A good friend of mine from back in my art class days has put his work up in a new Online Store. Please visit http://www.lawrenceruiz.com/onlinestore.html. Not expensive for signed, limited editions, so please visit, and if you like it, support a local artist by making a purchase!
I know a lot of people – friends, family and clients, who wage an ongoing battle with spyware, malware, and viruses. As they surf the internet, their computer gets more and more loaded up with these programs, until they either have to pay the “Geek Squad” or other service to clean it up, or they just buy another computer.
Here are some best practices to keep your computer from developing such problems in the first place, or to help you clean it up once you are infected:
1) Avoid surfing the net on an account with administrator priviledges. If you have the priviledge to install a program onto your computer, so does the malevolant website that you are visiting. If you don’t have those priviledges, the bad program CAN’T be installed. This alone has kept my computers clean for years.
2) Install AVG Free Anti Virus Software. I hate Norton, because it always messes up my computer when I try to upgrade it or uninstall it. Plus AVG is FREE!
3) Run the most updated version of Adaware, with updated definitions on a regular basis. It is a free program and is made to search and destroy stuff on your computer that has been installed without your express permission. Looks like the Plus version is FREE for a limited time.
4) If you suspect you are infected, run HijackThis. Running it won’t hurt your computer, but you can really mess things up if you start deleting the files listed in the log without knowing what you are doing. You can, however, use a log autoanalyzer that will interpret the results for you. Here is a screenshot of some typical results.
If you aren’t familiar with an item listed in your HijackThis log, Google it, and if it is spyware or malware, you will often find detailed instructions and software that will aid you in removing it.
Surf Safe!
Back in February I posted about a Sprint bill I received in error for service on a phone number that has been disconnected for over 5 years. If I could get back all the time I spend dealing with incompetent billing departments, I’d have a vacation coming.
After multiple phone calls, I finally got the charge removed and everything was straightened out. Or was it? I just received ANOTHER bill for the same thing. This time I think I’ll write a letter and see if that works any better.
I always like to look at the positive side of situations like this. If I were ever to consider signing up for ANY service Sprint has to offer, this experience has taught me that would be a mistake.
This doesn’t have anything to do with Pleasanton or Web Design, but I’m posting it because if it has happened to me, chances are it has happened to someone else. Maybe I can save someone a call or two.
I received a bill from Sprint last week for $17.54. The problem is that I haven’t had a Sprint account for over 5 years, maybe longer. There was an account number, but no phone number listed on the bill, so I had no idea what it was for.
I called the customer service number on the bill. They couldn’t find any record of my account number. They transferred me to the cellular division, they also could find no record of that account number. Finally they spilled the beans, and told me they had outsourced the upgrade of their billing system to another company. They transferred me, and an annoyed-sounding man with a heavy hispanic accent again told me there was no record of my account number. Off the hook? I could only be so lucky.
Knowing that a company like Sprint isn’t going to let an outstanding charge just fade away, I called back a week later. This time, my account number was on file. It was for a phone number that was disconnected in 2002. When questioned about what the charges were for, the customer service person told my that they were for service on that phone number for January and February of this year. “So you don’t want to pay this?” he asked. “No” I replied. 15 minutes later the charge was removed and the account was closed.
Just started some work for a new client who purchased a hosting account from AN Hosting, which was recently purchased by Midphase hosting. In attempting to establish an FTP connection, I first tried using the instructions in Cpanel, but to no avail. They instructed me to be sure to connect using “ftp.mydomain.com” and then with the exact username for the ftp account listed, and enter the /htpdocs/ directory. It didn’t work.
Next stop, the support documentation. This told me to use “mydomain.com” as the host, and the ftp login information in the “welcome” email. The “welcome” email didn’t have any ftp account information, so I again tried the info listed in cPanel. Still no luck.
Finally I searched community help on the Midphase website, which instructed me to use “mydomain.com” and my cPanel login and to leave the directory blank. Success!! I’ve used enough webhosting companies to know that this isn’t a sign of good things to come. Completely wrong and inconsitent support documentation means that they aren’t even close to having their poop together.
I just launched this bass fishing Website aimed at a Japanese audience. Text is entirely in Japanese and features videos, pictures, articles and blogs covering big bass fishing around the world. Also featured are lessons, articles, videos and an interview with legendary bass videographer, Glen Lau.
With sections like Big Bass University, Tournament Corner, Big Bass Hotspots, and the World Record section, there is plenty of information and media to keep the bass fishing enthusiast entertained for hours.
While Myspace and Facebook dominate the social networking world here in the United States, and Hi5 is it for Latin America, England, Ireland and New Zealand have Bebo.
My first attempts at viewing Bebo resulted in a “Page Not Found” error in IE6. I hate IE6 and blame it for everything, so I tried Firefox and was able to begin entering my profile. When I tried to submit it though, I received a “Server Connection Was Reset Error.” Having an unlimited amount of free time, as we all do, I re-entered my information, and got farther in the process this time, but got the server reset error again. Eventually I was able to post my profile and a picture though.
In navigating through the site it is apparent that Bebo is very video oriented. In clicking the explore tab, my choices were “sponsored videos” or “all videos.” The thumbnails have pictures of people’s faces on them. I don’t really want to listen to someone blab on and on in hopes some of it might be interesting, so I didn’t click on any of those videos.
The “friends” tab was even less interesting, because I have no friends. At lease no “Bebo” friends. During sign-up Bebo searched my hotmail account trying to find people in my address book who were already members. It found none, so I have no friends, and this tab is of no interest.
There were number of subtabs too, listing groups, authors, darwin (I have no idea) etc. Through the groups link I was able to find other member’s profiles. The profile were “myspacey” but a little less annoying, and a little more cookie cutter.
The only reason I can see for a myspace or facebook member to join Bebo is that there appears to be cleaner support for video. The real reason I joined, and the promise I see in Bebo is from a developers standpoint. Bebo uses Open Social, Google’s standardized social networking framework. What that means to the social networking enthusiast is eventually you can take advantage of multiple social networking sites using a single profile and integrate them together in a way that you choose. For now though, Bebo is just another password and username you need to keep track of.
This tool is too cool for school, fool. I just had to write that, and I do apologize. Yahoo Site Explorer does appear to be an excellent tool though. I learned about it last evening at the Web Guild’s SEO Web 2.0 event. It came recommended by Adam Lasnik, the guy in charge of Google’s Webmaster Tools. I figured it was worth a look.
Basically Yahoo Site Explorer can give the same type of information you get from Google’s advanced search operators like “link:” and “site:,” only it is more complete and detailed in some areas. For example Google shows that my business Web design site has 38 backlinks, or links TO my site. Anyone who has done SEO for any amount of time knows that these links, displayed using the “link:” operator, are virtually meaningless. They always display a number much less than the actual incoming links you have, and they display the same set for months or even a year, independant links being added or deleted. And Google doesn’t even use that same data for their actual search algorithm. The only use I see for the “link:” operator is to show you some of the sites that link to your competitor’s site. It’s a good way to find free directories, or even suss out their linking strategy.
In Google’s defense, the reason they can’t supply complete information using their advanced operators is because they execute in the same search box as their bread-and-butter search. Getting too fancy with the advanced operator info would cost overhead and execution time.
In comparison, Yahoo Site Explorer shows 1,054 “inlinks” (same thing as Google backlinks) to my business Web design site. That’s probably about right. On the other hand Yahoo Site Explorer only shows 740 pages indexed, while Google’s “site:” operator shows over 2,000. This is probably because Yahoo only has 740 of my pages indexed. Google has a more complete index of my Web site because I use Google Sitemaps, which allows me to specifically point to each of the pages contained therein.
How can Yahoo be so complete? I’m guessing it’s because Yahoo Site Explorer is seperate application from Yahoo Search, so they don’t have to worry about the Webmasters dragging down their standard search performance.
Even though Yahoo Site Explorer is so cool and complete and better than Google, it is not an earth-shattering find for me. I’ve never had much trouble getting good position on Yahoo. It’s trying to figure out Google that causes me to pull out my hair and wet the bed (ok, not wet the bed, but I wonder if I’ll get any hits for that phrase?) So when Google pulls their search operators off into a different application, and makes the data available to Webmasters more complete, then I’ll yell hip-hip-hooray and jump for joy.
Just arrived back from a Web Guild meeting at Google in Mountain View. The topic was “SEO for Web 2.0.” If you have no idea what that means, let me explain. SEO is the acronym for Search Engine Optimization. It refers to the process of maximizing the search engine rankings of a Website for the selected keywords or keyphrases.
Before the panel presentation I had a very sketchy idea of what Web 2.0 means, so let me defer to the panel’s explanation. By the way, here was the line-up:
The moderator was supposed to be Markus Hoevener, chief visionary of Bloofusion, a cutting edge SEO company. I’m pretty sure I saw him there in the audience, but the moderator turned out to be a guy with a ponytail, and I didn’t write down his name. Sorry. He did a good job though.
Also on the panel were David Hahn, Director of advertising for LinkIn, a professional networking site, Joelle Gropper Kaufman, VP of Experience (nice title) for Engage, a dating site, and last, but number one on my list was Adam Lasnik, SEO Strategist (or Evangalist, according to him) for Google. Adam’s primary focus is Webmaster (that’s me) relations and building Google’s Webmaster tools (yay).
So ponytail-guy outlined Web 2.0 like this:
1. Never-ending user generated content.
2. Technological improvements, such as AJAX and JavaScript (the second wave).
3. Structural features, such as personlized experience through log-in.
So basically think about Myspace, blogs like this one, or better yet, Yelp for real world examples. Web 2.0 is basically what the web is evolving into through more interactive publishing. Joelle’s comment was that it is based on the role of the user in shaping their own experience.
Each of the new features of Web 2.0 come with drawbacks to SEO, providing the reason for the meeting in the first place.
Problems:
1. Never-ending user generated content leads to less editorial control.
2. New technologies, such as AJAX and JavaScript (the second wave) are invisible to search engines.
3. Content that requires login to view is also invisible to search engines.
Solutions:
1. Editorial guidance can be given by presenting a specific structure for user input, such as a template.
2. New technologies should be used wisely. If the search engine can’t see the content in AJAX modules, don’t put important content, especially navigation, in AJAX.
3. Provide a public version of private information hidden behind a login. Let the user decide what to make public.
A lot was said about the importance of viral growth for SEO in Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is about communities and cross-linking, rather than individually designed and manufactured pages. I think the key concept that I got out of the meeting was put forward by Adam Lasnik of Google when he said if you can’t come up with quality content, make your services compelling. Make them viral (my interpretation). He went on that Google engineers are working on putting that concept into their algorithm at this moment (I looked in the window as I was leaving and saw that it was true).
My Google Adsense ads are all about Christmas trees, all day, all the time. I do have one link to a Christmas tree farm in my right column. Now this post will ensure Christmas tree ads for weeks to come. Lawnmower, lawnmower, lawnmower. Google, give me some ads about lawnmowers!
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