Once again, I miss another date to send something, but in this case it’s not for a relative’s birthday. BlogDay was last Friday, August 31, and you can read about BlogDay here.

As I missed contacting 5 people – and nobody contacted me – here’s some link love for 5 blogs I enjoy reading on a regular basis.

The Lobby – Yes, this is a corporate blog operated by Starwood Hotels, but it gives great tips on vacation destinations and things to do in those areas. They have a team of great writers that give good, light-hearted information on different spots around the globe.

PSFK Trend – They cover international products, services, events and trends from a marketing perspective. This is another blog that has helped expand my mind about what is out there.

The Patriot Act – Surprisingly, it’s hard to get deep insight into what the New England Patriots are doing in the Chicago market. As I am not going to subject myself to the blowhard writers for the Boston newspapers, this blog helps fill the gap.

Spoofee – This is more of a feed from their forums, but as I have gotten some great deals on purchases they have mentioned, they get a mention here.

The Jeff Pulver Blog – The guru on voice over IP writes much on entrepreneurship and I always find it insightful and very relevant. Plus he throws great parties!

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I am finally introducing the world my very first blog, sourcegate.

This is an ongoing compilation project of technical tips, notes and Web sites I use and refer to in my capacity as an Internet consultant and entrepreneur. Rather than keep an offline record of these notes or store links as bookmarks, I am making this information – all non proprietary to Dunkirk Systems, of course – available for all. As I find resources or develop something of interest, I will post it there. I am also in the process of entering past bookmarks and notes and should be caught up soon.

As I said, this is my first blog. Long before I launched The Hot Iron, I started sourcegate using a different blog platform. When I discovered ExpressionEngine, I decided to shelve the old software and eventually migrate to the EE platform, and a little later than I had hoped it is now live.

You can subscribe to the feed or listen to it with the Odiogo feed. Commenting is also turned on, as I am interested if these tips are useful – or not – to you, or if you have any suggestions for a topic or category. If there is nothing of interest in sourcegate right now, check back later, as it will always expand as my mind expands!

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Congratulations to Dr. Pete Meyers for relaunching his blog, debabblog as User Effect, at usereffect.com. Where his former blog talked about demystifying technology, woven throughout his posts was usability and the operability of software and Web sites. This change is a natural one, and along with it introduces a nice clean design and a cool logo to boot. He has also carried forward his archive of blog posts and all of his current and past writings are available for your review and pondering.

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Wouldn’t it be nice to find out what people are saying about you right now? Or your business or competitors? Using Serph along with other services like Google Alerts can help you keep track of who is saying what and where.

I was recently clued into Serph by Justin at Menuism. You can create a free account to manage your searches, or simply enter a search query and see what is being mentioned about that search phrase on blogs and social bookmark sites. You can also get an RSS feed of that search phrase, and Serph will deliver any new entries to your feed reader as they are found.

Like any of these services, they won’t find everything about every phrase. If you are a new business or new to publishing online, you may not get results right away. As I have been publishing The Hot Iron and promoting Dunkirk Systems for a while, I get frequent hits of their mentions in blogs and on other Web sites.

This post alone should send me alerts, as well as to Justin.

Business • Technology • (1) Comments • Permalink

Tim Courtney has emailed me and invited myself and all of you to attend the very first Silicon Prairie Social, to be held on Thursday, September 20 at Mullen’s Bar and Grill in Lisle, IL. This is being billed as a suburban tech networking event, as Lisle is about 30 minutes west of Chicago. That is, 30 minutes without the occasional traffic tie-ups on the Chicagoland roads.

And to answer your next question, yes, there will be free drinks. They have an impressive list of sponsors on their Web site already. I am glad to hear about and share information on such events. At events in Chicago proper, many people come in from the ‘burbs to attend, and I hope some folks from the city venture west. You may want to head out earlier and do some shopping, as the tax is less outside of the city!

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