In the new world of managing information, creating information, participating in blogs, and other social media you will hear a lot about Tags.

What are tags?

Prior to the internet, classification had to be done by professionals because there was no way for users to classify.

According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_(metadata) In online computer systems terminology, a tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information.

Tagging: adding a tag/label/keyword to a digital object (website, image, audio or video) to categorise it.

A user chooses a tag that is meaningful to him or her.

Tags can be public or private. Public, tags collectively create a folksonomy, a user-generated as opposed to a hierarchical taxonomy such as a subject thesaurus.

Author: Terry Lynch, IT Consultant, appiChar Australia Pty Ltd.
Courtesy of http://www.appichar.com.au

What is Windows 7?

After almost 3 years on the market, Windows Vista is being replaced by Windows 7 as the newest operating system in Microsoft’s desktop line-up. It’s no secret that Vista wasn’t quite the success Microsoft were hoping for, with many companies choosing to stick with Windows XP as it was “good enough” but building on Vista and the lessons learnt from it, Windows 7 is being acclaimed as Microsoft coming back stronger than ever and delivering a secure, fast and compatible operating system for users everywhere.

Why Upgrade?
As said earlier, a large number of businesses avoided upgrading to Windows Vista as they saw Windows XP as “good enough”. It ran all required company programs and was compatible with existing equipment like printers, scanners and webcams so why should they risk upgrading to a new, untested operating system?. Windows Vista has been available for about 3 years now, after 2 service-pack updates and with companies like Canon and HP updating their software to work within Vista’s new secure environment, things are much smoother with fewer compatibility issues when upgrading.

Windows 7 uses the same secure environment as Vista so all drivers and programs which run on Vista will run on Windows 7 without issues. It also brings new features focused on security, speed and ease of use which which could offer big improvements in the way you use your computer.

Author: Deanne Bullen

Index

1. Before you join
2. Why do people use twitter
3. Branding – Inserting your picture or logo
4. What’s on the side
5. Finding people you want to follow on twitter
6. Finding People to Follow
7. Posting your first Tweet
8. Explore
9. Twitter language and conventions
10. Managing twitter feeds
11. Twitter links for librarians

Before you join

I’m a big fan of twitter but there are many who think twitter is a waste of time. Before you set up a twitter account you might want to take a couple of moments to think about how twitter works and who you might like to follow and why.

Why do people use twitter

This is a question that has generated quite a bit of conversation. Following is a list of examples gathered from looking at discussions online, my own personal experience and from talking to others.

Some of the staff here at Connecting Up Australia have recently returned from a trip to San Francisco where they attended an annual Nonprofit Technology Conference hosted by Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) http://www.nten.org/ntc Apart from receiving some of the greatest hospitality the US had to offer, our staff were afforded the opportunity to hear great minds illuminate some very real technology issues facing the world today.

We heard Clay Shirky http://www.shirky.com/ a futurist, talk about the power of social media and the impact it will have on how we communicate in the coming years, and Eben Moglen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eben_Moglen a computer programming language designer come crusader for free software, talk about the issues arising from free as opposed to proprietary software usage.

Not only did these speakers inspire great debate on such issues, there were many other motivating speakers in the breakout sessions. These speakers provided not just philosophical viewpoints and discussion topics, but excellent ideas and practices for nonprofits to employ on return to their day jobs.

We have listed below some take home tips from the NTC Conference on how you can generate more interest as well as increase traffic to your website. And don’t forget, the spinoff of a good website with a clear message is potential supporters/members/fundraisers for your cause.

By: Laura S. Quinn

December 9, 2008

The Internet has opened up many possibilities for rights advocates. In order to make the best use of the online world for their campaigns, however, advocates need to know what services are available, how they can be used in an advocacy campaign, who owns them and their hidden dangers.

The Quick 'n Easy Guide to Online Advocacy (http://onlineadvocacy.tacticaltech.org ) developed by Tactical Tech (http://www.tacticaltech.org), aims to expose advocates to online services that are quick to use and easy to understand. The guide provide descriptions of online services including social networking sites, image and video hosting services, and services that enhance an organizations web presence.

The guide also offers advice on where and when to use these services. Case studies, security concerns as well as the advantages and disadvantages of various web services are discussed, with the aim of improving advocates ability to conduct online advocacy campaigns.

The internet services listed in the guide covers four main areas in which advocates operate: informing and communicating; documenting and visualising; mobilising and coordinating; and bypassing and accessing.

Author : Dirk Slater

Source : www.tacticaltech.org

• Beth’s workshop – Take Me To the Social Web
• Beth’s Day 2 Key Note Presentation – (Play Video)
• Qik – videocast http://qik.com/video/82161
• Beth’s Blog http://beth.typepad.com/

Less spam, more ham

By: Chris Peters

December 2, 2008

If you’re not familiar with the term, spam messages are annoying, unsolicited email messages (usually advertisements for bogus products). Depending on who you listen to, spam constitutes between 50 and 90 percent of all email traffic. In addition to violating the law by sending you emails that you didn’t ask for, spammers often use their messages to perpetrate fraud on the people who respond. Unless you’ve been offline for the past 15 years, you know all this and you’d never reply to a spam email. Nonetheless, this deluge of unwanted emails can overwhelm you, fill your inbox and drown out legitimate messages. Furthermore, spam messages often contain spyware, viruses and other forms of malware.

As an IT manager or accidental techie, you have two main strategies for fighting spam. First, educate yourself and your colleagues about how spam works. The message here boils down to: Be careful about when and where you divulge your email address. See Things You Can Do to Prevent Spam for more information on the education and training approach. Second, you can use technology to battle spam. The rest of this article will focus on anti-spam technologies, also known as spam filters.

By Melanie Burke

Courtesy of www.ictknowledgebase.org.uk/

How usable is your website? Do your visitors find what they need? What kind of experience do they have? Will they come back again? You can answer these questions by carrying out user testing on your site and you can do it on a budget.

By: Yann Toledano
August 25, 2008
Courtesy of Techsoup.org