Since many seem to be experiencing difficulty viewing the Have A Happy Friday blog link below, I have entered a Flash version of it. Let’s see how this goes.Hank

Why you are @ Purdue link: Hank

PS: For some unknown reason, link seems NOT to work in Firefox, but DOES in IE. Here’s the direct URL:

http://www.thinkbeta.com/Friday/index.html

NYTimes last Tuesday had a great article about a very talented guy,  “Joel Moss Levinson always knew he had a calling in life. But it took cheap video cameras, YouTube and some desperate corporations to show him what it was.” Seems that Joel has won over $200,000 by entering contests for advertising. Take a gander at the article. I have embedded a sample of his work, an advert for watermelons with a rap influence. The guy is talented! Hank

According to wikipedia, “Mattoni is mineral water from Karlovy Vary, the Czech Republic.

The history of the Mattoni brand began in 1864 when Heinrich Mattoni (1830-1910) took over the mineral water production at the small spa town of Kyselka near Karlovy Vary in West Bohemia. Mattoni expanded the operations by building a modern bottling plant and establishing a distribution infrastructure to supply its product to spa guests in Kyselka and throughout Bohemia. In the 1880s, the Mattoni brand ranked among the best known in Europe. In 1910, the year of Mattoni’s death, 10 million bottles were exported to other countries.

At present, the Mattoni brand is owned by Carlsbad Mineral Water (Czech: Karlovarské Minerální Vody), the largest producer of mineral and spring water in the Czech Republic. The Mattoni water comes in natural and flavored modifications.” Their web site is here:

So how do you differentiate something as plain as bottled water, especially in international markets? Try advertising, and not just any ole advertising, but advertising with ump. The video below is an example. But wait, buy now and there’s even more! Seems like they like to play little games also, which is caught in a screen capture of the video at left. Missed it didn’t you - guys were otherwise engaged. Life is indeed interesting. Hank

Americans who play video games are more likely than non-gamers to influence their friends’ attitudes about pop culture and new technology purchases and are more social than commonly thought, according to a study from IGN Entertainment and Ipsos Media CT. Findings from the “Are You Game?” research study break long-standing stereotypes of gamers as solitary introverts and shows gamers are more outgoing, more active and more valuable as consumers than those who do not play video games, IGN said.

Videogamers - who are in 71% of US households - are now more likely than non-gamers to play sports, attend a concert or go out on a date. Good  stuff. Read the entire report here: Hank

PS: Parallels is back up and running, a task NOT for the faint of heart! I still have driver issues.

Take a problem, how to conveniently dry baby bottles, add design brilliance, and come up with an ABS plastic device plus skillful marketing. That’s what skiphop.com did. Result: last year 50,000 Splash bottle dryers were sold @ $28.00 a pop.  Hank

Parallels on my iMac has a corrupted critical file and won’t start. I normally use Microsoft’s Writer to compose the daily blog, and obviously don’t have access to same. I tried the WordPress tool on the web site and it wouldn’t let me import pictures - server error. I tried something called Bleezer on the iMac, and it worked OK on the desktop, but when I published the blog, it didn’t post pictures. So @#$%^&&*(). Later. Hank

Last Thursday Kristeen lite off her new social entrepreneurship site, www.missionmatchup.com. Take a gander and spread the word to your friends who may be considering a trip to help others. Hank

Blabberize is a site that you can upload a picture, select the mouth on that picture, and then record some audio. The picture then talks. You can send your talking picture, which is called a blabber, to anyone. See below. Try it out - you might just have some fun. Hank