Selected by sheilas

• 
  American Hooch

• Eagle Rare Single Barrel

  Nathan

  16 Nov 2009 | 7:12 pm

  Eagle Rare seems to have changed hands a few times in its history.  Starting off in the ’70s as a Seagram brand, the bourbon is now in the hands of Buffalo Trace Distillery – and that’s a good thing considering they produce some of my favorites like W.L. Weller and Buffalo Trace.  By all accounts this seems to be a classic bourbon aiming for a classy slot on the shelf yet comes in cheaper than I’d expected. Stats: - $25ish - Buffalo Trace Distillery - 90 proof Presentation: The first descriptor that comes to mind for the Eagle Rare line’s packaging is…

• Jim Beam Distillers Series

  Nathan

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:14 pm

  It looks like I’m about a year late on this one particular bottle.  Announced and released around this time last year, Jim Beam’s Distillers Series was supposedly available only through January 2009, but I managed to pick up a bottle at Astor place just last week.  I was intrigued by the friendly price point right around $20 and since I’ve enjoyed most other Beam releases I’ve tried – Jim Beam Black being one of the better bangs for your buck.  Then again, maybe there’s a reason this “limited” release is still on shelves a year after it hit…

• High West Whiskey – Rendezvous

  Nathan

  14 Oct 2009 | 7:25 pm

  Well this is a new one for me.  High West Distillery is a relatively new outfit from Utah – and is the first legal distillery to open in that state.  It seems that while they’ve started distilling their own product, none of it has aged enough for their standards, so Rendezvous was created from two whiskeys distilled in Kentucky: a 6-year old rye and a 16-year old rye.  This seems like a decent way to solve the problem of having to wait for the barrels to do their work before having anything to sell – this way High West has product on the shelves, paving the way for their…

• Elmer T. Lee

  Nathan

  2 Sep 2009 | 7:20 pm

  I bought this bottle in the same trip as last week’s Wathen’s and I can’t say it wasn’t because they use the same bottle.  Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel is named for the Master Distiller Emeritus of the Buffalo Trace distillery – supposedly having selected the barrels for this bottling himself.  This alone sets the expectations pretty high (especially considering the price), let’s see if it lives up. Stats: -$25ish - Made by Buffalo Trace - 90 proof Presentation: As previously noted, the bottle is the same fat-upright rectangle of the Wathen’s bottle…

• Wathen’s Single Barrel

  Nathan

  25 Aug 2009 | 8:47 pm

  Wathen’s was a new one for me when I saw it on the shelf a few weeks ago.  I’d never even heard of this brand which claims to be the product of “whiskey’s royal family”.  A little digging on Google reveals a ten-year old string of postings on Straight Bourbon in which Chuck Cowdery and some others discuss the arrival of this new bourbon – so apparently I’m a bit late to the game. Wathen’s seems to have an interesting and typically complicated (for bourbon) history as a brand, having been the result of distilleries being bought, sold, closed,…

• 
  Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist

• This is what it looks like to have a hard time making a change

  Penelope Trunk

  19 Nov 2009 | 10:28 pm

  Some days I look through old posts, reminding myself of posts that I've written that I like and that I should link to. Often, this process serves to let me procrastinate writing while pretending to be engaged in writing. If I were a body builder, this would be me looking in the mirror instead of lifting weights. Yesterday I was trolling for posts, and I remembered this one, about hiring a babysitter. I never link to it because I can't read it. I get physically ill. It was a short, stinging moment during an absolutely terrible time in my life. But a part of me likes that sting.

• How to know if you'll be good at sales

  Penelope Trunk

  19 Nov 2009 | 10:39 am

  It’s clear to me that emotional intelligence is the most important skill for success in adult life. And the consummate career application of emotional intelligence is the sales department. So I’m fascinated by sales. I used to think I’m not that good at sales. For example, I’m an open book—I have very little ability to bluff or play my hand close to my—actually, what is that expression? I don’t even know the expression. But then, when I told one of my mentors that I’m not good at sales, he said, “Of course you’re good at sales. You’ve gotten three companies…

• What makes a blog successful?

  Penelope Trunk

  17 Nov 2009 | 6:10 am

  I have always thought that blogging is a way to reach your career goals. It’s hard to write a blog if you don’t have a goal. You need to know what blogging success looks like to you, so you know what you're aiming for. Like most goals in life, my definition of blogging success has shifted as the circumstances of my life have shifted. 1. Post regularly without messing anything up. My first goal was simply to understand how to get my writing onto the Internet. All the buzzwords overwhelmed me: feeds, trackbacks, SEO. I understood none of it, and it took weeks to get up the nerve to…

• Don't be a snob about career advice

  Penelope Trunk

  16 Nov 2009 | 7:53 am

  I have found that the best way to manage myself is by asking for a lot of help. The question is, how do you know who to take advice from? The answer is not always intuitive. For example, you'd think that if Bill Gates wants to give you career advice, you should take it, right? I mean, the guy’s had a pretty decent career. The problem is that if he doesn’t care about your career, he’s going to give you generic advice. Here are five other counter-intuitive principles I have used to figure out who to listen to when it comes to my own career: Listen to people who hate you. People ask…

• How to make business travel manageable

  Penelope Trunk

  11 Nov 2009 | 9:29 pm

  Last year I traveled almost every week. Some weeks I traveled to three different cities. If you are excited about business travel, thinking it’s a free ticket to see the world, you should stop reading now. But if you are having trouble maintaining your personal life in the face of tons of travel, these tips from a cynical traveler will make life easier for you. 1. Stick with your priorities. When people travel to another city, why do they throw out their to do list for sightseeing in random museums? If you have on your top three things you want in life: go to the gym, stay in touch with…

• 
  Small Biz Survival

• I am back for the Brag Basket

  Becky McCray

  20 Nov 2009 | 3:22 am

  I've been away at the London #140conf, but I'm back and it's time for Brag Basket! Every week, I open a Brag Basket, so you can introduce yourself or share some good news. So speak up and add yourself or another deserving soul in the comments. We all cheer, and everyone feels great. It lets you meet each other a bit. Reading each others' stories brings us a bit closer to being a community.  This particular basket is open from Nov. 20-Nov. 22, 2009. How does it work? You write a comment on this post. You tell something great about your week, or you give plaudits to someone who did good…

• Our friends launch BatchBook for Sales

  Becky McCray

  19 Nov 2009 | 1:42 am

  Our friends Pam and Michelle (and crew) at BatchBlue have launched BatchBook for Sales. BatchBook is a CRM (customer relationship manager) for small business. Think of it as a super-hero address book. Here's an overview of the new sales features. It now has Deals, a Calendar, and more user restrictions, so you have more ways to work with an assistant or others. (And I hear they are working on a To-Do template and a Leads SuperTag.) Stop by BatchBook. Tell 'em we sent ya! (No, you won't get a special deal, but it will make me feel good.) Photos by Becky McCray: 1. Michelle Riggen-Ransom of…

• How to make your tourism Twitter more interesting

  Becky McCray

  17 Nov 2009 | 2:11 am

  At BlogWorld Expo, I finally got to meet two of Sheila Scarborough's travel connections, Doug at Authentic Seacoast (@AuthenticCoast) and Shannon Lane (@Cajun_Mama). We had a great discussion about what makes tourism tweets interesting. Doug said a regional tourism group had an intern handling their Twitter account. He would tweet things like, "I'm going to have a sandwich." If only it had been a local specialty, like a lobster sandwich, Doug said. From a great local cafe, I added. With a picture, Shannon finished. You make your tourism Twitter stream more interesting by including the details…

• How to renew your blogging enthusiasm

  Becky McCray

  16 Nov 2009 | 2:11 am

  Blogging is a terrific tool for small businesses, but the work of blogging eventually can get you into a rut. That's why so many blogs stagnate and even die after a while. Long-time friend Chris Brogan asked a pointed question about this, on Twitter. Is your blog phoning it in? Are you tagging along in a pile of similar content? How will you break out?   Here are some of the techniques I have used to keep blogging through four years and over 1000 posts, even when my enthusiasm waned.  1. Go to an in-person event. In early 2008, my energy for writing Small Biz Survival dwindled.

• Interview at Business Owners Toolkit

  Becky McCray

  14 Nov 2009 | 2:25 am

  Greg Corombos and John Duoba from the Business Owner's Toolkit Radio interviewed me for their radio show. We covered a lot of ground, including:  What's different in rural business, and what can all businesses learn? Do shop local campaigns work? How do you start one? What are some keys to success in small retail stores? What are some business ideas for small towns? What are the differences between locally-based business versus chain businesses? What advice can we give business owners facing failure? Is social media a waste of time? How can you not get sucked into the vortex, or how do…

• 
  Freelance Switch

• Rules for Successful Client-Freelancer Working Relationships

  FreelanceSwitch.com

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:30 am

  So you’ve hired a freelancer to help you achieve your business goals. Now what? It’s vitally important that you, as the client, do your part in fostering a positive working relationship with your contractor. Embarking on a new project can be overwhelming, especially if it involves technical aspects (such as web design). That’s why you’ve hired an expert! But in order to make your project a success, you need to develop a solid working relationship, and be aware of some basic “rules” when working with a freelancer. Rule #1: Respect the Freelancer’s…

• 7 Tips For Good Record Keeping

  FreelanceSwitch.com

  19 Nov 2009 | 4:30 am

  For many freelancers, records are the last things we think about. There’s a design to finish for a client or an accounting department to call about an invoice — there’s always something more important than handling records. But the fact remains that those records are important at some point. Whether you need to go back to an old version of a project for your client or you need to pull your copy of an invoice, having an organized system is crucial. The biggest problem we face in getting our records into order (and keeping them that way) is that most of us work on our own.

• FreelancerPro Interview: The Foundations of Freelancing

  FreelanceSwitch.com

  18 Nov 2009 | 4:30 am

  Looking to get big-name clients? Hear what Briant Grant, the creative director at Anisometric, has to say. Brian took his time to get experience and leveraged that agency experience into a thriving design firm based in London. Tell us how you got started in the design industry. I remember being particularly inspired by a new art teacher at my school when I was around 14 years old. His name is Guy Harring and he really was a towering influence on me and showed that there was no limits on what I could achieve in my life. I knew that I wanted to do something related in some way to art when I…

• Linkswitch #14

  FreelanceSwitch.com

  17 Nov 2009 | 4:30 am

  Freelancing From The Road: The Tools to Take With You “One of the great things about being a freelancer, is the freedom that comes with having chosen this career path. As a freelancer you can take to the road when you need, and the best part is, that you can also take your job with you! Now this is conditional on being able to put together the proper toolkit to take with you on your journey.” How to Work ON Your Business, Not IN it “We get so caught up in the daily life of running a business, it’s easy to miss the forest for the trees. Not that you have a choice! You’re…

• Freelance Freedom #131

  FreelanceSwitch.com

  16 Nov 2009 | 4:30 am

• 
  On the Job by Anita Bruzzese

• 8 tips to help you find your way in this tough job market

  17 Nov 2009 | 7:36 am

  While I knew there was a good chance the unemployment rate would go up, when I heard the latest figures were 10.2 percent, my reaction on Twitter was automatic: "Double ugh," I wrote. It was exactly how I was feeling at the moment. Then, I did what I always did: I picked up the phone and started asking experts on how job seekers could succeed in this tough market. Here's what I wrote for my Gannett column:You may not think you have a superpower, but if the only way you’re looking for a job is by applying to companies or job boards on the Web, you’ve just become invisible. Phil Haynes says…

• 5 tips for working at home with your significant other

  9 Nov 2009 | 9:49 am

  The tough times have brought about a lot of changes, both personally and professionally. One of those changes has been a lot of people launching their own businesses from home. But what happens when you and your significant other both start working from home? Will it work? Will it cause a rift so wide you'll never recover?That was a question I posed to Scot and Kate Herrick this week for my Gannett column. Here's what they had to say....Actress Bette Davis once said that the key to a successful marriage was separate bathrooms.For Scot and Kate Herrick, it’s headphones.The Bellevue, Wash.

• Could a Union Be Coming to a Cubicle Near You?

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:39 am

  My Dad was a blue-collar worker. His favorite job was working on the railroad, but the only job I really remember him having was at an oil refinery in Oklahoma. It was a dangerous, dirty job, but he never complained. He worked at that oil refinery for several decades, until one day they closed it and laid off more than 900 people in my small town. It was devastating, but I think my father took it especially hard because he had served for many years as the union's president.Guys would call our house at all hours of the day and night, looking to my Dad for some guidance on what they would do…

• 2 Big Myths About Work You Need to Ditch

  28 Oct 2009 | 8:22 am

  When I was writing my last book, one of the things I focused on was that the world of work was different than the world outside of work. OK, this isn't exactly an outstanding revelation to many of you, but to lots of people, it is.When people are at work, they think it's sort of an extended living room. They believe that they can say and do anything they want, because, by golly, this is America. Home of free speech, independent living and 450 cable channels.But the truth is, when you go to work you sign an employment contract, and that gives the employer the right to expect certain things…

• 4 ways to keep your confidence during a job hunt

  21 Oct 2009 | 9:22 am

  I hear from a lot of people who are out of work. In the early stages of job hunting, I've found most people are usually pretty confident. They know they have valuable skills and have worked hard -- what employer wouldn't want to hire them?Then they get initiated into this job market.Months later, the confidence has left their voice. They're angry, depressed, frustrated and demoralized. I'm no psychologist, but I do my best to provide them with career information that might help them. Still, it's frustrating for me to see so many great people feel so bad about themselves because they can't…

• 
  WebWorkerDaily

• Pogoplug Updates: Gets File Sync, Extra USB Ports

  Simon Mackie

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  Pogoplug, a nifty little device that enables you to easily access your files from anywhere via the Web (see my previous post about it here) has been updated, with a second generation of the device being released. As Kevin over at jkOnTheRun reports, as well as sporting a fancier new design, the new version has three additional USB ports, making four in total, which gives you much more leeway to add storage and drives to your “personal cloud.” The product also has some new functionality, including automatic file synchronization for photos, music and movies, and global searching…

• 5 Most Popular Posts on WebWorkerDaily This Week

  Edit Staff

  20 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pm

  Just in case you missed any of them, here are the five most popular posts on WebWorkerDaily this week: Mockingbird: Build Web Site Mockups Fast Thursday looks at Mockingbird, an easy-to-use wireframing tool. Teach an Old Dog New Tricks: How to Break Bad Work Habits Karen explains how to break bad work habits using the power of your mind. Your Office in the Clouds: The Best Online Virtual Desktops Doriano rounds up the options for virtual online desktops. 6 Tips For Using Google Wave On Your First Project While many of us are still scratching our heads trying to figure out how to fit Wave into…

• Thanks to Our WebWorkerDaily Sponsors!

  Edit Staff

  20 Nov 2009 | 2:00 pm

  We’d like to say thanks to this month’s WebWorkerDaily sponsors: FreshBooks: Look Professional with FreshBooks.

• The Netbook: Six Months Later

  Darrell Etherington

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pm

  In an effort to curtail my disastrous gadget spending habits, I’ve decided to take a look at devices I’ve purchased with the stated intent of increasing my productivity, to see if intentions and reality reflect each other at all. Today, I’m turning my critical gaze on my netbook, which I picked up just over half a year ago. My particular netbook is the Asus Eee PC 1000HE, but the model doesn’t really matter. It’s a light device with a 10-inch screen, a small keyboard and an all-day eight hour battery. When I bought it, it was freshly released, and was generating…

• WWD Reader Profile: Bia Kunze, Dentist/Mobile Tech Blogger

  Simon Mackie

  20 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am

  WebWorkerDaily readers are a diverse bunch. Every week, I profile a different reader and ask them to share what they do, how they do it, and some of their favorite hints and tips. Who are you and what do you do? For my main job, I am a dentist. No kidding! But in 2001, I got a Palm m100 as a gift. I knew nothing about tech stuff or the web. However, I fell in love with that device, because it helped me a lot in my work. Now, nine years later, here I am: mobile tech-savvy, with the largest blog about mobility in Brazil, a podcast, writing in some magazines, talking on the radio and reviewing…

• 
  Ask the Editor

• More.com gets into the writer exploitation game

  editorialconsultant

  27 Oct 2009 | 5:28 pm

  On a writers listserv I subscribe to, a writer posted a message that she’d been asked to write for More.com — the online presence for More magazine. But… More.com wants her to write for free. And this writer wonders if it will be good exposure for her to do so. Here’s my take. You can expose yourself, night [...]

• The book contract is finally signed

  editorialconsultant

  27 Oct 2009 | 10:59 am

  I’m pleased to be able to tell the world, now that contract negotiations are complete, that SOMETHING TO PROVE: Memoirs of a Ditchdigger’s Daughter, by Yvonne S. Thornton, M.D., with Anita Bartholomew, will be published by Kaplan Publishing in Fall 2010. This book is the sequel to Yvonne’s earlier, bestselling memoir, THE DITCHDIGGER’S DAUGHTERS. The book sold [...]

• Sales of ebooks nearly triple from 2008 to 2009

  editorialconsultant

  26 Oct 2009 | 8:52 am

  The headline says it all. E-Reads reports that, from August 2008 to August 2009, ebook sales shot up from $5 million to $14.4 million. This may be bad news for traditional publishers but it has the potential to be excellent news for the small publisher, especially the one-person shop, publishing his or her own title. It means [...]

• How Demand Studios’ exploitation of writers turned it into a billion dollar company

  editorialconsultant

  25 Oct 2009 | 9:11 am

  Wired has a fascinating article about Demand Studios, one of the word factories that regularly advertises for writers, only to exploit them. You can’t claim Demand pays writers peanuts. It’s more like peanut husks. It’s worth reading the article to learn how this sweatshop-type operation makes such big bucks. But here, we’re only concerned with the [...]

• Noooooo, not Heathcliff, too

  editorialconsultant

  22 Sep 2009 | 4:09 pm

  I loved Interview With The Vampire, but that was probably the last vampire novel I could say anything remotely as positive about. Yet, I know I’m in the minority. Friends and colleagues swoon over Charlaine Harris’s vampire series and the Twilight books have probably outsold Harry Potter by now. But can’t we draw the line somewhere, [...]

• 
  Small Business Trends

• Investing in IT Helps Your Business Move Ahead, Benchmarking Shows

  Rieva Lesonsky

  20 Nov 2009 | 10:50 am

  The recession is cutting into small and midsized businesses’ IT spending, and some industries are hurting more than others, according to the results of the latest IT Effectiveness Index (ITEI) survey. The ITEI is a benchmarking tool that measures the technology effectiveness of small and midsized businesses. (Small Business Trends is one of the partners of the study.) According to the latest survey, the manufacturing industry has been hit hardest, with 66 percent of people in this industry delaying, halting or canceling IT projects, and a similar number reducing capital expenses. Also hard…

• Careers: Talking Turkey

  Staci Wood

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  Every year I do a certain number of holiday cartoons. While they always sell well, they’re among the hardest ideas to generate. Thanksgiving is the hardest. Halloween and Christmas have tons of great stuff to play with, and Valentine’s Day is pretty good, but Thanksgiving is pretty much just turkey. One year I got to thinking about how bad it has to be being a turkey in November, and that led to a host of other holiday animals’ woes. Except for the groundhog. He sleeps, he wakes up. Shadow, no shadow, back to sleep. Nice and easy. So I thought it would be funny to have other…

• Vote for the Best Small Business Books of 2009

  Staci Wood

  19 Nov 2009 | 11:09 am

  It’s time to vote on your favorite small business books of 2009. For the second year in a row we are holding the Best Small Business Book Awards – Reader’s Choice. This year the Awards are bigger and better than ever.  A total of 47 books have been nominated. And you can help choose the winners. The 10 books that get the most votes from readers like you will receive a Reader’s Choice Award. Following are some FAQs that explain the Awards and how to vote. What are the Awards? The Small Business Book Awards, presented by Small Business Trends, recognize the year’s best new books for…

• SMBs to Increase 2010 Email Marketing, Social Media Spend

  Lisa Barone

  19 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am

  Earlier this week, we shared the results of a study from VerticalResponse, Inc. that found that more than 25 percent of respondents would not cancel their health care if given a public option. But that was only half the survey. The rest of the survey quizzed SMB owners on their planned usage and spend for email marketing, social media, search engine marketing and online banner ads for the coming year of 2010. Here’s a snapshot of where SMB owners said they would and would not be spending their budgets. 74.1 percent will increase their email marketing spend. 68.3 percent will increase their…

• The Burger King $1 Cheeseburger: How Much Does It Really Cost?

  Joel Libava

  18 Nov 2009 | 6:16 pm

  I’ll admit it. Most of the time I am biased. I am usually out there trying to protect prospective franchisees. I try to provide tons of information to them about the realities of being a franchise owner. I also try to provide tips that current franchisees can use to grow their businesses. It’s not that I’m against the franchisor. Franchisors provide that entrepreneurial spark — that service or product idea that they have systematized to sell to others. If it wasn’t for the franchisor, hundreds of thousands of people would never have had a shot at small business…

• 
  Entrepreneur.com

• Dress Up Your Online Store for the Holidays

  17 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  These tips will give your customers--and your business--plenty of reasons to celebrate the season.

• Stop Trying to Close and Enjoy the Ride

  17 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  Instead of giving clients the hard sell, just be helpful.

• 7 Indispensible--and Free--Keyword Tools

  16 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  Take your social media strategy to the next level by using it to improve your products and services.

• Is Offshoring Really the Best Option?

  16 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  3 reasons why getting the most from U.S. employees may be a better strategy.

• Get to Know Your Competition

  15 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  7 shrewd strategies for forging alliances--and staying ahead of the pack.

• 
  Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

• 197 GG "Where" Versus "In Which"

  QuickAndDirtyTips.com

  19 Nov 2009 | 8:48 pm

  There's a time and a place for everything. The Grammar Girl print book is now available on Amazon.com! http://tinyurl.com/2pkej7

• 196 GG Adverbs Ending in -ly

  QuickAndDirtyTips.com

  12 Nov 2009 | 8:48 pm

  And don't call me Shirley. The Grammar Girl print book is now available on Amazon.com! http://tinyurl.com/2pkej7

• 195 GG "Which" Versus "That"

  QuickAndDirtyTips.com

  29 Oct 2009 | 9:48 pm

  What better to talk about for Halloween than a "which"? The Grammar Girl print book is now available on Amazon.com! http://tinyurl.com/2pkej7

• 194 GG Using Italics

  QuickAndDirtyTips.com

  22 Oct 2009 | 9:48 pm

  You don't have to be Italian. The Grammar Girl print book is now available on Amazon.com! http://tinyurl.com/2pkej7

• 193 GG "Diffuse" Versus "Defuse"

  QuickAndDirtyTips.com

  15 Oct 2009 | 9:48 pm

  And "convince" versus "persuade." The Grammar Girl print book is now available on Amazon.com! http://tinyurl.com/2pkej7

• 
  Copyblogger

• The Art of the Paragraph

  Jonathan Morrow

  20 Nov 2009 | 6:11 am

  Anyone can write a paragraph, but not everyone knows how to write one that other people want to read. You’ve seen it: You open a book, and the whole page is one long block of text. Each sentence in the paragraph makes exactly the same point, said in a slightly different way, and you wonder why they didn’t just say it once and be done with it. Every paragraph is the same length (five lines, maybe?), whether it makes sense or not, and it gives the piece a monotonous rhythm. The paragraph makes a point without telling you why that point is important, and you can’t help…

• How to Persuade People to Accept an “Unfair” Offer

  Dean Rieck

  19 Nov 2009 | 6:36 am

  Ever heard of Charley Hill? He seemed like an average, ordinary guy. He lived in a mid-sized town with his wife, two children, and a dog. He went to church on Sunday, coached Little League, and drove a pickup truck. He was friendly but quiet, the sort of guy you could walk by on the street without noticing. But appearances can be deceiving. Charley Hill was one of the most successful farm equipment salesmen in the Midwest. People would travel hundreds of miles to see Charley, even when there were plenty of dealers much closer to home. What did Charley have that other salesmen didn’t? Not a…

• Free Report: How to Become a Creative Entrepreneur

  Brian Clark

  18 Nov 2009 | 8:58 am

  I’ve written another piece of extended content, this time for Lateral Action. Rather than sending you over there, I’ll just tell you about it here. It’s a free 31-page PDF report (don’t worry, it reads fast) called The Lateral Action Guide to Becoming a Creative Entrepreneur. It’s probably the most personal I’ve gotten about my history, but it’s still heavy on actionable, real-life examples. Here’s what you’ll discover: Why I quit my cushy law firm job and turned to online publishing. How I failed miserably. How I then succeeded miserably. How I…

• Landing Page Makeover Clinic #20: TantricSexforBusyCouples.com

  Roberta Rosenberg

  17 Nov 2009 | 6:14 am

  This is another addition to our ongoing series of tutorials and case studies on landing pages that work. Is it hot in here or just me? Diana Daffner and her husband want to help people find a renewed sense of joy and connection in their intimate relationships through tantra. Their business, IntimacyRetreats.com, offers couples retreats throughout the year, but realizing not everyone can attend a retreat, they also want to promote their books and media products. The URL referenced above is actually the “/shop page” off their main site. Diana would like to use the page as an…

• What I Learned From Writing 42 Guest Posts in 7 Weeks

  Josh Hanagarne

  16 Nov 2009 | 7:12 am

  Before you get too impressed, hear this: I did it all in self-defense. Let me give you some quick background. I have extreme Tourette’s Syndrome, as Sonia noticed recently. Tourette’s makes people move or vocalize involuntarily and occasionally results in unspeakable awesomeness. My motor tics range from eye blinking to punching myself in the face to even stranger things. My phonic tics range from clearing my throat to hooting and yowling and snarling and slobbering and screaming like the Tasmanian Devil. Did I mention that I work in a quiet library? There are only a couple of things that…

• 
  The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss

• How to Hold Your Breath Like David Blaine, World Record Holder (and Now, Me)

  Tim Ferriss

  30 Oct 2009 | 9:35 am

  Last night, world-famous magician and endurance artist David Blaine taught me how to hold my breath. For four months, David held the Guinness world record for oxygen-assisted static apnea (holding your breath after breathing pure oxygen): 17 minutes and 4.4 seconds. His record was then surpassed by Tom Sietas on September 19, 2008. David’s record for doing what I’ll describe is between 7 and 8 minutes. I was born premature and, unlike David, I couldn’t then remember the last time I held my breath for more than one minute. It has always been my physiological Achilles heel.

• How to Breakdance 101: Unleash Your Inner B-Boy

  Tim Ferriss

  25 Oct 2009 | 5:54 pm

  An impromptu b-boying lesson at home after some Bulleit bourbon. Don’t drink and dance. Breakin’ 2 did it. It was 1984 and I was convinced I would be a professional breakdancer. Alas, I was seven years old, and I looked exactly like this reader who left a comment on my tango instructional post: Tim, I’m pretty impressed by your achievements in tango, but what about tips on your first love? B-boying is a sport I’ve watched and attempted for years. Sadly, the minute I go from uprock to six-step I look like a two-year-old trying to find spilled jelly-beans. I don’t…

• Sneak Peek: The New and Expanded 4-Hour Workweek is Here

  Tim Ferriss

  16 Oct 2009 | 2:34 pm

  The 4-Hour Workweek was first published April 27th, 2007. I did my best to cover all of the bases when it debuted, but there were gaps. Though I included cases studies of families using lifestyle design, for example, it was hard to find more than a few the first time around. Not anymore. Things have changed. There are more than 30,000 comments on this blog, hundreds of people have shared their successes and failures via detailed e-mail, and both case studies and experiments continue to flow in from around the world. This doesn’t mean that the current edition doesn’t do the job…

• Random Episode 6: How Kevin Rose and Glenn McElhose Got Scammed in China – Ha!

  Tim Ferriss

  8 Oct 2009 | 1:03 am

  Total length: 20 minutes. This is a weekend edition of Random. It is a happy-hour special of Chinese scams. How did Kevin and Glenn get totally screwed by Chinese “art students”? More important, how do you avoid getting scammed while traveling? This episode lays out one of the most common scams and explains how to spot similar set-ups worldwide… Show Notes from Glenn: - Open intro with weird light: Kevin shooting a laser into a “7 Cups” vessel. Animation by Tynan. - Yin Bar, Beijing – http://www.theemperor.com.cn/ - Travel Website: www.virtualtourist.com

• The Best Decline Letter of All-Time: Edmund Wilson

  Tim Ferriss

  7 Oct 2009 | 7:07 am

  (Source: Crooked Timber) Edmund Wilson, recipient of both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal for Literature, was one of the most prominent social and literary critics of the 20th century. He realized, like most uber-productive people, that, while there were many behaviors needed to guarantee high output, there was one single behavior guaranteed to prevent all output: Trying to please everyone. He had a low tolerance for distraction and shunned undue public acclaim. To almost all inquiries, he would respond with the following list, putting a check mark next to what had…

• 
  FastMachines.com

• Should NHRA Start Giving Away Tickets?

  There is no escaping the wide reaching effects of the economic recession we are currently in. Industries once thought to be "recession-proof" have been hit hard forcing layoffs or wage decreases. The NHRA was not immune to this and just two weeks ago issued pink slips to a number of ...

• The Petit Wrap Up Show - FastMachines.com Radio Episode #34

  It's the big (little) Petit Le Mans wrap up show with Chris and Declan Brennan of Midweek Motorsport on RadioLeMans.com. We also touch on the silly season in F1, the looming IndyCar championship, and the arrest of JC France! Let us know what you think by commenting on this posting, ...

• Podcast Revival! FastMachines.com Radio Episode #33

  After much searching, high and low....we found our motivation to podcast again! Bailey's baby girl has arrived and Josh and George uhh...I don't know what their excuse is....but they are back. We talk this week about the big news from F1...Flavio Briatore's life ban from the sport for race ...

• John Force Racing-What Would You Do

  I had a reader comment on my last article about Ashley Force Hood and the lack of respect she garners as a world class race car driver. The reader proceeded to provide his opinion on a number of topics including the events that took place at the recently completed U.S. ...

• Force Hood, Still Not Getting Her Props

  When will the sporting world wise up and realize that Danica Patrick is no more than a has-been that never was and start paying attention to the “real” number one female competitor in motorsports in the world, Ashley Force Hood. Is there any other woman on the planet that can ...

• 
  ESPN.com - College Basketball

• Steady Fisher ushers No. 6 Villanova by Dayton

  Associated Press

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:30 pm

  Corey Fisher scored 18 points to lead Villanova past Dayton 71-65 on Friday in the second round of the Puerto Rico Tip-Off.

• Turner's double-double helps Ohio St. edge Cal

  Associated Press

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:25 pm

  Evan Turner had 26 points and 14 rebounds, his fourth double-double in as many games, and No. 15 Ohio State beat California (No. 12 ESPN/USA Today, No. 13 AP) 76-70 on Friday night in the third-place game of the 2K Sports Classic.

• Hopson, No. 11 Tennessee pound East Carolina

  Associated Press

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:19 pm

  Scotty Hopson scored 25 points to lead Tennessee to a 105-66 rout of East Carolina in the opening round of the Paradise Jam on Friday.

• Ga. Tech survives George Mason with late run

  Associated Press

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:54 pm

  Gani Lawal had 18 points and 14 rebounds to lead Georgia Tech (No. 19 ESPN/USA Today, No. 21 AP) to a 70-62 victory over George Mason on Friday in the consolation round of the O'Reilly Auto Parts Puerto Rico Tip-Off.

• Bob Knight speech at fundraiser to benefit Indiana Hall of Fame

  Associated Press

  20 Nov 2009 | 9:17 am

  Former Indiana coach Bob Knight will speak at a Dec. 17 fundraiser in Indianapolis to benefit the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.

• 
  Washington Post: Michael Wilbon

• Encouraging signs for a night

  Michael Wilbon

  18 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  Nothing good can come of drawing definitive conclusions before Christmas when it comes to the NBA. The game-to-game pronouncements that characterize the way we assess the NFL's 16-game sprint simply don't work in professional basketball, with the necessary ups and downs of its interminable marathon season. When the Cleveland Cavaliers lost their first two games of the new season, NFL-style wisdom was that Shaquille O'Neal was a bad fit and Mike Brown might need to be the first coaching casualty.

• Belichick's arrogant decision

  Michael Wilbon

  16 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  Blog excerpt from views.washingtonpost.com/world-wide-wilbon

• The Cavaliers may be the answer to Allen Iverson's prayers

  Michael Wilbon

  10 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  I don't believe for a second we've seen the last of Allen Iverson. He may contemplate retirement. He might remain on this mysterious personal leave for a while. But Iverson, even though he has more mileage on him than a soccer mom's 1990 Volvo wagon and all the dents as well, has plenty of basketball left in him. Surely, the last line on his hoops résumé isn't going to be three games played for the Memphis Grizzlies.

• Wade can teach Wizards how to pull out a must-win game

  Michael Wilbon

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  It's easy to think there aren't any games of consequence in early November of a season that lasts until the middle of April. But when you're the Washington Wizards, trying to piece a team together playing for a new coach, attempting to reincorporate the franchise star, hoping to completely reverse a dreadful season, there are no games to waste. Not even in the interminable season that is the NBA's.

• Michael Wilbon: Until things change significantly, Redskins and mediocrity remain one and the same

  Michael Wilbon

  26 Oct 2009 | 9:00 pm

  So what now? A consultant to call signals to prevent Antwaan Randle El from letting a punt hit him in the face mask? How about a special play-caller to keep DeSean Jackson from running 20 yards past Chris Horton? Surely, Buddy Ryan would rather call some defensive signals than play shuffleboard or pinochle.

• 
  The Japan Times

• Tojo resisted surrender until end

  Wartime Prime Minister Gen. Hideki Tojo didn't want Japan to accept the Potsdam Declaration demanding unconditional surrender to the Allies, according to his private notes written immediately after the atomic bombings and found recently at the National Archives of Japan.

• Japan lists demands for North probe

  Japan presents its demands to North Korea for an acceptable reinvestigation of the abductions of Japanese, as they start two days of talks.

• Stimulus package outline unveiled

  The government unveils the outline for a stimulus package due by the end of the month to help the economy out of its downtrend.

• Man admits to bomb threat against Air China

  A Yokohama man turns himself in at a police station, saying he made a bomb threat against China Air that forced a flight to return to Japan.

• Cops can't get into Fukushima gas plant after leak injures 13

  A police inspection into a toxic phosgene gas leak at a Showa Denko plant in Fukushima Prefecture that injured 13 people has to be put on hold while the gas is neutralized.

• 
  AMPONTAN

• Thoughts on Buddhahood, alliances, and polite fictions

  ampontan

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:24 am

  “At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” BY NOW, the world knows that Ozawa Ichiro, Secretary-General of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, beclowned himself last week when he held forth on global cultural and religious matters to reporters after a meeting with Matsunaga Yukei, chairman of the Japan Buddhist Federation in Wakayama. Mr. Ozawa asserted that Christianity is “exclusive and self-righteous” and that Western society is “stuck in a dead…

• From the overseas media

  ampontan

  16 Nov 2009 | 9:56 am

  TO SLIP BRIEFLY into blogging mode, here are two quick hits from the foreign media instead of another piece I was working on. (My wife suggested a trip to the baths, and that’s a suggestion I always agree to.) The first item concerns the apprehension of the prime suspect in the Lindsay Hawker murder case, which aroused intense interest in Britain. A long-time lurker sent me this link to an article written by Jenny Holt for the Comment is Free section of The Guardian. I don’t follow police blotter/natural disaster stories very closely, so please accept my apologies if you’ve seen it…

• Out of the woodwork

  ampontan

  13 Nov 2009 | 11:53 pm

  THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF JAPAN owes its victory in the August lower house elections to the electorate’s long-standing desire for sweeping reforms in the conduct of government and the realization that they weren’t going to get it from the Liberal-Democratic Party as presently constituted. But in much fewer than the 100 days often used as a benchmark for political performance elsewhere, it has become apparent that the only sweeping the DPJ’s new brooms will do is hide its reform promises under the carpet. Meanwhile, the party’s victory has had the unexpected byproduct of unfastening…

• Hands across the Sea of Japan

  ampontan

  12 Nov 2009 | 10:40 pm

  IT’S A RELIABLE rule of thumb that a nation’s political class is more often the problem than the solution regardless of the matter at hand. The reliability of that rule continues to be borne out by the behavior of the Japanese in Kyushu and the Koreans on the southern part of the peninsula. While the politicos vaguely talk the talk about the importance of good bilateral relations, folks on the ground continue to walk the walk and do the job themselves. Here are two more examples—one of people at work, and the other of people at play. At work Busan’s Ulsan region in South Korea…

• Report: Japan to throw billions down rat hole

  ampontan

  10 Nov 2009 | 8:12 am

  RECENT NEWS REPORTS say that Japan’s government is about to chuck $US 5 billion in the gutter. Well, that’s not what they really said, but in this instance, one plus one plus one results in a sum of minus 5 billion instead of three. How does that add up? One Despite the Hatoyama government’s implicit pledge to rethink the U.S.-Japan alliance, it is acceding to United States pressure to provide aid to Afghanistan commensurate with its “international status”. “Japan said Tuesday that it would dramatically increase its nonmilitary aid to Afghanistan, pledging $5 billion for a range…

• 
  Family Travel Guide

• Carnival of Cities for 18 November 2009

  Sheila

  18 Nov 2009 | 4:06 pm

  Welcome to the November 18, 2009 edition of the Carnival of Cities, where we find out about goings-on in cities and towns across the world, all in a single blog post. Thanks very much to Glennia at the Silent I who hosted the previous edition. I’m happy to consider hosts for upcoming Carnival editions in December, January and February. If you’d like to host the Carnival on your blog, please email me at Sheila “at” sheilascarborough “dot” com. Off we go…. Cities in Europe Dingle, Ireland Shannon ODonnell presents A Little Subtlety…Dingle’s Quite…

• Family travel in New Mexico: the 50 state series

  Sheila

  12 Nov 2009 | 7:24 pm

  I took a 50 state series hiatus there for awhile, but we’re back! Until we run out of states, I’ll be posting about family-friendly vacation ideas, attractions and events in each one of the US states, taking input mostly from Twitter and Facebook. Yes, I know how to search for travel ideas on a destination or attraction Web site, but a tweet or a Facebook Wall recommendation is a much more engaging and public way to spread the word. Please don’t email suggestions to me; that’s nice but it is one-to-one communication. Tweet me and/or Facebook me, so that all of our networks can…

• Thanksgiving travel packing tips

  Sheila

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:35 pm

  Are you braving the busiest travel days in the US in the next few weeks? That’s right, it’s the Thanksgiving holiday, so have some Tums (or your antacid of choice.) If you insist on flying, remember that the airline experience these days is often similar to the worst bus trip you’ve ever taken. I’m sorry to be such a cynic, but it’s me against them when it comes to incredibly unpleasant US air travel. Consider these survival tips: ***  Drive rather than fly if you can, and take some back roads while you’re at it.  Arm yourself with detailed maps before…

• A Route 66 Oklahoma landmark: Johnnie’s onion burger in El Reno

  Sheila

  27 Oct 2009 | 2:29 pm

  While blasting north through Oklahoma enroute a speaking engagement, I saw on my map that I was passing through tiny El Reno, OK (located on historic Route 66.) The town has three different places listed in one of my favorite references, Jane and Michael Stern’s Roadfood. I couldn’t find Jobe’s and Sid’s was closed, but by golly I found Johnnie’s Grill so I stopped for their famous onion burger. I adore onions. My kids aren’t really into them. Since this was a business trip, they weren’t with me to turn their noses up, so hah.  I got my onions. The…

• Need a laugh? Low-cost airline spoof video had me rolling

  Sheila

  22 Oct 2009 | 8:54 am

  Y’all know I can be pretty tight-fisted, right? I’ll happily spend money when it makes sense to do so, and for things and experiences that are special, but when it comes to transportation and hotels, I’m okay with your basic clean versions. I simply want to get back and forth and have a decent night’s sleep and shower while I’m there. My best experiences are usually OFF the aircraft and OUTSIDE of the hotel. So, while living in Europe, my family and I did fly the notoriously cheap Ryanair a few times, because how else could I get from the Netherlands to Pisa,…

• 
  Perceptive Travel Blog

• They want what travel bloggers already have

  Sheila

  19 Nov 2009 | 3:06 pm

  I see it in the packed social media-related workshops and presentations at travel and tourism industry conferences. I see it in my email IN box, overflowing with “Look! Here!” pitches from every travel-related marketer you can imagine. I see it in advertising campaigns like Starbucks VIA instant coffee, which distributed their product to travel bloggers in hopes [...]

• Birth of Travel Journals

  Antonia Malchik

  18 Nov 2009 | 12:29 pm

  I was so inspired by Alison’s essay yesterday on First Travel Memories that I spent last night’s free time thinking of all the travel journals I’ve started and discarded, all the way back to the very first. When my family moved to the Soviet Union, my parents’ boss’s wife sent me off with a cheap 3 [...]

• First Travel Memories

  Alison Stein Wellner

  17 Nov 2009 | 5:31 am

  One Saturday afternoon, when I was eight years old, I asked my mother for a few sheets of paper and a pen. She tore out a few sheets from the memo pad she used to write casual letters, and grabbed a Bic from the cup attached to the wall near the kitchen phone.  I sat [...]

• Win a Copy of the South Africa Traveler’s Literary Companion

  Antonia Malchik

  13 Nov 2009 | 12:46 pm

  Last week’s review of the South Africa Traveler’s Literary Companion led me both into some of the best short literature I’ve been able to read in a while, and into one of my favorite neverending debates: whether novelists or travel writers are better writers of “place.” Reading the collection, as I mentioned in the review, made [...]

• Keeping small towns special: murals in Alva, Oklahoma

  Sheila

  12 Nov 2009 | 9:30 pm

  On a recent trip to Alva, Oklahoma (home to my Tourism Currents business partner Becky McCray) I slammed on the brakes while passing the local farm co-op store downtown. Painted on the side of their one-story building was an intriguing mural about threshing; the center part was painted and colored in but the edges were only [...]

• 
  Intelligent Travel: From National Geographic Traveler

• Too Authentic For You?

  Marilyn Terrell

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:30 pm

  Transplanted Englishman Paul Rogers writes about music and lifestyle for LAWeekly, and reports for us from the Characters of Egypt Festival:"Does he have to keep using that bright pink cell phone?" groaned the lady atop the camel in front of mine as she pointed her camera down at the little lad leading the lanky beast.My fellow tourist was lamenting the otherwise exotic, trapped-in-time image in her viewfinder--the boy's hungry eyes and tousled hair emerging from atraditional earth-toned robe--being tainted by a disappointingly familiar, decidedly 21st-century fuchsia Motorola.That happened…

• Andrew Tweets Miami: Five Day Countdown

  IT Blog

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:40 pm

  Our intrepid writer Andrew Nelson is just five days away from his trip to Miami, where he'll be relying on the Twitterverse to show him around. So far, he's already found a great rate at the Essex House hotel, but now he's looking for restaurant recommendations and weighing his options (should he check out Red Steakhouse? El Pub? Versailles?). Be sure to follow him at @andrewnelson to help him with the planning, and then help to show him around town when he arrives. Andrew will be in Miami from Thursday, November 26th through Monday, November 30th. Tweet him your insider tips on where to eat,…

• A Top Hat for Gandhi

  Janelle Nanos

  20 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am

  I always stop to admire the beautiful designs of foreign bills as soon as I get them from the currency exchange counter, but I'd never thought of fashioning hats for the world leaders depicted on them...until now. BoingBoing and Make magazine haven't yet confirmed with the creator of these origami chapeaus (one commenter suggested they might be from artist Yosuke Hasegawa, who has a collection of them here) but I'd encourage anyone to craft a top hat for Gandhi any day. Photo via Make Magazine Foreign exchange market - Boing Boing - Travel - Recreation - Preparation

• Festive Budapest

  Sarah Langdon

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am

  Two weeks ago, Budapest's Winter Festival--a massive four-month event--kicked off.  The festival includes a variety of activities, but its five-week Christmas Festival is by far the most popular. This year, the 10th annual Christmas Festival takes place today through December 29th. Attended by 600,000 people annually, it is considered one of the largest Christmas fairs in Europe. But this isn't your average tourist trap full of kitschy trinkets. Every one of the baskets, leather goods, hand-blown glass, and other crafts sold at the over 100 craft pavilions must be judged and approved by…

• Daily Radar: 11.20.09

  Jeannette Kimmel

  20 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am

  Have you always wanted to see the famous Christmastime Macy's window displays? A new exhibit at the National Museum of American History features the art and business of commercial holiday displays, according to USA Today. The exhibit also details the history of the creation of Macy's Day Parade floats. [USA Today]This November and December, Saguaro National Park (just outside Tuscon, Arizona) is offering a variety of guided sunset and moonlight hikes. Due to popularity, reservations are recommended. [National Parks Traveler]Photo: wallyg via Flickr United States - Business - Government -…

• 
  Amsterdam Travel Guide

• Win an almost-free trip for 2 to Amsterdam by trading away something you like

  Roger

  19 Nov 2009 | 3:05 pm

  The excellent Netherlands Tourism Board is partnering with the uber-artsy Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam for an interesting contest that will award one winner with a free trip for two to the Dutch Capital, including three nights at the Lloyd. The fun gimmick here is that to enter you have to offer to trade away something [...]

• Things to know about Amsterdam hotels before you book

  Roger

  13 Nov 2009 | 5:20 pm

  Recently I was doing some final research on my list of recommended cheap hotels in Amsterdam and I was reminded of a phenomenon that I think needs to be addressed. I was reading some reviews on TripAdvisor.com about hotels that I know and like, and I was a bit horrified to read some of the [...]

• Recommended budget hotels in Amsterdam

  Roger

  9 Nov 2009 | 6:10 pm

  If you’ve visited this site before you might be aware that we’ve taken the time to put special hostel and hotel maps together so if you are looking for a place in a certain neighborhood or with a certain theme, we’ve probably got you covered. But not everyone knows the area well enough for that [...]

• Getting from Amsterdam to Stockholm (or the other way around)

  Roger

  30 Oct 2009 | 6:27 pm

  As two of the bigger and more famous cities in “Northern Europe” it would be great if you could get between them quickly and cheaply, but unfortunately that’s not the case since they are in fact about 700 miles (1100 kilometers) apart. Also, the farther north you go in Europe the more expensive travel tends [...]

• Gay Tourist Information Center now open in Amsterdam

  Roger

  22 Oct 2009 | 4:15 pm

  With the possible exception of San Francisco, Amsterdam was already probably the most gay-friendly city on earth, and now they are just piling it on as they’ve recently opened an official information center specifically for LGBT visitors. Mayor Job Cohen was there for the opening ceremony on August 29, 2009. The new information center isn’t to [...]

• 
  nerd's eye view

• Postcard: Waikiki, 7am

  nerd's eye view

  16 Nov 2009 | 8:32 pm

  Two guys are opening their surf shack. One of them is digging perfectly spaced holes in the sand, the other is dropping bright yellow umbrellas into the holes and popping them open. A man sits on the stone wall facing the surf, barefoot, a cell phone glued to his head, a deep frown marking his face. How can he be so unhappy, I wonder, we are in Waikiki, it is a balmy 78 degrees and there’s a light breeze coming off the ocean. Scattered leftovers from the day before line the beach, an abandoned yellow inner tube, still fully inflated, a surf worn beach mat, one flip flop. There are…

• Buy the Extra Insurance, Already.

  nerd's eye view

  13 Nov 2009 | 7:54 am

  It’s like a horror movie for your wallet. Funny how you can barely see the damage in the video footage. The part of Kermit the Frog is played by Peter Carey, stunned passenger, Kelly Goodman.

• Re[Think] Hawaii & TEDx Honolulu

  nerd's eye view

  11 Nov 2009 | 9:07 am

  I’d been invited to travel to Oahu by the Oahu Visitor’s Bureau in exchange for blogging about my adventures there. At the same time, Christine Lu was planning re[Think] Hawaii, a small conference about start-ups, sustainability, and social media and the dates lined up perfectly. Christine generously waived the attendance fee in exchange for… well, let’s say I owe her a favor or three. Neenz, a Hawaii social, um, universe, she’s a social universe, invited the attendees of reThink Hawaii to TEDx, a morning of interesting ideas and speakers. Now for some long…

• The Amateur Traveler Podcast: Hawaii — Lanai and Molokai

  nerd's eye view

  8 Nov 2009 | 4:45 pm

  Chris had me as his guest on the Amateur Traveler, we talked about… Hawaii. Lanai and Molokai, specifically and I don’t sound like TOO much of an idiot. Have a listen. Amateur Traveler Episode 206 – Travel to Molokai and Lanai in Hawaii

• Lightning Round: My Hawaii Hotels

  nerd's eye view

  7 Nov 2009 | 11:08 am

  The Ohana Beachcomber: I have to be honest and tell you that I was so absurdly busy while I stayed here that my room left little impression. It was fine, I was comfortable, the room was quiet and the folks that worked here were very friendly — I especially appreciated the valet parking guys, they were total sweethearts. While I can’t say much about the room, I can tell you that the hotel does a couple of things that I did remember and appreciate. They give you a little beach bag, nice for that wet suit and sandy towel and those trips to the ABC store — just say no to plastic…

• 
  Rick Steves: Blog Gone Europe

• Seeing America

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:08 am

  I have just enjoyed a fascinating fortnight traveling around our country, giving talks. The trip left me inspired to explore the USA. I was hosted by wonderful people in Fort Smith Arkansas, Port Huron north of Detroit, Philadelphia, Oklahoma City, at the International House on campus in Berkeley, and at Apple and Google headquarters in Silicon Valley. Going from Apple to Arkansas, I was struck by the variety in this country. Given that, it's a compliment to our civility that we hold together as well as we do. My fantasy is to put together a 20-cities-in-30-days lecture tour to small towns in…

• Europeans Share Their Healthcare Experience, Part 4: Switzerland and Belgium

  13 Nov 2009 | 9:30 am

  To bring some diverse experience into the discussion on health care reform here in the USA, I've asked my friends in Europe to share how health care works in their lives. In this final of four entries, here are comments from my friends in Switzerland and Belgium:From Fritz in Switzerland: In Switzerland, everyone has health insurance provided either through an employer (by payroll deduction) or by paying privately to a health insurance company. A family with two children has an annual premium of about 8,000 CHF (about $7,300). For every doctor's bill, the insured person pays 10 percent. If a…

• Europeans Share Their Healthcare Experience, Part 3: Italy

  9 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

  To bring some diverse experience into the discussion on health care reform here in the USA, I've asked my friends in Europe to share how health care works in their lives. In this third of four entries, here are comments from my Italian friends:From Susanna in Italy: The system in Italy is faaaaar from being perfect, but the idea behind it is the right one: Everybody has the right to have health care ' it's really one of those things that makes a democracy, a real democracy.In Italy, I pay for the national health care system through taxes. The rate depends how much you make per year (there are…

• Europeans Share Their Healthcare Experience, Part 2: Great Britain

  7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

  To bring some diverse experience into the discussion on health care reform here in the USA, I've asked my friends in Europe to share how health care works in their lives. In this second of four entries, here are comments from my British friends:From Martin in Wales: The National Health Service (NHS) in Wales is essentially the same as the English NHS founded over 60 years ago. Today, the main difference between the services in England and Wales is that in Wales (as in Scotland) we pay nothing for medications. Our Welsh Assembly decided that no matter the cost of the drugs, the duration of the…

• Europeans Share Their Health Care Experience, Part 1: Scandinavia

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:58 pm

  To bring some diverse experience into the discussion on health care reform here in the USA, I've asked my friends in Europe to share how health care works in their lives. In this four-part series, we'll start with the most highly taxed and socialistic part of Europe: Scandinavia.From Hakan in Sweden:In Sweden, we have free choice in health care. It means that patients can choose a hospital anywhere in the country.In 2005, the cost of the health and medical care sector amounted to 8.4 percent of GDP (in the US, it was over 15 percent). This amount includes the cost of pharmaceutical products,…

• 
  THIS JUST IN (BUDGET TRAVEL)

• Literary Paris: A lesson in pictures

  Meg Zimbeck

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:47 pm

  Shakespeare & Company, the legendary left-bank English-language bookshop, has long been a magnet for literary talent. Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and George Orwell all frequented the store. So did the sultry Anaïs Nin, along with her lover Henry Miller who described the place as "a wonderland of books." The shop even published James Joyce's Ulysses when no publisher would touch it. [+] Enlarge photo(Courtesy Meg Zimbeck)New portraits of these and seven other Lost and Beat Generation writers were recently unveiled at Shakespeare & Company, thanks to the pen of a…

• Black Friday: Shop for travel deals

  JD Rinne

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:29 pm

  Black Friday—the day after Thanksgiving when Americans shop 'til they drop—is just a week away. The following two travel sites are throwing sales, too. Shell Vacations is holding a Black Friday sale on 26 resorts in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, with up to 50 percent off nightly rates. Get rooms from $49 per night at the Peacock Suites in Anaheim, Calif. (a 40 percent off savings off standard rates), starting at $60 per night at the Desert Rose Resort in Las Vegas (a 30 percent off savings), and beginning at $99 per night at the Vino Bello Resort in Napa Valley (a 40 percent off…

• How to predict which airports will experience delays around the holidays

  Brad Tuttle

  20 Nov 2009 | 9:01 am

  Airport delays can certainly dampen the festive mood. By dorking out with some airport data, you can play the numbers to decrease your chances of delays and cancellations. There is no way to completely avoid airport delays. No one could have predicted yesterday's mess due to an FAA computer glitch, for instance. But you can increase your chances for smooth, speedy travel by avoiding connections at airports that are historically likely to experience big delays. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics allows you to glance over the percentages of flights that have been delayed, cancelled, or…

• Le Beaujolais Nouveau Est Arrive!

  Sean O'Neill

  19 Nov 2009 | 1:22 pm

  Any excuse for a party! The third Thursday of every November is the day that producers of Beaujolais Noveau release the year's vintage. It used to be a cheap treat: a light, fruity, best-of-its-kind red, delivered straight from the wineries. But the cost of shipping it over to the U.S. on a rush status, plus the unfavorable buying power of the U.S. dollar versus the euro, has hiked the price of beaujolais nouveau by more than 30 percent since 2003, as the Seattle Weekly points out. Personally, that won't stop me from getting a bottle tonight, but if you only want to read about the event, you…

• Family Travel: 12 holiday spots to let your kids burn off some energy

  Brad Tuttle

  19 Nov 2009 | 11:28 am

  Here's a roundup of 12 cool new exhibits at family-friendly, very interactive museums around the country. Scholastic Parent & Child put together quite a handy list, and all of the exhibits can be enjoyed by your little ones at least through early January. Every parent knows that children's museums can be sanity-savers, especially during the hectic winter holidays, when playing outside just isn't an option and you're sick of being stuck in a house packed to the gills with relatives. A sample of what's new around the country: Forts! You get to design and build your own hideout at the Chicago…

• 
  The Perrin Post

• Win Tickets to "Up in the Air" and Get Your Frequent-Flyer Problems Solved in our FlyerTalk Challenge

  Conde Nast Traveler

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:32 am

  I've got an early holiday gift for ten lucky readers: Free tickets to a December 1 New York City sneak preview of Paramount's "Up in the Air," starring George Clooney. Any self-respecting mileage junkie will relate to this movie, which...

• Share Your Top Travel Tip and Snag Exclusive Travel Deals

  Conde Nast Traveler

  17 Nov 2009 | 10:34 am

  Have you got a travel secret that other smart travelers should know? And would you like to snag exclusive luxury travel deals by sharing your tip with the rest of us? Then join us in a fun new monthly game that starts today.

• The Best Way to Travel in Tuscany

  Conde Nast Traveler

  17 Nov 2009 | 10:15 am

  A reader writes: We would like to stay in the Tuscany area and visit Lucca, Montecatini, San Gimignano, Siena, and Florence, but we also want to go to Assisi and Rome.

• We've Got A Winner!

  Conde Nast Traveler

  13 Nov 2009 | 1:12 pm

  The "Where Am I?" Photo Challenge has its first winner!

• Introducing the "Where Am I?" Photo Challenge

  Conde Nast Traveler

  12 Nov 2009 | 2:30 pm

  What corner of the globe are you bound for next? Wherever you may be headed, if you carry your copy of Conde Nast Traveler, photograph yourself or a travel companion holding it up in some fascinating locale, and then email the picture to us, we'll publish it here and challenge everybody to guess where in the world you are. Sounds like fun, right?

• 
  Happy Hotelier

• Tricking wORDpRESs when moving form one server to another server

  GJE

  19 Nov 2009 | 3:39 pm

  WordPress Spelling by Lorelle I had fun during the Dutch WordCamp. I learned from Lorelle that you should write WordPress with two capitals and not with 6 like I do in the header of this post. I’m teasing her again. WordPress Future At WordCamp Lorelle predicted a great future for WordPress. I teased her with my prediction that the future of WordPress will be gloomy, as it is much too technical and people wouldn’t want to go under the hood like I do sometimes. And I know Lorelle, you told us that you blogged long before WordPress even existed and did a hard job with manually…

• Real Zen – First post on the New Server

  Happy Hotelier

  18 Nov 2009 | 2:29 pm

  After I imported the posts of Happy Hotelier from the old server to the new server, this clip of an interview with Robert Pirsig came up as my first draft in my drafts ghetto. Whenever I see or hear the term Zen I associate it with the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance. Currently I’m awaiting the DNS switch from old server to new server as the two have been operated together next o each other. In the meantime I have replaced a keyboard because the w key kept hanging because of ash with coffee in it. Well I was pondering the new set up for my categories as they seem to be…

• Hello world! Happy Hotelier continues on a new server

  GJE

  17 Nov 2009 | 12:22 pm

  Usually this is the first post of a new Blog. I’ll leave it here as a reminder to the fact that I changed server and had to migrate  the blog from one server to another server. This didn’t go without difficulties. I started WordPress from scratch and exported the content from the other server via an XML export and then imported the content here. I believe this gives me the best result, but I’ve lost my links and categories. Well maybe it is a good idea to take advantage of the opportunity and restructure my whole categories department… some SEO gurus out there would…

• Moxie

  GJE

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:53 pm

  Philip C Wolf of PhoCusWright What the hell is Moxie? One of the gurus in travel marketing is the very passionate Philip C. Wolf, president and CEO of PhoCusWright, a travel marketing think tank. At one of his conferences, at ITB Berlin 2009 he teached his audience that under the present economic circumstances “You need a lot of Moxie”. I didn’t have a clue what that meant. It was later explained to me that maybe you can translate this into “You need a lot of balls” or, “You need a lot of creativity”, or “You need a lot of perseverance”.

• Winding down from 2009 WordCampNL – My Heroes – Part 1 The Organization

  GJE

  5 Nov 2009 | 1:14 pm

  A rare photo of this photographer in action at WordCampNL. Thank you Henk-Jan Winkeldermaat of PunkMedia.nl, of Flickr | Eventbranche and  @Punkmedia ! General I attended the first ever WordCampNL. It stands for a Dutch WordCamp or a WordCamp in the Netherlands. At first I had decided not to go, because I was very very busy. I do have to admit I thought a WordCamp would be a gathering of WordPress Newbies and/or Geeks and/or Nerds only. However, this first Dutch WordCampNL proved me wrong in that respect and in many other aspects! The people attending were normal people like you and me, some…

• 
  Dawn on the Amazon Captain's Blog

• Population Of Iquitos According To The Latest Census

  Captain Bill

  12 Nov 2009 | 3:49 pm

  The Population Of The Province Of Maynas, and Iquitos According To The latest Census I am typing from the official 2007 census; Provincia Maynas, total population, 486,072…Urban, 386,891…Rural, 99,181 That includes; Distrito Iquitos, 156,904…Urban, 153,517…Rural, 3,387 Distrito Alto Nanay, 2,566…Urban, 803…Rural, 1763 Distrito Fernando Lores, 19,002…Urban, 4,515…Rural, 14,487 Distrito Indiana, 12,041,…Urban, 3,275….Rural, 8,766 Distrito Las Amazonas, 10,266…Urban, 2,498…Rural, 7,768 Distrito Mazan, 13,050…Urban,…

• Celebrate Thanksgiving On November 29 At The Amazon Golf Course

  Captain Bill

  7 Nov 2009 | 4:51 pm

  Everyone Is Invited To Celebrate Thanksgiving On November 29 At The Amazon Golf Course This is your invitation to celebrate thanksgiving at the Amazon Golf Course This is your invitation to celebrate Thanksgiving at the Amazon Golf Course on the last Sunday of November. That is not Thanksgiving Day! Plan on being there for a delicious meal and a good time on November 29th. I know Thanksgiving is not widely celebrated outside of North America, but everyone, regardless of nationality, is invited to join us. The only requirements are that you purchase a ticket for $15 soles, preferably in…

• Greetings From Bill Grimes On The Captain’s Blog

  Captain Bill

  1 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am

  Greetings From Bill Grimes On The Captain’s Blog Please accept my apology for any inconvenience caused if you were having trouble accessing the Captain’s Blog. Hooray, it is fixed, and functioning better than ever. Thank you for your patience. I received numerous emails, phone calls, and face to face conversations wanting to know what was wrong. I explained it was like an electrical short, sometime the wires were touching and the spark would open the blog and frequently it would short out and off. It took me three days to make the post, Golfing Amazon Style, From The Fringe. Ohhh,…

• Golfing Amazon Style, From The Fringe

  Captain Bill

  23 Oct 2009 | 4:34 am

  Jeff Sutherland, publisher of Inside Golf Magazine, and www.insidegolf.ca, sent Mike Collis an email saying in part, “…I have taken the liberty of visiting your site and then written a piece about your amazing achievement. Please note we ran this in our 5,000 subscriber newsletter and in the summer issue of our magazine…” Golfing Amazon Style, From The Fringe I'm going to dine on this forever. What other golfer can claim to have lost a finger tip to a piranha while playing golf. In the campy British “Carry On” movies of the 1960s, there was a scene where the explorers…

• Adrenaline Rafting, The Great Amazon Raft Race 2009

  Captain Bill

  1 Oct 2009 | 8:13 am

  A guest post by Barry Brett One of a series of short humorous stories of life in Iquitos Each article is a portrayal of actual events, written from the perspective of a Californian living in the Jungle City of Iquitos, Peru. Adrenaline Rafting The Great Amazon Raft Race 2009                                                                                     Barry Brett On the River Amazon, headed for Porvenier I’ve often wondered what kind of person would set about navigating the River Amazon on a raft.

• 
  Write to Travel

• Weekly Top 5 Blog Posts for Writers....

  KIWIWRITER

  27 Oct 2009 | 5:00 am

  1. Learn to Craft a Perfect Author Bio2. Why Writer’s Block is Your Secret Weapon3. 5 Questions To Ask Before You Write For Free4. How To Get Past The Blank Page By Creating Urgency5. How to Give Yourself to Whatever the Moment Brings, and Forget Stress

• Video: Travel Blogger Sherry Ott Talks to Dispatches 2.0...

  KIWIWRITER

  24 Oct 2009 | 5:00 am

  Need some inspiration? Look no further than Sherry Ott, who left the corporate world, took off around the world, and created the popular travel blog ottsworld.com

• Weekly Top 5 Blog Posts for Writers...

  KIWIWRITER

  23 Oct 2009 | 5:00 am

  1. Q&A With the Travel Photographer Robert Caplin2. 10 Reasons Why That Other Writer Always Seems to Get Ahead3. 10 Ways to make your editor love you4. Editing Help – Tips for Revising Articles, Essays, and Short Stories5. News you can use: 10 top takeaways from the 2009 ONA (Online News Association) conference

• Press Trips: ethical or not?

  KIWIWRITER

  22 Oct 2009 | 12:52 pm

  There's an interesting discussion going on over at twitter on press trips. It was triggered by the writers over at World Hum who posted about the continual debate about press trips - ethical or not. This latest rounds of discussions started following a this Daily Finance post - Ethics takes a holiday: Newsweek, New York Times writers in swag orgyYou can follow the debate over at twitter thread #twethicsAnd for more about press trips, check out previous Write to Travel posts on this topic...FAM and Press Trips - Good or Bad for Travel Writers? The Press Trip: Great Deal or Big Hassle?

• Weekly Top 5 Blog Posts for Writers...

  KIWIWRITER

  12 Oct 2009 | 11:39 pm

  1.5 Choices You Will Face When Freelancing (And What You Should Choose)2. Is Your Mind Holding You Back?3. Ideas for Writers Who Travel, But Who Don’t Write About Traveling4. How to Defeat Burnout and Stay Motivated5. 45 Free Things for Writers

• 
  World Hum

• What We Loved This Week: Tijuana Art, Canadian Road Tripping, The New Yorker’s Food Issue and More

  The World Hum Editors (WorldHum@worldhum.com)

  20 Nov 2009 | 2:11 pm

  Rolf Potts On Tuesday I traveled to Metuchen, New Jersey, for a reading at The Raconteur Bookshop. It was the first time I’ve read publicly from Where No Travel Writer Has Gone Before, and I recruited audience members to read the Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Uhura lines from the fantasy sequence in Part Two. They did great, and the whole reading proved quite a hoot.

• The Travel Benefit Young Americans Should Envy

  The World Hum Editors (WorldHum@worldhum.com)

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:19 am

  Australian Ayden Fabien Férdeline writes in a New York Times op-ed column about Working Holiday visas, and why America should follow suit and offer its citizens the same benefits her country offers. Férdeline makes a good point: I owe a great many adventures to this program and I’ve gained an appreciation for the differences that make us human. When I hear the French stereotyped as snobby, for example, I know better. When I worked in France, the people I met were warm and welcoming, despite my mediocre language skills. The United States could gain some similar good will by…

• Photoshopped: Himalayan Horn Blowers

  The World Hum Editors (WorldHum@worldhum.com)

  20 Nov 2009 | 6:48 am

  Mischievous Fark photoshoppers are playing with a photo from the Big Picture.

• Photo You Must See: The Thin Yellow Line in Chongqing

  The World Hum Editors (WorldHum@worldhum.com)

  19 Nov 2009 | 1:29 pm

  REUTERS/Stringer Shanghai Yellow cabs line a viaduct in Chongqing, China, while waiting to get their tanks filled during a shortage.

• Jan Morris Reveals her Favorite Cities

  The World Hum Editors (WorldHum@worldhum.com)

  19 Nov 2009 | 12:41 pm

  She fields this question in the Guardian: What is her favorite of them all? Dear God, what a question! To my mind cities are distillations of human life itself, in all its nuances, with all its contradictions and anomalies, changing from one year to another, changing with the weather, changing with history, changing with the state of the world, changing above all in one’s own personal responses. How can I have a favourite? Sometimes I prefer one city, sometimes another. Inconstancy governs my responses to cities—fidelity in personal matters, promiscuity in civic affairs. Morris…

• 
  Guardian Travel

• Let's move to Cromer

  Tom Dyckhoff

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:12 pm

  Cromer is not just about the crabs, you know, says Tom DyckhoffWhat's going for it? Enduring mystery of life no 17,978: just what is it that separates Cromer from loftier spots such as Holt and Burnham Market one way and Southwold and Aldeburgh the other? A matter of yards, I tell you! Outside Cromer's city limits, property prices soar: beyond Blakeney, you can barely get a coal scuttle for a quarter of a million. Yet Cromer's bone structure is Southwold in all but property price and plum-mouthed inhabitants fresh from Hampstead. Gorgeous beach, cliffs high enough to be…

• Walking Spain's Olive Oil Route

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:07 pm

  A disused Spanish railway line that once transported Andalucía's mountains of olives to the coast is now a walking trail through the endless grovesIt's eight in the morning at the bus station bar in the small town of Martos in the heart of Andalucía, and an old man is muttering as he drizzles peppery, local olive oil over his toast. "Aceite de oliva, todo mal quita," he says, nodding at us philosophically."Olive oil cures all ills" is an old Spanish saying which has special significance in Jaén, the country's largest olive-oil producing region. In Spain olive oil is more than simply a…

• Sweden's highest ski lodge

  Susan Greenwood

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:06 pm

  Staying overnight in a ski lodge inside the Arctic Circle allows access to an empty, off-piste paradise most skiers can only dream ofIt's difficult to embrace the quiet beauty of a place when you're shifting through it at mach 10, skidoo engine roaring in your ears, cheeks whipped to burning in the cold. But as the dying sun cast its light across the thousands of snow crystals thrown up by the wind, the ensuing rainbow which hovered above the Låktatjåkko Mountain Station compelled silent attention. Nestled 250km north of the Arctic Circle in Swedish Lapland, it's a place where you can let…

• Tropical budget bliss

  Poorna Shetty

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:06 pm

  Think a paradise break in the Indian Ocean will cost a small fortune? Not on Zanzibar where a clutch of new boutique hotels offers cool style and seriously good valueFragile thing holiday serenity. Zanzibar has the full deck of tropical idyll cards – squeaky white powder beach, azure ocean, mellow trade winds and I'm trying hard to channel the sleepy, languid pace that the island operates on, but secretly I'm expecting the concierge at the Z Hotel to come bustling over telling me they forgot to add an extra zero to our bill.I was expecting to shell out more than £60pp per night for a…

• Country diary: New Forest

  Graham Long

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:06 pm

  New ForestThere is something enchanting about a group of scarlet-capped fly agaric fungi nestling within a circle of silver birches. The fungus is among the brightest of autumnal sights. With its red top seemingly sprinkled with finely chopped cheese, this poisonous species is associated with birch, and advances out on to the heaths as the trees colonise them. In time, this forms new woodland. If the amount of grazing needed across the forest is to be maintained, such invasive growth must be kept in check. That explains the large pile of birch logs stacked close to Wittensford, near Brook.The…

• 
  WhyGo Italy: Italy Travel Guide

• Budget Airlines that Fly to Milan

  Jessica

  20 Nov 2009 | 2:15 am

  Personally, I love Milan - but I don’t even recommend it in my itinerary for first time visitors. Still, because Milan has one of the main international airports in Italy, it has become a popular entry point for the country - and because it’s also a major rail hub, it’s incredibly easy to get elsewhere [...]

• Budget Airlines that Fly to Rome

  Jessica

  19 Nov 2009 | 2:14 am

  Let’s say you’ve got your heart set on a trip to Rome, but you’ve just looked at the cost of round-trip airfare from your home airport to Rome and your heart is now in need of a defibrillator. Why? Because flights to Rome are notoriously expensive - much more so than flights from the same [...]

• Save Money with Budget Airlines that Fly to Italy

  Jessica

  16 Nov 2009 | 2:52 am

  For years, one of the most frustrating things for Italy lovers who live in North America has been the high cost of airfare from even big hub departure points. I’ve never understood the reasoning behind it, but flights to Italy are routinely more expensive than flights to Paris, London, or even Amsterdam. So one of [...]

• Italy News: 15 November 2009

  Jessica

  15 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am

  Some news from Italy for your Sunday reading pleasure: If you’ve got a spare €30,000 lying around (give or take) and you’ve always wanted to run a B&B in Italy, this could be your chance. This is simultaneously crazy and crazy cool - some churches in Italy, rather than close their communal holy water fountains entirely, are [...]

• “Miss Expatria” by Christine Cantera - Italy Book Review

  Jessica

  12 Nov 2009 | 2:16 am

  I can’t even remember now how I first came across the Miss Expatria blog, or how I first got in touch with its author, Christine Cantera. But somehow we “clicked” over the interwebs (no pun intended, really), and I was thrilled to finally get to meet her in her favorite city on earth - Rome [...]

• 
  Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations

• Smart Packing for the Holidays

  tim

  20 Nov 2009 | 7:38 am

  It’s about to be that time of year again, when planes are jammed, tempers are flaring, and we’re supposed to deliver gifts while full of cheer. Of course it’s hard to be cheerful when you’re paying $25 to $75 to check bags after already paying inflated holiday airfares. So check out this article I got quoted [...]

• Enter the Remarkable Photo Contest

  tim

  18 Nov 2009 | 8:51 am

  It’s time for the third annual Remarkable Photo Contest at Perceptive Travel. If you’ve taken a fanstastic, amazing travel photo (or two), send in your entry and you may score a nice prize. We’re giving away a compact super-zoom Casio camera that can take 1,000 photos on one charge, a pair of sunglasses from Tifosi Optics, [...]

• Caffeinated in Colombia

  tim

  16 Nov 2009 | 4:32 am

  I’ve spent the last few days bopping around Colombia after taking a seat on Spirit Air’s new route to Armenia, Colombia. This is the Coffee Triangle region of the country so I’ve been jacked up on caffeine the whole time (just the black liquid pick-me-up, not the other white powdery one.) First impressions are that the [...]

• Your Input Wanted

  tim

  13 Nov 2009 | 6:53 am

  Because I seem to be the juggler who keeps saying, “Throw me another ball,” I agreed to do a book on travel writing that will come out next year. It’s not the usual rundown on query letters and deadlines though. It’s going to be more about how “breaking into travel writing” is a lot different [...]

• Good Travel Info From Elsewhere

  tim

  11 Nov 2009 | 7:11 am

  I’m busy getting the 3rd annual Remarkable Photo Contest ready to launch this weekend on Perceptive Travel, so here’s some useful travel info from elsewhere to make this a week of being wiser. 8 things you should know about Gore-tex (that I didn’t until two weeks ago). The fine print on credit cards keeps getting worse and [...]

• 
  CN Reviews

• 2012 Movie: Praising China & The Chinese? No, Not Really

  Kai Pan

  17 Nov 2009 | 11:39 pm

  I first learned about 2012 during a visit to the States this past summer and was instantly sold on the doomsday scenario. Though it stars John Cusack and Danny Glover (as the United States President no less. What happened to Morgan Freeman? Oh right, he was in the Elijah Wood abortion that was Deep Impact), the real star for me is the premise of cataclysmic disaster befalling humanity, and I greatly anticipated the movie’s release many months later, though not without some consternation of knowing I wouldn’t be able to watch it in an American megaplex but instead possibly over…

• Rednecks, Red Guards & Trolls: Kaiser Kuo on US-China Online

  Elliott Ng

  10 Nov 2009 | 4:59 pm

  For those of us involved in the development of new internet media and technology, there is almost a faith-based view that what we are doing has an inexorable, positive force toward ushering in the world we want to live in.  However, in the area of US-China relations, the growth of unmediated internet contact between China and West has not led to greater mutual understanding, and has largely exposed great rifts between “Them” and “Us.” In a speech at the TedX Honolulu and Rethink:Hawaii conference, Kaiser Kuo highlighted the fact that online contact has been a…

• CNBloggerCon: For The Chinese, Not The Foreigners

  Kai Pan

  7 Nov 2009 | 10:25 pm

  The title sounds judgmental, but it isn’t in the least. It’s the truth and, more importantly, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. I am, of course, generalizing the China Blogger Conference and all of the varied speakers, talks, and subject-matter presented over this weekend. While these have definitely included both foreigners and matters that both indirectly and directly affect foreigners both in and outside of China, the vast majority of foreigners will find this conference largely inaccessible and very distantly relevant to them. That almost all of the talks are…

• Busing From Guangzhou To Lianzhou

  Kai Pan

  7 Nov 2009 | 6:55 pm

  Guangzhou Min and I boarded a long-distance bus in Guangzhou at 7:55 for what we thought would be a 3 hour drive to Lianzhou. Much of the distance was covered quite quickly on a smooth new highway, smooth enough for me to get some more sleep under my belt after an early morning. When I awoke, we were coursing through the mountains, mountains covered with lush green trees. Then, we were soaring over huge valleys supported by massive columns of concrete rising dizzily through the air from the ground hundreds of meters below. Seeing the latter, I couldn’t help but marvel at how all of this was…

• Off To 2009’s 5th Annual CnBloggerCon We Go!

  Kai Pan

  5 Nov 2009 | 8:22 pm

  It’s been pretty quiet around here lately and we haven’t done much “reviewing” of China as we should have (which probably royally pisses Elliott off). Of course, most of it is my fault as I’ve been incredibly busy over the last month and, much to my chagrin, will continue to be for the upcoming week or two. Whenever I’ve had a free moment, I squandered it away defending ChinaGeeks‘ privilege to write about western media bias and entertaining thought experiments meant to prove unprovable kinky Chinese internet tales on chinaSMACK. Sigh. For CNR,…

• 
  Imagethief

• At Ad:Tech on Wednesday

  will

  17 Nov 2009 | 1:24 am

  Imagethief will be moderating the digital PR panel at Ad:Tech Beijing (or, as they style it, ad:tech) tomorrow (November 18, Wednesday). Panelists will include Hong Kong-based Jeremy Woolf, SVP and global social media practice lead for Text 100; Vincent Li, digital lead for Edelman Beijing; and Jeffrey Wu, COO of CIG Advertising. Our blurb:The Evolving Role of Digital PREveryone knows the Internet is important for communication. Everyone knows social media is critical. Everyone has heard about “the conversation.” But what does all this really mean? Behind the received wisdom, hype and…

• Sail a river of moonshine at Guizhou's expo pavilion

  will

  28 Oct 2009 | 4:47 am

  From the strange PR files comes this article in today's Shanghai Daily about the Guizhou provincial pavilion at the Shanghai Expo. The theme is apparently liquor and girls. This seems like a winner on many levels (after all, it worked for the NFL), but the implementation is a bit weird:The province will make the liquor the centerpiece of its pavilion because it's world famous, Yang said. The liquor won the gold prize at the Panama World Expo in 1915 and became renowned across the world. A highlight of the pavilion will be a giant upturned bottle of Moutai that pours water on a model of the…

• Don't scoop the reporter who interviews you, and other PR basics

  will

  23 Oct 2009 | 11:28 pm

  Note: As threatened, Imagethief is coming out of hiatus from time to time, when things catch his eye. Last Wednesday, the 21st, the IT news channel of giant Chinese portal Sohu published the transcript of an interview of Sohu CEO Charles Zhang by Hong Kong-based BusinessWeek journalist Bruce Einhorn. All well and good, you might think. Chinese portals regularly translate and run foreign media articles, and it makes sense that a portal might want to run a high-profile interview with its boss. But there were two problems. First, the interview was on the rather sensitive topic of the dueling IPR…

• The only version of China's National Day Parade you need to watch

  will

  2 Oct 2009 | 5:16 am

  An outstanding video from photojournalist Dan Chung, who was in the stands for yesterday's National Day parade and has produced a three-and-a-half minute version with a mix of time-lapse and slow motion. Much more watchable the tedious CCTV version (which, airplanes aside, felt like it was all in slow motion). More on the parade from me soon. Also worth your time is Danwei's collection of October 1st front pages from Chinese newspapers. PS: I am not "back". This is just another one of those hiatus interruptions I said would happen.

• Video: Tanks roll in Beijing for the PRC 60th anniversary parade rehearsal

  will

  6 Sep 2009 | 5:41 am

  We interrupt this hiatus, as we threatened we would from time to time, to bring you some video from this evening's dress rehearsal for the upcoming military parade celebrating the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. As it happens, the mustering area for many of the armored vehicles participating in the parade is just north of my apartment complex, in a large empty lot with a convenient rail spur (they didn't drive the tanks all the way in). This evening at about 4PM they started blocking Dawang Rd. between Guanghua Rd. and Jianguo Rd. (which becomes Chang'an Ave, the main…

• 
  The Peking Duck

• What should Obama do for China?

  Richard

  13 Nov 2009 | 7:25 pm

  Here’s your chance to tell him. I arrived in one piece. Was hoping maybe winter would be late this year. But no. It’s brutal out there.

• On my way to China

  Richard

  11 Nov 2009 | 8:34 pm

  I’ll be boarding my flight to Beijing in just a few hours. The trip will be part business, part meeting old friends and going back to the places I love the most. Apologies in advance if comments are held for moderation, especially first-time commenters. Please be patient, they’ll appear eventually. If any of you in Beijing, Shanghai or Hangzhou want to get together please let me know. I’ll probably get to Yunnan, too, especially if Beijing is really as cold as I hear. I can’t wait to arrive. But then, I never really left.

• 1989, a ripple effect from Tiananmen to Checkpoint Charlie?

  Richard

  9 Nov 2009 | 6:00 pm

  Foreign Policy offers an interesting if somewhat debatable book excerpt on the role the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations played in influencing soon-to-follow demonstrations in Europe, where less than six months after the crackdown in Beijing the Berlin Wall would crack as well, realigning the world’s long-entrenched geo-political structures in ways that we still can’t completley comprehend even today. The dust of the ripped-down wall, like that of the World Trade Center, has yet to fully settle. In the eyes of the author, Chen Jian, the Michael J. Zak Chair of history for…

• What Chinese and US PR people can learn from each other

  Richard

  31 Oct 2009 | 8:43 pm

  My recent interview, over here.

• Kaiser Kuo on China’s Internet

  Richard

  31 Oct 2009 | 4:43 pm

  Last night I spent more than an hour listening to a speech Kaiser Kuo gave at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln on what the Internet has meant for China, and for US-Chinese relations. I was thinking about breaking the speech down, but then saw that a friend of mine had already done so, with greater patience and diligence than I would have mustered. I can’t recommend strongly enough that you listen to the speech and read my friend’s response and partial transcript. Kaiser and I don’t always see eye to eye on China. But I thought this speech was practically perfect,…

• 
  Dooce

• Rivalry

  dooce

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:41 am

  Chuck has put up with Coco's constant badgering, I think because he feels sorry for her that she's so nuts. But the other night he was sitting in the living room minding his own business when she ran up and tried to mount him, and DUDE SMACKED HER DOWN. Like, I AM DONE. And Jon and I gave him a standing ovation. click image above to see the photo on dooce.comby dooce in Daily Chuck© Armstrong Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Originally published by Heather B. Armstrong for dooce.com as Rivalry. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

• Stragglers

  dooce

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:02 am

  These are the remaining leaves on the tree right outside the window to our office. It boggles my mind that it's the middle of November when it seems like just minutes ago that Jon had to use both feet to push my massive pregnant body out of bed, back when I couldn't wait for summer. Winter, here we come. click image above to see the photo on dooce.comby dooce in Daily Photo© Armstrong Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Originally published by Heather B. Armstrong for dooce.com as Stragglers. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

• Call for submissions

  dooce

  19 Nov 2009 | 8:18 am

  I am in the process of putting together a holiday gift guide, one for women like myself, one for geeky husbands, one for infants, and one for five-year-old girls who think life is totally unfair. Maybe just some coal for her. I'm looking for handmade goods, products from small businesses, and would love to see unique things from independent artists. If you've seen my style section and think I'd like what you have to offer, please send me a link to your stuff at style at dooce dot com. Note, I do not accept compensation for featuring products on this website, I truly just want to introduce my…

• The most adorable pajamas ever

  dooce

  18 Nov 2009 | 12:33 pm

  Marlo is almost busting out of these pajamas, and when the day comes that she can no longer wear them we are all going to moan in despair. Because when she wears these we fight over who gets to hold her. These were a present from Cynthia Wise, owner of the Hello World Clothing Company, and what makes them so cool is you can unzip them from both ends. Best part: the feet OMG. click image above to see the photo on dooce.comby dooce in Daily Style© Armstrong Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Originally published by Heather B. Armstrong for dooce.com as The most adorable pajamas ever. This post…

• Mario

  dooce

  18 Nov 2009 | 10:44 am

  That's what Leta loves to call Marlo, because she heard us talking one day about how when Marlo's insurance card came in the mail it said, "Mario Iris Armstrong." And it took some time to fix. I think we have unknowingly given her a life long problem with that L in her name being mistaken for an I because several people have written to me and said YOU NAMED YOUR DAUGHTER MARIO?! click image above to see the photo on dooce.comby dooce in Daily Photo© Armstrong Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Originally published by Heather B. Armstrong for dooce.com as Mario. This post cannot be republished…

• 
  Queen of Spain Blog

• The Senate HCR Bill is Out-How Does It Stack Up?

  Queen of Spain

  19 Nov 2009 | 1:14 pm

  Crossposted at BlogHer.com Upon hearing the news Senate Majority leader Harry Reid released the Senate version of a health care reform bill last night, I quickly brewed some tea, snuggled into bed, and settled myself in for a long read. I’ve made it about 400 pages in and I can tell you already, there are some notable differences between the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the House bill. The New York Times reports, Though broadly similar to the House bill, Mr. Reid’s proposal differs in important ways. It would, for example, increase the Medicare payroll tax on…

• Twitter Soup

  Queen of Spain

  15 Nov 2009 | 12:26 pm

  The weather is finally turning here in Southern California, making me don my really unattractive (and old) Pooh Bear thermal PJ’s and my wooly socks. It also puts me in the mood for things like soup. So as we made our Sunday grocery list this morning, I casually tweeted that I needed soup suggestions and was immediately OVERWHELMED with recipe responses. I’ve compiled them here for all your warm, fuzzy, soupy needs. Gregg sent over a Bloody Mary soup that sounds really good. Yes, it has vodka. Loralee suggested Beguine Cream soup to which she adds extra salt and pepper. I…

• Mom: FunKiller #1

  Queen of Spain

  12 Nov 2009 | 2:46 pm

  See this? This is the sort of thing that makes me cringe and get nauseated and freak out-internally. It’s true I’m one of those mother’s that keeps her children close. I don’t like them doing ANYTHING risky and I’d rather all their limbs remain grounded. I was not-so-secretly FINE with my kids being afraid of heights (which they outgrew, dammit) and if it were up to me they’d walk around in padding and helmets … just in case. They hold my hand across parking lots, I don’t let them play out front without an adult around. If there is a tree that…

• The Patriarchy Is To Blame For My Stomach Issues

  Queen of Spain

  8 Nov 2009 | 10:38 am

  I’m self-diagnosing again. Well, because WebMD exists and that’s just what a neurotic woman does. I’ve been feeling a bit crummy again, not a full relapse of symptoms but I’m certainly not jogging a 5k like some people in my house. I’ve had to stop one of the medications that was really making a difference in my health due to it’s side effects. Since then I’ve been nauseated and generally bleh. But as I’ve tried to find other ways to feel better…I discovered something utterly amazing about myself. I haven’t stopped sucking in my…

• Maine Voters Should Face My Kids

  Queen of Spain

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:55 pm

  We went through this with Prop 8 in California, and now again in Maine. Well Maine voters, now it’s your turn. I want you to explain to my children why some people have more rights than others. I want you to explain to two, angelic faces why you think it’s ok for some people to be allowed to marry and not others. Sometimes, framing an issue through the eyes of a child really forces clarity on just how simple this all is. But no, that’s not how it will go. Instead, in the morning (and if they ask) I will tell my children how equal rights do not exist for certain people in the…

• 
  Kimchi Mamas

• BANANA

  Kimchi

  19 Nov 2009 | 3:39 pm

  Please join Julie as she represents the Kimchi Mamas at BANANA, an Asian/Pacific American blogger symposium, at USC on Saturday. Date: Saturday, November 21, 2009 Time: 3:00pm - 6:00pm Location: University of Southern California (USC) Street: University Park Campus, Taper...

• Forms of Torture at Korean Hair Salons

  Kimchi

  19 Nov 2009 | 2:50 pm

  The comments in the last post inspired me to write this post. =) Korean hair salons (at least the ones I've been to in the LA area) have some fancy smancy forms of torture. Have you ever had to endure...

• I like myself just how I am, I think?

  Kimchi

  17 Nov 2009 | 1:33 pm

  So, I have some extra time to myself this week while my daughter is spending some time with her dad. The plan: haircut! I haven't gotten my hair cut in over six months. My last hairdresser said something about "oriental...

• Sign the Petition for Na Young

  Kimchi

  15 Nov 2009 | 9:39 pm

  I was absolutely horrified just now to read this article via a comment by one of our readers. In Seoul, Korea, Na Young (pseudonym), an eight year old girl, was kidnapped, brutally beaten, strangled, raped, and tortured and left to...

• Open Thread Thursday

  Kimchi

  11 Nov 2009 | 11:00 pm

  The POWER of Arirang! And now the symposium to prove it!! Conflict at sea! It's Open Thread Thursday . . . What's on YOUR mind? --The Kimchi Mamas

• 
  The Bloggess

• Hope for Anissa

  Jenny the bloggess

  20 Nov 2009 | 7:26 am

  I don’t think I’ve ever done this before on this blog and I hope that I never have to do it again but I’m asking for your help.  If you read this blog a lot then you already know Anissa Mayhew because she’s a regular commenter.  She’s a blogger, a reader and a faithful friend.  More than once Anissa has had my back during rough times.  She’s a founding member of The Bloggess Army (codename: Kaiser Soze).  She’s publicly defended me more than once…mostly from myself.  She’s hysterical and witty and bitingly sarcastic and now…

• Breaking news: Waffles

  Jenny the bloggess

  18 Nov 2009 | 3:59 pm

  My friend, Hannah, just sent me an email to alert me about breaking news on Yahoo: Not a joke, you guys. Real. Live. Screenshot. Holy shit, y’all. And my first thought was “I have to share this with the internets immediately because WTF, news media?  Why is this a top story?!”  And then my second thought is that I shouldn’t tell anyone about it until I have a chance to go out and buy all the Eggos I can find first because this way I get a headstart on the hoarding.  But no, I decided to share with you now because I have integrity.  And because I already have a box…

• Japan, part 2 (ish): Tommy Lee Jones needs to mind his own business

  Jenny the bloggess

  16 Nov 2009 | 8:18 am

  OMG, you guys.  I actually published a “part 2″ to a post that I labeled “Part 1″.  I think that’s the first time that’s ever happened.  Is there a medal for this, or some sort of ribbon?  If so, please mail one to me.  Unless it’s that bullshit white participant ribbon.  No one wants that ribbon.  Unless you buy it yourself and wear it ironically.  Then it’s kind of awesome.  Or desperate.  One of those. So where was I?  We’d just landed in Japan and luckily I was still using my journal at the time because I’ve already…

• It might not even be pudding. It may have been lotion. Or some sort of spackle.

  Jenny the bloggess

  14 Nov 2009 | 5:46 pm

  A video of weird/offensive/awesome stuff I bought in Japan.  Also, I suck at making videos.  That’ll be evident if you make it to the end.  But about halfway through I eat a boobie.  So there’s that.  Totally redeeming. Comment of the day:Peppermint creeps the everliving crap out of me. Totally did not expect the eye color change thing. And since she’s Japanese, there’s probably some horrible karmic consequence of pulling the ass-string. Like, in seven days you’ll be forcefed boobie pudding until you die.  Unless this whole Vlog was like “The Ring” and then we’re…

• Why, Google?

  Jenny the bloggess

  11 Nov 2009 | 10:34 pm

  Taking a short intermission from stories of almost getting murdered in Japan to demand that you go right now to Google and type in “Why”.  Then look at the auto-suggestions. I’ll wait. Why are you still here?  Okay, fine. I’ll do it for you. Awesome. Bonus:  What comes up when you type in “Why won’t”: Technically I've wondered about that second one too. And that’s why the internet was invented, y’all. (Hat-tip to Relo who saw this phenomenon and instantly thought of me.  Thanks?) Comment of the day: “Why won’t my parakeet eat…

• 
  Mom to the Screaming Masses

• Survey...

  Carmen Staicer

  19 Nov 2009 | 5:33 pm

  The idea for this blog post came from Twitter...Do you like the following...Nutella -  NOWine -   NOBeer -  NOBacon -   NO, NO, NOThere you have it. Now you know how officially weird I am.I'd love to know your answers to the above.

• Much Ado About Randomosity

  Carmen Staicer

  18 Nov 2009 | 7:17 pm

  Random and mundane is all below the fold, but this is very extremely important:I first met Anissa in person at Blogher last year, although I had known her online for quite a while.  I've often been known as a woman with bigger than average boobs - F cup, down from J - and she and I were the Big Bewbed Twins, although hers were much bigger and more impressive than I'll EVER be. When I met her in July, it was as if I'd met a long lost sister. Anissa suffered a stroke yesterday and is currently in ICU. I spent last night and today in total and complete shock, for if there was…

• Commercial Break

  Carmen Staicer

  17 Nov 2009 | 1:02 pm

  Rant of the day: Commercials are, I'm told, a necessary part of television watching. I understand that. Most of the time I ignore them. Some of the time I watch them. Occasionally I laugh at them. Super Bowl Sunday I'm obsessed with them. Some of them, though, I hear beginning and RUN to the television to either mute the volume or change the channel. Barring that, I've been known to call my kids by name and start rambling nonsense - speaking about anything - and nothing, really - to try to fill their ears before the commercial can.I'll bet you can't guess what the…

• I Failed NaBloPoMo

  Carmen Staicer

  15 Nov 2009 | 5:21 pm

  But, whatever. It was for a good reason. The 14th was my birthday and I had grand, grand plans, y'all. They involved taking a Muay Thai class, shopping for clothes and taking a nap - all before my enormous birthday party.You know what they say about making plans, right? After my kids had their morning class, we came home and I started setting up for the party. My cell phone rang - it was a number I didn't recognize - and I briefly thought about ignoring it. But I didn't, and I answered."Hi, Mrs. Masses? This is Joe from the Great Big Soccer group, and I'm calling to tell…

• So This is What 40 Feels Like

  Carmen Staicer

  13 Nov 2009 | 8:32 pm

  When I was a kid, I thought 40 was as close to death as one could be without actually being, you know, dead. That was when I looked like this. But now I'm older and maybe, just a teeny bit wiser. (I'm typing this while I listen to my 40TH BIRTHDAY EXTRAVAGANZA totally awesome playlist. I may or may not be singing along. Pretend you like it. Go on, it's a gift for me.)                          THINGS I HAVE LEARNED IN MY 40 (!!!)…

• 
  Omar L. Gallaga: Digital Savant

• Final thoughts on the Motorola Droid

  20 Nov 2009 | 11:04 am

  This morning, I mailed back the Motorola Droid phone that Verizon Wireless had lent us to try out for a few weeks. I always know it’s past time to mail something back when it’s been a few days where the device sits around, unused, nearly all curiosity about how it works and what it does satisfied. As it stood, the Droid’s battery was depleted from sitting idle, unused for most of this week. But for the first two weeks after the phone’s splashy roll-out, it was in my hands constantly. Curious co-workers and Twitter buddies had lots of questions, the inevitable one…

• The Linkdown for Thursday, Nov. 19

  19 Nov 2009 | 1:08 pm

  The Linkdown had an early Thanksgiving potluck feast and is barely keeping bleary eyes open. We’re no trypto-fan of sleep-inducing meals. What you should be checking out in the Internet right this second: Get in on the meme early: trade your unwanted gold for warm, soft cats at CatsForGold.com! Like Lincoln? Check out the new Lincoln Memorial Interactive. On Twitter, it’s no longer, “What are you doing?” but “What’s happening?” Konami has lowered the price on many of its Apple App Store games to 99 cents including “Frogger” and…

• Status updates and Tweets: how much is too much?

  18 Nov 2009 | 1:42 pm

  I recently was on a podcast for “Age of Lasers,” an epic 1.5-hour chat about social-media pet peeves and one of the more interesting topics that came up was how often people post on Twitter and Facebook and what’s appropriate. The person who wrote in to the podcast about the issue said that more than three Facebook status updates a day is too much, which alarmed me because I probably post at least 10 to 20 times a day. My Twitter account is linked to Facebook, so all my Tweets go there automatically, but even if that mechanism didn’t exist, I imagine I’d still be…

• Sprint brings 4Gs to the ATX

  17 Nov 2009 | 9:20 am

  Yesterday, Sprint Nextel Corp. launched 4G wireless service in Austin, boasting speeds (theoretically) of 10 times what we see on 3G, The bad news: there’s not a phone that currently can surf at those speeds, though Sprint says we’ll see that next year as well as a netbook that’s embedded with a 3G/4G chip for surfing this faster network. I met up with John Taylor, a manager of public affairs for Sprint corporate, and he showed me some wares currently available from the company that are able to access 4G (shown in the photo above). Among them is a USB modem, available for…

• Dell phones are coming (but not here)

  13 Nov 2009 | 1:39 pm

  As is being reported today, Dell is entering the smartphone market with an Android operating system-powered handset to debut in China and Brazil. No word on when (or if) the U.S. will see the phone, called the “Mini 3i” but rumors have been swirling all year that Dell would enter the market with its own phone this year. There’s reason for skepticism: Dell’s entrance into the music player market fizzled and the company is only recently becoming known for its industrial design of products like laptops. Smartphones are increasingly becoming defined by their hardware…

• 
  Houston Chronicle: TechBlog

• Such a shiny, shiny (but limited) Chrome OS! [Updated]

  chron.com

  20 Nov 2009 | 6:04 am

  On Thursday, as Google gave the tech press its first real look at its upcoming Chrome OS, I was as much interested in the reaction to the operating system as I was in the product itself. Google, like Apple,...

• Open comments on parade

  chron.com

  20 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am

  Happy Friday, TechBlog folk! Here's your weekly open-comments thread. If you're a veteran around these parts, you know what to do. If you're not, here's the drill: You leave a comment related to anything about personal tech. I'll approve it....

• Linkpost | 11.20.2009

  chron.com

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:36 am

  • Everything You Need To Know About Chrome OS - Gizmodo has an excellent primer on Thursday's Chrome OS news. Also Want To Try Out Google Chrome OS For Yourself? Here's How. • Google News Revamps Mobile Site for iPhone,...

• What are the basics of computer literacy?

  chron.com

  19 Nov 2009 | 5:35 am

  Recently, I helped a very smart friend with a computer problem. She was having an issue with the application she used most and asked me for some assistance. The problem was fairly simple. For some reason, she had two...

• Linkpost | 11.19.2009

  chron.com

  19 Nov 2009 | 4:34 am

  Updated 2:11 p.m. • Liveblogging The Google Chrome OS Press Conference and ChromeOS Source Code - Where To Download - Google provides details on its Chrome OS. Thin client, all apps live on the Web, will require specific hardware (you...

• 
  PBS: MediaShift

• 4 Minute Roundup: Media Company Layoffs; Omidyar Startup

  20 Nov 2009 | 3:49 pm

  Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the deep layoffs that are planned at AOL, the AP and BusinessWeek. In the case of AOL, the company plans to shed one-third of its workforce, or 2,500 staffers. eBay founder Pierre Omidyar announced plans to launch a news startup in Hawaii that will combine citizen journalism with professional reporting to cover local civic issues. I asked Just One Question to Bayosphere founder Dan Gillmor about Omidyar's venture. Check it out: 4mrbareaudio112009.mp3 Background music is "What the World Needs" by the The…

• 5Across: Social Media Marketing 101

  19 Nov 2009 | 2:41 pm

  There's a new series of demands being made in company meetings everywhere: "What is our social media strategy? What are we doing on Facebook and Twitter? I want followers and fans, and I want them now!" But before companies large and small -- as well as non-profits and charities -- jump into social media, they need to take a deep breath and think about it. What are their goals? What kind of return on investment will they get? Even though it's free to set up fan pages and feeds, there's a time investment that may or may not pay off. On this episode of 5Across, I convened a group of social…

• Profiles in Courage: Social Media Editors at Big Media Outlets

  19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am

  During a recent trip to see an editor I work with at The Globe and Mail, a national newspaper in Canada, I passed by the newspaper's cafeteria. My editor looked in and pointed at a man who was sitting with his back to us. "There's Mathew Ingram, doing his office hours," he told me. Ingram is the Globe and Mail's communities editor, a job he took on after being a technology reporter, columnist and blogger for the paper. My editor explained that Ingram's "office hours" consist of him making himself available in the cafeteria so that anyone can come see him and talk about Twitter, user comments,…

• The Shutdown of UWIRE and the Implications for College Media

  18 Nov 2009 | 12:04 pm

  Last month, UWIRE.com, an edited college media newswire, mysteriously vanished from the Internet. "UWIRE, a popular service that aggregated articles from student newspapers across the country, promoting student journalism both within higher education and to the outside world, has disappeared," wrote Simmi Aujla for the Chronicle of Higher Education earlier this month. Today, visitors to the site receive an error message, and the people running the service have had little to say publicly. As a result, there has been intense speculation about the site, along with complaints from student editors…

• Young Political Candidates Confronted by Digital Past on Facebook

  17 Nov 2009 | 12:42 pm

  Last spring Emanuel Pleitez, 26, ran for California's 32nd Congressional seat in a special election to replace Hilda Solis, the new secretary of labor. During the campaign, one of Pleitez's opponents, California State Sen. Gil Cedillo, discovered photos from Pleitez's Facebook profile that showed Pleitez hanging around with various women at parties. The Cedillo campaign used the photos as the basis for a mailer that was sent to homes in the district. The mailer presented Pleitez as a partier, drinker and womanizer, among other smears. Pleitez admits the negative attack probably cost him some…

• 
  Wired Journalists

• Unknown diseases is hunting the displaced people around near Mogadishu

  Daud Abdi Daud

  Unknown diseases is hunting the displaced people around near Mogadishu Unknown diseases affected the displaced Somali people from one person to another where there is no single person not affected, while the doctors did know what the disease is but they said it is skin disease. Dr. Hawa Abdi the administrator of the Hawa Abdi hospital located in the around near area of Mogadishu told to the National Association of Somali Science and Environmental Journalists (NASSEJ) that the surprised diseases are not yet know while she said the diseases was caused by the smoke of the bullets. She added that…

• World's largest humanitarian network to meet for first time in Africa

  Daud Abdi Daud

  World's largest humanitarian network to meet for first time in Africa Nairobi/Geneva – Delegates from the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement will gather in Nairobi from 18 to 25 November to address today’s most pressing humanitarian challenges. It's the first time ever that the world's largest humanitarian network will hold a Movement-wide meeting of its leaders in Africa. From 18 to 21 November, the 17th session of the General Assembly of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) will address several key issues, starting with the adoption…

• Sun bears make a fashion statement

  Jeanette McDermott

  Spoon+Fork, a New York City based creative service agency, is promoting sun bear conservation awareness and raising funds through a new line of tote bags it helped launch for the fashion and eco conscious consumer. The idea for the tote bags came about after sun bear expert and UFP member Siew Te Wong spoke before an audience last summer and answered someone's question, "How can people help the sun bear?" Wong replied, “if you are rich, you can donate fund to us. If you are a writer, please write about sun bears and our work. If you are a filmmaker, please make a film about sun bears and…

• Raw Avocado Lettuce Wraps

  Gardenia Coleman

  http://gmcolem1.personal.asu.edu/wordpress/?p=35

• Science and Environment Journalists Association launched in Somalia

  Daud Abdi Daud

  Science and Environment Journalists Association launched in Somalia Somali journalists recently lauched the National Association of Somali Science and Environmental Journalists (NASSEJ) to ensure the reporting of science news and the plight of Somalia environment in general. NASSEJ is the legitimate and representative organ and voice of science and environmental journalists in Somalia and is a member of the International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ), Arab Science Journalists Association (ASJA) and Global Network of Civil Society Organizations for Disaster Reduction. Apart…

• 
  Old Media, New Tricks

• Use Twitter lists to build your personal news brand

  Daniel B. Honigman

  16 Nov 2009 | 6:45 am

  NOTE: I originally posted a version of this on the Personal Branding Blog. For reporters on the social web, the strength of their personal brand can gain them readers or, more importantly, sources. Twitter lists are just one way you can introduce people to your work and get that one source you need to follow you on Twitter. (Of course, you can always pick up the phone and call them, but that’s besides the point.) Here are some easy things you can do to brand yourself through your Twitter lists: Thank every person who lists you. While it may take only a second to add someone to a Twitter…

• The Google Wave news community

  Robert Quigley

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:38 pm

  If you are one of the lucky few who scored a Google Wave account, you’ve probably logged in, fumbled around a bit, probably were impressed by the instant nature of it — and you probably got annoyed relatively quickly at Wave’s slowness. If you have enough friends or colleagues who have invites, you might have gotten a peek at Wave’s potential as a collaboration tool. For journalists, collaboration with the public on news events is the (Google) wave of the future. I wrote about Wave’s potential for journalism for Media Bullseye. If you don’t know what Wave is,…

• Video: On the importance of content curation

  Daniel B. Honigman

  2 Nov 2009 | 6:05 am

  Here’s a quick video I did for Bryan Person at LiveWorld when I was at the BlogWorld Expo 2009 (#bwe09). It’s geared mostly at brands curating their streams, but there are some ideas journalists can take away from it, I think. Enjoy: - Daniel B. Honigman

• Talking Lifestreaming on ‘The Kevin Sablan Show’

  Daniel B. Honigman

  18 Oct 2009 | 8:53 am

  I was hanging out with Jon Lansner out at BlogWorld a couple of days ago when we decided to, as an homage to our mutual friend Kevin Sablan, record a podcast in his honor. We talked lifestreaming and storystreaming, but didn’t make fun of Kevin as much as I would have liked. Go figure. Kevin: This one is for you. - Daniel B. Honigman (with Jon Lansner)

• New Tricks: Storystreaming addressed in my lifestreaming white paper

  Daniel B. Honigman

  14 Oct 2009 | 11:42 am

  I recently wrote a white paper on lifestreaming for Weber Shandwick. In it, I discuss what a lifestream is, how brands can take advantage of lifestreaming platforms, but also how journalists and editors can take advantage of storystreaming and eventstreaming, and what types of newsy content can be streamed. In addition to the Austin American-Statesman’s recent storystreaming efforts, the St. Paul Pioneer Press has also been using Posterous in some recent crowdsourced journalism projects: “Minnesota Sports Heaven” and “Snow Shots.” The journalism-related portion…

• 
  Philosophy of information

• CFP - Towards a Comprehensive Intelligence Test (TCIT) - Reconsidering the Turing Test for the 21st Century Symposium

  13 Nov 2009 | 6:44 am

  Call for Paper Towards a Comprehensive Intelligence Test (TCIT) Reconsidering the Turing Test for the 21st Century Symposium http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~aayesh/TuringTestRevisited/ At AISB2010 Convention Leicester, UK 29th March – 1st April 2010 2010 marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of Turing’s paper, in which he outlined his test for machine intelligence. Turing suggested that the possibility of genuine machine thought should be replaced by a simple behaviour-based process in which a human interrogator converses blindly with a machine and another human. Although the precise…

• La révolution numérique considérée comme une quatrième révolution

  3 Nov 2009 | 6:19 am

  Patrick Peccatte La révolution numérique considérée comme une quatrième révolution, par Luciano Floridihttp://blog.tuquoque.com/post/2009/11/03/revolution-numerique-quatrieme-revolutionLuciano Floridi's blog on the Philosophy of information

• How information becomes knowledge

  1 Nov 2009 | 4:06 am

  Semantic Information and The Network Theory of Account (forthcoming in Synthese)The article addresses the problem of how semantic information can be upgraded to knowledge. The introductory section explains the technical terminology and the relevant background. Section two argues that, for semantic information to be upgraded to knowledge, it is necessary and sufficient to be embedded in a network of questions and answers that correctly accounts for it. Section three shows that an information flow network of type A fulfils such a requirement, by warranting that the erotetic deficit,…

• Simulations and Their Philosophical Implications

  13 Oct 2009 | 10:01 am

  NACAP 2010 @ Carnegie Mellon University - July 24-26, 2010 Simulations and Their Philosophical Implications Call for Papers/Proposals Deadline: February 1st 2010 (firm) In honor of the 60th Anniversary of the publication of Alan Turing’s groundbreaking article, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” we are centering the 2010 NACAP Conference on simulations and their philosophical implications.Since the inception of the computer, simulations have become ubiquitous tools of the trade in a wide range of disciplines from astrophysics to sociology, machine learning to logic. When…

• Arsenic and e-Health

  11 Oct 2009 | 11:20 am

  Monsieur Homais is one of the less likable characters in Madame Bovary. The deceitful pharmacist fakes a deep friendship for Charles Bovary. In fact, he constantly undermines his reputation with his patients, thus contributing to Charles’ ruin. Monsieur Homais is not merely wicked. A smart man, he has been convicted in the past for practicing medicine without a license and so he worries, very reasonably, that Charles might denounce him to the authorities for the illicit business of health advice and personal consultations that he keeps organising in his pharmacy.The ultimate success of the…

• 
  Stars and Stripes

• As separation rates plummet, military getting more selective

  21 Nov 2009 | 8:00 pm

  Fewer servicemembers are retiring or leaving the military than at any time in the past five years, according to Defense Department data.

• In Golestan, changing mission could mean troops must move on

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:00 pm

  When U.S. Marines first entered this stark, scenic valley nearly two years ago, their mission was to build up local security forces and eliminate the Taliban resistance. Marine commanders are wondering: Now that they have been committed to Golestan for the past two years, how can they just leave?

• USO to focus on women

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:00 pm

  For years, the United Service Organizations has been sending care packages filled with items such as DVDs, phone cards, beef jerky and playing cards. But now, some of the boxes will contain items specifically for women in the war zones

• Army unit to return to region of deadly battle

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:00 pm

  The 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment is heading back to the same region where it took part in the Army's deadliest battle in Afghanistan.

• Nine hurt as military plane makes emergency landing in Mali

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:00 pm

  A military aircraft carrying U.S. Africa Command personnel was forced to make an emergency landing Thursday in Mali, causing non-life-threatening injuries to the nine people aboard the cargo plane, AFRICOM reported Friday.

• 
  Neptunus Lex

• Ho Hum

  lex

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:40 pm

  Just another day at the airport.

• Somebody’s Got Some ‘Splaining To Do

  lex

  20 Nov 2009 | 11:27 am

  The world has stopped getting warmer, defying the complex models that predicted anthropogenic global warming to continue until it reached crisis proportions: Global warming appears to have stalled. Climatologists are puzzled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years. Some attribute the trend to a lack of sunspots, while others explain it through ocean currents. At least the weather in Copenhagen is likely to be cooperating. The Danish Meteorological Institute predicts that temperatures in December, when the city will host the United Nations Climate…

• Cost/Benefit Analysis

  lex

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:22 am

  Rationed health care, when it comes, will not come all at once. It will creep in stealthily, measure by measure. At first few will object. Because at first, a charismatic politician will tell us of blue pills that work better than red pills costing twice as much. Then, a government sponsored panel of experts – none of them oncologists – will tell us that mammograms for women in the 40-50 year old cohort simply don’t save enough lives to justify the “false positive” rate. Because under the previous recommendation to start screenings at age 40, only two in one…

• The Heartland

  lex

  20 Nov 2009 | 7:05 am

  It’s where the work is.

• Egg

  lex

  20 Nov 2009 | 6:39 am

  It’s what’s for faces, at least at the LA Times when Patterico is on the job. Update: This Breitbart fellow is swinging for the fences. Hannity: Are you saying, Andrew, that there are more tapes? Breitbart: Oh my goodness there are!  Not only are there more tapes, it’s not just ACORN.  And this message is to Attorney General Holder: I want you to know that we have more tapes, it’s not just ACORN, and we’re going to hold out until the next election cycle, or else if you want to do a clean investigation, we will give you the rest of what we have, we will comply with you, we…

• 
  Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

• Seven Reasons to Give Thanks That the World Didn't End This Year

  Thomas P.M. Barnett

  20 Nov 2009 | 5:24 am

  David Hughes Economic meltdown? Social anarchy? World War III? Go humbug yourself. Our foreign-policy analyst looks back on the 2009 fears that weren't, so we can all count our global blessings this holiday season. Continue reading this week's World War Room column at Esquire.com.

• When economics gets ahead of politics: beats the hell out of the alternative

  Thomas P.M. Barnett

  20 Nov 2009 | 2:46 am

  LEADERS: "So much gained, so much to lose: Over the past 20 years economic freedom has outpaced political liberty. Neither should be taken for granted," The Economist, 7 November 2009. Logic very much in my vein: economics has raced ahead of politics since the Wall fell, disappointing the democracy-now! types. Does the slo-mo movement toward political pluralism negate the link between economic liberty and political liberty? No. Economics has made globalization nearly global, but politics remains stubbornly local. That gap defines danger as globalization moves forward, but this isn't 1914 by…

• When the Iranian clergy switch sides

  Thomas P.M. Barnett

  20 Nov 2009 | 2:39 am

  ARTICLE: Future Perfect, By Geneive Abdo, Newsweek , Nov 18, 2009 This fits nicely with the mullahs-have-lost-power scenario unfolding. Khamenei has so sold his soul to the Revolutionary Guard that the clergy are slowly coming to the conclusion that the faith would be better served detached from the government. When this happens, a major portion of the clergy then switch over to the green movement and we get a Poland/Solidarnosc scenario that moves with great power. (Thanks: jjennings)

• But the general says Chinese consumers are dangerous...

  Thomas P.M. Barnett

  20 Nov 2009 | 2:37 am

  POST: Gen. Casey to geeks: China's middle class worries me, By Thomas E. Ricks, The Best Defense, 11/18/2009 Wow, now we listen to army lifers for geopolitical and geo-economic analysis. (Thanks: waveman850)

• Some of China's air is improving

  Thomas P.M. Barnett

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:43 am

  ARTICLE: Beijing's Air Is Cleaner, but Far From Clean, By MICHAEL WINES, New York Times, October 16, 2009 Good sign on China: efforts to curb local air pollution are helping. Truth of any nation on the climb: local pollution skyrockets until per cap income gets to a level when the additional externalities finally get addressed. Thus, virtually every major city in the Old Core was far more polluted in the past than today. Same will happen with China.

• 
  Broadside Blog

• Maersk Alabama – then and now

  Bacon

  20 Nov 2009 | 3:01 am

  Maersk Alabama (Photo from Atlantic Council) Remember the Maersk Alabama? About seven months ago the vessel was seized by Somali pirates, and her skipper, Captain Richard Phillips was taken hostage. As bad as that was, the story ended well for everyone but the pirates. Now that the monsoon season has ended, the bad guys are at it again. But this time their reception was different. Read the article and see the adjustments that have been made to beef up security. The article: “Maersk Alabama Crew Repels Suspected Pirate Attack”

• A tribute to WWII veterans

  Bacon

  20 Nov 2009 | 3:00 am

  This video was sent to me by Mason Jarre. He wrote the words, wrote the music, and compiled the video in this heartfelt tribute. Click here to view the embedded video.

• Bacon’s Castle

  Bacon

  20 Nov 2009 | 2:55 am

  This picture was taken by Kevin, a frequent contributor. I don’t live in Suffolk, Virginia, but if I did…

• The wartime chaplains

  Bacon

  19 Nov 2009 | 3:00 am

  Maj. Michael DuCharme (DOD photo) I was reading through the Heroes section hosted by DOD and stumbled upon the story of Major Michael DuCharme, an Army chaplain. He joined the Army later in life, after the war in Iraq had started, knowing he would be deployed. And he was – twice. He is still on active duty, and now understands his calling. “’[Soldiers] … face all the things: death, loss, heat, separation from family. And even though it’s hard, they go out and do it, day in and day out…with the goal of bringing each other home,’ DuCharme said. ‘When bad things…

• Greenside of the Week – Nov 18, 2009

  Bacon

  18 Nov 2009 | 3:00 am

  Visit the Greenside Archives! (click here)

• 
  NYT > Theater

• Theater Listings: Nov. 20 — 26

  By THE NEW YORK TIMES

  19 Nov 2009 | 11:04 pm

  Selective listings from theater critics of The New York Times.

• On the London Stage: A Poet, a Composer and a Love of Theater

  By MATT WOLF

  19 Nov 2009 | 11:01 pm

  “The Habit of Art,” the Alan Bennett play, has at its complexly poignant core W.H. Auden and Benjamin Britten.

• Theater Review | 'Twelfth Night (or What You Will)': Gender Switch in Illyria, With Players 8 Inches Tall

  By ANITA GATES

  19 Nov 2009 | 10:57 pm

  What the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theater does is improbably fabulous, and they’re doing it again in their sublime new production.

• Theater Review | 'In the Next Room, or the vibrator play': Beyond Electricity, Toward Female Emancipation

  By CHARLES ISHERWOOD

  19 Nov 2009 | 10:04 pm

  Alert the authorities. Shocking sexual acts are taking place in this inspired new comedy by Sarah Ruhl.

• Theater Review | 'The Orphans' Home Cycle': Heart of a Small Town, Vast in Its Loneliness

  By BEN BRANTLEY

  19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm

  The first part of Horton Foote’s “Orphans’ Home Cycle” is a thrilling demonstration of an artist soaring into the realm of the epic.

• 
  Rolling Stone: Features

• The Twilight Saga in Rolling Stone

  19 Nov 2009 | 12:11 pm

  Peter Travers Reviews New Moon Our film critic on the Twilight saga's second chapter: "Swooning tweens of all ages and sexes will work themselves into a lather ..."

• Wes Anderson's Fantastic Fox Tale

  18 Nov 2009 | 10:04 am

  The director and "Fantastic Mr. Fox" star Jason Schwartzman on bringing Roald Dahl's classic to the big screen Wes Anderson's newest venture may be an animated take on a classic kids' story, but from its corduroy-clad characters to its cozy look at family dysfunction, Fantastic Mr. Fox is classic work from the director of Rushmore, The Royal Tennenbaums and The Darjeeling Limited. Rolling Stone caught up with Anderson, who wrote the film's screenplay with Noah Baumbach at original author Roald Dahl's own home, and Jason Schwartzman, who voices Mr. Fox's misunderstood son Ash.

• The Man on the "Moon": Q&A With "Twilight Saga" Director Chris Weitz

  18 Nov 2009 | 5:21 am

  Master of movie adaptations on the wild stunts and Team Edward moments in "New Moon" With just days to go before the release of The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Rolling Stone chatted with the film's director, Chris Weitz, about the anticipated movie's wildest stunts, the loyalty of Team Edward and the scenes you won't find in Stephenie Meyer's original book. You said everyone's been asking you about the pressures of taking on such a successful franchise, and they also want to know why vampires are so popular. Honestly, there weren't really any pressures for me because there was...

• ?uestlove's "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" Countdown

  18 Nov 2009 | 3:53 am

  The Roots drummer's favorite all-star jams and musical celebrity slams Five Best Guests 1. Tie: Artie Lange and Olivia Munn I don't know if you can capture lightning in a bottle, but I will say this much — I've never seen a more ironic one-two punch in the history of the show. We all had crazy expectations for Lange 'cause of his reputation on [Howard] Stern and sure enough, he was comic gold. So gold, I thought there was no way Munn (who I know from the G4 channel) would stand a chance. But sure enough, she hung in there with the big boys and next thing...

• Adam Lambert on the Demons and Dance Behind "For Your Entertainment"

  11 Nov 2009 | 12:33 pm

  Singer opens up about his new band (Madonna's guitarist!) and his album's Radiohead moment In our new issue, Adam Lambert tells Rolling Stone how whiskey and David Bowie influenced his debut album, For Your Entertainment. American Idol's first real rock star also opened up about working with Muse and writing one of the record's most tender ballads. Here's more from Jenny Eliscu's conversation with the man RS dubbed a glam-rock sex god during his fantastic Idol run: Tell me about the process of making this record. We did some recording on tour,...

• 
  Google News: Cosplay

• Special Episode of Bones To Be Heavy With Avatar Product Placement - /FILM (blog)

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:36 pm

  /FILM (blog)Special Episode of Bones To Be Heavy With Avatar Product Placement/FILM (blog)There's a queue of folk up to some deep blue Na'vi cosplay. There's a guy inexplciably saying “Avatar” between two words of the voice over man's “Strange… Fun or Lame: Fox's 'Bones' Becomes One Big 'Avatar' PromoCinematical (blog)Bones – “The Gamer in the Grease” Promo ImagesBSCreviewall 4 news articles »

• Predators Just Want to Have Fun - A Cosplay Gallery - io9

  19 Nov 2009 | 4:35 pm

  Predators Just Want to Have Fun - A Cosplay Galleryio9By Annalee Newitz , 4:30 PM on Thu Nov 19 2009, 4759 views You've probably heard about people who dress up like Stormtroopers, but what about Predators? and more »

• Imported icon throws mega birthday party - The Daily Titan

  19 Nov 2009 | 12:44 pm

  The Daily TitanImported icon throws mega birthday partyThe Daily TitanRoyal/T, an eclectic Japanese cosplay (short for costume play) cafe in Culver City, was home to Three Apples, a Hello Kitty exhibit, which lasted from Oct. and more »

• Loot Ninja's Cosplay Girl of the Week 11.19.09 - Loot Ninja

  19 Nov 2009 | 8:01 am

  Loot NinjaLoot Ninja's Cosplay Girl of the Week 11.19.09Loot NinjaAfter the jump is our official Loot Ninja Cosplay Girl of the Week. We don't know her name, but we like it that way. Remember, just because you wanna bang a

• 2010 Expo cosplay contest calling for Macau contestants - Macau Daily Times

  17 Nov 2009 | 8:41 am

  2010 Expo cosplay contest calling for Macau contestantsMacau Daily Times announces details of the cosplay contest at a press conference. by Natalie Leung A cosplay (costume play) contest to mimic specific characters created

• 
  Stuck in the '80s

• Carl Weathers wants YOU ... to listen to his interview on Stuck in the '80s

  Steve Spears

  20 Nov 2009 | 5:35 am

  If you wonder what Carl Weathers' most memorable moment was in the Rocky franchise, just look up above. It was in in Rocky 4. Click here and listen to find out why. Or click here to get all our shows for free via iTunes.

• Dueling Christmas movie marathons: 'A Christmas Story' vs. 'Dirty Dancing'

  Steve Spears

  19 Nov 2009 | 11:08 am

  The Christmas morning tradition of opening up big gift boxes full of roller skates, parachute pants and Atari games has long since been retired. But if you want to have a totally tubular holiday, all you need do it turn on the television.And this Christmas, you actually have an interesting choice of two movie marathons: TBS's 24 straight hours of A Christmas Story (beginning Christmas Eve). Or 12 straight hours of Dirty Dancing on the TV Guide Network, starting at noon Dec. 25.Dirty Dancing for Christmas? Somewhere, in the great beyond, even the late Patrick Swayze is shaking his head in…

• Super Mario Bros. theme song ... as played by a death metal band

  Steve Spears

  19 Nov 2009 | 4:17 am

  Normally things from the '80s don't get better in the remake process. But the castle theme from Super Mario Bros. -- composed in 1985 -- did need an update. Thanks to death-thrashers Nylithia, we have one.We think Princess Toadstool would make a worthy groupie too.[Head bob to The Daily What]

• People's sexiest men alive ... in the '80s

  Steve Spears

  18 Nov 2009 | 10:16 am

  People magazine today dubbed Johnny Depp (21 Jump Street!) as its "Sexiest Man Alive" for 2009. That's all well and good, but we're stuck in the '80s. So who did People dub as the sexiest men alive in the '80s? I can give you half the list, since the magazine began the annual coronation in 1985 with none other than Mad Max! MEL GIBSON (1985): Remember when Mad Mel just made great movies? Beyond Thunderdome! Tequila Sunrise! Lethal Weapon! We even get teary at The Bounty. Still, Mel told People back in '85 he felt uneasy as a celebrity, saying,…

• Jabba the Hutt as a cake? It'll take more than Jedi powers to stomach this

  Steve Spears

  18 Nov 2009 | 5:52 am

  This cake-maker is my kind of scum: fearless and inventive.[Wave of the light saber to Pop Candy, Walyou and Geekstir]

• 
  Stax Museum

• Stax Music Academy Winter Concert with CANDI STATON December 5th!!

  18 Nov 2009 | 9:16 am

  When the Stax Music Academy students take to the stage on Saturday, December 5, 2009 at Germantown Performing Arts Center in Memphis to salute some of the most popular female singers in American history, they will be joined by one of the most internationally renowned soul and gospel singers in the industry, Candi StatonThe concert – “HEY SISTA, SOUL SISTA: A Salute to the Divas of Soul, Jazz, Pop, & R&B” – features all ensembles of the Stax Music Academy performing songs by the likes of Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, Diana Ross, Patti LaBelle, Chaka Kahn, and numerous others,…

• Oh, Yeah. There is STILL LIFE in Soul at the Stax Museum

  13 Nov 2009 | 10:35 am

  William Bell with the Stax Music Academy band.Eddie Floyd with the Stax Music Academy band.Bettye Crutcher & Harvey Scales.Last Friday night, November 6th, the Stax Museum had a shindig to beat all shindigs. It was the opening reception for our newest exhibit, "STILL LIFE IN SOUL: Contemporary Music Photography by Jacob Blickenstaff," but it was also a Stax Family Reunion and free party for Stax Museum members, and it was a blast!It was also very powerful and moving in many ways. One of the reasons we chose to host this exhibit of Jacob's wonderful photographs is to emphasize the fact…

• STAX MUSEUM OPENING RECEPTION FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6TH!

  29 Sep 2009 | 12:02 pm

  STAX MUSEUM OF AMERICAN SOUL MUSIC TO HOST“STILL LIFE IN SOUL: Contemporary Music Photography by Jacob Blickenstaff”November 6, 2009 – April 30, 2010 The Stax Museum of American Soul Music announces a new exhibition, “STILL LIFE IN SOUL,” opening November 6th, 2009. The exhibit explores the current life, activity, and resurgence in popularity of soul music through portrait, performance, and documentary photography made since 2005 by music photographer Jacob Blickenstaff.Opening Reception and PartyFriday, November 6, 2009 - 7-10 p.m.Food, Cocktails, Former Stax Records Artists, Jacob…

• O My Soul! Big Star box set now available at the Stax Museum

  20 Sep 2009 | 12:01 pm

  While Stax is best known for the classic soul music that it churned out in the '60s and '70s, there were also a few rock and roll bands and artists that recorded for Stax and its sister labels. One of the most celebrated and critically acclaimed bands from that era is the subject of an impressive new CD box set, which is now available at the Stax Museum Online Shop.Big Star inspired a fevered allegiance among fans of power pop, giving rise to a cult of believers who spent decades spreading the gospel. Their enthusiasm turned this obscure Memphis pop band – one that got little airplay, sold…

• Stax Museum Honors Isaac Hayes' Birthday with First Hayes Signature Shirt

  20 Aug 2009 | 1:10 pm

  FIRST EVER ISAAC HAYES T-SHIRT.Entertainment icon Isaac Hayes was born in Covington, Tennessee, on August 20, 1942. Today, on what would have been the late Stax Records legend’s 67th birthday, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music is introducing the new Isaac Hayes Signature T-Shirt for men and women.With United States exclusivity rights from Mr. Hayes’ family and his estate granted to the Stax Museum for use of his image and name on merchandise, this new t-shirt is the first in what will become the Isaac Hayes Collection, sold at the Stax Museum, through the museum’s web store, and at…

• 
  Design*Sponge

• weekly wrap up + typographical dessert cookbook

  grace

  20 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am

  i can’t think of a better way to wrap up the week- and our food day- at d*s than with this beautiful new typographical dessert cookbook from amanda woodward at woodward design. based in edmonton, amanda and her team created a limited edition typographical dessert cookbook that will be printed at the end of this month. there are eight recipes inside, each one with a fun typographical spin (the fonts are listed and sourced as well). you can pick up a copy right here at etsy for $20. thanks, amanda!living in: national velvetwe like it wild: thanksgiving arrangement using ingredients from…

• cookbook reviews with kristina: sweet tooth

  grace

  20 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

  So you’ve looked at Joy’s recipe and are ready to indulge your sweet tooth- so this week’s cookbooks are all about baking. It’s what I do the most of at home; my refrigerator is full of wrapped sections of cake (quarters for a tube pan, halves for a loaf) labeled with the type of desert and the book it came from. My husband has a very easy time every few days just going and pulling out what he’d like to have for breakfast or with his tea. The past few weeks, the second freezer drawer has enjoyed goodies from these three books below- I hope you’ll enjoy them…

• in the kitchen with: oh joy!

  grace

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am

  Joy is one of my favorite people to follow on Twitter since she moved to San Diego from Philadelphia. She has been sharing her new sunny lifestyle with her followers, in between launch parties (her own!), quick food adventures, and of course updates to her Oh Joy! blog. Joy brought us a fab recipe for little pizzas in the early days of the In the Kitchen With column. This week she’s back for a sweet recipe for one of her recent cravings in Southern California — Frozen yogurt and mochi! Even if it’s not warm and sunny where you are, I hope you’ll try this or be inspired…

• small measures with ashley: practicing gratitude

  grace

  20 Nov 2009 | 7:00 am

  Several years ago, one lazy Saturday afternoon, I headed to a nearby book store, grabbed a stack of cookbooks, my favorite interior design & cooking magazines, and a hot, frothy cappuccino and settled comfortably into a café chair for a lazy, idle sip and read. I’d been sitting there for some time, lost inside the pages of some beautifully photographed book, when I suddenly felt the presence of someone standing directly beside me. I looked up to see a man holding a plate with a brownie on it. He placed the plate in front of me, said “This is for having the best eyeglasses in the…

• yellena james + schoolhouse electric

  grace

  20 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am

  during one of my crazy all-nighters from this weekend (a book deadline= no sleep) i found myself on the schoolhouse electric co. site sourcing a piece for one of the home tours. when i saw these beautiful illustrated pieces i wondered who they were by and wrote a note to check on it later. so i was thrilled to hear from artist yellena james this week because she’s the artist behind that series! yellena recently finished this collaborative project with schoolhouse electric co. as part of their first ever “artist series” collection. yellena’s shade designs, stretto and…

• 
  New Urbanism Blog

• Park: Milwaukee’s former planner embraces rail as key to urban development

  admin

  17 Nov 2009 | 12:31 pm

  Peter Park has certainly been on the vanguard of Planning Directors in the last decade or so, first in Milwaukee and now Denver. This article profiles his current thinking and what they are doing now in Denver in terms of planning and zoning. Park: Milwaukee’s former planner embraces rail as key to urban development 11/16/2009 By Marc Eisen For WisBusiness.com Peter Park, the star urban planner behind Milwaukee’s downtown revival, returned to Wisconsin Friday to discuss the lessons he’s learned in his new work as Denver’s planning chief. “We need to look at transportation and…

• Eco design compliments green sustainability to the skylines

  admin

  30 Oct 2009 | 10:12 am

  Cities around the world are running into the same problems with their infrastructure: how can we create true eco-friendly living where cars, concrete and metal dominate? Its not simple. Problems of old infrastructure and traditional city planning curb significant efforts to recreate a city’s environment. New urban developments, like Blue Springs’ downtown revitalization, are much easier to reimagine with green living; the upper west side of Manhattan is another thing entirely. What is the answer? Instead of trying to take the cities back into the natural environment, architects,…

• NRDC: Going car-free is the new chic in cities increasing sustainability in urban design

  admin

  27 Oct 2009 | 11:08 am

  This is an excellent post that reveals again how markets and market preferences are not stagnant – they respond to many variables. And, in this case, we see what might be a minor trend for now, but something to consider strongly for the future. Click the screenshot on the left to go to the post from the National Resources Defense Council’s Switchboard blog: “Never mind the Prius – the new chic is going car-free entirely” Related posts:A post from NRDC’s Switchboard: Orenco Station found to have more walking, community interactionA master plan behind covering…

• A post from NRDC’s Switchboard: Orenco Station found to have more walking, community interaction

  admin

  19 Oct 2009 | 12:42 pm

  The following was written by Kaid Benfield and originally posted on the Switchboard, the NRDC blog: As many readers of this blog already know, Orenco Station was built as one of the country’s first new, suburban transit-oriented developments. It’s on Portland’s MAX light rail line in Hillsborough, Oregon, and comprises some 1,850 housing units and a town center that includes 68,000 square feet of neighborhood-serving, ground-floor commercial space (with lofts above) on a total of 190 acres. The now-iconic community was one of the first choices we made while researching…

• A master plan behind covering the Path to Prosperity in shade: Incorporating “street trees” into the urban design of neighborhoods

  admin

  19 Oct 2009 | 11:03 am

  In his seminal book “Great Streets”, Allan Jacobs wrote “given a limited budget, the most effective expenditure of funds to improve a street would probably be on trees.” I couldn’t agree more. This is not simply an exercise in greenwashing or tree-hugging. In fact, when planning for cities one of the more damaging paths to go down is to think that green is always good. It’ll be interesting in fact when the current phase of green fancy dies down so we can start to have more rational discussions of what “green” is appropriate in a walkable environment and how…

• 
  McGuinn's Folk Den

• Frozen Logger

  McGuinn

  1 Nov 2009 | 7:10 am

  How do I download this Mp3? Mp3: Frozen Logger Frank Hamilton played banjo on this at the Old Town School of Folk Music in 1957. It’s a funny song written by James Stevens, the man who made Paul Bunyan famous. Loggers are a tough bunch according to this song and it’s probably true given [...]

• I’ll Fly Away

  McGuinn

  1 Oct 2009 | 5:52 am

  How do I download this Mp3? Mp3: I’ll Fly Away This grand old gospel song has been sung for generations in the southern United States. I married a southern woman in 1978 and soon learned to pronounce words that I had always thought should have one syllable with the proper two syllables. Lyrics: I’ll Fly [...]

• Drill Ye Tarriers

  McGuinn

  1 Sep 2009 | 3:10 am

  How do I download this Mp3? Mp3: Drill Ye Tarriers From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia “Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill” is an American folk song first published in 1888 and attributed to Thomas Casey (words) and much later Charles Connolly (music). The song is a work song, and makes references to the construction of the American [...]

• When I First Came To This Land

  McGuinn

  31 Jul 2009 | 9:01 pm

  How do I download this Mp3? Mp3: When I First Came To This Land People often ask where I get the folk songs for this site and I explain that I learned many of them at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago in my teen years. This is one of them. [...]

• Old Chisholm Trail

  McGuinn

  1 Jul 2009 | 2:19 am

  How do I download this Mp3? Mp3: Old Chisholm Trail From Wikipedia: The Chisholm Trail was a trail used in the later 19th century to drive cattle overland from ranches in Texas to Kansas railheads. The trail stretched from southern Texas across the Red River, and on to the railhead of the Kansas Pacific Railway [...]

• 
  ProBlogger Blog Tips

• Speech Recognition for Bloggers – The Ultimate Guide

  Darren Rowse

  20 Nov 2009 | 5:45 am

  Speech recognition technology has come a long way in the last few years – in this in depth, informative and inspiring video which Jon Morrow (Associate Editor of Copyblogger and Co-founder of Partnering Profits) shares his first hand insights into speech recognition for bloggers. Jon does all of his blogging via speech recognition so he seemed like the logical guy to ask to cover the topic – in the video (I’m glad he agreed). In the video Jon makes recommendations of software, hardware (the hardware is key) and even demonstrates how he uses them in his everyday blogging. The…

• Review This Blog – Man vs Debt

  Darren Rowse

  19 Nov 2009 | 5:46 am

  Last month here on ProBlogger we ran a community review on a reader’s blog. I posted a link to a blog with some comments from the blogger and then opened it up for readers of ProBlogger to review it. The response from the post was great. 120+ comments were left including some great advice. I also had a lot of emails from readers saying that they learned a lot by reading the suggestions of others – many wanted to see these reviews done regularly. As a result I’m going to try to do these reviews on a monthly basis – today we have another one. As a little bonus to…

• Warning: Watching This Video May Lead to Work! [But It'll Also Improve Your Blog]

  Darren Rowse

  18 Nov 2009 | 5:55 am

  What’s your blogging Vice? Most bloggers that I know have at least one – whether it be compulsively checking blog stats, constantly tweaking template designs, obsessing over plugins and widgets, spending hour after hour ‘networking’ on Twitter, becoming preoccupied with SEO and… even allowing ourselves to become consumed by learning about blogging…. and not doing much of it. The reality is that as bloggers there are many tasks that compete for our attention. Many of them are important and can bring a lot of life to our blogs but most of them can also become…

• 13 Ways I Get Back into Blogging after a Vacation

  Darren Rowse

  17 Nov 2009 | 5:49 am

  Yesterday was my first day back at blogging after a 10 day vacation with my family and on Twitter I commented that I was finding it a little hard to get my brain back into blogging mode. @Mikeachim responded by suggesting I write a post on the daily rituals that I use to get my mind into gear. I thought I’d take his suggestion and jot down a few notes – both as a way of getting my head back into blogging but also because looking at the tweets I received this morning it’s a problem many bloggers face. As my head is a little scattered today (as I readjust) I’m going to…

• Email Marketing is Not Dead

  Darren Rowse

  16 Nov 2009 | 10:07 am

  While at Blog World Expo recently I recorded this video interview with Abby Johnson from Web Pro News. We covered a variety of topics including why email marketing is not dead – internet marketing for smart people – the new FTC regulations and touched on a new project I’m working on with Brian Clark and Chris Brogan. Read other recent email marketing posts on ProBlogger: 6 Reasons Why You Need to Consider Email as a Communication Strategy on Your Blog How I Use Email Newsletters to Drive Traffic and Make Money Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger. Email Marketing is Not Dead…

• 
  Geek Sugar

• Lego USB Hub: Love It or Leave It?

  GeekSugar

  20 Nov 2009 | 3:44 pm

  We've seen Lego coffee tables, a Lego kitchen, and even a Lego house. Here's my latest Lego-themed find: Lego USB Hubs ($20). Available in four bright colors (yellow, red, black, and blue) the hubs are four inches long and have ports for up to four USB cables or devices. It's definitely been a Lego-overload recently, but I have to admit, I'm a fan of this product, too. What do you think? Lego USB Hub: Love It or Leave It? Love it! Leave it!

• Website of the Day: It Made My Day

  GeekSugar

  20 Nov 2009 | 2:50 pm

  Sometimes, you just need a little digital pick-me-up, and today I'm here to bring you exactly that. Today's installment of Website of the Day is not only endlessly entertaining but may even give you a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. It Made My Day is a site where people can submit great moments they come across during their otherwise boring days. For example, my favorite: This morning, my seven-year-old son showed his excitement for going out to breakfast by doing the Robot Now if that doesn't make you smile, your geeky heart must be made of stone. IMMD is filled with other awesome stories of the…

• GeekSugar's Gift Guide For Your BFF

  GeekSugar

  20 Nov 2009 | 2:15 pm

  Your BFF is not only by your side when you adopt a new tech treasure, but she's also there to send a supportive text when you just can't get your home network to function properly. Give your best girlfriend a gift that not only shows off her impeccable taste, but one that fits her geeky lifestyle as well. Check out my picks for your BFF right here! View Slideshow ›

• Geotagging For Twitter Is Here

  GeekSugar

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:26 pm

  People have been buzzing about Twitter's upcoming geotagging feature for a while, and now the feature is finally here. The function is available through the API only, which means geotagging will not be available through Twitter.com. Although it will be available through Twitter clients like Birdfeed for the iPhone, Seesmic Web for your desktop, and Twidroid for Android phones, which are already supporting the new feature. If you use one of the clients that supports geotagging, your location will be revealed with your tweets - exciting functionality for reporting breaking news, finding out…

• Daily Tech: The Pogoplug Shares Content Via Four USB Drives

  GeekSugar

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:40 pm

  The Pogoplug is a neat gizmo that allows you to share movies, music, or photos using four USB drives - Gizmodo The BlackBerry Curve 8530 is now available from Verizon - RIMarkable American Airlines has just launched a widget that will let you know if your plane has WiFi - Engadget Check out the ultimate holiday smartphone buying guide - CrunchGear Vive la France! Twitter is now available in French - TechCrunch Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom for the Wii is a great game for kids ages 3 to 6 - USA Today

• 
  Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

• My ass just tapped me on the shoulder.

  kathryn

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:00 am

  Todays guest post is from Julie Roads. Julie Roads of Writing Roads is a professional copywriter (specializing in blog, social media and web writing) and a book & blog ghostwriter. You can find her at Writing Roads (her writing blog), Soc Media 101 (how-tos and tips for beginners) and The Daily Norm (a collection of interviews with abnormally magnificent people about their normal, daily lives). I’m standing on the other side of the abyss, the good side. And I wanted to let you all know that the ground here is high and dry, nearly heady. Because I read your comments carefully - and…

• Why Stuck?

  kathryn

  19 Nov 2009 | 4:45 am

  Todays guest post is from Kneale Mann. Kneale Mann is a writer, a coach and a strategist. With 26 years experience, he consultants on communications, marketing and social media strategy in the private, hi-tech and public sectors. He is also an associate with CEPSM and a member of the TEDxOttawa organization team. We All Have Choices Recently, a friend sent me a copy of Rick Butts’ book “7 Choices”. In it, Rick talks about the time we work on us verses the time we work on what we do or getting customers or what we can offer. In the age of social networking, we can all create profiles and…

• Blogging Your Way Into The Real World

  kathryn

  18 Nov 2009 | 5:59 am

  Todays guest post is from David Spinks. David Spinks is the Community Manager for Scribnia, where the world’s bloggers and columnists are reviewed by their readers. He also blogs at The Spinks Blog about business, young professionals and social media.” Starting a blog takes a lot of guts. Making that leap into the public eye isn’t easy! Even after you get started, maintaining a blog that doesn’t get much traffic or comments right away can be discouraging. It was right here on Liz Strauss’ blog where I got my first dose of confidence in my blogging career. Back in…

• Reaching through the Screen

  kathryn

  17 Nov 2009 | 5:45 am

  Thanks to Richard Reeve for supplying today’s guest post. Richard Reeve is an administrator at the Family Foundation School, a candidate for Analytical training at the C. G. Jung Institute of New York. He blogs at Catskill Cottage Seed. “And the Master said unto the silence, “In the path of our happiness shall we find the learning for which we have chosen this lifetime. So it is that I have learned this day, and choose to leave you now to walk your own path as you please.” Richard Bach, Illusions, pg.23 Liz recommended Bach’s book to me last month when we shared…

• Let My People Talk

  kathryn

  16 Nov 2009 | 4:45 am

  Thanks to Lisa D. Jenkins for supplying todays guest post. Lisa D. Jenkins has over a decade of experience marketing festivals, special events, non-profit organizations and small businesses. She speaks, consults and educates on the integration of social media into current marketing efforts, with a focus on measurable results; recent clients include Lewis-Clark State College Community Programs, Idaho Small Business Development Center, Idaho Outfitters & Guides Association, and Hells Canyon Visitor Bureau. In my comment on Amber Naslund’s current post, I referred to a thought pattern…

• 
  Social Media Explorer

• Determining Your Friends

  Jason Falls

  20 Nov 2009 | 2:00 am

  I’ve been pondering the value and validity of the term “friend” lately. Until a few years ago, we all probably had a couple hundred friends, give or take. Social networking not only incrementalized that number, but changed the definition of the word for many people. I have 1,300 or more “friends” on Facebook. I’ve probably met and spoken with more than you think, but not all of them. There are 18,000 or so people who follow me on Twitter. I follow most of them back. We are “friends” in a sense, too. But online friendships are very different than…

• Sysomos Adds Facebook Feature To Social Media Monitoring Solution

  Jason Falls

  19 Nov 2009 | 2:00 am

  When businesses are looking for social media monitoring services these days, they normally hone in on two or three capabilities. Because Facebook is this year’s blog, monitoring messages on the platform is a big one. While all social media monitoring services have the same access to Facebook data (it’s all dependent upon what Facebook makes public which is dictated by their terms of service), more creative ways to position Facebook data are surfacing. Image via CrunchBase Social media monitoring service Sysomos launches a new version of their Heartbeat product today which has a…

• The Four Spheres Of Social Media Strategy

  Jason Falls

  18 Nov 2009 | 2:00 am

  A crowd of 80 or so attended yesterday’s social media boot camp hosted by the Kentucky chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and the Social Media Club Louisville. I was honored to serve as one of the presenters along with the undisputed queen of measurement, Katie Paine, and The Bad Pitch Blog man himself, Kevin Dugan. Rest assured, lots of learning was had, even if you just count my experience. Part of my presentation, which was focused on developing strategic plans for social media marketing, included my Four Spheres of Social Media Strategy. Until…

• New Study Reveals Surprises In How People Share

  Jason Falls

  16 Nov 2009 | 2:00 am

  We’re starting to see an interesting by-product of cool social media tools emerge: Research pulled from user data. One such effort, a new study released by SocialTwist, makers of the content share widget Tell-A-Friend, reveals some interesting facts about how people share information online. You can see the report in its entirety on the SocialTwist website. First, let’s set the expectations appropriately. The data behind the study is collected from anonymized user data for people who click on the Tell-A-Friend widget where it is used on blog posts, newspaper websites and more.

• Where Interactive Marketing Dollars Are Going

  Jason Falls

  13 Nov 2009 | 2:00 am

  Forrester Research has released a new report forecasting interactive marketing spend in the U.S. for the next five years. The report, authored by Shar VanBoskirk, is available in its entirety on the Forrester Research website. The report details how certain industries currently spend, and projects how they will spend, on interactive marketing. It also offers some interesting insights for businesses trying to ensure they are either catching, or keeping up with the Joneses. VanBoskirk talks more about it on the Forrester Research blog for Interactive Marketing Professionals. Current Interactive…

• 
  Robert Scoble

• Why Google Chrome OS has already won

  Robert Scoble

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:03 pm

  Today InfoWorld’s Randall Kennedy says that Google’s Chrome OS will fail. What he is missing is he’s looking at the wrong field. Google is playing a different game. Google Chrome OS is NOT about killing Microsoft or Apple. What is it about? Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers. See, what happens if the world goes to Microsoft’s Silverlight, the way that Seesmic did this week? Google is locked out of such a world. Google is in a war over developers with Microsoft. Google wants developers to build for the open web. Microsoft wants developers to…

• Twitter to turn on advertising “you will love” (here’s how: SuperTweet)

  Robert Scoble

  20 Nov 2009 | 10:22 am

  Twitter’s COO, Dick Costolo, today, at the TechCrunch Real Time Crunchup (live video of the conference is live now on building43, there will be lots of news all day long from this event), told the audience that Twitter is, indeed, going to turn on an advertising model. This is a huge shift in what Twitter is saying publicly. But advertising isn’t something many people love. So, how will Twitter make advertising you love? By building a SuperTweet! How can they do that? Well, yesterday, I talked with Likaholix co-founder Bindu Reddy about just that. You can watch our video we…

• In search of the perfect Facebook and Twitter client

  Robert Scoble

  17 Nov 2009 | 11:57 pm

  I use Twitter and Facebook a lot. Probably more than 99.9999% of people in the world. I am in search of the perfect client that will help me use Facebook and, particularly, Twitter (which I use a lot more than Facebook because that is the best place to network with other technology professionals). I am still looking. The perfect client does not exist. First, I use my iPhone (and now my Droid) for Twitter a LOT. My wife, @maryamie, uses Facebook on her iPhone all the time. So, I must have the best possible iPhone client. This week? That’s Tweetie 2.0 for an app and Dabr for a Web page…

• Ray Ozzie is wrong about smartphone apps

  Robert Scoble

  17 Nov 2009 | 1:59 pm

  Microsoft exec Ray Ozzie, at a lunchtime session with bloggers at its PDC conference told the bloggers that apps won’t be a differentiating factor on smart phones. He is wrong. Totally wrong. Why is Mike Arrington so passionate about his Droid (we argued about it for 39 minutes on the Gillmor Gang last week and then we went to the beach together on Sunday and argued about it some more in private). I’ve talked about this before. Most of what we argue about is apps. Droid is better than iPhone because Droid has Google Voice, Arrington says. iPhone is better than Droid, I say,…

• What is Twitter for? Pimping your blog!

  Robert Scoble

  14 Nov 2009 | 1:30 pm

  At the Blog World Expo a few weeks ago someone asked what Twitter is for and I answered “pimping your blog.” Hey, it works for TechCrunch and Mashable, why not you? Or me. So, I’ve finally figured out that I was clueless because I didn’t have a Twitter account for my blog. When people say they are unfollowing me because I’m too noisy these feeds are the antidote. scobleblog is for following ONLY my blog. I won’t put anything else on that feed. scoblemedia is for following ONLY when either I post video or am on someone else’s video or audio shows.

• 
  Mashable!

• Droid Does: A Price Drop

  Adam Ostrow

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:04 pm

  When it was released earlier this month, the retail price for the Motorola Droid was $200 for new activations on Verizon. Although Verizon is staying firm with that price point for now, it appears that some of its retailers are not. Specifically, Amazon and Dell have both cut prices on the smartphone to $150 and $120, respectively. The news comes just one day after news broke of price cuts by online retailers on other devices not named iPhone: the Palm Pre and Pixi. Of course, the device cost shouldn’t really play a huge role in consumer’s decision given the total costs of ownership for…

• Top 10 News Readers Judged by Mashable Readers

  Barb Dybwad

  20 Nov 2009 | 3:47 pm

  Each Friday we choose a Lunchtime Poll topic to get a sense of how Mashable readers feel about the chosen topic of the week. Below are the results from last Friday’s poll, where we asked for your favorite news reader. Is your favorite app or service not represented in the list? Let us know in the comments! And to make sure your vote counts next time, be sure to vote in this week’s Lunchtime Poll, where we want to know your favorite video-sharing service. A surprising number of readers in the top 10 were Mac apps, and enough of you said you’d switched to using Twitter as your…

• HOW TO: Use Social Media to Find Black Friday Deals

  Susan Payton

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:33 pm

  Susan Payton is the Managing Partner of Egg Marketing & Public Relations, an internet marketing firm. She blogs at The Marketing Eggspert Blog, and teaches marketing courses at Marketing EggSchool. Follow her on Twitter @eggmarketing. We’re a week away from Black Friday and just a few years ago, if you wanted to find the best deals, you had to wait for the sales flyers to hit your newspaper or mailbox. You’d make a list of what you wanted and get your game plan together. But that’s all changed because of social media. Tools like iPhone apps, blogs, Twitter, and Facebook…

• LUNCHTIME POLL: What’s Your Favorite Video Sharing Service?

  Barb Dybwad

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:58 pm

  It’s Friday, people, which means that not only is it Follow Friday, it’s also time for the Lunchtime Poll! Last week we wanted to know about your favorite news reader (or whether you use RSS at all). We’ll have the results for you later today, but let’s get a head start on the new poll: what’s your favorite video sharing service? We’ll start off with some responses from the staff here at Mashable, and let you fine folks have at it in the comments. Be sure to let us know along with your vote why you chose it as your favorite. We’ll post the results…

• Thanks to Mashable’s Socially Savvy Supporters

  Tamar Weinberg

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:57 pm

  Thanks to this week’s advertisers and partners for enabling us to bring you the latest social media news and resources. Mashable’s sponsors are as social media savvy as our readers! Advertise with us and get noticed. Help us to help you. Mashable is seeking out site sponsors for our large, diverse audience — social media users, venture capitalists, early adopters, developers, bloggers, and many more. You’ll receive hundreds of thousands of views a day in addition to weekly recognition to thank you as our premium sponsors. Are you interested? Contact us for more information…

• 
  chrisbrogan.com

• The Serendipity Engine – Web 2 Expo Speech

  chrisbrogan

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:33 pm

  This is my favorite keynote speech yet. It’s just 10 minutes long, and I feel pretty good about it. You’ll recognize bits of my storytelling from the last several conferences tucked into here in a new way, I hope. Enjoy this video. (Can’t see it? Click here)

• How Much Time Should I Spend On Social Media

  chrisbrogan

  20 Nov 2009 | 5:33 am

  How much time should you spend on social media? In some ways, the answer is: “how long is a piece of string?” And yet, you can set up some simple guidelines. They might be a bit different than you think. By the way, I’m writing these from a business perspective, but remember that I think of religion and nonprofits and all kinds of other applications as business-related, too. Here’s how I look at it: Social Media Time Management The way I’d do it is to break it up into 4 chunks, and then you decide the amount of hours to devote (2 hours a day is a minimum for MOST…

• Start a Moving Business – Overnight Success

  chrisbrogan

  18 Nov 2009 | 7:30 pm

  In this episode of the Overnight Success series, I’ve got an idea about what makes one successful: moving. But it’s not what you think. If you can’t see the video, click here. What do you think?

• Stop Humping My Leg

  chrisbrogan

  18 Nov 2009 | 9:13 am

  Dear people trying to sell me on something new: stop humping my leg. You know what I mean. You’ve seen dogs do this, right? That’s what it feels like when you jump on me breathlessly to share your new product or service when you don’t really much know whether I’m the right guy for your services. I was recently leg-humped at Web 2.0 Expo, by someone I like, and who I think is smart and has a lot of good potential. The thing is, I politely declined a demo, and he persisted. Immediately, I shifted to my back foot. I felt defensive. I rolled up my interest and tucked it…

• Prioritize Your Social Media Efforts

  chrisbrogan

  17 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm

  There aren’t enough hours in the day for all the chores that social media puts in front of us. The best writing I’ve found on how to manage your time in social media is via Amber Naslund’s social media time management series. Her efforts in crafting this should become a little ebook that you hand around to everyone. If you skipped over that link, go back, click it to open a new tab/window, and then read it when you’re done with this (or skip mine and read Amber’s- it’s that good). If you’re still with me, here’s what I want to say on the matter.

• 
  Dosh Dosh

• 11 Ways to Influence People Online and Make Them Take Action

  Maki

  11 Nov 2009 | 10:41 am

  Influence can be defined as the power exerted over the minds and behavior of others. A power that can affect, persuade and cause changes to someone or something. In order to influence people, you first need to discover what is already influencing them. What makes them tick? What do they care about? We need some leverage to work with when we’re trying to change how people think and behave. But there’s a problem. You won’t be able to meet and get to know everyone. You won’t have the luxury of learning their life history and what they hate or love. In the online…

• How to Achieve Your Goals by Changing the Way You Surf the Web

  Maki

  5 Nov 2009 | 8:38 am

  Everyone has their favorite way of using the internet. Many of us search to find what we want, click in to a specific website, read what’s available and click out. That’s not necessarily a bad thing because it’s efficient. We learn to tune out things we don’t need and go straight for what’s essential. This goal-oriented way of surfing the web is largely based on short-term results. For example, finding facts to write a blog post, doing a comparison before making a purchase and reading a news site to find out what’s happening right now. If you do all…

• An Essential Marketing Principle: Give Before You Try to Get

  Maki

  18 May 2009 | 12:31 pm

  Experts have talked about this before. How many times have you read about the importance of ‘adding value’ for your audience? How many times have you read about ‘building trust’ with your readers/prospects?  Many, many times. You know it well. Every marketing guru has spoken about this topic. I’m sick of hearing it. But it STILL bears repeating. Because some people still don’t get it. What’s the underlying principle for successful online marketing, selling or networking? The art of giving before you try to get. Before you get something from…

• Twitter Marketing: Why You Don’t Need to Mass Follow Users

  Maki

  22 Apr 2009 | 10:34 am

  A few days ago Twitter announced on their status blog that all Twitter users are only allowed to follow a maximum of 1000 people a day. This rule was designed to cut down on ‘follow spam’, the act of following many Twitter users in order to get them to follow you back or click on your links. When combined with the already existing limit based on follow ratios, this means that it will be more difficult for marketers or self-promoters to rapidly increase their Twitter follower count by following many people. The old days of following thousands of users a day to…

• Ad Swaps: A Smart and Easy Way to Get Free Traffic

  Maki

  15 Apr 2009 | 4:48 pm

  After yesterday’s post on marketing without search engines, I decided to follow up with a strategy you can use to get quality free traffic. One of the easiest ways to get visitors to your web site is to spend money. Nothing is more effortless then paying for traffic. But if you can’t afford it or don’t want to pay, there’s an equally simple but free way to get traffic: ad swaps. An advertisement swap or ad swap is simply an arrangement where you agree to put up someone else’s ad on your site or email newsletter in exchange for them doing the same. The goal of an…

• 
  B.L. Ochman

• Why Do So Many Companies Hide Their Social Media Involvement?

  BL Ochman

  18 Nov 2009 | 9:16 pm

  While thousands of companies have either experimental or well-established presence on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media sites, those communities remain invisible on all but a tiny fraction of company homepages. Why do companies hide their social media efforts from visitors? My guess is that their reasons include o fear that they'll lose control of their brand if too many people know they can have a say; o lack of cooperation between marketing and IT; o and perhaps pressure from lawyers who are nervous about new-fangled new media. It's hard to find a company website whose…

• Three Top Reasons Why Social Media is Still a Tough Sell

  BL Ochman

  9 Nov 2009 | 6:47 pm

  By B.L. Ochman Big companies have moved cautiously for eons. While many are corporations are making forays into social media, very, very few are taking huge risks. Instead of jumping in, they're still standing on the edge of the pool, diipping a toe in the water. As a result, getting companies to add social media into the marketing mix is still a hard sell. Here are three of the top reasons why. 1- Consultants make social media sound scary. Consultants, eager to prove the viability of social media in the marketing mix, are overwhelming stodgy companies by making social media sound more…

• Think There Are No More Real Heroes? Meet Zoe Koplowitz

  BL Ochman

  2 Nov 2009 | 8:13 am

  I hope you will show this post to someone you love. This morning, at 9:30 a.m., I had the great good fortune to meet up with Zoe Koplowitz, as she approached mile 24 of her 21st NYC Marathon - on purple day-glo crutches, 27 hours after the start of the race. She, and a team of Guardian Angels who acompany her as she keeps her pace of approximately one mile per hour, were on course to finish her race in just under 29 hours. She told me she felt "fine," and we talked about her dog, as Benny - clearly recognizing a great soul - bowed before her (his best trick.) I told her she was a great…

• 10 Things Social Media Can't Do

  BL Ochman

  31 Oct 2009 | 11:30 am

  By B.L. Ochman Amid the endless pronouncements about social media -- often shortened to "social" these days by consultants trying to sound like they know what they are talking about -- is the reality that social media is not a solution, or a sure bet. Social media can't: 1. Substitute for marketing strategy A Twitter campaign, or a Facebook page that announces your weekly specials is not a marketing strategy. 2. Succeed without top management buy-in Social media requires a way of thinking that includes willingness to listen to customers, make changes based on feedback, and trust employees to…

• Top Five Reasons Why Free is a Good Business Model & How We Plan to Use it to Retire Before We're 90

  BL Ochman

  30 Oct 2009 | 9:21 am

  Pawfun, the site I hope will one day allow me to say "I used to be a corporate social media consultant", is one year old this month. My partner, Caimin Jones, and I started out thinking we'd sell a ton of t-shirts, customized photo note cards, and personalized pet photo greeting cards to pet lovers. We've sold a bunch, but not enough to allow us to retire from consulting before we're 90. Then, Eureka! We realized that we weren't using the very community-building tools we've spent the last 10 years cajoling our Fortune 500 clients into trying. Pawfun's new focus: free We're changing our focus.

• 
  NYT: David Pogue

• No ‘System,’ but Music Housewide

  18 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  Sonos’s ZonePlayer S5 wireless speaker console plays music with an iPhone or iPod Touch as a touch-screen remote control.

• A $25 App Phone? That’s Crazy Talk.

  18 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  This week, Palm released a follow up to the Pre, a cheaper, thinner, lesser phone called the Pixi. The official price is $100 with a two-year Sprint contract, but Amazon is selling the thing for are you sitting down? $25.

• Big Sensors, Shrinking Cameras

  11 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  Canon and Panasonic introduce two cameras that take giant technological steps.

• A Place to Put Your Apps

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  Motorola offers the Droid, a mobile device that defies categories. It’s not exactly a smartphone, not exactly an iPhone. It’s...

• New Models From Motorola, HTC and BlackBerry

  28 Oct 2009 | 9:00 pm

  All three companies are back with much more impressive, much more refined new smartphones.

• 
  SXSW: Interactive Festival News

• Former SXSW Keynote DJ Spooky Returns to Texas

  hugh

  20 Nov 2009 | 11:08 am

  Austinites should check out DJ Spooky tonight, Friday, Nov. 20, at Hogg Auditorium. Also known as Paul Miller, he will be performing "Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica," which has been described as an "acoustic portrait of a rapidly changing continent." A longtime proponent of open source remix culture, DJ Spooky served as one of the keynote speakers at the 2001 SXSW Interactive Festival. Speaking of keynotes, we'll release another big list of confirmed programming on Dec. 1. DJ Spooky photo by Mike Figgis.

• Like.com Acquires 2009 Accelerator Winner, Weardrobe.com

  raquel

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:43 am

  Weardrobe.com, one of the winners of the 2009 Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator at SXSW, was recently acquired in a brilliant move by Like.com. The retail search engine will match pieces of clothing posted by the fashion community’s users to items for sale on Like.com, making shopping one step easier. In the words of Weardrobe.com’s own Susan Xie, "[Accelerator] was the first large-press recognition that we got, and it really helped us build our name brand." So, what are you waiting for? Click here to enter. Technology companies looking for an opportunity to showcase their innovative product…

• Sapient Hosts the Annual Mix at Six Party

  sarah

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:23 am

  The 2010 SXSW Interactive Festival starts March 12 and we want to know, what are you doing that night? Join us and make new friends, network and get inspired by fellow attendees at our official pre-party, The Mix at Six. SXSW Interactive and Sapient are excited to be partnering for this party from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM on March 12 at Six Lounge and the adjoining Tap Room (117 W 4th St) in downtown Austin. This special event is a great opportunity to reconnect with old friends, make new connections or just relax after panels with a cold beverage. The Mix at Six party welcomes SXSW Interactive…

• More Interactive Sessions To Come On December 1: Announcing ... an Important, Upcoming Announcement!

  shawn badgley

  19 Nov 2009 | 1:22 pm

  Quiet, accusatory rumors of Tantric obfuscation are floating our way. In an effort to dispel them -- to really get out in front of the story -- we're here to say that another wave of SXSW Interactive programming confirmations is coming at you on Tuesday, Dec. 1. Roughly one third of our 2010 panel sessions, solo presentations, Core Conversations, readings, and more has already been announced. We expect to end up with more than 400 options for March 12-16, and we're furiously working the phones and touch screens, engaging in spirited debate, poring over the possibilities, and consulting the…

• Watch the Convergence of Music, Film and Interactive Media

  russell

  19 Nov 2009 | 9:23 am

  As the ultimate convergence of the music, film and interactive industries, there is no better place to market your brand than at SXSW. As this unique panelist discussion from 2009 aptly illustrates, SXSW is a unique union of new media, marketing and social networking. The synergetic confluence on display is one of the many things that makes SXSW the must attend event of the year. <!--break--> This featured discussion is a union of film (filmmaker Brett Gaylor, Burnie Burns of Rooster Teeth Productions), music (Jonathan Coulton), and the diverse aspects of the ever evolving interactive…

• 
  NYT: Thomas L. Friedman

• What They Really Believe

  17 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  Clean energy opponents believe global warming doesn’t exist because that is the only way their arguments make sense.

• Lost There, Felt Here

  14 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  America should still lead such efforts as saving the rainforests. But China’s days as a global free-rider should be over.

• Trucks, Trains and Trees

  10 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  Without a new system for economic development in the timber-rich tropics, the only Amazon your grandchildren will ever know ends in dot-com and sells books.

• Call White House, Ask for Barack

  7 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  Until the Palestinians and Israelis are serious about the peace process, the United States should get out of the picture.

• The Best Allies Money Can Buy

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  America has been able to fight two wars with few allies because we’ve hired the help.

• 
  O Say Can You See?

• Snake oil is no balm for America

  NMAH

  19 Nov 2009 | 9:45 am

  There is no shortage of snake oil in America. Whether sold by politicians as endless campaign promises, or by spammers tempting us with virility enhancers and other elixirs of life, we are all too familiar with snake oil and its salesmen. What America needs is a good, honest BALM . And I have just the thing—a little something for most anything that ails you—in our patent medicine collection at the National Museum of American History. Currently we have over 600 remedies available (for browsing only!) on our Web site Balm of America: Patent Medicine Collection. Here you will find humor…

• American history through Iraqi eyes

  NMAH

  17 Nov 2009 | 8:30 am

  As soon as more than sixty Iraqi public officials sat down in our auditorium, I knew I was facing a tough audience. These men and one woman (with a few female officials and interpreters) have been through a very tumultuous period marked by dictatorship, invasion, civil war, suicide bombings, and the rigors of electoral politics. I had twenty minutes to discuss a serious and complex topic—how can a national history museum create a greater understanding of national identity? In my prepared remarks, I observed that a national museum must maintain a delicate balance between celebration and…

• Recipe of the week: Julia Child's Pain d’Épices (honey spice cake)

  NMAH

  16 Nov 2009 | 8:33 am

  Today’s post is the thirteenth in a series of weekly Julia Child recipes. This week, curator Helena Wright gets a start on holiday baking by pulling out one of her favorite Julia Child recipes. "Although you can prepare the dough by hand, a heavy-duty mixer with flat beater attachment makes light work of it . . ." Julia Child loved her stand mixer and the one that sits on the counter in her kitchen at the Smithsonian contains a special feature: the mixing bowl is engraved with “Bon Appétit Julia Child.” This stand mixer was a workhorse in her kitchen and appeared regularly on…

• Digital Stradivari: computer models of violins reveal master luthier’s techniques

  NMAH

  13 Nov 2009 | 7:23 am

  Editor's Note: This post was originally published on the Science at the Smithsonian blog. With the help of a high-resolution CT scanner, researchers at the Smithsonian Institution recently took a giant leap forward to a better understanding of the engineering and craftsmanship that Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737), master violin maker of Cremona, Italy, built into each of his renowned instruments. The CT, or computed tomography, scanner is a medical imaging device normally used in hospitals to create 3-D X-ray images of the human body.  These two images show measurements of wood…

• The life cycle of a place of invention

  NMAH

  12 Nov 2009 | 11:23 am

  My ears perked up at the announcement of this year’s Nobel Prize in physics. Not only was it awarded to an invention that revolutionized photography—the CCD (charge-coupled device) sensor at the heart of digital camera imaging—but it resulted from work undertaken at a historic industrial lab. Two of the three winners, Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith, had done their pioneering research in the 1960s at AT&T's Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey—birthplace of the transistor. Theirs was just the latest in a string of Nobel Prizes coming out of that lab. Image of…

• 
  NYT: Maureen Dowd

• Rogue American Woman

  17 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  Poring over Sarah Palin’s book to find anything in common with this apotheosis of traditional American values.

• Virtuous Bankers? Really!?!

  10 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  The saying used to be, whatever happens, the lawyers win. But with bankers getting obscene bonuses again, now it’s whatever happens, the bankers win.

• Ballet’s Mean Streets

  7 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  “The Red Shoes,” a classic 1948 film directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is a gorgeously haunting work of art.

• Who Are You Calling a Narcissist, Rush?

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  Rush Limbaugh is more than ever the face of the Republican Party. He’s also the mouth.

• Port Mortuary’s Pull

  31 Oct 2009 | 9:00 pm

  President Obama promised to renovate American society, but is trapped in the money pits of a recession and two wars.

• 
  HAWAII SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY COUNCIL

• HISciTech Rally at the Capitol

  HISciTech Rally at the Capitol

  25 Feb 2010 | 4:00 pm

  Join us at the State Capitol to show your support for the innovation and tech industry!  Tech professionals, students, parents and all those who want to contribute to "Build a Future We Can Live In" should attend.    

• HISciTech 2nd Friday Tech Download: Broadband Part 3

  HISciTech 2nd Friday Tech Download: Broadband Part 3

  10 Dec 2009 | 4:00 pm

  The Hawaii Science & Technology Council presents 2nd Friday Tech Download A Monthly Networking Breakfast December 11th, 2009 Broadband:  Required Infrastructure for Hawaii’s 21st Century Economy  The last of the Hawaii Science & Technology Council's three-part series on broadband and its associated opportunities featuring a presentation by Edgy Lee  Producer FilmWorks Limited and a legislative update from Senator Carol Fukunaga Chair of the Media, Arts, Science & Technology Committee Vice-Chair of the Business & Economic Development Committee and…

• 2009 Annual Computer Security Applications Conference

  2009 Annual Computer Security Applications Conference

  6 Dec 2009 | 4:00 pm

  2009 Annual Computer Security Applications Conference                   http://www.acsac.org/2009/program/tutorials/webappsec/ Tutorial T5 – WebAppSec.php: Developing Secure Web Applications Mr. Robert H'obbes' Zakon, Zakon Group LLC Tuesday, December 8th, Full Day Web applications are the new frontier of wide-spread security breaches. This tutorial will guide you through development practices to ensure the security and integrity of your application, in turn protecting user data and the infrastructure…

• State Supported Tech Investment Programs: A Best Practices Symposium

  State Supported Tech Investment Programs: A Best Practices Symposium

  3 Dec 2009 | 4:00 pm

    invites you to:   State Supported Technology Investment Programs: A Best Practices Symposium   DATE: December 4, 2009 TIME: 2:00 pm - 6:00 pm; Pau Hana to follow LOCATION: Pacific Guardian Center, Conference Center Makai Tower, Ground Floor, 737 Bishop Street, Honolulu COST: $20 per person REGISTRATION: To register, please visit: www.enterprisehonolulu.com/techsymposium/ SYMPOSIUM AGENDA: I. Introductory Remarks Danton Wong, Chairman of the Board, Hawaii Strategic Development Corp. II. Technology Investing 101 Karl Fooks, President, Hawaii Strategic Development Corp. III.

• Are You Overpaying Your Taxes?

  Are You Overpaying Your Taxes?

  2 Dec 2009 | 4:00 pm

  Learn the latest on business tax incentives. KMH LLP will provide updates and best practices for manufacturers and exporters to reduce costs. Learn how the Enterprise Zone, Foreign-Trade Zone and Manufacturing Extensions Partnership programs can help your business to prosper. Pizza Networking to follow. contact: High Technology Development Corporation-MEP Program (808)539-3621 events@htdc.org

• 
  A Maui Blog

• Aloha Friday: Swap Meet and Craft Fairs

  admin

  13 Nov 2009 | 3:21 am

  It’s Aloha Friday! My favorite day of the week. As Kailani says, here on Hawaii, we take it easy on the weekends, and we like to “talk story”.  An Island Life hosts a Bloggy Carnival every Friday where we do just that.  Click here for details, but most of you already know the drill.  Since I am preparing to write a post on the upcoming holiday craft fairs here on Maui,   my questions for today are: Do you go to swap meet and or craft fairs? If you do, what are usually the items you buy? If you don’t, would you please share the reason why?

• A Day Of Hope 2009 Maui

  admin

  10 Nov 2009 | 6:27 pm

  For more Wordless Wednesday, visit 5 Minutes For Moms

• Re-Think Hawaii; Re-Think Maui;

  admin

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:40 am

  Some are not in the photo but this is most of the ReThink Hawaii participants. Thanks @kk for taking the photo.  Post on my experience to come. In the meantime, click here for an excellent post written by @pulpconnection

• Wordless Wednesday: Tree & New Life

  admin

  21 Oct 2009 | 2:38 am

  For more Wordless Wednesday, visit 5 Minutes For Moms

• Shrubs and Flowers on Maui

  admin

  18 Oct 2009 | 8:30 am

  I ran at the Wailea area yesterday morning. I took my little camera with me.  The views are breathtaking. However, instead of just taking photos of the view, one aspect of the view caught my attention.  It’s how colorful and beautiful the shrubs are along the way.  Each of them have a unique character.  I took a lot of photos but here are some of the “Weekly Winners“: Aren’t those shrubs with their flowers pretty?  Now for more beuatiful photos, I recommend yo go to Lotus’ blog and visit the participants of the Weekly Winners Blog Carnival.  Seriously, they…

• 
  ParkRat's Playground

• Lunching from Gulick Deli on King St.

  admin

  19 Nov 2009 | 12:17 pm

  We need to learn to ask how much the pieces cost. The salmon was $4.00 each! See and download the full gallery on posterous Posted via email from ParkRat’s Playground

• Meeting @oahuAJ for the First Time IRL!

  admin

  16 Nov 2009 | 12:59 pm

  I finally got to meet @oahuAJ IRL (In Real Life) and I have to say that even though we didn’t get to sit down and chat for very long he left a lasting impression. Basically, the dude is the same offline as he is online and he’s a’ight. But I still won’t click on his Twitpic links without pausing and mentally preparing myself first. Hahaha. Was very cool meeting your IRL AJ! I mean it too, even though I didn’t squeal like a schoolgirl when I saw you. Posted via email from ParkRat’s Playground

• Dinner from Burgers on the Edge (@burgershawaii)

  admin

  14 Nov 2009 | 9:20 pm

  See and download the full gallery on posterous Posted via email from ParkRat’s Playground

• Dinner at Victoria Inn

  admin

  14 Nov 2009 | 9:42 am

  Shrimp Canton, Double decker sandwich, chicken teriyaki Posted via email from ParkRat’s Playground

• Video: @melissa808 Takin’ Care of Business and Puttin’ a Ring on it w/@jlieu (@lenahanson call out)

  admin

  12 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

  If two guys=bromance, what do two gals=? NICE! Posted via email from ParkRat’s Playground

• 
  From the Mind of NEENZ

• Ala Moana Beach Park Memories

  NEENZ

  13 Nov 2009 | 1:45 am

  What are some of your favorite childhood memories that you continue with your own children today? Over on the So Much More Hawaii blog, I shared mine about Ala Moana Beach Park.  Take a look at one of the most beautiful views on Oahu.

• Hawaiian Culture: Hula

  NEENZ

  13 Nov 2009 | 1:40 am

  If you know me, you know that I was raised around the art of hula.  I am only now, through the interest of my children, returning to the art that I love so dearly.  I shared from my heart, over on the So Much More Hawaii blog a brief history of the origins of hula [...]

• GEW Hawaii: Young and Hip Entrepreneurs

  NEENZ

  13 Nov 2009 | 1:30 am

  Global Entrepeneurship Week: November 16 – 22, 2009 For one week, millions of young people around the world will join a growing movement of entrepreneurial people, to generate new ideas and seek better ways of doing things. Countries across six continents are coming together to celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week, an initiative to inspire young people to [...]

• Maui: The Sugar Cane Train

  NEENZ

  13 Nov 2009 | 12:53 am

  If you’re heading to Maui, consider taking a ride on the Sugar Cane Train in Lahaina.  It’s a ride down the tracks of nostalgia.  I shared my family photos of our recent trip on the So Much More Hawaii blog. Read more about Hawaii’s Waipahu Sugar Mill and Dole Plantation.

• Outdoor Activities: Kualoa Ranch

  NEENZ

  27 Oct 2009 | 3:15 am

  Over on the So Much More Hawaii blog I wrote about our family excursion to Kualoa Ranch.  There are many outdoor activities and tours offered by the Ranch.  We especially enjoyed learning about ancient innovation of the Hawaiian people of the construction of the still existing, Molii Fishpond.  Lilinoe even took her turn throwing a [...]

• 
  Damon Tucker

• Temporary Road Closure on Kilaha Street Next Tuesday

  Damon

  20 Nov 2009 | 3:28 pm

  Media Release: The staff of the Department of Parks and Recreation will be removing a large tree at Ainaola Park on Tuesday, November 23, which requires a temporary road closure on Kilaha Street between Kilaha Place and Maunakai Street beginning 8 a.m. until approximately 2 p.m. The Department of Parks and Recreation thanks the public for [...]

• What Are You Thinking McDonalds?

  Damon

  20 Nov 2009 | 2:10 pm

  So I go into McDonalds the other day and pick up a “Happy Meal” for my son. I see the toy in the package and I tell my son he can’t open it until he gets home. We get home and open it…  and it’s this: It’s a little taser looking thing that is actually a ROCKET [...]

• 3.0 Earthquake Just Shakes Kalapana

  Damon

  19 Nov 2009 | 11:59 pm

  A minor earthquake occurred at 9:34:31 PM (HST) on Thursday, November 19, 2009 . The magnitude 3.0 event occurred 6 km (4 miles) S of Kalapana. The hypocentral depth is 42 km (26 miles). More Here Posted in Environment, Puna, Unexplained Phenomenon Tagged: 3.0 Earthquake, Kalapana

• 5 New Jets Arrive at Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor

  Damon

  19 Nov 2009 | 8:59 pm

  Media Release: Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor’s aircraft collection received a major boost yesterday and today, November 18 and 19, when it received five of the most famous jets from the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. Donated by the Hawaii Air National Guard (HIANG) and the USAF Museum, the five aircraft now reside in the 85,000 sq. [...]

• Hilo Entomologist Working to Thwart the Stinging Caterpillar

  Damon

  19 Nov 2009 | 6:01 pm

  This is cool as Mr. Jang was one of my wife’s co-workers at one time and if you have ever been stung by one of these buggahs… you know it hurts like hell: …That’s why Jang, who’s at the U.S. Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center in Hilo, Hawaii, is working with colleagues in that state and [...]

• 
  Free Money Finance

• What Real Millionaires Do

  NA

  20 Nov 2009 | 9:15 am

  I'm done reading my copy of Stop Acting Rich: ...And Start Living Like A Real Millionaire and I'll be posting a bit on it here and there. But for now I wanted to share a general overview of the book's findings  regarding what real millionaires do: Dr. Stanley’s research and the national survey carried out on his behalf by University of Georgia Survey Research Institute rips the lid off just about every assumption we have about who the really rich are (and aren’t), what they do (and don’t do) and what they buy (and don’t buy). For example: The #1 most popular make of car among…

• Five Steps to Six Figures in Seven Years

  NA

  20 Nov 2009 | 2:29 am

  Here is a piece I originally wrote for Get Rich Slowly. It's only slightly different than the version there (this version has no comments or editting from JD -- though his additions probably made the piece better.) ;-) Historically, "making six figures" has been to income earners what "becoming a millionaire" has been for those tracking their net worths -- a lofty goal achieved by only a select few. And while neither a six-figure earner nor a millionaire can bask in the luxury they could a couple decades ago, there's no doubt that earning over $100,000 a year still puts you in…

• Carnivals for the Week of Nov 16

  NA

  20 Nov 2009 | 2:19 am

  For weekday updates of what I find to be some of the most interesting personal finance articles on the web, follow me on Twitter. For now, here are the carnivals Free Money Finance was in this week and my posts that were included: Carnival of Personal Finance - Is a College Education Still Worth the Investment?  Festival of Frugality - Eight Steps to Lower Your College Costs Carnival of the Road to Financial Independence - How to Make Money as a Soccer Referee Enjoy! P.S. Carnival Hosts -- If my post is in your carnival in a given week, please send me the URL to the carnival and I will…

• How to Define Net Worth

  NA

  19 Nov 2009 | 1:45 pm

  Here are some interesting thoughts from Stop Acting Rich: ...And Start Living Like A Real Millionaire on how to define net worth. Here are the two ways he defines net worth in the book: Augmented net worth is the "traditional" definition -- assets minus liabilities. It includes ALL assets and ALL liabilities. Specifically, it includes the market value of your home as well as the debt for your mortgage. Net worth as he describes it in most instances refers to investment levels. If someone has "investments" (such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, equity shares in a private business, annuities,…

• Mindless Spending: Frequency Matters More Than Height

  NA

  19 Nov 2009 | 8:45 am

  The following is a guest post from Marotta Wealth Management Dieting and budgeting face similar hurdles in the American lifestyle. Some of us live to eat; others eat to live. Attempting to reduce our spending is every bit as challenging as trying to slim our waistlines. Some shop to live; others live to shop. We can better understand mindless spending by looking at some of the psychological studies that Dr. Brian Wansink describes in his book "Mindless Eating." He explains, "Everyone--every single one of us--eats how much we eat largely because of what is around us. We overeat not because of…

• 
  Manage By Walking Around

• Healthy Living in Hard Times

  Jonathan

  15 Nov 2009 | 8:21 pm

  A few weeks ago I got a chance to listen to Geoff Colvin talk about his new book, The Upside of the Downturn.  Geoff, a long-time editor and columnist for Fortune Magazine, is an engaging speaker and he peppered his opening comments with headlines from that morning’s newspapers. He also made the intriguing claim that death rates go down in a recession and offered up as evidence that profits were down at the U.S.’s largest maker of caskets. Several of us discussed this claim afterwards and found it hard to believe. With lower income, we expected that people would eat cheaper, less…

• Poking fun at Marketing, redux

  Jonathan

  8 Nov 2009 | 9:59 pm

  After I poked fun at Marketing earlier this year, several people forwarded me this classic joke about the communication issues between Marketing and Engineering: A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces his altitude and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts, “Excuse me. Can you help me? I promised my friend I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.” The man below says, “Yes. You are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 & 42 degrees…

• Halloween Metrics

  Jonathan

  1 Nov 2009 | 10:07 pm

  Halloween statistics can be scary.  According to a survey of 8,526 people conducted by BIGresearch for the National Retail Federation (NRF), consumers spent an average of $56.31 on Halloween in 2009, down 15% from $66.54 last year.  The survey blames the economy, citing that nearly a third of consumers said the economy negatively impacted their Halloween plans.  It sounds like a reasonable conclusion except that, according to the previous year’s survey, Halloween spending in 2008 increased as compared to 2007.  Since Halloween 2008 came only 6 weeks after the economic melt down, I…

• MBWA Origins and Spinoffs

  Jonathan

  25 Oct 2009 | 9:56 pm

  After last week’s post, Scrum By Walking Around, a reader emailed me to ask if I knew the the origins of the phrase management by walking around (MBWA).   Rather than replying based on what I believed, I decided to do extensive Web research but the results were inconclusive.  Like me, most sources seem to credit the Hewlett-Packard culture for creating an active management style that ecouraged managers to spend most of their days visiting employees, customers, and suppliers.  As I wrote in the inaugural post of this blog: They believed that only through these two-way dialogues…

• Scrum By Walking Around

  Jonathan

  19 Oct 2009 | 8:59 pm

  If you’re not in software development, you may not be familiar with an agile software development framework called scrum.  Scrum is an alternative to the traditional waterfall approach and attempts to simplify complex projects by structuring them in short cycles of work called sprints.  Each sprint is based on prioritized customer requirements such that the highest value features are developed first.  When done correctly, each sprint could be delivered to customers, dramatically shortening the time that customers consume innovation. Like performance management methodologies,…

• 
  Wise Bread

• 3 Ways to Ban Spam and Stop Junk

  Stacy Johnson

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:42 am

  By Stacy Johnson   I work at home, often under high pressure, so I'm not fond of interuptions. And yet they come constantly: spam emails that bury ones I need to see, stupid junk mail I have to sort through, people knocking at my door trying to sell me everything from steak to magazines and phone calls from people trying to sell me something.  I'm mad as hell and not going to take it any more! How about you?  On the phone front, we finally acheived a partial victory in September when the Federal Trade Commission…

• Best Deals For Friday 11/20/09

  Paul Michael

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:03 am

  By Paul Michael Today's WISEBUY. JR.com Black Friday DVD Blowout Already Underway! JR.com's Black Friday DVD Blowout is underway, with discounted prices on a selection of DVD and Blu-ray movies and TV shows. DVDs start at $3.99, while Blu-ray Discs start at $9.99. Pay $2.95 for shipping.   FREE Microsoft Office 2010 Plus Beta Download! Microsoft offers downloads of its Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta for free via this link. It includes Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook, and more, for Windows XP, Vista, and 7.   FREE 50 Kodak 4x6 Prints For New Members Just sign up for…

• Get More Bang for Your Membership Buck!

  Kelly Whalen

  20 Nov 2009 | 7:00 am

  By Kelly Whalen If you are looking for a way to get out of the house, and do something without breaking the bank, it may seem your options are limited, but using these simple tricks, you will be able to get out of the house without going broke. Free Days Many museums offer days of the year, or hours during the week, where you can get in for free or reap deep discounts. For instance, here is a fantastic list on NY.com of museums in New York City that are free, take only donations, or offer free times every week. Scout your local area's websites, and call your local museums/attractions, to find…

• 5 Creative, Simple, and Frugal Recipes for Leftover Turkey

  Sarah Winfrey

  20 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am

  By Sarah Winfrey It's that time of year again. No, not the holiday season. The time when everyone and their mother tells you what to do with all that leftover turkey you're going to have in a week. Not wanting to be left out of such honored company, here are some of the best ideas I've heard (and had!) for using up those extra bits of bird. Besides being tasty, they might not be anything you've had before, they whip up quickly, and they use ingredients that most people have on hand. 1. Turkey Bar-B-Q Sandwiches These are a great spin on the overdone after-Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches.

• Urgent: Check Your Withholdings

  Philip Brewer

  19 Nov 2009 | 3:08 pm

  By Philip Brewer Your paycheck has probably been bigger this year because the government stimulus package cut the amount of tax withheld from people who were expected to get the new "Making Work Pay" tax credit. But there's a problem: According to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, more than 15 million taxpayers may unexpectedly end up owing taxes. The idea was to get the stimulus out sooner (by workers taking home larger paychecks) rather than later (at tax refund time), but the new tables were applied too broadly.  Among the people who may be…

• 
  Don't Mess With Taxes

• A mysterious meeting of taxes, vampires, celebrity dancers and 'Wild' women

  skbell1

  20 Nov 2009 | 10:13 am

  Is it just coincidence that this morning a federal judge, who reportedly is a movie buff, heard the tax conviction appeal of an actor who played a vampire hunter on the very day that the second installment of the pop culture phenomenon Twilight film series hit theaters? And could that convergence mean that things are lining up on this freaky Friday for Blade star Wesley Snipes to have his tax troubles legally erased? Probably not. I personally enjoy interesting intersections of randomly related occurrences, but most of the time they are indeed just happenstance. And that's likely the…

• A look at who's paying how much taxes

  skbell1

  20 Nov 2009 | 7:47 am

  Who's paying taxes and just how much, relatively speaking, are they handing over to the Treasury? That's been the topic of debate since several groups released income tax studies this year. First, the Tax Foundation reported that the tax burden of the top 1 percent of taxpayers now exceeds that of the bottom 95 percent. Then the Tax Policy Center released its latest analysis of the distribution of federal taxes. And now the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) says lower- and middle-income families spend much more of their incomes on state and local taxes than do wealthy…

• 2,074 pages + $849 billion = Senate health care bill

  skbell1

  19 Nov 2009 | 11:49 am

  Do you have a flexible savings account? Are you planning on claiming medical expenses as an itemized deduction? What about your workplace insurance plan; is it relatively expensive coverage? Then you'll face some costs in the Senate's humongous health care reform bill. I'm not kidding about the size, both on the pure number of pages (almost 2,100) and the dollars ($849 billion). I haven't yet read the text of H.R. 3590, otherwise known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. But I have looked over the Joint Committee on Taxation's more manageable revenue…

• NY bagel maker charged with tax evasion

  skbell1

  18 Nov 2009 | 10:41 pm

  H&H Bagels, bakers of what Zagat once called iconic bagels, now has a new, and unwelcome, claim to fame (or infamy). New York City alleges that the bagel company's owner, Helmer Toro, is a tax cheat. Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau has charged Toro with pocketing more than $369,000 in income and other taxes that were withheld from employees' paychecks. Toro also allegedly set up shell companies to game the unemployment insurance tax system out of another $33,000. Toro pled not guilty to the charges and was released from custody. If convicted, he could face up to 15…

• Tax carrot + stick nab 14,700 scofflaws

  skbell1

  18 Nov 2009 | 7:38 am

  Federal investigators are feeling pretty darn good about themselves right now.  After a persistent effort to get info on taxpayers they believe hid money subject to U.S. taxes in offshore accounts, the Department of Justice and IRS announced yesterday that more than 14,700 taxpayers have 'fessed up about their previously-undisclosed foreign bank holdings."We have now gained access to thousands of taxpayers and bank accounts that we have never had before," said IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, adding that it had sent "a shock wave around the world."You can forgive…