happykatie :: katie rocks out the interwebs

happykatie daily brain candy

The latest discoveries with love from my friend the interwebs.

Linux for Business: 50 Apps to Get your Office on Open Source | Virtual Hosting Blog

Tags: open source

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

happykatie daily brain candy

The latest discoveries with love from my friend the interwebs.

Tee bags, how to recycle a t-shirt into a shopping bag

I've been all about the re-usable shopping bags lately (uhm, when I actually remember to bring them along to the grocery store... but anyway). But hey - why have I been BUYING them when I could just make them?

Tags: tomake, tosew, eco, environment, reuse

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

happykatie daily brain candy

The latest discoveries with love from my friend the interwebs.

Let's Explore - Creative Fun for Curious Kids

Find open-ended toys and products for preschoolers that support creative play, and information on preschool development.

Tags: toddler, howto, tomake, kiddo, creativity, craft+kids

A Community Gardening Blog — Brazos Grows

Tags: gardening, community

BabyPlays - BabyPlays.com - Online Toy Rental Program

Netflix for kids toys -- interesting, yet kind of weird thinking of paying $37/month to

Tags: toddler, toy, play

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Guerrilla Gardening - BCS style

Some of my favorite Bryan College Station folks doing what they do best -- cool stuff :)  Check out their Community Gardening Blog - I swear, every single time I talk to one of these guys I learn something else I am just dying to be a part of.

happykatie daily brain candy

The latest discoveries with love from my friend the interwebs.

lazy days skirt free pattern from oliver + s

Sweet little girlie skirt pattern - thanks to Sarah from Sew Crafty for sending over!!

Tags: tomake, tosew, patterns, sewing

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Google me this - SES adventures with Jaymac

Google Sign
Originally uploaded by deneyterrio

The fearless Jaymac is growing his Search Engine Marketing brain at Search Engine Strategies Conference 2008 and, like a good little Social Media nerd, is live blogging like cah-razy!

Great posts and photos up thus far, can't wait to see what happens next.  Last night was apparently the world's most awesome party at Google - where I was told they had gummy bears, break dancing AND cupcakes!!!!  So pretty much exactly what heaven looks like.

Be sure to keep an eye on the Schipul SEM Blog as Jason continues to do his thang, SES-style.  Other SES nerds to keep an eye on:

• Jennifer Laycock
• The SES blog - which surprisingly doesn't actually have any conference posts, maybe they've got something awesome in the works... hopefully involving ponies and Google gummy bears
• Search Engine Land
• The Aim Clear Bloggers
• Or just be geeky and follow the Technorati SES2008 trail

SXSWi 2009 - panel picking awesomeness!!!

So there is this magical place called SXSW ('south by southwest' for those whose brains have been inundated with acronyms and might have just spent 2 minutes trying to figure out what the 'x' stands for). It is a happy beautiful conference land in the middle of Austin, TX where geeks, film buffs and music junkies converge to change the world, make merry and generally rock it out.

Every year, throngs of hyperactive geeks (yes, like me) attend to soak in the knowledge sunshine, put faces to online names and engage in typical Austin-style debauchery.

But this year is exciting in another way - I might get to be be speakers and you can help make it happen!  The following bullets are my 2 panels up for vote and then please-please-please visit our Schipul SXSWi 2009 Panels of Interest page to check out some other super folks who would make marvellous presenters (your vote and comments are incredibly super-duper important):

• Heart your peeps - building your business from within:
  Your employees are your company's heart and soul – do they know how much you love them? Personal branding, kick ass training, quirky perks - our panelists will share ideas on how to improve the lives and brains of your greatest assets, giving you a strong competitive edge and a killer bottom line.
• Strategic PR for Social Media Geeks:
  Social Media hacks are ruining the PR profession. Lack of disclosure, lack of planning, lack of strategy. With untrained social media geeks attempting PR, the profession needs to demand ethical behavior. What is PR and how does research, strategic planning, implementation and evaluation relate in a Web 2.0 world?

My submissions are all to be panel-style, in that I will moderate a group of incredibly funny, knowledgeable and awesome people (like Ed Schipul, Jason McElweenie and Dan Keeney) as they tell their stories, provide useful Real World tips/tricks of the trade and tell me how beautiful I am provide actionable 'when you get outta' here, do this or else' kinda' stuff.

Also, there will probably be cupcakes involved somehow.  Because that is what I do.  So vote will you?  Hmmmmm??  SXSWi 2009 Panel Picker is closed at 11:59pm on August 29th.  That gives you 10 whole days to think of witty comments and to give 5 star virtual happiness points for these amazing panel submissions.

A handful of other panels that I have personally already voted for and encourage you to do the same (not a complete listing of course -- check out that Schipul SXSWi 2009 Interesting Panels page for that):

• Personal Branding for Profit (Ed Schipul)
• Social Media for NonProfit Rockstars (Ed Schipul)
• Women Engaging Tech: Ferocity Fuels the Phenomenal
  (Gwen Bell, Monica Danna, Laura Mayes and Tara Anderson)
• Is Your Company Blog Cheating On You (Jason McElweenie)
• My Life With NF in Web 2.0 ( Reggie Bibbs)
• Building a Tech Community in Flyover Country (Marc Nathan)

happykatie daily brain candy

The latest discoveries with love from my friend the interwebs.

favourite things.

Tags: blogs+friends, blogs+houston, houston+arts

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

happykatie daily brain candy

The latest discoveries with love from my friend the interwebs.

The Online Logbook for Pilots : Jetrecord

What Flickr is to photos, Jetrecord is to pilot logbooks

Tags: pilot, flying, social networks

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

noneck shines the light on China with Qik / live video streaming

Continuing on the power of Qik motif (see Congressman Culberson's live video activity here), Noel Hidalgo (aka:  @noneck) has been off changing the world again, this time stirring up trouble (in all the best ways) in China during the Olympics.

He and John Hocevar (founder of Students for a Free Tibet) were interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now about their experiences as citizen journalists during the Olympics in Beijing -- and their consequent deportation:

AMY GOODMAN: And when did the authorities catch you, deport you? Or did they stop you each time, at each protest?

NOEL HIDALGO: I was not stopped. I was actually—I was harassed by local Chinese every single time. I was told that I was a demon, I was a devil, for showing China in this particular light, because they saw me capturing this footage. On the third protest, where the students unfurled their banner at the ticket office where John and I were both detained, I just happened to have a high-definition consumer camera, and I was thrown up against the wall, my arm was twisted behind my back, and I was subsequently detained for being a Westerner who was capturing this footage. I wanted to show the rest of the world what exactly was going on in China.   

Also, be sure to check out Noel's live video of a Free Tibet protest in Tianamen Square.  I heart Social Media.