techcafeteria

Yesterday I received a letter from the State of California alerting me that my Census form is due next week and that I should be sure to fill it out and return it, as is decidedly my intention. That form will include the page that drives many Americans crazy—the one that offers you a bunch of ethnic backgrounds that you can identify yourself on. As my spouse of African-Cherokee-Jamaican-German and who knows what else decent says, this is not a multiple choice question for many of us. Personally, I always check the “white” box, which is not lying, although I always have a nagging doubt that the Semitic parts of my genetic makeup aren’t fairly represented by that choice.

Today, skimming through my news feed, I starred this article by Michelle Malkin, passed on by Google Reader’s “Cool” feed, and I just found time to read it. The gist of the article is that Census filler-outers should refrain from allowing the government to peg us by ethnicity, instead choosing “Other” and filling in the comment squares with “American”. Take that, Gubmint statisticians!

Now, this is interesting, because while Ms. Malkin proudly describes herself as a Fox News Commentator, I don’t think this question lands on a liberal/conservative scale. Discomfort with being pegged by race straddles all ideological outposts, as it should. But data is data, and the ethnic makeup of our country by geographic area is a powerful set of data. If we don’t know that a neighborhood is primarily Asian, White, Black or Hispanic, we don’t know if the schools are largely segregated. We don’t know if the auto insurance rates are being assessed with a racial bias. We don’t know if elected officials are representative of the districts they serve. And these are all very important things to know.

It might seem that, by eschewing all data about race, we can consider ourselves above racism. But we can board our windows and doors and dream that the world outside is made of candy, too. It won’t make the world any sweeter. If we don’t have any facts about the ethnic makeup and the conditions of people in this country, then we can’t discuss racial justice and equality in any meaningful fashion. We might hate to take something as personal as the genetic, geographic path that brought us to this country and made us the unique individuals that we are and dissect it, analyze it, generalize about it and draw broad conclusions. It is uncomfortable and, in a way, demeaning. But it’s not as uncomfortable and demeaning as being broadly discriminated against. And without evidence of abuse, and of progress, we can’t end discrimination. We can only board up the windows that display it.

So, I’m not going to take Ms. Malkin’s advice on this one, and I’m going to urge my multi-racial wife and kid to be as honest as they can with the choices provided to them. Because we want the government to make decisions based on facts and data, not idealizations, even if it means being a little blaze about who we really are.

Okay, I like to brag that I can blog from my Nexus One, but, until today, I’ve never done it. What’s different? I installed a beta version of Swype, an alternate keyboard that lets you type by dragging your finger from letter to letter on the keyboard instead of pressing on the keys. The software is very good at guessing what you mean, so you can move pretty quickly and still be reasonably accurate. It’s somewhat amazing, and a godsend for people like me who are used to having physical keyboards on our phones.

To join the Android beta, sign up here.

I’ve only had this installed for a few hours, and I’m already faster than I was with the standard keyboard. Swype boasts that trained users can hit 50 words per minute. When I get there, I might have to give up the laptop altogether.

[Oops! Forgot to publish this Idealware post from late January…]

Here are a few updates topics I’ve posted on in the last few months:

Nonprofit Assessment

The announcement that GuideStar, Charity Navigator and others would be moving away from the 990 form as their primary source for assessing nonprofit performance raised a lot of interesting questions, such as “How will assessments of outcomes be standardized in a way that is not too subjective?” and “What will be required of nonprofits in order to make those assessments?” We’ll have a chance to get some preliminary answers to those questions on February 4th, when NTEN will sponsor a phone-in panel discussion with representatives of GuideStar and Charity Navigator, as well as members of the nonprofit community. The panel will be hosted by Sean Stannard-Stockton of Tactical Philanthropy, and will include:

• Bob Ottenhoff of Guidestar


• Ken Berger of Charity Navigator


• Lucy Bernholtz of Blueprint R & D


• Christine Egger of Social Actions


• David Geilhufe of NetSuite


• and host Holly Ross of NTEN.

I’ll be participating as well. You can learn more and register for the free event with NTEN.

The Half-Life of Internet Explorer 6

It’s been quite a few weeks as far as headlines go, with a humanitarian crisis in haiti; a dramatic election in Massachusetts; A trial to determine if California gay marriage-banning proposition is, in fact, discriminatory; high profile shakeups in late night television and word of the Snuggie, version 2 all competing for our attention. An additional, fascinating story is unfolding with Google’s announcement that they might pull their business out of China in light of a massive cybercrime against critics of the Chinese regime that, from all appearances, was either performed or sanctioned by the Chinese government. There’s been a lot of speculation about Google’s motives for such a dramatic move, and I fall in the camp that says, whatever their motives, it’s refreshing to see a gigantic U.S. corporation factor ethics into a business decision, even if it’s unclear exactly what the complete motivations are.

As my colleague Steve Backman fully explains here, here’s been some fallout from this story for Microsoft. First, like Google and Yahoo!, Microsoft operates a search engine in China and submits to the Chinese governments censoring filters. They’ve kept mum on their feelings about the cyber-attack. Google’s analysis of that attack reveals that GMail accounts were hacked and other breaches occurred via security holes in Internet Explorer, versions six and up, that allow a hacker to upload programs and take control of a user’s PC. As this information came to light, France and Germany both issued advisories to their citizens that switching to a browser other than Internet Explorer would be prudent. In response, Microsoft has issued a statement recommending that everyone upgrade from Internet Explorer version 6 to version 8, the current release. What Microsoft doesn’t mention is that the security flaw exists in versions seven and eight as well as six, so upgrading won’t protect you from the threat, although they just released a patch that hopefully will.

So, while their reasoning is suspect, it’s nice to see that Microsoft has finally joined the campaign to remove this old, insecure and incompatible with web standards browser.

Google Wave: Still Waters

I have kept Google Wave open in a tab in my browser since the day my account was opened, subscribed to about 15 waves, some of them quite well populated. I haven’t seen an update to any of these waves since January 12th, and it was really only one wave that’s gotten any updates at all in the past month. I can’t give away the invites I have to offer. The conclusion I’m drawing is that, if Google doesn’t do something to make the Wave experience more compelling, it’s going to go the way of a Simply Red B-Side and fade from memory. As I’ve said, there is real potential here for something that puts telecommunication, document creation and data mining on a converged platform, and that would be new. But, in it’s current state, it’s a difficult to use substitute for a sophisticated Wiki. And, while Google was hyping this, Confluence released a new version of their excellent (free for nonprofits) enterprise Wiki that can incorporate (like Wave) Google gadgets. That makes me want to pack up my surfboard.

Google unveiled a bold new product last week; one of critical and compelling import to anyone who believes that their online reputation is important.  I’m not talking about Google Buzz.  I’m talking about Google Profiles.  This isn’t a new service—Google introduced the profile pages a few years ago.  But the release of Google Buzz has illuminated how important they are in Google’s plans, and how important they can be for us.  And if this profile is now a major component in my personal branding strategy, I demand better tools to manage it than Google has provided.

About a year ago, Google pointed out that, if you have a populated Google Profile, they will include it below the search results when people google your name. So, for someone like me—who does want to be easily located on the web, but has a reasonably common name, this seemed like a good deal, and I filled out my profile.  As a result, I’m prominently placed in the profile links when you search for my name, even though I’m about the fifth best known “Peter Campbell” on the web.

A Google Profile page contains four important pieces:

• Biographical information about you.


• Links to your important web sites.


• Secured contact information.


• Google Buzz integration.

The bio and links are much like other online profiles, such as Yahoo! and Facebook.  The contact info option is interesting, as you can share it with groups defined in your Google Contacts.  I can’t see a good reason to do this, as any group I’d be willing to share with (such as “family”) already knows how to find me and, if they don’t, they aren’t going to think to look at my Google Profile(!). So I’ve left this blank, as it seems like better security to not publish my address and phone number online if I don’t have a good reason to.

The Buzz integration is particularly worrisome.  First, by default, Buzz publishes your connections to your profile.  It’s easy to turn off, and recommended if you have any concern about anyone in the world knowing who your online friends are.  I turned this right off.

Second, your Buzz stream is published to the profile as well. So consider that—anything you say on Buzz gets added to your profile, which might be prominently placed in search results for your name (whereas your buzzes might not be).  We all know that employers are getting savvy, and searching the web for info about us as part of a candidate review.  But I assume that an employer seeing my Twitter stream on Twitter will bear in mind the context—Twitter, like Buzz, is a conversational medium.  A profile is much more like a resume.  I may well buzz about my favorite Doctor Who episode, but I’m not going to discuss TV shows on my resume…

The furor over Buzz’s privacy violations at rollout were really much more about the profiles—many new Buzz users didn’t even know they had  a Google Profile prior.

So, Google—I hope you’re listening.  If my Google Profile is going to factor more and more into my online identity—and the way that Buzz both highlights it and depends on it suggests so—you need to give me more tools and flexibility about how that profile looks and what information it contains.  Here’s what would make me feel like I have a profile on the web, as opposed to Google having a dossier on me on the web:

• Less structured content.  The “what can’t you find on Google” question is cute, but it’s not a key component of my personal branding.  Get rid of the cute stuff, and give me more options to share the info that I want to share, not that you necessarily want to hear.


• A logo, stylesheet, and other basic web design tools.  I’d like this to look more like this blog, with the black background and the Techcafeteria logo.


• My own tabs, and the ability to remove the extra tabs that you think I should have.  Mostly, the decision to publish my Buzz feed to my profile should be mine, not yours.  Make that optional, but add the ability to add new tabs and link them to other websites or RSS sources.

For an example, look at my home site at http://techcafeteria.com.  That is a profile, with info about me; lifestreaming; shared resources via RSS; and a contact form.  If Google Profiles could do what I ask, I’d scrap the current Techcafeteria site and link this blog, along with my other feeds, directly to my Google Profile, and redirect both techcafeteria.com and peterscampbell.com to it.

Until then, that’s not my profile.  That’s Google’s profile of me, and it’s a bit creepy.

Two weeks ago, I bit an expensive bullet and bought a new Nexus One phone, directly from Google. I’m a T-Mobile customer, and, as long-time readers know, an early adopter of the T-Mobile G1, the first publicly-available Android phone. I went for the unlocked version of the Nexus One (at $529 before taxes) rather than the $279 upgrade. My analysis of what the cost would have been, under the arcane T-Mobile condition that I can’t get a Nexus One and maintain my family plan at that price, was that it would have cost hundreds more over the two year contract term.

Here’s the short review: Fast, fast, fast, fast and shiny!

Here’s the long one:

My critique of the G1 has always been that it is mediocre hardware sporting an awesome operating system. I love Android; I loved it before there were any decent apps available. Maybe it’s because I appreciate a mobile OS that acts like a desktop OS when it makes sense to and doesn’t when it doesn’t, which is about the opposite of Windows Mobile with it’s “start menu” and “Program Manager” metaphors carried over from the PC and the incessant pop-ups interrupting whatever you’re trying to do. Android is like a computer OS in it that it is highly configurable, whereas every other mobile OS is tightly structured.  Android features unobtrusive notifications and a cloud-based approach to managing the phone’s data that makes it far simpler to deal with than something that requires Activesync or iTunes.

The Nexus one erases almost all of my G1 hardware peeves, with one big exception: it has no physical keyboard. That I miss, and I would gladly add an eighth of an inch to the thickness in order to have one. But, that said, the soft keyboard is much better than earlier Android soft keyboards and it’s not stopping me from using the phone. Another saving grace is that the Nexus supports voice input (as well as voice searching and dialing), so I can input an email by speaking into the phone, clean it up a bit, and send, rather than type the whole thing. The voice dictation isn’t perfect, but it’s really not bad.

The battery lasts exactly a day for me. That’s with GPS and Bluetooth turned off unless I have need for them, and average use. It’s about half a day less than I had after I impregnated my G1 with a fat replacement from Seidio. Seidio has one for the Nexus One, too, but I’m not willing to fatten it up for it, as opposed to just keeping a sync cable handy.

So that’s the bad news: no keyboard and a battery that’s as good as the iPhone’s. Everything else is awesome!

The 1Ghz Snapdragon processor—the fastest in any phone on the market today—just pops. The only time I ever see any churning is on occasional loads of the Android Market, and I know that those are on the server’s end. Email, games, maps, and most web pages are so snappy I have to blink and wonder if I’m really on a mobile phone. The snapdragon also features 512MB RAM and 512MB flash storage, which is worlds more than the G1. One of the liberating things is the ability to install and try out apps without having to first scrutinize what I have installed and remove a thing or two, another killer flaw for the G1.

The 3.7” 480×800 resolution screen is beautiful. Unless you have a Verizon Droid, which is the same size with slightly higher resolution, you’ve never seen a screen this nice. Along with the multi-touch (added to my phone in an update that arrived on the same day that I got the phone), you can really read web pages and view photos. And the camera—500 megapixel; flash; auto-adjusting. I finally have a better camera phone than my wife, who has the excellent Blackberry Curve 8900.

The phone itself sports two microphones, one that captures voice and background noise, and another that catches only the background noise and filters it out of the broadcast. this makes the Nexus One a very clear phone. This is big for me, because in my cubicle culture workplace, I often duck into the noisy server room in order to have conversations with my wife and kid.

I use all five home screens on the phone, with icons, folders and widgets. A handy included widget let me toggle the wifi, GPS, bluetooth, etc. I may ditch the ubiquitous Google search box widget because one of the four buttons on the phone pops it up. I’ll probably remove the pretty live wallpaper that shows autumn leaves falling behinds the icons in order to preserve a little more battery, but it has too much of a show-off factor right now to disable.

I’m appreciating a couple of apps that I never bothered to try on my stuffed G1. Seesmic’s twitter client is faster, stabler and better than Twidroid. There, I said it. I stood by Twidroid for over a year, but Seesmic includes bit.ly links in it’s free version (there is no paid one yet) and just seems to be more logically laid out. GDocs has replaced my beloved Wikinotes. I’m losing the Wiki, but I now have a notepad that integrates with my Google Docs account, allowing me to sync notes I write to the web and edit them in either place. That’s very cool.

I had MyBackupPro on the G1, and it lived up to it’s claims, restoring all of my Android preferences when I first set up the phone. And Bluetooth File Transfer and PDANet both seem to do what they claim, allowing me to transfer files to and from my Mac when a sync cable isn’t handy; and to use my phone as a 3G modem if I’m stuck without WiFi available for my Mac.

One issue I’m experiencing is that the phone won’t accept subbing in Google Voice as my voicemail carrier, but this might be because I have yet to make it down to T-Mobile and tell them that I’ve made this swap. I anticipate that they’ll tell me that i have to pay $5 more a month for their “Android plan”, which is somehow different from the “G1 plan”, but I also need to drop a monthly $5 equipment insurance fee that I doubt they’ll honor on a phone that they didn’t sell me.

I downloaded the Wordpress app as well, but I’m cheating and typing this post on my computer. Next one, I’ll dictate into the phone.

There have been widespread reports of 3G connectivity problems with Nexus Ones. I’m crossing my fingers as I type, but I haven’t seen any of them.

My friends with iPhones still all believe that they’re better off because they have 50 million apps to choose from. And a phone that’s half as fast, with a smaller screen at half the resolution, a lousy camera, an operating system that they can’t customize, AT&T 3G, poor call quality and no ability to multitask. They have full iPods, yes, and I considered that significant for some time, but now that there’s Doubletwist, which can sync your own—or your iTunes—playlists to an Android phone, that’s not so big an advantage.

I’m confidant that the Nexus One is the best smartphone, period—I can’t recommend it enough. Android has come of age.

Last week, we talked about domain registrar services and what to look for. In today’s followup, we’ll focus on how to transfer a domain and the accompanying security concerns, then talk a bit about registrars vis a vis hosting services.

Domain Transfers

Transferring domains is a somewhat complex process that has been designed to minimize the risk of domain hijacking. In order to insure that transfers are performed by the actual owner of the domain, a few important measures are in place:

• Every domain has an authorization (a.k.a. EPP) code associated with it. Transfers can not occur without this code being submitted. If you don’t have this information, your current registrar does. Some registrars have automated functions that will deliver that information to the domain contact; others require that you ask for them via email to the registrar or their support ticket application. Registrars are required to provide you with these codes within five calendar days of your request. If they don’t, your best recourse is to determine who they get their domain authority from (there are only a handful of companies that resell registration services) and appeal to them for assistance.


• Communication is strictly through the registered “whois” email address of the domain owner. You can determine what that is by doing a whois lookup on your domain.
  
  Tip: While most domains can be looked up at http://whois.net. However, whois.net has some trouble with .org domains, so the alternative http://www.pir.org/whois is a more reliable source for most non-profit domains.
  
  
  If the address that your domain is registered with is either non-functional or owned by someone other than you, then you need to update it, via your current registrar’s web interface, before you can successfully transfer the domain.


• Domains can (and should) be locked to prohibit transfers before and after you switch registrars. Locking and unlocking your domains is usually done by you, from your registrar’s web site. If you don’t have options to do that when you log on to the web site, your registrar should do it for you upon request.

Transfer Procedures

To initiate the transfer, go to the web site of the registrar that you want to switch to and follow their instructions. They will have you submit a request and, upon receipt of your domain fees, issue an email to the email address associated with the domain containing a link to a form where you can confirm the request. That form will also ask for the authorization code. Subsequently – and this can take up to seven days – you’ll receive an email from your current registrar asking you to confirm the transfer request. Once that is submitted, the transfer should go through.

Detailed rules about how domains are transferred, as well as what the responsibilities of the registrars are in handling the transfers, are listed at http://www.icann.org/en/transfers/policy-en.htm.

Choosing Registrars

Registrars charge anywhere from $5.00 to $50 dollars for a year’s domain service. The two best known registrars are Network Solutions and GoDaddy. Many people go with Network Solutions because they’re the longest standing of the registrars (for many years, they were the only registrar). GoDaddy has become very popular by dramatically undercutting the cost. Note, though, that both of these registrars have been accused of questionable business practices:

• Network Solutions has engaged in “Front Running“, a questionable practice of locking domains that a potential customer might search for in order to block competitors from making the sale. They will also use subdomains of your domain to advertise, a practice called subdomain hijacking. A decent registrar will not seek to make profits based on your intellectual property.


• GoDaddy famously suspends accounts based on corporate requests. In 2007, they suspended seclists.org, a website that archives internet security mailing lists, per the request of MySpace, with no court order or valid complaint. MySpace was upset that content posted to one of the lists that Seclists archived was inappropriate. But, instead of contacting Seclists to deal with the content in question, GoDaddy closed the site and wouldn’t respond to desperate emails or phone calls regarding the sudden closure. Worse, after the fiasco was resolved, they were unrepentant, and reserve the right to shut down any site for any spurious reason. If your NPO does work that is in the least bit controversial, keep this in mind when considering GoDaddy.

Web Hosting and Registrars

Many registrars supplement their business by providing web hosting services as well. Some will even offered discounted or free domain registration with a hosting plan. While this simplifies things, it can also be a bit risky in the “eggs in one basket” sense. Having a separate registrar and control over your DNS service allows you to be more flexible with switching hosts, should your current host prove themselves unreliable or go out of business. And the web hosting industry is pretty volatile, with companies coming and going pretty quickly. I would suggest a best practice is to keep your host and registrar separate.

You have a web site and you have a domain, and as long as the web site is up and running, everything is fine. But what happens if your domain is hijacked? What if you need to make changes to your domain registration, or register a new one, and your registrar is simply disinterested? What if they go out of business? Your domain name is a valuable property, and you should keep it in pro-active and trustworthy hands.

How Domain Registration Works

Domain registrars provide the service of keeping your domain name mapped with current information so that it can be found on the web. Domain names are meaningful aliases for numeric IP addresses, and aren’t technically required in order to host a web site. But, the internet would be hard to navigate if we could only find things by their numeric addresses.

The primary thing that a registrar does is to keep your contact (whois) data maintained; point your domain to the appropriate name servers; and allow you to move your domain to another registrar if you choose to.

Domain Services

In addition to domain registration, most registrars offer additional services, such as:

1. Are they accredited? ICANN, the organization that oversees domain management , accredits registrars. If they aren’t on ICANN’s list, they aren’t trustworthy.


2. Do they add a year to the existing expiration date, or charge you for a full year as of engagement? They should do the former.


3. Do they offer automated access to all functions (via web forms), including locking/unlocking domains, retrieval of authorization (EPP) codes, and modification of all whois records? (Some registrars prefer to list themselves as the technical contact. It should be up to you whether they can have an official name on your domain, not them).


4. Do they list a telephone number, and is it promptly answered during business hours?


5. Do they respond promptly to emails and support requests? The ability to communicate with your registrar is rarely needed, but, when it is, it’s critical – you don’t want them out of the loop if your domain is subject to an attempted hijack.


6. Do they offer the ability to manage DNS for mail servers and subdomains? While this is an added feature, it’s common enough to be worth expecting.


7. Do they have any additional services (examples above)? While these supplemental services are far from critical, they are convenient. More to the point, a company that is engaging in a robust suite of services is more likely to be focused on their business. The truth is that anyone can be a domain registrar, if they make the proper investment, but whether it’s a going concern or a neglected piece of extra income for them is a question you’ll want to ask.

Next week: Safely transferring domains and a word on web hosting completes the topic.

Details have come in for two exciting events in February:

On Thursday, February 4th, at 11:00 am Pacific/2:00 pm Eastern, don’t miss The Overhead Question: The Future of Nonprofit Assessment and Reporting. This panel discussion with represenatives from Charity Navigator and Guidestar will cover all of the questions I’ve been blogging about here. Join me with moderator Sean Stannard-Stockton of Tactical Philanthropy, Bob Ottenhoff of Guidestar, Lucy Bernholtz of Blueprint R & D, Christine Egger of Social Actions, David Geilhufe of NetSuite, and host Holly Ross of NTEN. Free registration is here.

And on Wednesday, February 10th, from 10:00 to 2:00 Pacific (1:00 to 5:00 Eastern), NTEN and the Green IT Consortium are putting on the first Greening Your IT Virtual Conference. With a plenary by Joseph Khunaysir of Jolera Inc. and six tactical sessions explaining how your org can benefit yourselves and the earth, including the one I’m co-presenting with Matt Eshleman of CITIDC on Server Virtualization.  Registration is $120, and it looks well worth it.

It’s time for another quick note on upcoming events and happenings in my nonprofit-focused life. These are spare on details, but I’ll be making noise as they finalize.

First, you’re looking at the newest Idealware board member. There’s still some paperwork to fill out, but this is a done enough deal that it’s worth mentioning here. I join at an exciting time, with our first book on the way; a new website about to be unleashed,  and the successful rollout of the Idealware Research Fund (which met it’s initial goal!).

Coming up in February is the Green IT Consortium/NTEN virtual conference on Greening your Technology. Matt Eshleman of CITIDC and I will be reprising the Server Virtualization session that we did at NTC last year. Mark down the date of February 10th, and look for details very soon, including after-conference get-togethers in SF and DC..

Also in February, but as yet not fully scheduled, I’ll be participating on an NTEN-sponsored panel with representatives of Guidestar, Charity Navigator, and the NPTech/Philanthropy community to discuss the upcoming changes in how these organizations assess nonprofits. I’ve been blogging about this potentially dramatic change in the way NPOs are assessed, along with the associated concerns, here and here.

April brings the big event: NTEN’s Nonprofit Technology Conference, 4/8 to 10, in Atlanta, Georgia this year.  I have a lot going on—I’m assembling a group of NTEN’s more technical presenters to lead the technology track, five sessions that will focus on the less trendy, but eternally critical tasks that nonprofit techs face daily: keeping the servers running (and virtualizing them); installing wireless; supporting computer use and planning and purchasing with little budget.  Our hope is that this track will not only impart a lot of useful information, but also serve as the introduction of a peer community for the front line NP techs. And I’ll be flying down early enough to participate in Day of Service and this year’s experimental unconference, where we’ll, among many other things, discuss how we standardize on shared outcome measurements and what that might look like.

The biggest challenge? Doing all this without breaking the stride on my work at Earthjustice, where I’m busy developing a case management system, installing email archiving software, deploying videoconferencing systems and prepping for Office 2007 and Document Management roll-outs, among other things; blogging weekly for the aforementioned Idealware; and spending as much quality time as I can get with my wonderful wife and kid. If you have any extra hours in the day to donate, send them here!