I want to make sure you are up to date on the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and the impact it could have on  your businesses and online activities. Many major websites, including Wikipedia, are doing a “Blackout” today in protest of the censorship that has been proposed through SOPA/PIPA.

If you visit the English Wikipedia today you’ll probably see a lot of black. No need to panic though, it’s a schedule protest against the SOPA and PIPA bills that are being promoted in the US.

Here’s an excerpt from their announcement:

Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (you can read the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation here). The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States – the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate – that, if passed, would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia.

This will be the first time the English Wikipedia has ever staged a public protest of this nature, and it’s a decision that wasn’t lightly made. Here’s how it’s been described by the three Wikipedia administrators who formally facilitated the community’s discussion.

Please read the report.  This is serious business!

What Can You Do?

If you live in the US, contact your Senators and Representatives and encourage them to vote against SOPA (H.R. 3621) and PIPA, the Senate version (S. 968).

When you contact them, be calm, clear, and concise. Tell them that you support the goal but oppose the legislation, because of the damage it will do to small businesses and the security of the Internet in general.

If you feel the need to cite a source for them, point them to the Wikipedia article, which lists a number of US government studies and reports that show just how much damage the legislation could do.

And be clear that you don’t want to see an edited version of the bill passed. This thing is not just poorly implemented. The concept itself is flawed and dangerous.

Emails count a little. Phone calls and faxes count more. A short, clear printed letter mailed to them counts the most.

If you’re contacting your representative, mention H.R. 3621 (SOPA). If it’s your Senators, the bill number to mention is S. 968 (PIPA).

You can find the contact information for both Senators and Representatives at Contacting the Congress. Just select your state, type in your zip code, and click the “Submit It” button.

When contacting them, be sure to either mention your name and address to the person you speak with on the phone or include it in your correspondence. They want to know you’re actually one of their constituents.

Remember to be polite, clear, and brief. These folks are trying to protect your interests. Most of them simply don’t understand the potential problems the bill would create.

Calling them, or typing a brief letter and putting a stamp on it, will probably take less time than you were about to spend in this forum today. And it could make a huge difference.

If every US citizen who reads this takes that few minutes’ worth of action, we can generate a ton of pressure against the bill. If we all just leave it to everyone else, we’re likely to be stuck with this as law, along with all the problems it brings.

It’s up to you.

* Student Orientation scheduled for Wednesday, September 15th for registered students.

My WordPress Website Creation Workshop and Mastermind begins on Wednesday, September 22nd. Student orientation and planning session is scheduled for Wednesday, September 15 Each student will build their own blog in class and learn to customize and manage it for their particular niche. Workshop includes training webinars, homework assignments, Q&A follow-up sessions and 6 months of weekly coaching/strategies for growing your blog. Click here for information and to register.

Schedule:

Sept 22 – Regular training sessions begin on Wednesdays from 2:00 – 3:30 PM Pacific

To register, click here to visit the WordPress Workshop Information page.

The final preparations begin tonight for the Musical Theater of Orange County’s production of Disney’s Beauty & the Beast at the beautiful Nechita Center for the Performing Arts, in Orange, California. Opening night is Friday, July 23rd, but tonight is the beginning of “Tech Week” as the MTOC “Crew Monkeys” (of which I am a proud volunteer member) begin to ‘load in’ and assemble the massive production set that we’ve been building for the past few months.

My son, Michael Burrell, a sophomore at Orange Lutheran High School and veteran of numerous musical theater productions, is cast in the role of Lumiere. This is a role he has played once before garnering outstanding reviews. I can’t wait to see his performance with the MTOC.

This is will be a great show with a talented cast and a wonderful family experience for those who attend. We have several participants from the ‘Disney family’ included as directors, technical production crew and current and former cast members to bring the “Disney Magic” to our production.

This is the full-length musical theater production of Disney’s Beauty & the Beast as presented on Broadway, not an abbreviated version that may have been seen at the Disneyland Theme parks. If you are in the greater Orange County area for the next two weeks, you should add this event to your schedule. It will be an enjoyable evening or afternoon (matinees on Sunday!) for those who enjoy the wonder of live theater!

I’ll be posting some photos along the way to show how we’re doing. Anyway, that’s all for now and I’m off to the theater!

As you know I posted yesterday about the Google name change to Topeka. Apparently, they had second thoughts (customer complaints? sobered up?) and changed their name back to Google today.

Actually (as you should know by now) it was an April Fool’s Day joke. And it got a lot of ‘buzz’ as you might expect. Google changed their logo from “Google” to “Topeka” and linked it to a complete (bogus and humorous) story about the reason for the change.

This isn’t the first time that the search engine giant has pulled such a prank on it’s visitors. In fact, PC World has a nice article on “Google’s 5 Funniest April Fools’ Jokes” which should check out.

We’re glad to see Google has come back to their senses and when you visit Google, you’ll realize that – like Dorothy and Toto – “you’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Have you “Topeka’d” yourself lately?

In a move that shocked the online world, it was announced today that the top online search engine, Google, has changed it’s name to Topeka.

The story reported today on the official Topeka (formerly Google) blog states:

A different kind of company name
4/01/2010 12:01:00 AM

Early last month the mayor of Topeka, Kansas stunned the world by announcing that his city was changing its name to Google. We’ve been wondering ever since how best to honor that moving gesture. Today we are pleased to announce that as of 1AM (Central Daylight Time) April 1st, Google has officially changed our name to Topeka. We didn’t reach this decision lightly; after all, we had a fair amount of brand equity tied up in our old name. But the more we surfed around (the former) Topeka’s municipal website, the more kinship we felt with this fine city at the edge of the Great Plains.

The report also includes tips on the proper use of the Topeka site:

For the FULL STORY visit the Official Google Blog.

This is really a game changer and worth the read.

Make sure you read it today because I have a feeling that the if not successful, they might change their name back to Google on April 2.

Your thoughts and comments always welcomed.