Computing Assistance Support & Education Inc – CASE Notes

ConnectingUp has published a comprehensive survey of Information Technology within the not-for-profit sector in Australia. The report comes with some very interesting statistics. There’s a simple summary and a more detailed analysis of the numbers made more important by the fact that this is the second time around ConnectingUp has done the survey – some of the changes are intriguing!

Some interesting stats are as follows:

99% of respondent not-for-profit organisations are using at least one computer, 95% have a broadband connection to the Internet but only 46% of these have an interactive website of some kind!

To access this fascinating study (a must read!) click this link.

CNBC is reporting today that, following in the footsteps of Apple, Microsoft plans to launch a series of stores where people can come in person to see and try various Microsoft products.

“Microsoft announced plans Thursday to open its own chain of stores and hired a DreamWorks Animation executive to run them…The company did not say how many stores it was looking to open, or when, or which products would be available.” (source)

An interesting move! We will keep track of developments…

CASE is a successessful applicant of a grant under the Community Support and Infrastructure Grants Program. We applied for a grant for a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) for our server room to replace one that failed. This will ensure that CASE can continue to safely supply services such as support for webistes and emailing lists for member organisations.

Yesterday I flew down to Melbourne (managing to make my day trip for the city’s hottest day, ever!) for Joomla Day ’09, hosted by the Melbourne Joomla User’s Group, at Melbourne University.

The day was well balanced and very valuable. The audience of around sixty comprised of people who had never used Joomla before, to seasoned gurus, and everyone in between. For the uninitiated, the first hour was used to show how quickly and easily Joomla can be set up in a variety of environments. A very thoughtful suggestion from Raoul Callaghan for people who don’t have their own web hosting account was to use JumpBox, a virtualisation package that allows for a nearly instant install of Joomla for you to play with! Being told about JoomlaPack, a Joomla backup and migration tool, probably made my day! CASE is always looking for handy tools to make things easier, and JoomlaPack looks to be one of them.

The day moved onto discussions about templating, general design and then security….

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