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Back in Incheon

Up early this Sunday morning

Weekend ending
It's half past ten on a Sunday night and I'm down to my last three copies of Angelo's PreK DVD.  I had made two film clips for their ceremony last Friday and compiled their photos into four albums.  I promised copies to all the other parents and had missed out on Friday but will have them ready by tomorrow.  I'm sure that they will have as much fun as I do watching our little tykes go about their day-to-day business in their PreK Class.

A letter of thanks

An afternoon in the park

Feedback

Capturing the "King of the Road" on cam

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

Does Obama's plan for Wall Street measure up?
Take a wild guess

President Obama betrays the gay community
We supported you. Time to live up to your promises

An Obama "scandal" as phony as Whitewater
The right finds a fake martyr in Gerald Walpin, a Bush holdover and right-wing ideologue fired by President Obama

Wanted: Freedom from religion
The theocratic repression in Iran is a reminder that there can be no freedom without secular government

Waiting for Obama
States are pushing ahead with their own reforms instead of waiting for the president to act.

Dispatch from Tehran: Blood and defiance in Azadi Square
On Monday, huge crowds braved violence to protest the Iranian election results.

Blog Posts-001 by GlobInfoTech
Project-001 You have to write Posts for Blog. I will create blog and do SEO. Google has to index your Posts. You will get paid 1 USD each post. Thank you. GlobInfoTech (Budget: $30-250, Jobs: Blog, Copywriting, Data Entry, Proofreading)

Article Writers Needed Urgently!!! by getfree
I am looking for Content Writers urgently for Blog Writing and Technical Website Contents Writings. My Budget is $1 to $1.5 per 450-500 word article. Time frame is also very Important at least 5 to 7 article daily required... (Budget: $250-750, Jobs: Copywriting, Data Entry, Proofreading, Research, SEO)

Marketing Blog Posts by meetana
I have a marketing blog that I would like to have posts written for on a regular basis (every other day or so). I'd like for the posts to be about 500 words on average; attraction marketing and seo topics; keyword optimized... (Budget: $30-250, Jobs: Blog, Copywriting, Marketing, SEO, Web Promotion)

50 ARTICLES Needed! - ONly 250-words $0.50 per Article by sunshine0205
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For Zwdhd by Mairas
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Adult blog posts writer by cleverdick
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rewritten project for valerievillano only by peter888
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I need resume creation done- but in the format I provide to you ONLY. I am looking for someone with great writing skills, and that understands what is needed. Must be in PERFECT English. I am looking for a quote, with my budget at around $10 each... (Budget: $30-250, Jobs: Copywriting, Proofreading)

happy fathers day jimbo
sooo... i decided to stay island bound this weekend.. weather was supposed to be crrraaaaappy.... not much for jimbo and i to do if its not nice out. of course today wasn't bad.... figures. since my dad doesnt have a...

lockdown, christmas, and white is the new black ;)
well, where to start.... i guess i'll start with my mister harley story.. since it's clear to me thats the only reason why i have blog readers ;) thursdy i left the island around 11a.. i had some things i...

well, where to start.... i guess i'll start with my mister harley story.. since it's clear to me thats the only reason why i have blog readers ;) 

fun times @ beautiful impressions!! and other randomness.. (as always)
I had such a great time with all the ladies at Beautiful Impressions in CT!! Teri was a fabulous hostess, and i look forward to returning on July 15th for my Summer Vacation Cards AND a*muse*a*palooza !!! I hope to...

I had such a great time with all the ladies at Beautiful Impressions in CT!! Teri was a fabulous hostess, and i look forward to returning on July 15th for my Summer Vacation Cards AND a*muse*a*palooza !!! I hope to see some familiar faces as well as some new ones, make sure you call the store to sign up!!

I will be back at ink about it THIS thursday 10-12 AND 6:30-8:30 teaching these "stinkin' cute" summer vacation a muse cards!! There are a few seats available.. hope to see you there!!

The A*Muse*A*Palooza fun has begun!!! Make sure you check it ALL out over at the A Muse BLOG.. tons of contests and fun countdowns until the events begin on July 9th!!  Get your vote in TODAY for secret squares.... who's hiding the prize?? ;)

Peek at my classes page to see the dates of my a*muse*a*palooza classes... most stores have already begun taking sign ups.... I will be teaching at
Beautiful Impressions Westbrook, CT
Colorful Creations Hyannis, MA
Ink About It Westford, MA
Stampassion Latham, NY

weekend recap
sooo it was a fun filled weekend :) fred mullett rolled into town.. he was every bit of the character i thought he was going to be :) this is a good thing.. he fit right in with us {creative...

sooo it was a fun filled weekend :) 

stolen? no, borrowed ;)
hey! i'm appreciating these lilacs waaaaayyy more then if i left them on the bush outside.. all by them selves...then they wouldn't get me sniffing them every 10 minutes ;) check out who else stole a sniff ;) i love...

hey! i'm appreciating these lilacs waaaaayyy more then if i left them on the bush outside.. all by them selves...then they wouldn't get me sniffing them every 10 minutes ;) check out who else stole a sniff ;)

i love lilacs.. they are simply my favorite flower ... EVER.... so sad they don't last longer.. or come around more then once a year.

a mister harley post
i know i know.... everyone wants to know how mister harley is.... i guess i need to find a better balance between crazy cat lady AND crafty girl :) here he is ;) sharing hogging my crafty space we finally...

i know i know.... everyone wants to know how mister harley is.... i guess i need to find a better balance between crazy cat lady AND crafty girl :) 

hey you! the beach is this... way!
i think this is my fave of all the sneaks.. maybe because i want to be on this beach RIGHT now? ;) again with the edge distresser... tearing, inking, glittering ;) enjoy!! which is you fave stamp sneaked so far???

i think this is my fave of all the sneaks.. maybe because i want to be on this beach RIGHT now? ;)
again with the edge distresser... tearing, inking, glittering ;)

enjoy!! which is you fave stamp sneaked so far???

a *new* way to see my upcoming classes....
i teach a lot of classes.. different types... different places.. and i decided to try something new to make it easier for you to see what and where i'm up to!! :) peek at this new page.. and check back...

i teach a lot of classes.. different types... different places.. and i decided to try something new to make it easier for you to see what and where i'm up to!! :)

peek at this new page.. and check back often!! i'll keep this updated, and post samples as they are created!

harley isnt super snuggly anymore.. just when he wants to be (typical cat ;) ) but a few nights ago. i had had a looong day and was in need of some snuggles ;) he must've caught on...

and also another new "harley qwirk" most evenings.. he has been choosing to jump up on the bookcase.. and sit next to watchers urn.. now i'm not a big believer in "ghosts" or "surreal" things etc... but i do believe that watcher is around ;) .... many times i sense hes there... still watching out for me... and maybe mister harley notices this too.. .... who knows....

walking... it feels good
i really enjoy this whole walking thing.... i might not be losing a zillion pounds, but i feel good... i have more energy.. i miss it when i have a few days im too busy to go etc... not sure...

i really enjoy this whole walking thing.... i might not be losing a zillion pounds, but i feel good... i have more energy.. i miss it when i have a few days im too busy to go etc...

Canadian & Want Expression Web

I was recently sent an offer where Canadians initiated in Expression Web can get it for $0 from Angie Lim at Microsoft Canada:

It is for a free Exclusive Web Solutions Toolkit consisting of: a free copy of Microsoft’s Expression Web 2 software (retail $299 CDN), three part web development webcast training, hosting offers and more just by joining Microsoft’s Web Solution Community for free. Registering takes a few minutes and allows partners to access sales, marketing and training resources right at their fingertips all for free. I would be more than happy to help anyone with this process if need be.

You can access the Web Resource Kit page at: www.microsoft.ca/webkit

Angie says this offer is good until April 30, 2009.

 

 

More on Expression Web v3

Somasegar posted on his blog today some of the new things in EW v3. He's got more on the version of SuperPreview that will be in EW v3, sftp/ftps, something called "snapshot preview", Silverlight video and Photoshop integration see:  http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2009/06/05/expression-web-3.aspx

MS Forum Text Size
Why 67% font size? Usually when I see something like that it is because the person responsible did so because they believed that 67% was the magic number where all browsers showed text as the same physical size. The idea behind this approach is that you set a base font size then scale items in ems from that. While I think this is an over controlling approach that still allows font sizes to scale in IE using Text > Size > Larger it is a reasonable approach.

However, the only way this works well is if you then scale every element on the page to a reasonable size. Let’s do some math so you can see what I’m talking about.

Default font size without any scaling is 12pt or 16px on both Windows and OS X systems. So when you do the math you get 8pt or 10.72 (which may be rounded down to 10px). Now if you are on a high resolution screen that is the equivalent of 4.5-5pt print. Not something comfortable for most to read. Even on a “normal” screen 10pt text is the smallest you should use for text that is comfortable to read for more than say a menu item. So if you use 67% as the page level default to get the equivalent of 10pt type you would need to use 1.25em for body text.

So what does MS do? They use 67% with no multiplier or other scaling for body text.

How do I know this?

Because this morning I noticed that the font seems smaller than normal when I went to http://social.expression.microsoft.com/forums/en-us/web/threads/ and discovered that the text seems smaller than before. So I opened it in the page in Expression Web and used its excellent CSS tools to see what is being applied.

So why didn’t MS scale the text so something more readable?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Technorati Tags: Forum,Text,Size,font,person,items,Larger,sizes

Windows Live Tags: Forum,Text,Size,font,person,items,Larger,sizes

Adobe Browser Lab

Browser testing – BrowserLab from Adobe vs SuperPreview from Microsoft.

Today Adobe released their beta of BrowserLab which lets you preview a wider variety of browsers than the current beta version of SuperPreview (small images are linked to full size ones):

Previews are generated via a service which means you can preview on different operating system

• Firefox 2.0 – Windows XP
• Firefox 3.0 – Windows XP
• IE 6 – Windows XP
• IE 7 – Windows XP
• Safari – OS X
• Firefox 2.0 – OS X
• Firefox 3.0 – OS X

 

 

The benefit of using a service like BrowserLab over a locally run instance like SuperPreview does is that you can also see the color differences between OS X and Windows. Enlarge the image on the left and you will see significant differences in how the colors render.

The colors in IE 6 on Windows XP appear very washed out compared to Safari on OS X.

 

Both BrowserLabs and SuperPreview offer an overlay mode that lets you see how positioning maybe different between each of the browsers you are testing.

Looking at IE 6 (XP) and Safari (OS X) shows you just how quirky IE 6 can be.

 

What I would really like to see is the ability to test out more than a static browser view. See how rollovers work (or not). It will be interesting to see how these tools develop.

My Tutorials

I’m considering pulling all of the free tutorials on this site since most of the comments I’m getting are complaints about downloading.

I’ve had a few comments posted on my tutorials, primarily the Building a Basic Website in Expression Web tutorial that indicate some people have had problems with viewing or downloading the tutorials. The latest ones have been quite rude and frankly, I don’t appreciate comments like “get a real host”.

So  I’m going to make a few comments of my own:

The tutorials are large – 1:20 minutes for the full version (122.7mb) and 18-30 minutes for each of the four parts if you go that route. Unless you are on a really fast connection expect it to take a few minutes to start. Heck, I’m on a 20mps connection and find that load time varies for me between 30 seconds and 3 minutes before the video will start to play after clicking the play arrow.

The full tutorial has been viewed over 12,000 and downloaded almost 1,700 times. That’s a lot of bandwidth.

Bandwidth is expensive and after months of overages bills ranging up to $130 a month I decided that I could not afford to provide unlimited bandwidth. As a result if there isn’t enough bandwidth available when you go to view or download.

Over the three years I’ve been offering  free tutorials on by-expression.com I have received exactly 3 contributions from people who appreciated the material enough to make a contribution. That’s a grand total of less than $100.

If you want the video and it won’t work for you tell you what, I’ll burn it to DVD and send it to you for $79.95 – that’s $20 less than what Total Training charges for their “Essentials” CD.

Technorati Tags: Expression Web,by-expression,Tutorials

SharePoint Designer - Free

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that MS is now making SharePoint Designer free and anyone who has SharePoint Designer from a Software Assurance (corporate licensing agreement) will now get Expression Web as part of their package.

For more information including how to download SharePoint Designer see: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA103607621033.aspx

What is SharePoint Designer

Basically it is Expression Web v1 with full FrontPage webbot support and support for customizing SharePoint sites. It doesn’t have the PHP support that Expression Web v2 has nor does it have the ability to remember FTP passwords (unless there has been an update since the last time I looked at it anyway) but it does have the same great CSS editor and web standards orientation (when not using the SharePoint-FrontPage bots) so check it out if you don’t have Expression Web especially if you are a FrontPage user who still has the FPSE on your hosted site and want to continue to use them for awhile longer.

CSS Based Menus

Today’s live meeting on CSS menus:

Join the meeting.
Audio Information
Computer Audio
To use computer audio, you need speakers and microphone, or a headset.
First Time Users:
To save time before the meeting, check your system to make sure it is ready to use Microsoft Office Live Meeting.
Troubleshooting
Unable to join the meeting? Follow these steps:

1. Copy this address and paste it into your web browser:
https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mvp/join

2. Copy and paste the required information:
Meeting ID: BS7CG2
Entry Code: g'nRQ;P8k
Location: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mvp

If you still cannot enter the meeting, contact support

This is the zip file for the menus discussed and created during the April 22, 2009 Live Meeting on CSS menus. All of the code as well as a text based tutorial on using the images and code to create three types of menus are included in the zip file. Download it and extract to your hard drive.

Types of menus:

1. Simple horizontal CSS menu with image based rollovers
2. Simple vertical (suitable for sidebar or floated) CSS menu with image based rollovers
3. Tutorial on using the Project Seven CSS Express Menus with Expression Web

April Live Meeting- Menus

The next webcast we will be sponsoring will be on CSS Based Menus

When: Thursday, April 23, 2009

Start Time: Thursday, Apr 23, 2009 10:30 AM CDT
End Time: Thursday, Apr 23, 2009 11:30 AM CDT

Attendee URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mvp/join?id=BS7CG2&role=attend&pw=g%27nRQ%3BP8k

More information will be posted later this month, We are hoping to be able to record this meeting and have it as a tutorial on our site.

Why the Rush?

According to eWeek.com  Microsoft has set the launch date for Expression Studio v3 at July 10, 2009 in the Bay Area of California.

Unfortunately, the article is sketchy on details about new features mentioning only Sketchflow in Blend v3 and Silverlight 3 both of which are in public betas. What this means for Expression Design and Expression Media is anyone’s guess. Granted my interest in these programs is somewhat limited but I am extremely interested in what is happening with Expression Web v3.

We saw little bits of Expression Web v3 in the background of Eric’s presentation of Super Preview at MIX 09 but that’s the only feature or change we have any information on. There was a preview release of the standalone version of Super Preview released at that time but nothing since. Eric indicated that the version of Super Preview that will be included with Expression Web v3 will have more features than the standalone version. It will support Safari, Firefox and I believe he said other browsers physically installed on your computer not just IE 6 and whatever other version you have of IE installed. (Not sure if you will be able to run both IE 7 and IE 8 as separate browsers in it as opposed to IE 8 with compatibility mode for IE 7, something I’d like more information on.) No information on any other changes or features for Expression Web v3 is available. I will admit to being somewhat concerned about this lack of information.

Months ago in February we talked about bugs in Expression Web v2, some of which had been carried over from v1 that came up in our November 2008 Live Meeting. In March and April during our MIX 09 Live Meetings we discussed SuperPreview, Seadragon and other stuff from MIX. We have been waiting more or less patiently for a CTP or beta of Expression Web to see which of our top bugs have been fixed, what features besides Super Preview are being added. It has been over 2.5 months since MIX 09 and we are still waiting.

Though now it appears there will be no CTP of Expression Web, Media or Design given the short time between this announcement and the launch date given in the eweek article. This is a departure from the previous versions where there was a long CTP/Beta of Expression Design v1 (over a year) and a shorter preview between two (v2) and five months (v1) of Expression Web. I don’t know about you but I’d like more information on what to expect in each of the Expression products in the version three release which is coming much earlier than I for one had expected. (I expected a November-December time frame based on the time between version 1-2 and the relatively little information provided on version 3 at MIX 09.)

What do you think?

Assignment Two
All assignments referenced on this blog can be found in full at  http://entlaw.wordpress.com/ and are part of the Entertainment Law class at Barry University School of Law in Orlando, Florida. Mashups. What do you think? How do they fit with the rules we have learned so far? My response:  I have to agree with Stephen. Mash ups are not [...]

Links for 2009-06-21 [del.icio.us]

• Internet Marketing Lies and Stupidity
  A post about dishonesty, lies and trickery sadly so prevalent in the field of internet marketing and why you should not fall into the trap of following such marketing tactics

Automating Traffic Sales & Leads (Yeah Right!)

Most of the time when you see a claim like this it turns out to be nothing more than hot air. People use lines like this in their sales copy because they know that thousands of people are looking for that marketing holy grail where they can sit on the beach and sip cocktails with their laptop sitting jauntily under the shade of a palm tree alongside them.

I'll be straight with you, as I always try to be on this blog - that is just a pipe dream and most succesful marketers have worked very hard to achieve success.

I've been absent from the blog a lot in these past few weeks as my wife and I have been hard at work setting up a new business unrelated to internet marketing. We invested a lot of money in that business but we are pleased to be able to say that we did not have to get into debt - no bank financing, no business plan to present to the pencil necks, nothing. We did it due to a combination of luck, being in the right place at the right time, and sheer determination and willingness to risk most of our capital on a new venture we see as having a great future.

The new business has already made us a nice amount of money and we will soon be in a situation where we can draw profits and salaries from the business. Trust me when I say, I haven't done a lot of sitting on the beach sipping Hurricanes - it's been a mixture of blue and white collar work, it's caused some blisters and a true redneck from working out in the sun, but it's one of the greatest feelings in the world to walk across the yard (under those stereotypical palm trees) to get to work, to work the hours I want, to take a break or a day off whenever I choose and to be working in partnership with my wife who fronts our new operation and is doing a great job of generating business.

So, what is the point of this story........? Well, making more money than I've ever done at a conventional job in our first few weeks of operation is the first thing, and secondly, in comparison with my online ventures it's been a lot more physical in many ways and even the light stuff requires a lot of hands on time.  I'm enjoying the physical skills and developing my craft, it's very rewarding and a completely different challenge from internet marketing.

I certainly wouldn't want to give up on affiliate marketing, nor my online trading efforts - it's not the easy money that some would have you believe, but it's not that hard either and who wouldn't want regular checks arriving in the mail or deposits into their payment processing accounts? That's the dream right? That's why you're here reading my blog.

My new situation is going to demand a lot more of my time, time that would previously have been spent online, doing what I've done for the past few years. So, I could really use that mythical automated money machine!

That was when I stumbled across something that I found truly interesting and something that I think all my readers will too.

I received an ad for something called the "Automated Sales System" and I almost closed my browser. I'm glad to say that something stopped me and clicked on the video link on the sales page instead. 

I listened to the owner of the site talking his service up and demonstrating just what the sytem does and how it can literally help anyone build traffic, generate sales and capture leads. It can do this for any niche, for any product or service you care to name. 

It doesn't matter whether you are selling your own products or are working as an affiliate. You don't even need your own website, and that is something I don't say lightly, because I believe all affiliates should have sites of their own. However, this could change that, and without investing every cent you have into PPC advertising.

You don't even need your own autoresponder, because the system supplies them for you, although you can freely integrate your GetResponse or Aweber accounts if you wish.

It all sounds too good to be true right? Well, at this point, I recommend you head over to check out the Automated Sales System for yourself. Watch the video and think of the potential. I honestly believe this is as close to automation of three of the most important internet marketing tasks as you are ever going to get.

That said, it isn't free of course but after you've watched the video, click on your browser's close button and you'll get a really great offer that I think you'll want to buy. (Let's just say it's going to cost you less than 5 bucks to try this for yourself). There is a monthly subscription after that, but it's cheaper than an autoresponder account from any of the big providers!

Every now and then, an idea like this crops up and just stands out from the crap and hype that make up so many product launches and internet marketing crazes. I think it will be a huge success for anyone who gives it a try and will open up new avenues of revenue that you've never even considered before.

I'm going to try it myself and I'll let you know how I get on. Maybe it will make up for the time I'm going to have to spend elsewhere to maintain my beach bum lifestyle in the Caribbean.

When you think of all the possible uses for this it's quite astounding. When using it on social networks for example you can add links to any site, at the same time giving yourself the opportunity to capture opt-in information or just provide a link to one of your own pages. That increases your potential sales and visitors by an untold amount! Without the need to spam you can send people to ANY link, allowing you to share quality information from all over the web and "piggy back" off that information. Just as an example here's a link from one of my recent Twitter messages

Now. if you are put off by the cost of the system let's put it in perspective. No hosting costs, no need to pay for separate autoresponders, - that's a saving of at least $30 per month even as a conservative estimate. If you use a free blogging service or even if you have no website at all, this will be of huge benefit, enabling you to build your own list. So, think about it seriously if you are looking for a great marketing package.

Now where did I put that cocktail........?

tags: affiliate marketing, automated sales system, automated listbuilder, automatic website traffic, best marketing tools, autoresponders, affiliate software, make money online

Links for 2009-06-23 [del.icio.us]

• Creating Your First Ebook and Selling It Online
  A thorough guide on how to create an ebook, whether for intended sale or viral marketing purposes, including resources and tips for promoting your work and selling it online.

Links for 2009-06-18 [del.icio.us]

• Clickbank Customer Distribution Requirements
  Clickbank contains certain terms that every user should be aware of. This article explains CDR, dormant accounts and offers suggestions on how to get past the difficult early stages of being a clickbank affiliate
• Giclee Printing For Artists
  The second article in a series explaining giclee prints and printing for artists
• Giclee Fine Art Printing Explained For Artists
  Giclee printing and fine art giclee reproductions explained for the benefit of artists thinking of reproducing their works. What to look for in a commercial giclee printing service and the pitfalls to be aware of.
• Cloaking Affiliate Links
  An explanation of the methods of link cloaking and redirects that can be employed by affiliate marketers, offering advice on both the free methods and some commercial software solutions

Subtle editor compliment
One of the book series editors that Kate and I have sold stories to in the past has, it seems, added us to the list of writers they solicit directly for upcoming anthologies.

It's a bit like being asked in for a reading by the studio rather than having to stand in line for the open auditions; definitely feels nice, but doesn't actually confer any assurance of a role.

Still, it's nice.

kt literary begins its conquest of the internet
I mentioned the Super Secret website project a few posts back, but since Kate already mentioned it on her blog, I figure there's no reason not to do the same here.

kt literary - your home for deft literary agenting and lowercase optimism

Kate and I spent pretty much the whole New Year's weekend assembling the site, up to and including.

• Domain registration (okay, that was a few days earlier)
  
• Setting up a new installation of Movable Type
  
• Setting up the front page (which cries out to be a Flash animation at some point)
  
• Customizing an oswd.org design
  
• Getting the design to work with MT 4s 'improved' template organization (a new arrangement of SixApart's that gives me pain in parts of my brain I didn't even know could hurt)
  
• Getting in content
  
• Getting the backend pages like archives and the like to basically match the site without the pain of totally rebuilding their templates
  

All in all, it came off pretty damn swimmingly and (to quote De) pretty much screams "Kate" from one end of the site to the other. What more, aside from functionality, could you want from a site representing your business?

One annoying quirk with the site that we still haven't decided if we're going to try to fix: the "main content" section of each page is stupidly narrow if you view the site in Internet Explorer 6.0. The code for the related /div is clean as far as I can tell, and it displays just fine in Firefox or IE 7.0, so... yeah... either upgrade your IE installation or (my recommendation) switch to Firefox, because I don't like putting time into fixing code to be compatible with outdated browsers.

Feedback (or some way to force IE6 to display the damned content div correctly) is welcome.

Prediction Markets - Keeping the info and charting it
I’ve been blogging here about prediction markets for two and a half years. In that time, a lot of discussion has taken place both here and elsewhere about specific prediction market contracts; what happened on those markets and when. One of the problems with prediction markets is that the information from them is not just [...]

I’ve been blogging here about prediction markets for two and a half years. In that time, a lot of discussion has taken place both here and elsewhere about specific prediction market contracts; what happened on those markets and when.

One of the problems with prediction markets is that the information from them is not just valuable when it’s “live” but also after the market has finished and been closed out. It would be useful to go back and observe changes in markets over time, and even more valuable to compare markets to each other. Unfortunately, the data is largely useless to the various vendors and typically gets deleted after a certain period of time. (Though the real-money markets like InTrade do tend to protect their data as a valuable asset.)

I’ve recently found a solution that could prove quite useful to the prediction market industry: Timetric.

The Future

Timetric is essentially YouTube for time-series data. Their current library of charts (nearly 100k time-series) includes everything from exchange rates to crime data to Twitter replies. These can be manipulated, compared, layered on top of each other, and more. Their standard charts can be easily dropped into blog posts, and the raw data easily exported for manipulation elsewhere. (Full disclosure: I’m friends with the founders, three very smart PhD’s from Cambridge University.)

In my ideal future Timetric would be the home for all prediction market data. Users could compare how InTrade, NewsFutures, and Inkling performed over time on the 2008 election. Those political charts could be compared to economic data or virtually anything else to draw further conclusions. In fact, Timetric is now being used in Guardian blogs (a UK newspaper) to enhance coverage; an example is here.

This is an example of an embedded chart. (It doesn’t display correctly in Google Reader, so please click to see the original post.) Be sure to tick the “Multiple Axes” box for the full effect.

A year and a half ago at the London Prediction Markets conference a number of people talked about what the prediction market industry should do; one of the big ideas was a warehouse for old prediction market data. Now that warehouse doesn’t need to be built; Timetric has done it. All we need to do is fill it with data.

The Challenge for Prediction Market software vendors

My challenge to software vendors is to create feeds that can be easily imported into Timetric. Don’t throw away your data… give it away to someone who values it!

While it’s not explicity stated on their site, they can easily take RSS feeds (specifically Atom) of data. This means that as people trade on contracts the Timetric will be able to update data for the contract nearly automatically. Doing so will make prediction market data permanent, and widely available to academics and the public. It will enable individuals to do their own experimentation and potentially be a great tool for prediction market enthusiasts to debate the merits of methods and approaches for different markets.

Software vendors can also provide a simple CSV or XLS file with datetime information in the first column and values in the second column. While it won’t update like Atom feeds, it does provide the same data for easy import into Timetric.

So what prediction market software companies are open to creating an Atom feed of contract data?

What companies will provide data for a permanent archive?

a

Prediction Markets - Keeping the info and charting it

Prediction Markets and March Madness
I wanted to take a minute and mention that HubDub is running a March Madness “Predict-A-Thon” prediction market tournament. For someone like myself that hasn’t followed college basketball in a while, this is a far more interesting way to see the tournament unfold. As I write this, Jason Trost of Smarkets fame is currently atop [...]

I wanted to take a minute and mention that HubDub is running a March Madness “Predict-A-Thon” prediction market tournament. For someone like myself that hasn’t followed college basketball in a while, this is a far more interesting way to see the tournament unfold.

As I write this, Jason Trost of Smarkets fame is currently atop the leaderboard, but I expect this may very well change over the course of the next days/weeks. HubDub’s founder Nigel has climbed from the basement of the list, where he was third from the bottom in the early days!

HubDub is trying out a new model with this tournament, and will be awarding cash prizes to the top traders! If you think you’ve got what it takes just click here to sign up now.

On a final note, I’d like to say that it’s about time that my alma mater’s basketball team, the University of Michigan Wolverines, finally made it back to the NCAA tournament. Unfortunately, this was likely due to cosmic imbalance in sporting karma from the Wolverines football team collapsing this year. It would be great if they could at least make it through the first round of the tournament to start evening things out a bit.

a

Prediction Markets and March Madness

Measuring the prediction market industry - a proposal
“In God We Trust; all others must bring data.” – W. Edwards Deming There has been more discussion recently on Midas Oracle, here and other blogs about the value of enterprise prediction markets. Part of this is because we don’t have a good measurement of value, and partly because a lack of information. When it comes to [...]

“In God We Trust; all others must bring data.”

– W. Edwards Deming

There has been more discussion recently on Midas Oracle, here and other blogs about the value of enterprise prediction markets. Part of this is because we don’t have a good measurement of value, and partly because a lack of information.

When it comes to value, there’s one great way to determine if a prediction market is valued by a company: they keep using it! No matter what people “think” the value of an enterprise prediction market may be, if the actual customer is willing to pay for it, the tool is valued.

But another big part of why we’re even having this discussion is because there’s no clear perspective on what’s going on with the industry. Why? Think of the parable of the blind men and the elephant. (Quote from Wikipedia).

A group of blind men (or men in the dark) touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one touches a different part, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then compare notes on what they felt, and learn they are in complete disagreement. The story is used to indicate that reality may be viewed differently depending upon one’s perspective, suggesting that what seems an absolute truth may be relative due to the deceptive nature of half-truths.

So the problem is, we’re all talking our of our collective a**es.

There’s no way we can talk intelligently as a community unless we have a shared understanding of what’s actually going on in the industry.

The measurement

I propose that we start by looking at two measurements: retention rate and customer growth rate. Retention rate measures how long a customer stays active. This should be a relatively good indication of the value a prediction market provides to a client; the longer they pay for it the more valuable it is to them!

Customer growth rate is exactly that, how quickly the industry is growing and finding new clients.

While rates won’t provide a total magnitude on the size of the industry, it should provide a good proxy of value to customers and growth of the customer base. It’s not the sum-total of what can be measured right now, but I think it’s a solid first step.

A proposal

I hereby make a public proposal. In order that the entire industry can talk about a common set of data, I volunteer to act as the point of contact for data aggregation. Enterprise prediction market vendors would only need to provide limited data, and would get in return a comparison of their own company’s statistics to the industry at large. The public would get the aggregated statistics (only, no company-specific details) on the retention rate and growth rate of the industry.

The information that would be required of the Enterprise Prediction Markets software vendors is:

A list of clients (who don’t have to be named, code names/numbers okay) and for each of those:

• Date (by quarter) when the client was first invoiced
• Date (by quarter) when the client was last invoiced

I believe that invoicing is a good proxy for measuring the start and end of a prediction market, but if a software vendor would like to use other measures that’s fine, as long as they fairly represent the start and end of a paid prediction marketplace.

Thoughts?

I’d be interested in your thoughts on this. So far I’ve gotten some solid interest from some of the software vendors, but am posting this here to gather some additional interest. (Yes, a little public pressure.)

I think that if we’re confident enough in the prediction market industry, we shouldn’t be afraid of the data!

PS- Because of a recent spate of comment spammers, I’m moderating all comments so you see a bit of a delay before your comment shows up here. But once I approve it, you won’t need to wait if/when you comment again.

a

Measuring the prediction market industry - a proposal

Prediction markets and innovation in 2009
Happy New Year to everyone! I hope that 2009 is happy, healthy and prosperous for you. I specifically wanted to thank you as a reader of this blog, and those who have linked to my posts here. Google recently refreshed their PageRank for Mercury’s Blog, and it now has a PageRank of [...]

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope that 2009 is happy, healthy and prosperous for you. I specifically wanted to thank you as a reader of this blog, and those who have linked to my posts here. Google recently refreshed their PageRank for Mercury’s Blog, and it now has a PageRank of 6/10! Though I don’t post often, I do try to write long-form news and analysis, and I’m glad you’ve found it useful.

What I expect for prediction markets in 2009

I’m probably going to regret doing this by the end of the year, but I’m going to put on my forecasting hat and try to predict what will happen this year in the field of prediction markets.

• Prediction markets in 2009 are going to become even more well-known and wide-spread, but there will be no single event that brings them to the attention of the public. It’s going to be a slow, but steady, growth.
• All of the prediction market vendors will mature their business offering/proposition. Both InklingMarkets and Xpree have made recent business development hires, and Inkling recently redesigned their website with a stronger business pitch and case studies. I think that business cases for prediction markets will be more clear and more developed in general because of this.
• HubDub will continue to only be the only strongly popular play-money prediction market. (HSX is probably similarly popular, but is a single-industry prediction market.) With Hubdub’s partner program and social networking features, they will see significant growth this year.
• While a couple additional software vendors may appear, I get the feeling that the market for prediction market software is largely saturated. People working on projects part-time and selling them may proliferate and be suitable for the lower end of the market, I don’t see many more serious prediction market software companies starting up in 2009.
• I’m looking forward to see how the CantorExchange develops. Will there be enough customers? Will the market see the effects of other studios trying to bid the prices of their competitors’ films down? Or will it be seen more as a financial hedging tool for institutions involved in the film industry? There are lots of open questions to evaluate here, but I still maintain it’s a great step forward for the prediction markets industry.

What to expect from this blog in 2009

I’m going to continue posting on both prediction markets, but continue talking more and more about how collective intelligence can be used in other contexts. Specifically, I’ve become really interested in how groups of people develop new ideas and new innovations.

As I’ve written before, I really don’t like the word “innovation.” Bruce Nussbaum at BusinessWeek has written a few things lately that I really like:

“Innovation” died in 2008, killed off by overuse, misuse, narrowness, incrementalism and failure to evolve. It was done in by CEOs, consultants, marketeers, advertisers and business journalists who degraded and devalued the idea by conflating it with change, technology, design, globalization, trendiness, and anything “new.” It was done it by an obsession with measurement, metrics and math and a demand for predictability in an unpredictable world.

and

“Innovation” is inadequate as a concept to deal with these changes. You have “game-changing” innovation, which is big but rare and incremental innovation which is small but common.

The truth about innovation is that it takes groups of people a lot of work to find and develop new ideas and turn them into innovations. Scott Berkun has a great chapter in his book “The Myths of Innovation” where he destroys the myth of the lone creative genius.

We know it takes groups of people to make innovation happen, so where are the tools for it? A lot of time, money and effort has gone into social networking software to connect people, such as Facebook, MySpace, etc. But I have to agree with Tim O’Reilly: we need to stop throwing sheep and do something worthy. But those tools can be very useful to us in helping foster innovation. I reviewed the software for idea and innovation software recently, but was left generally unimpressed.

These are some of my current thoughts. I plan on thinking out loud more in 2009 on these topics and seeing where it takes me. I look forward to your feedback.

a

Prediction markets and innovation in 2009

No More Freee Lunch : Google Checkout fees
Transaction processing fees When you use Google Checkout to process your sales, you’ll be charged a low 2% + $0.20 per transaction until May 5, 2009. With Google Checkout, there are no monthly, setup, or gateway service fees. If you advertise with Google AdWords, you will also be eligible for free transaction processing for some or all [...]

Transaction processing fees

When you use Google Checkout to process your sales, you’ll be charged a low 2% + $0.20 per transaction until May 5, 2009. With Google Checkout, there are no monthly, setup, or gateway service fees.

If you advertise with Google AdWords, you will also be eligible for free transaction processing for some or all of your Google Checkout sales each month until May 5, 2009. For every $1 you spend on AdWords each month, you can process $10 in sales the following month for free through Google Checkout. Any AdWords transaction processing credits accrued during April 2009 will be applied towards transactions that occur on May 1-4, 2009

Sales Through Google Checkout Transaction Fees until May 5, 2009
Sales of up to 10 times your monthly AdWords spend FREE
Sales in excess of 10 times your monthly AdWords spend 2% + $0.20 per transaction
Sales for Merchants that do not advertise with AdWords 2% + $0.20 per transaction

Monthly Sales Through Google Checkout Fees Per Transaction
Less than $3,000 2.9% + $0.30
$3,000 - $9,999.99 2.5% + $0.30
$10,000 - $99,999.99 2.2% + $0.30
$100,000 or more 1.9% + $0.30

Checkout Fees

Warid brings green technology to Pakistan
The green technology has finally landed in Pakistan – another first by Warid Telecom. To protect environment by introducing the environment friendly or green energy for mobile in Pakistan, Warid is in lead to introduce/deploy solar powered Macro Base Stations (BTS). The non-hybrid site is 100% powered on solar energy thereby reducing carbon dioxide emissions and [...]

The green technology has finally landed in Pakistan – another first by Warid Telecom. To protect environment by introducing the environment friendly or green energy for mobile in Pakistan, Warid is in lead to introduce/deploy solar powered Macro Base Stations (BTS).

The non-hybrid site is 100% powered on solar energy thereby reducing carbon dioxide emissions and noise pollution, both of which are unfriendly to the environment. The solution also reduces pressure on Pakistan’s overall energy supply which further benefits the environment.

Environment-friendly Solar Powered Macro BTS allows Warid to extend its network reach to the rural areas of the country where there is no commercial power or frequent electric failures. Solar power system integrated with energy storage can also provide backup power during the worst power outages. Every residential PV system reduces greenhouse gas emissions as much as removing one car from the road.

In four year of operations Warid has covered 450 cities and having further ambition to aggressively expand its network coverage especially in small and medium sized cities, suburban areas, countryside, as well as in mountainous areas with poor transportation links.

Windows XP support to end next week
Windows XP will pass another milestone on the road to retirement next week when Microsoft withdraws mainstream support for the operating system. While the company said that it will continue to provide free security fixes for XP until 2014, any future bugs found in the platform will not be fixed unless customers pay for additional [...]

Windows XP will pass another milestone on the road to retirement next week when Microsoft withdraws mainstream support for the operating system.

While the company said that it will continue to provide free security fixes for XP until 2014, any future bugs found in the platform will not be fixed unless customers pay for additional support.
Advertisement

Mainstream support for XP will end on 14 April 2009, over seven years after the operating system originally shipped.

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2240034/windows-xp-support-runs

I Had Twitter for Breakfast...
By TwitterButtons.net Twitter is eating me up. I start my work day just fine, but then I got distracted by an article on Twitter in Time Magazine, and an hour later woke up from Twitter plunging. If you're still scratching...

Best Tip for Using Twitter?
What is your one tip on how B2B marketers should leverage social media? This is what I was asked by ClickDocs, a great source of information on content marketing. You can read other insights from other experts here. Here's my...

Do You Commit These 2 Blog Writing Errors?
Uh-oh. When I heard the siren I pulled over immediately. But this cop isn't like most. She's the grammar police, a business communications expert. This is what Barb Sawyers has to say in this week's guest post: Bloggers, I love...

Confirmation Biases: More Brain-Based Content Marketing
There are two ways to communicate about a problem, the traditional way and the brain-based way. This goes for writing a blog post, an email, a web page, an article, or a newsletter. In fact, for all of your content...

HerMentorCenter Does Content Marketing - a Review
Content Marketing Review for Phyllis Goldberg, Ph.D. and Rosemary Lichtman, Ph.D. www.HerMentorCenter.com: These two dynamic women are writing a book about healing family relationships, and to attract a following they are writing on a website and blog, NourishingRelationships.com. They're attracting...

A Story Teller's Mindset: Key to Great Content Marketing
The hardest thing about writing good content for marketing is coming up with stories to tell. There's no lack of knowledge, or research, or interesting concepts to blog about, or to write white papers about. I read one or two...

5 Key Principles of Content Marketing
I know a lot of people trying to figure out how to supplement their incomes with an Internet business. Some of them ask me how to go about it. While that's a huge endeavor involving many pieces, the key is...

Off the Agenda: About Off the Agenda (About Off the Agenda)
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Donec id dolor. Integer lobortis odio sit amet ante. Donec porta nisl ut velit. Quisque lacinia. Pellentesque ultrices eros ac justo. Maecenas viverra, lectus quis interdum sagittis, pede arcu pulvinar dolor, eget pharetra felis wisi et libero. Donec ut pede vitae dui pulvinar sagittis. Donec id mauris et massa lacinia rutrum. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Praesent vulputate. Nam metus erat, luctus non, pellentesque eget, ultrices et, purus. Aenean magna wisi, tristique in, condimentum id, cursus non, wisi. Maecenas at urna sit amet erat malesuada varius. Phasellus congue dui quis lorem dapibus porttitor. Donec leo neque, commodo vel, scelerisque eu, aliquam quis, tellus. Suspendisse eget risus. Ut diam. Vivamus imperdiet. Sed porta diam a erat. Donec wisi elit, congue non, dapibus et, fermentum a, mi.

BlogRodent says:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Donec id dolor. Integer lobortis odio sit amet ante. Donec porta nisl ut velit. Quisque lacinia. Pellentesque ultrices eros ac justo. Maecenas viverra, lectus quis interdum sagittis, pede arcu pulvinar dolor, eget pharetra felis wisi et libero. Donec ut pede vitae dui pulvinar sagittis. Donec id mauris et massa lacinia rutrum. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Praesent vulputate. Nam metus erat, luctus non, pellentesque eget, ultrices et, purus. Aenean magna wisi, tristique in, condimentum id, cursus non, wisi. Maecenas at urna sit amet erat malesuada varius. Phasellus congue dui quis lorem dapibus porttitor. Donec leo neque, commodo vel, scelerisque eu, aliquam quis, tellus. Suspendisse eget risus. Ut diam. Vivamus imperdiet. Sed porta diam a erat. Donec wisi elit, congue non, dapibus et, fermentum a, mi.

Rich T at the Big Z!Tag Browser (BlogRodent: Pentecostal Rumination & Review)
I hardly know where to begin, so many of you have sent me encouragement and kudos both here and via email, it's dizzying! I am warmed by the onslaught of well-wishing, and it tells me that I was in more folks prayers than I realized. I am humbled and pleased even while reminding myself of Rick Warren's mantra: "It's not about me...." @slw: Thanks for the kudos! It's hard to know what God's best is in every situation except to recognize that it's important to be joyful and content in all situations. Not easy, but it's certainly easier in context: my travails are nothing compared to what they could be. I have learned to count my blessings, friend. @Kyle: I don't know anything about Z's Latin textbooks, though I do know we've published an English, Greek/Hebrew, Latin triglot Bible. I don't know if that's still in print though or not. If you're serious, though, send an email to Verlyn Verbrugge and ask him. He's the in-house editorial expert on ancient languages and if he doesn't know where to find a great Latin textbook, he'll know who does know that answer. @Michael: Thanks, Mike, for your continued prayers, that pumps me up! I second that Amen. @Travis Johnson: Dude, if you have a book idea, let me know. I'll pass it along to an acquisition editor or give you a contact. Honestly, if you have a good idea, you should start working it out. Write a book outline, write your first chapter, and flesh out a proposal -- who your audience is, what you have to say, and why you think you're the guy to say it. If there's the slightest chance for interest, getting that done will be a huge help. I can't say that being the "new guy" gives me any cred at all, but who knows? @tmzydowicz: Resurrected Todd! Thanks for stopping by and thanks for lending your kudos! After looking over your blog, I can see you are well acquainted with difficult situations -- probably more than I am! I do, indeed, have much to be thankful for. I am in relatively good health, I have lovely children and a sweet bride, and to top it off, I have a great job! Praise God! I, too, pray that this is where I'm supposed to be. But I also recognize that wherever I am, that's where I'm supposed to do whatever God gives me, too. He'll lead me on if I need to be elsewhere. I just hope he lets me pay some bills first! @Carl Thomas: The advance is in the mail. I'm sure you're be as delightful to work with as your book was easy to write. :: grin :: @Clay: Bro, thanks for your excitement by proxy! I sure miss working with you and my fellow CTI peeps, but especially you and those long, rambling post 5 pm conversations about everything from typography to cameras to dogs to children to ministry to theology to sports. Well, never sports. But, everything else! And congratulations on your 10 years at CTI! Wahoo! Did they give you a celebration? What's the bling for the 10-year mark? A clock? I shall always cherish my wood Post-It holder... PS: I hope it's either more than 10 years at the Big Z, or that it leads to a truly phenomenal ten years somewhere else. Otherwise, if I get laid-off ten years from now, I'm blaming it on you! @Don: Thanks for the kudos, Don. I'll trust that you don't mean it when you wish me luck, right? Blessings, brother! Blessings! Not luck! :: grin :: @Tim Heard: Thanks for the kudos! I have already passed your feedback on to the HR folks at Zondervan. Whether they appreciate it or not will be hard to say. I can say, however, that I found the employment page easily enough about 9 months ago. I set up a tracker to watch the page and email me the instant anything changed on it. That's how I knew about three job openings the day they were published. A truly motivated job-seeker will find those pages. A motivated and knowledgeable job-seeker will figure out ways to monitor those pages and act on new positions. (Incidentally, I was interviewed for all three positions that I contacted Zondervan about -- I guess they got tired of me bothering HR!) I had several employers in my tracking file: I was watching for jobs at Zondervan, Tyndale, Baker, Group Publishing, GospelCom, my denominations district offices in Illinois, InterVarsity Press, LifeChurch.tv, Regent University, Saddleback Church, Willow Creek, the Willow Creek Exchange, and more. And on each of those sites I never bothered scanning the page for the employment link: I always used Google to search a site with queries like employment|career|jobs site:zondervan.com. Saved me the hassle of searching. Of course, not everybody uses that strategy when searching for job pages. But I learned a long time ago that most companies don't have a clue how to design pages for usability. That's something the job-seeking handbooks need to point out. At the end of my first full week at Zondervan I can report that things are, indeed, going well. I think, anyhow. It's been non-steep meeting after meeting after meeting, sometimes with as many as seven hours of meetings in a day. So, I've had very little time at my desk to work on figuring stuff out or even assimilating what I'm hearing. But on the other hand, it's been great because I'm getting a very broad overview of the Zondervan culture and I'm totally immersed in that process without having to worry about being productive in my first week. I have a mentor to help me out (assigned to me, but he's a great guy, and he's a smart editor to boot), I had four of my five lunches in the first week paid for, I never ate alone in my first week, and I've met with HR four times to touch base in my first week. I've probably spent 15 hours with my manager in this time, and another 15 hours meeting folks from vice-presidents on down to various secretaries. It's been dizzying, but comforting at the same time: the Zondervan work culture is family-like, but still unlike any other place I've worked. It looks to be a very good fit for me. Thanks, again, friends, for all your support. I mean it when I say I appreciate it. You can't know how much... Regards,

BlogRodent says:

I hardly know where to begin, so many of you have sent me encouragement and kudos both here and via email, it's dizzying! I am warmed by the onslaught of well-wishing, and it tells me that I was in more folks prayers than I realized. I am humbled and pleased even while reminding myself of Rick Warren's mantra: "It's not about me...."
@slw: Thanks for the kudos! It's hard to know what God's best is in every situation except to recognize that it's important to be joyful and content in all situations. Not easy, but it's certainly easier in context: my travails are nothing compared to what they could be. I have learned to count my blessings, friend.
@Kyle: I don't know anything about Z's Latin textbooks, though I do know we've published an English, Greek/Hebrew, Latin triglot Bible. I don't know if that's still in print though or not. If you're serious, though, send an email to Verlyn Verbrugge and ask him. He's the in-house editorial expert on ancient languages and if he doesn't know where to find a great Latin textbook, he'll know who does know that answer.
@Michael: Thanks, Mike, for your continued prayers, that pumps me up! I second that Amen.
@Travis Johnson: Dude, if you have a book idea, let me know. I'll pass it along to an acquisition editor or give you a contact. Honestly, if you have a good idea, you should start working it out. Write a book outline, write your first chapter, and flesh out a proposal -- who your audience is, what you have to say, and why you think you're the guy to say it. If there's the slightest chance for interest, getting that done will be a huge help. I can't say that being the "new guy" gives me any cred at all, but who knows?
@tmzydowicz: Resurrected Todd! Thanks for stopping by and thanks for lending your kudos! After looking over your blog, I can see you are well acquainted with difficult situations -- probably more than I am! I do, indeed, have much to be thankful for. I am in relatively good health, I have lovely children and a sweet bride, and to top it off, I have a great job! Praise God! I, too, pray that this is where I'm supposed to be. But I also recognize that wherever I am, that's where I'm supposed to do whatever God gives me, too. He'll lead me on if I need to be elsewhere. I just hope he lets me pay some bills first!
@Carl Thomas: The advance is in the mail. I'm sure you're be as delightful to work with as your book was easy to write. :: grin ::
@Clay: Bro, thanks for your excitement by proxy! I sure miss working with you and my fellow CTI peeps, but especially you and those long, rambling post 5 pm conversations about everything from typography to cameras to dogs to children to ministry to theology to sports. Well, never sports. But, everything else! And congratulations on your 10 years at CTI! Wahoo! Did they give you a celebration? What's the bling for the 10-year mark? A clock? I shall always cherish my wood Post-It holder...
PS: I hope it's either more than 10 years at the Big Z, or that it leads to a truly phenomenal ten years somewhere else. Otherwise, if I get laid-off ten years from now, I'm blaming it on you!
@Don: Thanks for the kudos, Don. I'll trust that you don't mean it when you wish me luck, right? Blessings, brother! Blessings! Not luck! :: grin ::
@Tim Heard: Thanks for the kudos! I have already passed your feedback on to the HR folks at Zondervan. Whether they appreciate it or not will be hard to say. I can say, however, that I found the employment page easily enough about 9 months ago. I set up a tracker to watch the page and email me the instant anything changed on it. That's how I knew about three job openings the day they were published. A truly motivated job-seeker will find those pages. A motivated and knowledgeable job-seeker will figure out ways to monitor those pages and act on new positions. (Incidentally, I was interviewed for all three positions that I contacted Zondervan about -- I guess they got tired of me bothering HR!) I had several employers in my tracking file: I was watching for jobs at Zondervan, Tyndale, Baker, Group Publishing, GospelCom, my denominations district offices in Illinois, InterVarsity Press, LifeChurch.tv, Regent University, Saddleback Church, Willow Creek, the Willow Creek Exchange, and more. And on each of those sites I never bothered scanning the page for the employment link: I always used Google to search a site with queries like employment|career|jobs site:zondervan.com. Saved me the hassle of searching.
Of course, not everybody uses that strategy when searching for job pages. But I learned a long time ago that most companies don't have a clue how to design pages for usability. That's something the job-seeking handbooks need to point out.
At the end of my first full week at Zondervan I can report that things are, indeed, going well. I think, anyhow. It's been non-steep meeting after meeting after meeting, sometimes with as many as seven hours of meetings in a day. So, I've had very little time at my desk to work on figuring stuff out or even assimilating what I'm hearing. But on the other hand, it's been great because I'm getting a very broad overview of the Zondervan culture and I'm totally immersed in that process without having to worry about being productive in my first week. I have a mentor to help me out (assigned to me, but he's a great guy, and he's a smart editor to boot), I had four of my five lunches in the first week paid for, I never ate alone in my first week, and I've met with HR four times to touch base in my first week. I've probably spent 15 hours with my manager in this time, and another 15 hours meeting folks from vice-presidents on down to various secretaries. It's been dizzying, but comforting at the same time: the Zondervan work culture is family-like, but still unlike any other place I've worked. It looks to be a very good fit for me.

Thanks, again, friends, for all your support. I mean it when I say I appreciate it. You can't know how much...
Regards,

Globe Project (4 of 7): I've Got the Whole World in My Hand (Broken Finger and a Pout (desaturated) on Flickr - Photo Sharing!)
Thanks, Simple Shot!

BlogRodent says:

Thanks, Simple Shot!

Amazon S3 plugin for WordPress : tan tan noodles (Google Analytics and Feedburner Reports plugin for WordPress : tan tan noodles - msg free since 2005)
Be sure to test your page download speeds via WebPerf.org or some similar tool. Your mileage may vary. I tested this on my site for about three months. You're right, the bandwidth was cheap. Unfortunately, it turns out my user experience is better delivering the files off my own server rather than via Amazon, amazingly enough. However, if you're on a shared host that is overloaded and slow, this could dramatically improve your page download speeds. At the very least, it's probalby a cheaper way to host podcasts and large media files than through your own server. Rich BlogRodent

BlogRodent says:

Be sure to test your page download speeds via WebPerf.org or some similar tool. Your mileage may vary.

I tested this on my site for about three months. You're right, the bandwidth was cheap. Unfortunately, it turns out my user experience is better delivering the files off my own server rather than via Amazon, amazingly enough.

However, if you're on a shared host that is overloaded and slow, this could dramatically improve your page download speeds. At the very least, it's probalby a cheaper way to host podcasts and large media files than through your own server.

Rich
BlogRodent

Off the Agenda: About Off the Agenda (About Off the Agenda)
Testing bad comment.

BlogRodent says:

Testing bad comment.

Power To The People (Flickr Photo)
I graduated from Highland High in 1986, left for college, and have only been back for visits since. Used to live on the cordner of Zuni and San Pedro where my parents managed a nursery/plant shop. I miss the red-tinged sunsets bouncing off the granite mountains. :: sigh ::

BlogRodent says:

I graduated from Highland High in 1986, left for college, and have only been back for visits since. Used to live on the cordner of Zuni and San Pedro where my parents managed a nursery/plant shop.

I miss the red-tinged sunsets bouncing off the granite mountains.

:: sigh ::

Friendly Search URLs | alexking.org (Share This 1.1 | alexking.org)
Thanks, Alex, for this useful tip! Implemented and tested within minutes. Very handy. Rich BlogRodent

BlogRodent says:

Thanks, Alex, for this useful tip! Implemented and tested within minutes. Very handy.

Rich
BlogRodent

Power To The People (Flickr Photo)
Man, that sure brings back memories! Great shot of my long-missed hometown... Rich --

BlogRodent says:

Man, that sure brings back memories! Great shot of my long-missed hometown...

Rich
--

Earn money from TLA program.
Many of my friends still don’t believe that I can survive just from my blogging job. They don’t believe that blogging can make money. While some of them keep laughing at me, today I want to share with them the proof via the screenshot from my Paypal account. Below is my January earnings that I’ve [...]

Many of my friends still don’t believe that I can survive just from my blogging job. They don’t believe that blogging can make money. While some of them keep laughing at me, today I want to share with them the proof via the screenshot from my Paypal account. Below is my January earnings that I’ve got so far just from blogging:

Being a blogger is just a normal job that people don’t know much. Actually, a blogger is not a weird people who just sit in front of the computer all day long and then make money from it. Blogger also a human who need a friend and a social life. I never put myself aside when it comes to a real world. I need to go for a shopping, I need to play bowling and I need to watch the latest movie at the cinema.

Mean time, I know that saving is a must and I already have my saving account for that reason. Not only that, I will buy my first insurance policy next month because I know it’s very important for me. I also read many articles about sell settlement annuity payments. So if you think blogging is just a “small job”, better you do it seriously because it’s really can make money.

Big payment for link placement!
Yesterday was a great day and today is a brand new day. So today, I am happy to announce that I am looking for some kind of blogs that might qualify for this OPPORTUNITY. Now here is the deal: 1. I am looking for a blog that has a minimum PR2. 2. The blog must be in finance [...]

Yesterday was a great day and today is a brand new day. So today, I am happy to announce that I am looking for some kind of blogs that might qualify for this OPPORTUNITY.

Now here is the deal:
1. I am looking for a blog that has a minimum PR2.
2. The blog must be in finance niche and the content also must relate with the NICHE.
3. No general blog (even you have a finance category in it).
4. I will go thru your blog first. Don’t try to cheat me. Hey, I know all the tricks… remember? So never send me any fake/redirect domain.
5. Must be on your own dot com domain. No blogspot, etc. Simply said, no free host blog.
6. The link placement is not for permanent, just for 12 months ONLY! But never fool yourself by taking out the link. We have a team that monitor your blog. Once you cheat us, you will never get any opportunity again.
7. For PR2, the advertiser is willing to pay you $50.
8. For PR3, the advertiser is willing to pay you $100.
9. Above PR3 blog, I will let you know. Please contact me.
10. After the advertiser approved your blog, I will let you know. Then, I will send the anchor word and the link. Once their link is UP at your blog, you will get the money. SIMPLE…. !!!

Yes!
All you need to do is to put the advertiser link in your sidebar. You don’t have to do any blogpost or any review. This is the MOST EASIEST JOB in the world. Don’t worry, you will not be banned by Gogle because this is between you and me. Nobody know about it. Rather than you put nonsense link at your sidebar, it’s better for you to get paid, isn’t it?

So if you have PR3 finance blog, then this is a good chance for you. RM150 (USD50) and RM350 (USD100) is a worth amount of money for you to earn. You can pay your domain and your hosting for the whole year straight!

So do you have the blog that fulfill all those criteria?
If yes, then contact me a.s.a.p!

My 1st email: weirdoux@gmail.com
My 2nd email: contact@rohaizad.com
My YM: mr_ombak@yahoo.com

Malay Version, please read it HERE.

* In case you want to contact me, please put “Finance Niche” as the title.
* In case your blog not qualify for the link placement payment, don’t feel sand and angry cause I will try my best to help you.

Thanks

Work at home in the time of crisis.
Nowadays in the time of global economic crisis many people are jobless and there are seeking for any job - they are looking for any kind of work but unfortunately they are not in demand as their education is not required today neither by commercial nor governmental enterprises. Also those people who have more skills [...]

Nowadays in the time of global economic crisis many people are jobless and there are seeking for any job - they are looking for any kind of work but unfortunately they are not in demand as their education is not required today neither by commercial nor governmental enterprises. Also those people who have more skills under their belt are more lucky to find a job and get sufficient wages.

They will be ready to learn more and new things only in case they are sure that they have found the right place, the place where they will be guaranteed to get money for the work they do. The other group is not in a favourable position but at the same time. What should they do?

Actually, the only thought that comes to my mind is becoming a self-employed person when no one is giving your work and money - a small part of his or her income but it is you who finds a job and work and get 100% of the income. I’m talking about working from home and earning money online.

This is really a nice way out especially if you do not have other skills to start your own business. Working online means taking part in surveys, making money with Google, taking part at auctions, composing mails, copywriting and so on.

Definitely, there won’t be a problem for anyone to find out how to blog for money!

Make More Profit With Press Release Writing.
A press release can be used especially if there are important events that are coming. In this industry, press release has become one of the most efficient waya to prove the world that you have a good and worth thing to talk about. In a simple word, press release is written to broadcast information, increase [...]

A press release can be used especially if there are important events that are coming. In this industry, press release has become one of the most efficient waya to prove the world that you have a good and worth thing to talk about. In a simple word, press release is written to broadcast information, increase business, and update target audiences.

Actually, one of the most important elements that a press release writer must always bear in mind is the overriding importance of word economy when creating and developing a press release. Give importance to the title as well and the most important is, he need more focus on the grammar. Either you believe it or not, many writers has prove themeselves that writing + press release definitely can give a chance for the to make more profit.

One of my friend told me that press release really can be the best platform if we know how to do it properly. By follow the “rules of the games”, anybody can earn as much as they want. Always keep your press release punchy. This really works when it comes to the climax and make sure don’t use unnecessary flowery language such as cutting-edge and revolutionary.

I am wondering if I have an enough time to try this out. Well still not sure about this. How about you?
Have you ever explore your writing skills and try it before?

Online advisor.
This is the second week of March 2009 and I think the time has come for me to plan and to prepare my budget for next month. This is how I manage my financial. So have you ever calculate the budget for your life? I’m sure the amount will be high right? How to make [...]

This is the second week of March 2009 and I think the time has come for me to plan and to prepare my budget for next month. This is how I manage my financial. So have you ever calculate the budget for your life? I’m sure the amount will be high right? How to make a good preparation about it?

Basically, budget preparation is one of the most important thing to do in our daily life. It because most people fall into cycle of debts easily specially if they have a credit card. They can’t control their “mood” and at the end of the day, they will face another problem that is undisciplined spending habit.

Actually, we can overcome this problem if we know how to organize their “mind”. What I’m trying to say is we need to organize our expenses by comparing between ‘needs’ and ‘wants’. Yes… all we need to do is spent our money on needs and leave the wants for the last. Once you have the spare cash, then only you can spend it on your ‘wants’.
(more…)

Lets hope these videos work! Nate's recent skateboarding videos.









Every time I start to post, I realize that I am exhausted. Which, once again, I am.

I am at class from 9:30 AM to 9:30 PM on tues and thurs. It is not exactly fun, but better than being there all week. I have 3 days where I stay home and watch Caden.

We got our taxes. Paid the bills. I just bought the new bedding....and totally changed my mind. Anyone know if 350 thread count 100% Egyptian cotton sheets are good or comfortable?



I wish it came with all the fancy pillows...it comes with one decorative pillow. That's OK, though, because our little black pillows will accent the black in the room.

OK, nite.

Unfortunately, we are very late in finding out, but Nate will be participating in a Skate-A-Thon on August 2nd to benefit the town that built the free skate park nearby. To be in the event, his team needs to earn at least $50 to donate to the cause.

He is currently still setting up his team and thinking of a name. Once that is done, if anyone would like to make a donation (any size is awesome) to his team, I will be offering my paypal address.

Does anyone know of a site where you can make up a donation link to paypal? I don't want people to think I am trying to just take their money.

Here is a link to the event:Freedom Skate Park Skate-A-Thon

Carman E. Cunningham
My grandfather passed away on August 27th.

He wrote this speech in 1998:

Mr. Toastmaster and Fellow Spokesman, my speech is titled "What is Wealth." Most people believe wealth means money, but wealth is much more than money. In truth, most of wealth means to be well; it has little to do with money. Wealth is actually enjoying what we have.


Abundance means having more than we need or want.Our true needs are food, shelter, and protection. Our wants are infinite. We should decide what we really want, and strive toward that goal.


Balance should be our way of enjoying what we already have and working toward getting more of the important things in life.


Caring adds compassion, and action to love what we care about more.


Joy is the appreciation and gratitude of what we have and the reason we seek it. Health isn't defined by the absence of a few unpleasant physical symptoms; it means being alive with vitality, love and enthusiasm.


New scientific studies seem to show that a persons' attitude and physical state play a key role in their health. Close relationships with friends and family appear to have a highly beneficial effect on your immune system. Indications are that married people live longer; this is another true measure of wealth. Goals in life are like having a map, or blueprint, to guide us. All successful leaders use plans to achieve their goals. Wise planning affords us a sense of satisfaction and security that money can't buy.


Loving is choosing to focus on the good in ourselves and others. Riches are available to everyone because, contrary to popular belief, many of the things in life are free. They include Nature's beauty, books, films, and works of art. Human riches consist of friends, family and fulfilling work. Personal riches are talents, friendliness, wisdom and a caring personality. Sharing our possessions and ourselves with others adds to our wealth; otherwise wealth is meaningless.


The way to increase our wealth is to focus on our true loves and commit ourselves, in time and effort, to our big goal. We may be chasing things that aren't really that important; if so, we need to be more selective.


John D. Rockefeller, one of the richest men ever, is said to have wished he could exchange his immense fortune for good health. According to a survey of recent million-dollar lottery winners, their money did not solve their problems or bring happiness.


In summary, the true basis of our wealth is health. Without this, none of the little pleasures and comforts in life can be enjoyed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I love you so much, Poppa, and will remember you always. Your words make me see just how precious love, life, family and happiness are.


As Steve said, see ya later.






"some people come into our lives and quickly go;

Some stay for a while, leave footprints on our hearts,

and we are never the same.
"






Click the link....it is DVO playing the Dixon Drums at A&J Music.


http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=7M5xH2KZGa8





My hair is a complete mess. I need a new haircut, but it is so hard to find one when your hair is currently an overgrown a-line; square in the back and still angled to long in the front. I can't even find websites that are helpful....anyone have any suggestions or ideas? DVO got me a gift certificate for my birthday to get a haircut, and I still have yet to use it.


Due to the fact that it has really become easier to communicate through Myspace, I have kind of drifted to over there more. I have become a full time babysitter to Caden, who is now almost 2, come August.  I am in my last year at college starting next semester. I hate not being able to keep up on everything on here and there, but I can't. That, by no means, says that I am cancelling my LJ. I know there are a ton of friends on here that are not on Myspace. I really do like how I can update pictures on there better than here, though. I have not updated photos on here in so long, and there are so many new ones on Myspace.

If any of my friends on here are also on Myspace, please do add me, or leave a comment on here. I don't want to lose touch!

My Myspace

This is the BEST.

Jonathan Stoller's Picture of the Week: Nature's Museum
Is this contemporary masterpiece hanging in the Guggenheim or MOMA? Which California artist most likely painted the subtle tones and perfect patterns and shapes? Maybe it is an original Keith Milow from Amsterdam who has started a new series? Nope...

Is this contemporary masterpiece hanging in the Guggenheim or MOMA? Which California artist most likely painted the subtle tones and perfect patterns and shapes? Maybe it is an original Keith Milow from Amsterdam who has started a new series? Nope Jonathan shot this amazing shot over the farm land just East of Denver. What you are seeing is just nature's museum.

President Obama: What Does It All Mean?
In a nutshell, very little. Let me sum it up this way: The Federal Government will compassionately offer leave so you can be by the bedside of dying lover but you have to pay the debts from the medical bills....

In a nutshell, very little.

Let me sum it up this way: The Federal Government will compassionately offer leave so you can be by the bedside of dying lover but you have to pay the debts from the medical bills.

First, I am happy for those Federal employees who have had their lives made easier in some significant measure. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is especially to be applauded for obtaining for her employees at the State Department some similar major changes. And even though today's recipients did not get their healthcare nor retirement benefits, in no way do we want to belittle or make insignificant the lives that have been impacted.

However, these changes apply to a very low percentage of the entire LGBT population The rest of us got zilch, excepting for a vague promise that in the coming months/years Obama will work to repeal DOMA.

In the meantime, we are expected to use our lobbying resources on Capital Hill to pass legislation that would allow Federal employees get the health insurance that DOMA denies them. Instead of making an all out drive on the Hill to pass legislation that affects so few, shouldn't we instead focus our efforts for the total repeal of DOMA? After all, that will help everyone in the LGBT community. If DOMA is repealed then the Federal employees get their benefits and all of us are closer to freedom. Why use up important contacts, access and lobbyists on an issue that is not hate crimes, ENDA, DADT or DOMA? It just doesn't make sense.

In his remarks, the President did not even mention the recently filed Department of Justice brief supporting DOMA. He did not correct the record that the execrable brief contains. He didn't even say that the 'sloppy language of the brief' is not reflective of his values, principals or beliefs. He did not mention DADT. Finally after some initial indications that he would include the word "transgender", I did not hear it in his remarks.

Don't foget that LGBT taxes are still paying for all those straight federal employees healthcare benefits!

In many ways it is like the California Supreme Court decision: we are happy for the couples that were able to put that "Just Married" sign on their car, but unfortunately, the rest of us have been run over by a bus.

Congressman Steve Israel: Including Marriage Equality in the 2010 Census!
Congressman Steve Israel is one of the most LGBT friendly members of Congress. He is a strong advocate for the repeal of DOMA and DADT. Recently he has been leading the battle to have the LGBT community included in the...

Congressman Steve Israel is one of the most LGBT friendly members of Congress. He is a strong advocate for the repeal of DOMA and DADT. Recently he has been leading the battle to have the LGBT community included in the 2010 census. Representing the Second Congressional District (Long Island) in New York, we are honored to feature this piece by him on his work regarding the census.

(Special Note:  It appears that today the Obama White House has made the changes necessary for the 2010 census.  We thanks Congressman Israel for his good work)

"Counting Marriage Equality" by Congressman Steve Israel

It's census time. And if you're a same-sex married couple, there may be an unpleasant surprise in how the Census Bureau treats your marriage.

When same-sex married couples send in their forms this year they will of course mark themselves off as “married." Incredibly, that designation will be changed by someone at the Census Bureau to “unmarried partners.” The Census Bureau is taking it upon itself to change an honest answer into its own interpretation.

By the end of this year, marriage equality will be the law in at least six states. This is an important change since the last time the Census was conducted. Unfortunatey, the growing number of legally-recognized same-sex couples will be intentionally uncounted in the 2010 census.

The practice is based on the indefensible "Defense of Marriage Act." Some argue that this discriminatory law’s prohibition on federal recognition of same sex marriage also prevents the Census from reporting the truthful answers of American citizens. That's profoundly wrong! The Census does not reflect a policy, it reflects sheer numbers. Americans answering a questionnaire and the Census Bureau recording those answers doesn't endorse or oppose a policy. It simply tells the truth.

I’ve led fifty of my House colleagues in a letter to the Administration asking that that the Census Bureau reconsider its current policy and not falsify the data Americans report to them about their lives.

I’m proud of what Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Vermont have done for marriage equality. I hope that my home state of New York will soon follow. Same-sex couples are a part of our communities. Their marriage licenses are no less legal than my own. And when the Census starts its counting in 2010, they deserve to be treated and counted the same way as every other legally married couple.

The Census Bureau has an obligation to collect and report data. Not collect and alter data.

GLAAD Hits Grand Slam Home Run with Barrios
In a week filled with difficult and disappointing news, GLAAD has come to the rescue with a terrific announcement. They have selected Jarrett Barrios to be their new Executive Director. Barrios is simply the best choice any organization could have...

In a week filled with difficult and disappointing news, GLAAD has come to the rescue with a terrific announcement. They have selected Jarrett Barrios to be their new Executive Director. Barrios is simply the best choice any organization could have tapped for a leader -but the clever people at GLAAD got him first. Bravo to the organization for their wisdom in reaching out to the best that not only our community has to offer but one of the best that America has to offer.

Having known and worked with Barrios when he was in the State legislature of Massachusetts, I have seen first hand his ability to remain passionate and true to his ideals while working out acceptable and practical solutions to difficult problems. His anathema to injustice burns deeply into his being. He is a man of deep values and solid principles.

Barrios' biography reads like the American dream. Read excerpts of it from the GLAAD Media release:

At 40 years of age, Barrios will become the youngest leader of GLAAD and, as a Cuban-American, he will be the first head of a national LGBT organization fluent in English and Spanish. He was the first openly gay person and the first Latino elected to the Massachusetts State Senate, where he represented a largely white, Catholic, working-class district. He is an accomplished fundraiser and manager who broke fundraising records in his election campaigns and managed a multi-million dollar budget at the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts. He is married to Doug Hattaway, his partner of 16 years, and they are raising two teenage sons.

His story continues:

The son of a carpenter and a social worker, Barrios worked three jobs to help put himself through college at Harvard, where he graduated magna cum laude. He received his J.D. with honors from Georgetown University Law Center. His pro bono work as an attorney included the first successful petition of a gay Dominican man for asylum in the United States. He is currently president of the Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, a driving force behind the state’s groundbreaking universal health care program. He is also active in progressive issues at the national level as a board member of Families USA, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Action Fund and was recently elected to the board of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights

And finally:

Barrios has been an advocate for LGBT equality since co-chairing Harvard’s LGBT student organization in the late 1980s and the Boston Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project in the early 1990s. He has also served on the boards of the Service members Legal Defense Network, Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders and Greater Boston Lesbian and Gay Political Alliance.

As a State Senator, Barrios successfully helped lead the legislative effort to protect marriage equality in Massachusetts, and is best known for a globally televised speech where he spoke on discrimination faced by his own family. In the legislature, he also successfully championed anti-bullying legislation, the Gay and Lesbian Youth Commission to prevent teen suicide and make schools safe for LGBT youth, buffer zones for women’s health facilities and other progressive issues.

This is terrific news for GLAAD, terrific news for the LGBT community and terrific news for those who care about human rights. We needed this kind of news this week

MLB Baseball Manager Sues Twitter Over Fake Account & Fuels Online Identity Debate
The issue of online identity has been an age old issue online as some users leverage the Web to manage multiple personas and online identities. Though there are initiatives like OpenID and OAuth that look to help remedy the situation, it still is somewhat difficult to verify true online identity. This opens the door to online identity impersonation. In many cases, someone creates a fake account to playfully mock another person which could be taken as the ultimate form of flattery. But in other cases the mocking can turn downright insulting. This seems to be the case with the fake Twitter account of St. Louis Cardinals Manager Tony La Russa. He has also experienced a fake account of his own and he is not taking it lightly as he is suing Twitter over it. According to TechCrunch the suit was filed in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco seeking “unspecified damages.”

ELEW: Innovating Jazz Music Like A Startup
I have covered a number of start-up companies in my day as I offer my somewhat frank opinion, insight and candid perspective in my quest for new products and services or "shiny objects" as I like to call them.This past weekend I got a chance to take another look at a different kind of start-up, one that goes by the name of ELEW (or ELEWW on Twitter). ELEW is powered by the thunderous energy of jazz pianist Eric Lewis as he has been innovating on jazz as we know it. Eric Lewis has created a new niche which takes alternative rock hits and brings them to the piano. But what makes Eric unique is that when he plays these tunes they sound like he is being accompanied by an orchestra. So why is Eric Lewis so interesting? Eric's approach to jazz is an innovative one that reminds me of a start-up. Eric's disrupts the traditional jazz system in a way that could fuel some heated debates, similar to how start-ups can disrupt the flow of business as usual. Eric has also created a recognizable set-list which helps ensure people can relate to it. This is similar to the way a startup is successful; it is important to have a clear story that is easy to relate to. Eric also has carved out a niche that did not previously exist, which reminds me of the way Twitter and other start-ups have created a need that users did not even know they had. Eric Lewis, or ELEW as he likes to refer to his band, is like a rising start-up and I will enjoy continuing to watch his popularity grow, just like I have watched Facebook, Twitter and others grow up and become mainstream.

TECH cocktail DC 5 Coming Soon
I am happy to share that I will be co-hosting another TECH cocktail in DC. In case you missed the last DC event it was well covered by the Washington Post and other media outlets. Check out photos from TECH cocktail DC 4. This is our 5th event in the Nation’s Capital and I hope you can make it out to the fine venue, LeftBank digital bistro in the Adam’s Morgan neighborhood of DC. TECH cocktail will offer a handful of start-ups an opportunity to show off in an expo-style to the rest of the community. If you are interested in supporting TECH cocktail please sponsor our events as we cannot put them on without your support. If you are interested in demoing a product or service please comment on this article or reach out to us at TECH cocktail. Look forward to seeing you there.

iPhone Push Notifications Tested Via AOL's AIM
Apple will soon be launching of the iPhone 3.0 operating system and part of the new system is a push alert notification feature as highlighted at WWDC 2009 this week. Push Notification is the system developed by Apple to remedy the fact that the iPhone won’t allow third party applications to run in the background due to security, battery life and performance concerns. Push notifications are will enable certain tasks (like IMs) that come to your phone even when that application isn’t running. TechCrunch recently tested Push Notifications using AIM the new 3.0 iPhone software. Watch the video above to see Push Notification in action with AIM but please note the video makes it seem like there may be a delay between an IM sent and received, but it’s basically instantaneous.

When.com: A Hyper-Local One Stop Shop
What? Where? and When? That is precisely what you can find out when you visit When.com the fairly new hyper-local site created by AOL. When.com can help you to cut through the clutter and pinpoint restaurants, events and activities in your neighborhood. It also offers the ability to buy tickets and save on dining out with dining deal offers. When.com enables anyone to add an events to extend city event coverage. For example, check out the listing for TECH cocktail DC 5 in Washington, DC today. I recently got a chance to talk with Abha Dasgupta about When.com in episode 78 on SOMEWHAT FRANK adventures in personal technology.

Filtrbox Launches Hot Twitter Influence Tool
How important is influence on the Web? My friend Micah Baldwin recently called Influence the New Hotness. I agree, Influence is hot and it is nothing new though the currency has changed. Just a few years back the most important currency was incoming links to your website, now it is real-time re-tweets via Twitter or "likes" on Facebook's news feed. The social tools today are enabling people to influence the Web via real-time communications. With Twitter being a hot tool that is empowering people to influence others, I was curious to see just how influential I am on Twitter. Thanks to Filtrbox you can now answer that very question by simply entering your Twitter username and clicking submit. Filtrbox just launched the Twitter Influence Checker today and I got chance to give it a try. It turns out my Twitter account @frankgruber has a Twitter Influence score of 8 out for 10.

WWDC 2009: iPhone 3GS & 3.0, Macbook Pro & More
I did not attend Apple's WWDC 2009 in person but thanks to the Web, I still could follow along as we all look for the new iPhone G3S, SDK 3.0, Macbook Pro and more.

MIDs Reviewed While Traveling to Computex Taipei
Today, l’m traveling to Computex Taipei, the world’s largest computer exhibition in Asia and second largest in the world just behind CeBit in Germany. I’m traveling 18 hours to Taipei from Washington, D.C. stopping just once in Tokyo, Japan before heading on to the island of Taiwan as part of the Intel Insider program (a brand ambassador program) that I have been a part of for a year now. I will be attending a number of the Intel events in Taipei as well as meeting the Asia Pacific Intel representatives as I look to assist them as they get their own version of the Intel Insiders program started in Asia. I am honored to be attending such an important global industry event, as it offers a super opportunity to see lots of new shiny gadgets and devices. It also affords me an opportunity to dust off my somewhat virgin passport, getting some International ink along with cultural growth. Since I have a lot of time in transit, I decided to use some of it reviewing two new Mobile Internet Devices, or MIDs, which I recently received: the Yukyung Viliv S5 and the BenQ S6.

MVP Moves to Denver Office
MVP Announcement of Office Relocation

We are pleased to announce that MVP is moving to a new office near downtown Denver during the month of May 2009. The new office is located on Platte Street, near downtown Denver. The address is as follows:

Market Vertical Partners
1553 Platte Street, Suite 301
Denver, CO 80202

After moving into the Denver Office, we will continue to use the present telephone and facsimile numbers, which are:

Telephone: 303-955-5228
Fax: 303-648-5208

Our website is unchanged and remains “www.marketverticalpartners.com”. There will be no problem for any correspondence mailed to the present address, but we hope you can update the change as soon as possible.

It is to meet the needs of the fast growth of the firm as well as to improve our working conditions that we decide to acquire the new office. Once again, we are very pleased to announce the Market Vertical Partners new office location.

The Future of PPC Advertising
By 2010, online marketers will spend $7 billion dollars on pay per click marketing. (Jupiter Research). So pay per click (PPC) programs are only going to get more competitive and more expensive. It is enticing for companies to open an search engine advertising account and setup their first keyword campaign to drive traffic to their [...]

By 2010, online marketers will spend $7 billion dollars on pay per click marketing. (Jupiter Research). So pay per click (PPC) programs are only going to get more competitive and more expensive. It is enticing for companies to open an search engine advertising account and setup their first keyword campaign to drive traffic to their website.

Without the proper strategy development and software automation, your company is at a severe disadvantage compared to the other companies who are advertising on the same keywords. This initial disadvantage leads to companies to over-bid on keywords, generate un-qualified traffic, experience low conversion rates, and generally consider pay per click to be a less than effective direct market strategy.

Learn more about how MVP can help your company with your Paid Search Marketing Strategy.

Link Building With Articles
One effective method of building links is to write articles and submit them to popular article repositories where webmasters can freely use this content for their own website.   Our premium article writing service creates a unique article topic for each article website. Here are a few examples of articles that were recently written for MVP: Article Base: [...]

• Article Base: The Importance of Link Building
• Active Rain: How Important is SEO To Your Website
• Article Dashboard: Domain Names & SEO
• Article Outpost: What Are SEO Friendly Links

These links contain links in the articles as well as links in the published profile promoting a variety of different targeted keywords for organic rankings.

Facebook Advertising
Interesting in advertising on Facebook.com where you can reach over 175,000,000 active users on one of the fastest growing websites on the Internet?  Market Vertical Partners, MVP will help you build a page, create your ad messagesl, and target by age, gender, location, employer, and more. Facebook advertising allows you to reach your exact audience and [...]

Interesting in advertising on Facebook.com where you can reach over 175,000,000 active users on one of the fastest growing websites on the Internet?  Market Vertical Partners, MVP will help you build a page, create your ad messagesl, and target by age, gender, location, employer, and more.

Facebook advertising allows you to reach your exact audience and connect real customer to your business.   You can choose from pay per click (CPC) or impression (CPM).  If you are interesting in learning how to promote your business on Facebook, let’s talk about your internet marketing strategy.

Jabber, Inc Client Testimonial
“MVP has been instrumental in helping us implement and refine our search engine marketing program. Their systematic approach and willingness to share their knowledge and expertise has enabled us to successfully execute on-going campaigns that have resulted in significant traffic growth through paid placement ads, and improvements in organic rankings through search engine optimization. MVP has been [...]

“MVP has been instrumental in helping us implement and refine our search engine marketing program.

Their systematic approach and willingness to share their knowledge and expertise has enabled us to successfully execute on-going campaigns that have resulted in significant traffic growth through paid placement ads, and improvements in organic rankings through search engine optimization.

MVP has been extremely responsive, thorough, and professional while delivering measureable results.”—Jabber, Inc.

Becoming a German Translator - FAQ
Even for the post of a German translator, the job recruitment firms do look beyond the candidate’s language skills to see if he/she really fits into the job. They’ll assess the person’s personality, attitude, work culture, overall behavior etc before handing him/her an appointment letter. Given below is a set of the most frequently asked [...]

Even for the post of a German translator, the job recruitment firms do look beyond the candidate’s language skills to see if he/she really fits into the job. They’ll assess the person’s personality, attitude, work culture, overall behavior etc before handing him/her an appointment letter. Given below is a set of the most frequently asked questions for an aspiring German translator.

1) How responsive you are to email?

Email is an inevitable tool in virtually any job today. So answer in positive, telling that you generally reply to emails as prompt as possible. Also, specify that you check emails two or three times a day. Remember, checking emails too often might be viewed upon as a negative. However, hint that you be online whenever you are in business.

2) Skills you want to see in a translator, if you are in the shoes of a recruiter?

You should talk about language skills, terminology knowledge of both target and original languages, typing skills, professionalism, time management, ability to prioritize, and above all, the commitment towards the job and the will to improve all the time.

3) Do you follow the code of ethics of a German translator?

It is the set of rules that defines the moral and work ethics of a German translator. It is important to follow the code of ethics because at the end of the day, it is what determines the client’s and translator’s success in the business in the longer run.

4) What are the areas of specialization?

Tell the translation agency or company the areas of your specialization. Remember, they have your resume already.

These are the main issues you must be aware of if you want to become a German Translator.

German Translator - Finding the Best One
The world of today seems a lot smaller than it used to be. Because of this, we are forced to look for ways to be able to communicate with people who we can not talk to. This means that it can be hard to read things that might be written in German, and it’s going [...]

The world of today seems a lot smaller than it used to be. Because of this, we are forced to look for ways to be able to communicate with people who we can not talk to. This means that it can be hard to read things that might be written in German, and it’s going to be hard for Germans to read things that have been written in English. The good news is that there are a few tips that you can use to help you find the best German translator site on the internet. Just like in most cases, your first step would be to look for local services. It’s always easier to talk to someone locally about translations than it is to do it over the internet. That means you may want to look into your own directory, or maybe even your local yellow pages.

The second way is the most common way people go about finding people to translate things, and that is by way of the internet. When searching for German translators you can start on search engines, like Google or Yahoo. You can type in something like “German translations,” and come up with millions of results. The main thing that you have to look out for is sties that want you to pay. There are some sites that will do it for you for free, but there are other sites that will not. If you are willing to pay for your translation then you are going to get better feedback on it.

Last but not least, ask your friends and family. Ask if they know anyone that can do translations. Asking your friends and family can be the best way to get the help that you need that is right under your nose.

This post is sponsored by  http://www.call4all.us - Free/Open Source Language Education Resource Repository

Beolingus – The Perfect German Dictionary
If you search the web, you’ll be avalanched by tens of language translation websites. But, if you are specific about one language, it is always better to go for a translator site that deals with one/two languages. Such websites will be more precise than multilingual translational ones as they tend to pickup on more language [...]

If you search the web, you’ll be avalanched by tens of language translation websites. But, if you are specific about one language, it is always better to go for a translator site that deals with one/two languages. Such websites will be more precise than multilingual translational ones as they tend to pickup on more language to language foibles.

One such specialized translation website is Beolingus that deals with English to German translations. Its services cover word to word translations as well as synonyms, definitions, aural samples, and most importantly example sentences. For German / English students, this website should come more than handy. There are not many portals out there that offer comprehensive translation features in German - English as Beolingus does.

German Translation Basics
If you cannot understand even a word of German language, you need not worry because there are a slew of German translation services as well as individual translators that can help you understand what is being commuted in the German language and also lets German speaking people understand what is being spoken in another language [...]

If you cannot understand even a word of German language, you need not worry because there are a slew of German translation services as well as individual translators that can help you understand what is being commuted in the German language and also lets German speaking people understand what is being spoken in another language such as English. However, before selecting a German translator you need to be sure that the translator has exhaustive knowledge of both English and German and who can thus ensure that people who are being given the translation can easily understand the translated text or matter. 

With many hundreds of translations services to choose, you need to make sure that you deal with a translator or translating company that can guarantee a properly translated document and do so in a short turnaround time and most importantly, provides an accurate and easy to understand translation.

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www.learn-german-online.com

June Burda: so many easy options so little time
First, let me apologize before hand for the next sentence of excessive gloating. Please skip to your next blog if uncharacteristic un-call-for rejoicing become way to much for you. Eh hem! It was the only package I was expecting, so...

First, let me apologize before hand for the next sentence of excessive gloating. 

Please skip to your next blog if uncharacteristic un-call-for rejoicing become way to much for you.

Eh hem!

It was the only package I was expecting, so you know time stopped when I saw it had came as I opened the door to my apt.

Squeeee!

I had to dive into it, immediately and let me tell you, I am so, so freaking happy I got myself a copy of this magazine. For me, this is not an exaggeration because I am that excited about it.

Where do I start?

The layout is Great, very fresh and inspiring and correct me if I’m wrong, I didn’t see any designer articles in there, just how to’s right?

Interesting!

It seems like they are in full, all about the sewing only now. I love it.

I feel like we should have a version of a sewing magazine like that which is American based where you get patterns in one magazine a month instead of picking up each pattern. Not that I don’t like the single patterns but another option would be nice also.

But that is another post all together.

June Burda!!!

OMG, so many quick and easy, lots of 2 dot projects, which I love. There is nothing like simple projects to get a girl’s mojo going after a drought.

So everything I liked before I still have in mind to make but as for what’s going on now.

I traced (as soon as I got the issue)

2009-06-122

 

 

It’s a simple tunic, which I’m using some yellow poplin that has been living in the bottom of my stash forever, to make.

I’m in a really bright mood right now and yellow, orange and hot pink is my favorite colors at the moment.

It was a quick sew and its already done. Photos will follow in the next post

Next thing will be:

 

2009-06-118

 

 

I used a pink, orange and white cotton for this. I decided to hold off on the other version 2009-06-119. Which is the same pattern but with the addition of the frill. I'm still contemplating weather a mandarin style collar will be better and not a standing one. This is what is on my machine right now so photos will follow soon too.

 

2009-06-103

 

I was going for a black denim look but then I changed my mine, I wanted a light grey skirt for the summer. I couldn’t find anything in a solid texture so I opted for a stone grey block textured twill. This is a mock wrap so it should be interesting to make.

I don’t plan on making this by the end of the weekend but cutting it out on Sunday afternoon is a good aim for me right now

 

2008-10-126

 

Is completed. I omitted the band because I didn’t adjust for length and it would have made the skirt way to long for me.

I also made another Yellow Jalie 2805 top- I told you I'm feeling "bright right now" 

And that is about it.

 Next post will be some finished garments, shopping for the summer and my pre fall simplicity favorites.

 

 

 

Good Reads and listening
These are a few of the books I read over the last 5 mouths that helped me cope with my current situation. I hope if needed it can do the same for you. Eat, Pray, Love - I listened to...

These are a few of the books I read over the last 5 mouths that helped me cope with my current situation. I hope if needed it can do the same for you.

Eat, Pray, Love - I listened to this audio book continueous at works for months.

Happy for No Reason- a book about just being happy don't matter what life throws at you.

The Secret- I use the gratitude section every day, it has helped me stay grateful through all the dissappoints and pain.

The Soulmate Secret- this was a fun read, especially making a list of all the attributes you would love your soulmate to possess, there is a little bit of fung shui and dealing with losing lost loves in there too.

The Power of Now- This book is seriously deep, if you are not willing to spend time the time to understand and apply these principles to your own life, don't even bother. Its not a one size fits off, it requires a lot of soul searching.

Write it down, make it happen- probably one of the best books out there to get your goals on paper.

Harmonic Wealth- A well rounded book for anyone that want to emprove every part of your life from spiritual to financial to fitness. Awesome!

And my personal Gem, the one thing I will love to introduce to anyone that enjoy listening to empowering talk show.

HayHouseRadio- 24 hours of inspiration and enlightenment.

Enjoy

burda on under my needles.
Very very good weekend for sewing. First the photos then the rambling. Jalie and Burda 10-2008-126 Burda 06-2009-122 front view Back view. About the tunic, if you love tunics during the summer you got to make this, one of my...

Very very good weekend for sewing.

One of the great things about taking a hiatus from sewing is re-discovering your STASH. I mean, WOW. Now I know why I was such a sewing fanatic, Fabric is GOOD. Yesterday after a less than incredible day at the...

One of the great things about taking a hiatus from sewing is re-discovering your STASH.

 

I mean, WOW.

 

Now I know why I was such a sewing fanatic, Fabric is GOOD.

 

Yesterday after a less than incredible day at the office and an even less fulfilling jog on the treadmill, I found myself diving into bags of STASH in the closet.

 

The overwhelming Joy that came over me to see my “friends” again is indescribable.

 

I pulled out yard after yard of knits, wovens and even interfacing.

 

I hugged and caressed them so sincerely.

 

Let’s just say, “ I had a really good rump in the… stash”

 

Hmmmm…

 

You know, people would think I was going crazy but I know you guys would understand.

 

Words like

 

“Ahhh”

“Oh my God”

“squeeeeeee”

“Awwww”

“this is still so cute”

“Okayyyyyy”

“Mine, mine, mine”

“What did I buy this for”

“you are way to nice to cut, back in the bag for you”

“LOVE”

“You are so soft”

“I love you so much”

“you are good enough to steal”

“you are probably why I’m broke right now, tee hee”

 

I was so freaking happy, it’s like they were saying “remember us; we are ready when you are”.

 

And I am definiately ready.

 

In other news

 

From yesterdays in ode to June Burda, if you can recall I said I had re-sub’d just because I really wanted the June issue.

 

How about!

 

I got an email from GLP News yesterday saying that the June issue is SOLD OUT.

 

UGH……

 

You can’t win for losing; let me tell you, I want that issue even more now.

 

I was even at Joanns yesterday gawking at the most suitable tan cotton twill for 2006-06-104 even though, my heart was crushed from the sad news.

 

Luckily for me, Melody of Fashionista Fabrics was so kind to help out, in more ways that one.

 

So I have to shout you out Melody, “Good on yuh”, and I’m so happy store owners are bloggers too, believe me.

 

Now I really,, really have to use that issue, No excuses.

 

As I wrote before I want some summer skirts and because my focus is on that, separates is ALL I SEE.

 

As you guys know, I love sewing dresses but you can totally “play out a dress especially if the print is stunning”.

 

I love them so much, I feel like I’ve been squeezing the life out of them and I’m starting to look like a “Re run of the

Crosby

’s”.

 

I need tops to and I’ve been looking at NL 6807, which is NOT in my pattern stash.

 

I figure if I can sew a top after work while watching some tv I won’t feel bad for not getting any major sewing done at the end of the week.

 

Before I go

 

 

This skirt is very chic and I wish I could wrap my head around how to add zippers to a basic skirt pattern because I would wear this to death- D-E-A-T-H.

 

And seriously….

 

When are people going to wake up and realize that these are NOT FLATTERING. Sheeeeshh!

Resurrecting my soul
So, what happened next? I would love to say that B and I ran out of the gym and into the sunset and all is well and perfect now but not so much. You see, there are these twin demons...

So, what happened next?

I would love to say that B and I ran out of the gym and into the sunset and all is well and perfect now but not so much.

You see, there are these twin demons called anxiety and depression that moved in during those first months of Devin’s Exit, who were basically putting up curtains and picking paint colors by the time B came into my life.

These bitches are Bad, I really don’t even know how to convey this in a more PC way.

You see, my home was congested with memories of my marriage so they had a lot to work with. I would lie down on my bed and beg them to leave me alone as they stabbed me with constant reminders of “him”.

 They were having so much fun at night I could swear I heard his truck coming down the parking lot. His truck has a hemi engine so the sound was very distinctive.

 I would jump up at night and run to the window looking out like I thought the cops were coming I had a kilo of “snow” under my bed.

 I would hear the neighbors’ opening there doors and have panic attacks like he was trying to come in my apartment at night.

Realistically, Devin never led a hand on me, ever.

But that is proof of how good these demons are, the lies they tell will make you hate your momma.

So may talks with B become more frequent and longer as the days went by and soon he would come over for impromptu therapy sessions.

Poor guy.

That was the only time I felt some ease, my apartment was like a prison and he was my only visitor back then.

Another milestone for me happened during this time also.

He was about to go and I felt the sudden grip of Anxiety. I started to cry and felt so freakin sad and I couldn’t even stop the tears from running down of my eyes. He got really concerned, a little scared of my reaction and somehow we got into an argument.

Let me tell you,,, I was really starting to think that I should get on some prescription medication or something. I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with me.

I said, ‘I hate when you leave, I feel so alone”

What I wanted to say was more like,“As soon as you close the door they are going to torture me and tonight I just don’t have the strength.”

Could you imagine how fast he would have ran if he heard me say that?

He looked at me as if he really couldn’t understand and shoke his head.

“I’m not leaving you and you are NOT Alone”

He went on to explain and remind me that everyone in my life, my family, my friends, coworkers, whoever are with me always.

Devin is not with me physically right now but his memory is what is hurting me, not “him”.

You are never alone,  you just have to choose who you want to spend your time with at any point in time.

Chose your mom and think of something she did to make you happy. Think of one of your high school friends and all the good stuff you guys used to do. Choose a memory and allow that person to keep your company when you start feeling alone.

I don’t care if you have to summon an angel, there is someone that is always available to keep your company, divine or not….. because its all within you.

You are the person that gives US meaning in your life. The memories you attach to us is what you miss.

And you know what, its true.

Its always hard at first but soon, I started going through the albums and the scrapbooks and smiling and laughing coming back to myself.

We talked less about Devin and more about how I grew up in the Caribbean. His time in Europe and what the military meant for both of us, him being an Army Brat and my service in the Marine corp.

When Devin still didn’t make an attempt to communicate with me. I didn’t cuddle up in the fetal position. I just logged off and checked out some new blog entries, I said my affirmations and wrote in my journal. Thing were looking up finally.

And what happened to those stuck up bitches?

Well,  they still drop by unannounced, but they don’t stay for long and the visits are getting less frequent. I’m sure they have lots of work with the economic crisis going on at present. It is what it is right?

To be continued.

 

 

 

 

The Thinker: When a Fatwa Is Not Necessarily a ‘Fatwa’
This article was previously published by The Jakarta Globe on June 8, 2009. In five short years, Facebook’s members have reached 200 million worldwide. If it were a country, it would be ranked fifth in size after China, India, the United States and Indonesia. It is the fourth largest democracy by far. No wonder it has been [...]

USA Today’s Ask an Expert Steve Strauss on Duct Tape Markting
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing USA Today’s Ask an Expert Steve Strauss on Duct Tape Markting Marketing podcast with Steve Strauss (Click to listen, right click and Save As to download - subscribe now via iTunes) Small business owners have lots of questions, particularly it seems, as business gets harder to come by during lean times. So, [...]

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

USA Today’s Ask an Expert Steve Strauss on Duct Tape Markting

Marketing podcast with Steve Strauss (Click to listen, right click and Save As to download - subscribe now via iTunes)

Small business owners have lots of questions, particularly it seems, as business gets harder to come by during lean times. So, for this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast I thought I would go to someone who spends a lot of time answers small business owner’s questions - none other than USAToday’s Ask an Expert Steve Strauss.

Steven is one of the country’s leading small business expert. An internationally recognized lawyer, columnist, and speaker, Steve is also an author of 15 books. Steve’s business column, Ask an Expert, appears weekly at USATODAY.com

I asked Steve a lot of questions including:

• How he chooses questions to answer for his column
• Is this a good time to start a business?
• Best ways to approach starting a business?
• What “shoe string” ideas should you be using?
• What’s the value of social media for small business?
• What is the best use of time and effort for your small business?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Chief StartUpOligist on Make a Referral Week (ducttapemarketing.com)
• Creating a World Wide Rave (ducttapemarketing.com)
• Talking Word of Mouth with Andy Sernovitz (ducttapemarketing.com)

Interview with a Lovely Home Cooking Party Independent Consultant.
Why did you join this particular company? I was laid off from my job, the economy is hard right now, and this is something I’ve always wanted to try. Can you tell us the name of the company, you work for? I’d be more than happy to tell anyone who’s interested in becoming a consultant or [...]

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Post tags: Bamboo, Business, cook, Cooking show, Cookware and bakeware, Home and Garden, Kitchen and Dining, Shopping

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New Twitter App Launch: twtFollow.com
It has been a few weeks since my last confession…errr blog post. Don’t know where that came from, I’m not even Catholic. I have been silent because I have been busy working on my first major php development project. It’s not huge but for me it was quite an undertaking and I must say I’m quite [...]

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Super Secret Number 1 Method of Getting New Traffic to your Blog!
This is the simplest tip I’ll ever write about – it’s also the hardest. How can you guarantee more traffic? WRITE MORE POSTS! Did I say it loud enough for you? Fact: There are a million different things you can do to try and optimize your blog, but if you don’t have the traffic it doesn’t matter. Each [...]

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Post tags: Blog, facebook, Google, Search Engines, Social network, Twitter, wordpress, wordpress plugin

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Consumerist Reader gets sold $2,000 Apple Mac”Brick” Pro
Texas Best Buy sold him a paving stone inside a Macbook Pro box. Ryan wrote that when he got home he opened the box and found a paving stone with bubble wrap, instead of the Macbook Pro. The “Macbook Pro” was purchased at a Best Buy in Texas, the retailer is citing the problem as Apple’s responsibility [...]

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How Inflation Affects the Economy & Your Life
By Rory Singh Inflation affects you directly when you go to the grocery store but find that a hundred dollars doesn’t get you the same amount as it did last year. The same thing applies to the gas station pumps. Inflation is directly affecting not only you but the economy too. When people feel that a recession [...]

By Rory Singh

Inflation affects you directly when you go to the grocery store but find that a hundred dollars doesn’t get you the same amount as it did last year. The same thing applies to the gas station pumps. Inflation is directly affecting not only you but the economy too.

When people feel that a recession is coming on due to severe inflation a domino effect begins to take place:

1. Many people hang on to their money & stop spending on many non-essential items because of fear.

2. Houses & Cars begin to depreciate.

3. Business starts to dry up & employers find themselves cutting down on staff.

4. Our fixed income gets depleted & we find ourselves having to survive on even less.

5. The quality or standard of life that many have grown accustom downgrades as a direct result of inflation.

Inflation can impact your retirement plans.

Nowadays if you look around you will see many senior citizens still working. Most of them are still working because they can not afford to retire on the pension or retirement plan that was set up for them many years ago. The retirement plans were set up long ago when they monetary value could be considered sufficient to retire but unfortunately many seniors find themselves unable to live on such scarce fixed retirement incomes today.

There you have it, inflation directly affects you, the economy, your future & even your retirement.

Can we do anything about inflation?

No not really. Inflation is about as certain as death & taxes. It is just part of life. The economy will always experience good & bad cycles. Some years will be good for business & you will get more for less. Some years will be bad & you will be just barely surviving.

The key is to not only survive but learn how to thrive. Get the financial education that you need & learn how to build wealth so that unstable times will never again have a bearing on your standard of living.

The T Companies
The Transition C
The Transition Companies Blog
About The Transition Companies
The Transition Companies Features

Gold Coast Tire & Auto Health Tips
Find Out How Beneficial Bacteria Can Help Boost Immunity! By Sadhna D The stress and fast paced life certainly takes its toll on you. You cannot escape the situation. However, what you can do is maintain a regular exercise regime and a healthy diet. This will help maintain good health. Good immunity helps build resistance to diseases. [...]

Find Out How Beneficial Bacteria Can Help Boost Immunity!
By Sadhna D

The stress and fast paced life certainly takes its toll on you. You cannot escape the situation. However, what you can do is maintain a regular exercise regime and a healthy diet. This will help maintain good health. Good immunity helps build resistance to diseases. Most of the diseases result due to poor immunity. The only way to avoid it is by having a balanced diet. It is not difficult to keep most of the diseases at bay if you follow a strict diet and maintain a healthy regime. The best way to boost immune system is by having a well balanced diet.

If you have been suffering from diseases from some time and are troubled with a low immunity, you can definitely consult a dietician. They can study your physical condition and suggest a suitable diet plan. This will help you attain good health quickly. In case you or anyone from your family is suffering from a disease, you can consult a physician and also approach a dietician. A dietician can chart out a course of action for you.

A good diet can:

• Help build strong immunity

• Keep diseases at bay

• Improve general well being

• Enhance good health

A well balanced diet can help enhance the immunity and also improve the digestive system. If the diet that you are following is not having a positive effect on your system, you can look for alternative means. The best way would be to substitute the diet by consuming vitamins and other minerals that are available both in medicinal and powder form. This will definitely boost the immune system.

The powder works in this way. It curbs the formation of harmful bacteria and promotes build up of beneficial bacteria. This kind of bacteria is good for the immunity. Certain beneficial bacteria helps fight diseases. Beneficial bacteria in the human body can help fight infections through the layer of skin, lining of mucous, immune system and through gut microflora. The gut microflora are nothing but the helpful bacteria which are present in the intestines.

The most common gut microflora present inside the human body are Lactobacilli and Bifidobacteria. These beneficial bacteria are even found in foods such as buttermilk, yoghurt, sour cream, and even some frozen desserts. These kinds of bacteria can help convert sugars and carbohydrates into lactic acid. It can prove to be of immense help to those who are suffering from gastrointestinal infections.

Some informative links to follow here:

All About Gold Coast Tire & Auto
Gold Coast Tire & Auto Articles
Gold Coast Tire & Auto Blog
Gold Coast Tire & Auto Information
Gold Coast Tire & Auto Guidelines

Glen Luckman, Will Hemorrhoids Go Away on Their Own? The Real Answer
By Jeff Sherwood That is a great question, and one that is asked many times a day by sufferers everywhere. Below you will find the real answer and a couple of real solutions to that question. Hemorrhoids are no more than a mass of swollen tissue and veins in the anus. There are various causes for the [...]

By Jeff Sherwood

That is a great question, and one that is asked many times a day by sufferers everywhere. Below you will find the real answer and a couple of real solutions to that question.

Hemorrhoids are no more than a mass of swollen tissue and veins in the anus. There are various causes for the way you get them, and even more answers for if they will disappear or not.

Some of the things you can do to relieve symptoms:

1.) Add more fiber to your diet. Eat things that are high in fiber such as: yogurt and fruit. You can also buy a fiber supplement that can be mixed with water and drank.

2.) Get up and do something. Try to stay as active as possible the entire day. One of the worst things you can do is sit around. It will only make matters worse.

3.) Drink plenty of water. Water will keep your bodily functioning properly and also helps you not to get constipated, so you will stay regular and your bowl movements will come out smoothly.

Now the real answer to the question: Will Hemorrhoids Go Away On Their Own?

Sometimes they will. It all depends on how severe of a case you have. If you recognize the problem early on you can try to put some creme on the area in question and see if that helps them go away.

Most of the time they will not. Many sufferers have had this problem for a long time, and can’t seem to get rid of them for anything. Even the steps above will just give the symptoms some relief.

Don’t lose hope yet though my friends. There is help and there is a natural way you can answer the question Will hemorrhoids go away on their own? I personally have used this cure to get rid of my ailment-FOREVER! It was not tough and it only took a couple of days.

For more articles by Glen Luckman follow the links undermentioned:

Glen Luckman Blog
Glen Luckman Economy Guide
Glen Luckman Stress Management
Glen Luckman Recycling Articles
Glen Luckman Information

RJ & Makay Simplify Life
7 Tips to an Easy Home That Won’t Overwhelm! By Lauren Lewis RJ & Makay posted this Would it Simplify Life to Declutter Your Home? The more things we have it our homes – the more things that are taking up valuable space and the more things we have to keep up with. This also means the [...]

7 Tips to an Easy Home That Won’t Overwhelm!

By Lauren Lewis
RJ & Makay posted this

Would it Simplify Life to Declutter Your Home? The more things we have it our homes – the more things that are taking up valuable space and the more things we have to keep up with. This also means the more items that can be used to make a mess with – that must be cleaned up later. Wouldn’t it just be more simple – to just have less stuff?

Sure – but how to we get to that point. Here are seven tips to help get the amount of “Stuff” in your home down to a more manageable size.

1. Pick one room to begin it. Choose the one that you would really like to see decluttered the most.
2. Get a trash bag, box, laundry basket and kitchen timer.
3. Set the timer for 15 minutes (we can usually stand to do anything for 15 mins.). START – put trash in the bag, things you know you do not want in the box and items that belong in another room in the basket.
4. Begin in one corner of the room and work around the walls first – middle of the room last.
5. When the timer goes off – throw the trash out, put the items in the basket in their correct rooms. If the box is full – tape it up and label it “give” – if it is not full – save it for the next pass.
6. Repeat this 15 minute pass until everything is out of the room except the items that you really want to keep there.
7. Then you will only need to organize the items that truly belong in that space!

If you do these small steps over and over – you will have your home decluttered without feeling like you have taken on a huge overwhelming project.

Here is collection of RJ & Makay blogs links:

RJ & Makay Guidelines
RJ & Makay Economy Tips
Energy conservation advice by RJ & Makay
RJ & Makay Career Branding Articles
Professional Speaking Blog by RJ & Makay

How Do I Unsubscribe From This Newsletter
We're pretty proud of our monthly newsletters, and of our privacy policy that respects your digital rights. However, we've recieved several emails asking why, when an email address has been unsubscribed from our mailing lists, it's still receiving our monthly newsletter.

Show No Mercy (in the Edit Room)
I realize the moviccino adventures in the production of UnderCover has sort of died down. I have a few cool videos that I still need to post, but it’s mainly been an extremely sloooow editing process that’s been requiring a huge build up to a more exciting post. But this post isn’t it. This is [...]

I realize the moviccino adventures in the production of UnderCover has sort of died down. I have a few cool videos that I still need to post, but it’s mainly been an extremely sloooow editing process that’s been requiring a huge build up to a more exciting post. But this post isn’t it. This is just an update.

Here’s where things stand. Iman (the director) and I have been editing off and on since January. It’s kind of comical. One week I’ll be out of town, then I’ll come back and Iman will be gone. This project is definitely not a 4 month edit job, but it just kind of ended up that way because, you know, work expands to fill the allotted of time.

So we’ve been editing, working some magic, but now we’ve gotten to the point where we’ve done all the magic we can and the verdict is out on what works and what doesn’t. For all the things that don’t, we’re going back on set next week to do pick-ups - basically re-filming scenes that don’t work or filming new or rewritten scenes to clarify story and plot points that aren’t making sense (including going back to the pig farm).

This week, though, we showed a cut to the Associate Dean and basically he put into actions things that had been bothering me but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Bottom line was things weren’t working and they just needed to be cut. And by taking out some mediocre jokes it makes the better jokes even more better and stand out more.

So yesterday, the day after he saw the cut (which was the first time I had seen it in a few weeks), I went in armed with a hatchet and showed no mercy. The film was 21 minutes when I came in. 4 hours later it was down to 18 - and this is after we’ve been working on it since January. As Faulkner would say, you’ve got to “kill all your darlings.”

The Software Developer's Press Release FAQ - part 1 of 5
Since the birth of the commercial software industry in the late 1960's, press releases have been an essential part of every software developer's toolbox. Press releases are an inexpensive way to generate interest and excitement about your software, ultimately resulting in more software sales.

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Objectified - Design Pr0n
“Every object tells a story if you know how to read it” -Henry Ford Everything is designed. Some one, some where put some sort of thought into the design of whatever object you’re using. Yes, some put more thought into it than others, but no object that you use ended up the way it is by [...]

“Every object tells a story if you know how to read it” -Henry Ford

Everything is designed. Some one, some where put some sort of thought into the design of whatever object you’re using. Yes, some put more thought into it than others, but no object that you use ended up the way it is by chance, and that is the subject of Objectified - our interaction with the objects we use everyday and the people who designed them.

I love design. Design, architecture, typography. Objectified is the second film from Gary Hustwit, his first being Helvetica, one of my favs.

The thing I love about both films is it makes you stop and analyze what you pass by every day. Helvetica is one of the most common fonts that you see hundreds of times a day, yet never thinking about…until, of course, you see Helvetica.

Objectified does the same with the design of industrial objects. It mainly features the companies and designers that are putting out the best designed products and their thoughts on what design should do and where it’s going.

Basically it’s a film starring Apple, IKEA, and IDEO, you know, the titans of great design.

It’s great to see a film like this in a festival because you’re with a great audience, the kind of audience that erupts into applause when one of the interviewees states there’s only one company that’s consistently putting out great design, and that company is Apple.

I met Gary before the film screened. The only thing I could manage to think of to say was, “I love Helvetica.” I know, very witty and insightful. But then I think of what would happen if any normal person met Gary, say, my mom.

“You make films? What’s your film?”

“Helvetica. It’s about the font.”

“Oh…You made a film about a font?”

Objectified illustrated by Austin Kleon (via Objectified)

Gary said he’s working on a third film to sort of round out this design trilogy, though no word on the subject matter.

College on a Kodak Brownie
I like collecting old cameras. I mainly get them at antique stores. I have only three requirements: they have to be under $10, they have to look cool, and they have to work. Most cameras I come across do work. If you think about it there isn’t much to go wrong. A little lever pushes a [...]

I like collecting old cameras. I mainly get them at antique stores. I have only three requirements: they have to be under $10, they have to look cool, and they have to work.

Most cameras I come across do work. If you think about it there isn’t much to go wrong. A little lever pushes a spring which pops open a shutter. No complicated gizmos or electronics to break. Just light hitting a negative; photography at its most basic. And that’s what I love about old cameras.

So about a month ago I found a really cool looking Kodak Brownie Super 27 that takes 127 film. This is the smaller version of roll film, though still larger than 35mm. I had a few rolls lying around that I’d gotten as a gift years ago. Turns out they were three years expired, but I figured what the hell.

I walked around campus, photographing some of the architectural attempts at 60s modern design. I had two choices for aperture - big hole or little hole. 12 frames, that’s it. It’s nice to have restrictions.

Possibly more exciting than shooting on film again was going back in the darkroom. Through my friend Ali I managed to crash the campus darkroom for free, and develop the negatives. I hadn’t been in a darkroom for a few years, though I have my own enlarger and everything and vow to one day live in a place that has a closet for a darkroom. The smell of developer was wonderful.

I scanned the negatives using just a regular flatbed scanner, inverted them, and then adjusted the levels to get a decent print. That’s the only Photoshop work done. Everything else is all from a 40 year old camera and some expired film.

View more from the roll on Flickr

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Does Your Competition Set Your Agenda?
I hope that most people reading this article are running successful businesses. And I hope that all of you have some competition. It's one of the basic laws of the business universe that when people have a need, companies will respond with products and services. The greater the need, the more companies will come flocking.

Objectified Q&A [New Podcast Series]
So I’m starting a Coffee and Celluloid Podcast series. Well, hopefully it’ll turn into a series. The catalyst for starting this is I recorded a few of the question and answer sessions from Full Frame, and I figured the best way to share that with you is through a podcast. So the first few episodes [...]

So I’m starting a Coffee and Celluloid Podcast series. Well, hopefully it’ll turn into a series. The catalyst for starting this is I recorded a few of the question and answer sessions from Full Frame, and I figured the best way to share that with you is through a podcast. So the first few episodes will just be Q&As from different films. In the longer term (but no promises) I hope to turn it into an interview series with interviews of filmmakers, photographers, and other cool people.

Episode 1 - Objectified

This first episode is from Objectified, directed by Gary Hustwit. You can download the episode from the link above. I’ll get this listed on iTunes soon.

The music is by El Ten Eleven.

This podcast episode has a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license. Basically you can share and reuse this episode however you like, but all I ask is that in return you also share it and you either credit me, Joey Daoud, or Coffee and Celluloid by linking back to this page.

Sorry For The Test Post
but i’m checking to see if Google is indexing my site again… looks like I had some redirect issues of GoogleBot which I’ll talk about once things get cleaned up…  Will be back very soon!

but i’m checking to see if Google is indexing my site again… looks like I had some redirect issues of GoogleBot which I’ll talk about once things get cleaned up…  Will be back very soon!

So I can’t get enough of “Trust Me” on TNT
I’m a sucker for any show that takes place in Chicago and doesn’t try to depict Wrigley Field being across the street from the Sears Tower. Lately, the Chicago-based show that has been getting a lot of attention in our house has been Trust Me on the TNT Network. While taking place in Chicago and [...]

I’m a sucker for any show that takes place in Chicago and doesn’t try to depict Wrigley Field being across the street from the Sears Tower. Lately, the Chicago-based show that has been getting a lot of attention in our house has been Trust Me on the TNT Network.

While taking place in Chicago and all of the references to local places (Mia Francesca, Potbelly’s, etc) is great and very cool to see, the dialog and overall “feel” for the show is what keeps my wife and I coming back and looking forward to it’s on (this is probably the only show that we actually “watch” the night that it’s broadcast).  If you haven’t checked it out yet, it’s well worth going out of your way to check out.

If you’re a fan of fast-dialog and inter-office “dramedy” (as we call it in the “biz”), Trust Me might be the show for you…

I so want a Plush Jobs
Can someone PLEASE buy me this? :)

Can someone PLEASE buy me this? :)

I’ll Be at WordPress Chicago
I’m going to be at WordCamp Chicago this weekend… If you see me, say hi! :)

I’m going to be at WordCamp Chicago this weekend… If you see me, say hi! :)

Do I do Gnomedex this year?
I’m feeling the need to be at Gnomedex again this year. I missed last year and am kicking myself since. I feel that I need that technological “reboot” more than ever but the big question is should I make the investment? Thinking out loud, it is an investment in myself… Now you got me thinking…  [...]

I’m feeling the need to be at Gnomedex again this year. I missed last year and am kicking myself since.

I feel that I need that technological “reboot” more than ever but the big question is should I make the investment? Thinking out loud, it is an investment in myself…

Now you got me thinking…  What to do…  Decisions, decisions…

and just as I get into a show…
TNT cancels Trust Me… The story of my life… :)

TNT cancels Trust Me… The story of my life… :)

I think I need to revisit Getting Real by 37signals
I read Getting Real by 37signals a few years back when it was just released and if I had dependable search for my website (which is another story / blog post in itself) I could possibly point you to some of my previous thoughts on the book… Regardless, Getting Real is all about simplifying the typical [...]

I read Getting Real by 37signals a few years back when it was just released and if I had dependable search for my website (which is another story / blog post in itself) I could possibly point you to some of my previous thoughts on the book…

Regardless, Getting Real is all about simplifying the typical software project and lately a lot from what I remember from the book (reading it several years ago) has been popping back up into my mind based upon some current projects that I’m involved in.

A quote that I have carried with me from reading the book several years ago is in Chapter 5 - “Start With No”:

Innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It’s about saying NO to all but the most crucial features.
- Steve Jobs

You can buy Getting Real directly from 37signals at http://gettingreal.37signals.com or read it online for free over at http://gettingreal.37signals.com/toc.php

I think this is going to be next on my reading list (after trying to wrap up some of these projects)… :)

*Yaaawwwn*
I'm tired. Plain exhausted, really. Have I mentioned that the newest little pumpkin doesn't like to sleep? He doesn't. EVER. Combine the lack of z's with my horrible eating habits, and it was bound to catch up with me sometime....

I'm tired. Plain exhausted, really. Have I mentioned that the newest little pumpkin doesn't like to sleep? He doesn't. EVER. Combine the lack of z's with my horrible eating habits, and it was bound to catch up with me sometime. I caught the sniffles about a month ago, which then turned into a sinus infection, leaving this momma even more drained (and boogery! ICK!!) than ever.  I'm seriously just now getting back on top of things. Phew.

I did a boutique this past weekend-- lots of fun, but I have LOTS of stuff left over. I'd made a bunch of these cute little girl sized *apron skirts* thinking people would love them, and none of them sold. Not one! And they are sooo adorable. Serves me right for thinking! ;) Anyhow, I'll list them in the shop, along with a new apron. I hope you'll like them!

OH!! I almost forgot!! The "Nie" apron--  I've been meaning to mention this forever. THANK YOU to all who purchased both aprons and kits. I received so many kind and generous emails of people wanting to buy more. I wish so badly that I had more of the fabric and could've made many, many more. Unfortunately it was out of print and no where to be found. I will, however, be putting another "Nie" inspired design up very soon. It won't be with Thursday's update, but I promise it'll be soon, along with another special apron-themed announcement of how you can help.

Ok, I'm really going now. Before I do, any advice to get T-bug to sleep? I swear we've tried everything we know of with no luck. Swing, Babywise, co-sleeping, white noise...   

prayers please
If you're the praying type, please say a little one for our sweet Teague Andrew-- we just found out he has to have surgery tomorrow on his little tummy. :( THANK YOU, sweet friends!!! Kim ** Update: We're home, and...

If you're the praying type, please say a little one for our sweet Teague Andrew-- we just found out he has to have surgery tomorrow on his little tummy.  :(
THANK YOU, sweet friends!!!
Kim

** Update: We're home, and everything is going well. Baby Teague did GREAT and is getting back to normal. Thank you so much for all of your prayers, emails, and phone calls. It's so comforting to have such supportive and loving friends and family. Love you all!**

The least I can do
Every so often, while blog surfing, I click on a link and immediately feel a sense of kinship. Almost as if a long lost sister's been found. This is how I felt when I started reading "The NieNie Dialogues" over...

Every so often, while blog surfing, I click on a link and immediately feel a sense of kinship. Almost as if a long lost sister's been found. This is how I felt when I started reading "The NieNie Dialogues" over a year ago.  Stepha'nie' so beautifully shares little glimpses into her life-- Passion for her 4 small children, good cooking, posh decorating, and fabulous red lipstick worn during romantic dates with her darling husband... She's absolutely INSPIRING in every sense of the word. Unfortunately, sometimes very bad things happen to good people. Dear Stephanie and her new pilot husband were in a plane crash last weekend. I've just been sick about it, and continue to pray for them constantly. It breaks my heart for the pain they've been through, and will continue to go through over the next many, many months as they heal. (You can read about their progress here. Thank you, C. Jane, for keeping us updated!!) As we can all imagine, in a situation like this the hospital bills are sure to be horrendous! There have been donation accounts set up on their behalf and I'd love to help in any way I can.

I'd be just tickled if you want to help me in giving! There are new aprons/kits over in the shop.

Have a beautiful and SAFE weekend, friends~
Kim

***Update: Oh my good gracious! All the 'Nie' aprons sold (and then some!!!) by 10:00 a.m. Entire bolts of fabric all used up-- POOF!  THANK YOU, from the bottom of my heart! I'll put more up very soon.***

***LAST update, I swear! (Sorry bloglines and google-reader users! ;) I should've mentioned this before: If you'd like to kindly donate directly to the Nielson family, you can do so by clicking on this cute button.

Ding, ding, ding
We have a winner! Chosen by random number generator, who said: This spring I am grateful for any sun spots we get. I love all the beautiful flowers blooming too. Posted by: Jessica Bills | April 19, 2009 at 11:06...

We have a winner! Chosen by random number generator,

who said:
This spring I am grateful for any sun spots we get. I love all the beautiful flowers blooming too.

Thanks to all who entered! Looks like there are lots of us love spring blossoms and sunshine.  Speaking of shine, my littlest one is sporting his very first "SHINER". (Cheesy segue, I know.) Poor bug bonked on the entertainment armoire last night. Wobbly and exceptionally short legs + shaky balance+ a busy Mommy making dinner = The perfect storm for a black eye. *sigh* Is it just me, or is it a miracle the 3rd one even survives?? Poor little honey...

Ok, email me, Jessica, and I'll get your apron packed right up and shipped off. :)

5 pounds of pure sweetness
I should have known something was amiss when I felt the uncontrollable urge to make baby blankets...he was coming WAAAAAY sooner than expected. I think they call it "nesting", which makes me think of a mama bird frantically gathering as...

I should have known something was amiss when I felt the uncontrollable urge to make baby blankets...he was coming WAAAAAY sooner than expected.  I think they call it "nesting", which makes me think of a mama bird frantically gathering as many twigs as she can to prepare for her new little chicks. That's exactly how I felt, though TERRIFIED at the same time.  Yep, frantic and terrified is exactly how I'd describe it. Placental abruption, pain, contractions...it was too soon! But this sweet little babe is absolutely PERFECT. He's a teensy-tinsy little bug, born at just 36 weeks-- 5 lbs 7 ounces, 18 inches, with the most adorable button nose and furry little cheeks that I could nuzzle all day. Oh, I am in LOVE! He's doing wonderfully: eats, sleeps, and poops like a champ, and hardly makes a peep. Now if only we could decide on a name...

.....................................................

For all those who so kindly placed apron/kit orders, I'm doing my best to get them all out ASAP. As you can imagine, the little dude put a rather large kink in my plans and I'm moving a bit slower due to the c-section. The kits will all finish going out tomorrow, and I'm hoping to have the rest of the ready-mades completed soon! Please don't hesitate to email me with any questions or concerns. My sincerest apologies for taking so long.

p.s. THANK YOU, Jayne, for making the previous post. Love ya chicka!!

Happy Easter
I wanted to pop in quick and wish you all a very happy Easter. It's been far too long and I miss you, my old blogging friends. Check back next week for an overdue surprise. (<------ yes, that was an...
I wanted to pop in quick and wish you all a very happy Easter.  It's been far too long and I miss you, my old blogging friends. Check back next week for an overdue surprise.  (<------ yes, that was an official teaser.)


He's gotten a bad rap, poor little Tay-goo. ;) Sure, the babe never sleeps, but you can't tell me he's not sweet! He's 5 months old tomorrow. Can you believe it? FIVE MONTHS! -Already 15 pounds! -Reaches out to grab...

He's gotten a bad rap, poor little Tay-goo. ;) Sure, the babe never sleeps, but you can't tell me he's not sweet!

He's 5 months old tomorrow. Can you believe it? FIVE MONTHS!
-Already 15 pounds!
-Reaches out to grab things
-Likes to suck on his BIG TOE!
-Rolls from back to tummy
-Not quite sure about the rice cereal
-Hates baths
-Loves snuggles

And can you guess what my favorite part is?? Yep, that smooshie little dimple in his left cheek.

**crossing fingers**
Everything is set to post at noon. I sure hope this works!! Email me if you have any trouble at all seeing the goods. Here's a funny for the day- I received a call yesterday reminding me of Gray &...

Everything is set to post at noon. I sure hope this works!! Email me if you have any trouble at all seeing the goods.

Here's a funny for the day-
I received a call yesterday reminding me of Gray & Teague's well-baby checks. This 5 second phone call solidified one of my biggest fears, while making me sob with laughter at the same time.

Verbatim:
"Ms. Hendricks?" she asked.
"This is she." I replied
"I'm calling to remind you of Gray and "Tay-goo's" appointments tomorrow." she stuttered.
**busting up laughing so hard I can barely speak** "Thanks!" I squeaked.

"TAY-GOO"?  HA!!  Please tell me you all don't think we named our child "TAY-GOO"!! It's Teague. Just like "league" spelled with a T. You knew that...........right??? *sigh* Oh gads, what have I done?!

I'd cry like this too if my mom named me "TAY-GOO" and shoved me in a basket! :)

Spring Fever
I remember years ago, at least 15, when I used to do gymnastics competitively. It would take months of hard work to master a new trick, and then only a couple weeks vacation to completely lose it all. It seems...

I remember years ago, at least 15, when I used to do gymnastics competitively. It would take months of hard work to master a new trick, and then only a couple weeks vacation to completely lose it all. It seems blogging must be similar as I'm still dusting off my old bag of tricks and getting back into the swing of things.  Please don't mind me as I try and fumble my way around...I'll get the hang of it. Eventually.

I'm still working out the kinks in the surprise I "teased" you with. (I know, LAME!) I just want it to be perfect before I share-- and like I said, I'm a bit rusty. Instead, do you mind a giveaway?  It's been so cold here we've all been suffering with horrible spring fever.  Even my winter-loving 3-year-old Gray is saying, "I'm 'borned' (bored!) of snow!!"  It finally warmed up today (60 beautiful degrees) and we were able to get out and enjoy the sunshine. On our walk Olivia and I both shared what we were grateful for-- Me: the crocus blossoms just starting to peek out from under the ground. Olivia: the neighbor's chickens! :) Ahh to be 6 again...

**OK, all you have to do to enter the giveaway is leave a comment sharing something you're thankful for this spring-- it can be anything! Easy-peasy, right? A winner will be drawn randomly next Friday, April 24th. (International readers are welcome.)**

PS,
‘PS comma’ is how to read my little title; it’s a mantra born in my mind just this morning, March 24, Manila time. It is a new mantra for creative thinking; reminiscent of Edward de Bono’s ‘Po’ (no comma), I’m offering it as a mind-blogging phrase for you to mine your gray matter and come [...]

The power of taking action

Yesterday I talked about an easy set up of a new list building opportunity.

Not wanting to be like the shoemaker’s family that has no shoes I decided after lunch Sunday to do exactly what I had told you, my reader, to do. I went to Go Daddy and bought a domain.

The time was 1;16 pm [...]

Yesterday I talked about an easy set up of a new list building opportunity.

Not wanting to be like the shoemaker’s family that has no shoes I decided after lunch Sunday to do exactly what I had told you, my reader, to do. I went to Go Daddy and bought a domain.

The time was 1;16 pm per the email receipt I got. It is now 3:37 pm Sunday as I lay out this information.

I just received the first confirmed opt in from my very first tweet which I sent at 2;52 pm.

So since I started at about 1pm today I have quickly edited the PLR report by adding a Twitter section that it lacked, linked to a couple items inside the report and added an author bio that points to other products I have.

Then I set up my autoresponder account, added the form to the page and uploaded it. In addition I created two other pages a verification page and a download page. I added bonuses to both of those pages and a discount offer on a product to the download page. Between the bonus products and the discount offer I should be generating cash almost immediately from this. That does not take into consideration any of the land mine links in the actual report.

So the front end system is all done. I have installed the blog but still need to add the theme to match the look of the site and do a quick re-write of the articles targeting the keywords I dug out this morning with Market Samurai and am offering as a bonus. I will tweet the offer a couple times a day using the techniques from Advanced Twitter Marketing for immediate traffic to the page.

Will be posting the articles to the blog over the next few days and get some others targeting the rest of the list written for me. The day after they are posted I will be submitting them to the directories. This will help generate long term traffic for me to this lead generation system.

So I will spend about an hour finsihing things up and in basically 4 hours time have added another lead source to my arsenal.

You can easily do the same thing just go grab the Social Networking PLR Pack and use it. Send me your receipt to http://askmikepaetzold.com and I will give you the list of keywords I am targeting.

If you took three times the length of time I did to set this up (say 12 hours) and did this once a week how long would you take to start generating leads and cash each day?

You can take this system and use any PLR reports to do just this. I really like this one on Social Networking PLR Pack because it is useful for just about niche.

So have you taken action today that will improve your business?

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: list building, plr, PLR pack, taking action, twitter

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Strategy and The Fat Smoker - New podcast episode available now

The eleventh episode of my new podcast series, Strategy and the Fat Smoker, is now live and available for download.

The series is dedicated to exploring the themes found in my new book by the same name. Each chapter will be accompanied by an executive summary ebook covering the same material. I encourage you to forward these to friends and associates who may be interested in the topics covered. If you are already a subscriber to my podcast feed, this pdf will be available in your itunes.

The eleventh episode, A Great Coach in Action, tells and examines a story of exemplary coaching skills.  Often, managers are content to rely on performance appraisals, cold criticism, and appeals to another's sense of personal responsibility towards the organization in order to effect positive change in a persons performance. These approaches seldom work, as we've seen in previous episodes.  In this episode we will describe an approach that does work: ensuring that those in managerial roles have the attitudes, skills, and behaviors of a skilled coach.

NOTES FOR THE EPISODE:
00:37 – Introduction
01:13 – An example of a great coach in action
05:29 – The lessons
22:26 – Last thoughts

You can download A Great Coach in Action or sign up to receive new Business Masterclass seminars automatically with iTunes or other podcast players. (Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe.) My seminars are always available for download at no cost.

Recession Responses

So now comes the test. You're a professional firm, with a variety of pracrice areas or target industries. Due to turmoil in the markets, business is down (or is forecast to be down) in one or more of our major areas. What do you do?

Choice One: Lay off some of the junior staff, thereby cutting costs to keep them in line with declining revenues.

Choice Two: Have the partners take a "haircut" (ie reduced profitability) and continue to show loyalty to the juniors by keeping them busy with whatever work we *do* have (ie delegating as much as possible) and using the relative underutilization of partner time to free them up to go out and and work against the weak year (ie client service, marketing and selling.)

• Guess which one most firms are going to do?
• Guess which approach builds a more profitable firm over time?
• For extra points: how much is this decision really going to be affected by firms declared programs for retaining scarce staff in the war for talent?

Get ready for a dropping of the facade of idealism and principle, and a return to the pragamatics of sustaining short-term earnings at all cost.

As always, I have to stress that this is not a moral issue but one of pragmatics. If one of your key competitive issues is attracting and retaining key staff, how can you have a policy of laying them off (or "asking them to re-apply to another part of the firm", as one firm describes it) at the first sign of trouble?

Do You Kindle?

A couple of weeks ago I received my Kindle from Amazon - an electronic book.

I love it already.

I love the fact that if I want a book, I can have it within less than a minute or two, downloaded wirelessly. No longer do I have to wait for overnight delivery.

If I'm doing some research, I can download four or five books that seem to be relevant, quickly skim them (the machine is GREAT for skimming) and then only order (if at all) the hardback or paperback that I want to have on my shelf. (My shelves are already saying Thank You)

I can set the type size to what I find easiest, rather than what the book publisher chose.

I can get on a plane or be stuck in a hotel room with a wide variety of reading matter, ready (like my iPod) to switch to something else according to mood. No more last-minute scurrying to wonder what I'm going to pack for the trip, and no more buying trash at the airport bookstall because that's all they have.

I have subscribed to the Kindle version of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, so I have my own copy, even if the hotel I'm stuck in on the road either doesn't stock them or has run out.

I'm hooked!

Satisfaction Guaranteed

For more than a decade, I have preached (and practiced) the policy of giving all clients an unconditional satisfaction guarantee. Most of my clients have thought the idea impractical and idealistic.

So, I was delighted to be made aware of the Valorem Law Group 

who make this statement on their website:

“If you’re interested in seeing whether we are right for you and your team, try us on a matter. What separates us from our competitors is that you have our value promise on every invoice. If you don’t think we’re worth the amount you agreed to pay, you make whatever adjustment you think is necessary. If your other firms don’t walk that walk, it’s time to try Valorem.”

(Thanks to Gerry Riskin for drawing my attention to this firm)

 

Grow Your Business in 2009 – Five Tips for Success
Well folks, another year is quickly approaching us. Have you thought about your plans to grow your business? Here are five tips to help you expand significantly. 1. Save Money: In this economy, cash is king, and with credit being hard to come by these days, make sure your business has ample cash. This should be [...]

Well folks, another year is quickly approaching us. Have you thought about your plans to grow your business? Here are five tips to help you expand significantly.

1. Save Money: In this economy, cash is king, and with credit being hard to come by these days, make sure your business has ample cash. This should be your top priority, which is why I have listed this at #1. I heard a line the other day: “raise your own round.” All companies can do this simply by leaving no stone unturned. I got sick for nine days in September and it was the best nine days I have ever spent at home sick. It gave me a chance to clear my mind and pour over our financials. I was not distributed by phone calls and the day-to-day tasks of running the business. Maybe getting sick isn’t ideal, but think about getting away for a couple of days and focusing solely on saving money. I put a plan into action during that time that ultimately led me to save mobileStorm close to $40,000 a month. I looked any possible redundancies, I looked at vendors we were spending too much on and asked them for discounts, and we got rid of services we didn’t really use or even realize we weren’t using. The most important thing you can do right now is get profitable. Read my previous post on tips for saving money.

2. Conserve cash flow: Make sure you have ample cash flow by following these simple rules.

• Delay vendor payments: Don’t pay that net 30 in 15 days. Pay your vendors at the last possible due date. And/or…
• Ask for early payment discounts: Talk with your vendors and see if they will provide you with a discount to pay when they need the money.
• Lease stuff: Instead of buying that next server, look into a leasing program. Yes, you end up paying more in the long run, but at least you will have more cash now, which is definitely worth the fees.
• Get aggressive credit: Having a line with the bank certainly helps cash flow. It’s tough right now to get any credit, but banks cannot stop lending; this is their core business model. There are banks out there that are willing to help you–you just need to seek them out.

3. Outline your goals: How much do you want to gross in 2009? How much do you want to net? What products do you plan on launching? Who do you want to hire? What do you need to fix? Even though these things might be in your head, write them down and even put target dates next to everything. Challenge yourself to meet these goals and have your board or advisors beat you over the head and hold you to them.

4. Learn something new: Take an online course in something at which you need to be more proficient. If you lack organization or project management skills, become better at it by either reading a great book like “Getting Things Done” and sticking to the principles or take an online course. As a business owner, you don’t have the luxury of always having the right talent around to learn from. You should always be growing and learning new things personally. A lot of business owners are not great at understanding financial information such as balance sheets or cash flow reports. Challenge yourself to become an expert in an area so crucial to your business. But remember, as the CEO, you don’t need to know it all, just learn enough so you can understand and ask the right questions. Then when you can afford it, hire some bad ass.

5. Sell: Never forget the best sales person at your company is you. Do not make the mistake I did and have your pipeline disappear because you get too involved in something else. You should have a goal to make a certain number of phone calls/emails per day. I always spend the first hour I get in going through my inbox; then I spend the rest of the day (until about 3pm) on the phone closing. Only after that do I work on product development or marketing initiatives. ABC–always be closing!

I hope everyone kills it next year. Except my competitors, I hope you lose lots of business to us.

Love,

Jared Reitzin
Small Business Help

Taking Care of Customers
I had an important experience lately that proved how important it is to take care of your customers. A small business customer of ours got into a situation in which they went significantly over their plan and owed us quite a bit of money. They received the automatic invoice we send out alerting them of [...]

I had an important experience lately that proved how important it is to take care of your customers. A small business customer of ours got into a situation in which they went significantly over their plan and owed us quite a bit of money. They received the automatic invoice we send out alerting them of the amount they went over their plan and what they owed us. The lady in charge emailed us in a bit of a panic; she didn’t realize how much of our service they used. I had two choices to make: the first is just charge them what they legally owe us; the second was to call them up and work out a deal with them. I chose the latter and it really paid off.

Let’s do some math (these numbers are fictitious). Let’s say they paid us $100 per month for service, and their overages were $600. If I would have just charged them the additional $600, I would have made a good chunk of change that is equivalent to six months of their service. Their contract was up the following month. Based upon their financial situation, I could almost guarantee you that they would have cancelled service. So I would have made $600, but lost their business. By calling them up and working out a deal with them, I was still able to get some money in overages because, let’s face it, we have our hard cost, and I was able to increase their agreement for another 12 months. So instead of losing the client the following month and only making $600, I am now able to keep the customer on for another 12 months, making an additional $600.

But money aside, so many other good things came out of this that I would not have ever imagined. By personally calling them up and talking them through their dilemma, it showed that I cared (which I do). I was able to lower their costs which made them so happy it triggered a series of other events.

I had to take a trip to Miami recently where this company is headquartered. I reached out to this company to let them know I was coming into town for a convention and offered to meet them in person and grab a drink. They were so thankful that I helped them out that they told me to not make any hotel reservations because they were going to comp us two nights at one of the top hotels in South Beach. But wait–it gets better. The people I met turned out to be really kind and gracious. They not only took care of our hotel rooms, but they took us out, bought us drinks, and even introduced me to contacts at four other companies, all of which I am currently in communication with to switch their providers to mobileStorm.

I got so much more than I asked for and it simply stemmed from caring about each and every customer no matter the size. By being proactive, I not only earned a customer for life, but I received more than I ever imagined when I first picked up the phone to give them a call.
During these hard economic times, it’s important that you get creative. If your overhead is $.75, it’s much better to make a dollar than nothing at all. Challenge yourself to get creative with your customers and keep them happy, because if you won’t, the competition will.

Jared Reitzin
Entrepreneur Tips

"Give a Copy to Management" Campaign Closing

Due to the overwhelming success of my "Give a Copy to Management" campaign, I wanted to let everyone know that I am closing the offer, and will be taking no more requests.

I received MANY more requests than the initial 100 I planned to offer, and from all corners of the globe! Since I don't want to disappoint anyone who wished to circulate my ideas in their workplace, I've made the following decision:

I will be sending out 100 books as hardbacks, as offered. Beyond that, for the many other people who have requested a book, I'm going to send a copy of Strategy and the Fat Smoker in its ebook form, totally free (I normally sell this for $11.99).

The books will all be shipping out over the next couple of weeks, and everyone that submitted will be receiving their special preview copy of the executive summary ebook.

Many thanks for your participation.

I Am Hosting Webinar On Mobile Coupons
If you are interested to learn how to make money with mobile coupons, I am hosting a webinar on November 11th at 11am PST. Here is the press release: Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) – mobileStorm Inc. (www.mobilestorm.com), a leading provider of digital marketing solutions and services, will present a free webinar on how mobile coupons can [...]

If you are interested to learn how to make money with mobile coupons, I am hosting a webinar on November 11th at 11am PST. Here is the press release:

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) – mobileStorm Inc. (www.mobilestorm.com), a leading provider of digital marketing solutions and services, will present a free webinar on how mobile coupons can boost B2C sales during a difficult retail season

“If you could design a perfect marketing promotion it would have these characteristics: Immediate reach; 100% (or close) attention from the recipient; being trackable directly to a specific action by that specific target; customized to the target’s wants and needs; and an extremely high ROI with low startup and ongoing costs,” said Jared Reitzin, founder of mobileStorm. “Guess what? Mobile coupons do this and more.”

The webinar, “Making Money with Mobile Coupons,” is scheduled for 11 a.m. November 11, 2008 (Pacific time) and will be led by Mr. Reitzin. To register, please go to https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/846137529. The discussion will focus on how the integration of mobile coupons into marketing campaigns can maximize revenue for small- to medium-sized businesses. Attendees will also receive specifics on how to launch a mobile coupon campaign, expected start-up costs, and success stories of companies using mobile coupons today.

Topics to be addressed include:

• Consumer response to coupon offers sent to mobile phones.
• Using mobile couponing to increase sales and support consumer loyalty programs.
• Best practices for SMS mobile coupon campaigns.
• Choosing the right SMS coupon technology.

Mobile coupons are an ideal way to encourage spending during an economic crunch. mobileStorm Coupon Management is a complete, do-it-yourself digital coupon creation and distribution system for digital marketing campaigns.

Marketing professionals interested in attending the Webinar can sign up by the following methods:

• Email: sales@mobilestorm.com
• Online registration: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/846137529
• Phone: 866-492-7886, ext. 1

My New Webinar Is Up
We just posted my new webinar “Making Money With Mobile Coupons”.  95% of cellphones are text message enabled and 87% of the U.S. now has a cell phone. Mobile coupons are poised for  tremendous growth over the next few years. A recent Juniper Research study says that coupons delivered and redeemed via mobile phones are forecast [...]

We just posted my new webinar “Making Money With Mobile Coupons”.  95% of cellphones are text message enabled and 87% of the U.S. now has a cell phone. Mobile coupons are poised for

 tremendous growth over the next few years. A recent Juniper Research study says that coupons delivered and redeemed via mobile phones are forecast to be used by some 200 million mobile subscribers globally by 2013. If you have thought about getting into mobile marketing, this really is the perfect promotional channel and I think I do a decent job painting this picture. Visit the URL below, fill out some info on the left hand form and enjoy!

Watch Now!

5 Ways to Get Inspired
Staying inspired over a long period of time is not the easiest thing for an entrepreneur to do. Take this blog for instance. I love sharing my thoughts, ideas, and experience, but it’s not always easy to pick up the laptop and bang out an article. Actually, it can be downright difficult, which is why [...]

Staying inspired over a long period of time is not the easiest thing for an entrepreneur to do. Take this blog for instance. I love sharing my thoughts, ideas, and experience, but it’s not always easy to pick up the laptop and bang out an article. Actually, it can be downright difficult, which is why most blogs have a short shelf life and probably why Twitter is growing by leaps and bounds. If you want to become successful, you need to stay the course. To stay the course, you need to constantly stay inspired, even if it is only a quick burst to get you through the next task. The following five things (in no particular order), inspire and fire me up:

1. Listening to good music: This might seem like an obvious one, but that’s because it is. Not only is it obvious, but music is incredibly powerful. It has made people kill before, and fall in love, and with some songs, both at the same time. So why couldn’t music help get your creative juices flowing? When you have some free time, put together three playlists for three different moods (amped, mellow, and bored) of songs that just rock your world. As I write this, I am listening to Daft Punk’s “Harder, Faster, Stronger.” The next track coming up is “Sea Legs” by the Shins. This article flows quickly and words come easily.

2. Reading: There is nothing like reading a good article to help put things in perspective. While I love reading great books, l look for the quick inspiration in a magazine article. Nothing should fire you up more as an entrepreneur than reading about an amazing success story. Recently, I picked up the latest issue of Inc. and read an article about the founder and CEO of Zappos.com. I had recently been on this kick of how to continue to improve the mobileStorm culture and after reading about what Tony Hsieh did with his company, it truly inspired me to approach culture from a different angle. I like to keep articles like this around that I can quickly access when I need a jump start. Bookmark a bunch of great articles and store them in a folder called “clear!”.

3. Checking out the competition: If this doesn’t light a fire under your ass, nothing will. Don’t just check out any competitor–study the one you admire the most. There is a company in my space (I won’t mention any names) who just gets it. They have made their service incredibly easy to use and understand. They also have a ton of resources and articles for the small business owner. I always seem to work really hard two minutes after leaving their site.

4. Calling friends or family: I hope everyone has a family member or a friend he can lean on. Having a good conversation with someone who believes in you can really lift your spirits, especially when it is coming from someone you admire. I am blessed with a number of high-profile businessmen who are sincere about my success, and a wife who always knows how to make me feel special.

5. Thinking about a future product: I love imagining what my new website will look like, or how our next version of software will function. Your imagination can run so wild, it would give your product manager a heart attack. The best part about daydreaming is that there are no boundaries. I love to start thinking about features that are not possible to develop anytime soon. I think about how they would work and how many big deals I could close as a result. It definitely gets the juices flowing and fires me up for the future.

Web Optimization Update
Web Optimization <--- See this post! Doing a Google search for 'blogs that make money' I kinda noticed that I'm in the #1 spot again! On Halloween of 07 not realizing I hit number one I started goofing with my links and what not. I removed a bunch of links and changed a some titles but also learned some new SEO tricks of the trade. At last they have all indexed and I've had a fair amount of SEO that I was tinkering with so today well you can see for yourself:




The most important part of SEO is patience! I was not shooting to be on top right away I knew if continued to work what I have learned eventually it would happen. :)

Also my organic search is up by 10%!

What did I do:

Exercised Patience - This cannot be stated enough. Just do what you are supposed to be doing and your efforts will off shoot an outcome that you had been working towards.

I'll read some SEOs asking "why haven't my links indexed yet?" Well they are only a day or week old so give it some time. Instead of worrying about it either link to sites that are already indexed or sit on your new posts and eventually they will show up in the serps.

Restructured Backlinks - Do you comment market? I do and I mainly blog on older blog posts that have been around for a few weeks. Not like it matters but it helps. I also rearranged my internal links and changed some of the titles to reflect the keywords I was looking to bank on.

Keywords - Like I said my organic search results have gone up 10% since November and just 6% in the past three weeks. I like to pride myself on being better at keyword research than other SEO things as I use a mix of highly competitive and keywords with low competition.

Followed My Own Advice - Obviously most of what I have learned I got elsewhere. I just happen to be an observant person and if people say it works you should probably be doing what works. My one piece of knowledge I would pass on is pick and choose what works for YOU! I still hear people rave about article marketing. Perhaps it works for them but I find it to be too time consuming and would rather keep my intellectual property for myself. It works, just not for me.

What worked for me? Making useful lists like Blog Marketing Tools or post with specifics like How to Get Backlinks One Way or the importance of simple SEO methods like Dofollow or Nofollow? That is the Question. These posts have been shared, bookmarked and passed around. Not to tens of thousands of readers but to enough to give me some honorable backlinks and mentions.

So there you have it. I no doubt think that my site will slip here and there but I've taught myself more and implemented tenfold my tactics since October 07 so I will keep you all posted. :)

Tell me what you think!

Like what you see here? Subsribe to my RSS. :)

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