With Childhood obesity and diabetes at an all time high and since I lost 35 pounds in the past 6 months and I don't want to be tempted by candy.

I decided to put on my thinking cap, do some research and come up with some alternative treats to the traditional candy for this years goblins.

To turn this into a Marketing opportunity. Attache a business card, or wrap your items and attach your business card with black and orange ribbon.

Print you name, company information, phone number on the bottom of the activity books (courtesy of...). Use this opportunity to introduce yourself as a real estate professional. Dress up as a Realtor to give out your treats.

I have assembled a list of 85 items food and non food. Some ideas are better than others and I bet you all have some to add to the list so here goes... 

Food Alternatives to Candy at Halloween

Crackers and Peanut butter snack packs

Cheese and Cracker snack Packs

Juice boxes

Fruit roll-ups (if healthy)

Fruit snack mix (Trail Mix packs). Stay away from ones with nuts many children are severely allergic to them.

Cereal Bars (healthy ones stick with the fruit ones and make sure there are not nuts)

Fruit cookies or ginger snaps in small packets

Small bags of pretzels

Small Boxes of healthy cereal

Hot Cocoa mix

Popcorn (microwave bags)

Dried Fruit individual packs or snack size boxes

Small bags of baked chips

Mini boxes of Animal Crackers

Sugar Free - Drink Mixes

Small bags of Gold Fish crackers or Oyster Crackers

Graham Crackers

Turkey Jerky

Pudding snacks

Small containers of applesauce

Small containers of sugar-free Jello

Pretzel sticks with cheese

Yogurt covered raisins

Cracker Jacks or Carmel Corn

Non-Food Alternatives to Candy at Halloween.

Stickers

Rubber Creepy Critters (snakes, worms, spiders, skeletons)

Crayons

Pencils

Markers

Puzzles - jig saw, plastic puzzles or printed puzzles

Nerf toys

Small games

Glow Sticks (they usually have these for Halloween and the kids can use them right away)

Small flashlights

Bookmarks (use wide craft or Popsicle sticks and decorate them in a Halloween motif)

Coloring books or coloring book pages and crayons or markers

Halloween Word Find puzzle 

Colored pencils or fancy pencils

Paint brushes and paints

Bubbles

Balls (super balls)

Jump Ropes

Stuffed Animals (small ones)

Pencil toppers (look for a Halloween theme)

Plastic Jewelry (bracelets or rings or crowns, spider or skull rings)

Small plastic cars or planes

Temporary Tattoos look for a Halloween theme

Anything that makes noise (Whistles, noise makers)

Harmonicas

Sidewalk chalk

Parachute men

Balsa wood planes that you put together

Paper Dolls or small party favor sized dolls or doll babies with bottles

Pirate treasure (bag of fake money or other booty)

Mini Frisbee

Pony Tail holders or barrettes

Wax teeth or lips

Pinwheels

Jacks

Marbles

Yo-yo

Paddle-ball

Water guns

Note pads

Write on rub off boards for drawing

Spin tops

Fake glasses and Noses

Masks

Trading Cards

Charms

Plastic Animals

Small Craft packs (make a packet of enough craft items to make a bead bracelet)

Mood Rings (yes they still sell them)

Pins (or create a craft packet for a butterfly pin or skeleton pin or bat pin)

Silly Putty

Finger puppet

Sock puppets

Bat, ghosts or pumpkin magnets

Comic books

Stamps and stamp pads

Construction paper packs

Halloween Stories (type up some Halloween stories and make them into small books and give them out)

Halloween Jokes (same thing type them up, add some clip art and tie them together with some black and orange ribbon and give them out.

Activity books - Kaboose has some you can print

Miniature games or make your own such as a tic tack toe game Kaboose  has some you can use and give you directions on how to make them.

Face Paint

This list should give you a lot of great ideas for treats that are sweet but not candy!

For puzzles visit Kaboose Printable puzzle pages. 

For some craft ideas for the kids visit the Kaboose Halloween Crafts page.

Clip Art was downloaded from Kaboose

“Fences” by Stardock  is a free desktop management program for you desktop shortcuts. If you have to spend time looking for things on your desktop, you have way to many shortcuts and should consider downloading Fences.

One way to better manage your shortcuts is with an small app called Fences.

Here is my desktop before fences. I don't have a lot of icons but I like grouping my icons by use.  Which is exactly what Fences allows you to do.

Perfect!

Fences corrals your icons into windows on your desktop making things easy to find.

Fences are just windows that you create and label to keep your programs, documents and other shortcuts organized.

Transparency settings allow you to make the borders seamless, so the desktop looks neat and is organized the way you want it.

You can choose from an existing fences layout (there are several)or create your own as I did. This appealed to my sense of design.

To create your own use your right mouse button to create new fences. On the desktop, depress the right mouse button, drag it to draw a rectangle and release this creates a fence.

Then select create fence and give your fence a name. Then drag your Icons into the fenced in area. You can edit how your fences look (color, text and transparency). You can also select which fences to hide and which to never hide.

This is my desktop nice and organized!

If you want to hide your fences double click on the desktop and they disappear to make them reappear double click again and they return.

If your icons don’t fit in the fence you created, the fence will put a scroll bar so that you can scroll through your icons. If you need a scroll bar, maybe you really do have too many shortcuts.

The desktop background is a photo from the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton New Jersey taken early this spring.

On my wish list for improvements;

1. I wish it took less steps to create a fence.
   
2. I wish that you could create rules that would allow you to add certain shortcuts or program icons to fences you have already created without dragging them.
   

Stardock are you listening? 

Otherwise I really like this little program and recommend it to help contain desktop clutter.

You can download it from the Stardock's website or download.com.

This week I wanted to share with you an extremely professional on line presentation creation tool called SlideRocket.

SlideRocket has both an on line tool and an offline player that lets you present without Internet access. You can create your presentation on line, sync it with the off line tool and your presentation will go where ever you go.

SlideRocket will run in any browser or operating system that uses Adobe Flash Player 9 plugin. There are several versions to meet your needs.

There is a Free version (or personal use) that include the following capabilities:

• Unlimited number of presentations,
  
• 250 MB storage
• Import existing power point presentations
• Authoring tools to create great presentations
• asset library which allows you to easily manage your presentation content
• Print your presentation to a pdf.
  
• Share you presentation by publishing a url on your website or blog.
  

For more information on individual accounts (10.00/month) and business accounts (20.00/month per user) visit the site for more more details.

To publish your presentation you must use the paid version or the 30 day trial version.

Here is my first creation to demonstrate some of the features I used the 30 day business trial version.

Over the last few weeks I have been trying out new tools to post to all my social networks at once.

The tool I have settled on and am using is PingFM.

I have mixed thoughts about doing this since sometimes I want to post diffrent things to diffrent groups but for ease of posting when time is thight it seems like a great idea.

It is working well and it appeals to the FREE in me.

I am wondering two things.

1. How do you feel about posting the same thing to all your networks?
2. Do you have a favorite tool that you are using that you can share with me?

Thanks for taking the time to respond in advance.

This week I take a break from my usual blog to give all the Moms and Mom fans reading this a gift.

Mom's rising - an organization of Moms dedicated to bringing together a group of people who are concerned about building a more family friendly America.

To learn more about Mom's Rising you can visit their website.

For a customized video gift for your Mom visit this link.  This is fun and Mom will appreciate it!

Special thanks to Justin Ruben, MoveOn.org for sharing this video with me.

Updated spelling error:)

I promised you a review of Microsoft's Live Mesh so here goes...I love the file sharing and as long as you don't use the mesh as a file cabinet and clean out your folder, the free 5 MG is plenty of space.

Three of my coworkers and I are using the mesh on a regular basis and it is working out very will for file transfer and sharing.

Now we send files back and fourth from computer to computer with ease.

1. First set up a Mesh using a windows live ID (valid email and password).

2. Download and Install Live Mesh on any device you wish to add to the mesh.

3. Go to the on-line desktop area and create a folder for your stuff.

4. Invite others to share the folder here is how.

Note: You don't have to be in the same mesh to share folders. You just have to be invited via email to have folder access and sign in with your windows live ID - One Windows Live ID gets you into Hotmail, Messenger, Xbox LIVE as well.

• Create or open the Live Mesh folder you want to share.
  
• In the mesh bar that appears alongside the folder window, click Members, and then click Invite.
  
• Enter the e-mail addresses* of people you'd like to invite to share the folder, and then click OK. Your invitees will receive an e-mail inviting them to share the folder with you.
  
• Once they sign in to Live Mesh and accept the invitation, they'll be able to access the folder on their Live Desktop and start synchronizing it with devices in their mesh.

For remote access to computers or other devices they have to be added to the mesh by downloading and installing software on the device you wish to add.

Here is how we set up our mesh. 

The first thing we did was set up a mesh account by creating a windows live ID (valid email address and password).  Next we downloaded live mesh to all the computers desktops that we wanted in the mesh so we can access them remotely.  Then we created folders for each (on line on the desktop)  and invited each other to use the folders then we  synced the folders to our computers (they now appear on the computer desktop the same way other shortcut folders appear.  When the folders are synced they turn blue in color instead of the yellow you usually see.

To the left is a Screen Shot of our desktop and below a Screen Shot of the devices in our mesh. (All computers are off except my laptop which I am currently using).

When a client or co worker needs me to work on something they put it in my folder I do the necessary work and then add the completed file to their folder.   Each of us posts a message to the other telling them that the files have been transferred from folder to folder.  Fast, Easy, Sweet.

Once the mesh is set up and the folder synced, even if you are at home and not connected to the mesh you can still add a document,  application, photo or file all you need to do is drag a copy to the folder of choice. Like magic, it appears in the folder.

The second part of the live mesh experience is accessing your computer remotely

I must confess this is slower than I would like but since it is free, I deal with it.  I was able to log onto my computer at work (which was turned on but not logged into the mesh) from my laptop off-site and access the data I needed and put it in my mesh folder so I could share it with a client I was on my way to see. 

You can add Macs, PCs and Mobile devices to the mesh and share data and files with ease and the file sharing is quick and works great.

Remember, don't use this as a file storage center, just transfer or share what you need.  This week I was able to share my photos of the grounds for sculpture with all my friends on the mesh and they could view them at their leisure.

I love live mesh and you will too.  Give it a try.

“In December 2009 world leaders meet in Copenhagen to agree on a post-Kyoto policy for tackling climate change. One billion people voting with their light switch during Earth Hour will create a powerful mandate for our leaders to take strong and decisive action on climate change in Copenhagen.”

 “Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, leaving them on is a vote for global warming.”

Earth hour is Saturday March 28, 8:30 PM – Wherever you live on the planet.

I am asking you to do your part to show our world leaders in a very visible way that we want them to take decisive action on climate change.

It’s easy, you don’t have to leave home, give any money or devote hours of your time.

All you have to do is turn off your lights for one hour on Saturday evening.

Here is what I have planned for my earth hour.

I will be turning off all of our computer equipment and shutting down my network, unplugging all of our other power consuming devices, turning off all the lights lighting a few candles and having a glass of wine (organic of course) by candlelight to toast mother earth.

This is the perfect opportunity for all of us to unplug!

Take advantage of it and spend time with your family. Light a candle, have some conversation and let everyone know that you are committed to positive climate change.

As Active Rainer's and contributors to this group I am sure you have things planned for earth hour already. Share them with us by commenting. Better yet, video, photograph or otherwise record your experience and blog about it on Sunday!

It is imperative that we present a united stance on a global scale on March 28.

The Cathedral of Notre Dame, l’Elysée, the President’s residence (in France), the Senate and the French National Assembly, The Eiffel Tower, Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Table Mountain in Cape Town, Merlion in Singapore, Sydney Opera House, CN Tower in Toronto, Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, The Great Pyramids of Giza, Acropolis, The Empire State Building in NYC, Petronas Towers and over 377 cities in 74 countries will be switching off for Earth Hour March 24, 2009. For more information about earth hour, visit http://www.earthhour.org/ What have you planned for earth hour? Share them with us all buy commenting or Take pictures during earth hour, shoot video and blog about it!

For more information about earth hour, visit http://www.earthhour.org/

source earthhour.org website- Vote Earth! Image created by Shepard Fairey  for Earth Hour 2009

It is interesting to wonder what the Internet will be like in 5 years much less 10.

The more applications are developed and the more information we are willing to share the more interactive the web will truly become.

When remote desktop access was first introduced, I was blow away by the fact that no matter where I was I could get that file I left at work or home.

Then along came, on-line file and information sharing. Once again, I was in awe.

Now, welcome Live Mesh developed by Microsoft. Live mesh is a combination of both plus more... It just keeps getting better and better.

Right now, Live Mesh is in beta and the 5 GB “Live Desktop” is free.

Live Mesh allows you to access all your devices, including your mobile devices, and even your Mac (you need to install some software) from the Internet (most browsers are supported).

You can share files with others and get notified whenever someone changes a file.

When you sign up you get what Microsoft calls, your “Live Desktop”. This is 5 GB of storage on their server to put your shared files.

Manage your files, access, changes, post messages, chat with members (using messenger) and change synchronization settings from an area called a “Mesh bar”.

If you only need a quick snapshot of what is happening with your mesh you can use “Notifier”. It gives you a status of all of your synced devices and folders.

“News” gives you a continuous feed detailing everything that is happening on your mesh. You will know when someone has viewed, changed, or posted a comment.

“Live Mesh Remote Desktop” – Just what it says, it allows you to access a desktop or mobile device remotely. The nice thing about this is say you have a Mac laptop at home, a PC at work and your blackberry. Live mesh allows syncing to share and access your files. Receive mesh updates on your blackberry or any other mobile device.

I see amazing possibilities for this in our business.

In the days to come I will tell you how Live Mesh is working for me.

I knew that my affair with print media was ending when PC magazine stopped printing their magazine in January of this year.

The reason? Nicholas Carlson at Business Insider.com (Silicon Ally Insider) reported in November of last year,  “Gadget and PC shoppers stay on-line now, preferring sites such as AOL's Engadget, Gawker Media's Gizmodo or CNET to print.”

With the escalating costs, loss of ad revenue and the advent of twitter and live blogging, news hits the blog sphere before the AP can even report it.  The newspapers and magazine publishers are dropping like flies.

Which brings me to the point of this blog, is on-line marketing really better?

I think so, and so do others who at some point in the not to distant past worked for print media. To illustrate my point…this weekend I was tuned into HubSpot TV on-line and they did an Interview with Paul Gillian, in his words, “long-time technology journalist who’s worked almost exclusively on-line since 1999”, and they talked about a blog he had posted “Why on-line matters more than print” .

Because I have an insatiable appetite for all things marketing, I had to surf over and read the article. Once I read the article, I felt compelled to comment (leaving a link to my site of course). I let everyone know in my comment what I do for a living and that I had followed a link from Hubspot TV to the article. Because I loved the post and the writing style drew me in, I subscribed to the blog and newsletter.

Bingo! My behavior perfectly illustrates why on-line marketing is more effective than print marketing.

Yet, I still run into the print vs. on-line scenario every day. Many of my clients still insist that spending on an expensive ad in the newspaper or magazine makes their clients “happy”. No matter how much I try to persuade them to rewrite their marketing plan and focus on-line and no matter how many papers go under.

Why do sellers and some agents refuse to face reality why?

What does a “happy” client really mean?

Will seeing their home all glossy and in print really make them happy?  What will agents do when there are no home magazines or newspapers left in which to place ads?

Is print marketing an ego thing with sellers or are we just doing a crappy job of selling them on reality?

I am interested to know what you think and what you tell the client who thinks they can advertise their listing on line so (so in their mind, for your exorbitant commission) they expect print advertising.

I am a little sad that magazines and newspapers are going away because I will need to find something else to read at lunch.  The affair is over, I just have to accept it. We all have to accept it.

This week’s blog is all about collaboration.

There are so many ways now to share your data, spreadsheets, project status and all kinds of information. Of course the most popular is Google docs but today I want to talk to you about Blists.

Blists is a way to easily publish your lists and data on the web. Use Blists for your to do lists, task lists, on line organizers, customer relationship management, project management, project planning, project templates and sharing lists, documents and managing groups.

You can create a Blist by importing photos, spreadsheets, Powerpoint presentations, Word documents or modify a shared Blist. Blists allow you to create widgets to share you data on your website or blog easily.

Organize your blists using lenses. Lenses allow you to see your projects status such as to do lists, done items and ability to assign different levels of importance to your projects and to check off items that are completed.

CRM – Content management is centralized and connects the different departments of your company or your team and you can keep tack of your project and assign tasks to members of your team. You can tailor this your needs and you don’t need to know any programming to do so.

This software is just right for your business. It is light or heavy weight as needed, does not require an advanced degree to use it and best of all it is FREE!

The website offers you many opportunities to use blists created by others, share your blists and just play and learn how it works. To investigate Blists and see them in action

Utube blists

Using blists in a list

Project Management

CRM