Hello everyone!  I just wanted to take the time to let all of you know (especially new users) that there is a problem with us being able to give proper evaluations of your pieces, and this problem concerns the "listing" of your items!  I am fairly new to the site and have not yet used all of the available means of listing items, so i can only tell you how to do it in the only means that I have been doing so!

In the "Collections", there are quite  a few items that were listed unproperly, and the only thing that you see is pretty much the title, and a very small picture that you can barely make out what it is!  i believe the problem is that each piece was not listed as part of a collection, but rather the collection itself, therefore limiting the piece's information.

The way that I list my items is: on the top right had corner, there are blue buttons, that , after "ADD NEW" the blue buttons give you a choice of "item" "collection" and "blog".  I haven't used the collection button yet, but the item button, where you then list the title, then the pictures, then other information, as well as where you can choose to make your item public or private, add it to the community, as well as add it to those asking for valuations (prices) of their pieces.  If you don't do it in this way, then the result is what I was speaking above, and there's no way that we can help you identify something that we can hardly see.  So if you need help listing, please ask, as I am sure that there is means of assistance, for there were some items that I might have known exactly what they were, but I coudn't tell for sure as the pics were so small and there was no way of enlarging them!

For those that are very familiar to this site and can give more information about the "Collection" button, please feel free to add to this blog and help the newer users out please!

Thanks for your time in reading this, and I appreciate all of the wonderful items that I have had the opportunity to view, as well as those that I have been able to help so far!  Thank you all very much!  Have a nice day!

Carrie Strain

iTaggit always places an emphasis on the importance of securely storing your items information and history on our site. We strive to organize to your life and serve to bring clarity about your things during a time of need. If only the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum had known about us, they might not be facing the organizing woes they are today.
The Associated Press has published a report citing that the library in Simi Valley was unable to properly account for more than 80,000 objects out of its collection of some 100,000 artifacts. The audit in question is connected to an investigation into allegations that a former employee stole from the Reagans' collection of gifts from foreign leaders and other dignitaries. Sadly, the sloppy record keeping at the library has hindered the efforts of the investigators to the point of possibly never completely covering the scope of what all is missing. Numerous storage lapses have also occurred, such as pieces of art being stacked on top of one another, and unwrapped sculptures and vases lying openly in an area prone to earthquakes.
Currently, the situation is bringing about some improvements. Some library volunteers said they were asked this summer to start an inventory project, which could take years to complete. Part of the major problem is that many presidential libraries are understaffed and don't have the same strict preservation guidelines used by most museums, as well as consistently struggling for funding. For more on this story, click here.
iTaggit comes in very handy when you need a quick inventory of your belongings for those “just in case” reasons, such as fire, flood or theft. To start a running inventory of your valuables now will undoubtedly save you time and effort in the future. Let us know if you need any help!

In this day and age, global warming is steadily becoming a huge issue. The widely accepted No. 1 cause of global warming is the burning of fossil fuels for electric power. Hybrid cars are beginning to pop up everywhere on the streets and in ad campaigns in an attempt to switch fuel sources. Former Vice President Al Gore recently won a Nobel peace prize for his research and documentary on global warming awareness. Images of the polar ice cap melting and the polar bear species dwindling haunt my thoughts. For these reasons, I have begun looking for new ways to save energy and do my part to help, which is why I was so excited to find this little tidbit of knowledge:

According to a recent story on Salon.com, the amount of energy and resources we invest in breeding animals for food, alongside naturally toxic excretions of those animals, is significantly responsible for global-warming. However, poultry are the least polluting.

The story continues with some shocking statistics:

• A November 2006 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report found that livestock accounts for 18 percent of global warming emissions worldwide, more than the entire transportation sector. In the U.S. alone, our livestock account for six percent of our greenhouse gases; comparable to the 19 percent from our cars, light trucks, and airplanes.

• Also according to the FAO, livestock production is a top cause of the world's many environmental problems: deforestation, acid rain, dead zones in the ocean, land degradation, water pollution, species extinction and, most threatening of all, global warming.

• Livestock emit about a third of human-caused methane production and two-thirds of human-caused nitrous oxide. Because of the specific features of their digestion, cattle, bison, sheep and goats burp out a lot of methane that traps 23 times more heat per ton than carbon dioxide. Chickens don't “burp” methane and they produce only one-tenth of the amount of methane cattle waste produces.

• Lastly, the difference between a vegan diet and one that includes cheeseburgers is less than 2 tons of greenhouse gases a year, which is about the equivalent of switching from a Camry to a Prius.

With those statistics in mind, consuming mass quantities of beef is the most harmful, followed by sheep, goats, and pork. My point, ladies and gentlemen, is not to scare you into giving up all forms of meat. As a born and raised Texan, I understand the difficulty in cutting cows out of my diet completely, but doesn't every little bit help? Perhaps, try saving that juicy steak for a special meal, and eat chicken and vegetables more often. It will slow down the process a little more, and we would all be a bit more healthy.


Need help getting through your piles of collectibles? Let iTaggit help! We help manage collectibles for those who need it most. Organize collectibles by creating new collections on iTaggit to group them in. Show them off in our Gallery and send them to your friends to check out or add to. Research collectibles with our Google search tool to learn more about your things. Whatever it is that you seek for your collectibles, iTaggit will help you!

The Texas Historical Commission announced Tuesday it purchased a letter written by Davy Crockett to his daughter and son-in-law for $490,000. It had been lost for two decades before it turned up in an office of the last known owner's grandson. The letter describes his arrival to Texas and is supposedly the last letter Crockett wrote before his death in the siege of the Alamo by General Santa Anna. For more on this story, click here.
iTaggit is a great way to catalog family heirlooms and historical artifacts, but if they are as significant as this, may I also suggest following in the Simpson's footsteps and donating them to a historical museum for preservation and educational purposes.