As the death toll climbs in Asia, where millions who survived the 26 December earthquake and tsunami face now disease and death, designer Andy Budd has come up with a simple (and easy) way to help. On his newly launched BlogAid, folks whose sites include advertising (such as Google AdWords) may pledge their sites’ ad revenues for the month of January to organizations engaged in the massive relief effort.
The honor-system pledge reads as follows:
I agree to pledge the earnings from advertising, affiliate programs or site sponsorship made from my site during January to my country’s local Earthquake and Tsunami appeal.
Think of it as an internet pyramid scheme, but a benevolent one: the more bloggers who link to BlogAid and pledge their support, the more of their fellow bloggers who will do likewise. In addition to money generated, the public pledge allows people to stand in solidarity with the tsunami victims and those engaged in saving their lives. We endorse BlogAid and encourage you to pledge your support.
If you would rather help without calling attention to yourself, Doctors Without Borders is back online after DNS problems caused it to disappear earlier in the week, and will gladly accept donations.
At the Blog Business Summit (“publish and prosper”), to be held 24–25 January in Seattle, an impressive group of speakers will show how to make blogs work for your business. As a reader of zeldman.com, you are eligible to attend the conference at the discounted price of $395 (while space lasts). Please see this special registration page before the last seats disappear.
Apache Lenya is an Open-Source Content Management System written in Java and based on open standards such as XML and XSLT. Lenya is built on top of Apache Cocoon and other components from the Apache Software Stack. Its XML-centric architecture allows for content delivery targeted to the capabilities of various devices, and avoids data lock-in. Apache Lenya is built around Off the Shelf components from the Apache Software Foundation.
Apache Lenya comes with the features you can expect of a modern Content Management System, such as Revision Control, Scheduling, a built-in Search Engine, separate Staging Areas, and Workflow.
2005 will mark our tenth year online. Happy New Year, and thanks for your support.