Armed with nothing more than paper, crayons, paste, a few household materials, and a vivid imagination, a child can create a Mother’s Day card worthy of MacGyver’s praise. Bye-bye Hallmark! See ya, PC. Old school cards utilize macaroni, popcorn or dandelions! That’s creative thinking!

However, as we get older, things change and we turn to technology to make our cards. But we can still use our vivid imaginations. Check out this hilarious video of brothers Tucker and Brad taking a photo for their Mother’s Day card: 

Mother’s Day is May 13. Are you prepared?

At Leinicke Group we know that following e-blast best practices is essential for successful electronic mail programs. The proof? We are Winners of the 2011 Constant Contact All Star Award.   

Constant Contact looked at the following criteria when they included us in 2011′s All Stars:

• Sending e-blasts during all four quarters of the year
• Updating mailing lists often
• Having high open and click-through rates
• Having low bounce rates
• Using mailing list sign-up tools like “Join My Mailing List” on our website or Facebook pages
• Using reports to gain insights about our contact list
• Using social media tools

The free Adobe Reader software doesn’t allow users to access commenting tools. So how do you enable comments for someone who only has Adobe Reader?

If you have Adobe Acrobat Pro you can go to the top menu bar > Comments > Enable for Commenting and Analysis, and follow the prompt. But don’t take my word for it. Watch the quick video on Adobe TV Enable for Commenting in Adobe Reader. This site is a great resource with dozens of tips and tricks for using Adobe Acrobat Pro.

Ok, so we’ve all heard about Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus. There is much confusion though about what exactly the difference is between the social sites and how their uses are different. Below we’ve outlined what we consider the major uses and differences between the social sites. We hope this helps with the confusion!

Twitter:

• Emphasizes content
• More of a microblog for sharing information and links.
• More “business and media” oriented…Example: celebrity pages, news outlets, etc.
• Used more for a “quick” share of information
• Information is shared and you choose what you want to see with no obligation for them to follow you back
• Utilizes hash tags for more keyword friendly searching.
• More likely to find links and news, more likely to follow brands, news sources and other entities outside of your social graph.
• Twitter has “characteristics of news media” rather than characteristics of a social network.
• Twitter has character limits for posts.
• Twitter stream is completely public
• Over 300 million users

Facebook:

• Emphasizes profiles and people
• Social network for connecting to friends and family
• Allows sharing pictures, memes, statuses, links, etc.
• More personalization of a “profile” by adding wall tabs, and organizing the way your information is seen.
• More likely to post personal issues, happy birthday wishes, gossip about a changed Facebook relationship status, and postings about parties on your Facebook News Feed.
• Facebook has character limits on posts
• Sharing on facebook goes to everyone of your friends, unless targeted “lists” are created.
• Over 800 million users

Google Plus:

• Emphasizes targeted sharing among peers
• The overall goal is not just to communicate with close friends and family.
• Facilitates the process of information sharing
• Offers more control of information and allows sharing to targeted groups, and deciding whether its public or shared to a certain “circle.”
• Google+ has no character limit for posts
• Google+ affects search, search results become customized and matched against your profile
• Over 100 million users

YouTube:

• Emphasizes video content and sharing
• Centers around video content
• Allows tagging similar to hashtags for keyword searching
• Allows customized channel creation and private/public sharing
• Allows people to comment on your videos
• Allows a description and the ability to customize text over video for micro linking/sharing information corresponding to the video frame
• Allows slideshow creation and customization
• Enables the user to embed videos on their site