Good use of a fire escape

We live in one of the oldest cities in America. Non profit organizations are often located in buildings that were built waaaaaaay before electricity (although Ben Franklin flew his famous kite right here) and before these things called computers were invented. Our team comes across all types of challenges related to these old buildings: wet basements (where the DSL comes into the building), bad electrical wiring, bugs - yuck, and really small doorways. I recently learned that the small doorways in the historic buildings are not an indication of short founding fathers (in fact George Washington was well over 6 foot tall) but rather a result of structural shortcomings of the available building supplies of the day. Anyway, what does this have to do with technology and/or a fire escape?

We were recently called by a non profit theater company to secure their server. We helped them procure a low cost server cabinet that would support the need.

Thankfully for all of us, the city insists that these buildings have a proper fire escape. I don't have photos to support this, but our guys recently installed a server cabinet at an old theater by hauling it up the outside fire escape and shoving it through a second story window.

Good use of a thread on a PC

So, I wanted to show you photos of a creative client site, but I took the photos with my cell phone, then traded that phone in. Anyway our clients are really innovative when working with technology (seriously, not sarcastically). I recently visited a client site and noticed bright pink signage taped to the server. The sign read: "Remember the thread taped to the back. If it is not blowing in the wind it means that THE SERVER IS TURNED OFF!"

Obviously, the photo showed the string blowing in the wind.

I swear this is one of the most innovative things that I've seen in a long time. Kudos to the person who taped that sign on the server.

Good use of a hammer on a PC

Don't make me say it again. True story:



We recently had a client that needed us to transfer her e-mailbox from one system to another. Again, not to be too technical, this becomes difficult if the mailbox is really big. We usually start by asking the user to delete unneccesary items and empty the junk mail folder to reduce the size.

I got a call from the technician to say that he was unsure how to delete the 19,000 spam messages from the user's inbox. 19,000 spam messages. The inbox would barely open. The ability to scroll through the messages was impossible.

Q: How could he delete the messages?

A: Set a hammer on the delete key and come back the next day.



It worked! I have photos to prove it.

OK, I'm back with another story

Remember, these are all true. . . We have this amazing staff of non profit technology consultants that provide services to over 70 clients every month. For those consultants that have been with us a while, the shock threshold gets higher. The new guys still can't believe most of what they see on a daily basis. Here is a story that leapt across the shock threshold to become legend.



Our senior consultant was called to a small community center that had recently lost their "accidental techie" and knew they needed help with IT. As a typical technology consultant, Mark's first question was "Take me to your server". He was shown to the janitor's closet (you can see where this is going) where he only found a green hefty bag that was sucked in on all sides. "Why is the server in a bag ?!?!?" "To protect it from the leaky pipe"



True story.

Things a Tech Never Wants to Hear . . .

By now, you have the message that our guys work HARD. Everyday, all day. These guys are working for you, in your best interest. Two separate incidents brought this to mind today. Both involved our Iron Man - Tim.

Tim is the guy we can always count on. He puts his head down and works, and works, and works. Those of you who know him, know this about him. Those of you who have not had the pleasure of seeing Tim in action, have to take my word for it. You should also know that he is funny. Really funny in a dry way. Here is what happened today:

Tim was on a server upgrade project today which involved changing DNS records for an Exchange Server. You don't need to understand the details here. (Remember, this is the un-tech blog.) The point is that he was on the phone with several tech support analysts from several outside services. He finally gets in touch with the support analyst that should be able to help him. Tim starts to explain his situation and the tech support analyst says:

"Can I put you on speaker phone so that the class can hear your issue?" The class?

You would think that's the worst thing a tech can hear when he is on a job and trying to get a problem solved. I certainly would have been upset. Not Tim. He was fine with it. He explained his situation and the tech support analyst said: "Well, I don't know if I can help you". Worst thing? Still no. Here's the worst thing:

"I know what the problem is . . ."

That's the worst thing, because it came from the student in the back of the classroom. Poor Tim.

They Let Me Out Occassionally

Well, I'm a bit late on the posting. Sorry. Mark, Dean and I went to the N-TEN Conference in Washington D.C. last week. We call it "Geek Week". It's the only place left on earth where I'm one of the cool kids. . . Imagine combining tech nerds with non profits. Oy.

If you work for a non-profit and have anything to do with using technology to run your program or meet mission, then I suggest that you become an N-TEN member and definitely go to the conference if you can. The hallway discussions alone are worth the trip.

Here is how it went for us. We traditionally go to the conference on Tuesday for an "affinity" meeting with the other NPowers on Wednesday morning. Because the conference was in Washington DC this year - and because we are a non profit - we decided to drive to DC on Wed morning to save one night's hotel expense. OK. Don't do this. Big mistake. Pay for the extra night.

I was up and out of the house at 4:15 AM (which my sister refers to as 0-dark-30). I was at Dean's house before 5:00 in Conshohocken, then at Mark's house in NJ before 6:00. Did I mention that this is AM? Well, we didn't count on traffic at Baltimore. Who goes to Baltimore? We did count on major traffic on I-495 around DC and were not dissappointed. We never made it to the hotel until 9:30. Our meeting started at 9:00.

We didn't stop for coffee or food or bathroom. I assured the guys that there would be some sort of muffin and coffee in the meeting room. Nope. We showed up and found our peers giving their presentations in a room with only pitchers of tap water. Mark and Dean were not happy. I had a splitting headache. Our colleagues fed us gummy bears and life savers out of their conference bags to hold us over.

The day got much better. I did something that I have NEVER done before. I ate Indian food - some kind of spinach and chicken thing in a cute little tourine - for lunch and Sushi - some little rolled up somethings that I had to eat with chopsticks - for dinner. Honestly, I never had that much exotic food in one day before in my life. The most exotic thing I usually eat is pizza with feta cheese. We consider vinegar a "spice" in our house. I'm blessed with a wonderful Pennsylvania Dutch partner. Rivels, Pot Pie, Snitz and Knep, Hog Mal. Yum.

Then we went out with the NPower gang for drinky-poos at lots of interesting places. It's really funny to us to see people drinking Yeungling beer and paying premium prices. They think it's fancy. HA. They are really good at "spin" in DC if they can sell Yeungling for $5 a pint.

The next day I was threatened with bodily harm if I didn't promise to get the guys some food that "used to moo" and could be eaten with a fork and knife. Needless to say, we took the Metro to the District Chophouse for steaks. Really good and expensive steaks. We deserved it.

Anyway, back to business. Mark and I learned about "Managed Services" from a few of our colleagues. Managed Services are a way to deliver routine desktop and network services without actually being on site. Mark and I are interested in using this type of service to save our Scheduled Support clients some money and allow our technicians to work on the non-routine tasks that crop up. You know it as "the list". Stay tuned for more soon. We think we found a solution that will work for us (and by us, I mean you).

Meanwhile Dean was digging into data management systems and open API sessions. Web based applications are definitely NOT a fad. Each year there are more choices for non profits in this area. Dean learned alot about Salesforce.com and their non profit offering. We are all really excited about this system at NPower. Not only does Salesforce.com Foundation donate their web based Client Relations Manager (CRM) to non profits, but they also have a dynamite open API that allows us to customize the program for various uses. NPower Seattle and NPower NY have already become leaders in deploying Salesforce.com for their members. Dean is excited to ramp up this offering for our members in PA and Delaware.

So you see, it wasn't all about eating and drinking. . .

I'm not creative enough to make this up . . .

We see ALOT of unbelievable things on our travels through the non profit environment. Organizations that are barely getting by but have a core group of people who deeply believe in the mission and believe in helping people, right through to organizations that have more technology and equipment than they know what to do with. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't wish I had everything on videotape so that you wouldn't think I was making it up. Thankfully, I have witnesses on most of these encounters. Here is one that can be verified:

We were on an initial visit with a grassroots food bank and social service agency. The "office" was in what used to be a row house, but now was a single because the city had demolished all adjacent properties (our mayor's idea of wiping out blight). On our way, we witnessed a bizarre fistfight in the middle of the street where a woman was beating on a man twice her size while another man just watched. We had to swerve to miss them.

There was already a meeting in progress when we entered the house: "Can I use the bathroom before I leave", asked the man. " Oh no, we don't have any running water", she replied. "Something went wrong when they demolished the two adjacent abandoned houses."

When it was our turn to meet with woman in charge, we discovered that the hole in the roof had been fixed, but not the collapsed ceiling. Only half of the building had electricity. And she wouldn't dare go into the basement to show us the mysterious "hub" that she thought they had. That would have to wait for another time.

We also met with a man from the advisory board. "We'd like to design and host websites here in order to make extra money to support our mission", he said. "My tech guru is going to teach us how to do it. " "We'll keep the web servers (note the plural) in the basement and charge the businesses around here to host their websites. (Did he notice the demolished buildings, what surrounding businesses?)

I explained the current web hosting market environment and gave examples of how giant web hosting and design companies were charging only $2.95 per month. That volume was the only way to make a small margin on web hosting commodity. I even began to do a cost analysis for return on investment for equipment, software, Internet connectivity and redundancy. They argued that they could do it. . .

And then I reminded them both that web servers needed electricity to run and that half of their building didn't have that one essential item. I haven't heard back from them since. I should call them. Oh right, no phone.

Second Post

Don't worry, I'm not naming each post consecutively. The more I think about blogs and blogging, the more I realize that "good" blogs are really hard to come by and that finding "favorite" blogs are really based on personality types and interests and good content. Kind of like comic strips. I read the comics in the Philadelphia Inquirer everyday. I have definite daily favorites and some that I just don't get. I am sure that writing daily comics if very difficult and it shows sometimes in the strip. I applaud Fox Trot's creator for cutting back to weekly rather than let the strip go down hill due to lack of inspiration etc.

Anyway, I've decided to post less frequently than other blogs - but try to have good content, written in a style that I hope will suit your taste. I hope that the analogy above translates into tech issues. We'll see.

OK now onto the post:
I should have named this one "A watched Outbox never boils" or "A penny saved is a dollar spent later". Non profit budgets are really interesting. Rarely is there a line item for IT expenses. Rarely does a non profit org budget for maintenance. It's just not something that we can approach funders about. All of the money goes to programs, programs, programs. Very little for operating or general budget. Of the operating budget, very little is set aside for IT maintenance if any at all. This is nothing new to you. It's nothing new to us either.

Because of this budget dilemma, it seems that non profit staff are quick to shoo our techs out the door in order to try to save a few dollars. Our techs are keenly aware of this and try to be as efficient as possible.

Take this story for instance. A non profit asks our tech to fix an Outlook email issue during his regular visit. The tech is conscious that he is just about out of time for the appointment and wants to get this last issue taken care of so he doesn't have to charge the organization more money for an additional visit later. He makes some changes in Outlook to fix the issue. To test the fix, he sends a test message from the user's Outlook to himself.

The message sits in the Outbox, and sits, and sits, and sits, and sits, and sits, and sits, and sits, and sits, and sits, and sits, and sits, and sits, and sits, and sits, and sits, and sits, and sits, and sits, and sits, and sits, and sits, and sits.

What seems like forever turns out to be 3 seconds. 3. Do you know how many times the user can say "OK, see you next week" in 3 seconds? Plenty. The user was so worried about time that she wasn't concerned whether the fix actually fixed her issue. Once the email left the Outbox, the tech felt better about leaving and the user went back to using her computer for important non profit work:

Good thing she's budget conscious.

First Post

OK, so I'm supposed to know all about technology due to my job title. The fact is that I really don't know how to do the cool stuff like IM, set up a blog, or use my cell phone for text messages. I do know how to set up safe and secure computing environments.

This is my first attempt at blogging. Other techies have blogs that techies should read with lots of information about networking and programming. Other non profit techies have blogs with lots of information regarding technology used by human and social service agencies. These blogs are GREAT. However, when I go home or out with friends it's not the geeky technology that we talk about. No, it's the people, sights and sounds of non profit life that monopolizes our conversations (and ice hockey, but that's another blog).

I've been urged to share some of these stories with a wider audience. These posts are not tech myths, not meant to hurt anyone's feelings, not meant to make fun of disadvantaged or underserved people. These postings are meant to share daily experiences of our staff in a light hearted way.

We work really hard and take our jobs very seriously. Our clients work really hard and take their jobs really seriously. But we all need a giggle now and then so stay tuned . . .