Are Your Wireless Microphones Illegal?

Image by Neil Crosby via Flickr

According to the FCC there is a good chance you are going to be using illegalwireless microphones unless you have purchased them recently.

The  FCC has banned the use of certain wireless microphones as thegovernment clears the way for moremobile devices.

These mics use the 700 megahertz (MHz) frequency band and have until June 12 to change the radio frequencyor buy new equipment, according to a Jan. 15 ruling by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Go to the following article for more details: Wireless mic frequency change could affect schools

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Discount Cards Fundraiser

Image by Holy Outlaw via Flickr

Discount Cards Fundraiser

It’s not a Bake Sale, and if your anything like me this is a good thing. No that there is anything wrong with a good ole fashion Bake Sale but there isn’t much money it. Unless you got “Little Debbie” as one of your parents.

Last year I was approached by a company (to remain nameless) who wanted us to sell discount cards. They said for every card we sell for $10 we only owe them $3. This sounded like a great fundraiser. Most fundraisers I have seen don’t give a %70 return so we did it.

I loved the idea I didn’t love the result.

The company was very slow about getting us our discount cards so we didn’t get them until the year was almost over and by this time the community had been over saturated in school fundraisers and didn’t want even one more thing even if in the end it could save them money. The kids were done and didn’t have the motivation to sell either. Also, the company after the fundraiser was over was not happy with the level of our sales and tried to charge us $3.50 per card and then wouldn’t quit bothering me to get them paid back right away even though they were 4 months late on getting me my cards. Schools take a little while to process payment and they didn’t understand that fact. In the end I was none too happy with this business but we still pulled in a couple thousand dollars.

That’s right even with the negatives we still made a couple thousand dollars.

This year I have new plans! Needless to say I am not going through the same company again. Better, I am doing it myself.

Image by Rachel from Cupcakes Take the Cake via Flickr

I made up my own contract for business and went around myself and even sent out a few of my “better” students out to get business on the card. Within about 2 weeks I have 18 business for our Discount card.

I found a website that I could print my own full colored two sided Discount cards which are the same quality as your average Credit Card for a little over $200 for 1000 cards.    http://4colorprint.com

Found A High School Student that knew how to work Photoshop and she designed a beautiful card with a great graphic for our music Department.

We Sell the cards for $10 a piece and now we have a fundraiser that turns in over %95 profit – That is my kind of fundraiser.

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How to Find Images for Posts

Published by Katy Castro Jun 23, 2008

Throughout the blogosphere we’ve all noted several times that images are used in a lot of blog posts and there are equally as many posts mentioning that we should use images within posts. Including my own post, 13 Ways to Grab Attention.

But finding the right images to use can be difficult when you’re conscious of copyright laws and what is considered fair use.

So with this post, I’ll detail for you 4 ways to find images that you can use within your blog posts. But do keep in mind that with these sources, you need to consider the terms in which you use them.

123 Royalty Free

This is by far one of my favorite places to get images for posts. There’s a huge variety of images to choose from including a great selection of free images that are perfect for blog posts. Of course there’s also the ability to purchase stock credits that will enable you to pick up different size images and use them for other purposes.

iStockphoto

iStock is a slightly more expensive means for getting images. However they do have really awesome quality images for blog designs as well as a free photograph per week and a free vector image per month. So just registering for a membership will enable you to pick up some free stuff!

Flickr

With Flickr you can search for images to use for your blog posts based on the type of license the photographer attaches to the images. And all of the images that you’ll find are free but make sure that you credit the photographer of the images you do use with a link back to their Flickr account.

Google Image Search

Using Google is slightly more complicated as you’ll need to figure out the license of the images you do find. However a lot of the images that do come up are from blogs which makes it easier if the blogger has given proper credit to the original photographer.

These methods have been so effective for me in finding the right images to use that they’re all the sources that I have. There hasn’t been a single case yet where I couldn’t find the right image to use for any number of blog posts and niche blogs. So have a look.

Do you have any sources for blog images that you can share with us?

(Via ImBloggingThat)

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Ice Cream Man

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeThe other day as I was dishing out Ice Cream at Mr. G's Pizza (A Pizza store owned by my brother here in town) I started to think of the many things I have done in my relatively short life. I say relatively because my wife likes to call me old :)

Here are a few of the job titles I have had:

Gas Station Attendant
Hay Bailer
DJ
Framer (Tiki Nailer)
Missionary
Bus Driver
Enrollment Counselor
Baggage Handler
Music Teacher
Auditorium Coordinator
Football Coach
Ice Cream Man :)

I love trying new things and hopefully I will be able to add many more titles to this list as my life goes on.

What are some other interesting titles people have had? Maybe I'll try a few :)