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The CommunityNet Aotearoa monthly newsletter.
"News and views on community networking throughout Aotearoa."
The first real picture of how New Zealanders are using the Internet can be seen with the release today of the World Internet Project New Zealand data produced by AUT University. Director of AUT’s Institute of Culture, Discourse and Communication (ICDC) Professor Allan Bell, who led the study, said a number of fascinating insights emerged from the latest results which will provide a baseline for future surveys in tracking trends associated with the Internet.
www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/news/national/internet-impact.htm
TechSoup is an exciting programme providing donated software from companies such as Microsoft to eligible voluntary and community groups to assist them to save significantly on software costs. The scheme has already assisted organisations world-wide to make huge operational savings and now It’s here and New Zealand organisations have already begun to register and receive software donations.
www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/news/national/techsoup.htm
Ministry of Health, Accuro Health Insurance, ACC and the Ministry of Health are pleased to announce the establishment of the Glenys Baldick Memorial Award for an Emerging Leader in Health. The Award of $10,000 will fund educational and/or vocational development for the winner.
www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/news/national/glenys-baldick-award.htm
Community and Voluntary Sector Minister Ruth Dyson has announced a new appointment and three reappointments to the Board of the Charities Commission. The new Board member is Patricia McKelvey. Ms McKelvey is a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to education and an MBE for services to women's cricket.
www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/news/national/cc-board.htm
BP New Zealand recognises that higher global fuel prices are having a big impact on volunteers who use vehicles to do their work. We wanted to do our bit to help out. BP Vouchers for Volunteers is a programme launched in 2006 that donates thousands of fuel vouchers to volunteer organisations that use vehicles to get people to essential services or bring them the provisions they need.
www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/news/national/bp-vouchers.htm
From 1 July, Agoraphobia Support Group, Social Anxiety (phobia) Support Group, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Support, and Joint Anxiety Disorders Group have become one organisation: Anxiety Support Canterbury (ASC).
www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/news/national/anxiety-support.htm
In response to the increasing demand from Community Groups the Christchurch Community House Tenants?Trust is pleased to announce its expansion to the 5th Floor of 141 Hereford St. A full refit of this floor is currently underway and includes provision for an additional eight offices, two shared interview rooms and one shared meeting room (with an adjacent kitchen).
www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/news/national/office-space.htm
Latest community news, events, jobs and ads are online at:www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/news.
TechSoup New Zealand provides donated software from companies such as Microsoft to eligible New Zealand Charities, Voluntary and Community groups with charitable status.
www.techsoup.net.nz
SF Otago: Supporting Families in Mental Illness is a non-government agency dedicated to supporting families of those with a serious mental illness (eg. schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, psychosis). The website features information and support for individuals and families that have a loved one with a mental illness.
www.supportingfamiliesotago.org.nz
New Zealand Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) is the edited report of the proceedings of the House. Read the entire Hansard transcript for a whole sitting day’s proceedings in the House, including all debates and speeches. An Advance is published first and is later replaced by a corrected final copy.
www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Debates/Debates
ChangeMakers Refugee Forum is a refugee based, managed and governed NGO. We represent 12 refugee communities in the Wellington Region and bring together peoples from different ethnicities, religions and nationalities. Our vision is to help ensure New Zealanders from refugee backgrounds are able to live their lives like every other New Zealand citizen.
www.crf.org.nz
Wellington ICT is a not-for-profit Trust set up to help communities and community organisations gain an entry into the e-World. The primary focus is Community ICT programmes and projects which will be beneficial to community groups and organisations in the Wellington region.
www.wellingtonict.org.nz
Catholic Social Services exists to foster human dignity through the provision of services that enable families and individuals to develop their full potential. Our Counselling and Family Centre in Christchurch offers high quality programmes at absolutely no charge to anyone in need, including counselling, group courses for children and adults, and social work support.
www.cathsocservs.nzl.org
Evolve is a youth service in central Wellington for young people aged 10-25. Young people are actively involved in all levels of the service, from day to day operation to service delivery and governance. All of our services are free and confidential.
www.evolveyouth.org.nz
You'll find these and more links at:www.community.net.nz/links.
These Events are coming up in the next few weeks. Find details at: www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/events.
These Training events are coming up in the next few weeks. Find details at: www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/training.
When a small group in separate locations is working together on a project they miss out on the camaraderie and instant feedback available when they're all in the same room. Often they try to use email to make up the slack.
The days when we compared email to letters and found email quick are long gone. Now we compare email to Instant Messaging, txting and Twitter and it seems oh so slow, oh so 1900s.
In 2008 the free service provided by Twitter is the surprise entrant in helping groups collaborate.
Twitter is a free service that lets you send and receive short messages via web page, free software for your computer or iPhone, via Instant Messaging, or via SMS on your cellphone. Messages, known as 'tweets' are available instantly.
To sign up provide a username, password and email address. For example, my Twitter username is Miraz. When I sign in to the Twitter home page I'm taken to my Twitter page at:
http://twitter.com/miraz
There's also a big 'Join' button on that page, if you'd like to join up.
Visit that page and you can see what I've been saying recently. That's because I let the world see my 'updates'. If I wanted to, I could make them private. If my updates were 'protected' you'd have to ask me to authorise you to view them.
That's where the group support comes in. Sign up and protect your updates by choosing Settings - Account - Protect my updates.
Then have your colleagues sign up and protect their updates. Authorise one another (it only takes one click). Now you can discuss anything you like and only group members see the messages.
If you'd like to experiment, I've set up a protected Twitter user called KitD (http://twitter.com/kitd). Request authorisation and start experimenting.
I hope to make an extended tutorial available in a PDF soon. Keep an eye on my personal blog at http://knowit.co.nz to find out when it's ready.
That's not the end of Twitter: it has many facets. A future Tip will explain more. Meanwhile, if you try Twitter and have some comments, please email Miraz with your thoughts: miraz@firstbite.co.nz.
Disclaimer: This article reflects the personal opinions of Miraz Jordan. CommunityNet Aotearoa, the Department of Internal Affairs do not in any way endorse any domain name registrar or email service.
The last Tip introduced a little basic HTML, showing you how to make paragraphs and emphasise a few words. In this Tip we add a few headings and link to another website. Please reread that first Tip to refresh your memory.
Readers understand a message best when it's broken up into shorter chunks with headings that quickly convey what each chunk is about.
Actually the word 'heading' is a bit misleading — headings are dull and boring. Often they are phrases such as 'Introduction' or 'Membership Benefits'.
Really good headings are much more like newspaper headlines — they summarise what each section is about.
If you give readers lots of good headlines they more quickly and easily understand any page of text, whether it's printed or online. And Google also gains a better idea of what your page is about, making it easier for visitors to find your quality information.
Your web designer should really use the princely 'h1' tags for the main headings across your website, and maybe 'h2' tags for the main heading on each page. That means you'll probably be using the noble 'h3' and 'h4' headings.
h1
h2
h3
h4
The 1, 2, 3 and 4 aren't connected to the sequence, but to the importance. The most important heading on your website is the one that tells the visitor the name of the site. Usually that happens to come at the top of each page, but that's just life. It's like a monarch preceding all others into a room.
The next most important heading should be the one that describes the page the visitor is viewing: About Us, Resources, Services — that kind of thing. As it happens that's usually near the top of the page too.
In this Tip the heading for the whole Tip ('My second page' - a basic HTML recipe.) is more important than the subheadings for each section of the Tip. If I were putting this Tip on a web page I'd expect the heading for the Tip to look like this:
<h3>Section five: 'My second page' - a basic HTML recipe </h3>
Then the first few subheadings would look like this:
<h4>Headings summarise chunks of text </h4>
<h5>Examples </h5>
<h4>The princely 'h1' and the lowly 'h6' </h4>
H3 is more important than h4, which is more important than h5.
Just for completeness, there is also an h6 which suffers the ignominious fate of being the least important of all, as there is no h7, h8 or any other low-ranking number to act as whipping boy.
h6
A good set of headings, with carefully chosen 'h' tags carries any page of text and images. Think carefully about which level of importance any heading has within the page. Let the web designer worry about how big the heading will be, or what colour, or whether it's bold. Your job is to make sure the page has a strong framework of 'h' tags.
h
Here's a really simple webpage with everything the Tips have covered so far. Save it as page-02.html and open it into your web browser to see how it reads.
<html>
<head>
<title>My first web page</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>My first web page </h1>
<h2>Community groups and the web </h2>
<p>My <strong>first</strong> paragraph. Type some more stuff in here to make it longer. </p>
<p>Another paragraph. Type some more stuff in here to make it longer. </p>
<h3>Engage your Community </h3>
<p>The Engage your Community (http://eyc.org.nz) Conference is one all community organisations should attend. There will be many workshops, including one called Keeping up with the Joneses, run by Miraz Jordan (http://knowit.co.nz). </p>
</body>
</html>
In the next Tip I'll show you how to add a link.
Panui tips contributed by Miraz Jordan, http://knowit.co.nz
Past Website tips are all available on CommunityNet Aotearoa.
In August 2008 there were 66,979 visits (July: 74,661).
Last month, 73 new community items were published.
Send in your free community notice or advertisement at:
www.community.net.nz/about/submit.
There were files 9,462 downloaded (July: 9,209). The most popular file download in August was the Employment section of the Community Resource Kit with 430 downloads. In July this was the MOU template section of the Digital Strategy Hot Topic (351 Downloads).
Find CommunityNet statistics at: www.community.net.nz/about/website/statistics.htm.
Remember: please forward the complete Panui to others who'll find it useful.
Nick Stanley, Web Content Writer.
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