IT Supporters Network » resources

Computer Equipment for Charities

Karl Elliott — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:56:01 +0000

An organisation – Computers For Charities – can both take in old computers or sell them on to charities.

A refurbished PC can be picked up for around £100.

Their website is at www.computersforcharities.org and there is info about their sales here.

Resource: IT for Charities

Karl Elliott — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 09:01:19 +0000

Found a website “IT For Charities” here – www.itforcharities.co.uk which gives links to all kinds of organisations providing software and other tools relevant to charities.

Would be interesting to see if anyone else finds this useful for tracking down software they need.

Synchronize your files

glengcs21 — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 12:40:56 +0000

Have you heard of Dropbox? Its a simple and effective way of exchanging files between many different types of devices, Work PC’s and even laptops, I-phones / I-pads. Under normal circumstances synchronization was only used when updating contact details and calendar information between desktop / laptop pc’s to a mobile phone or personal data assistant (PDA’s). Since the event of many people starting to work from home or even working within a small group of colleagues, file sharing can become an over complicated or expensive network issue. With Dropbox this is simplified to an end user experience of ease and namely stress-less task.

You can find a simple video demonstration of Dropbox on their website at www. dropbox.com you can also download the application from there. I could go on and on about the functionality of the dropbox software but it really is simple and self explanatory but if there is any questions please don’t hesitate to email the forum.

What i would like to do is give you a few tips for thought when using this system.

When signing up for an account, sign up an independent account as this allows you to share files / information independently from colleagues with your technology.
If your using the Dropbox as a central file store for your organisation / Project, create a Dropbox account for it independently then add the users / colleagues to it which allows them to centrally manage files for the organisation, the super tip here if you need to purchase additional storage (2GB free Initially) you can apply the larger space to this account only.
Invite people to share your Dropbox and let the synchronization sort out files.
Use strong passwords especially for the centralised account this will prevent any vulnerability.
If you use Dropbox on a machine that has multiple users or home machine, either create an independent user account or only use the website service remembering not to save the credentials for security purposes.
Back up your organisational dropbox independently just to ensure piece of mind.
If you work with a group of colleagues introduce them to dropbox in a get together so that all are familiar to its use and also its limitations
Create a paper based policy for the use of a central storage Dropbox, Write and how to open centralised documents.

Dropbox can replace centralised data management for very small organisations successfully but a local backup of the dropbox folder is recommended. It therefore contributes to larger organisations network structure and can get around a few file sharing issues effectively. If your organisation uses a domain please consult with your Network / IT admin person before installing it.

Free IT tools and resources

Karl Elliott — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:34:35 +0000

Here are some top FREE tools and resources that you should look at. Have I missed some? Can you recommend others?

Common Treasury equipment – range of laptops & other IT equipment available to North East Lincolnshire third sector organisations via VANEL & other organisations and very often free or at next to no cost.

WordPress – blogging & web design tool (used for most VANEL websites)

Joomla – open source content management & web design tool (used for www.vanel.org.uk website)

Google – search engine

Google maps – find your way around

Google Docs – free online office software

Open Office – free, open source equivalent of Microsoft Office

Twitter – micro blogging, it’s everywhere now

Facebook – social netorking

You Tube – video hosting

Vimeo – more video hosting, more professional than You Tube

Karens Replicator – free tool for copying files & running backups

Flickr – for photo sharing

Photbucket – more photo sharing

Firefox – internet browser

Chrome – another internet browser from Google

GimP – open source phot editing software

Survey Monkey – free package to allow you to carry out online surveys

Doodle – for arranging meetings

Slideshare – host and share powerpoint presentations

Google calendar

Prezi – there is a free option available for this innovative alternative to powerpoint

Skype – free phone calls !

Google reader – RSS & news feeds

Dropbox – online file storage & sync

Blogger – another blogging tool

Jing – for screen capture

Wikipedia – information and encyclopedia

Wordle – word cloud generator – cool

Audacity – free audio software

Wallwisher – online noticeboard

Evernote – note taking

LinkedIn – professional social networking

Picasa – photo organiser

Eventbrite – publicise your events

Gmail – free email

Thunderbird – free replacement for Outlook email client

Snagit – screen capture tool

7zip – free zip software

bit.ly – url shortener

Aviary - feeling creative, wish I could make the most of this stuff!

issuu – still investigating this new online publishing tool

article still under construction – bear with me, Karl

Common Treasury IT equipment

Karl Elliott — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 12:57:32 +0000

VANEL (and other organisations) host a range of Common Treasury equipment which is for the benefit of the community. You or your organisation may be able to benefit from borrowing this equipment. Much of it is free or available at very minimal charges.

You can find out about all the equipment on the Common Treasury website (www.vanel.org.uk/treasury).

There is a range of IT equipment available, including:

laptops (held by VANEL)
projectors (VANEL)
video cameras & tripods (VANEL)
interactive whiteboards (various organisations)
PC speakers (VANEL)
Microphones (VANEL)
video editing suite on Apple Mac (VANEL)

More information soon.

Contact VANEL on 01472 231123 if you would like to discuss borrowing equipment.