Domain: codeforamerica.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to codeforamerica.org.
Comments · 11
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Re:I buy lots of ebooks - Cheap "unix" books on HB
I use Opera 41.0.2353.56 right now.
I don't know how it works for you because they may remember my chosen charity but in my case 50% of the charity part of the money goes to Code for America which is the pre-chosen one and then maybe you have another one which you can change I don't know how it works maybe they always remember the option I've chosen before and always let me use that one. The second one for me is the nature conservancy - I have no idea how good that one is but I guess to privatize nature and then just decide to do nothing with it is the most powerful way to preserve it in a nation where ownership is respected. I don't know if that's how they work but it's likely why I picked it. Supposedly you can pick among thousands of charities but that's the one I picked at some time for
.. likely pretty random reason (searched for nature or something?), so you can give it to lots of different charities but I assume if you haven't chosen something then maybe all of the charity part or half of it went to Code for America:
http://www.codeforamerica.org/I would had recommended Vivaldi, Chrome or modern Opera if it wasn't that mine have used around 1 TB of my SSD on three different occasions by swapping around like crazy. I don't really know how to protect against that.
If you pay at-least $1 you get the first 5 books.
If you pay at-least $8 you get the first 12 books.
And if you pay at-least $15 you get all 16 books.If you have paid any amount you AFAIK can increase the payment up to a week after the bundle have ended to beat the tier you want and the additional content will unlock. It used to be 30 days and they don't specify for how long any longer but in my experience it's one week and possibly one week and almost 15 minutes. Maybe some bundles work differently but that's my experience.
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Code for America
Does your work have to be people in other countries? If not, check out Code for America.
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And if you can't think of an application ...
... or if you don't want to just write a toy program that you're going to throw away, then find some open source project that you can contribute to.
Or check Code For America (or whatever the equivalent is in your country) to help out on local projects
... then you're also networking in your area, if you're looking for a new job.Go to school for learning the fundamentals of programming ('this is a variable', 'this is a function'), or maybe to get a deeper understanding of different styles of programming (procedural / functional / OO / event-driven, etc.)
... but for learning languages you're often better off working on a project you care about and maybe finding a support community (local users group for that language, or the support community behind that project) or a mentor (eg, someone else from that project)If you're one of those people who learn better from structured education
... then maybe look into a MOOC or community college. This is not one of those situations where shelling out university prices is appropriate. -
Re:Software Suggestion, Pointers
Yeah, they're currently Knight Foundation funded (a Knight News Challenge winner) and a big part of CfA Brigade's current Race for Reuse project encouraging community deployments - there's are bunch of communities adopting LocalWiki, which is awesome. Also, I met Philip, the lead dev recently and he's very sharp.
That being said, for a volunteer project for a small town without any support or resources, a Google Site w/ Google Docs links that an AC suggested probably is the best way to go - it's not sexy, but I bet that realistically, it'd be the lowest maintenance and longest lasting/most effective way to get the basic info up there (and kept up to date).
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Software Suggestion, Pointers
For the type of things you're looking for, I'd recommend LocalWiki. While so far it's been used mostly by communities vs municipalities, it includes robust permissions, is under active development, and is built w/ some nice geo-extensions for where that's applicable. It's very easy to get up and running and you could run a micro EC2 instance to test out for (practically) free.
I'd also suggest that you try to connect w/ others that are doing similar things. There's a large community of civic hackers. For those working directly w/ municipal govt, check out the Code for America Brigade, a community that's all about that and can provide help/support for exactly this sort of thing. You may want to check out their deployable app list, and maybe also check out CfA's github repository which has a lot of projects that may be useful, and their Civic Commons project which gathers the sw/infrastructure that cities are using.
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Software Suggestion, Pointers
For the type of things you're looking for, I'd recommend LocalWiki. While so far it's been used mostly by communities vs municipalities, it includes robust permissions, is under active development, and is built w/ some nice geo-extensions for where that's applicable. It's very easy to get up and running and you could run a micro EC2 instance to test out for (practically) free.
I'd also suggest that you try to connect w/ others that are doing similar things. There's a large community of civic hackers. For those working directly w/ municipal govt, check out the Code for America Brigade, a community that's all about that and can provide help/support for exactly this sort of thing. You may want to check out their deployable app list, and maybe also check out CfA's github repository which has a lot of projects that may be useful, and their Civic Commons project which gathers the sw/infrastructure that cities are using.
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Software Suggestion, Pointers
For the type of things you're looking for, I'd recommend LocalWiki. While so far it's been used mostly by communities vs municipalities, it includes robust permissions, is under active development, and is built w/ some nice geo-extensions for where that's applicable. It's very easy to get up and running and you could run a micro EC2 instance to test out for (practically) free.
I'd also suggest that you try to connect w/ others that are doing similar things. There's a large community of civic hackers. For those working directly w/ municipal govt, check out the Code for America Brigade, a community that's all about that and can provide help/support for exactly this sort of thing. You may want to check out their deployable app list, and maybe also check out CfA's github repository which has a lot of projects that may be useful, and their Civic Commons project which gathers the sw/infrastructure that cities are using.
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Other places to ask / look.
I'm guessing that Code for America, Open Source for America, or Civic Commons would have some experience in dealing with these issues, and have suggestions:
...and sure enough, it looks like Civic Commons has a page on legal policy, which includes ''Legal Issues and Best Practices With Converting/Contributing In-House Developed Code into a Reusable FOSS Project". Also take a look under Chapter 4, as there's a bit of a discussion about code releases using FOIA. The others might have stuff, too, I didn't look too thoroughly.
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Re:World Bank Hackathon
Neat! I would say you should look into the NYC Resistor hackerspace, General Assembly, and the people behind different hack days like Music Hack Day and Photo Hack Day.
I don't know how many people you could get that would be interested in something like this since it probably doesn't have enough of a cool factor to draw people in. Maybe look at Code for America for some inspiration?
Heh, I'm not even from NY.
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Check the local Chamber of Commerce
I admit, you might need to get a babysitter for those times when you're actually doing initial networking and later meeting with clients, but you might be able to find a high schooler in the afternoon, depending on when the local high school lets out. In the summer, it might be even easier.
Anyway, the local chamber of commerce -- do your research first:
- Get a list of the members, and what their businesses are.
- Look over the websites of each of the businesses
- Pick one or two smaller websites that you think could use major improvement.
- Make a mock up / prototype showing how the site(s) could be improved (and 'improved' might even be simplifying -- if you find a flash-intensive site, show them how it doesn't work on smartphones or iPad)
- Present it to the business owner(s)
If you can get a job from that, then you use that (and their contacts) to build up more clients. (and you might want to join the Chamber of Commerce, too, once you're established). If you can't, then you go for other ways to build up your portfolio -- find business with no web presence, or you might check on what the local non-profits are in your area, or if there's a small municipality, or even just check 1-800-Volunteer to see if there are local groups that might need website work. (eg, I volunteer for the local Friends of the LIbrary, and our town's annual street festival, run through the local Recreation Council; both could use help, and maybe also a presence on social networking sites so we can do more 'push' of information).
If none of those work out, I'd then look to see if you can help out with Code for America or any other open source group you feel passionately about, while still trying to network to find local work. You could even look to start up a local community website if there isn't one already (list local businesses, events, what's going on in local government, etc.).
Basically, don't just look it as a way to make money -- look at is as a way to help local businesses/non-profits/government to improve
... making it easier for people to find important information (when do you open on Sunday? does the restaurant offer anything vegan/gluten free? What services do you offer? etc.), presenting the information in a better way (ie, the website is too disorganized; it might be how their business is organized, but the general public doesn't expect to find (x) under (y)), or helping them reach out via social networking or e-mail (eg, this week's specials; important upcoming events; etc.) -
the other link seems to be dead.
anyone got a link to a working mirror of that other page, the http://flag.codeforamerica.org/ one? seems to be
/.ed to death.