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About Polygon Northwest Homes

Our Passion To Build Outstanding New Homes

Every member of the Polygon team shares a common passion: to build homes of outstanding variety, quality and value, in communities where neighbors thrive.

Polygon’s commitment to customer satisfaction is unparalleled in the industry. We listen to what homeowners want and continuously refine our designs against that input. And we’re proud to stand behind each home we build with an excellent Service and Warranty Program.

Craftsmanship, uncompromising standards and genuine care for our customer: these are the values that make Polygon the Northwest’s premier builder of new homes – for our customers, and ourselves.

Tukwila & King County Event | The Backyard Wildlife Festival

elloSNOHOMISH: Tukwila & King County Event | The Backyard Wildlife Festival.

Check out all the great events and activities happening this Spring in the Puget Sound region – Visit our community blog.

Business Development | The Best Tool For Finding, Capturing & Managing Your Marketing Images

Marketing on the Internet can be both time consuming and a waste of money if you are not up to speed on the ever changing marketing tools. There are tools available that will save you a ton of time both on the Net and on your computer.

For example, the most time consuming issue for each of us is image processing. Obtaining the image, sizing the image, and processing the image to a high resolution state seems to be beyond most of us.

For those of you who have Windows 7 as your computer operating system possess a feature that will help you simplify your image processing efforts when you are working on your online marketing campaign.

The Windows 7 Snipping Tool

The Snipping Tool is a simple tool that will greatly reduce the amount of time you are spending on brand, product, service, and staff image processing.

The snipping tool is located by clicking your computer start button in the lower left hand corner of your computer screen. Once clicked, look for the Snipping Tool icon.

When you click on the icon, the screen on your computer will turn a milky white and the function box below will appear.

As it states on the function box, drag your cursor about the image on the page you wish to cut or copy. Once you do that, this box will appear with the image you selected, if correct, save the image to your computer.

This is the quickest, simplest method I have found for the initial capture of any image you wish to download from the web or your computer.

Websites Of Interest | Using The Internet Slang Dictionary

Internet Slang Words and Computer Slang

On this site you will find a list of slang terms, acronyms and abbreviations as used in websites, on Twitter, ICQ chat rooms, blogs, SMS, and Internet forums – a complete dictionary of slang.

elloSNOHOMISH Community Blog Update 4.18.12

New Snohomish County money saving offers and events added today: elloSNOHOMISH.

About The elloAgency of Snohomish County, WA.

As the General Manager and Marketing Consultant of the elloAgency of Snohomish County; I am a Washington State native of 60+ years with over 40 of those years spend advertising, marketing and selling products and services and/or teaching others how to produce marketing campaigns with a decent return on investment.

Along with all those years in marketing, I also survived the battle between print media and the Internet from its onset in the 1980′s to present day and much to a business manager’s distain; the Internet has won and completely defeated print media for its market share.

For the last fifteen years business owners have been bombarded by overzealous Web barkers over promising the power of the Internet to wind up savoring the bitter taste of a great expensive coupled with a group of nonexistent benefits.

Today, we know that the purest marketing benefits of the World Wide Web are best achieved with a long term plan, they are essentially free to use, and just waiting to be added to any company’s marketing plan without cost or obligation.

That is where the elloAgency of Snohomish County comes in. We teach business managers how to develop a multimedia online marketing campaign, how to generate connections, harvest leads, develop prospects and capture new business without spending one dime on Internet marketing products.

To date, we have found no companies operating their online plan to 100% efficiency, there is always room from improvement. For your benefit  the elloAgency will conduct a complimentary online marketing review, show you how to improve your online presence, how to lower the costs, and how to decrease the amount of time required to manage your plan.

Many companies prefer on-sight training support, and we can do that. For just    $149 Ooops, $99.00 (GET $50 OFF COUPON), one of our marketing technicians will spend three hours at your place of business teaching our Custom Consumer Marketing System (MyCMS) to you or your staff member.

Our satisfaction guarantee is simple:

If you benefit and are pleased with our service you pay for it, if not it is on the house, no charge, free. Call us today for a no-obligation review. 360-387-4751, or email us at: elloSnohomish@gmail.com.

Relationship Marketing | Where To Start? What To Use? Who To Hire?

Are you confused by all the choices you have to market your business online? Are you being bombarded by phone calls, emails, and visitors asking you to purchase their Internet marketing products?

Sorry, but I already know the answer is YES !!!

According To Randy Schrum of CEO of My Corporate Media:
“The Fact is that 99.9% of the webinars people attend to
grow their business or career flat out stink and that is
BAD! Even worse most of the so called experts in marketing have
never closed a sale, generated an opportunity, or even
been in the business world producing real results.”

Although I personally feel that these comments are a bit harsh, for the most part they are true. Most of the people and the products they promote will not help you get new business from the Internet.

The fact is, there is only one way to get business from the Web and that is using a comprehensive online consumer management system proactively managed to generate connections, harvest leads, develop prospects, and finally; capture new business.

Contact your elloAgency Consultant for details on how to improve your Internet presence without spending one dime on Web advertising products and services.

Chucklin’ On Camano | What Ever Happened To The Dinosaurs?

Cookin’ On Camano | Exceptionally Tasty Pasta With Fresh Tomato Recipe From AllRecipes.com

 I believe this is a truly exceptional pasta meal and so far everyone I have served it to agrees. If you like pasta and fresh tomatoes, you will love this dish.

Last weekend I had a bunch of roma tomatoes that I bought on sale and was surfing the Net to find a fresh recipe to use them in. I found and tried the two following recipes.

Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce
“This very quick pasta dish uses fresh tomatoes and basil tossed with Italian salad dressing and Parmesan cheese. It’s a great meal to prepare in the summer after a long day in the garden!”

Ingredients:
1 (16 ounce) package dry penne pasta
8 roma (plum) tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup Italian dressing
(*Note: See great recipe below for a fantastic homemade Italian dressing.)
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh basil
1/4 cup diced red onion
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Note: I added fresh asparagus – pan fried in olive oil for about 2 to 3 minutes and I think shrimp would also be a great addition to this recipe.

Directions:
1.          Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Place the penne pasta in the pot, cook 10 minutes, until al dente, and drain.

2.          In a large bowl, toss the cooked pasta with the tomatoes, Italian dressing, basil, red onion, and Parmesan cheese. Servings: 8.

Although the above recipe calls for Italian Dressing, I always make my own dressings and sauces simply because they are all easy to make, cost must less to produce, taste better than anything from a jar or can and most people already have the ingredients on hand.

Here is a great tasting, simply Italian dressing:

“This Italian dressing mix is a combination of eight pungent herbs that you can store and use to whip up fresh Italian dressing in seconds whenever the mood strikes!”

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon garlic salt
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon white su
2 tablespoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1/4 teaspoon celery salt
2 tablespoons salt

Directions:
1.          In a small bowl, mix together the garlic salt, onion powder, sugar, oregano, pepper, thyme, basil, parsley, celery salt and regular salt. Store in a tightly sealed container.

2.          To prepare dressing, whisk together 1/4 cup white vinegar, 2/3 cup canola oil, 2 tablespoons water and 2 tablespoons of the dry mix. Note: I added 1 teaspoon of sugar to step number 2.

Find more great recipes

Relationship Marketing | Forget Networking! How to Be a Super Connector . . .

BY ALINA TUGEND | January 29, 2012|

142 Photo courtesy of Josh Bycel

Connector Josh Bycel raised $50,000 in three weeks to fund a medical clinic at a refugee camp in Darfur.

We all know people like them, people who seem to know everyone. They’re always able to help — or if they can’t, they know someone who can. You meet them for the first time and in 15 minutes, you’re talking with them like you’re childhood friends. They’re successful, smart and funny, with a likable touch of self-deprecation. And they’re interested in everything.

Who are they? Connectors. Take Maryam Banikarim, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Gannett, publisher of USA Today. She has a perfect job for a connector — she helps link Gannett’s various newspapers and media outlets “and bring the pieces together.”

“I like people and am genuinely curious,” says Banikarim, 42. “I like stories and want to make connections. But I didn’t know the word for it until my husband read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point and said, ‘I finally have a word for you — a connector.’ “

Related: 12 Tips for Trading Places in 2012

As Gladwell writes, “sprinkled among every walk of life . . . are a handful of people with a truly extraordinary knack of making friends and acquaintances. They are Connectors.” Gladwell describes them as having an ability to span many different worlds, subcultures and niches. Read On . . .

Business Development | Five Steps To Develop A Disaster Preparedness Plan For Your Company

Preparedness Planning for Your Business

Businesses can do much to prepare for the impact of the many hazards they face in today’s world including natural hazards like floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and widespread serious illness such as the H1N1 flu virus pandemic. Human-caused hazards include accidents, acts of violence by people and acts of terrorism. Examples of technology-related hazards are the failure or malfunction of systems, equipment or software.

Ready Business will assist businesses in developing a preparedness program by providing tools to create a plan that addresses the impact of many hazards. This website and its tools utilize an “all hazards approach” and follows the program elements within National Fire Protection Association 1600, Standard on Disaster/Emergency Management and Business Continuity Programs. NFPA 1600 is an American National Standard and has been adopted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The five steps in developing a preparedness program are . . .

Relationship Marketing | The Right Way to Increase Your Klout Score

It’s not really about your score; it’s about expanding your network and extending your reach. Here are 7 ways to do it.

Klout is a tool that seeks to measure and quantify your online influence and determine your “social media reach.” Klout measures the size of your network and how people interact with the content you create. Scores range from 1 to 100: If your score is a 1 you’re probably my grandmother, and if your score is 100 you’re a resident of Bieberville.

Achieving a high Klout score also is not an end in itself. Your Klout score is just a tool you can use to gauge, in a directionally accurate way, the success of your social media marketing efforts. But if you’re trying to build a network, extend your reach, and better engage with people through social media, the following are simple ways to do that—and to increase your Klout score in the process: MORE . . .

Websites Of Interest | NACO.org – National Association of Counties – Demographic Resource Site

NOTE: This is a great site for finding resource information on any county in Washington State. Complete demographic information including population, expected growth, number of businesses and so on.

About NACo -The Voice of America’s Counties

The National Association of Counties (NACo) is the only national organization that represents county governments in the United States. Founded in 1935, NACo provides essential services to the nation’s 3,068 counties. NACo advances issues with a unified voice before the federal government, improves the public’s understanding of county government, assists counties in finding and sharing innovative solutions through education and research, and provides value-added services to save counties and taxpayers money.

FIND YOUR COUNTY STATS

Business Development | Online Security – How To Develop Easy-To-Remember Secure Password Systems

As Internet technology evolves for the public users, so it goes for the bad guys (website hackers) as well. Hacking technology has improved to the point that we hear about online accounts, from a simple Facebook page to a sophisticated site such as Zappos.com, being hacked into on a daily basis.

When you select a password for a website you use, keeping it simple is not the answer. The hackers have access tools that will quickly figure out simple passwords. Using just number, just letters, only lower case, birthdates, common names, and addresses are a huge mistake.

In fact today, most websites requiring user log-in are beginning to not only tell you if your password is strong or weak, many are beginning to require complicated combinations using numbers, upper and lower case letters and even characters to create a powerful password to protect your personal information.

So, does this mean that you will have to keep a cheat sheet to remember all the complicated passwords you have created? Not necessarily, if you use a couple of simple techniques, it is possible to have different passwords on a hundred websites and be able to remember them all without writing them down.

There is a way to create a memorable a password system. For example, you can use the first four letters of the website URL with the last letter capitalized, then an Asterisk, then four numbers that only make sense to you.

• twiT*7475 = Twitter.com and my two children’s birth years.
• facE*7475 = Facebook.com, same as above.

Using a system such as this allows you to created strong complicated password protected websites and would be easy enough for you to remember without making a list. The key is for each password to be different, but easy for you to remember without written documentation.

Many people use the services of their Internet browser to keep track of their log in information which in not a bad idea, but if for any reason that information goes away, it will be a hassle to reset all the access information again.

It is also recommended to change your password system every three to six months just to increase the protection of your personal information. Also, sites such as your banking and/or PayPal sites should have a different password system so that, if by chance, someone does access your Facebook account is does not give them access to your financial accounts, as well.

Enjoy Snohomish County: Attractions, Local Events, Fundraisers, Money Saving Offers, Business News

Click Here to enjoy all that Snohomish County, WA. has to offer. We surf the web daily and communicate with local companies to find and promote local events, community activities, tourist attractions, nonprofit organizations, money saving offers, and business news.