SCOTLAND will be exempt from Gordon Brown's plans to fly the Union flag from every public building, it was confirmed yesterday.

Stop junk mail before it's garbage

Each year, more than 100 million trees are chopped up and 28 billion gallons of water are used to create the paper that goes into junk mail, according to the company GreenDimes. And Alameda County garbage officials estimate that 5 percent of the waste sent to landfills is junk mail.

You can go a long way toward reducing the amount of garbage you create by getting off the mailing lists used to send such unsolicited mail.

You can find a company to do the legwork for you. Companies like GreenDimes, www.greendimes.com, can notify all the mailing list companies in exchange for a fee -- about $36 a year for GreenDimes.

You can also do it yourself. You can get help by ordering a kit at www.stopjunkmail.org or call (877) 786-7927.

You should also write to request that your name is removed from mailing lists.

Spam nuisance 'can be combated'

Consumers are becoming increasingly angry about rampant SMS and email spam, but what they do not know is that the law is on their side and that there are ways to stop and even prosecute persistent spammers. This was the message from Cape Town-based privacy lawyer Brendan Hughes, of Michalson and Associates, in a presentation on data privacy legislation to Durban businesses last week. Hughes, a member of the appeals panel that adjudicates complaints for the Wireless Application Service Providers' Association (Waspa), said that direct marketing using consumers' personal information was "big business". However, Hughes said businesses that continued to send marketing material or spam to consumers who had asked to be removed from mailing lists could be criminally prosecuted under Section 45 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act of 2002.

AlphaGraphics seeks investors to open stores in EP

Salt Lake City-based franchising company AlphaGraphics is in the midst of a major expansion effort and has its sights set on El Paso.

The company, which provides marketing and visual communications solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses, plans to open its first El Paso location in the next six months to a year, said Art Coley, senior director of franchise development.

The company hopes to have three to four El Paso stores, all of which will be franchises, within three years, he added.

"The shortest and simplest way (to describe us) is we are a solution provider," Coley said. "We provide marketing and visual communications for small- and medium-sized businesses. What does that mean? Everything from Web sites, e-mail campaigns, direct mailing, printing services for business cards and letterheads.

Report Subscriptions, ACH Processing, and Payment Updates Mark Summer Upgrade of Travis Software's WebCOBRA.com

Travis Software Corp., a market leader of Advanced Employee Benefits Software Administration, announced today the Summer 2007 upgrade of its WebCOBRA.com system. The new version offers more enhanced features, including Report Subscriptions, ACH Processing, and a Payment Schedule of Qualified Beneficiary (QB) premiums for easy review of upcoming payment amounts.

The newly enhanced version of WebCOBRA.com allows for more control over reporting capabilities.

Sustainable Ballard hears about legislative environmental record

Local non-profit Sustainable Ballard celebrated its fourth birthday recently by reviewing several energy and environmental successes of the past state legislative session.Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, was the key speaker at the event held at the Sunset Hill Community Club. She applauded the organization for its grassroots efforts in promoting a more sustainable community.Though Kohl-Welles hasn't served on any environmental committees since the mid-1990s, she said it was still an issue she paid a lot of attention to."I'm not an authority on this," she warned the audience, "but I love these issues. I feel passionate about the environment in this state, country and the world and I want to do everything I can."When Democrats took over the majority in the House last November, it did more than anything else to advance environmental legislation, Kohl-Welles said.

Customer Surveys: A Powerful Link Building Tool

One of the most effective link building tools I use is a customer survey. Surveys are usually written from a customer service standpoint: companies want to know the opinions of the people who buy from them and crave feedback on how they're doing. Honorable intentions for sure but in today's link marketing, it's less about where customers stand and more about where they're going.

In the past, I provided a general questionnaire to the company that contracted my linking services, then pulled demographic information from the site's web logs. Using web logs is still a viable tactic but I've come to understand that today's Internet is different and I need to adapt what I do along with it. The explosion of Web 2.0 and social media type sites is changing the way we work and the way I market for links.