Calorie Counter and Diet Tracker by MyFirnessPal.com

The first App I became aware of, thanks to Mr Dan Hughes from Lee and Dan’s Midnight Movie Club, was Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker by MyFitnessPal. MyFitnessPal is a site that has a large (and dynamically growing) database of foods and exercises and is a combination of website and iOS App. Basically after putting in a current weight, a goal weight, and a timeline to achieve the goal it works out a daily calorie goal. This goal is adjusted as cardiovascular exercises are added to your daily diary, strength exercises can be recorded, but have no bearing on your suggested intake.

The downside I find to the App is that the calorie’s burned for cardiovascular exercise is guesstimated based on user input. For example, for a walk you enter the amount of time you walked for and a rough speed estimate. The burn is then worked out according to an arbitrary formula and takes into no account the inclination and declination of the travel. Surely both of these are key factors in getting an accurate reading. As such the calories burnt can only be thought of as a guesstimate.

Technically the App is not needed as all can be done on the website, however having the App in my pocket gives me the ability to see at a glance my calorie intake and guesstimated calorie burn for the day. This helps me make smart decisions, and gives me a way to monitor what it is I am eating. The site does have a social aspect to it as well with a reasonably active forum of like minded people becoming more active.

It’s a good idea and could well be expanded upon and improved further. If you are in the market for something like this then give it a go.

Sorry for those expecting a deep and meaningful post. This is more a random thought and funny observation to be honest. People search for some funny stuff and here is a sample of the terms that led to my site in the past day.

• male feline urinary system
• unique birds
• worm farm images
• australian gardens
• chai plant
• kitchen
• tropical australian flowers
• wormfarm removing maggots
• worm farm creatures
• starbucks loyalty card
• can i place blow fly maggots in a worm farm

I am a little concerned about that last one. I mean why would you?

That said it seems a lot of people are still interested in vermiculture. I better resurrect my kit!

A free Starbucks card

I cant believe it, Starbucks Corporation is handing away 100% free cards. Hurry fast, Don’t hold off any time. Here is site – {URL_REMOVED} Theres only 316 more!!

Quote of the Day

that they were rather coarse, broad, with squat fingers. of keeping up a brave and cheerful appearance to Jonathan tries me,

This he backed up with arguments regarding his complete recovery,

This threat is a variation of Sophos Naked Security | Free coffee from Starbucks and Tim Hortons? No, it’s a Facebook scam. As you can see it is months old now. The e-mail variant has the same risks associated with it.

I find it entertaining that getting a free card would be a compelling reason to risk the security of your data. It does not say that the free card entitles you to anything. Let’s face it, every coffee shop known to man will give you a loyalty card for free. It is only after you have bought a set amount of coffee that you get a free coffee. This set-up does not say anything about this mythical card entitling you to a free coffee, and really is the prospect of saving $3.50 – $5.00 that enticing compared to losing all your data?

If nothing else tells you that this is a scam then the “Quote of the Day” should. Honestly what does that nonsense truly mean and who writes that way? It looks like a cut and paste from a Mills and Boone trash novel and a medical report. Clearly this is a program that has a random phrase generator and is used to try and fool the spam detectors into thinking it is a legitimate transmission.

My advice is to update your defences and be on guard. Common sense goes a long way in protecting yourself from being duped on such matters. I mean if it was a door to door salesman with no credentials, or a telemarketer named Mark Stevenson with an Indian accent, would you not think twice? E-mail, Facebook, Twitter etc. deserve the same level of vigilance and skepticism. Without that you will fall foul of the dark side. Perhaps not as badly as the South Koreans recently rescued from being kidnapped in South Africa after falling for a 419 email scam as per Sophos Naked Security | Police rescue man and daughter kidnapped by email scammers, but duped nonetheless.

Do not fall for this garbage people.

In an attempt to be SCHWOIT more socially active I am trialling the Pleer’s Facebook Comments plug-in on SCHWOIT. Let me know if I should persist or desist .

Working Hard

I had an inkling today would be a return to somewhat normal levels at the end of last week. This was nothing more than a gut feeling having worked through a number of “shutdown” periods before. That was confirmed last evening at about 6:30pm when I was invited to a crisis meeting over an issue requiring minimal work. The fact that someone from the problem management group were actively calling for a meeting on a Sunday just screams “brace yourself the brown stuff is about to hit the spinning thing”.

Today has been a mini-disaster full of many perceived crisis’. It all began with a phone call at 5:35am after an abnormally horrid night of sleep due to ridiculous humidity. Unfortunately the caller neglected to leave a voice mail when I did not answer. The call did rouse me from my sleep, but diverted before I could answer in my semi-comatosed state. This left me cursing the caller for the next 45 minutes whilst I fell back to sleep. It also left me assuming it was some foreign cold caller trying to sell me an anti-virus service I don’t need. Turns out all me fellow team members, including those on holidays, were recipients of the same treatment.

Needless to say when I got to my post I was called by a colleague who beat me in with a question of “Do you know about issue x?”. Of course I was not aware due to the shoddy call described earlier. As it turned out issue x was a trivial thing to fix and amounted to minutes of work. However, it is followed by hours of waiting whilst things happen automatically on a global scale. If the caller at 5:35am had left a message it could have been all but fixed by the time I got in the home office.

There have also been related incidents today all perceived as a crisis by those reporting. Truth is that these incidents are only seen as a “crisis” when perceived by the reporting individual with no to little impact to business operations. However, having worked in Managed Services for many years an ugly truth I have learnt is that “perception is often reality” especially when the client is telling you it’s a crisis. Slowly but surely knocking them on the head. Better brace myself for tomorrow!

It is easy to correlate the relationship of workers returning and the volume of work. During the break with the volume of logged on users roughly 33% of usual between December 23 2011 and January 8 2012 on a system I administer. Today theres an upswing with 66% of usual logged in and active. As a result of users returning the work volume has escalated. However my teams numbers are about 40% of normal, leading to a busy day.

P.S. Hope I can sleep better tonight I think I am going to need it!

Apple released iOS version 4.3.3 on the 4th May. This was for me relatively good timing as I was about to pick up a brand new iPhone 4 with an iOS that would need an update. The phone has iOS 4.3 on it, so my second task after setup was to update IOS on it. Well so I thought.

iOS 4 Logo

It is now the fourth day of trying and failing. The process is failing during the download, so before it even attempts updating the phone. Each and every time the iOS update ends with error 1403, which is a corrupt file. You only get this message after downloading the 600+ MB from Apple.

I would guess I have tried a minimum of 15 times in the past 4 days. This represents 9+ GB of download wasted for no result. The suggestions on the Apple Support Communities from a fellow iOS user is to wait a few days and try again. Hardly a solution, and I do not fancy waiting a few days and see the exact same behaviour continue. I will be shaped lickity split if it does.

I think Apple need to revise the way they perform iOS updates. Perhaps delivery of patches via small files rather than moster updates. Or if the monster updates are to continue how about splitting the download into smaller chunks (say 50 – 100 MB) that can be verified individually before being assembled into the larger update file. In the latter scenario the corrupted content would represent a lot less to download again than the whole 600+ MB.

Another thing Apple should have a long hard think about it where private customers like myself have multiple iOS devices. I have an iPad (which miraculously got 4.3.3), iPhone 4, and an iTouch in the house. Each requires its own specific download to accomplish the same base task of running iOS 4.3.3. The equates to roughly 1.5 GB just to ensure the 3 devices are up to date. Why could I not download a single smart update that includes smarts to say are you an iPad/iPhone/iTouch and then include the applicable code updates. Again this would save a lot of download limit for those of us with the devices in the house.

This all said I am not likely to jump to Android or Windows Phone 7 as a mobile compute platform. I just am not impressed by them. I float this advice on the hope that Apple may look at how they can make their update experience better and more robust for the home user.

Anyone else had a similar iOS experience or have any thoughts on how the update experience could be improved?

vodafail

I was planning on moving back to Telstra when my Vodafone contract expired at the end of June. The plan was to move the number only and then wait to upgrade the handset when the iPhone 5 is released.

However when my Nokia N97 had a cataclysmic failure in the charging socket the need grew more urgent. On the Nokia N97 the charging point in the phone itself failed to connect to the chargers tried. Prices to fix this put it between $90 and $110 to repair. More than a new contract with a new iPhone 4.

So I have gone to Telstra on a cheaper cap and some added perks due to an active promotion. The perks all up represent $100 in savings … huzzah! So I am now a full Apple convert with an iPod Classic, iPad Generation 1, MacBook Pro, and now an iPhone 4. I guess I can call Steve Jobs the Emperor now!

Duke Nukem is about to be reloaded again in Duke Nukem Forever. Looking forward to the attitude returning.

Listen out for some classic quotes in this one!

As I wrote about earlier I am on a new fitness kick called Fat Attack 2011. As a part of this attempt I have decided to use my Wii and X-Box Kinect as exercise aids. My first session was on Sunday, since then I have had very sore shoulders, and after yesterday and todays sessions some sore legs.

After writing of this on FaceBook I was made aware of DOMS. Immediately I had visions of an Italian Gourmet Pizza Parlour, but alas DOMS is delayed onset muscle soreness. DOMS (as a geek I love acronyms) is as it suggests where you feel sore long after the exercise has ceased. DOMS is most frequently felt when you begin a new exercise program, change your exercise routine, or dramatically increase the duration or intensity of your exercise routine.

So in my case my body is not used to anything beyond walking and tenpin bowling. Essentially any exercise could be considered is an increase to what my lazy arse is used to. So yes even the exercises within Kinect Sports and Wii Fit. Unwittingly I have suffered this before from the Wii and previously called this feeling a Wiinjury.

Delayed onset muscle soreness is thought to be a result of microscopic tearing of the muscle fibers. The amount of tearing (and soreness) depends on how hard and how long you exercise and what type of exercise you do. Any movement you aren’t used to can lead to DOMS. So my Kinect Sports session with the boxing and bowling obviously was very effective in ripping tiny tears through my shoulders and arms, whilst the leg workout of yesterday and today has done similar things to my legs.

DOMS effects are worse within 24 and 72 hours and gradually will subside beyond that timeframe. There are many ways to treat DOMS, but no one way is definitively the best. In the past I have tried the “wait it out” approach. In this approach you do nothing but wait for the pain to go away. However, I am going to try an alternative approach of “active recovery”. Basically lower intensity activities until the DOMS effects are gone. The theory is that the continued use helps increase blood flow through the area. This blood flow assists with the muscle recovery and adaptation to more continued use.

So today I will be head back to the filthy Munmorrah Circuit Duck Pond for a morning walk before work. I will also be bowling in the evening. Depending on how I pull up after bowling I may squeeze in some Wii Fit with some of the yoga type work outs.

Having delved into DOMS, I guess I now know the true meaning of no pain, no gain! I also expect that I am going to be generally sore for a few weeks whilst my lard arse gets its groove back.

P.S.: A graphical track will be kept on progress in the sidebar to the right.

Over the past fortnight I have been to my local GP. My blood pressure was up and I need to go see him again in another fortnight. This is no real surprise given that I am a fatty and under constant pressure have been for a very long time. Since that visit to the GP I have been steadily being more selective in what, and how much I consume.

I am thus keen to manage this situation before drugs and/or surgical options (i.e. lap band/gastric bypass) is mentioned, even though I am close to two great examples of the success in that approach. However, I want to make this a true lifestyle change and focus. I have also seen that approach work with my sister, and it is she that has inspired me.

It is time to resurrect the fitness challenge that I was succeeding at previously. It is going to be difficult given the long commutes that were not present then, but it is something I just have to do. I intend beginning this new quest across the weekend with some casual strolls around the area. I will also be geeking the challenge up with at least 1 hour on Kinect Sports/Adventures and Wii Fit per night during the week, excepting Fridays when I bowl. I will use Wii Fit as my measuring stick at this point.

I am also hopeful that when I succeed the ill effects of my sleep apnoea will be lessened, and that I will actually be able to get a decent nights sleep, though some of the personal and professional stress will also need to go. I also hope that the joint aches that I get in my knees and ankles will also become a memory of the past.

Anyway, I promise not to become a Food Nazi or the like, and it will not be my sole blogging effort. After all I have 18 hours to kill on the train 3 days per week.

People often wonder what value does social networking truly provide to them. Sure we can all sit around on Facebook and play flash games, or follow every celebrity through Twitter, but does that truly improve our knowledge and lives substantially? Now don’t get me wrong here I am more than guilty of playing silly games and following celebrities, but there are things with more impact possible on social media.

A good example of this is keeping up with industry sector trends, especially important in the endpoint protection space. For example, I follow a number of competing vendors in the threat management product space on Facebook. It is interesting to see that they are all covering each others moves within hours. For example, Sophos detects a new virus type. Within the day Trend and McAfee will have a similar story on the threat and what they have done about it. Symantec are not quite as regular, but they do eventually cover the same topics. This is good for me from a professional point of view as I am not likely to visit each vendors sites/blogs to achieve the same result.

The sharing of ideas with peers is another great facet of Social Networking for the geek. I have been working through a number of challenging topics at work of late and have had to resort to the internet for answers. Google was not my friend on this occasion only throwing up answers that were not relevant or no longer actually there! I had to resort to the forum. The issue was indeed not a straight forward fix. Further the information in the error did not indicate that the problem was as severe as it potentially was. Suffice to say that I am glad I fixed the issue before a client was impacted.

Social networking also allows me to reconnect with colleagues from a bygone era. Recently I have reconnected with old colleagues from the KAZ and WA Newspapers days. Many of these people I have completely lost touch with previously during moves interstate and the like. Their opinions though still carry significant weight, so it is good to get back in touch.

I guess that is pretty much it. Just a quick brain storm of a blog today.

P.S. If you want to socially network with me you can find my links under “Where Else You Can Find Me” in the sidebar on SCHWOIT. Sorry to anyone on SCHWOIT (Republished).

We have all no doubt been there when something is so blatantly in need of attention but can not be done due to some need to jump through hoops for the sake of making it too damn hard. I had that dubious pleasure twice yesterday.

In the first instance I had a task to design a change to some Interfaces. There was no suggestion, nor need, for a change but my unprocessed task prevented others from proceeding. All I did was effectively document that there was no need for change. Would have been nice if the change management system had notified me of the task. Perhaps it needs a change!

The second was to address a problem I detected last week. I found the fix on Friday which consisted of a Windows registry change and server reboot. Though I can do it my line of demarcation does not allow me to perform the task. So I decided to request the group that was understood to be responsible at this level to fix it.

Unfortunately the impacted servers are in a beauracratic hole where they are not production, but kind of are. As a result the support team assigned were not prepared to touch them, however they wpuld likely do the work upon instruction from the project team.

So I engage the project team leader responsible. All I got back was a request for yet another beauracratic layer to be navigated, and a request if I could do the work which is widely known is not in scope of my services! So I engage the next layer of red tape mongers copying in all impacted parties.

The project manager then foolishly responds requesting yet another hoop to be jumped through. My draft response had lots of capitalisation telling him that what he wanted needed to come from his team. Thankfully I engaged my boss who essentially said the same thing, just without the incendiary comments. Draft aborted, all out war avoided.

I know that there is a place for process and change control, but when the dilineation of responsibility is unclear or not understood it simply wastes adds time and money. It also increases blood pressure, frustration and dissatisfaction. We can all live without this crap!

I have 7 days until the first of 2 Mac OS X exams. I have not done an exam since Uni, well over 10 years ago, so its going to be a bit of a blast from the past. My next few days are going to be spent studying pretty intensely, though I must say that the SSH side and command line tricks are not scaring me at all. I guess the many years using Solaris to some degree will help

The only thing that is concerning is the server interface side given I have no way of running it up to use it in a practical sense. I may have to run it up on a USB drive when I have a copy … soon I hope.

The Mac desktop training commenced yesterday and all I can say is that it is full on. The day was go go go from 9:00pm through to 4:30pm with only a 30 minute lunch break. The day consisted of installation and user management from the desktop only. There was a brief introduction to shell scripting, applescript and using Automator. Based on day 1 I would advise anyone thinking of sitting the course prepare for three full on days. Day 2 commences in 30 minutes, looking forward to looking at the guts of Mac OS X further.

About 3 months ago I was made aware of one of my clients that was planning to make the decision to update their corporate fleet to Microsoft Windows 7. Great move, however other applications also need review before a properly managed environment can be attained. Within my Threat Management realm that was tied down to Symantec Anti Virus Corporate Edition 10.x (SAVCE).

When I was alerted to the clients wishes to look into Windows 7 the premise was that they were only looking at it for suitability with their client managed application set. I mentioned quite strongly that SAVCE was an superceded product and offered no support for Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. Begrudgingly though I gave them an unmanaged client for Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) so that the client could continue on their way.

Knowing what was coming I scoped a SEP solution and submitted it for approval in the vain hope that we could have a managed environment ready for the production rollout. However, the project was not approved, yet the Windows 7 rollout has been performed on 140+ laptops running a standalone SEP client with no ability to manage or report upon the solution health or effectiveness.

So I immediately resubmitted the exact design to the powers that be. Now the project is being resubmitted, unfortunately we will now be under pressure to implement retrospectively quickly and not proactively as I had hoped, and thus prophecy fulfilled.

I am currently working on a pretty important piece of work for a key client at my employer. Essentially it is a very simple project to upgrade from one version of software to another. Sounds simple, is simple, however maligned and poorly communicated processes are causing inefficiencies in delivery.

The dilemma is when it involves interfacing with the client, third party service providers and other teams to get a number of trivial jobs done that could/should be done in one hit. I am continually finding road blocks, many are obstructions for the sake of obstruction, others are due to the numerous service providers who each have distinct processes. It is proving extremely frustrating and inefficient for the client.

Frustration

Anyway, today I have hit one such road block where one of the third parties (a major Australia TelCo) has performed work in a manner contrary to previous practices that have been in place for some time. I have now moved to their suggestion whilst clarifying if indeed that was the correct position internally. I have now been advised of their faux pas and hence will, no doubt, perform more rework backing those changes out. This of course costs the project more time, and places the pressure on the central project figures (the project manager and I).

The delays caused by these issues are exacerbated as I have had eight of the past ten days off due to illness or injury. As a result I am naturally behind the eight ball on other project tasks and trying to catch up, a task made near on impossible whilst navigating a myriad of processes discovered on a case by case basis. This is not the way a simple project should run, and I can only hope the discoveries we are making will make further works all the easier.

All this ball juggling has made me a very tired boy today. My 3 hour commute home will, with luck, not be challenged by a CityRail FAIL for a change.

Well just as I got the ISP and hosting sorted my Mac decided to throw a spanner my way. The MagSafe power connector has carked it.

For those of you not aware of a MagSafe connector it is a great idea with magnets used to hold the power cable in place, instead of the traditional stick and slot approach. This means that is you trip over the cable for some reason, rather than drag the machine with you the magnet will release. It is a fantastic idea.

Mine though has developed a fault with the sensor pins within the connector. There are 5 pins that are supposed to spring in or out and make the connection to the machine. When disconnected all 5 should be out. However, over the past few weeks I have noticed 2 pins are sluggish to reset. In fact they have necessitated the odd tap on a hard surface to coax them out.

That worked well until yesterday morning when one of the pins has given up the ghost. The pin is permanently retreated in the head of the connector. No amount of tapping or prodding sees this pin emerge from its hiding hole. As a result the power cable never connects succesfully and my battery is now 100% drained.

So I am now awaiting the arrival of a replacement MagSafe. Until then I am forced to slum it on the work craptop. An IBM ThinkPad StinkPad T42 loaded with Microsoft Microshonk Windows Winblows XP and a paltry 512MB RAM.

Given Apples track record on prompt delivery the MacBook Pro 17″ should be up and running within days. Just hope their courier services the new area (refer to the Foxtel – Another Bunch of Fools post for that).

Well after a very frustrating week since the move I am back on line. Basically my ISP screwed the pooch and it took them a full week to resolve their screw up. The situation came about from me having a second ADSL account opened up for the new premises. Once I relocated on the Thursday I requested the superfluous account to be closed, however I wanted that user name to be migrated to the new account.

Needless to say this confused my ISP. I had the accounts team call me to clarify the request, and during that call established that the original request was thoroughly misunderstood and that a cancellation order had been placed against the new account. Once the true requirements were understood the accounts team quickly attempted cancelling the cancellation orders and reversing penalty charges for early termination. This was thought to have been complete.

However, one key part of the erroneously submitted cancellation order was missed. This resulted in the ISPís contractor cancelling my account within 24 hours. Very efficient on the cancellation. I found this after relocating my router to a better wireless transmission location I was unable to connect to the internet. I was on the phone pronto.

As the call was made after 6pm AEST on a Friday I was informed that the account would be offline for the weekend, but should be restored on the following Monday. I was also credited a months worth of access as compensation for the service disruption.

On Monday it was no better. The Tuesday also showed no improvement. At 3pm on Wednesday I rang again and was informed that the provisioning team were delayed due to unusual demand. I was also assured that the order for them to repair the fault was lodged and escalated. I left it at that and was hopeful that the problems would be resolved on the Thursday.

Thursday came and went with absolutely no status change. So I called the ISP at 2:30pm AEST on the Friday. I spoke to the original representative from the ISP who was shocked that I was still offline. To his credit he took ownership of the problem and progressed it as far as he could. I was also given a second month of free access due to the tardiness of the provisioning team. I was though informed that it would not be repaired until Monday at least. I repeated my disappointment and that I was not happy but could not do anything more.

The call though must have gotten the wheels in motion as I received and SMS this morning that my job was picked up, then being processed, and finally completed. Clearly the provisioning teams backsides were thoroughly tanned, as they should have been.

I have no problem with the provisioning teams doing what they did in cancelling the account. They were simply following orders. What I am disappointed in was that once it was understood that order was erroneous it took over a week and two additional phone calls to repair! To further reflect the dismay I have in this situation is that the original account order was lodged on a national public holiday and connected and working 24 hours later.

So I hear you ask am I looking for a new ISP? The answer is no, this is the first issue I have had with this ISP in over 7 years of subscription. I am confident that this was an isolated incident. If it proves not to be though I will happily jump ship.

Given the recent discussions around the validity of the Entrecard traffic I thought I would share my thoughts on the matter, and going beyond that, the strategies I have employed to make Entrecard work for my humble little gardening site. Basically, I am seeing large numbers of traffic coming via Entrecard and a number of those are now turning into valid commenters and regular and valued visitors.

As you can imagine gardening is a very small niche and is often only frequented by those that are keen gardeners. The general run of the mill netizen is not all that interested in the subject, however I am capturing some interest from these netizens. This is by keeping the content straight forward and understandable. Also a smattering of geek and personal news intersperses the gardening articles. This keeps people hooked I have found. Although I do try and stay faithful to my niche and am being careful not to flood the blog with other non-related materials.

The Drop Strategy
The second part of the strategy is the card dropping methods I have been employing. In large this is a bit of a rehash of a comment I left at On Blogging Australia and a summary of a thread at the Aussie Bloggers Forum, for those that have now read this a number of times apologies in advance.

The card dropping strategy is very straight forward and has proven very successful with my site being in the top 3 of the Home and Garden category since about the second week of participation. I am a chain dropper, however I do take the time to scan and read some of the articles. I even comment on a number of these sites and participate in the community. I have discovered many sites of great value to me across a wealth of topics.

1. Drop on those network of fellow bloggers that I am familiar with through forum discussions. For me this is a collection of contacts from the Aussie Bloggers Forums and Blog Catalog. These contacts always reciprocate.
2. Those that have taken the time to consider my site and are willing to advertise are next on the list. My clients are often more than happy to reciprocate with a drop back or two.
3. The next hit list are those fellow Entrecard participants that I wish to, or am, advertising with. Showing them that I do take the time to look at their site, and not simply clicking from the Dashboard is an important step. Often too these sites will be the ones with the more interesting articles, and I will be moved to participate within their blog.
4. Return the favour to those Drop on those that dropped on me. As per above, even the chain droppers, have taken the time to visit my site.
5. Drop on those that drop on me regularly that are in the top 10 from the details page. Even if these guys do not participate in a discussion, they are constant visitors and my hope is that sooner or later one of my articles will arouse their interest.
6. Next on the drop parade are those blogs that threw me the most traffic from previous advertisements. They are also the ones that I am likely to advertise with again.
7. Drop on the new arrivals. These are the credit poor people of Entrecard and are often thankful for the credits. Some I also try to advertise on, but these spots are snapped up lickety split.
8. Complete drops by dropping on the smaller categories. Those categories are often the ones with <20 members and do not attract much attention from the world. As such they are often more than happy to reciprocate.

I have also begun performing similar drops for Sockos Spot. Again that is reaping rewards with numerous advertising requests coming in from sites that did not know about Sockos Spot in the past. It is building a readership and that in turn is improving the reach of the sites.

Thanking my Advertisers
I am also now sending a personal message of thanks to those that have decided to place an advertisement on my widget. The idea was inspired by the excellent article Entrecard: Social Advertising for Bloggers that in turn was inspired by The Cheap Gourmet. The reason for this thanks is that these are the people that have taken the time to evaluate my site and make the decision to advertise on my screen real estate. The act of thanking will encourage that client, and that is what they are, to advertise again. It also opens up another social network opportunity on Entrecard.

Thanking Those That Allow me to Advertise
By admission I have been a little lax here, but I am making every endeavour to thank those fellow Entrecard members that have permitted my advertisement on their widget.

Remember that Entrecard is a social network of sorts. So be social in its use.