Neumann

The Kindle

For Mother’s day this year, I received a Kindle from my loving husband, and my two adorable sons.  I have to admit, I never would have purchased one on my own, since I downloaded the free Kindle app for my iPhone a few weeks ago.  The iPhone app works great!  I can read all the same books, and best of all it’s free!  That being said, I have to admit I’m actually really liking the Kindle.  The pages are laid out a little better on the Kindle than on the iPhone app, and the Kindle has a few more features that I haven’t discovered on the app yet.  The screen is bigger, and I barely have to move my finger to change the page.  I just push a button which is much easier than swiping my finger across my iPhone. :-)  In all seriousness though, the dictionary feature of the Kindle is very cool.  While reading, if there are any words that you don’t know the meaning of, you can move the cursor to the word, and the dictionary shows up at the bottom with the meaning of that word.  Very cool!  I know, apparently I’m easily impressed, huh? 

I’m still planning to keep my iPhone app, though.  I can read my books on either device, and as soon as I open a book on one or the other, it immediately lets me know if I’ve read further on the other device.  If I have my Kindle with me, I’d much prefer to read on that, but I’ll keep the app on my phone for those times when I find myself with a few extra minutes to kill (think waiting rooms) and I don’t have my Kindle with me.

One thing I’m really excited about with either device, is being able to take whatever I’m currently reading with me wherever I go.  I know it’s kind of nice to read magazines that I don’t normally read while I’m getting my pedicure (or waiting for the doctor, dentist, etc.), but on the other hand, I hate getting partially through an article, and then having to put the magazine down knowing that I’ll never get a chance to finish it.  I’d almost rather not start it to begin with, but how else am I supposed to keep myself occupied while waiting?  My new answer?  Pick up my Kindle or my iPhone and read a bit of what I’ve already started.   Now my only problem is finding more time to read.  Not exactly an easy task with 2 kids, a husband, and a full time job (not to mention all the other stuff keeping us busy in life), but I’m willing to give it a shot. :-)  Happy reading everyone!

Frustrated With the New Facebook?

So you are probably a little bit frustrated with the new Facebook layout? Although the old layout has become something that we have grown to love and get very comfortable with, especially when we are checking Facebook multiple times per day, the new layout does have some options. One very cool new feature is the ability to segment your friends into groups and then sort the stream based on that group. The highlights feature on the right side is kind of weird, but after using it for a while it is sort of nice. It shows what my friends are interested in and if they like certain things they appear in the highlights.

For more detailed highlights, checkout this cool post from Mashable.com (a very cool site) http://mashable.com/2009/03/27/facebook-homepage-tips/

Happy Facebooking!  Is that a new term?

Starting a World Wide Rave

I just recently finished reading another wonderful book from David Meerman Scott called “World Wide Rave - Creating Triggers That Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories”.  The book is a nice follow up to his previous book “The New Rules of Marketing and PR”  In that book David describes what platforms can be used to better communicate online and in a heavily dominated social networking world using his “New Rules”.  This newest installment is a nicely formatted book of just less than 200 pages (in a small but comfortable hard copy version which makes for a very easy read) and includes many strategies and ideas to make things happen.  Some of those are:

1. Nobody cares about your products except you
2. How to make your ebook work for you
3. Various unscrupulous marketing techniques and how to avoid using them
4. Online video and social media
5. Creating triggers to encourage people to share your ideas
6. Making sure you are happy doing what you do and how you can spread that knowledge

I would highly recommend this book to anyone trying to find out how you can use Social Media and various avenues of distribution to get your message heard.  This book details the how more than the why.  It explains in great detail how to trigger events using certain channels to get your message heard.  Of course there is no firm answer out there or no definite instructions but this book provides a very good roadmap.

I plan to refer to this book many times as I start to develop my own personal strategies for trying to get my messages heard and also noticed by as many people as possible.

Technorati and All Things Blog

I have been reading a very good book lately titled “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” by David Meerman Scott.  I am a few chapters deep and tonight after settling in to my cozy green reading chair that has one 60W incandescent bulb (yes I use incandescent bulbs!, no CFL’s in this house ever!) that provides a nice yellow glow to my book reading, I read an interesting piece about Technorati.

What the hell is Technorati?  I have heard of it before and also found myself on sites launched form Technorati in the past.  I also have heard the name dropped numerous times but since my ear was never in the blogosphere until recently, I never really knew what Technorati was.  Until now.  I signed up my blog to be indexed with Technorati.  You see Technorati indexes blogs, tens of millions (yes, millions) of them.  So why would I not want to be a part of that group?  I might not have much to say over here on my blog, but heck if I say something worthwhile I want people to hear it.  After signing up I told Technorati to start looking at my blog.  So we will see.  If I have something cool to say and other people are interested, we will see if I get more traffic.  The clock is ticking….

Good information from the Heritage Foundation about H.R.1

The following text is lifted right from the Heritage.org website which I found very interesting to read.  Here are some highlights about the recent H.R.1 bill that was just passed in the US House of Representatives.  After spending about an hour reading over (well, actually skimming over) the bill I could definitely see some good plans for job growth and stimulus.  However, why the hell do we need to spend so much?  I am willing to bet we could slice about half of this and still create some good jobs and provide some real stimulus for small and large business.

At any rate, here are some clips and please check out the website and also head on over to the US House website and read the bill for yourself: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

Another good site is www.readthestimulus.org

<from Heritage.org website>

The so-called “stimulus” bill, more aptly referred to as the Trillion Dollar Spending Bill, has liberal education, healthcare, and environmental policies in it. It had family planning funding in it too, before it was taken out due to public outcry.

Here are the facts:

• The bill gives the Department of Education an extra $142 billion this year. This is an unprecedented increase in federal power, designed to make Congress a national school board. Who do we want making decisions about our children’s future—Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid or parents, teachers, and principals?

• The bill does create minimal “green jobs”, but only at the expense of other jobs. Instead of having coal plant workers, the Left would prefer there to be windmill builders—it is a zero sum game. Plus, the jobs in wind farms produce a less reliable output at a higher cost than jobs in coal or nuclear power. Additionally, the “stimulus” has over $35 billion for the Department of Energy, more than doubling their budget (their current budget is $23.8 billion).

• Lastly, the bill spends $87 billion to bail out states that have overrun their Medicaid budgets (while at the same time expanding this welfare program for the poor to the unemployed, regardless of income). The addition of billions of dollars for comparative effectiveness research and Health IT sets up a federal infrastructure for health care rationing. These provisions are an incremental strategy to have government control more and more of the health care sector – leaving individuals and families with less and less control over their personal health care decisions.

What are the consequences of this sort of proposal?

1) Bigger Government. At a trillion dollar price tag, this bill will likely triple the Federal government’s annual budget, and aims to extend the role and reach of the federal government. This bill makes the New Deal pale in comparison.

2) Massive debt. The United States looks to issue between $3.5 and $4 trillion of government debt over the next two years, possibly more, thanks to deficit spending under current policy, the stimulus bill, and the financing of TARP II. To put this in context, the total publicly held debt today is about $6.4 trillion, so we’re talking about increasing the outstanding debt by more than half in just two years.

3) Increased Interest Rates. Nations around the world are faced with similar prospects of enormous new debt issuance. Canada, for example, is expected to run a deficit this year for the first time in more than a decade, while Germany, the UK, and other countries in Europe and Asia are looking at huge deficits and huge stimulus plans. We’ve reached the point where deficits are now large enough nationally and worldwide to drive up interest rates.

Chinese Food

Waiting for the food to be done. Yummy. Asia Inn has got to be the best place for Chinese food in Dakota County. The entry way is a bit run down but the food is amazing. Tonight’s order is honey sesame chicken, vegetable chow mein, lo mein, broccoli, and side of white rice.