“Since our beginning in 2006, we have been dedicated to recruiting mentors for every young Kansan,” said Kansas State head football coach, Bill Snyder, Chair of Kansas Mentors. “With more people communicating electronically, our enhanced site will be a crucial component to provide every Kansan with the resources they need to make a difference in a young person’s life.”

The redesigned Kansas Mentors site includes information for Kansans interested in mentoring as well as a directory of more than 175 mentoring programs in the state that individuals can contact directly to begin volunteering. In addition, the enhanced Web site provides an in-depth resource center for the state’s mentoring efforts ensuring that all young Kansans are served by quality and effective programs.

“With the launch of this site we are not only excited to connect more Kansans with the rewards of a caring mentoring relationship, we are also very pleased to provide additional resources to our partner programs as they continue to effectively serve our youth with reduced resources,” said Ella Todd, Program Director of Kansas Mentors.

Kansans interested in mentoring are encouraged to visit the new site at www.kansasmentors.org to learn more about how they can serve as a role model to our youth and to connect with mentoring efforts in their area of the state.

This content management system is specifically designed for state and municipal governments and offers a full range of solutions for Web design and management. The system utilizes common templates, which were created to provide a cohesive look-and-feel throughout state & local government, including common navigation items. KanSite is administered completely from the Web, so the Web site can be accessed anytime, anywhere.

I’m one of those apple fans that owns quite a bit of their products. Here’s my run-down of products:

• brand new iPod shuffle (red) product from the new ipod line
• 17″ powerbook (2004 model)
• 14″ ibook (2004 model)
• 17″ iMac (2006 model)
• Apple TV (it’s about 2 weeks old)
• airport base station (wireless device – 2004 model)

Have owned several ipods in the past including the 4th gen 20gb clickwheel (2004), the 5th gen video ipod and a 1st gen ipod shuffle (the white stick one). I also use iWork ’08 and iLife ’08.

So, maybe that seems like a lot of stuff to some and that possibly puts me in the “apple fan-boy” category because I have so much – but I find that the products work great for my family of 4 which I may add includes my wife who recently graduated from KU School of Social Welfare using that iBook as well as my 2 little girls – my oldest who is 4 already plays around on my iMac with me and will be entering kindergarten next fall.

Basically, I gave you all that background to illustrate that I love the products that I own and I have a bunch of them because there is something very nice about being able to integrate all of your digital products seamlessly. I can take a digital photo of my girls, upload it to my computer, use that computer software to manipulate it and then beam it wirelessly across the house to my Apple TV to watch it on the big screen instead of being huddled around the computer.

So, when it came time for an iPhone purchase that was a no-brainer. I have countless songs/movies already in iTunes. I use the heck out of the native OS X apps (Mail, Address Book, iCal, etc.) every single day. So it would make a ton of sense to have a device for mobile use that would integrate into my already apple driven lifestyle – not because I have to have it but because, well, I kinda need it to work like that. I’ve had a Treo before and don’t get me wrong – it does have all the stuff that the iPhone doesn’t have; removable battery, expandable storage, smaller price tag, arguably a better network, etc. but what that wonderful device didn’t have was a seamless way to integrate in to the products and media that I already have/own. May not sound like a big deal – but it sucks. It’s doable but it sucks. I’d much rather spend that time with my girls and staying up late on the palm web site help section.

Basically, here’s the deal – can’t believe I’ve gone on this long – I am with Sprint, my wife is with sprint, my sister, mom, brother in-law, parents-in-law are with Sprint – everyone I know is with sprint – say what you will about them, at least we are all on the same dang network. I’m not about to get into coverage and who’s better, frankly I don’t care much about that (not the point of this e-mail). But if I were to break my contract (for a whopping $200 bucks) and go to AT&T. I’d still have to wait for my wife to break her contract also (another $200) just so the 2 of us could talk mobile-to-mobile on AT&T. That wouldn’t help us at all for talking to other people in our network.

From what I’ve read on the blog sphere lately, people have been saying that Apple must have been worried about hitting their mark and that’s why they dropped the price – I’m not so sure about that. If they wanted to hit that 10 million number out of the park they would have provided an unlocked phone. I’m actually surprised thy even hit the 1 million mark on just one provider. I’m just bitter apparently and I’ve gone on too long. Just wanted to add my story I guess to those you’ve already accumulated for your article.

Long story short, I want the iPhone (might go so far as to say I NEED) the iPhone but I will probably not buy the iPhone as long as it is only on one carrier. All I can hope for now I suppose is that AT&T gets unhappy with Apple for building a device that is apparently “hackable” and will sue them for allowing T-Mobile (which I mean come on) you know apple knew other sim cards would work on that phone.

For now – I shall continue to use my 3 year old Samsung VGA1000 (A620) phone that I got when I first signed up with sprint. Am I available for upgrrades – sure as long as I renew my contract (ARRGGHHH!!!!). And the second I do that – some deal will be reached with apple and other cell phone providers and I’ll be even more irate. Man – who needs all this drama – thanks for listening.

Stay tuned for an update – I’ll most likely have a new phone by the end of September.

A nice little easter egg from the development crew at Google. Spotted this today after reading a post on the Official Google Reader Blog called “Doing the Shuffle” which has a video of Robert Scoble showing some efficieny tips on how to go through over 600 RSS feeds extremely quick. I myself only have a little over 60 feeds and I’m always looking for ways to get through them quicker especially the ones that accumulate new stories by the hundreds every day such as Digg and Lifehacker to name a couple.

The trick to finding this easter egg (using that term loosely) is to add the “next bookmark” to your bookmark bar and basically cycle through your subscriptions. I would recommend trying this for a specific tag so you don’t have to go through a large list just to see this lame joke. “Next bookmark” can be found under Settings > Goodies.

Regardless, if it is the end, it was certainly a great ride for a great ensemble. For the life of me I can’t understand why no one ever watched the show. Award winning show – mind you. Oh well, such is network television. Gotta make room for a one hour, all new Stacked I suppose. It was nice to see Justine Bateman on sitcom television again (did you hear the Family Ties “sha-la-la-la” homage) – hilarious.

Lastly, it was nice to finally see Ron Howard do a cameo on the show. He was such a terrific narrator all throughout.