Hand-Made Greeting Cards

There isn't a better time of year than the Holiday Season to buy greeting cards, and the one-of-a-kind designs by Kara's 101 Creations, LLC make excellent gifts for your friends and family. The personal design possibilities are endless and Kara can help you select the style and color scheme to meet your needs. And, with prices starting at $2 each, they are often more affordable than mass produced greeting cards. Kara's web site makes it easy to request more information on a variety of hand-made products. Also visit, Poetlady's Craft Store for more great gift ideas!

Podcast Mixer

This is the XENYX 502 mixer which comes with the USB Podcast studio from Behringer. I recently purchased this mixer for use with GotoWebinar. In addition to the mixer, the Podcastudio comes with a microphone, headphones, and a USB adapter all for around $100.

I had been using a USB headset for live audio and a digital recorder connected to the mic-input on the computer to play recorded audio. The problem with this is that you have to go into the audio setup on the webinar control panel to switch between the two devices. Connecting a mixer to the USB port on the computer solves this problem. This setup allows me to add the recorded audio into the mix without any delay. The USB adapter acts like a sound card for input and output between the mixer and the computer. I have headphones and external speakers connected to the mixer in addition to the microphone and digital recorder.

The sound quality on the microphone is excellent with very little noise. It would be nice to have a mute button on the mic input. (You have to turn the level down to zero in order to mute the mic.) Other improvements on my wish list are an on/off switch and a more solid plug for the power adapter. The control knobs are made of plastic and don't feel like very high quality, but for 100 bucks, you will feel like you have moved up a level with your Internet broadcasting.

Federal Contracts

This week Federal Contract Consultants, LLC signed up for web site maintenance through Budget Homepage. FCC has been on the web since 2007, but their web site has now been updated and moved to a new host. With all of the businesses out there looking for their share of the Federal stimulus money, FCC offers a service that can help small and medium size businesses find ways to sell their products to Uncle Sam.

FCC is a consulting company that searches government procurement sites to match products needed by the US government to your company. They can also assist you with getting registered as an approved supplier and advise you on how to navigate the paperwork. The owner of Federal Contract Consultants, LLC has also written an easy to read book on Federal procurement and quality control. The book is a good starting point if you have little or no experience with Federal contracts or quality control. Click on the image to visit their site.