Uncle Tom's Blog Cabin

I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaack!

2011-01-02T17:00:00.000-08:00

I never shut down this blog and since the Virtual Village website seems to be hanging fire, I've decided to start adding a few new things now and again to the website. Today I added a brief article about a new nonprofit support website that seems to have, not only a good idea, but the funding to go with it.

Grassroots.org is a free website that offers hosting, search engine optimization, web design, consulting and other technology services - stuff most struggling NPO's couldn't think of affording on their miniscule development budgets.

Come to think of it, Virtual-Village would make a good partner for Grassroots.org, providing a social networking capacity to go with Grassroots' technological contributions. Might be something C10 should approach Grassroots about.

Just an idea for getting the project going again.

Tom

Bye Ya'll

2009-12-17T16:36:00.000-08:00

As of today, I will be stepping down from this project. I wish the folks at Circle of Ten well as they take the site in whatever direction they choose to take it. I will remain a participant on the site and look forward to seeing what becomes of it. My hope is that the new crew takes it at least as far as originally envisioned.

For those of you with a charity golf tournament coming up, you can find help for that at Charity Golf Network over at http://charitygolftournament.net. The membership is free and if you have questions, you have but to ask.

Thank you all for your help with Virtual Village. It's been fun.

Tom King - Flint, TX

Original Virtual Village Site seems easier to use

2009-11-18T10:33:00.000-08:00

I've been playing with the NING site and the virtual village site and the truth is, the original interface is simpler. Unfortunately, we'd need ot raise another 12K to finish it so it would do all that the NING site will do. The question is, "Is it worth the money?"

I like the library on the original site. Add downloadable documents and it would be perfect. I prefer the forum on the BitSculptor design to the Ning version.

Ning does have the Huddle Workgroups feature and the Ovoo chat module and the regular chat module. I would like to blend the two websites somehow and I think BitSculptor could do that nicely. We just need to get the work done. Maybe we need to redo the budget and get the site done right instead of cobbling along with whatever we can come up with - that is, if we're serious about creating an effective website.

For now, until C10 decides to move forward, we're sitting pretty much dead in the water.

Somebody needs to start things moving forward soon.....

Anyone? Anyone?

Tom King

Testing the Ning Social Networking website software.

2009-06-15T17:25:00.000-07:00

We're testing new collaborative social networking software at

http://virtual-village-org.ning.com/

The Ning networking software is a free site. Some of us are testing the capabilities of the Ning system to meet the needs of the Virtual Village site. If you'd like to help, go visit us at the link above, sign up for a Ning ID and join or start your own group. Let us know how it's working for you.

Thanks,

Tom King

Introduction to Virtual Village

2009-06-03T07:54:00.000-07:00

We'll be conducting a training

Intro to Virtual Village

Wednesday
June 2, 2009
from 2 till 5
at the Circle of Ten Offices
205 Commerce St.
Jacksonville, TX
(903) 541-0013

This training is for C10 Initiative leaders and staff
Bring your wireless laptop.

Thanks,

Tom King

Successful Chat Room Test this Weekend

2009-05-28T16:11:00.000-07:00

Thank you Suzanne Billings and Meghan Boyd for helping me this past weekend to test the Ovoo powered Chat Room utility located at the bottom of this page. We all have webcams now, so we could see all 3 of us in little windows on the screen. It was a blast and a wonderful way to have a face to face meeting.

We made a run at doing it with Skype, but that failed. If anyone has any other chat providers we should try that you have experience with, let us know. I'd like to talk to Ovoo about setting up an account with them and having Ovoo sponsor a Virtual-Village Chat Room for us if we don't find anything better. Ovoo's premium service allows for 25 or so folks to chat at once. Not everyone has to have a webcam or even a microphone. Some texting is possible at the same time everyone else is using video and audio.

It's a pretty nifty way to do a meeting and almost as much fun as being there and in some ways more fun (so long as you remember to button up your bathrobe BEFORE you turn on the camera.

Anyone else like to try it out, call me and I'll set up a time to meet.

Uncle Tom
twayneking@gmail.com

Semi-successful Chat Room Test

2009-05-15T08:32:00.000-07:00

What We Learned:

You CAN listen to a chat if you don't have a microphone or webcam, but you cannot type your comments to other callers like with a Skype call.
If you have a microphone and no webcam, we can hear you and if you have a picture icon set up, we can see your picture, but no video of you. You can mix webcam and non webcam participants.
If you don't have DSL or better, you're not going to get much from this kind of chatroom - it'll overwhelm your computer.
If you don't have a very big video card, video is problematic - distorted and it blinks in and out.
The speed of your connection can be a problem. It can cause you to drop off the call if your connection freezes for a moment (as Embarq DSL does to me sometimes)
If you get cut off and need to get back on from the blog window, you have to reload or refresh the page to get the sign in box back.

Alternative Strategies:

Oovoo has a quick set up text chat room we could use for meetings where everyone doesn't have the capacity for this. I'm going to continue experimenting with this one and try a couple of others that are available both free and paid. We'll see what works best.

BitSculptor, our software guys have one they use, but it too has problems that in my case they weren't able to solve yet.

Conclusion:

The technology is coming, but individual users lag behind for the most part. 2009 goodies may not work on a 2005 computer. We need to make sure we have simpler alternatives for users that are going to be late adopting the massive processors, video cards and broadband connections necessary to use all the fancy bells and whistles.

What do you think? Add your comment below.....

Tom

We Have A Chat Room.

2009-05-14T09:09:00.000-07:00

I'm experimenting with Oovoo's Chat Room Utility on Uncle Tom's Blog this week.

The window is down at the very bottom of this page! Just wait till the Java application loads, then type your name in the box, click on "join room" and it'll take you to the room. You may be there alone, but if you have a webcam hooked up, your picture will magically appear. If you see someone there, you can talk to them. How cool is that?

We'll be doing a brief Meetin' with anyone I can drag into the group that wants to try it out and see how well it works. I think we can have up to 5 on the call with the free version of the chat room - more if we pay for it.

Please contact me if you'd like to try and see how it works. You need at least a headset and microphone. If you have a web cam, all the better. I bought mine for about $40 and got a nice one. You can get a serviceable one for as little as $20 or less. I actually have a $10 digital camera you can plug in and use as a webcam, but the picture is really jerky and poor quality.

Contact me at twayneking@gmail.com if you'd like to attend our first chat room meeting. Let me know when would be good times and we'll get everyone together at the best time we can manage.

Oh, and don't forget to button up your bathrobe (long story - too gruesome to tell).

If you catch me on the blog, give me a jingle.

Uncle Tom

New Groups Experiment with Forum and Collaboration Tools

2009-05-13T14:46:00.000-07:00

While we're still looking forward to getting up our group and networking tools, two groups have offered to participate in group projects here on Virtual Village.

The Rural Arts Initiative Network and Tyler Rescue Ministries members are signing up in preparation to "try out" on-line project development strategies here at Virtual Village.

The process will use Virtual Village's password protected forum subgroups to provide discussion and development support and will teach inexperienced members how to connect with an array of free tools for everything from on-line meetings and document upload to weblogging, video and photo storage and linking. What we learn as these groups move forward will help us design an easy to use groups and networking interface for the Virtual Village website.

If there are other groups that have a project they would like for us to pilot test, please sign up as a virtual-village member if you haven't already, go to the community center and post your request on the New Projects forum group.

If you have trouble, contact me through the feedback feature or by e-mailing me directly at twayneking@gmail.com .

Tom King
Webmaster

Social Network Fundraising

2009-05-13T08:38:00.000-07:00

There's a new white paper out on the subject of using Social Networks in your fund-raising strategies. It's available at the "Common Knowledge" website: http://www.commonknow.com/html/index.php .

Common Knowledge is a good place to bookmark and go read in your downtime, if you're working with charities. Lots of good information coming out of there!

Tom

What's a Virtual Village?

2009-05-10T09:54:00.001-07:00

Now that the beta site is up, where do we go from here? Well, to a great extent, that's up to you. We've identified some new stuff we're developing in phase 2. These are just a starting point. We need you to help us test the site and figure out what you need and want from Virtual Village. We've asked some questions and heard from some of you and made some guesses about direction, but that's only part of the job. First let me tell you what we have planned for Phase 2:

Phase 2 Expansion Modules

Neighborhoods
Creates the capacity for members to create collaborative projects online, to upload materials, documents and agreements needed to design programs, write grants, plan strategic fundraising and implement plans.

Member page
Expands member page tools to include the ability to post photos, create custom event calendars, create a personal weblog, upload videos, audio files and create a personal network of colleagues and potential collaborators.

Shop
Creates an on-line catalog of training materials, software, clothing and other items of interest to our members. Proceeds will help keep the site on-line

Schoolhouse
Creates a video/audio upload tool for posting training materials, videos of workshops and meetings and informational presentation to a searchable database within our library archive

Reviews
Creates a moderated page for our members to review tools, books, workshops and other "paid for" resources being marketed to nonprofits, faith-based ministries and charities.

Documents
Creates a library tool whereby contributors who have expertise in development, fund-raising and nonprofit management can upload searchable document files to the library intact for use by members.

Advertising
Creates the software tools whereby we can sell advertising sponsorships to companies that sell things to charitable organizations and development professionals, volunteers and staff. These sponsorships will provide long term support income for the website and help us keep the site free!

Drawings
Advertisers often provide free goods and services to our members. This tool will allow us to give away valuable things to our members AND generate advertising dollars to support the site.

Signup
Will enhance the member signup process and make it easier for site administrators to data mine. This will help us tailor the site to the needs of our members and collect valuable information about the demographic characteristics of the on-line community.

Volunteer page
Special page for volunteer signup that provides tools for volunteer management and support and reduces staffing costs for the site.

Granular Admin
Sets up layers of administration so volunteers can participate without accidentally ruining site tools and structure. This will reduce the cost of staffing the site dramatically

We're looking forward to working with you in the coming months. Please be sure and post your comments and ideas either here on on the forum.

Tom King