Saturday, January 9, 2010

Trying something new…again

I saw this on another site and I stayed up all night making one for Cushies because I thought it was so cool.

This is a toolbar you can install on any browser and it will link to what I think are the most important parts of the Cushing’s websites.  If you have other ideas, please let me know.

Right now, this contains (from left to right)

  1. The Cushie ribbon icon which takes you to the home page of the newer cushie.info site.
  2. Next to that is a Google search box.
  3. An icon for the 911 Adrenal Crisis! page
  4. All the blogs, arranged by diagnosis type
  5. The message boards and chatroom
  6. Helpful Doctors list
  7. The Support page where people can make donations to help keep all these websites going.
  8. Cushing’s blogs.  I’m still working on this – and I’m not sure how many I can add but for the moment, this blog is included as well as Cushie Bloggers and survive the journey

    When any of these update, the icon changes to show that there are new posts.
  9. The Cushings Help Organization cause on Facebo0k
  10. Links to Staticnrg and Cushings on Twitter. Again, more can be added.  If you talk mostly about Cushing’s on Twitter, please let me know.
  11. The new CushieWiki.  BTW, please feel free to sign up and become a contributor/editor.
  12. A radio button – you can play the Cushing’s podcasts right from this toolbar.  You can also add stations that you’d like to listen to.
  13. Lastly, there’s a little scrolling message area for Cushing’s news.
  14. You can also add other modules like games, weather, email, hundreds of different things.

Download this toolbar by clicking on the sample image (which looks terrible on this blog!) below:

toolbar powered by Conduit

About privacy:

cushie tools is committed to maintaining the following privacy practices:

  1. No Spyware Policy – the toolbar does not collect or transmits Identifiable information and does not monitor personal toolbar usage.
    The toolbar sends unidentifiable and non-personal statistical data to enable quality assurance and improve support processes. Such non-personal data includes unidentifiable usage of toolbar components and queries. You can opt not to send such statistical data at any time from your toolbar Options dialog box.
  2. No Adware Policy : exposure to unwanted advertisements is not required in order to use the toolbar. The toolbar does not launch pop-up or pop-under advertisement windows or any other type of obtrusive ads.
  3. Unobtrusive: The toolbar does not enable other applications to access data stored on your computer's hard drive or in your online accounts. The toolbar does not modify pages you visit or modify your search experience. You may voluntarily opt to receive Publisher notifications (such as Community Alerts) or use other advanced functionalities offered by cushie tools.
  4. Easy uninstall : you can easily uninstall the toolbar at any time using the toolbar's standard uninstall package (Add/Remove Programs in Windows, Add-on Removal in Firefox, etc.).
  5. Easy deactivation: you can easily deactivate your toolbar at any time by clicking the "View" menu in your browser and deselecting the name of your community toolbar.
  6. Full control : you have full control over your toolbar and you can add/remove toolbar components at any time using your toolbar's Options dialog box.
  7. Report - cushie tools is committed to ensuring your Privacy and safety while using your community toolbar. If you have a reason to believe that your rights have been infringed upon, please email privacy@conduit.com to contact the owners of Platform that was used by cushie tools to create your community toolbar, and your application will be handled at the earliest convenience.

Finally, I would like to add that installing this toolbar is possibly a way for the sites to make a little money although the hosting site doesn’t disclose how much they give back and how many people have to do how much searching to make any kind of profit.

The theory is that Google pays the host company, Conduit, like it does for Google ads – I’ve seen them on other sites but have never used them because I want to try to keep the sites ad free and non-tacky.  Then, depending on the number of people who have installed this toolbar, and how much they use it, a percentage of that money is supposed to come back to Cushing’s Help.

I have no expectations of making any money, though.  I just thought that it looked like an interesting new way for people to find things easily on the websites, listen to podcasts, and get the latest news.

Please note – after installation there’s a little popup window that says you might get alerts.  I promise I won’t send those out unless it’s something serious like the boards are back up after a day of being down.

Thanks for reading!  I hope you’ll give this a try.

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