FYI, if you need a coffee booster and are short on change no worries, Starbucks has a promo going on today (March 15).. go on in an get a Free cup of Joe… US only.. sorry you Canucks! Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-060315starbucks,1,5321105.story?coll=chi-news-hed – if you want to slip away and work while you have your free coffee use this app to locate a store near you that offers Wi-Fi access as well – http://locations.hotspot.t-mobile.com/ or try this store locator at http://www.starbucks.com/retail/default.asp – PS… if you know anyone involved in the MapKi project maybe let them know their site has been attacked… bummer! See http://www.mapki.com/index.php?title=Map_Projects
Archives for March 15, 2006
A good, free human resources publication and employee guide
This publication is focused on Canadian issues, however, it’s marketed to companies that have employee relations in Canada and US. Employee Benefit News Canada is a monthly publication of significance for all benefit providers and human resource professionals alike. The publication covers what’s happening in the world of benefits today, with everything from health plans to pension reform and the employee-consumer relationship – you can ask for a free subscription at http://symbiandevzone.tradepub.com/free/ebc/
More Beer Mashups.. woohoo chicago is now mashed
Yet another beer mashup is now online… Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, Chicago.com, Inc., Your Chicago Search Engine(sm), is excited to announce the launch of a very special section of the Web site at Beer.chicago.com (http://beer.chicago.com). As the name indicates, Beer.chicago.com is the largest interactive guide to bars, clubs and pubs within the Chicagoland area with information on hundreds of bars and thousands of drink specials. Chicago.com is the “Craig’s list” equivalent for the Chicago, IL area and a decent place to tour for more info and leads to anything in Chicago. Heading North and looking for beer? Check out the Beer Hunter mashup at http://www.beerhunter.ca/
News release formats and some guidelines for more effective online news distribution
Distributing your company’s news… everyone’s doing it… enter the press release. If you or your company is working hard then you need to spread the word, however, in order to effectively get the word out and have your news picked up on you need to be careful and be sure to follow a few simple rules.
– format your news according to a generally accepted news release layout – a couple of samples… http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/3/prweb108269.htm / http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/02/prweb351715.htm
– DON’T USE ALL CAPS IN YOUR TITLE
– run spell-check (ok, I’ve messed up on this one before too!)
– list a run date and if you are sending news in advance, clearly state that NEWS IS UNDER EMBARGO TILL DATE XXXX in the first line of your message
– provide details of a contact person, web address, and email address
– don’t simply send your news release to everyone (i.e., all gis lists, newsgroups etc…) take some time and find a few editorial contacts and maybe your business partners and associates.
– don’t send to every news editor on the planet… if it’s GIS news send to GIS and technology editors… I just got a news release on a new garbage can cleaning solution… nice!
– past the entire news release as ASCII TXT into the body of your email. Be sure to copy from a simple text editor that doesn’t use special characters (i.e.. notepad, txtpad). Special characters (like those pesky TM and (R) trademark symbols tend to get garbled in the translation from email to web.
– don’t send ZIP files.. sorry but most editors won’t have time to mess around uncompressing your files
– don’t attach high resolution images that total 1, 2, or even 5 MB in size. If your news is going online the editor will want a low-res (max 60KB) image in either GIF or JPG format – max 600 pixels in width
– when sending your news send from your email client using the BCC option. I can’t tell you how many people use CC or simply email everyone using the TO function.. thanks for providing me with all those valuable contacts though!
– don’t format using PDF unless you have to. PDFs are an option is necessary, however, distilling PDF docs to txt for use on the web takes time and once again can result in some mistakes etc… if you have to attach as a document simply use MS Word. Embedding images within the Word doc is great too!
– Don’t know where to start? Simply grab a major company’s news release from a newswire service (online) and use that as a template and a starting point. One you write the release, get someone else to read it and mark it (Q/C) up for you
– be sure to follow up and thank the editor for running your news ;0)
This list is by no means complete, however, I regularly get items that go against some or even all of these “rules”.
GLOBE at Night to help scientists map light pollution around the world
News of an interesting science project spanning the Globe… GLOBE at Night – a special project of The GLOBE Program (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment), a worldwide science and education program managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and Colorado State University (CSU). Students from more than 17,000 schools in 109 countries have participated in GLOBE, reporting over 14 million environmental observations. This will be the first GLOBE activity to engage students in astronomy. GLOBE is a partnership between the United States and more than 100 countries. More info available at http://www.globe.gov/globeatnight & http://www.globe.gov
Arc2Earth (ArcGIS to Google Earth) Officially released today
Chances are you heard or saw this already but hey, the word is simply too cool not to share on the blog… Brian Flood has officially announced the commercial release of arc2earth today via arc2earth.com. Arc2Earth can export data in several different layouts. All of these layouts are useful in different ways from within Google Earth. Some are good for preserving the exact cartographic characteristics of the map and some are better for 3D extrusion and user interaction inside Google Earth. Pricing for the solutions ranges from $99 to $299 per seat. See http://www.arc2earth.com/products – congrats Brian & Jack!… hey, with Google just buying Sketchup maybe you guys will be next ;0)