I'm thrilled to be going to Net Squared this year to share some of what I've learned by using and exploring Flickr!

Flickr photo credit: Advice by Laughlin Elkind.

As a representative of one of the N2Y3 featured projects (the KnowMore.org Firefox Extension), I thought it would be helpful to e-mail all of the N2Y2 featured projects and ask them for their best piece of advice for this year's featured projects. WOW! Over the last few days, I got some AMAZING responses from 11 of last year's featured projects – including last year's top three prize winners! They're both practical and inspiring and definitely worth checking out - even if you're not a N2Y3 featured project! 

Last night, Matt showed me the build for our autocomplete search. When a user wants to find a charity, the form will suggest what they're looking for. Now, for any veteran programmer, this would qualify as Ajax 101. Still, it was nice to see some of the tools we enjoy on other sites making a cameo on our own.

It made me think though- how much do these Web 2.0 Bells and Whistles help non-profits and for-profit businesses get heard? Now, I know that programming tricks definitely help usability- anything that makes a webpage more like a desktop is a great functionality to have. But do the aesthetic details (the bells and whistles) drive people to your cause?

Take, for example, a site called Dogster. Found at Dogster.com, it's got "Web 2.0" functionality, but the look of the site is more 1.0. There's no tag clouds, typical fonts, or tiny flourishes. Yet the site is a huge success.

I'd love to find out what you think- do the little things help a site reach its audience (profit or non-profit)? Does it matter if a site uses an autocomplete form instead of a simple list?

A brainstorm of ideas around tagging... 

• Driving traffic to a website
• Coalition build - ask similar organization to tag their sites with the same tag thing in order to show solidarity with one another
• Give program participants to give back to the community even after the the event or activity has ended
• Tagging should start when an organization has a blog
• Idea:  search organizational acronym
• Make sure tags are registered with a variety of places like delicious, technorati
• It will assist people presenting aggregated content
• Hire taggers.
  

What's next for the $100 laptop?

Improving the operating system (currently a linux core) and installing a wiki server on each laptop for the collection of information.  

I love the idea of the wiki.  The community can centralize its knowledge and make it available to others.  What an amazing way to empower people that have to cope with survival daily.

I'm geeking out right now.

I heard the crowd give a hushed "wow"!

When the $100 laptop is closed it continues to act as a router for all of the laptops in the village.  If one laptop gains a connection to the internet all the laptops gain access through the peer network.  This means even when the laptop is "off" it is not really "off".  It is running on a low level of energy to keep the network in tact.

If a woman or girl needs examples of how technology can have a postive impact on the world's people, this project is it.

The $100 laptop does not have a harddisk.  The designers of the $100 laptop found that hd's are one of the first things that often break in a computer.  To get around this problem they are using Flash memory.

Flash memory  is a solid-state memory.  In the most basic way that means it has no moving parts.  The iPod uses it.

Over the last several months I've wondered why I have such a "big" hd on my laptop.  I have 60 GB, but honestly I don't use it so often now.  I put my documents on servers - at work, my isp, services like snapfish.  Really all I need regularly is an internet connection, a browser and a place on the web I can lay my docs.  

Women not included in technology?  Is it a gender thing or a techy vs. non-techy thing?

My thinking is that by default it is a woman-thing.  Only 10% of women are technical so by default it is a gender thing.

Let's stop apolgizing and start doing.  

Where can we learn:
* webmonkey.com
* any php tutorial you find interesting on the web
* learn css
* take a class at a community college
* find an opensource project, hack it, show it to others

I went to Mills College. 

We want to build our own tools.  

Women:  Where do we go to get tech training?