My parents have three kids, four grandkids and four granddogs. Three of those kids would be my fault. The fourth is my 14-year-old niece who is exactly 18 months older than my second child. Like the rest of the US, I’m melting. Even the pool is too warm for me, and I’m one of those who needs it to be at least 95 degrees outside to go in the pool. It’s so hot that the nearby water park pour ice into its big pool.

Credit: http://alles-ausm-kopf.de

Drink lots of water and check on others who may need help especially seniors.

It’s so hot … [fill in the blank].

Brain food…

• Why I’m Loving Google+. Debbie Ridpath Ohi, author and illustrator, shares her views of G+. I’m still figuring out how to make it work for me. My problem is that I’m spending more time in social media and that’s not good because it cuts into other things.
• 3 Types of Savings Every Freelance Writer Needs. Very important especially when it comes to quarterly taxes.
• 8 Reasons Books Fail. Focuses on self-published books. Bad cover art is a biggie. I know … I know … don’t judge a book by its cover. An author who doesn’t put effort into producing a catchy cover expects us to invest our time to read it. I don’t think so.
• Memorial researchers get the cinematic treatment. Who says the annual report must be a snore? Memorial University doesn’t. LOVE it. [Link: Daphne Gray-Grant]
• How to Make Your Own Book Trailer. Excellent recipe.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Voice Actors: The Voices of Our Childhood Heroes. It always surprises me  when my husband tells me, “Hey, that’s so ‘n so’s voice.” I can’t fathom being able to recognize an actor’s voice. I can believe people recognizing the voices of family and friends — but famous people? There are so many.
• 12 Most Creative Origami Towels. I went on my first and only cruise in 2000 and I looked forwarded to my origami towel surprise every single day.
• The Real Cost of a Hogwarts’ Education. Have you considered room, board, uniforms, wand, accessories, books and all that? Yikes. And pet not included!
• Final Scenes in Movies. Can you guess what they are? Answers way down at the bottom of the post.
• Summer Nights from Grease in Lego Stop Animation Motion. I <3 musicals and actually know this song from Grease. Totally enjoyed. Even reflects every little move from the movie. Except, I think it missed Sandy crossing her arms. Legos don’t bend that way.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

It’s over. No more HP movies. No more HP books. (Supposedly.) Sure, Rowling created the Potterworld, but it’s not the same. Part of me has an inkling that Rowling won’t rest and she knows the marketing machine won’t roll forever without some fuel. The other part of me thinks all good things must come to an end. To continue something for too long will dilute it.

What do you think? Should Rowling start a new series with one of the characters? Should she create a new series revolving with the new students at Hogwarts? Or just forget it all?

Brain food…

• Blogging: Seth Godin and I are doing it wrong! Refreshing. I try not to let the blog stress me. Not worth it.
• The Brutally Honest Guide to Naming Circles in Google Plus. Now using Google Plus is stressful. I’m spending too much time trying to listen to conversations and engage. Now to add another?
• 41 Awesome Blog Post Ideas for Your Company Blog. Ideas work for all kinds of stuff, not just blog or companies.
• 40 Google Plus Tips for Newbies. I think we’re all new. Find my experiments and connect with me at gplus.to/meryl.
• 10 mistakes made in freelance writing career and 10 steps to setting your freelance writing fees. Two valuable articles from Anne Wayman.

For fun because we’re allowed…

• The Evolution of the Entrepreneur [Infographic]. Technically, this isn’t a true infographic because it has too much text. Nonetheless, it made me laugh.
• Retro Tattoos Dedicate Skin to Pac-Man. Wacka … wacka …
• 12 Awesome Hot Air Balloons. Don’t think I’ve ever met a balloon that didn’t make me smile.
• Lorem Ipsum Generators: 10 Ways To Make Your Dummy Text More Fun. “The Force is strong with this one. I have you now. She must have hidden the plans in the escape pod.” [Link: Yvette Chin]

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

My older sister aka Aunt E celebrated her birthday this week. Here’s to many more happy and healthy ones.

This week is the third year in a row that my sons will attend the Dallas Auto Show. My older son loves, loves cars. The younger one likes cars, but nothing like big brother. Part of it probably comes from his wanting to be like big brother. Older son loves Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Porsches. Uh oh. I can’t resist this upcoming cliché. You’ve been warned… “Oh, my.”

Bet we’ll have a couple of more model cars coming home to join the collection.

Struggling to make Springpad or Evernote seamlessly work with my process so I can stop relying on Gmail drafts and contacts for notes. Now that I have a tablet, I’ve been looking into this. Springpad requires having the web site open to edit or read notes. Evernote isn’t free. I have Gmail open all the time, so it’s easy to access drafts and contacts (I have notes in contacts). Downside is that you can’t view drafts on other devices. How do you organize your notes?

Brain food…

• What do newspapers pay? WordCount talks newspaper pay rates and shares resources.
• Emotionally intelligent signage on a box: Talk about thinking outside of the box. Brilliant.
• QR Code Generator: Other than the obvious, who’d use this? How?
• Top 100 Social Media Colleges: I love reading about colleges and checking out their programs… that is, until now. Oldest starting the college search thing. That takes the fun out of it. [Link: Mazi]

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Yarn Ferrari: Patience in action.
• Cover Letters from Hell: Love the side comments from the editor, too. [Link: Deb Ng]
• Star Wars If Dr. Seuss Had Created It: Guess who would say, “This body is old, but it’s all I’ve got. When 900 you, reach, look so good, you will not!”
• 8 Actors Who Look Exactly the Same on Every Movie Poster: Eddie Murphy, Denzel Washington, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jackie Chan, Will Smith, Jet Li, Bruce Willis and Tom Cruise.
• Google Exodus: Hilarious video. In honor of the upcoming Passover and another viewing of The Ten Commandments (Affiliate).

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

The Problem: Google missed the mark (or rather the company has technical limitations that we don’t know about) on one feature in its mobile Gmail app: You can’t view your Drafts on your mobile device. Yet, if I access Gmail through my mobile’s Internet browser, I can view Drafts. But using the browser to check Gmail on a mobile phone takes more work and time.

I use Drafts as a way to take notes and keep revising or adding on to them. It can be for an article, brainstorming, grocery list, anything goes. While I could email these notes to myself in Gmail and access them on my mobile device, I can’t add on to sent emails unless I reply and that makes a mess.

By the way, I do synchronize “memos” between the Palm Desktop organizer and Gmail. Accessing these memos requires going through Gmail Contacts app, which sometimes hangs when I click “Contacts” in Gmail. That’s because Gmail collects every address and duplicates them. I could turn off this feature, but it has its advantages. Anyway, the Drafts route is more manageable than the Memos route.

Now. I could go find another app for note taking, but haven’t found one that integrates seamlessly with Gmail and Gmail for mobile. Not crazy about the idea of finding and adding another separate app to use everywhere. Maybe you use one. If so, please share the app and your experience. Maybe I’d be willing to try it!

I’ve figured out a way to work with this. It’s not pretty or as efficient as it could be if Gmail for mobile would make Gmail Drafts accessible. But it works.

The Ugly Workaround. Create a Mobile label (aka folder). When I have a draft that I’d like to access on my mobile phone, I copy and paste it into a new email and send it to myself to file it under Mobile. Anytime I need to access the info, I just jump to the Mobile label from my phone. No searching or scanning through hundreds of messages. I keep this label organized with Mobile critical info.

Next time the Draft receives enough updates, I delete the old email in the Mobile folder and replace it with the updated draft.

Like I said, involved — but takes much less work than accessing Gmail through my mobile browser. I bet one of y’all has a better way.

What tips do you have for staying organized between mobile and desktop?

A little LOST tribute there with wishes for my only bro. Tuesday, August 3, is older brother’s birthday. (I’m the youngest of three. Yes, I rub it in. Yes, he’s the father of the gal I mentioned last week.) Sending good vibes his way for another great year and many more.

Excited to wave good-bye to July as we enter the month that school starts up again! Was that too enthusiastic? I can’t help it — I like having a schedule and of course, I work better with the kids in school all day.

Anyhoo, back to work. Lots to do… so keeping this short.

Brain food…

• Create the Perfect Author Facebook Page: Captioned video! Just two minutes of your time.
• Think Small to Go Big: Sales for the Small Business Professional: Don’t overwhelm yourself. Great book on topic of starting small for all aspects of our lives: One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way. Short, fast read. More short fast reads? Check out Short, Powerful and Favorite Books.
• How to Take Great People Photos When You Travel: Need all the help I can get before headin’ to Boston — the first new place I’ve traveled to in too many years. Hope I can capture good memories of Boston. When? Like I’m going to give burglars a heads up. P.S. Burglars, my family will be home. It’s just me doing the traveling.
• Book Bloggers: Oh my gosh… long list! Great for authors looking to find the right audience for book reviews or interviews.
• Five Personal Projects That Will Help You Find Clients: I often recommend to new freelancers to work with nonprofit as a way to start up business.

For fun because we’re allowed…

• World Record for Most T-Shirts Worn at Once: My daughter did this for a video in honor of a friend’s birthday where she put on ALL of her shirts, but it was more like 25 shirts.
• 13 Hilarious Headline Fails: I still wonder how such headlines make it pass the editors. I do placeholders like the “Think of a headline” one — but my editor catches me when I forget to fill it in.
• Google’s broken spell checker credit: Mark Hurst.
• A Pen Mightier Than Any Sword: I love a good pen that writes smooth leaving the right amount of ink behind.

Photo by flickr user The U.S. Army

Thank you to all who served in the military especially those who died while serving.

Game Discount: Get 30% off any game priced at $6.99 during Memorial Day Weekend. Sign up for the Daily Game Splash Newsletter BY Saturday, May 29th for daily deals and the day’s new game. Sign up for either the PC version or Mac version. After you sign up for the newsletter, you’ll receive a coupon code to use during Memorial Day Weekend (May 29th through May 31st). Enjoy!

Brain food…

• Reclaim Facebook Privacy: Great easy to use tool to help you deal with Facebook’s privacy annoyances.
• Books for graduates setting out on that next big adventure: Great idea and list! More books… If only I can get some ideas for teachers…
• Lessons from LOST: Get a little LOST fix and some great insights for writers.
• How to write a presentation title that gets people flocking to your session: Tips applicable to writing, too!
• Copy Editing – Why It Works: What copy editing is, when you need it, who should do it and how it benefits.
• Pay day procedures from freelance journalists: Excellent advice on asking about payment, rates, invoicing and prevention. Pam provides a couple of resources for Australian residents — however, much of the advice is universal.

For fun because we’re allowed…

• Cross Panel Comics: Brilliant way to incorporate comics into a crossword. Love it! More Cross Panel Comics…
• Put Google’s Pac Man Game on Your Web Site: One of my fave Google logos ever. Think I’d like this on a tee. [Link: Alan K'necht and Barry Schwartz] Oh, and apparently, good ol’ Pac’y ate up a lot of folks’ time at work. P.S. You can still play Google Pac-Man.
• #Artwalk: Brilliant! “Global community of art makers and art lovers who get together once a month on Twitter and Facebook for a worldwide virtual art crawl.” It occurs on the last Tuesday of the month, but you can catch the goodness by searching #artwalk on Twitter.
• I’m Deaf: Rockin’ video by Sean Forbes. I rarely discover new songs or artists — Count me in as a fan.
• Star Wars Lego Chess Board: I’d love to get this for my husband and the aforementioned son who loves Star Wars Legos and likes to play chess. Alas, it’s the brainchild of a genius not associated with Lego.
• 

  Photo by Picasa user wastrel

  “The MLB nickname ‘Dodgers’ referenced the pedestrians who dodged the trolleys that ran through the streets of Brooklyn.” Fun Fact from Mental Floss in honor of my Dad who hailed from Brooklyn and loved dem bums AND made me a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. (Not LA. Brooklyn.) I also had a beagle named B. Dodger (pronounced “Bee Dodger”).

This week is book fair week at my youngest child’s school. I’ll be volunteering at the “Book Fair Diner,” this spring’s theme, and trying my best not to buy too many books. We have a theme every book fair to make it fun.

When I was a wee kid, I loved the Scholastic Book Fairs in my elementary school. When I was a student teacher in college, the school I worked at had the book fair, too. Now as a mom, I go to at least four book fairs in a school year. Plus, my youngest brings home book club booklets for ordering in between book fairs. (Each elementary school has two book fairs per year and I have two kids in two elementary schools.)

My favorite class in college: Children’s literature. So yes, I bought children’s books after I grew up and before I had children of my own. We have so many children’s books in this household that I’ve bought duplicates. Too bad we didn’t have the apps we have today for book inventories. I could never begin such a project now.

Brain food…

• Why You Need a Content Strategist: Explains what they do and how they work with your web site. [Link: Deborah Edwards-Onoro]
• How to Find Work Without Using the Freelance Job Boards: Most of my finds are through word of mouth and referrals. I keep myself out there so people remember me when the need comes.
• 8 More Business Buzzwords I’d Like to Ban Because They Make Us Sound Like Tools (Part Two): been trying to avoid “solutions” but couldn’t find a workaround. Here’s part one. [Link: Jeff Hurt]
• Experience Is an Action Word: Christina Katz discusses experience. Know that even experienced writers have moments when they lose self-confidence or wonder why they’re in the business.
• 5 Great Reasons to Use Gmail: I’m using Gmail more and more and meryl.net email less (except for business cards and all). Spammers keep using my domain and sometimes my emails end up in people’s junk folder. So Gmail works well. [Link: Melinda Emerson]
• Public Speaking – How I Prepare Every Time: Speaking can be simple. Tim Ferriss shares his process. If you know your stuff — just practice and it’ll turn out. Be passionate like Gary Vaynerchuck — without the F-bombs. Not necessary.

For fun because we’re allowed…

• Blurred Out: 51 Things You Aren’t Allowed to See on Google Maps: Also from cheth.
• 826 Poster: Are you ready to publish your novel? Humorous look. [Link: WD]
• 50 Clever, Hilarious and Geeky Twitter T-Shirts and more at Zazzle. Tino Valdez made my IRL @merylkevans Twitter shirt (see photo).
• A Volcanic Rainbow in the Hottest Place on Earth. Not the colors you expect… if you’re thinking “rainbow.” [Link: Shelly Kramer]
• The Forbes Fictional 15: Who knew Forbes had a sense of humor? Of course, the top 15 richest fictional folks. [Link: Andy Hayes]
• 15 Amazingly Clever Logos: Love this stuff. Shame my domain/company name doesn’t lend itself to anything exciting.
• What Stormtroopers Do on Their Day Off: Who knew Stormtroopers had personality??? More Stormtroopers in Part One. [Link: Mark Hurst]
• 40+ Hilarious Facebook Comic Strips: Prepare to nod your head in agreement to many of them. Oh, and laugh, too.

Google has already apologized for some of the problems with Google Buzz. One of those being Buzz automatically followed some users, a big no-no. The company may have said it was limited to people you emailed frequently, but that wasn’t the case for most of us.

Aside from that, Buzz has mixed reviews and a long list of things that need changing. I’ve listened. I’ve participated. I’ve complained. Yet, Buzz still has my attention. Like an infant, it has cute moments and messy ones. It still needs nourishing before determining what it will be when it grows up.

Using Buzz

Because I always have Gmail open, the growing number of new Buzz is distracting as it grows much faster than email even in spite of my being very selective about who I follow. I’m organized when it comes to my email and maintain inbox zero. It’s easy to see why the new Buzz messages annoy and frustrate people especially when the number climbed to 100.

It took a week to get used to that in the same way I let my newsletters and alerts labels sit with over 100 new messages. Those two labels have hundreds of new messages because those messages are “as needed” messages. So I applied the concept to Buzz and the annoyance factor dropped. Or I click “Buzz” and the number starts over.

Although some folks said they turned off Buzz soon after trying it out, I haven’t written it off because it’s new and evolving. First, I want to understand it better and figure out how to use it efficiently should it find its way. Twitter wasn’t a smash hit in the beginning. Neither were blogs. Facebook was limited to college students. Second, I’m stricter about the people I follow in Buzz than I am in Twitter. If I find someone I follow is Buzzing a lot of useless content, then I stop following without regret.

I haven’t decided if it’s a good idea to funnel my tweets into Buzz. I don’t blog daily, so tweets keep me out there. I’ve created new Buzz a couple of times and comment on Buzzworthy items. I haven’t tried using Buzz for any articles I write.

One-way Interaction

Buzz can import your blog entries, tweets and other content. However, if you reply to any of these, they stay right in Buzz. Well, when I see a tweet from Twitter in Buzz, I go in Twitter and reply there instead of within Buzz. Google lost an opportunity here. What if Google adds a checkbox that asks if I want the reply to go to the original source. Hence, if the source is from Twitter, the reply shows up in Twitter.

Google likely did it this way on purpose to keep people in Buzz. But some will go around it like I did. I hardly think I’m the only one to think of this.

Yes, Facebook lets you import the same information and keeps replies right inside Facebook. I just expect more from Google because many of Facebook’s users don’t use other social media applications.

Twitter Fail Whale = Buzzportunity

Recently, Twitter experienced serious fail whaling. People asked if Twitter was failing in Facebook and Google Buzz. Buzz was a better place to find out than Facebook. Again, so many people in Facebook don’t touch Twitter or any other social media. Those of us in conversation mode buzzed about other things knowing Twitter whaled out.

Multi-communication Integration

I don’t think Google, Facebook and Microsoft are onto anything in combining status/buzz with email. (Facebook is trying to build up email to become a powerhouse like Gmail.) When I want Twitter updates, I go receive them and nothing else. Not email. Not trivia. Not games. Nothing. Just short status updates and direct messages (DM). Of course, I could be wrong about this.

Buzz integration with email doesn’t work for many. It creates more noise and people haven’t come to the point where they want multi-communication opportunities thrown at them. They would rather have a choice, but a choice that goes beyond turning off Buzz. Perhaps, a way  to access Buzz outside of Gmail.

I remember when Newsgator would deliver feeds as Outlook email. I never liked that idea. When I tried it briefly, it overwhelmed me more than Buzz because it took more effort to delete those messages.

Social Media Expert: Is There Such a Thing?

Buzz demonstrates exactly why no one can be an expert in social media. Social media evolves and fast. New things pop up. You can’t become an expert on what works and doesn’t work as soon as it comes out. You have to see how people respond to it as they learn their way around.

Nonetheless, Google has accomplished one thing for itself — Buzz keeps people in Gmail longer as several have admitted this.

What do you think lies ahead for Google Buzz and unborn social media?

Related articles

• 10 Things You Should Know About Google Buzz (eweek.com)
• 30+ Google Buzz How Tos, Tools and other Resources (SEOptimize.com)
• Google Buzz No Facebook , No Twitter Killer, Google Exec Says (eweek.com)

The winner of Seth Godin‘s $800 DVD set from How To Add Colour To A Grey Day entry as selected by Random.org …

Yvonne Russell! Congratulations, Yvonne!

And the winner of the addicting First Class Flurry from Assorted Blogging History Lessons entry as Random.org went to work again…

Karen Swim! Congratulations, Karen!

No, no… I’m not asking you to Google me. You’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you? Ted Demopoulos contributes this entry and the title fits. I met Ted, I believe, either from doing a book review or commenting on one of his entries that led to doing the book review. It’s a case of the chicken or the egg — but I forget which.

Since then, he invited me to contribute to his book, What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting and we’ve gotten to know each other over time. Don’t believe what he says about being the most boring blogger. Not at all, but good publicity!

This entry’s prize are Airport Mania: 2 copies (1 Mac and 1 PC) and one copy of Andy King’s upcoming Website Optimization. Here’s its companion site. Just leave a 30-word comment on this post by June 20 to get an entry for a drawing. Be sure to include “Mac” or “Win” in your comment so you’re up for the right version of the software.

Google Me!

You’re being googled all the time — hopefully the results are positive.

People google you before they meet with you, they google you before hiring you, they google you if they may be working with you, they google you if you’re dating their sister.

Potential clients always google me, my mailman has googled me, my kid’s teacher and even my wife have googled me! And if people really care or are Internet savvy, they will do more than simple search engine lookups.

What shows up when you google yourself? It’s good to know what others are seeing about you.

If you have a common name and nothing comes up, try what others will try; google your name plus other identifying information. Do you work for IBM? Then googling “yourname IBM” may turn up interesting results. Are you a viola player? Then googling “yourname viola” may be the ticket. Do you live in Fresno? Then googling “yourname Fresno” may work.

So what is your name anyways? If it’s a common name you might change it slightly, for example also use your middle name. Although ‘Ted Demopoulos’ is fairly uncommon, if it were a common name I could choose to use ‘Ted Demetrius Demopoulos’ for my business card, resume, email, and other locations as appropriate, making myself much easier to google.

What if there really is nothing online about you? From the privacy standpoint, that might be good, but if you’re looking for a job, trying to date, or maybe think you have career, people googling you might wonder why nothing shows up. Are you legit? Do you really exist? Maybe you’re a complete flake or serial murderer?

Fortunately there are several easy and free or cheap ways to establish an effective internet presence. Here are three quick ideas:

• Join LinkedIn.com, a free business networking site, and setup a profile. Google and the other search engines love LinkedIn.
• Leave intelligent comments on blogs in your niche. Make sure the comments are intelligent and add to the conversation, and use your full name so the search engines can find your comment.
• Review books in your professional area on Amazon.com. This is also free, and Amazon will let you create a profile about yourself, and the search engines will index it.

Of course you could also start a Website, even a simple one-pager about yourself, start blogging, or write articles online – Web masters are always looking for content. These techniques are very effective at establishing an effective internet presence, although they take some effort.

Your online presence is only going to become more important. You had best know what shows up when other people google you, and ideally you’ll create positive content using some of the techniques mentioned above to show you in a correct and positive light.

About the author: Ted Demopoulos is the author of the upcoming book Google Me. For a preview, including his free ebook Effective Internet Presence, Now required for success in business and life, visit www.EffectiveInternetPresence.com.
For more on Ted, visit his blog, Blogging for Business, home Web site, or (you guessed it) google him

• Fifteen places you must put your keyword phrase and why [Link: Copywriting Maven]
• Powerful writing in 30 words or less e-book
• Why twitter matters
• Writer’s Digest Annual Best 101 Web Sites for Writers
• AngryJournalist: What not to do.
• The Street-Smart Writer: Self-Defense Against Sharks and Scams in the Writing World: Book by Jenna Glatzer available as ebook free — no strings. Just sign up with Wowio (where you download the book).

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Doodle 4 Google contest results for kids in grades K-12. The national winner is a middle schooler — wow. I didn’t know about the contest — I wish I had because I was the Arts in Education chair at a middle school and could’ve encouraged our kids to enter. [Link: My mom! Of all people... usually I'm giving her the links]
• Music video with only sounds from Windows XP and Windows 98. Remember the BSOD during a Bill Gates presentation? Classic! [Link: Zo'c]
• Junior High Sweethearts meet in math class 12 years later… complete with captions. OK, so there’s no audio. [Link: PopURLs]
• All Gaping Void cartoons in one long page.
• All my life for sale returns… Reed takes it over from Brian Thompson.

And of course, remember the celebration!