In spite of the tradeoffs, I’m thankful for the water we have available to us from coast to coast. Yeah, I know it’s got chlorine in it. I’m not a fan of drinking water directly from the tap. I don’t want that chlorine in my body. I’d also rather not breathe it into my lungs in the shower.

Some people say “the poison is in the dosage,” but I consider that an idiot’s mantra. Let’s see one of those people volunteer for a daily dosage of arsenic, lead, mercury, uranium or wood grain alcohol.

Chlorine is easy to filter out though so kudos to the people who work their buts off at the water treatment plants around the US to give us water that doesn’t contain weird forms of life that make us sick.

You may think your municipal water doesn’t always taste the best and if you don’t filter out the chlorine, you’re a dummy, but millions of people around the globe wish they had water half as good as what we take for granted.

Water that doesn’t deliver bacterial infections, parasites and other diseases should not be a luxury.

Clean water should be the norm.

Unfortunately, it isn’t the norm around the globe. Water should be a source of life. Instead it’s one of the greatest sources of sickness and disease.

Almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean drinking water.

A BILLION!

That’s one in eight of us.

If you’ve ever had Giardiasis (AKA, Beaver Fever), or any other water-borne pathogen in your gut, you know what it’s like to be more focused on clenching your stomach while holding in the pending gastrointestinal tsunami and fighting to keep yourself hydrated at the other end.

It sucks.

Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease, and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war.

Many people in the developing world, usually women and children, walk more than three hours every day to fetch water that is likely to make them sick.

What would you life be like if you had to subtract 3 hours from every day, just to get your water?

Children are especially vulnerable to the consequences of unsafe water.  Of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation, 90% are children under 5 years old.

Take some time today and give to CharityWater.org and give others something to be thankful for.

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In personal branding there are two types of style. One is the kind which has little meaning. If you’ve ever heard someone refer to personal branding as “style over substance” that person is thinking of this: a signature haircut, a catch phrase or a special hat.

If your personal brand relies on the shape of your eye glasses, you’re in trouble.

Chances are there’s not much going on with your dishes either.

In marketing there’s a phrase that you sell the sizzle, not the steak, but what happens when the customer finds out the steak is no good?

It’ll be pretty hard to sell that steak again.

The style that feeds substance into your personal brand is the style that drives your actions.

Are you a creative thinker?

Are you highly organized?

Are you an eloquent speaker or a person of few words?

Are you Mr Clean?

Are you the “Soup Nazi?”

Do you seek the opportunity in all things or are you the type who points out all the land mines?

Are you a high energy person or the “even keel?”

None of these examples are right or wrong. They’re reflective of the way people do the things they do. When you recognize your style you can apply it to one of the most important attributes of a personal brand: consistency.

Lacking self-awareness of your style can lead to more erratic and reactive behavior. Others aren’t sure what to expect of you.

Professionally, this can lead to trouble.

Imagine watching Emeril on TV and seeing him slowly walk out on set.

Hi…[sigh] it’s Emeril here…bam…I’m  little tired today, but we’re gonna cook up a storm…can I get a bam? [sigh]

That just wouldn’t do, would it?

Now before you start leaving comments about Emeril’s cooking below, let’s focus on the point of this example. He delivers his content with a style that reflects the fires burning inside him. This is a guy who loves his food and it shows. Maybe you’re not getting up on stage week after week, but in your job and your profession people are expecting you to “perform” in some way.

The style of Emeril is not dictated by the nature of his content. I’ve met other chefs who still show the passion and excitement with a calm, measured demeanor.

What are you styles? If you haven’t thought about it before, make a list (or better yet, a mindmap) and do a bit of self-exploration. Call friends. Call enemies. Solicit input and get a feel for what other people think your natural style happens to be. Then, take that knowledge as start using it as a “North star” for your activities in your job, your business, on social media and with your friends and family. The result should be a lot more relaxed enjoyment in life.

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The first thing that comes to your mind when you visit folkd is its uncanny resemblance to digg. If you use Mozilla Firefox, you can access this website from the toolbar downloaded as a Firefox extension. The basic purpose of this website is to enable people to share their bookmarks with each other. Further, this site helps you not just find the right link but also determine whether the link in question is a good link or not. This can be determined from the number of votes or ‘folks’ that the link receives. If you have an account with the website, all you need to do is click on the two links given below to either folk it or save it to your list of favorite links. While most of us would vote for a link only if we like it and would save it, it is not mandatory to save all links that you vote on. You can choose to folk it or save it or folk and save the link as you choose.

However, this site is not all about links alone. This site supports various modes of media. You can upload not just images but upload music as well. Once uploaded, you can listen to music as well. Additional media support is not restricted to music and audio alone. You can watch videos on this site as well. This marks the transition of normal social bookmarking websites to fantastic entertainment zones which provide links, music, videos and lots of friends as well.

If you know different languages, you can make good use of the international language support of this site to browse through various links without any language problems. Why restrict yourself to the ‘English’ version of the web when the World Wide Web is available in different languages. Unlike other social networking websites which restrict you to English sites and links alone, this site will take you to all the great sites on the web irrespective of the language of the site.

One problem with such social bookmarking websites is that spammers submit various links which do nothing but take the surfers to different scam and spam websites. However, this website combines voting as well as moderator support to ensure the site is not flooded with fake links and scam websites.

If you do come across a website which you feel should not be on the site, you can report the link and the moderators shall take the final decision.

Another important feature of this website is the easy to navigate design of the website. The design was made popular by Digg and has become the norm for all other social bookmarking websites. Unlike other websites, this website has done a good job of following the standards set by Digg and other such popular websites.

The name of this website emphasizes on the ‘social’ aspect of social bookmarking websites. More and more people are climbing on to the bandwagon to exploit the popularity of such websites. Folkd is one such website to include in your social media portfolio.

Click here to download the firefox extension for folkd

Image Credit: folkd

Popularity: 5% [?]

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There was a time when managing bookmarks was a very simple affair. Of course, web browsing software applications did not offer even half of the functionality that social networking websites offer today. However, considering the large number of web sites available today and considering the fact that each website claims to be the best, it does become difficult to ascertain whether you have chosen the right service or not.

There are many web sites offering the ability to store bookmarks online, share them with friends and assign tags to make them easier to search. The end result is that we store all our bookmarks online and access from anywhere on the World Wide Web. However, there always is a doubt whether the bookmark stored on the site is private or not. Of course, we are given the choice of determining whether the bookmark should be made public or not. However, one can never be sure that one has marked a bookmark as a private. Most social networking websites work on the principle of making bookmarks public unless specifically instructed as private.

To solve this problem permanently, Yahoo has their come up with a different websites for bookmarks storage. One is bookmarks.yahoo website which is totally dedicated to private bookmarks. The other website is Digg which is exclusively dedicated to social networking of bookmarks. You can a share the same account on both the web sites. However, you cannot make any bookmark private on Digg and you cannot make any bookmark public on Bookmarks.Yahoo.

Both the sites are very user friendly and have been designed in a very intuitive manner. The private bookmark web site offers the ability to assign tags to the links. Hence, you can quickly search through your private collection of bookmarks without any difficulty.

You can upload your public bookmarks like links to blogs, current event, news and happenings to the public bookmarking web site and retain your private recipes, cooking information, and private financial information to your Bookmarks.Yahoo site.

Had the site in question been managed by any other entity, the issue of privacy and security would definitely have arisen. However, Yahoo has established itself as a brand that is synonymous with quality service and security. You can be rest assured that your private bookmarks shall remain private at all times. Your account can be accessed only through your username and your password.

When one thinks of Yahoo and lots of links, one cannot help visualize the directory service offered by Yahoo. This feature has been incorporated into this website as the surfers can store all private bookmarks in different directories. The different folders will ensure that your list of bookmarks remains completely organized at all times. Pankaj opines “I like the folder options. It keeps my things organized and clutter free.”

Of course, this web site offers the Yahoo toolbar which can be used to add links to your private account without any difficulty whatsoever. The best part is that you can access your private as well as your public links by logging on to the web from your personal computer or even from a café.

Click here to know more about this site.

Click here for some tools related to this site.

Click here for the Yahoo Toolbar

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