News & Events > ICT Bulletin Archive

ICT E-Bulletin - May 2011

By Lasa Information Systems Team

A source of technology news, resources and advice for small to medium sized third sector organisations.

Lasa news

London Riders presents the CRM summit

Is your current database up to the job? Are you thinking about moving to a new database system? What are the key things you should think about in evaluating database systems? The varying demands made on organisations to gather, hold, utilise and report on data, and the exciting moves to cloud-based systems makes this a rapidly changing area.

This free Lasa afternoon event on 7 June at CAN Mezzanine near Old Street will look at three leading database systems  - CiviCRM, Salesforce and Microsoft
Dynamics - and give you the tools to help evaluate them. Register online at Eventbrite.

News

Lack of cash and confidence leave charities reluctant to try new technology

A survey  of 157 people by Lasa and Civic Regeneration, in partnership with RegenerateIT, about how charities and not-for-profit organisations in the UK use cloud technology found that:

• 80% of charity workers believe technology has a role to play in delivering the Big Society
• with the funding cuts affecting the voluntary sector, only 29% believe that charities have the confidence and the time to try new technology solutions such as the cloud
• 45% of those surveyed have considered using cloud technology in the next financial year

Mobile phone giants back down over fees on text donations

Orange and T-Mobile suspend their fees on donations made by mobile phone after Institute of Fundraising launches campaign

Every cloud has a dark lining

Whilst The Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) has published the positive results of a comprehensive survey into trends and attitudes this month, a timely warning comes from the UK National Computing Centre (NCC) that information security issues are holding back the adoption of cloud technologies.

Government issues new ICT strategy

The new government IT strategy signals a move from the monumental IT projects of old to a world of smaller, bottom-up schemes. Richard Parsons examines its implications for senior civil servants

The new ICT strategy, published last month by Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude, is something of a paradox. Whilst stressing the principles of simplicity, agility and flexibility throughout, it calls for a complex programme of change across government.

PC repair scam warning

NFP Techno reports that BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, is reminding organisations and individuals to remain vigilant and be aware of phone scams, online spam and phishing emails. The warning comes as a phone scam known as 'Support On Click' features criminals calling and pretending to be from the BCS.

Events, training & learning

London ICT Events

For London technology events please see our Events Calendar. This month's events include Scoial Media for Community Groups, Charities and Social Enterprises, various Sounddelivery training days, the London Riders CRM Summit and NFP World.

NTEN Technology Leadership Academy

The Technology Leadership Academy is a training program designed to help non-profit leaders understand the potential technology has to help them meet their missions at no charge to qualifying organizations. You must apply for acceptance to the Academy. Participants will be selected based on certain guidelines and their commitment to full participation. Please note that applications must be received for this cohort by 20 May.

Media Trust training

The Media Trust are running a number of digital media training events in the London area over the next few months.

Funding and awards

Community Voices funding

The Media Trust has opened a grassroots grants scheme, offering cash, training and support to isolated communities. The Community Voices grant scheme, offers grants of £500 to up to seven grassroots groups. Successful applicants will also be offered advice and training from the Media Trust in an effort to empower and make a difference in the lives of the socially excluded via the use of digital media. Applications must be received by 13 June.

Mobile phone donations growing

The proportion of people who use their mobile phones to donate to charities through the JustGiving website has doubled since the end of last year, says Third Sector. In addition mobile phone provider Vodafone and the donation website JustGiving have launched a new service that they say will enable all UK-registered charities to raise money through text donations for free.

Is mobile giving for you?

Republished by Idealware, this diagram (pdf, 401Kb) originally in the NTEN Change magazine, is an illustrated road map for using mobile technology to raise funds.

Resources, legal and accessibility

New on the knowledgebase

Ray Smith at ITHelp.co.uk has written a useful introductory article on managing users and computers on a Windows network. This article provides a non technical overview of how setting-up Windows Server to reflect your organisation’s structure can improve IT service reliability and security.

About to employ a database manager?

Ivan Wainewright  at ITForCharities had published a free eBook called "How to interview & employ a great database manager". It’ll cost you the price of a tweet or a Facebook post!

Encore!

IdeaEncore is a user generated knowledge management and online file sharing system and has a significant technology section. Register to share your tech knowledge with others.

Web analytics article updated

Web analytics tools help you track your site’s statistics, which let you see how many people are looking at each page, what sites they came from, and other information to help develop a picture of who your audience is. But which web analytics tool should you use? To help you choose, Idealware have updated their A Few Good Web Analytics Tools article.

Social networks must automatically restrict children's profiles

Out-Law.com reports that social network sites must ensure that children's profiles are visible only to the child's friends and cannot be found on a search engine, the European Commission has said.

Spammers to face fines

Organisations, including charities, that spam people with unwanted emails, live or recorded phone calls could face fines up to £500,000 under new powers granted to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) which come into effect on 25 May 2011, reports eGov Monitor.

2011 Charity Technology Survey now available

Comprising three surveys, Charity IT Survey, Charity CRM Software Survey and Charity Accounting Software Survey, the Charity Technology Survey 2011  looks at the key trends affecting IT in the charity sector. It finds that:

• the use of cloud computing and mobile technology is on the up, but at what price?
• the CRM space is an increasingly competitive one as specialist packages are pitted against generic ones
• suppliers of accounting software appear to be finally listening to the call for more charity specific functionality.

The surveys are available to download separately at £35 each or all three for £80.

Pass IT on...

Pass IT on, the home of the Digital Champion Network has a number of hardware deals for those to whom cost is a barrier to accessing the Internet at home such as:

• XMA: Computer packages with pre-installed software and support from £120
• Microsoft backed, Get online @ Home: Refurbished PCs & Win7 from £95
• Remploy: PCs refurbished by people with disabilities from £92

Practical tips

Viewing & printing worksheets in Excel

This new  Superhighways guide (pdf - 585Kb) shows you how to set options to help make reading large spreadsheets easier both on screen and on the printed page.

Uploading to Google Docs

If you’re using Google docs you can now upload documents by dragging and dropping from desktop when using Firefox and Chrome. You can also upload whole folders this way.

Mac meetup group in London

This newly formed group is primarily designed to discuss and share knowledge on Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server and related topics. The group would be of interest to IT consultants, system administrators, helpdesk staff and other professionals responsible for the running of Macs within their organisation.

How to buy a laptop

The inimitable Gavin Claybaugh paraphrases John Steinbeck over at NTEN and gives his opinions on that all important purchasing decision. Very funny and very sensible.

How websites work

Elliot Harmon over on TechSoup explains how CSS and HTML works in this helpful and accessible article.

Tools and applications

AIMS celebrates 10 years serving the sector

AIMS, the Advice & Information Management System, Lasa’s case and client contact management database is 10 years old this summer! If you are looking for a value for money case and client relationship management database, with low annual support charges, now is the time to move over to AIMS. To show continuing commitment and support for the sector when budgets are under strain, Lasa is offering 50% off the purchase price of all SQL versions ordered before 31st August 2011 and 30% off all training booked at time of purchase.

Word Cloud creators

Word Clouds - you’ve seen them - but do you know how to create them?  Try Wordle to create a cluster of words from specified text and the option to add weight to important words. Tagul also allows you to add hyperlinks to specific words. 

Ubuntu release Natty Narwhal

The latest version (11.4) of Ubuntu’s open source operating system is now available for download. Run it from a live CD or install alongside Windows if you can’t tear yourself away from Microsoft just yet...  Business Computing World takes it for a spin - and Fossbox's Paula Graham will review it in the May issue of Computanews.

Opinion

Why hackers and spooks want our heads in the cloud

Our unthinking embrace of these giant data centres is throttling the giddy anti-authoritarian computing dream.

Out from under too much data

Following on from Shelley Podolny’s New York Times article “The Digital Pileup” on the world’s data mountain Steve Backman looks at what resources it takes to keep your data under control.

Cloudio!

John Bird at ThankQ examines and evaluates the rush to the cloud.

Keeping online contributors under control

Jayne Cravens looks at how online communities can be nurtured and contributors kept in line...

And finally

Smash it up

Laptop or phone getting a bit past it? Mozy’s survey reveals that the easiest way to get a new one is to accidentally on purpose drop the old one...