Transcript Free Tech Tools for Poverty Law

Free Tech Tools for
Poverty Law
NTAP Presenters:
Gabrielle Hammond
Gwen Daniels
Presenters
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Gabrielle Hammond
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Gwen Daniels
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Executive Director, NTAP
Technology Director, ILAO
Surprise Panel: You!
Overview of Free Tools to:
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Manage Information Online
Manage Tasks and Projects
Transfer Large Files
Manage Collaborations
Manage Meetings and Conference Calls
Office Productivity
Client Tools
Help Techies (Viewer Recommendations)
Preview of Tools
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Mozilla
RSS, National RSS,
Netvibes
Ta Da Lists
Basecamp
YouSendIt
Team Viewer
Wiki
Jabber Chat
Campfire
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Survey Tool
Meet-o-Matic
MeetingWizard
FreeConference.Com
GotVoice
Gliffy
PDF Alternatives
Thunderbird
OpenOffice 2.0
PublicRoutes.Com
Viewer Recommendations:
Links for Techies
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HostMonitor: http://www.ks-soft.net/hostmon.eng/index.htm
This is a very simple program with a great interface that lets you monitor a wide
variety of aspects of your system (server up? service running? file size? low disk
space? WAN down?...) and then launch any one of a number of different actions
(send an email? restart the host? restart the service? Event Log? SNMP
trap? Syslog?...) There is a FREE version with a limited number of tests and
there is a pay verion (based on the number of tests) that is very reasonable.
(Michael Bowen, PA)
SnapFiles: The other site that I go to when I need something is
snapfiles.com. Though not strictly a "tool" it is a great place to go to find tools...
Kiwisyslog: http://www.kiwisyslog.com/index.php
This is a great syslog tool. Well supported and at a great price. They also make
a cool tool called CatTools that lets you easily manage multiple devices such as
routers and switches. (Michael Bowen)
VNC: http://www.realvnc.com/ This little gem (in any of it's
incarnations) has to be on everyone's short list.... (Michael Bowen)
Firefox developer toolbar--toolbar for Firefox that lets me test web pages
(resize them for different screen resolutions, test with it different stylesheets,
validate for accessibility and many other functions)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60 (Gwen Daniels)
intraVnews -- a nifty news reader for Outlook
http://www.intravnews.com/download.aspx (Hugh Calkins)
Part 1: Managing Information
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Your Internet Experience: Mozilla and
IE 7
RSS
National RSS Feeds
Netvibes
Why Mozilla Firefox (or IE7)?
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Easy to use and improves your efficiency.
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Tabbed browsing
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Easy creation of folders for bookmarks
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LiveFeeds (We’ll discuss later.)
www.mozilla.com
Organize Your Bookmarks
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Create Folders in your Bookmark Toolbar
Easy Access
What if the Web Came to You?
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RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is simply
a technology that allows you to – with a
couple clicks SUBSCRIBE to online
information, news, blogs, and content.
Have you seen its logo?
It indicates content you can subscribe to.
This means it comes to you.
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Where Can You Subscribe To?
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RSS can be received in your browser.
RSS can be received in your email inbox.
RSS can be received on a webpage.
How Do You Subscribe?
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Browser: If you use Mozilla, it is
Easy.
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Find content you want to subscribe to.
Click on the logo.
Drag to LiveFeeds Folder on your
Bookmark Bar.
Let’s try it.
Subscribe to my Email Inbox?
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You need what is called an RSS
Aggregator.
There are different services
depending on your email client.
Poverty Law Content Organized
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What if all the news, blogs, and
content from support centers,
funders, and leaders relating to
poverty law were in one place?
What if when YOU found a good
resource online, you could add it
there for everyone to benefit?
Enter: National RSS Server
http://rss.lstech.org
Final Step:
Your Own Personal Newspaper
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NetVibes www.netvibes.com
NetVibes www.netvibes.com
Part 2: Managing Your Tasks
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Basecamp (discussed later)
TaDa Lists – Online Lists
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Linked with Basecamp…
Part 3: Transferring Large Docs
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YouSendIt.Com
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TeamViewer.Com
Transferring Large Files
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YouSendIt (www.yousendit.com)
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Perfect for when you want them to receive it
by email.
No downloads needed for recipient.
TeamViewer(www.teamviewer.com)
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Perfect for when you have someone on the
phone and want to give them something to
look at or review with you.
They need to download an executable file (30
seconds).
Part 4: Project Management
& Collaboration
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Wikis
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Confluence (www.atlassian.com)
PBwiki (www.pbwiki.com)
JotSpot (coming soon. Google bought.)
Basecamp
Instant Messaging (Jabber.org)
Campfire: Group Chat
What is a wiki?
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In a single sentence, a wiki is a web
site that is created and edited
collaboratively.
Legal Aid of Southeastern
Pennsylvania
The problem
 Telephone Intake manual and Staff
manual required constant changes
to a printed manual. Staff manual--everyone throughout the program
had different versions, depending
on which updates they had actually
kept.
Legal Aid of Southeastern
Pennsylvania
The solution:
 “I checked out the NTAP info on
wikis, and was drawn by the claim
that creating a wiki could be as easy
as making a peanut butter
sandwich. I figured I’d see if that
was true, and it was.”
Legal Aid of Southeastern
Pennsylvania
The result:
A wiki with:
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Organizational information
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Help Line Manual
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Staff Directory
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Substantive Law resources
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Other Resources
Basecamp
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Basecamp is a free to low-cost web-based
project management application
Both versions include the ability to record
milestones, assign tasks, relate tasks to
milestones, track messages, create
writeboards, and unlimited people
Paid version includes more projects and
file storage. Some plans also include time
tracking
Jabber: Instant Messaging
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Jabber (www.jabber.org) -- a
customizable open source IM
(instant messaging) protocol with
many clients:
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Hugh uses Exodus
(http://exodus.jabberstudio.org/)
Gabe uses PSI (http://psi-im.org/)
Campfire: Group Chat
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http://www.campfirenow.com/
Free for four users
File Transfer capability
Part 5: Meetings and Phones
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Meet-o-Matic (www.meet-omatic.com)
MeetingWizard
(www.meetingwizard.com)
Free Conference.Com
(www.freeconference.com)
GotVoice (www.gotvoice.com)
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Voicemail transferred to your email
Part 6: Office Productivity Alternatives
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Gliffy.Com is a free to low-cost ($30 per
year) web-based alternative to Microsoft
Visio.
There are numerous free to low-cost
options for creating PDF files. See
Working with PDF Documents on LSNTAP
Open Office 2.0: Free alternative to
Microsoft Office
Thunderbird: Alternative to Outlook for
email
Survey Tool (http://survey.lstech.org)
Poverty Law Survey Tool
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Up: http://survey.lstech.org
info:
http://lsntap.org/techlibrary
Power of Surveys
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Tool to return to “Community
Lawyering”
Instant feedback for
management, organizational
development, fundraising,
technology evaluation, services
evaluation, and priority setting
More accurate than web tracking
forms
Power of Online Surveys
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Cheap, Relatively Easy, Fast
Lots of features -- Create surveys
where:
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anyone can respond as many times as they like;
only invited persons can respond;
a person can only respond only once;
in other languages;
anonymous surveys are sent in;
participants go to a URL or respond to an email;
prior surveys can be reused and edited;
data is analyzed instantly online or downloaded to a
spreadsheet or graph.
Examples of Surveys
for Poverty Law
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Technology Evaluation
Community Based Priority Setting
Outcome Assessment & Satisfaction of
Services (Clinics, Hotline,
Representation)
Fundraising
Volunteer Recruitment
Staff Input (Retreats, Conferences,
Training)
Task Force or Committee Planning
Poverty Law Surveys
http://survey.lstech.org
Poverty Law Surveys
Poverty Law Surveys
http://survey.lstech.org
Poverty Law Surveys
http://survey.lstech.org
#1 Feature: Share Your Surveys with
Others
Usable by Non-Techie who is Willing to Learn
 Sign Up:
http://survey.lstech.org
 More info:
http://lsntap.org/techlibrary
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For Your Clients and Websites
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PublicRoutes.Com
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Picks a public transportation route from
two address points in major cities:
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NY, LA, SF, Seattle, Chicago…
www.publicroutes.com
More and Resources?
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www.lsntap.org
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Training Link at:
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http://lsntap.org/tm110