Finally, a compact digicam that delivers clear, blur-free shots with all the ambiance intact. Here are some great examples in a Cannon project they call “Your Second Shot“.

No more blurry, low light photos

Social Media Backup Plan

There are a bunch of popular social media sites that Backuptify supports; WordPress, Twitter, Photobucket and Facebook to name a few.

Photo by: Wrumsby on Flickr

Benefits of Letting Employees Telework:

• Employees avoid wasting time they could otherwise devote to their work
• Commuters face significant increases in traffic congestion in all 437 metropolitan areas in the United States. According to the Texas Transportation Institute’s Urban Mobility 2009 study, the average metro Atlanta commuter wastes an average of 57 hours a year stuck in traffic.
• This gridlock costs Atlanta commuters almost $3 billion in time and fuel—roughly $1,257 per commuter, per year. Forget raises, Atlanta employers can save millions on salaries by simply implementing a telework program –considered by many employees to be a raise in itself.  (Not to mention the lives that can be saved by not contributing to traffic accidents.)
• Employees working remotely can carry on in the event the headquarters gets shut down by the unexpected such as hazardous weather, a natural disaster or man-made disasters like a terrorist threat.
• The corporation can reduce overhead expenses by paying less for office space, supplies, coffee, etc…
• Happy workers are better workers. Employees with the option of telecommuting are generally healthier and more content with their jobs than otherwise. And they will be
• Flexible schedules allow employees to schedule doctor visits and other personal appointments without taking time away from the days that they are in the office interfacing with co-workers.

Will Employees Goof Off if They Work From Home?

Traditional employers may be worried that “out of sight out of mind” means less productivity if not kept under the watchful eye of supervisors. This doesn’t necessarily hold up to closer scrutiny.

Employees are capable of goofing off anywhere –especially at work. There are just as many distractions in a corporate office -if not more- than there are in a private home office. Also, most employees who work from home do not want to lose the privilege of telecommuting and may work even harder at their jobs to prove their value.

How Do Businesses Measure Productivity of Remote Employees?

There are many ways to measure the work remote employees. Employers and workers can establish performance goals and benchmarks to ensure desired productivity and the actual work gets done. Most people (who don’t live in a cave) are immediately accessible through cell phones and chat clients if co-workers or managers need them.

Resources:

www.telework.gov/
Resources for business, managers and employees who are engaged in a telework program.

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=44465
Teleworking gains popularity with government agencies.

www.workingfromanywhere.org
WorldatWork is committed to advancing telework – the ability to work from anywhere – as a tool to attract, motivate and retain talent. In 2005, WorldatWork acquired ITAC to form the Telework Advisory Group of WorldatWork.

Cleanair Campaign
Facts on environment, traffic congestion and teleworking.

No registration and no annoying ads -just upload your photo and edit away. The Flash based interface looks a lot like Photoshop so it is easy to navigate. You can even open multiple files for layering.

If you need to edit to a WordPress header image but don’t have a program that will read png files, or you need to clean up a photo quickly, give pixlr.com a try.

With just one blog post through Posterous, I can auto-fill the content to the following 11 blog sites and social networking sites. All of these accounts are free.

Twitter

WordPress

Tumblr

Blogger

Xanga

Pink Magazine

Live journal

identi

Jaiku

Plurk

Delicious

Of course there are still some sites which require me to post manually (ehow, articlesbase, ezinearticles, etc..) and I would not use this method for exclusive content (as a guest blogger or a featured article), but for those daily blog posts and business articles, auto-posting is a real time-saver!

#1 Rag Doll Blaster

This game is simple in concept, but not so easy to master. Superbly designed by Backflip Studios, you’ll be astounded with the real physics used to measure the distance, power, and angle to shoot rag dolls across various obstacles. There is a free version called Rag Doll Blaster Lite ($2)

#2 iStooges

Includes 72 motion-activated sound effects and voice clips from your three favorite knuckleheads, Larry, Moe and Curley. Amuse yourself a “nyuk nyuk”, a “slap Ooh”, or a “soitenly.” (Coming soon in the app store)

#3 Trace

What a time-killer! With this quarky iPhone app, you can draw your own paths and erase lines you made by mistake in order to get through moving obstacles and reach the destination.  It’s really easy to play but gets tricky and keeps you playing for hours –and if not, at least several minutes.  (free)

#4 Paper Toss

This is the iPhone version of the original office game of tossing the scrunched up paper into the basket. This version throws some extras in the mix to make it interesting such as fans and other interfering objects. (free)

#5 Madlibs

Just like the game you used to play when you were a kid. Type in a series of adjectives and nouns and you get a crazy story cranked out with the words you used. (Free)

#6 Dream Dictionary

Interpret what your dreams mean with the dream dictionary. If you and your friends have a lot of crazy, random dreams, you will be sure to get a lot of use from this application. If not, at least a lot of laughs. ($1)

#7 Chimp Adventure

In this game, you have to memorize numbers and several humorous missions that appear only for a few seconds then press them in the right order after they get hidden. This is a productive time killer as it trains your memory. ($1)

#8 Face Melter

Morph your photos into freaky works of art. By dragging your finger across the screen, you can elongate exaggerate, and warp your friend’s faces. ($2)

#9 The Moron Test

This game features a collection of more than 100 brain-teasing puzzles that challenge you to see how many you can solve in record-breaking time. Scores range from moron to genius. ($1)

#10 iDoodle

This simple drawing tool allows you to draw any number of lines, polygons, circles, and squares in an array of colors. The iDoodle app also lets you to set up an online gallery where you can share your mini-masterpieces with the world. ($2)

Did I mention that I write for San-antonio.apartmentguide.com?

The internet has never been easier to test Seinfeld’s theory of colliding worlds. Our public identities are mixing with our personal identities as we add bosses, co-workers, and clients to join us on social networking sites. Most people are not really sure about the etiquette either. Will it be reflected poorly if you choose not to add your employer as a friend on Facebook or if you block a co-worker from following you on Twitter?

Welcome to my personal life.

Online Schizophrenia

It may be easy for many people to draw the line and separate their online lives. But for those of us with jobs based around SEO copywriting and online marketing, it gets really tricky. Take for example the recently posted job from Best Buy. Best Buy was looking to fill the roll of  “Sr. Manager – Emerging Media Marketing Job.” In addition to the basic social networking experience and criteria, one of the requirements for applying to the job was that the “applicant must have 250 or more followers on Twitter”. Could that be his personal 250 friends and family members or, do they want 250 strangers? And does it even matter what the Best Buy applicant twitters about? Apparently not -at least, not according to the job post.

Ready to be an online spokesperson?

Large companies, in the race to outrank their competitors in Google searches, are trying to find creative ways to take advantage of social media. Coca Cola, a company renowned for its marketing genius, is among thousands of companies inviting people to become product fans on Facebook and follow them on Twitter. Not surprisingly, it doesn’t always work. For all the Coca Cola lovers in the world, there are only 4,505 Coca Cola Twitter followers as of the date of this post (I’m sure that there are at least that many employees worldwide).  Tweets like “Coca Cola wishes you a happy weekend” and “Coca Cola loves you the way you are” can only go so far.  Many people may like to drink Coca Cola, but why would anyone want to be bombarded with marketing messages? Of course there are always giveaways and contests, but you still have to get the word out.

In order to really pull off social networking to its full extent, companies must rely on professionals who, not only master social networking skills, but who also may have access to a large audience. In some cases, employees are expected to act as online spokespeople on behalf of their company. While this makes sense for those who own their own business, it gets tricky for freelance copywriters and full-time internet marketing employees -not to mention the companies who hire these people and trust them with the integrity of their brand.

Mixing content and double dipping…

Writing online content is the easy part, but when it comes to link building and SEO, the most important part is online publishing. Most blog and article syndication sites require writers to have a personal profile. So, do you use your own name and bio or do you come up with a name that reflects the company you are writing for? There are advantages and disadvantages to both. To be on the safe side, I like to use my real name and also give credit to the company. “April Lentini writes for Apartmentguide.com“. (Cha Ching, yet one more backlink for my employer -and I’m not even on the clock!)

If you use your real name on personal blog accounts, is it okay to post other articles for other companies on the same site? (Again, there are advantages and disadvantages to both.)  Also, some article sites like associatedcontent.com or eHow.com allow you to earn money for your articles. Technically, if you are writing these articles on company time, should you be allowed to keep the money? Opinions vary, and in many cases, companies who hire SEO writers have not yet thought through these details.

It’s an exciting time for online copywriting. There are so many creative opportunities for branding, internet publishing, networking, and buzz marketing. SEO writers are not just writers, we are also online publicists pushing keywords, social networking, and link building. But as the lines continue to blur between our own professional image and the brand we are paid to represent, we must all proceed with caution.

SEO Quake
In the search engine query, this add-on tells you the Google Page Rank, number of indexed pages within a website, and the number of links pointing to the page. It also has an option tool bar that goes a little bit more in detail with Yahoo page rank results as well.

Google Preview
This is another add-on that lists popularity ranks of web sites into the Google and Yahoo search results pages. However, it comes with a significant bonus feature. Search results in Google come with a thumbnail preview of websites. I find this visual reference a real timesaver –especially when I’m looking for a website that I’ve already visited but don’t remember the domain.

Alexa Sparky
This highly rated add-on shows up on your status bar. It provides SEO information including popularity, Reach and Rank, and related links for each page.

Here are two web sites that will help you stay on track of key word content and find out what people are typing in Google:

Google’s Adwords Keyword Generator (Free)

Type in a key word and Google will give you dozens of related search words and term. It also ranks the keywords in popularity.

http://keywordspy.com/ (Not so Free)

I’ve been told by SEO gurus that this is site is a “must have” for web writers. This is heavy duty key word research that allows you to see what words your competitors are using.