I?ve got to hand it to everyone who made the effort to play our Web contest that ran through Sunday, Dec. 20, at midnight. The odds were pretty good for winning one of the three prizes, one being an HD?TV, as this was really a local contest. Most of the entries were from Marion County residents with the farthest entry coming from Wichita.
If you are one of those who took the time to enter, I know you now have a better understanding of what is really available on our newly tooled Web site. The contest wasn?t easy to complete, and I applaud those who made the effort.
By the nature of the Internet, I realize glitches here and there, and other things beyond our control, made it hard for contestants to find some of the answers. Those questions were thrown out to make the playing field even. The main criteria was that entrants navigated the entire site and answered all of the questions.
A pretty neat Web-based software program named ?SurveyMonkey? made it easy to collect the responses and score them.
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One of the new features we have added to our Web site is the Community Calendar, which is located at the top of the home page. We feel all organizations, churches and non-profits will want to put their events on it so others know when they have something going on?and it might prevent other groups from scheduling events on the same day(s).
The service is free, so we encourage everyone to take advantage. Actually, any business can post its events there, too.
The more that post on it, the more useful this resource becomes.
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In the past we offered a large gallery of our photos for sale on our Web site, which included photos that didn?t make it into the print edition. With the advent of digital cameras and the fact that almost everyone now has one, we have discontinued that service.
Instead, we now post extra photos that can be seen by clicking on a photo and then navigating through a series of shots that are available by clicking through the arrows.
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One of the most unique offerings by one of our Web advertisers is a way to buy sausage and have it shipped anywhere in the United States.
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If you would like to have a survey taken for your business, we can help set it up and collect the responses for you. There is a free version, but it doesn?t let you do much and we couldn?t have done what we did with the free one.
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I keep running into the same people at the recycling center. Kirby Rector was there the last time and again this past Saturday. He questioned that I was there during the time KU was playing on TV. I said I like to watch the recorded version so it doesn?t take so long to see the whole game.
Then Kirby said he doesn?t like to get excited on time delay and that he might accidentally find out the score, which would ruin it.
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This year Christmas falls on the part of the week that perfectly suits a weekly newspaper operation like ours. It allows our staff a four-day weekend, which they have earned after a year?s worth of hard work and dedication. Wishing you and yours a wonderful Christmas.
