TA to non-profits

by Kevin Bulger I feel it is important to have a deep, full understanding of a problem before you go about finding solutions to it. Since I will be focusing on issues surrounding the Digital Divide and suggesting solutions for those issues, I need to know precisely what the Digital Divide refers to before I do anything. …read more

by Felicia M. Sullivan When talking about free software, a long-time colleague of mine always says, “You know, free as in speech not free as in beer.” That is to say that free software is about liberty not price. And when speaking about open source software, he refers to transparency and accessibility of the code that allows anyone to create and be involved. He marvels that both free and open source software (F/OSS) share the common dependency upon communities of developers and users to thrive - the ultimate “gift culture” in his estimation. These concepts of freedom, transparency, accessibility, creativity, and inclusion should sound familiar to those of us working in communities. They are the foundations of much of the work involved in social change. Therefore, we owe it to ourselves and to our communities to explore and be open to free and open source software. These applications may benefit our organizations and our citizens not because they cost so little, but because they provide us ultimate autonomy over our own futures in the realm of communications. They ensure that the workings of the system remain knowable and accountable. They prevent us from being dependent on outside forces and put us in the driver seat. Controlling the code is the contemporary equivalent of controlling the core processes of democratic participation. So what sorts of F/OSS applications should the well-equipped community media and/or technology center have in its toolbox? Community technology centers should be at least conversant about these tools in order to make informed decisions about their next round of communication infrastructure building. The Core First and foremost are the set of “core” applications known as LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP). For those of you unfamiliar with Linux, it is an operating system like Windows VISTA or Mac OS X. It comes in a number of “flavors” such as Red Hat (http://www.redhat.com), Debian (http://www.debian.com) and Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntu.com). Like any operating system, it sets the environment in which all hardware and software operate. It is the user’s primary control system. Apache (http://www.apache.com) is a web server application. Currently over 62% of all web-hosting applications are running from an Apache server system. System administrators who favor Apache often comment on the reliability and security of the software for the critical running of the Internet. Additionally, as an open source application, it ensures that the workings of a powerful communication system are accessible and transparent to us all. Add to the web environment a powerful database like MySQL (http://www.mysql.com), and dynamic content becomes possible. Everything from blogs to shopping carts to search engines depends upon data stored in a database such as MySQL. When coupled with a scripting language such as PHP (http://www.php.net), web content can now shift and change according to variable inputs. Basically, PHP allows the developer to write simple scripts that pull information out of a database or other locations and display within a basic web page. This allows content to be flexible and have multiple purposes. If you aren’t up to installing and configuring your own LAMP system, there are free and low-cost providers that use this core in their operations. I personally use Dreamhost (http://www.dreamhost.com). It comes with a very useable control panel and lots of nice one-click installs and easy to setup MySQL databases. Grassroots.org (http://www.grassroots.org), The Community Software Lab (http://www.thecsl.org) and Riseup (http://www.riseup.net) are all nonprofits that provide hosting in a F/OSS world for nonprofits and other community-based organizations. Why not check out your web hosting service and see if they support a F/OSS solution. It is a simple step to transforming control over your communications infrastructure. Desktop Must Haves While there are an increasing number of community-led organizations that have moved core web and operating system solutions to F/OSS, it can be a hard and somewhat scary proposition to make this shift as the first step towards conversion. Luckily there are an increasing number of very user-friendly and useful free and / or open source applications available for the center that wants to explore simple ways to get involved. Just like many of us don’t go out and build a windmill for sustainable energy, it is feasible for us to replace incandescent light bulbs with more energy efficient compact fluorescents. Here are some useful desktop applications that are easy to download and install. They are just as good, and in some cases better, than their proprietary cousins: Web Browser: Firefox (www.firefox.com), Flock (www.flock.com)Office Application Suite: Open Office (www.openoffice.org)Contact Relationship Management: Organizers’ Database (www.organizersdb.org) Moving to the Web I remember the first time I used a porta-pak to create a video presentation for a high school project. This was an empowering experience. However, it didn’t compare to the first time I saw a show of mine on cable television. Suddenly my voice was amplified. The same is true when content makes its way to the web. Over the last three to four years, the web has been evolving from a consumer-based model of content distribution to a user-generated one. This is a significant shift from a web that is about pushing a message out there to one that engages and invites others in. For those involved in community-building, this is a powerful moment. Tools for this new web environment (often referred to as Web 2.0) are entering the social sphere every day. Here are some web-based applications worth some exploration: Contact Relationship Management: CiviCRM (civicrm.org)Content Management System: Wordpress (www.wordpress.org), Drupal (www.drupal.org), Civicspace (civicspacelabs.org), Joomla (www.joomla.org)Wiki: PBWiki (www.pbwiki.org), Media Wiki (www.mediawiki.org)Email List: Mailman (www.list.org), PHPlists (www.phplist.com)Bulletin Board/Forum: PhpBB (www.phpbb.com) It’s a matter of liberty, not price. There are countless other F/OSS applications that can be tested and used. Applications that can meet almost any need such as drawing (Inkscape - http://www.inkscape.org), photo manipulation (GIMP - http://www.gimp.org), and audio / video editing (NGO-in-a-Box - http://ngoinabox.org). Some are easy to install and use, and others are not so easy. Some cost little to nothing, and some require the investment of time and financial resources. Some are completely useless. The thing about choosing F/OSS for your information and communication needs is that it is like making the choice to recycle, buy fair-trade coffee, locally-grown produce, or be a member of your local food co-op. It is a choice not just about the bottom line, but a choice that says we care about who controls important resources. It is not a fluke that so many of the resources detailed in this article have .org in their URLs. F/OSS is a stance about what kind of communication culture we want to create. Isn’t this what the mission of grassroots and community-based organizations should be all about? (NOTE: a version of this article originally appeared in the April 2007 issue of the Community Media Review) …read more

by Cheryl Jerozal Last week I had the opportunity to participate in my first "sprint". In a sprint, a group of people gets together and works on an open source project for a few days. In my two days (and one night) of sprinting, I learned a lot, met some awesome people, and contributed to the start of a project. I highly recommend sprinting to anyone who gets a chance to do it. …read more

by John Miller Imagine that you could run Windows XP, Mac OS X, and multiple versions of Linux on the same computer. That's already a reality--you just have to reboot to switch between them. Now imagine that you could run all these operating systems at the same time on the same computer. You could run MS Word 2003 at the same time you're running Safari, all while programming in Eclipse. It's possible. The technology that makes it possible: Xen. Xen is a virtualization technology that's based on Linux. It lets you run multiple virtual computers ("guest" operating systems) on top of one master operating system (called the "host" OS). In other words, you can run Windows and Linux on the same PC at the same time. That's the sexy use, anyhow. Xen is already in use by hosting companies to give customers their own computer. Instead of having to give customers a physical PC, Xen allows the hosting companies to fit many virtual computers onto one PC. This is ideal for customers that don't need much computing power. At the Community Software Lab, we're in the process of putting together a Xen-based server so that we can emulate our current network of servers from within one machine. Instead of having to prepare a new computer to become a server--install hard drives, memory, network cards, cd-rom drives, load the OS via cd-rom--we can type a few commands on the Xen server and have a working virtual computer in about five minutes. What once took a day to do now takes minutes. The kinks? The Xen server has to share its memory among many virtual computers, and these days an individual’s personal computer can use 256 MiB, 512 MiB, 1 GiB, or more. This puts a limit to the number of virtual computers that can fit onto one host machine. We're working the kinks out of our test server (now running computation-friendly virtual machines), and as soon as we hear from our server supplier, we'll be putting together the production server. Computer virtualization is nothing new, however. IBM's been doing it in their mainframes for over 40 years. VMWare is a widely used virtualization product. Various video-game emulators have been around for a while (I beat Rygar using good ol' Nesticle, all while surfing the web). Xen just seems most promising for the moment. I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't mention KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine--not Keyboard, Video, Mouse!). New in the 2.6.20 Linux kernel (the core of the operating system that handles memory management, task switching, networking, etc.), KVM might give Xen a run for its money. I'll try it out, but with time invested in Xen, that's where we're headed for the moment. …read more

by Jessica Rothschuh I haven’t always been a techie. Maybe I'm not really a techie now, but as a CTC VISTA, I felt I had a responsibility to know technology. …read more

[From the blog of John Miller, July 1, 2006.] John Miller (right) at Teen Summit In a few weeks, I'm heading up the web design workshop at the Intel Computer Clubhouse's Teen Summit. My task: to help 15 or so teenagers create a journalistically-slanted website covering the Summit. How to do it? What will make this website good or bad? …read more

by Brittney Fosbrook As a new member of the CTC VISTA Project, I began my service full of fascination for the seemingly utopian quality of social networks made possible through open source content management systems (CMS). My enthusiasm for social networking software easily translated to my first large task at the Homeless Prenatal Program (HPP), a portal to be used primarily as a resource for case managers. In my initial vision, the portal would allow case managers to both access and alter content regarding best practices, downloadable forms and resource recommendations for clients. This case management portal, I assumed, would allow case managers to engage in a collective, participatory and accessible social network mediated through open source software on the internet. However, as my research and development for the portal commenced, I began to see there were problems with idealizing internet-based social networking. …read more