Mini Fad: Innovation, Health, and Style in a Web-Driven World

Droid, iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, Windows Mobile, Symbian....AAAAH

2009-12-29T13:08:00.004-05:00

Two nights ago, in a typical act of klutzery, I spilt a strongly brewed cup of herbal tea on both my personal laptop and my cell phone. Thankfully, my laptop survived after a restore, which is sort of amazing considering the damage the tea did to the finish on the kitchen table (should I be worried about my stomach???). But my phone? It spent a day flickering and sputtering, and finally quit

Marketing on YouTube: A Double-Edged Sword

2009-10-19T10:44:00.012-04:00

“Brands that let their channels lapse and fade away into the wasteland of untidy and untended pages lack a clear understanding of how to use YouTube as a social media vehicle,” writes Catherine-Gail Reinhard, creative director at Videasa, on Mashable.A branded social media account requires a strong commitment. B.L. Ochman, a social media strategy consultant to Fortune 500 companies and the head

Learning from the Pros - Red Bull Extends the Brand to the Web

2009-08-31T18:25:00.005-04:00

Smart branding extends a consistent personality to everything the brand touches. Benefits to emphasize are carefully chosen and extended to everything from the colors, fonts, and logos used, to the events sponsored, to what the CEO says in an interview. It is absolutely essential that every brand have an Internet presence that fits its brand.Red Bull, for example, markets to young, risk-taking

Vinegar and Ice Cream, Cialdini, and Woot.com

2009-08-28T17:00:00.003-04:00

Two weeks ago, I ordered thoroughly indulgent gourmet vinegar: Cavedoni Botte Piccola Italian Balsamic. The normally $56 bottle was selling for $39.99 on Woot.com. At first I resisted temptation, but after reading the enthusiastic discussion on the forums, I gave in. I am one of many who daily submit to the site's brilliant business model.Woot purchases a single item in bulk and offers that item

The Web 2.0 Job Hunt: 5 Tips to Keep You Sane

2009-08-25T11:27:00.004-04:00

Advice I'm taking, and passing on to you:1. NARROW YOUR CHOICES.It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the number of options, and it will be hard to accomplish anything if you hunt and peck. Decide your criteria and job location before you start.2. USE SMART KEYWORDS.Use keywords that relate to specific skills or interests. I found some really interesting jobs by searching for health, performing arts,

Warning: May Cause Tastebuds to Spontaneously Combust

2009-08-05T23:20:00.013-04:00

After a stressful morning and afternoon, I turned in the evening to cooking experiments. I figure if I self-medicate with healthy food, it's okay. Ha.Since my last post I made another wallet-denting market trip, realizing that- hey, summer doesn't last forever and blackberry season is even shorter than that. Thus we have Exhibit A: Dangerously tantalizing little things, aren't they? One more,

Go to your Farmers’ Market. Buy some food. Drool. Eat. Savor. Repeat.

2009-08-04T00:36:00.007-04:00

My first job was working at the Eastern Farmer's Market on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, selling produce for Marshall Farms. I think I was ten years old? Back then I didn’t eat much of the produce I was selling. Eggplant looked terrifying to me. Squash was untouchable. Even tomatoes were too strange, although I gladly handed out samples, explaining to customers that some were sweet, some

Persian Chicken with Apricots

2009-07-22T22:35:00.015-04:00

I made this dish for the second time tonight, and I'm thrilled. It's absolutely delicious! I modified the original recipe and adjusted to make it cheaper by substituting other ingredients for the cardamom and leaving out the saffron, and by substituting my sweeteners- which do NOT raise blood sugar!- for the sugar. The first time I made it I substituted raisins for the dried apricots, which

Ani Tix Winner: Jennifer Heit!

2009-06-30T23:35:00.005-04:00

Congrats! Names were pulled from a hat, and you won two tickets to the Ani Difranco show July 9th. :)Send me an email for confirmation: jessicalforrester@gmail.com.To the others- Keep checking back for freebies and general blabber.Jennifer- See you at Rams Head Live!I'd make a graphic but most unfortunately I am without laptop this week, and so I am without Photoshop. I suppose I could mess

Win Two Free Tickets to See Ani DiFranco at Rams Head Live

2009-06-26T12:56:00.007-04:00

This feisty, smart, ambitious (but conscious!), guitar-string-bustin-punk-rocker-with-an-acoustic is heading to Baltimore, MD’s Rams Head Live on Thursday, July 9th. I’ll be there. Will you? I have two tickets to give away to one lucky reader. For a shot at the tickets, leave a comment here!Contest ends at 8 pm on June 30. I will put the names in a hat and have my grandmother pick a winner.

Ani DiFranco and The Conscious Job Hunt

2009-06-26T12:51:00.004-04:00

A 1997 letter to Ms. Magazine, famous now to her fans, quotes Ani Difranco as writing, “I'm just a folksinger, not an entrepreneur.” Ani Difranco’s team began the Buffalo, New York-based independent label Righteous Babe Records: “a small business that puts music before rock stardom and ideology before profit.”Like many recent grads on the job hunt, I’m discovering just how important it is to me

The Social Media Informant: Information Freedom or The Ultimate Rumor Mill?

2009-06-26T11:16:00.008-04:00

Where were you when Michael Jackson died? I was on Twitter, watching the tweets turn almost completely from Ahmadinejad to the King of Pop faster than I could get up and tell my grandmother to say her prayers for Michael Jackson’s family along with Farrah Fawcett's and Ed McMahon's. After the May 19 hysteria over Patrick Swayze, I tweeted with some cynicism: “did michael jackson really die, or

Promoting Music and Shows with Web 2.0: Bassnectar

2009-06-17T12:54:00.004-04:00

A web presence is important for any business; this is particularly true for musicians. How do I decide whether or not to attend a show at The Lantern in Blacksburg, Virginia by a band or DJ I don’t recognize? I look them up online. A poor web presence or unappealing recorded tracks can easily dissuade me.When I met Lorin Ashton of project Bassnectar in August of 2007, he was already a

Research Confirms: If I'm Cryin', I'm Buyin'

2009-06-04T18:01:00.005-04:00

Your company has an amazing product. You want to show me everything it can do. It can get the stains out of my clothes and cut a car in half while calling my ex-boyfriend’s mother to gently inform her that I broke her flower vase - all at the same time. But research shows that learning these benefits has little impact on me as a consumer if I’m not driven emotionally.Continued..

How to Add a "Tweet This" Button After Your Blogger Posts!

2009-05-27T00:29:00.002-04:00

Go to your blog. Click Customize in the upper right corner, then "Layout" and then "Edit HTML". To be safe, check the box to expand your widgets and then click the Download Full Template option before you fiddle with your coding.With the widgets expanded, search the content for "" (you can use ctrl+f to do this search). After this, paste the following:

Go Two Point Oh

2009-05-23T12:35:00.004-04:00

My old man's business is constantly looking for ways to reach the younger generation, and recently dinner has become a nightly advice session on using Web 2.0. For those not yet in the know, a quick Google define: Web 2.0 gives the wiktionary definition: The second generation of the World Wide Web, especially the movement away from static webpages to dynamic and shareable content.There's not a

How to Dance with Girls at the Lantern

2009-05-03T23:49:00.004-04:00

There's this awkward exchange I keep having, and I'm not sure the solution to this. I'll be dancing at a club, and some guy will come dance with me. So we're dancing together, I'm having fun, and then he'll ask me to dance with him.But... we already are dancing.What he really means, isn't, "Can I dance with you," but rather, "Can I touch you." To which, the answer is, "No." I love dancing with

Feeling empowered

2009-04-29T17:30:00.001-04:00

I spent over $70 at Eats today, so I'm hoping this commitment of my tax return actually clears up this terrible skin of mine. I bought Candida Clear: a combo of Pau D'Arco, Oregano Oil, Black Walnut & Caprylic Acid, a bottle of Acidophilus (a probiotic), brown rice flour, guar gum (a yeast-free leavening agent), and stevia (a natural sweetener). I also bought an awesome multivitamin complex that

Candida diet

2009-04-28T02:29:00.006-04:00

Oh, drat. The foodie and wino in me are both frowning and very upset, as my path to healthy skin has limited my consumption of so many wonderful things for awhile. I've been trying to heal myself of eczema for the last three years, having success with a few changes.. particularly eliminating caffeine and soy and by identifying a few key food allergies- Goodbye strawberries! :(I've read quite a

Easy Poached Eggs with Hollandaise Sauce and Veggies

2009-04-20T11:50:00.000-04:00

I'd never really attempted to make poached eggs before, because everything I'd ever heard or read made it sound like some extremely difficult task. I eat eggs in the morning, so my energy level was never enough to take on such a challenge.But au contraire! The poached egg is no longer elusive. Here's how to make this morning's breakfast:Saute chopped breakfast veggies in a pan with oil- I used

Legal Issues for Music Venues in VA

2009-04-07T12:44:00.000-04:00