Chris Swain

A good friend of mine, Ted Rushford, is walking in the March for
Babies on April 29th and is seeking donations.

You can view his page here: http://www.marchforbabies.org/rushfotd

The Challenge:

I will personally double the total amount of donations Ted Rushford
receives for March for Babies, up to $3000 dollars.

For Example: If Ted receives $2000 in total donations, I will write
March for Babies a check for $2000. If Ted receives $5000 in total
donations, I will donate $3000.

This will end on April 23rd.

Any amount is appreciated, even if it is only $10.

You must donate through this link for it to count:
http://www.marchforbabies.org/rushfotd

For those not familiar with the walk, it is a March of Dimes event
taking place on April 26th at Sawyer Point in Cincinnati.

The March of Dimes’ mission is to improve the health of babies by
preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality. They
carry out this mission through programs of research, community
services, education and advocacy to save babies’ lives.

Those of you with children probably can’t imagine not being able to
choose between feeding your child and buying the medication he or she
needs. Yet, this happens every day in America because more than 9
million children have no health coverage. For many of these children,
this means they can’t get preventive checkups, immunizations, or
treatment for common childhood illnesses. The March of Dimes is
fighting so that all babies, children and pregnant women get health
insurance.

Uncategorized

About a month ago my family and I took a trip to Jungle Jims (a huge supermarket on the north side of Cincinnati) to get a few items. I know this is a weird starting point for a soda machine review, but bear with me for a minute.

One of the things that I wanted to pick up was a few different kinds of diet soda. Since starting Adkins my choices in beverage have been limited to either brand name diet soda (Coke, Sprite, Mt Dew), Crystal Light, or Water(tm). Jungle Jims has a huge section of imported or specialty soda and was the perfect for me to find an alternative to the corporate soda machine.

After checking what seemed like 100 bottle labels for carb content I finally settled on an off brand diet black cherry soda and an off brand grape soda. I bought a 6 pack of both and it ended up costing me around 10 dollars total. A small price to pay for something different, or at least I though.

I preceded to down those 12 sodas in about 3 days. I admit, I was holding back. The soda addiction that my wife and I had was getting to be an expensive habit and now instead of being satisfied with the “regular stuff” we moved on to the “china white” of soda.

Enter Guy Gilbery.

In 1903, Guy Gilbey developed a system for carbonating beverages at home. His Sodastream device was primarily marketed to British consumers but quickly became popular among most of Europe. Flash forward 106 years, the Sodastream (marketed under the name Soda Club) is steadily gaining popularity in the United States.

The Sodastream is basically a machine that injects cold tap (or bottled) water with CO2. This process takes about 10 seconds and makes 1 liter of carbonated water at a time. After carbonating the water you can add flavored syrups. The machine takes CO2 cylinders that you are suppose to exchange with Soda Club after they are empty. They say a cylinder lasts about 60 liters. The concentrated soda flavoring makes about 12 liters per bottle.

I ordered online from Sodaclub.com on January 13th after business hours. My order arrived on January 22nd, about 9 business days later.

My order contained the following:

1 Fountain Jet Machine
3 Cylinders of C02 - Makes upto 180 liters.
4 Carbonating Bottles - 1 liter each.
8 SodaMix Syrups - Makes 96 liters of soda.

The order came to around $170 dollars with shipping and tax. They even included a sampler pack so that we could try all the flavors that we didn’t order.

The Fountain Jet was very easy to setup. The CO2 cylinder screwed right into place and within probably 10 minutes I was able to make soda.

The first flavor I tried to make was Diet Cream Soda. It tasted flat and too sweet. The first mistake I made was using cold water from the tap instead of chilling it in the refrigerator. Carbonation works MUCH better with chilled water. Second mistake I made was adding too much syrup. I added an entire cap full. While this works really well on some flavors, cream soda was not one of them.

My second attempt at making my own soda was with Diet Cola. This time I waited until the water was super chilled before carbonating and it worked perfectly. My wife said it was a good alternative to Diet Coke, but wasn’t dead on. All of the Sodamix flavors use Splenda, so the taste is different when compared to normal soda. It takes some time to get used to it.

For the next week we tried all the diet flavors Soda Club had to offer. No longer would we need to carry 12 packs or 2-liters of soda home, and we had cut our trash down dramatically.

Even though I really like the Soda Club machine it does have its drawbacks.

Ecofriendly? Sorta. If you count the fuel UPS (or whatever shipping vendor they use) uses to get you the CO2 and Sodamix refills each way it is probably not that environmentally friendly. Better for the environment than throwing out plastic from 2liter bottles but not a cure all.

The normal amount of “buzzes” (sound indicating your soda is carbonated) that SodaClub recommends for normal carbonation is five. We found that five buzzes just doesn’t cut it. After leaving an empty glass of soda out for around 15 minutes it was flat. We found that for us, 8-10 buzzes is just right. One cylinder of CO2 lasted about a week for us since we ‘over carbonate’ our soda. I know for a fact that we didn’t drink 60 liters of soda. We are currently on our second cylinder of CO2 and this time we are counting the number of liters used. Luckily we have found a few hacks that make Soda Club more cost effective and ecofriendly.

SodaStream / Soda Club Hacks

1) Getting real Diet Coke or your soda of choice.
One of the other drawbacks of Soda Club is that you are suppose to use their Sodamix syrups. My wife can stand the Soda Club mixes but prefers Diet Coke.

Most of the time you need a Coke or Pepsi corporate account to obtain postmix syrups that are used in fountain machines. We found a local GFS Marketplace that sells Coke syrups in 5 gallon bags. These are the same bag in box syrups that restaurants all over the country use. It was $60 and I had a $10 off coupon. I also had to say that I was a local restaurant and give their name. $50 later and I had 5 gallons of syrup to my wife’s delight. We split the syrup up into 1 gallon jugs (previously used for water) and have enough syrup now to make about 80 liters of Diet Coke. We add about 1 cup of syrup per liter of soda.

2) Refill your proprietary SodaClub cylinders.

You can find adapters online (ebay or a google search) that will allow you to refill your SodaClub cylinders using a 50lb siphon donor C02 tank. Prices on donor tags normally involve a refundable deposit (50-60 dollars), a monthly rental fee ($5-10) , and a refill fee ($20-$30). The adapter runs about $100 plus shipping. From what I have read a normal household of 4 uses about 50lbs of CO2 per year. So refilling your tanks could save a bunch in the long run. They also have adapters to retrofit a paintball gun CO2 tank. This may be a better option for those people who do not want to violate the SodaClub CO2 cylinder terms of service.

Final Thoughts:

The SodaClub Home Soda Maker is a great alternative to store bought soda. This product is probably not the most cost effective option if you use Soda Club to exchange the cylinders and provide the syrup, but if you count the time and effort it takes to lug a 12 pack of soda home I think it is a great deal.

Cool Stuff

In order for everyone to understand why WAIFStream.com has been disconnected; I need to give you a little background on my involvement in streaming WAIF online. Hopefully this article will give you some understanding as to how much of a frustration it has been dealing with this poorly managed organization. Keep in mind that I am also not a journalist or professional writer.

My involvement with WAIF started almost 9 years ago, in early 2000. I couldn’t hear the station from my apartment in Northern Kentucky and was very annoyed that they didn’t have some sort of internet streaming. So I contacted a few of the programmers. After a few emails back and forth about what was needed they allowed me to bring in an uplink computer to stream their shows via the internet. A small community radio station in Cincinnati was now live to the world.

Many months went by and after teaching the programmers how to run the uplink themselves, I ended up moving out of town and leaving the future of WAIF’s online streaming in their hands.

Fast forward a few years and I find myself back in Cincinnati.

Apparently a local business that had been streaming WAIF went under or decided that streaming community radio wasn’t for them. So this time I tried to contact station management and see if I could be of any service.

The management of WAIF was very hard to get in touch with. I left several messages and emails. While waiting for WAIF management to get back to me, I registered and started streaming the station on WAIFStream.com. This was done by using a small radio connected via an uplink from my office in Newport.

Finally with the help of Kitty Carson and my public posts on WAIF message boards I was able to get in touch with Mike Wood, treasure of WAIF at the time. Mike was also in charge of anything having to do with IT at WAIF. He was a very nice guy and easy to deal with.

Both Mike and I realized that for WAIF to move into the 21st century a huge internet following would need to be established. I suggested the addition of features such as message boards and community chat, something that I had attributed to the internet success of former programs I had done streaming for back in 2000. Mike said that the board members of WAIF are very reluctant to embrace technology and that he had doubts that the board would let a redesign of the WAIF homepage take place. That being said, he would talk to Howard Riley and see what we could do.

Eventually I was told that WAIF would not redesign it’s homepage due to budget issues. After explaining that I wouldn’t mind recruiting a few like minded individuals and putting things together for free, Mike told me that it was the reluctance to embrace technology that put the nail in the coffin. I assumed that WAIF was digging its own grave and never pushed the issue again.

Mike and I installed an uplink PC in the back of WAIF and uplinked the digital audio to servers owned by my company. WAIF had a Mac server but it was unusable for this type of streaming without some major configuration changes. I told this to Mike but he insisted that we try and use it because, “The station paid a lot of money for this server and if we told them it wouldn’t work for what we needed it for, the board wouldn’t be happy.”

I suggested the station sell this server on eBay to recover the unneeded expense. Mike said it would make the people who suggested purchasing the overpriced server look bad. I thought this was really weird but told him I would try to put it to use in streaming WAIF. I spent about 2-3 days trying to get the configuration right without any luck. I tried to make plans with Mike for me to drop the server back off at WAIF but I never heard from him again about it.

Over the next few years I heard rumors and news reports detailing corruption at WAIF. I never got involved. Mike and Howard seamed like good people to me so I never paid attention to the critics. I attributed the bad press to a few pissed off programmers that had been fired. That being said, I was probably wrong in my assumption at the time.

WAIFStream.com worked with no problems for about 3 years. I always kept Mike’s contact information handy, and Mike always had mine. Every so often I would give a call to him or talk to Howard if I had any issues. My email address was on the front of WAIFStream.com for this entire time and my phone number never changed.

After three years of streaming WAIF, I get a call from Donald Shabazz out of the blue. Mr. Shabazz is very rude and is asking me where the station’s server was and who else was benefiting from station’s equipment. I was shocked. I had been providing a service to WAIF for the past few years and never been talked to like this. I told him where the equipment was, that I had not used the equipment and that WAIF was more than welcome to come get it. I told him that Mike knew everything that was going on and that I had been instructed to report to Mike or Howard if I needed anything.

During this time I have never received nor asked for even one dollar to fund this project. Streaming WAIF online was something that I was glad to do as a courtesy to WAIF listeners and programmers.

Apparently the stream had been offline for a few weeks and no one had my contact information because Mike had left the organization on short notice. I was told to meet Howard at the station on Sunday morning and that I could have access to the streaming uplink.

That Sunday I meet Howard at the station and noticed that the streaming PC had been tampered with. Someone had installed other software and it was conflicting with the streaming uplink. I made Howard aware of this and he agreed that someone had tampered with things. He said that he would make sure that everyone knew not to touch the uplink and to call me if they needed help with things.

At this point I also gave Howard instructions on how to reset the internet stream if things went down for some reason. Apparently Howard didn’t retain this information because I was at the station a total of 3 different times to hit a reset button. It seems like I was at the station every other week because of some mishap. The internet would go out for an extended period of time, a storm would knock out the power, or someone would mess with the uplink PC. The problems have been endless, all caused because of one thing or another going on at the station.

Until recently I had been willing to help WAIF get its streaming problems under control.

The last straw was on CHRISTMAS EVE when I received a very unprofessional call from Victoria (WAIF Board Member) yelling at me that the stream had been down for months and that WAIF was going to “pursue legal action” against me for the stream being down.

WAIF is going to pursue legal action against a volunteer for providing a service to the station out of his own pocket? Are they insane?

This Victoria had no idea who I was or what had been going on. Victoria also thought that WAIF was paying me to provide this service. Victoria also had no idea that the stream was down in the past two months because internet access was down at WAIF studios. Shouldn’t a board member know this?

Her really being a board member is something I can not easily verify because WAIF no longer publishes the board members on its website. She also claims that Howard is no longer station manager. So I really don’t know who to believe.

I have volunteered for many different organizations in my life and I have never met one that was more ungrateful than WAIF 88.3 Cincinnati.

So from this point on, WAIFStream.com will not be streaming WAIF.

WAIF Board Members: You need to make arrangements to come and get your server from my office. Please email me at chris@chrisswain.com for directions. I have made my last trip to your studio and have contributed my last hour of time for your organization. If you are really serious about taking legal action against me, I will see you in court. I guarantee that the judge will have a good laugh and that my team of overpaid corporate attorneys can figure out something good to counter sue you over. It’s your choice.

To those listeners / members who have enjoyed listening to WAIF online, I am sorry that this project has to end. You can thank the WAIF Board Of Trustees for screwing up yet another good thing that WAIF had going for it.

Sincerely,

Chris Swain
Former WAIF Volunteer
WAIFStream.com
chris@chrisswain.com

Cincinnati donald shabazz, howard riley, mike wood, victoria, waif, waifstream.com

Running out of advertising dollars? Facing budget cuts this year? Promotion of your business doesn’t always need to be expensive. The internet allows us plenty of ways to market our business without spending major cash.

Here are a few proven ways that you can drive hits to your eCommerce site for no cost at all.

1. Create product un-boxing videos that show what your customers will receive when they order. This gives you an opportunity to visually pitch your product to the customer. Post to your website and any other video site you can find. Make sure to put keywords and advertising text in your descriptions. Use simple video editing software to superimpose your URL at the bottom of each video so that people will know where to get your products.

2. Start a blog that centers around your industry. Make sure you give good information and that your articles don’t sound like spam. Syndicate your blog with feedburner or another rss service. Put a link to your site every so often in a blog post.

3. MySpace and Facebook are your friends. Connect with other users that are interested in your products. Again, it is important not to spam or you will get banned. Give these new friends information on upcoming events or new products your company may be releasing.

4. Put advertising materials in every order. Offer a discount for return customers. When you do get an order, make sure they know who you are and where to find more of the great products you offer. This is part of building a good brand and a customer relationship.

5. Post quality information in industry forums. Help your potential customers before they are customers. This will drive more trust to your brand.

6. Attract attention with the media. Did you just launch a new website? Redesign your old one? Make sure the traditional news media knows about it. Fax or email them press releases whenever you make a major business movie. You never know, it may be a slow news day!

7. Coupons. Create coupons and submit them to various deal websites. FatWallet is a good one. Make sure your coupons expire in 30-60 days so that your customers feel the need to buy quickly.

8. Product Feeds. Submit your product information to Google Base, Yahoo Shopping, and any other shopping search engine.

9. Word of mouth. It has been said that word of mouth is the best form of advertising. Tell everyone you know about your E-Commerce site. Your friends and family may be potential customers!

10. Street Advertising. Advertising with street teams is no longer only effective in major metropolitan areas. Get out from behind your desk and promote your brand with fliers, stickers, and even graffiti. Well, reverse graffiti.

Marketing Tips coupons, marketing ideas, street advertising, word of mouth

After many long months of no updates, I have decided to install wordpress and make a commitment to update this thing more often.

Lets see what happens! Hopefully I can find something interesting to talk about. Check back for more updates.

General new site launch