Freegle Tech Report 2013-12-31

Freegle Tech Report December 2013
Posts 13040- 13079
Members 99

If anyone is interested in this stuff you are welcome to join us, even if you only want to dip in and out. Mods who are willing to try out new stuff, test any tweaks done, or just comment - please come along.

General maintenance, and Geek stuff is mostly quiet.
Changing over the servers in ongoing albeit slowly, because of work commitments and holidays.

Bulk mailing members.

This worked well. The first and follow up mails were sent out for GAYL with few comments received, although a surprising number were returned as being marked as spam. This perhaps indicates that many on special notices don’t receive them or else don’t read them..
We sent out a Christmas newsletter which while it seems to have been sent out successfully was not really commented on.

 Freegle Direct

Mapping
Google changed their app which caused ours to break. This has now been fixed but you will find the search box has moved to the top of the map.
Signing in as Admin
Another possible fix has been applied and it seems to be a lot more consistent now. To get admin rights you have to sign into direct. http://direct.ilovefreegle.org with the Facebook email that you used to be made admin on the group page. You can just click on the Facebook button. If you have problems still, please let us know.

Snapily

Continues to be taken up by groups with no problems reported. We are still waiting for an app which will work with Android phones. To get your group included just tick the box in your group Settings.

It has been suggested that we use this as a tool to organically encourage groups to add Snaply support - if Snaply selects a group which is further away, then we mail the -owner address of the closer group to remind them of Snaply's existance (no more than once a week, with an opt-out). This would give us an automatic way of gently encouraging adoption of Snaply by groups who might not be aware of it, without pestering groups too much. No one on Tech objected. Let us know if you think it is intrusive?

Wiki.

The main Search box on the Wiki has been removed as changes meant it had stopped working. Please use the one in the side panel.

 Questions raised and answered.

Q It was suggested that we could have a Bulk Email to send any one who has posted a Community Event in
say previous 3 month period asking if they could use some Freegle PR materials.
A. Some groups are doing this themselves, but it is unlikely to be done automatically.
Q. I keep receiving a message to invite the same FB members to my group. They are already showing as members. What should I do.
A. Remove them and then re add them as there must be a problem with the connection..
Q. My son is working in an IT Support position.
He is teaching himself VBA and has written some VBA to extract data from emails into an Excel spreadsheet.
Would anyone have the time and knowledge to have a quick look at some of his code to comment on it and maybe help him improve it?
A. No offers were received to help. If anyone can help with this then can you contact me at sueandjean@gmail.com and I will put you in touch.

Jean
Freegle Tech
1st January 2014

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