Comfortdoc on Squidoo

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.

Take a trip back in time. Relive the memory of Freddie Mercury and Queen in the Freddie Mercury and Queen - The Virtual Concert on Squidoo. The lens was created to
to raise money for two HIV / AIDS Awareness organizations, the AIDS Research Alliance and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

What is a Virtual Concert?

The Squidoo Activists are raising money again this time it is a Virtual Concert Series. This is the second fundraising event for charity sponsored by the Squidoo Activists.

Pick a Group, Pick a Charity
Stage a Virtual Concert

In this week-long event, lensmasters are encourage to create a Virtual Concert lens by their favorite musicians and musical acts, for their favorite charity or charities.

The deadline for entering has been extended to August 3. Winning Lens will be the Lens of the Day on Monday.

Find out more about making your Virtual Concert lens by visiting the Virtual Concert Week on Squidoo lens.

Once you’ve made your lens, be sure to submit it to the Virtual Concert Series Group.

Music to Raise Money = A Good Time By All

It is with great sadness that I have to report that the inspirational Dr. Randy Pausch has lost his battle with Cancer. He died on July 25, 2008.

Dr. Randy Pausch was one of our featured SuperHero Project Lenses, for his head-on, straight-forward, entertaining and motivational approach to facing the diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer. If you don’t know, he was the Professor who delivered the inspirational “The Last Lecture” that was turned into a number one best selling book.

I had a strong feeling that since his personal web page hadn’t been updated in nearly a month, that things were not going well. I had been checking for updates since making the SuperHero Lens.

I’ve updated all three lenses that I have for Dr. Randy Pausch to reflect the sad news. This includes the SquidWho lens on Randy Pausch for and the SquidLit lens on the Last Lecture the Book.

We have lost a great spirit and great teacher in the passing of Dr. Randy Pausch, but his legacy will live one.

My thoughts are with the family.

A new group was launched this week, the Squidoo Activists. The activists are much like the Giant Squids and the Squid Angels (except we don’t get cool mini graphics next to our names…yet)

The Squidoo Activists grew out of the Squidoo SuperHero Challenge brainstorm of Squidoo’s Non-profit Organizer Extraordinarie, Anne Reidy.

Many of the members were invited to participate as Squidoo Activists because of our participation in the SuperHero Challenge or because they have demonstrated an interest in promoting charity work on Squidoo.

The primary goal of the Squidoo Activists is to do even more for charities using Squidoo.

Visit the Squidoo Activists lens to learn more.

As I’ve been waiting for Mamma Mia to open on Friday, I decided that it might be fun to create a lens on how to Host a Mamma Mia Party. It’s a way for some of us who are a bit older to have some fun with this movie and escape for a bit to Greece in a romantic musical comedy.

In her blog, Anne Thompson noted that “this exuberant Greek Island romantic musical will play great to aging boomers looking to get away from the real world.” Mamma Mia is an escapist fantasy musical for these dark times. I know that I am looking forward to escaping for a few hours.

While I think that planning and throwing a Mamma Mia Party may be more popular once it is available as a DVD, there is still potential for pre-movie premiere Mamma Mia Parties.

The Themes that I came up with are:

Mamma Mia Come as You Are Party
Mamma Mia Visit the Greek Isles Party
Mamma Mia Wedding Party
Mamma Mia Dance Party
Mamma Mia Retro Disco Party
Mamma Mia Early ABBA Party
Mamma Mia Classy ABBA Party

I will probably be doing the Mamma Mia Come as You Are Party theme for Friday’s premiere since it will be the easiest one to do with the girls. Later in the week when we head up to the lake to let them play on the beach we might try a Mamma Mia Visit the Greek Isles Party and pack along the soundtrack.

I was surprised to see that I currently have three lenses in the top four at the top of the SquidFlix, the Squidoo co-branding that allows you to critique, review and rate movies.

My top SquidFlix lenses are

1. Ever After - A Cinderella Story
2. Mamma Mia! The Movie
4. We love Disney’s Enchanted

Mamma Mia will be coming out on Friday. I can hardly wait.

Top of Non-Profit

I also happened to discover that my SuperHero lens on Amy Jaffe Barzach and the Boundless Playgrounds is the Number 1 in topic for Non-Profits.

I was a bit surprised when I checked the Dashboard today to discover that I have four lenses in the Top 100! Considering that there are over 500,000 lenses, I am very happy.

Two of the lenses are from my Grief and Loss topics that have slowly been rising in the lens rankings over time:

Loss, Grief and Bereavement

How to Write a Condolence Note

Two of the lenses are ones that I created for the Squidoo SuperHero Project and have been featured as lenses of the day:

Dr. Randy Pausch - A Superhero

Amy Jaffe Barzach

I had to take a screen shot to mark the occasion, since it may not happen again (for a while).

I am hoping that the lens rankings are all sorted out now. I don’t believe it is a fluke.

I am pleased to announce that I achieved the coveted Giant Squids 100 or Giant The 100 Club status on Squidoo.

In order to qualify for the Giant Squid 100 Club you have to have 100 lenses judged to be high-quality by the Squidoo Team and the Giant Squid Team.

The Giant Squids are the elite squad of the best and most prolific lensmasters on Squidoo.

Thanks to all for the honor.

Loss, Grief and Bereavement - Number 1 in Health 

My Loss, Grief and Bereavement Lens has finally made it to the # 1 spot in Health and Medicine. The lens has been the top spot in Health and Medicine since May 29, 2008.

It has not been an easy task, since Frankster’s Long Term Care For People You Love lens is on another important topic.

I am really very happy about the lens getting to the top of the health topics.

This is quite an accomplishment for me if you consider I’ve spent more than 10 years trying to get the medical profession to recognize that Loss, Grief and Bereavement are issues that impact people’s health and well being.

Thanks to all who visited and voted.