Worklog for June 14th & 15th

I didn’t have the chance to track closely these couple days – I spent a bunch of time on the CTV email (being sent out today), updating both websites with little things, some database work, more on the big CTV data project (transferring data from the old database to the new one), a little business track work, and all Friday afternoon was spent on network issues (we had a friend of James’ who is a professional network installer come in to help us set up our new server – unfortunately our current system is apparently set up improperly, so it’s going to be more work than he thought, and he won’t have time in his schedule to do it until August, so our upgrades are going to wait until then – the problem with many non-profits: nobody on staff that knows how to do something, no money to pay anyone, so relying on volunteer work, while good, sometimes means waiting for their schedule to open up to get work done).

Improving Technology Saves Time and Money

Well, we’re trying to get up to speed with the rest of the world, technologically speaking. Evolution vs. Intelligent Design vs. Creationism is a hot topic right now, so permit me this analogy: our company is in the stone age and newer for-profit businesses are operating in the 22nd century. But we’re trying, and fortunately have received a grant to jump us ahead an epoch or two.

Many of our computers are Pentium I or II with 256M of RAM. Some of our machines have 6 gig hard drives. We just got our first DVD burner last fall, and it was donated to us. I’ve got the interns working on machines with 128M of RAM and 10mbps network cards. We have one server running our domain, databases, files, email. Our backup system keeps failing. Our web host space is filled, and we’re still on a frontpage server. On a less hardware-centric side, we’re not using any kind of project management software, and I think that hurts us in the time management and deadline department; also nobody is capable of working from outside the office without GoToMyPC.com, a pay service to connect you to a remote computer. Personally, I find those services slow and clunky, but I would love to have all my email, project management and files available online so I could work from home, or from anywhere, if necessary. A lot of businesses do that now, and I think our main hurdle with that is our database, because the software we use with it doesn’t have an online version. Our email list management is horribly outdated – I have to manually look at bounces in my inbox and remove them from our database after they’ve bounced 3 times in a row.

Here’s the good news:
We’re buying some new computers (3) – I’m not a hardware expert, so I’m just waiting on a friend of mine to take a look at what I spec’d and let me know if it’s good to go or not, then I’m ordering them. They’ll be core 2 duo with 2gig RAM and 80gig hard drives and 800mhz FSB. It will be a great upgrade for James, Michael and myself, and will last for a few years without becoming obsolete. Our machines will move down the chain and replace the super low-end ones the interns are using.

We’ve got a second server in the office, just came in. We’re having someone in the next couple weeks that is a network specialist help set it up (I’m not a network expert either – they hired me for database and web programming, although I spend most of my time doing other stuff actually). It’s top-of-the-line and will run our domain, firewall and act as a file server, and our databases will stay on the current server, splitting the load on everything.

I started yesterday looking at online backup systems, and hope to have something picked out and implemented very soon, because our backup is not good at the moment.

I have the go ahead to migrate our web server; I have one thing to clear up beforehand (James has a personal address through our current host that he wants to keep, so I have to figure out what the cost is and how that’s going to happen) and then I just have to find a day to take care of it all.

We are looking at mail list options right now – I was hoping to have one set up by now, but we’ll have one soon, and it will all be automated, saving me hopefully an entire day of work every week (spent editing/creating the email, then sending it [25 at a time], then processing bounces manually).

So, with the email system we’ll be saving 20% of my time (James can create/send it himself; bounces processed automatically); with an automated backup we’ll be saving my time; with new computers 3 of us will be saving time just from the speed increase on the machines; with the server everyone will be saving time from the speed increase; with the web host changed, there will be no lag time on needing something done and getting something done (I’ll have access to everything!); and hopefully once all that is accomplished, we can find a good project management system that will save us more time across the board as well.

I really want to spend my time on these things… at the moment, I’m working on business track items, SSI registration, getting old computers in working condition for our students to use, and in 12 days we start camp… so I’m not sure what the timeline is going to be on any of this stuff. Hopefully sooner than later.

Give us Feedback About our Email List

We just sent out an SSI email to about 1900 addresses, saying there are still spots available at SSI this summer. We’ve already gotten at least one response in the hour since it was sent out. Every other week when we send our regular bi-weekly email, we get 1-2 responses from people.

We’re going to be moving to a more automated system very shortly, once I have our website migrated to a new host. In the meantime, I’d love to hear from anyone that is on our email list – do you like what we send out? What would you like to be different? What would make you respond to us, even if it’s just to say “hi”?

We’d like to get more feedback from our supporters and anyone who is interested in what we do. Please don’t be shy to reply to our messages that go out – ask us questions, give us suggestions, offer to volunteer, or just write an encouraging note about what our program meant to you or someone you know.

And if you’re not signed up for our list, sign up; it’s a great way to keep in touch with what SSI is doing.

Using the Web at work

Just wanted to mention this, that del.icio.us came in handy today. Del.icio.us is an online bookmarking (favorites) system, so you can bookmark web pages with your own online account, so you can access them anywhere, rather than only on the computer you’re bookmarking them on. There are other sites than del.icio.us that do the same thing, and there’s a firefox Google extension I think that does the same thing too, which was just released recently by google.

Anyway, it was convenient because I bookmarked the sites for each of the equipment items I wanted to order, then in our tech meeting I just went to my del.icio.us page in the boss’ office to show him each item and the cost. It saved printing out copies of the items for them, and everyone in the office can refer to those bookmarks now if I send them the link to that “group” of bookmarks under my del.icio.us account.

I’m also using google reader to get my feeds. I showed James how to use a feed reader a couple weeks ago, and he’s liking it. Now, I’ve started “sharing” items in my reader, and providing the link to all my shared items to both James and Amy, so they have a small list of news items to cherry-pick from for use on the CTV website. I just emailed it to them yesterday, and have yet to hear back, but I’m hoping it will work for them, so I can continuously add shared items to that page and have them tell me which ones they want on the website. It will hopefully allow us to be more proactive about keeping the site updated with current news.

Worklog for June 5th & Corporate Inefficiency

09:00-09:30 – Fixing email problems
09:30-11:00 – Working on website – added Google analytics to SSI, updated speakers page and a few other things
11:00-12:15 – Weekly SSI staff meeting
12:15-12:45 – Lunch Break
12:45-01:40 – Editing Business Track manual
01:40-02:00 – Tech Grant Meeting
02:00-05:45 – Ordered tech equipment

Tech Grant Meeting: We received a grant late last year to purchase a number of technology items for our office, including computers, software and other electronic items. So far we have a new video camera (for the Media Track students to use), a new server and software upgrades for all our machines (just received them in the office a week ago, we’re getting some help installing everything next week or the week after), some new computers on their way, and today I ordered a wireless mic and CD recorder, as well as a laserjet B&W printer. The reason there is almost 4 hours on my worklog today for ordering tech equipment is that nearly 3 of those hours were spent on the phone with HP ordering the printer.

We have an account with HP, so we should be able to log in to their website and place an order. I tried to do this today, and the password didn’t work. So, I clicked “retrieve my password”. But, that didn’t work either, it said my email address didn’t match an account in their database. So, I call them. I explain to person A what my problem is, and that I want a new password so I can log in and place my order, since my account has our tax exempt status already on record, and it’s a pain to take care of that for a new account. They tell me they can’t help me, I get transferred. Now repeat that for 2.5 hours! Finally, the last person said that if I will just place the order over the phone, I will get an instant rebate on the printer instead of a mail-in rebate, and then the person he transfers me to will help me with the password issue. I say ok. The person he transfers me to will 1) not give me an instant rebate and 2) not fix my password issue. So, I just ordered it from their website. And now I have to deal with taking care of our tax exempt status again.

Nearly three hours. I wasted nearly three hours because HP’s call center can’t tell me right off the bat that they can’t fix my password issue. Plus, they tell you things that then aren’t true. If they fixed those problems with their company, thereby saving 3 hours of time for every person with a problem, they could cut their costs and prices in half. And the funniest part is, they’re paid to handle problems, but they kept trying to get me to spend my time and their time by ordering the printer over the phone instead of online, thereby increasing the waiting time of everyone else with a problem that may have actually been fixed. (Although, at this point I’m not sure if they fix problems or just put you on round-robin transfer until you hang up and buy your printer somewhere else.)

Corporate inefficiency at its finest.

If you work for an inefficient company or organization, fight against this kind of stuff – it’s such a waste of time and money and resources for all concerned, it drive up prices, it drives up costs, and gives everyone a headache. If you run a company, don’t let it come to this. It’s such a terrible experience I will look elsewhere for printers from now on, and if I buy HP printers it will be through a reseller, not through them directly.

Unfortunately, many days in small offices like ours where there are only 10 people and 20 people’s worth of work to do this kind of stuff happens, and so my list of 15 items I wanted to get done today only went down by 2. I would guess many non-profits are like that – low number of employees and more work to get done than can be accomplished. Does anyone work for a company where you actually have enough time to do what you need to do and you rarely fall behind?

Changing Web Servers

We decided today to change our hosting service from iServ ($35 a month; 10 email accounts, 250MB of storage, no databases, frontpage server, no FTP, no scripts, 9-5/M-F phone support, we don’t have access to any files on the server – we have to call them for everything like changing htaccess or configuring email accounts) to LiquidWeb ($16 a month, unlimited email, 1G of storage, unlimited databases, full CGI support, cPanel, Fantastico, 24/7 phone support, and we have access to everything [I think] on the server, so I can modify ht files and email accounts and anything else when I want to without having to call and wait for someone to do it for me).

I think this was a long time coming, and I know iServ still serves businesses well that don’t have someone with the technical knowledge to handle certain things and don’t need lots of interactivity, or are willing to pay iServ’s programmers for what they need, but it really slows me down when I want to do something as simple as set up an email account for the new intern, and I’m capable of doing (or learning) everything we need to do with our site. So, this is going to fix that, as well as let us get all our blogs onto the SSI site directly, add an online store, integrated email subscription lists to the website, and various other things that will hopefully make www.ssi-online.org a better user experience for everyone.

I’m going to start the switchover process next week, so hopefully soon we’ll have some changes going on that you’ll notice.

For anyone that has experience in moving hosts, let me know what snags to watch out for.