Joan's Squidoo Blog

I hope that everyone will drop by and look at the Black History Month lens I made.  It shares the life story of a truly inspiring man, my father.

Thomas Alexander – A Black History Month tribute

This one goes into more depth than my overall choir directing lens.  It’s aimed at entry-level directors and provides a step-by-step guide to the best practices for teaching songs to a gospel choir.

How to teach a choir song: The basics.

My newest lens, My favorite non-hits by James Taylor, is featured today on the Squidoo Music blog!

By the way, if you’re not following Squidoo Music, you need to start.  Really.  They’ve got some fantastic stuff.

Here’s a direct link to the blog post: This is what a music lens should be like: James Taylors’ non-hits

Chapel Hill Fiddler says some awfully nice things about the lens in her post.  Thank you, Jane!

Or am I just Twitterspam?

My Lens-of-the-Day lens about handling computer accounts after death is getting tweeted all over the place.  Strange thing is, all of the folks who are tweeting it are posting identical messages: same wording, same spelling, everything.  And none of them are acknowledging their posts to be a retweet of anyone else.  AND when I look at each person’s Twitter page, the posts they all have right below the one about me are also the same.  More than a dozen people all tweeting the exact same stuff.

I don’t know a whole lot about the Twitter world, but it would appear that a lot of folks are all getting spoon-fed tweets about interesting topics that they can post to their followers.  I wonder who the original source is and whether they’re actually doing that as a business.  It seems similar to the junk mail that my father (he’s a pastor) used to get from companies that were in the business of selling stacks of pre-written sermons.

But whatever the cause, I am getting a surge in traffic, so that must mean that the followers who are reading these pre-packaged tweets are interested enough to click on the link.

I found out with no warning whatsoever.  I was doing some ordinary stuff on my Squidoo Dashboard and happened to look down at the “Lens of the Day” box at the bottom of the page.  There was my own lens!  I actually started hyperventilating!

I’m surprised that I didn’t get any kind of notification email, but maybe there will be something coming in the morning.

It’s a lens that I do think is valuable — “How would he get to my PayPal account if I died tomorrow?”.  It documents my process of making sure that if something unexpected happened to me, my online accounts could be accessed and properly handled.

I encourage everyone to think about this issue and make sure that the important parts of your online life could be resolved without stressing out your loved ones during a time that would already be one of the hardest times in their lives.

I just made a lens sharing a true story in a brain teaser format.  How did I get into my car after locking my keys in it?  See if you can solve The Case of the Locked Beetle.

My Thanksgiving lens, “The Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” just won a purple star!  I’m tingling all over.

I’m still in the middle of some very busy times, but I did make the time look at some cool-but-under-appreciated lenses that some of my friends have made.  I’m sharing a whole bunch of lenses this time to make up for two weeks of being unable to do it.  Enjoy!

All of these are the current lowest-ranked lenses for their respective lensmasters:

• Maxxamillion has a very informative lens about best practices for traveling with your dog.  It’s clearly written from personal experience, and it has great pictures.

• Katinka, aka spirituality, has really been getting into using the new Squidoo Quiz feature, including this quiz lens about the Dalai Lama.

• MissBat gives us a wealth of information about the band Nine Inch Nails, with videos and links to more NIN lenses.

• LotusPetalYoga has a very pretty lens about holiday votive holders.  There are links for buying them ready-made as well as instructions for making your own.

• JPTanabe introduces us to Yerba Mate tea (even though it’s not really tea; she’ll explain why).  She gives us the history and cultural significance of the drink along with preparation instructions.  You can almost smell it when you look at the pictures.

• One of the biggest fans of this Lowest-Ranked Lens Spotlight series is Treasures-by-Brenda.  And today she is our gateway to get our hands on a copy of the Beatles Stereo Box Set.  She’s got the links to pre-order it from Amazon as well as some ebay listings.  (You KNOW there’s somebody on your gift list who wants that box set!)

• CherylK has an extensive knowledge of diets and diet books, and she shares with us some of her favorite recipes from them.  And it’s not wheat grass and protein shakes, they’re all recipes for real food!

• And this lens I fell madly in love with. Paperfacets has made a Pictolens, where she showcases (using picture galleries) original photos that she is using in the Introduction modules on her lenses.  Then she links where you can click to be taken to the lens that corresponds with the picture.  It’s a very original idea and all of the photos are gorgeous.  This one is a must-see!

For myself, I’m going to cheat.  My current lowest-ranked lens is one that I would expect to be ranked low because it was dealing with a news event, the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to our President.  That story is over and I don’t expect people to have a huge interest in debating it any more.  So I’m going to share my second-lowest-ranked lens.  It’s about homeschooling, my Not Back To School lens.

Just some lenses I’ve seen around that I really liked.

• I dig history, and Ramkitten has some history on a personal level on her “On The Day I Was Born” lens.  It’s an in-depth look at 1969, with a special focus on March 28, 1969.  Ramkitten is encouraging the rest of us to do similar lenses, and I am definitely going to do one (so I have dibs on October 24, 1964).

• What better platform than Squidoo to showcase the work of M. C. Escher?  Check out some of his beautiful and intriguing art, courtesy of Kinnally.

• I’m also a big fan of the Dihydrogen Monoxide scare, so I’m glad to see that there’s a lens about it.  Speak out on the Duel and tell triathlontraining whether the risks of this chemical compound outweigh the benefits.

• And a lot of you probably already knew Debra (dc64), but I just discovered her.  As you know, I’m always looking for lenses that make good homeschooling resources for my SquidooSchooling page and Debra’s lensography is a jackpot.  She also just seems like my kind of people.  She even likes Bach.

Once again I’ve been digging around in my friends’ basements, and you wouldn’t believe the neat stuff people have down there.

Naturegirl7’s lowest-ranked lens is about heirloom roses — Hip Old Roses for Sustainable Landscaping.  Lots of great photos, of course, and information about the ecological value of growing non-hybrid roses.

Elizabeth Jean Allen brings us words of wisdom and warning — Backup your data! Take her poll and be honest!

And my friend and mentor Mimi’s lowest-ranked is Giant Squids Interview II, helping us get to know some Squidoo Giants a little bit better.

My current lowest-ranked lens is my fiction lensography.