Beginner's Guide To Being an Expert Meme Generator

courtesy of http://memegenerator.net

How Much Time Are YOU On Social Media?

Morrison & Foerster LLP have released this infographic outlining 'The Growing Impact of Social Media' and  statistics on how much time, on average, is spent on social media websites, as well as television and other media.  With a wealth of information represented in this graphic, I felt like I was back in school learning all new curriculum :).

original source

The Bald Facts of Hair Loss

Fall Cocktails to Spice Up Your Holidays

The Oklahoman article on Political Material on Social Media

my first newspaper byline! http://newsok.com/political-material-on-social-sites-sparks-unfriendly-feelings/article/3725642

Best Dressed SEOs

View more lists from Atom Ray

If you like this, visit Rebecca Hawk.

the best bonds

Best Bond, James Bonds

View more lists from Atom Ray

If you think this is cool, you should see a movie with Greg Newby

Fake Hurricane Photos Cascade Into Social Media

October 30, 2012

By Adam Ray on SEO Sales Pro Blog

As Hurricane Sandy approached land on Monday, social media users were desperate for the kind of drama that was shown on CNN with Anderson Cooper or FOX News with Shepard Smith. As spoofers launched their hurricane photo schemes, the sharing frenzy ensued.  Over ten separate fake images went viral, passed off as current Hurricane Sandy photos. “As of 5:00 p.m. EST, there had been over 7.1 million tweets in the past 24hours about the storm.  And that was before it made landfall.”  At least for the evening of the storm and night following, the fake photos dominated over any current and real photos.  Snopes.com has debunked 10 photos in the following report:

Snopes.com Debunks Hurricane Sandy Photos

Now the morning after, dozens of professional photographers have had time to release scores of authentic and striking storm watching and damage photographs.  ABC currently has 131 photos in this online photo album: East Coast Hit by Superstorm Sandy

On Monday, Kevin Systrom, the founder and chief executive of Instagram told The New York Times that there were “10 pictures a second tagged with #sandy or #hurricane flowing through the service.  In total, more than 230,000 images are using that hashtag".

Social Media and Politics - Unfriending

New research shows that companies' stock prices are 99.95% directly correlated to Facebook likes on the given day or time period.  This infographic takes a look at political posting on social media and its effects:
http://www.seosalespro.com/blog/company-stocks-directly-correlated-to-facebook-likes/

Unfriending For Politics: Company Stocks and Social Media Suicide by Adam Ray is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.seosalespro.com/blog/company-stocks-directly-correlated-to-facebook-likes/.

The Basics of Restorations:  Searching for Cheap Muscle Cars

If your wife gave you permission to purchase that cool hot rod to work on, you may be wondering where to begin. Finding the project car is the hardest part. If you want to make your project a success, finding cheap cars is a great place to start.

If you have done any research at all, you know that car restoration is costly. That is why finding cheap muscle cars can help you to save money. There are many good deals out there, all you need to do is know where to find them.

Searching for the Car

It is not that simple to find a good car that just needs a little bit of work. Dealerships do not sell muscled cars that are junked, so avoid these places unless you have a ton of money to spend on a vehicle.

The Internet offers many different resources for anyone looking to restore old cars. Search on eBay or Craigslist. The condition of the vehicles you find will range from good to not so good. Some of the past owners may have stored cars underneath tarps and in garages. Other owners may have left their cars out in the weather.

Checking out a local salvage yard may be a good idea too. Even if the car is missing some parts, this will be a way to get a discount car. You may also want to check your police department's repossessed vehicle auction.

Looking at the Car

You always need to research any car you are considering purchasing. Although cheap muscle cars are inexpensive, you can still end up spending a ton of money on fixing one if you are not careful. Be sure that you are buying a car that is going to be worth it in the end.

Look up the value of the vehicle you are interested in. There are a few different guides that you can find online that will help you find out what it is worth after it is restored. Any appraiser can tell you what a car in someones front yard is worth, but all you really need is common sense.

Discover if the car runs and what its past damage history is. Find out what original parts are missing and then you will be able to figure out what you will end up spending on fixing the car. You want to think about the interior and exterior of a car before you purchase it.

The Right Price

The right price will depend on what type of shape the car is in and your future plans for it. You may want to find a car that is in horrible shape to start with so that you can have fun fixing it yourself. A junkyard will probably sell a junked car for a few thousand dollars.

If you have the money, you may want to find a car that is in decent shape. You can tinker with it instead of having to rebuild it completely. Look for a car that is running and looks pretty good. Enjoy looking for your dream car.

Fun Black Light Party Ideas

If you don’t want your next party to be just like every other average party that you go to, you may want try black light party ideas. It’s a fun and cool looking theme that is sure to be memorable and get your party guests talking.

 Black light party ideas are great for young kids and teens alike. So they also make a unique birthday party theme. But don’t think that only kids have to have all the fun, they can also be a whole lot of fun for adults as well. That’s because the effects of black lights are still fascinating to many people, regardless of age. A black light party may take some extra planning than other party themes may but it will be worth it.

Of course the most basic need for your black light party ideas will be to have enough black lights to cover the room. You can find black light bulbs in a variety of sizes. The rest of the planning just takes some creativity.

 Black Light Party Ideas: Invitations The hype for many parties starts with the invitation. Your black light party ideas need invitations to get people excited about the possibilities of the concepts. It’s important to use the black light theme with the invitation so they know what to expect. You can do this fairly easily with some basic craft work yourself. Just buy some basic black construction paper to cut up for the invitations. Then use a variety of glow in the dark markers to write the details. You can even encourage the invited guests to read it in the dark to drive home the theme better. On your invitation you may want to do more than just mention it will be a black light party. You may also want to encourage people to wear all white clothes or neon accents so that everybody glows in the dark. This can give the party an even more surreal effect.

 Black Light Party Ideas: Decorations You want your black light party room to be as dark as possible to get the best results. So one of the best things you can do to help this is to have it, either in a room with no windows, or one with the windows covered in black material. There are some black light reactive ropes and other materials you can use to decorate with. But you can also use rope led lights or fiber optic lights. There are other fun lighting options that you can do for short periods of time like strobe or disco lighting. To give your black light party more of a fun, surreal atmosphere, you can even use a fog machine or bubble machine. These are usually available for purchase or rental at most party supply stores. Glow sticks also can have many uses in a black light party. They can be decoration for table center pieces, party favors for your guests. One very unique idea with glow sticks is by inserting them in balloons. This makes a fun, bouncing light that your guests will enjoy passing around the room—you may even be inspired to make a game out of it.

3 Reasons Your Circuit Breaker Keeps Tripping

My first microwave was some contraption from the 50s left over by my grandparents when they moved.  It weighed what seemed like 100 pounds and made noises you don’t expect to hear when your food is cooking.  Worst of all, if you turned it on while the deck light and the basement lights were on, the cooking lasted 30 seconds until the entire house went dark.  

Sound familiar?  Circuit breaker problems can be quite the hassle.  Fixing the problem can be simple, but will often require a professionally trained electrician.  Before we can find the solution however, we have to find out why your circuit breaker keeps tripping.

1. Faulty Wiring
If you recently moved into a newly built home or just had your home rewired and are having circuit breaker problem, this might be caused by a wiring problem.  Nobody is perfect.  A mistake in wiring is not uncommon.  You may first notice this problem in electric switch malfunction.  Unfortunately, a problem such as this may require a lot of work, since the entire wiring system will have to be looked at by an electrician.

Residents of an older home in which the circuit breaker keeps tripping could be experiencing a blessing in disguise when it comes to faulty wiring.  A badly wired electrical system, especially one that combines older and newer electrical systems, can lead to severe problems and even fire.

2. Short Circuit
Speaking of severe, here’s another common reason that could explain why your circuit breaker keeps tripping.  A short circuit occurs when a “hot” wire comes into contact with another wire.  You may notice because of electrical equipment malfunction, a burning smell, or melted wiring.

Short circuits are dangerous because they have the potential to start fires.  What complicates matters is that short circuits can occur at any point in your electrical system, so finding this alarming problem can be difficult.  If you suspect a short circuit, you need to get a professional electrician on the case.

3. Overload
Remember that microwave problem I mentioned?  It turns out ancient appliances draw a lot of power.  If your circuit breaker keeps tripping you may be having the same problem we had—electrical overload.  Your circuit breaker is designed to take on a specific electrical load.  Anything higher than that defined load will cause the circuit breaker to shut off.

Each electrical item on a circuit adds a certain load to the system.  If you have a microwave, TV, computers and a hair dryer all running on a circuit breaker not intended to take that much of a load—
lights out.  This problem can have a simple fix.  Don’t run all of these items at the same time.  Otherwise the circuit breaker keeps tripping.

Whenever you’re circuit breaker keeps tripping, keep your safety in mind.  Any victim of electric shock can tell you that wires are not something to play around with if you don’t know what you’re doing.  Likewise, if you’re going to get help, make sure it’s from a certified electrician.  Your buddy Joe may say he’s seen every kind of electrical system known to man, but are you willing to bet your home on it?

If you are in the Oklahoma City or Tulsa area, I would recommend visiting a professional electrical maintenance company.

Hard to Deal with Hard Water

A review of Easy Water's no-chemical water softener.

Hard water is common problem affecting homes using city water or well water.  High mineral content in water can cause problems in your home, and some studies have shown a possible link to health problems. Your home’s plumbing can be clogged and damaged over time due to mineral accumulation, and nobody likes to deal with the pesky soap scum that it causes.  A company called Easy Water developed a possible solution for hard water, a variety of no-maintenance-required products designed to reverse the effects of hard water.  However, since some have found no success in the water softening promised by Easy Water, complaints have arisen from skeptics.

Source of Easy Water complaints

Most Easy Water complaints come from former buyers who have found that the company’s product did nothing to reverse the effects of hard water on their home’s water supply.  This has become a particularly contentious point considering how important reducing hard water can be in a household.  Several customers feel as though they entrusted Easy Water with protecting their property as well as keeping toxins from their drinking water, and were mislead.  Several plumbers have also voiced their skepticism to Easy Water’s promises, noting that hard water build up in pipes hasn’t been solved by Easy Water’s products.

What does Easy Water do?

Easy water offers a solution to hard water that doesn’t involve putting chemicals into your water system.  The most instrumental product offered for this is the no-salt conditioner, which removes the hard-water particles with electro-magnetism and keeps pipes clean, saving the buyer money and the hassle that comes with other water softeners that require more effort from the homeowner.  The product, as well as several other Easy Water products, is supposedly maintenance- free.  Easy Water complaints have voiced customers’ unhappiness with the results.

Easy Water complaints from skeptics

Several skeptics and easy water users have found that the products that are supposed to miraculously reverse the problems presented by hard water are simply a sham design to lure in unsuspecting buyers.  Some easy water complaints have pointed to the product as a sort of placebo.  The manufacturer tells the buyer that all he needs to do is set this product in the water system and sit back while it magically removes unwanted minerals and toxins from the water system.  Because the buyer has seen it on TV and trusts the manufacturer, he throws money at Easy Water and sits back while nothing happens.  

Are Easy Water complaints valid?

You’ll be hard pressed to find many sources supporting the claims that easy water makes.  Complaint after complaint has been recorded claiming that the installation of devices such as the Easy Water no-salt conditioner not only doesn’t solve the problem of hard water, but also makes a home water system more susceptible to its damaging effects.  However, there are some who believe Easy Water to be a tried and true method of water softening, claiming that it resolves some of the side effects of other water softeners such as the slimy feel of the water when using salt.

Easy Water's promotional video:

Adam does work for Country Leisure—a manufacturer of hot tubs Oklahoma City trusts.  He writes about home improvement trends and home recreation development, part of the smart life... Google