I have always volunteered time to help rescue groups but the work I did was all virtual, creating websites, helping with social media, donating money, etc.

I did volunteer at my local animal shelter for a while but I really didn’t feel like I was doing anything of value there. Of course the cats and dogs probably enjoyed my company but I really wanted to do more.

So last week I decided to get physically involved with helping these rescue groups. First on Saturday I went to a horse farm rescue and spent several hours helping out, let me just say that it was a GREAT experience to interact with the horses directly. I am sure I will have a post about that soon.

On Sunday I was scheduled to take part in a rescue transport. If you don’t know what a rescue transport is, it is a bunch of volunteers that all agree to transport an animal from one place to another.

Sounds simple no?

Actually it takes a lot of work to figure out the “legs” of the trip and then to pull it all together to find and schedule the volunteers for each leg. I give the coordinators of these transports so much credit, they work tirelessly to get these animals to safety. Most transports are to move animals from kill shelters to rescue groups, foster homes or even forever homes.

Early Sunday morning I woke up and woke my Son up as he wanted to go with me. (I am sure he really didn’t want to go with me, but he wanted to see the three puppies I was scheduled to pick up)

I made my cup of coffee, loaded the car with some supplies in case the puppies needed water, and off we went.

We drove about an hour to our pickup spot and waited to meet the previous leg volunteer. We waited about 10 minutes as they were right on time. We transferred all the paper work on the dogs and then we transferred the dogs themselves.

Can you say CUTE?

So after I picked them up I proceeded to the destination of my leg to drop them to the next volunteer.

All and all it was a great experience and one that I will be doing again, as a matter of fact I am already scheduled for this Sunday :)

Just so you know these three fur babies are available for adoption, if you are interested please visit Out Of The Pits and click through to their PetFinder page, or click each image above to be taken directly to that dogs page.

Have you ever done a rescue transport? Share your story in the comments below.

]]> http://philmcdonnell.com/2012/04/25/my-first-rescue-transport/feed/ 5 http://philmcdonnell.com/2012/04/25/my-first-rescue-transport/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/philmcdonnell/~3/FWTkxU-AZFY/ http://philmcdonnell.com/2012/04/24/nyc-traffic-ticket-phishing-email/#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2012 22:47:17 +0000 phil http://philmcdonnell.com/?p=803 I have written several times about phishing schemes that come to my email, I wrote about a PayPal scheme here and a Chase banking scheme here.

Today I received an email with the subject:

NYC Traffic Ticket N(ID- 077501138)

It had the following in the content of the email:

So how do I know this is fake?

First give away was it was sent to a bunch of email addresses. If the DMV or NYC or NYS really sent tickets via email (THEY DON’T) I would think they would send it directly to me. Not only that where did they get my email address from? I didn’t give them any email address when I registered my vehicle.

Second give away is the subject states NYC (New York City) Traffic Ticket, but the content of the email states NYS (New York State) so which one is it?

Third give away is “THE PERSON DESCRIBED ABOVE IS CHARGED AS FOLLOWS” what person? There is no name or address stated anywhere.

And of course the final give away is if you click on the link (Disabled here) it does not take you to any official government site, instead it actually took me to a broken website that did not even have a domain name but used an IP address.

I am just posting this here to hopefully save someone from actually thinking they really have a ticket somewhere when it is just a bad phishing scheme.

Have you received any of these types of emails? Let me know in the comments below.

So if my blog looks different to you, that is because it is! I changed the theme to a much simpler style and removed most of the ads and distractions.

I have decided to make it more streamlined, simple, minimalistic even.

This is all part of my bigger plan online and offline. More on the offline plan in a separate post.

I am consolidating, but also branching out at the same time. More like moving away from dead projects or projects I have lost interest in.

This blog will still remain, but it will be more like my personal soap box to ramble on about things I care about.

If you have come to this blog for WordPress or Social Media related posts I am working on a new blog that will be devoted to just that. I will be announcing it shortly so stay tuned. Of course all my existing posts will remain in the archives here so you will always be able to find any of the previous tutorial posts I have made, although some of them are outdated because of the rate at which Facebook changes things.

I also have started a new blog to document my home farm (aka backyard vegetable garden). This is a new adventure I am undertaking this year and hope to have a successful harvest, follow along as I build my garden, plant my plants and hopefully reap what I sow… :)

You can find the new blog here -> http://farmwithphil.com

Lastly I wanted to mention a blog that I recently stumbled upon that really cleared up years of confusion for me. Puttylike.com is one site that I wish I found several years ago. The perspective I have gained from reading many of the articles there is priceless.

I have always struggled with the idea that I am supposed to have one true calling in life, but I never was able to find it. I have read countless articles about finding your passion or love what you do and it won’t feel like work, but my problem is I never could find that one thing that I was passionate about.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am very passionate about many things but I have always had this issue with focus. I could never just stop at one thing and pick that one thing to focus on. My mind races all the time with new ideas, new things I want to learn or explore. When I finally grasp something it is time to move on because I am bored with it.

This has lead me to believe I had ADD or that I cannot master any particular thing. Neither of these are true, I finally found out what my “issue’ is.

I am a multipotentialite!

Multipotentiality

“An educational and psychological term referring to a pattern found among intellectually gifted individuals. [Multipotentialites] generally have diverse interests across numerous domains and may be capable of success in many endeavors or professions, they are confronted with unique decisions as a result of these choices.”

-Wikipedia

I can’t believe how well that description describes me. The more I read on the Puttylike blog the more I get those Ah-Ha moments.

I am not sure how I am going to use this moving forward but at least I don’t feel lost or floating aimlessly anymore…

How about you, do you find yourself feeling any of these ways? Could this be you too?

So what you say! There are many companies that sell toys for dogs, what is so special about Kong?

You are correct! There are plenty of companies that make and sell toys for dogs. But the Kong company also thinks about those dogs in Shelters and Animal Rescue Groups who are waiting for their forever homes.

On Facebook today a friend of mine brought up this exact topic but didn’t know where to find out more information. So of course me being me, I turned to Google and searched around until I found some answers.

It wasn’t too hard, the first thing I found was the Kong website itself and right on the front page they have a link to their Kong Seconds program.

Order KONG Seconds – Shelters, pounds and rescue groups ONLY!

So of course I had to click it to get more information. But to my dismay it brought me to my email client and I had to send an inquiry to them to find out more information. To most that might be a stopping point, but you know me once I put my mind to something it gets done!

So I sent a simple request out to them and within an hour I had a response. We went back and forth a bit just to clarify what the program was about and what I could or could not do and share with you. The responses were very friendly and basically gave me full access to discuss the program with you.

The Kong Second Program in a nut shell.
Non-profit groups can order imperfect Kongs for a low price. They don’t come with a guarantee and can’t be resold.

Pretty straight forward and simple. Non-Profit Rescues/Shelters can place an order for what Kong calls “Seconds” (more on that in a minute) and they get to save some money by doing so.

“Kong Seconds” – Overall they look just like the ones you would find in stores. The imperfections are small and unnoticable. I am sure the dogs won’t notice them at all once they are filled with treats.

The best part of the program is anyone can place an order and have it shipped directly to a Rescue Group or Shelter. The one catch is you either have to ship it directly to the group or you must be a 501(c)(3) non-profit yourself in order to participate in this program.

Knowing that Kong has a program where Shelters and Rescue Groups can get reduced priced items for dogs waiting to find forever homes makes me want to help promote their company even more!

The Kong will keep dogs occupied for a while as then chew on the rubber to get the treats out from inside. What do you fill the Kong with? That’s up to you but on the Kong website they have plenty of recipies like this one:

Advanced KONG Stuffing
Start with a few clean, appropriately sized KONG toys.
NOTE: Small breeds can use a medium KONG toy for maximum stuffing benefit.

Layer One: Tantalizer – Fill little hole on top of KONG toy with any flavor KONG Stuff’N Easy Treat paste.
Layer Two: Dessert – Fill approximately one-third of the cavity with dog treats such as KONG Stuff’N Snacks.
Layer Three: Main Course – Fill the last two-thirds with dry dog food, and then seal off with a soft canned food or food roll.
Layer Four: Appetizer – Leave a KONG Stuff’N Snack or ZIGGIES sticking out of the opening. The “easy pickings” will provide an immediate pay off and entice your dog to “get serious” about the job. It is important for dogs to succeed at their “work.”

In conclusion, if you know of any Rescue Groups or Shelters that could benefit from some Kongs send them the link to this blog post or directly to the Kong website.

This is not a paid advertisement for Kong nor do I get any commisions on any sales, I am just looking out for all the dog lovers who would love to do something special for dogs waiting for their forever homes.

Since I reached out to Kong, they gave me permission to post their order form here so it will save you the trouble of contacting them to get it. If you have any questions the representative said to feel free to give them a call.

Kong Seconds Order Form (PDF) / Kong Seconds Order Form (Excel)

Please feel free to share this post with anyone that you know that could benefit from this program.

Do you sponsor, volunteer or donate to a Shelter or Rescue Group? Why not ask if they need some toys for their dogs, this would be a great donation. If you don’t currently have anyone in mind why not check out the groups I support and see if they can use your support as well.

Have you had any experience with this program? How about with the Kong toy itself? Let me know in the comment section below…

Every good cook begins somewhere, usually they start with cookbooks and recipes so what does this have to do with WordPress?

Well nothing really, except that I entered a contest to win a free copy of “WordPress 3 Cookbook” over on WPMU.org that was sponsored by Packt Publishing.

I actually got picked as a winner!

I was surprised that I was chosen because there were so many entries, some of which I thought were really great!

I love the blog over at WPMU.org and all the WordPress tips they write about all the time, so of course I am a frequent reader.

Back on February 1st, I saw a post that said “We’re Giving Away Two Free Copies Of The WordPress 3 Cookbook” and to enter all you have to do is leave a comment and answer the follwing question:

“If you could learn one new WordPress skill this year, what would it be?”

So I decided to throw my entry in and left the following comment:

“Definitely need to grasp custom posts better so I can create custom entries to make it easier for the animal rescue groups that I create WordPress sites for to enter their available animals. Just letting them make regular posts and assign categories to them is not good enough if you want all listings to look similar and have the same content about each animal.”

I really didn’t think I would win! After all there were 71 entries all together, and like I said before some of them were great!

But sure enough I received the following email:

“Hey Phil,

It’s Tim Gregg here, from WPMU.org. You left a comment on a blog post that we published a few weeks ago.

I’m pleased to announce that you’ve won a free copy of the WordPress 3 Cookbook from Packt Publishing (sorry for the delay in picking winners, by the way).”

Well was I ever surprised!

I am very excited to dig into the new book and see what I can learn from it. Expect me to be writing a review of the book very soon, of course I will post the review here on my blog.

I would just like to thank WPMU.org and Packt Publishing for offering this great resource and also for selecting me as one of their winners.

Are you a winner? Have you ever won anything by submitting a blog comment?

Let me know in the comments below and you will be entered into my contest to win a $10 iTunes gift card.

That’s right, I would like to pay it forward by offering my own contest here. All you need to do is leave a comment below (on my blog only) and tell me what you have ever won by posting on a blog.

Don’t worry, in case you never won anything on a blog before, feel free to leave a comment and let me know why you would like to win.

There will be ONE random winner selected on April 1st, 2012.

So what are you waiting for, leave me a comment below…

Fine Print: All entries will be thrown in a hat and one will be randomly picked. You must have a valid iTunes account and also leave a valid email address with your comment so that I can send the winning iTunes code to you. Only one winner will be chosen for this contest.

Well, when you first create a page on Facebook you get assigned a very long and ugly URL something like:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/YourFantasticFacebookPage/182395468488524

That doesn’t look too appealing does it? Not to mention how could I ever remember that if I wanted to tell someone what the link is?

What if you could have a URL something like this:

https://www.facebook.com/YourFantasticPage

What if I told you that you can?

It is simple to do and the only requirement is that you must have 25 people already ‘like’ your page. If you meet this requirement then go to:

https://www.facebook.com/username

From here you can not only set your Facebook Page Friendly URL but you can also set a username for your own profile so people don’t need to go to some long URL for your profile either.

So something like this:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=12287381281130846

Could now become something like this:

https://www.facebook.com/philmcdonnell

Much nicer don’t you think?

Anyway, go to https://www.facebook.com/username set your personal username for your profile if you haven’t already, and then under that area is a pull down menu to choose the page that you admin and want to create a friendly URL for.

Facebook Friendly URL - Username Setting Screen

Once you find your page you will get a box to enter a name for your friendly URL and then you click the ‘Check Availability” button to see if nobody else has already used that name. If nobody has then you are good to go after you read the instructions Facebook gives you about not being able to change the name after it is set.

So what do you think? Is it worth it to have a friendly URL or do you think it doesn’t really matter because everyone just clicks links now a days anyway?

If you seem to be missing some of your friends status updates you need to go and fix your new subscribed setting.

Yes, even if you are friends with someone does not mean you see all of their posts and updates. (Sometimes that could be a good thing I guess.)

Either way to fix it is pretty simple although it will take a bit of time if you have a lot of friends.

The easiest way is to go to your own profile and then click on your friends list.

Once your friends list is displayed you need to hover over each friends name which brings up a box with their friends and two buttons, one button is your friends list button where you can assign your friend to a list and the other is the subscribed button.

When you are friends with someone you are automatically subscribed to them but Facebook has subscribed you to ‘Most Updates’ (at least that is what I have).

You should subscribe to ‘All Updates‘ if you don’t want to miss any of the posts your friends might make.

Of course this will now show you everything including games… :(

However you can control the games and other stuff in your news feed directly by clicking on the down arrow next to the post and clicking on ‘Hide all by (Game Name)’.

I hope this was helpful to you and if you have any tips, please share in the comments below.

I have many pages on Facebook that I administer, some are mine some I help out with for others.

I have always stopped myself from commenting on pages that I admin for others because it appeared that the post was from the page and not from myself.

This could be a problem if I said something contradicting what the page was all about or if the owner of the page didn’t like what I had to say.

So today I posted a status on my personal profile directed at ‘Known issues on Facebook‘ that went like this:

Why can’t I have an option to comment on a page under my own name that I am and admin of and not appear as the page commenting? I thought the whole ‘Use FB as a page’ would solve these things? I have multiple admins on a page…

I was hoping to get an answer from Facebook but instead a friend of mine posted a comment that I could in fact post as myself.

What?! When did this happen I thought to myself.

So of course after I investigated I found the answer was right on the ‘Your Settings’ page of the page administration screen.

In the image below you will see how to set it so that you can comment as yourself and not as the page on any page you administer. All you have to do is uncheck the box!

Page Preference Settings - Click to enlarge

I hope this helps you during your Facebook page administration tasks.

Such a simple thing that I overlooked, I am sure I am not the only one.

So you have been on Facebook for quite some time. You have been through all their updates and changes, good and bad.

Well it seems like Facebook has done another roll out of a feature that you may not even know about.

Have you been reading your news feed and wondering where everyone is?

Does it seem like some of your friends are missing? Well it is not your imagination, they really are missing! Well not really but they are hidden in the news feed.

Facebook has made a change that unless you change it yourself you will only see posts from the people and pages that you interact with mostly.

It is pretty simple to fix but unless you know about it you would never realize it was even changed.

So to fix it just go to your home page where your news feed is and on the top right of the news feed click on ‘Most Recent’ so that all the most recent posts are showing.

Step 1

Then click on the ‘Edit Options’ button on the bottom of the menu. Then you will see the following screen:

Step 2

Make sure you select ‘All of your friends and pages’ from the pull down menu on the top.

Now you will see all your friends and pages in your news feed.

Be sure to click the ‘Save’ button to save all your new settings.

By the way, while you are on this screen you can see any people/pages/apps that you have blocked in the past in case you want to add them back into your news feed.

I hope this helps and please do share this with all your Facebook friends so they will know about this as well…

It seems like it was only yesterday that you came into my life. A precious little bundle of joy. I was even scared to hold you at first.

But now look at you! You have grown into a beautiful young woman who makes me proud daily to call you my Daughter.

I know life is not easy at times and we have gone through our struggles, but we have made it through them all and came out stronger than ever.

My dear Daughter, I am here for you today and always! I will stand by your side through good and bad times. When you need a friend, you can count on me to be the one true friend that will always be there for you.

Many people may come in and out of your life, but YOUR Daddy will be there forever…

I love you my sweet princess.

Happy Birthday!

First Day of 1st Grade

First Day of 10th Grade