Category: Web/Tech

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New Language Choices – Third Day of Christmas Gifts from Tendenci to You!

Christmas Blue Tendenci-Logo Transparent No WordsComing in 2013: More International Language Options for Your Website Visitors!

ON THE THIRD DAY OF CHRISTMAS… TENDENCI’S GIFT TO YOU: Internationalization for Your Association Website!

Internationalization for your website means you can offer content and online functionality in multiple languages and locales to your website visitors.

3 Reasons Website Internationalization Matters for Associations

  • Members of your Org’s chapters in other countries will be able to visit and participate with your main website and make it easier for your staff to grow your global community.
  • Donation forms will translate into the language of your donors, giving your organization global online fundraising tools
  • Small nonprofits and associations in economically disadvantaged countries can reach Wealthier Foreign Donors and Corporate Sponsors using your website to translate your cause into their language.

wikipedia africa map languages spoken regions

International Language Factoid: There are over 2100 different languages spoken in Africa according to Wikipedia!

Tendenci Updates to Automatically Translate Your Website Content

Ian McKinnell/Getty Images
Ian McKinnell/Getty Images

Associations and Nonprofit Organizations that want to reach an International audience need a website that is multilingual, and this year, we’re adding even more international language translation support to your Tendenci open source websites!

Our programming team has been updating the foreign language tools in Tendenci’s software and improving how your website integrates with the language translation function provided by web browsers.  Tendenci website content can be translated into each language based on the preferred language designated by your users inside their web browsers, helping you deliver your message in virtually any country so members and donors clearly understand.

Next year, you’ll enjoy the gift of an International Website and expand your association’s reach around the world with Tendenci – The Open Source CMS for Associations!

Merry Christmas from Tendenci!

We’re celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas with daily previews of the all new Tendenci Features coming to your association website in 2013! Join us each day to “open new gifts” filled with feature updates for your website!

Visit our Twelve Days of Christmas Main Page to find new gifts for each day from now until January 5th!

We love to hear your questions and comments about Tendenci, the open source CMS for Association’s – leave a reply below in our comments section or send us your thoughts via email to support@tendenci.com.

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Hosting an Open Source Tendenci Website on the Linode Cloud

In the last post, I walked through the steps to install Tendenci on the Rackspace OpenStack cloud hosting environment.  This week, I want to share my experience  with installing Tendenci on the Linode Cloud, another great option for hosting Tendenci websites.

Translating the ‘Geek Speek’ of Linode

It seems like each of the hosting providers have their own terminology for the different pieces involved in web app cloud hosting. For example, I setup a “cloud server” on Rackspace which runs and managed your Tendenci website application.  The equivalancy to a Rackspace “cloud server” is the “linode“, which stands for “Linux Node” when you host with Linode.com.

Think of a “linode” as your own web application server (computer) that comes with your CPU, RAM, disc storage, and a Linux-based operating system.  For Tendenci websites, we use the Ubuntu O/S which is a version of Linux.

Linode’s Hosting Options

Linode provides a “Do-It-Yourself”  cloud hosting environment and has a pretty straight-forward pricing plan based on hardware specifications for things like memory (RAM) and the amount of disk storage space included.  Tendenci requires a minimum of 256MB of RAM, and because Linode’s minimum plan begins at 512MB, any plan you choose will give you enough to get started and you can upgrade your plan with Linode as your site grows.

Linode Cloud Hosting Plans

Is Linode Right for Your Association?

Linode has great documentation and I was able to figure out how to get Tendenci up and running with only one quick call to my programming team to find out if I wanted a 32bit or 64bit O/S.  Linode wants you to learn how to do manage these services for your cloud applications, and tries to give you the training and support you need to learn how.

Linode’s hosting plans give you full control over your association’s hosting environment, but I felt like the process was a little more challenging for me since I’m not that familiar with Linux. Particular challenges for me included customizing the DNS, setting up FTP access, and figuring out how to manage server back-ups.  These are all things you’ll need to be able to do in order to keep your website and server running properly.

I would recommend Linode as a great option to consider for associations who have in-house staff or outside IT and developer support that are familiar with Linux and managing servers.  Linode offers a great value with its plans, and is a very affordable option for hosting small to mid-size open source Tendenci websites.

However, if you’re like most nonprofit staff members, then you don’t have the time to manage these things, or even the time to learn how to do it yourself and you may want to seek out a more “full-service” hosting option. Linode may prove to be more costly via time consumption or just too challenging to maintain if you don’t have the IT support available to you.

Steps to Get Tendenci Live in the Linode Cloud

The total time for me to get Tendenci hosted on Linode where I could view the website in a browser probably took about 2 hours and I estimate about an hour of that was reading the getting started guide.  The other hour or so included creating a new account, setting up my Linode Distribution (server), and installing Tendenci.

Sign-Up and Create an Account

If you don’t already have an account with Linode, then you’ll need to first signup and select your plan. Linode does require a credit card to activate your account, and the entire process took me about 5 minutes. If you already have an account with Linode, you can skip this section.

Here’s the steps I took with screenshots for creating a new account with the basic $19.95/month plan:

1) Select the username and password for your account

Fill out the signup form’s fields with your name and billing information.

2) Select your plan

The cheapest option begins at around $20 per month, and has enough storage and RAM to support a small to mid-sized Tendenci website installation. If you’re wondering what size cloud environment your Tendenci website needs, send us an email at support@tendenci.com and someone from our support team will help you out!

linode select your plan

3) Select your payment terms

Linode offers month-t0-month, or discounted plans if you prepay for 1 or 2 years worth of services. After you submit the signup form, you’ll have a chance to review your order before your credit card is charged and you receive your account login information.

linode complete your order

* Don’t forget to check the box next to the Terms of Service agreement before clicking “Complete Order”

4) Log into your Linode Manager Dashboard to get started

Most new accounts are activated immediately, and I was able to login using the name and password I’d created on the signup form before even receiving an email confirmation and receipt.  ** Linode does say that in some cases, new accounts may take longer to activate.

linode manager login screen

Creating Your First Linode

I found Linode’s Getting Started Guide to be really straightforward and I had my server deployed with Ubuntu and ready to Boot up in about 10 or 15 minutes. Here’s what I did to set-up an Ubuntu server on Linode to host a Tendenci open source association website:

1) Pick the location for your new Linode

linode manager welcome screen

I selected London, UK as my location just for fun and because I wanted to spread the Tendenci open source love around the globe and not just stay in Texas.  It really doesn’t matter too much what data center location you pick, and the Linode documentation suggests that data centers farther from you may result in longer download times and possibly latency with remote access and file transfers.

Tip: If you’re concerned about the performance, Linode recommends you perform a Facilities Speedtest:

linode which facility data center do you choose

2) Deploy a new Linux Distribution

This simple means you’re going to set-up a server with the Ubuntu 12.04 operating system so you can install Tendenci on it later in the process.

Here’s a screenshot that shows the options you want to choose for a Tendenci website installation on Linode: linode make your settings look like this new linode

  • Distribution: This is where you’ll select the operating system for your “linode”. Linode recommends 32bit distributions, however for Tendenci configurations, you’ll want to select the 64bit version of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.
  • Deployment Disk Size: This setting should already default to the maximum size available (about 24 GB with the basic Linode plan) and you probably want to keep this setting at the default maximum size. This will give your Tendenci website plenty of storage space to get started as you add files, images, photos, and user data.
  • Swap Disk: The basic plan defaults this setting to 256MB and Linode recommends you stick to the default setting.
  • Root Password: this will be the password that you’ll use later on to remotely access your Linode and install Tendenci using the Tendenci installation script and you’ll want to make sure it is secure and you’ll need to remember it in a few minutes.

3) Click the “Rebuild” button to deploy your new Linode

You’ll be directed to the Linode dashboard where you can watch the different processes for installing and configuring your server in the “Host Job Queue” section:

linode host job queue system boot queue status

4) Click on “Boot” to power up your new Linode!

Once the server is deployed, you’re Linode dashboard will look something like this screenshot below which shows that your Server Status is “powered off” and you have a “Boot” button underneath your Ubuntu configuration profile.

linode dashboard boot server

5) Check Server Status to make sure you’re up and running

You’ll see the system boot progress bar in the “Host Job Queue” section of your dashboard, and then your Server Status will update to “running” once the system boot is complete. linode your server is running

Connect to Your Linode using SSH to Install Tendenci

In order to install Tendenci on Linode, you’ll first need to use secure shell (SSH) protocol to remotely connect to your server. The easiest way for us non-programming types to accomplish this is to use the Terminal application that comes with Macs, however you can also do this from a Linux computer (using the terminal window) or a Windows computer (using PuTTY, a free open source SSH client for Windows).

My instructions here are specifically for Mac users, and if you’re using a Linux or Windows machine and run into any issues installing Tendenci then please contact us at support@tendenci.com and we’ll be happy to get you set-up!

1) Find your SSH root login on the Linode dashboard and enter it at the command prompt (the $ sign) in Terminal.

You’ll be prompted to enter your password, and you’ll use the same password you created for your linode server in Step 2 of the previous section.

linode ssh root access in terminal

* The first time you connect to your Linode using SSH, you will get a message saying that “the authenticity of host … can’t be established” along with information about your public RSA key.  Don’t worry about what this all means – just type in “yes” when it prompts you for a yes/no answer and press ‘enter’.  

You’ll know that you’re connected to your server when you see the Terminal prompt change to something like “root@localhost:~” which means you can enter commands in Terminal on your local computer that will tell your remote server what to do.

2) Remotely connect to your server and install Tendenci.

Enter the script installation code at the prompt inside Terminal and press “enter” and the script will take care of installing all of the different packages for Tendenci, including setting up a PostgreSQL database.

This process will take about 20 minutes so now’s a great time to check your email or get a cup of coffee while you wait.

* Towards the very end of the installation process, you may get some pop-up screens asking about mail configuration for your app. For now, just use the default setting for “internet site” and then you can enter the domain name for your site or just use “localhost”. You can configure this setting later on, so don’t worry about it if it’s confusing.

You’ll need to press the “enter” or “return” key inside of Terminal because clicking with your mouse won’t work for this.  Use your keyboard’s arrow keys to move between options.

linode email config image 1 linode image 2 email config linode email config image 3
 Press the “Enter/Return” key on this Screen With “Internet Site” is Highlighted – Press “Enter/Return”  You can keep this as “localhost” or Change to Your Domain Name

3) Wait for “Tendenci is Setup!!!” Success Message

When the Tendenci script is finished installing your website software, you’ll get a “success!” message in Terminal followed by the login and password information for your website.tendenci success linode installation

By default, your username and password are both “admin” for initial deployments.

It is ** crucially important ** that you change this information immediately upon logging into your Tendenci website for the first time. Failing to change your username AND password can open up your website to hackers.  Read our Help File on User Profiles to learn how to update your user profile information: https://www.tendenci.com/help-files/change-username-password/ 

4) Click the button that says “Reboot” on your Linode Manager Dashboard

Tip: Make sure your server status on your dashboard still says that the server is running.

reboot linode after installing tendenci

5) Open a new browser window and enter the 12 digit IP address that’s listed after the “ssh root@” on your remote access tab.

In my case, that number is 151.236.219.240.  You may need to refresh your browser window once or twice if you get an error or “Gateway not Found” message, and then you should see the Tendenci default theme homepage.

linode tendenci website homepage

6) Login using the default username and password “admin”, and then immediately go and change your username and password.

Tip: Refer to our Tendenci Help File on User Profiles for instructions on how to change your username and password.

Woohoo! You Did It!

You’re now ready to start customizing your Tendenci Open Source Association Website on a Linode Cloud.

Linode Resources for Your Next Steps

Linode offers great resources to help Linux newbies, and I recommend you take some time reading their Beginners Guide and the Getting Started Guide before you set-up your website. Then, check out these more advanced guides Linode offers to help you secure your server and customize your Tendenci site’s DNS/domain name.

Linode Library – This is the main menu for Linode’s help documentation.

Securing Your Linode Server – This guide will show you how to add new user accounts to the server and manage security settings and protocol so you won’t get hacked.

Linode DNS Manager – This comprehensive guide introduces basic DNS concepts and explains how to setup DNS records so your website can have a custom URL instead of sending people to a 12 digit IP address.

Got Open Source Hosting Questions or Suggestions for Us?

We’re hard at work testing and documenting different hosting platforms with Tendenci to give you more choices – if you have questions about installing a site on Linode or another Cloud provider, let us know via a comment below or email me and we’ll find answers for you.

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#NPDev – The Nonprofit Technology Event You Wish You Hadn’t Missed

Last week, I attended AspirationTech.org‘s annual Nonprofit Developer Summit in Oakland, California. Nonprofit organizations and technologists came together to teach and learn about the technology challenges in the nonprofit industry. Every day, I was brought into thought provoking discussions on how to solve some of these challenges with technology today and inspiring success stories from .Org’s that were adapting technology to win.

I can’t express how truly mind-opening this event is, and I encourage you to add next year’s conference. NPDev gave me several opportunities to connect and interact with highly technical people who work within the nonprofit space, and because the organizers encourage end user language, I was able to participate in technical conversations comfortably and I learned so much as a result!

Big Data, Teaching NPO Tech, and Maps

To help me select which sessions I would attend, I focused on 3 main themes:

* Innovative NPO Tech Use Cases

* Big Data Collection and Management

* Teaching Methods for Tech Beginners 

Here are my top takeaway sessions, linked to their wiki notes pages, for those of you who missed this year’s event –  hopefully I’ll be able to pass on some of what I learned at the NPDev Summit.

Innovative NPO Tech – Maps

Nonprofits are doing really awesome things with maps and the conference focused on a couple of open source mapping tools, TileMill and Open Street Map (OSM) with case studies on how .Org’s were creating interactive map tools to get supplies where they’re needed and match volunteers with someone who needs a little help. There were a number of innovative technologies being talked about at NPDev with Mapping Tech being the most popular.

Here’s my Top Recommended #NPDev Map Sessions:

Introduction to TileMill and Advanced TileMill gave hands-on instructions on using TileMill to create visually enlightening maps for your cause.

Open Street Map (OSM) Mapping showed participants how to use this free, open source mapping tool.

Saving Lives with Crowd Sourced Mapping in Haiti shares case studies on how organizations are using mapping during and after natural disasters to save lives and help rebuild communities.

NonProfit Big Data Tech

Big Data is one of 2012’s most oft-used “buzz” words and the nonprofit industry is seeking solutions just like the corporate world.  Here are some of the best NPDev sessions that discussed what Big Data is and why you need to prioritize Big Data within your organization in 2013:

How to Use Data Informed Campaigns shows nonprofits how to collect and analyze past data to create compelling reports that build credibility around your cause and support your movement.

Being a Data Driven Organization & Taming the Data Hodge-Podge shared insights into how you can identify key organizational drivers and develop methods to measure and analyze the data to help your Board and staff make decisions.

Open Data Around the World provides resources for finding free data from places like NASA and government organizations and tells you how nonprofits can benefit from using open data.

The Dashboard session includes analysis of several good and bad dashboards and what tools a dashboard should have to be really useful for Nonprofits.

Beginners Tech Guides

Strategic Hosting for NonProfits takes a look at what’s really included in typical hosting plans compared to the needs of most nonprofit organizations and shares tips to help you evaluate and select the right hosting services for your software.

How to Prepare for a Website Project from the .Org Side provides nonprofits with best practices and a methodology to use for your next website project to get the results you wanted.

Introduction to the Command line offers a little history and a truly beginner-friendly guide to using the command prompt to communicate with your computer.

 Introduction to Git covers some of the basic commands you can use with the Git version control tool.

More of What You Might Have Missed

You’ll find a list of the sessions along with the notes and other resources in the Dev Summit Wiki.

Photos from the event are being shared on Flickr with the hashtag #npdev.

Check out a local Nonprofit Tech event: Netsquared! Netsquared meet-ups are local, community-driven events where participants connect to discuss technology tools that can help social causes.  You’ll find me at the Houston Netsquared events, usually so I hope you’ll come to one of our upcoming events in 2013.

 

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Make Your NonProfit Website a Donor Magnet Part 2

In part one of this 2-part series, I talked about the problems with many nonprofit websites that are driving potential donors away.  In the second post, I’m going to give you 5 changes you can make to your website to increase your online donor conversions.

5 Minor Changes You Can Do Today

1) Strengthen your Call to Action

The last thing you want is for a visitor to come to your website looking for a way to get involved and not being able to find the information.  Your site needs a clear call to action that asks visitors to become members, donate, or register for an event.

“Learn More” CTA Button from Metro.org

Here’s a great article by the Copyblogger on the common mistakes that marketers make with their web site call to action.  Are you making any of these mistakes? If you are, today’s the day you’re correcting them!

2) Make it Easier for Visitors to Sign-Up

Make it as simple as possible for your visitors to convert into supporters on your website.  Identify the actions your site visitors take on most often and least often.  Then, log out of your site and go through each of those actions from a visitor’s perspective.

As you go through the sign-up process, ask yourself, “How easy is it and how long does it take you to complete a transaction?”, to help you figure out how you could make the process better

Test both the most and least popular actions and then compare the experiences.  Sometimes, this activity reveals ways that some actions are complicated and time consuming for visitors and that’s driving potential donors away.

3) Move Your Email Newsletter Sign-up Above the Fold

“Above the Fold” is a term for the portion of a web page that you have to scroll down to view.  Think of “the fold” as ending about where you might fold down your laptop screen.

According to another study by Jakob Nielsen, content below the fold is only viewed by about 20% of your total site’s visitors.  This means that any content you place below the fold is only going to be seen by 1/5th of your visitors.  Important items you want to have above the fold include: your email newsletter sign-up form, a clear call to action, a strong headline and links to find out more about your organization.

4) Give Donors What They Want

The Children’s Museum of Houston Gives Visitors 1-Click Access to Information.

Donors want to know more about your nonprofit before they donate.  They also prefer to go online to research information about your organization themselves before making a decision to support your mission

Donors want information that communicates what your organization does, how you spend donations and who you have helped.

If you also have memberships, then you want to also consider that new members want to know about member benefits, costs, and find out about programs and events you have for your members.

Learn more about creating engaging content for your website in the presentation Writing for the Web by Katrina Esco, Account Executive on Schipul’s Creative Services team.

5) Use Digital Media to Create Compelling Stories

You know you should use storytelling to share your NonProfit’s Mission and Vision to attract new donors.  Crafting great stories can be a challenge.  Take photos and videos from your events, of your volunteers and staff, and of  the people you’ve helped.

For example let’s look at the homepage for Camp For All, a camp program for kids with a variety of different health problems:

The Camp has a photo of a kid swimming on their homepage and just look at how happy this kid is.  This photo shows new visitors that Camp For All is making a difference in children’s lives and that’s far more powerful than if Camp For All had used text to say  the same thing.

I’ve written about how to incorporate your nonprofit’s stories with your website.  Check out Grow Your Members and Donors with Photo Albums and NonProfit Storytelling with Videos for more examples and tips.

 

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Post Django Dash 2012 Recap

We did it. Django Dash for our second year in a row. A little different, but still memorable.

From home

This year we spent the majority working from the comfort of our own homes.

Thanks to Schipul and our decision to move toward a remote work lifestyle we were able to easily face this year’s competiton in style aka in our jammies.

If anything this saved us valuable travel and setup time.

Lessons learned

I said this last year, but I’ll say it again this year; because apparently we did not learn our lesson.

Make as many decisions as possible before the competition. Think roadmap or dare I say clipboard of fun.

One of our greatest strengths is our team. We work together every workday, this competition was no different. I can only imagine the stop-and-go speed of competing on a team that doesn’t know each other.

Not the time to learn

This year I spent some time on two things I’ve only spent a couple of minutes on in the past. The Twitter Bootstrap project and Class Based Views. While my colleagues spent their time learning about Google authentication and the interim their experiencing as they adopt new technologies.

Competition time is definitely not the time to learn new things. It’s just so hard not to. You find yourself inspired and when inspiration strikes all you want to do is strive, learn new things and create.

In the case of Google authentication, it had to be learned.  Our project was dependent on it, as always; it’s amazing what you can do when you have to.

I don’t foresee this habit waning any time soon. If anything I look forward to it. I learned a lot of useful things this weekend and I’m left wanting more. Give me that feeling anyday.

Veering from the original mission

Early Sunday morning we found ourselves having to make a choice. A choice between accumilating more points by submitting more commits and focusing on specific code requirements such as standards and creating tests. Or making a product that might actually provide some value to many in the near future.

We chose the latter. The idea of our project actually being useful at more than just collecting points is an honor. With this in mind we refocused and put effort into submitting a finished product that’s worth demoing.

We’ll be demoing our finished 48 hour project to the office and get our first ouside perspective. No matter what people say I’m not-so-secretly wishing we can keep up this momentum and continue improving our project.

What did you build, tell me already!?

Without getting into too much detail – at this point in time – it’s best summarized here. http://theoldmail.com

You can sign up for the site now and take it for a spin. Keep in mind that this was 48 hours of code. You might find some quirks and so-called missing features.

What about the competition?

It’s been said that we get our results some time this week; but as I mentioned before we’re more excited about the project itself and what it can bring to others.

It’s open sourced

One of the rules of the Django Dash competition is that the project itself must remain open sourced. So feel free to take a glance at our code on github.com and fork the code if you’d like to start contributing.

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Open Source Technology from the NonProfit Point of View – Houston NetSquared’s April Topic

On Tuesday, I had the honor of co-hosting this month’s Houston NetSquared meetup featuring Jeff D. Frey, the Web services manager in Rice University’s IT Department.  Jeff’s role at Rice is to help all the different departments within the university as well as nonprofits in the Houston community identify the best software tools and then install and integrate them.

Jeff spoke to the members of the  Houston NetSquared on the good and bad things about open source technologies.  He approached the topic  from the perspective of nonprofit organizations and their communities based on his experience working with all kinds of software and hardware solutions at Rice.  Here’s a wrap-up of Jeff Frey’s presentation “Open Source … and Six Blind Men.”

Six Blind Men?

Jeff began his presentation with one of my favorite parable’s 6 Blind Men and an Elephant. Each man had a different impression of the Elephant after feeling just one part.

Jeff Frey uses this parable to explain that “Much like the elephant trainer, my role is to basically show you around the elephant of open source”.

The Open Source Elephant

Just like the six blind men in the parable, Jeff described that there are six different perspectives in nonprofit organizations, and each of them typically only sees one piece of the total project being planned.

Jeff describes the people that typically see each perspective’s piece of the open source elephant and talks about what he recommends nonprofit organizations should be aware of with open source tools to make sure each group’s perspective fits into the total picture and everyone in  your nonprofit organization likes to use the new solution.

The 6 Perspectives of Open Source:

1)      Community

—  This is the group of people that follow the open source software or product and is usually a tight knit group.

According to Jeff, nonprofit organizations should take a look at how strong an open source’s community is.  A strong community means the product will probably be better supported and have more “one off” or edge-case customizations that your nonprofit can benefit from for free or lower cost than if you had to pay for the custom development yourself.

2)      Customers

–-  The folks that a nonprofit serves including your members, donors, and visitors to your website.

The great thing about open source from your customers’ perspective is that it can look really high end, has improved stability, and has fewer compatibility issues with web browsers.  Open source makes it easier for you to look like you know what you are doing to your customers even if you can barely use a WYSIWYG editor.

3)      Management

–-  Your Board members, Executive Director, and the decision makers at your organization.

From the perspective of your Board and those approving the budget for the project, open source is a very appealing option.  There are little to no software costs, no programmers, and the potential for no hardware costs.  As Jeff put it “You can basically run your whole nonprofit on open source tools with virtually no software costs.”

4)      Employees

-–  The people most affected by the software package you select, the ones using it daily and sometimes this includes your volunteers.

Your employees and volunteers using the software everyday will want to know that the software will work and will be easy to use.  Different open source software options have varying levels of features and ease of use.  You’ll want to look at how much training your employees will need before they use the new product and if it has the features your organization needs.  Jeff suggests starting with something little that your staff does daily with the current solution and see how the proposed software performs with that task.  Then keep adding new daily tasks, one at a time, and test them before deciding on a particular software product.

5)      Developers

–-  The application developers that constantly support and add new features and functionality to the open source software.

“It wouldn’t be an open source product without having developers”, Jeff rightly states.  When looking at open source software, you should find out what are the code base standards and ask if there is a good, available API.  Find out what the language on which the software is built because some are more difficult to use, which increases programming hours for custom projects.

6)      Support Staff

—  These are your designated “power users” and can be internal or external to your organization.  Often this will be an IT consulting firm or Web design agency who customizes and updates your software.

When looking at open source solutions from the perspective of your power users, you will want to find an open source product that has a strong network of partners and support professionals.  Ask if the software has a regular schedule to roll out new versions and patches and find out about the hardware, network, back-up and maintenance processes and costs when comparing software.

Tell Us which of the six perspectives you think you fall under in our comments below!

I probably fall under the power user perspective in most cases, and in particular when talking about Tendenci.  I spend most of my days inside a Tendenci website updating content, adding events, creating training documentation, etc. and I honestly love it.

Has the Elephant Left the Building?

With all the excitement we’ve felt here with the open source release of Tendenci last week – we also recognize the hesitation and concerns from our current clients and their community.  We want to keep the conversation going to address your questions and I thought I’d add my personal takeaways from Jeff’s Netsquared presentation and invite you to tell me what else you’d like to talk about.

Jeff Frey surprised us with a slide on Tendenci in his presentation and Jeff shared his feedback on our newly open source CMS to the Houston NetSquared members.  Here’s what he thinks about Tendenci:

  • Tendenci has a very new/young community of developers and followers and his advice to me was to “get in the mindset of moving in the direction of building your developer community”.
  • Tendenci is written in the Python programming language, which is the language that “all the cool kids are coding in now,” including what Rice undergrad programmers are learning.
  • Unlike a lot of open source software, Tendenci has more than just a forum to support its clients and community; it has real people to call, email, and come Hang Out with.

One important quote I heard Jeff say at NetSquared was “Open source doesn’t mean free as in no cost, it means free as in liberated.” And throughout Jeff’s presentation, he reiterated that while the software code is freely available, and anyone can download a copy and start using it for free… there are different costs associated with open source software that can include things like hosting, IT support staff, development to customize the platform for your organization, and hardware costs.

To provide you with an example: you can create a free twitter account to use but you then may have to pay for…

  • the computer or laptop that you access twitter from,
  • the internet connection to connect to twitter,  Then,
  • the designer to customize your twitter landing page,
  • the staff member or to manage your twitter communications,
  • the web marketing agency to train you and your staff how to use twitter…

As you can see, each of these extras come with an extra cost.  It is no different with other open source software, including Tendenci.  Open source software does greatly reduce the total cost of the project so that more nonprofit organizations can afford to have better tools to operate online and offline.

I want to leave you with a comment from an audience member Tuesday night at NetSquared:

” The thing about Open Source that I love is there is a huge community helping find the bugs before I have to find it, and fixes it, and I don’t have to pay for it or deal with it.”

Here is Jeff D. Frey’s presentation “Open Source… and Six Blind Men”

View more presentations from Tendenci
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To Our Clients: We Love You! (And with Open Source We Love You More!)

To our Tendenci clients –

Today, we released the Tendenci CMS open source (view the Tendenci GitHub Repository here). Tendenci CMS, or Content Management System, is the software that powers your website. We value you, and all our clients, tremendously and want to make sure we reach out to answer some questions you may have about this announcement and how it affects you.

What Does “Open Source” Mean?

Open Source means that the Tendenci code will be available from Schipul for anyone to download and install on a server to create a Tendenci website. The code is free, but it does require a specific hosting environment and programming knowledge to deploy a site. Open Source also means that other developers outside of our programming team can contribute to the code – build plugins, make changes to the interface, etc. The Tendenci “committers” (lead programmers) will remain gatekeepers of the core code, and incorporate the work of these outside developers as we see the benefit to clients.

What Does Open Source Tendenci Mean for Current Tendenci Clients?

In the short term, you probably won’t notice a difference. Your hosting won’t change, your cost won’t change, and your site won’t appear or operate differently.

Long term – The goal in going open source is to develop a larger ecosystem of developers who can update, add on to, and create websites with Tendenci (outside of the Schipul team). For you, this means more features available in Tendenci that aren’t currently, and the ability to customize your site to your specific needs. This also means that if you decide to, you can host your website internally or have another developer host or make updates to your website without Schipul’s involvement. We will do our best to keep our pricing competitive and maintain excellent customer service to continue providing the most value to those hosting with us.

What About Tendenci 4.0 Websites?

Tendenci 4 - Dashboard ScreenshotIf your dashboard looks like the screenshot to the right, your website is currently powered by Tendenci 4.0 – the previous version of the Tendenci software, written in the programming language .ASP.

Since 2009 we have been rewriting Tendenci – Tendenci 5.0 – in the programming language Python, a more advanced programming language that gives us greater flexibility.

All Tendenci 4.0 clients have the same set of modules and features. In the past if a client requested a custom feature, we had to either find a way to roll it out to all client sites, or say no. Several features (for instance a searchable database of Attorneys) are not applicable to all clients, but exist on every Tendenci 4.0 site. The latest version of Tendenci works in a different way. Tendenci 5.0 has a Core that include pages, forms, users, events, etc. that apply to virtually all clients. From there we install additional features that are custom to each client using Plugins. For instance, a client may want a Staff module, Video Gallery, or Locations Module depending on the organization’s needs. Things like workflow, interface, and design can be custom to your organization.

Tendenci 5 is the version of Tendenci that we will be taking Open Source.

I Have a Tendenci 4 Site. Should I Upgrade to Tendenci 5?

Web technology changes frequently. We recommend clients consider revamping their website about every 5 years – so you are utilizing the latest technology and your website reflects your brand in the most current light. That being said, upgrading a website is a process and represents a cost, so for some organizations we understand that budget constraints mean a website redesign may not be at the top of your priority list. We aren’t going to stop supporting Tendenci 4, yet long term all of our clients will need to upgrade to keep up with the latest technology. We hope that the additional features of Tendenci 5 & the lower hosting cost as a result of new efficiencies is compelling to upgrade.

The caveat here is that while Tendenci 5 is far advanced beyond Tendenci 4.0 in many ways, there are specific features that are not yet available in Tendenci 5. For a list of Modules that have changed in the new version, visit this help file.

If you are interested in learning more about upgrading to Tendenci 5, please contact our Business Development team at 281.497.6567 ext 700

How Can I Learn More About Tendenci Open Source?

The details of Tendenci Open Source CMS are available at tendenci.org.

Also follow us online to keep up to date with the latest Tendenci Open Source details:

Additional Questions, Comments, Concerns, etc. please don’t hesitate to email us at opensource @ tendenci.org, or post them in the comments below.

Thank you for being a client!

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SXSW 2012 Surprises | O/S Tendenci, Mobile Kills Privacy, Space Gets Interactive

Tendenci Heads to SXSW Interactive 2012 to Announce Open Source Plans

If you haven’t yet heard the exciting news, Tendenci announced plans for an open source version of our CMS for nonprofit websites at SXSW Interactive 2012 in Austin, Texas.  There is a press release with all the details and a great blog post from Ed Schipul, CEO and founder.  Check out our photos from SXSW 2012 on our website and there are more coming soon.

SXSW always has a ton of new software tools and web innovations being released and this year was no different.  The big themes for 2012 focused on social discovery mobile apps and Outer Space.  I also brought back some lessons learned about the importance of protecting your users’ personal information and data.

Mobile Apps Invade, Kill Your Privacy

Everywhere you went at SXSW, people were talking about “social discovery” and mobile apps like Highlight, Ban.Jo, and Glancee were being downloaded by attendees.  If you haven’t heard about social discovery mobile apps, then be prepared because this is a little creepy: when you download one of these social discovery apps, you give them permission to access your social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare and then they automatically notify you when anyone of your friends or contacts is nearby.  As in, physically near you – and they also notify your friends and contacts when you are near them if they have the app on their smartphone.

You can be walking into a Starbucks and this app will buzz you and tell you who else you know is in line for their morning cup ‘o joe.  The idea behind social discovery apps is to make it easier for you to find out when your friends are nearby, or people you have been talking to online, so you can meet up with them in real life.  That sounds great – until you remember you accepted that random Facebook friend invite for that friend of a friend of your aunt and now your iPhone is telling you they are nearby and want to chat with you.

Finding the settings to turn off the apps’ automatic discovery and sharing of your location can be near impossible too.  You can read one horror story from TechCrunch journalist, John Biggs, when he talks about how the iPhone social discovery app Highlight basically shared his cell phone number with approximately 140 strangers in an SMS invite fiasco.

Key Lesson Learned – Protect Your Users’ Privacy

I am often asked by our clients about how best to grow your online communities and these apps present challenges that make it too easy to accidentally turn off a potential member and to scare off your website visitors who fear their privacy and personal data isn’t being kept safe.

I don’t want to come down too harshly on social discovery mobile apps and I did download and use the Ban.Jo app while I was at SXSW and had fun using it. I think these apps have a time and a place for using them, and then you uninstall them until the next big social event.  The big problem I had was how hard these apps make it for users to control the privacy settings and allow us to choose exactly what data is public and what is private.

I don’t know about you, but I want the ability to use software applications to store my personal data and to connect with friends and colleagues without having to “sell out” and give up control and ownership of that information.

That’s one of the reasons we’ve focused on building so many permissions options into the Tendenci CMS software: both content-specific permissions to give you full control over who can see and change your website content as well as user and member-based permissions to give your staff and volunteers selective access to do what they needed to on your website without having access to the areas they didn’t need.

The first thing I did when I came back from SXSW was create 2 new Help Files on Tendenci’s permission settings so our website Admins can go and take full control over your site’s content.  You can check them out online and let me know if you have any questions after reading through them:

Tendenci’s Site-Wide Permission Control Settings

Tendenci’s Content-Specific Permission Control Settings

Outer Space

SXSW 2012 showed that Space is still inspiring people to create innovative technologies, build new communities, and play Angry Birds.

SpacePoints: Space Outreach at Ludicrous Speeds! gave me the opportunity to lead a core conversation on crowdsourcing the application development to build online communities.  You can check out the SpacePoints application, now officially in Beta and share your secret space story about what excites and inspires you about space.

How to Win Friends and Influence Space Exploration was a great panel that shared how people passionate about space are meeting online and creating offline friendships while driving innovation in space exploration.  I had a chance to hear from Astronaut Ron Garan and the leaders in aerospace talk about how the Space Tweeps Society, NASA, commercial aerospace companies, and ordinary space nerds were making a difference.

A License to Rhok shared how NASA and the open source community is developing Random Hacks of Kindness (rhok) to solve some of humanity’s greatest challenges.  Developers and Non-Developers alike can get involved and find ways to make a difference and solve global problems through programs like the  International Space Apps Challenge coming in April, and Launch.Org, which is collaboratively led by NASA, USAID, Department of State, and NIKE.

Angry Birds Space Launched in style with a Flash Mob Dance Off in the streets of downtown Austin.  Here’s a video from YouTube:

Meet Us at NTEN’s NTC 2012

Our next excursion to a big conference will be in San Francisco for the NTEN 2012 Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) April 2nd through April 6th, 2012.  We’ll be out there learning about what technology problems nonprofits are struggling with and giving attendees the first look at the O/S Tendenci Community CMS.

If you are going to be attending NTC or are in the San Francisco area and want to schedule a demo, send me an email and let’s connect!

You’ll soon be able to download Tendenci’s new open source version and we are looking for developers and designers to partner with us and grow the O/S Tendenci Community and platform.  You can sign-up today for a free trial and find out what Tendenci websites can do to help your nonprofit organization succeed online at http://signup.tendenciapp.com!

Check out upcoming Tendenci training webinars and see what events we’ll be at on our events calendar and watch new Tendenci Help Videos weekly!