Well it is that time of year again when we will pack up the family and heat out along the Frontier of the USA. We have found tipis and yurts in Montana and Idaho that will be so much fun for the children. When we googled tipis we also found that Alberta, CA in the Banff area provides this kind of housing for tourists as well. The yurts in Idaho provide what I would call a Mongolian style of ten providing enough room for the entire family. Idaho Parks offers them around the state for $45 a night and has a very easy web site to make the reservations. So here we go and who knows where we will land.

So many companies are looking for ways to capitalize on the various social media channels and blogs that appear to be growing daily. Many of them have hired outside bloggers to help them create and drive content to the web in hope to catch the attention of current and future customers. There are various Marketing analytics programs that are available in order to help measure and quantify what exactly is working and what is wasting time and resources. Some of those programs enable you to :

• Empower marketing teams to build Web pages on the fly, without sacrificing feature set or control

• Utilize the extensive out-of-the box features or take advantage of the open architecture

• Easily build and offer wikis, blogs, forums and the latest in social networking

• Eliminate risky channels and make the most of your online  investment with an integrated e-commerce platform

• Provide top tier results through a broad enterprise search

• Easily offer RSS, secure subscriptions and web alerts

• Synchronize content, functionality and membership data securely, from staging to production and back

As companies continue to maximize their brand reach and frequency the method of delivery will be constantly evolving so that you must know and be able to change your marketing mix in order to meet the demands of your customers.

Now we must decide on choice of tents. My favorite can be found at SPortsman Warehouse. It is the type you take Elk hunting. This ten has a metal frame and the tent is made of cream canvas. YOu can buy an additional cast iron stove made in USA with a smoke stack. You can put up to three cots inside and I guess a few kids could sleep on the floor. The  Sealy mattresses that we have would be great to take as long as you could fold up. I like the idea of being able to stand up and cook while my husband hunts for food, cooks with the dutch oven etc. However the standard hiking tent is much easier to install, yet with kids in and out it brings in all kinds of dirt.

We are even seeing some great deals on campers and RV’s because people are just not spending that type of money today. So if you have a little extra cash laying around you may be able to get a great deal and sleep in comfort on the next camping trip.

Any ideas?

I went out looking for more information on web hosting and found a site that has compiled the Top Ten hosting sites for review. When making a web hosting choice I suggest you try out webhostingchoice.com when choosing the right host for your business or personal site. You will find info on fat cow, host monster and others. You can sign up for their newsletter to get updates on web hosting which is a great resource. Plus, I really liked their page on web hosting scams that are out there. You can learn more from the FAQ’s, info on domains and cheap hosting. Finally, reviewing their web host directly will help you more fine tune your search, for example, if you wanted a good choice on Linux web hosting, they would recommend you use Just Host. This is a very nice website with great recommendations for all of us.

Have you ever thought about talking on a black berry? That’s right, BlackBerry phones. I have heard a lot about them. They are nothing like the black berrys that grow on the vines. They are small, but not that small. Not exactly sure how they got the name, but I think the ones we eat might take a back seat to the cell phone technology world.

BlackBerrys aren’t just for talking on. They have many features and you can even find Country Ringtones of your favorite singer like Keney Chesney to download and customize your new phone. You can send emails with them, take pictures with them, listen to music, and even have a GPS on them! Believe it or not, they even have maps to help you find your way. It’s truly amazing how just how the phone technology has changed today. I’m sure Mr. Bell didn’t invision this, when he was in the middle of developing the telephone technology.

No dobut, BlackBerrys are leading the way too! If you haven’t got a cell phone yet, or maybe looking to buy your first one. Check out the line of BlackBerrys, and see if they fit your needs. Who knows, these little phones may start mowing the grass for you! I don’t own one yet, but would like to soon. Just so I can see what these smartphones can do.

Even with the new economy surrounding us these days, nothing could be more important than our health. We are looking for ways to cut costs and one would be to stay out of the doctor’s office. Losing weight is a great way to keep you out because of the cascade of issues that develop with poor weight. Of course, there are so many plans to choose from it can be very hard to decide where to start. That is when I found weight-loss-diet-help.com. This a very professional site dedicated to reviewing the plans that are out there and even some coupon codes to help you get started. One review I liked was the Medifast Diet Review. From here you will learn their 5&1 plan with good portion control and how it differs from the others like the South Beach Diet. From these links you will also find coupon codes for diet profiles, diet plans and cookbooks. What separates this site from the others is their articles. Right now Alli is making a major push with TV advertisements promoting their FDA approved weight loss system. Read the article on Alli, written by a real user, to find out how it works and its side effects. What an amazing resource. Further, they offer a BMI calculator to help as well. Again, before you get started on any plan speak with your doctor to find out what is right for you and your personal health background. What is right for one is not for another. Now get started!

One of the new opportunities that I believe more out of work people should try is that of photography. Those who have the talent, which I do not, will always be in demand for their are certain areas of life that we simply cannot do without, namely; photographs. Sure we all have a digital camera and we all have a computer in which to download our items onto but how many thousands of pictures turn out so poorly these days and we never use them. I have a good friend who is in architecture and out of work. He already has the equipment but lacks the skills to go out and find the business. He needs a partner to help him get started in say baseball photos of kids. We all have them and will always buy them. From there, you could gain a good reputation in town and then get out to the on location family photograph that people pays hundreds for. You may be able to start a small studio in your basement or just be a location guy and get the almighty marriage contracts. Oh yes, people still get married in a rough economy and you know that the bride has dreamed of this moment for years! Good luck to all of you.

Well one of the issues as a writer we seem struggle with is better communication. Sometimes we just hit writers block or we want to draw in more customers to our site but yet we still need help in content development. I went looking for better communication skills and found communicatebetter.org. They offer great packages for bloggers at very reasonable prices. Of course, the first place I check on their site was their Customer Testimonials. I found great reviews asserting their professionalism, prompt production schedule, great writing style and that they stick with price that was agreed upon. They are very proud that they have two hundred third party verified reviews of which all have 100% satisfaction! Now that is well worth my investment for my blog, which I am ready to take to the next level. I like the packages they have put together which are at great rates. I found the Blogging Package #2 probably the best for me at this time. It includes five new 400 word articles a week for one month at $349 and on any topic I choose. Next, I enjoyed their recent article on 3 ways to develop customer loyalty with content development. Sometimes as a writer you forget that you must keep up a loyal base to be sound patrons of your craft and that where commmunicatebetter.org comes in. They will make a great change in my blogging.

Ok, lets get this right. Seventy percent of our GDP is made up from consumer s spending. Are you kidding me? We do produce anything for export that we can fall back on? No we do not. We depend on Black Fridays, Holidays and great sales to get the economy  running again. Just think about that. Even the Treasury Secretary said we need to loosen up the credit card rates so people can spend. So now how do you like the government legislating personal responsibility? Not so well do you? If we can just make credit easier we can all spend more money. What is our savings rate for families…somewhere around 1 percent. Why cant the government suggest we think of new ideas of production and resources the world needs and change the economy away from one that depends on the American spender/ consumer. Not a good bet. We are way to fickle anyway. To be the leader of the free world is to live by example. I am afraid the world will look and say we are a poor example and that capitalism does not work. Watch out, this will be the crowd that crys to the government for help because we cannot help ourselves. Think about that for a moment. The free market cant help itself so look the government for answers. I argue that is a slippery slope away from the free market system and to that of strong central government.

In the recent announcement of the possible hostile takeover of Delta Airlines, by US Air, the question is asked what happens to the frequent fliers and their perks. For US Air customers they gain substantially, since Delta currently has double the number of flights per day compared to US AIr. The one issue that I see is that US Air has built a bad reputation on customer service especially in dealing with luggage. It is not uncommon to wait at least 30-45 minutes for your luggage. I have dealt with this personally when flying in and out of Philadelphia. I just hope that if there is a merger, my Delta miles and Flying status does not disappear.