Archive for May 2008

Wow! Meryl is overwhelmed at the generosity of donated prizes and guest blog posts in celebration of this blog’s 8th birthday on June 1, 2008. Thank you for helping me (the blog) give her a little break. If only she would take a vacation OUTSIDE of Texas. That’s another battle.

There’s still time to contribute a prize (Help us get Meryl to jump out of a plane! Keep reading.) or to an article. Here are the upcoming guest bloggers and prizes.

Guest Bloggers

• John Hewitt of poewar.com
• Janet Lee Johnson of janetleejohnson.com
• Peter Bowerman, the The-Well Fed Writer author
• Yuwanda Black of InkwellEditorial.com
• Paige Eissinger, one of 2smartchix.com
• James Chartrand, one of the menwithpens.ca
• Bob Younce, The Writing Journey
• Jamie Grove, How Not to Write
• Anne Wayman, The Golden Pencil
• Yvonne Russell, Grow Your Writing Business
• Jon Phillips of Spyre Studio and Freelance Folder
• Joanna Young of Confident Writing

Prizes – Almost $6000 as of June 25

If we get We received $5000 worth of prizes by June 1 (birthday), so Meryl has to jump out of a plane at Skydive Dallas. This is no easy task for Meryl as she’s afraid of doing such a thing (she’d do the tandem jump complete with a video). Looking at a later June date.

She did it!

Now $5000 sounds impossible, but we have two sponsors that are coming who should help things along.

Prizes added June 26, 2008

It’s never too late to add a prize… well, maybe 2009 would be ridiculous.

• Softpowerhouse donates three copies of PowerReuse, a document assembly software designed for boosting productivity for professionals.

Prizes added June 16, 2008

• Five copies of Andy King’s Website Optimization.

Prizes added June 4, 2008

• Four copies of Business Daffynitions: Humor from the Workplace, one copy of Wit and Wisdom of a Regular Joe, and one copy of New Idiot-Proof Guide to Customer Loyalty from Joe Heuer, the Rock and Roll Guru.

Prizes added June 2, 2008

• Two full copies of Unicorn Castle Game PC games from Oleg Kuznecov of Meridian’93. One copy for a reader and one copy for a guest blogger.

Prizes added May 29, 2008

• Custom blog design by Jon of Spyre Studios and Freelance Folder. Prize includes:
  • typical blog layout.
  • design mock-ups (usually two to four designs)
  • coding: css and xhtml valid
  • Provides the design files (PNG/PSD if needed)
  • Built on WordPress (the person would need his/her own domain name and hosting plan)
  • 30-day support + PDF ‘how your new WP theme works’
  • WP installation and plugin configuration
  • link in the portfolio section of spyrestudio.com
• Reflexive contributes a total of 10 copies of three games! Some are for Mac.
  • Big Kahuna Reef 2: 4 copies (2 Mac and 2 PC)
  • Ricochet Infinity: 2 copies (PC)
  • Airport Mania: 4 copies (2 Mac and 2 PC)

Prizes added May 23, 2008

• AWAI’s Nick Usborne’s Million Dollar Secrets for Online Copywriting
• How to Make a Living as an SEO Writer from Yuwanda Black
• Access to Teaching Sells for two months from Copyblogger Brian Clark
• 80 Photoshop Brush Packs from Jacob Cass
• Five ebooks on writing from Anne Wayman

Prizes added May 22, 2008

• $800 DVD set from marketing extraordinaire Seth Godin. The guy admits he skipped the books so he can get Meryl closer to jumping off a plane (yes, the plane is way up in the air, not on the ground).
• AWAI’s Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting
• $450 basic WordPress customization package from Kim Beasley.
• One $100 gift certificate to Amazon from Mark Wegner of The Diamond Games — the guy responsible for me starting the separate games section.
• Lifetime subscription for RadioTime.com RedButton software — TiVO for radio where you can pause and record live radio.
• One full copy of Orchidia PC game from Joyboost. See Meryl’s Orchidia review.
• One full copy of Spinword PC game from Joyboost.
• One full copy of Astraware Classic Collection, which includes Astraware Sudoku, Astraware Solitaire, and Astraware Board games. Astraware is one of Meryl’s favorite — if not the best — developer of handheld software.

Original Prizes

• One $80 gift certificate to Amazon from Meryl ($10 for every year)
• Full version of Microsoft Expression Studio 2.
• Tara Calishain, two books
• Peter Shankman: signed copy of his book, Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work–And Why Your Company Needs Them
• Lou Rosenfeld: Rosenfeld Media‘s Luke Wroblewski’s Web Form Design.
• Lou Rosenfeld: Rosenfeld Media‘s Indi Young’s Mental Models.
• Ted Demopoulos: Two copies of Secrets of a Successful Blogging System digital audiobook with What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting (in which Meryl appears).
• Problogger Darren Rowse provides a copy of his book, Problogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income.
• Men with Pens: one custom banner for a blog or website created to the winner’s specs and preferences, valued at $200. They ask for a 7 to 10 day turnaround from the point that the winner transmits her/his specs.
• Two full copies of Magic Farm Game PC games from Oleg Kuznecov of Meridian’93. One copy for a reader and one copy for a guest blogger. My Magic Farm review.
• One Alawar PC game package including full copies of Virtual Farm, Curse of Montezuma, and Alex Gordon.
• Full copy of First Class Flurry PC game from Chanon Sajjamanochai of Viquagames. Meryl’s First Class Fury review.
• Full copy of Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper PC game from Mark Kanter of Bang Out Games. Meryl’s Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper review.
• Microsoft Expression Software (more details coming soon).

How You Can Win

The contest has three (ouch, not “two” as I put in the first entry — Boy, I was not off to a good start with my notes about this. I also messed up the email I sent to friends and colleagues about this.) parts: Readers, prize sponsors, and authors.

1. Readers get entries for a chance to win prizes by simply leaving valuable comments, linking to this blog and its sponsors from their own blog, and telling others about it by Stumbling, Digging, and all that (keep track of what you do so you can get an entry for each one!).
2. Readers part 2: Some prizes will be available only to those who comment. These prizes are those with specific requirements that not everyone has. For example, software may only be available for Windows users and not Macs. I will put these up in a blog entry and anyone who comments within five days of the blog post (to be fair to those on vacation) will get an entry for the prize of the blog entry. These are the ones where you can win more than one! Comments must be at least 30 words to ensure they’re valuable to readers.
3. Prize sponsors: Automatically get 10 entries for donating a prize and links to their sites. Readers gain entries for linking to sponsors, which means more linkage!
4. Authors get entries into author-only prizes for their contributions. Articles can cover any of the following:
   1. Writing
   2. Freelancing
   3. Marketing
   4. Web site design, usability, etc.
   5. Technology

Participation rules coming soon. Meryl needs to take care of her clients. Here are the entry guidelines. If you want to contribute a prize or an article, we’d appreciate hearing from you by June 1.

Here are the guidelines for articles — and yes, it’s OK to have a longer article, but we’re trying to respect your time.

Guest Blogging Guidelines

* 400-800 words
* Self-promotion / bio goes in last paragraph (About the Author).
* Material must be original (it’s OK to re-use material with modifications) and first published on this site. 30 days after publication, you can re-use the article anywhere you please.
* I reserve the right to edit or reject the article for any reason (rare as most of you are great writers.)
* Due June 1 (willing to negotiate if needed).

The list will be updated as more offers come in. Thank you to everyone who stepped up.

When you play as many time management games as I have (and many more exist that I haven’t tried), you wonder if it’s possible for a developer to come up with more undiscovered surprises. First Class Flurry answers, “Yes!” And, no it’s not an Airport Mania copy.

I don’t dream of becoming a pilot or traveling the world free as a paid flight attendant. Sure, I want to see the world, but I’ll have to do it the traditional way — shell out the bucks. Nonetheless, First Class Flurry satisfies — and way more than a Snickers bar.

Like the old airline, Braniff Airways, Starlink files for bankruptcy. But wait a minute. Like Braniff (as Braniff International Airlines, Inc.), Starlink comes back to life under a new owner. Claire, the flight attendant, happens to know the right people including the owner. The owner hires Claire as the lead flight attendant to ensure passengers are as happy as larks.

Not so fast — not as easy as you might think. You deal with sick, whiny, demanding, and honeymooning passengers of all ages. In typical time management fashion, players must reach the minimum score to move on to the next level. Time management kings and queens, challenge yourself and shoot for the expert score every time.

Claire starts working on a diddly economy flight, but play well — and she can move up to business class, first class, and finally royal first class. Her job involves making meals, fetching drinks, finding lost handheld devices and diamond rings, and handing out other comforts of the plane like headphones, pillows, and sleeping masks.

Claire tracks orders, recycles the trash, and somehow has to watch for annoying kids who cry because they can’t find mommy or they want to pester other passengers. After you earn enough points, you can buy a tray to carry three items and even four. Not often a game lets you carry more than two things and I like it!

Travelers also come with hearts for your monitoring their happiness levels. When the levels dip below unacceptable levels, you lose points. Quickly giving them what they want will keep them smiling. You also have the opportunity to simultaneously boost everyone’s happiness by spraying air freshener — can only use once per flight.

Another way — and you’re stuck with a captain who thinks too much of himself — is to quickly serve the captain whatever he (yes, “he” while the flight attendant is a “she”– don’t blame the messenger) wants. Once he’s happy, the whole flight smiles in adoration right back at the captain. The guy has an ego, but I love my job anyway.

The flights can fly in one of four locations: North America, Asia, Europe, and Africa. Pick any to start and fly for the duration of the economy flight. Finish that and you select another spot for business class. As you travel to new locations, you’ll notice some culture in the air. Plus, learn or refresh your knowledge of flags for different countries in the flight map.

Turbulence? Of course, there’s turbulence and it interrupts your work. Forget whatever you’re doing and make a run for the phone to warn passengers of impending bumpiness. Then help the lazy ones buckle their belts and get to your seat all within seconds or else enjoy a nice headache.

The game works beautifully with the mouse and its two buttons. Right-click anytime to cancel an action. Click ahead to get Claire hopping in doing a bunch of tasks in a row. It’s a lovely thing to have almost complete control over future actions. Although, the game occasionally gets me by having a passenger cancel his order and I keep trucking along unaware.

Upgrades and tasks can make or break a game. First Class Flurry aces the test. Upgrades change the look and color of the airplane, add features and décor to relax the passengers (hint: make them happier and more patient), and speed Claire’s movements. Some upgrades come with a few color options. With each flight class, you start over on the upgrades. You may or might not be able to buy all of them before the end of the flight class — just depends on how well you play.

Way past the game’s halfway point, the game continues to surprise with new dishes and features. So the tasks don’t feel repetitive especially in food preparation. On one flight, Claire makes burgers and fries. On another, she makes salmon (takes three steps) and sandwiches (also three steps). The station locations — such as the emergency kit and the magazine rack — also change around so you can’t get comfy.

First Class Flurry is almost perfect. Its wonderful all-around production values overshadow the few scrapes. For some, the pace can get frantic a little sooner than they would like. Some dishes are hard to distinguish especially the noodle family. That nuisance goes away after a little practice. Aptly named First Class Flurry is indeed a first class game. Take off and go play it!

Hey, guys. I’m gonna be eight on June 1! Seriously. I’m too embarrassed to show you what Meryl posted in her first entry on June 1, 2000. But she and I have grown a lot since the early days of blogging.

So I tell Meryl that she oughta take a vacation from blogging as a way to celebrate. But she says she can’t do that — the blog needs to stay regularly updated as she won’t take me for granted.

Then an idea comes to me. A contest! Prizes! Well, maybe I cheated a little as her friend John over a PoeWar is doing this. Here’s the deal:

• Prize donations: In exchange, you’ll get a link with a short write up of the link. Also, readers will be encouraged to link to sponsors in exchange for entries.
• Guest bloggers: Anyone who writes a guest blog entry will be entered into a contest for guest bloggers only.

Once we get these figured out, we’ll flesh out the details. In summary, the contest has two parts: Readers, prize sponsors, and authors.

1. Readers get entries for a chance to win prizes by simply leaving valuable comments and linking to this blog and its sponsors from their own blog.
2. Prize sponsors: Automatically get 10 entries for donating a prize and links to their sites. Readers gain entries for linking to sponsors, which means more linkage!
3. Authors get entries into author-only prizes for their contributions. Articles can cover any of the following:
   1. Writing
   2. Freelancing
   3. Marketing
   4. Web site design, usability, etc.
   5. Technology

Do two or three to increase your chances of winning. Sound cool? Spread the word so you get a chance to win cool prizes.

Quinn is back on a new whirlwind adventure, joined by Flo and Joe Wright, wedding photographer. Help Quinn become the world’s top wedding planner in this hilarious sequel to the hit game Wedding Dash. Visit beautiful, exotic locations while managing new guests, fulfilling bride and groom requests, and tackling comedic disasters. Do you have what it takes to help Quinn win the honor of planning the most exclusive wedding of the year?

• 2 modes: Story and Endless Game
• 50 new levels of riotous game play
• Bridezilla now joined by the all-new Groom-Kong

Download and try Wedding Dash 2: Ring Around the World free.

Read the review of the original Wedding Dash.

• Small Business Administration Free Online Courses
• Language Is a Virus: Cures for writer’s block, poetry generator, character name generator, and many more cool tools for writers.
• 11 Irresistible Reasons to Write Everyday
• SOBCon08 recaps: Long list of entries related to SOBCon, event for bloggers held in Chicago. [Link: Starbucker]
• Create a free web site.
• Bad Pitch Blog: For many writers, it seems illogical that PR people would pitch something off topic for a resource — but they do all the time. I’m still receiving pitches for a defunct newsletter and they’re not even close to being on topic. You can get this and many more from PR and Blogging Wars list.
• 7 Reasons Odd Numbers Can Power Up Your Headlines.

And for fun because you’re allowed…

• Vanity Plates… that go hilariously wrong
• Creepy and kinky hotel rooms
• Sites that let you spy on friends: I don’t encourage it… just educatin’ ya.
• Create your own ceiling cat [Link: DeFillippo]
• 29 Ways to Carry Out Random Acts of Kindness Every Day: I believe in always doing something nice for others. My dad did this every morning when he walked. He’d carry a bag of dog bones and give them to all the neighbors’ dogs and he would move newspapers from the sidewalk to people’s doorsteps. I miss you, Dad.

And because we need to face reality… sorry.

• Portion sizes: Then and now

Lots of PR talk hitting the scene as of late as PR peeps and bloggers argue about PR spamming, blacklists, and doing PR pitches right.

Just the messenger trying to collect them all in one spot. I do both sides of the PR biz… receiving-end and PR’ing end.

Advice, Arguments, Debates, and Articles

1. 5 PR Pitches: The Good and Bad
2. 7 Promises of the PR Pro [pdf file]
3. 15 Reasons To Just Freakin’ Do It…Stop The Complaining and Take Command! Make the Pitch Your Friend
4. Blacklisting Bloggers
5. Blacklisting PR Firms
6. Blogger Blacklist and other PR Pipe Dreams
7. Blogger Relations: I don’t need a new best friend.
8. The Caring and Feeding of the Press: If you read nothing else, start and finish here. Best article on the topic from the wonderful Esther Schindler.
9. Dear Nasty Reporter/Blogger
10. Die! Press Release, Die!
11. Dueling Blacklists: Bloggers vs. PR Firms
12. An Email Blacklist of Technology PR Agencies
13. Flacks Need Manners
14. For Immediate Release Podcast #345: Discussion on the topic about 8 to 10 minutes into podcast. [Link: Eric Eggertson]
15. The Growing Backlash against PR Spam, and the Rationale for MicroPR from Stowe Boyd.
16. How Do I Get Placement on Blogs?
17. How to Pitch to Bloggers
18. How NOT to approach JV partners and bloggers
19. How Not To Help a Reporter: Yeah, go right ahead. I dare you.
20. Making Mistakes and Amends in Blogger and Media Relations
21. Matt Haughey on How to Pitch to Bloggers
22. Meet Lois Whitman, the Poster Child for Everything Wrong with PR
23. Not Short, Not Sweet, but to the Point…
24. PR Blacklists: Treating the Symptoms
25. PR blacklist won’t fix imperfect system
26. PR industry crisis and a lovely weekend
27. PR Bludgeons Itself Again
28. PR Lessons of a Clueless Blog Pitch
29. The PR Rolodex Myth
30. PR vs. the Bloggers part XXVII
31. Quelle surprise: Another PR Blacklist
32. Social media will not kill PR, but it does expose industry weaknesses
33. Sorry PR People, You’re Blocked
34. Stupid PR Watch: Reporter pet peeves
35. To Blacklist, or Not to Blacklist
36. Top Ten Lies PR Agencies Tell Their Clients
37. Twitpitch is the future
38. Twitter PR
39. Value of PR for Bloggers
40. Won’t Anyone Think of the Phone Calls?
41. Where Do We Go with Blogger Relations?
42. Why PR Folks Should Blacklist Bloggers
43. A Young Pro’s Take: Media Relations and the New PR Blacklist

And tons more… oi.

Resources

1. AngryJournalist: Journalist share what they really think of PR.
2. Art and Science of Blogger Relations eBook
3. Blogger Blacklist: Requires permission.
4. Global PR Week
5. Internet Press Guild
6. PR Spammers Wiki: Watch out for these PR folks… they spam bloggers.
7. Twitter Blacklist
8. Twittering Journalists Wiki: Lists journalists, reporters, and media outlets on twitter. PR folks, please don’t spam these nice people.

Blogs

1. Bad Pitch Blog
2. Beyond PR
3. Blinn PR Report
4. Blogging Me Blogging You
5. Common Sense PR
6. Corporate PR
7. Engage in PR
8. First Person PR
9. HighVizPR
10. Hispanic Marketing and PR
11. India PR
12. KD Paine’s PR Measurement Blog
13. Launch PR
14. Online PR Thoughts
15. Naked PR
16. POP! PR Jots
17. PR 2.0 Blog
18. PR Blogger
19. PR Communications
20. PR Disasters
21. PR Interactive
22. PR Meets Marketing
23. PR Squared
24. PR Voice
25. PR Wordsmith
26. PR Works
27. Pro PR
28. PRoactive
29. PitchEngine
30. Publicity Hound
31. rajesh@blogworks
32. Corrine Weisgerber’s social media PR class
33. The Straight Pitch
34. Strategic Public Relations
35. Valley PR

Updated: December 17, 2008

With the price of groceries going up by the minute, Supermarket Mania offers a great deal in keeping you busy for hours avoiding a trip to the grocery store. Like the coffee shop on every corner, Torg has supermarkets all over town giving Nikki little choice but to go work there as a stocker.

Nikki doesn’t like the looks of Torg when scary-looking robots greet her on her first day of work. After four days of excellent work, Mr. Torg fires her and her cashier friend. He activates the robots to run his stores. The girls find a better place in a run down pop store (well, there’s no mom as far as we can see) run by Mr. Clarence. He trusts the girls to run the store alone.

The girls deal with different types of customers who have different styles of shopping. Granny takes her time and has plenty of patience while teens have zero patience and move quickly. Kids tear up the place until you have your security guard friend, Mr. Barefist (I wonder how they came up with that), blow the whistle to stop their antics. Barefist also comes in handy in stopping brazen thieves.

You have two ways to catch a thief. Notify Barefist while the thief has a circle over his head to stop the thief who moves on to the next attempt or leaves the store. Or be patient and let the circle over the thief’s head fill and shake — alert Barefist at that time and you earn a cash bonus. However, the shaky thing doesn’t happen every time so waiting for a full circle could lead to thief getting away with … well, theft.

Upgrades are present ranging from better products that sell for more money and a gumball machine for more tips to a faster loading stockroom and the most expensive one, a bigger cart. As you advance levels more upgrades show up to help keep customer patience from spiraling when so many require your time in stocking the shelves.

Occasionally, a celebrity shops at the store catching the attention of all shoppers who stand by snapping pictures. While the celeb works around the store, Nikki must keep shelves stocked for celebrities as they don’t wait long. Another unique feature in Supermarket Mania is Super Shop. Click the thumbs up symbol at the right time (when you have as many shoppers as possible and as few thieves as possible) so that everyone buys a bunch at once. This drives up sales and Nikki’s carting work as she races around refilling the fast emptying shelves.

The action spreads across five shopping stores including Torg’s for 50 levels. That’s right, Mr. Clarence somehow comes up with the cash for more stores. Nothing illegal mind you. He’s good people.

The game lasts a couple of sittings and gets nutty at times. I’ve yet to beat a Diner Dash (but I made it through Wedding Dash), and I finished Supermarket Mania. It meant repeating a few levels, but all in a game reviewer’s work. So I think the difficulty is on target for the average casual gamer.

Animation and cartoon-style graphics are bright and attractive. The music upbeat with good effects. Decent variety of upgrades and a nice even pace. Animation and cartoon-style graphics are bright and attractive. The music upbeat with good effects. Decent variety of upgrades and a nice even pace.

Supermarket Mania probably falls in the middle of the time management games. Far better than those at the bottom, but not quite as good the best. You’ll spend less money on the game than in a five minute trip to the grocery store and have loads more fun.

If your PR and marketing folks aren’t tracking your company, brand, and competition online, they need to get up to speed to better do their jobs. If you play all of the roles, tracking your company and brand isn’t as time consuming as it sounds.

Remember alert services, blogs, and social network sites. Many of these can deliver updates to your inbox or phone.

Alert Services: Sends e-mail, text, etc. whenever your keyword shows up somewhere. Media services such as BBC News and TMCNet have their own alerts — so check out sites that cover your industry and sign up for their alerts. Here are general free keyword alert services.

1. AOL Alerts
2. Clip and Copy — three free searches in Basic account.
3. Google
4. GoogleAlert (not from Google) — gives three free searches).
5. Reuters
6. Twitbeep — Google alerts for twitter.
7. Twilerts — Google alerts for twitter.
8. Twitter Search — Even if you check your own @replies page, someone may have mentioned you and it’s good to check here.
9. Windows Live Alerts
   
10. Yahoo

Blogs: You can most likely find blogs for every industry. Numerous blog directories exist that to make a list here would be futile. MasterNewMedia has a hey-ugggeee list.

Social network sites: Also too many to list, but it should include Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, and conversations like Twitter and forums. Also look for social networks covering your industry. The following sites/tools let you search Twitter with keywords:

• Summize
• TwitterMap search
• Google’s twitter search
• Terraminds
• Tweetscan

Track forums and other conversations with these sites:

• Boardtracker
• Omigili
• Klostu
• Twing
• Boardreader
• Twing

Resources

• Copybrighter
• Online Reputation Management Blog
• Online Reputation Management Guide
• Radically Transparent

Updated: January 16, 2009

Just had to share this grammar blooper from PC Magazine’s Mother’s Day article. Perhaps, the magazine wanted to emphasize Mom belongs to you in superlative terms.

Of course, I wanted to know what gadgets they recommended for us geeky moms.

• Memory Improvement Tips
• Top 10 PR Tips for Small Businesses
• Write with Authority and Inspire Trust
• The best time to submit news
• 8 violent truths about freelancing part one and part two
  
• 178 ways to improve your internet writing tips
• 2008 Webby Award Winners
• 50 greatest entrepreneurs of all time: Every person I could think of is already on the list. Anyone missing?

And for fun ‘cuz you’re allowed:

• Twitter cartoon and other funny Geek and Poke cartoon [Link: Buzz Bishop]
• Twitter Club
• Internet Pinball Database: My hubby’s favorite: High Speed.
• 32 places to find free shipping. Gotta love it especially when Amazon may be forced to charge tax to Texans.