Comfortdoc on Squidoo

I am very pleased to report that the How to Prevent Getting H1N1 Flu or Swine Flu has been nominated in the 2009 Giant Squid Awards under the category of Best DIY How-To Lens Nominees for the year. It is quite an honor. Earlier in the year, this lens received one of the coveted Purple stars.

Understandably, the How to Prevent Getting H1N1 Flu or Swine Flu lens has gotten steady traffic since I created it in the Spring to get some decent information out about keeping yourself and your family safe from getting the H1N1 flu.

You can vote for my H1N1 Flu lens in the Giant Squid Awards any time until Sunday December 20, 2009 EST by visiting the Vote Now for the 2009 Giant Squid Awards lens under the Best DIY How-To Lens Nominees section.

Thank you for your support.

Probably my favorite Halloween lens that I created this year for Squidboo was the Green Your Halloween. This year even the skeletons were going green. I reused a skeleton puzzle when I went in to teach a bit on Bone Anatomy in my daughters’ classes at school.

In the Green Your Halloween lens I take a look at ways to reduce, recycle and reuse a lot for your Halloween festivities. Here are just a few:

Tips for Having a Green Halloween

P.S. On October 24, Green Your Halloween is featured on the Giant Squid Community Showcase. It tied with my “Easy Halloween Costumes” lens. The lens was also nominated by Chef Keem for Lens of the Day, twice.

I’ve updated my Dia de los Muertos – Day of the Dead for this year.

The lens was created as an introduction to the holiday, Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead, one often confused with Halloween. Dia de los Muertos is often compared to Halloween in part because they both have skeletons and skulls as decorations. These two fall festival celebrations are very different, with very different origins.

This festival to celebrate the unity of life and death, is considered by many to be the most important holiday of the year in Mexico and other Latin American countries.  It is the time once a year, when the spirits of loved ones who have died, return to earth to celebrate this holiday with friends and family.

Keeping Memories Alive

Many people not raised with the tradition of the Day of the Dead find solace in this lighter, cheerful, family-oriented approach to the subject of death. Dia de los Muertos is a unique way of keeping the memories alive of those who have died. It might even be a helpful tradition for someone to adopt and begin celebrating for those who have lost loved ones.

I finished up two more SquidBoo lenses for the How Giant Squids Do Halloween Challenge. The last minute additions:

1. Spooky Halloween Meal about our family tradition of eating ’scary’ Halloween Foods. It includes a lot of fun recipes that we’ve fixed with the girls for the past 5 years.

2. Healthy Halloween Treats looking at Halloween from the perspective of a parent who teaches nutrition, this lens offers tips to enjoy Halloween, stay healthy and still survive the start of Candy Season.

The key is to encourage children to eat Halloween treats that fall in the healthier end of the spectrum, while showing them how to savor their sweets in moderation.

Make sure you take a look at all of the fun lenses that have been submitted to the How Giant Squids Do Halloween Challenge.

Two new lenses created for Halloween this year as part of the How Giant Squids Do Halloween Challenge. Two more still to go before tomorrow’s deadline. The new additions:

1. Green Your Halloween – Tips on helping make your Halloween a bit Greener, more eco-friendly and healthier choices.
2. Easy Halloween Costumes – Suggestions for making Easy Halloween Costumes, helpful for anyone including the creativity challenged.

SquidBoo

The SquidBoo format was rolled out last year to help people visiting Squidoo (and elsewhere) searching for Halloween stuff and information. I’d created several lenses last year with the SquidBoo template for Halloween focusing on some scary and some informative stuff.

Last year’s SquidBoo lenses included:

• 13 Ways to Cloak Your True Identity for Halloween

• Dia de los Muertos – Day of the Dead

• The Original Phantom of the Opera
  

• Dem Dancing Skeleton Bones

• Take a Trip Underground to Visit The Catacombs….and the Dead

Tomorrow, Friday is the deadline for Giant Squids to enter the How Giant Squids Do Halloween Challenge. You still have time to make your own SquidBoo lens.

I am pleased to announce that my How to Use the Polaroid Module was the winning lens for the Giant Squid Community Showcase.

RMS noted:

This outstanding lens creatively uses the story of The Three Little Bears to give in depth directions on how to get your photos to look just right when using the polaroid module to feature them.

Comfortdoc’s great lens includes information about photo size, adding borders to your image and making composite images. It also describes the best ways to include copyright and photo credit for the pictures you are displaying in the module and supplies links to online sites where you can easily polaroidize (and add graphics) your own photos.

How to Use the Polaroid Module is also a member of  The Answer Deck where the Giants share their best tips and advice with the Squidoo.com community.

This lens was was fun to do. I was inspired by seeing too many of images being not quite right and messing up otherwise very nice lenses.

I hope that lensmasters get inspired after reading this lens to use this fun module.

I am please to report that the Healthy School Fundraisers lens was this week’s Favorite Giant Squid Lens. The lens was developed as one of the lenses for the Squidoo Activist’s Virtual Bake Sale. I was inspired to look for healthier alternatives so did one lens on Healthy School Fundraisers and a second lens on Healthy Bake Sale Options.

Having the Healthy School Fundraisers lens featured is perfect timing with everyone going back to school at the end of the month it is perfect timing for this lens to be featured.

I am hoping that a lot of parents will read through the lens and start “thinking outside of the box” for fundrasiers this year.

The We Can Solve It lens was judged to by the community to be the winning Giant Squid Community Showcase Lens for the week.

According to the blog,

This weeks winning lens in the Choose Your Favorite Giant Lens Contest is We Can Solve It by Comfortdoc. The We Campaign is a project of The Alliance for Climate Protection and Kirsti has done an amazing job showcasing this charity.

Her lens includes numerous videos that champion the environment, I especially like the one from Al Gore. The We Can Solve it lens donates to the Squidoo Charity Fund, Global Giving and Earthjustice.

Thanks guys for helping spread the word.

In addition, “We Can Solve It” was the one of the recipients of the Squids Choice Award for the Month of July where the theme was “Going Green” along with my other green related lens Save Energy – You Have the Power.

Ever use the Polaroid Module and have the image turn out not quite right? I have. I kept looking for a lens on how to use the Polaroid Module and finally decided to do one.

I had a lot of fun with the Three Bears in explaining what to do to get the Polaroid Module, “Just Right.”

For me one of the main benefits of the Polaroid Module is that you can upload a large image easily and quickly without needing to use or know any HTML.

The lens also includes several other fun examples with ways of making a Polaroid-style image online as well as information for the graphic gurus for making a Polaroid-style image from scratch.

This page was created for the Squidoo Answer Deck.

Today, August 3 is the last day to enter your Virtual Concert in the Virtual Concert Week Series.

Getting involved is simple:

1. Pick a Group
2. Pick a Charity
3. Stage a Virtual Concert

I’ve got a Virtual Concert lens, now what?

1. Submit your lens to the Virtual Concert Group, the Bands that Give Back and if you are an Activist to the Squidoo Activist Group.
2. Get in touch with a Squidoo Activist and have them submit the lens to Anne.
3. Submit your lens to the Add Your Virtual Concert to the List Plexo (Note that the plexo is a bit wiggy this morning, but add it anyway.)
4. Visit the other Virtual Concerts that other people have created, rate them, favorite them and leave a message.

More about the Virtual Concert Week Contest
The Squidoo Activists are raising money again this time it is a Virtual Concert Series. Find out more about making your Virtual Concert lens by visiting the Virtual Concert Week on Squidoo lens.

Note: If your lens is just published today, you won’t be able to get it added to the Virtual Concert Series Group, but be sure that it gets added tomorrow.