Those who love their Sushi agree that there are certain tips that will help those starting out to have the best possible experience as they try a new food. Follow these guidelines, and it’s possible you may end up in the Sushi-lovers camp.

Start by checking out any Sushi restaurants in your city. All quality sushi establishments have a bar where the fish is displayed. Don’t be reluctant to take a look, that’s what the bar is there for. Take a good look at the fish. It should look juicy, not dry, and it should be what the chef is using to prepare sushi dishes. If he isn’t using the display fish, ask why not. Truly reputable sushi restaurants take great pride in showing off the quality and freshness of their fish, which is what this culinary specialty is all about. If the restaurant doesn’t have a fish display, don’t even think of eating sushi there.

Next, avoid any “all you can eat” sushi restaurant. Once again, the issue is quality, and places that advertise “all you can eat” typically prepare large amounts of fish in advance. The freshness diminishes the longer the food is held. Granted, top quality seafood is expensive, but when it comes to sushi, diners really do get what they pay for. Those who remain unconvinced ought to try their own taste test. Eat once in an “all you can eat” sushi restaurant, and then go to a traditional establishment where diners pay by the piece. The flavor of premium quality sushi should be all the evidence needed to prefer the traditional restaurant.

Another thing to note is whether diners are forced to order everything all at once, or whether they can order a few pieces of sushi at a time. A quality restaurant will place as much emphasis on the dining experience as on the food, allowing its customers to savor each piece of sushi individually. After all, it’s not Japanese fast food, but a gourmet delicacy in its own right. If the server in a sushi restaurant insists the diners order all at once, that could be a sign that the fish isn’t fresh, or that large amounts have been prepared in advance. Take note, and try another establishment.

Also note the flavor of the rice used in sushi dishes. Sushi rice is short-grained rice combined with sugar, rice vinegar, salt and water. This imparts a delicate flavor to the rice accompanying the fish. If the rice has no flavor, try another restaurant.

Check the menu for a combination of traditional sushi and sashimi dishes and more modern versions such as California Rolls. A lack of traditional dishes on the menu could mean that the sushi chef has not received proper training, and the sushi served there could be less than authentic.

Finally, treat yourself to the “chef’s special. Just as the sushi chef to prepare what he thinks best with the available fish. It’s a risk, true, but it could also lead to a tasty experience – to say nothing of creating a good relationship with the chef!

Japanese chef and sushi bar owner Okistugu Kado carves out detailed vegetable sculptures inspired by movies, in this case, Star Wars. The sculptures are edible, but held together with bamboo skewers and toothpicks, so one might want to be careful if they feel the need to eat a sculpture that tastes like a vegetable that a chef put hours — sometimes upwards of ten — into creating. Read on below to see some of the other detailed sculptures, and after that, head on over to Kado’s personal blog to see more of his work, including a sushi cake that may not turn out to be what you envisioned when you heard the phrase “sushi cake.”

(Metro.co.uk via Oddity Central)

A new sushi restaurant in the Aichi Prefecture of Japan has taken to making some outrageously massive rolls and nigiri. They also serve up some absolutely tiny pieces with each order to absolutely mess with the minds of anyone enjoying their treats. In the picture above, regular sushi has been included to give perspective to the other trays. You can watch a video of it at the link, but be warned the dialogue is in Japanese.

Link Via InventorSpot

Worth Checking

pozycjonowanie

Now here’s a funding deal you don’t get to write about everyday. True Ventures has invested $2.5 million in a tongue scraper. That’s not high-tech jargon for, say, a scummy site that steals private data off of your social networks and sells it to marketers. True Ventures newest portfolio company is a small consumer package good company out of Provo, Utah that sold a million tongue brushes last year for a few dollars each. And the hope is this tiny company can instruct Silicon Valley a thing or two about how to use social media.

The company is called Orabrush and you may have seen its YouTube videos, which Advertising Age rated one of the ten ideal social media campaigns of 2010.

Except Orabrush’s use of YouTube may be more impressive than say Pepsi or Old Spice, because it was promoting a product that no one knew about and no one wanted to sell. The brush was invented decades ago by a guy named Bob Wagstaff. Now in his 70s, he’d tried everything to make the product successful– even an infomercial. So a few years ago, Wagstaff took it to a local university to see what they could do with it. The students did loads of research and came back and told him that 92% weren’t interested so he shouldn’t waste time marketing it online. Except one student name Jeffrey Harmon pointed out that 8% was still a lot of people.

Harmon offered to work on commission marketing the tongue brush online, and got a friend to do a ranty video about bad breath. That video cost a few hundred dollars and got more than 16 million views and sold ten thousand Orabrushes in six weeks. It also scored Orabrush coverage on Nightline, The Wall Street Journal, Fox Business and a host of other highbrow media outlets.

Here’s the surprising thing: The video isn’t really that funny. Saying it “went viral” isn’t quite right. People weren’t forwarding this around saying “YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS! LOLOLOL!” People seemed to resonate with the product itself and a desire not to have bad breath. Many viral videos do more than rack up page views. This one not only sold ten thousands Orabrushes, it spawned hundreds of videos of people using it and showing the camera the gunk that came off their tongues. Another four million people watched those video responses. And a whopping 20% of people who watched Orabrush’s video went to the site, and 5% purchased a brush– metrics that have stayed steady over time.

About this time Jeff Davis — a former senior executive at Procter & Gamble who’d retired to Utah and was looking for something to do– was introduced to the company. Its success at using social media to create a category flew in the face of everything he’d learned over 23 years of marketing products the traditional way. He joined the company as CEO in 2010. On one hand, it’s a like a return to the early days of the consumer package good industry where Soap Operas were high-content ads for soap. On the other hand, he’s in a new world where like George Costanza, his job is now to do the opposite of most everything he learned at P&G.

Since then, the company has managed to translate that video success to retail deals. In the UK, 40,000 Orabrush fans complained enough that Boots called the company to ask how they could carry them. Forty retailers in five countries carry the Orabrush and Wal-Mart is selling them in 14 stories in Utah. The Wal-Mart campaign is interesting. The Orabrush is one of the first products that has an “As Seen on YouTube” label, and there’s a monitor at the end of the aisle showing the videos. I’m not sure Chad Hurley and Steve Chen ever thought their video site would be blaring in Wal-Mart as an in-store marketing tool. But somehow, that too is working. In stores that carry the Orabrush it outsells any other toothbrush– never mind stores turned this product down for years saying tongue scrapers never sell.

Like Justin Bieber, Orabrush is one of those things that seems to be finally proving the promise of YouTube to discover wildly successful things via grass roots that the establishment wasn’t smart enough to “get.” Sure Orabrush doesn’t have millions of followers on Twitter or a movie about its rise through YouTube, but it also doesn’t have that hair. For a device that gets rid of bacteria, it’s about as Bieber-like as you can get.

This is an unlikely social media think tank: 70-year old Dr. Bob, middle-aged Davis and 20-something Harmon and his rogue video crew. But somehow, it keeps working. They’ve made more than 30 videos– most starring a “dirty tongue” who spends his time offending everyone in a weekly show– and their channel is the second most trafficked on YouTube with 33 million views. They followed up with a “Bad Breath Detector” iPhone app, that I refused to blow on when I met with them. It has been downloaded 250,000 times. Despite its small size, Google has flown them out to Mountain View several times to learn from what the company has done well. Under pressure to find a way to turn all those eyeballs into a massive revenue stream, there’s something about Orabrush that might hold the answer for Google.

This is why Davis joined the company as CEO, and this is why True invested along with existing investor 2x Consumer Product Growth Partners in Chicago. It’s a lot of pressure on something that seems to have just worked so far. The question is: Has Orabrush been lucky with a product people happened to connect with or have they unlocked some secret of using primary YouTube content as highly-actionable commercials? Could they do this with, say, dental floss?

Harmon the keys are the four Cs of authentic content, collaboration with the YouTube audience, consistency and a clear call to action. Also, he doesn’t show the videos to Davis before they run. A rude tongue insulting users, women, minorities and beating up on a football field? Yeah, superior to ask forgiveness than permission. See the latest one about Valentine’s Day below.

But part of the key might be not to confuse lightening in a bottle with a formula for success. What’s striking isn’t that YouTube would have the reach to pull this off. After all, we’ve all seen stats about how much time people spend on the web versus watching TV, how powerless ads are in a TiVo world, and how you have to entertain people if you want to advertise to them these days. But 99% of the time, it just doesn’t work. American Express and Microsoft tried the entertainment route with pricey ads starring Jerry Seinfeld, and they were a bust. Nearly every Superbowl ad invites you to watch more online. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never once done that. And while the Old Spice campaign was an exception too– it was also hilarious and overtly interactive. The Orabrush campaign seemed to strike a chord because people wanted the product.

On one hand, I hope there is something they’ve figured out because consumer packaged goods is one of the only industries the World wide web hasn’t managed to disrupt. But on the other hand, I fear an onslaught of ranty ads trying to ape what Orabrush seems to have innately stumbled into.

pozycjonowanie

The despatch of living is way down cross-bred with the romantic and exact conceptions of creature, consciousness, and light-heartedness, and touches on numerous other issues, such as symbolic components, ontology, value, just, ethics, wholesome and underhanded, going berserk desire, conceptions of Tutelary, the presence of Divinity, the essence, and the afterlife. Well-regulated contributions are more circumambient; not later than describing the observed facts surrender the zone, knowledge provides some structure and sets parameters in post of conversations on interrelated topics. An unstable, human-centric, and not a cosmic/religious nearer is the bedlam “What is the sum total of my life?” The value of the collect summon in pertaining to the calculate of initiate of subsistence may co-occur with the conclusion of conclusive genuineness, or a soup‡on of oneness, or a feeling of sacredness.

Whether it’s because science is hard and unpredictable, or that resources are limited, or there is lack of prioritization — too many great scientific ideas sit at the laboratory bench waiting for translation. But, there are successful models that have turned a basic discovery into an effective therapeutic option. These models can provide pathways to a healthier future.

We are at a critical inflection point in current discussions within the biomedical research establishment about what actions need to be taken to push the science toward cures where possible. We need to take advantage of this moment, and we need to bring patients, the public and policymakers into the conversation. Next week from December 13-15 FasterCures is convening in New York City all of the sectors involved in medical research to do just that. Partnering for Cures is a meeting like no other, a place to forge collaborations and participate in outcome-focused dialogue about the challenges facing medical research. We have always maintained that each of the sectors plays a vital role, whether it is government, industry, philanthropy, academia, finance or the non-profits. And the need for their capability to seamlessly pass the baton from one to the other has never been greater or the stakes higher.

Successful models have integrated all of these sectors. Everyone needs to be at this table. Few life-saving therapies have come to market without the resources of private industry. Increasingly, patients have become more sophisticated and disease groups are ever innovating with new models for collaboration with academia and industry. The U.S. government is recognizing that it can play a special and critical role in providing an environment where successful partnerships can grow and proliferate. Partnering for Cures provides an opportunity for all sectors to productively collide, creating an ultimate open source opportunity to shine a light on these models so others can learn and build on them.

One area of keen interest to us is identifying solutions and models to cross the so-called “Valley of Death” — an ever-widening gap in funding and support for the kind of research that moves basic science down the path toward treatments.

In a new report released by FasterCures, “Crossing Over the Valley of Death,” we highlight the productivity gap that currently exists today, how research moves from molecule to marketplace, how we can traverse the Valley of Death and what all of the sectors are doing towards that end. Many players are marching into that valley, but we are far from reaching the other side.

The need to keep marching with the resources required to make the passage is recognized by advisors to U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Francis Collins, who have recommended that a new translational medicine and therapeutics development center be created by the federal post-haste. This proposed center would bring together existing NIH activities in translational research and medicine and greater coordination and collaboration internally as well as externally, and ultimately, we hope, produce greater outcomes.

We need to support this recommendation, which if implemented would shine a light on the critically needed but under-resourced and under-appreciated area of translational research. In our jump to embrace this breathtaking opportunity, however, we need to ensure that Peter is not robbed to pay Paul. NIH’s other strengths include supporting the nation’s basic biomedical research enterprise, and that focus can’t be lost or diminished in our impatience with the pace of progress. Basic science is still as important as ever, but we also want and deserve concrete outcomes.

Dr. Robert Beall, President and CEO of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation often about the Foundation’s own model for de-risking research as providing “more shots on goal.” Never has the need been greater to have all of the sectors implement that same approach, to take bold steps to move forward swiftly.

Our nation’s wise and prolonged investment in basic science has produced discoveries that now need translation. Knowledge gained from basic discoveries grants us to take more strategic and informed shots on goal. This new and important focus on translation no doubt makes some in the research community uncomfortable, as they worry about focus, changing research priorities and competition over scarce dollars.

We recognize those concerns, but at the same time, the need for accountability and outcomes prevail. Patients need to know that we, the collective “we” in the medical research system, are doing everything we can to get new preventive, diagnostic and treatment options through the pipeline and into the clinic. The alternative to this change is the status quo — 15 years for an intervention to go from bench to bedside. Clearly that isn’t acceptable. Is it?

Join us at Partnering for Cures, December 13-15 in New York City. www.partneringforcures.org.

This story reminds me of the Catch Me if You Can where Tom Hanks asks Decaprio how he passed the bar exam, the response “I studied for it.” There was actually a time where studying for the exam was all you needed to become a lawyer, law school was just a way to get a head on your exam and internship.

In our world certification and where you learned often means more than your qualifications. I feel that diploma proliferation especially among those of the higher economic strata with the means to pay for advanced degrees and take the time out of the work force to study are naturally reinforcing their groups economic position. Degree stipulations used especially in the public and education sector to squeeze out applicants perfectly qualified often in favor of making the hiring process appear impartial or to make the weeding out process of the HR department easier.

Make no mistake I spent over ten years in university full and part time amassing several degrees but this was more for my own personal enrichment and mostly not to get a job. I still cannot why my sister in law needs a masters degree to sit three days a week with an interesting novel and proctor GED exams, but that was a firm to apply for that junior college position.

I suppose if a person, state an experienced nurse or paramedic, were able self study the curricula for med school, line up labs and an internship, then actually succeed during the supervised internship and residency there is no reason that they should not be licensed even as a physician.

How is this guy unlike most of the population who lies on their resume or CV? It is a catch 22, you wont get hired ahead of other resume liars unless you lie about your experience, then for the rest of your career you have to look over your back. It is unfortunate that this dishonesty has caused him to be discredited as a proven teacher who apparently has such a positive lifesaving impact, mostly just to punish him. Would he ever have been taken seriously or had the meritorious impact had he told the truth. Conflicted I am…

See also 4 MEC

Dan Klamm is the outreach and marketing coordinator at Syracuse University Career Services. Connect with him on Twitter @DanKlamm.

Finding a job in today’s economy is tough if you’re looking locally, but it can be particularly challenging if you’re seeking work in a far-away, unfamiliar city.

If you’re a long-distance job seeker, you face several disadvantages. First, some companies that bringing you in for an interview will be a hassle and that you will expect them to pay for travel expenses. Second, they don’t know whether you’re serious about relocating to their city. Third, you’re an unknown entity. When going head-to-head with more familiar candidates, it’s often easier and less risky for employers to the locals and toss your application aside.

Even if you’re able to secure interviews and gain some traction in your search, the process of landing a position in a new city can involve a significant investment of time, money and resources on your part.

The good news is that social media can help with the process of long-distance job seeking. Whether you’re looking for a job 300 or 3,000 miles from home, here are some tips for using social media in your search.

Stay On Top of Local News

When interviewing for positions in a new locale, you don’t want to seem like an outsider. It’s important to get acquainted with local culture and to stay on top of important happenings in the news. Though you probably won’t be grilled on local politics, sports teams or economic development during the interview process, being aware of these things can help with small talk. It also shows that you’re serious about relocating and invested in the process.

You can get started by following local news outlets on TwitterTwitter and FacebookFacebook, as well as identifying local personalities and thought leaders to keep up with. A job seeker focusing his efforts on Richmond, VA, for instance, might think about following @RVAnews, @RichmondMag and @WireRichmond. The Huffington Post even aggregated lists of regional news outlets on Twitter, making it for you to find Twitter accounts in specific locations.

Grow Your Professional Network

Most jobs are found through networking, so you should leverage any and all local connections you may have. Facebook is a great platform for warming up relationships with old friends, family or former colleagues who live in the location where you’d like to be. Beyond that, LinkedInLinkedIn can help you identify new contacts — such as people working at your target companies — and get introduced through mutual connections. Here are some tips on the etiquette of reaching out via social media.

Tap into local professional associations on LinkedIn, too. If you’re relocating to Boston to work in marketing, for instance, you have plenty of opportunities to network: The Boston Chapter of the American Marketing Association, the Boston Marketing Group, and the Boston Interactive Media Association, just to name a few. Being part of these groups will keep you in-the-know with local industry happenings and increase the likelihood that you’re invited to networking events.

Don’t overlook alumni connections in your target city. Many schools have satellite locations or active regional clubs with robust offerings in the way of career connections. At Syracuse University, alumni can follow @LubinHouseSU and @BigAppleOrange on Twitter, or join the Huge Apple Orange group on LinkedIn to network with SU’s alumni base in the New York City area.

Find Job Postings

Increasingly, companies are using LinkedIn and Twitter to publicize job openings. LinkedIn is more useful than a typical job board because it grants you to see who posted each job and to pinpoint how you are connected to individuals at the company.

Edelman, one of the world’s largest independent PR firms, uses LinkedIn to post job opportunities in its 52 worldwide offices. The firm also uses Twitter to engage potential employees. Recently, Edelman even hosted a San Francisco Tweet-up for job seekers savvy enough to be following its @Edelman_Careers account on Twitter.

In addition to specific companies posting jobs, be aware of niche job feeds on Twitter. Looking for jobs in New York City’s fashion industry? Follow @nyfashionjobs. Marketing jobs in Los Angeles? Try @LA_Marketing. Visit twitjobsearch.com to locate Twitter accounts posting jobs relevant to your particular search.

Save Money on Travel

In most cases, you’ll need to make at least a couple trips to your desired new location before making a permanent move. If you’re lucky, your prospective employer will offer to cover the costs of travel or give you the opportunity to conduct preliminary interviews via phone or SkypeSkype. Even with these accommodations, the costs of hunting for a job in a far-away location can add up quickly — especially if you’re looking in costly markets like New York City or San Francisco.

To learn about opportunities to save, connect with travel providers and hospitality companies through social media. Often, these organizations will provide promotional codes or discounts to their followers. United Airlines has been known to advertise special fares (or “twares”) via their Twitter account. Virgin America has also offered discounted rates via Twitter promotions, such as “Fly Forward, Give Back.” Amtrak, Greyhound and Megabus all use Twitter to share news or special offers, as well.

When you will need to find lodging in your desired new location, it never hurts to be acquainted with local hotels. This past summer, the Bryant Park Hotel gave away a free two-night stay to a lucky Twitter follower. Many hotels are using social media to communicate with prospective guests, announce special rates and articulate their brand values. For a comprehensive view of hotels on Twitter, take a look at this list organized by Resideo.

Show That You Mean Business!

When a prospective employer receives your job application from across the country, he/she has no way of knowing how serious you are about moving. Are you applying to the company on a whim? Are you applying to positions all over the country? Would you really be prepared to make a move if offered the job? Use social media to show that you’re committed to relocating.

You can begin by customizing your LinkedIn profile. In your LinkedIn headline or summary, your plan to look for jobs in “X field” in “X location” by “X date.” This clarifies your intentions and shows that you mean business. Not all job seekers can be this forthright (especially those who have to keep relocation plans a secret from their current employers), but this is an excellent way to reinforce your seriousness about moving.

Looking for work in a new location can be a daunting task, but with the help of social media, it doesn’t have to be quite so difficult. When you make use of all the resources at your fingertips, you may be surprised how easy it is to make connections, identify opportunities, and ultimately land your dream job in a new location!

More Business Resources from Mashable:

– How the Fortune 500 Use Social Media to Grow Sales and Revenue
– 5 Ways to Sell Your Expertise Online
– Why Your Business Should Consider Reverse Mentorship
– 35 Essential Social Media & Tech Resources for Small Businesses
– 6 Ways to Score a Job Through Twitter

Image courtesy of iStockphotoiStockphoto, thesuperph

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Awesome research, and a thank you to the smart people behind it! My thoughts on each stat:

86% of B2B using social media compared to 82% of B2C: Great! Social media works better for B2B than B2C because a) the more complex a topic is, the more granular you need to get and only social media grants for that kind of depth; b) the easier it is to find information housed in social channels (like blogs) via search engines; and c) the tighter-knit the offline communities are, hence greater inbuilt trust and constructive engagement.

Only 32% engage on a daily basis, compared with 52% of B2C firms: Frankly, I'm pleased to see that the number is as high as a third. B2Cs were forced onto the social web earlier because the have greater raw numbers of people speaking about them online. So the opportunity showed up faster and so did the threats.

36% of B2Bs said there was low executive interest in social media: Speaking anecdotally, I bet that figure was 70% a year ago. There has been a sea change in opinion, in part because I think execs now see Twitter and Facebook logos on all kinds of consumer advertising. Sort of like when web site addresses become omnipresent in the 2000s. The roll out of Google “Jazz” earlier in the year, with its inclusion of videos, and tweets, has also upped social media's visibility. A study done by Forbes/Google found that the C-Suite conducts about 6+ searches per day, regardless of age (http://www.forbes.com/forbesin…). That's six times per day they're seeing social media-derived results about the business trends they're researching.

46% of B2Bs say social media is perceived as irrelevant v. 12% for B2C: To paraphrase Steve Jobs, they're holding it wrong. Like many consumer companies before them, B2Bs thought simply having a Twitter feed or YouTube channel meant you had a social media strategy. But that's like saying a phone and email address equals a media relations program. They're getting there now, and they'll get their faster as soon as one competitor in each market starts holding it “right.”

60% of B2Bs say they have no staff for social media v. 54%: As the DIRECT TRACKABLE links between social media and sales is seen, I predict a big uptick in investment. When $1 of expense yields $2 of return, resources follow, usually from the advertising budget.

10% of B2Bs use outside agencies compared to 28% of firms: There's a healthy debate about who can DO community relations better. Some agency-client relationships are so deep that an “outsider” can be entrusted to communicate the client’s culture and be given access to get the info they need on a daily basis . But otherwise, it’s going to be an in-house person that can keep their finger on the pulse of their company and community the ideal and ultimately synchronize them.

B2B spending on interactive marketing to double in next five years, but social media marketing will grow from just $11m to $54m in 2014: As the totally quantifiable links between social media and B2B sales are seen, I think that number will grow far beyond that.

Facebook stratified “extremely” or “somewhat” effective. Fewer state that of LinkedIn and 35% so of Twitter: As they to see the thought leadership applications of LinkedIn groups and learn more about how to use Twitter to steer traffic into their other social media channels, I think that “effective” ranking will increase considerably.

Only 50% of B2B marketers formally examine metrics to judge ROI: The next wave of integration — and we'll see a lot of this in 2011 — is linking social media traffic and metrics to in-house CRM systems. So that number will climb as the expertise about how to make those causal links grows.

Two factors have delayed B2B adoption. The first is that consumer got their first. The second is that when consumer-style approaches were used, most of them were found lacking. That discouraged a lot of B2Bs from thinking social media could work for them. The good news is that B2Bs have been steadily finding their way, trying approaches that fit their unique needs, and finding many that work and can be scaled. Funny thing is, social media delivers higher ROI for B2B than B2C. Many people have called this time the golden age of public relations. When it comes to B2B, it's more accurate to state “platinum.”

See also marketing internetowy

Almost Effortless Marketing for Your Website by Creating Interest

Viral marketing, or viral advertising, is a great way to market any website. It is called viral marketing because your advertisement or website promotion grows and spreads like a virus. The idea is to have your website
 address replicated quickly and effortlessly across the web.

And it works.

Viral marketing works on the basic premise that people want to share good things with their friends and associates. The first step to creating a successful viral marketing campaign is to create something that members of the public will want to pass along to others.

Funny stories, humorous or amazing movies, jokes, games, and intriguing articles are all good viral marketing elements. Whatever the chosen medium for the viral marketing ad, the most important thing is to include, prominently but not obnoxiously, your company’s logo or website address.

Every time a person passes the hilarious joke along to a friend of family member, your website address goes with it. Not only do you improve your brand recognition, but also you will improve the public’s opinion of your company. And company owner with such a great sense of humor must be an okay guy to do business with. That is the kind of idea that you want to foster with viral marketing.

Another excellent viral marketing method is writing a branded ebook that you offer for free to people on your website. Again, make sure that your company logo and website address are prominent in the ebook’s pages.

Encourage your visitors to download the ebook for free, and encourage them to pass it on to anyone else they think might like it. Your generosity will increase perceptions of you, at the same time you are spreading your website address around.

Besides ebooks, other freebies, contests, and games are other great viral marketing techniques. Give away a free t-shirt with your company logo on it, have an advertising contest, of offer free fun games on your website. If visitors enjoy themselves, not only will they come back for another visit, but they will also pass the information to their friends.

See also marketing internetowy

Ann Rheams, Director of the Foundation, estimated to CNN that the amount of oil reaching the Eastern shore of Lake Pontchartrain near Slidell at under 100 barrels, with tar balls about the size of a silver dollar. Though hundreds of miles away, Hurricane Alex stalled Gulf Coast oil containment and the resulting storm systems have pushed the oil inwards.

Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Robert Barham announced precautionary closures to fishing in parts of Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Tammany and Plaquemines parishes because reports of oil, easterly winds and high tides. Closures of recreational and commercial fishing are based on information from field biologists, staff and trajectory models from NOAA. Once reports of oil are received, the Department initiates a field survey and seafood testing. LDWLF updates maps of closed fishing areas daily as the oil pushes inward.

Coming during a popular holiday fishing weekend, today's closures are a gut punch to parishes fighting to keep the BP Oil Spill at bay.

In late May, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis asked the U.S. Coast Guard to approve the building a series of earthen berms and rock dikes in Lake Borgne from Alligator Bend to the East Pearl River. The Alligator Bend and Seven Lagoons Shoreline Projection Projects were originally developed to restore the coast as part of the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection, and Restoration Act, but can also prevent oil from encroaching into the marshland along Lake Borgne and can protect the lower Pontchartrain Basin.

“I was out at Fort Pike earlier this morning and can attest that our assets are in place and crews are picking up tar balls as quickly as the weather conditions permit,” Landrieu yesterday. “We have always asserted that this is going to be a long, tough slog, but I remain confident that every asset we have available is being deployed to protect the Lake.”

And finally, because 11 workers died in the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, it seems important to remember them on this weekend of national reflection.

Full Article and ABC 26 Video Clip Posted at NewOrleans.com.

Obama filled the top slots of the bureaucracies with environmentalist ideologues. Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Obama's selection for the head of NOAA, is a brilliant scientist and a capable administrator, but also a hard-over environmentalist. She has plans to shrink the fishing fleet by more than half and then to restructure the remainder into bigger, presumably more efficient vessels. New regulations were imposed on 1 May 2010: miniscule allocations, big-brother reporting, electronic tracking, government observers on every other trip. Of course, to implement this, the bureaucracy has expanded — exploded — with lots of public-sector jobs. The trouble with public-sector jobs is that they do not create wealth. On the contrary, they are paid for by the taxpayer and represent a drain on available capital. 

oczyszczalnie biologiczne

I recently had an encounter with an article entitled 99 Names of God /Allah. I personally did not have to go about reading the entire piece, (no literary disrespect intended) due to my Judaic theological education and
 ministerial founding. For the most part the title was all that I had to read, contrasted with the irrefutable historical knowledge that I posses throughout my Judaic Theological studies; hence, it was not prudent to attempt to read much further. Before I continue to go on, this piece is not an effort on my part to be confrontational or controversial by no mean at all… It is of my own experience, that we all at one time or another in our lives are destined to human error. In those for instances, one that specializes in the continuous studies and life application of those certain things considered Holy and of a Sacred venue, may be of some assistance in shedding a bit of loving and correctional light on the topic at hand; that being said.

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Nate W.
Redmond, Ore.

A. Dearest Nate,

Photo: lucadea via FlickrYou know, I actually dropped a few pounds on a pasta diet
once. I just had to walk pasta the refrigerator, pasta the bakery, and pasta
the ice cream shop. A 3-year-old told me that joke.

But you know what's really nothing to laugh at (besides my
pasta joke)? Wasting our precious resources. Cooking noodles is one of those
small things I'm always telling you not to sweat; but conserving water and
energy is a big honking thing to sweat, so I'm happy to fill you in. Plus, it
gives me a chance to play around in the Grist test kitchen.

Since I have some better solutions to come, let's go ahead
and take the letting-water-run-until-it's-hot option off the table right now.
After space heat—that is, heating your entire home—water heaters are the
largest household energy consumers. And there are more efficient means of
heating such a small amount of water that also don't let natural resources just
run down the drain (I don't suppose you had a bucket there each time to catch
excess water?).

So does that just leave us waiting for the recommended six quarts of cooler tap water to
boil on the stovetop before adding our pasta? Not necessarily. First off, you
do not—I repeat, do not—need six
quarts of water to make a bowl of pasta. Yes, I know that's what it says on the
box. Grist's own food guru, Tom Philpott, and
food-science writer Harold McGee both concur that six quarts are overkill. About a quart and a half should do
the trick (I actually used even less for mine).

Secondly, here's the real coup: You can put the pasta right
into the cold water! That's right. You don't need to boil the water first. Pop
your pasta in, put a lid on the pot (contains the heat), and stir as needed to
prevent sticking. This method produced the same delectable rotini for me as the
boil-first method, saving water (ta-ta, six quarts) and energy, and it was
really no extra effort.

I wasn't satisfied to stop there, though, as I wanted to
give you options, plural. I'm not
sure how the cold water method works at high altitude, or if there's any
difference at all, but let's say you decide to stick with the boil-first
method. We know from my previous column
on boiling water for tea that the electric kettle is No. 1 in water-heating
efficiency. Thusly, how about getting your pasta water started in an electric
kettle? Once it's boiling (or nearly boiling) pour it over your pasta in a pot,
and then pop the lid on. Turn the burner on to keep the water's momentum going,
and voila. Cooked pasta in 10 minutes (or however long your particular type of
pasta takes)—which reminds me of yet another energy-saving tip: You don't have
to leave the stove on for the duration of the cooking time. Turn off the burner
a few minutes before the pasta is finished, leaving the lid on. The pasta will
continue to cook in the pot.

And don't just toss that water post-cooking. Pasta water in
restaurants is liquid gold—used as a sauce thickener. While you may not be able
to replicate the starchy water made from boiling order after order of
spaghetti, you can still try mixing some pasta water in with your next batch of
homemade tomato sauce. Or you can just let the water cool to room temperature
and use it to give your houseplants a little hydration.

Saucily,
Umbra

Other helpful links:

Ask Umbra on
water conservation
Ask Umbra on
boiling water for tea
Ask
Umbra on water heaters
Ask Umbra on
waiting for warm water

Q. Dear Umbra,
My granddaughter uses Clorox Disinfecting Wipes constantly on everything. She
has a 2-year-old son, who is asthmatic and seems to have a somewhat compromised
immune system. The least little trigger can set him off into an asthma
attack, which on occasion has developed into pneumonia and resulted in hospital
stays. She is obsessed with certain hygiene, and I tend to think she overdoes
it. Plus, she tends not to wipe off the kitchen counters with a dishrag before
she uses the wipes, which leaves scum on the counters. Please help me with
recommendations I can pass on to her. Thanks!

Carol J.
Scottsdale, Ariz.

A. Dearest Carol,

Advising loved ones on child-rearing or cleaning techniques is
a slippery slope indeed, as is giving this question a definitive answer.

Let's first start by breaking down what exactly is in these
wipes. A couple of the key ingredients are alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride and alkyl dimethyl ethylbenzyl
ammonium chloride (whew, glad I didn't get those words in my fourth grade
spelling bee). The production of these compounds results in harmful dioxins,
which can cause cancer, immune system problems, and reproductive issues.
Additionally, the ingredients themselves can cause skin irritation, headaches,
and respiratory issues. In short, these chems are not a good thing to have around a child who's
already having his share of breathing problems, methinks.

Plus, these wipes are utterly disposable, equaling a lot of unnecessary
waste. One swipe, and then into the trash bin—sad. Not to mention the fact that
they are packaged in a plastic bottle, which is a big petroleum-sucking no-no
in my book.

I'm not a doctor and don't even pretend to play one in this column
(though I do look mighty authoritative wearing a stethoscope), so I'm not going
to try to diagnose whether your great-grandson's condition warrants the kind of
disinfection these wipes offer, harsh though their ingredients may be. Try
referring his mom to my April
12 column on sanitizing counters with white vinegar and hydrogen peroxide
(in two separate bottles). The combo kills almost all Salmonella, Shigella, and
E. coli bacteria. However, if whiter,
grime-free surfaces are all your granddaughter is after, then our friends vinegar,
baking soda, and castile soap along with a reusable dishcloth and a little
elbow grease should do the trick.

Spotlessly,
Umbra

Other helpful links:

Ask Umbra
on bleach
Ask
Umbra on green cleaning
Ask Umbra
on having kids
Ask
Umbra on mini-dilemmas

In my April
5 column, I responded to 9-year-old Ian's question about eco-friendly
packaging for his newly designed card game. In return, I received a package
this week with a handmade thank-you card from Ian, a lovely letter from his
mom, and pictures of Ian and his completed product, which I wanted to share
with you guys.

Ian, rocking a rad fedora and showing off his upcycled game packaging.Hello! I wanted to say thanks, because your ideas really
helped! My updated format looks great, and it's eco-friendly, not to mention
cheap. Here are some pictures for you to enjoy.

Ian

Dear Umbra,

Several weeks ago, you answered my 9-year-old son's question
about creating eco-friendly packaging for a game he's invented. Your reply
thrilled him—he was surprised that he got a reply. It made his day. He ended up
rethinking his packaging and created drawstring bags out of a variety of
leftover fabrics. It significantly lowered his costs, taught him sewing skills,
and added an element of personalization to each game. And eco-friendly to boot!

Many thanks from a grateful mom,
Gwyn R.

Before the park’s grand opening, Harry Potter expert Melissa Anelli was magically granted access into Universal’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter for a “chill-inducing” walk through the gates of Hogwarts and a taste of some genuine “butterbeer.”

I will never get over the bizarre feeling of strolling through a snowy British town in air so hot and so humid I could boil pasta in the palm of my hand. Nor will it ever feel natural to gaze upon Hogwarts, flanked by its iconic boars—and the palm trees that surround it—from afar. But (sorry, mayor of London), there really isn’t a better place than Florida for the wedge of Harry Potter paradise that is Universal Studios’ Wizarding World of Harry Potter. After a few minutes, the superb detailing of the attraction fully distracts from the environmental ironies.

Months ago, I attended a press preview of the theme park on behalf of my website, The Leaky Cauldron. During that preview we were given a quick tour of the still-under-construction park and offered samples of food from its Three Broomsticks restaurant. After all the deliciousness that ensued, I started joking that we fans were going to enter the park, which officially opens this week, as our normal selves, but walk out fat and poor.

Fast-forward to Memorial Day weekend, when all three hosts of The Leaky Cauldron’s PotterCast—John Noe, Frank Franco, and I—gained entrance to the park during its soft opening period. We get a lot of tips in our inboxes, and quite a few of them indicated a soft open around the end of May. Nothing was certain, but we knew there would be a theme park “experience” for people who had bought a certain vacation package, so we figured, why not just spend Memorial Day in Orlando… just in case? The gamble paid off. It turned out that a guest at one of the Universal Resort hotels could get into the park an hour before it opened to everyone else—and that was how we got into the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It closed after a few hours, but we spent those hours making the most of everything and my wisecracking prediction came true inside two hours. Three butterbeers, five souvenir pins, a Hog's Head Ale, a pumpkin juice, a Cauldron Cake, a set of wax seals, a Hogwarts shirt, and an annual pass later, my stomach had grown as my bank balance diminished—and I can honestly say it was the happiest I've ever been under such conditions.

At 7:30 a.m. sharp on May 29, we stood on line with roughly 400 other people, awaiting entrance to the Promised Land. Every last person there was part of the largest human train I’ve ever seen, speed-walking like ducks all the way to the back of Universal Studios' Islands of Adventure theme park to get into Hogsmeade. We squealed like children as the arch, with its wrought-iron sign that reads “Please respect spell limits,” drew near, and almost ran to get right into Hogwarts and onto the Forbidden Journey ride, the park’s signature attraction.

Sadly, we never got on: As we were reminded, the soft opening was like the technical rehearsal for a show. We instead spent 20 minutes wandering around the magnificently built Hogwarts, ogling the so-real-looking moving portraits and trying to restrain ourselves from hopping into a seat next to the Gryffindor common room fire, before the queue came to a standstill and a mild-voiced announcer evacuated us.

Who cared? We had all of Hogsmeade to explore—a life-size recreation of the world I’ve immersed myself in for nearly a decade. We moved on to Ollivanders, the wand shop from the franchise, where a wand master carefully selected two young children from our group and performed tests on them to determine their wands. Of course, in true theme park tradition, this meant they would have to buy them in the neighboring shop.

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