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Things We Love 6/10

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

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Debbie loves GotoWebinar – It’s an excellent services that allows Talk to host online webinars and conference calls for participants anywhere around the world. Talk is hosting free monthly webinars on marketing topics and we researched a variety of online webinar services before selecting GotoWebinar. We pay a monthly fee of $99, which is a bargain for the functionality it buys. We can host up to 1,000 attendees at each webinar. Participants register online and several reminder emails are sent prior to the webinar. Participation is easy - just dial in and turn on your computer. An extra plus is GotoWebinar’s survey capabilities. Following each webinar, we can automatically distribute a follow-up survey to attendees to gauge the effectiveness of our presentation. We used to GotoMeeting conference call function twice last week, which is convenient when clients and vendors are scattered across the country. Check it out at www.gotowebinar.com.

Brittany loves freerice.com – I’ll admit it… I’m a procrastinator. Sometimes I need to take 20 minutes to do something random before I can refocus and get things done. Now I use FreeRice as my procrastination tool because it helps me brush up on subjects like English vocabulary, geography and foreign language. Not only will you have fun learning, but your participation translates to rice being donated to feed the hungry. FreeRice is a committed to the cause of ending hunger around the work. All of the money raised by FreeRice goes to the UN World Food Program.

Jennifer loves iGoogle – I recently set up an iGoogle account both at Talk and at home for the first time. How fun! I’ve got “gadgets” set up for the necessary things like news and finance. But, I’ve also got gadgets for fun items like lightning strike photos, my horoscope and quote of the day. The background themes are pretty cool too. My favorites are Summer Ocean and Island Getaway. Whatever your interests, there are themes and gadgets for everyone. I’ve even got a Google Reader to help me keep up with the headlines as they happen.

Nathan loves the Tree Style Tab add-on for Firefox 3.0 – I don’t know about you all, but I am a big tab junky. I am always working on a lot and am needing to multi-task, so Tree Style Tab is the perfect way for me to easily look through all of the different websites I have open. It allows me to put a list of all the tabs (websites) I have open vertically or horizontally (I have them listed in a right-hand pane and vertically). In addition, Tree Style Tab allows me to have hierarchical tabs, which means easy grouping for similar sites. So if I am developing a website, I can have all the test pages for that site in one simple to view area as opposed to having to search around for where that pesky tab might be. If you’re like me and happen to be tab happy, averaging about 30 tabs open at any one time, I highly recommend checking out Tree Style Tab (it works wonders in conjunction with Tab Mix Plus)!

Shawn loves Paper Art, yet again – Check out this truly remarkable gallery of Paper Art. Some of them are clever and funny, while others will leave you saying…. “how did they do that.” As a designer I am always trying to look at something from a new angle or tackle it with a new approach. This gallery shows that something as simple as a sheet of paper has endless possibilities.

Susan loves sock puppets – The best thing about sock puppets is that they have instant personality. You can make them look fun, crazy, stupid, sweet, mad, etc. Whatever fits your advertising message. And who isn’t going to watch a commercial with a talking sock? It’s funny and instantly grabs your attention. Some of my all time favorite sock puppets are MTV’s one-time cult fave Sifl & Olly and the Pets.com turned 1-800-Bar-None spokesdog (and the one a friend and I made this past weekend).

Tags: FreeRice, GoToWebinar, iGoogle, Sifl and Olly, Sock Puppets, Things We Love, Tree Style Tab
Posted in Professional Development | Comments

An introduction to iGoogle and Google Reader

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

With so much great content on the Internet, it is impossible to stay current on all your favorite websites and blogs without some help. iGoogle and Google Reader are great tools to help you organize your favorite news sites and blogs. Google Reader allows you to subscribe to blogs via RSS (Real Simple Syndication), which means that once you’ve subscribed, new content is automatically “pushed” directly to your iGoogle page for your review, simplifying your research and saving you valuable time.

To create an iGoogle account click here and choose “Get Started”.

You will then be prompted to choose subjects of special interest to you such as news, cooking, sports and politics.
Customize your page with a theme to replace the standard white Google page and violà, you have your very own iGoogle page!
Click “Add stuff” to discover hundreds of tools, games and gadgets that you can add to your iGoogle page. Our favorites include The Daily Puppy and Quotes of the Day.
In your computer’s preferences, make sure your iGoogle is your default page so each time you turn on your computer, this is the page your computer opens onto whenever accessing the Internet.

To sign up for a Google Reader account click here.

If you already have a Google account, use it to set up your Google Reader.
If you don’t have a Google account click “Create an Account” and follow the instructions. You will be required to log into your email account to access a verification email from Google. Make sure to click the link provided in the email.
After your account set up is complete, you can begin to build your subscription list. You can do this directly from your Google Reader by clicking “Add a subscription” and entering keywords to search for one of your favorite blogs, Find Your Voice for example.
Once you find what you are seeking, just subscribe and your reading material will be delivered to you instantly.
To subcribe to a blog via RSS, simply click on the blog’s RSS symbol.You will be transferred to a page to select a reader service. Choose Google and the blog will be automatically imported into your Google Reader. Once you get comfortable with the service, you can organize your blogs into categories and folders for easy review.