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Internet NZ weighs in on secret copyright negotiations

In its December newsletter (pdf file), Internet NZ is alarmed by media  stories  indicating a  change  in direction  in  the  latest  round  of  Anti-Counterfeiting  Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations.

The ACTA negotiating round was held in Korea in early November, and  has  reportedly  shifted  focus  to  deal  with  non-commercial infringement of copyright material by ordinary citizens, and arguing for termination of people's Internet accounts.

"If correct, this  is cause  for alarm and shows a significant change  in ACTA's focus,” says InternetNZ Policy Director Jordan Carter. [Read more →]

Welcome back to Groupings blog. Now that you are a regular, please feel free to comment on any story that you feel comfortable with.

Using a wiki to manage your committee

As the Chair of 2020 Communications Trust its my job to manage our governance bodies, including the full meetings of trustees and the monthly Admin committee.

Naturally we try to use the tools we promote, starting in the old days with emails and attachments. That soon gets totally unwieldy as participants add their comments, want to edit or amend documents and add or amend agenda items. The secretarial load soon becomes impossible. Time to webify the process. [Read more →]

Accountants resisting online applications

As one who has recently made the transition to online accounting system from having the software based on a third party's PC; one who charged us every time data was entered and even for fixing any data entry errors, I'm sold on the idea, especially for small organisations.

But the accounting profession is about as conservative as you can get - its what we pay them for and when they get "creative" or "innovative" we ALL get into deep trouble - so you might expect some resistance when you rush in with the idea to your CFO, accoutnay, auditor or treasurer. AccountingWEB.co.uk has the lowdown Accountants bring Cloud summit down to earth [Read more →]

Website design tips – White Space Improves Comprehension

One of the great benefits of a web page is that its size is, essentially, infinite. As long as you keep adding content, the page will keep getting bigger. At some point that makes the loading time in your browser too long for comfort, but what it also means is that there is no need to cram into the smallest space possible. You can afford to leave room between items, and it makes sense. via 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines. [Read more →]

Sharing presentations with Slideshare

I've done plenty of presentations to various sizes of audience but the same problem always comes up, apart from the fact that the projector doesn't work about half the time. The other problem is that once you have finished, that's it, end of all that work. Sure, you can hand out slides but if you are using your presentation tool correctly, most of the content is missing from the slides, its in what you say and how you say it.

Enter Slideshare, a free service for rescuing all that hard work and making it available to others, those who were at the conference but have forgotten just what you said, or fell asleep during it, and especialyl those who didn't get to the event. [Read more →]