Re: [us-marketing] how easy is it to add the LO donation "link"?

On 07/03/2012 08:19 AM, Florian Effenberger wrote:
> Hi,
>
> webmaster-Kracked_P_P wrote on 2012-07-02 14:32:
> > My biggest cost is the cost of making and handing out the DVDs to local
> > users and businesses. DVDs and DVD cases do not grow on trees. For a
> > person on a fixed income, that cost can add up.  I have never charged
> > anyone for my DVDs.
> >
> > Sure, LO's costs are more than mine, much more.  Yet, local people still
> > can have "marketing costs" to cover.  I would do more marketing, local
> > print and such, if I had the income to do so.
>
> I am so sorry to hear you spend private money for marketing 
> LibreOffice, and at the same time would like to thank you for your 
> enthusiasm!
>
> It is my clear conviction that people who voluntarily spend time for 
> their pro bono engagement really should not spend their private money 
> as well. One of the most important tasks for marketing right now is 
> indeed to create local groups and budgets, to make those projects 
> possible. I really hope we can work on that soon, so you and all the 
> others doing great work can benefit from it.
>
> Thanks again!
> Florian

I have been making copies of the NA-DVD and giving them out since I had 
a good version of it.  That was last summer/fall.

How many 100's I made, I do not know.

Right now I am waiting on 3.5.5 to come out.  Usually it comes out on 
the Monday or Tuesday [if memory is correct] of the scheduled week, so I 
am hoping it will be out today.  Then I will create the next version of 
the DVD.

I bought a printer that prints on DVDs last spring/summer so I can have 
nice looking labels, not hand written or paper ones.

I use the thin DVD movie cases, instead of Jewel cases, when I give a 
DVD to business and other users that are not friends. Looks better that 
way.

I am thinking about adding some web links to the DVD that will be things 
like donate to TDF/LO and other things that are online only options.

Because of my government-subsidized housing, I cannot run a business out 
of my apartment.  That is one of  the main reasons I do not "sell" a 
copy of my DVD online.  If I did, some way that is allowed by the 
housing people, I would make sure the cost included materials, shipping, 
a small amount for my troubles, and a donation to TDF/LO that I would 
hope is split between LO's costs in Europe and marketing monies for the 
USA, like for shows and events.

I think I have a way figured out, but it may require me to get a postal 
box, which will cost me $140 a year.  But I hope to do it with my 
apartment address.  If all of the money is paid through Paypal, then no 
checks or other "business" stuff will be coming to my mail box.  If 
everything is done online, with me just going to the post office to send 
the DVDs out, that may work for the housing people.  Also it the money 
is listed as "donation" to me to pay for my costs and to LO, it might 
would as well. Any income I get must be reported to the housing office.  
They also require copies of my check statements, so any money deposited 
into my account from Paypal will be noticed.

SO I have a few things to work out.
It would be nice to have someone else do the "selling" for me, but that 
has not happened yet.

Still, I have spent my personal money to promote LO locally.  I am on a 
fixed income, so it cannot afford to spend much at one time, but I do 
spend some.

If my hosting service would allow me to have a file larger than 200MB or 
so, I would host my DVD .iso file on it, along with LO's CD/DVD page, 
but that service [and all I have looked at] have problems with hosting 
any "repository-like" service.  I wanted to be a mirror to LO's server, 
but the same problem prevents that.

Still, I do what I can, when I can.  Right now, I am looking at running 
off a set of the DVDs [3.5.5 hopefully] and give them to my government 
list so they have the newest versions, instead of the 3.4.x versions 
they have from the last time I gave them a copy.  Going to their office 
in a wheelchair, or a wheeled walker, tends to make them take notice of 
me and what I am offering them.  I just wish it was not a 1-2 year 
process to get the school districts in my area to use LO in their 
computer centers.

By the way - I had a problem with a .docx file that was a brochure with 
boxes of images and background colors with the text.  I could not read 
it with 3.5.4, so I explained to the sender that there are many people 
out there that would not be able to read such a file, since MSO 2010 
files are not read well with MSO 2007 or many of the other office 
packages that read/write MSO files.  I told her if she really wants to 
send out editable documents, she should get use to sending them as .doc 
files.  Also for things like the brochures, she should not send them out 
as editable files, but send them put as PDF files.  Then I gave her a 
link to doPDF [free PDF printer] so if she did not have a PDF 
printer/exporting options, she would ve able to use that free one.  She 
told me that she never though about people not being to view her 
"complex" .docx files, and also realized that these files should not be 
sent as an editable file.


--
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to marketing+help@us.libreoffice.org
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/us/marketing/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted