Archive for the 'On the web' Category

NpTech’s - are you in the room?

Beth Kanter writes about some practical tips with the Nptech FriendFeed experiment currently taking place on FriendFeed where there has been a ‘room’ set up for non-profit techies by Jonathan Coleman to be able to share, discuss and comment using FriendFeed to connect. Find out how to join the room and participate on Beth’s original post at NpTech FriendFeed Room.

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I’ll be live blogging at N2Y3!

On May 27th and 28th, Netsquared is holding it’s third annual conference in San Jose, California. I’m excited to be joining the conference as one of the guest live-bloggers.

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Common Craft: Podcasting in Plain English

Podcasting in Plain English by Common Craft

Common Craft have created another wonderful bite-size video in plain english, adding to their great collection of easy to understand and fun introductions into social media tools. This latest one on Podcasting, shows how versatile and portable podcasts can really be. See more of their videos in Plain English.

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CSS Naked Day

Visitors to my blog will notice something missing today. (on the 9th April only) It’s the third annual CSS Naked Day and over 1500 websites and blogs across the globe will have taken part.

The idea behind this event is to promote Web Standards. Plain and simple. This includes proper use of (x)html, semantic markup, a good hierarchy structure, and of course, a good ‘ol play on words. It’s time to show off your

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Google for Non-Profits

Google for Non-profits provides a round up of Google’s relevant and useful free tools, all in one handy place to help organisations get started easily.

The site lists everything from docs, calendars, web analytics, groups to YouTube. They’ve categorised the free tools list into two areas, ‘Save time and money’; and ‘Find and engage supporters’.

Excerpt from the Google for Non-profits webpage:

You want to change the world. We want to help.
Learn how to use free Google tools to promote your work, raise money, and operate more efficiently.

How will this help organisations?

Each application tool link takes you to a section which shows you what the tool is and how to use it with easy to understand tutorials. As well as the guides on how to use the tools there are useful innovative examples of how the applications can be used in a nonprofit organisation with real case studies in the ‘Get inspired’ sections. There is also a ‘Quick ideas’ section too, which can give groups some instant ideas in ways these applications could be used, as well as a handy ‘Question and Answers’ page for each tool, which covers many of the common questions that organisations raise when investigating new ways of using technology to acheive their aims and way they work.

An excellent one-stop-shop resource to help organisations to learn more and gain the knowledge and confidence that is sometimes needed to have a go with using these tools for the first time.
See more at Google for Non-profits.

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Twitter in plain english from Common Craft

Common Craft who produce the most fabulous fun bite size mini videos on social networking tools in plain english have released another in their growing series. The latest one is all about Twitter which explains how Twitter can be used in just 2.5 minutes. Check it out at www.commoncraft.com/twitter.

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Visualising information for advocacy: An introduction to information design

I’d highly recommend reading a copy of the new booklet from Tactical Tech which is also available as a pdf download. Visualizing Information for Advocacy: An Introduction to Information Design is a useful guide aimed at helping organisations strengthen campaigns and projects through communicating vital information with greater impact.

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Web Office 101

London region ICT champ, Miles Maier has created a great visual round up of some of the best web office tools on his blog. He ran a session called ‘Web Office 101′ at the recent Circuit Rider Conference, and shares a wide range of links to web-based office tools which allow you to create, collaborate and share documents through your web browser. Check out the article weboffice 101.

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Article on making videos more accessible on blogs

Problogger guest writer Stephen Hopson helps to champion accessibility in making video posts accessible to the deaf community with a step by step guide to adding subtitles to a video post. Check out the insightful article and the interesting reader comments and conversation at Problogger - How to Make Your Video Posts More Accessible.
If interested in making all your media more inclusive to all, there are lots of useful resources and guides on

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Photo Dropper plugin - finds Flickr Creative Commons images within Wordpress

The new handy Photo Dropper plugin for Wordpress could save time when searching for images to brighten up blogs and websites. This plugin finds Creative Commons licensed images from Flickr for use within your blog.

Excerpt from the Photo Dropper website:

“When it comes to finding great quality images, you basically have 3 options: stealing, buying, or using Creative Commons-licensed photos.”
“With the Photo Dropper plugin, you can now search millions of Flickr photos and add them to your Wordpress posts with just 1 click, all without leaving your Wordpress dashboard. Attribution links are automatically added underneath the images to comply with the Creative Commons license rules. It’s the easiest way to add photos to your blog.”

The Photo Dropper blog also links to the great post by Skelliewag, A Complete Guide to Finding and Using Incredible Flickr Images which highlights the importance of checking the Creative Commons license on the original Flickr source page before posting any external images on your site. On Skelliewag’s post it lists all the types of licensing and what it means as an easy reference guide when using photo’s from Flickr on your site.

Back in January, I wrote another Flickr related post Get the Picture, on how nonprofit organisations can use online photosharing for a variety of uses, along with a collection of useful links to other excellent articles and resources.

To find out more about Photo Dropper and download the plugin, visit the site at www.photodropper.com.

I look forward to testing this plugin out.

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