Tonight, I cooked sandwich wraps with bacon, spinach, and homemade salsa in them for my husband and I using this recipe. The intention was to make enough to cover our dinner tonight and Napoleon’s lunch tomorrow. It was a huge success, and eight wraps later we have only one set aside for leftovers!
I just noticed that LinkedIn supports a URL structure that makes it super easy to create a permalink to a LinkedIn search result for just about any name. For example, here’s a search for my friend Ron Lev:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Ron/Lev
Note how his first name is in the second to last directory and his last name is in the last directory. Just change these last two directories to create a permalink to your own name.
When moving from Seattle to New York, my husband and I left behind a 1965 Vespa. Here’s a video of my dad riding it in his backyard. He’s been taking good care of it by starting it up and taking it for a ride from time to time.
This screen shot solidifies my place in Internet history. Little did I know then that I would one day work at Google.
As you can see, my use of the Internet in 2001 revolved around experimenting with Amazon’s affiliate program and job seeking.
Ten years later, I’m done job seeking, but am not done experimenting. If you are feeling generous, click through this link to Amazon’s site and buy stuff. Thanks!
Today I ran across an Etsy listing for a vintage cheerleading SWHS ladies tee. The seller commented, “Not sure where SWHS is, but heck who cares?”
Well, I have the answer. SWHS stands for Sedro Woolley High School. I can be certain because the drawing of the cheerleader has Cubs written on her shirt, which is the high school’s mascot. Mystery solved!
For those who do care, here’s a map of the t-shirt’s origin:
I made my second microfinance loan tonight to Andrei Mironov, a seller of ceramic tiles in Vasilyevka, Ukraine. Here’s Andrei:
When contributing, I noticed that I had the option on the thank you page on Kiva.org to add my loan info to my Facebook news feed. Here’s what the option looked like:
Now, here’s what my loan looks like in my Facebook news feed:
It’s features like this and I’m sure many others that are helping the loan applicants get funded so quickly. Kiva.org’s success in attracting money loaners is evident in this post on their site:
“Our new service is experiencing record traffic. In fact, on average, loans fundraising on the Kiva website receive full funding within a day. We want everyone to have a chance to lend, so we’re temporarily limiting loan contributions to $25 per business. We hope to remove the limit soon, as we work with our Field Partners to post more loans on the site.”
Pretty cool!
I just made a loan to someone in the developing world using a website called Kiva. You can go to Kiva’s website and lend to someone in the developing world who needs a loan for their business - like raising goats, selling vegetables at market or making bricks. Each loan has a picture of the entrepreneur, a description of their business and how they plan to use the loan so you know exactly how your money is being spent - and you get updates letting you know how the business is going. The best part is, when the entrepreneur pays back their loan you get your money back - and Kiva’s loans are managed by microfinance institutions on the ground who have a lot of experience doing this, so you can trust that your money is being handled responsibly.
The entrepreneur receiving my loan is named Ashurov Ravshan and lives in Tajikistan. He still needs another $425.00 to complete their loan request of $1,050.00 (you can loan as little as $25.00!). The money I contributed toward Ashurov’s loan will go toward purchasing a horn pedigree bull and pedigree milk cow. Help me get this business off the ground by to make a loan to Ashurov Ravshan too.
It’s finally easy to actually do something about poverty - using Kiva I know exactly who my money is loaned to and what they’re using it for. And most of all, I know that I’m helping them build a sustainable business that will provide income to feed, clothe, house and educate their family long after my loan is paid back.
UPDATE: Ashurov’s loan request has been met. Best wishes on the new pedigree animals Ashurov!
Last year, I gave my mom a couple different kinds of Moleskine notebooks. She’s already filled a complete Moleskine Accordian Album with beautiful sketches. She’s uploaded some of her work to Flickr. Take a look:
Note: The cat in this photo is the brother of my cat here in New York. He was a bit too unstable to move across the country, but lives the farm life with my parents now.
Lee Aase at the PR, New Media, GTD - Lines from Lee blog wrote a very helpful post about how to add your blog feed to your Facebook profile. I added mine and got 2 comments and 1 email from my friends within 24 hours as a result.
For those of you that also have blog feeds that you’d like to put on Facebook, check out Lee’s great post on the topic.
Several of my friends have made the switch from PC to Mac for their home computers, so here’s the first of a few tips on how to get the most out of it:
Get the application launcher called Quicksilver.The download is at http://www.blacktree.com/. Wikipedia has a good entry about it with some additional background information. Once installed, I suggest updating the application launcher shortcut to the Apple Key + Spacebar combo. To do this, you’ll need to first make sure that the Spotlight shortcut doesn’t conflict. Go into System Preferences > Spotlight and update “Spotlight menu keyboard shortcut” to use ctrl + Spacebar (it looks like ^ Space). Also inside System Preferences > Spotlight, make sure that “Spotlight window keyboard shortcut” is not using the Apple Key + Spacebar combo. I am using alt/option + Spacebar for this one. Save the new settings and exit System Preferences. Now, you are ready to set the Quicksilver hotkey. Open the Quicksilver app. In the top right corner of the app, there is a down arrow. Click that to expand a menu. In the menu, navigate to Quicksilver > Preferences. Once in the preferences menu of Quicksilver, click on the Command item in the left column of options. Within the Command section, you’ll see a HotKey Activation area. Click inside of that and hit the Apple Key followed by the Spacebar. Click the red close button. You are done configuring the shortcut.
Now, to reap the rewards of all this setup work, press the Apple Key followed by the Spacebar. Start typing the name of a program you like to use, say iTunes. As you type, Quicksilver suggests which program you are looking for and allows you to open it by pressing the return key.
Now, the challenge is to learn something new that you can do with Quicksilver, and post about it here in the comments. I’ve head it can be used for much more than an application launcher, but haven’t spent too much time with it. Let me know how you use it.