Maps of various things

These are  really neat.

 

This map shows what is on the other side of the world from where you are standing.  For the most part it will probably be water.

This map shows the world divided into 7 sections (each with a distinct color) with each section containing 1 billion people.

This map shows the most photographed places in the world.

This map shows the longest straight line you can sail.  It goes from Pakistan all the way to Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia for a total of 20,000 miles.

This map shows the countries that heavily restricted Internet access in 2013.

This map shows the countries (in blue) where people drive on the left side of the road.

This map shows how much space the United States would occupy on the moon.

This map shows countries (in white) that England has never invaded.  There are only 22 of them.

This map shows (in white) where 98 percent of Australia’s population lives.

This map shows (in red, orange, and yellow) the world’s largest donors of foreign aid with red being the biggest donor.

This map shows (in blue) places where Google street view is available.

This map highlights the countries (in red and orange) with the most skyscrapers.

This is a map of the highest paid public employees in the United States.

This is a map of the all the rivers in the United States.

This is a map of 19th century shipping lanes that outlines the continents.

These are all the rivers that feed into the Mississippi River.

The line in this map shows all of the world’s Internet connections in 1969.

It may not come as a surprise but more people live inside the circle than outside of it.

Apparently you can’t get Big Macs everywhere.  This map shows (in red) the countries that have McDonalds.

And this map shows all the places where you can get eaten by a Great White shark!

And this is what the world would look like if all the countries with coast lines sank.

Personal Selling

Found a neat website on selling techniques. Click here for the article.

Is the Arctic Really Drunk, or Does It Just Act Like This Sometimes?

The analysis of our weather pattern by this scientist actually makes sense. Think about when you mix hot and cold water in a glass and add food colouring, the two different temperatures of water swirl around and you can see it because of the food colouring. I feel our weather is no different only we don’t have the luxury of food colouring but we feel it because our weather is definitely different. Click here to read the full article or read an excerpt below.

Just when weather weary Americans thought they’d found a reprieve, the latest forecasts suggest that the polar vortex will, again, descend into the heart of the country next week, bringing with it staggering cold. If so, it will be just the latest weather extreme in a winter that has seen so many of them. California has been extremely dry, while the flood-soaked UK has been extremely wet. Alaska has been extremely hot (as has Sochi), while the snow-pummeled US East Coast has been extremely cold. They’re all different, and yet on a deeper level, perhaps, they’re all the same.

This weather now serves as the backdrop—and perhaps, as the inspiration—for an increasingly epic debate within the field of climate research. You see, one climate researcher, Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University, has advanced an influential theory suggesting that winters like this one may be growing more likely to occur. The hypothesis is that by rapidly melting the Arctic, global warming is slowing down the fast-moving river of air far above us known as the jet stream—in turn causing weather patterns to get stuck in place for longer, and leading to more extremes of the sort that we’ve all been experiencing. “There is a lot of pretty tantalizing evidence that our hypothesis seems to be bearing some fruit,” Francis explained on the latest installment of the Inquiring Minds podcast. The current winter is a “perfect example” of the kind of jet stream pattern that her research predicts, Francis added (although she emphasized that no one atmospheric event can be directly blamed on climate change).

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Red Hood Project

More and better protection is required to protect children and individuals from being preyed on and stalked through online websites and media. Its everyone’s responsibility to talk with our children to make them aware of the hazards to stop another young child from committing suicide like Amanda Todd. My hat goes off to her Mom for trying to get her and her daughter’s message out to spare other children. Learn and join the Red Hood Project movement. Thanks, MB.

Do We Really Want to Live Without the Post Office?

I found this article when I was reading the Editor’s Picks on The Feature website and I think the excerpt below highlights the changing face of the post office. Its the glue that binds us together.

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Inside the lobby of the first co-op, Mitchell pushes his cart to the side, opens the first of four banks of mailboxes. When he first started this route, he was very quiet and kept his head down. The residents, perhaps unfairly, had a reputation for being a bit difficult, and he just wanted to make sure he did a good job.

You work a job like this one long enough and you develop your own system. Like the notes Mitchell writes to himself about his customers’ travel schedules and bundles with their mail so that he doesn’t forget. He sandwiches each customer’s mail between a lightly folded bill so that it’s easy to tell where one person’s deliveries end and another’s begin. After he finishes a bank of mailboxes, he rests a small plastic sign on the bank’s metal lip: MAIL IS FINISHED. He made these signs so that residents know when he’s passed through for the day.

Over time, he went from working silently to exchanging pleasantries to eventually being sought out for advice by the building’s residents. They call him “the psychiatrist.” “Hey, Tony,” they yell as they enter. “Oh, he’s the best,” says another as she passes through the lobby. Like a village bartender, there isn’t much he isn’t asked about. Sports, religion, health, gospel music. And throughout, there’s his ever-present disarming laughter.

Since 1990, Mitchell’s worked this route, stood in the lobby of this sixties-era apartment building, unbundling mail and stuffing metal mailboxes. You see a lot. Residents who once greeted him downstairs now greet him at their doors when Mitchell brings up their medication. He’s seen spouses divorce and pass away. He’s seen babies born, hundreds of them, and watched them grow up and leave the building in their soccer uniforms and then their graduation suits. He’s been invited to baby showers and barbecues, and sometimes he’ll invite a resident to a football game.

He’s seen a lot and he’s learned a lot, he says. He’s learned to say hello to every resident he sees, his smile always open, ready to connect. And he’s learned to listen.

“Hi, brother,” shouts a man passing through, balding and wearing a loose-fitting sweatshirt.

“Take care, take care,” Mitchell shouts back, his tall frame and broad shoulders bending down to reach into his mail trolley for another bundle.

When he finishes this building, he’ll go on to the next one, then the next, as he’s done nearly every day for two decades, touching every mailbox on his route, the final link in a network that binds us all.

The 15 Best Websites, According to Redditors

I am familiar with some of these sites but I have never even heard of others. Click here for the list.

The 50 Free Apps We’re Most Thankful For

I know and like most of the apps mentioned in this article so I’m sure the ones that I don’t know about must be good too! Click here to read the article. Cheers!

I Just Learned How To Text Message

All new drivers need to see this! Please share with new drivers and old too!

Facebook No Longer Lets Users Hide Their Profiles in Search Box

I value my privacy if you haven’t figured that out yet and I have strong reasons for it. Facebook annoys me. Their latest business decision infuriates me to the point that I want to delete my account. I do not appreciate having my personal information publicized with anyone and my position on this has not changed since I first started learning about the internet and privacy. I tolerated their tactics thinking they didn’t know any better but they have finally shown their true colors and I am mad. I’m also insulted by their comment that only a small percentage had enabled the setting to who could find your profile photo and basic information when your name was entered in the search bar – perhaps I didn’t know about this change much like all the other changes they have done over the years. Privacy is something that should be cherished because you never know who or how someone can use your personal information maliciously. Consider all the young people that have committed suicide because of one wrong innocent mistake – well their business decision has raised the bar to a whole new unacceptable level. Click here to read the latest article regarding this matter or read an excerpt below. Click here if you want to learn how to permanently delete your Facebook account.

Facebook announced Thursday its plans to finalize the removal of the privacy setting that allows users to control who can search their name on the social-media site.

The company first rolled out its plans to eliminate the service in December 2012, PC Mag reports. Last year’s privacy-policy update ditched the security setting for members who were not using it, but now those who have the filter enabled have nowhere to hide.

The “Who can look up your Timeline by name” feature formerly allowed you to limit who could find your profile photo and basic information when they entered your name in the search bar. In an online post about removing the service, Facebook said only a “small percentage” of its almost 1.2 billion active users had enabled the setting. Members can now protect their presence primarily by limiting the audience for each specific item they post about themselves in their timeline. They can also still block specific users from contacting them and report abuse to the service.

The move is part of a greater effort to enhance its search feature, which included an upgrade to the Social Graph to allow users to search almost anything. Facebook will notify those still using the setting through a warning post, and from now on will feature a reminder notice when a user is posting something publicly.

Google Stuff

Google alternatives just in case you’re not up on the latest and greatest….. Click here for the entire article or read an excerpt below.

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While it seems like nothing will ever replace one of the few Google legacy products that people still use to this day, there are several iGoogle alternatives to help users cope with the loss:

igHome, which mirrors iGoogle’s layout, was meant “to create a site that looked and worked like iGoogle as much as possible to make the transition easy for users,” said igHome developer Mike Sutton. Like iGoogle, users can also add gadgets and quick-access links to Google services such as Gmail, Calendar, Drive and more.
Netvibes, a more advanced version of iGoogle, has nearly 100,000 apps and thousands of themes to personalize your iGoogle-like homepage. It also includes social media integration and all types of widgets, such as RSS feeds, bookmarklets and more. Personal accounts are free, but enterprise accounts are also available for $499 a month.
My Yahoo, Yahoo’s customizable home page, lets users “Get your headlines, email, quotes and more — all in one page.” Much like iGoogle, My Yahoo offers personalized widgets, from weather apps to recommended newsfeeds, RSS feeds from your favorite websites, sports scoreboards and more. Although Google products are not accessible through My Yahoo, the service does allow users to import iGoogle data and settings.
my msn, Microsoft’s take on iGoogle, also does not integrate with Google products, but will do the job if all you need is a content-based home page. After signing in with a Microsoft account, users can add RSS feeds and up to four recommended content categories, such as health, technology, entertainment, news, sports, money, lifestyle and videos.

Postini alternative

Postini is one of the most popular spam-filtering and email-archiving tools. It was founded in 1999 and acquired by Google in 2007. By the end of 2013, however, Postini’s 26 million users will have to say goodbye to the program forever and make one of two choices: transition to Google Apps — Google’s paid, cloud-based productivity suite, which will take over Postini — or migrate to a different provider.

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“Depending on your budget and the size of your business, it may benefit from or need additional services, such as email continuity and encryption, neither of which are included in either of Google Apps’ new services,” May said. “The key is to ask yourself if you are using the right technology for your business’ needs.”

As an alternative to Google Apps, May recommended AppRiver and McAfee. “We’ve seen these products stand out and perform well,” she said.

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As alternatives to Google Reader, the company suggested several apps, such as Feedly, Digg Reader, InoReader, NewsBlur, Flipboard and the Pulse mobile app. Feedly quickly became the top choice amongst former Google Reader users, primarily due to its simple interface, which most resembles the Google Reader of yore.

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In addition to RSS aggregation, Feedly also offers modern upgrades lacking in Google Reader.

“[Feedly] is actually faster, cleaner and better designed than Google Reader, along with [offering] more integrations to popular sharing tools, like Buffer and Pinterest,” Kulp said.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool alternatives

Much to the dismay of most website owners, bloggers and search engine optimization (SEO) pros, Google recently pulled the plug on the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. The service, which enabled anyone to research keywords for free, has now been replaced by the Keyword Planner.

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VivioSoft then tried to find the best Keywords Tool replacements. “We suggest that all smart business owners and marketers alike should add the following to their arsenal of resources and research tools: SEO Book, Ubersuggest, WordPot and Wordtracker.”

Google Alerts alternatives

Want to receive an email every time you and your company are mentioned on the Web? Need to keep tabs on your competitors online? Google Alerts used to effectively cater to these needs. All users had to do was enter a keyword or search query, and Google Alerts would send a notification whenever a new story citing those words was published. Google Alerts proved to be a great online monitoring tool for all types of users, particularly entrepreneurs and marketing professionals.

Granted, Google Alerts is still up and running. But with several reports that the service is losing its steam, with no signs of any fixes, many speculate that Google Alerts is next in line to be axed.

“Google hasn’t retired Google Alerts, but many have reported that it’s not as useful as it once was,” said Janet Thaeler, an Internet marketer and author of “I Need a Killer Press Release — Now What???: A Guide to Online PR” (Happy About, 2009). “So I started using either Mention or Talkwalker.”

Other Google Alerts alternatives include Social Mention, Meltwater News, Colabo, IQalerts, ContentGems and Yotify.

Picnik alternatives

Once upon a time, Picnik was Flickr’s default photo editor. In 2010, Google acquired the editor; two years later, the search giant added Picnik to its growing list of Google Graveyard residents.

“The Picnik photo editing tool was bought by Google and then discontinued,” said Thaeler. “Thankfully, some former employees from the company started my favorite replacement — PicMonkey.”

Other popular Picnik alternatives include Ribbet, iPiccy, befunky, pixlr, and Sumopaint. Flickr also replaced Picnik with Aviary for its Web app and with GhostBird for iOS.

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