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Thanksgiving often puts us in a grateful mood. And if you're in marketing, you have plenty to be thankful for.
As technology has advanced marketers have reaped the benefits. In fact, the road to modern marketing has been paved with new technologies. As a result, marketers have far more opportunities to reach a larger set of buyers, find their niche and actually see the results.
So we've decided to take some time out and name 23 of the technologies marketers should say thanks for. Here goes!
1. The Internet
Maybe it's not top of mind, but the Internet truly changed the game, giving buyers control. That opened up new territory for marketers and they've been increasingly digitally savvy.
Managing customers and opportunities can get messy. Thanks to Customer Relationship Management (CRM), the number of spreadsheets and updates is more fresh, automated and less painful.
3. Search Engines
Some of us remember when you could first type in a couple words in Google and get instant access to the world's knowledge. It re-shaped modern marketing and opened a new, more efficient form of advertising.
4. Online Chat
Let's see, a customer can get on your website, click a button and make an instant connection. What's not to love.
5. Online Surveys
Getting a view of customer sentiment, market feedback and gauging interest was once a time-consuming process. Now you can fire out a survey and get a quick responses back.
6. Email
Do we even have to give you a reason? Email changed the world, and marketing, for the better. It was instant messaging before instant messaging was a thing. And email marketing remains remarkably high.
7. Virtual Events
Event marketing works. We know this. But you don't always have to jump on a plane and stand in front of a booth. Virtual events are connecting more people than ever.
8. Social Media
Reach millions of potential customers and influencers, hear what people are saying about you and your customers, connect directly with those who have an interest your brand - clearly social media is a boon for marketers.
9. Online Video
We're no longer dominated by commercials. With the birth of online video hosting, marketers can move on the fly and truly put out some creative content.
10. Gamification
We all want engagement and gamification enables us to reward our community for doing just that. It's human nature to want to 'win', and gamification helps make marketing more fun for consumers.
11. Blogging
You're reading one right now. Blogs made publishing far more accessible to the masses and to brands. Those organizations who get it right can be leaders in their industry without a lot of pomp and circumstance.
12. Smartphones
Hard to believe that not long ago mobile phones were, well, phones. Now, the smartphone is how many of us search, explore and even purchase. Many marketers are still exploring how to tap into the riches of mobile, but clearly smartphones are open up new territory.
13. Webinars
In-person events are not going away, but webinars are making the reach and speed of your thought leadership extend further than ever.
14. Web Analytics
If the Web opened a novel ways of reaching and engaging buyers, than Web analytics have made measuring and improving those efforts easier. It's hard to imagine a world without that kind of instantaneous metrics.
15. Apps
There was once a time when the Internet was just like the wild west. With the advent of the apps, the experience became more filtered and easier to navigate. For marketers, this has made it easier to communicate and focus the buyer.
16. Content Management Systems
"Content is king" has become a familiar refrain in marketing. But the king can feel unruly. Content management systems are making it easier to tame the beast, keeping teams on the same page and putting assets in the right place.
17. Location-Based Ads
With the advent of mobile, directing advertising to consumers based on where they are right that moment has become possible. This long-held dream of marketers is finally true. And the rewards are just being discovered.
18. The Cloud
You can't go anywhere without hearing about cloud computing. The cloud has made marketing faster, simpler and been key in birthing many of the technologies listed here. There's very few elements of modern marketing that doesn't owe a debt to the cloud.
19. Ad-Tech
The old methods of buying and selling ads was painful, slow and not all that efficient. Programmatic ad-tech companies and the advancement of Real-Time Bidding have made the process smarter and more targeted.
20. Augmented Reality
Literally changing our world. Augmented reality make it possible to create a social layer over your print ads, billboards, etc.
21. Tablets
Didn't we cover this with smartphones? Not really. In just a few short years, tablets have boomed, changing the way we access the Web and giving marketers new means of interacting with customers.
22. Private Social Networks
If we're thankful for social media, we're also grateful for the private version of social media. These allow marketers to communicate across the organization, discover insight and ideas, and do it all instantly.
23. Marketing Automation
We're biased, but we love the way marketing automation ties it all together for modern marketers. The ability to automate communications and ensure accuracy in delivering the right message to the right person at the right time - you got to love that.
What technologies are you thankful for? Let us know in the comments.
And if you want more, just subscribe.


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NEWS - Reflections Of A Glorious Age? Putting 25 Years of eLearning Under The Microscope.
Ever thought about what eLearning might look like in 25 years' time or what significant historical events and innovations have provided a backdrop for learning technologies development over the past quarter of a century? Can you remember what learning looked like all that time ago or, if you were still a twinkle in your parents' eye back then, why and how things have evolved in the way they have done? To celebrate Unicorn's silver anniversary this year we have joined up with e-Learning Age magazine to produce a special digital publication - Reflections on 25 years in eLearning and the next 25 years! The publication includes insightful, interactive features on the changing economics of the industry, technological advances and the evolution of the eLearning community, from contributors Peter Phillips (Unicorn CEO), Helen Watts (Unicorn Director) and Bob Little (eLearning chronicler), alongside a fun 25 year timeline and our predictions, some serious some not so, as to what the next 25 years could hold. Videos and blast-from-the-past demos and graphics provide a window to what the eLearning world looked like then and now in what we hope will provide a comprehensive document to put a pivotal 25 years for the industry into context. Peter Phillips said: "It is a special year for Unicorn and as one of the earliest, and still thriving, eLearning companies we thought such a digital publication would provide an entertaining and valuable record of just how our industry has developed, what have been the main challenges, solutions and drivers and what is on the horizon for us all. "It was an enjoyable, nostalgic and often funny experience trawling back through our old courseware and chatting to people from the period remembering pioneering individuals, companies and innovations that were going to be 'The Next Big Thing' but were never heard of again. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as we have putting it together." You can access the 25 years digital supplement now. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

subset: commoncrawl


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U.S. home-builder sentiment improved unexpectedly in February as prospective buyers showed more interest, but the gauge remained near historic lows, the National Association of Home Builders said on Tuesday.
The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market index rose 1 point to 20 in February from 19 in January, the group said in a statement. In December the index had fallen to 18, the lowest level since the survey began in January 1985, it said.
Economists polled by Reuters had predicted the index would be unchanged at 19. Readings below 50 mean more builders view market conditions as poor than favorable.
Despite the improvement in February, the index remains well below the peak of 72 reached in the most recent economic expansion, during June 2005.
The NAHB's president, Sandy Dunn, said the beleaguered housing market needed help from Washington to recover.
"Housing has always been a major engine of economic growth, and despite the ongoing market correction, it will once again be that engine in the future," Dunn, a home builder from Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and the newly elected 2008 president of the NAHB, said in a statement.
"But in order for that to happen, Congress must follow up on its recently enacted economic stimulus program by passing legislation that will jump-start the housing market and keep the economy moving forward."
The measure of current single-family sales also edged up to 20 in February from 19 in January. The NAHB's index for single-family sales for the next six months fell to 27 in February from 28 in January.
The gauge measuring the traffic of prospective buyers jumped to 19 in February -- its highest since hitting the same mark in July 2007 -- from 14 in January.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said he did not place too much stock in the uptick in the NAHB index.
Financial markets showed a little more reaction. Stocks added slightly to their earlier gains. Government bonds, which usually benefit from signs of economic weakness, added to the day's earlier losses.
In the regional breakdown, the index covering the Northeast firmed to 24 in February from 21 in January. The Midwest held steady at 16. The South advanced to 24 from 22 and the West edged up to 15 from 13.


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This piece was originally published by CommonDreams.org on Oct. 28, 2003.
* * *
As I drove on I-94 to Lakewood Cemetery on Saturday, my heart was filled with so many emotions. Grief and anguish. Anger and despair. Sadness and joy. Hope. It had been one year since the plane crash that took the lives of six incredible people I was lucky to have known, and whom I miss terribly. On this anniversary, I was feeling overwhelmed with sorrow until I saw a banner hung over an overpass that said:
Paul and Sheila, May your hope give us hope. May your love give us love. May your strength give us strength. May your faith give us faith.
I carried those comforting words of the one and only Bruce Springsteen with me all day. They echo in my ears still now.
The last day that I saw Paul and Sheila Wellstone was September 29th, 2002. It was the Twin Cities Marathon and a perfect autumn day. Paul and Sheila loved to cheer for the runners and many Wellstone staff and supporters, including Will McLaughlin and Mary McEvoy, stood on the curb outside Judy McLaughlin's home on Summit Avenue shouting words of encouragement at the 25th mile.
Their biggest fan was, of course, Paul. He slapped them on the back, ran out into the street to high-five them, and yelled in the way only Paul could, "You're almost there! Only a mile to go! You're on the home stretch! I know you can do it!"
I had heard Paul speak at hundreds of events before - at schools, senior centers, and labor rallies; in the Senate; at the state fair and even in own my living room. But it was on this beautiful fall day in St. Paul that I realized, more than ever, what was so uniquely special about this man and why I still got goosebumps every time I heard him speak: he was our biggest cheerleader. He supported us, encouraged us, and inspired us.
Paul loved being out there and he wished he could have been running the marathon himself. That day there was a camera crew following Paul and Sheila around. On camera, Paul told this story that I didn't see until months after he died: "I went to an event with the deaf community at St. Paul Technical College. A woman came up to me and said, 'I want to teach you how to sign something.' And she showed me how to sign, 'I am not afraid.' He repeated and signed, 'I am not afraid.' - I will never forget that," he said.
Since October 25, 2002, there has been a vacuum for the thousands of us whose lives were touched by Paul and Sheila, Marcia and Mary, Will and Tom. I miss witnessing the joy that was so evident in their lives, their compassion for humanity, and their hope for building a better tomorrow. The loss is immeasurable.
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One year later, on October 25th of this year, I was talking with a friend and told him that the hardest part for me during this past year has been missing those people and not witnessing the embodiment of the goodness that I believed at my very core. When the plane went down, we were all shocked, horrified, and full of mourning. We didn't understand how we could lose so much, so quickly. But now we have had a year of not seeing their determined and smiling faces working for peace and justice, feeling their passion when they spoke, hearing their words of encouragement at the 25th mile. My friend, who is a very wise man, said, "Paul was a religion to us." And he was.
We believed in the principles that Paul and Sheila stood for and we acted on those beliefs. We had faith that goodness and justice would prevail even in the eyes of defeat. We found comfort in their integrity, strength in their courage, peace in their compassion and in everything, hope.
Since that fateful day last October, I have had a button of Paul on my winter coat that I wore every day until it was warm enough outside that I didn't need to wear it anymore. Sometimes I forgot that I had it on. I stood at a coffee shop and the girl at the counter said, "Paul Wellstone was my hero." I was pumping gas and an older gentleman smiled kindly and said, "He sure was a fighter." And there were plenty of comments about what folks thought of Paul's opponent in his final campaign and about the manner in which he conducted himself, but as this is a piece honoring our friends, I will not use expletives.
I was at a holiday party two months after the crash, on Christmas Day, and a friend of mine from high school whom I hadn't seen for quite some time came up to me, hugged me, and with tears in his eyes, told me that because of Paul, his grandmother finally received the veterans' benefits that were due to her late husband and that she didn't have to sell her lifelong home. She received the letter from Paul's office the week of the accident. There are so many stories like these and quite honestly, wearing Paul over my heart turned into a selfish act in some ways. I love hearing how people's lives were touched by the Wellstones, and I want us to continue to remember and to never forget.
On the last day of the campaign kickoff tour last May, we were just finishing up our last event at Daube's Bakery in Rochester. The bakery was packed and overflowing to the parking lot, and Paul's speech was an incredibly energizing end to four days of campaigning all around the state. After the event, I was trying to get Paul to do a short interview with a reporter I had promised time to after the speech. As I was attempting very unsuccessfully to get Paul closer to the door, he stopped at the bakery counter, grabbed my arm and in all seriousness said to me, "Kelly, have you tried the coffeecake here? It's the best! Sheila and I love it!" I admitted to him that I hadn't and Paul insisted that I buy some to take home with me. He raved to the bakery owners and employees about how fabulous their food was. I think this is what I miss most about Paul and Sheila - how genuinely alive they were. They always took the time to say thank you, to pay attention to things large and small, and to do it with a twinkle in their eyes. They were our cheerleaders.
A marathon is 26.2 miles long. That's about 25.2 miles more than I have ever run. We were standing there, cheering, whistling, clapping and all morning, runners who had made it such a great distance would stop to shake Paul's hand or get a hug or take a picture. So many people thanked Paul and Sheila for being there to cheer, to tell them they had a lawn sign in their yard, and to say they couldn't wait to vote for Paul. Those who wore Wellstone t-shirts or stickers received extra enthusiastic cheers from us.
When people stopped, Paul would laugh and say, "Keep going! Get back out there! You're almost done!" And often, softly, "Thank you for saying that. It means a lot." Hundreds of runners came by. One man I will never forget came up to Paul, took his hand, and said, "I just want you to know how proud I am to have you as my Senator."
So was I, Paul. And you were right about the coffeecake.
Kelly Bjorklund is enjoying a slightly more forgiving climate in the Bay Area, but still enjoys hotdish and calls Minnesota home. She can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Now launched: http://readingsbyanthony.bigcartel.com/
I will now be selling tarot card readings. I'm making videos of the readings and uploading them here: http://www.youtube.com/user/readingsbyanthony
Right now, the special I am offering is the Celtic Cross tarot card spread. 10 cards. The Celtic Cross spread is one of the best known spreads and is great for giving a complete and detailed review of a situation. The cards represent the person asking the question, the forces that oppose them, what is at the root of the problem, the recent past, present, and soon to be future, how the questioner sees the situation, their allies and supporters, the questioner's hopes and fears, and the possible outcome. This spread is great for a general reading for the upcoming months or an in depth analysis of a particular topic.
Love & light~~
Tarot Card Readings
General discussion, news, info, new releases etc.
Post Reply
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- chemicalxkid
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Thu Aug 11, 2011 11:51 am
- Location: Reno, Nevada, United States of America
- Contact:
Tarot Card Readings
My name is Anthony Ponticello. Every living creature on this earth dies alone. ▲▽▲▲.
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Recurring Billing With Google Checkout
If your website offers subscription-only content, Google Checkout offers you two convenient ways to securely bill customers on a recurring basis. You can choose between a fully automated system or a more hands-on option, depending on your needs. No matter which you choose, you can assure your customers that their personal information is kept safe and secure, and that you never actually handle their credit card details or processing.
Google-Handled Subscriptions
If you want your users to be recurrently billed without your intervention, setting up a Google-Handled Subscription is the option for you. With this option, you set how often billing recurs, a maximum amount of money that users are charged per item and an optional date upon which the charges go through. Maximum charge amounts are useful if you charge sales tax, since sales tax rates can sometimes fluctuate depending on changes passed by local taxing bodies. If you choose to charge users once a month based on the date they signed up, you don't need to set a specific date on which their recurring billing will occur. However, if you choose to bill all users on the 15th of the month to keep your records neat, you have the option. Once you've set up these options, Google will take care of all Google-handled subscriptions that your users purchase.
Merchant-Handled Subscriptions
Google's Merchant-Handled subscriptions option offers you all the same options as its Google-Handled Subscriptions option -- plus a few more. With a merchant-handled subscription, you can offer your users discounts as incentives to sign up for recurring billing through your store. For example, you can offer the first three months of your service at a reduced rate, then charge the regular rate for the remainder of the subscription period. Choosing the merchant-handled subscription option doesn't give you access to your users' credit card information. However, you manually control what amount they're charged -- up to the maximum allowed per item -- as well as when they're charged.
Google Checkout Subscriptions is a feature that is still in beta as of October 2011. As with any software that is currently in the beta-testing phase of development, you should expect that it might sometimes have bugs that you wouldn't see in a fully-developed public release. If you have any problems with it, contact Google Checkout support directly to resolve them. In addition to finding resolution to your problem, you'll be aiding in the development of an important and useful service that Google offers to the public.
One known issue with Google Checkout Subscriptions is that you cannot currently cancel subscriptions from the Merchant Center as of October 2011. Google's documentation offers three possible workarounds for this problem. You can assign a finite amount of time to each subscription, so it expires on its own. You can also go directly to the API of the virtual shopping cart your customer used to purchase the subscription, then cancel it from there. Finally, if it's a merchant-handled Subscription, you can simply not charge your customer ever again for the item or service in question. Your users always have the option to cancel subscriptions themselves from their original receipt for the subscription order.
Photo Credits
- Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images


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With +10000 restaurants covering +72 cities in Saudi Arabia & Bahrain, WE'VE GOT YOUR BACK!
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Choose a paying method, check out, relax and wait for your order!
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I describe the materials and techniques I use to create chenille scarves, nuno felt scarves, shibori scarves and jackets, beaded fiber pins, and dyed resisted and discharged jackets. To see more of my work, please visit my website at http://www.CarolFurtado.com.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
jelly rolls and new garments
I had learned to make jelly rolls 20 years ago from Susan Murphy and had been wanting to get back to it.I have been trying my own method of spreading out all the layers one on top of the other then rolling all the layers together. I think it has been pretty successful. I do want to try rolling one layer over the inside, one at a time. I made a series of little pins with the tiny slices of jellyroll as the accent and most of them are too nice to put beads on them. i wonder since the felt in the jellyroll is so thin,will it hold together. i could do other things with the jellyroll slices like parts of a necklace.
Posted by Carol Furtado at 6:28 AM 1 comment:
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Discussion by: smalvarmouco
Any advice for me? My little daughter fears death. She's worrying about the day her mam and dad will die. She has constant nightmares.
Do you know about a book we could read with her, for example before she goes to bed?
We live in Spain. If you knew about a spanish edition, that would be perfect.
Otherwise, how can I explain death a way she can understand it and stop worrying about it?


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Hans Werner HENZE
German composer, 1926-2012
Drei Tentos (1958) | guitar | 6'
Neue Volkslieder und Hirtengesänge (1983-1987) | quintet | 14'
Carillon, Récitatif, Masque (1974) | trio of plucked strings | 12'
Hans Werner Henze was born in Gütersloh, Westphalia, in 1926 and began composing at the age of twelve. He studied at the Brunswick State Music School and, after military service, at the Institute for Church Music in Heidelberg and with Wolfgang Fortner. He attended the early Darmstadt International Summer Schools for New Music, where he met René Leibowitz, studying serial technique with him both there and in Paris. Of Henze's huge catalogue of works the earliest acknowledged date from 1946: the Kammerkonzert for piano, flute and strings, and the sonata for violin and piano. The following year brought the first string quartet, violin concerto and symphony. In 1948 he produced his first opera, the one-act 'Das Wundertheater', premiered in Heidelberg, and in 1949 his first acknowledged ballet, 'Ballett-Variationen'.
His first full-scale opera, 'Boulevard Solitude', an updating of the Manon Lescaut story, was successfully launched in Hanover in 1952, but a year later Henze abandoned postwar German society to settle in Italy, where he still lives. His next opera, 'König Hirsch', and a whole series of pieces reflect the warming influence on him of the Italian environment. Henze memorably described himself as 'a north German contrapuntal temperament projected into the arioso south'; and the modernist, Schoenbergian and Stravinskyan influences of his earlier work now submitted to the tender sway of a sensuous lyricism clearly evident in the ballet 'Ondine', the 'Fünf neapolitanische Lieder' for baritone and chamber orchestra, the 'Nachtstücke und Arien' for soprano and large orchestra. To this rich synthesis was added a more austere classical strain in works such as 'Cantata della fiaba estrema' for soprano, chamber chorus and instruments, or 'Ariosi' for soprano, violin and orchestra; while a constructivistic approach was brought to bear on such pieces as 'Antifone' for solo strings, wind and percussion, the cantata 'Novae de infinito laudes', and the Kleist-based opera 'Der Prinz von Homburg'.
Henze's operatic career reached a pitch of boldness and acclaim with 'The Bassarids', a two-hour single act conceived as a four-movement symphony, premiered in Salzburg in 1966; while his 45-minute second piano concerto of 1967 was a peak of his more abstract writing. But with the oratorio 'Das Floss der Medusa', and more conspicuously the 'Versuch über Schweine' for baritone-Sprechgesang and orchestra, both of the following year, and the exuberant, aleatory sixth symphony of 1969, a complete change came over Henze's work.
Political protest, deep-dyed into the very fabric of the music - and indicated by his periods of residence in Cuba - marks his output of the 1970s, as attested by the revolutionary 'recital for four musicians' of El Cimarrón, followed by a concerto for viola and small orchestra, entitled 'Compases', the quasi-theatrical second violin concerto, and the 'actions for music' 'We come to the River', a stage work to a libretto by Edward Bond. Since the appearance of this work, first performed at Covent Garden in 1976, the political ferment of Henze's creativity has tended to subside.
Revolutionary ideals invariably lead to disillusion; but he does count the foundation that same year of the Cantiere Internazionale d'Arte - a people's arts festival - in the Tuscan town of Montepulciano as 'one of my few political successes'. Subsequent stage works include two other Bond collaborations, however: the comic parable of 'The English Cat' and the ballet 'Orpheus'; and if in the most recent two, 'Das verratene Meer' and 'Venus und Adonis', both to a libretto by Hans-Ulrich Treichel, attention is focused on personal and psychological experience - as it also is in the seventh symphony or the instrumental (wordless) 'Requiem' - the cantata-like Symphony No 9, 'dedicated to the heroes and martyrs of German antifascism', is there to remind us that vehement political protest still looms large in Henze's imagination.
After the completion of his tenth symphony he started working on his opera 'L'Upupa und der Triumph der Sohnesliebe' which was premiered at the Salzburg Festival in summer 2003 to great international acclaim. It resulted in many future productions, such as at Teatro Real Madrid, Opera de Lyon, Hamburgische Staatsoper and Semperoper Dresden. In December 2005 the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam premiered the orchestral work 'Sebastian im Traum' which was followed by the opera 'Phaedra' at Staatsoper Berlin in September 2007 with subsequent performances in Brussels, Frankfurt, Vienna and Cologne. A dramatic poem by Franz Werfel inspired 'Opfergang - Immolatione' which was premiered in Rome in January 2010 by Ian Bostridge, Sir John Tomlinson, Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Later that year a new opera, 'Gisela!', was premiered as part of a major feature within ruhr 2010 and the opera was also produced at Semperoper Dresden a few months later.
He has received innumerable honours and was the first composer-in-residence of the Berlin Philharmonic and has twice been composer-in-residence at the Tanglewood Festival.


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Two-time Emmy winner Blythe Danner (Huff), Madeline Zima (Californication) and Sarah Bolger (The Tudors) have joined Shonda Rhimes' period drama pilot Gilded Lillys.
Pilot Season: ABC orders Shonda Rhimes' period drama pilotWritten by KJ Steinberg (Gossip Girl, The Nine) and set in 1895, Lillys follows the opening of the first true luxury hotel built in New York City, along with the Lily family who owns it, the staff who work there and those who stay there.Danner will play Caroline, the ruthless and wickedly funny widowed grandmother. Bolger will play Violet, the virginal, beautiful and rebellious daughter who has a devoted personal maid Abigail (Zima).


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Sign up!
Create a user account and send your SMS messages in seconds. You will have all the functionalities and benefits in the same platform.
Send from API and manage your account with our online application WebSMS.
All actions and links present on landing pages can be modified and personalized. Links can load internal or external links, prompt a phone call, download files, send a message or notification, share content on social media, or open a map indicating a specific address for example.


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Auction Fundraiser
Description: An auction done as a fundraising event can be the focal point of a fun evening. Get donated goods, gift baskets, gift certificates, and other popular items. Don't forget service-based organizations when looking for donations. Also, seek out a professional auctioneer for maximum results. Their patter is part of the fun.
Best Suited For: Medium/Large groups
Prospective Customers: Varies with items being auctioned.Bargain hunters.
Comments: Look at eBay for ideas on what to auction. Can be big producer if done right. Must have big turnout, someone to egg the crowd on, need reserve levels on high-ticket items. Group things by categories and announce those in advance. Provide something for everyone. Great event to add a supplement.
Feel Good Rating: Five stars
Auction Fundraiser Ratings
Financial Aspects (1 – 10 scale): Profitability Ranking 8 Average Unit Price 7 Dollar Volume Per Participant 8 Percentage to Organization 8 Total Dollars to Organization 8 Subtotal (maximum of 50)
Pros & Cons (1 – 5 scale): Community Impression 5 Organizational Impact 4 Quality of Deliverables 4 Risks 4 Hidden Costs (freight, etc.) 5 Subtotal (maximum of 25)
Commitment Required (1 – 5 scale): Preparation Time 3 Selling Effort 4 Collecting Funds 5 Processing Orders 5 Delivering Goods 4 Subtotal (maximum of 25)
Overall Ranking:
(On a scale of 1 to 100)
Related Pages
Auction Fundraiser Suppliers – Contact information for fundraising suppliers.
Fundraiser Ratings Explained – Complete description of how the ratings are calculated and examples given.
Fund Raisers – Profiles of 400+ suppliers of fund-raisers with complete details on various fundraising ideas.
Fundraiser A – C: Fundraiser Ratings for Americana through CD's (37 categories)
Fundraiser C – D: Fundraiser Ratings for Cheesecake through Donor Walls (37 categories)
Fundraiser: D – L: Fundraiser Ratings for Doughnuts through Lollipops (36 categories)
Fundraiser: M – R: Fundraiser Ratings for Magazines through Recycling (37 categories)
Fundraiser: R – Z: Fundraiser Ratings for Religious through Wreaths (36 categories)
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Sample Thank You Letter
Youth Sports Fundraiser


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Canon IR ADV 400i Driver Download
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Gilded Footnotes: November 11, 1897 – DRIVES IN THE SPIKE OF GOLD
November 11, 2014 § Leave a comment
I still have yet to come down on the official naming of this new series, but let this be the second post in "Gilded Footnotes" an expression of news of the day in 1890s San Francisco and California. The purpose is one part research and one part curatorial.
From the San Francisco Call, November 11, 1897: [1]
DRIVES IN THE SPIKE OF GOLD, reads the headline:
Sierra Railway Christened by Prince Poniatowski – Jamestown Enjoys a Holiday – Five Thousand People Celebrate the Completion of the Line – Oratory, A Dance and Fireworks – Head of the Company Presents a Money Gift to the Terminal City's School
On November 10, "The golden spike was driven…signaling the completion of the line to" Jamestown, California – some 45 miles northeast of the Central Valley town of Modesto, California. More than 5000 people attend the celebration, and according to the Call, "never before did the streets of Jamestown present such an animated appearance. This would be the first major rail line into the heart of the southern region of Gold Country – just a few miles from the Tuolumne County seat of Sonora. The Sierra Road would connect Oakdale to Emery, Warnerville, Coopertown, Don Pedro, Chinese Camp, Montezuma, all the way to Jamestown. (see map)
Gilded Footnotes: November 8, 1897: MERCANTILE MEN OPPOSE ANNEXATION
November 8, 2014 § Leave a comment
This is the inaugural post of a new series which will look at news articles published in San Francisco from the 1890s.
From the San Francisco Call, November 8, 1897: [1]
MERCANTILE MEN OPPOSE ANNEXATION, reads the headline.
See No Benefits That Would Accrue to This Country — Protest Against the Opening of Our Gates to Hawaiian Competition — Sugar Industry would Be Imperiled — Nothing to Be Gained by Acquiring Islands So Far From This Continent.
According to "The Call's correspondent," few merchants "had given any deep thought to the matter, but those who had, with few exceptions, declared emphatically that they saw few if any advantages…." The Call proclaims that those favorable to annexation were "invariably based on a false pride of country, mistaken for patriotism." If the present issues were to be solved, the article purports, let the powers of the Monroe Doctrine be employed.
San Francisco's "Savage" New Year's Eve: December 31, 1897
January 2, 2013 § Leave a comment
Remembering the Past: Tradition and Temporality
As the New Year approaches, the American tradition of reflecting on the year's past and one's own future comes to bear on us all. The ritual of a New Year's renewal is certainly much older than our own nation. According to historians like Michael Kammen, the New Year had always brought a cultural urge in Americans to take stock in the past, and orient one's self towards a perceived future existence (and by implication one's present existence). In relation to my investigation and understanding of San Francisco's collective identity in the 1890s, public New Year's celebrations offer a similar window into glimpsing the city's collective identity as other participatory public events such as California's Admission Day presents. Observing how the city's inhabitants celebrate this cultural tradition reveals how individuals and groups understand their shared urban society's existence in time. Similar to Washington's Birthday, California's Admission's Day, and the Fourth of July, mass public celebrations demonstrated symbolic representations of the society's social order and collective self-awareness.
As the San Francisco's regional economic and cultural dominance began to be significantly challenged by other Pacific urban centers like Los Angeles and Seattle, the city's uptick in the 1890s inspired a new debate in the public sphere on the city's regional status and future. Exemplified in James D. Phelan's oration on opening day of the 1896 Mechanics' Fair, San Francisco's commercial-civic elite saw the dawning of a new era as the ending of the century neared. What was San Francisco's role within the western most region of the American nation? How did the city's residents see the New Year in relation to their city? One glimpse of the answer to these questions can be found in observing and analyzing how people participated in these festivities.
Academia and the Real World
December 10, 2012 § 1 Comment
Well it has been some time since my last post. However, this is not for the lack of effort as I have been very busy with the real jobs I have gotten since receiving my degree. However, let me introduce some of the projects I am currently working on as a substitute for substantive posts on San Francisco.
First, I have been given a position as a Library Page/Librarian Assistant at the California Room at San Jose Public Library in California. Many changes will in fact be coming to the California Room as a new Librarian has been appointment with a new plan for outreach to the broader public (academic and popular).
Second, I have opened a Google+ Community on California History. I have, as my regular readers might know, have an active presence on Twitter as a member of the #Twitterstorians (under @Calhistorian). The Twitter format however has limited my attempt at creating a social media community focused on California history. My Google+ Community, I hope, will fill this void that I feel. Maybe its simply that those interested in California history are not as web-savy as others, like the Civil War community for instance, but I have a hard time believing this as fact.
Lastly, and more personally, I have been having a rewarding time at a local tutor center, Academic Trainers, in Menlo Park, CA. This has allowed me to not only hone my skills as an educator in history, but along many other subjects as well. The kids have been wonderful.
Gilded Empire still lives on however, and will be updated with new posts shortly. I have been working privately on a complete reformulation of the print version of Gilded Empire and have subsequently made some dramatic changes to my approach. This new approach will be apparent soon as I post these new ideas over the coming months. Christmas vacation, I hope, will provide me with much needed free time to begin this process.
Commemorating Regional Empire, Part II: "A Pacific Metropolis," San Franciscan Visions of Urbane Grandeur
September 19, 2012 § Leave a comment
Imagining an Urban Utopia
(Part I @ "Commemorating Regional Empire")
In Part I, we introduced the concepts of the Pioneer Myth and its interpretive framework. According to much of the historiography, San Francisco as the "Pacific Metropolis" was not codified in local and popular rhetoric until after the turn of the century and especially in the wake of the Panama-Pacific Exposition (1915).[1] However, in the 1890s this urban identity seemed to already dominate many of the leading civic, business, and cultural elites' rhetoric, including the largest newspapers of de Young and Spreckles. In 1897, the rush to the Klondike Gold Rush in particular, as well as European and Asian imperial conflicts, dominated the foreign media coverage in the papers. The reporting of these stories and the editorials that followed revealed an entrenched awareness of San Francisco as the regional metropolis of the Pacific coast. As I had mentioned in a previous post, "Commemorating Regional Empire, Part I," San Francisco's commercial-civic elite were especially vocal about their city's regional dominance on the Pacific coast. What was it that the commercial-civic elite were so eager to express? What was it about San Francisco and its past that they thought was so exceptional? How did they explain the roots of their present success? And how did these ideas relate to the understanding of American Exceptionalism expressed in national politics and the media of the late 19th century?
Throughout the headlines of the San Francisco Chronicle, Call, and Examiner, the rush north to the Yukon Territory was framed and seemingly appropriated as what they saw as a naturally Californian and particularly San Franciscan event. Their understanding of San Francisco's dominance over the Pacific Coast region led them to think it was only natural that the city would encapsulate and integrate the emerging markets into its urban grasp.[2] The city's dominance in western mining, and its advantages as a supply route of the explosive Klondike market were expressed very forthrightly and implicitly in editorials, reports, and published opinions throughout November and December, 1897. The crisis in the Yukon Territory at Dawson City during the winter of 1897-98 becomes, for example, an opportunity for the editors of the Call and Chronicle to demonstrate not only their superior coverage of an event in a distant land, but also the logistical abilities of the city to come to the starving community's aid. Only San Francisco, they argued, had the ability to mount and successfully outfit such a grand humanitarian operation to rescue the starving miners at Dawson City.
This understanding of the city's significance was also expressed at the expense of other regional hubs like Seattle and Los Angeles.[3] One troubled relief effort for Dawson City by western regional competitor Seattle, for instance, leads to a media discussion of how the San Franciscan effort will be much more successful due to its superior people and natural urban advantages. Daily and weekly updates of ships in and out of the bay bolstered their claims of the superiority of San Francisco's port and her sister city, Oakland with its supporting role. Interestingly, this urban identity demonstrated by the pages of the Chronicle and Call silences the fact that many of the migrants to the Arctic Circle were of many nations and ethnicities and in fact did not travel through San Francisco. Yet since many, and according to their claims the vast majority, would consume products transported by San Francisco on their way to the Klondike, these migrants would be commercial surrogates for San Francisco's imperial grandeur in expanding markets.[2]
The San Francisco Call: "New Era Edition," Part I
September 12, 2012 § Leave a comment
The Call's New Era of San Francisco
Published on December 19, 1897 to commemorate the paper's move into its new headquarters, the "New Era Edition" of the San Francisco Call was distributed across the state and the nation. By 1897, the San Francisco Call had been a longstanding institution in San Francisco since 1856. The front-page of this massive 80pg issue displayed a full illustration of the new structure christened the 'Claus Spreckels Building.' The image depicts an imposing steel and stone structure which stands in stark contrast to the pedestrian human landscape in its shadow, a clear vision of urban grandeur. Throughout the paper's headlines the Call reports a "New Era" has come for not only the newspaper but for the city itself. The migration of the paper into the one of the largest and imposing structures in the city declared their own confidence and evaluation of San Francisco's significance in the West.
All through the pages in the fall of 1897, the Call reported an economic resurgence in the city and across the state. The chaos of the 1870s and the stagnation of the 1880s, they argued, were behind them. Bolstered by positive economic reports in local, regional, and national markets, the editors presented a vision of the city as the Pacific metropolis. From articles on culture, arts, manufacturing, and agriculture, the Call argued for the continued dominance of the city in the region and downplayed competitors like Seattle and Los Angeles. Reporting on December 21, the Call was not at all disappointed by the overwhelmingly positive response from much of the state's leading newspapers for the New Era Edition paper. In a way the reviews expressed a general consensus in the Call's assessment of the region's progress from its rough mining past. The trajectory of the region would not be slowed, according to the Call:
The earliest mode of travel to the Golden Gate was that known as coasting, for in no other way could California then be reached. San Francisco's first settlers came hither by water, and although the pony express and overland stage which followed later were succeeded by railroad facilities for passenger and freight transportation, the coast trade of California has always been of vast importance to the people and the State, and will continue to occupy a position of steadily increasing value in the world of commerce as time goes on.[1]


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Bird flu Q and A
What is an avian influenza A (H5N1) virus?
Influenza A (H5N1) virus, also called H5N1 virus, is an influenza A virus subtype that occurs mainly in birds. It was first isolated from birds in South Africa in 1961. Like all bird flu viruses, the H5N1 virus circulates among birds worldwide, is very contagious among birds, and can be deadly.
Do bird flu viruses infect humans?
Past experience has shown that subtypes of the influenza A virus can sometimes cross over and cause illness in other species, such as humans.
The US-based Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says that while bird flu viruses do not usually infect humans, several cases of human infection have occurred since 1997, when the first human cases of H5N1 emerged in Hong Kong.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), of the few avian influenza viruses that have crossed the species barrier to infect humans, H5N1 has caused the largest number of cases of severe disease and death in humans. In the present outbreak, more than half of those infected have died – an unusually high mortality rate for a flu virus.
Most cases have occurred in previously healthy children and young adults.
How does bird flu spread?
Infected birds shed flu virus in their saliva, nasal secretions, and faeces. Susceptible birds become infected when they have contact with contaminated excretions or surfaces that are contaminated with excretions.
To date, most cases of bird flu infection in humans have resulted from contact with infected poultry or contaminated surfaces.
However, health officials worry that if the virus infects someone already carrying the more common human flu virus, the H5N1 virus may mutate into a more deadly form, easily transmissable between humans, creating the basis for a global pandemic.
How is bird flu treated in humans?
Studies suggest that the prescription medicines approved for human flu viruses would work in preventing bird flu infection in humans. However, flu viruses can become resistant to these drugs, so these medications may not always work.
Is there a vaccine to protect humans from H5N1 virus?
There currently is no vaccine to protect humans against the H5N1 virus that is being seen in Asia. However, vaccine development efforts are under way.
What drugs are available for treatment?
Two drugs are available. Tamiflu (generic name: oseltamivir), made by Swiss drug giant Roche, and Relenza (generic name: zanamivir), from GlaxoSmithKline, can reduce the severity and duration of illness caused by seasonal influenza.
However, health officials say neither drug should be taken without first seeking medical advice. Over use of the drug may build up viral resistance, they warn, making even these drugs ineffective.
Can a pandemic be prevented?
No one knows with certainty. The best way to prevent a pandemic would be to eliminate the virus from birds, but it has become increasingly doubtful if this can be achieved within the near future.
Is the world prepared for a pandemic?
Some countries are more prepared than others. In general though health experts say that despite an advance warning that has lasted almost two years, the world is ill-prepared to defend itself during a pandemic. The WHO has urged all countries to develop preparedness plans, but only about 40 have done so.


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Introducing a novel signal priority system that supports Transit Signal Priority (TSP), automatic Pedestrian Signaling (PedSig), and a variety of other applications without requiring the acquisition and installation of additional capital infrastructure, including roadside equipment such as special-purpose optical or radio-frequency devices or DSRC installations. SPS also provides dramatic deployment time-savings for cities. The system's key innovations are its use of existing infrastructure (including the public cellular network and the city's Traffic Management System (TMS) and traffic network) to securely provide these capabilities, its use of mobile devices to request action from the signal network, including pedestrian walk signals, and its software-defined nature that supports extension and modification of capabilities without requiring hardware modifications or field-service modifications.
Transit Signal Priority
TSP can be provided using a combination of a background application running on cellular-connected mobile devices, applications running on servers in the cloud, and capabilities provided by the systems already running on existing controllers deployed in the city.
The onboard tablet, which is provided with a unique cryptographic certificate for authentication, determines vehicle position, heading, and speed and, in cooperation with the cloud-based server, determines which signal is being approached. The server uses models built using machine learning applied to data collected from previous trips to estimate when the bus will arrive at the signal based on a variety of factors. The server also has access to information on the current and predicted state of the signal in question. If a TSP request is in order, the server informs the appropriate controller via the V2If and the existing signal network that a bus is expected at the calculated time.
The system can utilize software already deployed in the controllers with the ability to implement an early or extended green, or manage specific change requests directly, to reduce the average signal delay for buses traveling through signalized intersections. The software also returns the controller's response to the request, which can be used for system monitoring, or relayed to the bus to tell the operator about the expected state of the upcoming signal, as desired.
Another new capability lets pedestrian's smart phones automatically generate walk requests.
A pedestrian running the PedSig app can enter a destination and begin to walk along the provided route. When they approach a pedestrian signal along the route, a request is sent to the cloud-based server indicating the crossing(s) that are desired. If the signal will be in the "Don't Walk" state when they arrive, the server forwards a pedestrian call request to the appropriate controller, which treats it the same as a crosswalk button push. If the pedestrian has to cross in both directions, the system is capable of determining which order of crossings would be most efficient given predicted signal behavior and responding accordingly.
Alternatively, the app can simply observe the pedestrian's progress and make an appropriate ped call in the direction of travel as they approach an intersection. The system uses information about the pedestrian's speed, location, and track, as well as predicted signal behavior, to determine which–if any–call to make. If the pedestrian crosses the street or moves away from the crosswalk, the request can be canceled if not already serviced.
As the leading provider of real-time, predictive, traffic-signal information, Connected Signals has worked with municipalities and other agencies to connect traffic signal infrastructure to vehicles and make reliable traffic signal information available to drivers for years. Real-time traffic signal state information is securely exported to the cloud from the TMS using our V2If® appliance. We then use proprietary techniques to build highly accurate predictive models for each of the City's signals. Servers in the cloud support a variety of V2I ranging from red light countdowns and green-wave speed advisories to various types of analytics.
Now we have developed the capability to offer traffic signal solutions involving two-way communication between the cloud and city traffic systems. The V2If architecture has been enhanced to support cryptographically secured two-way communication. This allows outbound transmission of signal data and receipt of inbound requests from duly authenticated devices in the field, such as transit buses, while protecting the integrity of traffic systems.
To ensure the integrity of the traffic network, all apps allowed to make requests are cryptographically signed and communications are encrypted. The TSP app deployed on buses also requires individually provisioned cryptographic certificates to prevent unauthorized access. These safeguards, as well as security safeguards built into the V2If, prevent spoofed requests and malicious intrusions.
Because the system is largely software defined, new capabilities can be provided simply through software upgrades and the deployment of new or modified apps. These include but are certainly not limited to:


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In order to answer this question, you have to ask yourself: what does Clarissa want to do the most? What effect does she aim to achieve? What does her every post try to do?
The answer is obvious. I want to subvert preconceived notions, to say and do something unexpected, something that nobody says on each subject. Of course, I'm not always wildly successful but that's the goal. And which style of clothing will help me achieve this goal better than. . . drumroll. . .
THE 1950s STYLE!
Just imagine me, arriving at a conference (or a date, when I still used to date), in a dress that people associate with American housewives in the 1950s, with a full skirt and often even a big bow, Mary Janes, and sometimes even pigtails. Plus I'm blonde, blue-eyed, and have a Russian accent. So I sit in front of people and make the following facial expression at them:
Add some massive eye-lash batting, and what do you think people immediately assume? That I'm an idiot, of course. Then they begin to condescend like they are getting paid to do so. Some people even start speaking re-a-lly slo-w-ly to make sure the dumb blonde understands them.
I let them do that, and then I open my mouth and unleash what I usually unleash on this blog. The effect is priceless, folks. Remember that I'm also a pedagogue, and there is nothing I like more than educating. This is a great lesson in how judging people based on appearances might not be a good idea.
Everybody who answered that my favorite style is the 1920s was not that mistaken. I love it aesthetically but I couldn't wear these clothes because I don't have the body for them. They would make me look like an armoire.
And the style I hate the most is the 1980s. All those pulse warmers, white sneakers, acid wash jeans – brrrrr! The 1970s style also sucks like there is no tomorrow but the 1980s were the worst.
Here are the winners of this round:
Saia Sakira 1
Paranoid 1
Sarah 1
Evelina Anville 0.5
The Sister 2 (Of course, it was easy for The Sister who has known me for 30 years.) N. also guessed and how could he have not, if I wore a 1950s dress to our 2nd date?
Lindsay 1
Amanda 1


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Priyanka Chopra beats Jimmy Fallon in a chicken wing eat-off
After making her Oscars debut, Bollywood actress and Quantico star Priyanka Chopra became the first Indian to appear on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Besides teaching host Jimmy Fallon how to say namaste and a few other words in Hindi, she also challenged him to a chicken wings eating contest.
See also: Indians and Pakistanis are changing their profile photos to send peace messages to their governments
Chopra spoke about her forthcoming Hollywood debut in Baywatch, as well as her popular TV show Quantico. Yet, the highlight of the episode seems to have been the spicy chicken wing eat-off between Fallon and Chopra, which the Indian actress won quite easily. She confessed to being a food lover, revealing that the first thing she did after flying into New York to film the show was to wolf down a hot dog.
Chopra also talked about attending high school in New York City and winning the title of Miss World at the age of 18. She also took over the show's Instagram account, with a series of teasing pictures about her appearance.
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon screens on NBC and Comedy Central on Mar. 4.