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<h2><font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><img alt="GN logo tree"
src="http://www.gn.apc.org/sites/gn.apc.org/files/images/sm_logo.gif"
moz-do-not-send="true" align="left" height="51" width="50"></font></font></h2>
<h2><font face="Arial, sans-serif">GreenNet Christmas Newsletter 2008<br>
</font><img alt="" src="cid:part1.00020108.05070605@gn.apc.org"
height="1" width="600"><br>
</h2>
<font face="Arial, sans-serif"><br>
<small>GreenNet has had its collective
hands very full as we've hurtled through 2008 -<br>
</small></font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><small>Edited highlights
from this
year
include...</small> </font>
<ul>
<small> </small>
<li><small> </small>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">launch
of the new GreenNet website </font> </small></p>
<small> </small></li>
<small> </small>
<li><small> </small>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">new
deals to beat the credit crunch blues</font><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"> </font> </small></p>
<small> </small></li>
<small> </small>
<li><small> </small>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">more
websites, more features, more content making a difference </font> </small></p>
<small> </small></li>
<small> </small>
<li><small> </small>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">supporting
100 women's rights workers get into ICTs in Cape Town</font></small></p>
<small> </small></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<small> </small>
<li><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">low
powered computing for everyone - GN's 8 watt (and very cute) PCs going
for a song</font></small></li>
</ul>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">If you'd like more information
on any
of our services or the stories featured in this newsletter, just drop
us a line at <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:info@gn.apc.org">info@gn.apc.org</a>. <br>
As usual, the office will be closed
during the</font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"> holiday period from
25th December to 5th
January, although
the technical team will be monitoring the system daily. If you have
any urgent problems, please call us on +44 (0)20 7065 0942 and leave
a message on our answer phone or <a href="mailto:support@gn.apc.org">email
support</a>. We will try to help
you as far as possible. Make sure you include any error messages that
you are getting and your email address. </font>
</small></p>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Please do also remember to
unplug
your computers periodically (don't leave them on standby!) and enjoy
a peaceful, happy and healthy holiday time. </font>
</small></p>
<h2><font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><img alt="GN logo tree"
src="http://www.gn.apc.org/sites/gn.apc.org/files/images/sm_logo.gif"
moz-do-not-send="true" align="left" height="51" width="50"></font></font></h2>
<h2><font><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Featured
services<br>
</font></font><img alt="" src="cid:part1.00020108.05070605@gn.apc.org"
height="1" width="600"></h2>
<h3><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><br>
Integrated, ethical (and
beautiful!)
design</font></small></h3>
<p><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><small>Ever have the feeling that
your
organisation's website, pamphlets, business cards and books have
started going off at different speeds and directions? With help from
the <a href="http://www.wave.coop">Wave</a> graphic design workers'
co-op in Hastings, GreenNet can now
help you pull things back together again. Wave have been working on
design projects with non-profit organisations since 1987 and we're
very excited to be working collaboratively on GreenNet member
projects now. The Wave-GreenNet combo means that you'll have all your
design bases covered when you start a web project with us - from
logos to leaflets to web page layouts. By working together we'll
guide you through developing a comprehensive project plan that
includes a logical project structure and creative concept for all your
work.</small> </font>
</p>
<h3><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><small>Filestores
- the next big thing</small> </font>
</h3>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">"Filestores" provide a
secure, searchable and structured place for all your organisation's
sharable documents. If your organisation has people working
from home, or in other remote locations, a filestore gives them the
same networked access to the office as everyone else has - from
anywhere that's got an internet connection. GreenNet's careful backup
management also gives you the peace of mind that nothing's ever lost.
</font></small></p>
<p><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><small>You can choose to access your
file
store through your ordinary file manager on the desktop, or via a web
interface. Either way uploading, editing and downloading files
couldn't be simpler. And with a set-up cost of just £350 + vat it's
a bit of bargain too.</small> </font>
</p>
<h3> <small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Virtual server hosting -
good
performance, good space and good value</font></small></h3>
<p><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><small>With filestores growing fast,
we've
revamped our virtual server hosting and now have a range of options
to suit different sizes of organisations. Prices start at just £20 +
vat per month for a 10 GB virtual server, rising to just £85 + vat
per month for 150 GBs.</small> </font>
</p>
<h3><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Credit
Crunch Websites</font></small></h3>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Explore your creativity with a
home-made website. If you're short of cash, confident with a mouse,
and willing to try your hand at something new, we can set you up with
a blank website ready to roll for just £250 + vat. We'll guide you
through getting started and give you a hand if you get stuck along
the way.<br>
</font></small></p>
<h3><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Aleutia
E2</font></small><br>
</h3>
<font face="Arial, sans-serif">
<small>GreenNet is committed to developing
and offering greener computing options for our users and the general
public. Computers left on through the day/night are a large chunk of
the carbon emissions in many office and homes. GreenNet's tiny,
robust and super low-power computer the Aleutia E2 is about to get an
upgrade with improved specifications to give you a better user
experience. </small></font>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">The sealed unit will still
have the
option of no-moving parts (using a CF card) as well as a full hard
drive version running either Windows XP or the free, Open Source and
extremely popular alternative called Ubuntu (we run most of our
office PCs on it!). It will still use less than 10% of the power that
you'd expect to draw from a regular desktop computer. We are also
hoping to launch a green server using a fraction of the power as most
but still as powerful but more efficient. For more information visit
the GreenNet site or if you have any questions give us a call</font></small></p>
<h2><font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><img alt="GN logo tree"
src="http://www.gn.apc.org/sites/gn.apc.org/files/images/sm_logo.gif"
moz-do-not-send="true" align="left" height="51" width="50"></font></font></h2>
<h2><font><font><font><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Fiscals
and fiduciaries<br>
</font></font></font></font><img alt=""
src="cid:part1.00020108.05070605@gn.apc.org" height="1" width="600"><br>
</h2>
<h2> </h2>
<h2><font face="Arial, sans-serif"> </font></h2>
<font face="Arial, sans-serif"><br>
<small>Feed the birds, twopence a bag -
but don't start a run on the bank! We've had quite enough of those
already this year. </small></font>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">And don't forget that
GreenNetters
fancy a spot of merry-making as well at the festive season, even if
that means putting a silly red Santa hat on top of the computer
monitor and settling down to a jolly bit of data importing. So do
please pay your bills on time - and help us keep the wolf from the
door. </font>
</small></p>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">We've done our best to help
out over
here - passing on
the taxman's miserly VAT reduction and a new
special offer for signing up a friend. It's the least we can do
for our lovely loyal GreenNet members. A Merry Christmas to you all!
Now where did I put that piggy-bank...? </font>
</small></p>
<h3><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><small>Spread
the word</small> </font>
</h3>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">GreenNet relies almost
entirely on
word of mouth within the green and progressive community for
advertising its ISP and web hosting services. While we like the good
things that people say about us in any case, if you are an existing
GreenNet member you can now claim an additional 3 months' free
membership if someone signs up on your recommendation to a GreenNet
Home/Activist or hosting package. Just ask them to mention your name
and address or your billing id when they apply. </font>
</small></p>
<p><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><small>We've extended this scheme
until 30
April 2009, and will think about it again on May</small> <small>Day.
See
<a href="http://www.gn.apc.org/services/recommendation-discounts">http://www.gn.apc.org/services/recommendation-discounts</a>
for additional terms.</small></font></p>
<h2><font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><img alt="GN logo tree"
src="http://www.gn.apc.org/sites/gn.apc.org/files/images/sm_logo.gif"
moz-do-not-send="true" align="left" height="51" width="50"></font></font></h2>
<h2><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Support
News<br>
</font><img alt="" src="cid:part1.00020108.05070605@gn.apc.org"
height="1" width="600"><br>
</h2>
<small><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><br>
Now is the time of year when many
GreenNet subscribers can deservedly leave their work email alone, and
spend a few weeks with friends and family. So we get many requests to
set up auto-responder "Out of Office" messages, to let
enquirers know when the holiday is over and they can expect their
message to be attended to. </font></small>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">GreenNet auto-replies are not
sent
in response to suspicious incoming email, and a maximum of one per
day per address is sent. If you need to set one up on your GreenNet
mailbox, you can control the auto-reply feature yourself by logging
into the SquirrelMail webmail system. For instructions, please see:
<a href="http://www.gn.apc.org/support/setting-out-office-auto-reply">http://www.gn.apc.org/support/setting-out-office-auto-reply</a>.
Don't forget to turn it off when you come back! </font>
</small></p>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">In the last newsletter we
mentioned
that suspicious emails in your mailbox such as spam-like messages and
"phishing" (including any messages pretending to come from
GreenNet and asking for your password) may now be marked with "?spam"
in the subject. For most GreenNet members, this was activated on 12
December. The most clear-cut spam we block or discard altogether. If
we do get it wrong, you can send the misclassified message to us - if
you are a Thunderbird or Outlook Express user it is easy to forward
the message as an attachment to the appropriate address ('spam' or
'notspam'). See
<a href="http://www.gn.apc.org/support/how-forward-email-attachment">http://www.gn.apc.org/support/how-forward-email-attachment</a>
Older versions of Microsoft Outlook unfortunately have difficulty
forwarding an intact message, but you can still send it to our normal
support address, <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:support@gn.apc.org">support@gn.apc.org</a>. </font>
</small></p>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">A reminder that if you are
still
receiving a lot of spam or "delivery failed" bounce
messages, it might be coming through a trustworthy web site or domain
that you have with a host other than GreenNet. For information please
see <a href="http://www.gn.apc.org/support/how-avoid-email-spam">http://www.gn.apc.org/support/how-avoid-email-spam</a>
</font></small></p>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Finally, if you have a .uk
domain
name with GreenNet as your registrar, we should remind you that you
have a separate agreement with Nominet UK, the .uk domain registry.
For terms and conditions, please see
<a href="http://www.nominet.org.uk/go/terms">http://www.nominet.org.uk/go/terms</a>
</font></small></p>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">The best way to contact us
over the
holiday period is email. If you can't email, please leave a message
on our main support number (020 7065 0942). We're back from 5
January.</font></small></p>
<h2><font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><img alt="GN logo tree"
src="http://www.gn.apc.org/sites/gn.apc.org/files/images/sm_logo.gif"
moz-do-not-send="true" align="left" height="51" width="50"></font></font></h2>
<h2><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">2008</font>
Projects<br>
</font><img alt="" src="cid:part1.00020108.05070605@gn.apc.org"
height="1" width="600"><br>
</h2>
<font face="Arial, sans-serif"><br>
<small>We are proud to
announce another year's bumper crop of great new web projects, driven
by open source technologies, planned collaboratively with our members,
built by GreenNet web developers - and populated by you!</small><br>
</font>
<h3><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">GreenNet's new website<br>
</font></small></h3>
<small><font face="Arial"><img alt="Greennet tag cloud"
src="cid:part6.04030906.04030506@gn.apc.org" align="right" height="100"
hspace="5" width="92">Liz started experimenting with a new look for
GreenNet using Drupal back in 2005. As she got more into Drupal, so did
the others - soon everyone
was working on <a
href="http://www.gn.apc.org/services/gallery/webproject">cool sites
with Drupal</a>.
And the GN project got left behind. When 2007 turned into 2008
and we found ourselves writing in the 3rd Christmas newletter running,
that
we’d be launching a new website in the new year, we all agreed that the
delay was enough already. We argued noisily about structure for a
while,
reorganised the original hierarchy, then chucked that out and opted for
the disorganised logic of tagging. And once we got into that tagging
thing, we
went Drupal module crazy. It was a bit like the way that musicians used
synthesisers in the 80s. Mimo was installing new modules faster than
the microwave could heat up his Tescos lasagnes. <br>
So after all those months of making like a tortoise in the slow lane,
we went for a sprint finish – masses of work by
Mimo and Liz – ruthless standards of
coding, colouring and layout. And now we’ve got a site that's as
stretchy as you need, we’re cross browser,
W3C and semantically valid, and we’ve got rounded corners. There’s
space to read, links that work, content that’s up to date, and although
Sarka’s original design never made it through, we have kept her lovely
logo.</font></small><br>
<h3><font face="Arial, sans-serif"> </font></h3>
<h3> <small><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><img alt="FAAN home page"
src="cid:part7.05010004.03020801@gn.apc.org" align="right" border="1"
height="137" width="169">FAAN (Facilitating Alternative
Agro-Food Networks)</font></small></h3>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">The FAAN project brings
together
partners from across Europe that are involved with local, sustainable
small scale producer retailers. The project needed a public website
and a community networking area for its partners, which provided
alternate language content and multiple access levels for the
different types of users. </font>
</small></p>
<p><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><small>The project has a neat
navigation
that guides users through a well-tagged resource-rich site. </small> </font>
</p>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><a
href="http://www.faanweb.eu/">http://www.faanweb.eu/</a>
</font></small></p>
<h3><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">London
Tai Chi</font></small></h3>
<p><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><small>The London school of Tai Chi
have
had a static website with GreenNet for donkey's years and decided it
was time to move on. With a very limited budget, they opted to
customise the site themselves. We did a basic Drupal installation for
them, spent a couple of hours training them in how to manage the site
and the result is a well structured and presented website that does
the School proud.</small> </font>
</p>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><a
href="http://www.londontaichi.org.uk/">http://www.londontaichi.org.uk/</a>
</font></small></p>
<h3><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><img alt="PWYP home page"
src="cid:part8.01080803.00090102@gn.apc.org" align="right" border="1"
height="160" width="167">Publish
What You Pay</font></small></h3>
<p><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><small>Publish What You Pay (PWYP) is
an
international coalition that holds governments accountable
for income from extractive industries. They wanted a site that would
serve up
their resources in a simple and organised way with an updated look
and feel. We worked with PWYP to devise a simple
navigation that rationalised their content into 5 main
sections, including an interactive map of members across the world. We
partnered with Wave for the design element of
the project. Their design is based on clean, well structured xhtml
code in a non-table based layout and using cascading style sheets
(CSS) for all the presentational information. This improves the
site’s chances in search engine content rankings and also makes
pages quicker to download, much more accessible to all users and
easier to update.</small> </font>
</p>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><a
href="http://www.publishwhatyoupay.org/">http://www.publishwhatyoupay.org/</a>
</font></small></p>
<h3><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><small>Communication
Point</small> </font>
</h3>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Communication Point needed a
website which could better present their voluntary sector
communication consultancy services. Working with a modest budget we
set up a robust and simple site that could accommodate all their
content and would be
ready for more bells-and-whistles development in the future. CP
meanwhile took care of the graphic design. </font>
</small></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.13cm;"><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><a
href="http://www.communicationpoint.org/">http://www.communicationpoint.org/</a></font></small><br>
</p>
<h3><small><font><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><img
alt="Right to Education home page"
src="cid:part9.03080401.00030806@gn.apc.org" align="right" border="1"
height="147" width="162"></font></small></font></small></h3>
<h3><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">ActionAid's
Right to Education project</font></small></h3>
<p><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><small>The Right to Education Project
came
to GreenNet with an already-made complex tables-based design mock-up
and just 3 weeks to build a website and content management system for
their content. We used Drupal to create the initial site structure,
and then carefully rebuilt the design minus the original tables.
While the technical development work was going on, we trained the R2E
project workers on how to use the system and they worked on getting
their hundreds of documents into the site.</small> </font>
</p>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><a
href="http://www.right-to-education.org/">http://www.right-to-education.org/</a>
</font></small></p>
<h3><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><img alt="CLTS home page"
src="cid:part10.07070004.09020407@gn.apc.org" align="right" border="1"
height="152" width="159">Community-Led
Total Sanitation (CLTS)</font></small></h3>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">The CLTS project at the
Institute
of Development Studies has spent the last years in a corner of
the Livelihoods Connect website. With the project's increased reach and
reputation has grown, <br>
</font></small></p>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">GreenNet partnered with Wave
for
the design element of the project. They created a custom page design
using CLTS's images, and made sure that the site meets required
accessibility standards. </font>
</small></p>
<p><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><a
href="http://www.communityledtotalsanitation.org/">http://www.communityledtotalsanitation.org/</a></font></small></p>
<h3><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Feminist
Tech Exchange</font></small><br>
</h3>
<small><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><img alt="ftx logo"
src="http://www.gn.apc.org/sites/gn.apc.org/files/images/ftx.thumbnail.png"
moz-do-not-send="true" align="right" border="1" height="86" width="100">
This year GreenNet also got
involved in an exciting new initiative called the Feminist Tech
Exchange(FTX). In November, one hundred women's rights activists from
all over the world came together in Cape Town to exchange skills and
experiences around their use of technology. There were five main
areas of training: Digital Storytelling, Social Networking, Wireless
and Mobile networking, Video and Audio production. In the process we
explored the relationship between feminism and technology, how
feminist values inform and affect our use of online tools. The event
was organised in partnership with the Association for Women's Rights
in Development(AWID) and the APC Women's Networking Support Programme
(WNSP) and took place just before the 11th AWID Forum, where the FTX
participants were able to practice their new skills by blogging,
making video and audio recordings and other content to bring the
forum to a wider audience.</font></small><small><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><br>
To see some of those results
and
learn more about the project visit <a href="http://ftx.apcwomen.org/">http://ftx.apcwomen.org</a></font></small><br>
<h2><font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><img alt="GN logo tree"
src="http://www.gn.apc.org/sites/gn.apc.org/files/images/sm_logo.gif"
moz-do-not-send="true" align="left" height="51" width="50"></font></font></h2>
<h3><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Looking ahead...<br>
</font><img alt="" src="cid:part1.00020108.05070605@gn.apc.org"
height="1" width="600"><br>
</h3>
<small><font face="Arial"><small><br>
</small>With many GreenNet members facing tough times during 2009, we'd
like to invite you to contact us if you have anything you'd like to
discuss in terms of development needs or payment plans that could make
things easier. And of course if you have suggestions for things you'd
like us to be doing more of, or differently do <a
href="mailto:info@gn.apc.org">let us know</a>. <br>
And finally thanks to all of you for your continuing support!<br>
</font></small><small><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><br>
With
warm wishes for 2009 from all of us in
the GreenNet Collective</font></small><small><font face="Arial"> <br>
<br>
</font></small><br>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br>
</p>
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