Computer Viruses: Repel, Reveal, and Remove

Virus pre­ven­tion is a lit­tle like den­tal cleanings.

Maybe you put it off longer than you should, even though deep down you know that’s a mis­take. Then when some­thing finally goes really, painfully wrong you smack your­self in the head for not tak­ing care of it sooner.

I’ll try to make this as pain­less as possible.

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Share Files Online — Part 3: Collaboration Tools

You need to share files. Whether it’s with friends, clients, part­ners, or cowork­ers, there’s some file you need them to see, and vice-versa.

My last two posts drew a dis­tinc­tion between whether you’re file-sharing for pub­li­ca­tion or for col­lab­o­ra­tion (How to Share Files — Part 1: Overview), and then explored some options for the publication-based options (How to Share Files — Part 2: Pub­li­ca­tion Tools). Read more…

Share Files Online — Part 2: Publication Tools

In last week’s post, How to Share Files — Part 1: Overview, I drew a dis­tinc­tion between publication-based online file-sharing and collaboration-based online file-sharing. Read more…

Share Files Online — Part 1: Overview

Over the last few months I’ve answered a lot of ques­tions about online file-sharing.

“Should I upload my files to my own web­site or put them on a file-sharing service?”

“How can I make a PDF avail­able on my blog?”

“What about sites like Google Docs and Zoho?” Read more…

Fixing a Flickering PowerPoint

This quick tip is for a very spe­cific sit­u­a­tion, but I want to make it avail­able since lengthy Googling didn’t turn up an answer for me. I had to solve it the hard way: by actu­ally pay­ing atten­tion. I’m not used to doing that. Google has made me weak. Read more…

Decide Which RSS Feeds to Follow

RSS is a great way to eas­ily fol­low a lot of web­sites. This arti­cle isn’t an intro­duc­tion to RSS—that’ll have to wait for another time—but if you’re new to RSS or just a lit­tle hazy on the details, I highly rec­om­mend you watch the 3-minute video RSS in Plain Eng­lish.

Even though RSS is awfully con­ve­nient, even­tu­ally even the con­ve­nience of hav­ing your favorite sites con­densed into one place can get over­whelm­ing. Read more…

Nonprofit Profiles, Groups, and Pages: Facebook Policy

When cre­at­ing a Face­book pres­ence for your non­profit, you need to decide which kind of pres­ence to use.

In addi­tion to cre­at­ing a Face­book Cause—which you should con­sider as a sup­port­ing ser­vice rather than a pri­mary presence—you really have three options: a Pro­file, a Group, or a Page.

Pro­files are intended for indi­vid­u­als; Pages are intended for brands and orga­ni­za­tions; and Groups are gen­er­ally more infor­mal, may give you less con­trol, and (not coin­ci­den­tally) seem more prone to going viral. Read more…

Nonprofit Social Media Resources: A Menagerie

This week I’m giv­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion on social media to the Dane County Admin­is­tra­tors of Vol­un­teer Ser­vice (DCAVS).

In a 75 minute talk (includ­ing dis­cus­sion) I’ll only be able to scratch the sur­face of this enor­mous topic, so I’m pro­vid­ing them with addi­tional resources to help with later plan­ning and learn­ing. I thought I’d post the resource list here for any­one else who’d find it use­ful.
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Move Your Domain to a New Web Host

Web host migra­tion is like sky­div­ing: you know there’ll be a lot of adren­a­lin, and you hope there won’t be a loud thud at the end.

I’ve migrated a few domains recently for myself and oth­ers. So far, no thuds. Here’s the process I used.
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Create a Nonprofit Facebook Page in 3 Easy Steps

Step 1: Contemplate

Ask your­self this ques­tion: “Why am I doing this?”

(This is a pretty good ques­tion to ask before doing most things.)

If you can’t answer that ques­tion clearly and specif­i­cally, you should do more think­ing before you make a Page. Answers like “Because everybody’s doing it” and “Because some­body asked me why we’re not on Face­book” don’t count. Read more…