December 30th, 2009
Now is the perfect time to create new traditions that bear meaning and significance to you and your loved ones. Here are some ideas for creating your own holiday traditions, beginning today.
 New traditions aren’t necessarily meant to replace old or long-standing traditions; rather, they are meant to breathe new life into our favorite holidays. Here are some quick tips for creating your own traditions.
1. Improve upon an existing tradition.
Take any tradition (regardless of whether or not you’re currently upholding it — you might even choose to “borrow” someone else’s holiday tradition) and personalize or update it to make it more “you.” For example, in many households, a baked ham is the centerpiece of a traditional Christmas feast. But what if your family isn’t particular fond of ham? Why not create some other special “feastly” tradition, from cornish hens to roast duck to Grandma Josephine’s famous lasagna. It’s your holiday — make it your own by choosing something everyone in the family will enjoy.
2. Begin with the end in mind.
If you are young or have young children, imagine your grandchildren (or great-grandchildren) many years from now. What tradition would you love to see them continue to carry on for generations to come? What meaningful holiday legacy would you love to leave? All traditions were started because someone somewhere did something…and then repeated it the following year. That means you can create any tradition you like, beginning this year.
3. Get input from your loved ones.
It’s easy to get enthusiasm and buy-in from others when you include them in the decision-making process. Ask for input from those you’ll be celebrating with and you’ll see a lot more participation in the tradition itself (as well as a tendency to remember the tradition next year!)
4. Break tradition and create something new.
Why not get totally creative and do something that no one has ever done before? It’s your holiday — celebrate in your own unique style.
5. Allow it to unfold naturally.
Some traditions are borne simply from the joy that comes from the act itself. “Let’s do that thing we did last year” is how traditions are spontaneously created. Ask your family: What did we do last year to celebrate, that you would love to do again this year? The answers may surprise you.
Here’s an easy tradition to start: rent a projector from Projector123.com and spend a couple of evenings watching your favorite holiday flicks. It brings the family together in a non-traditional way, and keeps everyone out of the hectic pace of holiday traffic and shopping malls.
After all, isn’t togetherness what the holidays are really all about? Click here to order now.
December 29th, 2009
Integrating social media, especially Twitter, is a great way to enhance audience participation at a panel or conference. It mitigates live feedback, additional engagement — and let’s face it — it just looks impressive to project a screen full of audience tweets while panelists and pundits jabber away.
But the main problem is moderation. If you’re trying to put on a professional event, you can’t risk projecting offensive or radical tweets in front of your audience or behind your panelists. A literally “live feed” of tweets could include such content, especially since anyone on Twitter can contribute their opinions (if they have your hashtag). Vetting audience tweets can also prevent a vocal minority from dominating the discussion on your screens.
The most important element is establishing one or a few “hashtags” which will help classify tweets that are unique to your event. For instance, we might tell our audience to tag their tweets with #proj123. People who tweet about us would add that tag to the end of their messages so that everyone can distinguish those from the millions of tweets that are published every minute.
When we project tweets, we’ll only display those with the hashtag — but we still want to moderate even those. There are three prominent software options that allow live moderation at events like panels and conferences. Here’s a rundown:
Paratweet
Paratweet is designed specifically for conferences and panels — and specifically for simple moderation. A moderator can just click “yes” or “no” next to a live stream of tweets and the good ones will be instantly published to a bold, easy-to-read display. It’s simple and gives you full control. However, if you’re moderating hundreds of tweets per minute, it could get extremely daunting to manually approve each and every tweet.
Unfortunately, Paratweet isn’t free. It’s $80 per month — which isn’t bad, especially since that’ll easily cover a multiple-day conference. For $140 per month, you can operate up to three simultaneous events.
Wiffiti
LocalModa is famous for creating custom digital billboards that display everything from Tweets to text messages and Wiffiti is their publicly-available web app that does roughly the same thing. Wiffiti has tons of functionality beyond just Tweets — it’ll include Flickr images and text messages as well.
But it’s greatest virtue is “auto-moderation.” You can select from three levels: “rated G”, “rated R” or “all messages.” This is great if you don’t have the extra manpower to devote one person to moderating tweets. However, Wiffiti doesn’t allow manual moderation unless you contact them (which probably means it’ll cost you).
Twubs
Like Paratweet, the Twubs Conference Suite is designed specifically for panels and conferences. Twubs bills itself as a start-up company all about hashtags, so their conference package is just one part of their operation. The package includes moderation options and a few other perks like live audio/video streaming and events scheduling via Twitter. You can even embed your moderated Twitter feed online.
Their moderation workflow is more like it is in live television. You can set a time delay for live tweets that gives you a short window to remove unwanted content. If you’re moderating a large number of tweets, this process is easier than manually approving each message in the live stream (like you would with Paratweet).
Since their tools are in beta, Twubs is free. But you’ll have to contact their team about your event in advance — so it might not be the most reliable option.
Screen image at the top of this post used through a Creative Commons 2.0 license courtesy of Flickr user “andyp uk”.
December 28th, 2009
If you don’t yet have plans for New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, there’s still plenty of time to concoct something exciting for you and your family. Here are our best last-minute plans for this momentous holiday.
A Night on the Town
Now is the time to make reservations if you’re planning to head out for New Year’s Eve, as the most popular locations are almost certainly booked solid. Yet there are still plenty of venues with availability, but don’t wait too long!
An Evening with Friends
It’s never too late to gather friends for a fun-filled evening at home. Just provide champagne, noisemakers and music, and you’ve got an instant New Year’s Eve party. You might be surprised by how many folks wait until the last minute to make their New Year’s plans.
A Romantic Evening at Home
Prefer to spend the evening with your sweetie in front of a roaring fire? Call your local grocer or seafood market and reserve a couple of lobsters for an extra-special at-home evening. Break out the china and crystal and ring in the new year in style with an elegant at-home dinner.
No matter what kind of evening you’re planning, you’ll love the excitement and perspective that comes with a projector rental from Projector123.com. An evening at home or with friends becomes even more special when you can watch the ball drop on a larger-than-life screen or wall of the living room, in vivid technicolor. Plus, you’ll get to keep the rental projector through New Year’s Day — what better way to leisurely enjoy a day off from work than by watching your favorite flicks on the big screen (in your own home!) Gather the family and create your own movie fest with a projector rental from Projector123.com.
December 25th, 2009
Have a safe and wonderful Christmas today — and enjoy a laugh from your friends here at Projector123.com
December 23rd, 2009
It’s getting down to the wire now…do you still have an unfinished gift list? Here are some last-minute gift ideas that just might save the day (and your sanity) while keeping you out of the harried pace of the malls and the bumper-to-bumper holiday traffic.
Gift Cards
While it’s true that a gift card is only slightly less impersonal than cash, it’s still likely to be greatly appreciated by the recipient. Just be sure to choose a gift card that fits the person, and select a thoughtful card to go with it. And think outside the store — perhaps the person on your list would love to receive a gift pack of movie tickets, or gift cards for greens fees, restaurants or other services.
Food Deliveries
Though you’ve likely missed the cut-off date for paying anything less than an arm and a leg for the shipping of perishable items, there’s still hope. Many companies (such as http://HarryAndDavid.com) feature email notification of the shipment of gifts — in other words, you can still order a gift basket or food items today, and though the company won’t deliver until after the holiday, the recipient will get an email card explaining that a gift is on its way. In these cases, it’s best not to send holiday-specific items (in other words, nobody wants to receive Christmas decorations or Christmas cookies on December 27th). Stick with fruit, sweets or the classic wine-and-cheese selections.
Music
The gift of music is always appreciated, and the iTunes store allows you to send electronic notification (i.e., email) about gift cards or MP3s purchased for someone on your list.
Looking for a truly unique gift for a family or couple? Why not consider a projector rental from Projector123.com. Starting at just $99 for a weekend rental, you can give the gift of togetherness — imagine how much fun they’ll have creating their own film fest weekend, family movie night, nostalgic digital slide show or big-screen gaming weekend. Click here to order now.
December 22nd, 2009
Basic VGA Connector (or DE-15)
You might just know of a VGA connector as your “monitor” connector. It’s probably what you used on your first computer to connect to the screen — you probably still use VGA now. Even HDTV sets have VGA inputs. And it’s a great way to hook up your computer to a projector, too.
A VGA connector (or DE-15) usually looks like a long trapezoid with 15 tiny pins and a screw on either side. It’s usually blue. Some people call it and an “RGB connector,” a “D-sub 15” or a “mini D15 connector” — but you don’t have to memorize those names — “VGA” or “DE-15” is fine.
Mini-VGA Connector
You might also have heard of a “mini-VGA” connector. These are common to new laptops, especially Apple computers. A mini-VGA connector is simply a smaller version of its older brother — with some added conversion flexibility (to composite and S-video). Either way, you’ll need an adapter to connect mini-VGA to most projectors.
Mini-VGA is about the size of a USB port and has 14 pins.
Basic VGA connector image used through Creative Commons 3.0 license, courtesy of Bela Nemeth.
December 21st, 2009
You’re making final preparations for the presentation of your career. The future hangs in the balance, and it’s all riding on your soon-to-be-stellar presentation. You’ve prepared, you’ve researched, you’ve rehearsed, and you’re feeling completely ready to roll, except for one little detail…
The projector isn’t working!
OK, maybe it’s not the presentation of a lifetime. But maybe you’ve planned for months to gather all the employees for corporate training. Schedules have been rearranged, a room has been reserved, and PowerPoint slides are all in order. But when you test the equipment the day before the training day, disaster strikes…
The projector isn’t working!
You’ve waited for months to get an appointment with this client, and you’re ready to knock their socks off with a superb presentation, but now you discover guess what?
The projector isn’t working!
Now what?
If you or your company owns a projector, you may already be aware that these machines require a fair amount of maintenance in order to function properly. And it pays to have a backup plan when it comes to critical presentations like these. Sure, you could print off handouts, but it’s truly not the same — nothing compares to a professional presentation showcased with a high quality digital projector.
The good news is you don’t need to invest in (yet another) projector. Instead, simply have a backup supplier at the ready — that’s where you can count on Projector123.com.
Accidents happen. But when you’re prepared, it’s no sweat at all. If you need a replacement projector ASAP, just visit Projector123.com and a replacement will be on its way with just a few clicks of your mouse. Since we use FedEx shipping exclusively, we can deliver as soon as the next day in most cases and you can count on us to save the day.
Don’t let all your hard work go to waste — rely on Projector123.com as your backup supplier for professional grade projector rentals starting as low as $99.
December 18th, 2009
Hotels are infamous for charging higher-than-average rates for convenience upgrades and add-ons. In fact, these kinds of charges (think: room service, room rental, catering, in-room movies, parking, valet services, automatic 18% gratuity at the bar, etc.) can account for a significant portion of a hotel’s annual revenue.
Though we travelers typically expect to pay a premium for convenience (why else would we pay upwards of $20 a person for a $5 breakfast? Because we want food to be delivered directly to our room!), that certainly doesn’t mean we have to pay the convenience charge. After all, you could always opt to go out for a meal, walk to a nearby cafe, or have a pizza delivered.
Likewise, there’s no reason to pay $250 for a projector rental when you could rent a projector from Projector123.com for just $99.
The next time you’re traveling for business and you require a projector rental at your meeting location, count on Projector123.com to deliver a high-quality LCD projector rental at a price that won’t break your budget. (Then maybe you can justify ordering room service.)
We’ll ship your rental projector directly to the hotel, and we’ll even include a quick start guide to assist you in setting up and taking down your projector. And if you still have questions, you can call us on our 24/7 support line for immediate expert assistance.
Just contact Projector123.com today to request your projector rental — you’ll save time, money and the hassle. Why pay more for a projector rental than you have to?
December 17th, 2009
Digital projectors aren’t just for passive viewing. They can provide an engaging artistic opportunity, especially for those who aren’t as gifted at painting and drawing. That’s because projectors let you cheat! You can easily trace an image from a projected one — and make it larger than life in the process.
Many artists use what’s called an “opaque projector” which is designed precisely for this task. But if you already have access to a digital projector, there’s no need to invest in the costly art hardware. A digital projector will work just as well.
The setup is simple. Pull up your image on the projector, hit the lights, affix your canvas to the wall, adjust for size and trace away. Be sure that your projector is on a stable surface — even the slightest nudge of the projector could cause your work to look like Picasso’s. Take the same care in making sure the projection is flat to the wall and square. You don’t want distortion.
Image via Creative Commons 2.0 license courtesy of Flickr user FeatheredTar.
December 16th, 2009
Wait! Stop!
Before you buy in an expensive, bulky, temperamental LCD projector consider this:
- How often will you need a projector?
- Where will you use the projector? Will travel be necessary?
- Have you thought about storage, maintenance, and depreciation?
If you use projectors for off-site business presentations, workshops and corporate gatherings, training or presentations, it may not pay to purchase such costly equipment that can easily be damaged during transport
Here’s an easy solution:
Projector123.com can ship a 2000 lumen or 3000 lumen projector rental to any location within the contigious U.S. That’s right — there’s no need to drag around an unattractive, bulky, heavy piece of temperamental equipment when you can have a professional grade projector rental shipped directly to the location where you need it, including hotels, meeting facilities and conference centers, office buildings, private residences and more.
From sales meetings and corporate trainings to marketing presentations and new product rollouts, Projector123.com is the best choice for quality, reliable projector rentals.
Projector rentals from Projector123.com feature a sleek, discreet, highly protective carrying case that doubles as the shipping carton. When you’re finished with your presentation, simply place the rental projector back inside the case and affix the prepaid FedEx label. Then drop the carton into any FedEx drop box, bring it into any FedEx location, or simply call FedEx for pickup.
Yes, it really is that easy!
Don’t invest in a piece of equipment that’s going to spend most of its time in storage, or that may risk being damaged during transport from location to location — let Projector123.com deliver the projector you need, when you need it, at a price you’re sure to love.
Click here to visit Projector123.com and order your projector rental today. It’s as easy as 1-2-3.
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