A loyal reader asks: What do you think of Rachel Ray? Is she a force of good or evil?

We love the answer from the July-August 2007 Shopper Report
by Mona Doyle

Rachael Ray is empowering some shoppers to cook with more freedom and have more fun than they have had in some time. Watching her facilitates a certain amount of abandon in mixing flavors and using hunches and appetites to direct kitchen behavior.

What she is doing is changing cooking from tedious work to play! With apologies to the memory of Julia Child, there are similarities in their empowerment of women in the kitchen. Julia empowered women to understand how difficult recipes worked and gave them the freedom to try them, understand them, and depart from them and still turn out wonderful foods. Rachael Ray communicates the pleasure of cooking from your head and your stores, your fridge, and your pantry. Some retailers are playing into this, helping their shoppers be better cooks by providing “ingredients for your next inspiration”–I’m quoting myself there, but that is what I see happening, with sauces and mixes that are almost magical in their ability to help consumers create wonderful smells and tastes with a dollop of X and a few spoons of Y.

Wegmans does an especially good job of this with products like “Mirepoix” which it offers in several package and chunk sizes. Mirepoix is nothing more, or less, than diced onions, carrots, and celery–a combination which forms the basis of much French cooking. Add a package to a can of soup or sauce and create wonderful flavor and an aroma that equals fresh bread in the oven.

* “I think Rachael Ray is bringing fun back into cooking.”

* “I don’t think she is making people more casual about cooking, but getting more folks into cooking because she makes it casual.”

* “I am a huge fan of hers, and simply put ……… she is easy to relate to, because she is NOT a chef, and has a spirit about cooking, and a reality about cooking that brings the ‘ease’ of creating a 30-minute meal (I am not that quick) to the table that is delicious and eye appealing. Her meals are made with a common household kitchen flare, and ingredients accessible at any and all local markets. No gourmet here.”

* “I think her show is proving that you can have a decent meal on the table in 30 minutes or less. With so many women working these days, this show has a great impact on those of us that put in a full day working.”

* “She IS fun and casual. My feeling is that she is not too uptight about it and should be helping people, especially a person newly on his or her own.”

Full bibliography for this article: Mona Doyle “Rachael Ray’s impact”. Shopper Report, The. July-August 2007. FindArticles.com. 31 Oct. 2007.

See back issues and sign up for the Shopper Report RSS by going here.

A loyal reader asks: How big is identity fraud online, what are the trends, and should I be concerned?

There is a lot of info out there on this. But here’s a great synopsis by the nice folks at ITFacts.

3.7% of Americans were victims of identity fraud in 2006

Approximately 500,000 fewer adults in the United States fell victim to identity fraud in 2006 than in 2005. Of America’s overall adult population, 3.7% were victims, as compared to 4.0% in 2005. This demonstrates a continued year-over-year decrease since data was first collected in 2003 when 4.7% of the adult population was victimized. In terms of total dollars, identity fraud in 2007’s report dropped by an estimated 12% over the previous year, from $55.7 bln to $49.3 bln. New account fraud dropped from 1.5% of all respondents in 2006 to one% in 2007. When fraudulent accounts are opened, many victims caught the fraud more quickly utilizing online channels, such as the viewing of statements, resulting in average fraud amounts dropping from more than $10,000 in 2006 to $7,260 on average in 2007.

The overall adult population of the United States reported a fraud rate of 3.7%. Younger adults between 18 and 24 reported a much greater incident rate of 5.3%. Additionally, more than half of these victims reported knowing their perpetrators, which could include friends, neighbors or in-home employees, as compared to just 23% of overall respondents, Javelin says

***So consumers are getting smarter, financial institutions and others are improving their services in this realm. Overall, things are getting better.

Should you be concerned? Of course! Be careful. Purchase from reputable companies. Protect your information. Install a firewall if you don’t have one already. Change your passwords regularly. Don’t use obvious passwords. Be smart. One great service we use is one-time credit card numbers. They’ve been around for a while – but many people don’t know about them.

A loyal reader asks: I try reading over my daughter’s shoulder when she’s texting (when did THAT become a verb?) and I have to plea ignorance. I don’t know what she’s writing. Why does she care about Point of Sale materials? Is she working for an ad agency behind my back?

You need to catch up. And quick. POS means ‘parent over shoulder’ so you are busted. We understand your need to know what’s going on! There are great directories of text abbreviations, but our favorite is this search at No Slang.

Prepare to be shocked (and amused) when you check out these directories:

Net Lingo

Lingo2Word

Chat Slang and Acronyms

A loyal reader asks: My kid is off to college and tells me she can download music free. And it’s legal. Sounds fishy to me.

Stealing music is a serious crime. But your daughter might be on the up-and-up. Read on.

Hitting the bigtime on college campuses – Ruckus\. Ruckus Network, Inc., the provider of a multimedia network that supplies free and legal music downloads specifically for college students. The website is…

LOUD!

Okay, that’s our age talking. But seriously…

On member campuses, students can access the Ruckus service anytime – on or off campus – to enjoy the full-featured music service. They can access the first, college-only service that blends social networking features with a massive and continuously expanding library of free, legal and safe music downloads. Ruckus has already proven successful at more than 120 colleges and universities across the country, including Brown University, Duke University, Georgia Tech, Indiana University, North Carolina State, Princeton University, University of California-Berkeley, the University of Denver, Penn State University and the University of Pennsylvania.

I’m sure there is no ulterior motives here. Righhhhttt……

But still.

A loyal reader asks: I have a young staff. I would love to find something to reward and motivate them. But all the incentive programs I know about are, shall I say, stodgy?

The times they are a changing, loyal reader.

Check out Snowfly.

When employees meet crucial business goals, their reward is two-fold: the opportunity to play a game and the chance to win big. Every play is a guaranteed winner. When given the option to play the game or settle for a predetermined number of points, employees choose to play each time. They can then redeem earned points for prizes they actually want, such as an item from the Internet, a gift card, a day off from work or any other prize the company wants to offer. With Snowfly, you give your employees the right rewards, in the right way, for the right reasons, so your company will receive the right results.

Intriguing.

A loyal reader asks: I keep hearing that there are neat mapping tools online. I want to see some! I want to customize, collaborate, plan! Whatcha got for me?

Oh reader, we love maps. Read on.

One of our favorite resources, Mashable, recently published this amazing list. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

CUSTOMIZABLE AND COLLABORATIVE MAPS

Click2Map.com – Create custom Google Maps, manage your markers, publish and share your creations.

ClustrMaps.com – Get a visual representation of all the visitors to your website.

Geotag it – Add geo tags to Flickr and Del.icio.us posts and see where other links and photos come from.

MapBuilder.net – Uses Google Maps to help you build a custom tagged map you can add to your own website.

Mapicurious.com – Mark vacation spots, restaurants, bars, just about any place you would recommend.

Mappr.com – Another site allowing you to geo tag your Flickr photos to allow people to see them on a map.

Maptales.com – Tales of trips and more sorted on to a Google Map.

Maptrot.com – Create maps of interesting locales such as Route 66 or major sports stadiums, share them with the world.

Mkmap.com – Collaborative map that allows users to add things such as transit services and restaurants.

OpenStreetMap.org – A user editable map of the world to be worked on in collaboration.

Pixagogo.com – Add your own photos to a Google Map, give people a real feel for your neighborhood or vacation.

Planiglobe.com – Customize a map and download PostScript and Illustrator versions.

Quikmaps.com – Doodle on a Google Map, pass it around, embed in your site, or download it to your GPS.

Tagmaps – A way to visualize text on geographic maps, then can be used on your site.

Traffic.com – Check out traffic for your area on a map.

Trippermap.com – Tag your Flickr photos with a location; they get added to a flash based map for your website.

Useamap.com – Helps you publish a map for your event, provides a short url for easy use.

Wayfaring.com – Create and share maps, explore ones made by others.

Wayki.com – Tag locations and share with others, explore tags others have left.

YourGMap.com – Customizable and embeddable Google Maps with content you choose.

TRANSIT MAPPING

goDCgo.com – Look up Washington DC-specific information such as traffic, special events and car pooling.

IamCaltrain.com – Interactive map of the San Francisco metro area trains.

onNYturf.com – Interactive subway map of New York City.

Seattle Bus Monster – Plan your bus routes in the Seattle, WA area.

SUBJECT SPECIFIC MAPPING (not all are interactive, some are just some neat specialized maps!*)

DaylightMap.com – See where the sun is shining currently on this map.

Feedmap.net – Add a geo-code to your blog so people can look blogs up by location. You can also browse for areas that would interest you.

FlightAware.com – See how many planes are currently in the air and where they are.

Gruvr.com – Place to look up local music and add tour info.

HealthMap.org – A global disease outbreak map. For general interest or to suggest places you may wish to avoid.

Hotpotr.com – Map of Wi-Fi cafes and hotspots.

Incident1.com – Interactive map of 911 calls from around the United States.

Mailboxmap.com – Enter an address, get the locations of USPS mailboxes nearby.

Map-Runner.com – You can create a run route and assign a difficulty rating and a safety rating; it will be available to all runners using map runner, and they can rate it.

MapMyRun.com – Plot out your running course, indicate where water and bathrooms are, calculate your workout. They also have MapMyHike.com, MapMyRide.com, MapMyTri.com, and MapMyWalk.com.

MappyHour.com – Click anywhere on the map to display nearby bars and their happy hour specials.

MapWii.com – Enter your Wii number and see other players online to setup games all from a geographic map.

Moremap.com – Uses Google Maps as a basis to show earthquake activity, traffic reports, radio stations, and numerous other functions.

Platial.com – Add content from video, photos, stories, feeds and add it to your website.

PublicRoutes.com – A global map of mass-transit systems.

SignalMap.com – Find or add your own reports on cell strength to various locations and by carrier.

Tornado Paths – Visual history of tornado paths on a map.

VirtualVideoMap.com – Shows a Google Map with YouTube videos sorted by locations.

POPULAR MAPPING SERVICES

Ask.com Maps – Ask.com’s driving directions solution.

Google Mars – Google’s interactive map of the fourth planet of our solar system, Mars.

Google Maps – Get directions, look up your house with satellite photos. The basis of many websites.

Mapquest.com – Look up local businesses, get driving directions.

Poly9 FreeEarth – A free, online interactive 3D globe with various layers you can apply.

Windows Live Local – Microsoft’s entrant in to the mapping game.

Worldmapper – Maps of the world resized based on various subjects such as land mass and population.

Yahoo! Local Maps – Get driving directions, find businesses and much more.

Again, credit for that amazing list goes to Mashable. If you don’t subscribe, you should!

A loyal reader asks: I have a client in the tennis business. They want me to find national publications with tennis subject matter on their editorial calendars. I’ve done some Google searching, but I feel like I’m drowning in irrelevant results. HELP ME!

Score 1 for us. We have a great idea.

Check out MRI+, a free database of magazine planning information run by Mediamark Research.

MRI+ is a free digital library of competitive data that serves as an electronic information link between planners and the publishers of major consumer and business publications.

MRI+ consolidates the databases planners use to evaluate magazines at one site:

• Top-line data from the Survey of the American Consumer™
• ABC Circulation Reports
• Advertising Expenditures
• Editorial profiles and calendars
• Subscriber Studies
• Links to Publisher sites

MRI+ is free to registered users.

So here’s what you do.

1. Log in.
2. Go to New Search.
3. Select Consumer Publications in part 1.
4. Select Profile and Editorial Calendars in part 2.
5. Select contains and type ‘tennis’ in the keyword box.
6. Click on search.

And there you have it. A list of publications with tennis on the edcal or in the publication profile along with circulation, and other information.

Of course, you still need someone to apply some judgment, but it’s a great start.

A loyal reader asks: I have been looking for resources on Functional Exercise lately. Sure I’ve found some. But most of them make me sign up for stuff or lead me to other sites. It’s annoying. Help!

For those, like me, who don’t know what Functional Exercise, GoAnimal defines it like this:

Technically speaking, a functional exercise is multi-joint and multi-plane; this is the definition favored by physical therapists. More broadly, a functional exercise is one that is relevant to real-world challenges. An exercise is considered functional when it prepares us for some movement challenge that we are actually likely to encounter.

Thanks for asking….

Speaking of GoAnimal, it has a nice list of exercises…..see them here. You’ll find hover steps, skating steps, touch low/reach high, partner-resist core squats and more.

About.com again does a great job. See Best Ab Exercises and Core Exercises

Physical Therapy Connections has a nice list of exercises to try with very clear directions.

Getfitsource. Sure, they sell products. But they have some great videos and workouts here for download – fa-ree!

I’m tired just thinking about it all.
Good luck

A loyal reader asks: With all this talk about TB, I’m starting to feel a little paranoid – I mean sick. How can I find out what’s going around in my neighborhood?

Glad you asked.

There’s a new application called Who is Sick? It’s kind of neat. A little creepy? Maybe.

“Who Is Sick was started in 2006 with a mission to provide current and local sickness information to the public – without the hassle of dealing with hospitals or doctors. With a strong belief in the power of people and a faith that user generated content can be extremely valuable, our team set out to create an entirely new system for tracking and monitoring sickness information.”

All of a sudden, I feel a little under the weather.

The system needs to be more populated. I put in my sniffle symptoms and now it looks like an epidemic in my zip code!

A reader asks: I frequently have the need to get input from my large and very geographically dispersed team. When I send an email out, I get all these answers in different formats and, frankly, it’s a pain in the neck. Any suggestions?

Why yes, thanks for asking!

You can poll your team (or customers or anyone!) without typing a single line of code. Some popular polling tools are Polldaddy, Quibblo, and Zoho Polls. All easy and all well-reviewed!

Still, our favorite is Wufoo. Wufoo is a very simple way to build amazing online forms. When you design a form with Wufoo, it automatically builds the database, backend and scripts needed to make collecting and understanding your data easy, fast and fun. You can send it by email or send the link. Seriously, this is easy.

Happy polling!