Guiding Vision

Cross posting this notice about a blog writing contest… the last day to enter is this Saturday!

In honor of National Teacher Appreciation week, which is May 4 to May 10, the Top School Fundraisers blog is sponsoring a writing contest on the topic “My Favorite Teacher.” Just write a post on your blog inspired by this topic and you’ll be eligible for the contest.

First prize is $50, second and third are $25 each. Winners will be decided by a poll so anyone can cast their vote to determine the best entry.

>> Click here to find out more about this contest

Last day to get your post up and enter is Saturday May 3rd.

A couple of months ago I learned about a great website called Alltop.com. The concept is simple, they take a particular topic, like world news, and give you the five most recently published stories from websites that cover that subject. The page is laid out with three columns and all the sites on one page. Your eyes can scan the subject lines, left to right and scroll down through the page. It’s a fast way to get the latest news on any topic.

Of course I was happy that two of my site feeds were accepted as news sources, Step by Step Fundraising is now listed on the non-profit page and Top School Fundraisers is on the education page.

Writing about Alltop earlier this week, Chris Brogan in his post Alltop- Encouraging the Mainstream says:

Alltop isn’t for you or me. It’s for friends and family and coworkers who aren’t yet surfing at the speed of light with Google Reader, or adding meta commentary via FriendFeed. It’s for our neighbor who still logs into AOL, or people who want to read a sampling of information without a lot of customization.

Well, yes and no. I would say that Alltop is great for people who are not as familiar with RSS or blogs. But it’s not just for newbies or the non-internet obsessed people. (I thought everyone was internet crazy these days?)

Pros

Alltop is so easy to scan with its clean three column format. Through Alltop I’ve found quite a few new blogs that I hadn’t heard of before. A few of them I even subscribed to. If I’m researching or just interested in a particular subject I can jump on the Alltop page dedicated to that topic and briefly scan it for news items that jump out at me. This is helpful in looking for blog topics to write about or when I do link posts. I found a couple of great sites via the Environment Alltop page for the Earth Day Resource Roundup that I posted today.

Another pro that I have to mention is that when I submitted my feed to them they were both prompt and very courteous when replying back to me. It’s nice to “meet” great people on the web!

Cons

Alltop keeps those top 5 posts listed even if you saw them the last time you were on the site. Bloglines on the other hand, keeps all of a feed’s posts new until you click on the site name. Then the items are displayed in the right hand side. So with Bloglines it’s beneficial both ways, it will keep more than just 5 items new (a couple of my feeds are in the hundreds) and if you do review that feed it brings it down to zero so you are not having to look at items you have already seen.

Thumbs Up for Alltop

Overall I really like Alltop and wish Guy and his team well. I don’t think it will replace Bloglines for me, but I don’t think it’s meant to. It’s a fast, hassle free way to keep up on news of interest to me or explore new topics.

United grocery stores recently started selling these cloth grocery bags. They are flat bottomed and just as large as a paper bag. Actually the website for the company that makes them, Bring Your Bag, says that you can fit three plastic sacks worth of stuff in one of these. They are very durable and I can see using these for a long time to come.

Of course by bringing in your own bag you are reducing the use of plastic bags. I was surprised to see how much though. According to the calculator on Bring Your Bag an average person will take their shopping home in 250 plastic bags per year!

They are quite inexpensive really - United is selling them for only 99 cents each. Then each time you bring them in you get a 5 cent discount off your bill. I talked with the company today and am getting more information on how these bags can be used as a fundraiser. I’ll post info about that on Step by Step Fundraising soon.

With several websites around the topic of fundraising and my commitment to volunteer work, of course the value of giving is very strong for me. A few of the charities I support were discovered as a direct result of my online writing. But in general, the focus of my sites are simply to provide information for groups to use to raise funds on their own. I don’t normally give to donation requests made by email, especially when I’ve never heard of a group before.

Except… on Step by Step Fundraising occasionally I’ll run a random drawing or other promotion. In the past the prizes were ebooks or Amazon gift cards. This time I decided to “give back” directly with a top prize of a $100 donation to the charity of choice of the winner, chosen at random. Maybe if this works well it will be something that I’ll do again.

Take this survey

P.S. Last day to take this survey is this Friday, March 28, 2008

In the past few weeks many bloggers have been talking about Oprah’s Big Give. Some really love it and others hate it. I have to admit that I still haven’t caught an episode of it yet. So I’m not going to weigh in yet.

In the meantime I’m still an American Idol fan.

Tonight the best performers IMO were two non-Americans, Carly (Irish tattoo chick) and Michael (who I usually just call “the Australian guy”).

Of course they also sang two ’80s songs that I really love, and have since they originally came out.

OK, I have sign off this post and go vote now.