Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Thinking Green About Christmas Trees



KatonahGreen has a very interesting post on thinking green about Christmas trees and where you can find one locally.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

I'm Looking For Local Help

Are you sometimes in a quandary looking for local help? Or would like your
neighbors to know that you can provide personal services, especially now with the economy the way it is?


Here are some sites that you might find useful. Just put in the Katonah zip code 10536 at each site and let it rip.


BabySitters.com is a place for parents to find local babysitters. Babysitters can list their services, be reviewed by the site , and then start booking jobs. Has been featured on Good Morning America and in Oprah Magazine as a good way to earn extra money. Tell your daughters, grand-daughters, nieces, etc. about this site.



Care.com does background checks and assists people with finding babysitters, nannies, elderly care givers, tutors, house sitters and more.




HireAHelper.com -


The site helps you sign up as a mover, cleaner, lawn & garden helper or day laborer, then lets you post your availability and get hired by people in your area.




NannyAvailable.com - Site built specifically for matching nannies, au pairs, babysitters and more with families looking for help.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Top Rated Restaurants in Katonah



According to BooRah a restaurant review site, here are the top rated restaurants in Katonah:

  • Blue Dolphin Restaurant - 87%
  • Katonah Grill - 88%
  • Willy Nick's Cafe - 50%
  • Deer Park Tavern - 33%


How does BooRah do this?

BooRah uses semantic analysis and natural language processing to aggregate reviews from food blogs. Because of this, BooRah can recognize praise and criticism in these reviews and then rates restaurants accordingly.

If you eat out at any of the eateries in Katonah you can write a review of that eatery and influnce how it compares with other eateries in the Katonah area

To find out more go to BooRah.com.

Restaurant managers and owners are encouraged to join to promote their business.

Katonah Eateries Websites



















Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Movie About John Jay's Life Filmed at Homestead In Katonah

Northern Light Productions, a video film company from Boston, filmed a video about the life of John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States, at the John Jay homestead in October. Here is a link to images of the shoot.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

In The Kitchen With Heather and Karla

In the Kitchen with Heather and Karla is a new video series produced by KatonahGreen.com. The plan is to make short videos on healthy food choices, meal preparation and where one can purchase healthy foods in and around Katonah.


Heather and Karla in the Kitchen, Episode 1 from Heather Flournoy on Vimeo.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

In Memorium: Dr. William H. Smith

Dr. William H. Smith, 88, of Katonah, died on October 22, 2008.
In 1950 he settled in Katonah to work as the first pediatrician at the newly formed Katonah Medical Group.
An interest in scouting led to his role as Scoutmaster of Katonah Troop #1, BSA, a position he held for the past 52 years.

More.....

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Google Voter Info Site - New





With the upcoming U.S. elections only 13 days away, Google has released a new web site to help simply and centralize information about voting locations and voter registration..

Just enter your home address and it will show you where to go to vote - Kind of neat,especially for new registered voters.

Here is the link.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Interactive Piece - Sarah Palin As President



Some one has gone through a lot of work to make this funny interactive piece on Sarah Palin as President.

Here is the link to the site - use your mouse to move over the images, when the arrow turns to a hand click on that image - cleverly done.

Thursday, October 09, 2008

You are What You Say John McCain!

As John McCain/Sarah Palin have now gone into mud slinging in this campaign, I find this Youtube piece so revealing! You draw your own conclusion!



At last count 6 million plus have viewed this!

To me (the bashing by McCain/Palin Obama's character)is Joseph Raymond McCarthy revisited -"McCarthyism"

Joe McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957.

The term "McCarthyism," coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist pursuits. Today the term is used more generally to describe demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.

It would seem that this is McCain/Palin's current strategy! If you can't beat them
then try "McCarthyism," them!

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

McCain's "That One" In Last Night's Debate Starts a Business



Talk about turning a negative into a positive, some enterprising person has taken the McCain comment about Obama in last night debate and started an online business with it the next day!!

Here is the link to the store.

And here is the part of the debate that created this novelty business.



The Internet is the Game Changer in so many aspects - we are seeing that played out
in the 2008 Presidential Election.

It is just ironic that McCain's "That One" turns into a "Vote for That One 08" Obama
campaign marketing tool - within 24 hours of the debate!

THE WORLD HAS CHANGED IF YOU DON'T GET IT YOU ARE TOAST!!

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Sarah Palin Programmed



The Sarah Palin factor is getting a lot of lampoon play lately. It is open season on Sarah Palin - many would say thanks to John McCain's pick for VP.

This site interviewpalin.com is a parody. The answers are computer generated based on probabilities calculated from Sarah Palin's actual speech. We think it is hilarious.

The Markov chain generated answers are surprisingly close to her actual answers.

Here is the link to the site.

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Thursday, October 02, 2008

HPCI Reveals Katonah Most Expensive Market In NY

According to the 2008 Coldwell Banker® Home Price Comparison Index (HPCI) released September 9, 2008, Katonah ranked as the most expensive real estate market in New York State. Here is the link.

Currently, this $8,200,000,5 br, 6 ba, 10,000 sqft, Single-Family Home tops the list of over 20 plus homes in the $1,000,000 plus price range.



Here is a link to realtor.com showing current property listing in Katonah.

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Friday, September 19, 2008

Bedford Twenty By 2020





The Town Of Bedford has a goal under way to reduce CO2 emmissions 20% by the year 2020.

You can join the campaign for BEDFORD TO GO GREEN by clicking here.

If you sign on, they will send you a great looking Bedford twenty by 2020 decal to show you’re part of Bedford’s solution to global warming.

In addition the site provides tips on how you can help in this effort.

Today I came across this site:






ecomii™ is in beta and bills itself the definitive destination for objective information about Conscious Consumerism and green living on the net.

It seems to be a great site as a tool to make one very savvy about all things GREEN.

Monday, September 08, 2008

Map of Places To Eat In Katonah

umapper.com is a great site to create maps of all kinds of interest that you can embed in your own blog or website. 

Here is one I have done of 12 places to eat in Katonah. 

Tip: Use your mouse to scroll around the map as well as the + (zoom in) and - (zoom out) tags.

I am sure all kinds of ideas come to mind as to how one could use this site for business or
ideas of interest that you could plot on a map.




If you come up with an idea for using umapper as it relates to Katonah, like to know about it.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

An Idea For Local Teachers

In KatonahBlog, I have previously posted about sproutbuilder as a great tool to built widgets for anyone. I presently have one on the home page of katonahny.com - an interactive welcome widget.

In a Sproutbuilder blog post today, a wonderful idea is presented for how local teachers can raise money for special projects.

"Every year schools and teachers run out of money. Zero monies are left for individual teacher requests.

A ChipIn component added to a Sprout on a school web site or teacher web page would make it easy to raise money for special projects, and parents and community members could donate to one or more projects that held special interest for them."

Here is a demo of how the ChipIn component works:



If you know of any teachers, locally or otherwise, share this with them.

Friday, August 08, 2008

Dipity - A Time Line Web Service for Anything




Dipity is a cool web service that lets users create interactive multimedia timelines for anything.

Here are a couple of dipitys I found for Katonah:

Katonah TimeTube by Dipity

Katonah TimeLine Ticker by Dipity.

I would imagine the timelines you can create with dipity are endless. For those of you who like to look behind the hood, you can build multimedia timelines with the Dipity API.

Zemanta Pixie

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Anyone Can Now Animate







GoAnimate is a new site where you can create your own animations. Even if you can not draw a lick. So if you ever wanted to be an animator, here is your chance. Very user friendly program with features being added all the time. You can even bring in your own images, paste photos of yourself or family members/friends in your animations. GoAnimate has features for tailoring any animation to your liking.

Your end product can be distributed anywhere on the web (except YouTube for the moment but they are working on it). If you have a website or blog you can add your animation to your site.

They have a contest going on where you can win $5,000.

Here is the link to how it works.

Now GoAnimate and if you do let us know so we can link to it.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Video Slide Show Your Home For Free!


In the process of selling your home in this tight market and need an edge? Here is a free service that you should look into.

Add another feature to your listing by working in a little video slideshow for potential buyers.

PropertyPreviews is a free service that automates the process of creating such video clips without need for any software downloads. Just upload your images, include any relevant information, and the service will do the rest.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Katonah Grill Sues To Regain Cabaret License







Katonah Bar and Grill this year was denied a cabaret license renewal after complaints about noise and other disturbances. It has sued to the State Supreme Court that the Town of Bedford with relying on spotty evidence and failing to the give the business a fair hearing on its application.
At issue:

  • The lawsuits ask the court to grant the license and to rule that Bedford's cabaret license is unconstitutional because the Town Board Decided both the initial application and the appeal.
  • Katonah Grill maintains under state law the town clerk should make the initial
    decision on whether to grant the license. The Town Attorney argues that it is up to the Town Board not the Town Clerk to decide whether granting a license would affect the public.

  • Some patrons of Katonah Grill don't agree and some compromise should be made; do not play above a certain volume or to play only on certain nights.
  • Owner, Doug Crossett sites only once (maybe) of receiving a complaint when live music was playing
  • There are a large number of police incidents report that were presented to the Town Board. The attorney for the Town Joel Sachs cites that the record would show that the last several years, Katonah Grill was put on notice that there were issues there and they needed to take corrective action.


Attorney Sachs also point out that the town's cabaret law provides a "full and fair" hearing for applicants, noting that the Town Board can change its mind on appeal if evidence shows that's warrant.

In Doug Crossett's view the greater issue is it (the denial of a cabaret license) denies local musicians a place to play and the local people a place to hear live music.

For those of you curious here is the link to the
Town of Bedford Code

Search on Cabaret License to bring up Section 44 of the Town of Bedford Code covering Cabaret license.

Should the Katonah Grill be granted a cabaret license? --see side bar and take the poll.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

20 Plus Tools To Sell Your House



Thinking of putting your Katonah house on the market in this current real estate market :(

Here is a listing of Real Estate online tools that might be of help.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Katonah Walk Score Widget



Update July 14, 2008: The commenter (Petr) to this post cites a driving score service for those who don't live
within walking distance of the business area of Katonah.

"I ve found one more service called drive score at
http://drivescore.fizber.com/ -


Walk Score is a widget that shows you a map of what's nearby and calculates a Walk Score for any property.

Selling your house or thinking of buying in Katonah?

See how your Katonah Walk Score stacks up. Enter your address and Katonah NY below.



Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Enjoy Spring's Locally Grown Freshest Foods






Locally grown food is the new exotic. Consumers are realizing the benefits of eating food that is grown locally:

  • Higher nutrient levels from locally picked produce
  • Better Flavor
  • Think green less fossil fuel for transport
  • Tastes better because it is really fresh
  • You are getting food that is truly in season


Here is the site that can get you up to speed on locally grown food.

Update 4/30/08

Here is a link to your local online Farmers Market with personal delivery.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Sprout Builder Now Available to Everyone



On February 3 I posted to this blog a prototype made using the Sprout Builder widget tool available from sproutbuilder.com.




Although still in beta, last week Sprout Builder became available to everyone. What is also great is that the tool as I post this is FREE!

The applications for this tool are endless. For creative folks (writers,musicians, artist, photographers, etc) who want a way to get their work distributed on the net becomes in a word EASY to create,publish and manage.

To get some idea of how the tool is being used, here is a link to the sprout gallery.

If you create a sprout let us know by posting to the comment section of this post.

Hopefully this could turn into a community project where sprouts created locally can be posted on the Katonahny.com website as a local sprout gallery to be shared with other visitors to the site.

Here is one idea: Sprout Builder can be used for donation purposes by local organizations:


  1. Community Services
  2. Sports teams - Little League etc.
  3. Fire Dept
  4. Churches
  5. Politicians
  6. etc.



Here is an example of how this was done using the ChipIn services available at Sproutbuilder.com

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Spring Preview - Riding the Carousel @ Katonah Carnival

With Spring around the corner here is a preview of the joys of outdoors to come.



Video by: atmasphere

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

A Visual Drive On Scenic Route 22 - Bedford to Katonah

Here is a video to brighten up the Winter blahs!

A visual drive on scenic Route 22 from Bedford to Katonah.









This video (which as of today has been viewed 4,000 Plus times on Youtube) was done by
atmasphere Katonah, NY - http://www.atmasphere.net/wp

Friday, February 15, 2008

Have Cabin Fever Need To Get Away?



Have cabin fever need to get away? TripTouch, is a service meant to be an aid for travelers.

TripTouch claims to cover more than 4,000 destinations worldwide in its database - through basic blogging software.

Katonah is included as a destination and gives a good overview of the village.

Furthermore, the website allows users to invite friends to follow and/or share in a journey, as well as find fellow TripTouch fans to interact with, and even meet in various places.

TripTouch is something to try if you happen to be in the market to go places - worldwide or a couple of hours away.

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Democratic Primary Candidates Sproutbuilder Update

Sproutbuilder.com is a website that enables anyone to build great content online. I have been playing around with it this weekend (as a beta tester) and I think it is very easy to use.

The end product you create is called a sprout that you can share with anyone on the net.

Update: on 2/8/08 I updated the sprout widget to include a news feed and daily gallup poll updates:

2/8/08 According to Time, McCain and Clinton would be in a dead heat 46% to 46% but Obama would overwhelmingly beat McCain 48% to 41%, suggesting that Obama is more electable than Clinton.

But according to the Democratic national polls, Clinton is the most likely nominee.





Here is the link to find out more about sproutbuilder what I think is a fantastic online tool.


Comments welcome.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

The Worst Market Crisis in 60 Years By George Soros


Katonah resident George Soros has just published in the The Financial Times a
very insightful piece on why we are where we are with regard to the current financial crisis that seems to be going into deeper free fall.

The equity market sucks.
Where does one put their money to invest? Bonds don't seem a safe haven in the current financial environment.

IS IT SAFE ANYWHERE TO INVESTMENT (Soros seems to have an answer - outside of the U.S)




Here is the piece in the FT.

The worst market crisis in 60 years

By George Soros

Published: January 22 2008 19:57 | Last updated: January 22 2008 19:57

The current financial crisis was precipitated by a bubble in the US housing market. In some ways it resembles other crises that have occurred since the end of the second world war at intervals ranging from four to 10 years.

However, there is a profound difference: the current crisis marks the end of an era of credit expansion based on the dollar as the international reserve currency. The periodic crises were part of a larger boom-bust process. The current crisis is the culmination of a super-boom that has lasted for more than 60 years.

Boom-bust processes usually revolve around credit and always involve a bias or misconception. This is usually a failure to recognise a reflexive, circular connection between the willingness to lend and the value of the collateral. Ease of credit generates demand that pushes up the value of property, which in turn increases the amount of credit available. A bubble starts when people buy houses in the expectation that they can refinance their mortgages at a profit. The recent US housing boom is a case in point. The 60-year super-boom is a more complicated case.

Every time the credit expansion ran into trouble the financial authorities intervened, injecting liquidity and finding other ways to stimulate the economy. That created a system of asymmetric incentives also known as moral hazard, which encouraged ever greater credit expansion. The system was so successful that people came to believe in what former US president Ronald Reagan called the magic of the marketplace and I call market fundamentalism. Fundamentalists believe that markets tend towards equilibrium and the common interest is best served by allowing participants to pursue their self-interest. It is an obvious misconception, because it was the intervention of the authorities that prevented financial markets from breaking down, not the markets themselves. Nevertheless, market fundamentalism emerged as the dominant ideology in the 1980s, when financial markets started to become globalised and the US started to run a current account deficit.

Globalisation allowed the US to suck up the savings of the rest of the world and consume more than it produced. The US current account deficit reached 6.2 per cent of gross national product in 2006. The financial markets encouraged consumers to borrow by introducing ever more sophisticated instruments and more generous terms. The authorities aided and abetted the process by intervening whenever the global financial system was at risk. Since 1980, regulations have been progressively relaxed until they have practically disappeared.

The super-boom got out of hand when the new products became so complicated that the authorities could no longer calculate the risks and started relying on the risk management methods of the banks themselves. Similarly, the rating agencies relied on the information provided by the originators of synthetic products. It was a shocking abdication of responsibility.

Everything that could go wrong did. What started with subprime mortgages spread to all collateralised debt obligations, endangered municipal and mortgage insurance and reinsurance companies and threatened to unravel the multi-trillion-dollar credit default swap market. Investment banks’ commitments to leveraged buyouts became liabilities. Market-neutral hedge funds turned out not to be market-neutral and had to be unwound. The asset-backed commercial paper market came to a standstill and the special investment vehicles set up by banks to get mortgages off their balance sheets could no longer get outside financing. The final blow came when interbank lending, which is at the heart of the financial system, was disrupted because banks had to husband their resources and could not trust their counterparties. The central banks had to inject an unprecedented amount of money and extend credit on an unprecedented range of securities to a broader range of institutions than ever before. That made the crisis more severe than any since the second world war.

Credit expansion must now be followed by a period of contraction, because some of the new credit instruments and practices are unsound and unsustainable. The ability of the financial authorities to stimulate the economy is constrained by the unwillingness of the rest of the world to accumulate additional dollar reserves. Until recently, investors were hoping that the US Federal Reserve would do whatever it takes to avoid a recession, because that is what it did on previous occasions. Now they will have to realise that the Fed may no longer be in a position to do so. With oil, food and other commodities firm, and the renminbi appreciating somewhat faster, the Fed also has to worry about inflation. If federal funds were lowered beyond a certain point, the dollar would come under renewed pressure and long-term bonds would actually go up in yield. Where that point is, is impossible to determine. When it is reached, the ability of the Fed to stimulate the economy comes to an end.

Although a recession in the developed world is now more or less inevitable, China, India and some of the oil-producing countries are in a very strong countertrend. So, the current financial crisis is less likely to cause a global recession than a radical realignment of the global economy, with a relative decline of the US and the rise of China and other countries in the developing world.

The danger is that the resulting political tensions, including US protectionism, may disrupt the global economy and plunge the world into recession or worse.

The writer is chairman of Soros Fund Management

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

Here is the link to the FT piece.

Comments welcome.

Friday, January 04, 2008

Think Green Locally For 2008



Here is an excellent New Years resolution for 2008.With all the concern about global warming here is something you can do on a local level to be part of the solution. Earth911.org is an excellent resource for ideas and how to's in helping you and your family on a local level do your part in keeping the earth green.

Happy New Year!