Our friends at UDR recently made the news with their new developments in Addison, TX – Savoye Apartments and Vitruvian Park – only a few blocks from the Ellipse World Headquarters. The Dallas Morning News Business Section on February 19^th had a great article "Addison develops an edgy side". The article talks about the contemporary design elements that compare to the W Hotel. The property boasts all the latest in amenities.

At Ellipse we are honored to have been chosen to provide website design and hosting services for this incredible community. We have truly enjoyed working with the UDR Team and we are not surprised by their recent recognition in the news. UDR is a innovative company that leads the industry by embracing proven strategies when it comes to marketing.

Why are we sending this out? Because we are excited for our friends at UDR as they are clearly trendsetters in apartment living. We are also very honored that UDR has chosen to work with Ellipse Communications, Inc.

Does your Clubhouse, game room or office feature a Nintendo Wii? It may have attracted a lot of attention initially, only to become another dust-collector in the entertainment center. Fortunately, there are many low to no-cost ways to make the Wii a valued member of your team.

1. Mii–every Wii can house and feed up to 48 Mii, or customizable player avatars–your Mii will bowl, play Rock Band drums or drive a Mario Kart–depending on the game. Part of your new hire orientation should definitely include allowing the new agent, maintenance or courtesy person to create a Mii of their own.
2. Video Wallpaper– When your Wii is not in use, share photos from your latest resident event or newest property photos. The front of the Wii has a slot for SD Cards–standard memory cards for many digital cameras and camera phones. There’s even a "slideshow" that will add music and scroll through the pictures automatically via the Photo Channel on the Wii menu. If your Wii is on Wi-Fi, you can also display slideshows of news articles in the News Channel.
3. Games! Unless you have a gamer on your staff, renewing interest in your Wii by getting new games can be prohibitively expensive and wearying. A few suggestions for figuring out and acquiring what you need:
   • Aim for Multiplayer: Games that can be played cooperatively or competitively will have the longest replay value for the Wii.
   • Metacritic: Distills game reviews from many websites and blogs into a single score, in addition to laying out the game’s content rating (E for Everyone, T for Teen, M for Mature) and number of players.
   • WiiWare: if your Wii is online, you have access to WiiWare, downloadable games which generally cost between $5 and $10, a fraction of the cost of store bought titles. Since these are downloads, there will be no discs to protect or keep track of and they are a fraction of the cost of standard games. Classic games like Super Mario and Tetris are also available.
4. GET ONLINE: In addition to WiiWare, many of the most exciting (and free!) features the Wii has to offer are reliant on Internet access. With built-in Wi-Fi, the Wii is no more difficult to get online than a laptop or iPod.

With St. Patrick's Day just around the corner, there will be much thought put into how to integrate at least one item of green clothing so as not to get pinched. But what if, instead of barraging your closet for your favorite green sweater, you and the residents of your community took this week as an opportunity to "go-green" in a fun and creative way.

Ideal Bite, one of many going-green blogs, has a suggested giving back project that would be a fun/easy resident project.

Is figuring out what to do with your used kicks a total mystery? Here's a clue: Donate your old footwear to a reuse or recycling program to save landfill space or help out someone in need. Nice work, gumshoe.

The Benefits:

• You'll create less waste while cleaning out your closet – Reuse–A–Shoe alone has kept more than 23 million pairs of shoes out of the dump.
• Every pair helps – gently worn shoes can outfit feet in the developing world, while shabby ones can be made into surfacing for things like tennis courts.

Wanna Try?

• Nike Reuse–A–Shoe – drop off any brand of ratty athletic shoes, and the company grinds 'em up into surfaces for playgrounds, tennis courts, and tracks.
• Soles4Souls – donate used-but-useable pairs to people in developing countries by dropping your shoes off at a nearby drop spot, or shipping them.
• One World Running – donate near-new athletic shoes to cash-poor sports players.

I bet you didn't know your old shoes could help create a tennis court! Do you know of any other creative ways to get your community involved in being green this year without much spending out of pocket?