If you search the internet, you’ll find all types of varying opinions on what people feel about Oprah. But one thing I think everyone can agree on is that she is definitely the queen of the television airwaves. Just last week to increase the amount of face time she has with her viewers, Oprah.com went mobile and released an app for Android, Blackberry,  iPhone and Palm devices.

The Oprah Mobile app features allow you to:

• View a weekly calendar of what’s airing on The Oprah Winfrey Show
• Receive alerts and notifications about the availability of reservations for The Oprah Winfrey Show
• Watch video highlights from The Oprah Winfrey Show, including backstage interviews with your favorite guests
• Find out what time and channel The Oprah Winfrey Show is on in your current location in the United States
• Access the latest articles and features from Oprah.com and O, The Oprah Magazine
• Listen to audio clips from Oprah Radio, including Gayle King, Dr. Laura Berman, Dr. Mehmet Oz

• Search by your favorite experts, guests and contributors, including Peter Walsh, Deepak Chopra and more
• Take our latest polls and see how other people are voting in your city and state
• Share your favorite items via email, Facebook and Twitter
• Sign the pledge to make your car a No Phone Zone
• Customize the menu to keep your favorite sections within easy reach

The apps do cost $1.99-$2.99, but according to the review at appolicious.com, there’s a lot of potential for future releases that could increase the social aspect of it.

But there’s more! Yesterday Engadget blogged about her showing off the Sprint EVO on her show while discussing her “No Phone Zone” campaign. Now please note, there is no official release date for this phone (Sprint said Summer 2010)! But if anyone could get a hold of it early, Oprah would be that person.

I can’t wait for this phone to come out and have been anxiously waiting for its release. We all know that when Oprah says go buy something, people do. So I’m curious to see if this affects sales of the EVO when Sprint finally decides to release it.

If anyone reading this is a friend of Oprah, tell her I’ll take the phone if she gets tired of it. Check out the video.

This site has been out for a couple of weeks, but when I heard about it, I knew I needed to share it on the blog. According to the website, Unvarnished is:

an online resource for building, managing, and researching professional reputation, using community-contributed, professional reviews.Unvarnished reviews help you get the inside scoop on other business professionals, providing candid assessments of coworkers, potential hires, business partners, and more.

By contributing Unvarnished reviews, you can share your knowledge of other professionals, giving credit where credit is due, and valuable feedback where needed.

Lastly, your own Unvarnished profile, which you may create yourself or claim one that has been created for you, helps you take control of and build your own professional reputation. Get recognition for your accomplishments and actively manage your career growth.

So basically you can leave comments about someone (good or bad) in a public forum. It’s like having your resume online for all to see and ridicule. The site is currently in beta, so you have to sign up using Facebook Connect and they will put you on a waiting list of people who’ve already signed up. I put my name in for an invitation because I want to know what you all think about me. This is social networking at its best and it will be interesting to see how they plan on managing the site once everything opens up.

PS > If you are reading this and are currently a member of the site, please send me an invite so I can bypass the waiting process. Thanks!

I was listening to one of the many tech podcast I subscribe to and they were talking about the new Safety Center that Facebook added for its users. While geared to the best ways to stay safe on Facebook, some of the tips given can help you stay safe anywhere on the Internet. As a parent, I was pleased to see advice for parents on ways they can help their teenagers deal with predators and unwanted solicitations from other Facebook users.

There’s also a section for educators on how best to use Facebook in the classroom. I think the best question was “How can I maintain a professional presence on the site separate from my personal profile?”. The best method in my opinion is to not let them be your friend, but check out Facebook’s answer because they show you how to have the best of both worlds. I’d also recommend reading the general safety section on ways you can adjust your privacy settings.

Now all of this information is great, but it takes a lot to keep your information safe online. A Facebook friend of mine, posted comment about spokeo.com. They aggregate publicly available information from phone books, social networks, marketing surveys, real estate listings, business websites, and other public sources. They index third-party data in ways similar to Google or Bing. While not all of the data is accurate, they are able to pull a lot of information from people all over the country. You can remove your listing from the site, but this is just one of many sites that collect information about you online.

One final article that I’d recommend reading is from PC World titled, Facebook’s New Features and Your Privacy: What You Need To Know. The amount of information stored on social networking sites is ridiculous and there’s money to be made from your personal information. Don’t think Facebook isn’t looking for ways to do that. They’ve had issues with how they allowed you to set up your privacy settings, so it’s important to know what you need to do to only share the information you want with the public.

As April 15th approaches, the President discusses several of the tax breaks for middle class families he has signed into law.  Find out more about the Making Work Pay tax credit, breaks for first-time homebuyers, rewards for making your home more energy efficient and more through our Tax Savings Tool.

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Are you interested in learning how to write a grant? For $1000 I can teach you the secrets to grant writing!!!

Well actually I can’t. But I can point you to a website that will help you get started. Workforce3 One, is a U.S. Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration (ETA) sponsored entity that offers tools (FOR FREE) to get you started in writing your own grant proposal.

They have a really cheesy podcast called “Grant Applications 101: What You Need to Know”. While cheesy, it does dispel some of the myths of grant writing and points you to their Toolkit Homepage to get started.

From what I’ve heard, grant writing is not an easy process and it takes time and patience to actually get one. But it is a way to get funding for your project and may be worth it in the long run. For more information about the grant writing process, visit the links above.

Podcast Transcript

As always, I try to keep this blog open to those wanting to pub quality events regardless of location. This one isn’t in the Dallas area, but if you’re in the NY area, let me know how it is. For more information, visit the Urban Stages website.

Urban Stages “Celebrating over 25 Years of New Works”

will present the World Premiere of the musical

Langston In Harlem

By Langston Hughes, Walter Marks and Kent Gash

Music by Walter Marks, Lyrics by Langston Hughes

Musical Direction by Barry Levitt, Choreography by Byron Easley

Directed by Kent Gash

Starring Josh Tower as Langston Hughes

Performances begin April 9; Opening April 15

At Urban Stages

New York: Urban Stages (Frances Hill, Artistic Director, Lauren Schmiedel, Managing Director) will present the World Premiere of the musical Langston in Harlem book by Langston Hughes, Walter Marks and Kent Gash, with music by Walter Marks, lyrics by Langston Hughes and directed by Kent Gash, with musical direction by Barry Levitt and choreography by Byron Easley. Langston in Harlem will begin previews on Friday, April 9; opening on Thursday, April 15, 2010 and will initially run through May 2, 2010. Urban Stages is located at 259 West 30 Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues). Tickets will be $40 ($25 during previews) and are available at www.Smarttix.com / 212.868.4444. Langston in Harlem is produced by arrangement with Langston, Ltd., Jon Kimbell/SenovvA, Inc. – Executive Producer.

Langston in Harlem is an exciting new musical about one of America’s most honored poets, Langston Hughes. Set in the African-American cultural capital of Harlem from the Harlem Renaissance through the Civil Rights movement, Langston in Harlem tells the story of Langston Hughes’ journey into manhood and his emergence as one of the most beloved and forward thinking artists of our time. This groundbreaking new musical is filled with Jazz, Gospel, Rhythm and Blues, Swing, dance and spoken-word that sings, jumps, stomps and shouts. Langston Hughes’ glorious words and poetry of love, loss, joy and the blues and the people of Harlem who inspired him, come gloriously to life, in Langston in Harlem and are once again universal and unforgettable!

In this week of Easter, Passover, and faithful celebration, the President offers a holiday greeting and calls on people of all faiths and nonbelievers to remember our shared spirit of humanity.

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from barackobama.com

No, this isn’t a bootleg shirt I printed up marking the much needed overhaul of our health care system. This is actually a legitimate shirt from barackobama.com marking the historic vote in the House to send health reform to the President.

I received an email from the website asking me to co-sign the bill along side President Obama’s name to show my pride in helping bring about this great achievement (I’m still not sure what I did). I usually read over and delete these emails, but I couldn’t help adding my name to the list of those who would also sign. After submitting my name I was sent to the usual donation page with a chance to order the shirt.

When I saw it, I couldn’t help but laugh because the best way to piss people off even more is to wear around this shirt to really rub it in. Nevertheless, I donated the $25 to get one because this really is history in the making and he’s going to need that money in a couple of years. Growing up, I used to wonder what major events would shape our society and this is one of those events. Will it work? I have no clue. But I do know something needs to be done and this is the first step in getting the ball rolling.

I admire the tenacity of the president and despite the drama in Congress, he was determined to make it happen. Most of the people complaining will probably benefit from these changes and what’s a couple of more trillion dollars to an already high national debt? The debt was already on the rise before Obama got in office, so my kids were going to pay for it either way.

2012 is going to be crazy!!!

The purpose for this post is to inform you of the new laws and acts enacted by Congress and President Obama. With the advent of the Internet it’s gotten easier to watch every step our government takes. And President Obama is making some nice moves to make what they do more transparent to the American people. We elect them, so we need to make sure they are doing their job. The laws I list are posted at govtrack.us, which is a nice site for checking laws in any stage their in. As always feel free to leave any additional comments.

On Feb 3, 2010, the President signed the following bill(s) into law:
H.R. 4508: Small Business Act Temporary Extension. To provide for an additional temporary extension of programs under the Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act of 1958, and for other purposes.

On Feb 3, 2010, the President signed the following bill(s) into law:
S. 692: A bill to provide that claims of the United States to certain documents relating to Franklin Delano Roosevelt shall be treated as waived and relinquished in certain circumstances.

On Feb 3, 2010, the President signed the following bill(s) into law:
H.R. 1377: Amend title 38. To amend title 38, United States Code, to expand veteran eligibility for reimbursement by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs for emergency treatment furnished in a non-Department facility, and for other purposes.

Note: There were a lot of post office related name change laws this month. But since that’s not really a big deal, I decided not to post each one.

The U.S. Census counts every resident in the United States, and is required by the Constitution to take place every 10 years. Mid-March the census forms will be delivered to every residence in the United States and Puerto Rico. When you receive yours, just answer the 10 short questions (they say it take around 10 minutes) and then mail the form back in the postage-paid envelope provided. If you don’t mail the form back, you may receive a visit from a census taker, who will ask you the questions from the form.

The majority of the country will receive English–only materials. Households in areas with high concentrations of Spanish-speaking residents may receive a bilingual (English/Spanish) form. Any personal data you provide is protected under federal law.

Please take the time to fill out the Census and mail it back because the information affects the numbers of seats your state occupies in the U.S. House of Representatives. People from many walks of life use census data to advocate for causes, rescue disaster victims, prevent diseases, research markets, locate pools of skilled workers and more. It also helps to determine how more than $400 billion dollars of federal funding each year is spent on infrastructure and services like:

• Hospitals
• Job training centers
• Schools
• Senior centers
• Bridges, tunnels and other-public works projects
• Emergency services

Don’t take this lightly. For more information regarding the Census and how it affects all Americans, check out the Census blog at http://blogs.census.gov/2010census.

If you are in need of a job, the U.S. Census Bureau is recruiting temporary, part-time census takers right in your own community. These short-term jobs offer good pay, flexible hours, paid training, and reimbursement for authorized work-related expenses, such as mileage incurred while conducting census work. For more information on the job opportunities they offer, visit http://2010.census.gov/2010censusjobs.