Info Tech for Non-Profits

Need a production company to run the AV at your live non-profit event in the San Francisco Bay Area? Check out South Bay Scenic

We've used South Bay Scenic to put on 4 all-day expos where presenters give talks backed up by slides and videos. They have been a pleasure to work with and I can’t recommend them enough.

Previous events we put on all had some sort of technical glitch, whether with the presentations, the clicker to advance the slides, the mics, or the sound on videos. You name it, we experienced it. These guys have collectively put on hundreds if not thousands of events and it shows. They are prepared for almost any contingency. At the latest event we were having issues with the built in speakers. Danny told me not to worry. If they couldn’t fix it, he had brought speakers and stands that he could put on the stage and bypass the venue’s audio system entirely.

They’ve been able to scale up with our needs too. In the last year we started livestreaming our events, and they took that on without a hitch.

They also do video and audio recording as well as editing. They produce high-quality clips of our presentations that they upload directly to our YouTube channel. Check them out for some real-world examples of their work.

If you need someone to run the tech and A/V for your next event, I highly recommend at least talking to them.

South Bay Scenic

Free stock photos, sounds, music, icons, templates and a ton of other marketing content

Non-profits don’t have the budget for marketing resources, so a site like All The Free Stock is a valuable aggregator. A cool thing they offer: stock images of devices that let you upload you own screen to make it look like someone is using your website/app on a device. Pretty cool.

All The Free Stock

 

Use Google related: search parameter to find sites/pages similar to a site you like (tip/trick)

I previously blogged about the site: search parameter. Another useful one is related: which shows sites similar to one you know about. I use it to get a sense for competitors or alternatives in a new space I am researching. I've mentioned AlternativeTo, and this is a good alternative to [sic 😉] that.

related:google.com

I HATE CAPS LOCK! How to disable and prevent accidental pressing / activation on a Mac or PC

I always hated Caps Lock. It causes me to mistype passwords, and functionally I never use it. ALL CAPS is a holdover from the typewriter days when it was used for emphasis. Modern computers have bold and italic. All caps is simply no longer needed. And—to me—this vestigial key causes far too many problems.

Thankfully macOS has a way to turn the key off. It’s in System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard (tab) > Modifier Keys… (button). You can map the button to No Action, or do like me an map it to Control. That is the physical location of the Control key on the UNIX systems I used back in school.

The only downside to this is that you need to do it for every unique keyboard you connect to the computer. I wish I could set a global default.

For my PC, the fix is in many ways simpler; I removed the key altogether so it’s physically impossible to accidentally (or even purposefully!) turn Caps Lock on.

Fixed: MacBook laptop trackpad click doesn't work; something was resting on a paired wireless bluetooth mouse (or trackpad)

Twice now I've had co-workers who had a MacBook trackpad stop responding to clicks. The cursor worked fine, but clicks just weren't registering.

In both cases, it turned out there was a paired pointing device that had something resting on the button. In one case a book had fallen off a stack on their desk and was resting on the mouse. In another, the person had a Magic Trackpad on a keyboard tray, and when she pushed the tray under her desk and walked away with her laptop, it lodged under a protrusion under the desk keeping the button depressed.

So before you take your laptop in for a hardware check, turn off Bluetooth first to unpair all devices and see if that fixes it. 

Use TechDirt deals for getting a discount deal on a lifetime VPN subscription

We needed a VPN solution, and after doing the research I found that the best deals were lifetime subscriptions available via the TechDirt Deals online store. I checked the responses in TorrentFreak’s 2017 anonymity questionnaire. Based on that, I chose Windscribe. I also previously bought a personal lifetime subscription from VPN Unlimited (KeepSolid), which I've only used sparingly since I also have VPN options from my ISP and my email provider that I have been using. There are several good options there—and I'm sure they change regularly—so do your own research for one that works best for you.

Sign up for the TechDirt Deals mailing list first to get a 10% coupon code before you buy.

Free conference meeting room work space for non-profits available in San Francisco from Metta Fund

If you are a non-profit in the San Francisco Bay Area and are looking for a meeting space for up to 40 people, then check out Metta Fund. It’s in the Financial District during business hours (M–F, 8:00–5:30) and has a bunch of amenities like WiFi, a projector, white boards, and a conference phone.

Reserve Metta Fund’s Community Room

Change the app that opens when you double-click a file on the Mac

I use TextWrangler as my main text editor on the Mac, VLC as my video player, and Pixelmator for image editing. I want my Mac to open files in these apps rather than the built in ones (TextEdit, QuickTime, and Preview respectively). To do this:

1. In the Finder, Select a file of the type you want to change
2. Get Info (Cmd I)
3. In the Open with section, choose the app you want to use
4. Click the Change All button
5. Click Continue in the confirmation dialog box

 

I’m going with Meraki for better network management, including QoS traffic shaping for optimal VoIP and voice/video conferencing

OK, I’ve had it with consumer-grade wifi routers. I’ve tried top-of-the-line for both NetGear and D-Link, and both I’ve found lacking.

I met with some fellow IT professionals at a forum in San Francisco and they all recommended Meraki. A Cisco professional consultant told me “if you don’t know networking use Meraki.” I think he was trying to say that real IT networking people don’t use Meraki. And maybe that’s true. But I’m definitely not one, nor do I aspire to become one. I am an all-around IT guy, and I wear dozens of different hats. I absolutely want a networking product that is easy to use, even if it is a bit more expensive and maybe doesn’t do all of the high-performance things that Cisco hardware does.

I attended one of the Meraki webinars yesterday, and so I have a free Meraki WiFi access point getting FedEx’ed to me. I’ll blog in the future about how that turns out. I think I need a router/DHCP server and a managed switch as well…

Get a free Meraki WiFi access point

Amazon shopping tip: “Date First Available” tells you how new a product is

I was recently shopping for external monitors. I knew the specs I wanted:

• 27" screen size
• QHD resolution (2560✕1440)
• DisplayPort input (so it will work at native resolution with the MacBook Air)

Even with all that—and filtering on Prime shipping and 4-star ratings—there are still several dozen to choose from.

So I click through to the details page, look at the review distribution (too many 1s and 2s is a bad sign), read the reviews (especially looking at the negative ones to see how much I agree with them).

But I also check out the Date First Available. There are a lot of older products on Amazon, and technology like displays advance rapidly. While they might have garnered a highly-rating several years ago, it’s not a good indicator of how good the product is in comparison to newer ones. All other things roughly equal, I go for the newer one.

Use the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to view an old, previous version of a web site or web page

I just needed to reference how a particular page looked on our org’s site when we launched the new design back in 2013. Thankfully there is a tool for that.

The Internet Archive Wayback Machine

Get a link to a previously sent Vertical Response email newsletter

When you are viewing your list of sent emails in Vertical Response, there is an Actions link for every email. Clicking it brings up a menu of actions, including View Email. Now you might think this would be the way to bring up the hosted version of that email so you can share that link with others. But you'd be wrong.

Instead, click on the name of the email to bring up the Dashboard view. In the left column under Email Actions, the last item is Share Email. Click that, and then copy the first link in the dialog (it should be a link to a page on vresp.com). It's a shortened link, but you could also just click it, let it expand into a new tab where you can verify it looks the way you want, and then copy the link from the URL bar.

Here is the VerticalResponse help page on this, just for completeness.

B&H Photo and Video is the best alternative to Amazon for computer and electronics gear

If you have Prime, Amazon is tough to beat for both price and quick delivery. However for some things, B&H Photo and Video is as good or even better.

I was trying to buy two new desktop setups for new employees at my org. I wanted to get 2 of the same displays for consistency, but Amazon was limiting me to just one for the model I wanted. Even more annoying, the "Prime" delivery for this particular monitor was 4–5 days. So I went over to B&H, found the same display for the same price. They offered UPS 3 day delivery, and the total price is cheaper since they don’t collect sales tax.

Shop at B&H Photo and Video

Add or edit SalesForce picklist items by clicking the field label, not the edit link

Bad UI here. If you are trying to customize the picklist values for a field on a SalesForce object, you of course go to Setup > Customize > [object] > Fields. However, when you scroll down to the field, there is an on-so-tempting Edit link sitting right there in the Action column. Resist! Click the link just to the right of it in the Field Label column to get to the page where you can add, edit, and delete list items.

Fix for email redirecting in Gmail account; it's NOT in Settings > Forwarding or Filters

We use Google Apps Suite here. There was an account set up before I joined that was automatically redirecting messages from the work account over to a personal account. This was done  way back in the day before browsers supported multiple profiles.

I was trying to stop the redirect, but there were no filters set up, I had turned off forwarding, and both POP and IMAP were turned off.

Turns out there is a setting for this in the Admin console. Click Users, then a specific user, the Account, and scroll down to the Email Routing section. There was another “destination” set up for her personal account, and the G suite email and inherited routes were both unchecked. I removed the additional destination and checked both of those checkboxes, and now everything is working as expected.

Fixed: Reboot a MacBook webcam FaceTime camera when it is not working

I had a Skype video conferencing call today, but the camera built into my MacBook wasn’t working. Opening the Terminal app and pasting in this command (and entering my administrator password) fixed it.

sudo killall VDCAssistant

Viewing news articles that are behind paywalls by using the Google Cache or an incognito / private browser window

I get it: media companies want to encourage people to pay to read their content. But they will often give you several free views per month (tracking views in a cookie). And pretty much every media site absolutely wants their content indexed by Google. You can use this to your advantage.

Search for the title of the article you want to view that is behind a paywall, then in the Google search results, click the arrow to the right of the link (shown in green) and click Cached.

Or if it's on a site like the NY Times where they give you a few free views and you have used yours up, open a private / incognito browser window then paste the link to the article in it.

Find out if your online account credentials have ever been compromised in a data breach hack

Here’s another good reminder to start using a password manager and 2-step authentication (most ideally with an authenticator app) if you aren't already. I've just listened to a pretty interesting story about a radio journalist getting his Uber account taken over by Russian hackers (episode 1, episode 2).

Long story short: if you reuse passwords across sites and those credentials were compromised in one of the many data breaches over the years, hackers can mess with you and your stuff.

One of the most important accounts to secure is the primary email account; If hackers get access to that, they can pretty easily go through the “forgot password” process to reset it and gain access to your other accounts.

You can see if your account info has ever been leaked in one (or more!) of the many major data breaches over the years at this site:

Have I Been Pwned?

Save image of a particular frame in YouTube video or watch in super slo-mo

Have you ever wanted to grab a specific frame from a YouTube video? Or maybe you are trying to see something that flashes by quickly, and you can't quite nail the timing on the pause button.

Head over to watchframebyframe.com, paste in the link to the video, and you're good to go.

Grabbing an image of frame from the paused video could be easier, but you can either just snap a screenshot and crop, or use Cmd Shift 4 on the Mac and drag out the area to grab.

watchframebyframe.com

TXT record for Google Webmaster Tools site verification fix for it not showing

I wanted to sign up for Google Webmaster Tools. To do so, they make you verify that you own the domain by giving you a unique code to add to the DNS entry for the domain. You create TXT record, and paste the code in.

I had done that, but it just wasn't showing up. I had to contact support, and they helped me fix it.

The problem was I had a CNAME record for @ (which represents the naked domain, in this case it4np.com). Apparently this prevents any TXT records from showing up for the domain. Don't ask me why.

So the fix was to delete the CNAME and replace it with a simple URL redirect to www.it4np.com. Now create a CNAME for record www.it4np.com to the actual IP address or site where the content is actually hosted.

And lo! The TXT record magically appears and Google let's me in.

Hope this helps someone else trying to figure out why their TXT records aren't appearing to the world even though they are configured in your registrar.

 Postscript: and doing this also completely broke the styling on my site. So once Google confirmed, I switched it back. 

24meetings.com time zone converter for international meeting scheduling

24meetings.com is the best utility I've seen for quickly and easily converting time zones. It’s very useful for scheduling international phone/Skype calls.

24meetings.com

Full frame photos for PowerPoint presentation slide shows: crop, scale, and sometimes heal/repair/fill

I'm prepping PowerPoints for a day of presentations tomorrow. (Check out my previous post on prepping the presentation computers: primary and backup.) Good presentations have simple, impactful slides. Generally a single image is best. Sadly, PowerPoint doesn't make it very easy to get a single image into a slide with proper cropping and scaling. Here's how I do it:

1. Create a new, blank slide. Don't just delete the text boxes off a slide. Go into Home > Layout and choose Blank.
2. Drag the image from the Finder into the slide. If you are lucky, the image will have the exact aspect ratio of the slide, and you are done. Otherwise...
3. Drag the photo to the top-left corner is at the top-left of the slide.
4. Grab the bottom-right drag handle and resize so the entire slide is covered: either overlapping the bottom edge or right edge of the slide.
   (In most presentation files, the height should be 7.5")
   (you can also use the Size: Height and Width text boxes in the Format Pane to do it without needing mouse dexterity. Just be sure Lock aspect ratio is checked.)
5. Click to select the image if it isn't already
6. Click the Picture Format tab, then click the Crop button, near the far right (I wish there were a keyboard shortcut...)
7. Mouse over the black bar drag handle on the right (or bottom) side of the image.
   (Make sure the cursor looks like a sideways T. Otherwise you might grab the resize drag handle instead.)
8. Drag left (or up) past the edge of the slide, then back until it snaps to the edge
   (In widescreen 16:9 presentations, the width should be 13.33"; for standard 4:3, it’s 10")
9. Now you can drag and scale the image around within the crop frame until you are happy with the composition.
   (keep in mind the phi spiral/grid, or it’s inferior approximation, the rule of thirds; more on this later)

I will post later on using the magical repair tool in Pixelmator (PhotoShop has Content-Aware Fill) to add some extra background at the edges to photos if it doesn't quite fill the full frame.

I'm back to Netgear R8500 WiFi router with QoS for the best quality VoIP and video conferencing

I had switched over to a D-Link router since it had the ability to prioritize streaming media. But I was having problems with the router randomly forgetting the QoS settings, and the router simply stopped working several times. It was too unreliable.

So I'm back to a Netgear R8500. Their Dynamic QoS setting is just a check box, so we just have to hope that it does the right thing when it comes to voice and video traffic. But so far—paired with a dedicated symmetric pipe from WebPass—it’s been working well.

MailChimp automatically removes unsubscribed email addresses from an imported segment

We are creating our newsletter email using the MailChimp SalesForce integration. The SalesForce campaign we created included about 19k email addresses, but after using that campaign to created and push a segment into MailChimp, what came through was only about 18.7k.

I ran the process for pulling out only the unique addresses and looked them up in MailChimp. After looking at a handful, I verified that these addresses had unsubscribed. So it makes sense that MailChimp would take them off the list to avoid sending to them. However I really wish they would be more explicit in the interface about what is going on there, such as:

18700 address imported of 19000. 300 addresses were removed because they are unsubscribed or bouncing.

Dealing with unsolicited sales calls and emails: “Add me to your ‘do not contact’ list”

Since I have a catch-all email account set up for our domain, I get the occasional unsolicited commercial email where sales and marketing people try to guess the email addresses for our staff. I usually ignore them, or just mark them as spam. However if they persist, I'll send this boilerplate response. 

Sorry, we do not accept unsolicited commercial offers. Please add this email address—and all other email addresses at this domain—to your "do not contact" list. Thank you.

FYI, your message does not comply with the US CAN-SPAM requirements, most notably:

Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. Your message must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting email from you in the future. Craft the notice in a way that’s easy for an ordinary person to recognize, read, and understand. Creative use of type size, color, and location can improve clarity. Give a return email address or another easy Internet-based way to allow people to communicate their choice to you. You may create a menu to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to stop all commercial messages from you. Make sure your spam filter doesn’t block these opt-out requests.

http://www.business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business

In line with our wishes, we also ask that you do not reply to this message. Thank you.

I also have a similar response for phone call solicitations:

Sorry, I do not accept phone solicitations. Please add me to your organization’s "do not contact" list. Thank you.

If the person is actually with a contract telemarketing firm, then you can get even more coverage by saying:

Sorry, I do not accept phone solicitations. Please add me to the "do not contact" lists for both the organization you work for and the organization you are calling on behalf of. Thank you.

Design, develop, and maintaint an inexpensive non-profit web site on a budget

I've already mentioned LiveImpact as a resource for building and maintaining a website. But their whole pitch is an all-in-one non-profit platform, so they do a lot more than that. If you are just looking for a web site, you can still check them out. However  there are other more narrowly-focused options.

 

If you are small and just starting out, the best way to go is to sign up for one of the do-it-yourself (DIY) site builder services. These have gotten pretty good lately, and though they are ultimately limited in what they can do, they still can do a lot (mobile responsive, shopping cart/commerce...) SquareSpace, Yola, and WordPress.com are a few of the more popular ones. (I've used Wix and I do not recommend it.) Of course you or someone in your org will have to have some basic design and technical skills.

 

Also—while I haven't had first-hand experience—some of my colleagues have had good luck hiring people via online freelance marketplaces. There are some very talented people living in low cost-of-living areas that will be cheaper as long as you don’t mind working with them entirely online. UpWork is the biggest one. Guru and Toptal are alternatives. 

 

Next you could go ahead and hire an agency. That will give you the most flexibility but it is a more expensive option. We use Visceral at my org. Here are some others that look promising (but I have no experience with them):

• Gravitate Design
• Boxcar Studio
• Illusio
• Open Box 9
• Upleaf
• Bethesda Design Web
• The 215 Guys
• LeGa Design Group
• Cheeky Monkey Media

 

Finally, you could just hire someone and do it in-house. If you've gotten to this point in your org, you've probably outgrown this blog.

Resources for improving your productivity: LifeHacker and Cool Tools

There are a couple of curated resources I use regularly for discovering new things that can help improve my life.

LifeHacker is good for online tools, and general life improvements. Cool Tools is best for offline stuff.

Please let me know if you have resources you like for these sorts of things. I'm always on the lookout for good quality resources.

Use Google site: search parameter to narrow results to a single web site (tip/trick)

There are a lot of Google search tricks out there. OK, not exactly tricks, but functions that aren't obvious but are super useful. One of my favorites is the site: parameter. It tells Google to only return results from a particular web site. If a site has a poor quality search feature, then using Google is a quite useful alternative.

For example, if I'm looking for WCN's annual report, the built-in site search lists 2013 as the top hit. But if I use Google site search, I get all of them. (2016 is the third result for some reason, but at least it is there.)

annual report site:wildnet.org

You can also use it to browse all the images on a site. I find this useful for getting a high-res logo, or for pulling down an image that I can use in promoting the site.

https://www.google.com/search?q=site:wildnet.org&tbm=isch

or if you just want to see a ranked list of the most popular pages for a given site (super useful for blogs where you want to see just the top posts):

site:joelonsoftware.com

Get RSS feed news posts sent via email using RSSFWD.com

I still use an RSS reader (Feedly) for much of my news. It's the best way I've found to aggregate all of my sources in one place. But for a few sources (including my own organization’s news feed), I want to know immediately when something new is posted.

I did some research of various services, and the one I ended up using and liking best is RSSFWD.com.

It's run by an email marketing platform called Campaigner. which I don't use. But I do love companies that provide useful tools to the world for free. So giving them a shout out as a company worth checking out if you are looking for email marketing. (Definitely don’t go with Vertical Response.)

Get RSS posts via email from RSSFWD.com

Use a DisplayPort cable to connect MacBook Air to a 4K (2460✕1440) monitor / display

MacBook Pros—at least the Retina display ones—have a built-in HDMI adapter, which works perfectly for driving an external monitor with a native resolution of 4K (2460✕1440). However MacBook Airs only have a ThunderBolt port, so you'll need an adapter.

I started with a standard ThunderBolt (or mini DisplayPort) to HDMI adapter, but the resolution peaked at HD (1920✕1080). I wasn't sure if it was the adapter, the monitor, or the MacBook, so I tried swapping out all 3.

From that, I discovered that a mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable was the only configuration that worked reliably. Of course this means you need to get a monitor that has a DisplayPort input. Not all of them do, but thankfully there are enough choices, and even some at the lower end of the price range have it.

Get a mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable

Change default call transfer on Polycom VVX phones to “blind transfer” to pass along Caller ID info

We use VoIP phones at work, and have standardized on the Polycom VVX-310 desk phone. By default when you transfer a call, it will show the transferer's extension rather than the original caller’s info. Super annoying.

But there’s a really simple fix for this buried in the phone’s settings. This RingCentral article walks you through it, but the exact steps might be different for a different model of phone. For theVVX-310, it is:

1. Press the home
2. Settings
3. Basic
4. Preferences
5. Defualt Transfer Type (all the way at the bottom; menu item 10)
6. Highlight Blind
7. Press Select

And you're done! You can back out of the preferences to the main screen.

iPhone Siri tricks for dictating the full text of a message including punctuation and formatting

Siri dictation (speech to text) for emails and text messages is by far the quickest and easiest way to input text on the iPhone. Just tap the microphone button to the left of the space bar on the iPhone keyboard. And these tricks will make it even easier.

First, you can name pretty much any punctuation character to add it: period, question mark, exclamation point, comma, colon, dash, close paren, ellipsis…

 You can also insert returns by saying new line, or start a new paragraph by saying new paragraph.

And Siri knows a few emoticons too: smiley, frowny, and winky.

But please only use these (and dictation in general) when you are alone. Don't be that jerk.

View a complete list of Siri dictation shortcuts

Workaround for browser scrolling web page down to embedded iFrame after it loads

We have a campaign page that include a donate widget near the bottom. The problem is that most browsers automatically scroll the page down to the iFrame when it loads, which always happens after the parent page loads. But there is a workaround.

At the bottom of your page—just before the </body> tag—include a simple, 1-line script to tell the page to scroll back to the top after everything loads:

<script>
    window.onload=function(){window.scrollTo(0,0);}
</script>

Best presentation set up: short-throw projector, projector stand, blackout cloth for a screen

My organization sets up for slide/video presentations in a lot of different spaces. I've found that having a short-throw projector plus a dedicated projector stand makes it easy to get it set up in a variety of configurations.

Standard projectors require you to place the projector 6–10 feet from the screen, which means you need to create a gap in the seating to accommodate. And the cables (power and video) need to be run even further, and generally across an area where people walk. 

Short-throw projectors work just 2–3 feet from the screen, so you can put it in front of the seating. And it is a small enough gap that no one will try to walk between. You can also get an ultra-short-throw projector if you want to put it even closer (<2 feet). I bought an Optoma, and I'd recommend that brand.

I also recommend a Pelican case to protect your substantial investment.

For the screen, if you are looking for portability and value, blackout cloth is the way to go. I do have a proper 16:9 screen, but it is very long and won't fit in most cars. The cloth can be rolled the short way and works great (as long as you have a variety of clips, cord, and braces to mount it).

Get a short-throw projector from Amazon

Printliminator is a great browser extension for cleaning up a web page before printing to PDF

There are a lot of limitations in the built-in SalesForce reports. One particularly annoying one is that—while reports rendered inside SalesForce can have images—when you export to Excel the images are not embedded.

We solved this by using Printliminator to remove all of the extraneous header and footer from the page, and then Print to PDF. Yes, you can't do additional large-scale edits after this (like adding columns or sorting), but it works well for a printed report.

Get Printliminator for Chrome

Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) as a battery backup for your router, modem, and servers

We had a storm last night that knocked out power for about 4 hours. Thankfully—because I have an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)—my internet connection stayed up, as did my Network Attached Storage (NAS) and backup desktop. It gave me enough time to cleanly shut down these devices before the battery ran out.

Some CyberPower UPSs (and other brands too) have USB ports that can tell your computer or NAS that it is on battery and will trigger an automatic shutdown.

Be sure to calculate how much power your equipment will draw so that you get the appropriate size. For my setup of a modem, wifi router, NAS, and desktop computer + display, I got 650VA.

Get a CyberPower UPS from Amazon

MailChimp exposes the name of your list AND groups to your subscribers

More tips for MailChimp users. We discovered that the internal list name we chose (“Master List”) was exposed to our subscribers when they click on why did I get this? in the footer of the email. Also, if you want to edit the content on that page—for example to add your logo and make it look more legitimate—click on the list, then click Settings > Required email footer content.

Similarly, when subscribers click on the update subscription preferences link, they go to a page for where they can update their display name and email address, and any other fields you've defined. On that form, MailChimp shows them all of the categories and groups you've created and let's them change which groups they are in. So make sure those names are donor-friendly!

Finding ONLY the duplicate email addresses in two lists

My previous post covered generating a remainder email list when only a subset of the list was successfully mailed.

We imported that list into MailChimp, which then told us that 3 addresses were not imported because they had previously bounced. But they gave us no way to actually see those addresses. Great. 😕

So now we want to download the list that was imported, compare it against the original, and generate a list of only the duplicate addresses (the intersection of the original list and the import list).

1. Export the just-imported list from MailChimp
2. Open both lists in Excel 
3. Paste the just-imported list into column B of the the original list (which is in column A)
4. Click in cell C1, then paste in this formula:
   

   =IF(COUNTIF(B:B,TRIM(A1)),TRIM(A1),"")

5. Grab the drag handle in the lower-right corner of the cell, and drag it down to fill in the formula for all of the cells below.
6. Clcik on the C heading to select the whole C row
7. Copy
8. New spreadsheet
9. Edit > Paste Special
10. Choose values
11. Click OK
12. Click A1 to select the whole row
13. Sort Z-A (this will put the empty cells on the bottom)
14. Save as CSV

 

Removing duplicate sent email addresses from a partially sent mailing list leaving only uniques by using an Excel formula

Here's the scenario: we wanted to send an email to a group of about 400 supporters. Due to a poor import user experience on the part of MailChimp (more on that later), the email only went to about ¾ of the list. So now we need to send the same email out to a new list containing only the people who didn't receive the first one. Basically we want to subtract one list from the other:

Original list (400 people) - Sent list (300 people) = Remainder list (100 people)

I used a modified version of this de-duping process.

1. Open Excel
2. Paste in the original list
3. Append the sent list onto the bottom of the original
4. Sort A-Z
5. Click in cell B2, then paste in this formula:
   

   =IF(OR(TRIM(A1)=TRIM(A2),TRIM(A3)=TRIM(A2)),"",TRIM(A2))

6. Grab the drag handle in the lower-right corner of the cell, and drag it down to fill in the formula for all of the cells below.
7. Clcik on the B heading to select the whole B row
8. Copy
9. New spreadsheet
10. Edit > Paste Special
11. Choose values
12. Click OK
13. Click A1 to select the whole row
14. Sort Z-A (this will put the empty cells on the bottom)
15. Save as CSV

What the formula does is check the cell in column A's previous and next neighbors. If either match the current cell, it leaves the cell in column B blank. Otherwise it copies the address over from column A to column B. You are left with only the unique addresses, which are the ones that have not yet been sent to.

Data-driven hiring, or why job interviews are WORSE than useless

This isn't IT-related, but since my org is hiring a new database manager, the hiring process is top-of-mind for me.

I thought that this article makes a compelling case why you should trust objective data over interpersonal skills, especially for jobs that are aren’t focused on interactions with people (like finance or IT).

For business, government, and education, the lesson is clear: People ought to be relying far more on objective information and far less on interviews. They might even want to think about scaling back or cancelling interviews altogether. They’ll save a lot of time—and make better decisions.

 

Flat extension cables for HDMI, USB, and power to run under a rug to a table at the center of a conference room

When I was setting up our conference rooms, I needed to run cables to the table in the center of the room for the phone and laptops. We're in an old building and don't have the luxury of installing outlets in the floor at the center of the room. I had originally bought those cord runners that look like a small speed bump. But it kept getting kicked around, and it never really laid flat after coming rolled up.

I was talking to a guy who was extending our Ethernet network to a new office addition, and he mentioned that there were flat cables. Sure enough, I bought flat HDMI cables for connecting laptops to the conference room displays, flat USB extension cablesconferencing microphone/speaker combo, and even flat power extension cords for laptop chargers (remember, keep your Li-Ion devices plugged in as much as possible!).

To prevent a tripping hazard, we got some small area rugs and threw them over the cabling. I used gaffers tape on some cables to ensure they don't get moved or twisted. I did this going on a year ago, and it's worked out really well.

Test credit card numbers

Pretty much every reasonable payment processor out there will have a “test” mode, where you can enter test transactions that will work just like the real system, but don’t require real credit cards and don’t result in real charges.

To do this, you’re going to need some test credit cards to use. A simple search will turn up several pages that will help. However, here are the ones I use the most:

Visa	4111 1111 1111 1111
CCV	123
Expiration Date	12/22
	(It can be any month in the future.)
MasterCard	5555 5555 5555 4444
	all other info is the same as Visa

Some payment processors will generate all their different response codes based on a particular amount you send for the test transaction. Pretty clever.

AlternativeTo.net is a great resource for app and program alternatives

Since I work at a non-profit, we are always looking for the best value in apps. A great place to research apps is AlternativeTo.net.

I previously blogged about Pixelmator, which is a fantastic and inexpensive alternative to Photoshop. I discovered it using AlternativeTo.net. I also found Inkscape (free, open-source alternative to Adobe Illustrator), Scribus (free, open-source alternative to Adobe InDesign), and TextWrangler.

It's also good to confirm that you are using the best option and that there aren't better ones out there. e.g. Chrome, VLC, and Skype.

SalesForce error REQUEST_LIMIT_EXCEEDED: TotalRequests Limit exceeded solved fixed

Our donations stopped flowing from our payment processor into SalesForce. I was getting this generic error message:

REQUEST_LIMIT_EXCEEDED: TotalRequests Limit exceeded

The problem turns out to be a SalesForce API limit. Here are a few pages in SalesForce that will be useful when debugging this problem:

• System Overview dashboard
• API calls made within the last 7 days (It’s in Reports under Administrative Reports. Annoyingly, typing words from that report title in the Search field does not work!)
• Your Company Information profile (I can't link to it since the URL includes your unique SalesForce Org ID. Go to Setup > Company Profile and then click Company Information.)

For what it’s worth, our problem turned out to be our newly-added MailChimp app and an annual report newsletter that went out to our entire donor database. That ate up our entire limit of calls 2 days in a row.

Updating third party apps (packages) in SalesForce, and managing licenses

A few days ago I talked about the terminology confusion in SalesForce between apps and packages.The reason I was digging around with this is because I was trying to figure out how to update the apps in SalesForce.

As far as I can tell, there is no auto-update system for apps/packages. Some apps do implement their own form of updating. The Non-Profit Starter Pack (NPSP) is one. Others have an updater built into the app, like Click & Pledge (it's in C&P Settings > About C&P Apps; click Sync for Updates).

But for most, you just go back to the SalesForce AppExchange, find the app and check its version against the one you have installed. If there is a more recent version, simply go through the process of installing it again.

Also, the Installed Packages setup page is where you go to manage licenses for any third party apps. We use Apsona and S-Docs, and both only allow 3 people in our org to access them. This is where I go to change who gets access.

Also a tip: If you enable the Organization Admins Can Login as Any User feature, then admins can log in as one of the users who has a license if they ever need to do something with that app. It's a good backup for when people are out of the office or otherwise not available. Of course you could just reassign the license temporarily and then assign it back when you're done.

 

Showing and sorting by donation date AND time in SalesForce list view by creating a custom field

It's frustrating that the built-in SalesForce date fields (Created, Modified, Close) only show the date rather than both the date and time. I often want to view donations for a particular day (YESTERDAY or TODAY), and I want to see them listed in chronological order.

Thankfully there's a simple way to fix this: create a new custom field for the transaction date of the donation that displays as Date/Time (rather than just Date). To do so:

1. Sign into SalesForce.
2. Click Setup.
3. Click Customize > Opportunities > Fields.
4. Click New button (at the top of the Opportunity Custom Fields & Relationships section).
5. Click Formula as the data type (formula fields are very handy; I use them for all sorts of data customizations).
6. Click Next.
7. Click Date/Time as the type.
8. Choose a label. I used Transaction Date & Time.
9. Tab to the next field and just accept the auto-generated name (or change it if you want).
10. Click Next.
11. In the text box, enter CnP_PaaS__CnP_OrderNumber__r.CnP_PaaS__TransactionDate__c (this only works if you are also using Click & Pledge. If not, find the transaction date field in your payment processor’s SalesForce custom object.)
12. Click Next.
13. Click Next again. (I generally leave all of the check boxes checked on the field-level security.)
14. Click the checkbox next to Add Field to deselect all of the Page Layouts (I generally don't add formula fields to layouts, since I only use them in list views and reports.)
15. Click Save.

Now go to your list views, and add the new Transaction Date & Time field to the view. And then click the header to sort by it. Ahhh, nice. 😊

This will also work for CreatedDate (a standard field for all SalesForce objects) if you want. Just repeat the steps but use a different name and field reference in steps 8 and 11 respectively.

Fix Mac crashing kernel panic in hfs_UNswap_BTNode by deleting a corrupt Time Machine backup

One of my co-workers has been getting recurring crashes when in the office. It wasn't happening when she was at home or when she took the MacBook into the Apple Genius Bar. Here is the first line of a typical crash report:

panic: "hfs_UNswap_BTNode: invalid backward link (0x0000250b == 0x0000250b)
"@/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/hfs/hfs-366.30.3/core/hfs_endian.c:301

HFS means it has something to do with the file system. Kind of sad that in this day and age, corrupt data in a file can bring down the whole system. But I digress…

I did a bit of sleuthing and aside from the typical "reset the SMC" and "clear the PR", there were reports that turning off Time Machine fixed it. So that's what I tried, and lo and behold it worked!

The promise of Time Machine is wearing very thin for me these days. I'm moving over to using Resilio Sync for our org's backups. It works cross-platform, and since it's based on BitTorrent technology, I trust it to be a lot more resilient to network and file system problems. And the nice thing is, it's super easy to have both an on-site backup and an offsite one.

SalesForce terminology: Apps (3rd party extensions or add-ons) are actually called Packages

SalesForce allows third parties to add functionality to their base service. The site where these are all listed is called SalesForce AppExchange, and they use the term app throughout. You then click a Get It Now button, you will be asked to Log in to the AppExchange Using your Salesforce credentials, and finally Install in production (or a Sandbox).

Which makes it all the more confusing that when you try to manage these apps in SalesForce, you need to go to Setup > Installed Packages. Even more confusing, there is a Manage Apps section of Setup that includes pages for Connected Apps, App Menu, and even Google Apps Settings. These are not the droids you are looking for.

Remember: install from AppExchange, but manage it under Installed Packages.

Tracking link sources to Click and Pledge events using the trk URL parameter

If you use Click & Pledge as your payment processor, you probably know they don't have the best online documentation. And they also create literally over 100 objects in SalesForce, making it nearly impossible to understand how everything flows and is related. However their support is actually pretty good. I called into their daily office hours to ask about source tracking, which it turns out has been in the system for many years now.

C&P Transactions in SalesForce have a field called Tracker. This field can be set by passing a value in a URL parameter named trk (it would have been better to call it tracker so that the labels matched up, but hey, that's just me). So if you have a link to an event you are managing with Click & Pledge, just add something like this to the URLs you create to your event:

&trk=blog
&trk=email
&trk=FacebookPost
&trk=FacebookAd
&trk=GoogleAd
&trk=TwitterAd

And now you can filter and report on the Tracker field in SalesForce to see which lead source generated which admissions.

Speed test web sites

Whenever I get a new ISP installed, or when I am on a new network where we plan to do a live stream, I always run a speed test. There are several options out there. My new favorite is the one built into the Google search results page for "speed test".

SpeedTest.net is a good one, and probably the most commonly used one. And fast.com (run by Netflix) has a really nice design. It works automatically without forcing you to click a button.