The next Susan Boyle may have come from the Ukraine. Kseniya Simonova is not a singer. Instead she is an amazing artist and storyteller. Her means of conveying a story is not with words, but by running her hands through the sand.

Kseniya Simonova is a sand animator, who was the winner of Ukraine’s Got Talent for 2009. More than 14 million viewers have seen her YouTube video of the moving depiction of the Nazi invasion of Ukraine during World War II.

There is something very hypnotic about watching her fingers flying over the sand, creating then destroying images, morphing one image skillfully into another and telling a story with her fingers and the sand.

Learn more about Kseniya Simonova here.

How are you telling your stories online?

Check out this clever dental advertisement I came across.

As more and more Americans flock online to find information, should the US Government should give everyone their own webpage as they are contemplating this in the UK.

After reading a recent article on Softpedia – UK Government to Give Everyone Their Own Web Page, the Prime Minister states that the government plans to have broadband available to 100 percent of the British people by 2020. A much more interesting proposition, though certainly not one without its detractors, is the move to have as many government services online as possible.

The idea is to enable UK citizens to go online for all of their needs, things like apply for schools, get a new passport, pay council tax or even register a car. Further down the line, UK citizens will each get their own unique identifiers and web pages. The government believes this will save up quite a lot of money by closing down plenty of offices. Critics claim that the last thing the UK needs in this economy is more people losing their jobs.

Would this work in the United States?

Earth Day 2010 can be a turning point to advance climate policy, energy efficiency, renewable energy and green jobs. Earth Day Network is galvanizing millions who make personal commitments to sustainability. Earth Day 2010 is a pivotal opportunity for individuals, corporations and governments to join together and create a global green economy.

Last year I did a post on Things you can do for Earth Day. With Earth Day a month away I want to highlight more eco-friendly tips to make you learn to reuse, recycle and rethink your daily routine. It’s time for people to think about the consequences of our choices? What products are better for the earth? and what should we avoid?

I want to challenge each of you to take the Ecological Footprint Quiz (it takes less then 5 minutes) and see what your impact on the Earth is – you might be surprised. Start your quiz now.

What is the Ecological Footprint?
The Ecological Footprint is a resource accounting tool that measures how much biologically productive land and sea is used by a given population or activity, and compares this to how much land and sea is available.

What does the Ecological Footprint measure?
Ecological Footprint accounts answer a specific research question: how much of the biological capacity of the planet is demanded by a given human activity or population? To answer this question, the Ecological Footprint measures the amount of biologically productive land and water area an individual, a city, a country, a region, or all of humanity uses to produce the resources it consumes and to absorb the waste it generates with today’s technology and resource management practices.

Learn more here and please take a moment to post a comment on your favorite Earth day tips.

It was 25 years ago today – March 15, 1985, that the first dot-com domain name: Symbolics.com appeared on the Internet, ushering in the commercial age of the World Wide Web. Globally, .com and .net domain names are still the most popular accounting for more than half of the 200 million domain names registered worldwide. With 99.9% of the Internet’s growth occurring in the past 15 years, I congratulate the commercial Internet on hitting your 25th birthday; you’re just starting to enter the prime of your working years.

Here is my list of 25 sites that changed the Internet. (In no particular order)

1. AOL
2. Wikipedia
3. Google
4. Pirate Bay
5. Geocities
6. Webcrawler
7. Amazon
8. Ebay
9. Paypal
10. Wordpress
11. Facebook
12. Youtube
13. Craigslist
14. Yahoo
15. Myspace
16. Twitter
17. Adobe
18. Pandora
19. The Drudge Report
20. ESPN
21. CNN
22. Digg
23. Napster
24. Weather.com
25. Godaddy

Attack this list all you want, but these sites however big or small: changed the Internet, mostly for good, in substantial ways. Did I leave any out?

Being more efficient with social media is a topic everywhere these days. Let’s take it back to basics to when you first began typing. Maybe it was on a typewriter? I know mine was, until I received my first computer the Macintosh LC II “pizza box” computer, circa 1992, and got hooked up with AOL.

I remember typing classes in Middle School through High School, learning about home-keys and proper posture while sitting at a keyboard/workstation. I still try to put these good habits to use daily but alas, sometimes it’s just easier to be lazy and slouch or look at the keyboard when you type.

Social Media Efficiency

The ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time and effort is a tough task sometimes in social media, and creating content is a big part of the role. I have found that taking a typing test daily has improved my key-entry speeds 20% over the past 2 weeks.

From Keybr:

Keybr.com is very straightforward. You can choose from three basic lessons that start with a certain number of keys on the keyboard, and then, as you progress through the lessons, more keys are introduced to the mix to make things a little tougher. As an added bonus, our software keeps track of all your mistakes and your words–per–minute (wpm) — and even creates graphs of your day–by–day performance.

How does Keybr.com work?

Unlike much of the teaching typing software available out there, Keybr.com does not force you to type random characters over and over again; that is simply boring and contributes very little to your learning. Instead, Keybr.com generates readable random words using the phonetic rules of your native language. These words look almost natural, and often they really are. Typing sensible text is much easier than random letters, and it helps you to remember frequent key combinations. For example, it’s almost impossible for the letter ‘W’ to follow the ‘Z’ in English, and you will never type this combination in Keybr.com. Instead, you will type more common words, such as “the,” “that,” “with,” and so on. Keybr.com lets you introduce as few keys as possible to the lesson, adding more keys later when you feel that you are competent and fast enough on the current level. So, if you start with the keys from the Caps Lock row, then add keys form the Tab row, and then from the Shift row, you will eventually end up typing real text with capital letters and punctuation.

Keybr.com is a web–based software that runs directly in your browser. You don’t have to download or install anything! The most recent and up–to–date version is always with you. You can use it from any computer connected to the Internet, and your typing statistics are kept on the web site and available on–demand.

My favorite part of Keybr.com is the ability to import content from a web site or blog into Keybr.com to type it out.

Give it a try and let me know if you have any other typing speed tricks or favorite tools to share.

One of the off-marketing topics that I am often asked is: how can I make my network more secure? Many times this conversation will lead into mobile device security. I predict 2010 will be the year networking engineers take internet security on mobile devices and the social web seriously.

Do you really know what is on the other side of that twitter link?

Mobile Security

With malware news results at an all time high and One in 63 Smartphones Infected by Mobile Spyware and Malware, it’s time to take security risks seriously with your mobile device. Self-propagating worms and Trojan horses in mobile telephones are the main concern. Safety in mobile is only going to get worse with the proliferation of smart devices and applications expanding the attack surface. This year threats to the systems of the iPhone and Android are tested and taken seriously.

Smartphone Spyware

One of the biggest threats are malicious phone attacks, where mobile device malware can delete or steal confidential information, send mass SMS and MMS messages from infected phones. Other attacks may dial premium rate numbers without your knowledge and/or transfer malicious code to a PC once a connection is established.

So how can you protect your smartphone?

My preferred internet and mobile security company I recommend is Kaspersky. (affiliate link)

Seriously though – who better then Jackie Chan to take cyber-security to the next level?

I would love to hear if you have even thought of or talked about mobile security yet?

This year the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month celebrates it’s 25th Anniversary of awareness, education and empowerment. The NBCAM has been at the forefront of promoting awareness of breast cancer issues and has evolved along with the national dialogue on breast cancer.

Today I am fortunate to be part of a group of friends getting together over social media networks to help raise awareness of the fact that breast cancer is treatable and survivable, and to help raise donations to the National Breast Cancer Foundation and other organizations that help educate and save lives through: Your Cause

What Can You Do?

• Visit the Official Twakeup Page
• Donate Now – Donations will go directly to the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF).
• Share on Facebook
• Tweet about it
• Put a breast cancer ribbon on your Twitter avatar with Twibbon.
• Send photos and videos to the I Wear Your Shirt blog – email them by clicking here (will open a blank email in your email client), or send an email with photo or video attachments to iwearyourshirt@gmail.com. Be sure to include captions, locations, etc.

• Follow the Hashtag

If you’re outside the United States, here are organizations to which you can donate directly:

• Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation
• Australian National Breast Cancer Foundation
• Breast Cancer UK

Worldwide Rockstar Pod Leaders:

Please join this social media fundraiser to fight breast cancer and make a donation here.

Twitter contests can range from gift cards, blog themes, Great Bowls of Fire and even a free cruise. Many of these offers often requires a visit to their website for information – a powerful way to organically increase awareness on Twitter and drive traffic to their website – all while building your community. Others  require you to simply follow the sender and RT (re-tweet) the message to be entered. 

With Tweets Win, you can use the site to post a contest, gather statistics, and automatically choose a winner. An added feature shows you who quit following you after your contest ended for up to 7 days.

Twitter contests are a great way to gain new followers and increase awareness about your company or website. 

Anyone else have a success/failure story with twitter-based contests?

love to hear your thoughts…

It seems that always around this time of the year we are reminded of our impact on the Earth and how we affect future generations with our “carbon footprint”

So here are a few eco-friendly tips I wish to share.

• Keep an eye on ENERGY STAR ratings! The higher, the better!
• Use public transportation!
• Swap one day of driving for walking or biking!
• Buy food from local farms!
• Bring your own reusable bag when you go shopping!
• Turn off your computer at night!
• Unplug electronic devices — including cellphone chargers — when not in use!
• Turning off the water while you’re brushing your teeth can save gallons of water!
• Pass up bottled water for filtered tap water!
• Recycle!!!!