Early voting starts Monday for the August 26, 2008 Election

The web has not yet arrived in all elections campaigns: Here is a list of candidates web sites: Collier County School Board, Sheriff & District 5 Collier County Commissioner. That's all I found, please let me know if you found others not listed. NFN.Webmaster's shared book marks, "Elections" delicious.com/NFN.webmaster/elections

Technorati

Technorati Profile Technorati has some great tools to make your blog more visible on the Net. Also Technorati offers a great search tools for the blogs out there on any topic. After you register as a publisher with technorati, they will walk you through on how you claim your blog and tie it to your profile. It's a good way to market your site beyond the normal and ever crowded search engines.

Naples History Month

May is being proclaimed the official History Month in Naples, and you're invited to help make history. Naples Cultural Landscape will be honoring the oldest banyan tree in the City of Naples at a celebration on May 31 at the Naples Backyard History Celebration. This particular Banyan is located at the corner of Gordon Drive and 12th Ave. S, in front of Paul Arsenault's house. Leading up to the May 31 event, the Phil Fisher Gallery will host an exhibition from May 15-31 of images featuring Beardy Banyan. Viewers of the exhibition will vote for their favorite image, and the People's Choice Award winner will be featured on the cover of a book commemorating the exhibition. Do you have a painting, photograph or other artistic representation of this significantly cultural landscape? If so, please pick up an application at Phil Fisher Gallery, 824 5th Ave. S #6, by May 13. For more information, call the Phil Fisher Gallery at 403-8393.

2nd Annual Regional Career Recruitment Expo

What: Regional Career Recruitment Expo – over 50 of Southwest Florida’s premier employers and over 100 hard to reach human resource professionals under one roof. Where: Alico Arena (FGCU campus). Once on the campus we will have directional signs. There are driving directions on the website at www.SWFLeducation.com When: April 15, 2008 1:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Parking: Parking is free and the earlier you get there the closer you will be able to park. Expectations: The participating businesses are among Southwest Florida’s top employers, therefore expecting a job offer the day of the Career Expo maybe a little unrealistic. In today’s job market, employers usually will conduct more than one interview, conduct some sort of background check, verify past employment, and contact references. However, you will have the opportunity to meet face-to-face with over 50 of Southwest Florida’s top employers in one afternoon (an effort that would normally take months) and this is a great opportunity to network, discuss corporate career ladders and exchange business cards and resumes Dress: Dress to impress, you’ll get a second change to make a first impression. (by Jim Wall, Southwest Florida Workforce Development Board)

April Charity Golf Events & New Sites

First Tee of Naples The local chapter of First Tee has published an extensive Life Skills program calendar on their web site. This program is for elematary age children as wll as for high school age students. Application form is online available and you can get more information from executive director Cindy Darland at tftnaplescollier@aol.com. When you visit the web site also check out the information on the The First Tee First Pro-Am Tournament April 14 at Fiddesticks Country Club. It will be great fun!

GolfCaptains.com If you set up the tee times, keep track of who can play when, put together the parings, decide the game and then email or call everyone You Are a Golf Captain! Volunteers running golf leagues or tournaments receive now online help big time! A new website supplies the means to organize a lot of administrative tasks online, and automate some of the routine communication needs with members. It automates team selection process, allows to set tee times and maintains a member ship roster and keeps track of each player's availability and schedule. Test the site and login with eh user ID: guestcaptain@gc.com and password: guest.

This month Charity Tournaments
If you know of a tournament we missed, please add a comment to the entry.

Back Packs for Kids, Susan G. Komen Fund, and The Interfaith Caregivers the charities of choice for Books Charity Golf Tournament on April 4 - April 6, 2008. Learn more Call Michael Zigler 444-2103 or at gm@springrun.com

Marine Corps League of Naples will hold their 10th Anuual golf tournament at Glen Eagle Golf & Country club on April 5th, 2008. Call Joe Johnston at 417-9343 or e-mail joe.johnston@comcast.net

Jim Near Center for Families and Children at Guadlupe in Immokalee will receive proceeds from the 16th annual Maynard Cup on Sunday, April 6th, 2008. Info & reservations Patsy Graham 947-4149

National Kidney Foundation of Florida Golf Classic held at The Twin Eagles on Monday April 7, 2008. Contact tournament chairman, Anthony DeFeo at 514-7388.

6th Annual Krista Kaye Cambridge-Nevins Golf Outing will rais fund for the benefits the scholarship fund for local high school students at the named charity. Saturday April 12th, 2008 Arrowhead Country Club. Contact Dick Thornton 596-3498.

African Caribbean American Community Center will hold its Charity Classic tournament on Saturday April 12, 2008 at Verandah Club in North Ft. Myers.Contact 461-0233 or e-mail ihernandez@afcaam.org

The Coalition to Salute Americ Heros benefits from the The Dodge Celebrity Invitational on April 16th - April 19, 2008 at Flamigo Island Course at Lely Resort. More information at the tounaments web site: www.dogecelebritygolf.com

What a Free iPod Might Cost?

I was testing a Facebook application of which I will write in a future post. Today I want to let you know what happens after that.

The last screen was typical prose 'This is what you can also do with this awesome application' and what caught my eyes was the red flashing "You Are A Winner! You just WON one of 12 iPod touches given out today!" and normal Facebook button to "Get your Prize".

O hey, who wouldn't want to have another iPod? My brain wasn't as fast on the pick-up as I would have wanted it to be. Why would I, who never wins anything in a raffle, be the one of 12 winning an iPod in a social network of 66 million?
My only excuse is that I was still very curious, so I clicked on it. Now I have left Facebook entirely and it was all made look pretty clean and focused, "Test and Keep an iPod Touch! Give us your e-mail address and claim your prize." with "Delivered by FedEx" Button and all. For these occasions I have a "IknowIsubscribedToSpam" e-mail address, which I put in there and on the next page, they asked me for my mailing address and phone number. And of course, I would need to give them all that information, if the iPod-Touch should ever arrive at my home, right? Alright, I sat up straight and went through typing in my information into the fields on the screen.

I read carefully through the options next to the checked boxes underneath the form. It was a list offering text messages on my cellphone, and more messages from other partner firms and so on. And I unchecked all of them, except my agreement to the site policy and the privacy policy. This is usual procedure and I am always trying to avoid exponentially increasing the spam. Then I was ready to click on the "Click here to continue" button, when I looked at the text printed right above it, which was very neutrally formatted like the other instruction on the form that make you just fill in the right information:

"By clicking on the "Continue" above I am requesting to be contacted by CustomerXXXX.com (name changed, put in your most favorite customer direct savings company) offer sponsors and marketing partners regardless of any DNC List registration."

What does DNC mean? It's an acronym for "Do-Not-Call-List". And it finally registered! What a sneaky way! In other words, this is an information collection page, where those direct mailing and telemarketers collect information of people, and then they will cross-reference it against the "Do-Not-Call-Lists" around the nation and kick all the people off, who clicked "continue". They then will share that information with other marketing companies and then you are the fat prize for them:
First they think you gave them the permission to give you unsolicited phone calls, despite the fact that your information is listed on a Do-not-call-list, then they have an e-mail address AND a mailing address so they can cross reference now every data they might have with your mailing address and link an e-mail address to it, which is quite an accomplishment, if you ever want to do target marketing by zip code via e-mail and do that via a Direct Advertising Company. And they know you are a live person, and no robot, and on of top of that your are an early adopter, because they found you on Facebook, and if that link really works, they know more about you than your mother will ever know.

Clicking on that button would have been "something stupid very fast". Now, I know that my information is out there, I have an ever growing spam folder to prove it. I have been on the Internet since 1996 quite visible and I have never hidden, and I have bought way too many things online that my e-mail address and mailing address couldn't be matched otherwise before. So I am the last person to lament about lost privacy on the Internet.

But the Do-not-call list? Come on , people! My husband and I have done a fine job keeping our phone lines free from solicitation calls ever since Florida and Federal DNC lists were implemented. Apart from the occasional non-profit organization none of those telemarketers disturbs us at dinner time or any other time. And here with one click our peace would have ended just because I like gadgets, especially new ones, and it would have come for free.

Now that would be a prize way to high for me and my marriage to pay.
Updated: April 10, 2008: edited for brevity - bph.