blogging tools

Marketing with Google Knol
Google just released Knol - and the pundits are touting it as a wikipedia killer already. So what is Knol and should you pay attention to it? What is Knol? Knol is a Google project where users write authoritative articles on specific subjects and publish them at knol.google.com Its not like wikipedia.com because: 1. Its not completely open source. [...]

Google just released Knol - and the pundits are touting it as a wikipedia killer already. So what is Knol and should you pay attention to it?

What is Knol?

Knol is a Google project where users write authoritative articles on specific subjects and publish them at knol.google.com

Its not like wikipedia.com because:

1. Its not completely open source. Others can’t edit the articles you publish without your consent. So in that way, its more like squidoo.com than wikipedia.com

2.  The article URLs are in the format of
http://www.knol.google.com/k/[username]/[article-title]

So it seems like more than one person can write an authoritative article on the same topic - unlike on wikipedia.

So Should You Pay Attention to Knol?

One word answer: Yes.

Although historically, Google hasn’t given a lot of weight to pages created by others on the Google network (eg: on GooglePages and Blogger) - it seems like they have changed tracks for their Knol project.

More than half of the Featured Knols rank in the first page of Google for their titles!

• How to Backpack - Google Rank #4
• Tooth Pain - Google Rank #3
• Toilet Clogs - Google Rank #4

The other un-featured Knols aren’t doing too good at the moment.  But seems like that will change soon.

On top of that, Google also shares Adsense revenue that are shown on your Knols pages.

So my prediction is that the Squidoo.com lens writers are going to jump on the Knol bandwagon in droves!  I personaly will be creating new Knol pages before creating Squidoo Lenses too (but I’m not totally giving up on Squidoo just yet).

Action Summary:

• Create your own knol for your blog
• But don’t try to make it an ad for your blog. Follow Google’s Good Knol Writing guidelines
• Reference other sites and links within your knol. Write your Knol like you are writing an article for a science journal
• Because the goal is to become one of the Google’s Featured Knol and enjoy a lot of traffic to your blog through the knol

Speed PPC: PPC 72,500% Faster…
Reduce 145 hours work into 12 minutes worth… Click to watch the Video Evidence!!

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BarCamp Mumbai
Sorry for the late notice. I’ll be attending the BarCamp Mumbai tomorrow (29th March).A� BarCamp Mumbai will also have a BlogCamp Mumbai session for which I may give a brand new presentation. If you’re in or around Mumbai, do plan to visit it.A� Its a free event. A� And these camps and conferences are usually a lot [...]

Sorry for the late notice.

I’ll be attending the BarCamp Mumbai tomorrow (29th March).A� BarCamp Mumbai will also have a BlogCamp Mumbai session for which I may give a brand new presentation.

If you’re in or around Mumbai, do plan to visit it.A� Its a free event. A� And these camps and conferences are usually a lot of fun.A� You’ll get to meet some great bloggers and entrepreneurs.

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Steve Jobs Helps BlogClout Find Focus
Steve Jobs on Focus: “Apple is a $30 billion company, yet we’ve got less than 30 major products. I don’t know if that’s ever been done before. Certainly the great consumer electronics companies of the past had thousands of products. We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve [...]

Steve Jobs on Focus:

“Apple is a $30 billion company, yet we’ve got less than 30 major products. I don’t know if that’s ever been done before. Certainly the great consumer electronics companies of the past had thousands of products. We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.

“I’m actually as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done. The clearest example was when we were pressured for years to do a PDA, and I realized one day that 90% of the people who use a PDA only take information out of it on the road. They don’t put information into it. Pretty soon cellphones are going to do that, so the PDA market’s going to get reduced to a fraction of its current size, and it won’t really be sustainable. So we decided not to get into it. If we had gotten into it, we wouldn’t have had the resources to do the iPod. We probably wouldn’t have seen it coming.”

(This is a long post… but you deserve an explanation on what is up with BlogClout…)A�

Not posting consistently is the biggest mistake a blogger can make.A� Because when you don’t post consistently, most people don’t complain.A� They just leave.A� And to get these people, you have to work harder than before.

So then why am I not posting consistently over here at BlogClout?A� It has to do with Steve Jobs’s advice.A� Let me explain the whole situation to you:

1.

This blog was started to pre-launch a new blog application.A� I was working on an application similar to “BlogRush” where you could exchange links to blog posts by other bloggers.A� But internal tests showed that the click through rate for the application was dismal.

So I and my team started working on how to improve the click through rate.A� We were testing a feature where the links shown on your blog would be “relevant” - our logarithm would match the title of your page with blog post titles.A� And show only those blog posts that matched well with your page title.

We were also testing on making the post links integrate well with each and every blog.A� Instead of coming out with a widget, we intended to replace the “Related Posts” feature that many blogs have.

But while we were working on these features, John Reese went ahead and came out with BlogRush.A� (It was just one of those things… 2 people on 2 different ends of the world working on a similar idea… and he beat me to it.)

Its my opinion that there is no place for a second BlogRush.A� And so the BlogClout application was scrapped.

2.

After the launch of a competing application, we scrapped the launch of our BlogClout application.A� But I kept this blog going on for some time (and the response was pretty good).A� The problem was… all the initial motivation was gone.

And better projects attracted my attention.

I needed to focus on those other projects (especially one other project that shows great potential and I think will help more people than I could ever help with BlogClout).A� And so I gave very little time to BlogClout.

3.

Good news: The project I’ve been working on since the past few months is about to be launched in the next couple of weeks time.

4.

So what will happen to BlogClout?

After the launch of the other project, I should have some more free time.A� And I plan to pick things up with BlogClout.A� And share some very new cool ideas that I’ve tested that I know no one else is talking about.

But this time, I plan to do things well.A� I plan to bring on another blogger to write for BlogClout.A� So that you’ll have a wider base of ideas.A� And you’ll never be left in a lurch if my attention goes to some other project in the future too.

Action Summary:

If you run a blog and always wanted to share your blogging successes and failures, contact me.A� I am looking for one or two co-bloggers for BlogClout.A� (Its a paid position.)

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Autopilot Traffic: How To Generate Consistent Traffic For Your Blogs
I started adding a mailing list opt-in form to all of my new blogs.  Recently, one of my friends asked me why I still continue with mailing lists and newsletters when blogs and RSS feeds are better?  Here is my answer to him: Mailing Lists Are Still Relevant 1. Even today, close to 50% of the people [...]

I started adding a mailing list opt-in form to all of my new blogs.  Recently, one of my friends asked me why I still continue with mailing lists and newsletters when blogs and RSS feeds are better?  Here is my answer to him:

Mailing Lists Are Still Relevant

1. Even today, close to 50% of the people won’t subscribe to RSS feeds.  This number is higher for non-technical mass-market blogs.

2.  You can set up a series of automatic emails that people receive on subscribing.  So mailing lists can be awesome set it and forget it systems.  And they go a long way in building trust.

3. Mailing lists help in creating a traffic loop.

Whats a Traffic Loop?

Traffic loops are systems that you build that keep on getting traffic to your blog consistently and automatically.  Here is my traffic loop strategy that you can use for your blogs too:

1. Use various tactics to bring traffic to your blog.  Tactics like guest posting, press releases, joint ventures, SEO, article submission etc.

2. Once people visit your blog, ask them to subscribe for your newsletter.

3. As soon as they subscribe,  show them a one-time-offer.  1-10% of your subscribers will end up buying the product based on how good the offer is and how powerful your sales letter is.  Pump the profits you earn from this product into buying ads to promote your blog.  PPC advertising.  Banner ads.  Ads on other blogs.

4.  When people confirm their subscription, forward them to a page where they can see links to other blogs.  And enter into joint ventures with these other blogs so that they send traffic to your blog too.  (You could also show refer-5-friends form on this page too.)

Bullet points #3 & #4 creates the traffic loop for you.  As people who visit your blog result into more people visiting your blog!

#

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Blogger Interview: with Jon of FreelanceFolder.com
In December, I had interviewed Jon of FreelanceFolder.com. Jon had successfully setup a “group blog” - something that I had plans for. But that interview didn’t see the day of light because I’ve been busy with another project of mine and have neglected BlogClout a bit . Better late than never - right? So [...]

In December, I had interviewed Jon of FreelanceFolder.com. Jon had successfully setup a “group blog” - something that I had plans for.

But that interview didn’t see the day of light because I’ve been busy with another project of mine and have neglected BlogClout a bit .

Better late than never - right? So here is the interview with Jon:

1. Can you give a quick introduction of who you are and what you do?

Hello, I’m Jon from Montreal Canada, my blog is located at SmartWealthyRich.com and I also run a multi-author FreelanceFolder.com with a bunch of really skilled writers

I’m a freelance writer, blogger, designer, and a musician.

2. Why did you start Freelance Folder? Did you have any specific goal in mind before you started blogging?

I wanted to start another blog and a multi-author blog was the way to go. I really enjoy starting conversations and networking with other bloggers, so after seeing pretty good results with my first blog I thought the next logical step was to start a multi-author blog.

I didn’t have any specific goal in mind before I started blogging. In fact I had no idea what WordPress was, I just downloaded it 10 months ago, installed it on my server, and voila. Now I have goals, but back then I honestly had no idea what I was getting myself into - hehe

3. How has blogging changed your life?

Well a lot of things happened since I started my first blog. I quit my day job about 3 years ago leaving behind the security of the paycheck every 2 weeks. I now work my own hours, get to improve my writing skills and meet a bunch of cool people online, some of which became business partners.

4. What is the “one” ingredient or idea that played the biggest role in your blogging success?

‘It’s all about the conversations’

That’s sorta like my motto. I just love to engage in discussions with my readers, that’s the single most important thing for me. I always try to write posts that will make people want to leave a comment and connect with other readers. I love it when my readers share their own tips and tricks and give advices, that rocks. It’s all about the conversations.

5. How do you find and attract writers to write for Freelance Folder?

I first posted about it on my own blog which at the time had around 300 readers, and got a really good response. You could say I used this blog as a launch pad for FreelanceFolder. I simply asked my readers if they’d be interested in partnering up with me on a new blog. Some wanted to write on a regular basis while others were interested in writing just a post or two.

I also sent a couple of e-mails to fellow bloggers, but that didn’t work so well. Now I don’t really go out and look for writers, I just let people know I accept guest posts and I put up a ‘write for us’ page on the blog, and I usually receive 2-5 e-mails per week, which is really nice.

6. How do you generate traffic to your blog?

I’m really active on social sites like StumbleUpon (my fave), Digg, Reddit, Del.Icio.Us, and other smaller niche sites. It takes some time to build a profile, but it’s really worth it. I can spend anywhere between half-an-hour to 3 hours per day on social media sites just reading, bookmarking, subscribing, commenting, networking.

7. Whats your secret of getting so many of your posts on the front page of Digg?

I’m probably the one who knows the least what he’s doing. It never really happened I wrote a post especially for the Digg crowd, I know some people specialize in that, but I don’t. I just write and don’t really care about making sure my posts are ‘Digg-worthy’. Pretty much anything can make the Digg frontpage anyway.

One thing I do though is when I see a post is getting some traction on StumbleUpon, I’ll add the Digg button right away. It’s called the ‘domino effect’

• Stumblers see the Digg button and vote your post
• Diggers come to your site and bookmark your post on Del.icio.us
• Del.icio.us users Stumble and Digg your post
• and so on…

8. How do you monetize your blog?

I use different services like text-link-ads (not on FreelanceFolder though) and Google Adsense, but these two don’t generate much revenue. I prefer doing private ad deals. I regularly send e-mails to potential advertisers and just ask them if they’d be interested in advertising on my blog(s), sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes advertisers contact me first.

I also recommend services and products to fellow bloggers (hosting for example) and use different affiliate programs.

9. What does your average day look like? How do you budget your time?

I usually go to sleep really late and wake up… yes, late. I find my most creative time is between 11pm and 3:30am.

Here’s what a ‘typical day’ looks like:

• wake up
• make coffee
• check e-mails
• start reading blogs
• leave for the recording studio (I’m a guitarist)
• check e-mails again
• write/blog/brainstorm
• work on projects for clients (design, paid writing gigs)
• spend some time on social sites
• go out, take some time off
• sleep

It’s like that pretty much 7 days a week

10. Any product / service of yours that you would like my blog readers to know about?

I’m always looking for more work, whether it’s to design or customize a blog, write blog posts or articles, or if you simply need advices about blogging, I may be able to help.

Editors note: If you need to setup a blog - Jon is the guy to go to!

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Making Money With PerformancingAds.com
A new ad program was recently launched: PerformancingAds.com. I’ve been using it for more than 4 days now on 2 of my blogs and I find it better than a few other ad programs I’ve tried out. The genius behind PerformancingAds.com is that they’ve merged 2 ideas together… they’ve merged ad selling together with banner [...]

A new ad program was recently launched: PerformancingAds.com. I’ve been using it for more than 4 days now on 2 of my blogs and I find it better than a few other ad programs I’ve tried out. The genius behind PerformancingAds.com is that they’ve merged 2 ideas together… they’ve merged ad selling together with banner exchanges!

Merging Adspace + Banner Exchange = PerformancingAds.com

When you use PerformancingAds.com but all your ad spots don’t sell, they’ll use the un-sold spots for banner exchange purposes and drive free traffic to your blogs!

PerformancingAds Pros

1. Free Advertising: The biggest benefit of using them is their Exchange Ads feature.  If your ad space isn’t sold, they will use the remnant space for banner exchange purposes. They’ll show other websites ads on the spots.  And in return, you earn credits that can be used to show your ad on other blogs.

2. Book Your Own Spots: Another benefit of PerformancingAds.com is that they allow you to sell or use your own ad spots as you wish. So you could sell ads on your own too. Or promote affiliate programs.

3. Ease of installation. Installation on 2 of my blogs took all of 3 minutes. Its very easy to setup and start running.

PerformancingAds Cons

1. Low Payouts: As a publisher, you only get paid 60% of the ad money. So if you sell $500 worth of ad spots, they keep $200 out of it. (But they do allow you to book your own ad spots too. So you can sell ads privately and then list them up.)

2. Un-Transparency: The ratios for their ad exchange program isn’t revealed. And they give away free credits to sites whose ad spots sell. So you may not be getting the traffic you deserve.

Verdict

It makes good sense to start using PerformancingAds.com. Especially if you are an up-and-coming blog. But don’t forget to try selling ads privately too (as selling ads privately will always earn you more money).

Advertisement: Easy Blog Traffic

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New Blog Launch: NonToxin.com
Launched on 2nd April: NonToxin.com 20th November 2007: Maki at DoshDosh.com made an open challenge to his readers: start 1 flagship blog per month. 1 blog per month can become a logistical nightmare after 3-4 months. But I knew I wanted to open my own blog network. So I spent the first quarter of 2008 [...]

Launched on 2nd April: NonToxin.com

20th November 2007: Maki at DoshDosh.com made an open challenge to his readers: start 1 flagship blog per month. 1 blog per month can become a logistical nightmare after 3-4 months. But I knew I wanted to open my own blog network.

So I spent the first quarter of 2008 putting systems in place so that I could create 1 blog per month without getting overwhelmed. I created systems and procedures on:

• Creating the blog and its design
• Having a consistent publishing strategy
• Automating marketing and reaching and touching the most number of people
• Monetizing the blogs

I’ll be posting parts of my procedures and systems in the coming weeks. But in this post, I would like to tell you that the first blog was launched exactly 7 days ago!
The name of the blog is: Non Toxin. The purpose of that blog is: to downgrade information and upgrade wisdom. And to never write about things that are hot today but won’t be remembered tomorrow. No Tech. No Gossip. No Politics. If the blog post doesn’t make you smarter, it shouldn’t be published!

Would you like an insiders look at how a blog does in its first week of launch?

1st week statistics for NonToxin.com:

• 2 Posts (1 of them just published 17 minutes back)
• 18 comments
• 839 unique visitors

All in all, its a good start. And I haven’t even started promoting the blog heavily. The only things I’ve done is:

• Announce the blog on 1 forum that I love
• Added a small link to a newsletter of mine

Besides that, one of my friends also submitted the first post to StumbleUpon.com that bought in about 106 visitors.

Whats the next plan of action?

• Cruise the waters till 5-6 posts are published on the blog
• Then jumpstart blog promotion

PS: I would appreciate it if you can hop on to the new blog and post a comment on the top most post if you like its content. As you know, having more comments on a new blog builds social proof and helps a lot in showing that its a busy blog and other people like it. Thanks!

-

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The Pause Before the Run
Hello guys! Just a short note to thank you for your patience. There hasn’t been a whole lot of new content on BlogClout. A� And I’m going out of town and will be back only by 17th of January.A� So there may not be any more content till then either.A� But you’ll be reading some awsome posts [...]

Hello guys!

Just a short note to thank you for your patience.

There hasn’t been a whole lot of new content on BlogClout. A� And I’m going out of town and will be back only by 17th of January.A� So there may not be any more content till then either.A� But you’ll be reading some awsome posts after that.

• I’m starting a new blog and will chronicle its progress over here
• You’ll also be reading a few more interviews of some prolific and famous bloggers

So stay tuned.

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How To Blog *Consistently*
How to keep your blog going on and on and on… I’m a juggler of projects.  At any given time, 3-4 projects are on my table simultaneously.  Thats why, I find it hard sometimes to be consistent with my blogs. I’ve found that I’m not alone with this problem.  Some awesome blogs find it hard to be [...]

How to keep your blog going on and on and on…

I’m a juggler of projects.  At any given time, 3-4 projects are on my table simultaneously.  Thats why, I find it hard sometimes to be consistent with my blogs.

I’ve found that I’m not alone with this problem.  Some awesome blogs find it hard to be consistent too. So what can be done to make it easy for you to remain consistent with your blogs?

I have a few ideas…

Idea # 3: Have a buffer of posts

i. Find out how many posts you should publish per week.

ii. Then sit down over a couple of weekends and write at least 3 times the posts you need to publish per week.

iii. Follow an easy schedule now.  Because you’ll be ahead of your publishing schedule, your blog will always have fresh content on it even if you have to take some time off.

Note: This idea doesn’t work for blogs that focus on current news.  And you do have to be very disciplined to maintain a buffer of posts all the time.

Idea # 2: Hire a Co-Blogger

Another idea you can use to keep your blog fresh year after year is hire or joint venture with other bloggers.  There are quite a few benefits of having multiple bloggers write for one blog:

i. The pressure is off any single blogger.  If one blogger is slacking, others can put in a big more effort.

ii. You can now take vacations!

iii.  Multiple authors bring multiple view points.  Thus you can also attract a wider audience.

iv.  More bloggers = more promoters too.  Marketing your blog becomes a whole lot easier!

Idea # 1: Accept RSS ads

But the best idea of all to make sure you keep on blogging consistently is: accept RSS ads.

Let me explain: I’ve been consistently publishing a premium newsletter called Marketing Hotsheet for more than 4 years. Over the past 4 years, 98 issues of Marketing Hotsheet have been published (2 issues are published every month).  And I’ve never ever missed a single deadline for that newsletter!

How so? Because the subscribers of Marketing Hotsheet pay me in advance!  I have to be on time or else they’ll start calling me up to complain.  And a few may ask for refunds!

Because I’m already obligated to others to publish the newsletters on time, I’m never late!

The key is: you’ve got to be obligated to others to come out with new content on a fixed schedule.  By accepting pre-payment for RSS ads, you will be forced to be on time!

Why Doesn’t the Sidebar Ads Work in Making You Disciplined to Blog?

Because you’ll most likely be charging for the sidebar ads on a monthly basis.  Or on a CPM basis.  But with RSS ads, advertisers will be paying you for a fixed number of posts per month!

So How To Run RSS Ads on Your Blog?

i. If you use WordPress, you can install the RSS Feed Footer WordPress plugin to run ads.  (You may have to find other alternatives if you don’t use WordPress…)

ii. The easiest way to attract advertisers is to make a new post on your blog with a graph of the number of RSS subscribers you have.   And asking people to contact you if they want to advertise.

iii. You can charge as much as $5-50 per post for every 1000 subscribers. (Start low and then slowly increase the rates.)

iv.  If you don’t have many RSS subscribers, you can go to a forum like DigitalPoint.com and sell RSS ad placements for $1 or so.  The money is not important.  The fact that pre-selling RSS ads obligates you to write a certain number of posts every week without fail is.

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Brain Fitness Pro Professional Calibre Software for Boosting Your Fluid Intelligence
Links for this Post: Mind Sparke Brain Fitness Professional Caliber Software for Increasing Fluid Intelligence -- Available for Instant Download Fluid Memory Study in PDF format Until the last decade, it was thought that the brain stopped growing and developing...

Links for this Post:

Mind Sparke Brain Fitness Professional Caliber Software for Increasing Fluid Intelligence -- Available for Instant Download

Fluid Memory Study in PDF format

Until the last decade, it was thought that the brain stopped growing and developing when we reach adulthood.

Neuroscience has now conclusively demonstrated that we have the ability to improve our mental abilities through brain fitness exercises. Our brains can actually grow, change and evolve based on what we do -- or don't do -- through our entire lifespan.

One of most important aspects of intelligence is called "fluid intelligence." According to Wikipedia, "Fluid intelligence is the ability to find meaning in confusion and solve new problems."

The training method for increasing each of our levels of fluid intelligence is called "Dual N-Back." The value of this memory task was demonstrated by Susanne M. Jaeggi, Martin Buschkueh and colleges in a seminal study conducted in 2007 at the University of Bern, Switzerland (see link to�complete paper at top of page).

Since that time, a variety of online and software training programs have been developed to teach the Dual N-Back technique including the open source Brain Workshop that I reviewed in this post.

More recently, Brain Fitness Pro was released by UK developer Martin G. Walker. The interface of the program is quite a bit more user friendly than the open source Dual N-Back trainer.

Dual N-Back is a memory task in which two independent sequences are presented simultaneously, typically using different types of stimuli. A common implementation is when one auditory and one visual are given at the same time and your goal is to remember both. In Mind Sparke Brain Fitness Pro, the visual stimuli are squares that show up as white on black.

�The auditory stimuli are voices that pronounce letters from the alphabet in your choice of male and female.

The results of each block is displayed your home base screen. As you move through each session, you’ll see your hits, misses, and the current value of “N” which will change according to your success level. Your improvement over time is displayed as a graph on the “history” screen (see first screen screen shot).

According to the the folks at Mind Sparke, their customers have reported increases in their fluid memory as shown in the chart below.

Deepak Chopra Video on the Wisdom Quest Biofeedback Computer Game
Links for this Post: Wild Divine Website and video embedded below: Below is a new video by noted personal development author Deepak Chopra about the personal growth path presented in the Wisdom Quest Biofeedback Computer Game. In it, he explains...

Links for this Post: Wild Divine Website and video embedded below:

Below is a new video by noted personal development author Deepak Chopra about the personal growth path presented in the Wisdom Quest Biofeedback Computer Game. In it, he explains what the different stages of the game signify from the standpoint of a traditional eastern spiritual enlightenment metaphor.

Here is the video:

The Number One Software Program for Speed Reading -- The Reader’s Edge
Link for this Post The Reader’s Edge Speed Reading Windows Software When I was a teenager, read a lot. I also watched a lot of TV and when a commercial for a personal development seminar called Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics...

Link for this Post The Reader’s Edge Speed Reading Windows Software

When I was a teenager, read a lot. I also watched a lot of TV and when a commercial for a personal development seminar called Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics could help you read at least twice as fast. I got excited!

I found an old commercial for Reading Dynamics on YouTube which follows.

So I signed up. I took the course on four evening nights after high school. The classes lasted an hour and a half. By the time I was finished, I could read three times faster. Plus I remembered a lot more of what I read.

The skills I gained in that short course helped me do better my last year of High School. It also helped me get on the Dean's List in college my first first year.

Recently, the folks at Reading Dynamics developed a software program based on their technology called Reader's Edge with a publisher called the Literary Company. The program has quickly risen to the top of the reading software a-list This included the highly regarded Top Ten Reviews which rated them first among 16 programs evaluated..

According to the the Literacy Company, the program can be used by readers of all ages. Using the Reading Dynamic techniques, it teaches you how to read groups of words with a single eye-movement at 3 to 6 times your current reading fluency.

Features of Reader’s Edge Software Includes:

• Reading skill exercises
• Speed reading exercises
• Speed and comprehension tests
• Highly personalized settings
• Assessment and progress reports
• Import your own favorite content for practice
• Free Updates for life
• Money back guarantee
• Runs on all versions of Windows

You can either download the program or order it on CD. Visit the Readers Edge for more information including videos.

Price Breakthrough on Cutting Edge iCap Release Meter Neurofeedback System V2 -- Coupon Code Save $300 Risk Free Trial
Updated: The iCap Neurofeedback System is the premier personal development technology on the planet It includes their cutting edge wireless brainwave biofeedback headband transmitter, the receiver that plugs into your USB port, their great software now in Version 2.0 that...

Updated: The iCap Neurofeedback System is the premier personal development technology on the planet It includes their cutting edge wireless brainwave biofeedback headband transmitter, the receiver that plugs into your USB port, their great software now in Version 2.0 that runs on both Windows and Macintosh.

The software guides you with constant measurement and feedback through their highly effective mental development system the Abundance Course developed by Lestor Levonson.

It is an expensive package for the folks at iCap to put together and so until, now the system cost $2,395.00. This placed it out or reach for many Mindware Forum readers who told me that they wanted to try it.

iCap Release meter benefited by quantity manufacturing and so iCap decided to open their program up to a larger number of you by cutting the price in half in Version 2.

While interviewing Ray Caamino, iCap president about this new product, I asked him to go the extra mile and lower the price to $995. He agreed to issue a special coupon that allows you to take $300 when you check out at the iCap Store, by entering� Coupon Code D4DC63C7 at checkout..

�For those of you who've wanted to try the iCap system but found the price a problem, this is your chance!

Link for this Post: iCap Technologies Release Meter Neurofeedback Personal Development System Version 2.0 Note: Special Coupon Code D4DC63C7 $100 Rebate for Mindware Forum Readers

The breakthrough Release Meter Neurofeedback Personal Development System from iCap Technologies that I have written about previously has released new versions of its software and EEG biofeedback computer hardware.

I reviewed the system here and have updated the review to reflect version 2. I also posted a video interview Ray Caamano Inventor of the Revolutionary iCap Wireless EEG Release Meter Interviewed by Mitchell Rabin.

So I'm going to show you some pictures of the new system. A couple of them are from my friend and fellow blogger Elliot Arron who does the Self Improvement Sites blog who sent me a few of the first pictures he took of the new system so I could share them with you.

This is what you see when you open the box.

What you are looking at better understood using the labeled diagram shown by here:

In my review of the release of the iCap system which I first posted back in September 2007 (now updated to reflect version 2) , I said the software included as part of the iCap system is the most sophisticated mindware program I have ever used.

Well the amazing news is that Version 2 of the software is even better!.

My complete and updated review of the iCap Release Meter System in its new version has been moved to one post above this one.. You c

WhiteSmoke 2009 Writing Enrichment Software for Windows Promises Perfect English for Everyone Who Writes -- Special Sale 80% Limited Time Offer
Linkk for this post: Become a Better Writer -- WhiteSmoke Writing Enrichment Software for Windows Can Help -- Special Sale 80% Off --Limited Time Only! WhiteSmoke is a windows software program designed to enrich your writing. The program offers a...

Linkk for this post:

Become a Better Writer -- WhiteSmoke Writing Enrichment Software for Windows Can Help --� Special� Sale 80% Off --Limited Time Only!

WhiteSmoke is a windows software program designed to enrich your writing. The program offers a 30-day evaluation of the full version of the software and so I recently took them up on their offer.

Maybe some day we will get to the point where all we do is think and the words appear on the screen as we imagine them. However we are not at that point I am sorry to report.

Microsoft Word and other word processors have a built in grammar and spelling checker. But most of us know that while helpful, this does not do the entire job. Past Word's simple checking you are on your own when it comes to putting the words down and editing them. So software tools like WhiteSmoke (and some others that I talk about on this blog) are welcome in making the writing process a bit smoother.

You can use WhiteSmoke in a variety of different programs including the MS Office programs and Internet Explorer. A convenient hotkey can activate the program . You can also install an optional toolbar.

What the WhiteSmoke program does in addition to spelling and grammar is "writing enrichment" You highlight the text you have written and WhiteSmoke actually suggests alternatives and even embellishments like adjectives to what you have compose.

The goal is to put some sizzle into what you say.When you get the Comprehensive version of the program, it gives you templates for specific tasks such as email writing, business writing and more. Plus, there are specialized versions for various areas such as creative writing and even writing for romance (NO, please do not call that version "Cyrano").

The publishers this way describe the technology behind the software:

WhiteSmoke has created a unique technology, providing the first context-related all-in-one solution for improving writing. This patent-pending technology is the result of years of development by a leading team of software, algorithm and Natural Language Processing experts.

For the first time ever, users can enhance their writing skills with WhiteSmoke. This revolutionary writing tool instantly analyzes the complete text and provides context-based recommendations to replace words with synonyms, add adjectives and adverbs check spelling and verify proper grammar use.

Features and benefits of the Comprehensive Version are:

• Thousands of grammar corrections
• Functionality on all applications
• Text enrichment
• Hundreds of professional templates
• Smart thesaurus with synonyms
• Spell check
• Instant-access dictionaries
• Adverb and adjective insertions

One thing the software will not do is edit for correct word usage and writing style. For that I personally use SyleWriter a MS Word add-in that I am planning to review in the next couple of months.

The days when the computer can turn us all into a Shakespeare or Steven King is not hear yet. But until that day arrives, Whites is a software program you should consider adding to your writing toolkit.

You can get your 30 Day Evaluation copy of WhiteSmoke 2009 Writing Enrichment Software� and Special� Sale 80% Off Power Pack by visiting the publisher site through here!

Offline for a While
What a busy summer I am having! Five out of six weekends in a row I’m out of town for a night or more, sometimes with Brian and sometimes alone. This weekend, more sleeping in a tent. They expect scattered showers. I hope that means no floods in the tent. I don’t like being wet, I [...]

What a busy summer I am having! Five out of six weekends in a row I’m out of town for a night or more, sometimes with Brian and sometimes alone.

This weekend, more sleeping in a tent. They expect scattered showers. I hope that means no floods in the tent. I don’t like being wet, I don’t like being splashed at all. Very hot baths I like, lukewarm-to-cold showers are not my cup o’tea.

But this weekend I play music with Brian and meet up with friends we sometimes only see once a year. I will do my best to turn off the three-year-old-whining child inside of me, and have a grown up lovely time. We will see how I do!

Meanwhile, if I do not update as often as normal until mid-August, you will know that I’m fine, but just away from the keyboard (AFK) again. All is well.

(The photo? My bags on the table as I was packing, preparing to schlep music and yarn and clothing north. My normal, everyday stuff. Clearly I’m not one who thinks I should limit the number of handknit things I wear on one day. After all, I knit things I can’t get by purchasing them in the store! I think this shot should be called “Still life with Turquoise Yarn.”

Strike a Pose
When you ask a 5-year-old child to pose for the camera, this is sometimes what you get (at least, if you are me and the 5-year-old is Isabel):

When you ask a 5-year-old child to pose for the camera, this is sometimes what you get (at least, if you are me and the 5-year-old is Isabel):

Tractor Square Dance? Wow.
My friend Irene passed me this link. It’s a Youtube video of a tractor square dance. Really. With caller and eight tractors. They make it look easy, but some of the moves require four tractors to pass one another with mere inches between them. I don’t know anything about tractors but these look like an older style. [...]

My friend Irene passed me this link. It’s a Youtube video of a tractor square dance.

Really. With caller and eight tractors. They make it look easy, but some of the moves require four tractors to pass one another with mere inches between them.

I don’t know anything about tractors but these look like an older style. I have a distant cousin in MN who has an old tractor, and belongs to a club with others who love old tractors, too. I say you can’t buy passion, so follow it. If that means tractor square dancing, go for it and have a wonderful time!

(This entry definitely falls under the category “Miscellaneous Artforms.”)

Peaceful
What a lovely day. We got home from the music festival Saturday night rather than Sunday night. Brian went on a long bike ride Sunday, as he likes to do when he has a day free. I had a quiet and wonderful day off. I tend toward overwork. Perhaps I am not efficient, but I make [...]

What a lovely day. We got home from the music festival Saturday night rather than Sunday night. Brian went on a long bike ride Sunday, as he likes to do when he has a day free. I had a quiet and wonderful day off.

I tend toward overwork. Perhaps I am not efficient, but I make up for it by loving what I do and sticking to it almost any minute I’m home. This is the good and the bad of having your business office in your house, but I like the lifestyle just fine.

The last many weeks I have been cleaning and tossing and working really hard at home, doing that thing we call “Simplify.” Pretty much every chunk of time I have been alone at home, I have been almost obsessed with letting go and getting rid of things I don’t use any more.

A Slow Day for Once

But my friend Sharon P/Knitknacks made a point long ago which I have not forgotten. There are three kinds of days off: 1) Social interaction (parties, weddings, tea with friends), 2) Getting personal things accomplished (gardening, housework), and 3) Taking it easy, relaxing (what one friend calls a pajama day).

I almost never get pajama days. I had one today. I can not tell you how lovely it was. I don’t feel guilty for not working, at least not right now. We will see if I have regrets later, but I think I needed this rest in the worst way.

I woke up a bit early, made great pancakes and put a little ice cream and a lot of strawberries on them. I read a little bit, answered a couple of emails, took a long and lazy nap, and finally got dressed around 5pm. I went on a brisk walk, did some knitting. Now my hammock is hung up on the porch and I plan to knit there until mosquitos invade the space at sundown.

Life is good to me, my friends. What a gift today has been, and it is not done yet!

(Photo: Sunset in Evart, Michigan, USA, on Friday night.)

Focus on the Good Stuff
Today, I’m feeling gratitude. Summer Abundance It is a great time to live in Lansing. The fresh food available here right now is wonderful. I got Michigan black cherries, several types of greens, fresh beets, and a kohlrabi at the Allen Street Market yesterday. Brian chopped up mustard greens and kale, plus sweet onion and red bell pepper [...]

Today, I’m feeling gratitude.

Summer Abundance

It is a great time to live in Lansing. The fresh food available here right now is wonderful. I got Michigan black cherries, several types of greens, fresh beets, and a kohlrabi at the Allen Street Market yesterday.

Brian chopped up mustard greens and kale, plus sweet onion and red bell pepper last night. We added some canned beans he got at the Mexican (?) grocery store, and it was a really satisfying dinner.

The cherries are so perfect, there is not a bad one in the bunch. The day before, I got fresh organic strawberries. I am allergic to a lot of fruits, but strawberries and black cherries are A-OK and I’m grateful. Usually I buy them frozen, but right now the fresh are abundant and good.

You know, the best summer dessert in the world is just fresh strawberries cut up and layered in a tall glass with organic, home-whipped, whipped cream. Sweetened with light brown sugar rather than white!

Big yum. I missed dairy the 5 years I gave it up. However, giving it up that long meant that I could eat it again, and I appreciate it even more now.

Friendships

Another blessing is my current set of friends. I once had friends who needed me to give more than they did, to make me equal. Those are gone (the loss was painful at the time).

Replacing them now, are friends who see me as equal though different. Friends who help me out and who I help when I can. Friends who do not have big expectations, who do not keep score. This happened subtly and slowly, but I feel the change in my life every day.

My friends are all ages, male and female, and from many different backgrounds. I am rich for their presence in my life.

My Life Partner/Husband

And the last (but not at all least) great thing in my life? My husband, Brian. He continues to make my life more pleasant all the time. I don’t know what I’d do without him.

Really, I was very happy single, but this is ten times nicer. We don’t argue; not because I’m not a piece of work but because he doesn’t try to correct the errors of my ways. If I act crazy, he steps aside and waits for me to get sane again. There is a lot of adult-ness in that, and I can not express the depth of gratitude I feel.

Family/Today’s Work

I’m working on my Mom’s books today, finished placing all but 2 of the images (where did they go… must scan them in again) in book 3.

She has written 4 books (they help children start to read). Two are pretty much done. The third can be printed out with all the images and text, but tweaking and proofreading is yet to come. The fourth has all the words in there but none of the images. It’s coming. Off to deal with more images…

The photos are from ODPC Funfest, the Dulcimer/acoustic music festival in Evart, Michigan where we were last week. These are photos of the stage… open mic, kids’ concert and in the case of Doug the main concert on Saturday night.

In order, you see The Fabulous Heftones (me and Brian), Doug Berch on Mountain Dulcimer, A. on her gorgeous fiddle, and Sam Herman on old-time banjo.

Business and Relationship
Derek Sivers, founder of CDBaby and nonconformist entrepeneur (is that redundant?) has a great website full of opinionated articles holding excellent advice. Mostly he’s preaching to the independent/indie musician crowd. However, what he says often rings true for any self-employed person. OK, so I’m opinionated and so is he, I naturally sometimes disagree with his opinions. [...]

Derek Sivers, founder of CDBaby and nonconformist entrepeneur (is that redundant?) has a great website full of opinionated articles holding excellent advice. Mostly he’s preaching to the independent/indie musician crowd. However, what he says often rings true for any self-employed person.

OK, so I’m opinionated and so is he, I naturally sometimes disagree with his opinions. Normally, I tend to think the guy is brilliant in an area I can find little good advice about: very small/one person creative businesses. I’m grateful to have his resources at my fingertips.

I was poking around in his archives and found an interview he did with Tom Williams, who was fourteen when he was hired by Apple. The whole interview is pretty interesting, about a person who just has more focus than I do, and who enjoys working and thinking and growing. I had never heard about him before, so the story was fresh to me.

You can read the whole interview here. However, one part really struck me. I have said for years that my own industry is all about relationship. Knitting and related work tends to be a business of mostly women, and women need connection and trust. I work hard at building relationship with both those who buy from me and those who hire me.

I am imperfect at the process, but I believe it is essential to my own success both personally and professionally. I love being with people and I enjoy the people I work for, so my interest in the folks around me is real.

If I am going to go into business, I am going to make human connections with colleagues and customers. It is how I approach life. This was true even when I was a computer consultant, emphatically not a female-dominated field. It is just part of who I am and how I approach my life.

So this quote, pulled from the middle of that interview, really stuck out for me. If you find the time, you may wish to read the whole article.

It was about relationships, first and foremost. If people like you, they want you to succeed. If they want you to, they will help you succeed. It has to be genuine.

A lot of people approach their relationship-making as mercenary transactions. As much as you appear very genuine they can see your endgame. Take the time.

Earlier this week, I was traveling back home with my Mom and we agreed to take a particular ferry home, which would allow me about fifteen minutes of face time with a friend and mentor of mine.

She said: “Why bother if it’s just fifteen minutes?” I said, “Well, because it’s face time, and that fifteen minutes should be spent building and strengthening the relationship.”

What can you accomplish in fifteen minutes? Nothing other than strengthening the relationship.

Recognize that by being useful and good to others, you will eventually build a very strong team of supporters. They’ll lift you up to new heights and protect you. If you falter they will be there to bring you back up and support you.

I think it’s one of the most overlooked components of business. Simply, we’re always able to say that at the end of the day, all you have is your friends.

Schuler Books: Subtly-Striped Scrap “Satchel”
Monday Rae and I did a presentation at the Okemos/Meridian Mall of Schuler Books. They are having a “green” week celebration and we contributed by using donated materials (needles from Diana, yarns from Margaret and Suann: thanks, all) to make bags. My project, which I designed just for this event, was inspired by a hand-woven bag [...]

Monday Rae and I did a presentation at the Okemos/Meridian Mall of Schuler Books. They are having a “green” week celebration and we contributed by using donated materials (needles from Diana, yarns from Margaret and Suann: thanks, all) to make bags.

My project, which I designed just for this event, was inspired by a hand-woven bag I have that I used so much I wore out some of the fabric (see below). It’s very simple, just an envelope without a top flap or closing, and a braided handle. It is the perfect size for notebook/copy paper or a small laptop/notebook computer.

My version (photo above) is a very simple project, with only cast on, knit, slip, and bind off. Slip is easy, you literally just move a stitch from the left needle to the right without working a new stitch into it or twisting it. However, the slips create the bumps you see in the fabric, making it much more interesting to look at than plain garter stitch.

The simple stitch pattern mixes the colors with the “bumps” on the outside of the bag, and how I handled the changing of colors also made the stripes more like a watercolor and less like polo-shirt stripes. I really like the result.

I used small to medium balls of leftover yarns for my project (third photo, below), holding one warm-colored yarn and one cool-colored yarn together throughout. When I ran out of blue, I would add blue or green or turquoise in its place. When I ran out of purple, I replaced it with berry or magenta, or a different purple. I think it looks great, and it surely reflects my personal taste in color, without being a boring solid color (which is so hard to match anyway).

In the presentation, I gave the participants all a pattern for this project. In addition, we learned tips on casting on, we learned how to do the slip stitch, how to figure out a number of stitches for the size you want (rather than matching my bag exactly), how to work in yarn ends and how to change yarns in the middle of a row without having a lot of ends to work in. It was a tiny sliver of the hints I teach in my 4-hour “Fix and Finesse” class, but for no charge.

I meet new interested knitters (and a few familiar faces) when I am in the bookstore, and they get a 2 hour class for the price of their time. It’s a good situation for all of us.

If you are in the area, we will repeat the same lesson at the Eastwood store (northeast Lansing). That session is Wednesday 7/15, from 7-9pm. I would love to see you there!

It’s Enough: My Choices (Long)
Musings on Art as Vocation I just got back from Wed-Sat at a music festival. People often ask me if music is our primary income. I tell them no, music is my “night job” and I’m a knitting teacher/designer for my primary work. This usually results in nods of approval. Folks love the idea that [...]

Musings on Art as Vocation

I just got back from Wed-Sat at a music festival. People often ask me if music is our primary income. I tell them no, music is my “night job” and I’m a knitting teacher/designer for my primary work. This usually results in nods of approval. Folks love the idea that a person could make creative work their vocation.

I love this job, I love it more than I thought I could love any work. In my mind, both knitting and singing are one job, the job of “Artist.” I use my creative abilities to pay my bills. I feel as though I was born to do this.

But at this point, if something happened to Brian I probably could not continue this lifestyle. You see, he has a job with insurance. He pays for mine, but it would cost a lot more if I had to get insurance without a full-time employee attached.

My fiberart teaching career is still expanding; I am working to grow my work to a point where I could pay for my own health insurance again (I did so when I was a computer consultant). Though that is in my plans, right now it would not be possible.

Awareness, Balance

My mother was widowed at age 38, my brother was widowed at age 30. This means I’m the only one in my family who has never been widowed before 40, and I’m 50 now.

Statistically, this means that it probably won’t happen to me at an inappropriate age. However, it also means I’m aware that life can change on a dime. I am appreciating every single day as it is.

Often, Less is Better

I have been clearing out things in my home, things I don’t use any more. It started when a rack which was screwed into some wood, became so overloaded that it pulled out of its anchors and fell on the floor, a couple-dozen skirts crumpled on top of it. The skirts had to go somewhere, but I could not find any place to squeeze them in. The rest of my closet room was terribly overstuffed.

In total, I think it has been about 3-4 weeks of intensive letting go thus far. We have filled a total of 10 city garbage bags full of things not nice enough to give away. I think we are up to about 21-23 paper grocery bags full of items, mostly clothing, given to charity.

A friend who sews but has few financial resources, got three boxes of fabric and an unused ironing board which had been left in this house by the previous owners. Another friend got a feather bed pad and down comforter (in perfectly good condition, but I’m now too allergic to feathers to use them).

The result in some areas of our house is astounding. The attic is more navigable than in years. The closet holds everything even when all laundry is done, and there are always enough hangers. The boxes long stored on the floor in several rooms are no longer there.

It’s amusing that even though the attic, closet and bedroom are noticeably clearer, it’s not obvious to a guest. My office is just full of things I need to keep but don’t know where to store. One minute at a time, I guess.

Space Choices

Our house is not large by current Lansing standards (whatever that means). It is more than enough for two people without children or pets. You see… part of the reason I can do the work I do, is that we have made choices about what is enough… even, as Goldilocks says: “Just right.”

We live in a smaller home with smaller yard compared to many friends. We have no pets, no houseplants, no TV/movies/cable/DVDs, and two paid-off cars both over 10 years old. All these choices support the work choices I’ve made.

This work can be my primary job both because I really do spend full time on it and am good at the work, but also because what I see as “enough” is not what someone else would find enough for themselves.

For the record, friends with larger homes find ours absolutely charming. It is not a lesser choice. It is a different one.

Travel Choices

We camp in a tent, not an RV or even pop-up. There are many more costs involved with more solid portable quarters. I do not enjoy tents, but I love the savings we achieve by not buying something else (and insuring, maintaining, storing it). Our savings is both time and money, and I’m clear about that with my choice.

I actually did purchase myself a plane ticket to go to Portland, OR for the Sock Summit (socknitting conference). Socks are a huge part of my career (and my joy) and I made a lot of choices in order to make that happen.

I’m staying at an International Hostel and taking the subway to the convention center. I get to see the city a bit on the way to spending a day in a huge box full o’people. Since I collect subways and love cities, this really makes me happy.

I also save about $100 a night by staying in a room with a few other folks and doing a bit of a commute. It is not like I will stay in my room and hang out, anyway! Usually I’ve met fascinating people when I’ve done this in other cities.

Career/Lifestyle Choices

I have held office jobs with excellent pay and benefits in the past. I spent that fine income on stuff (mostly clothing, some of which was in those bags sent recently to charity) to help me feel happier. I left my last day job in 1999. Funny how now I don’t need to buy expensive suits anymore, which helps me live on a more modest income.

I gave up the credit cards in 1991 and live in the present now; I don’t buy anything if I can’t pay immediately. Often I wait or do without. Not everyone would make these choices. For me, the results have been rewarding.

Often people in solid, well-paying, insurance-rich jobs sigh when they hear I teach knitting as my day job. They wish for a time when they can leave their current work and do creative things for a living.

But for many of them, the tradeoff is too dear. If you have five kids as one friend does, you work the job that takes care of the seven in your home. You find something joyful to do after work until those kids are safely on their own.

I have made a series of choices that have allowed this lifestyle. I don’t have children or animals to support, for example. Not everyone would feel right with my choices. Each person has their own balance to find.

What is Enough?

Each person has their own version of what is enough. We have a young, single relative who has an efficiency condo apartment in a large metro US city. Her expenses are much higher than those here in our home which perhaps has double her floor space. However, her chosen field supports a lifestyle that she enjoys. What else could a person want?

Another friend made family most important. Her kids are grown and still enjoy her company, so she did a great job keeping that priority clear. She has worked a day job she was very good at but does not enjoy, long enough that she can retire soon.

She made the choice to have the income and benefits provided by that work, so that she could make sure the family had income, insurance and other resources. She’s a happy homebody. She likes to go home at 5pm and not think about work until the next morning.

This friend’s life has focused on the non-work part of her time. Nights, weekends and vacations allow her to build connection within her family, and that is her version of “enough.”

The young urban relative’s work requires a large city to support it. My work can be conducted in large part through the internet and occasional commuting to large fiber festivals (for knitting) and music festivals (performing).

Pure Luck

I am very lucky to be in Lansing, MI where it is accepted that I would definitely teach for more than one local-area yarn shop. This is not a common assumption in other areas with multiple yarn shops. Because shops here are willing to share teaching expertise, there are several of us in town who teach locally *and* on a national level. I believe we’re all richer for sharing.

Between blogging, the online knitting/crocheting community called Ravelry.com, and now twitter (sigh), I can reach an international clientèle from my home in a city with a low cost of living. This could not have happened even 15 years ago. I am deeply grateful.

Blah, Blah, Blah…

Why am I going on like this? For one, I have been getting rid of unneeded things. For another, I spent so much time when I was a bit younger, buying things (and making myself unhappily in debt from it) which made me feel happy for a while.

Now I make clear choices and feel powerful by knowing I chose. There is such power in being an adult!

*******

Derek Sivers wrote a short column, his take on “Enough.” Perhaps you would like to read another person’s perspective on this same topic. Or maybe you have read enough about the subject for now! Thanks for sticking with me, if you got this far.

For the record, I admit that some people do not have the basics. Some do not have enough food, in an obvious example.

Yet I live in “American” society where we have dollar stores. Folks go to the dollar store to buy something new and fun, something they do not need other than for entertainment. Shortly that something ends up sold at a garage sale, to someone else looking for entertainment. This is the sort of society I am in, and this is what spurred the thought process which began this long column.

Hands-Free Gardening
Eunice sometimes says she likes photos of my garden. I thought of that this week when I realized I had basically not done any gardening at all. I have not weeded since April and have not pruned anything in 2009, period. Even though my plan was to really hack back on the climbing roses that [...]

Eunice sometimes says she likes photos of my garden. I thought of that this week when I realized I had basically not done any gardening at all. I have not weeded since April and have not pruned anything in 2009, period. Even though my plan was to really hack back on the climbing roses that are truly wild.

I have been very busy indoors and with my work. This is what the garden did without my help (the roses here are fading, they were hot magenta five days before):

I did buy a few plants this year. When I remembered to tell Brian I’d purchased them, he put them in the ground for me. The plants in the ground have had to survive on rainwater, I have not used a hose yet.

I usually purchase geraniums and other small plants, and pot them for by the back stairs. This year I bought two large potted geraniums and stuck them, in the store pots, in the right spot. No contrast or variety this year, but a bit of color. No impatiens in the front this year. That’s how it goes.

Friends gave me 3 tomato plants of different kinds. I did water those small pots until I could put them in regular containers. I did the container thing in early July, much too late to have expectations of fruit. In spite of me, the smallest, a patio tomato, made two marble-sized fruits in its tiny temporary pot, and has bloomed again.

The largest is supposed to be an early tomato. It took about 5 days to realize it could set out good roots, and I do carry water from the kitchen to water it and the others when I happen to be in town. That early tomato is already three times its original height, and may do something before frost. I like watching it grow, even if we don’t harvest anything.

The house came with many plants which flower on their own. The climbing roses are the most obvious, but we have a white hydrangea, peonies, and a lot of tiger daylilies. When we had the front porch replaced, the ancient bridal wreath bushes went out and were replaced by hosta and coralbells, which do fine on their own. Thank goodness.

What amuses me is that I have tried to plant/grow smaller flowers in the back yard (where the photo was taken) in the past, with bad luck. So what happened this year? We got what look like blackeyed Susans, obviously planted there by nature thanks to the birds who like to hide in the rosebush above. You can see them at the center of the photo.

Mom calls unexpected plants like this, “volunteers.” This volunteer is sunny and gorgeous between the rose and hydrangea on the east side of the garage. Go figure.

So here you are, all. A photo of a garden left to its own devices. Brian planted some swiss chard plants there for me, and one small parsley plant. Nothing else has been touched this year.

It is growing in spite of me. It looks, though, like hair blown about in the wind or slept on all funny. I think I’ll forgive it. The colors are cheerful enough to work magic on my mood.

Prezi: A new generations of presentations
I’ve presented almost 80 slideshows so far and have been using Powerpoint for years. I tried to redesign the newest slideshows by reading outstanding books like Presentation Zen or Slide:ology. But the real change was due to Prezi.com, a unique slideshow making tool developed in Hungary. I decided to create all the presentations for the [...]

2009 World Technology Award Winners: Health and Medicine
I just came across the finalists and award winners ofthe 2009 World Technology Award. These Award winners and finalists are those individuals (in 20 categories) and companies/organizations (in 10 categories) who are — in the opinion of the WTN Fellows and Founding Members, through Awards voting process — doing the innovative work of “the greatest likely [...]

Twitter Power Tools for Health Activists: Slideshow
(Via Med 2.0)

Biomedical Journals and Users on Twitter
If you’re looking for the best biomedical journals that have a presence on Twitter.com as well, here is a list that will help you find what you need. Best Science Twitterers Best Medical Student Twitterers from around the globe Best Medical Twitterers fom different medical specialties

Scifoo: A visit to the Navigenics HQ
Last weekend, I attended the fantastic Scifoo unconference at the Googleplex (see the Flickr images of Duncan Hull), but one day before the event, I was invited to visit the HQ of Navigenics, one of the most famous direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies. As I just started PhD in the field of personalized genetics and had [...]

Lessons from failure at Boxes & Arrows

I am curating a series of articles at the venerable information architecture (and user experience) web magazine Boxes and Arrows, based on the panel I moderated on the same topic at this year’s IA Summit.

The first article in the series is Joe Lamantia’s It Seemed Like the Thing to Do at the Time: The Power of State Mind. Joe looks at the big picture, literally, comparing business failure ot catastrophic societal failure, using the Easter Island culture as a case study (as well as his own experience with a startup).

I’m really glad to see this article published because we had limited time on the panel and I wanted to hear more of Joe’s thoughts about these scenarios.

Fascinating stuff and more to come.

[by Christian Crumlish]

links for 2007-06-28

• seanbonner: Do I really need another inbox?
  reference for ‘plays well with email’ blog post i’m never finishing
  (tags: email yasns)

[by Christian Crumlish]

links for 2007-06-30

• Designer//Slash//Model
  design *can* change the world
  (tags: design digital video funny humor fashion motion graphic)

[by Christian Crumlish]

Sifry steps down as Technorati CEO

Maybe everyone else in the blogosphere knows this already but I just read that Dave Sifry is stepping down as CEO of Technorati: Technorati Weblog: A Change In Seasons

Looks like Tantek’s timing was impeccable.

I first met Dave during the dotcom bust when blogging was booming (again) on the backs of a lot of underemployed folks, myself included. I was working hard, updating Radio Free Blogistan three to seven times a day, hanging out on the #joiito channel on irc, and going to various blogger dinners and shmoozes here in the Bay Area.

I met a lot of folks with interesting startup ideas or who were looking at various ways of turning their passion for blogging and or social networking into businesses or publications or both. Dave’s idea was simple to explain and easy to understand, so I wasn’t surprised to see it get funded and take off.

I’ve got other friends working there now - some of whom I introduced to the Technorati people. I guess I consider myself a friend of the company, if that’s even a possible thing to be, and I’ve hesitated to complain or criticize too much when I’ve found the service sluggish or otherwise frustrating.

I applauded their recent redesign and I still visit the site when I am in the mood for some egosurfing (usually disappointing) or to see who’s been blogging about the Yahoo! Pattern Library recently.

It sounds like Technorati is having a tough time right now. Valleywag reported something like eight layoffs in addition to the CEO vacancy, and people don’t seem to talk about how Google or Yahoo! should buy Technorati so much anymore.

(Disclosure: I work at Yahoo but I have absolutely no knowledge regarding acquisition plans or lack of them for any startup out there.)

I’m sure the next thing Dave does will be interesting and I wish him the best.

[by Christian Crumlish]

Recruitment Tweeters - part three
We've recently started a list of Recruitment Tweeters. As Twitter usages is growing all the time, I've had requests from recruiters wanting to be added to the list. Here are some UK Recruitment professionals who are using Twitter and are...

We've recently started a list of Recruitment Tweeters.  As Twitter usages is growing all the time, I've had requests from recruiters wanting to be added to the list.

Here are some UK Recruitment professionals who are using Twitter and are happy to be "followed":

gazgreen278
PanEight
TLPConsultancy
VixHungary
sfsilks
mervino
keithpotts
networx_recruit
TopJobsInLondon

If you missed my first two blog posts about this then you should also add those people:

alanwhitford
JobsScotland
IndigoAccount
CallCentreJobs1
BFurby_abrsjobs
mikeetaylor
languagejobs
jobsacuk
lisascales
SusannahC
mikemcclelland
stephenodonn
deansadler
alcartwright
jobsacuk
Bobdillon
Debbiesuckling
Jackievdean
Gillmking
Neil_jones
thomasshaw
Accite
BillBoorman
BlueSkyPR
cebux
EcoSearch
erecruitmentbud
followaaron
hrconnexions
Kaonix
LanguageJobsUK
louisetriance
LukeCollier
mattalder
MDangerfield
MichelleFF
prefio
stevierogers
SussexMatt
TheSourceress
ThomasAtkinson
TLPConsultancy
tonyrestell
ukrecruiter
Urps
wendyjacob

You can add them all in one go by using Twitterator (http://twitterator.org).

I will add to this post as I get more requests to be followed. So if you want to be on the next list please drop me an email (Louise@ukrecruiter.co.uk) or contact me via Twitter.

 

She took the plunge!
Hello Dear Friends,  Today I took the plunge and registered my first blog. I was surprised to find that this name was still free for use and that was a bit like getting a nudge in the back. “Go on, just do it because the only way to learn to swim is by jumping in the [...]

ROOTS sampler tray

Having an XXI Black Butte Porter @ Green Dragon

Just arrived @ Roots – here’s a peek at what’s behind the bar

teporary beer alter at Church
We’re chilling at Churchils on a Wednesday afternoon with a Blind Pig and Black Butte while they re-construct the bar.

We’re chilling at Churchils on a Wednesday afternoon with a Blind Pig and Black Butte while they re-construct the bar.

Roots bar’s eyeview, it’s all clear now, or is it?

Finally Honest Info About Making Money Online At Home

Make Money Online Finally At Home

EyePassword Lets you Eyeball your Login
Researchers at Stanford have created a new secure input system that watches your eyes scan a visual keyboard to determine what text to input into secure fields, such as a password field or an ATM PIN. The benefits of such an approach come chiefly from defeating two common ways of snagging PINs and passwords: keylogging and good old-fashioned over-the-shoulder snooping, also known as shoulder surfing.

Kaspersky Cracks Down on Piracy
With the objective to create awareness on the usage of authentic products and to put a check on the business of software piracy, Kaspersky, a Russia-based anti-virus software and Internet security software solution provider is taking action against resellers propagating pirated software.

Zoom Technologies, importers of Kaspersky in India, has gone ahead and taken legal action against the dealers who are involved in selling counterfeit and pirated software.

How To Change Admin Password for Apple Mac Without The Disk
In the last week or so we have been having a lot issues with a few of the Macs in the office and in particular changing the admin password. I thought I would just write a quick article letting everyone know how we fix this. You need to enter terminal and create a new admin account: 1. [...]

In the last week or so we have been having a lot issues with a few of the Macs in the office and in particular changing the admin password. I thought I would just write a quick article letting everyone know how we fix this.

You need to enter terminal and create a new admin account:

1. Reboot
2. Hold apple + s down after you hear the chime.
3. When you get text prompt enter in these terminal commands to create a brand new admin account (hitting return after each line):
* mount -uw /
* rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
* shutdown -h now
4. After rebooting you should have a brand new admin account. When you login as the new admin you can simply delete the old one and you’re good to go again!

Hope this works for everyone!

New Social Network for Pet Lovers
Cute as Hell is the social network for pet lovers the world over. Share stories and photos, or put your pet up against another in a Thunderdome battle of cuteness.

Are you one of those people that gets sick of people who dress up their animals? Perhaps you are brought to tears of pain by friends who go on and on about how cute their pets are? If this describes you, this is not a social network you need to join.

On the other hand, if you’re a die hard pet lover, then this new social network is one you can’t miss. Cute As Hell is a pet lovers dream where owners share information, photos, videos, and can connect with other pet lovers from around the world. Think “Thunderdome” is just for post apocalytpic meat heads looking for destroy one another? Well go beyond your image of “Thunderdome” and consider it a pet vs pet arena where owners put their pets to the cute test as voters decide who they think is dominant.

Get your pets ready, get those photos and videos ready and put your pet to the test on this network. Lots of awesome prizes are up for grabs. Perhaps now is the time your pet actually did something for you.

Ready. Set. FIGHT!

MyDataNest: Free Online Collaboration and Data Storage
Data storage has become a very big issue in this current information age and DataNest is a new tool that wants to grab a share of that huge market. DataNest is a unique solution to a common problem: Reliable online data storage. DataNest provides high quality data hosting built for teams, bloggers, music enthusiast and [...]

Data storage has become a very big issue in this current information age and DataNest is a new tool that wants to grab a share of that huge market. DataNest is a unique solution to a common problem: Reliable online data storage. DataNest provides high quality data hosting built for teams, bloggers, music enthusiast and artists, photographers, churches and social groups, and individuals.

Key Features include:

• Share files upto 150mb
• Upload multiple files at once
• 2GB free storage
• Group collaboration
• Music sharing widget
• Share multiple files and folders

Facebook Reaches Quarter of a Billion
Its official, Facebook, the social network that started out as a noting based at Harvard has now grown to have over 250 million active worldwide members. Astonishing. The momentous figure was officially announced on the official Facebook blog by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Just a few months ago they celebrated reaching the 200 million mark by launching [...]

Its official, Facebook, the social network that started out as a noting based at Harvard has now grown to have over 250 million active worldwide members. Astonishing.

The momentous figure was officially announced on the official Facebook blog by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Just a few months ago they celebrated reaching the 200 million mark by launching the non-profit organization Facebook for Good. Now however, they are changing tactics for what should be a huge blowout party –they’re doing nothing except carrying on with their work.

Apparently, they are now trying to make the service more accessible on mobile devices as the growth of Facebook is now largely coming from international countries where people are more likely to access the social network on their mobile devices like the iPhone or Blackberry.

“Today as we celebrate our 250 millionth user, we are also continuing to develop Facebook to serve as many people in the world in the most effective way possible,” Zuckerberg wrote. “This means reaching out to everyone across the world and making products that serve all of you, wherever you are–whether through Facebook Connect, new mobile products and the other things that we are building.”

As we have seen with Twitter, failure to keep the ball rolling can lead to growth rates dropping like a rock. Facebook seem to be doing a good job. The next six months will be a challenge because as a ball gets bigger, its harder to roll.

GetGlue – The Network That Sticks to You!
Undoubtedly, the internet will define our generation along with global warming and obesity. It’s the only invention that allows billions of pieces of information to be transferred across the globe every single second of every single day. If it were to one day vanish, the business world would crumble, banks would be shut, power systems [...]

Undoubtedly, the internet will define our generation along with global warming and obesity. It’s the only invention that allows billions of pieces of information to be transferred across the globe every single second of every single day. If it were to one day vanish, the business world would crumble, banks would be shut, power systems and networks would falter and more importantly, you wouldn’t be able to read the latest posts here on Crenk.

Despite the internet’s numerous ways of entertaining and enlightening us it also has limitations when it comes to keeping things fresh. After an hour or so of browsing I seem to come up against a brick wall whereby I become enthralled with boredom and can’t find anything else to read, watch or listen to. That’s where glue comes in.

It’s a plug-in for Mozilla Firefox and it only takes a few minutes to install and get up and running. Basically, it’s a toolbar that allows you to see what your friends are reading, doing or watching. If they like something they glue it up on their toolbar. The same goes for you. Then, everyone in your network and indeed beyond will be able to see your favourite sites and videos and enjoy them.

I like glue because of its simplicity. They could have gone down another route altogether but they didn’t. The idea and how it works is all easy-peasy which is what counts in the world of Web 2.0. it works on the same principal of Twitter (not everyone enjoys surfing through profile pages anymore) by giving you little shots of info.

One drawback is that it can get a bit annoying constantly receiving updates from your friends. However, all you have to do is close it for a while as you enjoy a spot of surfing. 8/10

Reputation Management For Your Brand with Verified Pages
Verified Pages verifies social profile pages for users looking to truthfully connect with a brand as opposed to a false profile meant to deceive.

Recently there’s been a wave of news regarding brands that have been misrepresented on various social networks for

the purpose of deceiving and sharing misinformation. It has become frustrating for users to determine if a brand is honestly being represented online or managed by someone impersonating said brand. These problems can now be overcome with Verified Pages, which focuses on sharing which brands are online and where their social profiles are.

This site has been a long time coming, and users can now safely connect with the brand of their choice, having comfort that they are  not communicating with an impersonator. Brands that have connected with Verified Pages understand the importance of their brands reputation.

If you’re looking to provide end users with the comfort of knowing they are connecting with the real deal, then I highly encourage you to register your brand. If you are someone looking for a specific entity to contact, search the site and find out where you can find them.

Photo Credit Darwin Bell

Invesp: Comprehensive Blog Directory
There are so many different types of blog directories out in the market at the moment. Today we received an email from Invesp who have created their own blog directory and it seems to be more comprehensive than most others. Additionally it is great to see Crenk already in the directory and doing well. In [...]

There are so many different types of blog directories out in the market at the moment. Today we received an email from Invesp who have created their own blog directory and it seems to be more comprehensive than most others. Additionally it is great to see Crenk already in the directory and doing well. In the term “startups” we are already in the top 10 blogs, with many other top sites including Techcrunch, Venturebeat, TheNextWeb and Killerstartups.

I know that most of these directories aren’t really comprehensive and they don’t tend to include all blogs in the right areas, but who really cares, it is just a bit of fun.

The Pirate Bay to Charge Users a Monthly Fee
It was reported that The Pirate Bay was sold last month for $7.8 million. In the past few days there has been a lot more news about how The Pirate Bay will change within the new ownership and how they plan to turn the site into a legal entity. The new owners GGF have appointed a [...]

It was reported that The Pirate Bay was sold last month for $7.8 million. In the past few days there has been a lot more news about how The Pirate Bay will change within the new ownership and how they plan to turn the site into a legal entity.

The new owners GGF have appointed a new CEO Wayne Rosso who has previous experience in failing p2p services – came out with a few crucial additional details on the site’s future business model. osso said that under the new management, the 3.7 million Pirate Bay users (or whatever userbase remains) will have to pay a monthly fee to access the site.

The money collected from user subscriptions and advertising revenue will then be used to pay off the copyright holders. The exact monthly fee is yet to be decided, but Rosso did confirm that the more files people share, the lower it will be.

“The more of your computer resources you contribute to the network, the less you pay down to zero,” Rosso told Cnet.

I dont really think that new owners GGF understand the concept behind The Pirate Bay and that the only reason the community uses the site is because it is free. Thus a Pirate Bay in which users have to pay is going to do little or no traffic compared to the current numbers and thus will have an impact on advertising revenues, thus them not being able to pay copyright holders and then losing content.

I think The Pirate Bay guys have the right idea about selling the site and then moving on to a completely new project like The Video Bay.

Twitter Verified Accounts Arent Spreading Fast Enough
There has been a lot of talk around Verified Accounts on Twitter lately. @OfficialJonah, which billed itself as the official account of Superbad star Jonah Hill, was outed last night by the actor himself on the Late Show With David Letterman. Hill told Letterman that he’s “never been on the website Twitter nor will I [...]

There has been a lot of talk around Verified Accounts on Twitter lately. @OfficialJonah, which billed itself as the official account of Superbad star Jonah Hill, was outed last night by the actor himself on the Late Show With David Letterman. Hill told Letterman that he’s “never been on the website Twitter nor will I ever be on the website Twitter.”

Lancaster Cebu Condotel has several ready occupancy suites for sale
Cebu Condo | Ready Occupancy Buy to Let 5 Year Payment Terms Property is all about LOCATION. Mactan, Cebu, provides one with both the laid back pace of provincial living, as well as prerequisites of the urban dweller. Schools, hospitals, restaurants, shopping malls, and leisure are all found on the island itself. Lancaster Cebu Resort Residences [...]

Cebu Condo | Ready Occupancy Buy to Let 5 Year Payment Terms

Property is all about LOCATION. Mactan, Cebu, provides one with both the laid back pace of provincial living, as well as prerequisites of the urban dweller. Schools, hospitals, restaurants, shopping malls, and leisure are all found on the island itself.

Lancaster Cebu Resort Residences located a few minutes from Mactan-Cebu International Airport in Cebu, Philippines is now accepting Reservations for Studio and Two Bedroom Suites adopting International Standard Escrow Trust Account “Buyer Safe” Easy Secure Payment Plans… with up to 5 year “In-House” no prequalification financing available, full condo ownership, no management costs for Condotel Suites and minimum monthly maintenance fees, as buyers or sellers of Real Estate you really should take a moment to look at this Philippine Condotel Investment Opportunity

Now operational, Lancaster Cebu provides unit owners with premier residential condo units with option of enrolling their units in the Lancaster Condotel Rental Pool. Great Investment for Fil-Am’s whom visit Manila for Vacations or Business as they can earn Rental Incomes [at current purchase levels] of some 8-14% ROI per annum as Owner Non-Residents when not using their units through Condotel Management and reciprocal arrangement with Lancaster Suites Manila. This makes the Lancaster brand of Condo Hotels one of the Hottest Investment Opportunities in the Philippines.

Units at the Lancaster Cebu are sold fully fitted, furnished and Condotel ready.

Fully Furnished Executive Studio Suite 36.5625sqm [395sqft] -Pph-75,321.00/sqm -Pph-2,753,924.06. We currently have a few Executive Fully Furnished Studio ready occupancy Condotel Suites that may be purchased with initial Reservation Fee -Pph-100,000.00 Balance Payable without interest over 24 consecutive equal monthly payments of -Pph-110,580.17 [Tax Inclusive]. Alternatively Save -Pph-106,156.96 by making the initial Reservation Fee [-Pph-100,000.00] and then within 30 days 40% a Net Discounted Down Payment of -Pph-955,412.70 with the resulting Balance payable without interest over 24 consecutive equal monthly payments -Pph-66,348.10.

Pay Cash and take a full 10% discount [Save -Pph-275,392.40] on the contract price. Pay the initial Reservation Now [-Pph-100,000.00] and the Cash Balance within 30 days [-Pph-2,378,531.66] for an Effective Total Cash Price of -Pph-2,478,531.66.

Studio Suites also may be purchased on Five Year Payment Terms through our no qualification “In-House” Finance with 15% Down Payment. Reservation [-Pph-100,000.00] and down payment within 30 days [-Pph-313,088.61] with resulting Balance payable over 60 consecutive equal monthly payments -Pph-56,924.57.

Fully Furnished Executive Two Bedroom Suite 65.74sqm [710sqft] -Pph-83,161.00/sqm: -Pph-5,467,004.14. These ready occupancy units may be purchased with an initial Reservation Fee -Pph-100,000.00 Balance Payable without interest over 24 consecutive equal monthly payments of -Pph-223,625.18 Tax Inclusive. Alternatively take a Saving of -Pph-214,680.16 by making the initial Reservation -Pph-100,000.00 then within 30 days 40% Net Discounted Down Payment of -Pph-1,932,121.50 and then the resulting Balance is payable without any interest over 24 consecutive equal monthly payments –Pph-134,175.10.

Pay cash and take a full 10% discount [Save -Pph-546,700.00] on ready occupancy Building “E” Suites. Pay the initial Reservation Now [-Pph-100,000.00] and the cash balance within 30 days [-Pph-4,820,303.70] for an Effective Total Cash Price of -Pph-4,920,303.70

Pay Cash and take a full 30% discount [Save -Pph-1,640,101.00] on ready occupancy Building “C” & “D” Suites. Pay the Reservation Now [-Pph-100,000.00] and the Cash balance within 30 days [-Pph-3,726,902.90] for an Effective Total Cash Price of -Pph-3,826,902.90.

These Two Bedroom Fully Furnished Suites may also be purchased on Five Year Payment Terms through our simple no qualification “In-House” Finance plans and are available with a 15% Down Payment. Pay the Reservation Now [-Pph-100,000.00] and the down payment within 30 days [-Pph-720,050.62] with resulting Balance payable over 60 consecutive equal monthly payments -Pph-113,004.88

For more information, specifications and reservations please do not hesitate to contact us:

Beth Collingz- Director
PLC International Marketing Networks
Pacific Concord Properties Inc., Head Office
Shaw Boulevard, Mandaluyong City.
Metro Manila. Philippines
Phone: Manila [632] 717 1958

Pacific Concord Properties Inc., Cebu Office
Lapu-Lapu City, Mactan.
Cebu. Philippines
Phone: Cebu [6332] 340 0721
Email: plcmarketing@lancastersuites.com
Web: http://www.lancastersuites.com [Philippine Condotel Investments]
Web: http://www.condotel-rentals.com [Cebu Condotel Rentals]
Web: http://www.condotel-cebu.com [Cebu Condotel Investments]

Lancaster Cebu Condotel launches Asia’s Top Beach Package Tours to Bantayan Island Philippines
Lancaster Cebu Condotel, a few minutes from Mactan International Airport the central Philippines major jump off point for island tours, are 2-4 hours from some of Asia’s Top Beaches and Philippine Dive Spots. Apartments come completely furnished and offer an affordable alternative to high priced hotels   Bantayan Island, a 3 hour drive and short boat ride [...]

Lancaster Cebu Condotel, a few minutes from Mactan International Airport the central Philippines major jump off point for island tours, are 2-4 hours from some of Asia’s Top Beaches and Philippine Dive Spots. Apartments come completely furnished and offer an affordable alternative to high priced hotels

 

Bantayan Island, a 3 hour drive and short boat ride from Lancaster Cebu, is well-known for its powder white sand beach and turquoise water along the southwest coast. It has a friendly and laid-back ambience where you can really relax and enjoy the scenic beauty. The beaches around Santa Fe are alluring. Puo Island has some virgin beaches away from commercialization. High Season from October – June. Low Season from July – September. Inclusive 5 Day/4 night packages at the Kota Beach Resort, Sta. Fe, Bantayan Island for 2 persons start from Pesos: 24,600.00 nett including breakfast, round trip private car and boat transfers and 3 day/2 nights at Lancaster Cebu as the arrival and departure point.

Lancaster Cebu offers Studio and 2-Bedroom fully furnished Suites on daily, weekly, monthly or yearly lease rental terms. Whilst some renovation works are still ongoing within the complex, unit rentals are now available to guests at ‘Special Promo Rates’ running through to December 2009. For Condo rentals in Cebu check out our rentals website: www.condotel-rentals.com for info.

Beth Collingz, PLC International Marketing Networks overseas sales director and lead marketing partners for Pacific Concord Properties Lancaster Brand of Condo-Hotels in the Philippines, is passionate about providing that extra service to help make your stay in Cebu as enjoyable as possible. For those of us who have traveled abroad before, we can understand how difficult it can be to get along in a country if you don’t speak the language or know the terrain

That is where Lancaster Cebu Condotel apartments comes in, providing quality and friendly service with a variety of apartments. Property is all about LOCATION. Mactan Cebu, provides one with both the laid back pace of provincial living, as well as prerequisites of the urban dweller. Schools, hospitals, restaurants, shopping malls, and leisure are all found on the island itself. Collingz said at the request of many overseas clients, guests can now pre-book tour packages with Lancaster Cebu for travel to some of the Philippines finest beaches and dive spots.

For more information please do not hesitate to contact us:

Beth Collingz- Director
PLC International Marketing Networks
Pacific Concord Properties Inc., Head Office
Shaw Boulevard, Mandaluyong City.
Metro Manila. Philippines
Phone: Manila [632] 717 1958

Pacific Concord Properties Inc., Cebu Office
Lapu-Lapu City, Mactan.
Cebu. Philippines
Phone: Cebu [6332] 340 0721
Email: plcsales@pldtdsl.net
Web: http://www.lancaster-cebu.com
Web: http://www.condotel-cebu.com
Web: http://www.condotel-rentals.com

 

 

 

Lancaster Cebu Condotel launches Asia’s Top Beach and Dive Package tours to Malapascua Island Philippines
Lancaster Cebu serviced Condotel flats, a few minutes from Mactan International Airport the central Philippines major jump off point for island tours, are 2-4 hours from some of Asia’s Top Beaches and Philippine Dive Spots. Apartments come completely furnished and offer an affordable alternative to high priced hotels   Malapascua Island, some 4 hours drive and a [...]

Lancaster Cebu serviced Condotel flats, a few minutes from Mactan International Airport the central Philippines major jump off point for island tours, are 2-4 hours from some of Asia’s Top Beaches and Philippine Dive Spots. Apartments come completely furnished and offer an affordable alternative to high priced hotels

 

Malapascua Island, some 4 hours drive and a short boat ride from Lancaster Cebu is rated highly on the world’s best beaches and Philippine dive spots. It has emerged as a major dive centre with thresher sharks passing between Cebu and Leyte Islands as a common site. High Season from October – June. Low Season from July – September. Inclusive 5 Day/4 night packages at Malapascua Exotic Resort for 2 persons start from Pesos: 26,600.00 nett including breakfast, round trip private car and boat transfers and 3 day/2 nights at Lancaster Cebu arrival and departure point.

Lancaster Cebu offers Studio and 2-Bedroom fully furnished Suites on daily, weekly, monthly or yearly lease rental terms. Whilst some renovation works are still ongoing within the complex, unit rentals are now available to guests at ‘Special Promo Rates’ running through to December 2009. For Condo rentals in Cebu check out our rentals website: www.condotel-rentals.com for info.

Beth Collingz, PLC International Marketing Networks overseas sales director and lead marketing partners for Pacific Concord Properties Lancaster Brand of Condo-Hotels in the Philippines, is passionate about providing that extra service to help make your stay in Cebu as enjoyable as possible. For those of us who have traveled abroad before, we can understand how difficult it can be to get along in a country if you don’t speak the language or know the terrain

That is where Lancaster Cebu Condotel apartments comes in, providing quality and friendly service with a variety of apartments. Property is all about LOCATION. Mactan Cebu, provides one with both the laid back pace of provincial living, as well as prerequisites of the urban dweller. Schools, hospitals, restaurants, shopping malls, and leisure are all found on the island itself.

Collingz said guests can now pre-book tour packages with Lancaster Cebu for travel to some of the Philippines finest beaches and dive spots.

For more information please do not hesitate to contact us:

Beth Collingz- Director
PLC International Marketing Networks
Pacific Concord Properties Inc., Head Office
Shaw Boulevard, Mandaluyong City.
Metro Manila. Philippines
Phone: Manila [632] 717 1958

Pacific Concord Properties Inc., Cebu Office
Lapu-Lapu City, Mactan.
Cebu. Philippines
Phone: Cebu [6332] 340 0721
Email: plcsales@pldtdsl.net
Web: http://www.lancaster-cebu.com
Web: http://www.condotel-cebu.com
Web: http://www.condotel-rentals.com

 

 

 

Lancaster Cebu Condotel Mactan open leasing options for Condotel rental tenants
Pacific Concord Properties, Inc. (PCPI) Lancaster Brand of Condotels in Cebu, Philippines, have established a subsidiary in the name of Pacific Concord Property Management, Inc. (PCPMI) that is especially designed to manage longer term condo leasing services for prospective tenants Clients may now lease fully furnished or unfurnished Studio and Two Bedroom suites for a [...]

Pacific Concord Properties, Inc. (PCPI) Lancaster Brand of Condotels in Cebu, Philippines, have established a subsidiary in the name of Pacific Concord Property Management, Inc. (PCPMI) that is especially designed to manage longer term condo leasing services for prospective tenants

Clients may now lease fully furnished or unfurnished Studio and Two Bedroom suites for a minimum of three months to one year [renewable] at competitive rental rates.

Fully Furnished Studio Condo units are available from Pesos: 22,600.00/month

Fully Furnished Two Bedroom Condo units are available from Pesos: 33,900.00/month

Unfurnished Studio Condo units are available from Pesos: 16,950.00/month

Unfurnished Two Bedroom Condo units are available from Pesos: 28,250.00/month

Tenants are responsible for payment of monthly Condominium dues and for consumed electricity and water billings. Cable TV, Internet and PABX Telephone services are also available. Security deposits and advance rental payments are required depending upon the length of lease.

Lancaster Cebu are also offering newly renovated Fully Furnished Studio and Two Bedroom units located in Mactan, Cebu… a few minutes from the Mactan-Cebu International Airport, on daily, weekly, monthly or yearly rental terms.

Beth Collingz, overseas sales director PLC International and lead marketing partners for the Lancaster brand of Condo Hotels in the Philippines said property is all about location. Mactan, Cebu, provides one with both the laid back pace of provincial living, as well as prerequisites of the urban dweller. Schools, hospitals, restaurants, shopping malls, and leisure are all found on the island itself.

Cebu City is the acknowledged gateway and Queen City of the South. Cebu is the most important trading and commercial hub outside of Metro Manila. The Mactan-Cebu International Airport assures the arrival of a steady stream of international flights from Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Bangkok, Macau, Singapore, Jakarta, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Kota Kinabalu, Seoul and Qatar. Philippine Airlines will soon commence direct San Francisco – Cebu flights. There are also chartered flights from Inchon, Taipei, Kansai, Nagoya and Kaohsiung that arrive on a weekly basis. Cebu is identified by Asiaweek and Conde Nast Traveller as one of Asia’s Best Cities.

Lancaster Cebu Resort Residences, located a mere 3 minutes from Mactan-Cebu International Airport, provides you with easy access to all the essentials of urban living. This ideal location will complement the Condotel operation since Lancaster Cebu will function as a condominium hotel – a preferred accommodation choice of businessmen and holiday travelers alike. Clients can either purchase Condotel Suites for investment purposes or lease the units on weekly, monthly or yearly basis.

All rooms are fully air-conditioned, fully furnished with queen-size beds and have equipped kitchen facilities including microwave oven, stove and refrigerator. En-suite Bathrooms have Shower/Bathtubs and hot/cold running water. All rooms have Wi-Fi internet access and Cable TV. Studio Suites are available for double/single occupancy and have queen-size beds. Two Bedroom Apartments have two bathrooms and two queen-size beds for 2-4 person occupancy.

SPECIAL PROMO ROOM RATES [TAX INCLUSIVE]
Effective from June 1, 2009 – January 31, 2010

STUDIO [2 Persons]

Daily Rate Pesos: 2,203.50
Weekly Rate Pesos: 12,616.45
Monthly Rate Pesos: 38,985.00

TWO-BEDROOM SUITE [4 Persons]

Daily Rate Pesos: 4,101.90
Weekly Rate Pesos: 22,701.70
Monthly Rate Pesos: 59,325.00

All rates quoted are fully inclusive of 13% government taxes. There are no security deposits or advances payable. Weekly Rates are based upon 7 nights. Monthly/Yearly rates are based upon 30 night months. Additional nights are charged at the pro-rated weekly or monthly nightly rate. All rates apply to single or double occupancy. Children below 12 without extra bed are free of charge when sharing room with adults. Baby cribs available upon request. These rates may be changed without prior notice.

Inclusions:

* Complimentary Use of Swimming Pools
* Complimentary Car Parking [One Slot/room for In-House Guest only] Non-hotel guest -Pph-20.00/hour
* Complimentary Wi-Fi Internet Access at the Pool Bar
* Complimentary Wi-Fi Internet Access for selected Suites
* All rooms have Cable TV
* A la Carte Breakfast from –Pph-150.00 per pax
* All units at Lancaster Cebu have kitchen facilities and basic appliance
* Complimentary shuttle service from Hotel to and from Cebu-Mactan International & Domestic Airports
* Room Rates are inclusive of twice a week housekeeping service, i.e., room make-up and linen change.
* Utilities, i.e. electricity and water, including monthly condo dues are all inclusive on daily/weekly and monthly rates however are charged separately for yearly leases.

For your Reservation simply send us an email with the dates you will be staying. We do not require any advance deposit for reservations. We do not charge any security deposits. Payment can be made in cash/credit card upon check in.

Airport transfers - pickup is complimentary.

We also have Fully Furnished Executive Studio Suite and Two-Bedroom Suites available for sale at Lancaster Cebu Resort Residences at Pre-Increase Prices that are “ready for occupancy from July 2009”… at the current price said Collingz.

PLC International Marketing Networks, with its internet based Global Agency, are the lead marketing partners with Pacific Concord Properties Inc for the Lancaster Brand of Condotels in the Philippines

Beth Collingz
Director - PLC International Marketing Networks
Pacific Concord Properties Inc - Branch Office
Lancaster Cebu Resort Residences
Lapu-Lapu City, Mactan. Cebu.
Tel: [Cebu 63 32] 340 0721
Email: plcsales@lancastersuites.com
Website: http://www.lancastersuites.com
Website: http://www.condotel-rentals.com

 

 

Lancaster Condo Hotel Manila open leasing options for Condotel rental tenants
Pacific Concord Properties, Inc. (PCPI) Lancaster Brand of Condotels in Manila, Philippines, have established a subsidiary in the name of Pacific Concord Property Management, Inc. (PCPMI) that is especially designed to manage condo leasing services for prospective tenants   Clients may now lease fully furnished, semi-furnished or unfurnished Studio, One, Two and Three Bedroom suites for [...]

Pacific Concord Properties, Inc. (PCPI) Lancaster Brand of Condotels in Manila, Philippines, have established a subsidiary in the name of Pacific Concord Property Management, Inc. (PCPMI) that is especially designed to manage condo leasing services for prospective tenants

 

Clients may now lease fully furnished, semi-furnished or unfurnished Studio, One, Two and Three Bedroom suites for a minimum of three months to one year [renewable] at competitive rental rates.

 

Fully Furnished Studio, One, Two and Three Bedroom Condotel units are available from Pesos: 600/700 per sqm/month (for Studio and One Bedroom Units) and from Pesos: 700/800 per sqm/month (for Two and Three Bedroom Loft Units)

 

Semi-furnished Standard condo units (with air-conditioning) are available from Pesos: 500/550 per sqm/month (Studio and One Bedroom Units) and from Pesos: 600/650 per sqm/month (for Two and Three Bedroom Loft Units).

 

Unfurnished Standard Studio, One, Two and Three Bedroom condo units are available from Pesos: 400/450 per sqm/month (for Studio and One Bedroom Units), and from Pesos: 500/550 per sqm/month (for Two and Three Bedroom Loft Units)

 

In terms of unit rental costs, a fully furnished Studio Condo Hotel suite may be leased from Pesos: 16,800.00/month whilst the larger One, Two and Three Bedroom condo suites may be leased from Pesos: 24,600.00, 39,000.00 and 45,000.00/month respectively for 1 year lease terms.

 

Rental rates are subject to 12% VAT and tenants are responsible for payment of monthly Condominium dues and for consumed electricity and water billings. Security deposits and advance rental payments are required depending upon the length of lease.

 

Lancaster Suites, Shaw Boulevard, Manila Condo Hotel are also offering fully furnished Studio, One Bedroom, Two Bedroom and Three Bedroom units a few minutes from Ortigas Center, SM Mega Mall and Shangri-La Mall, on daily or weekly rental terms.

 

Lancaster Suites Manila is the epitome of luxury and convenience. Each suite is lavishly and beautifully appointed, designed with plush interiors constructed to highest industry standards. Guest room amenities include cable television, broadband internet connection, in-room safety deposit box and electronic door lock system. Bathtubs are standard in all Condotel suites as are kitchen and dining facilities.

 

PLC International Marketing Networks

Pacific Concord Properties Inc., Head Office

Shaw Boulevard, Mandaluyong City.

Metro Manila. Philippines

Phone: Manila [632] 717 1958

Email: plcsales@pldtdsl.net  

Web: http://www.lancastersuites.com  

Web: http://www.condotel-manila.com   

Web: http://www.condotel-rentals-manila.com

 

Lancaster Cebu Condotel launches Asia’s Top Beach and Dive Package Tours to Siargao Island Philippines
Lancaster Cebu serviced Condotel flats, a few minutes from Mactan International Airport in the central Philippines, a major jump off point for island tours, are 2-4 hours from some of the Philippines Top Beaches and Dive Spots. Siargao Island, 1 hour by plane from Lancaster Cebu via Cebu Pacific Airlines direct to Sayak Airport, hosts [...]

Lancaster Cebu serviced Condotel flats, a few minutes from Mactan International Airport in the central Philippines, a major jump off point for island tours, are 2-4 hours from some of the Philippines Top Beaches and Dive Spots.

Siargao Island, 1 hour by plane from Lancaster Cebu via Cebu Pacific Airlines direct to Sayak Airport, hosts one of the most beautiful beaches in the world and home of Philippine wave surfing. The coastline is marked by a succession of reefs and white sandy beaches. The reefs are excellent for picking up any swell that comes along turning into clean, fast waves. High Season October – June. Low Season July – September. Inclusive 4 Day/3 night packages at Kalinaw Beach for 2 persons start from Pesos: 39,900.00 nett including breakfast, round trip Cebu-Sayak-Cebu air transfers and 3 day/2 nights at Lancaster Cebu as the arrival and departure point.

 

Lancaster Cebu offers Studio and 2-Bedroom fully furnished Suites on daily, weekly, monthly or yearly lease rental terms. Whilst some renovation works are still ongoing within the complex, unit rentals are now available to guests at ‘Special Promo Rates’ running through to December 2009. For Condo rentals in Cebu check out our rentals website: www.condotel-rentals.com for info.

 

Beth Collingz, PLC International Marketing Networks overseas sales director and lead marketing partners for Pacific Concord Properties Lancaster Brand of Condo-Hotels in the Philippines, is passionate about providing that extra service to help make your stay in Cebu as enjoyable as possible. For those of us who have traveled abroad before, we can understand how difficult it can be to get along in a country if you don’t speak the language or know the terrain.

That is where Lancaster Cebu Condotel apartments comes in, providing quality and friendly service with a variety of apartments. Property is all about LOCATION. Mactan Cebu, provides one with both the laid back pace of provincial living, as well as prerequisites of the urban dweller. Schools, hospitals, restaurants, shopping malls, and leisure are all found on the island itself. Collingz said at the request of many overseas clients, guests can now pre-book tour packages with Lancaster Cebu for travel to some of the Philippines finest beaches and dive spots.

For more information please do not hesitate to contact us:

Beth Collingz- Director
PLC International Marketing Networks
Pacific Concord Properties Inc., Head Office
Shaw Boulevard, Mandaluyong City.
Metro Manila. Philippines
Phone: Manila [632] 717 1958

Pacific Concord Properties Inc., Cebu Office
Lapu-Lapu City, Mactan.
Cebu. Philippines
Phone: Cebu [6332] 340 0721
Email: plcsales@pldtdsl.net
Web: http://www.lancaster-cebu.com
Web: http://www.condotel-cebu.com
Web: http://www.condotel-rentals.com

 

Lancaster Cebu Condotel launches Asia’s Top Beach and Dive Site Package Tours to Panglao Island Bohol Philippines
Lancaster Cebu serviced Condotel flats, a few minutes from Mactan International Airport the central Philippines major jump off point for island tours, are 2-4 hours from some of Asia’s Top Beaches and Philippine Dive Spots. Apartments come completely furnished and offer an affordable alternative to high priced hotels Bohol Panglao Island a mere 30 min drive [...]

Lancaster Cebu serviced Condotel flats, a few minutes from Mactan International Airport the central Philippines major jump off point for island tours, are 2-4 hours from some of Asia’s Top Beaches and Philippine Dive Spots. Apartments come completely furnished and offer an affordable alternative to high priced hotels

Bohol Panglao Island a mere 30 min drive and 2 hour ferry ride from Cebu, has become a favorite destination for beach lovers with soft white sand great diving sites. Alona Beach with 800 m long sand stretch has many hotels, restaurants and diving centers. Doljo Beach is secluded with shallow water whereas Cabilao Island on the west coast of Bogol has excellent diving sites and clear water. The landscape is dominated by Chocolate hills adding to the beauty of the place. High Season from October – June. Low Season from July – September. Inclusive 4 Day/3 night packages at either Bohol Beach Club or Alona Beach Resort for 2 persons start from Pesos: 35,900.00 nett including breakfast, round trip transfers and full day Bohol Island Tour and 3 day/2 nights at Lancaster Cebu as arrival and departure point.

 

Lancaster Cebu offers Studio and 2-Bedroom fully furnished Suites on daily, weekly, monthly or yearly lease rental terms. Whilst some renovation works are still ongoing within the complex, unit rentals are now available to guests at ‘Special Promo Rates’ running through to December 2009. For Condo rentals in Cebu check out our rentals website: www.condotel-rentals.com for info.

 

Beth Collingz, PLC International Marketing Networks overseas sales director and lead marketing partners for Pacific Concord Properties Lancaster Brand of Condo-Hotels in the Philippines, is passionate about providing that extra service to help make your stay in Cebu as enjoyable as possible. For those of us who have traveled abroad before, we can understand how difficult it can be to get along in a country if you don’t speak the language or know the terrain

That is where Lancaster Cebu Condotel apartments comes in, providing quality and friendly service with a variety of apartments. Property is all about LOCATION. Mactan Cebu, provides one with both the laid back pace of provincial living, as well as prerequisites of the urban dweller. Schools, hospitals, restaurants, shopping malls, and leisure are all found on the island itself. Collingz said at the request of many overseas clients, guests can now pre-book tour packages with Lancaster Cebu for travel to some of the Philippines finest beaches and dive spots.

For more information please do not hesitate to contact us:

Beth Collingz- Director
PLC International Marketing Networks
Pacific Concord Properties Inc., Head Office
Shaw Boulevard, Mandaluyong City.
Metro Manila. Philippines
Phone: Manila [632] 717 1958

Pacific Concord Properties Inc., Cebu Office
Lapu-Lapu City, Mactan.
Cebu. Philippines
Phone: Cebu [6332] 340 0721
Email: plcsales@pldtdsl.net
Web: http://www.lancaster-cebu.com
Web: http://www.condotel-cebu.com
Web: http://www.condotel-rentals.com

 

 

Christian Ward, author of ‘Bone Transmissions’
In 2006, Christian Ward published The Grammarian and Other Poems (PDF) (Lily Press, 2006). This was followed by five more poetry chapbooks, among them, Goddess & Other Poems (PDF) (Scars Publications, 2007), The Sea (PDF) (Scars Publications, 2007) and Dark Matter Lullabies (Why Vandalism?, 2008). His latest chapbook, Bone Transmissions was released from Maverick Duck Press [...]

Writing a Web Service (7/2/2002)
Did you know that a Web service begins as a simple class method? Here's a simple prime number method that can become a Web service.

Using RegEx to cut down on code
I sometimes forget how useful/powerful RegEx can be. Take the following bit of CFIF logic <cfset username = trim(form.uname) /> <cfif len(username) LT 4> <cfset errorMsg = "Your username is too short" /> <cfelseif NOT reFindNoCase("[\w]", username, 1, "false")> <cfset errorMsg = "Your username is too short" /> </cfif> A quick regex guide: the “\w” reference stands for “word character”, which translates [...]

Ask Ben: Dynamic Web Root And Site URL Calculations In Application.cfc
I'm new to using Application.cfc. Following Ben Forta's tutorial, I've created one that calls a SiteHeader and a SiteFooter. The header has an image file which displays at the root level of the website, but breaks when you go to folders underneath that. I can make it work by setting a Request.Image_Path in Application.cfc, but only by hardcoding the URL. Works okay in localhost mode, but if I move the files to a production webserver, I have to remember to change the path to ... Read More »

FantasyCon 2009
FantasyCon is part of British Fantasy Society’s (BFS) calendar, and has been held since the 1970s; from 2007 it has taken place in the Britannia Hotel in Nottingham. This year FantasyCon is scheduled for the 18-20 September, once again in the Britannia Hotel. FantasyCon is an event that celebrates the literature of fantasy and science fiction, [...]

Online Book Festival
Litarena Review Magazine is having an online book festival. We’re discussing Hemingway, Nietzsche, F Scott Fitzgerald, Dashiell Hammett, Edgar Allan Poe and all of the great writers in our festival. We’re also discussing new writers and their works and us and our work. Come join us. Source of message: Patrick Mackeown Editor Litarena Review Magazine Posted in Authors, Books, Fiction, Interviews, [...]

Project HUGE: Huge In A Hurry - Get Big - Phase 3 / Week 3
I am almost done with the Get Big program in Chad Waterbury's Huge In A Hurry workout . I have been really trying to stick with it; but, as I have gotten farther into the workout, I have started substituting a few of the exercise choices. This last week, Week 3 of Phase 2, I decided to substitute Barbell Box Squats in lieu of Bulgarian Split Squats. I've performed the Bulgarian split squat in this phase and pre ... Read More »

Michael Jodoin, author of ‘Holy Hell’
Filmmaker and author, Michael Jodoin lives in South Central Kentucky. His first book, Holy Hell was released from sonar4 publications in March 2009. Jodoin’s work includes a screenplay adaptation of Holy Hell; a vampire story, Love Sucks; and a werewolf tale, The Wolf with the Red Rose. In this interview, he talks about his concerns as [...]

5. Website Flipping: Buy and Sell Websites
The 5th method that Jimmy discusses for making money online is website flipping, or to buy and sell websites for profit. See pages 16-17 in your PDF. Jimmy suggests one of two models, or a combination of both: creating and selling websites, or buying websites to resell…

Part FIVE of the 10 Ways to Make Money Online Series

By now I assume you have already downloaded and read the special report by Jimmy D. Brown that we’re discussing in this 10-part series. If not, click the link above to see the original post and download the 30-page report.

The 5th method that Jimmy discusses for making money online is website flipping, or to buy and sell websites for profit. See pages 16-17 in your PDF. Jimmy suggests one of two models, or a combination of both: creating and selling websites, or buying websites to resell…

Whether you create the websites yourself, or buy them cheap at various places online, you will earn a much higher return by investing time into the profit potential. A website that is already monetized, getting traffic and proving it’s earning potential will command a much higher selling price.

Spend a few months building the content, traffic and income – and then you can sell the site at a much higher price. Since the site is pulling in traffic and a profit (even if it’s a small profit), it commands a higher price because there’s proof that it’s profitable. People are now buying into proven profits rather than profit potential. (page 16)

The general rule of thumb for the price point is 12-months earnings. So if the site is earning $100 consistently every month, you can sell it for around $1,200.

Let me just stop there and make a confession: I’ve never sold a website, or purchased a website with the intention to resell. I’ve browsed the listings, and I’ve watched a few people go through the process, but I have never actively participated in this particular method of making money online.

That’s one of the great things about writing this series from Jimmy’s 10-point report: getting to explore methods and topics that I wouldn’t normally bring up for discussion here on ClickNewz. I think it is incredibly useful in helping us all to expand our vision on the opportunities available, don’t you?

Here’s my line of thinking:

If I have a website that is fairly new, say around 90 days old, and consistently making $100/month… I don’t say to myself, “I could sell this today for $1200!”.

My mind doesn’t work that way. Instead I say, “I could triple the earnings on this site easily by investing some time into it now, and earn more than $3,000 over the next year.”

Not only could I tweak the site until it’s running at it’s full earning potential, and let it continue to run and generate passive income on the side while I work on other projects… but that little site has even more potential for me in the long run. As it becomes more established in the search engines, it also begins to have link value among other things.

Now this could be considered smart thinking, or it could be completely flawed.

If you know yourself well enough to realize you’ll leave that poor little site sitting on the back burner and never really do anything with it, you may be better off selling it to someone who will.

How many people have websites, or even just domain names, sitting on the back burner? That would be 99.9% of us, I’m sure . That being the case, it’s like eBay: it makes sense to “clean house” and put the cash back into what you are actively working on in your online business.

I can also see where Website Flipping would be an ideal model for the person who has high energy in the start-up phase, but has discovered they have zero follow-through on any project they start. If you have half a dozen low-profit website projects scattered around, but fail to follow through on any of them to substantial profit, this may just be the perfect online business model for you.

It’s also worth pointing out that you should always consider selling over just deleting a website or letting a domain expire. I have seen this happen so many times over the years, and it always stumps me. Keep in mind that one man’s virtual junk is another man’s virtual treasure

I’ll close this post with some helpful resources on how to buy and sell websites, and open this up for discussion in the comments. You can right-click on each link to open it in a new tab or a new browser window.

Resources:

• Finding Websites to Flip
• Flipping a WordPress Blog
• Shopping For Websites: What Makes Them Valuable
• How To Buy A Website And Flip It For Profit
• Case Study - Flipping a Site for Profit

I’d love to hear your thoughts, or your personal experiences if you’ve dabbled in Website Flipping yourself.

Best,

p.s. Jimmy recommended Flip Mastery in his report, as the best (and most current) course for learning more about Website Flipping.

Update: I found a coupon code for FlipMastery. This code will get you $10 off the product: 1604E -Enjoy!

Format fails
ugh! Formatting = teh failz! jeez… I really REALLY don’t want to do this right now. Some of you may remember that I upgraded to a RAID 5 array well in doing so I moved from three individual hard drives to a “single” RAID drive. Which created all sorts of problems [...]

ugh! Formatting = teh failz! jeez… I really REALLY don’t want to do this right now. Some of you may remember that I upgraded to a RAID 5 array well in doing so I moved from three individual hard drives to a “single” RAID drive. Which created all sorts of problems ESPECIALLY with Adobe products. Don’t ask me why but once you install an Adobe product (be in Reader, Photoshop, or anything else) the installation path is forever remembered and freaking ridiculous to get rid of. Even though I uninstalled everything from the other hard drives after ghosting the C drive to the new array now when I go to reinstall some of this stuff it won’t let me because I can’t specify an installation path and the old path is forever ingrained…

So the plan has been to uninstall everything, make backups of the information that is important, and reinstall the OS… don’t really want to wait on it for too long, but I think it’s going to have to wait until after I’m done at LifeTouch. I just don’t have the energy right now, especially with a newborn around finding the time and energy to make all the backups and what not has been more than a little bit of a pain!

Web Hosting Geeks
I’ve stressed to my readers time in and time out on all of my blogs the importance of when you decide to go online to DO YOUR HOMEWORK! Whether you’re purchasing a new computer, computer parts, a car, or whatever you should research that product, research the company, research their customer support. I [...]

I’ve stressed to my readers time in and time out on all of my blogs the importance of when you decide to go online to DO YOUR HOMEWORK! Whether you’re purchasing a new computer, computer parts, a car, or whatever you should research that product, research the company, research their customer support. I tell the same thing to all the people out there looking to go online with their business. I tell them that when you’re looking for web site hosting look up the company, look up what they stand for and how they do business. Not doing so is just asking for trouble. I know when I first moved my business online I was naive and just looked for a manageable price on everything. Then turns out the company that I went with was impossible to get a hold of, their server wouldn’t allow me to upload via FTP, and .htaccess files were not allowed so I couldn’t run the types of sites that I wanted… needless to say I didn’t stick with that company for very long (I won’t say who it is because from what I’ve heard they’ve changed since, but I still hold a grudge so will never return to them. It’s one of the mega super hosting companies)

Just when you thought it was safe!
Oh man, just when you thought it was safe to start blogging again… P3 goes and slaps the bloggers around again by adding the ability for advertisers to pay as little as $1 per opportunity! And of course bloggers get paid half of that. I’m sure you can do the math on that… Unfortunately [...]

Oh man, just when you thought it was safe to start blogging again… P3 goes and slaps the bloggers around again by adding the ability for advertisers to pay as little as $1 per opportunity! And of course bloggers get paid half of that. I’m sure you can do the math on that…

Unfortunately bloggers are willingly shooting themselves in the foot here… The minimum payment to P3 is $50 for advertisers… which means these people are running at least 40 ads… and I’ve seen more than one of them completely filled up! For small time sites like ApplyMyWay this is going to be perfect for the launch… and for other sites like KCLANParty this will help me promote the directory in a manor that is worth it to me… but for bloggers this means the end of easy career blogging!

Cryo-cell stem cell - cord blood bank
Are you interested in saving and preserving life? It has been said that our nation has become a selfish and self serving nation, but I don’t think that is completely true. If we were so selfish and self serving we wouldn’t advance technologies for the preservation of mankind such as stem cell research. [...]

Are you interested in saving and preserving life? It has been said that our nation has become a selfish and self serving nation, but I don’t think that is completely true. If we were so selfish and self serving we wouldn’t advance technologies for the preservation of mankind such as stem cell research. Of course there are a few selfish and greedy individuals who do it for the glory or money, and those who donate or help for the hopeful increase to their life, but as a whole stem cell research does one thing: save lives. One company leading the stem cell world is a cord bank facility called Cryo-cell. Cryo-cell helps people by giving you the option to store cord blood with them from your babies cord blood.

Cryo-cell even challenges you to compare us and find out if their service is right for you. They push the limits and challenge their rivalry companies to step up and continue the advancement of technology with them. Of course Cryo-Cell is leading the way in this endeavor which is why they are so confident in their comparison charts. If you do choose Cryo-Cell you may be interested in their Current Offer which could save you a boat load of money!

Lap-Band Surgeon
We all know that getting out to the gym is hard, and dieting is no fun either. So where do we all turn as Americans? That’s right, the quick fix surgery is always the right fit for anyone. Just like in that movie where Cloning becomes popular and when you get too [...]

We all know that getting out to the gym is hard, and dieting is no fun either. So where do we all turn as Americans? That’s right, the quick fix surgery is always the right fit for anyone. Just like in that movie where Cloning becomes popular and when you get too fat and old you simply get cloned for a new younger you, get your thoughts and memories copied to the new clone and dump your old body off to work in slavery. If you’re getting old and fat but are too lazy to actually go to the gym, and too unconditioned to be on a diet get yourself a lap-band surgeon to fix your ailments!

Vacuum Cleaner Review
Woot! I’m getting fairly excited about the whole vacuum cleaner review site! It’s going to be good. Gotta get it off to the right start though. The build is going kinda fast, but a bit slow at the same time. Lots of annoying little things here and there that have [...]

Woot! I’m getting fairly excited about the whole vacuum cleaner review site! It’s going to be good. Gotta get it off to the right start though. The build is going kinda fast, but a bit slow at the same time. Lots of annoying little things here and there that have begun to add up and get in the way. Plus I’ve got to hide some of the aspects of the site (things that I don’t want other people messing with). Oh well it’s going to take some time, and energy to get it all done, but in the end it will be worth it.

My official Nursing board exam rating has arrived!
Finally, my official board rating from the Professional Regulation Commision (PRC) has arrived today. Although I have already known my rating the day I filed for the acquisition of it, approximately four months ago, it still is different to have the official rate at last. The sad thing about Philippine government processes, though, is that it is really, really slow. That is why the progress of

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Style your vision
Wearing eye accessories has dramatically gone trendy, especially now that almost everyone puts careful attention into fashion. True, the contact lenses has gained popularity too, but still the very obvious shield (as shades) or aid (eyeglasses) for the eyes are not left behind.Eyeglass manufacturers these days have incorporated fashionable style into practical usage. The eyeglasses today not only

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Find career focus with the MyMeMap
Ideas Random career change thoughts, opinions, and ideas Mark Pollard’s MyMeMap. Find half an hour of free time to identify your passions and knowledge, and then draw up a five-step plan of action to go about realising your career purpose. Brilliant!

Mark Pollard’s MyMeMap.

Find half an hour of free time to identify your passions and knowledge, and then draw up a five-step plan of action to go about realising your career purpose.

Brilliant!

eBossWatch
Ideas Random career change thoughts, opinions, and ideas There’s an old saying that goes something like “there’s only one way to really get to know a person; either live with them, or work with them”. Well there’s nothing like finding out the hard way is there? And while as a job hunter we can never really “try before we [...]

There’s an old saying that goes something like “there’s only one way to really get to know a person; either live with them, or work with them”.

Well there’s nothing like finding out the hard way is there?

And while as a job hunter we can never really “try before we buy” when it come to getting the low down on a new boss, it is now possible to gain some sort of idea.

eBossWatch is a new service that allows job hunters (only in the USA at the moment) to search for a prospective new boss on a database and for a small cost, receive an email report which offers a six point review, based on feedback received from past employees.

I recently wrote a review of this new job hunting tool over at my personal website disassociated.com if you are interested to read more about it.

Age is no barrier
Article Career change and job search information and advice Jockey Glen Butler’s story is proof that age need not be an obstacle when it comes following to your dreams. At age 42 Butler has finally fulfilled a life long ambition to jockey race horses. Although he always wanted to be a jockey, he found the 3am starts just a [...]

Jockey Glen Butler’s story is proof that age need not be an obstacle when it comes following to your dreams.

At age 42 Butler has finally fulfilled a life long ambition to jockey race horses.

Although he always wanted to be a jockey, he found the 3am starts just a little too difficult when younger, and gave up training.

It was a decision he always regretted. After numerous attempts, he finally gained an apprenticeship, and recently had his first win in a race.

Of course it was not easy going. He was subject to numerous knock backs while seeking an apprenticeship, and also had to reduce his weight to just 51 kilograms!

Happy successful people find work at Disney theme parks…
Check List A quick summary of all sorts of useful stuff! … and being 10pm it’s about time I got out of here and joined them. Maybe in a bar at a theme park at this hour though! Enjoy the weekend! Though posted a few months ago I thought it would be worth mentioning the Dream jobs contest [...]

… and being 10pm it’s about time I got out of here and joined them. Maybe in a bar at a theme park at this hour though! Enjoy the weekend!

• Though posted a few months ago I thought it would be worth mentioning the Dream jobs contest (which has since – unfortunately – closed) posted at Careerbuilder.com’s Blog. After a survey of 6000 American workers found 86 percent of respondents felt “fun” was missing from their jobs, Disney Parks offered contestants the chance to work for a day at one of their theme parks. I wonder if a day was enough?!
• Does job hunting suck? Take part in the poll and see how your opinion compares with everyone else. There’s no doubt it can be an uncertain, unnerving, and frustrating process, and like looking for a new home, something many of us could well do without. As a recruiter once said to me though, “job hunting itself must be regarded as a full time job”. I agree, though sometimes it feels more like a necessary evil, than a job!
• While talking of “job hunting being a full time job”, Heather Eagar suggests establishing a job search schedule to help keep track of the process. A particularly useful idea for career changers since there are more steps involved, and having a plan or road map to work to is more than essential.
• The 15 Winning Characteristics of the Happiest, Most Successful People. Some motivational/inspirational reading at Cultivate Greatness.
• The InterChange Desk was recently added to CHIMBY, a search engine that specialises in listing career advice websites, blogs, and resources. With over 400 listings you’re bound to find the career information you are looking for!

Let’s talk about slash careers
Article Career change and job search information and advice Being a “slash careerist” is one thing, talking about it however can be quite another matter. Working as a slash careerist is – for the most part – a blast. You can roll a couple of interests into a hybrid sort of overall occupation, and if one or two [...]

Being a “slash careerist” is one thing, talking about it however can be quite another matter.

Working as a slash careerist is – for the most part – a blast. You can roll a couple of interests into a hybrid sort of overall occupation, and if one or two parts of the equation aren’t exactly hauling in the cash, no problem, hopefully another of the slash/options will. The hours might be long, and there are occasions you need to be in two places at once, but otherwise it’s all good. Talking, however, about your slash career work is another, far trickier proposition, especially in social settings, and particularly when meeting people for the first time.

Friday, 18 May 2007
NEWS News and announcements from The InterChange Desk It’s been a little quieter around here than I anticipated it would be, and I apologise to my regular readers for the slow down recently. The other projects I am involved with have required more of my time than I originally thought they would. I should have seen that [...]

It’s been a little quieter around here than I anticipated it would be, and I apologise to my regular readers for the slow down recently. The other projects I am involved with have required more of my time than I originally thought they would. I should have seen that coming though!

Despite this The InterChange Desk is still managing to make a few waves.

I was recently invited by Anthony Dever to make a guest post at the satirical Australian TV awards website, The Fuglies.

While just a little different my from my usual writings on career change matters it was nevertheless a fun undertaking! Thanks again for the invitation to participate Anthony!

Also a number of posts here have also been featured on some blog carnivals, including IQI Strategic Management Inc, Life Insurance Lowdown, Career Intensity, Living by Design Blog, Balanced Life Center, and Creating Abundant Lifestyles. My thanks to the respective organisers for including my work.

These blogs all feature a variety of articles on life balance and career matters so please visit them for more reading.

Mastering the art of burying one's head in the sand.

Whoever said change is never a waste of time is an idiot?

I don't know who could possibly find enjoyment in the uncertainty in the gap space between each transition. It's like jumping across a platform but pondering in the single moment in between the possibility of not landing your jump. And ... Somehow, it's in those gap spaces that Murphy's law tends to apply most.

***


Life Lesson #8 : Change happens whether you like/want/need/hate it or not.

So standing in that little gray area that seems to be my temporary place of residence as everything is up for analysis... I'm not even certain to what extent I trust my own opinions because I've been around long enough and lived through enough repeated instances to finally learn that....

....Sometimes my opinion isn't actually the most objective one, especially the closer the situation relates to me. I realize that the closer something gets to one the more it's justified and rationalized into something else, something more acceptable because perhaps, it just hurts to see it any other way.

I also realize I'm not going to change this way of thinking anytime very soon, although I sincerely think I'm trying.

Sometimes, you just want something so badly you're willing to put a (couple) extra coating of gloss of the picture just to distract you from the flaws in the image. You're willing to look at the "bigger picture" and conceptualize that someday it shall manifest itself into reality.

I remember once hearing that sometimes we try to hold together what God is trying to pull apart. We ignore the red flags, avert our gazes and continue to carry on a pretense. When the inevitable happens and the situation becomes impossible to ignore we revert to depression and disorientation because "we can't possibly understand how it happened...how could we have missed the signs..?!" etc etc, yea yea yea.

You know how something gets explained to you and it makes near perfect, plausible sense in the moment of being said? Then you walk off, and think about it, and ...really and truly it hardly makes any real sense?

Sooo... now I'm wondering if I'm making the same mistakes again. Perhaps my attitude of tolerance needs to be adjusted because I'm ok with too much... Perhaps the situation at hand is as different as I think it is... Perhaps, they are all one and the same. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Only time will tell anyways... I'm so impatient. I think I shall invest in a lie detector. That'll make my job easier. I'll know when I'm lying to myself, and when others are lying to me.

And seeing that I know myself well enough to know I'm too lazy to bother to go on such a hunt... I know I'll end up doing what I always do - fortunately or unfortunately - waiting it out.

The only difference this time is that I've learned to ask questions, instead of just waiting around for the answers...

***

I'm so sleepy... I think I'll take a catnap before my next class.

Shelli out.

Listen to Glenn Beck read the Story of Christmas
Listen to Glenn Beck read the Story of Christmas Love came down at Christmas, Love all lovely, Love Divine; Love was born at Christmas; Star and angels gave the sign. ~Christina Rossetti David at Third World County gives his thought on a wonderful Christmas song, The Gift of Gifts and with a tip of the cap to Humphrey Bogart, he [...]

Obama beats McCain... on Twitter
Are you having a tough time convincing your boss your company needs to get on Twitter? I checked out a site called Tweetvolume that tracks the number of times a term(s) is mentioned on Twitter and presents it in a bar chart. You can compare multiple items which allows you to compare the mentions of your company vs. another company.

Here's a few I tried:

• Coke vs. Pepsi
  
• PC vs. Mac
• Wii vs. Xbox vs. Playstation
• Palin vs. Bidden
  
• McCain vs. Obama

Try it out and you can even send a link to your boss showing how your company compares to your competitor. That should be all you need to get your company's "Twitter on".

Good luck!

Chad H.

PS: You can follow me on Twitter
PPS: Smart companies use Twitter search to see what people are saying about them. While you may not actively on Twitter, the social community is twittering about you.

Email Autoresponders 2.0 in B2B Marketing
Reflecting back on a long week I had the pleasure of meeting a number of new clients and seeing what they have accomplished as part of their online marketing initiatives. I am extremely lucky to see some of the most cutting edge marketing tactics being used and wanted to highlight some of them here.

I was inspired this morning after my 11 cups of coffee by a former customer and now colleague, Heather Foeh and her blog post "Friday Quick Tip: Re-Visit Your Autoresponders". By autoresponder email, I mean the confirmation email that a registrant immediately receives when they fill out a form on a website. Heather has some good tips to ensure that your information and call to action(s) is up to date. At times, marketers set these up and then forget about them. In this post, I want to highlight some of the interesting trends I'm seeing in marketing automation - specifically the autoresponder email and how you can take advantage of this often neglected marketing gem.

The Evolution of the Autoresponder Email

Let's start with the evolution of the autoresponder. Although this post is mostly from a B2B perspective, the items described here can also be applied in the B2C world. In the past, email recipients were used to receiving a text based email that had a simple message that thanked the subscriber for submitting their information. This in itself was a big step forward as many marketers either didn't have the capability to implement this due to their technology provider or the insight to add this tactic. Now, there are many different types of autoresponder emails from product/service confirmations to event detail information. In this post, I want to concentrate on the use case in which a user either signs up for a newsletter or to access resources from your website. Here is a quick timeline to trace how far marketers have come by displaying how past autoresponders appeared:

1. The Traditional Email Autoresponder

Thanks for registering.

2. Email Autoresponder 1.0

[Insert company logo here]

Thanks for registering.

Click here to unsubscribe.
CompanyX address

3. Email Autoresponder 1.5

[Insert company logo here]

Dear FirstName,
Thanks for registering to receive [insert name of resource] from CompanyX. Please be sure to return to www.companyx.com.

Regards,
CompanyX

Manage your profile or click here to unsubscribe.
CompanyX address

Autoresponder Email The Next Generation

Looking at the examples above, there really isn't anything wrong with the autoresponder 1.5. It provides relevant information, it's simple and to the point. I would also include a few other items as part of autoresponder 1.5: relevant static links to key areas of your website as well as asking recipients to whitelist your email address. This is all great but, if you're looking at ways to get more out of your autoresponders then keep reading.

I've found that autorepsonders can have open rates that can achieve greater that 80% open rates and clickthrough rates in the 20-30% range which blow industry averages out of the ball park. Registrants who fill out forms almost expect to get these emails as they have already taken the time to provide you with some type of information. The least you can do is provide them something useful in return. Other goals to keep in mind is to encourage the new subscriber to open and read future emails but encourage as well as interacting with you in other channels that they may not have known about.

1. Personalization: Adding "Dear FirstName" in your email is good but you're wasting an opportunity to build a relationship between the new registrant and a real person at your company. You know the saying "people buy from people" - well it's true. A recent Aberdeen report has demonstrated that email personalization drives higher email open and conversion rates. Knowing that registrants will most likely open the autoresponder reduces the risk of having a real person in the "from line". What this does is begin or continue the relationship between the prospect and sales rep. As an added tip, make sure you add the name of your company in the first few characters of the subject line so the email recipients realizes that the the name of the person in the "from line" is from your company.
   
   Once the person opens the email, have a signature that includes a real person's name and contact information. The autoresponder should encourage the email recipient to contact the sales rep if they have any questions. The best in class marketers have their CRM synced up to their marketing automation platform which means that known contacts from their CRM should already have an associated sales rep. Your marketing automation platform should also allow you to dynamically include the sales reps information as part of the autoresponder. As an added tip, include a picture of the sales rep. If the registrant is new to your system, have a generic signature that perhaps is from your CMO or a known figure within your organization. Your marketing automation platform can also help you build signature rules based on other contact information such as geography which allows for a personalized approach even if a web visitor has yet to be assigned to a sales rep.
   
   This type of personalization leads to a much stronger and smoother hand-0ff process between the marketing and sales teams which I described in my last post "Lead Management and Football". Using this technique demonstrates that marketing is at the top of their game.
   
   
2. Dynamic Content: This is one of the key areas that makes me smile when I'm reviewing how our customers are getting the most out of our product. Dynamic content in an email allows you to:
   
   • Simplify the autoresponder email creation. Instead of having 20 different versions of the same email, have one email that you can easily maintain. Using dynamic content you can change key areas such as what was exactly downloaded as well as customizing a call to action either based on what they downloaded and/or the interests that were specified in the registration process.
     
     In one example, I have a client that promoted different case studies based on the industry that was specified in the sign up process. In another example, a client specified exactly what was downloaded by capturing this in the registration process and then dynamically displaying this on the email. These techniques are simple, effective and led to increased response.
     
   
   
• Pull in content from RSS feeds: I've outlined this concept in an earlier post Latest Trends in Email Marketing: RSS and Calendar Reminders. You can promote corporate blog posts, upcoming events, press releases and the newest white papers/case studies in an RSS feed(s) that you can add to your email either underneath the main "Thanks for registering text" or as a side column. This means that not only are you saying "Read our latest blog posts" but you're actually including the title of your latest posts as well as a link to read the entire article. In this way you have new content that is dynamically added to your autoresponder without the marketer having to make any manual updates. This is a great way to get more out of your content and drive new registrants back to your website.
  
  
• Personalize who the email is coming from. I described this above but want to point out that this is a form of dynamic content
  


3. Promote Other Channels: More and more marketers are using social media to keep prospects engaged while they are in the sales and marketing funnel. In addition, more and more of prospects are using social media to learn about your products and services as well as comparing you to your competitors. As I outlined in 10 Tips for Using Twitter And Email Marketing for B2B you can add your company's Twitter address, Linkedin groups and links to RSS feeds such as your corporate blog to your autoresponder emails.
   
   You should consider other channels as well. For example, Breaking Point Systems offers a free poster which has proven to be a very successful campaign. I also find this approach brilliant as the autoresponder email drives recipients back to the website to fill out additional information to receive the poster. Another idea is to include a link to a video that may be a customer testimonial that is relevant to the recipients challenge or job role.
   
   
4. Sales Should not Follow up the Email With a Call: So you're reading this post and hopefully enjoying it and then you read this and you're like "What? Chad - you should have stopped after the second cup of coffee". Just because a web visitor signed up for a white paper or a newsletter on your website and you have pasted a nice picture of the rep on your autoresponder doesn't give anyone the right to call them up. If you have a properly defined lead management process, leads should only be passed on to sales for follow up if the prospect has attained a high enough lead score. In this way, you're focusing your sales team on the prospects that are more inclined to buy and sparing a potential buyer from being called too early in the purchase process.
   
   
5. Don't Stop After The Autoresponder: You may be saying: "Wait a minute - so, sales shouldn't follow up but I shouldn't stop after the autoresponder?". That's correct. As I mentioned above, you want to ensure that new subscribers are "sales worthy" according to the agreed upon definitions that you should have between sales and marketing. A great way to keep a new subscriber informed about your company is to move them into a nurturing program typically called a "welcome program" for new subscribers. This may involve a few different channels including having someone follow up with them by phone to further qualify the "inquiry" but the first few touches should be via email to demonstrate the value of having provided you with their email in the first place and to build a profile which translates into a lead score for marketers that have implemented a lead scoring system.
   
   What is important is to provide content that is relevant. Relevancy depends on the recipient's interests that they provided, what they have downloaded and/or which pages, offers or emails they responded to. Frequency is also very important. Try to prevent recipients from receiving email content that they have already received. You also want to ensure that recipients are not receiving too many emails in too short a period of time. However, I believe that relevancy trumps frequency and if the content is relevant, recipients will want to receive it and if they don't feel like looking at it right away, they'll still want to get information from you in the future.
   

Measure the Results

Measuring the results is very key in this process. If you've read the above you may either be excited or overwhelmed. I would recommend benchmarking your current key email and conversion metrics and then slowly adding some of the techniques above and seeing the results. For example, by adding in personalization, are your sales reps receiving inbound calls as a result of this email? Of course, you will need a process in place to measure this (perhaps a dedicated line) but I would recommend starting simple and building on your successes. While these recommendations will require an investment of time up front, it will pay off in the long run.

Have you tried any of these techniques? How has it worked for you?

Chad H.
@chadhorenfeldt


Related Posts:

• Latest Trends in Email Marketing: RSS and Calendar Reminders
• Lead Management and Football
• 10 Tips for Using Twitter And Email Marketing for B2B
• Dynamic Email Content: The Next Generation of Personalization

Technorati tags: autoresponder email, e-mails, email frequency, relevancy, social media and confirmation emails, personalization, Twitter B2B marketing

Lead Nurturing - How to track ROI?
The concept of lead nurturing is something that is complex for some but very straightforward for others. To keep it simple, I look at it as a way of keeping your company top of mind to your potential customers or existing customers who are qualified but not yet ready to buy. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel here so check out Brian Carroll's blog post for a more in depth explanation.

Quick Overview on Trends in Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing can present itself in many ways. It can consist of a sales or call center rep calling a prospect over a period of time or a series of emails sent by marketing. The shift that I've seen is to automate the process using technology. This makes it easier for marketing as messages can be delivered in a timely and consistent manner without a marketing person manually sending out the email each time. Sales benefits as well as marketing is performing "air cover" and with today's tools, the messages can look like the sales rep is sending it themselves with all of this being automated. The other shift I've seen is to use multiple channels as part of a well laid out plan. This may consist of a postcard sent out with an email being sent two days later so it coincides with the direct mail piece and then having a call center rep call 2 days later to maximize the impact of the campaign.

Great - How do I track ROI for Lead Nurturing?

If you are using a CRM with a campaign component, set up a campaign that is specific to your lead nurturing efforts (you may need several campaigns based on the number of programs you are running). On any of the emails that you send as part of the campaign, direct the respondents to a form landing page that when filled out, passes the lead to your CRM and tags that respondent as being part of the lead nurturing campaign that you set up. As deals turn into opportunities and then hopefully into closed deals, you can look back on how your lead nurturing program contributed to the pipeline and then eventually to your company's bottom line. I've also seen companies use a dedicated 1-800 number as part of their lead nurturing campaigns which allows them to easily indicate that the call was generated from a lead nurturing channel.

The explanation above is a summarized view on tracking ROI and some marketers out there may probably rolling their eyes and saying "if only it were that simple". There are many factors that go into this including getting sales and marketing working together as well as buy-in from the marketing team and the rest of the company to invest the time and resources in a systemized lead nurturing process. All I can say is that from what I've seen, it's well worth it and with a well throughout process the return on investment should not take too long to be realized.

Lead Nurturing - Getting Started

Starting a lead nurturing initiative is not the focus of this article but what I would recommend for now is to start simple and look for an area that you can run a pilot program. For example, pick a specific segment such as a key vertical and choose leads generated from a specific channel such as Google Adwords. A simple program may consist of 2-3 emails sent within a specific time period with key messages that should educate prospects and make it easy for them to reach out to your company. Obviously, the more automated you can make this, the easier it gets for the marketing team.

That's it for now - hopefully this was helpful.

Chad H.

Technorati tags: online lead generation, sales air cover, nurturing, automated marketing ROI

Oh No, My Kitty Is Emo
This video has been out for almost two years, and I can’t believe I never saw it until today! HAHA, I love it! Oh No, My Kitty Is Emo � � � � �

Oh No, My Kitty Is Emo

This video has been out for almost two years, and I can’t believe I never saw it until today! HAHA, I love it!

Oh No, My Kitty Is Emo

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Red Rock Canyon
Meditating in the mountains. It’s so peaceful here. Red Rock Canyon � � � � �

Red Rock Canyon

Meditating in the mountains. It’s so peaceful here.

Red Rock Canyon

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OFF! PowerPad Lamp & Lantern Review and Giveaway
For the 4th of July weekend we went camping with family members at Boulder Beach which is on Lake Mead. It was a fun weekend despite the sweltering heat, but we did find refuge floating on the lake on our inflatable rafts during the day. The Family Review Network had asked me [...]

OFF! PowerPad Lamp & Lantern Review and Giveaway

For the 4th of July weekend we went camping with family members at Boulder Beach which is on Lake Mead. It was a fun weekend despite the sweltering heat, but we did find refuge floating on the lake on our inflatable rafts during the day.

The Family Review Network had asked me to review the Off! PowerPad Lamp so I thought this would be a good opportunity to try it out, and it worked great! We sat it on the picnic table and it provided light and kept the bugs away for the entire evening.

The power to repel is in the pad

• Protects an area up to 15x greater than citronella candles or buckets
• Relightable & refillable
• Lasts up to 4 hours per candle + pad combo

OFF! PowerPad Lamp & Lantern Giveaway: To enter for your chance to win a Off! PowerPad Lamp all you need to do is leave a comment on this post telling me about your favorite summer outdoor activity.

OFF! PowerPad Lamp & Lantern Giveaway Rules

1. Leave a comment on this post telling me about your favorite summer outdoor activity.
2. One winner will be drawn randomly from all the comments I receive.
3. Contest ends on Friday July 17, 2009 at 12:00 noon Pacific.
4. Winner will be contacted by email.
5. US addresses only please

This post was written for Family Review Network as part of a program by SC Johnson, who also supplied the product for review and giveaway.

OFF! PowerPad Lamp & Lantern Review and Giveaway

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Moapa Indian Reservation
Moapa Indian Reservation, originally uploaded by justj0000lie. Getting ready for the 4th of July. Buying fireworks at the Indian reservation and watching their fireworks display. Moapa Indian Reservation � � � � �

Moapa Indian Reservation

Getting ready for the 4th of July. Buying fireworks at the Indian reservation and watching their fireworks display.

Moapa Indian Reservation

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Summer of Love Collection At Target
I’m not sure who makes these shirts, but I saw them at Target yesterday and I just had to have them. They’ve got that hippy/bohemian look to them that I love! I need to alter the straps on the two identical ones though. They are too long, and they make the shirts [...]

Summer of Love Collection At Target

I’m not sure who makes these shirts, but I saw them at Target yesterday and I just had to have them. They’ve got that hippy/bohemian look to them that I love!

I need to alter the straps on the two identical ones though. They are too long, and they make the shirts a little too boobalicious plungy for my taste. Although Michael thinks they are just perfect the way they are

Summer of Love Collection At Target

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Michael Jackson’s Hospital Thermometer
On January 27, 1984, Michael Jackson was burned while filming a Pepsi commercial at the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium. He was rushed to Cedars Sinai Medical Center, then transferred to Brotman Medical Center in Culver City, CA with second-degree burns on the back of his head. My husband’s father was working at Brotman Medical Center [...]

Michael Jackson’s Hospital Thermometer

On January 27, 1984, Michael Jackson was burned while filming a Pepsi commercial at the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium. He was rushed to Cedars Sinai Medical Center, then transferred to Brotman Medical Center in Culver City, CA with second-degree burns on the back of his head.

My husband’s father was working at Brotman Medical Center as a burn technician at the time, and had Michael Jackson in his care. At the time of his release from the hospital Michael autographed one of his balloons that he had received and gave it to my husband’s father. He also gave him the thermometer that they had used on him in the hospital. My husband still has this thermometer and we thought that it’s time to show the rest of the world what a neat collector item this is for any Michael Jackson fan.

Michael Jackson was always donating to charities, and one of his favorite charities was Brotman Medical Center that took care of him when he was injured. We are seriously thinking of putting Michael Jackson’s hospital thermometer up for auction on eBay and donating some of the proceeds to the Brotman Medical Center.

What do you think? Do you think this might be a hot item on eBay and that we could raise some good money for the burn center? In this day and age of the fancy CSI stuff I’m sure they could lift his DNA off it.

Michael Jackson’s Hospital Thermometer

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Cute Roses
I got little baby roses today, so cute! Cute Roses � � � � �

Cute Roses

I got little baby roses today, so cute!

Cute Roses

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Little Baby Lizards
Little Baby Lizards, originally uploaded by justj0000lie. I’m out watering and these little guys are all over. He is only about the size of my thumb nail. Little Baby Lizards � � � � �

Little Baby Lizards

I’m out watering and these little guys are all over. He is only about the size of my thumb nail.

Little Baby Lizards

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Frys Electronics
Frys Electronics, originally uploaded by justj0000lie. We’re doing some window shopping. Michael is home, we’re giving it another shot. Thanks for the well wishes and prayers. Keep ‘em coming. Frys Electronics � � � � �

Frys Electronics

We’re doing some window shopping. Michael is home, we’re giving it another shot. Thanks for the well wishes and prayers. Keep ‘em coming.

Frys Electronics

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Blu Frog Energy Drink Contest
I got a case of Blu Frog Energy Drink about three months ago to try and I thought it was the grossest stuff ever. Apparently I’m the only person on the planet that thinks that because everyone else in my house just loved it, and I’ve read really good reviews of the stuff [...]

Blu Frog Energy Drink Contest

I got a case of Blu Frog Energy Drink about three months ago to try and I thought it was the grossest stuff ever. Apparently I’m the only person on the planet that thinks that because everyone else in my house just loved it, and I’ve read really good reviews of the stuff on other people’s blog. I don’t normally like energy drinks to begin with anyway, so maybe I wasn’t the best market tester to begin with. But like I said, the boys loved it and so did all their friends.

BluFrog Energy Drink is sponsoring some pretty cool contest right now that are easy to enter just by twittering, leaving a comment on their blog, or writing about the contest on your own blog.

BluGamer: The Ultimate Gaming Package

• What are every gamer’s dream gifts these days? New socks and underwear? Um, not so much. How about an Xbox 360 Elite Gaming System with a Rock Band 2 bundle to boot? Now that sounds more like it!

Happy Blu-Year: Win a New Years Eve trip to NY

• No dispute here. You KNOW where you’d love to be as the clock nears midnight on December 31st … and now you and a friend can get there, absolutely free!

Blullapalooza: Win a trip to Lolapalloza in Chicago

• Get ready to jam all day and into the night, as you and your music-crazed friend attend the world’s most famous music festival in Grant Park, Chicago. It’s Lollapalooza time and you are THERE, absolutely free!

BluStreak: BluStreak: Win a Richard Petty Racing Experience

• Ready to race up a Blu streak? Then this is your pick … the Richard Petty Driving Experience that gives you the thrill of stock car racing, side-by-side action, drafting, passing and all! And you and a friend get it all, absolutely free!

XtremeBLU: Win a trip to the Winter X Games in Aspen

• You can’t get more Extreme than this … it’s the 14th Winter X Games from ESPN and you’re front and center in the middle of all the action … for free!

Those are some pretty nice prize packages! Out of those five I think I’ll try to win the 14th Winter X Games. Go take a shot at winning, it’s so easy to enter! Good luck!

Blu Frog Energy Drink Contest

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Asset Protection Plans
Many people don’t realize that their estate is as large as it really is, especially when they fail to take into account the assets from their home. Financial Planners and Advisors(See Asset Protection Plans ) are trained intimately in all matters and can provide asset planning to the whole public sector. If you need help selecting the right financial advisor, get the Financial Advisor Report or research for yourself via the internet. Asset Planning Advisers advertise on the internet so they should not be too hard to find. The extent to which the debtor is willing to pursue asset protection is important in determining the appropriate strategy. Planning your estate is essential for anyone who has any amount of assets to leave behind.

HARPER’S ISLAND Finale: Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer
Well…by now HARPER’S ISLAND has aired the final two hours all over North America, and we’ve had more than a day to watch and process the conclusion. And wow, was there a lot to process. I’ve been reading online to gauge viewer reaction to the ending and suffice it to say, the reactions [...]

Hey Everybody. Yes, You can make millions…
And give alot away to wonderful causes. Or you can just blog from the soul and keep your lame part-time job waiting tables or whatever it is you were doing before you met me. Because odds are you found me through channels where you searched for how to make millions blogging which I’m sure I [...]

Senator Franken
Yay! I notice right now that a common theme in traditional media outlets is that Democrats are now in complete control of everything so anything that goes wrong will be their fault. So then I assume that if the country...

Fixed
Honda agreed to pay for about 60% of the cost of the repair, so we have a brand new transmission, and we're out about $1300. Now we just need new tires, and it'll be in good shape....

Anti Fungal - Discount Pharmacy - Order Cheap Drugs Online - Lowest Price Guarantee!

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Yeti Hunting in Norway
Image posted by Loren Coleman on CryptoMundo. If you are following me on Twitter, you might have noticed that I've been sending a series of #yeti hash tags, documenting our latest agency adventure... the Yeti hunt. Antoine Servais (copywriter -...

My Favourite Things...
...are fresh, simple things of life, driving me back to the genuine "human frequency" I believe in. This makes me think that the very best things are always yet to come. Anytime, anywhere. Like eyes closed with a smile on...

Ghost-Blog Blah Blah
- Particularly beautiful picture uploaded by bealluc - OMG! It's been such a long time since my last post. This blog feels dusty and I can hear the wind blowing between the posts. Those of you -the most faithful, obviously-...

Big boys... big toys
I remember getting caught by a silly quote while watching what one might see as a silly film as well : "Golden Eye". OK, as a James Bond fan, I don't care about the silliness of the film but rather...

Feel the Fourth... of the ROFL Watching bot
Well, I think it is probably the first time I'm posting a "silly joke" here, but this one definitely made me ROFL and I just couldn't resist quickly posting it. Guess what, according to GIZMODO, today is "Star Wars Day"...

Creative genius VS the obvious
Here is a touching talk by Elizabeth Gilbert (author of "Eat, Pray, Love") on the creative genius and the importance of its perception. Should we see a person as "being" the rare genius or as "having" a genius moment? Well,...

Story-telling v.2009
Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny by Tomas Nilsson. A well known story under a very 2009 video narrative format. Interesting to see how talent... is blooming everywhere. How the codes of story-telling evolve (not only in film and video). How...

The Modern Techno Fairy
"Magic is everywhere, for whoever is open to see it" - unknown. Every once in a while I like to be short-circuited in my day-to-day life by unexpected and extra-ordinary encounters. Whether re-discovering the simple wonders of nature, exploring new...

Torture of Gitmo Prisoner finally admitted
According to a Fox News Report (so there is serious question as to it's accuracy - still), a senior Bush official admitted the person who would have been part of the 9/11 attack was tortured while at Guantanamo. Fortunately, Obama...

According to a Fox News Report (so there is serious question as to it's accuracy - still), a senior Bush official admitted the person who would have been part of the 9/11 attack was tortured while at Guantanamo. 

Fortunately, Obama is planning on shutting the facility down as soon as he steps into office.  Bush should have done this years ago, but no, these people are too dangerous. 

Yes, the official thinks the prisoner would have participated in the 9/11 attacks if he would have made it into the US by August of 2001.  But, no matter how evil these people may be, torturing them is NOT excusable.  To do so only puts us at the same level as those we are trying to defend against, at the same level as those we call evil... and so we become evil as well.

Merry Christmas...
It may seem a bit sad to post a Christmas message on our blog, but Christmas Cards didn't get out this year (yet again)... But we did want to send our love to our friends and family that read this...

It may seem a bit sad to post a Christmas message on our blog, but Christmas Cards didn't get out this year (yet again)...   But we did want to send our love to our friends and family that read this blog. 

This may well be our last Christmas in Edinburgh and so feelings are a bit melancholic this year.  Rather than firsts it seems to be a season of "lasts".  We really wanted to attend the Christmas Eve service at St Giles this year, but cinnamon rolls weren't quite done, so, we didn't make it.  We did get out to the Christmas Market several times through the season.   

As we packed up the wrapping post Christmas gift giving, rather than fold up the reasonable good paper and re-usable ribbons we just pitched it all.  The boxes were saved more for their use in packing things up later... So, yes, I guess the process of leaving has officially begun.  We don't have a due date to depart and still don't know where we'll end up.    Much of life is still very much in the air, but somehow, the eventual departure from here seems real. 

So, as we prepare ourselves for yet another year of change, we hope life for you feels safe and secure.  May your new year be one of prosperity... 

My Diigo Links 06/02/2009
Amphibian Research Center The Amphibian Research Centre site is the web presence of the centre dedicated to research and conservation of Australia’s unique frogs. They provide a range of services from the site including Tadpoles in schools kits A Field Guide to Frog Groups of Australia Frogs of Australia: A Regional Guide to Frogs of Australia [...]

This Blog Is On Holiday
On the off chance that there are regular readers out there, (and if they are wondering about the lack of posting here), I need to let you all know that Ms Vicki and I are on a five week trip in the UK. If you’re interested you can catch up with the trip on Vicki [...]

I Guess That’s About That! ~ October 24, 2007

I might come here to post once a month until the 360 curtains officially close (if 360 lets me!), but pretty much this is it…I’m jumping ship!

And from what I can tell, none to soon! People are fleeing to other places (many to Multiply.com, which thanks to Sunshine sharing, I have found to be a wonderful new place!), and today I see a new blog from the 360 team, informing us that they will no longer be working out any bugs on here. I take that to fully mean that the crew of the 360 have already abandoned ship and all of us are pretty well left to fend for ourselves…on a sinking ship!

I tried to view a buddies blog just a bit ago, and I can’t get to her new message at all, and to get to her most recent ones I’m having to get tricky. So I quickly came back to my own to back up my last few blogs, and it was tricky but I managed it.

(I’ve picked up a few blog backing up jobs, so this should be interesting with the new bugs! OY!!!)

-

At first I felt as if I was betraying Yahoo! by leaving 360, as I’ve been loyal to so many of their services for about 10 years. But I think I’ve come to accept that in this case, they have betrayed me with the way they have treated 360.

I suppose any service…from any company, can up and vanish or go all unfixable wonky overnight, but this seems to be more about the almighty dollar, as well as the insatiable quest to get more and more younger users.

So I will not feel bad about leaving, although I will still feel a bit sad.

I always said I would start a blog when Yahoo! made one, and not before. And wait I did, and just as soon as I found out about 360…I made my blog.

I’ve made many friends here. Most have come and gone, some just drop in here and there, but a couple have come to be a real staple in my days! LOL Thankfully most who I would really hate to lose, are also jumping ship for the oasis of Multiply.com, and if anyone else wants to find me then can easily locate me there. I have the same ID as here.

-

I am taking on some blog back-up jobs, and if anyone reads this and would like my assistance, you can “try” to contact me here, or over on Multiply, or IM me at this ID.

I’m trying to keep the charge for doing it reasonable, especially since I know many people have 100’s and 100’s of blogs.

I would like to add a quick comment about those exporting/importing services to other blogs. I know Multiply is offering one. Although I get nervous having to provide my password, I think they are a probably a wonderful service, one I might even break over and use myself as an easy way to get some of my more important blogs onto the new site. But I think everyone who feels it would be a loss to lose their blogs, should make sure to back them up regardless!!!

If nothing else, 360 has taught us that nothing on-line is guaranteed, so if we want to keep it, back it up!

If anyone wants to learn how to back up a webpage, contact me and I will help explain it.

(I may just try to do a how-to blog for that over on Multiply, since I know many people are desperate right now)

That will at least help for your future blogs, but I do realize that backing up 100’s of old blogs takes time! So again, contact me and we will try to work something out!

-

I suppose that’s all for now.

-

-

Blog Ya Later ???

Entry for October 15, 2007

Well, my body has gone right back to the up until around 5 or 6am, sleep until about 3ish schedule. It’s absolutely insane and annoying, but I freakin’ give!

Bed by 2am, up at noon is what I want, but my body refuses.

I swear, sometimes it’s like I have a multiple personality that lurks. It never actually comes out, but lurks about and manipulates things behind the scenes. Or maybe I had a twin, but the only part that developed was a little portion in my brain that likes to be evil an go hit the override button to what I want to do.

Then there is my demon theory, but I’m sure I’m already crossing the scary over share boundary so I’ll save that creepy scenario for another time.

Besides, typing hurts right now so I’m trying to keep this brief.

-

My back actually didn’t feel too terrible yesterday, but hurts like a bitch today! Only difference was the spot I slept on in my bed, so I will be going back to it again and hope that’s what it was.

-

*G* should be transferred back to town tomorrow, but I’m still unclear if she will be going to this not quite a hospital place, or a nursing home.

The situation is complicated and not good though, but I should really blog about most of that stuff on my private blog.

-

Today was substandard. I woke, got on the pooh-ter, turned on the TV, checked on kitties, ate, blogged, and if I’m lucky will managed to straighten up the batchen and wash out a nightgown later tonight.

Tomorrow I am aiming for above standard, as I seriously need to do some cleaning!

-

So anyway, I have better things to blog about, but that would require more typing than I am able to do at the moment.

-

-

Blog Ya Later

Bad Weekend, Busy Week - October 07, 2007

I didn’t mean to not blog yesterday, I just spaced it until it was after midnight and wasn’t up to it at that point.

-

So the weekend was really just kind of a bust. It was hot, I think we even had record breaking temps on Fri. or Sat. But that made me not want to do anything, and I didn’t…which sucked because I needed to do tons.

I needed to run errands, and clean, and I wanted to start decorating. I didn’t do any of it.

And then yesterday I started to have severe discomfort around the top of my stomach. The discomfort was constant and then I had bursts of pain here and there. I’m thinking it might be a hiatal hernia. Last night I couldn’t bend over without pain, eating was out of the question, and I couldn’t even drink without aggravating whatever it is.

Since this afternoon when I got up (yeah…schedule sucks) it had let up almost completely, but I can tell there is still a problem so I’m doing almost entirely liquids and what little solids I am eating I’m chewing little bites very well.

As long as the severe discomfort doesn’t start in again, I’m just going to go with it for now, and look at it as a forced way to lose some weight.

I suppose if it keeps up for way long (or gets bad again or worse) then I’ll make a Dr. appt. But for now I’m going to ride it out.

-

I did have a nice long IM chat with a friend last night, and that was my good thing for the weekend.

It kind of amazed me though, that I was able to chat, as I’ve really been beating myself up lately for the way I’ve become…well…a bad friend. I really have, and I’m not quite sure why, which makes fixing it problematic.

I guess it’s just following the same pattern everything else is for me, but it’s seriously causing me distress and I have to come up with a way to get back to being the kind of friend I use to be.

-

-

This week is going to be busy, at least by my never-leave-the-house standards.

Tomorrow I have to run some errands, including mailing a package off to Z and a money order off to get my movie tape (both things that should have been done last month!!!).

Tuesday or Wednesday I have to do laundry…mass quantities of laundry!

Every room needs cleaned, and I have to do that before I can decorate, which if I don’t get that done by Friday I don’t see much point in it.

In addition I have to do two big things all this week in preparation for Saturday, I need to get my sleep schedule flipped around, and try to get some weight off. I guess the stomach stuff may help with the last part!

So Saturday. I made plans with *S-D* to go to shuffle off to Buffalo and visit Pumpkin Bob at the Pumpkin Patch! LOL They have this huge farm with a patch, hay rides, treats, a corn maze, and even a petting zoo! They also have pony rides but those I’ll just watch. HaHa

I’ve always wanted to do something like this, but never have, and *S-D* and I have been wanting to get together and she thought it sounded like fun too.

I kind of hate doing this sort of stuff while I’m in such sucky health, but at this rate I could die before I ever do it, so I decided to suck it up…take drugs…and go for it!

The only bad thing is the time, to work for her we have to go early, and lately I haven’t even been going to bed until around 6am! GRRRRR!

I was going to start working on that tomorrow, but I just thought about all the errands I have to run, so I will wait until Tuesday instead. I’m not quite sure how this will all work, except I know it will involve a day or two of sleep deprivation to whip it around. Again with the GRRRRR!

Oh, I also plan on coloring my hair before Saturday. I’ve been sick of the gray for awhile now, just haven’t bothered to do anything about it, but I think this big day is just the thing to motivate me. I mean I even have the color sitting in the batchen waiting for me. Fun-Fun-Fun

-

-

So Z is back home and blogging about baby Mal already! It amazes me…she amazes me…the baby amazes me! And it all also makes me kind of sad.

I’ll never have a baby, and that hurts.

OK…enough of that, I am truly overjoyed for Z and plan on enjoying every single detail she shares about the little guy!

I’m so glad they are both home safe & sound!!!

-

-

Money stuff. Actually I think I will wait and blog about that separate in the next day or two. Really just more thinking about it, but maybe with a little more optimistic potential than before.

-

-

Guess that’s all for now.

-

Blog Ya Later

My Diigo Links 06/14/2009
4 Stages of Learning Twitter – come on in, the water’s warm! This post from Lynda Morceaux is a nice commonsense run down of how to find your way into the Twitterverse. Organised under four stages, Lynda offers suggestions on how to maximise your involvement with each one. Thanks to @murcha for tweeting this link. tags: twitter, [...]

My Diigo Links 06/13/2009
Stupeflix – Video creation made easy Stupeflix is another one of those online apps/spaces that enable you to create slideshows using images from online or your camera to which you can add a soundtrack. The big difference with this one is that you can actually download the “movie” to your own computer either as an mp4 [...]

My Diigo Links 05/22/2009
Participation Inequality: Lurkers vs. Contributors in Internet Communities (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox) This is, I believe, the original source article for the 90% lurkers 9% and 1% contributors quote that Jason Smith used in his Innovations Showcase Keynote presentation. 90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don’t contribute). 9% of users contribute from time to time, [...]

Friday Fantasy ~ October 12, 2007

It was a good week.

-

My strange tummy problem went away, but I still didn’t over eat and I’ve actually lost 15 lbs. so my freshly washed jeans will fit just right!

-

I got the whole upstairs vacummed, and all three kitty rooms mopped. The dishes are done and the batchen is clean. I dusted and straightened up my back room and it is all ready for me to decorate tonight.

Mass quantities of laundry were done so I have wonderful clean pajamas and bedding, not to mention enough clean clothes to go out in to last me months…except for maybe another pair of jeans, sweatpants, and some more underwear & a new bra.

-

Somewhere along the line I simply woke up on my own at 9am and have been on a decent sleep schedule since, so getting up early tomorrow will be a breeze.

-

OH…and I almost forgot that I found an envelope with $500 in it laying in the W-M parking lot. It was unmarked, so I know finding the original owner would be almost impossible, so…well…

-

So now I’m going to get some pizza and decorate, watch a spooky movie, and get a perfect, peaceful nights sleep before I wake up bright eyed & bushy tailed to enjoy what will be a sunny and 65 day that is beyond perfect my wonderful trip to the pumpkin patch!!!

-

-

Or NOT!!!

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National Restaurant Assoc. honors franchisee ViraniIndUS Business JournalIt showcases industry products, services and innovative ideas. Founded in 1919, the National Restaurant Association is the main business association for the …and more�� More: continued here

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More: continued here

Typing The Letters A-E-S Into Your Code? You’re Doing It Wrong!
1. INT. COFFEE SHOP, MORNING A “young, cool-people’s” coffee shop on the first floor of an old office building in downtown Chicago. “My band is playing” notices line the wall. A hipster in a tight t-shirt hands a cappucino to MIKE TRACY while THOMAS PTACEK waits impatiently. The coffee shop is [...]

1. INT. COFFEE SHOP, MORNING

A “young, cool-people’s” coffee shop on the first floor of an old office building in downtown Chicago. “My band is playing” notices line the wall. A hipster in a tight t-shirt hands a cappucino to MIKE TRACY while THOMAS PTACEK waits impatiently. The coffee shop is loud; Mike and Thomas raise their voices to be heard over the noise.

MIKE TRACY

Did you see that? He worked so hard on my coffee.

THOMAS PTACEK

What? Right. Whatever. Let’s get…

MIKE TRACY

He got all those little beans and put them in the thing and tamped them down and

THOMAS PTACEK

Whatever. Ok. We’ve gotta get ready for this interview

MIKE TRACY (CONT’D)

and he clickity-clack clickity-clacked with the machine and

THOMAS PTACEK

Mike! I get it! He made the shit out of your coffee. What are we going to ask this guy?

Mike walks to a table at the side of the shop, grabbing a lid and a sleeve for his coffee.

MIKE TRACY

(Miffed)

I don’t know. It’s your interview. Single signon cookies?

THOMAS PTACEK

Why SSO?

Mike is maneuvering around people entering the shop through a door leading out to the hallway.

MIKE TRACY

It’s got crypto in it. Everyone always fucks it up.

INT. HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS

Thomas follows Mike, walking towards the elevators.

THOMAS PTACEK

Yeah, that could work. We’ll have two apps. User logged into one of them, needs the other app to do something without making them log in.

MIKE TRACY

Print an invoice.

THOMAS PTACEK

Yeah, this will work. We’ll see if he comes up with the industry standard answer; the cookie both apps honor to let you in, encrypted so users can’t change their account to someone else’s.

MIKE TRACY

So, a base64 blob AES encrypted with a key both servers share? That’s pretty easy, isn’t it? Are we sure this isn’t a layup?

DING. An elevator opens. Thomas and Mike step inside.

THOMAS PTACEK

You’ll be surprised.

---

2. INT. OFFICE - LATER THAT MORNING

An unadorned off-white office lined with Ikea desks, piled with books, papers, and in one case a pile of random electronics tools (soldering iron, multi, etc). An EASEL PAD stands next to a large window looking out on a brick wall. Thomas and Mike sit office chairs with THE CANDIDATE.

THOMAS PTACEK

So you’d have app ‘A’ set a cookie with your account ID in it, right, but how would you keep the user from switching their account by messing with the cookie?

THE CANDIDATE

Uh, I’d encrypt the cookie?

THOMAS PTACEK

Show us how on the pad?

Thomas hands The Candidate a dry erase marker, as The Candidate walks to the easel pad.

THE CANDIDATE

Does it matter what language I write it in?

MIKE TRACY

Whatever you’re comfortable with.

THE CANDIDATE

(Writing awkwardly, addressing the easel)

Ok, so in C#, I’d use Response.Cookies, and

THOMAS PTACEK

You can just do the part where you encrypt the cookies.

THE CANDIDATE

Oh, ok.

The Candidate writes on the pad, slowly:

THE CANDIDATE

Sorry.

MIKE TRACY

No worries, writing code during interviews sucks.

THOMAS PTACEK

Can you walk us through what that code is doing?

THE CANDIDATE

Sure. So I’m Triple-DES encrypting the cookie, which is the “toEncrypt” function argument.

MIKE TRACY

Triple DES? Seriously?

THE CANDIDATE

Ah, yeah, you’re right, in my last job we had to use Triple DES for campatibility, but I’d use AES now.

The Candidate starts correcting the text on the pad.

THOMAS PTACEK

Don’t worry about it, keep going. But yeah, don’t use Triple DES for anything. It has a bunch of problems, but also an 8 byte block size, which is tiny.

THE CANDIDATE

Ok, so, I take the key and I turn it into an AES key by MD5’ing it.

MIKE TRACY

You know MD5 is broken, right?

THOMAS PTACEK

Yeah, that’s not really the problem there though.

THE CANDIDATE

Oh, I could just use SHA-1.

THOMAS PTACEK

SHA-1 is really fast. Can you see why that’s a problem here?

THE CANDIDATE

(Haltingly)

Um. Not really? Don’t I want this to be fast?

MIKE TRACY

What’s in the cookie you’re encrypting again?

THE CANDIDATE

A string of URL arguments…

The Candidate starts writing on the pad, “userId=39493&role=user×tamp=1414919”

MIKE TRACY

So what’s to stop me from just running a dictionary through MD5, generating a key, and trying to decrypt the cookie? I’ll know I won when I get clean ASCII.

THE CANDIDATE

And how do I keep that from happening? You should use strong passwords anyways. And I use a salt with the key anyways.

Mike vomits onto the floor.

THOMAS PTACEK

Gross.

MIKE TRACY

(Wiping mouth)

A salt doesn’t do anything here!

THOMAS PTACEK

Just put a “for” loop around SHA-1 and run it 1000 times to generate the key; that’ll at least slow down a brute force attack. SHA-1 is lightning fast. By itself, it’s a crappy way to generate a key.

(To Mike)

Clean that up?

THE CANDIDATE

Well, I guess. Wait, why should we use a password here at all? I could just use a random string of bytes…

The Candidate writes again on the whiteboard

THOMAS PTACEK

That is much better. Sometimes it’s a lot more convenient to use a readable string. If you do, the loop around SHA-1 is similar to what PBKDF does, which is I guess a best practice here. But if you can keep structure out of your crypto keys, that’s much better.

THE CANDIDATE

Ok. Should I keep going?

THOMAS PTACEK

Your encryption function. Do you know what the “ECB” thing there means?

THE CANDIDATE

Oh, fuck! You’re right, that should be CBC.

(Pausing)

Sorry for swearing.

MIKE TRACY

S’okay. You’ll fit right in.

THOMAS PTACEK

You know the difference between ECB and CBC?

THE CANDIDATE

Yeah, like, each block feeds into the next one?

The candidate draws on the easel.

THOMAS PTACEK

Why’s that a win?

THE CANDIDATE

Because if any of the blocks repeat, you can see them repeat?

Mike has opened his laptop and is typing.

MIKE TRACY

(To the laptop)

We have a picture of that somewhere. Oh, here.

Mike raises the laptop up to show The Candidate

MIKE TRACY (CONT’D)

The top part is unencrypted. The bottom part is encrypted ECB. You’re like Jack from Heat Vision and Jack.

THE CANDIDATE

I know EVERYTHING! Right, because one bunch of 16 “black” bytes is the same as the next, so they show up the same in the picture. Neat. Also, in ECB mode you can cut and paste the blocks, right? He could take the “userid” out of your cookie and put it in his own?

THOMAS PTACEK

Sure. That’s a good answer. Let’s move on. Say you’re implementing a web server. What do you think, processes or threads?

---

3. INT. OFFICE CONFERENCE ROOM - AFTERNOON

A room in the same office, roughly the same size, with an oversized brown kitchen table in the middle, littered with paper and McDonalds wrappers. Thomas and Mike sit at the table, talking to a CONFERENCE PHONE.

CONFERENCE PHONE

So how’d he do?

THOMAS PTACEK

Pretty much aced it.

MIKE TRACY

What? He bombed the cookie part. He used ECB, MD5, and Triple DES!

THOMAS PTACEK

I’m impressed that he could spell ECB, MD5, or Triple DES. And it wouldn’t have mattered if he had used CBC, SHA-256, and AES-256. His code still would have been broken.

CONFERENCE PHONE

How so?

THOMAS PTACEK

He didn’t authenticate the message. Encryption isn’t —-

MIKE TRACY

(Chanting)

Encryption - isn’t - authentication.

CONFERENCE PHONE

Don’t you mean integrity?

THOMAS PTACEK

No, Dave, I mean authentication. They’re called message authentication codes.

CONFERENCE PHONE

Ok, Tom. But he screwed that up?

THOMAS PTACEK

Yeah, but who cares? I’m surprised he even knew what CBC was. But we just asked that to see how he thinks. We’re never going to let him implement crypto code anyways.

CONFERENCE PHONE

I guess we don’t even let you write crypto code.

THOMAS PTACEK

Sure, and when I asked him about processes and threads…

MIKE TRACY

Can I stop you both here for a second?

THOMAS PTACEK

Yeah?

MIKE TRACY

This room is pretty fucking boring. We’re in a screenplay, right?

THOMAS PTACEK

Oh, yeah, you’re right. Let’s fix that.

(Shouting)

Wings of silver!

CONFERENCE PHONE

Nerves of steel!

MIKE TRACY

Thundercats go!

EXT. HURTLING THROUGH SPACE - CONTINUOUS

The office melts away around them, revealing a starfield hurtling past as if moving at awesome speed. Meanwhile, the conference phone transforms into a UNICORN WITH LASER HORN.

DAVE THE LASER UNICORN

It’s “Silverhawks”, jackass.

THOMAS PTACEK

Where were we?

MIKE TRACY

Authentication?

THOMAS PTACEK

Oh yeah. Even if he had done AES-256-CBC. His code is still busted. I can make his messages say whatever I want them to.

DAVE THE LASER UNICORN

How do you do that? Isn’t that the point of CBC mode? Anything you change in the ciphertext randomizes the output. What can an attacker do with that?

THOMAS PTACEK

First of all, sometimes randomizing the output is all you need. If one of the key-value pairs in the cookie is your role, and the default role is “admin”, but the server always generates a “role=user” field…

MIKE TRACY

Yikes. Yeah, that’s bad. Have you ever seen that bug in the wild?

THOMAS PTACEK

Garbling a block to confuse an app? I found a similar problem recently. Login generates an encrypted cookie. Inside the cookie, comma-seperated key-value pairs. If you put a comma in your user name, the server doesn’t want you to inject your own key-value pairs, like “bob comma admin equals yes”. So it quotes the commas. You can mess up a block to eat the quote character.

DAVE THE LASER UNICORN

How do you know what block to mess up?

THOMAS PTACEK

It’s a cookie. You get unlimited tries. Each time, you add another ‘A’ to the login name, or mess with a different block. Eventually you line things up just right so that you’ve garbled the quote character but not the comma. Here, let me show you.

Thomas puts his hand to his forehead, and a beam of light emerges from his forehead, projecting a picture, because it’s my script dammit.

THOMAS PTACEK

Top hexdump. The plaintext of the cookie. Nothing’s been done to it. Second hexdump. The encrypted cookie. Key doesn’t matter. Third hexdump. I’ve flipped a bit in the second AES block.

DAVE THE LASER UNICORN

Convenient how AES blocks and hexdump lines are the same width.

THOMAS PTACEK

Fourth hexdump. The decrypted output, after flipping that bit in the ciphertext. Notice that flipping one bit totally garbled the second block —- and ate my quote character.

MIKE TRACY

Doesn’t the app reject the cookie because of the garbled stuff in the middle of it?

THOMAS PTACEK

Probably not. Why would it? C# and Java and Ruby and Python don’t care what go in your strings. And hey, if it does reject them, flip a different bit. Totally different output. You get 2^128 tries.

MIKE TRACY

Good point. What’s with the red “B” in the decrypted hexdump?

THOMAS PTACEK

Getting to that. Turns out, I can make the cookie say whatever I want. It’s a property of CBC.

The property is this: take a ciphertext block and flip bit 0 (or 2, or N). The resulting plaintext for that block? Garbage. But the next block is normal… except has that bit flipped. Not good!

MIKE TRACY

So you sacrifice one block and flip bits in the second block?

THOMAS PTACEK

Yeah. Although let’s stop calling it “flipping bits” and call it “rewriting”, because that’s what you’re doing.

DAVE THE LASER UNICORN

If you know what bits to flip.

THOMAS PTACEK

You always know what the bits are.

DAVE THE LASER UNICORN

How?

THOMAS PTACEK

Because the bits are always 0x41414141.

DAVE THE LASER UNICORN

Huh?

MIKE TRACY

Because that’s what he stuffed them with. He logged in as bob A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A.

THOMAS PTACEK

Right. An SSO cookie is usually, what, 100 bytes? If I stuff 1000 A’s after my login name, and the cookie grows to 1100 bytes? Almost all of those bytes are known to me. Here.

Again with the forehead beam thing.

AES encrypt something that I partially control. Doesn’t matter what the key is. Now XOR that block into the ciphertext. Decrypt it, and somewhere in it you get a random block and “&admin=yes&x=AAAAA”.

MIKE TRACY

Not good.

THOMAS PTACEK

If you’re encrypting something it’s usually somehow user-controlled. I’ll find that by plugging 100 A’s into each form field and waiting for the cookie to grow.

DAVE THE LASER UNICORN

How will you know if the cookie is AES?

THOMAS PTACEK

Same way Chris Eng said to. Add A’s one at a time, see what increments the cookie grows in. 16 bytes at a time? AES.

DAVE THE LASER UNICORN

And CBC?

MIKE TRACY

If you’re encrypting all A’s, the ciphertext blocks will repeat.

DAVE THE LASER UNICORN

And how do you know the format to write into the cookie?

MIKE TRACY

Who cares? Trial and error.

THOMAS PTACEK

Yeah. Point is, you thought encryption protected the contents of the cookie. It doesn’t. Oh look, we’re almost there.

Thomas, Mike, and Dave hurtle towards a star system, a solar system, a planet, powers-of-ten-style, towards the Michigan shore, converging eventually on an office building, and then

INT. OFFICE CONFERENCE ROOM - AFTERNOON

CONFERENCE PHONE

That was really fucking anticlimactic.

---

4. EXT. PARKING GARAGE - EARLY EVENING

Thomas stands next to his car, a black Volvo 850 held together with duct tape, talking on a cell phone to NATE LAWSON.

NATE LAWSON

You know this scene is a really bad setup for a movie, right?

(Pausing)

And I’m not really OK with you putting words in my mouth.

THOMAS PTACEK

Yeah yeah, whatever. Shut up before I turn you into a claymation character. So yeah, it’s amazing how you can be a top tier vuln researcher for over a decade and not really get how bad it is not to have a MAC.

NATE LAWSON

A MAC doesn’t necessarily save you either.

THOMAS PTACEK

How so?

NATE LAWSON

There’s still a bunch of things you can do wrong. Like I was just saying, Google Keyczar did almost everything right, but compared the MAC using a timeable comparison function. You could tell how many bytes of the MAC matched by watching how long the function took. People make that mistake all the time. An even more common mistake is to generate an error message when your padding is wrong. If you do that, you can decrypt messages.

THOMAS PTACEK

I’ve heard about that. The Bleichenbacher PKCS thing, and the Vaudenay paper.

NATE LAWSON

This was a major TLS finding too.

THOMAS PTACEK

I’ve never really been all that clear on how this works.

NATE LAWSON

Well you know how PKCS 7 padding works, right?

THOMAS PTACEK

Yeah, you have 2 bytes, you need to fill 16 bytes for an AES block, so you fill the remaining 14 bytes with 0xe.

NATE LAWSON

So if you tack a random block onto a CBC message, what happens when the receiver decrypts it?

THOMAS PTACEK

It comes out random.

NATE LAWSON

And the padding?

THOMAS PTACEK

Broken.

NATE LAWSON

Right. And if you send an error when that happens, you know the padding failed. Now if you keep trying different random blocks, what’s eventually going to happen?

THOMAS PTACEK

Uh…

NATE LAWSON

You’ll get a message with valid padding. Valid padding might be 0x3 0x3 0x3. Or it might be 0x4 0x4 0x4 0x4. But if you’re basically generating random blocks, what’s the mostly likely padding you’re going to get that will pass the check?

THOMAS PTACEK

0x1.

NATE LAWSON

Right. And you’re randomizing the output by tacking a random block in front of real ciphertext, which gets XOR’d during decryption. So you know the last byte of your random block…

THOMAS PTACEK

And the 0x1 that you know the padding is, and so that random byte XOR the last byte of the plaintext is 0x1, and so you know the last byte of the plaintext.

(Pausing)

And now that you know the last byte of the plaintext, you can make the padding come out to 0x2 and try randomizing the other 15 bytes to find out the next byte, and so on?

NATE LAWSON

Close enough.

THOMAS PTACEK

That is fucked up. All you did wrong was show me the exception your library generated when you decrypted the block, and I could decrypt a block. You got to reason byte by byte instead of block by block.

NATE LAWSON

You can decrypt whole messages that way. It’s called an error oracle. You can’t show clients discernable errors. You can’t even take different amounts of time to do things! You can watch the system with random inputs and measure how much time things take.

THOMAS PTACEK

There’s no way any programmer is ever going to get this stuff right.

NATE LAWSON

Professional crypto people don’t even get this stuff right. But if you have to encrypt something, you might as well use something that has already been tested.

THOMAS PTACEK

GPG for data at rest. TLS for data in motion.

NATE LAWSON

You can also use Guttman’s cryptlib, which has a sane API. Or Google Keyczar. They both have really simple interfaces, and they try to make it hard to do the wrong thing. What we need are fewer libraries with higher level interfaces. But we also need more testing for those libraries.

THOMAS PTACEK

Like I’ve been saying, if you have to type the letters “A-E-S” into your source code, you’re doing it wrong.

NATE LAWSON

Uh. Ok. Whatever you say, Tom.

---

5. FADE TO BLACK

Fade in epilogue:

The next day, Thomas’ planet was destroyed. Have you guessed the name of his planet? It was EARTH! DON’T DATE ROBOTS.

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