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JANUARY 31, 2008

WebHuddle is free, and open source. This is what I want: The community edition of DimDim that integrates with an open source VOIP system and Moodle. 4 comments… read them below or add one } 1 Jonathan Trenn 01.31.08 ReadyTalk is proprietary and not free (as in beer). That can share my Linux desktop.

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Tech Soup

SEPTEMBER 15, 2011

them, makes files accessible from anywhere, and it is fully integrated with Google Apps. The best part, though, is that it is open-source, so anyone can host it on their own server and have unlimited capacity and full customization. Basecamp allows for sharing files, setting project milestones and using. working on.

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Tech Soup

JULY 31, 2017

Jim Nickerson responds to the second point in his comment to our blog post. When I founded CompuMentor (which became TechSoup) in 1987, I had to file articles of incorporation that would legally bind the organization. More than 80 such projects are available on the platform with open-source code to enable replication.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 17, 2007

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology The search for good web conferencing August 17, 2007 I decided, perhaps rashly, that one way of exposing people to, and training people on, open source software, was by doing web conferencing.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

A free, open source software application that allows users anywhere in the world to securely gather and organize information about human rights violations, Martus enables human rights defenders on the front lines of fighting abuse to stay safe and protects the identities of those who would face violence and repression for telling their stories.

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Bloomerang

DECEMBER 19, 2023

This can streamline everything from new employee onboarding to cross-team collaboration and secure file sharing. Top feature: Take social media interactions a step further with engagement tools , which help you respond to messages from followers, comment on other posts when appropriate, and track engagement over time.

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Care2

DECEMBER 12, 2011

Well organized - Ensure the site code is properly organized and commented so that it is understandable by any developer (especially style sheets). Set your www preference - Check your site’s.htaccess file and be sure to set a canonical url structure so the site’s urls observe your www or non-www preference consistently.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JULY 14, 2008

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology The “Open Source Software is Free&# myth July 14, 2008 I had a startling realization a few days ago. No one would think that anyone thought that implementing open source software was without cost.

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Tech Soup

APRIL 13, 2012

We use nonprofit, open-source Drupal to manage our main website. For file sharing we use Box.net. I’d love to hear your comments below on what you’re able to do with your cloud-based tools and other green technologies. It requires very little maintenance. We use and nonprofit WordPress for our microsites.

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Wild Apricot

JUNE 27, 2008

Download a copy of the full report as a PDF file from Imagine Canadas online reference library: Effective knowledge transfer & exchange for nonprofit organizations : a framework (PDF) Fataneh Zarinpoush, Shirley Von Sychowski, Julie Sperling. Comment Notification. Subscribe to this posts comments using RSS. Leave a Comment.

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Tech Soup

APRIL 13, 2012

We use nonprofit, open-source Drupal to manage our main website. For file sharing we use Box.net. I’d love to hear your comments below on what you’re able to do with your cloud-based tools and other green technologies. It requires very little maintenance. We use and nonprofit WordPress for our microsites.

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Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

APRIL 20, 2007

Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology speaks about how difficult is to be objective, while Social Source blog described it as a high school popularity contest. Allan Benamer weighs in with some observations after wading through the comments over at the Netsquared site and pointing to Holden from GiveWell to be the most salient point.

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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. at 11:56 pm { 8 comments… read them below or add one } 1 Joe 11.06.08 Example: Author hasMany Comments, Author hasMany Article.

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Amy Sample Ward

APRIL 28, 2009

if you are recroding with multiple people, you can record them to separate audio files so you can edit more easily. allows you to backup the files by recording to multiple devices. Want one that recrods to mp3 or wav files (will be sending mp3 out for production eventually). Can import other sources well. Production.

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Tech Soup

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

The utilities he likes are: 7-Zip File Manager. 7-Zip File Manager is an open-source free download that compresses and uncompresses files or groups of files in most formats - ZIP and GZIP, TAR and ARJ, CAB, and DMG files. Tell us in the comments. Definitely worth a look at this top seven list.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 23, 2007

So I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of free and open source software in environmentally sustainable computing. And older computers running Linux make very handy single (or even multiple) purpose servers – file servers, backup servers, dhcp servers, routers and firewalls, print servers, etc. Just visit [link].

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Care2

MAY 15, 2009

There are quite a few options for doing this, some open source and free others not. Did you know you can embed an audio file in Google Earth?) Its also a good idea to use a content management system to manage your websites content and updates, like Wordpress , Joomla , and Squarespace. Email is a critical channel.

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Forum One

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

DHS should partner with commercial companies and government agencies to provide a consolidated portal for citizen reporting zero day vulnerabilities in both proprietary and open source code. DHS should optimize AES for all major mobile browsers through the production of a secure mobile application version for LOI filing.

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Tech Soup

APRIL 21, 2014

Heartbleed is an OpenSSL bug that creates openings in cloud servers in which attackers can go in and extract passwords, private keys, and other data. OpenSSL is nonprofit open source software that provides security on e-commerce and other websites by creating an encrypted channel between your device and the website.

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Nonprofit Tech for Good

JULY 28, 2013

A free, open-source software program that enables users to send group text messages from computers or mobile phones. Your nonprofit can record audio files using your deskptop/laptop computer or Audioboo’s mobile app and then upload them to your own Audioboo Channel. FrontlineSMS :: frontlinesms.com.

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Tech Soup

FEBRUARY 14, 2014

Some of the free services I like are the different frames you can put around a photo, text captioning, the ease of sharpening a blurry photo, and a feature under ‘image setting’ that allows you to adjust the file size of the image so you can use it for the web or make it email-able. is a free open source application.

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Tech Soup

JANUARY 8, 2013

My TechSoup Global colleague in Warsaw, Anka Kuliberda, reports that the biggest nonprofit tech story in Europe this past year were the anti-ACTA riots in several countries and also the Open Knowledge Festival. An example of this is the superb open-source freeware database developed by Benetech. Share in the comments below.

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