A community-led project, providing space to meet and network, all to create a cooperative learning environment and foster outreach, education, fundraising, all in a virtual environment.
Just a quick note to say that Tao Takashi has added us to his fabulous SL blog aggregator planet.WorldofSL.com. Just one more way to get the word out on our activities.
If you would like to add this blog to your own RSS feed, here's the feed link.
Thanks, Tao!
Written by: rikomatic
Recently I had an Skype message from Susan, our "nonprofit administrator herder" for the Nonprofits in Second Life project. I have to assume that she was posting to the site, or perhaps reading some recent content. In any case, she IMed me because the site was down. I'm acting as the Web master, so this made good sense. I probed a little bit and came to the conclusion that the server was completely unresponsive.
I sent a quick note to our very good friends at Social*Signal who have generously donated the server space. It turned out that it was a system-wide issue with the hosting company that they work with.
So how can a nonprofit track uptime/downtime of sites they run? Obviously you can't sit and watch your site all the time. You can use software that sends a request to your server every so often and the software waits for a response from the server–no response means the site is probably down. If you don't have the skill set to set up this kind of monitoring software, there is a free or nearly free solution out there–http://www.siteuptime.com. It takes five minutes to set up and it will start monitoring your site immediately. If you only have one site to monitor, it is free. Three sites cost $5/month. Six sites cost $10/month.
Site uptime is now enabled for the NPSL site. I get an email when the site goes down, when it comes back up, and a report each month on how much time was offline.
Written by: Creech
Notes from March 30th meeting
Present:
• Frank Foley
• SaveGuimaras Wind
• Creech Antwerp
• Angela Ge
• Johnny Austin
• In Kenzo
• Annie Octavia
• Ozma Malibu
• Be Janus
• Docent Alturas
• Beth Kavka
• Xin Revolution
• Dana Childs
• RiverSong Garden
• Glitteractica Cookie
Website is up! If you want to blog on the site, contact Creech Antwerp and he will help you start blogging at: http://secondlife.techsoup.org/ Comments are open for all users, so if you want to start commenting on blog entries, please do so!
Also, tag your own stuff and anything you stumble upon on the web that is related to nonprofits in SL at w/ NPSL tag.
If you don’t know what tagging is, here is an article on ten tips for effective tagging: http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/webbuilding/page5508
Our group’s video! Big Kudos go to Frank Foley for getting the first version of our video together in like 24 hours! You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9KvaIrzS8k
It is also on Dogooder.tv: http://www.dogooder.tv/Orgs/techsoup/?MovieID=280 and Creech loaded it up on the http://secondlife.techsoup.org/ site too! This video is being enjoyed at NTC by many.
Nonprofit Commons Update:
Save G is going to be our sim mgr. She will be the tenant liaison and will be the point of contact for our tenants. Thanks Save G!
New orgs who are interested in being a part of the commons should still email me at susan@techsoup.org
Annie Octavia and Save G are mapping out the commons and helping to assign spaces to orgs. We will do our best to accommodate all requests.
If you want a new poster for the NPC, please IM Johnny Austin or Frank Foley.
All avatar hands needed for bug testing. If you see bugs, please email them to Frank Foley (tom.maroney@gmail.com) [9:08] Frank Foley: and just be sure to send me coords so i can find the prob.
You: and ozma is our volunteer manager, and she will contact all volunteers about meetings and tasks that need doing.
[9:10] Frank Foley: if you are listed as a volunteer in the NPC group, i took all permissions way down in short term
[9:10] Frank Foley: but if you need permssions in the sim once we move in there, let me know
[9:10] Frank Foley: i just want to make sure no buildings get returned or screwed upl
Sim is being transferred over to us, Frank will let you all know update at today’s meeting.
anyone who sees anomalies on sim, email frank
Wiki-
Angela Ge is still working on transporting the data to the new wiki, and she will send us an update when she is ready to do so. From last mtg: [9:25] Angela Ge: just need clarification on design at a later stage, till then i will port over content which should take a max of 2 days at the most.. the wiki install is complete, am having issues with ssh/ftp-ing to the site to complete it.. [9:27] Angela Ge: 1st of april at the latest. Thanks, Ang!
[9:40] SaveGuimaras Wind: does the website have a link to the wiki page?
[9:40] Angela Ge smiles
[9:41] You: it will when ang launches it
MOUs
[9:16] You: yes, i will send around a confirmed list of residents to you all
[9:16] You: maybe i will work with annie to put it in a google doc?
TechSoup Space: [9:52] Ozma Malibu: billboard is changed (Thanks!!)
9:52] Ozma Malibu: one issue: it is supposed to be a landmark giver – no clue how to do that yet
[9:52] Ozma Malibu: so it links to the website instead
[9:52] You: frank knows that
[9:52] You: email him
[9:53] You: he will tell u how]
[9:53] Ozma Malibu: I started changing the photo album as well, not finished yet but old
[9:56] In Kenzo: you can set your use there. i have tons of arhives not on the web
[9:57] In Kenzo: so if you're looking for somethign in particular that you can't find, let me know, i shoot religiously
[9:57] Beth Kavka: me toopics are gone, some new ones up but not captioned
[9:53] Ozma Malibu: ok, will email frank
[9:58] You: ervyopne tag your photos NPSL
[9:58] You: and leave them public
Update from InKenzo:
[10:04] In Kenzo: we have a new island! that's the first fun bit.
[10:04] You: docent, defintiely in the plan
[10:05] In Kenzo: good visionary artists, educational groups and dance/music projects coming together for a fun AMO Island, along with a health and nutrition FOOD island that will host Second Harvest inworld.
[10:05] In Kenzo: we have a few projects coming up on the teen grid, i've been meeting with barry @ Global Kids on how to pave the best path for nonprofits working with teens.
[10:06] Docent Alturas: Maybe invite public artists to display works.
[10:06] SaveGuimaras Wind: yes! public artists
[10:06] In Kenzo: definitely bring in artists here!
[10:06] SaveGuimaras Wind: yoohoo
[10:06] In Kenzo: i brought dancoyote to our island to install, along with alex grey (a RL artist)
[10:06] In Kenzo: to help us start our new island with images that inspire us.
[10:06] You: whoopie
[10:07] In Kenzo: i have an inworld better world scout friend who does installations on connectivity, and there's a handful of SL artists who have amazing works to install if you ping them.
[10:07] SaveGuimaras Wind: or what we can do is ask all the NPC tenants to come up with their public art side by side with artists
And we ended with a very fun tour of the NPC and a photoshoot!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorg/sets/72157600036898489/
See you all next Friday. We will be in sessions here at NTC, so Beth and I won’t be able to attend today’s meeting, but it will be led by Frank. So go there! We may try to pop in at the end (9am is ending time today)
Written by: Glitteractica_Cookie
![]("http://farm1.static.flickr.com/182/439904105_c8111854eb_m.jpg")
This week, we ended our meeting by visiting the Nonprofit Commons.
Here's the SLURL
Frank would like:
To reiterate and for those who weren't at the meeting
Please cruise the nonprofit commons and email any problems you find to me, with a short description and coordinates. Coordinates are very important so that I can find the problem and pass it on to the ACS design team.
Types of things we need to look out for include
-scripts not working
-missing sounds/textures/images
-usability problems (doors to small, things hard to use or access,
etc)
-visual imperfections (gaps in joints, flaws in textures, etc)
and any other items of concern
IM Frank Foley
Written by: kanter
Written by: Creech
For those of you who are interested, we will be having our first volunteers meeting for the Nonprofit Commons project tomorrow, Thursday at 8:00am PST/SLT.
Meet us at the ampitheatre (search map for plush nonprofit commons or IM me for a landmark)
See you there!
If you are just interested in joining in but haven't signed up yet, feel free to join us anyway!
Written by: Glitteractica_Cookie
Today we were introduced to the nonprofit commons and the offices associated with them. As I've written before, Tech Soup, part of CompuMentor, is helping organize an amazing conglomerate, on Second Life, of nonprofits. The land donor, anshe chung studios, has done an amazing job creating a truly breath taking space.
The donation of the land is significant, but add the amount of programming hours that have gone into the sim and then the $200 or so it costs to maintain per month…well it is an amazing gift.
!["Snapshot_014.bmp"]("http://farm1.static.flickr.com/161/431505050_6cb230cb61.jpg")
The commons has an amphitheatre for meetings, events and so forth. As you can see, the space is vast and the environment is pretty amazing.
The office spaces are huge. I'm not sure how we are going to furnish ours without the furniture becoming lost.
!["Snapshot_016.bmp"]("http://farm1.static.flickr.com/185/431510132_2995997bd1.jpg")
I think that the final product will truly rock and will generate lots of attention.
So, stay tuned and be ready to take a step inworld. I think it will be worth it.
Written by: Creech
![]("http://farm1.static.flickr.com/166/431789488_b8b8c5a63b_m.jpg")
Today we got to see the Nonprofit Commons Space for the first time! The offices are really big and the space is really nice. It is going to be something! Everyone got really excited and started to put dibbs on the corner office.
![]("http://farm1.static.flickr.com/157/431789177_fd2d008a6b_m.jpg")
Anna Octavio took this cool photo of me.
Written by: kanter
The space is really cool. The offices are spacious. Everyone got really excited!
Testing
Written by: kanter
This weeks meeting was really fun. We had a video crew there filming our meeting for a video that is being created to promote TechSoup space in Second Life.
Tuesday volunteered to be the Nonprofit Commons manager and serve as the liaison between tenants, TechSoup, and ACS.
At the end of the meeting we took a tour of the new space. See us all looking amazed at how big the space is? The offices are huge! The Nonprofit Commons is gonna rock!
Written by: kanter