New Year, New Computer, New Laments

Now that the holidays are over, and I'm back to work (sort of), the biggest thing to work on learning is the new laptop my husband bought for me. Of course, that's probably just so that I don't continue to call him saying "my laptop's frozen up, and I can't this thing opened to do your bookkeeping right now!" And "Can you get this thing to run faster?" Or "Why is this thing running so slowly?" Notice how I generally refer to it as "this thing?" As much as I've been thrilled to have a "new" laptop, apparently they don't make things like they used to, and a 3 year old refurbished computer that you've had for 2 years really doesn't get it done.

So, I got a new one. The first one that he brought home had a fabulous 17" screen that he thought I would love, since I don't use a separate monitor. Pretty much everything I do is on the laptop, including the keyboard, and the mouse. I had a separate webcam that I plug in when I need it, and the printer of course. But, he figured he was doing my eyes a favor. And he was! Except that he wasn't going to be doing my back any favors. The thing weighed a ton! And since I'm generally cruising around the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations with my laptop, I did NOT want to be lugging that 10 pound weight across my back.

So we settled on a smallesr one, which I like very much. It has a built in webcam, a keypad for numbers (I didn't have that before, and with the accounting, it's nice to just turn on the number lock and go). Since I had been at about capacity with my old 55GB hard drive (why does this stuff take up so much room?) It's nice to have a nice big partitioned hard drive and a whole mess of RAM. I remember the days when it was an upgrade to get 256MB of memory. This one has 8 GB! Not that I would presume to know what that means, I just know that the thing is blazing fast, and though I'm still getting used to the keyboard, I really like it.

The biggest issue is transferring all the old stuff to the new computer. An external hard drive and a girlfriend with way saavy computer skills is a must for this project. Then there's all the new software you have to deal with, and finding where everything is!

The first day I started working on reloading the software, I dropped the whole thing, and bent the door on the DVD tray. I just about cried, but nothing like a couple of screwdrivers and a set of needlenose pliers (and above mentioned computer saavy girlfriend with mad skills!) to set everything back where it belongs. Probably the biggest new thing I've learned is that these new laptops are slippery little suckers. After the DVD door incident, it slid off my laptop desk and luckily I caught the thing with my foot!

  The new OS is OK, somewhat hard to find stuff. I've always used microsoft XP, but now have MS 7, and everything looks weird. I'm sure after a while, it'll be second nature, and I'll have definitely learned at least one new thing today.

Webinar Success!?

Well, I survived the first RIGS webinar, and if that isn't Luddite success, I don't know what is. The reviews are starting to come in, and while everyone seems pleased with the concept, the execution is where we fell a bit short.

 But let me start with the dry run last week. I got to the American-French Genealogical Society Library http://www.afgs.org/ and was able to set up all the equipment that I had brought with me: laptop, projector, cell phone, webcam and clicker thingy (to advance the slides). I remembered all of my extension cords, chargers and various cables of all sorts, and I turned on my wireless hotspot for my phone. I had just had it upgraded for more data that morning, and the guy at the Verizon store (yes, I love their cell coverage) had connected my laptop to my computer, and had the network connection key entered and of course, it worked before I left the store. Now the question became, could I pull it off by myself?

And the answer was... No.
Test number 1
I got all the equipment set up, and couldn't get my phone to connect to the laptop. Turns out, you have to shut off the WiFi to get the Mobile HotSpot to work. My girlfriend, who was my "attendeee" from her office, was on her way to save me in Woonsocket (thanks Sarah, you're the best!).
Test number 2
We ended up using one of the library's computers to check the slides, camera and sound. Then I realized that there was no way to use only one computer to do the webinar as well as project for the live audience in the room. The laptop running the webinar would project the live chat to the room and that wasn't cool. So, two computers were going to be a necessity, one to run the webinar, and one to run the projector.

Can you see where this is going?

Test number 3
It wasn't too bad! I set up at home with the 2 laptops and connected to the internet via my phone. My "attendee" was waiting and then came the next surprise. The sound isn't very good unless you use a headset microphone. I'm a wanderer. When I'm lecturing, I tend to walk around, wave my arms and generally not stand in one place. Unfortunately, the webcam, which had the microphone on it, wasn't moving with me, so the sound kept fading in and out.

Test number 4
Off to pick up a Voice over Internet headset. Who knew there were so many choices? Anyway, I chose one that seemed to suit my needs and prayed this thing was really going to fly! The next test went much more smoothly. There was a substantial time delay between when I changed the powerpoint slides and when the viewers saw the slides change, but I attribute that to the wireless internet connection. There may be other reasons, but I haven't quite figured it out yet.

So Saturday rolls around, we have more than 50 people registered for the webinar and about 50 people in the room. I wasn't sure how a room microphone might interfere with the web mic, so I really needed to project my voice, as I decided not to use a room mic. Fortunately, it wasn't a deep room, and I've done lecture halls for 200 without a mic.

A friend agreed to run the laptop with the live chat, and the webinar slides so that I was able to focus on the room slide show presentation. The web folks were hearing me well with the headset microphone, so I think it was OK. Twenty nine people ended up tuning in, and the presentation went well. Most of the comments have been positive, but I know that the people tuning in didn't have the slides keeping up with the voice. I recorded it, so I can check it out later, and maybe folks can see it if they've missed it.

Overall, not bad for a first try! And now that this Luddite has learned something new, you can bet webinars are going to become a standard in my technology repertoire.

My first Webinar

Panic hasn't set in quite yet, but I'm giving my first webinar, The 1940 US Census, on Saturday. Tomorrow is the dry run, so hopefully I'll be able to figure it out before Saturday, work out the kinks and have it all run smoothly. While it's fairly easy to set up a webinar, the trick, apparently, is being in a place that has a direct, hardwired internet connection. As this webinar is for the Rhode Island Genealogical Society, http://www.anymeeting.com/AccountManager/RegEv.aspx?PIID=EA52DB898849and we have our meetings all over the State, it seems that the probability of consistently getting that direct connection may be quite low, so I'm trying some fancy stuff using my phone. (I'll have to blog about how much I love my Android smartphone at another time!).

As this is a first, not only for me, but for RIGS as well, I'm expecting a ton of technical issues (which at this point I can't even fathom what could possibly go wrong), but hoping that I can manage it sufficiently well to allow everyone to tune in. So far, we've had 42 people register for the webinar, and considering our meetings run between 40-60 participants in general, if everyone gets online, we'll have doubled our meeting attendance, and that's just what I'd like this to accomplish. As the membership chair for RIGS, I've discovered that 63% of our members are out-of-state, which means that the majority can't take advantage of one of the coolest things about being a member, and that is to attend the meetings and hear the great speakers that we get in to give talks about RI topics. If this works, then we'll have to find a permanent method that will allow us to broadcast all of our speakers via webinar to allow attendence for the folks in CA, MI, FL and WI (yes, we've had registrants from all those places!).

And for me, I've learned several new things, such as which buttons to push on my laptop to get the thing connected to my projector (three buttons simultaneously, no less), how to mass email people, and how to invite people to a webinar. All good things, technologically speaking, for a good luddite to learn every day.

Getting Connected

You'd never think that figuring out how to get connected in this technologically driven internet society would be difficult, but in reality, it is. Mainly, I believe it is because we are confronted with an astonishing array of choices when perhaps just a few would make life so much simpler. And everyone is doing their own thing, so that if you choose the wrong method, you're missing out on the people you're looking for!

The problem arose when I got a fabulous notice for my society! I was so excited that FGS and RootsTech2012 were teaming up to offer reduced registration for FGS member societies membership. As the membership chair and my society's delegate to FGS, I wanted to let all of our members know about this opportunity! But how do we normally contact our members regarding time sensitive information? What are the important items that we need to be in contact with our membership about and how do we connect?

It turns out that there are two primary methods that we use to contact our membership: our website http://www.rigensoc.org/, and our newsletter. The newsletter wasn't going to be coming out again in time for our members to act on the RootsTech registration item, but I could get a notice on our website! But how do I know how many of our members check the website regularly? Are they just used to reading the newsletter and getting all of their information that way? Are enough people going to hear about the FGS-RootsTech offer to take advantage of it?

One of the most obvious methods would be to do a mass email to all of our members! So, I cranked up MS Outlook, added my membership email list to the "To:" box and forwarded the message! And I waited, and I waited. It turns out that 435 emails isn't going to work through a regular personal email account. There are all sorts of issues associated with spamming and the ability to unsubscribe, and how did you get the email address to begin with, that it sent me searching for a simple, cheap and direct way to "blast" email our membership. (I think it's called blast, but whatever!)

A friend had suggested Constant Contact, but for as little as I anticipated using the service, it seemed too big an expense. Happily, I discovered a website called Idealware (http://www.idealware.org/articles/fgt_email_newsletter_tools.php) had an article about just this issue.  They had three suggestions for free broadcast email services that are perfect for genealogical societies. I looked around at the sites and ended up choosing MailChimp. It had been recommended by a member, looked simple to use and the free account would cover much more than the number of emails that I planned to send per month. It offers the ability to track how many people open your emails (which I have to say is quite depressing, I may need to ask my friend with marketing skills to take over this aspect), allows them to unsubscribe, and other options to avoid your email getting stuck in a Spam folder.

The number of choices for doing something so simple, such as letting your membership know about time critical information, has never been greater. There's Facebook and Twitter, email, websites and stuff I don't even want to think about. It can become information overload, and you don't want to send out so much that people become overwhelmed and start to tune you out (that can happen, as those of you with kids see on a daily basis!). And because of these opportunities, it can make our jobs harder as we try to navigate a vast array of offerings and possibilities. I guess this problem (which I have by no means yet overcome) offers another opportunity to learn something new, think about possibilities for our society to stay connected with our membership and start opening ourselves up to the wider world.