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Please Invest
Please Invest is a new LYIP I have been investing in for about a week now and proves to be promising. The percentage of profit you make is variable but there are also bad days where the percentage on average will be -1%. For the most part however you make it right back the next [...]

Basic Blog Traffic
Basic Blog Traffic Blogs,Internet Marketing,Website Promotion Improving Traffic Level is main key to improve the earnings from your ads. “More people visit your website, greater possibility its click “. Improving your visitor blog amount is not as easy as told; it needs the patience and hard work. Are you tired no one visits your blog? Low traffic [...]

Get Paid For Writing In Your Spare Time
Love to write articles? Or maybe even type to your friends about something you know really well? Then Associated Content is the perfect site for you. You can sign up as a publisher and start writing articles or how-to guides. The pay range is from $3-$20 which is not bad for writing in your spare [...]

حملة على الإنترنت ضد مقاطع فيديو تُحرِّف القرآن

sicko

سؤال ادبى ؟

Session Round-Up
This week's Session Round-Up is dominated by female singer-songwriters. New York songbird Jaymay visits the Daytrotter studio, the insanely talented (and young) Laura Marling brings her guitar to MPR's The Current, and watch Russian anti-folk songstress, Regina Spektor, slamming keys...

This week's Session Round-Up is dominated by female singer-songwriters.  New York songbird Jaymay visits the Daytrotter studio, the insanely talented (and young) Laura Marling brings her guitar to MPR's The Current, and watch Russian anti-folk songstress, Regina Spektor, slamming keys live from Mountain Stage over at NPR.

@ Daytrotter

• Jaymay

• Phantom Planet

• Ani DiFranco

@ NPR's World Cafe

• Paul Weller

• Delta Spirit

@ MPR's The Current

• Laura Marling

@ KCRW's MBE

• Tilly and the Wall

• Cold War Kids

• Brazilian Girls

@ NPR's Live Concert Series

• Regina Spektor

@ WOXY

• French Kicks

• Jukebox the Ghost

Session Round-Up
This week, be sure to tune into Daytrotter to hear the experimental-folk sounds of Blitzen Trapper, cruise over to MBE to experience the sweetness of Dr. Dog, and if anything else, don't forget to tune into NPR for the live...

This week, be sure to tune into Daytrotter to hear the experimental-folk sounds of Blitzen Trapper, cruise over to MBE to experience the sweetness of Dr. Dog, and if anything else, don't forget to tune into NPR for the live stream of Radiohead from their Santa Barbara show in its two-and-a-half hour entirety.

@ Daytrotter

• Blitzen Trapper

• Phantom Planet

• Colour Revolt

@ NPR's World Cafe

• Dr. Dog

• The Ting Tings

• Paul Weller

@ KCRW's MBE

• Dr. Dog

@ NPR's Live Concert Series

• Radiohead

Radio On The TV
This week, late night TV makes way for the Cold War Kids debuting their new material on the Jimmy Kimmel set, Cat Power purrs with Carson Daly, and don't miss Rufus' dad on Conan.Monday, September 15Late Late Show: The Ting...

This week, late night TV makes way for the Cold War Kids debuting their new material on the Jimmy Kimmel set, Cat Power purrs with Carson Daly, and don't miss Rufus' dad on Conan.

Monday, September 15
Late Late Show: The Ting Tings

Tuesday, September 16
Late Late Show: Tally Hall
Last Call: Cat Power

Wednesday, September 17
Conan O'Brien: Loudon Wainwright III

Thursday, September 18
David Letterman: Fleet Foxes

Friday, September 19
David Letterman: Duffy
Jimmy Kimmel: Cold War Kids

Radio On The TV
Invading your TV sets this first week of October (plus last two days of September), we have The Virgins spicing things up on David Letterman, watch Ben Folds do his thing behind a piano on Conan, and be sure to...

Invading your TV sets this first week of October (plus last two days of September), we have The Virgins spicing things up on David Letterman, watch Ben Folds do his thing behind a piano on Conan, and be sure to check out Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds on the same stage later this week.

Monday, September 29
Conan O'Brien: Watson Twins
Fuel TV's The Daily Habit: Team Robespierre

Tuesday, September 30
David Letterman: The Virgins

Wednesday, October 1
Jay Leno: Nikki Costa
Fuel TV's The Daily Habit: Aesop Rock

Thursday, October 2
Last Call: Cut Copy
Conan O'Brien: Ben Folds
Fuel TV's The Daily Habit: Man Man

Friday, October 3
Conan O'Brien: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Fuel TV's The Daily Habit: Foals
Last Call: Grizzly Bear

Out This Week
Ben Folds - Way to Normal Murs - Murs For President Mercury Rev - Snowflake Midnight Willoughby - I Know What You're Up To Chairlift - Does You Inspire You

Ben Folds - Way to Normal

Murs - Murs For President

Mercury Rev - Snowflake Midnight

Willoughby - I Know What You're Up To

Chairlift - Does You Inspire You

Undiscovered Band Of The Month: Electric Umbilical Cord
FILTER is proud to announce our September addition to the Discover The Undiscovered family. Meet Brooklyn based duo, Wesley Thatcher and Corey Crawford aka Electric Umbilical Cord. EUC has been making music as an electronic duo in many different forms...

FILTER is proud to announce our September addition to the Discover The Undiscovered family. Meet Brooklyn based duo, Wesley Thatcher and Corey Crawford aka Electric Umbilical Cord. EUC has been making music as an electronic duo in many different forms over the past 9 years. Originally hailing from San Diego, California, they uprooted themselves 2 years ago and moved coasts to Brooklyn, New York. Drawing inspiration from dream states and influenced by early post punk and experimental electronic bands, EUC mixes textured electronic sounds and wandering synths, held together by addictive beats and moving lyrics with a desolate undertone. With their emotionally driven live performance combined with obscure visual elements EUC drags the listener into their shadowy world.

Electric Umbilical Cord: www.myspace.com/electricumbilicalcord

Who are your main influences?
Early 80s post punk and experimental electronic groups ie. the cure, danse society, the wake, joy division, the chameleons, bauhaus, Einstürzende Neubauten etc.

How did you meet?
Supposedly we met in pre-school according to a class photo we were both in. We became friends the first few years of elementary school skating around neighborhoods and going to summer surf camps doing San Diego kids stuff. Following in to Jr. High and then High school we began to collaborate on music after playing in different punk bands. Both influenced by our older brothers and the instruments they left around for us to play with we eventually turned toward samples and electronic music. 

What is your biggest achievement as a band to date?
Our biggest achievement thus far would have to be that we have continued to work on music together after almost 9 years. After 4 years of experimenting with instrumental music/ sound track music we started EUC and have continued to work together and inspire each other through our similar and different individual tastes and use that in a collaborative effort. I would say its the evolution of EUC from our early days into the maturity of the band we have created now.

Where did the band name originate?
Observing the idea that we genuinely adapt all the music we write to be eventually recorded and played using electronic instruments, and how we feed off the electricity to produce sound from it, hence the umbilical cord. Also it can reference the broader sense of how much electricity and electronics people use in their daily lives. As if we have become raised, breed and fed through an electric umbilical cord.

Favorite Bands?
Currently we've been listening to Three Mile Pilot, Death In June, Swans, older Ministry and Lowlife

Plans to Tour?
Fall/Winter West Coast tour

Plans for next release?
EP out in Winter/Spring 09

Radio On The TV
Not exactly a bevy of choices for this week's installment of Radio on the TV. A couple re-airs are mixed in with a few new performances including Wisconsin's scruffy, but gentle Bon Iver serenading the Conan set and newcomer, Meiko...

Not exactly a bevy of choices for this week's installment of Radio on the TV.  A couple re-airs are mixed in with a few new performances including Wisconsin's scruffy, but gentle Bon Iver serenading the Conan set and newcomer, Meiko doing the same later this week.

Monday, September 1
Conan O'Brien: Bon Iver

Tuesday, September 2
Last Call: Grizzly Bear (re-air)
Travis Smiley: Amos Lee

Thursday, September 4
Conan O'Brien: Meiko
Last Call: Cloud Cult (re-air)

Trading Using Multiple Time Frames

Why do we need to Trade Using Multiple Timeframes?
To improve the efficiency of our trading strategy. We see the major Trend using a higher time frame than what we intend to use a lower Time frame to enter a trade.
Say we want to trade using the Daily Charts. We take the Weekly charts to see the major trend. Suppose its an uptrend in a Weekly chart. We will tend to trade only long positions. We will use entries in the daily charts to enter long positions only. When sell signals are generated we will just exit our long positions. I.e. we dont short sell.

read more

Pink Sheets Discover Disclosure.

Once upon a time in the world of finance there were three kingdoms the most widely recognized was also the most snobbish and wealthiest its subjects were affluent and known worldwide. Its king was NYSE (New York Stock exchange) the king ruled proudly over his subjects.

Every brokerage firm had a stock ticker to provide their customer with trade information on NYSE listed stocks.

read more

How To Start Trading The Forex Market ? (Part 4 )

How Currencies are quoted and what moves individual currencies?

ONE of the best advantages in FOREX Trading is

The amount of money you need to place a trade (known as "margin") is all that can be lost !

You have to know, that despite the super-high leverage offered by some Forex brokers up to (400:1); meaning if you put up $ 1000 the broker will allow you to trade like you really have $400.000).

Forex trading is still less riskier than Stock or Futures Trading, where you can loose more than you have deposited in your account.

read more

slow response from mysql database on another server
I set up a mysql database earlier and was getting a very slow response (about 4 seconds to connect) from a php script on another server. Both servers were windows (yeah I know, not my choice!). After a bit of googling I found the cause of this is DNS checking that occurs for incoming requests [...]

I set up a mysql database earlier and was getting a very slow response (about 4 seconds to connect) from a php script on another server. Both servers were windows (yeah I know, not my choice!). After a bit of googling I found the cause of this is DNS checking that occurs for incoming requests from seperate servers. The solution is to put skip-name-resolve into the mysqld section of my.ini (mysql config file)

overriding the title attribute in an archetypes schema
Something I always forget to do when I override the title attribute in an archetypes schema (plone) is to specify accessor=Title (with a capital T). Omitting this leads to odd results, such as the ID of the plone objects created from the schema not being created from the title field, but something else (hmm.. the [...]

Something I always forget to do when I override the title attribute in an archetypes schema (plone) is to specify accessor=Title (with a capital T). Omitting this leads to odd results, such as the ID of the plone objects created from the schema not being created from the title field, but something else (hmm.. the parent object’s title maybe?).

drupal permissions - remember input format
After banging my head against the desk for a while this morning, I worked out that the reason I could edit a page as the admin user, but not a “editor” user I had set up, was that I hadn’t allowed my editor user to use the “full HTML” input format, which had been used [...]

After banging my head against the desk for a while this morning, I worked out that the reason I could edit a page as the admin user, but not a “editor” user I had set up, was that I hadn’t allowed my editor user to use the “full HTML” input format, which had been used when the page was created (by the admin user). Enabling this input format for all users opened up the content to be editable how I needed it.

apologies for the timewarp…
I’ve now moved my site away from the cheap shared hosting it was on, and onto one of my own servers - hopefully there should be less downtime now, and apologies to anyone who found themselves reading some of my posts from february 2006!

I’ve now moved my site away from the cheap shared hosting it was on, and onto one of my own servers - hopefully there should be less downtime now, and apologies to anyone who found themselves reading some of my posts from february 2006!

Dasavatharam: Almost a hit even before the release
Dasavatharam Preview. And why it'll be a hit even before it releases.

Not a lot of movies interested me in the recent times like Dasavatharam.

Kamal Hassan’s Magnum opus, India’s costliest flick (Rs 165 Crore?) is due to release tomorrow.

If you’re a fan of good acting and interesting movies, you shouldn’t miss Dasavatharam. Kamal will sizzle in 10 different roles - never ever done before. Characters like George Bush and a NASA astronaut arouse your interest.

Some action scenes and the makeup looks stunning. Almost 80-90% of the movie involves graphics. It’s not all action but also romance & comedy. It’s a long time now that I’ve seen a Tamil movie in Cinemas so my expectations are high.

Over 150 shows/day but did you get a ticket?

Just in Chennai city alone. With Chennai metro & suburbs, the number will hike to over 200 shows a day! Most of the shows for the first ten days are sold out. In Satyam (14 shows), when the booking was opened on Tuesday, the earliest date available was 19th when I went to reserve. Most of the shows would be booked for the first 20 days or so. Theater websites were jammed and were unusable.

Not only in Chennai, in TN too the shows are booked for the first 3 days. It’s releasing in Hindi & Telugu as well. Sivaji (in Tamil) pipped Jhoom Barabar Jhoom in Mumbai & Delhi. This will also if the movie is good.

Another interesting thing. Movie rights (tamil only) is brought for a record Rs. 5.1 Crore.

Cat and mouse game with Sivaji

Can’t help noticing this…During Sivaji’s 125 day celebration [Movie Review], Kamal was not present. During the Audio release of Dasavatharam, Rajni was absent. Sivaji was Rs 75 crore+ and this one is stated to be a Rs 165 Crore project. Sivaji’s Music (A R Rahman) was amazing but Dasavatharam’s music (Himesh Reshammiya) is average. The was a cold war btw the stars throughout - which is a good thing anyways as we get to indulge in good movies.

Initial reviews of the celebrities (inc. TN’s CM) are good (but I don’t trust those review, helps in expectations). Never mind if the movie is good but I know it would be interesting to see 10 different characters and how they are intervened. Have fun and enjoy in the cinemas and for that purpose only movies are produced.

Can’t wait till Monday, the day I’m going to the cinemas for this.

The Beijing Olympics Post
I love watching sporting action. I like F1, Tennis, Cricket and Golf (for Tiger Woods). Atheletics, Swimming and Gymnastics are exciting to watch but it’s only when Olympics, Asian, Common Wealth games that we get to watch them. I normally don’t like to post ‘random post’ kind of BS but what the fuck, I [...]

I love watching sporting action. I like F1, Tennis, Cricket and Golf (for Tiger Woods). Atheletics, Swimming and Gymnastics are exciting to watch but it’s only when Olympics, Asian, Common Wealth games that we get to watch them.

I normally don’t like to post ‘random post’ kind of BS but what the fuck, I don’t care, we won a Gold!

Abhinav Bindra Wins Gold!

Finally!

This is one of the best sporting moment for India. I rate it only after the World Cup ‘83 Victory. We’ve never won a Individual Olympic gold before.

The guy was amazing. All his shots was more than 10 and his last shot struck bull’s eye. He won quite convincingly in the end. I couldn’t believe what I saw. Sometime back the DD presenter give the news that Bindra had qualified (3rd). So I was thinking they were showing the qualifying.

I saw the event live on DD, both the action and the metal ceremony. Abhinav was so calm and hardly showed any emotions. I was crying and so happy as if I had won the gold metal. A very proud moment and will in our memory for a long time to come.

Congrats Abhinav [His blog: Abhinav Bindra's Road to Beijing].

One Billion People and One Metal?

It’s a irony that Bindra shot a gold on a day where our “cricket superstars” were creamed by the Lankans. Don’t get me wrong, I love Cricket but it’s time other sports get their share of attention.

We cut out a sorry figure every Olympics (or any other event). The root of all problem is many don’t get the support of parents who don’t want their child to take risk. The society also looks down if we tell your were a sportsperson.

The next issue is of course the infrastructure. I think we don’t have a sound infrastructure in other key areas, leave alone for sports. It would be great if we have a system like the AIS as in Australia. AIS assures the athlete most of the expense of their training, education, housing, etc. That’s why Australia, USA and China produce great sportspersons.

Finally we need the much needed cash injection. 90% of our people are money minded. They’ll even rape a dog for money. So I hope the Government and many companies come forward and offer cash incentives, gift Mercedes and sponsor the gold medalists.

It’s about time that we pull up our socks and get those medals.

Good Sporting Action

This is the greatest sporting event. The greatest ever Olympics ever.

It’s a real treat for sports fans all over the world. Where else can see Federer-Nadal-Djokovic clashes, Phelps chasing 8 gold medals (already 2 done with World Record timings), USA-Australia rivalry in the pool, Chinese Diving poetry, USA’s NBA All-Star basketball creaming other teams, hopefully Yelena Isinbayeva’s yet another World Record pole vault essay, Brazil-Argentina football clashes, the Kenyan and the Ethiopians running to glory in the same stage and at the same time?

Watching the USA basketball team drubbing China, Phelps double gold with World Record timings, Brazil’s famed South American Football symphony, et al gets your adrenaline going. And seeing the Tricolor hosted with the Jana Gana Mana is emotional and just priceless.

Will Phelps win 8 Golds? Will Liu Xiang can carry the hopes of a nation? Who will be the fastest man? Who will be the strongest man? Will India win 2 medals?

Don’t miss the action.

Watch Olympics Live Online

You can watch the Olympics Live online as we watch Cricket Live Online. The IOC has teamed with YouTube [Beijing2008] to offer us Video clips.

The sites that offer live coverage of Beijing Olympics:
** It’s Game Time
** Watch Olympics Online

Some TV Broadcast Network who are telecasting:
** NBC
** BBC
** CBC

Let’s see whether we can get more metals. Hopeless in Swimming, Athletics (Anju is hopeless), Boxing (even Vijender isn’t good enough) and Sailing/Rowing. Will be very surprised if Sharath (TT) gets a medal (Asian Games Gold medalist). Saina seems to be in good touch. Hope Rathore shoots a metal this time also. An outside chance in Tennis. What do you think?

Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na: Enjoy with Friends
Back from the screening of the movie and had a good time. I wanted to see a movie and was caught between Love Story 2050 and this one [Read about that]. Jaane Tu.. is a fun, bubbly, cute and a feel goodmovie. The movie has more highs than lows and I loved every minute. The [...]

Back from the screening of the movie and had a good time. I wanted to see a movie and was caught between Love Story 2050 and this one [Read about that].

Jaane Tu.. is a fun, bubbly, cute and a feel goodmovie. The movie has more highs than lows and I loved every minute.

The plot is your usual one where the boy and girl don’t realize that they’re in love till the end of the movie. The youth factor, great music, witty & comic dialogues, freshness scores heavily for the movie.

* No Spoilers - Cruise @ 120 km/h *

When Pappu can’t dance, Pappu will give you a good time

More college student gave attendance to this matinee show than their lectures. We had so much fun whistles and giving commentary even if it was at the cost of missing dialogues. You might’ve seen million of such movie but this is full of energy.

The dialogues are witty and humorous. The whole cinema hall was alive with energy. Watch with your friends and have a rocking time.

New Wine in an Old Bottle

…and it’s not the other way around. The wine (treatment) is fresh while the bottle (story) is old. Nothing’s new. Just when you think you’d enough of these romances, a new one manages to interest you. Genelia & Imran being did fairly well. Wait till you see how the songs are shot - the dances & stuffs is done different. Actors did a great job as they didn’t need to act as they were natural. Watch out for the opening credits - it’s amazing.

A Word about the climax - a no brainer and you can guess it. The ending would’ve made a rom-com Hollywood director proud. Never seen anything like this before in Indian Cinema.

Most sequences are predictable. Your ‘cool words’ vocabulary improves with words like meow, boms, jiggy, shitty, potty, etc. It got monotonous (perfect time to do your commentary :twisted:) during the course of the second half. The movie is not perfect but on the whole it’s watchable and a fun movie.

Jiggy jiggy ja ja ta na na… come humming out of the cinemas.

6.5/10

How to get Maximum Download/Upload Speeds?
How do you get maximum speeds while downloading from a public tracker and/or uploading to a private tracker?

You don’t get full speed while downloading from a Public Tracker. The same is the case while uploading to a Private Tracker.

How much ever be the peers, we don’t get maximum speed. The case with the Private Trackers uploading is a different issue. There are none to download what you’re trying to seed. Sometimes you don’t even want to download as the speed might be low anyway or don’t upload as you can afford to maintain ratio.

Often people ask me what to do and how I manage. Martin is fed up and asks what to do:

i just don’t wanna use the public
trackers anymore ’cause it’s very slow

What that is to follow might not be new to ’seasoned torrenters’ but I want to drive home one point for the rest of us.

Be patient.

What should you do?

Run more than one torrent at a time

It’s simple and common sense should prevail. I just download/upload more than one file at a time. If I have time, then I look if the torrent makes use of full BW, otherwise by default I just run more than one file to download/upload for public/private trackers.

Patience Pays

It really does.

When you are into P2P, see the number of occasions that requires you be patient…
- wait for the DVD/HD Rip release
- wait for an invite to your favorite Private Tracker
- wait for the file to be downloaded fully (can be a agonizing wait if it’s a porn )
- wait for peers when stuck at 99.9% (believe me, you would be surprised as how many people suffer from the “99.9% syndrome”)
- keep the torrent running if the download is going slow
- keep uploading the file for months to maintain a decent ratio
- what do you do if you delete the RARs before extracting? Wait for the file to be downloaded again.

Wait, wait, wait…patiently.

I believe we need loads of patience in this P2P business. Else pay for uploads, get in private trackers, watch from TV, rent/buy DVDs, beg/borrow/steal from others.

Go, max out your BW.

Love Story 2050 Vs Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na
I wanted to see a movie and was caught between Love Story 2050 and Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na. Me thinks… Poppy Chops (Priyanka) is super hot. Equally good is Genelia. She might not have those Ponds cream killer looks but she’s bubbly and cute. Hmm. LS seems to have a story which can fuck [...]

I wanted to see a movie and was caught between Love Story 2050 and Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na.

Me thinks… Poppy Chops (Priyanka) is super hot. Equally good is Genelia. She might not have those Ponds cream killer looks but she’s bubbly and cute. Hmm. LS seems to have a story which can fuck you or interest you. The lame ass animations makes me thing again. Jaane Tu can be murky waters and I would need a disaster management assistance if I want to recover from the 210 mins of cheesy, run out of the mill, singing under trees, rain drenched actors boring us to death. Both are risky business.

Jaane Tu music is by the master - A R Rahman. The OST is amazing and I’ve heard all the heard more than 20 times in 2 days! Honestly LS songs didn’t seem good or maybe I didn’t listen enough. 1 up for Jaane Tu. Aamir Khan did a good job with the marketing and getting the buzz around the movie (almost as good as SRK did for Om Shanti Om). Team LS also did a fine but not as aggressively as their counterpart. Jaane tu did surely keep me interested. 2 -0 in favour of Jaane Tu.

Heard that preview show audiences liked Jaane Tu and booed LS. Ok, sealing the deal with Jaane Tu.

Jaane Tu review coming up within an hour…

The Dark Knight - Jesus Batman Christ
Batman 2 - The Dark Knight will blow you away. It was a different type of Superhero movie. Usually our hero saves the world and along the way, we see his pretty workaholic girlfriend and some cool action sequences. The Dark Knight was more of a ‘masterpiece’ than a ‘Batman movie’. The cinematography was fantastic. [...]

Batman 2 - The Dark Knight will blow you away.

It was a different type of Superhero movie. Usually our hero saves the world and along the way, we see his pretty workaholic girlfriend and some cool action sequences. The Dark Knight was more of a ‘masterpiece’ than a ‘Batman movie’.

The cinematography was fantastic. Gotham and Honk Kong looked stunningly dark and deep. With Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, Heath Ledger, Michael Caine and Maggie Gyllenhaal around, rest assured that you’re set to watch a grand performance. It’s Tour de all-the-way-to-Oscars.

Some ohhh-ahhh Moments

You are sucked into the intense drama from the start. I thought the movie was more into the Drama Genre than Action. Nevertheless the action stuffs was edge-of-the-seat material and there was this 3 ohhh-ahhh moments:
1. Batmobile to BatPod and Batman-The Joker chase
2. Batman exit with Chin Han
3. Batman flying with the Bat-like wings. (makes Superman’s thing look like a towel)

The Joker lives on

The Dark Knight is Heath Ledger (The Joker) show all the way. Batman was overshadowed. When “Heath Ledger” came in the opening credits, there was loud cheers. The Joker’s opening scene (pencil trick) was applauded. Whistles and claps all around like a Superstar Rajnikanth movie. Never have I seen people whistling for the villain and want the superhero to lose!

We loved characters Angel Eyes (The Good, the Ugly, the Bad), Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint (The Usual Suspects) but The Joker was sinister, funny and brutal. Heath played the character of lifetime. Even Batman looked frightened.

Again whistles for Heath Ledger in the closing credits and for “In memory of …”. It’s sad that we wouldn’t see such an actor who can blow us away, again.

The joker. We wanted Batman to lose and never have we ‘respected’ a villains so much. Christopher Nolan. Thanks for this amazing movie. The BatPod. Ahhh…see the movie to see how stunning it is. The Dark Knight. Enough said. Reserve your tickets, now.

The bottom line is you get a complete package. Couldn’t ask for more.

9/10

µTorrent for Mac OS X Leaked
Yeah, the best torrent client will get the much needed Mac love. There was a talk that µTorrent will be ported to OS X ’soon’ and this was sweet news as most of the OS X users are using either Azurues or Transmission. Vuze is a bloat (so use v.2.5.0.4) and Transmission doesn’t excite me [...]

Yeah, the best torrent client will get the much needed Mac love.

There was a talk that µTorrent will be ported to OS X ’soon’ and this was sweet news as most of the OS X users are using either Azurues or Transmission. Vuze is a bloat (so use v.2.5.0.4) and Transmission doesn’t excite me (doesn’t offer as much feature & control as Azureus does and I don’t like the UI).

The Mac version was made public earlier than the developers wanted. An internal alpha version was leaked to torrent trackers. This is a cocoa app and looks like any other Mac app, not the Windows client ported to Mac. So this assures that the developers are serious about the Mac version.

The official release should be out any time now. Signup at µTorrent website to be notified as soon as it’s released.

My torrent client story. Initially I was using BitTornado (still a nice client, many private tracker recommend it). Then switched to µTorrent lured by the features and control. Switched to Azurues with the advent of my Mac (occasionally using µTorrent with Crossover). It seems I’ll be back with my favourite client soon.

I took the client for a spin to see if it was a half asses effort. And with new episodes of Heroes, Prison Break, How I Met your Mother and The Big Bang Theory scorching the trackers, what better way to test it?

Check out my review at Smoking Apples. The bottom line is it’s buggy and missing basic some features. Not at all a bad for a ‘first’ release and should only get better. It wouldn’t recommend it, as yet, though it’s as functional as an internal alpha release should be.

Can’t wait for the stable release to hit and reinstating µTorrent as my default torrent client.

TV Shows I like - Part 4
Lost, Prison Break and Heroes are the most popular TV Shows. Watch them at the cost of getting addicted. Let’s cut the crap now. To make the proceedings interesting here, I write no review about the shows and I’ll list the best seasons to watch out for. Lost Vs Prison Break Vs Heroes Here’s the individual [...]

Lost, Prison Break and Heroes are the most popular TV Shows. Watch them at the cost of getting addicted.

Let’s cut the crap now. To make the proceedings interesting here, I write no review about the shows and I’ll list the best seasons to watch out for.

Lost Vs Prison Break Vs Heroes

Here’s the individual season rankings:-

Heroes 1 > PB 1 > Lost 2 > Lost 4 > PB 3 > Lost 1 > Lost 3 > Heroes 2 > PB 2

…and on the whole I would rate:
Lost > Heroes > PB

* PB - Prison Break. The number denotes the season. PB 1 > PB 2 means PB 1 is better than PB 2.

Why these shows rock?

Lost: The character development is so damn well done. The screenplay goes back and forth in the lives of the characters and their life in the island simultaneously.

I’m a sucker for feel good thingies. Many ending sequences is shot in an uplifting mood and background score without the dialogues speak volumes about what they want to convey. Plus those locations are beautiful. Sun kissed sand beaches and lush forests makes lostville exotic.

The best thing about Lost is it almost gets better every season.

Prison Break: Initially my liking to PB was attributed to the Prison Break movies, I liked. It’s a mash up of Shawshank Redemption and Escape from Alcatraz. Lost it’s sheen in the second season yet picked up pace from the third one.

Heroes: The first season totally rocks. I used to see 5-6 epics in a day else I couldn’t sleep. We get thrilled while watching a Superman or a Batman movie - imagine if you get hit by 20 such super heroes? Even though the second season is not as good as the first one it keep your interest going. It wasn’t great but not bad either.

New seasons of Heroes (S3 - Sept ‘08) and Lost (S5 - early ‘09) are already being shot and I can’t wait.

How would you rank the seasons of these 3 shows?

Olympics on BitTorrent
What options are there when you don't have access to TV or missed the live Olympics action? YouTube sucks. Enter P2P and discover a whole new way of catching up with the Beijing Olympics 2008.

There’s nothing like watching live action and getting your adrenaline going.

But those who don’t have access to TV or missed the action can watch Olympics Online.

By now you should’ve realized that YouTube sucks. The quality is poor, highlights only videos and the site is not well designed (I don’t want a random video to load automatically and takes time to find the videos you want to watch).

Now for the good news. You can download 720p HDTV rips from Usenet [Here] and torrent trackers.

Trackers like BTJunkie and Mininova track 156 and 71 videos resp. as I write this. The opening ceremony is the most popular video last week. The HDTV rip of that torrent [Beijing Olympics 2008 Opening Ceremony 720p HDTV x264-ORENJi] has over 63,000 peers at BTJunkie and 50,000 peers at Mininova! Check out this Fireworks video :Beijing Olympics’08 Torch&Fireworks BBC-HD 720p x264. Awesome show.

Even in Private Trackers the Beijing Olympics have increased activity. TD has around 25 videos (90% of them are Swimming).

I like the commentary also. You get to know a lot. The The Hindi commentary of DD is hilarious (esp. Badminton) . Some samples:-

Chodna nahi Wang ko.”

Bharat ke liye acha kabar. Ek ank mila.

“Phelps should ask money from TV Channels and FINA”

Thats what Spitz (7 Golds in single Olympics and 9 overall) remarks and rightly so. I love swimming and can watch hours together. But many watch Swimming only for Phelps.

The 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay (Men) was awesome. I’ve watched that video for over 10 times and still don’t bored. Phelps rules. Phelps is phenomenal. It gets nothing short of Gold medal with World Record timings whenever he dives.

DD doesn’t show the action from the water cube in mornings. It’s in mornings where the finals take place and the afternoon session for heats & semis. What is DD doing when there are 4 finals? They can at least show the action deferred live.

The advantage of downloading is that you get HD quality videos, watch what you want and no Ads. Fire your Torrent client and get your daily [HD] Olympics fix.

Dasavatharam Review : Stay Away
Dasavatharam created a lot of hype and hoopla (Supreme Court had to vacate stay) before the release and now is doing well after 5 days of release. Nevertheless, I didn’t like the movie. A biological weapon of mass destruction is on loose and Kamal has to destroy it. For this we all 10 characters, CGIs, [...]

Dasavatharam created a lot of hype and hoopla (Supreme Court had to vacate stay) before the release and now is doing well after 5 days of release.

Nevertheless, I didn’t like the movie.

A biological weapon of mass destruction is on loose and Kamal has to destroy it. For this we all 10 characters, CGIs, movie panning across USA, India and Japan.

Basically I can’t understand why a simple plot (if at all there was one) needs animation or 10 characters? Unnecessary fluff spoilt it, maybe without CGI, 10 characters and a tighter screenplay the movie might have been better. Never expected the movie this bad.

The movie was disastorous and I couldn’t sit through the entire movie.

“Takes Indian Cinema to the next level”. My foot.

There’s nothing in the movie to take it forward. Cheap humour (and I didn’t even smile), below average songs, nothing different in stunts, no story and above all bad screenplay.

I can’t understand how people say the animation was top notch. Too childish (or looked Amateur) even to feature in Cartoon Network. When you see CGI (graphics) works, you should feel it’s real. I understand that the budget might not permit to go for top notch animations, but they shouldn’t have attempted in the first place if they can’t afford it.

Seriously I fail to understand what’s technically sound in the movie. It’s just a me-too average tamil movie.

Dasavatharam for the sake of 10 characters?

Why have 10 roles when you can do the same in 3 roles? A completely new sub plot was there to accommodate 2 characters (17th century priest and the Pondicherry Vincent). Totally useless.

Kamal did Michael Madana Kama Rajan in 4 roles but all of them was unique and different. Here it was evident that the 10 character were done by the heck of it.

Take the 10 avatars with a lot of NaCl.

10 Reasons to stay away

1. No story, no screenplay. What’s the point of directors role?
2. Unnecessary characters and sub plots added to fit more characters. Leave Kamal’s 10 roles. Even other actors weren’t necessary - Asin, Mallika, and many others.
3. Ameteurish animation.
4. Below Average songs.
5. Childish to see Asin obsessed with God (idol). Does anyone like that these days?
6. What happens when a Japanese, Afgan and Andhrite attempt to speak Tamil?
7. The make-up people (especially Fletcher, George Bush, Kalif Ullah Khan) don’t look like real characters.
8. A action movie without decent stunts? Stunts were like stunts in movies that are beamed in TV at 11:30 AM.
9. Tries to tell messages (illegal sand quarry, about God, caste system among various other mokka issues). Sorry, I can’t get any except that the movie is a very bad and we should stay away.
10. Disappointing movie from a good actor like Kamal. Skip this flick and maintain your respect for him.

Want more reasons?

Sivaji didn’t have any story but it had a decent screenplay, ‘Rajni-style’, OK acting, good comedy and great songs. That’s why Sivaji was hit. Rajni played to his strengths. That’s why Rajni is a super star. Kamal can act well, then why the hell can’t you make movie like Anbae Sivam or Nayakan? Indian was action movie but it had a good story and crisp screenplay.

I’m catching up with the movie again! After all this torture? Because 14 of our family members, cousins are coming. Going for the fun.

Rating it one star only for the Tsunami/climax sequences (not for animations but the implications).

1/10

Manitoba Ban on Swine Expansion Expected to Discourage Environmentally Friendly Farming
Harry Siemens  - The Manitoba Chamber of Commerce warns the province’s proposed ban on swine industry development in eastern Manitoba will discourage the adoption of new technologies designed to make hog farming more environmentally friendly. Bill 17, the Manitoba Environment Amendment Act, which bans swine barn construction or expansion in most of eastern Manitoba, passed the Manitoba [...]

Harry Siemens  - The Manitoba Chamber of Commerce warns the province’s proposed ban on swine industry development in eastern Manitoba will discourage the adoption of new technologies designed to make hog farming more environmentally friendly.

Bill 17, the Manitoba Environment Amendment Act, which bans swine barn construction or expansion in most of eastern Manitoba, passed the Manitoba Legislature on Wednesday, September 24 by a margin of 36 for and 19 against.

This took place on the same day 150 producers and industry representatives rallied at the Manitoba Legislature to show solidarity and convince the NDP government to add an amendment to Bill 17.

The bill establishes a permanent moratorium on the construction of new or expanded swine barns in Southeastern Manitoba, the Red River Valley Special Management Area, and the Interlake.

Manitoba Chambers of Commerce President Graham Starmer said many operations will need the flexibility to restructure if they are to afford the cost of adopting new technology that is extremely environmentally friendly.

Starmer said putting a total moratorium on this type of industry prevents innovation and looking at how to become more environmentally friendly.

“When you say no, you can’t expand some areas of innovation and ecological advancements require size and this just puts a cap on anything and inhibits having even a better environment as a result of it,” he said.

Even suggesting to the government to add an amendment to the bill, giving authority to the government, that if somebody comes up with a greater technology, environmentally friendly, there should be exemptions to the ban, didn’t help. It all fell on deaf ears, it appeared.

 

Starmer said the people employ the government to look at the welfare of its people.

“Where you have a billion dollar industry and about a billion dollar spin off, you’ve got to look at what’s good for the people as well as the environment,” he said.

Even the leader of the Manitoba Liberal Party fears the passage of Bill 17 will do more to hurt the environment than help it.

Manitoba Liberal leader Dr. Jon Gerrard said government imposes a moratorium on the industry, it freezes the industry where it is, instead of allowing it to grow and to improve the way it addresses environmental issues and hog management issues.

“I’ve been a champion of environmental stewardship and cleaning up Lake Winnipeg and there certainly has been some very significant progress,” said Gerrard. “It’s not perfect but, for example, almost all producers have moved to inject the manure into the land so it doesn’t run off into the waterways, we’ve got changes in looking after animals. There’s much less in the way of bacteria using so we have less problem with resistant strains and there’s changes coming in terms of how we house the animals.”

Gerrard told of how he had visited the Crystal Spring Colony recently viewing their technology. Its one thing to have technology, but hog producers like Crystal Spring Colony must have the ability to expand because when they do, they introduce new technology and improve the way they look after the environment.

“By freezing things for much of the province, what’s going to happen is we’re going to have less ability to address environmental and animal husbandry issues,” he said. “This Bill 17 is just misguided and wrong headed.”

It surprised Gerrard that the NDP government ignored those who presented against the bill repeatedly during public hearings. He believes the government has not thought this bill through carefully and has not paid attention to the science, but has moved forward under the illusion that it’s doing something for Lake Winnipeg when it’s not clear this bill will do anything to help Lake Winnipeg.

 

Lori Hallowell is Bader Rutter Vice President
Congratulations to Lori Hallowell. Lori Hallowell has been promoted to vice president at Bader Rutter in the agency’s account management and public relations groups. Hallowell joined the agency in 1994 as an account executive. Her energy and passion for the business have been key in the growth of Merial, the agency’s animal health client. A native of Palmyra, [...]

Congratulations to Lori Hallowell.

Lori Hallowell has been promoted to vice president at Bader Rutter in the agency’s account management and public relations groups.

Hallowell joined the agency in 1994 as an account executive. Her energy and passion for the business have been key in the growth of Merial, the agency’s animal health client.

A native of Palmyra, Neb., Hallowell graduated in 1991 from the University of Nebraska with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural journalism. She serves on the board of directors of the National Agri-Marketing Association’s Midlands Chapter and works in the agency’s Lincoln, Neb., office.

Nuestro Rancho is Our Ranch Beef
Give me a steak from “our ranch.” The American Hereford Association (AHA) and Certified Hereford Beef (CHB) LLC staffs have created a new Hereford-based beef brand specifically targeting Hispanic shoppers. In 31 Hispanic grocery stores throughout the Los Angeles area, shoppers now have the opportunity to buy Hereford beef labeled Nuestro Rancho, from a service case cut [...]

Give me a steak from “our ranch.”

The American Hereford Association (AHA) and Certified Hereford Beef (CHB) LLC staffs have created a new Hereford-based beef brand specifically targeting Hispanic shoppers.

In 31 Hispanic grocery stores throughout the Los Angeles area, shoppers now have the opportunity to buy Hereford beef labeled Nuestro Rancho, from a service case cut just the way they like it. Through research CHB LLC staff members learned that Hispanics purchase three to four times as much beef as other consumers, and most of the beef they purchase is underutilized cuts from the chuck and round. They seized the opportunity to sell Hereford beef to these consumers, and after careful consideration and planning, launched the new brand.

The name of the brand, “Nuestro Rancho” means “our ranch” in Spanish. “We really wanted a name that would quantify in the minds of Hispanic people in America what the brand was about and would portray the overall feeling of the brand,” says Shonda Anderson, CHB LLC account manager.

The Nuestro Rancho logo can be found on the meats’ packaging as well as on other promotional materials in the stores where the brand is sold. Also with the logo, is the brand’s tagline: “American Hereford Beef.”

The CHB LLC staff chose Harvest Meat Co. Inc. to distribute the product. Harvest Meat has large distribution operations in nine U.S. markets, so the next decision was which grocery store group would offer the Nuestro Rancho brand meats.

Mother Nature Gets a Network
It looks like Mother Nature needed a network and found two guys to start one for her. Chuck Leavell pointed me to this story which pretty much explains what they have in mind. Joel Babbit, 54, a longtime Atlanta ad executive, and Chuck Leavell, 56, keyboardist for the Rolling Stones, are creating a new [...]

It looks like Mother Nature needed a network and found two guys to start one for her. Chuck Leavell pointed me to this story which pretty much explains what they have in mind.

Joel Babbit, 54, a longtime Atlanta ad executive, and Chuck Leavell, 56, keyboardist for the Rolling Stones, are creating a new online company — the Mother Nature Network.

They envision it as an environmental news and information service geared toward the average Joe. The Web site, which will launch in October, also could redefine both men’s legacies.

Babbit and Leavell said that it was clear to them the idea’s time had come when in record time — 24 hours to be exact — they raised millions of dollars in startup capital from four prominent Atlanta businessmen: Tom Bell, chairman and CEO of Cousins Properties; Pete Correll, former chairman and CEO of Georgia-Pacific and current chairman of Atlanta Equity; Gerry Benjamin, co-managing partner of Atlanta Equity; and Doug Hertz, president and CEO of United Distributors. With Babbit and Leavell also personally invested in the new company, the six will be the Mother Nature Network’s board of directors.

You can sign up to receive news alerts on the Mother Nature Network website.

Soldier Farmers
Here’s something you won’t see on the evening tv news. Soldier farmers helping rebuild the ag economy in Afghanistan. We’ve already seen this type of work being done in Iraq thanks to Paul McKellips. It looks like soldiers from several states are doing something similar to this in Afghanistan. Despite recent progress, Afghanistan [...]

Here’s something you won’t see on the evening tv news. Soldier farmers helping rebuild the ag economy in Afghanistan. We’ve already seen this type of work being done in Iraq thanks to Paul McKellips. It looks like soldiers from several states are doing something similar to this in Afghanistan.

Despite recent progress, Afghanistan remains a poor country. Its agriculture industry, which employs 80 percent of all working Afghanis, hasn’t changed much in centuries. It is a nation that can’t feed itself without foreign aid.

To help change this, a pilot program called the Agribusiness Development Team (ADT) has been created. The effort is being led by Missouri National Guard members, many of whom are graduates of the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources.

The ADT effort is jointly coordinated by the U.S. Army, the Army National Guard, the Missouri National Guard, the University of Missouri, Lincoln University, the College of the Ozarks and the Missouri Farm Bureau. Soldiers in the field work directly with farmers while agriculture experts back in Missouri provide technical and research support.

“The Agribusiness Development Team is a novel partnership between the Missouri National Guard, retired military, farmers and universities to facilitate and educate Afghanis in the rebuilding of their agriculture economy,” said Maj. Gen. King Sidwell, adjutant general of the Missouri National Guard. “Missouri is the leader for this concept, which, if successful, will serve as a model for partnerships in other states.”

Here’s links to some more on this:

* National Guard to Help Afghan Agriculture
* Few good farmers’ heading to Afghanistan (PDF | 176 KB | See p. 8.)
* Soldiers Working with Afghan Farmers to Grow Wheat

Via the NAL Blog.

easy rider
I had the day off today, so I did my usual routine, drop the kids off at school and go to my greasy spoon for breakfast. Man, it was such a beautiful day today, I just had to take my motorcycle for a ride. Absolutely picture perfect weather. I went to riding [...]

I had the day off today, so I did my usual routine, drop the kids off at school and go to my greasy spoon for breakfast. Man, it was such a beautiful day today, I just had to take my motorcycle for a ride. Absolutely picture perfect weather. I went to riding to a Harley dealer and another place to look at some riding gear. All I can say is the Harley stuff is way overpriced. I did find some nice riding jackets and boots at the Longrider store.

hockey is a health insurance company’s nightmare
Wife is quite broken hearted that Brad Richards has been traded to the Dallas Stars. I’m just disappointed they didn’t make it further in the conference this year, but at least Brad’s new team did. Speaking of which, did you see the player take the puck to the face? You’ve got to [...]

Wife is quite broken hearted that Brad Richards has been traded to the Dallas Stars. I’m just disappointed they didn’t make it further in the conference this year, but at least Brad’s new team did. Speaking of which, did you see the player take the puck to the face? You’ve got to wonder what the owners of hockey teams are paying to provide their players with health insurance. You can bet that they’re health insurance rates are not the cheapest, but their coverage must be phenomenal. Every other game someone needs stitches to their face or head! Or how about poor Dan Boyle who cut his hand on a skate during on of the first games this season? The tendon was sliced and the injury put him on the bench…you’ve got to wonder if the team had to go researching new health insurance quotes after that injury.

And speaking of that, I wonder if players insure their own bodies to protect themselves?

big saturday night
Wow, what a Saturday night! Got new tires on my car tonight. Went to mum in laws for dinner and got home just in time to watch some sports. The Lightning were on at 7:30 against Atlanta. The Bolts played an outstanding game and are looked really sharp. Brad Richards [...]

Wow, what a Saturday night! Got new tires on my car tonight. Went to mum in laws for dinner and got home just in time to watch some sports. The Lightning were on at 7:30 against Atlanta. The Bolts played an outstanding game and are looked really sharp. Brad Richards found the net twice, once on a super sweet short handed goal. Vaclav Prospal also scored twice, and picking up where he left off last season, Vincent Lecavalier scored another goal for his third one of the season. Looks like he is on pace to meet my preaseason prediction of 64 goals. More impressive than his scoring, is the aggression Lecavalier is playing with, and just throwing big hits. Love it Live!

predictions
Is this the year the Lightning raise Lord Stanley’s Trophy again? I think it’s a long shot, but I’ll jump in with both feet and say the the Bolts will be playing in June and Lord Stanley will get a tan! Goal tending is what will hold this team back, but I think [...]

Is this the year the Lightning raise Lord Stanley’s Trophy again? I think it’s a long shot, but I’ll jump in with both feet and say the the Bolts will be playing in June and Lord Stanley will get a tan! Goal tending is what will hold this team back, but I think by mid season we’ll be able to see if I will be close on my bold prediction. Johan Holmquist will need to be the goalie that rises to the occasion, and if Holmer proves to be the goalie the team thinks he can be, the Lightning will have a short summer in 2008.

three days to life..
Yeah, I know, it sounds like a prison sentence. For many women and men, breast cancer can be just that. This weekend someone I love, Wife, walked sixty miles to raise money and awareness to help overcome this disease. It was her second time walking.

Yeah, I know, it sounds like a prison sentence. For many women and men, breast cancer can be just that. This weekend someone I love, Wife, walked sixty miles to raise money and awareness to help overcome this disease. It was her second time walking.

The Fallacy of Internet Censorship in India
Last night, I was walking by the TV at home when my aunt flipped the channel to NDTV, where Bharka Dutt was hosting her weekly “We The People” show. The topic was on whether the authoritiets should start banning sites like Orkut and such. Now, digressing a little bit, I personally can’t stand Bharka [...]

Seasoning the Raw through Extreme Programming
One of the biggest issues facing IT companies in India today is hiring good staff. I think it’s become abundantly clear to my regular readers that this has become something of an obsession in my work. So, to break the monotony of dealing with idiots who claimed they were experienced, I started an experiment a [...]

Cynopsis.com - Digital Advertising News
News of Note

News of Note

We want your feedback - player@wizzard.tv
What do you like about the Wizzard Player, what features do you want it to have? Send love, hate and wishes to player@wizzard.tv

What do you like about the Wizzard Player, what features do you want it to have?
Send love, hate and wishes to player@wizzard.tv

Updated blog site…
If you’ve arrived at this site expecting to find my blog, please visit www.timmorrison.net. See you there.

How to Use Social Media… Successfully
Right now all of the experts are raving about Social Media - and how you can use these services to get tons of inbound links and an avalanche of website traffic. The problem is that they are both right and wrong…

In the previous post, Social Media Marketing (A Warning), I pointed out the potential dangers of using Social Media properties the wrong way. Here, we’ll look at ways you can run a social media campaign successfully, without fear of ultimately doing more harm than good.

You have a website or an online business that you want to promote. You need traffic, and you need search engine rankings. Where do you start? Well, right now all of the experts are raving about Social Media - and how you can use these services to get “tons of inbound links” and an “avalanche of website traffic”.

The problem is that they are both right and wrong…

Wrong because done without a clear objective, it can actually come back to ’slap’ you. Unfortunately, most people get tips in twitter-size bits: bookmark your links on all the bookmarking sites, tweet all of your blog posts, set up multiple squidoo lenses, interlink all of your lenses and hub pages, etc (that list could go on and on)…

At the moment, some of that is actually working - and working fairly well even. But most seasoned marketers already know that it’s short-lived, and that those practices will leave footprints that will ultimately backfire on you.

Its called SPAM. We all dislike it, yet to some extent people will rationalize that its okay to do in their own business. Using software to blast your links out to hundreds of social bookmarking sites… is spam. Setting up dozens of social media properties solely for the purpose of getting inbound links to your website… is spam. Even Digg’ing your own blog posts is spam (in my personal opinion).

Right because used correctly the social media services can give you a platform for brand awareness, exposure, networking, and a huge boost in traffic & sales.

As a small business, or an online business, social media campaigns give you an edge over larger competitors. Studies show that most companies are not yet adopting social media, leaving a sweet gap for the “little guy” to do big business in that space.

And that’s what we’re going to discuss here today: how to use Social Media successfully. Meaning for long-term benefit to your online business. I’ll break this down in a “top ten” list real quick, but I encourage you to both take it literally… and also consider what I’m sharing and how you can apply it in any way that specifically fits your business model & marketing plan.

10 Smart Ways to Use Social Media… Successfully

1. Map Out A Clear Objective Your social media plan should stand on its own two feet, and not even include “how to get better search engine rankings”. Consider how you would use social media properties if the search engines did not exist. Ideas to consider in your overall objective might include:

• Branding
• Networking
• Exposure
• Relationship/Trust Building
• Customer Relations (think @comcastcares on Twitter)

2. Customer Comes First While mapping out your objective, consider what your customer - or your ideal website visitor - wants to see from you. Get an image of that ideal person clearly in your mind, and consider what they see on their end with everything that you do. They are the person you ultimately want to attract into your funnel, so you want to make a great impression no matter where they find you on the web.

(Note: what impresses humans, also impresses search engines!)

3. Consistent, Quality Content The content that you post to social media properties should be both consistent as in regular updates, and also consistent with your overall message or objective.

If you are an MLM recruiter for example, provide quality resources for recruits. If you own an ecommerce gardening site, offer gardening tips. Whatever your message, you want to make it consistent across the web.

(One of my personal pet peeves is to follow a favorite author or blogger on Twitter, only to never (ever!) hear a single peep from them about the topic they are so well known for!)

This helps you achieve your branding objectives, and allows you to create the perception that you want people to have of you or your company. Anyone who follows you online should easily be able to fill in the blank: (You) is known for ___ . Can you even fill in that blank quickly & clearly??

At the same time, being consistent with your message and your branding lends towards your goal of relevance and theming when it comes to SEO.

4. Focus on Content, Not Marketing Too often I see people get this backwards. If you focus on valuable, high-quality content then that content will do the marketing for you.

You shouldnt be digg’ing or bookmarking your own content, but rather writing such great content that your readers give it an unsolicited digg or stumble. Your job is to write, and provide easy access to social media services where your readers can share your content with their friends & groups.

When people like what you have to say, they will share it - period. And when they share it, the search engines will take notice. Write something great, and let the rest happen naturally!

5. Caution: Dont Over-Optimize! Obviously you want top search engine rankings for specific keyword phrases, but be careful… because there is such a thing as over-optimization. Using the same anchor text everywhere that you link to (or request a link to) your site leaves a ‘digital footprint’ too, throwing up a red flag that you may be trying to manipulate the search results.

To avoid this, you want to use natural variations in anchor text for the links that point back to your primary website. You need a certain number of “click here” or similar links to give balance to your optimization strategy.

6. Stop Linking To Your Home Page “Deep Links” or links pointing to internal pages on your website (or blog) help to give it authority and depth. It is not natural to have hundreds of links pointing to your (general) home page, and none pointing to your internal content pages.

All other things being equal between two identical websites, the one with more deep links will outrank the other. This also gives you more exposure in the search engine results, since your internal pages will begin ranking for specific relevant keyword phrases.

For more on this topic see: 7 Practical Deep Linking Tips.

Social media is all about micro-topical discussions, so consider how you can introduce internal sections or pages of your website into these conversations.

Tip: Your home page may not be the best link to share with someone you meet while networking on social sites. Consider linking to your “about me” page instead for a more personable introduction into your site.

7. Be a Valuable Resource There’s a reason its called Social Media, and not Self-Promotional Media. Keep that in mind when you are considering what you will post to your social media properties.

If all you post is self-promotional links and requests, you will eventually become a part of your readers “noise” and ultimately be filtered out. They may not unfollow or delete you, but they will begin to scan over your posts and tweets without even realizing it.

Avoid this by becoming a valuable resource in your niche. One way you can do this is by sharing links to domains that you dont own. And I dont mean your own squidoo lenses or myspace profiles - I mean domains you have ZERO association with. Provide value to your groups.

You mean, you want me to *gasp* promote my competitors?! Yes - and become friends with them too. Interlinking and networking is powerful!

8. Use Social Networking To truly achieve your social media objectives, you’ll have to do some social networking too. Forget the word “competitor”. Other publishers or webmasters in your niche are your best friends in the social media landscape!

One of your goals should be to locate every competitor on your level (or within reasonable range) and create an “inner circle” of friends or business peers. These are people you can interview or be interviewed by, exchange links, joint venture with, etc. Stop looking at them as competition, and start looking at how you can leverage each others position in the marketplace!

Tip: Dont ask for favors. And dont flaunt the favors you do. Simply follow, comment on, link to, or otherwise become “known” to select publishers in your niche and I promise that they will notice… and generally begin to reciprocate. Given a little time the relationship will form naturally and be mutually beneficial.

9. Build Rapport Get involved in discussions, reply to blog comments, ask for feedback (and then respond to it and act on it!), etc. People want to know that you’re a real person, and not just a bot spitting out links and sucking in cash.

Dont be afraid to have an opinion or to express your thoughts on hot topics within your niche. Your unique voice in the market will attract your ideal visitors and customers.

Social media gives you an opportunity to be personable. An ecommerce site has its limits when it comes to establishing trust and building long-term customer relationships, so use social media as an opportunity to truly connect with your target market.

10. Link Freely - And Dont Apologize For It! This is somewhat of a combination of tips #3 and #7. One thing that really makes me cringe is the 2 words “shameless plug” - promise me you wont ever use that phrase (ugh!).

The people that follow you, subscribe to your updates, or ‘friend you’ on social sites… want to hear about your latest news & tips! And if they dont, they’ll quickly UNfollow you - which is just fine too. This is not a numbers game or a vanity contest - its a means of syndicating and socializing in a professional yet personable way.

There is a right and a wrong way to hyperlink to resources and content on social media sites. The wrong way is to say “read my blog post” or “visit my website”. The right way is to share a cool link (whether its yours, or something of interest to your readers from another website) and to open a discussion on that topic.

As an obvious recent example, I held an open discussion on Twitter.com (a popular micro-blogging service) all last week about the StomperNet promotion. I pointed to my two blog posts (here and here) freely as a resource, and also “opened the floor” for ongoing discussion. Those of you that follow me on Twitter saw that firsthand I assume. Consider it an example to use in your own social media campaigns!

- - - - -

The bottom line is that you want to have a clear objective, be a valuable resource, and use the social media services in the ways they intend to be used. Anything else will get you filtered out, unfollowed, banned or blacklisted… and ultimately be a complete waste of your time.

Done right, social media can currently grow your online business faster than any other means…

Next I have a Social Media case study to share with you that will show you some of these strategies in action, with great detail and very interesting results.

Stay tuned!

Best,

p.s. The original blog post in this series received over 50 Diggs (unsolicited) in the first few hours. How’s that for a nice example of this concept at work?

Unleash your power within you
Funny Videos “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child [...]

Funny Videos

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most.

We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us.

And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

~ Maryanne Williamson

“Don’t be so humble - you are not that great.”
- Golda Meir (1898-1978) to a visiting diplomat

25% off!
Funny Pictures “If a man smiles all the time, he’s probably selling something that doesn’t work” Hehe.

Funny Pictures

“If a man smiles all the time, he’s probably selling something that doesn’t work”

Hehe.

Final wish of a boy granted: to get married
Metro I have been hitting the keyboard, but no words would come out yet. I didn’t know what to react after reading the true story of an eight year old boy who finally got his wish granted: to be married to his sweetheart, before finally leaving for good. I was tongue-tied, speechless, and my throat was [...]

Metro

I have been hitting the keyboard, but no words would come out yet. I didn’t know what to react after reading the true story of an eight year old boy who finally got his wish granted: to be married to his sweetheart, before finally leaving for good.

I was tongue-tied, speechless, and my throat was aching after I have read his story.

For bridegroom Reece was just eight years old — and getting “hitched” to his sweetheart Elleanor Pursglove was his last dying wish.

Yesterday tearful Lorraine recalled how, as he clung to life for the romantic moment he had longed for, leukaemia victim Reece told her: “I’m not ready to go yet.”

Only after the pair had “wed” in an emotional mock ceremony in his front room did he finally succumb — and died the next day.

Read full story here…

I admire his strength and for his indomitable courage; for the big capacity of his heart to shower his love; and for everything that he left us through his story. I may not know him personally, yet, he has touched me in a way that is, too, important for me to cherish. “Have we loved enough? Have we enjoyed life more than ever?”

I am still overwhelmed…and thankful, Reece.

Awkward Moment
“Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.” ~ Brian Tracy

“Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.” ~ Brian Tracy

Twitter Revolution & The Free Twitter Handbook
I was also interested in talking to him about his upcoming book release. He happened to be toting a box when I ran into him, and I whipped out my pocket video camera and convinced him to give us a sneak peak…

I ran into Warren Whitlock at BlogWorld Expo last weekend. We’re actually old friends, but havent had opportunity for a good sit-down since the Publishing Profits Seminar in Chicago a few years ago (4 or 5 years, depending on which one of us you ask).

It was a great opportunity to catch up a bit, and I was also interested in talking to him about his upcoming book release. He happened to be toting a box when I ran into him, and I whipped out my pocket video camera and convinced him to give us a sneak peek…

Twitter Revolution is coming out on October 15th. If you havent already, you’ll want to download the free version from TwitterHandbook.com. Once you’ve had an opportunity to read the Twitter Handbook, you can pre-order your copy of Twitter Revolution on Amazon.com:

Twitter Revolution: How Social Media and Mobile Marketing is Changing the Way We Do Business & Market Online

Expect a full review - I have a signed pre-release copy I look forward to discussing this one once everyone has had a chance to get their copy of Twitter Revolution in mid-October!

Best,

Easy Video Marketing with Animoto
If you really want to use video in your online marketing plan, but dont own a web cam or video camera - or simply dont like doing talking head video - this tool will be right up your alley!

The video above was created using http://animoto.com/, a cool video creation tool that David Dutton shared with me last week. I thought I would take this opportunity to show off some recent pictures from my weekend out with the girls *smile* - but keep reading, you’ll see the marketing value in it too…

Here are a couple of different remix versions to give you some ideas of how fun this tool can be (and dont worry - they are each less than 30 seconds):

If you really want to use video in your online marketing plan, but dont own a web cam or video camera - or simply dont like doing “talking head” video - Animoto will be right up your alley!

Its free to use for short clips (30 seconds or less), and you can use photos or images along with music to create a nice professional looking video. One that you can upload to YouTube or add to your website.

They have a lot of music to choose from, or you can upload your own MP3. Obviously you could record a sales message instead of using music if you prefer.

Since you can use JPG images to create your video you can use cover graphics, product images, screen shots, logos… get creative!

If you create a marketing video using Animoto, leave a comment below with the link to your video. You’ll have to upload it to YouTube first (which you can do straight from the Animoto website) and then leave the YouTube link. I will choose the best videos and feature them here in this post as an example!

Update: I’ve already upgraded to the All Access Pass. If you’re interested in using Animoto to make some great promotional videos out of images/photos, you’ll want to see this: http://www.clicknewz.com/animoto-help.htm . I’m reading it now and will post a full review & example video in a post this coming week…

Enjoy!

p.s. The rest of the photos are on my MySpace account under Sept 2008

Tuesday: Live Internet Marketing Q&A
This week we are doing a Live Q&A on Internet Marketing. The event is completely web-based and this weeks Webinar is open-discussion style. It’s a great way to get your Internet Marketing questions answered live...

Every week I host a free webinar on Tuesdays at Noon eastern. This week we are doing a Live Q&A on Internet Marketing. You can register here (again, its free).

The event is completely web-based (no long-distance charges) and this week’s Webinar is open-discussion style. It’s a great way to get your Internet Marketing questions answered live

All you have to do is register for the Free Webinar, and you will receive the login details and the unique password. That email is sent out the night before (on Monday evening) and also about 30 minutes before the live Webinar on Tuesday morning.

Date: Tuesday, September 16th
Time: Noon EST, 11:00am CST, 9:00am PST
Register: http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/webinars.htm

Make sure you have a headset or microphone hooked up before you log in, so that you can participate in the Live Q&A. If you prefer not to speak out, you can use the Text Chat option to submit your questions instead.. At the very least you’ll need speakers so that you can hear the audio portion of the event.

There is a limit on the number of participants for the live event, so be sure to arrive a few minutes early to download the plugin and grab your ’seat’!

See you there!

What is your self-talk?
Bigfoto How do you talk to your self? Positively? Negatively? Neutral? You don’t care… You care… Do you feel more at ease talking with others in a positive way than to your self? Sometimes it’s true that we tend to be more apologetic to other people and more concerned with their welfare than our own self. That’s a sad reality. Sometimes we tend [...]

Bigfoto

How do you talk to your self?

Positively?
Negatively?
Neutral?
You don’t care…
You care…

Do you feel more at ease talking with others in a positive way than to your self?

Sometimes it’s true that we tend to be more apologetic to other people and more concerned with their welfare than our own self. That’s a sad reality. Sometimes we tend to say sorry more to other people even for just the minute thing that we have done them, but most of the time, we don’t say we’re sorry for hurting our own self, our own pride, our own body.

What we say to our self is important and should be positive. If no one will say positive things to us, who would do if not — us? If someone would tell us we can’t do anything, we should try our very best not to inculcate that into our minds, or else, it would become our guide - a WRONG guide.

When we talk to our self, make sure that what our self hears is the most inspiring thing we could ever tell. The self is alive, living, constantly evolving. Make sure that it listens well to what nature dictates, to what our own calling is. Otherwise, we’d always be parroting someone else.

Highland Digs Digg, Oak Investment Partners Charges Up Greenvolts, U.S. Genomics Befriends Becton Dickinson, & More Boston-Area Deals News
This last week was a good one for smaller-scale deal making among New England’s tech and life sciences firms. —Oak Investment Partners of Westport, CT, put $30 million into San Francisco cleantech startup Greenvolts, which is developing solar energy farms that use vast arrays of reflectors to concentrate the sun’s rays on high-efficiency photovoltaic cells. —U.S. Genomics [...]

Rebecca Zacks wrote:

This last week was a good one for smaller-scale deal making among New England’s tech and life sciences firms.

—Oak Investment Partners of Westport, CT, put $30 million into San Francisco cleantech startup Greenvolts, which is developing solar energy farms that use vast arrays of reflectors to concentrate the sun’s rays on high-efficiency photovoltaic cells.

—U.S. Genomics of Woburn, MA, a developer of tools for biodefense and diagnostics, got a $4.5 million investment from Becton, Dickinson & Co., and formed a strategic partnership with the company focused on building a diagnostic platform for infectious diseases.

—Cambridge, MA-based CityVoter, a provider of city-specific online content, raised $2.6 million in a Series B financing round led by Allen & Company and existing investor Dace Ventures.

—Swaptree of Boston, which runs a site that helps people trade used books, CDs, DVDs, and video games, raised $3.35 million in a Series C financing round from Safeguard Scientifics.

—Watertown, MA-based casual gaming firm Pangea Media acquired LaughNetwork of Kentucky for an undisclosed sum.

—Highland Capital Partners of Lexington, MA, led a $28.7 million Series C funding round in San Francisco-based social news site Digg. Highland was joined in the deal by existing investors Greylock Partners, SVB Capital, and Omidyar Network.

—Medical-record software maker ChartOne of Burlington, MA, was acquired by Alpharetta, GA-based HealthPort for an undisclosed sum.

—RockPort Capital Partners of Boston and Menlo Park, CA, co-led a $6 million investment in San Francisco’s Sustainable Spaces, a startup aiming to help homeowners monitor their energy use and the environmental health of their homes. The money came out of RockPort’s new $450 million cleantech fund.

—Tipjoy of Cambridge, MA, a developer of technology to let Web users tip blog creators, raised $1 million in a Series A funding round led by New York’s Betaworks and joined by the Accelerator Group, David Shen Ventures, and private investors Chris Sacca, Taavet Hinrikus, and Ron Bouganim.

HealthPort Acquires ChartOne
Burlington, MA-based ChartOne, which makes software used by hospitals to manage the distribution of confidential paper and electronic medical records, was acquired by Alpharetta, GA-based HealthPort in a deal that closed on Monday, HealthPort said in an announcement. ChartOne was HealthPort’s closest competitor, according to the statement, which did not reveal the terms of the [...] Wade Roush wrote:

Burlington, MA-based ChartOne, which makes software used by hospitals to manage the distribution of confidential paper and electronic medical records, was acquired by Alpharetta, GA-based HealthPort in a deal that closed on Monday, HealthPort said in an announcement. ChartOne was HealthPort’s closest competitor, according to the statement, which did not reveal the terms of the acquisition.

Janius to Replace Sayer as CEO of ImmunoGen
ImmunoGen (NASDAQ:IMGN), a Waltham, MA-based biotech firm, announced today that its board of directors has approved a succession plan in which company president and COO Daniel Junius will become CEO on Jan. 1, 2009. He replaces long-time CEO Mitchel Sayer, who will continue to serve as chairman after Junius takes over the chief executive post. Ryan McBride wrote:

ImmunoGen (NASDAQ:IMGN), a Waltham, MA-based biotech firm, announced today that its board of directors has approved a succession plan in which company president and COO Daniel Junius will become CEO on Jan. 1, 2009. He replaces long-time CEO Mitchel Sayer, who will continue to serve as chairman after Junius takes over the chief executive post.

Boston Scientific Wins FDA Approval of Stent for Smaller Blood Vessels
Boston Scientific said today it has won clearance from the FDA to market the Taxus Express2 Atom Stent System. The new device, which props open clogged heart arteries, emits a small dose of a chemotherapy drug designed to minimize scarring around the implant. It is the only device approved for vessels as small as 2.25 [...] Luke Timmerman wrote:

Boston Scientific said today it has won clearance from the FDA to market the Taxus Express2 Atom Stent System. The new device, which props open clogged heart arteries, emits a small dose of a chemotherapy drug designed to minimize scarring around the implant. It is the only device approved for vessels as small as 2.25 millimeters in diameter, the Natick, MA-based company (NYSE: BSX) said in a statement. The company plans to start selling the device immediately.

ZymoGenetics “Sleeper” for Hepatitis C Aims to Wipe Out Side Effects of Anti-Viral Therapy
Lots of people on Wall Street are hyped up about new treatments for hepatitis C from Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Schering-Plough. But a little-known drug in development from Seattle-based ZymoGenetics (NASDAQ: ZGEN) could steal a bit of thunder, and possibly ride the wave of enthusiasm those companies are creating among doctors and patients. Hepatitis C, a deadly [...] Luke Timmerman wrote:

Lots of people on Wall Street are hyped up about new treatments for hepatitis C from Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Schering-Plough. But a little-known drug in development from Seattle-based ZymoGenetics (NASDAQ: ZGEN) could steal a bit of thunder, and possibly ride the wave of enthusiasm those companies are creating among doctors and patients.

Hepatitis C, a deadly liver infection, has made headlines in the past year, as Vertex (NASDAQ: VRTX) and Schering-Plough (NYSE: SGP) have both shown that protease inhibitors in development can roughly double the cure rate over the standard of care. An estimated 6 million people in the U.S. and Europe have chronic hepatitis C infections, so the opportunity is huge, possibly worth $2.6 billion for Vertex alone by 2013, says Rachel McMinn, an analyst with Cowen & Co. in San Francisco.

One catch here is that both the Vertex and Schering-Plough drugs must be taken in tandem with the standard of care—a regimen that consists of pegylated interferon alpha and ribavirin. That backbone of therapy causes flu-like symptoms, depression, and anemia, and it must be taken for almost a year. That means most patients opt against getting treatment at all, says ZymoGenetics president Doug Williams. Instead of developing another protease inhibitor to be taken in addition to the standard of care, ZymoGenetics has developed an alternative that has the viral killing power of interferon alpha, without causing the side effects. It calls its version of the standard of care “pegylated interferon lambda,” or IL-29.

“Interferon based regimens are the backbone of therapy and they will continue to be for the forseeable future, and we have one with a better tolerability profile,” says Williams, an Xconomist.

This wasn’t immediately obvious from the start at ZymoGenetics, which has bet much of its research and development budget in recent years on atacicept for autoimmune diseases and IL-21 for cancer. Earlier this month, it handed over its partial stake in atacicept to its partner, Merck KGaA to save cash, while its lone marketed product struggles to find a footing in the marketplace. ZymoGenetics hasn’t talked much about the peg-interferon lambda program in the past, so it was striking to hear Williams say it wants to pour more of its resources into this program. Besides some promising clinical trial data that’s rolling in, there are a couple of strategic business reasons to do this. For one, ZymoGenetics stills owns a 100 percent stake in the product, so it has some bargaining leverage to work with. And two, it believes it is the only company with an improved interferon in clinical trials.

“The sleeper here is starting to wake up,” Williams says.

Results from a 20-patient clinical trial, presented at the European Association for the Study of the Liver in April, showed that the ZymoGenetics drug candidate didn’t cause the widespread immune-system activation that causes the side effects with the standard drugs. That study was in healthy volunteers, and the company needs to confirm that finding in patients with hepatitis C.

More results from the ZymoGenetics drug, and its ability to kill viruses, will be available in November at the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease meeting in San Francisco, Williams says. An early peek of data from the first six patients, who got one of the lowest doses in testing, shows antiviral activity in four of them, according to an abstract of the data that company spokeswoman Susan Specht sent me in an email. Data from three cohorts of patients will be presented at the liver meeting, she says.

The company is clearly setting some high expectations heading into that meeting. ZymoGenetics CEO Bruce Carter said that the company’s most important strategic move of the past year was to hold on to pegylated interferon lambda, rather than sell it off, according to an August interview with Biotech Stock Research, an independent equity research firm in Seattle. “Now we see it as an important investment,” Carter said.

ZymoGenetics has said it plans to find a partner to help with the final stages of development of this drug, and if the data presented in San Francisco back up what it’s been saying, then the price will surely be going up. Just don’t count on it making much of a splash in the news, as ZymoGenetics will surely be overshadowed by the folks at Vertex and Schering-Plough.

Globespan Part of $100M Solar Power Financing
Boston-based Globespan Capital Partners is among a group of investors and lenders contributing to a $100 million financing round for Solar Power Partners (SPP) of Mill Valley, CA, the company announced today. SPP develops and operates small solar-power installations and sells the electricity to facilities such as data centers, retail stores, hospitals, universities, and municipalities. [...] Wade Roush wrote:

Boston-based Globespan Capital Partners is among a group of investors and lenders contributing to a $100 million financing round for Solar Power Partners (SPP) of Mill Valley, CA, the company announced today. SPP develops and operates small solar-power installations and sells the electricity to facilities such as data centers, retail stores, hospitals, universities, and municipalities. Other backers included Carrelton Asset Management, Dry Creek Ventures, Energy Investors Funds, the Enlightened World Foundation, Silicon Valley Technology Group, and United Commercial Bank.

Pandora and Other Webcasters Saved By Act of Congress [Web Radio]

Today the otherwise preoccupied Senate quickly passed the Webcaster Settlement Act many of you petitioned for, granting Pandora and other net radio services the right to negotiate royalties with the record industry's SoundExchange coalition for the years 2006 to 2015. OK, that's a mouthful—what it means is, they will likely not be driven to bankruptcy due to unreasonable royalty rates. I say "likely" because they still need to dot i's and cross t's on the royalty deal itself, but here, Congress approved their ability to do that, and just in the nick of time. Anyway, the world itself may be collapsing, but at least you know our legislators listened to your pleas to keep your favorite web radio broadcasters in business. [Digital Media Association]

Giant Photography Captures Landscape-Sized Landscapes [Clips]

When you hear about a camera that's the size of a trailer, you figure it's a novelty used by a struggling artist looking to make a name. But watching this clip that explores the giant photography of John Chiara, you realize he's not just a salesman exhibiting a clown camera. He's an artist who painstakingly sets up a shot that's balanced with car lifts, controls the exposure by placing his hand over parts of the lens and then develops the film in a sewage pipe. And the results are pretty extraordinary. This clip documents Chiara's complete process and it runs about 7 worthwhile minutes. Load it up when you've got the time. [via Neatorama]

This Week in Blu-ray: Iron Man Knocked Up Edition [Blu-Ray]

Giz pick of the week: Iron Man

There's no doubt Iron Man was a guilty pleasure, but when executed with a very decent script, a superb cast of actors and unbelievable art design and special effects, we're suddenly proud to put the popcorn flick on our shelf. And the Blu-ray comes with plenty of extras, like a BD Live Iron Man quiz game, screen tests, 24 minutes of deleted scenes and even a Hall of Armor to check out the Iron Man suit:

Here are the other Blu-ray releases for this week.

• The 40-Year-Old • Virgin (Universal)
• Angel in the Family (Echo Bridge)
• Can't Hardly Wait (Sony)
• A Christmas Visitor (Echo Bridge)
• Daredevil: Director's Cut (Fox)
• Dawn of the Dead (2004) (Universal)
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Universal)
• Halloween Starter Pack ['The Thing (1982),' 'Land of the Dead,' 'Dawn of the Dead (2004)']
• Jethro Tull: Live at Montreux 2003 (Eagles Rock)
• Knocked Up (Universal)
• Land of the Dead (Universal)
• Legends: Live at Montreux 1997 (Eagle Rock)
• The Man Who Saved Christmas (Echo Bridge)
• Roy Orbison: A Black & White Night (Image)
• Salem Witch Trials (Echo Bridge)
• The Sixth Sense (Walt Disney)
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1973) (Dark Sky Films)
• The Thing (1982) (Universal)
• Ultimate Unrated Comedy Collection (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Knocked Up, The 40...)
• When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions (Image)

[hidef digest]

Update!
It's been a while. I've been doing a lot of stuff, including changing jobs (*gasp*) and batting off the black dog with a stick. I've also been spinning lots, and have made a gorgeous new dye colourway called Salamander (which...

It's been a while. I've been doing a lot of stuff, including changing jobs (*gasp*) and batting off the black dog with a stick. I've also been spinning lots, and have made a gorgeous new dye colourway called Salamander (which are mythical fire elementals, ooooh)

So here's what I've been spinning: The first is a teal green mix of silk and merino, all wound on to my Andean plyer and ready to 2-ply, and the other is a bunch of purple merino that Rachel bought for me (yey Rache, you're awesome) and I'm thinking I might Navajo ply that, but I'm still thinkin.

Knitting: The Green Jumper is stalled with too-short sleeves, and lies around the house looking gorgeous but fragmented. Bit like me on a Sunday afternoon. (bwahaha)

Meanwhile I've started a new sage green cotton jumper called Twisted - you can see it on Ravelry (username monnsqueak) if you're a Raveler, but here's the first shot of the back. Look at that shaping! Mmmm! Slight problem with this one already - I measured and started this one about a month ago and have since gone on (another) diet. So 2 1/2 kilos later, I'm hoping it won't look like a sack on me when I'm done. *sigh*

Anyway, I'm off to feed my WoW addiction while living in jealousy of M-H running around Wales and hanging out with other knitting legends. *sigh* Have a wonderful long weekend!

Bar2D2, the R2-D2 of Failed Space Operas [Robots]

Remember that time in Star Wars when R2-D2 shot out the lightsaber to Luke Skywalker? Yeah, well the only problem with that scene was that lightsabers don't freaking exist. And until they do, robots of the future must be retrofitted with the next best thing—copious amounts of booze. (Which, as we see in this picture, is something that certain cast members of the ill-fated show Firefly can appreciate).

Bar2 is radio controlled and runs about 8 hours on a single charge. And as you can see in our gallery, he's great with the ladies.

The robot is a fully stocked bar on wheels with compartments for ice, beer and mixed drinks. Grab a beer from Bar2 and its carousel system automatically rotates to present you with the next bottle (15 max capacity). The top carousel holds up to six bottles of hard alcohol and mixers that is programmable to mix the perfect drink.

And Bar2D2 sounds like his fictional counterpart, stocked with the soundboard of an R2-D2 toy. See the full process of building Bar2 over at Jamie Price's flickr page. [flickr via Gizmowatch]

Dealzmodo: Guitar Hero III w/Controller for $50 [Deals]

If you've got an Xbox 360 and have been toying with the idea of trying out Rock Band or Guitar Hero, this Guitar Hero III bundle runs just $50 for the game and one wired guitar. Plus, this guitar will work for Rock Band, should you want to pick up a standalone copy on the cheap. As a fake guitar aficionado, I'll admit, I do prefer Rock Band's guitar over the clicky Xplorer model, and the newer GH controllers are more comfortable as well. But don't let my champagne tastes get in the way of a good bargain hunt. [Musician's Friend via dealnews]

Steve Jobs High (In Mexico!) [The Children]

How does a fledgling, technology-oriented school just north of Acapulco get a leg up in this competitive world? I honestly have no idea, but at least one person seems to think that naming it after Steve Jobs will do the trick. Will this entice southern Mexico's best and brightest to switch to the school? Maybe. Did Steve Jobs have anything to do with this idea? Almost certainly, no.

Steve Jobs Technological High School Center (Steve would NEVER have used that name!) is currently open, and apparently seeking applicants. Be mindful that there is a one in five chance that this is actually a horrible con, and that you'll immediately be shunted into an underground sweatshop where you'll sew exact replicas of out-of-production black turtle necks and Levi 501s. [Macenstein]

Ask The Readers: Questions For A Rabbi
In a couple of weeks, from August 12 to 24, I’m going to be away at Mt. Sinai retreat. It’s basically a personal development retreat where we’ll get to do fun activities, have courses on self-improvement through Judaism, and hang out with one of the Holiest Rabbis in the world - Rabbi Gershenfeld. From what I’ve [...]

In a couple of weeks, from August 12 to 24, I’m going to be away at Mt. Sinai retreat. It’s basically a personal development retreat where we’ll get to do fun activities, have courses on self-improvement through Judaism, and hang out with one of the Holiest Rabbis in the world - Rabbi Gershenfeld.

From what I’ve been told he “is a genius” and “really amazing.” I’m really excited for this opportunity to stick to him like glue and pick his brain.

I can already see us, sitting in a shade underneath a tree, or by the lulling-glow of camp-fire, asking this tremendous aura about the deepest meanings of existence.

Not only would I love to ask all my own questions, but I’d love to include every one of you in this magical experience.

If you have any questions about Judaism, or questions about life for a person that knows it like the back of his hand, feel free to list them in the comments below (or e-mail them to me privately), and I’ll ask the Rabbi when I’m there.

Feel free to include any questions from now through August 24th, because I’ll be checking them while I’m there.

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6 Ways Children Trump Adults At Life
Editor’s Note: This article is written by the brilliant, amazing, and true Marina Tsipenyuk. It seems that we are always searching for what is sensible, logical, and politically correct. The older we become, the more such formalities encompass our thoughts and, surely, become us—our identities and traits are unshakable, arguably as they were, have been, and [...]

Editor’s Note: This article is written by the brilliant, amazing, and true Marina Tsipenyuk.

It seems that we are always searching for what is sensible, logical, and politically correct. The older we become, the more such formalities encompass our thoughts and, surely, become us—our identities and traits are unshakable, arguably as they were, have been, and always will be.

Perhaps that is why children are often advised by their elder counterparts to discontinue their illogical, irrelevant pursuits through the utmost peeks of their imagination, in favor of what we believe is “realistic”. Children are silenced, their questions ignored, and their brilliance shunned, for truly they are living in the real world and they are yet unaware of this.

My parents had come home to me and told me about their friends’ undisciplined children. “They kept asking all of these unwarranted questions! The parents didn’t even stop them!”, and yet they did not fail to mention how smart they thought the children were, how observant, how expressive. Though they were not disciplined in the conventional sense, their unmitigated ability to speak and to ask had manifested the most profound capabilities in the realm of self expression. For when children are hushed, they limit their questions to necessities. They reject abstractions to please us, but what they are completely unaware of is that so many of us are hitting the snooze button every morning, hoping to avoid the kind of pathetic reality that we are forcing on them!

But this approach is condemnation. What is it with us and our desire to complicate the world? Why is it that fun is equivalent to unproductive and productive consists of what is un-fun?

And haven’t we all been there? Haven’t we felt so alive drawing, singing, dancing, acting, and listening to some half witted grownup telling us that we must stick to those ways of the world that they think they know so well?

So why are children so happy and grownups so miserable? Surely they do not have to pay the bills, watch what they eat, and be independent, but when was the last time YOU looked out the window and just found the deepest pleasure in seeing a squirrel, fluffy and nimble, or knelt down to pick a flower in the springtime. When we find ourselves so concerned with everything else, we forget that once these were the phenomena of our waking days. Why should we be the arbiters of their desensitization when so much what they employ can help us so greatly?

“Grown-ups can never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to have to explain things to them always and forever” ~ Antoine de Saint Exupéry (The Little Prince)

So what is it that we can learn from children? To name a few things:

1. They are happy to get up in the morning

I have a question for you. When was the last time you stayed up and watched the sun rise? Last summer I remember sitting with my two best friends, watching the sun rise, and feeling so alive. It is a brand new day and a brand new you. Who knows what the day may bring? Don’t miss out on all of the amazing opportunities before you, and take them with gratitude.

2. They do not want to go to sleep at night

Just like the morning, the night has its wonderful mysteries and romantic stories. Whether you spend some time with your family, take a bubble bath, or make love to your spouse, do not go straight to sleep all the time.

3. They play games!

Yes, they love to pretend, and somehow, it always works for them. They live a new life every day, and that life is what they choose to make of it. We can think of life as anything, there is no ultimate truth. When was the last time you played hide and seek without getting frustrated? I did today with my phone! Make little mishaps into games!

4. They know that they don’t know everything…they always ask questions

Stop being Mr. Knowitall. You don’t.

5. They take pleasure in the little things.

I think that at one point we stop thinking of getting treats as exciting ventures. Why? Probably because everything, including ice cream is so accessible. Make it a point to limit such commodities in order to really feel their value. Don’t eat your favorite unhealthy food for a week and then go get it. It will be so great!

6. They appreciate the big things that we seem to ignore.

The seasons, for instance. Could you imagine how amazing it is when a child sees snow for the first time? And the next? And children long for the glistening snow to make angels, the sparkling rain in which they play, the sunny days that they can spend outside in the park. Don’t ignore the child within, and stare in amazement the next time you encounter one of nature’s pleasures.

And remember, adults are just big children.

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Mannequin Song
To every soul whom I have hurt, forget it I’m learning to take myself less seriously If the joker returns for his dues, I will plead My hands are empty still, I didn’t win I didn’t win, but I called, I did call My heads or tails didn’t drop, the coin didn’t fall It shot up to the sky, the moon [...]

I regret I am healthy (not screaming)
Had been going through another phase of life when you comprehend less though you introspect more and I didn’t post anything for almost two weeks. Had been pondering how to write next after a year of blogging and 125 surviving posts. My occasional foray into poetry was not poking me further; though being [...]

Rizwanur Rehman: the justice we were waiting for
Click here for a brief history of the Rizwanur Rehman tragedy . Death of Rizwanur Rehman: Police conduct inhuman, says court News Source: The Telegraph, India, August 15, 2008 Calcutta, Aug. 14: Calcutta High Court today accepted the CBI’s conclusion that Rizwanur Rahman had committed suicide and cleared the agency to chargesheet seven people, including his father-in-law Ashok Todi [...]

That simple word
If I am not being able to… I give my friend’s words to you If not my verses, not my tune It is still yours, ’cause it’s beautiful Like nervous bodies resembling a fight Arriving a stillness beyond sounds and sights I shuffled some paeans messed up in blood To reach the calmness of a simple word When that book of life is [...]

To my Ophelic Lover
To all those kind souls whom I have loved and lived or left Please come back, stay in my dreams; I have this tryst with pain I am seeing that same face again, my room is pungent with heat Waves which dance from walls to walls and a clock which smiles at me I heard one pan-flute moan, some [...]

Second Coming
This blog is personal, pretending to be literary. It desires to be quiet, so you might find comments closed in many posts. I have my share of favorite readers and I do like to increase numbers. But please read the posts and not my life, life is too personal a deal to dabble with [...]

Love’s Ragpicker, in the lurch
Image Courtesy: Charles l. Johnson via FILE Magazine Wake up, sleeping blog, wake up… Wake up without your clothes, wake up stark. Wake up in whatever phase of the dream you are in, wake up…you might…just DIE! The crowd has trickled away…dear blog…only stone-eyes remaining unblinking still, stone-eyes of angels, cupids, gremlins, gargoyles. Unblinking eyes are friendly [...]

120th post and Top 20 Bloggers
Related post: Women in Love…writing 120th post, am not counting few which I have already deleted. 120 is quite a number for me, since I think I have turned reticent these days. In my early blogging months, I often used to post in a category named Tributes, where I used to quote my favorite posts which made [...]

Preludes in January
I How many times I have tried To write your body-book in I tried to trigger and feel Ripples beneath the skin of a sentence. A drop of a noun that will harden When I roll it under my tongue As it spirals outside inwards. I plumbed the words until I can taste those foaming sibilants I can swirl in the diphthongs pungent. You were the [...]

webArgos Marketing Campaign
My junior year at Princeton is approaching, and time is getting short for me to decide what the heck I want to do with my life! The decision begins this fall, with the internship search for next summer, and stretches over into the coming years as ...

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We interrupt this recap…
Now that I’ve finally made it to the current month I’m going to get sidetracked for one post. It’s just a delaying tactic as I still have to take photos for the “April so far” post. Knitterboy posted this list (found elsewhere) and invited all and sundry to give it a go. The idea is to put [...]

DC Real Estate
Real Estate in Washington D.C.

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Acne Treatment
Here I am, a teenage boy sitting in his new college room, getting ready for another season of social pressures and sleepless nights. I'm an RA this year, and have spent the last few days preparing to teach my new freshman the lessons of college aw...

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Beijing Underground: 798 Street Art

I’m in good company
Last time I promised to talk about the Ravelypics and Yarnsmackdown but first I’ve got some important business to take care of. A friend of mine recently co-authored a knitting book and I was very flattered to be asked if I would be a stop on their virtual book tour. I was even more flattered when I [...]

Tropical Rainstorm
Painting: Paul Klee, Red & White Domes (1914) Nomo - All the Stars Ghost Rock (Ubiquity / 2008) Air France - Beach Party On Trade Winds ep (Sincerely Yours / 2007) Desmond and the Tutus - Kiss you on the cheek (King of town remix) Kiss you on the cheek Ep (Tigersushi / 2008) Rubies - Room without a Key (Studio Version) I [...]

Painting: Paul Klee, Red & White Domes (1914)

Nomo - All the Stars
Ghost Rock (Ubiquity / 2008)
Air France - Beach Party
On Trade Winds ep (Sincerely Yours / 2007)
Desmond and the Tutus - Kiss you on the cheek (King of town remix)
Kiss you on the cheek Ep (Tigersushi / 2008)
Rubies - Room without a Key (Studio Version)
I feel Electric single (Tellé / 2008)
Low Motion Disco - East Mountain Low
Keep It Slow (Eskimo / 2008)

It had been raining for a week, raindrops marched into the earth like Chinese warriors with rigid faces.
Mountain streams lay on their backs greedily lapping up water and October, and the clay shaped ever more perfect forms.

-Adam Zagajewski.

dutch braid hairstyle
dutch braid hairstyle Everyone seems to have their own style and standards when it comes to personal hygiene. There are the parameters that are e

on the occasion of his third birthday
Stepping through my sister's kitchen doorway I caught my niece in the act with her camera. Quietly she was snapping photos, capturing a private moment. Almost embarrassed to be caught stealing such a precious thing, she looks at me. Our...

Stepping through my sister's kitchen doorway I caught my niece in the act with her camera.

Quietly she was snapping photos, capturing a private moment. Almost embarrassed to be caught stealing such a precious thing, she looks at me.

Our eyes meet like spies in the night. We are on the same team and need no special words or secret hand signs to explain what is needed. The flash of mutual understanding comes too quickly to measure in normal time.

"Say nothing. Don't move," her eyes plead.

"Got it. I'm on it," my eyes answer.

She was stealing a yummy visual moment to savor later on and to share with others. I should not make a single sound.

Her baby boy was turning three this week and there he stood at the window with his great-grandfather deep in conversation.

Their chatter was constant and purposeful. But what were they saying?

My niece and I could not move closer to hear without spoiling the exchange. I wanted this magic moment to last forever and so did she.

Time is such a funny, wiggling, little animal.

Like Goldilocks we do complain, "This time is going too quickly." Then a few hours later we might say, "This time is going too slowly." We are never satisfied when it comes to Mr. Inconsistent  Time.

Never do we say, "Ah, this time is moving along just perfectly!"

Never.

Here we stood, my niece and I, tip-toeing and cameras clicking, trying not to change a thing while taking what we could use.

There they stood, my grand~nephew and my loving~daddy, both pointing out the window and talking to beat the band.

What my sweet niece did not know was this----> Once I came upon her when she was about this same chubby~fingered, talking~up~a~storm age having a conversation with this same man, my father.

So long ago, that was, and I did not have my camera but the vision is still etched into my heart.

Sometimes you just don't need a camera to freeze frame the important stuff.

My niece will not remember today the conversation she had about 25 years ago with my dad, the same way that her son will not remember this one years from now. Sometimes things just get away from you.

And now my dad forgets most everything in seconds. This seems to happen to interesting older men more and more.

But that is OK.

More important than the words in the conversation is the standing near.

The looking up and the looking down. The connecting with smiling eyes. That invisible thread that runs through shared experiences, which never completely disappears but settles in and hunkers down and brings secret comfort.

That one human bean to another human bean stuff.

You know what I mean.

water~logged and hitting the road, jack
In order not to float plum away from all this rain, I am going on a vacation for a few days. Unless that Fay messes things up. {{ In which case, I'll just hang out at the airport or maybe...

In order not to float plum away from all this rain, I  am going on a vacation for a few days. Unless that Fay messes things up.  {{ In which case, I'll just hang out at the airport or maybe go here. HA! }}

What is my longed~for destination? Well, I am not saying but it rhymes with Biladelphia.

I am so excited I can hardly stand it.

tourist tuesday and the world down a florida country road
I am so easy. When people I like, read books I like, it makes me happy. Like the Hostess~with~the~Mostest at some fine book party, I want MY friends--such as here and here --to fall in love with My book. "Don't...

I am so easy.

When people I like, read books I like, it makes me happy.

Like the Hostess~with~the~Mostest at some fine book party,  I want MY friends--such as here and here --to fall in love with My book.

"Don't you simply LOVE the way the author describes the dark chocolates in detail?" I might suggest, hoping against hope, that my friends will love what I love. "How about the degree that moodiness becomes personified? Isn't that just so clever?"

You would think from the way I carry on that the author was my sister or maybe that I'm her publicist.

If only.

It isn't that at all.

I have no pride of ownership. I am not related to to any writer still living.

I just love it when books and people are attracted to each other and become fast friends. In my heart I can see them smiling at each other and shaking hands, my people and my books.

"How do you do?" they are so polite, my people and my books.

"Why, I could not be better!" they all answer pleasantly.

And then there is the travel.

I am not telling you anything new here. You know how a good story well told  can take you out of yourself and plop you down into a time and country not your own.

Thank goodness and isn't that just pure magic!

When someone I know and admire says, " somepinkflowers, have you read this yet?" that puts me in heaven, too, because I know I am going some place special.

I am being tempted along to a new discovery and there just is not enough time in the day to read all the books, to take all the journeys.

But I do try.

Is it that way with you, too? Are you a matchmaker of books to people? Do you loan books or present them, one to the other?

"Oh, I have so been wanting you two to meet!"

Years ago when I started reading this writer I was possessed by the idea of going here.
And so I did.

I surreptitiously looked over my shoulder for this one at every Underground station, every museum, but nothing.

Well, maybe next time...

Once I read this book by this talented and amazingly prolific author, I dreamed for years and years of riding this.

Finally I realized I did not want to go there NOW in modern time,  I wanted to be on that train Back Then, during the time of the story. Well, obviously THAT was not going to happen so I have learned to make a few adjustments along the way.

While I cannot yet travel in time, I can travel by train and I adore doing so even if I never do meet up with this charming, Belgian sleuth.

(Some day maybe I will run into this writer as we  both negotiate our carry~ons down the aisle on our way from here to there.)

I am always up for a grand travel adventure but, honestly, I do not need anyone to be murdered in order to have a good tale to tell.

I have no misconception about playing detective on a train with one corpse and 12 overly~dressed, secret~hiding people sporting strange accents.

I mean really!

While I do enjoy an exciting adventure in a book, I am more than happy to paddle around my own neighborhood and enjoy sublime calmness day~to~day.

Some days I want nothing more than a peaceful pond and a clear blue sky.

Some days I want flowers and butterflies and stillness.

Some days, like this day, I needed to be alone with my thoughts and memories.

I took this book  to read in the Florida sun.

I am so easy.

I do not want to miss a thing. I want to read all the good books in the world and share them with friends. I want to travel every where and taste the best jams and cheeses and wines and then bring tasty~treats back home for my friends.

But some days I want to close my book and roll over onto my tummy and look deeply into the things nearby.

I want to see the world in the smallest of bitty~bits.

But, still, even then, I want to share that teeny miraculous world with people I like.

Like you.

So here, read this.

alan lightman, time and me
Dear Alan, You don't know me but I am head~over~heels crazy about your writing. I feel certain you most-likely do well at your other job as a physicist, too, but I hardly ever delve deeply into THAT subject, what with...

Dear  Alan,

You don't know me but I am head~over~heels crazy about your writing.

I feel certain you most-likely do well at your other job as a physicist, too, but I hardly ever delve deeply into THAT subject, what with all the other things I have going on.

You will not be getting valentines from me over the things you do in the physics department.

Just so you will know.

But I do read your books. I have read this and this.

I like your style and your word choice. You have a way with adjectives and adverbs; you make them your own. Your plot development swims along with strong strokes, too.

Man. I would so love to audit your creative writing class.

And look at you! Doing wonderful things in the humanitarian department.

You are just shining all over the place!

Oh, did I tell you? This book is waiting patiently in the tall stack beside my bed, next in line to be cracked open like the good egg I am certain it to be.

At night as I finish up this fun one, your book calls out, "Hey, over there, somepinkflowers! Get a move on with that ruffle piece! You know you want me more than that girly one."

And I do.

Still, the book that holds my heart, the one I read over and over again, the little volume that travels with me here and there is this one.

Even the name has power over me: Einstein's Dreams.

How could anyone even pretend to know the dreams that waltzed around inside Einstein's brainy head and, yet, Alan, you wrote this amazing tale full of prose and possibility and I do savor every single word.

I can just picture Einstein sitting there at his desk, dreaming up these distant lands where Time moves to its own beat, doing a quick-step here, a jive-hop there, a hip-rolling mambo in-between.

14 April 1905

'Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly.

For the most part, people do not know they will live their lives over. Traders do not know they will make the same bargain again and again...Parents treasure the first laugh from their child as if they will not hear it again.'

I know you wrote this book just for me as often I grump and complain about how Time moves too quickly one second, then too slowly the next.  You must think I am never satisfied.

Your worlds are at once melancholy and up~lifting. You are one clever man.

You show me Time unfolding in several different fashions and then say, "OK, missy, you like this one here better than that one you are living?"

Look again, you nudge.

Alan, thank you ever~so for your romanticized physics demonstrating there is really no other acceptable way for Time to get on down the road.

14 May 1905

'There is a place where time stands still. Raindrop hang motionless in air. Pendulums of clocks float mid~swing. ..The aromas of dates, mangoes, coriander, cumin are suspended in space.

As a traveler approaches this place from any direction, he moves more and more slowly. His heartbeats grow farther part...For this is the center of time.'

Does this world look more attractive than the one I have now? I think not.

So. Which world won my heart, Alan? Which world made me fall in love with your book? 

Which world calls out my name so strongly I can hear it even when your book is sitting on my front porch swing taking in the cardinal's song while I am not? Which world?

The one where people live forever? The one where time is not 'a quantity but a quality'? The world in which folks live just one day where the earth is slowed down so that 'one complete revolution occupies a whole human lifetime'?

Nope. No. Nada.

My favorite world, of all those you created here in this book for me, the one which has haunted me from the first reading, is this one:

15 May 1905

'Imagine a world in which there is no time. Only images.

A child at the seashore, spellbound by her first glimpse of the ocean. A woman standing on a balcony at dawn, her hair down, her loose sleeping silks, her bare feet, her lips...A man sitting in his study, holding the photograph of a woman, a pained look on his face...A great field, lined with cedar and spruce...An oval window looking out on fields of hay.'

A world of images where each person's mind and heart fills in the rest of the story.

A place where I can write my own world and you can write your own world and we are both spot~on.

This is the one. My favorite.

Really, Alan, thank you so much for taking the time to organize Time so nicely for me.

You have actually helped me free up some time. Now I can just play on the beach. Or make cup~cakes. Or slip away into a book for an escape from real time.

Thanks ever~so.

Your friend for ever and one day,

somepinkflowers

traveling alone
Even when I travel by myself I do not move around the cabin alone. I remember to bring along my extra~large serving of patience and my ever~expanding, fertile imagination. Most likely this does not surprise you. And, naturally, I now...

Even when I travel by myself I do not move around the cabin alone.

I remember to bring along  my extra~large serving of patience  and my ever~expanding, fertile imagination. Most likely this does not surprise you.

And, naturally, I now take my opinion every where I motor.

Most recently I was headed home from this and ended up spending more time here than I originally thought was necessary.

Hey. Things happen. A little storm here. A wee problem there. After a while these issues add up. Still, I do my very best to practice the art of traveling well.

A plane that is to fly me decides to take a snooze. I have no control what~so~ever.

I take out my patience and sit down to rest my bones. I let things percolate. Maybe do a bit of this or that .

I might find a quite nook and do some of this or maybe some of this, trying to find my now grounded center.

If delay after delay occurs I belly up to the bar and order one of these.

Oh, and just so you will know: Calories consumed at an airport do not count are double value and go immediately here.

Just so you will know.

One thing that never fails me is my camera. If I want time to fly, I get an idea and bring out the Kodak.

Click, click, click.  Shooting photos will--without fail--take my mind off my troubles.

My camera is also like a man*magnet.

Well, my camera actually works best on very short men, say around 4 years old, it seems.

Sometimes props are useful, too.

{{ My chrome green shades were a gift from Karen and I think they will be my newest favorite traveling accessory----->the glasses AND my winged messenger from Susanna. Gotta keep those both with me for all future airport visits. That's the ticket...}}

I almost forgot to come home I was having such a good time there with my extra~large serving of patience and my ever~expanding, fertile imagination.

Plus, this cutie DID invite me to Salt Lake City to stay at his lake house. Maybe next summer, I am thinking.

What do you think about traveling alone? Your opinion matters.

tourist tuesday and la sagrada familia
I think it was last Thanksgiving (or was it the one before last?) when my young niece shared her dreams with the rest of the family. She had been drawing up plans for a complex she hoped to build when...

I think it was last Thanksgiving (or was it the one before last?) when my young niece shared her dreams with the rest of the family. She had been drawing up plans for a complex she hoped to build when she grew up.

She described the interior rooms and surrounding grounds down to the last detail.

My darling niece was only twelve (or was it eleven?) at the time but she had High Hopes. In fact her complex was to be an Old Folks' Home for her aging family members.

This nursing home of sorts was to be called Hope's Inn which is the perfect name for several reason, the first of which is my niece is named Hope.

When Hope shared her plans we all grew quiet. The turkey and dressing sat there unattended.

"Who at this table was old?" we were thinking.  "Well, most of us, actually."

But we said nothing. The air went still, then slowly as we each caught our breath, the forks were put in motion once again.

Naturally we were all full of praise for Hope and and excitement for the future, except for my father who was full of his shadow friend, Confusion.

"What did she say?" my dad asked my mother. "She wants to build a hotel?"

Hope was the only child in our immediate family for almost 10 years. Hope had learned the secret trick of invisibility. While we were careful to be age~appropriate, Hope learned to sit still with big ears and listened to family talk of adult subjects like Alzheimer's and cancer.

Somehow, when we were not looking, Hope had blossomed into a happy and well-adjusted but somewhat serious child.

Brimming with playfulness and developing swimming skills like others her age, Hope is now ever mindful of the feelings of others. She watches over my dad, her great-grandfather, with the same patience and loving attention she reserves for her almost~3~year old nephew.

She is both normal and amazing at the same time, my niece Hope. Well, actually I am her great~auntie somepinkflowers.

As Hope shared her building dreams I stole a peak at my sweet sister, Debs.

We were both doing the math. Our parents were 84 (or were they 83?) on this Thanksgiving. In 15 years, when Hope was ready to build Hope's Inn,  my parents would be about 100.

I wondered about a child's concept of time and age. Everyone seated at the Thanksgiving table had been in Hope's life for, well, her entire life. Now she had plans for taking care of us.

In order to prevent leaking eyes, my sister and I had to avoid sharing long, sideways glances. If you get my drift.

The least I could do was to encourage Hope's dream. Briefly I started to think about setting up a  Special Fund for this project. Just in case she had big ideas.

Maybe Hope would let me design my own room.

I am in awe of those with High Hopes and Grand Plans. As a child I transformed shoe boxes into elaborate doll houses, wet sand into petite castles and my grandfather's basement into a forbidden dungeon.

These days I am attempting to transform my attic into glorious emptiness and my garage into organized usefulness. Attempting. We will see.

Before traveling to Barcelona this spring I studied Gaudi a bit. By the time I arrived in Spain I was suffering a mild crush on the man. If Gaudi had still been alive I might have made a fool of myself, as I am apt to do in these kinds of situations.

I think everyone who visits Barcelona must fall in love  with this fantastic architect. For one thing his buildings are all over the place. Also, nature was his inspiration and it is evident in his architectural details and his furniture designs. 

Spiraling seashells and branching tree tops. Everywhere the curves and arches of nature bloom into structural support and ornamentation.

To immerse yourself in Gaudi's design is a wonderful feeling. Ocean waves and curvy walls. Leaves in the ceiling.

From door knobs based on the design of a honeycomb, to window latches shaped like finger-gripping tree branches, nothing is overlooked.  No element is too small to be ignored. Sit in a Gaudi chair and you won't want to get up as it is smooth and forms to the small of your back.

Clearly Gaudi had High Hopes and Grand Plans. So high and so grand that when Gaudi designed la Sagrada Familia he knew he would never see his cathedral completed.

Can you imagine?

All that time and energy and money and then to die before it was completed.

What a man of vision and faith, that Gaudi. How did he know his work would carry on? That his dream would be completed?

I wonder what his people thought about his High Hopes and Grand Plans with those fantastic spires and tree trunk columns.

"You are going to build what?" his family might have asked. "It is going to take how long?"

Imagine a project started in 1882 and here it still goes on.

Some how I find the idea of this so comforting. The stick-to-it-ness is captivating. There is no turning back. No stopping.

If Gaudi was alive and still plugging away on his dream, he would be about 156 years old. Imagine his design for an Old Folks' Home!

Global warming, offshore drilling, politics in flux. Whatever is happening in the world, every morning a few determined architects and dedicated builders in Barcelona wake up to work on another man's great dream.

I cannot wait to go back in 20 or 30 years and see how la Sagrada Familia turns out. I might take my niece Hope with me. 

If she can get away from the Inn.

in the whole wide world
In the whole wide world there must be at least 501 destinations on my To Go To List . That number may seem excessive to you and, yet, I might actually be under estimating here. You know me. I do...

In the whole wide world there must be at least 501 destinations on my To Go To List .

That number may seem excessive to you and, yet, I might actually be under estimating here.

You know me. I do not want to miss a thing. I am madly in love  with life and all the good~stuff it has to offer.

It is a daunting task but I aim to travel to those places that call my name.

"somepinkflowers," the world calls, "please drop in here  and visit my holy sights."

And so I do. You can imagine what happens. Once is never enough.

For every new place I visit, I want to return there again and again.  I want my past journey over again plus more for I am an oh~so~greedy traveler.

I would not have it any other way.

Once I watched an interview on television with this prolific author.  He wrote and wrote so many books and each one was mighty thick and involved a ton of  research.

"Aren't you running out of ideas?" the bland and uninspiring interviewer asked him, as if such a talented writer would ever have his river go bone dry. As if.

"Oh, no!" replied the wise sage, "I could never live long enough to write all the stories I have within my head."

When this writer died at the ripe-but-still-youthful age of 90 we all lost out as his head was still full. One can only imagine tales left unwritten.

As with so many folks that died young  or died old, we have all lost out.

Well, I have nothing much to leave the world but still I want to see it all, to hold the images until the end of my time.

My list goes on and on while time runs out and out. I could never live long enough to visit all the places I have within my heart.

If you had asked me one year ago, "somepinkflowers, do you plan to visit Philadelphia? The very heart of your own democratic country?"

I would have answered, "No."

Nothing personal, dear Philly. You just did not seem sexy enough to fit my needs.

Recently  I was invited to Philly to meet with a group of women who I knew in Bloglandia but not in real life.

Ah, the world is so amazing. Truly.

I have known this creative, dancing one and her family from afar--through her blog-- for almost two years. And this oh~so~talented {and color~loving} one, too. And this thoughtful, match~making sweetie.

And so on, I have known for a while across internet space this dear with the amazing eye for light and shadow  and this gentle one with the smooth skill to capture baby smiles and puppy grins.

Through this generous~hearted, multi~media artist  we were invited to Philly and we jumped on the chance to gather, to view art  and make some art of our very own.

I made new friends who love words and make lovely photographs and who love to travel, too.

How can I tell you how special it was? Well, I cannot. 

Instead, here,  I share with you some of my new eyes.

While I cannot be every place I long to be, I now have extensions of myself who will show me a few  sights I cannot visit on my own.

I will not tease you or taunt you with my good fortune, just let me say this: I have added extra eyes so I can see the whole wide world. A travel~slut like myself can never be everywhere, can never see it all.

Or can she?

You know me. I do not want to miss a thing.

For the longest time I wondered how I would see it all and now I know.

Here I am piecing it all together.

The blue~sharpy bits of my past and the smooth~pinky bits of my future are joining up with my expanded team, here and now. It feels so comfortable to know I have my peeps catching things with their little Kodaks for my eyes and yours.

In the whole wide world there must be at least 501 destinations on my To Go To List and for the first time I understand how all these places will be mine.

Gee whiz, thanks, yous guys! So nice to hug your sister~neck, to hear your accented voices , to gaze into your simpatico~eyes, which are now my eyes, too.

Carry on, all of you, my missies. Carry on...

 

because it makes me happy
What if birds sing because they are happy? What do you think? Do birds feel joy? Scientist know that birds sing sometimes because they are looking for a temporary hot date for Saturday night. A few sing because they are...

What if birds sing because they are happy?

What do you think? Do birds feel joy?

Scientist know that birds sing sometimes because they are looking for a temporary hot date for Saturday night.

A few sing because they are ready to make a commitment for a life~time.

Birds also sing to let other birds know where the good stuff is.

"Seed, seed," the ever~present cardinals in my backyard cheep. "Get your bird seed over here, everybody. Plenty for all. Fly on over."

But I am asking what do you think about this---> What if birds sing because they are happy?

"That somepinkflowers! " you are thinking. Does she not have enough to do down there in Florida with hurricanes coming at her left and right?

One, two, three BAM! Or, one, two, three almost BAM! Some hurricanes barely sliding by to the left, some to the right.

Suffice to say, I am a busy bee but my brain races and I do wonder about such things as the happiness of flying, chirping things.

This book came across the desk in my direction last week at The Library. Two-hundred thirty six pages about why birds sing. At first I thought the book was someone's dissertation topic. Maybe it was a publish or perish piece.

Rothenberg is a professor here after all so it would be understandable.

I checked out Why Birds Sing for several shallow reasons, including these two--->

• there was a charming watercolor of a bird on the cover
• which was accompanied by a  CD, also featuring that same attractive bird on the label.

I have been told not judge a book by its cover but slap an attractive drawing of a bird on the cover and I'll check it out ever time. Every. Time.

Anyway, after I got the book home I notice 4 pages of Suggested Reading, 12 pages of Chapter Notes, 2 pages of Illustration Credits (!), 8 pages of Index and 7 pages marked CD Listening Guide which included credits like this---> Recorded live at the Tampere College of Arts, Finland, October 2003.

Also, sprinkled throughout the discourse are line-drawing and charts with captions like this ----->

• various duets of the male and female bou bou shirkes
• the major neural pathways of the song system in the brains of birds

See what I mean about dissertation topic?

Still, there was that attractive drawing of a bird on the cover.

So my question to your remains---> What if birds sing because they are happy?

Well, I would be happy if they did.   :-)

I am an unlikely candidate for such philosophical questions and, yet, I do wonder about such things.

I do know this. Artists often create because it makes them happy.

Some artists I know will travel great distances  in order to gather around a table to create.

Under the tutelage of a talented one , several did write and paint and cut and paste and fold and tape to create.

A person could write a book about how all this writing and painting and cutting and, well, you get the idea, could make certain artists happy.

As if in a meditative state these certain artists created. To the mantra of 'please pass the scissors' they did art all the day long.

And, at the end of their time together, these artist stacked their folded booklets, lined them up between flip~flopped feet  and photographed the results.

With energy and amazement for what they had accomplished, their collective hearts did fly.

Each page different but holding images shared from one's distant past or another wished~for future.

"Here take this idea, this schemata, and make it your own," we said to each other. " I gift it to you, my art.  I insist upon it."

And in the end, pleased beyond imagination, with surroundings in complete disarray, these certain artists were happy. Yes, they were.

I should know because, like a bird singing her happy song, I relinquish my little booklet here for your perusal.

No Chapter Notes,  Index or Suggested Reading will follow. Just this---> myriad thanks to my generous, artistic friends who helped me sing with joy, helped  me fly home with my creative souvenir.

I am beside myself with good fortune. I am one happy bird singing.

terrible~mean storm fay
What can happen when someone comes uninvited and stays too long... From St. Johns County Situation Report # 8, Thursday, August 21, 2008, 6:00 PM: "Beach erosion has been similar to a Nor’easter event with significant loss of sea turtle...

What can happen when someone comes uninvited and stays too long...

From St. Johns County Situation Report # 8, Thursday, August 21, 2008, 6:00 PM:  "Beach erosion has been similar to a Nor’easter event with significant loss of sea turtle nests."

{{ Graphic from NOAA. Two days later and T~S Fay is still hanging over our heads. It isn't just about us people, you know. }}

mushrooms, the world and me
Well, it was bound to happen. This IS Florida. And it IS August. So, now we have this coming our way. If you haven't seen my funny face in a while it is because I have been over here soaking...

Well, it was bound to happen.
This IS Florida.
And it IS August. So, now we have this coming our way.

If you haven't seen my funny face in a while it is because I have been over here soaking up the rays while I can.

I wasn't born yesterday.
I know hurricane season when I hear it brewing. I stock up on water, candles, books and art supplies. Like a good scout I prepare to hunker down.

The signs of hurricane season are everywhere. Bands of rain come and go all the live long day.

Mushrooms of every make and model are popping up with alarming regularity in my yard.

It goes like this----> Rain, rain, heat, mushroom.
Rain, rain, heat, mushroom.

I don't mind mushrooms in the least. I am sorry to say I never get these yummy ones.

Last September and October I was in every one's face about missing autumn in Florida, how living here I miss the chance to watch leaves changing color.

Blogging friends from all over the country were posting golden leaves and red leaves and I was all pouty and grumbling on missing out but I will tell you this...

I don't have fall foliage putting on a show in my neighborhood, but I DO have some spicy and stylish looking mushrooms. I could proudly take any of these toadstools to town.

In my front yard I have those plain vanilla, puffy~topped roundy ones that make the grand fairy rings. {If you dance inside the fairy ring and make a wish it comes true without fail but that is another story.}

Sometimes the mushrooms seem delicate and fragile looking. These paper thin ones often hang out for days. I step around them carefully when I am trekking back and forth relocating my giant grasshoppers.

Some toady~stools seem kind of creepy and if you look underneath you will find a world of slimy things carrying out business between the gills. They wiggle and squirm and only their mom could feel tenderness towards these icky ones.

These slippery crawlies do not bother me too much because I have knowledge of the food chain and the ways of the world.

Every one has to be somewhere doing something. Mushrooms have a job and get right on it breaking trees and leaves down into manageable bits for the rest of us. Thank goodness.

When it comes to mushrooms I prefer the fresh smelling ones with a dusting of clean, rich earth.

What really creeps me out these days is not this or these but the aggression of Russia and how she is bullying her way into Georgia. What is with that?

When I see Russia acting with this annoying sense of entitlement I remember these guys and remember this.

I wasn't born yesterday.
I know possible trouble when I hear it brewing. I stock up on being positive, having faith and trusting experienced leaders. Like a good scout I pray I will not need to hunker down.

In my heart I have a shadow place that remembers the threat of this kind of mushroom. It chills me to the bone.

Life is so much simpler when all I must worry over is one of these or one of these.

The Children’s Picturebook Price Guide
Ephemera, a blog “exploring the world of old paper, recently published an an interview with Linda and Stan Zielinski, the authors of the Children’s Picturebook Price Guide. According to Amazon: [This book] provides values for nearly 23,000 books, covering over 700 children’s book illustrators dating from 1929 to 2006. For owners of picturebooks, the price guide [...]

Ephemera, a blog “exploring the world of old paper, recently published an an interview with Linda and Stan Zielinski, the authors of the Children’s Picturebook Price Guide. According to Amazon:

[This book] provides values for nearly 23,000 books, covering over 700 children’s book illustrators dating from 1929 to 2006. For owners of picturebooks, the price guide is an essential tool to identify and assess their value.

This interview is fascinating, touching as it does upon two of my hobbies: collecting and books. There are several nuggets of good info here. I particularly like this bit:

We tend to focus on the first edition of children’s picturebook which have been met with success in the general children’s book market. This success manifests itself by staying in print for decades, and large number of sales of the book over time. In other words, books that stand the test of time with the children, across generations.

There are many examples: All of the Dr. Suess books, which have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide. The Caldecott Medal winning books, which was initially awarded in 1938, stay in print, and have been read by generations. Madeline, first published in 1939, has never been out of print. Ferdinand, 1936. Wanda Gag’s Millions of Cats, is the earliest example of a picturebook that has stayed in print since its first publication, which was 1928.

There are very few things created in the 30s, 40s, or 50s, remaining unchanged, that would be enjoyed by today’s generation. Superman and Batman were created in the 1930s, and their franchises still run strong. However, it’s not the comic books of the 1930s that is appealing to today’s 8-to-14 year olds–the superheroes have been updated for the modern era. Not so for picturebooks from decades ago.

Millions of Cats is the first book I can remember my mother reading to me. I love it as much today as I did when I was a boy.

My wife and I both love children’s books. Picture books are especially fun. We’re not collectors, but that’s only because we have other hobbies.

[ephemera: Interview with the authors of the Children's Picturebook Price Guide]

Which is Better: a Roth IRA or a Traditional IRA?
This a rough draft of a post for Get Rich Slowly. Every week, I receive more questions about Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs). These are great tools to help the average American save for retirement. Most of the time I’m able to route people to one of my previous articles on the subject: The GRS Introduction to Roth [...]

This a rough draft of a post for Get Rich Slowly.

Every week, I receive more questions about Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs). These are great tools to help the average American save for retirement. Most of the time I’m able to route people to one of my previous articles on the subject:

But one question comes up over and over: which is best, a Roth IRA or a traditional IRA? The answer is: “It depends.” There are several subtle differences between the two that affect those near (or in) retirement. (Investopedia has a good summary of the differences.) For most Get Rich Slowly readers, the three most important considerations are these:

1. Contribution limits for Roth IRAs and Traditional IRAs are identical. In 2008, you may contribute $5,000 a year to your account. If you are 50 or older, you may contribute an additional $1,000.
2. Roth IRAs have income limits; traditional IRAs do not. For the 2008 tax year, single filers must make less than $101,000 to qualify for a full Roth IRA contribution. Joint filers must earn less than $159,000. (This limit is actually tied to your Modified Adjusted Gross Income.)
3. Both types of IRA are tax-advantaged, but in different ways. You’re usually able to fund a traditional IRA with pre-tax dollars — you pay taxes when you withdraw the money. (If you or your spouse has a retirement plan through an employer, the traditional IRA may have income limits.) The money you put into a Roth IRA has already been taxed, therefore you’re able to withdraw it tax-free.

So if you qualify for both, which one is best? In general, the rule of thumb is that you should choose a Roth IRA if you suspect your retirement tax rate will be equal to (or greater than) your current tax rate. If you think your tax rate will decrease during retirement, then you should choose a traditional IRA.

If you want more than just a rule of thumb, check out the Roth IRA vs. Traditional IRA calculator from CCH Incorporated.

I like this calculator because it makes all of its assumptions explicit. The main page defines all the parameters the tool uses: expected rate of return, current tax rate, retirement tax rate, etc. If you want to know more about the behind-the-scenes calculations, click the “view report” button to get a thorough report.

While this calculator is fun to play with, it doesn’t solve the fundamental problem: nobody knows what tax rates will be like in the future. If you make very little now, you can guess your tax rate will probably be higher in retirement. If you make a lot, your tax rate is likely to be lower. But what about the rest of us?

I asked Dylan Ross of Swan Financial Planning for his advice.

Most people will not be withdrawing their entire IRA in a single tax year.  It’s entirely possible that some years will have higher rates than present and some years will be lower.  This is why I think it makes sense to try to have tax-free (Roth) and tax-deferred savings, so I can have option in the future.  If I want to save some of my tax-free when I’m retired because tax rates are at a low and I suspect will eventually rise, I’ll pull from my traditional IRA.  If tax rates are super high, I’ll tap the Roth.  

I’m an advocate of diversifying the tax treatment of my retirement savings, but in the end, when you have a choice, putting it all in the Roth is usually the better move.

So which is better? It depends. Your circumstances determine which makes the most sense. If the choice is not clear to you, you should probably consult a qualified professional, such as an accountant or a certified financial planner.

(If you’re more interested in 401(k)s than IRAs, JLP at All Financial Matters recently shared a comparison between the Roth 401(k) and a traditional 401(k).)

remembering Sydney + more peeks
Today is a little bit of a sad day- Today was the expected birthday of Sydney- my best friend Autumn and her husband Mitch's first child. Sadly, Sydney was born and taken to heaven on Feb. 28th. Autumn was the...

Today is a little bit of a sad day- Today was the expected birthday of Sydney- my best friend Autumn and her husband Mitch's first child. Sadly, Sydney was born and taken to heaven on Feb. 28th. Autumn was the most excited expectant mother, she was the happiest I had ever seen her during the months she carried Sydney. It is heartbreaking whenever anyone loses a baby- and for Mitch and Autumn- and all of their family and friends- there was no exception.

I made this shortly after Sydney passed away as a way to deal with some of my feelings at the time, and I thought today would be the best day to share it with you:

Autumn asked me to help her create a few special memory books for her with the photos she had from Sydney's birth and passing- it was an honor and yet a very challenging thing to do. I really wonder sometimes why I make all these pages and projects- what point it all has when I don't have children- but during that time- when all of us struggled to find a way to help, it was like a saving grace. Mitch and Autumn spread Sydney's ashes in the Pacific Ocean, and this week they are taking time away together in Mexico- a trip they were supposed to take a few months after her birth. I am thinking about them today.

I know a lot of you were wondering about the Seattle Stamps from yesterday's post- I promise that I will find out the scoop on those for you and post an update and a link if they are available online:)

Today is day 2 of a.muse.a.palooza and one of my cards was featured on the AMAP blog as a sneak peek- so I thought I would post it here for you to check out as well:

I love the little Alpine Hut! This was a slightly more *advanced* card compared to what I usually make: I started with the background, then I freehand cut out the mountains, the snow caps, and the little bit of snow trim on the bottom. I stamped the whole hut image onto the card after the layers were applied, then I stamped the hut on a piece of white cardstock, cut out just the *hut* part, and mounted it with foam tape, lining up the stairs and the sign. Then I just added the sentiment and the glitter, and colored it all in with my Tombow and Copic Markers.

I know I haven't been the most reliable blogger lately- I think the next few days I might be pretty MIA while I finish some very last minute CHA projects, but I will be back with more updates as soon as I have a few extra minutes. Sadly- I am not making the trip to Chicago this summer- I would love to get back to CHA, but I think I might save it for the Winter show in Anaheim. I have had a chance to see a few *new* goodies from some fave manufacturers though, and you won't be disappointed!! It's going to be a good holiday season:)

Hope the rest of the week is sunshiny and summery and full of fun!!
(((((hugs)))))
 

PS: I almost forgot! I have to give a shout out to SUE!! Sue is the sister-in-law of fellow blogger and vintage lover, Colleen (FreshVintage) - she recognized John, and then me, in the parking lot at Costco on Saturday!!! I was so tickled to meet her- and slightly embarrassed that she caught me chowing down a big Costco dipped ice cream bar!! Sue, it was GREAT meeting you!! xoxo

a.muse.a.palooza is here!!
It's back!! This week in select stores and on the a.muse.a.palooza blog- we're unveiling the new stamps for the upcoming holiday season! The blog will have continued challenges and prizes for those who want to participate but aren't near a...

It's back!! This week in select stores and on the a.muse.a.palooza blog- we're unveiling the new stamps for the upcoming holiday season! The blog will have continued challenges and prizes for those who want to participate but aren't near a store, we even have an adorable class kit for sale and a FREE online class with purchase being taught by the very talented Julie Ebersole!!

The DT has provided some seriously cute Sneak Peeks of some of the new images on their blogs, and the a.muse.a.palooza gallery at SCS- Check it out!!

Here is my little sneak: The *new* Cityscape stamp + the new Seattle images! (the Seattle images aren't part of the AMAP release, but they are newer to A Muse and I LOVE THEM!!)

Speaking of "Greetings from Seattle"...you should pop over and check out the Summer Postcard series created by the American Crafts DT! I made a Seattle one and I totally LOVE Linda Barber's 3-D paper cut out version! HOT STUFF!!

Summer is finally making a short appearance in Seattle- today it's the high 70's, sunny and clear- and more of that is expected over the next few days. I took a rare break for a few minutes today to catch some rays and work on my tan- I have a nice base from our surfing/camping trip to Neah Bay last weekend:

John ran into a fellow Theta Chi alum who was also up surfing, so he came over to our campsite for dinner. Last weekend was a rare event in Washington, especially the Washington Coast- it was super sunny and warm! We were really lucky to end up with such great weather on the weekend, so John and I planned to head right out to the beach. This campground is awesome! It's part of the Macaw Indian Reservation and a big surf spot. It's one big open field with campfire pits and it's all first come first serve- which means we can actually take a spontaneous trip- I like the reservation system at State Parks- but I think that it sucks when you want to go camping for the weekend and there is no where left to go. Thank goodness for Neah Bay. Saturday, I literally did nothing. Since the beach is literally right behind our campsite, I just hauled my folded chaise lounger, some drinks and the dog and read on the beach while John surfed. I think Drake and I sat there for something like 9 hours. It was heaven. We enjoyed ourselves so much we are planning to head back as soon as we hear the weather is going to be good again.

Well, John is home for dinner, so I better sign off for the day- Man Hungry. Need Food.
Ciao!!

GOOG vs MSFT: The battle continues
The growing confrontation between Google and Microsoft promises to be an epic business battle. The statement, from a New York times article titled Google gets ready to rumble with Microsoft, isn’t something that should be new to anyone. While Google is the golden-boy of the 2000’s, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is familiar with the software giant, having worked for [...]

The growing confrontation between Google and Microsoft promises to be an epic business battle. The statement, from a New York times article titled Google gets ready to rumble with Microsoft, isn’t something that should be new to anyone. While Google is the golden-boy of the 2000’s, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is familiar with the software giant, having worked for Sun Microsystems and Novell, and knows that it is anything but clear sailing for Google. With a strong core business built on their search engine and online advertising, Google is free to experiment with a varied set of offerings, but the ultimate success of Google may hinge on their ability to turn these offerings into revenues:

COUNTLESS decisions by corporate technology managers, office workers, university students and rank-and-file computer users of all kinds will ultimately determine Google’s success. How easy and inexpensive will it be to do e-mail, word processing, spreadsheets and team projects on Web software? Will high-speed network connections soon become as ubiquitous and reliable as Google seems to assume? Will companies, universities and individuals trust Google to hold corporate and personal information safely?

HowStuffWorks - How Hackers Work
An interesting article on HowStuffWorks.com, the leading source of credible, unbiased, and easy-to-understand explanations of how the world actually works, talks about hackers and how hackers work. The message that was forwarded to me was linked to the third page, Hacker Culture, and had an interesting picture of some questionable looking characters.

An interesting article on HowStuffWorks.com, the leading source of credible, unbiased, and easy-to-understand explanations of how the world actually works, talks about hackers and how hackers work. The message that was forwarded to me was linked to the third page, Hacker Culture, and had an interesting picture of some questionable looking characters.

Wickedly Wonderful Halloween Class
Hey Guys and Ghouls!! I am hosting a free class at 2peas this week, where you can download a supply list and instructions for this little bit of sophisticated spookiness: We have an official thread in the message board for...

Hey Guys and Ghouls!!

I am hosting a free class at 2peas this week, where you can download a supply list and instructions for this little bit of sophisticated spookiness:

We have an official thread in the message board for anyone and everyone to come and participate- I'll be there all this week, if you have any questions or comments or just feel like chatting it up with me and fellow Halloween fans!!

Hope to see you there!!!

VICTORY in defeat…
I won’t suggest that it was an easy battle, but at the same time, I will have to admit, had I accepted defeat earlier and simply tried to upgrade to the newest version of Wordpress, it would have solved many hours of frustration. Over the Christmas holidays, it was easier to ignore the fact that [...]

I won’t suggest that it was an easy battle, but at the same time, I will have to admit, had I accepted defeat earlier and simply tried to upgrade to the newest version of Wordpress, it would have solved many hours of frustration. Over the Christmas holidays, it was easier to ignore the fact that the blog had a minor problem in how it was displaying posts, but having gone over a month now without a post (instead dedicating that time to troubleshooting what actually went wrong, uploading back-ups of the site, slamming my head on the desk, etc.), it was time to accept defeat and go for the last ditch effort.

With my articles now showing up here, on SuperbHosting.net’s blog, and TechVibes’ blog, I will try and ensure that there is limited overlap between the three sources while maintaining my commitment to being a valuable information resource on the topic of Internet technologies and trends.

All About Yves
Last night, I was lucky to attend the Celine Dion show at the Nassau Coliseum in Long Island, NY. The talented Yves Aucoin, Dion’s longtime designer, arranged for my mother and I to see the show (during which, just as I suspected, my mother was nearly out of her own skin with excitement). As for [...]

Last night, I was lucky to attend the Celine Dion show at the Nassau Coliseum in Long Island, NY. The talented Yves Aucoin, Dion’s longtime designer, arranged for my mother and I to see the show (during which, just as I suspected, my mother was nearly out of her own skin with excitement). As for me, I was just looking forward to seeing Yves’ design and watching Mom mouth “Oh (more…)

PLASA Pics
Thought we would share some visual moments from over here in London at the PLASA show. Clay Paky’s Francesco Romagnoli with lighting designer Koert Vermeulen caught up on day one of the show. Rosco donated royalties yesterday from its Light Relief Yellow Supergel filter to the British charity, Light Relief. Mark Engel, president of Rosco, presented the [...]

Thought we would share some visual moments from over here in London at the PLASA show.

Clay Paky’s Francesco Romagnoli with lighting designer Koert Vermeulen caught up on day one of the show.

Rosco donated royalties yesterday from its Light Relief Yellow Supergel filter to the British charity, Light Relief. Mark Engel, president of Rosco, presented the check (more…)

Open House New York
Interested in a behind-the-scenes tour of Radio City Music Hall with architect Hugh Hardy? Or seeing site-specific dance in historic sites around the five boroughs of New York City? Or a peek at the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn? These and other arts-related events are part of the Open House New York weekend coming [...]

Interested in a behind-the-scenes tour of Radio City Music Hall with architect Hugh Hardy? Or seeing site-specific dance in historic sites around the five boroughs of New York City? Or a peek at the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn? These and other arts-related events are part of the Open House New York weekend coming up on October 4 and 5: it’s a great way for visitors, as well as (more…)

Measuring Offline Advertising in Google Analytics
Google Analytics does a great job of helping you measure online advertising. Not only does it integrate with AdWords, but you can use it to measure any kind of internet marketing, such as banner ads, email marketing, etc. The Campaign reports then give you all kind of data about your marketing, like bounce rates and [...]

Google Analytics does a great job of helping you measure online advertising. Not only does it integrate with AdWords, but you can use it to measure any kind of internet marketing, such as banner ads, email marketing, etc. The Campaign reports then give you all kind of data about your marketing, like bounce rates and conversion rates by campaign, by medium, or by source.

This helps you decide where you’re being effective in spending your advertising budget and where you’re pouring money down the drain on people who never visit the site, who bounce once they do, or who never convert.

The Challenge of Offline Advertising for Your Website

But what if you have offline advertising that’s intended to drive people to your website — a brochure, a traditional newsletter, or for that matter some guy in a sandwich board you hired to parade up and down the street? You might just include the URL of your home page, because it’s easy to remember and type in. But then you don’t know anything about the connection between your advertising and how it drove someone to your site.

You could, of course, use campaign codes in your offline advertising, just like you do with online advertising. But here’s an example of a campaign-coded URL (broken across lines for clarity):

     http://example.com/destination?utm_source=brochure           &utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=fall08 

Remember, this is in print. So a user has to type all that in? I don’t think so.

The Solution: Vanity URLs

You need nice, short, easy-to-remember URLs in print, because someone’s going to have to type them in. So you want something like:

     http://example.com/ad 

or

     http://ad.example.com 

or even simply

     http://mypromotion.com 

These kind of short, catchy URLs are known as “vanity URLs.” They’re pretty names for pages that actually live somewhere on your site — maybe just your homepage, or even better, a dedicated landing page for the promotion.

So suppose your vanity URL is http://example.com/ad, and you would really like it to point to http://example.com/promotion/landingpage. (We’ll do this with a technique called “redirects” that we’ll talk about in a minute.) But if you’re already pointing your short URL at a longer URL, why not go all the way and include campaign codes? Start with

     http://example.com/ad 

which is nice and short and easy to type. Send it to (broken across lines for clarity)

     http://example.com/promotion/landingpage?utm_source=brochure           &utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=fall08 

This does two things: (1) it goes to the landing page you want, and (2) it uses campaign codes to track that this is part of your “Fall 08” campaign, the medium was “print”, and the source was “brochure.” All that will show up in your Campaign reports, right alongside your online advertising. Awesome!

How to Do It: 301 Redirects

There are a number of ways to point URL A to URL B; this is called “redirection.” I’m not going to go into gory details about different methods, but what I will say is this: the kind of redirect you want to use is called a “301 redirect.” There are lots of reasons this is better than various other ways to redirect URLs, including being good for your search engine optimization.

A 301 redirect is called “301” after the HTTP status code that is returned when a browser requests the URL. (You’re familiar with other status codes like “404” for a page that can’t be found.) All the redirect does is say “The page you were looking for at this URL? It’s at this other URL instead. Go there.#8221; And your browser automatically does.

A 301 redirect occurs on your web server. Depending on what web server you’re using and how your site is architected, there are a number of ways to accomplish this. I’m not going to cover every one in detail, but here are some links to popular ways you might accomplish this.

• If you’re using the Apache web server, you can use the mod_rewrite engine
• If you’re using the IIS web server, you can use the ISAPI_rewrite engine
• Depending on your site, you may also use a custom scripting solution for rewriting URLs, such as one based on PHP or ASP.NET

There are lots of options here, and you should think about how they fit with the way your site currently works behind the scenes, as well as how you’ll maintain the list of vanity URLs and campaign-coded destination links as you add to them in the future.

So, go ahead and start tracking your offline advertising!

-Jonathan

This is a post from: Lunametrics

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GA: Why do pages refer to themselves?
About a week ago, I read a post by Avinash that answered GA questions; but when I got to the part about the navigation report (see screen shot, left), I just didn’t agree. The question was, “Navigation summary question - why is previous and next page often the same as the page [...]

About a week ago, I read a post by Avinash that answered GA questions; but when I got to the part about the navigation report (see screen shot, left), I just didn’t agree. The question was, “Navigation summary question - why is previous and next page often the same as the page you are viewing? ” Like this report on the left: Notice that 6.23% of pages that lead to the index page come from the index page, and 6.23% of pages that come from the index page go to itself. A little strange, no?

Why I was suspicious of the original answer.

In his post, Avinash wrote that someone at GA explained what caused this peculiar beharior. Here is how he described it — basically, it is about viewers that look at a regular tagged page and then look at a picture on the page in larger format (which isn’t tagged). Here is the example he gives:

Visitor Action One (view): /avinash/2007/09/rethink-web-analytics-introducing-web-analytics-20.html
Result: javascript hit generated (data collected)

Visitor Action Two (click): http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/web_analytics_1.0.png
Result: NO javascript hit generated (no data collected)

Visitor Action Three (back): /avinash/2007/09/rethink-web-analytics-introducing-web-analytics-20.html
Result: javascript hit generated

Visitor Action Four (click): http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/web_analytics_2.0.png
Result: NO javascript hit generated

Visitor Action Five (back): /avinash/2007/09/rethink-web-analytics-introducing-web-analytics-20.html
Result: javascript hit generated

To Google Analytics (or any other Analytics tool), it will look like this:

1) /avinash/2007/09/rethink-web-analytics-introducing-web-analytics-20.html - javascript hit generated

2) /avinash/2007/09/rethink- web-analytics-introducing-web-analytics-20.html- javascript hit generated

3) /avinash/2007/09/rethink-web-analytics-introducing-web-analytics-20.html - javascript hit generated

This sounded plausible, but too neat. Much too neat for me. What if someone got to one of those pictures - one of those untagged .png pages - and decided to leave the site altogether? If just a single person bailed out, that would make the percentages different. In order for this explanation to work, every single person would have to exhibit the identical behavior - they would all have to look at two pictures and come back to the same page. It has to be perfectly symmetrical, and it is in the hands of thousands of humans to do it the same way.

Do you believe that? I didn’t. But I didn’t know the answer.

The Truth According to John (aka Google Analytics Gang Signing)

So yesterday, I was working with John and Jonathan here at LunaMetrics. “Did you see Avinash’s post a week ago?” I asked them, “Those numbers are WAY too clean. How could a page refer to itself and then refer to itself again every single time?”

John thought to himself for a couple of minutes and then said, “Oh, I get it. Here is what happens. Whenever the page is viewed twice in a row - like a page reload — the whole thing automatically works.” He put his hands together in the configuration on the left. Jonathan nodded wisely. I looked at them like they were nuts.

But ultimately, I understood what he meant:

If a page precedes itself, it also follows itself. That’s what John meant with his fingers — on one side of the report, we see a page preceding itself, on the other side of the report, we see the page following itself. It is just the same story, told twice.

The key is, you can’t think of that report like a clickstream when it involves the same page more than once. Once you stop thinking about it that way, it becomes intelligible. The page is the same no matter which of the columns of the report it appears in, and the numbers have to match exactly because of that.

Still lost? I know that some of you are sitting there nodding your heads, while others are saying, “What is she talking about?” So for the latter crowd, let me describe it in a different way. I hope you won’t mind if I use numbers instead of percentages, just to make this clearer.

Let’s say that Page A refers to itself via a page reload 100 times. And let’s say that the website has only one page — Page A. The report would look like this — in a conceptual way:

Notice how we get 200 pageviews in the middle of the page (and we know that that’s how many there are.) Notice how the number of pageviews on the left and on the right are symmetrical. And notice how these are two identical pictures, which meet in the middle — just like the picture of John’s hands above.

So I think I have run out of ways to explain this problem. It is sometimes caused by a reload, and sometimes caused by part of the explanation that Avinash gave. But it never requires thousands of people to exhibit the identical behavior.

And in closing, John wanted me to show off that he is really known for his good looks and not for his gang signs, so here is he is.

Robbin

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Two more Google Analytics Trainings: DC and NYC
Just a quick note to tell everyone that our next one-day Google Analytics training will be October 3 in Washington DC, and then after that, on December 9 in NYC. Both training days cost the same — $285/person.  We’ve done a few new things (based on the really great feedback we had in DC last [...]

Just a quick note to tell everyone that our next one-day Google Analytics training will be October 3 in Washington DC, and then after that, on December 9 in NYC. Both training days cost the same — $285/person.  We’ve done a few new things (based on the really great feedback we had in DC last time) — everyone will have the ability to plug in and log on and follow along in a classroom-type setting. (None of this balancing your coffee and your laptop at the same time).  Also, we’re planning to have a “lab” at the end of the day where you can get on your own analytics and we’ll visit each participant, giving you personalized help with your analytics.

You can get more information, see the schedule and register at http://www.lunametrics.com/getting-ahead/

Robbin

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Qatar: Time to Break Fast
From Qatar, Bahraini blogger Ammar Talk [ar] posts pictures of children around cannons, fired to signal the time to break one's fast in Ramadhan.

From Qatar, Bahraini blogger Ammar Talk [ar] posts pictures of children around cannons, fired to signal the time to break one's fast in Ramadhan.

New Google Analytics Training: October 3 in Washington, DC
Our recent Google Analytics training in Washington, DC sold out a week before the event (sorry - we were limited by the size of one of the rooms.) A lot of people have since asked about our next training and signed up for early notification. So we are going to do another Google Analytics training [...]

Our recent Google Analytics training in Washington, DC sold out a week before the event (sorry - we were limited by the size of one of the rooms.) A lot of people have since asked about our next training and signed up for early notification. So we are going to do another Google Analytics training day in Washington, DC — same price ($285/person), same place (American Institute of Architects in the heart of downtown DC.) The venue was just fabulous - we had great wi-fi for everyone, electrical outlets at every seat so that laptops ran all day, not to mention stadium seating with tables in front of everyone.

We haven’t even finished compiling the evaluations forms (but read them all on the way home). A few things were clear: people really loved Jonathan’s new presentation on Google Analytics workarounds for analysts and techies; lots of attendees wanted a little more time learning about goals (OK, I’ll do that); many eval forms mentioned how nice it would be if attendees had a chance to work with each other. We are making one important change: the last hour of the day will be devoted to a Google Analytics lab, where you can bring your laptop and work with your own data. We’ll be there to answer questions and help you do your analyses, help you find the right data, help you configure your analytics (you’ll need admin privileges to your GA in order to do configuration.) Even if you don’t have a laptop to bring (or hate dragging it), we can still spend that time working on our laptops and helping you with your GA.

Well,– here’s the link to our October 3, 2008 GA Training in Washington, DC.

Robbin

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Saudi Arabia: No to Fashionable Abayas
Mosan Mosan, from Kuwait, writes about a crackdown by Saudi authorities on fashionable Abayas (black cloaks worn by women) ahead of Eid - a celebration which marks the end of the Holy Muslim month of Ramadhan.

Mosan Mosan, from Kuwait, writes about a crackdown by Saudi authorities on fashionable Abayas (black cloaks worn by women) ahead of Eid - a celebration which marks the end of the Holy Muslim month of Ramadhan.

Jordan: Hypocrisy, Freedom or Disrespect?
From Jordan, Ahmed Humeid shares his thoughts on Ramadhan, hypocrisy, freedom and disrespect after the closure of a popular cafe for serving alcohol in Ramadhan in this post. Find out why when you click on the link.

From Jordan, Ahmed Humeid shares his thoughts on Ramadhan, hypocrisy, freedom and disrespect after the closure of a popular cafe for serving alcohol in Ramadhan in this post. Find out why when you click on the link.

Goal Copy Update
I updated the Goal Copy extension for some changes that Google made to the HTML.  Again. http://lunametrics.com/goalcopy/goalcopy.xpi If it stopped working for you, it should be back in business for a while.  Until they change the HTML again. . . If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can check out the original post here. This is a [...]

I updated the Goal Copy extension for some changes that Google made to the HTML.  Again.

http://lunametrics.com/goalcopy/goalcopy.xpi

If it stopped working for you, it should be back in business for a while.  Until they change the HTML again. . .

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can check out the original post here.

This is a post from: Lunametrics

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HubPages.com - Get Paid for Writing About Your Passion
HubPages.com - get paid for writing about your passion If you are a writer/blogger and you think that you have a good sense of what people are searching for and can write on topical subjects, then we are looking for you(and we’re glad that you are reading this!). Basically what HubPages.com allows you to do is leverage [...]

HubPages.com - get paid for writing about your passion

If you are a writer/blogger and you think that you have a good sense of what people are searching for and can write on topical subjects, then we are looking for you(and we’re glad that you are reading this!).

Basically what HubPages.com allows you to do is leverage these 3 things to give you best possible writing platform that you can find on the web:

1. CRAZY TRAFFIC: Our traffic of 8+ million uniques/month practically guarantees that your content gets noticed.

2. GOOGLE LOVES US: We pride ourselves on keeping the best content possible on HubPages.com so that Google continues to love us like we’re family. Most content is indexed in less than 2 hours once published, which is pretty sweet.

3. IF WE GET PAID, YOU GET PAID MORE: Yep, it’s true, once you start getting traffic you’ll notice that you’re actually making some money from the various ad networks(AdSense, Kontera, etc.) that you add to your HubPages account. The cool thing is that you will make 60% or all generated ad revenue and we’ll make our 40% after that. We have writers making $1000+ each month and we also have over 100+ writers making $100+ per month, so it’s definitely possible to make yourself some cash.

I’m not promising you millions or even thousands of dollars, but if you write great topical content that people are out there searching for, you will definitely start making some real money.

Click here to join now: http://www.HubPages.com/info/bloggerjobsbiz

Social / Community Project Contributors Wanted
Social / Community Project Contributors ‘1 to 101′ is a new social / community website that offers information and advice on a wide range of topics. It was set-up to show people that they deserve more than a few cents a day / week for contributing content to websites such as Knol, About, Squidoo and HubPages. This is [...]

Social / Community Project Contributors

‘1 to 101′ is a new social / community website that offers information and advice on a wide range of topics.

It was set-up to show people that they deserve more than a few cents a day / week for contributing content to websites such as Knol, About, Squidoo and HubPages.

This is a summary of how 1 to 101 works:

1) People receive one share of 1 to 101 for each page that they contribute.

2) One share is equal to the total selling price of the website divided by the total number of shares (minus 20% to cover admin, hosting, legal fees etc.).

3) As an example, if 1 to 101 has 1000 pages and is sold for $250′000, people receive $200 for each page that they contributed.

1 to 101 is the first website on the internet to offer such a proposal.

It’s a genuine attempt to revolutionize the way content / freelance writers are rewarded for their time and efforts.

Conditions:

-We insist on you working with us, not for us

-You can work from home

-You can work on yourself or with other people

-You can take as long as you like to write a page

-People of all nationalities are welcome to apply

-The only requirement is that you have a good standard of written English

Topics that you could write about include:

Countries, Sales, Property Law, Contract Law, Employment Law, Entrepreneurship, South East Asia, Australia, South America, Feng