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In some states, walking, jogging, or riding bicycles while distracted can now take a hit out of your wallet. In New York, a bill that was shot down is now breathing new life again in the state government. The bill proposes fining bicyclists who are multi tasking $20 for each infraction.

In some states, walking, jogging, or riding bicycles while distracted can now take a hit out of your wallet. In New York, a bill that was shot down is now breathing new life again in the state government. The bill proposes fining bicyclists who are multi tasking $20 for each infraction.

Technically, 4G is not a technology, but rather a benchmark. 4G speeds mean the ability to downoad information at a speed of 100 mbps. The four major cell phone carriers in the United States, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint all advertise that they have networks that carry 4G speed, and all of them in actuality do not. Of the four carriers, T-Mobile's network could theoretically allow users to see 21mbps, no where near the 100 needed to actually be 4G.

Most nonprofit websites are still at the "before" stage of a makeover says this lover of make over shows. "It is therefore with great excitement that I get to unveil a highly successful makeover from Project Hope. They took their website from dull to dynamic, meeting all the important requirements of a great site."

This blog addresses how sensitive issues can be kept private when used by nonprofits to form a community. Examples include how a nonprofit supporting the victims of human trafficking can story-tell their experiences to a wider community without endangering the privacy of the ones involved.

The Apple iPad, one of apple's hottest sellers, is seeing frequent use by those in the government sector. With the seemingly endless amount of apps available for use with the iPad, many help government workers to become more efficient. The apps that are seeing the most use include twitter, quick office, evernote and flipboard. Twitter is helpful to disperse quick messages to others in the work place, and obviously has social networking benefits as well. Quick Office is seeing a lot of use as a microsoft office productivity tool. Evernote allows the user to take notes, record sound bytes, add pictures and video, and other helpful pieces of information into one "note" that is easily dispersed to others in one piece, together. Flipboard is presented almost as a "personal magazine", where feeds from social networking sites and other sites the user selects appear directly on the iPad's interface.

A post explaining the difference between "spam" and "not spam" that I wish would be required reading for any business (non profit or private). A must read before sending out a bulk email of any kind.

- "MedAssurant, Inc., a leading provider of data-driven healthcare solutions, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM), one of the nation's top health care plans, today announced an expansion of their partnership to achieve an industry-leading capability to improve delivery of care to its Medicare Advantage members. The partnership centers around integrated quality outcomes, utilization improvement, financial performance, and business intelligence.  With a focus on highly coordinated analytics and interventions, BCBSM has partnered with MedAssurant to implement a suite of eight solutions spanning CMS 5 Star Complete Quality Management (CQM™), NCQA HEDIS management, Prospective Advantage™, Capitated Risk Adjustment (CARA™), Claims Aggregation Analysis and Submission (CAAS™), CareSync Advantage™, Business Intelligence, and Distributed Analytics™."

More follow-up on useful links to help a nonprofit organization use social media. A lot of the time, for any agency, posting event invitations is the best bet in getting a response from "fans" of your organization

With the recent news that more e-books were brought than paperbacks in February, its no surprise that Amazon is allowing the Kindle to borrow e-books from more than 11,000 libraries across the U.S. in working with OverDrive, a huge supplier of e-books for public schools and libraries. Students and non-profits will now have greater access to e-books, but the limit on checking out books is a concern with HaperCollins announcing a new policy that requires e-books to expire after being check out only 26 times.

Giftworks is a nonprofit fundraising software that is customizable to a nonprofit, depending on their specific fundraising needs. They even have a blog that is updated frequently with fundraising tips and other information.

I think this is a site in which you can ask questions/answer them pertaining to nonprofits. There is a small reward of usually about a dollar for the best answer.

The Cellebrite UFED Physical Pro is a high-end, all-in-one solution for logical and physical extraction. The UFED Physical Pro expands your current device capabilities to extract deleted mobile device data, user passwords, file system dumps, and physical extraction from GPS devices.

From the company product brochure for "UFED Physical Pro": 'THE COMPLETE MOBILE FORENSICS SOLUTION Cellebrite's UFED addresses the growing need for fast, comprehensive mobile forensic capabilities. An add-on module for advanced extraction and analysis of evidence Physical Pro enables the basic UFED system with physical data extraction, file system dump and reconstruction, and password extraction. UFED Physical Pro enables recovery of invaluable evidential information that isn't accessible by logical extraction methods alone. In use by military, law enforcement, governments, and intelligence agencies across the world, UFED Physical Pro allows users to rapidly extract a wide variety of data types in a forensically sound process from both phone and SIM memory. Extracting data in a forensic manner and presenting it with the integrity of the data intact ensures that the evidence will be admissible in court.

Online .pdf Brochure Description of 'extraction device' continued (notice the GPS and mapping capability also): AT A GLANCE * Complete extraction of existing, hidden, and deleted phone data, including call history, text messages, contacts, images, and geotags * Powerful search, reconstruction, and analysis of the phone hex dump that can be used for intelligence gathering, investigative research, and as legal evidence in court * Expanded coverage for GPS devices, with mapping of GPS locations on Google Maps and visualization of GPS locations on Google Earth * Unrivaled phone coverage and compatibility * Fast, intuitive extraction process source: http://www.cellebrite.com/images/stories/brochures/UFED%20Physical%20Pro%20Brochure%20%20ENGLISH.pdf

The Michigan State Police have a handful of portable machines called "extraction devices" that have the potential to download personal information from motorists they pull over, and the ACLU would like to know more about them. "The problem, as the ACLU sees it, is that accessing a citizen's private phone information when there's 'no probable cause could create a violation of the Constitution's 4th Amendment', which protects us against unreasonable searches and seizures."

MSP Statement in response to news stories on April 20, 2011 The implication by the ACLU that the MSP uses these devices "quietly to bypass Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches" is untrue, and this divisive tactic unjustly harms police and community relations.

"Chinese Hackers Bring Down Change.org in Response to Ai Weiwei Campaign. Chinese government-sponsored hackers took down Change.org with a DDoS campaign after the site registered over 100,000 signatories on a petition in favor of the imprisoned Chinese artist. Ai Weiwei had been known for his role in the construction of the Beijing Olympic stadium and as China's leading digital activist and a pioneer in the use of blogging and Twitter in China."

Yet another journalist's/expert's opinion on how to best use facebook for a non-profit, including the importance of goals

Gives good tips on how an organization should use facebook. Some of the good tips promote communicating to the fan-base as well as encourage fan-to-fan communication. One of the most important things about NPOs and Facebook is to have a purpose with your page. This article strongly condemns having a page "just to be on facebook" and says that having a strong purpose makes facebook that much more successful.

"It's important for any digitally-minded non-profit to be on Facebook because of the sheer number of active users. So, great - you set up a Facebook account for your organization. Now what?" Note:  "Eight of the world's top ten brand use the Buddy Media Platform (sponsor of "The Facebook Marketing Series") to power their social marketing on FB."

Forbes reports: "Someone has hijacked the tax identity of more than 2,300 tiny or defunct nonprofits, apparently taking advantage of a hole in a new electronic Internal Revenue Service filing system to list the same person as a charitable official at the same mail box drop in Las Vegas."

Excerpt: Apple's general counsel Bruce Sewell in July 2010 sent a 13-page letter (.pdf) explaining its location-data-collection techniques in response to a request from Congressmen Joe Barton and Edward Markey asking for Apple to disclose such practices (.pdf). (Incidentally, Markey authored the "Do Not Track" bill to stop online companies from tracking children.) Note: Article has a link to this 13-page letter dated July 2010 after they were asked to disclose such practices.

Internal emails regarding Ridgeland, South Carolina speed camera system shows profit drives deployment decisions: An ongoing federal lawsuit against the speed trap town of Ridgeland, South Carolina uncovered internal emails last month that shed light on the motivation behind the state's only photo enforcement program. Since July 2010, Ridgeland has allowed the private firm iTraffic to operate a mobile speed camera van on Interstate 95, despite a state law outlawing the practice and a pair of attorney general opinions warning that the photo ticketing was not legal.

This report indicates what trends dominate older users of social media. The main argument here is whether or not using social media to interact with NPO volunteeers and clients is worthwhile. The research indicates that it is a worthwhile endeavor. The important thing to bear in mind as far as older users are concerned, is making organizational web sites extremely accessible and user-friendly.

I think to a certain extent it is important to incorporate new social media into npo's its a easier way to reach out to volunteers and clients, its mostly about how you as a supervisor manage the usage from your employees.

This is like a barcode at a grocery store. However they are images instead of a barcode. These images appear in magazines and in other places and you take a picture with your smart phone and the image links you to a website. Nonprofits use these for advertisements and virtual tours and is free to do.