Up in the air, junior viruses...I just flew back from a family reunion
in New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona (and boy are my arms tired). The trip was great, but as always seems to happen to me, while I was touring someplace new, the "germs of someplace new" were touring me. I felt like one of the unfortunate characters at the start of a Dean Koontz novel who contracts a rare and fatal disease by visiting some ancient burial ground (I'd just been to Mesa Verde, the incredible cliff dwellers site
in Colorado). The cliff dwellers all seemed to have mysteriously disappeared at the same time, and I'd just been walking in their old tracks, so who knows what I might have uncovered. While it's all very exciting to think I got this from an ancient race of people, in reality I probably got it from my nephew who's a very nice guy, but has a pierced nipple, so who knows where he's been. (My niece would want me to remind you that she's perfect, and that I caught nothing from her except for some new slang. In case you don't know, "Sick" is now mysteriously akin to "Cool." Don't ask me why. My pierced nephew introduced me to "Hard" which is like "Cool" only you have to say "Hard" as if you were a pirate saying "Arrg." And my niece's favorite new phrase is, "That would be at the top of my list if you turned my list upside down.")
So I got on the airplane home—coughing up a storm, wondering if I was going to be the person who starts an epidemic called The Cliff Cough throughout the world. I hate when I sit next to people on a plane who sound like walking germs, and here I was, doing it. So I covered my mouth with a variety of paper goods ranging from the inflight magazine (which helpfully told me where to buy gold bullion—just what I was wondering about mid-air), to Kleenex and napkins distributed with the peanuts—all in hopes that I wouldn't wind up at the top of a Center for Disease Control chart showing how this new cough began.
To prevent someone from sitting right next to me, I used a trick my flight attendant (and perfect) niece showed me. While the plane was loading, I "Made myself big" and spread out covering 1.5 seats, to discourage anyone from sitting next to me. This worked, so at least there was a small buffer between me, my new-found germs, and the rest of the world. Luckily it
was a short flight, and I wasn't the only one with this cough. This meant at least I didn't start it, I was just carrying it across state lines which, as far as I know, isn't a crime. What was I supposed to do, stay in Arizona until it passed? I know my mother would have liked that, taking care of me like the giant baby she (and my wife) think I am. And now I'm home, feeling like someone opened spigots in my feet and let all
my energy drain out. I've got all the classic achy, feverish, stuffy nose and cough symptoms, as an enduring reminder of my trip (as if I could forget all that family fun). But don't worry, as far as I know I can't spread germs via e-mail. Yet another reason why the web is a great way to travel. 
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NEW NetObjects Fusion THUMBNAILS coolmaps.com has just released ThumbsUp, which makes
thumbnails easy NetObjects Fusion. You drop an image on to a page, size it as a small thumbnail graphic, and presto ... the thumbnail graphic automatically links to a perfectly sized pop-up window. For more info on ThumbsUp: http://club.coolmaps.com/component_detail.cfm?nfx=90 coolmaps has also released a totally rewritten version of their terrific DynamicMenu. Read more about it at: http://club.coolmaps.com/component_detail.cfm?nfx=89 And finally, coolmaps has signed an agreement with NetObjects to provide more of their excellent components inside MX's new Services View. This means that NetObjects Fusion MX will have an continually growing set of site services for you to use. Read more about it at: http://club.coolmaps.com/fusionmx.cfm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
HELP YOUR CUSTOMERS CHOOSE My wife found an interesting site this week that helps you choose the best dog for you. http://puppydogweb.com/breedselector.htm (choose the
"Q&A" option). I mention this because it's an excellent example of how your site can help your customer make decisions—decisions that can lead to them buying from you. This particular example uses a sophisticated decision-making system http://www.personalogic.com/ which is used by sites such as http://www.autotrader.com/decision/index.jtmpl (click on "Used Cars" then "Go") While you may not be able to use something this complex
on your site, you can create a simple questionnaire that gets mailed back to you using something like the coolmaps Club Mailer or www.response-o-matic.com (where it's best to pay the small monthly fee to avoid the gigantic ads that otherwise appear). Then people can make their
choices, have the results sent to you, and you can be your own "intelligent agent" and help your potential customer make decisions about what would work best for them. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3D tours from the air Skylinesoft Interactive's TerraExplorer lets you fly over cities, including Washington D.C., Chicago, Hollywood, Las Vegas, Atlanta, San Diego, Seattle, San Francisco London, Paris, Mt. Blanc, the Holy Land of Israel and Sydney, Australia. It uses high-res satellite images to create an exciting and educational experience online. You need a fast connection for this (like DSL or Cable), but
if you have it, you're in for a treat. The TerraExplorer will take you on an air tour of these places, and you can take control at any time, right click on a spot and choose "Fly To" then watch as you fly to wherever you want. The detail in the photos can be stunning, right down to air vents on the top of buildings. Not all places have this level of detail, but all are fun to fly around, and the areas included are quite large. For example, in the SF Bay area,
the system goes from San Jose to Santa Rosa (near Napa and Sonoma) in the north. It's like being in your own private plane, flying anywhere you want. It's great fun. I mention this not because I think you're going to add something like this to your site, but because I want you to see the kind of things that are up and coming. Who knows,
maybe in the not-too-distant future you could guide people to your location this way, or give them an overview of your community or development. This is an example of technology which today is recreational, but could soon become more useful. And it is incredibly entertaining. Visit Skyline Interactive Terra Explorer now! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
SELL YOUR OWN BRANDED ITEMS Next time you go to a family reunion, or a business trip, you might want to make t-shirts with your company brand. Now there's an easy place to create, buy and sell T-shirts, sweat-shirts, mousepads, mugs and more. To see it, click here.
CafePress lets you upload your graphics (one for the front, one for the back), then they create an online store for you (complete with order taking, credit card processing, shipping and handling. CafePress says that they have over 90,000 "stores" (which means customers selling their branded merchandise through them). OK, so what's the catch? There's not much of one.
CafePress charges $13.99 for a t-shirt—this includes providing you with the sales page, taking the credit card, producing and shipping the item. You can set the price at whatever you want above that, so you can sell it at cost (for, say, a local organization), or you can give it whatever markup you think your brand is worth. If you want to see a sample site, or perhaps buy
something with our "Haard" FuseLetter logo on it, go to: http://www.cafepress.com/fuseletter There are other sites that makes these very same things. http://www.iprint.com is one of the top sites for personalized stuff. But they won't put up a store for you, take orders, and ship all over the place. They just make the stuff and send it to you and they have an initial minimum order. What's great about CafePress is that all you have to do is
upload your graphic files. You will need to create these graphics with enough pixels/resolution so that when they're printed they don't end up tiny or jagged, so just pulling a graphic off your site isn't going to yield very good results (not because of them, but because the mechanics of how graphic files work). I have not personally seen an item they produce, so I only know that the brands they use for t-shirts, Hanes Beefy
T's, are good quality (and the standard for promotional t-shirts). But their prices are reasonable, so it looks like a good way to create promotional items—either to sell, or for your own use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Do Good For Free With Just A Click NOW is the time to visit these sites, and click to donate for free. Visit their advertisers, too, so they'll keep supporting these good causes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
One more thing... Our greatest glory is not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall.
--Confucius
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