DCN News - February 10, 2013

In this issue:

1. Local road trip
2. New officers for 2013
3. Website demystification
4. If Ansel Adams had used a smartphone...
5. Technical notes
6. New SimpleSite customers!
7. Spring classes are coming soon

1. Local road trip
DCN turns 20 in 2013! We are set up as a volunteer-run community asset (we help dozens of area nonprofits, usually at no cost to them) … so to update the community on what's new at DCN, how people can use our services, and to share some of our ideas on how technology can build bridges in Davis, we're putting together a very local road tour -- as in El Macero to Stonegate, and points in between.

We're sending 2013-14 board president Bill Buchanan out to talk with service clubs, booster organizations, and similar civic-minded organizations in Davis. He promises to keep the talks short, useful, and (he hopes) entertaining. If you would like him to speak to your group about what DCN has done, currently does, and offers, please email a note to president@dcn.org. Read more about our roots at http://www2.dcn.org/dcn/about.

2. New officers for 2013
DCN's board elects new officers at the start of each year, and this is our lineup for 2013-14: Bill Buchanan (president), Teri Greenfield (vice-president), Jim Frame (treasurer) and Steve McMahon (secretary). Their bios are available at http://www2.dcn.org/dcn/about/board/officers. We're also happy to report that Russ Hobby, Jan Meizel and Rob Nickerson were elected to new terms on the board -- and thank Teri for serving as president the past two years.

3. Website demystification
If you run a website -- especially if you're a volunteer doing the job for a nonprofit, and/or if websites are a bit of a mystery to you -- this report from Idealware on low-cost content management systems is worth reading.

DCN is a big fan of content management systems (also known as web cms), which can help an organization manage its website much more easily and consistently than if the site is built from scratch. Our sites employ the web cms approach, and we can often help local nonprofits find sustainable ways to create and maintain their websites. We offer our help free of charge. Read more at http://www2.dcn.org/dcn/about/committees/rac and http://www2.dcn.org/dcn/help.

4. If Ansel Adams had used a smartphone -- Phone Art in Davis
Phone Art Month ended Jan. 31, but the site has collected dozens of wonderful "images of place" in Yolo County. Enjoy the images -- and maybe give a thought to how far smartphones have come as cameras -- at https://www.facebook.com/PhoneArtInDavis. (You can read more about "iPhoneography" in this San Francisco Chronicle article.

Thanks to the Davis Art Center for putting the Davis event together.

5. Technical notes
And now, some technical notes:

• Davis Community Network has been using Sun hardware and Solaris UNIX since DCN got started in 1993. That hardware platform has now been officially completely retired for customer services. Oracle now owns the Sun product line, so we have moved to HP server hardware with the open-source FreeBSD UNIX as the operating system of choice. DCN still uses one Sun/Solaris system as its mailing list and database server. Our SimpleSite and Content Management System applications all run on a FreeBSD server.
• Can Google say this? For the last three years, DCN email has been secured via SSL and fully available with no hiccups, analysis, or advertising. It supports complete copies of email on all consumer devices (phones, tablets, computers) using IMAP, and has no space restrictions. It is completely private, and filters spam and applies antivirus with Barracuda Networks. We're just sayin'.

6. New SimpleSite customers!
Recent DCN SimpleSite adopters. Check them out:

• The University Farm Circle
• Central Park Gardens
• Davis Girl Scouts
• Davis Rugby Football Club

To learn more about applying for a SimpleSite, click here.

7. Spring classes are coming soon
We don't have our spring classes set up yet, but when we do you'll find information at http://www2.dcn.org/dcn/classes. See a list of previous topics at http://www2.dcn.org/dcn/classes/descriptions -- you can find tutorials at some of them. If you'd like to suggest a particular topic, or would like to offer to teach a class yourself, please contact admin@dcn.org.