{"id":1193,"date":"2022-02-03T19:00:48","date_gmt":"2022-02-03T19:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1193"},"modified":"2022-02-03T19:04:36","modified_gmt":"2022-02-03T19:04:36","slug":"useful-resources-disroot-org","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/2022\/02\/useful-resources-disroot-org\/","title":{"rendered":"Useful resources – disroot.org"},"content":{"rendered":"

Looking for a non-commercial alternative to Zoom?\u00a0 Want a particularly secure search tool?\u00a0 Need office automation tools suitable for private collaborative working?\u00a0 Consider looking at the services of the Dutch organisation disroot.org<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 They provide a variety of useful online services, including videoconferencing, that seems to be aimed at activist type organisations and they use a pay-what-you-want model.\u00a0 They host everything themselves and, where they can, make it secure and private.<\/p>\n

One needs to register to use some of their services, but not the Jitsi Meet video conferencing.\u00a0 That seems to have all the functionality one might desire: chat, hand-raising, recording, screen sharing and so on.\u00a0 It runs from the browser so works on most anything.\u00a0 https:\/\/calls.disroot.org\/<\/a><\/p>\n

The other functions on disroot.org also look very useful: document and spreadsheet collaboration, fora, shared cloud storage, polls, project Kanban boards and chat.<\/p>\n

Registration takes a couple of days to be processed.\u00a0 I’ve just started the process for myself so I can have a play with what they provide.\u00a0 But some facilities are available for anyone to use.<\/p>\n

Mail<\/strong>.\u00a0 You get a something<\/i>@disroot.org email address.\u00a0 So it is associated with them, but it is free.<\/p>\n

Cloud<\/strong>.\u00a0 Online storage.\u00a0 This is horribly expensive through most providers but starts at free with Disroot for 2Gb of data.\u00a0 54Gb of shared storage is merely about \u00a382 per year!\u00a0 They use NextCloud, which is the same solution as I settled on for the Conscience cloud-based file-sharing solution (although that does not use the cloud; I host it).<\/p>\n

Forum<\/strong>.\u00a0 Can be used as an online public or private forum or as a discussion mailing list.\u00a0 We have a Conscience forum<\/a> of our own now anyway, since the last EC meeting.<\/p>\n

XMPP<\/strong>.\u00a0 This is an instant messaging protocol.\u00a0 Remember instant messaging?\u00a0 Where you have an app open on your desktop and you can immediately chat to colleagues \/ friends and see when they are online?\u00a0 Mostly replaced by social media sites now but still useful for chatting confidentially with others online.\u00a0 This is what I was looking for: an IM server as I use Pidgin to communicate between my PCs.<\/p>\n

Pads<\/strong>.\u00a0 Online collaboration for shared text<\/a> documents.\u00a0 This looks like a really useful tool for working on something together when online.\u00a0 Here’s an example<\/a>.\u00a0 One could write something in draft in advance, then share the link, then agree a time to finalise its content together.\u00a0 This does not<\/b> require an account.\u00a0 The document stays for about six months before being deleted.<\/p>\n

Calc<\/strong>.\u00a0 Same thing as Pads, but for a spreadsheet.\u00a0 Does not sound so useful, but is a good way of capturing lists.<\/p>\n

Upload<\/strong>.\u00a0 For sending a document<\/a> to someone securely.\u00a0 You drag the file to the web page and it is encrypted before sending and stored on the server in encrypted form.\u00a0 It provides you with a long code to retrieve the file which you send to the recipient to download the file.\u00a0 You can add a password to de-encrypt it, and set it to auto-delete once it has been downloaded.\u00a0 Can be handy just for sending something to yourself that you don’t want anyone else to see, or files that are too big to send by email.<\/p>\n

Polls<\/strong>.\u00a0 Make your own polls<\/a>, completely customisable.\u00a0 For sending out to people asking their opinions, selecting choices, etc.\u00a0 This does not<\/b> require an account.<\/p>\n

Project Board<\/strong>.\u00a0 Similar to Trello<\/a>; looks like it requires an account.\u00a0 Trello might be better, but Disroot is secure.<\/p>\n

Calls<\/strong>.\u00a0 This is Jitsi Meet video conferencing<\/a> and it works.\u00a0 It seems to have all the functionality one might desire: chat, hand-raising, recording, screen sharing and so on.\u00a0 It runs from the browser so works on most anything.\u00a0 This does not<\/b> require an account.<\/p>\n

Cryptpad<\/strong>.\u00a0 Apparently<\/a>, an “encrypted collaborative office suite… allows you to create, share and work together on text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, whiteboards or organize your project on a kanban board”.\u00a0 That seems to be the overarching name for the solution they use for their office tools.\u00a0 If someone was setting up a small campaigning organisation, this looks like a potentially good solution for collaborative working.<\/p>\n

They’ve other functionality too, such as managing software<\/a> source code and audio conferencing<\/a>.\u00a0 One can also pay a nominal sum to make use of your own domain name with their email.\u00a0 You could register OurCampaign.co.uk and use Disroot’s email services with that domain name.<\/p>\n

So there are a few useful things there.\u00a0 Some of that functionality might give ideas for other ways of working, especially remotely.\u00a0 And as a package, it might be very useful for any small campaigning organisation.\u00a0 And the price is very competitive!<\/p>\n

What do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looking for a non-commercial alternative to Zoom?\u00a0 Want a particularly secure search tool?\u00a0 Need office automation tools suitable for private collaborative working?\u00a0 Consider looking at the services of the Dutch organisation disroot.org.\u00a0 They provide a variety of useful online services, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[302,303],"tags":[306,307],"class_list":["post-1193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-resources","tag-activism","tag-resources"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1193"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1197,"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193\/revisions\/1197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}