Mashup Custom Maps

I love the new mapping options and most recently started receiving a weekly list of foreclosed and short sale homes. I took those listings, organized the columns and then used this Geo plotting site to convert my address information into longitude and latitude information.

I then, created the following map and also exported the results to a klm file format that I then imported into this Google Map so I can see the street view and look at the front of the houses. It didn't capture the short sale or foreclosed type but the street view is very valuable.


All super cool.

Professional Moms for Hire

I came across this great placement agency today, Mom-entum. It is a professional agency located in the DC, Virginia area that matches up professional Mothers who want to remain full-time mothers that also have professional degrees and work experience with professional organizations that want to hire real talent on a contract basis at a discounted rate in exchange for giving up a little control over work hours and working geographies.

The introduction to Mom-entum couldn't come at a better time. I am looking to hire a contract writer who can also be a PR professional for Clearwater Analytics.

Interestly, I let Jennifer, the Director of Mom-entum know in my blog comment that she ought to grow the company by "virtually" moving out West. I know of great Women who have chosen to be full-time Moms and are the Professional talent she is looking for.

Who knows, perhaps I'll be a franchisee. ;-)

Awesome Firefox Add-Ins

I use Firefox and recommend it - it is a killer browser and the add-in functionality is what makes it so great. There are a lot of developers out there doing some great work which allow me to customize the browser in more ways than I would consider and the "reviews" and "download" numbers show users like me what peers think of those add-ins. It is a very smart way for the people at Firefox to enable users to choose the "best" features for the browser.

These are my current favorites:

1. ScribeFire makes it very easy to publish to my blog (I'm using it now)
2. Colorzilla makes it super simple to grab screen colors. I'm doing lots of html emails with simple fonts and colors.
3. MeasureIt makes it simple for me to measure screen elements.
   
4. Firebug lets me inspect the css and html attributes of a page very quickly.
5. Foxmarks is a bookmarking tool that synchronizes my bookmarks across multiple computers.

My one wish list - I want an add-in that helps me organize pages viewed. I never delete my history and am browsing pages that I can't seem to find again days later. I haven't seen this add-in yet. Have you?

Why Another Blog?

This is my first quick post to this new marketing blog. I've had a private blog for friends and family now for the last 5 years and post several times a month there.

But, I've chosen now to start this professional blog to start capturing some of my own tools, tips and resources. Today, this is for me, but in the near future, I expect there to be a large body of useful information.

So, on to capturing some of my favorites.

Today, I'm reminded just how valuable my marketingprofs premium account has been. I've only had it for 6 months but have read almost every email that comes in my box.

These people are geniuses when it comes to copy writing and are especially good at writing email subject lines.

Here are a few from my inbox:

• Reward Me!
• Tag -- You're It!
• Trust Me, I'm One of the Good Guys
• Sprechen-Vous Italiano?
• You've Got the Power!
• Do You Really Want a Logo That Only Costs $100?

Pretty good aren't they.

They have great content covering all basic online marketing topics.

Here is a great article discussing link building.

There are a lot more where that comes from and for $249, it was an easy decision.