The electionBuddy staff love thanking our fans for cool milestones.  and we just hit another one…

200,000 ballots

Thanks to all our wonderful election admins and voters

Based directly on our users/electionbuddy evangelist feedback, we added a way faster way to duplicate a past election
* click on your election
* click on the “Duplicate this election” link
and Voila – new election. You can even duplicate a voter list within it

And to celebrate, we made our most expensive elections even cheaper… from $179 to $99… So you have a 1000 person election , you can manage the vote for almost 1/2 the cost.

Think of it as an early christmas gift.

We hope you enjoy!

I read this on the facebook page of an an old friend of mine… I loved it!

Core Work = sit-ups with a marketing budget

Alot of what marketing is about is figuring out how to make something sound as good as it actually is…

The passing of Steve Jobs and the release of the iphone 4s really got me thinking about my career in the tech industry. While I have had some phenomenal experiences and met some outstanding people along the way, I was given the opportunity to work for Apple early in my career it shaped the way that I think about technology.

Back in 1988, as a new Apple employee and being part of the newly formed Apple Research Partnership program, 5 newbies including myself, were flown to Apple Canada’s offices in Markham Ontario for the indoctrination to the Apple way. I was excited and nervous, as I was 1/2 way through my university career, and it was pretty cool to think we were going to meet up with a bunch of other newly minted “software evangelists” and learn about what it meant to be an Apple employee…

We learned lots (can you say “drink the Apple Kool-Aid from a firehose”), but what I really remember (it was 23 years ago this week), was the initial presentation video from Steve, and the 2 knowledge navigator presentations, here’s one of the videos that we saw….

I find the Ipad 2 and the introduction of the Siri Voice Command software are even closer steps to a realization of the vision that Steve had in 1988, see my blog post about this last year here).  But I am really sorry that Steve didn’t get a chance to see his vision realized.

Thank you Steve, for creating a company that gave me a start in this industry and allowed me to experience and meet so many great individuals, provide for my family and learn about and share some amazing technology.

No, this post is not about Public Enemy or rap, it’s about fixing our UPS (uninterrupted power supply).

Our UPS in our server room expired last week. The batteries died. No more juice. Kaput! Batteries only have a limited shelf life, so this was not unexpected, but still a nuisance. And though we don’t host our data on our own site as we want to ensure that our systems stay up, we do need to ensure we always have access to the internet, and our phones are up and running. And for that, we need power. And I didn’t know how to fix this, other than buying a whole new UPS. So I thought of my buddy, who’s name is, coincidentally, Dave.

Dave is kinda like that MacGyver guy that was mentioned in a previous blog post. He is my go to guy when I need some “fix-it” ideas, and want to avoid spending a bunch of money. And what is interesting to me is he never professes to be a technology wizard or even particularly web savvy (he has a Grade 8 education). But he does know a bunch about technology and has a knack for knowing how to get things done, which includes fixing technology equipment.

So I mentioned the issue to Dave and he noted that it was easy to replace the UPS batteries. He spoke to the guys at Battery World… and they were able to replace the batteries for about a third of the cost of buying a new UPS. And it now works great. So, if you want to keep your classroom, small business or home computers up and running, and you have a UPS, this is a great way to maintain it cost effectively!

And Dave goes up one more notch on the MacGyver comparison ladder. Thanks Dave!

We built a website awhile back – www.cheercards.net.  We did it because there are are number of people on our team who used to play competitive sports and some of us have kids who are playing now and we wanted to give something back…

Cheercards.net helps you create wallet sized team rosters for kids sports – soccer, basketball, football.  Coaches give them to parents, parents hand them out to relatives.  Fans cheer using team players’ names – no more “Go Number 7!” Or print game, practice and snack schedules, coach and parent lists and much more…

We’ll email you the cards so you can print them yourself, or we can print and and mail you the cards cheer cards.

And while we support the website with donations, the reality is we do it for free… the hope and the payback is that we put a smile on a kids face

If you have used cheercards.net, and it has put a smile on your kid’s face, please tell us the story to put a smile on OUR team’s face.

So my wife and kids gave me an iPad for my birthday. A very thoughtful gift, given I wasn’t asking for one but I had been debating on an iPhone for a bit, given a number of of the apps we use at eventIQ are iPhone compatible. I find my Blackberry very useful, but where are the Blackberry versions of all the iPhone apps? (I know silly question but I digress…)

I was a bit skeptical at first, but after using it for a month, it works great! I have used it to demo inviteright.com, and the instant on feature really helps. I am finding I don’t have to take the briefcase or brochure case or the notepad or the laptop, it’s all in the iPad.

The key features for me

• instant on – I was at a meeting, someone had a question and I was showing electionbuddy.com, in about the same time it took to write this sentence
• The size (form factor) – it is thinner and the same width and height as the notebook that I used to carry
• The 3GS wireless, (though everyone I have spoken with save 1 has had issues with connecting to Rogers), now that it works, it gives me great accessibility. For example, I was expecting to present in a meeting room, and the meeting was relocated to a restaurant/bar, and I was able to give a demonstration!

The big detractor- the VGA presentation cable isn’t as simple as the other connection capabilities, and it’s really important for my LCD projector. While I found an app that works ok, it seems to be one of those missing things to be able to use Safari and project a web page onto an LCD TV or LCD projector.

But overall, good job, Apple. It’s nice to see the vision of the knowledge navigator get pretty close.  Do you have any cool thoughts or iPad apps you want to share?

I read this on another blog…

Did you know that Shakespeare coined a lot of the sayings and analogies that we use today:

Truth will out.
What’s done is done.
Dead as a doornail.
Every dog will have its day.
Fool’s paradise.
The game is afoot.
It’s Greek to me.
Kill with kindness.
Love is blind.
All’s well that end’s well.

Amazing!

I received this in an email and thought it might be applicable for event planners working late nights planning…

A friend who is a receptionist in a church in a high risk area was concerned about someone coming into the office on Monday to rob them when they were counting the collection. She asked the local police department about using pepper spray – they recommended that she get a can of wasp spray instead.

The wasp spray, they told her, can shoot up to twenty feet away and is a lot more accurate, while with the pepper spray, they have to get too close to you and could overpower you. The wasp spray temporarily blinds an attacker until they get to the hospital for an antidote. She keeps a can on her desk in the office and it doesn’t attract attention from people like a can of pepper spray would. She also keeps one nearby at home for home protection…