Thomas Alexander – A Black History Month tribute

How to teach a choir song: The basics.

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!

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’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.

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.

Here’s the voting link: Vote for Best Book/Author Lens