From the category archives:

Technology Zen

Technology and the Environment

by Pearlbear on February 23, 2011

This is an issue I’ve been struggling with for a long time. I’m an unrepentant, unabashed technophile. OK, well, not so unrepentant or unabashed since I’m writing this post on the varied factors around technology and the environment, and have been thinking about this issue for myself for a long time. And I will start this post off by being clear – this is as much of an internal, personal conflict for me, and a way in which I see my own behavior and my values diverge at times.

We are approaching a time when just about everyone should be thinking hard about use of fossil fuels, consumption and waste. Global climate change is beginning to affect our lives in a real way. I offer this set of data points, if you will, with the hope that it will spark some thinking and perhaps discussion.

Cloud computing

There is some argument as to whether or not cloud computing is good or bad for the environment. On one hand, you have folks saying that moving organizational data and functions into the cloud means gaining efficiencies not possible in server rooms. Most organizational servers do not run at full capacity, whereas servers in the cloud generally are using more of their available capacity. One could argue that 100 servers running at 1/2 capacity is better than 200 servers running at 1/4 capacity.

That said, we are doing a lot more than just moving stuff out to the cloud. We are creating whole new infrastructures that didn’t exist before (think Facebook, Google, etc.) But it also means that we can use lighter clients. Will the move to, for instance, tablet and phone computing be a net positive or negative benefit in terms of resource consumption?

Green Hosting

There are a ton of hosting companies claiming that they are “green hosting.” Just Google it. And you might see “powered by wind power” or some such. The truth is more complicated. Green hosting companies are just like any other hosting company. They have a big data center that’s attached to the grid, from which they draw power. And they become “green” by purchasing renewable energy credits, or by purchasing carbon offsets. There are some arguments about whether or not these are really helping the environment. Figuring this out is far beyond the scope of this article. But I think it’s fair to say that the jury is still out on this one.

Production and Disposal of Technology Equipment

So this is where it gets ugly. I remember, back in the heady days of the early Circuit Rider movement, when one of the big issues was that nonprofits had old, outdated equipment, and they never budgeted for its timely replacement. I remember we talked about planning to replace 1/4 to 1/3 of the hardware in an organization each year. The logic behind this is very hard to fault. Computing changes at a breathtaking pace. Software is written for current high-end hardware, so upgrading software on older machines is either painful or impossible. The argument goes – nonprofits need up-to-date tools to do their work effectively. It all makes sense, but what results is nonprofit technology’s contribution to e-waste. And as our tools get more and more functional, and slimmer and smaller, and, well, cooler,  we’re more than happy to toss the old stuff in the trash.

We don’t see or interact with e-waste. We leave that to China, Ghana, and other countries. E-waste pollutes the environment and poisons people. And all because this technology, all of it, is “designed for the dump.” (Follow that link, please.)

(And, parenthetically, although it’s not really about the environment, check out this information about Coltan, a necessary ingredient in many electronics, including mobile phones.)

And then there are the resources that go into producing our technological gizmos. For instance, it takes 500 pounds of fossil fuel, 50 pounds of metal, and an enormous 1.5 tons of water to make the average computer. That is a staggering amount of resources. And, between phones, tablets, e-readers, laptops, desktops, servers, routers … it’s an incredible amount of resource consumption and waste.

So what to do? I recently read this article that I found interesting on “Seven Criteria for the Adoption of New Technology.” It’s written by someone who is working at living a simple life, and finds the same kind of conflicts in this that I do:

As the world rushes toward an overcrowded but new and improved grave full of “articulated task lamps” with “industrial style charm,” wines with “velvety” appeal, and cordless window shades that are “safe® for children and pets” (that’s just one section of today’s paper), I find my supposedly simple-living self caught on the same slow slide toward more. The bike I ride now is better than the one I had a year ago. Before long I’ll need a new computer, and it will be better than the one I have now. The force of inevitability takes over.

What is one to do? How exactly, and realistically, can a person resist, or cope, or somehow do something other than just get swept along? My impulse is to rant.

Here are my modified seven criteria:

1) How would the technology affect dynamics of organizations, friends, family and community?

2) Would it help us live and/or work in more stable circles, and strengthen our communities?

3) Is there a way to limit it, or does it push us down the slippery slope to even more?

4) Would it do “work that is clearly and demonstrably better” than the thing it replaces?

5) Who would want us to get it, and who would not?

6) Would it bring joy and satisfaction to life?

7) Does it represent what we believe in?

Thoughts?

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Why Zen?

by Pearlbear on February 22, 2011

“Only the present moment is real and available to us. The peace we desire is not in some distant future, but it is something we can realize in the present moment.” –Thich Nhat Hahn

I have been thinking about why I decided to call this blog “Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology” recently. I named it that back in 2006 when I resurrected this blog (pun not really intended) after my time in seminary.

If you’ve read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, you know that what’s important is the journey, not the destination. Of course this is a common theme, and it’s one that I try to always keep in mind. For me, the means are the ends, and how we do what we do is easily as important as what we do.

The name of this blog was designed to make me keep that in mind when I wrote about technology. As you know, I’ve given up hope that by helping nonprofit organizations with technology that I’m changing the world. But I do believe, strongly, that we change the world when we pay attention to what’s going on now, to how we accomplish what we do.

I think I just contradicted myself. Or, rather, entered into somewhat of a paradox. What I’m saying is that the ends, making nonprofits super duper amazing users of technology, is not what’s most important. It’s how they get there that is.

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How to deal with technology change

by Pearlbear on February 18, 2011

I saw a call for a ColdFusion developer on an email list I’m on, and I couldn’t help but think about technology choice and change, particularly in the website world, and how nonprofits deal with technology change (or, don’t deal with it.) ColdFusion has been around for 15 years (more than a century in Internet time), and although it has improved and developed, technologically, it has been surpassed by its successors (including PHP, Java, Python, RubyonRails, and even .NET.) But this article isn’t about CF, it’s about technology change.

Technology is a rapidly moving beast. And the pressure to move forward, fast, is right there, always. It’s part of our culture, from the advertisements to the neatest, newest, coolest phones, to the new TV you should have. And then there are those of us in the Nonprofit technology community who are constantly on the bleeding edge of the next thing, whether it be hardware, software, or web services, are constantly talking about it, and how it’s going to make it easier/better/faster to change the world. Although I often get snarky about this, I am aware that I am guilty of this, too.

Most nonprofits are not run by geeks. Most nonprofit leaders think of technology as something in between a useful tool to be leveraged, and a necessary evil. They are resistant to rapid changes in their technology, as well they should be. And, they depend on geeks to help them get things done.

I have a story about nonprofits with a website they can’t leverage for their mission. Although complete fiction, this story will feel quite familiar. And I know I’ve been a guilty party in a real story at some point in my career.

A small nonprofit has a small staff who know a lot about their mission, but nothing about how to create a website. A friend of one of the board members is a web developer. They hire that web developer to put a new site together. The developer waxes poetic about the capabilities of this platform, called AmazingWebCreator. They imagine the developer knows what they are talking about. The developer builds the website, then goes away. The organization is happy for a while, they have a website with pages they can easily edit using a web form, which is more than they had before. Then in months, or years, they want to add some new pages, or a new section to their site, and a widget on the side. But they realize they don’t know how to do that. They call the developer, who is busy now using AmazingWebCreator on some huge project, or has moved on to SuperDuperWebCreator, and doesn’t have time for them. They have to bring in another developer, who knows AmazingWebCreator, which may cost them time and $.

Of course, the critical factor here is what is “AmazingWebCreator”? If it is a relatively new CMS (like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla and others) they may not need to bring in a new developer – they may just be able to get a book, or buy a video to teach them how to use the web interface to create new regions and widgets. If “AmazingWebCreator” is a platform like RubyonRails, Django,  .NET, Java, or ColdFusion, they are most likely going to have to hire someone to do that work for them, and depending on the platform, those developers may be either few and far between (ColdFusion) or in high demand, and therefore relatively expensive (RubyonRails, Java.) Worst, of course, is if AmazingWebCreator is a proprietary, custom CMS that the developer wrote themselves in 2002, and no longer supports.

How is an organization supposed to know how to make an informed choice about a website platform? I have a few suggestions:

1) Assumptions: First, assume the person/people who develop your site might not be around in a year or so. And assume there are things you can’t conceive of now that you’ll want to do in a year. Don’t assume the platform that your buddy chose for their organization’s site is the right one for you. Don’t assume that the most popular platform is necessarily the right one, either.

2) Feature set: Garden variety website, or  very specialized functionality? (By “garden variety” I don’t mean brochureware. I mean average, normal features of most nonprofit organizations. These include such things as donation buttons/pages, membership lists, blogs, etc.)

3) Platform choice: Look at a number of things – if it’s open source – how many developers are there? How many people use it? How easy is it to find developers? Will most new functionality be able to be added via web interface, or will it require back-end coding? Is it a custom CMS, written, maintained and supported by a single shop? (NEVER, EVER, EVER CHOOSE THESE. Here’s why. Luckily, they are an endangered species.) If it is proprietary, or software-as-a-service, are the extra features really worth the cost? Are there many consultants and developers who can assist you with this platform?

4) Lifecycle: Is it early in the life of the platform, at it’s peak, or late (or very, very late)? Bleeding edge might hurt, aged platform might crumble underneath the weight.

There are lots of folks (I do this on occasion on this blog, and Idealware is a great resource) that can provide you with information about specific platforms, and comparisons between them. Read, read, read, and ask many questions before you decide.

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Reader solicitation

by Pearlbear on February 17, 2011

As you can tell, I’ve been writing more lately, and I plan, for the time being at least, to really step up my blogging game. I’ve got a list of posts of my own I want to write, but I realized that some long-time readers of this blog might want me to write about some specific things that fit under my basic purview. Research you’ve been too busy to do, something you want my unique opinion on, something you’re curious about.

So, I’m soliciting ideas. No guarantees I’ll blog about it, but feel free to put in comments (or email me, if you’re feeling a need for privacy) topics you’d like me to cover.

Here’s my list of upcoming topics:

  • Has Open Source won or lost, or is the struggle still going on?
  • Updates on Open Content and Copyleft of things other than code that nonprofits might be interested in.
  • Ruby on Rails (varied topics).
  • Drupal Provisioning
  • A beginners guide to NoSQL.
  • Reasons why nonprofits, and nonprofit technology in specific should work to expand the economic models by which they work.
  • How to be really anonymous technologically (for activist reasons) and the Flipside – how to make sure people know you are who you say you are, and what ways do people spoof.
  • Cloud development platforms.
  • Why technology both sucks for the environment, and is good for the environment – how to find the sweet spot.
  • Podcasting 101.

That’s my list so far, and I’d love to add your ideas to the mix.

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What IPv6 means to you

by Pearlbear on February 13, 2011

For those of you that don’t know about IP addresses, here’s a very quick lesson. In order for one computer to talk to another computer on the internet, it needs an address, the same as you have an address so that people know where to send you junk mail catalogs. Human beings suck at remembering numbers, so a system of connecting names to numbers exists (called the Domain Name System, or DNS.) But the core underlying structure is computers talking to each other via numbers that run from 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255.

This system is called IPv4, or Internet Protocol Version 4. If you’re quick at math, IPv4 has 232 possible addresses. That’s 4,294,967,296, four billion, plus. That’s seems like a lot. But guess what? It’s not nearly enough. Certainly not enough for a world with increasingly connected devices – things we’d never considered 20 or so years ago, like your TV and your refrigerator, let alone millions and millions of cell phones. Right now, most people in the US own at least 2 or 3 devices that need an IP address – your computer, your laptop, your phone, your tablet, your cable box, etc.

We’ve known for years (since the 80′s) that we’d run out of IPv4 addresses sooner or later. Well, later has come. IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) has now given out all of the IPv4 address blocks it has. Unallocated IPv4 addresses will run out in August of this year. Yes, this year (right after my birthday, in fact.)

So what’s next? What do we do in this situation? In comes IPv6. It’s a new and improved internet Protocol, IPv6. IPv6 has a different numbering scheme. It is in hexadecimal. Addresses range from 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 to ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff.  This allows for 3.4 x 1038 addresses. Officially, that is 340 undecillion, but that’s really gazillions and gazillions.

But IPv6 is no longer in the future the way it used to be. It’s NOW, and you have no choice but to deal with it. Luckily, most of you reading this blog shouldn’t have to worry too much – although if you have older hardware (computers, cable modems, routers, etc.) you may be in a bit of trouble when your ISP does the switchover. For most folks who have reasonably recent hardware, the issues sits entirely with your ISP.  June 8, 2011, is being called “World IPv6 Day.”

If you own a website (VPS or server inside your firewall) you may well have work to do. Check with your hosting provider or ISP to find out what you need to do to make sure you’re ready.

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eBooks #1: ePub is to eBooks as MP3 is to music?

by Pearlbear on January 21, 2011

If you’ve been around the block as long as I have, you remember the days before an audio codec was settled upon. EBooks are moving into adolescence, and the question is, which format will win, or does one format have to win?

For a while there, the two big players on the field were Amazon on one side, with it’s Kindle and proprietary format, which is an offshoot of MobiPocket format, and a reader that has a fairly limited range of formats it can read. On the other side was Barnes and Noble, with the Nook, and it’s own format which is based on ePub. Both Amazon and Barnes and Noble have DRM in their book formats. And, of course, they aren’t the only players in the field. Sony has it’s own reader and format, although, like the Nook and the Kindle, can read a variety of formats.

I won’t go into exhaustive detail here on the wide variety of readers and formats. There’s a great Wikipedia article to do the work for me. What I want to talk a bit about is what’s next. Amazon and Barnes and Noble were all geared up for a big fight, until a number of things happened to change the equation.

First, Apple came out with the iPhone, and both Amazon and Barnes and Noble released software that allowed you to read the books you’d bought on that device. Soon after came Android phones, and the same thing happened. Now, you didn’t need to own one of their devices to read books sold in their store.

Next, Apple released the iPad and Bookstore. It provides some serious competition to all three of these established players. On one hand, Apple gave it’s very popular  iTunes Store like treatment to books. On the other hand, as most people who have read books on a reader like the Kindle know, a device like the iPad is actually not the most optimal kind to read books for long stretches of time. The truth, is, though, the iPad became the second most popular device to read eBooks in a very rapid amount of time, mostly to the detriment of the Kindle. All other readers have tiny market share in comparison to both of those players.

But with the soon to be plethora of Android tablet competitors (as well as tablets using E Ink) to the iPad, and the ability to read Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Sony books on Android, it does seem that there isn’t a huge need to come to any sort of standard. But then, Google enters the fray, in a bigger way that just with Android. The Google eBookstore! Google decided to go with the ePub format for their bookstore, with Adobe DRM. Because they did that, users who buy books at the Google eBookstore can read those books on just about every device except … the Kindle, which does not support ePub.

So what happens next? This is my bet, although it will be interesting in a few years to find out whether I’m correct:

- Amazon and Barnes and Noble leave the hardware manufacturing biz when inexpensive, credible, good e-ink Android-based devices come out – those become the standard devices for eBook reading. (NB: The Nook by Barnes and Noble is actually based on Android itself, but I still think B&N will exit the hardware biz.)

- Sony’s eBook reader and store dies because no one uses it.

- Google becomes second only to Amazon in eBook selling, eventually toppling Apple from #2 spot.

- Apple, like always, remains the stylish, expensive niche player. They don’t have the same success with eBooks that they did with music.

- ePub and Amazon’s format both remain viable for years to come. Other formats wane in importance.

Next up, a blog post about what you should do if you want to self-publish your book as an eBook.

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Salesforce.com and Ruby on Rails

by Pearlbear on December 17, 2010

Programming languages and I have issues. By now, I’ve learned quite a number of them (I think 9 by last count), but for some reason, I seem to choose my work on them just at the top of the curve, or as they are going down. I have yet to manage to pick one early. I learned C at the height of its popularity, just as C++ was beginning to rise. I learned Fortran when it was almost dead, mostly for fun. I learned Pascal toward the tail end of its reign. In the late 90s, I chose to write a CMS in Perl instead of PHP. Dumb idea.

I’ve been moderately interested in Ruby and Rails for years now, although I haven’t yet spent very much time getting my hands really into coding Ruby. As pretty much all of you in the Salesforce.com world know, Salesforce.com agreed to buy Heroku for a pretty big chunk of change. I’d played with Heroku a little a while back, and I thought it rocked.

What is Heroku? Heroku is cloud Ruby on Rails. Build a Rails app, and deploy it on Heroku. It’s pretty sweet. So why would Salseforce.com buy it?

On one level, it makes über sense to me. As someone who has managed to learn some Apex, which is, frankly, somewhat of a monster of a programming language, it’s pretty clear that it’s not super easy to build complex apps using it. It’s like Java in heavy chains. A well-joined RoR & Salesforce.com platform, all in the cloud, would simply rock. (In case you are wondering, there already is a Ruby toolkit for the Salesforce API, although it looks like it only works on Rails 2.3, not 3.)

One another level, it’s fascinating. The culture of the Ruby and Rails world, the open source, community-driven, gift economy meritocracy, is very different than the Salesforce.com world – proprietary, business oriented, certifications-focused world. Of course, these are stereotypes – there are plenty of business-oriented Rails folks, and plenty of open-source oriented Salesforce folks, but the worlds really are culturally very different.

I’ll have a post soon where I talk in detail about why I think open source has both won and lost the open source vs. proprietary war, but this particular intercultural marriage will be interesting to watch. And the great thing is that our company has had such a marriage for a couple of years now, and it works.

Anyway, I’m dusting off my Ruby books, and diving in. Fun times!

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Plotting my return to Twitter

by Pearlbear on November 28, 2010

In April of this year, I left twitter. I had good reason to leave twitter. And, after a few months, I didn’t miss it. And, frankly I still don’t miss it. But I had a bit of an epiphany lately that you social media mavens out there will very much appreciate. I figured it was worth writing on this blog about.

I joined Twitter in the beginning, because my colleagues were. I didn’t have a reason, or a goal, except to find out what everyone one else was, well, all a-twitter about (sorry, I couldn’t help it.) I knew that my nonprofit consulting practice was not going to be geared toward social media (as you all know, I veer way more to the plumber end of the web technology spectrum.) And, it was fun, for a while, then it got old. I didn’t have a specific set of things I wanted to get out there in the world (save in the realm of what I can easily do by blogging) and I just joined because all of my nptech buddies joined.  I got overwhelmed by the information coming my way and it invaded my life. So I left.

What’s changed for me is that I now have a goal and a focus, and with that goal and focus comes a realization. Aha! Twitter will be useful. It sort of took me by surprise, interestingly enough. I began to think about how I would approach this thing, and what would be the best way to learn more, as well as share, and put stuff out, and … voila, Twitter.

And the lesson, I learned, which I’m sure lots of nonprofits are learning, seems to be: Twitter is a means to an end, and it’s important for me to treat it that way, rather than it being and end unto itself. And I know the social media folks have been saying this all along, but it took me this long for it to really sink in.

I know that at least some of you are thinking “so what’s the goal and focus?” Sorry, it’s not nonprofit technology, ya’ll. Now that I’ll be back on Twitter, I’ll probably do a few tweets now and again from our company twitter account, so feel free to follow. And please don’t feel at all slighted if I stop following you on my personal twitter account (It’s likely.)  Because besides being a web techie, I’m a science fiction writer with some stories and novels to peddle.

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A couple of tidbits

by Pearlbear on November 15, 2010

A couple of tidbits on the environment today:

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Leaving Apple Behind

by Pearlbear on October 11, 2010

I’ve been through a pretty interesting transformation in the last 2 months. I’ve gone from being a Mac/iPhone user, to being a ThinkPad/Android user, and not looking back. I’m actually quite happy – I can run both Windows 7 and Ubuntu Linux on my laptop, and I like Android (and my Droid 2 phone) a lot.  Once I sell my iPhone (fairly soon) I will be free of Apple hardware for the first time in 25 years (yikes! Er, well, actually, I think there were a couple of years there where I had only a Power Computing Mac Clone.)

I made the change for two reasons – first – I really needed Windows for work. There are some tools that our team uses that I need to use that have no Macintosh version or alternative – and collaboration with our team using MS Office tools has become so much smoother. I’m surprised at how Mac-like, and trouble-free Windows 7 is (I haven’t had windows on a machine I owned since Windows 2000.) It’s basically unobtrusive as an OS (well, besides the annoying pop-ups asking for permission for things during installation, but that seems a worthy trade off to the virus and worm-laden alternative.) And the funny thing about using Windows is that I have now noticed how much work I used to have to do to make sure things were going to work with my Mac. That’s not a problem I’ve been facing anymore.

And, of course, using Ubuntu on the desktop is fun. Great web development environment, of course. Some things (like adding peripherals especially) are still a little problematic, but it’s getting better.

The second reason was more philosophical. The release of the iPad (which I will never buy – waiting until there is a credible Android tablet) sort of woke me up. I had come to chafe at the closed-ness of the whole system, but somehow the ease of use in comparison to the alternatives was addictive for a long time. But the iPad, as simple a consumptive device, and a closed one at that, sort of made me realize that coolness of design wasn’t worth the trade off. And now that I’ve spent some time with the alternatives … well, yes, Apple products still have a bit more gloss, but the usability for me is not hugely better than either of the 3 alternatives I’ve been working with (which, in the case of both Windows and Linux, was not always the case.)

I actually like my Droid phone better than I ever liked my iphone, which came somewhat of a surprise to me. I’ve always really liked ThinkPads, and have owned a couple over the years to run Linux on. It does feel a bit weird to use Windows sometimes, considering my years as an open source advocate. But I don’t think Apple is any purer, really, they just have less market share. (Although they did make the right choice in basing their OS on Unix – wish MS would have done that – although they might have frakked that up.)

What’s true is that I’ve given up one corporate behemoth, to fully embrace 2 others – Google and Microsoft. A scary amount of my data (mail, contacts, photos, task lists, calendars, phone etc.) resides in Google’s data centers. I use their software every day (Android, Chrome, Picasa, Google Earth).

I’m not quite sure how I feel about that.

What will I miss? I don’t miss my iPhone at all (especially now that Angry Birds is on Android). I’ll miss Garage Band. I actually think that’s it, at least, after using a PC exclusively for the last month, that’s all I can think of.

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