Name This Local Website-82

Rushing the seasons? Click here for the answer.

Football Lessons

It's Saturday afternoon, and Kathy and I are relaxing after an afternoon of relaxing at the movies.

We saw the Longshots. Reading the plot before we went, we knew the story, (it's a formula movie, but a formula we like.)

A football movie based on a true story. Now I'm cleaning out emails and guess what!?!

The Art of Manliness Blog wrote about football movies recently:

The Art of Manliness

8 Inspirational Football Locker Room Speeches

Posted: 29 Aug 2008 01:53 AM CDT

The college football season starts on Saturday (okay, technically Thursday. But I’m saying Saturday because that’s when Oklahoma plays. Boomer Sooner!). I love football. It’s one of the manliest sports. For it is truly the sport closest to combat. Men strategize in their war room, don their armor, and line up against their opponent. Victory is measured in territory gained, in how well one unit outmaneuvers the other. The game involves brute strength and keen physicality; it is a hand to hand, helmet to helmet fight, one man struggling against another. And yet at the same time, finesse, agility, and brilliant strategy are requisites for success and a team lives or dies solely on how well they work together as a team, as a unit.

Playing football in high school helped shape me into the man I am today. As I struggled through another practice in 100 degree heat and sweated through two-a-day practices, I learned to work hard and not quit. I learned that pain is often the only pathway to excellence. At the end of the game, when the scoreboard’s numbers were not as I had wished, I learned how to bounce back from failure and dedicate myself to being better the next time around. I experienced the awesome power of a group of men, striving together for the same goal. The friendships I made while playing football will last a lifetime.

The lessons of all sports carry over from the actual arena to the playing field of life. Rich is the man who, if only for a short time, feels the glory his body in peak condition, the bond of brothers, the sweet joy of victory and the agony of defeat. While the memories of such a time fade as a man grows older, the wisdom he gleans from the experience will echo throughout his life.

So in honor of the opening of the football season, and the great lessons all men can learn from this great game, we’ve compiled a list of some of the most inspiring football locker room speeches from both film and real life. The speeches we chose are not only inspiring for men about to hit the field, they’re motivating for those men who wish to walk out the door each day to school or work, ready to take on the world. Success in football requires heart, pride, and teamwork. Success in life requires the same.

Friday Night Lights

If you played football in high school, you can’t help but think about the young men you played next to while watching this clip. Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) explains to his players what “being perfect” really means. It’s not about the score at the end of the game. It’s about looking your teammate in the eye and being able to say you did all you could. I can’t help but get a little teary eyed when the players say the Lord’s Prayer. My team in high school did the same thing and it instantly transports me back to that locker room in Edmond, OK.

I Am a Champion

Through a series of manly affirmations, this coach pumps the hell out of his players. How can you not get psyched to take down the competition with lines like these:

“I will rip the heart out of my enemy and leave it bleeding on the ground because he cannot stop me.”

Bad. Ass.

The bagpipes in the background of this speech only up the manly vigor quotient.

Any Given Sunday

Warning: Some adult language

Life, like football, is a game of inches. Coach Tony D’Amato (Al Pacino) captures that analogy perfectly in this speech. An inch can make the difference between victory or defeat. And if you want to succeed in football or life, you have to fight for every inch. Never take anything for granted. Always keep fighting, even when everything seems stacked against you.

Knute Rockne

We’re big fans of Knute Rockne. And how can you not be? As a player he revolutionized the game with the forward pass and as a coach he became almost unstoppable. This is an actual clip from Knute Rockne’s famous “Inside ‘em and Outside ‘em” speech. In this locker room pep talk, Knute rouses his players with his machine gun delivery and excited gestures. The speech was so popular back in the day that young men bought recordings of it by the thousands and listened to it over and over, getting pumped to charge onto the playing field of life.

Remember the Titans

Okay, so technically this isn’t a locker room speech, but it’s still inspiring. It’s 1971, and Coach Herman Boone (Denzel Washington) has the onerous task of bringing together a team of black and white high school students in Virginia. The team isn’t gelling. So, in a stroke of pure rhetorical genius, Coach Boone takes his men on a jog to Gettysburg. In a stirring and solemn bit of oratory, he teaches his men a little about football, and a lot about life.

Last Play

What would you do if you knew that this day would be your last day? How would you live? If you’re like me, you’d go balls out to make it the best damn day of your life. This coach revs his players up telling them to to play each play as if it was their final one on the field. We can all take a cue from this. Approach what you do in life as if it would be the last time you do it. Kiss your wife like it would be the last time. Play with your kids like it would be the last time. You never know. That kiss and playtime could be your last.

Rudy, Fortune The Facilities Manager

Sometimes we need an honest mentor to give us some perspective on ourselves. Rudy (Sean Austin) spent two years trying to get on the dress team of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. When it didn’t happen, he decides to quit. Thankfully, facilities manager Fortune (Charles S. Dutton) knocks some sense into Rudy and tells him what’s what. Quitting will only bring regret, he tells him. You gotta stay in it, even when things get tough, even when the odds are against you.

Georgia Tech Pre-Game Speech, Derrick Moore, Georgia Tech Chaplin

It’s 2007, and Georgia Tech is in South Bend to take on the Irish in their house. They definitely need to get fired up. Luckily they have this guy, Derrick Moore, to light a fire under ‘em. Moore is pure intensity. He’s the team chaplain (who knew that team’s had one?) and brings an evangelical fervor to his oratory. The best part of the speech is when he quotes the words of his middle school teacher:

“We’re going to fight until we can’t fight no more. Going to lie down and bleed awhile. Going to get up; fight some more.”

Amen, brother. That’s how you win. Tenacity.

If you enjoyed the speech, check out player Tashard Choice quoting it before a game in which GA Tech goes on to upset Clemson. It’ll get you pumped.

And now, just for the heck of it, drop the name of the college team you’ll be cheering on this season in the comments. Show your team pride!

Download Your Free Guide to Being a Gentleman in 2008. Check Out These Related Posts:

• Lessons in Manliness: Knute Rockne
• How To Snag a Souvenir Baseball
• How To Score a Baseball Game With Pencil and Paper
• The Art of Manliness Weekly Roundup: Super Bowl XLII Edition
• The Awesome Dad Cheat Sheet: 18 Fatherhood Tips They Should’ve Handed Out at the Delivery Room

Sleep

My wife has told about how when her kids were young, bedtime was a happy time, sleep was looked at as something you get to do, not something you have to do.

I have had different sleep schedules over the past 30 years, all based on my work schedule. This week I noticed that I was getting up at 7am even without an alarm.

So, what is the ideal amount of sleep? Is that really the right question to ask? Look at this from the DLM Blog:

Dumb Little Man - tips for life

How To Get Better Sleep While Spending Less Time In Bed

Posted: 25 Aug 2008 08:42 PM CDT

Written on 8/25/2008 by Eric Hamm, a technology consultant with a passion for helping others improve their lives through his blog Motivate Thyself.

Photo Credit: Betsssssy

There are two gifts I want to give you right now: more time and better sleep. To do this I will need your complete attention and an open mind. It's really not that hard but it does require a little self discipline, some patience and a willingness to make a few changes in your life.

Many people believe that the more time you spend sleeping, the more rested your body becomes. Well, this is often not the case. Our body sleeps in multiple cycles throughout the night, each one essential and each one very easily interrupted. Every time you find yourself tossing and turning, waking up to go to the bathroom or just being woken up, you are interrupting one of these sleep cycles and detracting from their effectiveness. So the key is not MORE sleep but BETTER sleep.

There's no doubt that you need a certain amount of sleep every night to be healthy. 3 hours of even the best sleep would not be enough for any human being. But what if I were to tell you that you could feel more rested than you ever have before and, here's the kicker, knock 30 minutes to an hour off of the time you spend 'trying to sleep'. It's one of those 'best of both world' scenarios but, as I stated before, it will require you to take action and make the changes necessary to obtain this precious gift.

So let's get to it. Here are the elements you will have to consider:

1. Diet
   Eating a well balanced, healthy diet will not only help you live longer but it will help you feel better throughout the day. You should eat a good balance of complex carbs, meat and vegetable protein (of course no meat if you are a vegetarian) and fruits and vegetables. Try to eat light meals with small snacks in between. Adjust according to your activity level but try to keep it on the lighter side if possible.
   
   The 3 meals a day idea is outdated. Too much time between meals allows your blood sugar to drop too low and leaves you hungry and craving simple carbohydrates like sugar and white flour. When you finally eat the meal, you will end up eating too much. Depending on when you eat dinner and when you go to sleep you may benefit from a light snack about 1 to 1 and a half hours before bed. They should be foods with a balance of carbs, fat and protein. Some examples are an apple with peanut butter, celery with peanut butter or light yogurt (light on sugar as well as fat) with a little granola. Try this if you think your blood sugar might be crashing in the middle of the night.


2. Blood Sugar
   Your blood sugar plays a crucial role in helping you not only sleep better but have a consistently positive outlook. You blood sugar is mostly affected by simple carbs.
   
   If you eat a bunch of sugar, your blood sugar will spike and you will have a quick burst of energy; this is short lived. Anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple of hours your blood sugar starts to quickly drop and you will feel tired. You may even start to feel irritable and/or depressed (This is why maintaining a consistent blood sugar level is crucial for a positive outlook). This is called a crash and it is something that often happens to people in the middle of the night. Do you ever wake up in a hot sweat. Or do you ever wake up at an odd hour and feel wide awake. Chances are this is the result of you blood sugar crashing.
   
   
3. Hydration
   Water to our bodies is like oil to an engine. It keeps everything running clean and smooth. First thing in the morning is usually when our bodies are the most dehydrated so it is important to drink a glass or two of water right when you get up.
   
   Many people skip breakfast because they're not hungry or don't have time. This lack of hunger is usually the result of dehydration. And since breakfast is the most important meal of the day it is important that you eat and drink before you start your day. If you can, stay away from sodas and other 'water alternatives'. Loaded with caffeine, sodium and sugar, these drinks do the opposite of hydrate. Stop drinking fluids at least 4 hours before you go to bed. This might sound hard to do but if you are staying hydrated throughout the day you should be just fine. The purpose of doing this is so you don't have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.


4. State of mind
   Your state of mind plays a big role in being able to sleep deeply. If you go to bed with any kind of worry, anxiety, fear, sadness, even positive stimulation, you will have a hard time falling into a deep sleep. I find that reading a light book 30 minutes before you turn out the lights is a great way to 'turn off' your brain. You may even find that your eyes grow heavy as you try to read. The goal is to go to sleep quickly and you can't do this if you try to go from a stimulated brain to the pillow without down time in between.


5. Exercise
   One of the absolute best things you can do for yourself as well as your sleep is to exercise. Even a 15 to 20 minute jog or brisk walk everyday will not only improve your ability to sleep soundly throughout the night, but it will enhance your mood throughout the day. Depending on your fitness level these numbers may be different so adjust accordingly. If you don't exercise on a regular basis you cannot expect to get the kind of sleep that we are talking about today.


6. Bed time - Wake time
   Try to go to be and get up at the same times everyday. Over time this will set your internal clock so you will be tired when you should be tired and wake up when you want to wake up. As you decide when to sleep and wake you can look at the possibility of cutting down on sleep time. Using myself as an example let me explain what I mean.
   
   I used to 'need' 8 hours of sleep each day. Even then I felt tired during the day. After I started doing the things listed here I was unable to sleep for more than about 7 hours a night. Yet I would have much more energy and feel better than ever. What I determined was that those 8 hours were not 8 SOLID HOURS of sleep. Whereas the 7 hours I'm getting now are a FULL 7 hours of sleep. THIS IS THE KEY!


7. Environment
   Having the right environment to sleep in is also very important. Try to block out as much light as possible (make sure the sun doesn't wake you up before you want to get up.) Make sure that you aren't too hot or too cold. Have a little 'white noise' if necessary (my wife an I sleep with fan blowing all night). Even consider ambient music. We also play a ambient CD in the background every night and it helps set the mood for rest and relaxation.


8. Routine
   They say it takes 21 days to create a new habit. Give this at least a full month before you make any decisions of whether or not you want to continue. It will also take some time to completely adjust to the specific sleep patterns and whatever else you change because of this list. But once you adjust you should be able to fairly easily maintain it and reap the full benefits.


9. Satisfaction
   Make sure you are enjoying the benefits that come from having more time and more energy. Take advantage of the extra time and use it to do things that you used to only wish you could do. Work on a project, set some new goals, or just relax and have some 'you time'. The more you appreciate this new routine the more likely you will continue to do it.


10. Helping others
    The final step and a great way to 'keep it up' is to help others do the same. If you find that this information really helps you sleep better, feel better and have more time during the day, than the best thing you can do is to share this with others. As you help other people learn these steps you will strengthen your resolve to continue them yourselves. At the same time you will be helping someone else experience the same benefits.

I hope you really read through these steps and gave them some thought. It's a lot to take in and may require a lot of changes. If the end result is a healthier, happier, more productive 'you' then it will be well worth it.

Eric

Name This Local Website-81

Found this a few nights ago. Click here to go there.

Hate Your Job?

As we get ready for a three day weekend with Labor Day on Monday, maybe it's time to evaluate your employment situation. From DLM:

Dumb Little Man - tips for life

5 Reasons to Leave a Crappy Job

Posted: 19 Aug 2008 10:35 PM CDT

Written on 8/19/2008 by Steve Errey who almost died at age 9 as he choked on a grape. Today, Steve is still feeling the effects of some extravagant spending but remains remarkably upbeat and positive. You can catch him at his blog, The Confidence Guy.

Photo Credit: mikecolvin82

I used to hate my job, and I left it way too late to get out. When I was made redundant at my company (expendable), the stress ended up putting me on long-term sick-leave. The result was daily cocktail of anti-depressants; I had hit rock bottom.

I don't regret what happened because it slapped me round the face and brought me to where I am now. However, I know that I could have made a move sooner if only I'd had the courage. Like many, I thought about leaving, but a never pulled the trigger.

Left unchecked, the impacts of putting up with a job you hate can be very real. I am not saying that you should get up leave today - we all have bills to pay. I am however asking that you consider these impacts and consider your alternatives if you are truly miserable.

1. You’ll Pay in Stress
   If you hate your job then chances are you're already stressed by the situation you're in. Stress is about not feeling like you’re in control of what's happening, not being able to make choices about what happens, and feeling powerless about what's happening.
   
   By sticking at a job you hate you are, by definition, causing yourself more stress. You're forgetting about the choices you have and putting up with what you know full well you don't want to put up with. The impact of the stress is cumulative, and continued stress can be incredibly damaging – your fuse grows shorter, it gets more difficult to think clearly, your motivation slips away, you don’t get quality sleep (not even mentioning more serious conditions like depression and physical ailments like high blood pressure).
   
   Your primary responsibility in life is to make sure you're okay, so it's important to be brutally frank with yourself about what's happening, and you need to be prepared to make some tough choices.
   


2. Your View of Your Life Will Shrink
   If you’re deciding to stay in a job you don’t like you're forcing yourself into a role that doesn't work for you in some important ways. There are things the role doesn’t provide you and the more time you spend in that role, the more you come to see it as the way things are. You slowly forget about what can happen and who you are outside of that role.
   
   If you let it ride your world-view shrinks to the confines of the role you've forced yourself into, and it becomes more and more difficult to see other options or to look at how else things can be. The more time you spend in that role the smaller your view of the world and yourself becomes.
   
   Never forget what's most important to you, the things you have 10,000 feet down inside you that make you who you are. Always keep your strengths, talents and values close, and always recognize that you have positive choices you can make.
   


3. Your Self-Confidence Will Take a Battering
   What message are you sending yourself if you’re spending time in a job you hate? After standing by while your view of yourself shrinks, the message you're effectively giving yourself is, “I can't do anything else", "I'm nothing special" or even "I don't deserve anything better than this".
   
   Perhaps the most significant impact of squeezing yourself into a role that you don't want to be in is that it erodes your self confidence and self esteem without you even knowing it. You tell yourself that it's not possible to do anything about the situation you're in, that you should simply 'put up with it', that it’s not too bad and that you can’t do much about it anyway.
   
   Time goes on and as you feel more and more powerless, you lose trust in your ability to make decisions. You forget to listen to your intuition (that still, small voice inside you that knows exactly what's happening) and you lose the confidence to step up and play a better game.
   
   Don't allow your confidence to shrink and atrophy through inaction. Even though it can be scary as hell, trust yourself to make decisions and trust that you can deal with whatever happens next – that’s real confidence.
   


4. Your Relationships Will Suffer
   Often it’s the people closest to us who see the worst of us.
   
   When you're stressed, frustrated, upset or angry, it's a good bet that it’s a partner, friend or family member who you'll snap at, be short with or not let fully into what's happening. Give it time and the impact on your relationships will be a significant one. You might vent or whine at those closest to you whenever the opportunity arises, or you might start keeping things inside because you don't want to have to talk about or think about what's going on. Your communication becomes less effective and your behavior in those relationships degrades.
   
   We've all known people who bring us down, who seem to be negative a lot of the time or just talk about everything that's wrong, and they're not much fun to be around.
   
   Be frank with yourself first of all, and then be aware of how your situation is leaking out into your behavior and affecting your relationships. Keep in mind that you value your relationships and have that positive intention in mind when you're with them. Talk about where you are when it's appropriate to, and always remember to be their friend too.


5. You Won’t Deliver on Your Capability
   If you're running the very real risk of damaging your confidence, self-esteem, relationships and options by sticking at a job you hate, you obviously won’t be delivering on your true capability.
   
   Even though you know deep down that you can have, do and be more in life you're not exploring that capability or doing anything with it. You’re not honoring the things that are most important to you and you’re not even looking at what kind of work might slap a big grin on your face or make you proud.

So what do you want for yourself? If you had a choice (and you do), how would you like to think or feel about your work? How would it be if you could find a career that works for you, rather than the other way around? Go where you find a pull or some energy; go where you feel a sense of fun or excitement, even if it looks scary.

You're more capable than you know, and your capability is just waiting to be explored.

- Steve

Name This Local Website-80

Wow, #80. When I get to 100 I am going to slow down, I think. But for now, Click here.

Old vs. New Media

My original intent for Name this Local Website, was to find some of the interesting Fort Wayne Blogs and promote them.

I thought I'd have about 25. Now I'm shooting towards 100. I'm finding them from the links on blogs I've already found and then there are a couple of other methods I'll share one day.

However when I returned from a late lunch today, I found the following article from the "old media" talking about the "new media":

Old media under attack by bloggers and their ilk

Thursday, August 28, 2008

By Mackenzie Carpenter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Ted S. Warren/Associated Press

People exit the blogger lounge at the Democratic National Convention in Denver earlier this week. Bloggers are becoming a more influential fixture in politics, a fact not lost on Democrats who credentialed about 120 blogs, three times more than they did four years ago in Boston.

DENVER -- At the entrance of "The Big Tent" -- a refuge for bloggers a short walk from the Pepsi Center -- there's a signup sheet for visitors from newspapers and television and others of their ilk.

"Traditional Media," it says.

It's a subtle putdown, but illustrative of a larger truth: the "new media" -- the Internet journalists, the V-loggers, the satellite radio hosts -- are on the ascent at this convention. They're the ones with the swagger, the ones with the coolest parties and the wonkiest panel discussions.

Click here for the rest of the article

Attention Local Photographers

This is from the Chamber of Commerce:

Budding Shutterflys Needed

The Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce and Business People Magazine are proud to announce a search for the community's best photos to represent Fort Wayne in the 16th Annual This is Fort Wayne and The Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce Membership Directory.

All professionals, hobbyists and budding photographers are encouraged to submit their best shots by October 31. Candid shots, fun shots, environmental shots all apply. The only criteria are that the photos must pertain to Fort Wayne.

To be considered for publication photos must be 300 dpi resolution or higher, be at least 3 inches by 3 inches and contain a brief description explaining who and what is featured in the photo.

Photos may be submitted to Audrey Pelsor, Business People magazine, at
apelsor@businesspeople.com, or saved to a CD or DVD and mailed to 7729 Westfield
Drive, Fort Wayne, Indiana 46825.

29 Online Helpers

I stumbled across this recently. I have not checked on these services myself yet, but will in the near future.

Take a moment and imagine a world without computers, a world without applications. Its hard isn’t it? In today’s day and age it has become impossible to get certain things done without the help of a computer. And of course computer alone can’t do much if there aren’t proper application to assist you in what you are doing.

Web applications have come and gone. Some have stayed on top for years and have provided utmost value to the users and some have been dumped after their first use.

Today we bring you 29 Web Applications that are intended for students, businesses and webmasters. In this post you will find 29 web apps altogether divided in 3 groups - Students, Businesses and Webmasters. Under each link you will find a brief excerpt from their about us page which will give you a better idea as to how they might help you achieve what you are trying to do.

note : the description under each application is extracted from the application developers about page. No one else can describe a product like the makers do, so we decided we would use their own words to describe each applications.

Let’s get started,

Web Applications For Students

1. Shvoong Homework: Shvoong Homework allows students to work in interactive and inspiring surroundings, while helping their fellow students and benefiting from others’ knowledge. We are sure it will revolutionize the ways students, parents and teachers view schooling.
2. Dark Copy: DarkCopy is for anyone who enjoys the simplicity of a typewriter, and wants to increase productivity by focusing only on writing. It was created as a free, web-based clone of WriteRoom.
3. Printable Paper: Hundreds of papers you can download and print for free. We’ve got graph paper, lined paper, financial paper, music paper, and more.
4. BibMe: The fully automatic bibliography maker that auto-fills. It’s the easiest way to build a works cited page. And it’s free. Search for a book, article, website, or film, or enter the information yourself. Add it to your bibliography. Download your bibliography in either the MLA, APA, Chicago, or Turabian formats and include it in your paper. It’s that easy!
5. PDF Pad: PDF Pad is a comprehensive online destination where you can download and print the high quality documents you need for work, school and play, free of charge or registration hassles.
6. Lecture Fox: Free audio / video to different university courses and lectures from some of the top schools such as MIT, Harvard, Oxford, etc. Subjects include physics, chemistry, computer science, mathematics and faculty mix.
7. Buddy School: In BuddySchool teachers and students meet to study online. Teachers post their listings with information about their field(s) of expertise, pricing, availability and contact information, especially about the Internet communicators they use. Students search through listings to find a teacher most suitable for them.
8. Emurse: Emurse allows job seekers to easily create and maintain a professional resume that is hosted online, available for download in any needed format. Making additions and keeping resumes up-to-date and ready to go has never been easier.
9. Social Bib: Sick and tired of overpriced college textbooks? So are we! That’s why we created socialbib. Socialbib helps students get college textbooks for free. There’s no cost to join.
10. Bookgoo: Bookgoo allows you to upload, annotate, and collaborate with your offline documents in an online way. Putting your documents on our website is only part of the story. We allow your documents to be highlighted and annotated in the same way you would mark up a piece of paper with a highlighter and pen. Moreover, we allow you to then share your annotated documents with friends, colleagues, professors – really, anyone!

Web Applications For Business

1. Circle Up: CircleUp is a free social communications service that turbo-charges email and instant messaging when communicating with online and offline groups of any size. Think of CircleUp as improving email and IM to make them work efficiently for groups! With CircleUp, you can email or IM a circle of people and get back a single, organized result that you can print, share, export or archive, instead of a blizzard of individual responses.
2. Red Roller: Whether shipping ground or overnight, envelopes or 150-pound boxes RedRoller’s customers have access to a shipping solution to compare prices and delivery options from top carriers, print labels, schedule a pick up or locate a drop box, send email notifications, and track your packages in a snap.
3. Rota Board: Simple, Elegant, Organised (and Painless). Organising your employees working schedules shouldn’t be a burden. That’s why we’ve created Rotaboard - our FREE online rota management service. With Rotaboard, it’s easy to manage and keep track of all your staff’s working schedules.
4. Whos Off: Every company has difficulty tracking staff holiday, WhosOff delivers an answer to this enduring problem, by allowing staff to request holiday whilst applying simple initial controls, checking the number of days a staff member has left etc. and yet still passing the logged request on for final approval by an appointed approver. WhosOff is empowering all employers to have full visual control over staff holiday and its approval.
5. Postful: In business, you don’t have time to deal with letters. We put a corporate mailroom in your e-mail client. Postful is smarter, faster and more cost-effective than stocking stamps, envelopes, and letterhead (not to mention wasting your time stuffing letters). Whether in the office or on the go, Postful will change the way you work.
6. SlideShare: SlideShare is the best way to share your presentations with the world. Let your ideas reach a broad audience. Share publicly or privately.
7. Smartsheet: From assigning tasks and tracking project status to sharing information effortlessly. No matter the project, no matter its size, Smartsheet helps you get the job done.
8. BureauOfCommunication: Whether you need to communicate a problem, send an invitation to an event, or simply apologize for a transgression, our easy-to-use forms will ensure that your message is clearly conveyed.
9. Wufoo: Our HTML form builder helps you create contact forms, online surveys, and invitations so you can collect the data, registrations and online payments you need without writing a single line of code.
10. Wrike: Wrike is an integrated online project management solution that helps you manage projects, teams and businesses. By turning email overload into well-organized plans on the Web, Wrike makes your organization more efficient, transparent and agile. Wrike is collaborative, web-based, easy to use and inexpensive, so you can roll it out company-wide.

Web Applications For Webmasters

1. WebsiteGrader: Website Grader is a free seo tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective.
2. Websnapr: websnapr lets you capture screenshots of (almost) any web page. Allow your visitors to instantly visualize any web page before clicking. Increase site traffic, click-through rate and site stickiness.
3. WebGraphicsMaker: Free online tools which generate web graphics for your site or blog. Create Backgrounds, lines or bullets for your blog or site.
4. ValidChecker: Validchecker is a free tool that checks your html,rss,css documents’ validation peridiocally and send the results to you by email or RSS.
5. FreeScreenCast: We make screencasting simple from beginning to end. Record your screen, upload, and share with ease. No tech degree required.
6. AnyClient: AnyClient is a free platform independent file transfer application that supports all major file transfer protocols including FTP/S, SFTP and WebDAV/S. AnyClient is available both as a web based service requiring no software installation, and as a downloadable application that you can install locally.
7. WhoIsHostingThis: Actually, amongst the many web hosting/domaingin related tools we’ve encountered, we haven’t found one that gives you a clear answer to the simple question: Who is Hosting This Site? We’ve found that the best way to find good web hosting is to check out what your favorite web sites are using. This tool makes it very easy to do.
8. PhpForm: This application allows you to simply choose color, customize and add necessary fields and the app will get your HTML code ready for you.
9. Pingabilty: This app monitors site to make sure they are up and running. If the site goes down the webmaster is notified via email or mobile phone. A very handy app for webmasters who manage a number of sites.

Name This Local Website-79

Tuesday night's guessing game. Click here to go there.

Random Thoughts

My friend Dave sent these in an email. Don't know who the original author is.

Thoughts From a Wandering Mind


I planted some bird seed. A bird came up. Now I don't know what to feed it.
~~~
I had amnesia once -- or twice.
~~~
I went to San Francisco. I found someone's heart. Now what?
~~~
Protons have mass? I didn't even know they were Catholic.
~~~
All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
~~~
If the world were a logical place, men would be the ones who ride side saddle.
~~~
What is a 'free' gift? Aren't all gifts free?
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Someone told me I was gullible and I believed them..
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Teach a child to be polite and courteous and, when he grows up, he'll never be able to merge his car onto the freeway.
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Experience is the thing you have left when everything else is gone.
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One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people.
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My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies.
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I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not sure.
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The high cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.
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How can there be self-help 'groups'?
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If swimming is so good for your figure, how do you explain whales?
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Show me a man with both feet firmly on the ground, and I'll show you a man who can't get his pants off.
~~~
Is it just me--or do buffalo wings really taste like chicken?

Blogging Scorecard

This came in my email recently:

Would Your Blog Get an A?

For nearly a year and a half, Mack Collier has produced a series he calls the Company Blog Checkup. "Originally," he says, "I looked at each blog's content, how they encouraged and replied to reader comments, and how frequently the blog published new posts. I would later start examining the blog's sidebar elements as well."

This May, he introduced a 100-point scoring system that allocated a certain number of points to each area of focus. He also assigned retroactive grades to the reviews in his archive. All can now be compared/contrasted with each other, and in a post at his Viral Garden blog, Collier has unveiled the Top Ten list based on these scores.

It's possible you've never visited—or even heard of—the first four:

• Fiskars' The Fiskateers Blog (89 points)
• Homegoods' Openhouse Blog (88 points)
• Turkey Hill's Ice Cream Journal Blog (87 points)
• Innocent Drinks' Daily Thoughts Blog (87 points)

Blogs from more recognizable names like Southwest Airlines, Dell, Stacks and Stacks, Coca-Cola, Patagonia and Mahindra round out the Top Ten.

If you want to know what an effective blog looks like—and the weak points it could stand to improve—check out Collier's series. The insight can improve your blog, and that's Marketing Inspiration.

More Inspiration:
Ann Handley: Want a Free Pass to the Inbound Marketing Summit?
Drew McLellan: Hey Blogger, Are You Ready for the Lawsuit?
Paul Dunay: Command & Control Branding: Not Dead Yet?

Name This Local Website-78

Have you seen this one yet? Click here for the Answer.

One Last? Olympic Story

When I saw this last night, I couldn't resist sharing it with you:

Missing Cuban Rowing Team Arrives In Miami MIAMI, FL - The Cuban National Rowing Team, missing since the 2000 meter Olympic semifinals in Beijing last week, arrived in Miami Beach today to the surprise of hundreds of beach-goers. All nine members of the team, although quite tired, were in good health and spirits. Although it is not an official Olympic event, it is believed that the team shattered the record for semi-circumnavigation.

"It was a little tricky coming around Cape Horn." said Emilio Consuegas, coxswain for the team. "But we knew we were in the home stretch."

The Cubans, with a proud tradition of rowing dating back decades, has had little success in competitive rowing since the Mariel Boatlift depleted the country of its best rowing talent. The situation was further complicated by a constant shortage of boats. This team however, training on land to comply with Cuban maritime regulations, worked tirelessly to regain that once proud rowing tradition.

"My uncle once paddled a '65 Rambler all the way to Key West." said Franco Huertaz, crew anchor and single scull specialist. "I dedicate this race to him."

Other members of the team were just happy to be out of China. "It's really a repressive society." said Miguel Cervesa, who plans on seeking political asylum to avoid persecution for his anti-tobacco beliefs. "I'll bet it's hard to find a decent boat over there, too."

Here's where I found it.

Loud Actions

My wife has a saying in her life coaching business, about how life works so much better when what you say and what you do are in harmony with who you are.

Harvey talks about this too:

Harvey Mackay's Column This Week

Good examples speak louder than good advice

Do as I say, not as I do.

How many times have we heard—or practiced—that bit of advice?

If you ask me, that's the cowardly way out. We lead by example, whether in business, family or friendships. So why would we expect anyone to do as we say, not as we do, if the two are in conflict with one another?

I just returned from Shanghai, China, where I spoke to 1,500 Chinese entrepreneurs and business people. While over there I heard the Chinese proverb, "Reserve the square-inch plot for your descendants to till." I didn't understand the meaning, but the explanation was intriguing: The "square-inch plot" is the heart, and the meaning is that parents must leave a good example to be followed by their children.

This brought back memories from my childhood and probably yours too. Do you remember the saying, "Monkey see, monkey do"? That's how most kids learn. And kids, of course, grow up to be adults, who usually continue to follow examples set for them.

Famous child psychiatrist Fritz Redl used to say to groups of parents: "Get out your paper and pencils. I am going to tell you the three most important things you will ever need to know about raising children—example, example and example."

It doesn't matter if you're raising children or managing people, setting a good example is one of the most important leadership skills. You have to practice what you preach. Where we go and what we do advertises what we are.

Marshall Field, who founded the famous retail chain, always told employees there were 12 things to remember: "The value of time, the success of perseverance, the pleasure of working, the dignity of simplicity, the worth of character, the power of kindness, the influence of example, the obligation of duty, the wisdom of economy, the virtue of patience, the improvement of talent and the joy of originating."

"The influence of example" is extremely important in business and life.

Actor Martin Sheen told this story: "One day a young mother brought her young child to the famous Indian leader Gandhi and said, 'Please, Gandhi, you must tell my son to stop eating sweets.'

"Gandhi thought for a moment, then replied, 'Well, all right, can you come back in two days?'

"The mother agreed and came back with her child in exactly two days. Gandhi took the child aside and said, 'Don't eat sweets.'

"'Is that all?' said the puzzled mother, and Gandhi said, 'Yes.'

"'But why couldn't you have said that two days ago?' asked the mother.

"'Because,' replied Gandhi, 'two days ago I was still eating sweets.'"

You see, Gandhi practiced what he preached.

The Think & Grow Rich Newsletter shared the story of how the Federal Express field organization was having difficulty improving the accuracy of airbill documents, which are used to prepare invoices. Accuracy was vital but the error rate hovered around 10 percent no matter how much pressure was exerted on managers.

A senior vice-president called in one of his managing directors and told him: "The airbill error rate is really killing us. Would you please take a couple of your stations and ask the employees there to figure out a way to improve the accuracy to at least 99.5 percent? When they succeed, I'd like to use their approach as the model for our entire worldwide system."

About six weeks later, the director called and said, "We did even better than you expected. There were only 51 errors all month out of the 21,000 airbills submitted."

You can guess how the story ends. The entire company followed the example set for them, and the error rate for the whole Federal Express system soon improved from 10 percent to .5 percent.

Set a good example, and you can leave a lasting mark. Consider the duck. A duck is perhaps two feet long. Watch it move through water on a lake, and while you may not be able to see it paddling furiously below the surface, the wake the duck leaves behind fans out about 40 degrees, and the ripples follow for 50 feet or so. That duck leaves a wake nearly 600 times its size!

Now consider your actions. Will your example have the same effect?

Mackay's Moral: The best teacher in the world is example.

Miss a column? The last three weeks of Harvey's columns are always archived online.

More information and learning tools can be found online at harveymackay.com.

Name This Local Website-77

Another week of local websites for you to discover. Click here for tonight's answer.