Mark your calendars, we're having another Sunlight Halloween Open House! It's been a little over a year since our last one, and we wanted to invite you all back again. Come dressed to impress in your finest opengov, super PAC or political wear.

When is it? We'll be opening our doors on Tuesday, October 30 at 6pm. So if you think you can make it, please RSVP here.

Expect a special FOIA-powered brew, games, technology chit-chat and more than a little Halloween-themed decor. We hope to see you there, and please, share this post TO INVITE your friends!

Over the past few months you may have noticed the new Sunlight logo or caught a glimpse of the redesigns on our Tumblr or Twitter pages and gathered that a site refresh was right around the bend.

Well, you are correct.

Sunlight's Creative Director Ali Felski wrote a bit about the process back in January of this year and October late last year which has included many months of design, feedback, tests and tweaks. After all that hard work we're ready to announce the launch of the redesign of our main site.  Ali and the design team collaborated with the entire Sunlight staff to gather input and ideas on how our site can better reflect our mission while giving users the best possible experience.

Along with our new streamlined look we worked hard to create accessible content through simplified navigation, eye catching iconography and enhanced discovery.

It's easier than before to find relevant content by topic, issue, project type and traditional search. Whether you're interested in the latest news from the family of Sunlight blogs or would like to review the latest open government issues or you want to participate in the movement we want to make this process as simple as possible.

Please take a look around and if you have a moment we would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

Wait...we're not done yet!

We continue to work toward a better user experience, and are currently readying a handful of additional changes and features to the Sunlight site. We will continue to create an accessible and engaging experience, so stay tuned and do share your suggestions!

Google's nonprofit program offers a variety of services your organization can leverage to the benefit of your community. If you aren't a member of the program (read their eligibility guidelines) here is a run down of what the service offers:

• Free or discounted version of Google Apps for your organization
• Free AdWords advertising
• Premium branding and increased uploads on YouTube
• Free licensing for Google Earth, SketchUp, and Maps API

The services they offer at a free or discounted rate are worth the time it takes to apply, which isn't very long.  A few thoughts on proceeding:

• Apply to the nonprofit program with an email address that's not your personal account, like googlegrants@yournonprofit.org. After approval, at the very least enroll in Google Grants (which will give you up to $10,000/month to spend on AdWords) and YouTube for Nonprofits.
• When setting up AdWords, you have to set up a unique account that's not already in use.  You might want to consider using the same googlegrants@yournonprofit.org.
• For ease of access, use that same email to set up your YouTube channel.  You'll want to link your YouTube channel to AdWords.  Once you're in AdWords, look to the bottom left corner to link them.
• Use the same email address again to set up both Google Analytics and the Google Webmaster Toolkit. Both of these services require you to install meta data and code snippets into your site to verify ownership. Once in place you should link AdWords to Google Analytics, and then Analytics to the Webmaster Toolkit.
• To link AdWords to your Google Analytics, head to the Tools and Analysis tab in AdWords and click on the Google Analytics option, this will walk you through connecting the two services.
• To link Google Analytics to the Webmaster Toolkit, go to your site profile in Analytics, click Admin, then Property Settings, scroll down to the toolkit section, click Edit and link the profile on Analytics to the profile on the toolkit.  When you are finished, click Apply on Analytics.

The point in linking these services  is to gain an understanding of how users find your content and to allow you a level of control in that process. And using one designated account to manage access will save a lot of headaches.  With this account, you can grant access to other users, but this master account remains untied to any one person.

You'll also note the benefit of linking these various tools when the data from one service begins to appear in another.  For instance, you'll see better query data from the Webmaster Toolkit appear in Analytics or traffic data appearing in AdWords.

For more information on the nonprofit program - http://www.google.com/nonprofits/

In an ideal world we would quickly respond to emails, keep the clutter to a minimum and access the information needed to communicate effectively. Unfortunately for most of us, this is almost never the case.

Where do you begin to address a messy inbox?

These two rules apply whether you use Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo or another email client:

1. Always aim for ZERO emails in your inbox - respond, delete, archive, unsubscribe.  It's not impossible, but with that as your goal, it will help you cut the clutter.
2. Archive everything - unless it's spam, archive it.  Archiving messages under a corresponding label helps you quickly find those emails later on.

Now for Gmail specifically, there are a number of additional tools for your fight toward a zero inbox.

My first suggestion is to access the Gmail Labs feature.  You can find this by heading to Settings (the gear icon in the right corner) then to Labs and turn on any of the experimental features you find useful.  Personally I use Create a Document, Flickr and YouTube Previews, Google Calendar, Docs & Maps gadgets, Send & Archive and Undo Send, amongst others.

Here's a list of third-party tools you can use.

Note: Any service must use OAuth, the Google Authentication method, to ensure your privacy is intact. All of these services do.

• Unsubscribr - helps you to easily unsubscribe from unwanted email messages.
• Greplin - a search tool that scans your Gmail, Google Docs and other sites, helping you quickly locate important information.  I wrote a Tools for Transparency post on the service last July.
• Email Game for Google Chrome - an add-on for Chrome that turns Gmail into a game, giving you points for responding to and archiving messages.

In a recent Noupe.com post, they list a number of additional services to help you clean up your inbox while staying on top emails as they come in.  Here are a few from their list -

• Find Big Mail - for locating very large files, useful for discovery or deleting files eating up space.
• Google Mail Checkers for Chrome & Firefox - alerts you to new messages
• Better Gmail for Chrome & Firefox - adds useful features to your inbox like "hierarchical labels, an unread message icon on your browser tab, file attachment icons" and others.
• Rapportive - this add on compliments your account by adding context to the people you are emailing, like LinkedIn and Twitter account information, Lanyard profile and so on.
• Boomerang - this service allows you to schedule when you send and receive emails.

I would love to hear about any other useful tools or ideas you use to keep your inbox trimmed down.

Content management systems are becoming essential for running our web sites, with easy to use WYSIWYG interfaces and simple CMS plug-ins.  Often these tools need a little tweaking and a basic understanding of HTML, CSS and javascript is becoming increasingly essential.   Of course there's an abundance of resources for teaching yourself various aspects of web development -- Webmonkey and W3Schools are two of my favorites -- but Codecademy, a newer service, is offering a different approach to learning the basics.

This web-based tutorial service walks you through javascript, HTML and CSS, testing you along the way in an interactive back-and-forth style that you don't find in other tutorials. Codecademy also integrates gaming elements, like badges and points to encourage you.  The big takeaway is that you learn by doing and actually have a good time in the process.

Take a look below at the HTML & CSS lesson overview.

If you already feel comfortable with HTML and CSS, try Codecademy's Code Year for learning javascript. Every Monday you'll receive an email with the latest lesson and learn javascript throughout the year.

Signing up and getting started is very simple.  You can either log in with Facebook or set up a new account using your email.  Once you're logged in, you can begin immediately.

The Sunlight Foundation uses Eventbrite to manage ticket sales for all our events, like the upcoming TransparencyCamp 2012, simplifying the distribution process. In June of last year, Eventbrite launched an iPad app called At the Door, which enables event ticketing on-location, easing last minute sales and data capture.

Recently, Eventbrite added two new tools to compliment their app, making it much simpler to sell tickets and merchandising at your event.

At your next transparency related event, you can use Eventbrite's new card reader to take credit card payments on-site and stay on top of "on-site and online ticket sales, keep track of customer contact info and balance the books as well."

Eventbrite's small, compact printer ties in to their At the Door app for easily distributing event ticket stubs.

One negative for the reader is that is uses the iPad's 30-pin port, making it impossible to both charge your iPad and use the card reader. It's also only available on the iPad.

Square's card reader, on the other hand, plugs into your audio-out port and works on the iPad, iPhone and Android platforms. Unfortunately, Square doesn't offer an API for Eventbrite integration.

You can click through here more information about Eventbrite's app and card reader.

I'm curious about your experiences with the Eventbrite reader and At the Door app, do you have anything to share?

The web has done a remarkable job at democratizing knowledge and creating the tools necessary for sharing and seeking out information for anyone with a web connection. From collaboration to creation to distribution, we're able to do much more with much less.

The idea of democratizing education has huge potential for reaching wide and diverse audiences at a fraction of the cost, side-stepping formal learning institutions. That's the beauty of a service like Skillshare. Say, for instance, you wanted to offer an open government course related to data scraping, services like Skillshare give you the opportunity to share your expertise by providing you with an audience to offer offline classes to without anyone having to go through a local community college to teach or sign up.

Whether you're an opengov policy wonk or a community organizer or a developer or social media analyst, you can find a forum and an audience to speak to and educate on the minutiae of your work. You're given freedom to engage your audience, leverage technologies to document and share your talks and to reach large audiences with few limitations.

So what is Skillshare exactly? Crunchbase gives a great summary of Skillshare, calling it "a community marketplace to learn anything from anyone. People can offer classes to others on any type of skill, from baking cupcakes to raising startup capital."

What is Skillshare? from Skillshare on Vimeo.

Similar services to Skillshare exist as well.  Knowledge Commons DC here in Washington, Brooklyn Brainery in NYC and Betterfly are three services that offer you the ability to teach, and learn.

If you're interested in learning as well, the sites mentioned above are great.  You can also check out the Khan Academy, MITx and iTunes U.

Piggy backing off the recent post I had written two weeks ago about Pinterest, I wanted to add a few tips and ideas I've run across that will help you to better use the service.

I think it's important to stress that Pinterest focuses on compelling visual content, which sets it apart from similar sites and has nurtured such an ardent following.  As I've mentioned previously, the more people that use Pinterest, the more the culture of it will change.  I still think there's plenty of room for experimentation and storytelling but keeping the visual aspect in mind is key.

• Check out their Goodies section for a link to the iPhone app, their sharing bookmarklet and page widgets. To see their site widget in action, look at the footer of a Tumblr post.

• Are you influential on Pinterest? PinReach will break down your stats and rank your clout.

• You can search for sites by source on Pinterest, here's an example of pinned images and videos from the Sunlight Foundation.

• You can create an rss feed for any person by adding feed.rss at the end of the url, like this - pinterest.com/sunfoundation/feed.rss or board by adding rss, like this - pinterest.com/sunfoundation/2012-political-campaign-ads/rss

• Unfortunately Pinterest doesn't provide rss support for source content, making it difficult to monitor pinned content from your site.  But, luckily for us, Mashable has figured out a workaround for turning source pages into rss feeds.

• To stay on top of your content being pinned, add the rss feed you just created for source pins (in the link above) to IFTTT.  You can have IMs or emails sent to you every time you're content has been pinned, add a note of each pin to Evernote, have them tweeted, send it to Google Reader or bookmark it for later.

• Take a look at The Next Web's post on 20 Awesome Pinterest Tools.

• For more on Pinterest, both Reddit and Quora have growing communities, check them out.

I'm interested in hearing about your uses and examples from Pinterest.  Do you have anything to share?