text:
Keyless Locks
My Personal Review Of The Best Keyless Lock
I always thought keyless locks were pretty cool (especially the electronic deadbolt types) as I am a gadget nut so when I decided to take a look at replacing my door locks I went into "research" mode to find the best, most secure keyless locks that were still affordable.
After many hours of research (something I love to do) which included visiting manufacturer's sites, watching product videos and even calling the company of the lock I decided was the best I can confidently recommend the Sunnect AP501 electronic deadbolt as the perfect lock for any home today.
Why The Sunnect AP501 Is The Best Electronic Deadbolt
The main feature that makes this lock stand out is that it is pickproof and vandalism proof because there is no keyhole to put gum or glue in and no place to insert a pick or "bump key" that is so easily available on the internet and can be used by practically anyone to open a traditional lock without any special training. More on this later.
Other so-called keyless locks might use a keypad to unlock the door but every one of them has a keyhole because they all use a standard key as a backup method of unlocking the door making the lock vulnerable.
CLICK For An AMAZINGLY Low Price From Amazon
Keyholes – The Fatal Flaw In "Keyless Locks"
I mentioned before about bump keys. Have you ever heard of them? I hadn't either until I started doing my research. It turns out that almost every lock can be "bumped" by making a simple key. Even the newer bump resistant locks can be bumped, it just takes a bit more time.
Normally, I wouldn't think much about this until I saw that there were plenty of sites that showed how to make and use a bump key. The clincher was a news story that showed a child using a bump key on someone's front door!
That's when my antennae went up because if lock bumping was this pervasive it was only a matter of time before my small town would start seeing burglars and kids looking to have a little fun start to use this technique.
Since I didn't want any of these "keyless locks" with a keyhole in it the field got narrowed down pretty quickly. I next looked into biometric locks. You know, the kind that can scan your fingerprint or eye like in the movies?
Why I Can't Recommend A Biometric Lock
Well, it turns out that while these types of keyless locks are definitely cool they do not work well, especially outdoors where extreme weather conditions and sounds can cause them to malfunction. Add in the fact that fingerprint scanners and voice microphones can be vandalized and once again you end up with a vulnerable lock. Plus, I have read more reviews of people frustrated by fingerprint scanners not working than I ever wanted to.
How About RFID Technology?
The last type of lock I researched before making my decision were keyless locks that used RFID technology like the kind found on most new cars. My Toyota Camry Hybrid has this kind of lock and for a car it works great but not for my home.
The things that I didn't like about these keyless locks were the sensor housings that could be compromised and the fact that they use more battery power if they are always in "on" mode or require an activation button which I felt was an inconvenience.
As I whittled away my list it became more obvious to me that the Sunnect electronic deadbolt was the only truly keyless lock that was worthy of further consideration.
In fact, National Locksmith magazine said that the AP501 is "one tough deadbolt…built like a tank" so I knew I was on the right track.
What Makes The Sunnect AP501 The Perfect Keyless Lock?
Sunnect started with a blank slate and designed an electric deadbolt that provides a high level of safety and security not found in other electronic deadbolts or traditional locking mechanisms at an affordable price.
The thing that stands out to me is that it is really keyless because it uses a backlit keypad or an electronic "key" to unlock it. It also has advanced security features like decoy digits to thwart hackers, an intruder alarm with adjustable volume and a special bypass circuit to stop high-voltage shock attacks on the lock.
How Strong Is The Sunnect Lock?
Given enough time and using heavy duty power tools no lock is 100 percent secure but the Sunnect electronic deadbolt lock is designed to make it one of the most reliable door locks on the market today.
The lock itself weighs six pounds and is made of a tough heavy-duty zinc alloy that is designed to withstand prying, hammering sawing and kicking. In fact, there is a famous video where the lock is shot several times and still functions!
The World Famous Bullet Test
All of the vital parts of the lock like the CPU, deadbolt drive, motor and batteries are mounted in a housing on the inside of the door making it safe from vandals and potential burglars.
Even drilling the lock will not help because of a specially-treated protective plate that blocks access to the deadbolt control mechanism. Most keyless locks do not have this protective feature and once the outside of the lock is compromised the deadbolt is easily accessible.
Inside the bore hole behind the protective plate is a deadbolt latch bracket that provides one more barrier to limit access to the Sunnect deadbolt latch control mechanism.
The heavy duty one-inch throwbolt is strengthened with a 5-mm thick carbon rod that resists sawing making it very difficult for anyone trying to saw the throwbolt and combined with a strong strike plate, strike lining box and door frame reinforcer the AP501 helps strengthen the door frame against force exerted against it from the outside.
High-tech criminals that use high-voltage equipment to try and burn out the printed circuit board of the AP501 to disable the lock will be frustrated because of the unique bypass circuitry that fully protects the circuit board from this type of attack.
As far as I can tell Sunnect has thought about everything that someone could possibly do to one of their keyless locks to compromise it and planned for it which makes me feel very comfortable about recommending it to you.
Here's a quick list of some of the features of the AP501:
- Digital technology (Patent-pending) featuring keyless entry with backlit keypad, decoy digits (random digits can be entered before the real code), automatic locking, intruder alarm and master function
- Key components (motor, batteries, computer chips) mounted on the secure inside of the door to protect against extreme weather and vandalism
- Simple 3-step code registration (3 to 20 digits) and digital keys (up to 20 keys and 1 master) and quick and safe deletion of any lost keys
- Lost or stolen keys cannot be duplicated
- Standard installation with a Phillips screwdriver and guaranteed to fit any standard American door
- 2 digital keys and 4 AA batteries included, features visual and audible low-battery warning and a 9-Volt external temporary power terminal in case of a complete battery discharge
- Special bypass circuitry to protect against high-voltage attacks
- No keyhole to pick or vandalize
- Auto lock feature locks door after approximately 3 seconds when it is closed but can be temporarily turned off during periods of high traffic
- Three beautiful finishes to choose from Bright Brass, Satin Nickel or Aged Bronze
- Cycle tested 200,00 times which equates to 54 years of opening a door 10 times a day under extreme weather and temperature conditions
What Do Others Say?
People that have invested in this lock had this to say…
"The Rolls Royce of deadbolts"
"This is it. Top of the line."
"Best deadbolt keypad I've ever seen!"
Here Is What The Pros Say About Sunnect Locks…
"In my 30 years in the locksmith business, I have seen quite a few residential door locks and the Sunnect AP501 is by far the very best. I installed the very first AP501 we got at my own home and my family absolutely loves it! It's so well-made we can't find a fault in this lock."
-Ken Berkley, Manager of the 20 service centers at Baldino's Lock and Key
"As part of serving our clients with extreme security needs, we deploy high-end surveillance systems and ultra-secure alarm systems, but what has been lacking is a rugged and effective electronic lock solution. From our testing of the unit we have acquired, the Sunnect AP501 meets all of our needs and the needs of the clients that we foresee in the future."
-Stephen Weatherly, CISSP, Chief Security Consultant, Wise Guy Solutions, LLC, an information security consulting company, after testing the Sunnect AP501 digital door lock for their clients
Are There Any Negatives?
As far as I can tell the only real negative is the price. Most sites sell this lock for over $300 but the last time I checked on Amazon (that's where I buy all of my stuff from) they were selling it for as low as $246.99 for the Satin Nickel finish with free shipping.
I know $246.99 sounds like a lot for a lock but like my friend said to me the other day, "You buy cheap, you buy twice." Plus I figure my family is worth it.
I realize this was a long review about keyless locks but I wanted to be sure you had all the facts before you make a decision. Thanks for stopping by and be safe.
CLICK HERE for Amazon's LOWEST price on the Sunnect AP501
Tagged with: electric deadbolt • Electronic Deadbolt • Sunnect AP501 • sunnect deadbolt • sunnect electronic deadbolt • sunnect locks
Filed under: Electronic Deadbolt
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!


text:
Let's take a moment and evaluate how horrible my organization is. If a track doesn't come with a stream (you're asking me to download a song to listen to it), it goes into a folder that I only get around to gutting every couple of weeks. Once sorted, I only get familiar with these tunes as they play in my car. I'm a mess.
This one came on and I was wondering why I was listening to a poppy rap record. And as the drop came in, my mind was blown. I searched for the track name in my inbox. To no avail. And there was no artist name. I posted a video of the tune on instagram and asked if anyone knew who made it. Nothing. But a reminder email to check the tunes was sitting in the bottom of my inbox. As I'm gutting it out last night I'm like "AHHHHHHH". I asked for a download link, and saw it sitting in my inbox this morning.
We have no clue who Wright Brothers are. There are almost as many followers as there are tracks on their soundcloud page, and no bio whatsoever. I'm sitting here scratching my head. But this one is insane, and available for free download.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Internet Marketing Videos: Internet Marketing Evolution Event Recap
Rasmussen College hosted a "Internet Marketing Evolution" event at the Technology and Design Center at the Brooklyn Park, MN college campus on January 27, 2011. Internet marketing industry executives from Google, JWT, and Market Motive spoke about the evolution of marketing, specific career paths in internet marketing, educational options for the Internet marketing degree student, and more.
Watch the three video segments below and learn about this booming career path. Be sure to also explore the Internet marketing questions and answers from the event.Videos also available for viewing on the Rasmussen College YouTube page, found here.
Michal Lorenc Transcript
Kathy Heldman: Promises to be an interesting informational hour and a half. We have Michal Lorenc, who is with Google, here to share with us his perspectives on the digital marketing world and its impact. We have Steve Wallace, from JWT, who will talk with us about the opportunities available in internet marketing and the exciting life of an internet marketer. And then we have Michael Stebbins, who is the CEO of Market Motive, an important partner of Rasmussen College, and he'll share information on Rasmussen's partnership with Market Motive as well as the skills and responsibilities in the exciting area of internet marketing and what individuals can do once they have a career in that exciting field.
And without further ado, I'd like to welcome Michal Lorenc from Google.
Michal Lorenc, Google: Well, hello everybody. I'll spend about 20 minutes just giving you a very high level overview of some of the changes in the online marketing space. Before we jump into this one, the very first question, how many of you read a paper today? I mean a physical paper. I can see a small room over here, but just think how many people read a paper. How many of us actually listen to the radio? How many of us checked e-mails or interacted with Internet via phone? How many of us right now are either tweeting or checking our Facebook or doing some other things? And what really amazes me is that many of those changes have happened really in the past 12 to 15 years.
When you look back, and I'm not sure if we have access to all of the slides, but when you compare the types of tools and products that you could access via online ten years ago versus right now ,there's a very big difference. Really there was only one device, your computer, that ten years ago had Internet access. Ten years ago, in order for you to generate content, you had to have IP rights. People weren't able to blog. People weren't able to post their photos, their videos. The content was very, very limited.
You fast forward ten years, and right now, basically all of the main media devices are somehow connected to the Internet. So clearly the computer, and it's no longer a desktop computer. It's a laptop computer, and it's a tablet and iPad, and it will continue to evole. It's the phone. the smart phones will very soon out pace what's called the dumb phones in terms of the buying and the utility. But there are some other devices as well. Radio, satellite radio, Pandora, some other radio stations that you can actually access on the Internet. You can listen to pretty much any radio station anywhere in the world. You're not limited anymore to a location. TV, many of you probably have no idea, but you can actually right now buy TV advertising via Google, and I'm talking about traditional 30 second spots. And you can do it using online access and actually send and receive lots of very, very wealthy data. Netflix, another example of getting some of the TV content via Internet.
What about books? Ironically today, a couple of hours ago, Amazon announced that in the first quarter of this year, the Kindle, the electronic edition, outsold paperbacks. For every 100 paperbacks that are sold on Amazon, there are 130 titles sold on Kindle, and it will continue to evolve so that the digital revolution is really changing everything. It's changing our careers.
Some of the slides, again, the presentation's called "The End of Digital Advertising." What I mean by that is that we're no longer a niche. I think it's very important to understand that digital is everything, and it's really becoming a major player rather than minor player. Some of the high level stats – 1.8 billion Internet users globally. Some people believe that actually there are over two billion people that access online and grow very, very fast. U.S. by the way is not a leader in online adoption or broadband adoption. There are other countries globally that have more frequent, more reliable broadband access.
Four billion searches happen every day. Every day there are four billion inquiries happening globally across all of the search engines. When you think, in essence, what is a search? It's, as a consumer, our inquiry, when we are interested in something, when we are looking for something, when we are determining what to buy, what to read, what to eat, where to go, how to entertain ourselves. Marketers really for the first time have opportunity to immediately interact with consumers at what we call the moment of relevance.
Facebook, right now 600 million users globally, and again Facebook is not the largest social network everywhere in the world. There are some markets where there are other social networks. So really, of the two billion internet users, I would say more than half of them already are active participants in social networking.
Video, YouTube, an amazing stat I'll share with you, I'll pause and then I'll say it again. For every minute that you watch YouTube videos, there are 35 hours of new content being uploaded. So for every minute, there are 35 hours, a day and a half. That means that every day, there's five and a half years of new content being added to YouTube. Now let's think about the implication of that. And it's no longer this semi-professional, I recorded somebody hitting himself or herself in the toe and then kind of laughing. I mean there's lots of that. Lot's of unprofessional content will continue to be put up on YouTube and shared because of the smart phones. Most of the phones right now have their cameras. Many of the cameras actually are in high definition. I just read today at the Sundance Festival the first full feature movie, a 90 minute movie that was shot exclusively on iPhone, will actually be shown in some of the theaters. A director in South Korea created a movie. So the technology allows us to embrace and access video to the levels that we never have before.
So again, as marketers, future marketers, people that are interested in interactive, think about opportunities. Think about the power but also think about challenges. How will that change everything that you do? Because the truth is there are no books, there are no textbooks written on search engine marketing or video marketing or social networking that are up to date because things change every day.
If we can switch to the next six slides; so as I mentioned, the online media, the digital is really growing up. There are three things that I like to talk about. The first one is that from the marketing perspective access to data allows us to think of marketing very much like finance. There is so much data we can be extremely accountable. We can find out exactly where our investment is going. We actually compare the Wall Street to Main Street or to Madison Avenue and Main Street, so that historically Wall Street, that's where you buy and sell stocks; very, very heavy analytical aspect. Madison Avenue historically was considered to be very creative, kind of the mad man who creates something very, very interesting.
Well, from the media buying perspective, right now those two become very, very similar. They both deal with fairly defined currency if you will. On Wall Street, you buys shares of companies. In media, you buy shares of media. It can be print, it can be TV spot, it can be banner, it can be a search keyword, but those are fairly defined. So we have similar units. You have big clearing houses on both of those sides. You have buyers and sellers. And right now, you have the power of the Internet and the technology that allows you to literally buy and sell online inventory in near real time. Some of the agencies actually working with Google are doing what's called ad exchange, where they're trading and buying and selling banners globally. Pretty soon the same people are thinking about actually buying futures of media and maybe derivatives. So again, that might be a very different area that doesn't really exist in the marketing advertising as it's being defined right now, but something that probably will come pretty soon.
All advertising is engaging. So again, the old school of advertising where the creative concept was something that nobody wanted to share. We created something, we kept it very close to our heart, then on Super Bowl Sunday or during the big launch, we showed our creative for the first time. Well right now, more and more ads are actually created with users. Oftentimes users are the ones that are starting to spread the word for us as marketers at a much more cost efficient and time efficient way.
There are some of the stats that show that 52% of the people that send Twitter updates already are talking about brands. There are some other stats that talk about the percentage of social media feeds that are actually related to brands. Some of them are negative. Some of them are positive. There are some examples. Southwest Airlines, for example, is very good at monitoring Twitter updates, and anytime somebody complains about Southwest, they reach out to them and they try to see how they can solve their problems. The best description of Twitter I've heard was that it's the world's largest suggestion box and you can either listen to people and try to react to it or can chose to ignore it.
And then finally, next couple of slides, combination of all of the two or three. So I'm sure everybody has seen or have read about the Old Spice videos. A great, great campaign. Now what's interesting, it didn't happen by accident. So actually there was some planning put together, and the client and the agency they thought about leveraging TV and Internet for different reasons. What's the very interesting part, there was actually a moment where the main character and the video crew locked themselves up in the warehouse and they were asking people to submit questions, either on Twitter or Facebook page or directly on the site, and the Old Spice guy was responding to those questions and creating equivalent of 30 seconds to 2 minute video advertisements, which then were being posted on YouTube, sometimes within literally 20, 25 minutes of receiving a question and then leveraging the pre-built social network for people to actually start sharing all of the information. There was a marriage proposal. So there was actually somebody that asked the Old Spice guy to propose to his girlfriend on his behalf, and she said yes. The question is did she say yes to the guy that wanted to propose or the guy that proposed? That campaign was the most talked about topic at the month of launch, and I just heard recently that actually Old Spice they tried some other athletes. They're coming back with the same character, the kind of original Old Spice guy will reappear during the Super Bowl Sunday again.
What about the last thing? The traditional models are obsolete. I talked about briefly, and unfortunately you can't see in detail those two very busy slides in the middle, many of the dots. But basically it describes at a very high level the landscape of traditional media buying where on one hand you have advertisers and it can be a big advertiser – Target, Best Buy, Ford, GM – or it can be somebody very small. On the other hand, you have the media or the content providers. In online, it can be anybody from America Online, Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, YouTube to some of the very small bloggers. Many of us actually that blog; if we have Facebook page, we provide real estate for Facebook to try to sell and monetize.
So we have advertisers and then you have publishers. In the middle are the intermediaries. And it used to be just a handful of agencies, and there was an agency of record and there were agencies that specialized in maybe a creative aspect, in strategy, in media. Sometimes they specialized in one type of media. There were media houses, and there was some delivery aspect. When I used to work at agency and I did both, actually I did print and TV, and I used to work at the cable company. I still remember times where you were creating ads on one of those big types, and my job as a trafficker was to put the types in the right order so the right ads were showing at the right time. When you're buying print advertising, you send your specs and then you had to wait and the publishers were sending you back the actual copy of the magazine as the proof that the ad had shown. Then oftentimes you had to wait six to eight weeks to get somehow verifiable data – how many copies of the magazine sold, how many people have seen the ad. But again, it wasn't in real time.
Well, right now what you're seeing is this plethora of technology providers that help agencies and publishers and advertisers be very effective and efficient in terms of buying media, analyzing media, comparing what works best, what doesn't. You can buy directly from publishers. You can buy remnant. You can do round of side, you can do ad exchange. You can target in an extremely sophisticated way. You can combine somebody's database with your database. We can do what we call remarketing or retargeting, where you provide a different type of messaging to a person that visited your website and purchased from you versus somebody that visited your website and didn't purchase from you and so on and so forth.
There are literally thousands of companies in this space. What we believe will happen, we as Google, but also I think as an industry, is that in 2011/2012, there will be a big consolidation. Yet there's lots of opportunity and pretty much all of those companies are hiring.
So you think you figure it out. You think you have it, but then there's mobile space. I didn't talk anything about mobile, but it's really changing everything. After you figure out mobile, then the iPad comes in and the tablet space. Twitter's only three years old, YouTube five years old, Facebook about six, Google 12 years old. Fast forward to 3, 5, 6, 12 years from now. There will be huge brands that everybody will know about that don't exist right now.
So as my last slide said the future is definitely digital. It's definitely bright. There are plenty of opportunities. Happy to share my LinkedIn and Twitter information, so please follow me. I try to update and share lots of industry stats and happy to hold off and then answer any questions during Q&A. Thank you.
Steve Wallace Transcript
Steve Wallace, JWT: I'm Steve Wallace. I'm the Group Strategy Director with JWT in Minneapolis, and it might make sense to just tell you a little bit about what that title means. JWT is one of the largest ad agencies in the world. Very, very old. Our office here is all digital. I'm the Group Strategy Director. I have account planners who are really audience researchers. I have UX and IA strategists who . . .
Participant: What are UX and IA?
Steve Wallace, JWT: User Experience and Information Architecture, thank you. These are the engineers who actually spec out and map out experiences online. I have digital strategists, and then I have metrics and analytics people that work with my group. I do a lot of hiring and really a lot of role definition. As you heard from Michael, the future is bright. Well, it's so bright that we're starting to create jobs for people that we don't fully understand yet. That's how bright it really.
Digital and interactive has always been hot. These are two quotes that I remember from the past year. I talked with a recruiter in Minneapolis, and she said that during this recession digital grew. It did not shrink. A lot of traditional media did shrink, but digital actually grew with this. I met with the Managing Director from Goodby Silverstein – it's a very popular ad agency in San Francisco – and he said if you really want to make money, make sure that you have digital somewhere in your title because that's what everybody is looking for.
To close that out, it's the shallow end of the pool. If you are doing any of these roles either for a consultancy, an agency, or a company, what I mean by the shallow end of the pool, there's a lot of people there or there's a lot of demand for people there, but there aren't a lot of people to do it all. It's a very lucrative, marketable place to be.
I'm not going to lie to you. You all read the newspaper. With 10% unemployment, it's very rough out there today. Industries are contracting and others are growing. You hear that and it's easy to get down about that, but that's not impacting this particular job market. If we can go on to the next slide, you'll notice that this has been happening forever. Where that red circle is, that's in December of '88. I graduated from college in 1990, and there was a recession after the first Gulf War and that one was going to be the end of the world. Nobody was ever going to have a job again after that one. Well, ten years later, the dot com bust came and that happened again. This is a natural cycle, and it actually feeds these opportunities. So don't get gloomy by the news that you hear. If you've decided to work in this space, it really is a bright place to work.
For me, and this has been 20 years, one day I woke up and I had a title that sounds good. I had a lot of people that were working for me, and it's kind of a process how that happened. Some of it's by design, some of it's by accident, but it's 20 years in the making and I don't even know where I'm going to be in the next 20 years. It starts, really, as soon as you walk out of this school with that degree. If I can give you one piece of advice right now, really focus on where you want to be in five to ten years. Get an idea of what that role is you want to be. Get a path. Chart a path. Get experience. Just start getting experience somewhere and realize it's going to change at some point. It's not going to end up being what you think it is today.
What are the options that are out there? For digital, which is a part of every industry right now, you can take a look at the private sector and the corporate world. There are great pros to that, huge number of jobs, huge number of opportunities. They typically will pay a little bit less, but digital interactive is different because they need more bodies. Job security for the most part is going to be a little bit more secure in a company – a 3M, a Honeywell, a General Mills. You're going to have a path for growth. It can be very hard to move sometimes. Why? Because they will slap on what they call the golden handcuffs. They'll make it very easy to stay and that's not a negative thing. It's just realizing that that may be your career path.
Better chance for depth of experience, to get into a role and actually absorb and understand SEO or social media or user experience and information architecture or metrics and analytics, because that will typically be your focus. Changing jobs could be difficult though, on the flip side of that, because you're considered narrow. This is all you do and we want somebody with a breadth of experience.
So there are pros and cons to all of them. The biggest though, I would say, is you can typically have a life. Companies, yes, you do work very hard, but when you work in a corporate environment with a defined role, you can typically have a life that you might not find in other areas. Politics can be a lot worse because people don't move very often, but politics are everywhere, so we're just going to have to get used to that.
Did I miss one before this? I might have. There was one before I got to this. The other realm, we have the private sector, but there's consulting and there's agency work. There are fantastic things in the . . . maybe I lost that slide. I apologize. I work in the agency world. It could be J. Walter Thompson, BBDO, any of a number of others. There are consulting companies like Accenture, McKinsey. What these companies do is they work with companies that don't have the horsepower to get something done. That's why you hire an agency or you hire a consulting company.
It's very stimulating. Every day is completely different than the day before. Every six months you typically get to change jobs. It's a very exciting place to be and the pay is very good. You will work like a dog in a lot of those different areas. They're very competitive. You're only as good as what your last billable job was. I would encourage you, when you look at the consulting world, which is very big and very lucrative particularly for digital, just know that there's great opportunity for experience and growth, but it does come with a cost.
Then there are others. Government. There are fantastic jobs in government. They're doing very interesting things with the Internet and technology. You can be at the forefront of policy making. You're going to have lower pay that rarely increases, but there are opportunities there. So take a look at government, and when I say government, local government as well.
Education. I have three friends who I graduated from high school with and they chose to go into education and they have wonderful lives. They are teaching. One is teaching computer science. Another one is now teaching marketing at this time. It is a wonderful, wonderful life. It's almost impossible to move. Once you get into it and you become an educator, it's hard, personally, to move and change from that, and it's also hard to transition to a company sometimes because they're a little leery that you might go back to education too quickly. But it is a wonderful life.
International is about the best experience you can have and people pay attention to it. They like that diversity, that depth. Going to work in a foreign country to help with some technical or Internet initiative, that impresses me when I see something like that on a resume. That takes guts. That takes courage. You're going to be away from your family. Highly recommended if that opportunity comes up.
Lastly, working for yourself on contracting. In the digital space, there are a lot of people who pick this route because companies may not have a long-term SEO need. They may not have a long-term metrics need or information architecture or metrics analytics, whatever. They may need somebody for a period of time – three to six weeks, maybe six months. So there's a huge, huge market out there for people with specialized skills to get out there and work with these different companies.
So what I would say as a piece of advice with this, if you can, get experience in a vertical market. What I mean by that, pick something. I'm going to do digital in health care. I'm going to digital in financial services or consumer packaged goods or manufacturing, whatever it might be. But get horizontal experience within that. Understand what everybody does in that role, from the SEO specialist to the SEM to the project managers to the strategists. Try to become an expert in an industry and in multiple roles. You're highly marketable when you can do something like that. I hope you'll understand what I'll mean by that.
Now, a couple of the different roles and jobs that you might have, getting in to what a day in the life of an internet marketer might look like. I would typically say in digital, it really comes into two camps. There are the thinkers and then there are the doers. Thinkers are people who see possibility. Thinkers are people who identify problems. They love the challenge of that. They love to solve problems and look for it, and they also realize that their job is never done. When they go home at the end of the day, they're going to still be thinking about it and they're coming in the next day.
Doers are people who actually can take that and understand, aha, there's a way to get this accomplished, because in digital, at some point it, really does come down to building software. I don't care what it is you're doing, you're either building or manipulating software. So you need project managers, you need coders, all of these people that are going to help this get implemented. I am a thinker and I have project managers who are doers and they're kind of mutually exclusive. I'm a mess when it comes to actually implementing something. You remember that old commercial? I don't actually do the work. I just tell you how to do the work. You've got to find somebody. That's me.
They're both critical in any environment. If you take pride in a job well done, if you want to go home at the end of the day and if you like discipline and process, then you probably want to be a doer. What does that translate into what specific roles might be? I just picked two. I picked a day in the life of an agency strategist, and this is my calendar from Monday. 8:00 in the morning, I got in and I had an allocations meeting. If you're in a consulting environment and you have people working for you, hours are billable, so the first thing you have to do is you've got to figure out who's working on what, who's light on hours, what do we need, and who is the best fit for a specific project. You have a large group of people and a lot of accounts and activity going on. This has to be done very quickly, and it has to be done right, because the rest of the week counts on that.
I am the Head of Strategy for our Toronto office, so at 8:30 on Monday mornings, I have a conference call with them. There's a lot of interesting things that we talk about. Canada is obviously a foreign country. You don't realize how foreign it is. When you live in Minnesota, you think it's your back yard. It's a very different place. 9:00 to 10:00, I have my one-on-ones, usually 10 to 15 minutes with every person I work with to understand what is it that you're working on, what do you need help with, what do you need support with, and then I actually follow up with that.
At 11:00 on this particular Monday, I had stakeholder interviews with a group of clients from United Health Group. What are stakeholder interviews? Any time you go into an organization for a digital initiative, you're trying to find out who makes decisions here, who can get things done and you're trying to get them aligned, you're trying to get them to walk down the same path. So you spend time meeting with 20 to 30 different people to figure out what motivates them, what are they looking for. That's the stakeholder interviewer process, and an outcome of that is it says this is your objectives, this is what you want to do.
I had a client lunch – I have lots of client lunches – at 12:30. This was a particular client from 3M. I had an analytics review at 1:30, and this is where we're looking at web trends, data, social media data. This was for a client of ours at AARP. We're trying to find out what's going on in their space. How many people are visiting their website? Where are they coming from? How many are coming from search? How many are coming from display? What are the topics in the social media space that is pulling people into this? We're trying to find what are those patterns. Where's the opportunity in this? Is something really happening in social media that we can exploit? Is something really happening in display that we can exploit? And then that usually gets moved on to the next level and it becomes a client recommendation.
At 3:00, I had planning session prep with two of my digital strategists because we have a planning meeting coming up. This is where we gather all of our stakeholders together on a particular project and we say we're going to assign priorities and we're going to decide, as a group, what to do. It's critical you're prepared for this, because when people come in, they have - again, I said it. People hire an agency or a consulting company because they can't get something done. They're expecting you to get it done and you have to be prepared when that is coming.
At about 4:00, I usually get to get some work done and then I had actually a client dinner. I don't have a lot of client dinners, but I did on this particular Monday. Now, my next Monday may be completely different and that is, again, the advantage when you're working in a consulting agency environment. Every day is very ,very different.
The next one, I called a friend of mine who is an NCO specialist at General Mills and just said, "Can you just read to me what your calendar was for the given day?" He had a technical scrum for Tablespoon.com. Anybody know what a scrum is? It's a technical meeting. You get all the developers together, you get all the information architects together, all the designers, and they meet in a circle for a period of time to say these are all the things that we have to get done today, these are all the issues that need to be resolved, these are the things we have to do coming out of this meeting. Those usually can go a half hour. It depends on how many problems there are.
He had to do all his metrics analysis from the previous week. As they tweak and refine and fine tune whatever their keyword strategies are, and then, of course, there are all these things they do to game the Google algorithm with link baiting and other things. They want to take a look at what worked last week, what didn't work, what can we replicate, and what can we maybe cross across multiple brands.
Keyword analysis for SEM buys was at 10:00, and he had to negotiate SEM buys with Google, Bing. Then he gets to eat lunch. He had to have meetings on the re-launch for BettyCrocker.com. I don't know exactly what that was about, but I'm sure it's some sort of effort for really bringing in more content, which is really critical to General Mills. One-on-one with his boss. 3:00, he gets some work time, and then at 4:00 p.m. there's a standing meeting and there's a daily recap.
His days typically go like this, and it's a little bit more regimented. It's a little bit more the same. He works on multiple brands, but he is an SEO expert. This is what he does. He looks at code. He looks at sites. He reads the Google algorithm to say this is what they're looking for and this is how we have to build this thing, these are the best practices, kind of a guardian of that, for lack of a better word.
Participant: What is the Google algorithm?
Steve Wallace, JWT: The Google algorithm is a mathematical code that determines who gets ranked first.
Participant: Oh, okay. I thought it was something else that you were getting information from Google.
Steve Wallace, JWT: No. Next one. I think I only have a couple minutes. Gain some insight with yourself. Figure out if you're a thinker or you're a doer. Both are critical and to a certain extent they're mutually exclusive. They don't do each other's jobs very well.
Understand that digital and interactive is evolving and still very young. The job you get tomorrow is going to change and you have to be comfortable, I always say, walking on Jello. When I started walking, all of a sudden if you walk on Jello, you think you've got the path going – I'm going to go this way – and then it moves on you. You have to be comfortable with that.
A couple of stories for people that I know. Michelle, who is in my office, who helped me with this deck, started out as a receptionist in our office. She did anything she could to get in the door and then she begged for opportunities at every chance and now she is a designer. She proved herself. She did two jobs at the same time, and we finally said yes, we want to give you a chance.
Attila, who is from Hungary, bothered me for years about when an opportunity. He had a good job. He's very smart, but there was something about working with us that he wanted to do. He constantly kept in touch and he was top of mind. When I had an opportunity that was perfect for him, I had been talking to him at least two or three times a year, so I knew who he was. He was persistent. That was impressive.
Luke heard me speak at his school, came in, talked about maybe getting in there, doing something, applied for one job, didn't get it. Applied for a second one, didn't get it. Applied for a third and a fourth, didn't get it. But the fourth one, the person they hired didn't work out and they said, you know, maybe we should give this guy a chance, and he came in and he's a rock star. He started out as a quality assurance analyst, and now he's going to be a content strategist.
All of them took the job that was offered to them, they did it flawlessly, and they started doing the one they wanted at the same time and that's what you have to do. That's what you really have to do. Piece of advice five, just like I said, do the job you want and do the job you have. That's just kind of the way it is. The degree you're going to get, while very important – I won't consider almost anybody without a degree, there has to be a pretty compelling story – but that just opens the door. The rest is really up to you. Take chances, as many as you can.
Where to look, lastly. Job boards. There are tons of them out there – SimplyHired, Indeed. Local associations have postings out there. Don't expect a lot from them, to be quite honest, but you're going to get an idea of the types of roles that people are hiring for. Most of the recruiters I know right now at companies are not going to use these job boards anymore because they're expecting a lot more demand and they want to go through recruiters. They've got to cull through them. They can't go through 1,000 resumes. Recruiters, get in touch with them. Make sure they know your name and who you are. Leverage whatever the school has to offer. My first job out of college came from a career fair at the college I was going to.
Network with the people you know, they know and who they may know through third party people. Get out there and find people who work at Medtronic, if you want to work at Medtronic, and work it that way. Get involved in professional associations. If you're in Minnesota, there's the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association. Every state has them. Chicago has one. San Francisco has one. Get involved in those and get your name known. Always help people. If people are asking you for help – and I've found this, this is true – you never know when they're going to come back and help you. So if they're looking for something, go out of your way to do whatever you can, even if it's just listening to them. Help other people on this journey.
Take the opportunity. Entry level is great. It doesn't matter if you're fresh out of school or if you're changing careers. We all start someplace, and you really have to grab that opportunity.
Final piece of advice. Be yourself. People hire people they like working with, they can envision. I spend more time with my employees than I do my family – and that's not by choice – so I want to like these people as well as make sure that they're going to be good working with me. Know the difference between a job and a career. A job is what you have today. A career is what happens over 40 years and it's a process to get there.
Michael Stebbins Transcript
Kathy Heldman: Now I'd like to turn the seminar over to Michael Stebbins with Market Motive.
Michael Stebbins, Market Motive: Thanks very much, Kathy. I am Michael Stebbins. I'm with Market Motive. We provide internet marketing curriculum and training. We're going to show you right now how to get from zero to one hundred in internet marketing competency.
You know, right now, in training a number of different companies we've seen that they struggle with internet marketing in one of three different categories. The first category that most people put internet marketing in is complete darkness. It's voodoo. It's magic. We can't figure it out, therefore we're going to leave it alone. The second category is a little bit more common. People treat internet marketing, search, and social very much like they would dealing with a used car salesman. There may be a little bit of room for scam in there, maybe a get rich quick scheme. Who knows what you're going to get, and so they leave it aside. But I hope that most of you fall into the category of the group who believes that there are four billion searches happening every day with somebody looking for a product or service, looking for, perhaps, what's on your website.
Now, people have tried to compare internet marketing or search marketing to some of the broadcast media of old, and it just doesn't work. As Mike pointed out earlier, these technologies push. They push to you in an interruption state. You're not really in the context of understanding what the message might be that comes to you. Display advertising might catch you while you're driving, who knows. The same thing with e-mail in fact. Search and social, in terms of drawing business into a website, are fantastic because they catch the visitor in what we call context. There's intent. They're actually looking for what you may have to offer. So this changes the dynamic quite a bit.
In fact, let's take a look at what I consider to be a bit of an exaggeration. Forrester says interactive will cannibalize traditional media. Well, maybe an overstatement, but we're headed in that direction. So right now, I'd say about 14% of advertising spend is directed towards interactive. Across the board, we'd say only 8% of purchases right now, across all retail, are attributed to the Web, but it's growing very fast and it's a big market. Move to B2B and enterprise companies and you'll see between 50% and 90% of their incoming sales are coming because there was somebody searching on the Web for their product or service. So will it cannibalize traditional media? Well, probably not immediately, but it certainly is pulling the dollars from traditional media into interactive.
With this new emphasis, there is quite an emphasis now or a growing demand for formal training in internet marketing. How do people learn these skills unless they already have experience? The answer is in schools, for example like the program that Rasmussen is doing, and we're happy to be partnering with them. I'll share a little bit about what that looks likes in a minute. If you do a keyword trending search right now on internet marketing degree, you're going to see an up and to the right increase. There are folks looking for this.
In fact, there's another shift that's very interesting to watch. As Steve was talking about and as Mike was talking about, there are two categories. There are agencies that are full of specialties, and before that, there were a lot of independent marketing consultants. In fact, in 2005, an SEO was earning sometimes an average salary equal to that of a brain surgeon. These folks were putting together SEO campaigns and charging exorbitant amounts, but it was worth it because they were getting the results. Well, we're seeing a shift where a lot of that specialty technology and specialty knowledge is moving into the organization. It's moving in-house because people want specialists on their staff and working inside.
In fact, here's a list of some of the most recent internet marketing jobs that we've seen and placed our students in and seen students who are taking our curriculum get recruited for. Now, take a moment and see on that list any positions that you think existed more than four or five years ago. Not very many. Some of them maybe, but you see Chief Reputation Manager, Director of New Media Relations, Direct Marketing Manager. Common terms. Things you'll see all over Craigslist and job posting boards. Did these exist a while ago? Nope. Just about the right amount of time to go through a degree program and find yourself a position in one of these. So the training, right now, is absolutely critical.
The addition of specialists is in parallel with the need for generalists. If we're looking at a mid-size company, an online marketing manager needs to understand not just web analytics, not just social media, but they also need to understand SEO, local, mobile search at least enough to get the company to a minimum point of getting present on the Web. It even gets worse if you're thinking of a small business. A small business, the person who is handling marketing tends to also have to deal with the sales. They have to deal with revenue tracking and commissions. Who knows, maybe they're even working in QuickBooks. So they need to know just enough of each topic to be able to get enough done to get that company present in local search.
Now, a larger corporation has a little bit better of a specialty focus. They can bring in a specialist, whether you have an analytics manager making decisions based on data, an SEO manager, and maybe a social media marketing manager who's assisted by a reputation manager person. These are luxuries, but luxuries aren't for all the companies. There are a lot of medium businesses out there looking for generalists. In fact, you can see that for specialists there are over 100,000 open positions at any one time, by doing a search for internet marketing on Simply Hired or any type of job board that covers most of North America. That's a lot of open positions, and these folks are looking for people who are trained in multi-disciplines in internet marketing.
Well, it gets worse than that. If you look at the 1.1 million available marketing jobs across North America, our studies show that 68% of those jobs are requiring some type of internet marketing competency. In fact, anecdoctally, this particular ad talked about how few opportunities there are for people to get training in internet marketing. Why is it so hard to train in internet marketing? There are really two reasons. One is that the professors and the adjuncts who are training in the business curriculum don't have the ability to stay up to date on the most current trends. What they're able to teach sometimes comes out of a printed textbook, and as Mike pointed out earlier, about the time a book on internet marketing comes to press, it's already out of date. So curriculum needs to shift to video as far as we can see. And the authority, the people who are teaching this need to be on the front lines, working with clients. If they're not working with clients and getting their daily pay and reason for existence by coming up with the next reason or the next best practice, then it may not have the authority.
This is one of the reasons that we appreciate what Rasmussen is doing right now. They're using videos from the best selling authors and the top speakers in each internet marketing discipline, and they're injecting it as supplementary material into their business curriculum. It's always updated. It's never out of date. Each video is being patched and changed currently. For example, Facebook just changed their whole criteria for how a fan page for a business actually can be distributed. That got updated in the video so the students were able to stay up to date.
If we talk about competency in internet marketing, we've mentioned multi-disciplines and some of you, I can see, are already asking, "What are they?" After training hundreds and actually even thousands of internet marketers through our curriculum and through out partners like Rasmussen, we've come to see that these five disciplines that are on the screen right now are the essential foundation for being able to operate in internet marketing. Whether you're a specialist or you're a generalist, these are the things you need to understand. For example, what good is a social marketing campaign if you bring the visitors to the website and they don't convert? Same thing goes for writing an excellent PPC ad, a pay-per-click ad that you pay for every click, bring them to the site. If they don't convert, what good is it? What if we study only web analytics and we don't have enough visitors to the site to perform or to create a statistical base for analysis? Knowledge, or at least what we call a literacy or competency, in each one of these skills is vital to being able to operate as an internet marketer.
People ask which one should I start first with? The answer is any of them. But if you don't have a path, we recommend that you follow the path of creating qualified traffic. Then you study how to persuade these people, and then you learn how to look at the web analytics and take that data back into the original campaign and tune it as well as your site. As people move through the five topics, we say start with traffic building, SEO, social media, mobile, local. Study those things. Then once you learn how to bring in the traffic, you learn how to convert them, then you learn how to analyze this and take it back and do the whole cycle again. If you're paying for your traffic, PPC online, PR, great things to study before you get into the analytics. Plenty of exceptions to this, you can start anywhere that you want, and you can go back and study the others. But if you're looking for a path, that's the way to go.
Question two we get asked quite a bit, "What if we missed the opportunity for training?" A lot of companies are looking for who to recruit. I'm going to give you a few shortcuts here. We have learned, after placing hundreds of internet marketers, that we recruit out of the genetics department for web analytics. Why is that? Well, because genetics majors know how to take a great amount of data and make a decision based on that data. Same thing for people who are skilled in sales. We've learned that they do particularly well as conversion optimization specialists. Most people born after 1985 or who are addicted to news or Twitter, they do very well in social media. No big surprise there. We've learned that accountants and bookkeepers and people who have studied economics tend to do better as PPC managers. Again, not a big surprise there. If you just piece together the basics of each one of these, you can see where you can go to recruit. People who are multi-department, can coordinate a large product, well that's what SEO is all about. You have some shortcuts there.
We say the best thing to do is train. Train first, learn exactly what you need, then you get hired, and then you stay up to date using the technology that is updated and current. So you get recent and authoritative training that you continue throughout your career. That's the way that you can succeed in internet marketing today. Thank you.


text:
5 Favorite Tree Toppers from Remodelista
Our Christmas tree is not the designer, color-coordinated kind. The decoration breakdown goes something like this: 25% are hand-me-down ornaments that family members have unloaded, 35% are university-themed ornaments from my alma mater (thanks Mom), and the rest include a mix of personalized ornaments with sentimental value, plus a few very random ones. Example: a decorated plastic picture frame and picture of two friends finishing a road race circa 2005, compliments of that year's gift exchange.
Obviously our tree is a little (a lot) eclectic, but it makes me happy, plastic picture frame and all. The only thing I would add is a unique tree topper that would fit with my hodgepodge theme.
Our friends over at Remodelista have pulled together a list of easy-to-buy (plus DIY) tree topping ides. I would love to call any of these my own. Check out the full list here.
And head back to Real Simple for more Christmas tree decorating ideas.


text:
Posted Under: DIRTYTONY
This hot update is brought to us by DirtyTony and features young Latino Francisco and hunky hairy daddy George Glass. The guys lean back and watch some online porn, talking about what turns them on. George loves hunky and big dicked tops while Francisco is totally in butts. He just loves to fuck hot round asses, no matter if they belong to a guy or a girl. Great for us that George has a fine muscle butt and Francisco a big fat uncut dick with a long foreskin covering his glans. The guys are a perfect match quickly get started. George services Francisco's thick cock and the young Latino is happy to return the favor. He's fine with sucking a big dick as long as he's the one who's going to fuck later. George is turning his back to Francisco and the hung Latin boy shoves his thick boner up the stud's hairy butt, pounding him with deep hard strokes while the bottom is moaning in pure pleasure. Francisco is quite the aggressive fucker, but while we see him from behind banging George's muscle ass, we get a great look on the young Latino's perfectly shaped bubble butt.


text:
The Academy-Award winning actress and avid foodie shares a sumptuous collection of recipes and gorgeous photographs celebrating the joy of preparing food for loved ones, a passion she learned from her beloved father.
As an actress, author, trendsetter, creator of goop.com, and host of the popular PBS series, Spain: On the Road Again, Gwyneth Paltrow is an icon of style and good taste around the world. As a young girl eating and cooking with her father, Bruce Paltrow, she developed a passion for food that has shaped how she lives today and strengthened her belief that time with family is a priority. Now in MY FATHER'S DAUGHTER, Paltrow shares her favorite family recipes along with personal stories of growing up with her father, Bruce Paltrow. She discusses how he has influenced her in the food she loves, how she involves her kids in cooking, and how she balances healthy food with homemade treats. And, for the first time, Paltrow offers a glimpse into her life as daughter, mother and wife, sharing her thoughts on the importance of family and togetherness.
Complete with 150 delicious ideas for breakfast, sandwiches and burgers, soups, salads, main dishes, sides, and desserts, this beautifully illustrated book includes full-color photos throughout, many featuring Paltrow at home with her family and friends. MY FATHER'S DAUGHTER is a luscious collection that will inspire readers to cook great food with the people who mean the most to them.
Gwyneth Paltrow is a mother and an actress, splitting her time between London and New York. Her website at www.goop.com covers food, crafts, fashion and fitness.
There are currently no product reviews for this product.
Overstock.com values your opinion. Please take a moment and share what you like or don't like about a product.
0This item will be delivered to you via USPS Trackable Media Mail or UPS Mail Innovations and will take from 2 days to 3 weeks from the time the item leaves our warehouse. *
Items must be returned in new or unused condition and contain all original materials included with the shipment. More details
FINAL SALE EXCLUSION: Items marked as FINAL SALE are not returnable unless the problem you experience is the result of our error.
* For your protection, all orders are screened for security purposes. If your order is selected for review, our Loss Prevention Team may contact you by phone or email. There may be a two business day delay to process your order.
** Most Oversize orders are delivered within 1-4 weeks. Some orders may take 6 weeks to be delivered.


text:
See Current Canoes from Dagger in the Buyers' Guide |
My other boat is a 10' Detonator. The Caption will take 5 heavy strokes to get the speed of 3 lighter ones in the Detonator. But then the Detonator tops out and you can continue to add speed to the Caption. The result is good final speed and momentum, with enough boat length to bridge many holes. Very dry. A feeling of power and stability.
Some days I'd take the Mini Cooper Detonator threading the rock sieves and other days I'd blast across the waves in the HemiCuda Caption. Your experience may depend on how much you gotta pay for your gas.
120,000+ people can't be wrong!
The Paddling.net Newsletter is a must if you like to canoe or kayak! Each week it is packed with great articles, photos, product reviews, and special features. Better yet, we promise not to sell your email address to anyone; that's right ZERO spam! Sign up today and find out what you've been missing!
Submit Review of this Product | Email Page | Printer Friendly Version |
Austin Canoe & Kayak Over 80 models to choose from! 15% off ALL accessories with any boat purchase. | |
Rendezvous River Sports Rendezvous River Sports has everything you need...and more. Plus Used Gear at Amazing Prices. | |
Zoar Outdoor Free Shipping on all New Kayaks! |


text:
Sat, Oct 19, 13 at 23:38
Just found Christmas wrapping paper at Target that looks like holiday words written on a chalkboard. Going to use it on a silver tray with bow and pick attached and prop it up on an easel. It's going to look so cute! Will send pictures. |
Follow-Up Postings:
Oh that sounds neat! I'll have to check it out next time I get to Target. Look forward to seeing your tray all decked out. TFS Punk |
- Posted by purplemoon (My Page) on Sun, Oct 20, 13 at 22:27
Ditto on what Punk said. I can't wait to see how the tray turns out! hugs, Karen |
wow.. i am waiting to see that. something new and interesting.. if you get something new like this please share with us for this Christmas. |
That is a fun idea 2west. I don't get to Target very often tho. Nana |
- Posted by jeannespines (My Page) on Mon, Oct 21, 13 at 10:45
Sounds like a cool idea! ;-) Jeanne S. |
- Posted by pink_warm_mama_1 (My Page) on Tue, Oct 29, 13 at 19:24
You are right up to date swest2, as using silver pieces as decorations is the latest kick! Is it old silver or new? Please be sure to let us see the finished product. Thanks. Pink |
- Posted by luvstocraft (My Page) on Wed, Oct 30, 13 at 15:24
I'm excited too! Haven't made anything for awhile, always love seeing good ideas. |
Sounds like a really neat idea...I'm getting on line with the others...waiting to see how it turns out. jane |
Please Note: Only registered members are able to post messages to this forum. If you are a member, please log in. If you aren't yet a member, join now!
Return to the Holiday Forum
Information about Posting
- You must be logged in to post a message. Once you are logged in, a posting window will appear at the bottom of the messages. If you are not a member, please register for an account.
- Please review our Rules of Play before posting.
- Posting is a two-step process. Once you have composed your message, you will be taken to the preview page. You will then have a chance to review your post, make changes and upload photos.
- After posting your message, you may need to refresh the forum page in order to see it.
- Before posting copyrighted material, please read about Copyright and Fair Use.
- We have a strict no-advertising policy!
- If you would like to practice posting or uploading photos, please visit our Test forum.
- If you need assistance, please Contact Us and we will be happy to help.
Learn more about in-text links on this page here


text:
Tomb Raider
Version and / or Patch Used: Latest Steam Update
Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark
Developer Homepage: http://www.nixxes.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.tombraider.com/us/base/agegate?refer=184&
Tomb Raider is an action-adventure platform video game. Published by Square Enix, Tomb Raider is the fifth title developed by Crystal Dynamics in the Tomb Raider franchise. As the first entry in a new Tomb Raider continuity, the game is a reboot that emphasizes the reconstructed origins of the culturally influential lead character Lara Croft. Tomb Raider was released on 5 March 2013 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows to universal critical acclaim.
Tomb Raider minimum numbers across the board are strong, but you can see at the highest resolution, the average is too low. Below that, though, we've got very strong minimum and average numbers that see some good gains over the other GTX 770 2GB setups.


text:
Excellent appetizer
active time20
total time32
2 lbs bacon2 lbs sea scallops (if large, cut in half)
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/3 cup chicken broth
1. Cut bacon strips in half.2. Wrap a piece of bacon around each scallop; secure with toothpick.
3. Arrange the wrapped scallops on a baking sheet.
4. Broil 5 inches from heat for 3 minutes per side, or until bacon is crisp.
5. In small skillet, melt butter; add garlic and saute 1 minute,.
6. Add broth and bring to a boil. Cook 2 minutes.
7. Place scallops in large bowl; pour broth over, Gently toss to coat.
my notes
recipe at a glance
type: Entertaining
main ingredients: Pork, Shellfish
cuisine: American
holiday/celebration: Christmas, Cocktail Party, New Year's Eve


text:
Pawn your employment rights, Osborne tells workers
Posted Under: Uncategorized
At today's Tory Party conference, George Osborne announced plans to make employment rights optional. Workers, henceforth, will be able to relinquish their right to sue for unfair dismissal, along with various other employment rights, in exchange for shares in their company.
It has long been recognized that certain rights ought to be inalienable. You cannot sell somebody your vote, or your kidney even if you wish to. Equally, a worker cannot voluntarily opt-out of the minimum wage. The latter makes sense, given the power disparity between bosses and workers. Any thing that a worker can do is also something that may potentially be compelled to do.
And this will inevitably be the case once workers are given the option of pawning their employment rights. Of course, when you start a new job, taking up your boss' kind offer will be "optional". Just as long as you carry on working through your probationary period, ignoring the heavy hints, and unofficial threats, that you might be thrown into unemployment at a time when there are five jobseekers for every existing vacancy.
The affects of this policy will not merely be financial. For it will also make even more tyrannical the relationship that many employers enjoy with their workers. With union membership at a historic low, and statutory rights now to be sold off, bosses will be able to deal with their serfs exactly as they please.
To contact Reuben email firstname.lastname@example.com


text: When you want authentic Indian cuisine, Thousand Spices Indian Restaurant, conveniently located in Homebush offers an excellent selection of delicious menu options. You can choose from buffet options that feed 4 people, as well as individual entrees, desserts, beverages and starters. Thousand Spices Indian Restaurant offers exceptional quality vegetarian and non-vegetarian selections designed to meet the dining preferences of our diverse customer base. From a deliciously refreshing traditional mango lassi to crab curry, Murgh Tikka Masala, naan and Kesari Phirni, finding authentic Indian cuisine made fresh daily is easy.


text:
Astraware Solitaire - Klondike, Spider, Canfield and more!
- Publisher: Astraware Limited
- Genre: Card
- Released: 30 Jun, 2009
- Size: 38.7 MB
- Price: $0.99
- App Store Info
Love card games? Astraware Solitaire is a great collection of 12 of the most popular single player card games. It includes Klondike (also known simply as Solitaire), Pyramid, Spider, Clock, Yukon, Canfield, Four Seasons, Sultan's Harem, Idiot's Delight, Golf, Calculation, and Freecell, each with custom gameplay options so you can play using your favorite variation on the standard rules.Other features include:
- Play in portrait or landscape mode
- Play with your own rules, turn off hints or auto-moves using the 'Customize' option when you start a new game
- Many decorative backgrounds to choose from, or use your own photos
- Wide choice of card backs
- Choice of card fronts including clear card faces
- Detailed game statistics including how long you've played and how often you win
- Golden Trophy Deck awards - win the golden cards during play and once the whole deck is unlocked, use it to play with!
- Game auto saves your progress
"Astraware Solitaire provides a very customizable and enjoyable gaming experience... jump on this one... You will not be disappointed." - GearDiary.com
"Combining 12 of the most popular games with nice animation and unlockables makes Astraware Solitaire stand out from the bunch." - PixelatedGeek.com
***Help Us Improve Astraware Solitaire***
If you are having a problem with the game, please don't post a review here as we won't be able to contact you to offer support - we're not able to reply to reviews and we don't get your contact details when you purchase. Instead, please help us by emailing firstname.lastname@example.com with details of your problem, and include your device model and which OS you are running.
What's New in Version 2.09.002
* Support for the iPhone 6 Plus when running with Zoomed display* Improvements to card animation speed


text:
feeling the after effects of...stuff.
i think i have a girlfriend...shes one of my good friends, Marisa.
damn, i dont know what the hell is wrong with me lately.
i cant date her.
shes my friend.
and what has happened to the three other times i got involved with friends?
this isnt good.
i need to get off this...stuff.
ahh yes. dating friends is always messy. it wrecked my best friendship.. and i am reminded of it everyday. good luck with everything.


text:
This Week's VOD Power Rankings: 'Jack The Giant'… Something
Features By Neil Miller on June 6, 2013 | Be the First To CommentSomething tall and smelly this way comes. No, it's not the stench of a few weeks off that have plagued our patented, custom-built supercomputer known as the Video On Demand Power Ranker. It's a movie from Bryan Singer, and not really the good kind. There's also something delightful (maybe) for fans of short-form horror, fans of odd thrillers, the apocalypse and the grimace of Bruce Willis. Oh yeah, it's all in there this week. And for your convenience, we've ranked them in order of worthiness for your hard-earned dollar.
The Blu-ray/DVD Column Where 'Race With the Devil' Beats 'Identity Thief' and 'A Good Day to Die Hard'
Features By Rob Hunter on June 4, 2013 | Comments (1)Welcome back to This Week In Discs! As always, if you see something you like, click on the image to buy it. It's a Disaster Four couples get together for their monthly brunch, but today's gathering includes a few surprises. Tracy (Julia Stiles) has brought along a new boyfriend (David Cross), one of the couples is heading towards a separation, and a mysterious incident in the city has left them trapped in the house with little in the way of reliable information. A lack of certainty, loyalty and sanity quickly overcomes the group leading to even more trouble. Writer/director Todd Berger's ensemble comedy is easily the funniest disaster film in ages. Most of the cast are (fairly) fresh faces, but in addition to the two names above America Ferrera gets to show a decidedly different side of herself. It's a simple film, essentially set in a single location, but sharp writing and a lively cast collectively imbued with fantastic comic timing make it a hilarious and energetic romp. [Blu-ray extras: Commentary, behind the scenes, Comic Con panel, viral videos, trailer]
Why the Ending of 'Warm Bodies' is More Zom Than Rom-Com
Discussion By Christopher Campbell on February 3, 2013 | Comments (1)Warning: the following post contains a bit of a spoiler about the end of Warm Bodies. Read on at your discretion. With a decent opening weekend gross mostly attributed to young, female moviegoers, Warm Bodies is supposedly confirming its status as the new Twilight. Of course, the vampire love story made a lot more money and received mainly negative reviews, while this new zombie romantic comedy (or zom-rom-com), is certified fresh at Rotten Tomatoes and received a B+ CinemaScore grade but only earned about a third of what it cost to produce. There's an expectation for Warm Bodies to have strong legs, however, through word of mouth. And hopefully that buzz extends to more male viewers, who should appreciate that it's not as sappy as it seems, even though its main message is the cheesiest of cheesy: "love conquers evil." Sure, we've seen the power of love employed as a weapon by The Beatles and to turn Darth Vader and to keep The Princess Bride's Westley alive, but over time the idea that "all you need is love" has become corny enough to ruin the ends of Ghostbusters II and The Fifth Element, among others, with too much sentiment.
This February isn't such a hot month for movie-going. When it comes to genuine "must-sees," there are only two movies on this list which earn that title, and they're the expected picks. January could have been worse, but this February won't do 2013 any favors, unless the fifth Die Hard movie ends up blowing everyone's socks off, and since it's from the director of Max Payne, how could it not? In short, this year isn't off to a good start. We got spoiled with last December, as we usually do, so hopefully we see something genuinely great soon, unless you thought Mama overcame a lackluster script, that Movie 43 wasn't the Antichrist sent from Satan himself, and if you even remember that movie with Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe. The Last Stand isn't included, because no more than five people saw it. Hopefully a few of you go out to see these movies and have a fun time, though:
Film Jockeys #8: Night of the Loving Dead
Features By Derek Bacon on February 1, 2013 | Be the First To CommentWhat happens when a legendary film critic brings is geriatric crankiness to an internet movie show? Film Jockeys follows the adventures of Carl Barker, his far-too-young production staff, the filmmakers and the movie characters that inhabit their world. Written and illustrated by Derek Bacon, it's the perfect webcomic for passionate film fans who love a little zombie romance. For your consideration, Episode #8:
Review: Smart Humor and Sweetness Breathe Life Into the Touch-and-Go 'Warm Bodies'
Movie Reviews By Caitlin Hughes on January 31, 2013 | Comments (1)Warm Bodies really messes with zombie mythology. If zombies try hard enough they can talk. They can also have zombie friends. They can also fall in love. And mostly skeletal zombies, called Boneys, can run faster than any human, while regular zombies lurch along at a rigamortis-ridden, glacial pace. With these and other transgressions aside, Warm Bodies never ceases to be entertaining. Written and directed by Jonathan Levine (50/50), the film features winning performances from all of its lead actors, a cleverly written script, and most importantly, an innate heart that makes it easy to overlook any mistakes. Our protagonist and narrator is R (Nicholas Hoult), so named because he can't remember his name from when he was alive… only that it might have begun with an "R." R is a zombie, and yes, he does eat people, but at least he's conflicted about it, right? Death has also been kind to him, as while he is slowed down some, and is really pale and quite banged up, his hair looks artfully tousled and his eyes have turned a dreamy ice blue.
The Holidays Have All But Shut Down Hollywood, So Let's Just Watch the First Four Minutes of 'Warm Bodies'
Movie News By Kate Erbland on December 27, 2012 | Comments (2)The week between Christmas and New Year's is a notorious dead zone in Hollywood Newsland, but like a moaning, grasping zombie, we here at Film School Rejects are determined to rise above it with fresh content. Mmm, delicious fresh content, arrrggghhh, brainnns. Where were we? Right! Fresh content! Content like the first four minutes of Jonathan Levine's upcoming Warm Bodies.The Nicholas Hoult-starring zombie comedy (zom-com) puts a on sweet twist on the horror movie trope, with Hoult's "R" struggling to be a young zombie in a undead-filled world. He just wants to connect to people! But, of course, that's hard to do when you're a zombie and most "people" aren't really people anymore. That all changes when he meets a red-blooded young lady, but before we get to that, let's get to know a little bit about R's day-to-day life (or something like it). After the break, check out the first four minutes of Warm Bodies, thanks to Fandango. Let's snuggle.
You're Going to Have to Wait to Snuggle Up With 'Warm Bodies'; Release Date Pushed
Movie News By Kate Erbland on February 10, 2012 | Be the First To CommentLooks like we're going to have to adjust our list of The 52 Most Anticipated Movies of 2012, knocking the number down to a significantly less exciting 51. Summit Entertainment has just announced that they are pushing the release of Warm Bodies from August 10 of this year allllllll the way to February 1 of next year. When I touted the film as part of our most anticipated list of plenty, I explained it as such: Jonathan Levine follows up his critical cancer comedy hit, 50/50, with an en vogue type of affair – a zombie love story based on a YA novel. But Isaac Marion's source material shares considerably more with Romeo and Juliet than it does with The Walking Dead and that, along with its up-and-coming cast (Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Analeigh Tipton, Dave Franco, Rob Corddry, and no less than John Malkovich) recommend this original look at love at the end of the world. And that's all still true, but now we have to wait six more months to catch it. I feel like a zombie just took a bite out of my heart. While I'm not the biggest fan of Marion's novel, I think it's a fun basis for a film, and I believe in both Levine and the solid cast he's assembled for this outing.
Movie News After Dark: The World's End, Drive, Warm Bodies, Kirsten Dunst and Ira Glass: Movie Producer
Movie News By Neil Miller on January 24, 2012 | Be the First To CommentWhat is Movie News After Dark? It's a nightly dose of awesome movie news, with a side of other stuff you'll probably want to read in between all the movie news. We begin tonight with an image of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg pondering The World's End, the supposed third film in their "Three Flavors Cornetto Trilogy" that began with Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. It's about damned time, as they say. From Scott Pilgrim to Star Trek, the pair have done plenty of great things apart, but now we'll hopefully see them wrap this thing up. Unless Marvel calls Edgar about that Ant-Man movie…
First Look at Zombie Nicholas Hoult in Jonathan Levine's 'Warm Bodies' Adaptation
First Look By Kate Erbland on January 9, 2012 | Comments (4)Somehow, I just knew that our "52 Most Anticipated Movies of 2012″ would pay off! You know, eventually. Included on that massive list is 50/50 director Jonathan Levine's next film, and while the idea of a sexy zombie story about teens might turn some of you off, I beg you to give it a chance. Based on Isaac Marion's 2011 novel of the same name, the film follows young zombie R (Nicholas Hoult) as he grapples with a new twist on the classic zombie story – he's not dealing with the fall-out of turning into a zombie, he's trying to come to terms with becoming a human (again). Young R has been a zombie for, well, he doesn't even know how long (but not too long, he's still got meat on his bones), and everything else pre-zombification is just weird memory ether. It's not there. But all that changes when a beautiful human girl (Teresa Palmer) and some weird happenings begin to dull the desire for brains and blood in R, while also awakening the human that might still lurk inside him. R's change has not only personal implications, but effects on human-zombie relations at large. That may seem somewhat hard to picture, which is why I'm glad we get our first look at Hoult in his zombie get-up today. Readers of Marion's excellent book will surely approve of his look, as it matches up with the author's description of R quite handily. Check out the full look at Hoult […]
The 52 Most Anticipated Movies of 2012
Cinematic Listology By FSR Staff on January 2, 2012 | Comments (33)It's already the second day of 2012, which means we'll all be sober within the next day or two. It also means that we can officially start looking (through blurry eyes) ahead to the future. A future of promise and potential. A future of hope. A future of tingling anticipation that the road stretched out in front of us that leads to the cinema will be paved with gold. Will there be piles of excrement along the way? Of course, but we don't know how many or how badly they'll tarnish our yellow-bricked roller coaster ride. All we can see from this far out is the shimmering wonder of movies to come – the vast unknown that looks wonderful (and might just live up to the hype). In past years (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011), we've gone with a fairly arbitrary count of 20-30 movies. This year, we decided to prove that there were 52 movies worth prematurely celebrating (even though what we found were many more). That's one for every week (even if there are some weeks with a few and some weeks with none at all). Regardless of the number, Rob Hunter, Neil Miller, Kate Erbland, Allison Loring, Landon Palmer, Brian Salisbury and Cole Abaius have joined forces to remind us all that there are a lot of great movies to hope for this year. Go grab a calendar and pencil in everything that gets your blood pressure up toward unsafe levels. It's going to be a busy, flick-filled […]
The Holiday Gift Guide: 18 Great Books for Movie Lovers
Features By Kate Erbland on December 13, 2011 | Comments (3)It may shock you to realize that you, dear reader, are a reader. You are reading this right now! Bizarre, right? And, if you can read things on the Internet, you can certainly read things that come in the traditionally accepted reading format, better known as a "book." And if you can do it, surely the people in your life that you love enough to buy holiday presents for can do it, too! Enter The Holiday Gift Guide, and more specifically, enter this particular contribution: 18 Books for Movie Lovers. So shiny and wrap-able! So easily order-able and ship-able! So key to preventing widespread illiteracy! After the break, check out seventeen (but really eighteen) books for the movie lover in your life for holiday season gift-giving. Unlike some of those other guides, not all of these books hit shelves in the past eleven months, as I stretched beyond just this calendar year to come up with some unexpected literary picks to make your gift-giving that much more original. Did I make an egregious omission? Of course I did. Put your obvious suggestions in the comments. And, hey, if you gift one of these books and it's a big hit, let us know which one it was. It's always nice to hear praise. Happy Chrismakwanzakuh, you guys.
Movie News After Dark: World War Z, Thor, Fraggle Rock and 25 Years of Pixar
Movie News By Neil Miller on March 30, 2011 | Be the First To CommentWhat is Movie News After Dark? It's your definitive source of Pixar pandering, at least for tonight. But hey, at least we get it out of the way in a single article. Try reading other sites — it's Pixar this, Pixar that, even the new Batman reboot will be done by Pixar. Good grief. That said, we watched The Incredibles on Blu-ray this evening and it was INCR… you get the idea. Now on with the news. We begin tonight with news that excites me. It's no secret that Max Brooks' book "World War Z" is a personal favorite of mine. It's exceptional in every possible way and one of the great zombie apocalypse stories ever written. So to see it come to life as a movie is risky, but worth it. When the project was reportedly in danger a few weeks ago, I was sad. But now I'm happy(ish) again, as a new report says that World War Z could get financing and even begin shooting this summer. If I could, I would will this project to happen. It may be impossible, but I'm going to try.
Teresa Palmer to Kiss a Zombie in 'Warm Bodies'
Casting Couch By Nathan Adams on March 29, 2011 | Comments (2)It looks as if the absurd notion of making a teen zombie romance movie is becoming more than just a notion, as Summit's Warm Bodies is deep in the casting process. Already signed to star is Nicholas Hoult, who is about to take the screen as the new Beast in X-Men: First Class. And now actress Teresa Palmer is rumored to be close to signing on as the love interest. The film is being described as a cross between Twilight and Shaun of the Dead, so I guess that means that half of it is going to be embarrassingly melodramatic, while the other half will be irreverent and fun. I'm not sure exactly how that will look, but the name drop of Shaun of the Dead at least gives me hope that this project could be entertaining, and not a complete train wreck. Palmer's character is described as the daughter of a high-ranking military man who falls in love with a zombie after it eats her boyfriend. Their budding relationship goes on to change the way humans and zombies interact all over the world. I've seen Palmer work in both I Am Number Four and Take Me Home Tonight. In I Am Number Four she didn't get much to do other than look like a stone faced badass, but she handled the jumping around and punching stuff thing well. And I thought that she was appropriately charming and magnetic as the object of affection in Take Me Home Tonight. If […]
'Twilight' Fever Has Now Infected the Zombies
In Development By Scott Beggs on March 2, 2011 | Comments (3)Just like that time you got snakes to get rid of the mice infesting your house, and you ended up having to get mongooses to eat the snakes and then honey badgers to eat the mongooses and then armored tanks to get rid of the honey badgers, the next wave of horror romance has infected its next fad. Vampires are now passing the burning sensation in their loins over to Zombies. Summit, as you might guess, is still to blame. The plucky young studio will be using some of its Twi-capital to produce Warm Bodies – the story of a zombie named R that falls for one of his victims' girlfriends and starts what must be a fetishistic relationship with her. Nicholas Hoult, who plays Beast in the forthcoming X-Men: First Class, is set to star. It's unclear how this twist on the genre works exactly. Romance and vampires? Got it. Easy. Romance and that mindless mass of rotting flesh trying to constantly eat brains? That's a different story. Speaking of which, the project is an adaptation of an as-yet-unpublished novel by Isaac Marion. It's also the next evolution in shoving genre monsters into other formulas and calling it interesting. Of course, as always, it's the execution that really matters. The bright side is that Jonathan Levine (The Wackness) will be writing and directing, so at least there's talent bringing a singular vision to the project. Plus, Hoult may prove to be a strong acting presence even without blue CGI […]
Neil Miller
Scott Beggs
Rob Hunter
Kate Erbland
Christopher Campbell


text:
Fri, Sep 14, 12 at 12:08
At last! I finished the binding on this quilt that is going to the High Park Fire victims in our area. I won about 20 of the blocks in one of our lottos and made 16 more to make this a double bed size. The back is the same russet color as the binding. I have a couple other quilts that I had finished with no real destination in mind, so they are folded and ready to go as well. My DH is always saying "what is that quilt for?" and when I don't have anywhere/one in mind, he just shrugs his shoulders. Then, when I take one to donate, he says, "that is really too nice to give away!" What a crazy guy...
Anyway, we both agree that it feels good to have going to worthy recipients. |
Follow-Up Postings:
Love it! Love scrappies. My husband always says "Who's this for?" And since most of my quilts are chemo quilts, my answer is "I haven't a clue". |
Oh, Sue, it's wonderful! Someone will really treasure it. Donna |
Absolutely beautiful. You have a great heart. |
I remember that lotto! This is a beautiful quilt, for a great cause. |
I love scrappy quilts. That is beautiful! Do you remember the name of the block? |
Great scrappy quilt, Sue. How large (or small) are the individual little squares? |
Congratulations, your quilt is lovily and very worth while. It is sure to lighthen someones heart. Nice way to use your good fortune in winning the lotto.TFS |
I remember! It was called Chiclets, because the first one I did, did not cut the muster and I ended up making a pillow cover out of it. Vickie was doing the lotto then. That's been awhile. Beautiful quilt, it is beautiful. |
- Posted by jennifer_in_va (My Page) on Fri, Sep 14, 12 at 22:25
Looks great! Someone is going to be very lucky! |
- Posted by polardream (My Page) on Sat, Sep 15, 12 at 12:35
Calliope - you are right, it was Chiclet. I am attaching the link for the pattern. Lois, the squares are 2-1/2 inch. It was a great way to use up LOTS of scraps. It was good to finish it and get it donated. I have several other tops that I should get busy with but I just love piecing ... |
Here is a link that might be useful: Chiclets quilt pattern
- Posted by magothyrivergirl (My Page) on Sat, Sep 15, 12 at 14:50
Sue, great use of your Lotto winnings! Your extra blocks are just as scrappy as all the others!! I really like the way you placed the the rust border and made the quilt wider. This is a generous gift. Thanks for the link to the block. |
- Posted by toolgranny (My Page) on Mon, Sep 17, 12 at 20:31
Wonderful job, Sue. I know someone will just treasure it. |
- Posted by quiltingfox (My Page) on Mon, Sep 17, 12 at 22:48
That's a beautiful, scrappy quilt! TFS. Best to you, |
What a very beautiful quilt! |
- Posted by littlehelen (My Page) on Wed, Sep 19, 12 at 22:01
The quilt is lovely!!...love the scrappy look...I'm confident this will be greatly appreciated and treasured. V. |
- Posted by geezerfolks (My Page) on Thu, Sep 20, 12 at 9:00
I really like this, Sue! Planning to print it out and keep with the box of 2 1/2 inch squares I have to remind me what can be done with them. Actually, this looks to be a very nice 'mindless' sewing project......which I am really into right now. SharonG/FL |
Lovely quilt Sue and what a great stash buster! |
Please Note: Only registered members are able to post messages to this forum. If you are a member, please log in. If you aren't yet a member, join now!
Return to the Quilting Forum
Information about Posting
- You must be logged in to post a message. Once you are logged in, a posting window will appear at the bottom of the messages. If you are not a member, please register for an account.
- Please review our Rules of Play before posting.
- Posting is a two-step process. Once you have composed your message, you will be taken to the preview page. You will then have a chance to review your post, make changes and upload photos.
- After posting your message, you may need to refresh the forum page in order to see it.
- Before posting copyrighted material, please read about Copyright and Fair Use.
- We have a strict no-advertising policy!
- If you would like to practice posting or uploading photos, please visit our Test forum.
- If you need assistance, please Contact Us and we will be happy to help.
Learn more about in-text links on this page here