Just for Fun

Can you believe it, I stood in line today and took a pic with The Stanley Cup OMG!! I was around #452 (there is an official guy with a counter) near the stage. Thank goodness it is a beautiful 78 degree day; and it only took 1-1/2 hours; I took my pic around 11:58 am. Everyone was instructed; do not touch the cup, a few did the pretend kiss or hug, a 2yr old kissed it and so did her dad everyone cheered; a person in a wheel chair got to hoist the cup with the help of the Cup Chaperon (woohoo). We were only supposed to take one picture, so you had to plan ahead so a guy behind me snapped 2 of me w/ my i-phone and I took 3 of him on his i-phone.

The Stanley Cup was in Daley Plaza until 4 pm and there were lots of news camera crews there interviewing people as they left the stage so I'm sure a lot of it will be on the news tonight wooo-hooo!

~ Ramona

♥♥ Tumblr

I have to confess that I'm intrigued by Tumblr’s declaration of ♥♥ for their users and ♥♥ for their investors. The company genuinely seems to enjoy what they do which is the recipe for a dream job. Most of us can recite the adage "do what you love.....follow your passion...."  and if you can earn a living too that's the cherry on top.

The first thing that I noticed about Tumblr's site is that it's contemporary, high-end glossy, and not too flashy. But most of all it's not crowded with stuff, even the 30 reasons why everyone ♥♥'s Tumblr was easy to browse and a concise read. I had to laugh out loud when I clicked the Zootool link and a note read “sorry Zootool doesn’t support Internet Explorer and probably never will……” easy to infer why. Is this their way of also streamlining to get their target demographic? I would guess their demo is 20's, 30's, 40's. When I checked out their company photo it was a quirky pix of 20 somethings and their chi exudes from the photo.

Tumblr does have a good variety of Third Party applications which interests me because I'm a one-stop-shopping person. I don't want to open multiple accounts nor have to track them, so the option to connect applications and retrieve information from a single place is highly appealing. I found their "how to" page easy to follow even the setup to add Google Analytics to your web page was easy, there are screen-shots and specific details. Yes, it is easy to setup an account, there are also a good number of fun themes to chose from and lots of flexibility for tailoring your page style. 

I don't feel that I'm a band-wagon person, so I can say that the declaration of I ♥♥ Tumblr would be reciprocal; because Tumblr is easy to ♥.  ♥♥Ramona

Shiney New Toy

I've read a few articles about Google Analytics (G.A.) and viewed some of the tutorials. While I had reservations about using G.A., I have to admit that once I tried it, I found that it lives up to the billing. Even as a new G.A. user, I found it to be intuitive and easy to navigate. The pie charts, linear graphs, click thrus, conversations, and data collection are all at your fingertips with minimal effort. It all gave me a false sense of security wow, I created this pretty chart. Reviewing G.A. in class helped to put some of bells and whistles into perspective. Learning about Ad words, website optimization, clicks per page rate and calculating the ROI bring otherwise tedious functions to life and relevance. I feel that having this behind the scenes access to a webpage is like seeing Oz. G.A.

While G.A. could be seen as a step closer to "big brother", I think it is a good tool for a small company that can't afford numbers crunchers and marketing teams. Even if you are a person who doesn't gravitate towards formulas you'll enjoy the visuals, I think that you will be impressed by the shiney new toy that is Google Analytics. How long the infatuation lasts remains to be seen; I hope that you find it to be just as much fun ~ Ramona

Favorite Brand

My favorite brand for shoes and purses is "Nine West" and more recently "Carlos Santana"; the legendary guitarist has some "Supernatural" shoes and "Black Magic Woman" boots ~ love them! I'm a fan of fun, contemporary, and classic styles. I'm a fool for patent leather and most important "Shoes on Sale" is a prerequisite. Last but not least, "comfortable stylish-shoe" is not an oxymoron it is a necessity!

As I thought about my favorite brand of shoe, I realized that I have a strategy for buying shoes. When browsing in stores I always take lots of photos of shoes with my iPhone t.g.f.16gb. This serves multiple purposes: I can recall where I saw a shoe that I love, I can dream about a shoe that I love, I can wait for a sale, I can email the photo to a friend and I don't have to buy them all. While I'm not loyal to a specific store if they carry quality brands and stock my size; I'll frequent the store. I find that shopping on-line for shoes is also fun. Browsing on-line allows me to save shoes "in my size" to my cart, search by brand and gives me instant-gratification, especially when I check back and the shoe in my cart is on-sale...yah-hooo! Occasionally on-line shopping may result in a better price-point, lower tax, and free shipping. My main strategy is to buy shoes that I love and will wear again and again. ~ Ramona