Showing posts with label Cool Sites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cool Sites. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Google and Spam Detection. What Google Knows About Spam

What Google Knows About Spam 10 Minute Video



If you didn’t attend Web 2.0, you can watch Matt Cutts, the Google Guy ten-minute keynote about “What Google Knows About Spam” (and several other keynotes) on blip.tv. I’ll embed the keynote below as well


So if you want a great introduction to "What Google Knows About Spam" then spend 10 minutes watching Matt's Web 2.0 keynote video. It will be the best 10 minute investment you make all week.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Ultimate SEO Resource for Real Estate Agents

Ultimate SEO Resource for Real Estate Agents


Note: OnTheAvenues Blog achieves top recognition for real estate SEO

SEO, as a rule, isn’t easy. Of course, this goes double if you’re a real estate agent with hundreds of competitors in your area–all targetting the same keywords. The real estate industry is large, it’s competitive, and the average realtor has a million other things to worry about besides their SEO strategy. But that doesn’t mean you should give up–leveraged successfully, the Internet has the potential to be the largest and most profitable sales channel in an agent’s marketing mix.

The following list is filled with tools and resources that will help any real estate agent achieve their SEO goals. You can choose to learn from blogs, tutorials, or forums, and we’ve also pointed you to specific blog entries and forum threads that will get you started. You can study search engines to learn what they require from you, and you can choose among some professionals to help you refine your Web site or to take over completely. The choice is yours. The links to each tool are listed alphabetically within the categories listed immediately below. The numbering does not indicate that we favor one site over another or that they are listed in order of value. Finally, all the sites listed below are targeted specifically to real estate professionals.

The following blogs are written by individuals who are in the real estate field, yet who also have become experts in the SEO realm. While some blogs focus specifically on SEO, other blogs contain a category that holds their SEO articles.

OnTheAvenues: Bonnie Burns provides web site analysis and search engine optimization services specifically for real estate web sites and shows her expertise through her blog.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Get Video Program Camtasia Studio 3 For Free

Get Video Program Camtasia Studio 3 For Free


You can produce videos for your blog with the software, make products you can sell online or produce tutorials to train people how to do things. This software alone can be the basis for a thriving online business, so I strongly recommend you take advantage of this before Techsmith change their mind!

Downloading Camtasia Studio 3.1.3 absolutely free. Camtasia is the complete professional solution for recording, editing and sharing high-quality screen videos. It's easy-to-use, and is the quickest and most effective way for you to communicate.

Easily record your screen to create compelling training videos, screencasts, and presentations ... without ever leaving your desk.

Capture everything you see on your screen Edit and enhance the videos - pinpoint cursor movements with special visual effects, perform sophisticated moves such as highlighting, zooming, and panning, and even record what you draw on the screen Share in the industry-standard AVI and streaming media formats

Techsmith, the company the produces Camtasia, are giving away a free copy of the software, but there is a catch - you don’t get the latest version, you get Camtasia Studio 3.1.3.

Camtasia Studio 3.1.3 works great and while obviously it doesn’t have the features of the latest version, it has all of the core functions. You can record and produce videos fine, in fact I used this software for several months before upgrading.

If you want to take advantage of the free offer click here to download your copy of Camtasia Studio 3.1.3 by following these steps -

Step 1

Download the software from here (save the file to your desktop).

http://download.techsmith.com/camtasiastudio/enu/312/camtasiaf.exe

Step 2

Go to this page, complete your name, country and e-mail address and Techsmith will send you a software key to unlock the program.

http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia/pcpls.asp

Step 3

Install the software and then input the key to unlock it and you will have the full working version of Camtasia Studio 3.

Unfortunately this offer is only for PC users, sorry to the Mac people out there!

Note: This is not an affiliate link or anything like that, just a great freebie that I hope you take advantage of.

Update For Vista Users: If you are having problems running this version of Camtasia on Windows Vista, read this thread at the Warrior forums for advice.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

How Often Are You Updating Your Website?

How Often Are You Updating Your Website?


"Content freshness" refers to how often your Web content gets updated. To put it simply, the more often you add new content to your Web site, you are feeding your visitors new information.

But you are also feeding the search engines new information.

The effect of updating your content will have an impact on several things such as:

* having more visits from search engine spiders on a regular basis.
* having high quality fresh new content also gets your web pages indexed faster if the robots visit more regularly
* having a site that is consistently updated on a regular basis has benefits to both visitor behavior and search engine relevancy.

Now there is a product that gives you the ability to easily add fresh content to your web pages the easy way. It's about satisfying your viewers AND the search engines... giving them both something they love!

Fresh, original content...through RSS or Really Simple Syndication can be used or just adding new pages to your website can help keep your site fresh and up-tp-date.

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Free HTML Reference Guide

Free HTML Reference Guide


Sites with bad html code can affect the search engine indexing and reading of your site. be sure you are using correct html code




OnTheAvenues has been providing Search Engine Optimization services since 1998. http://ontheavenues-diy-seo.blogspot.com/ Bonnie Burns SEO Consultant

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Hot Trends Added To Google Trends

Hot Trends Added To Google Trends


Google has launched a meme-like feature to Google Trends. The Google Trends home page now has a section named "Hot Trends," which shows the hottest queries for the day. You can also look back historically and see the hottest queries for that day. Plus, Google Trends upgraded the trends history to show not only country data in the regions box but also state and even city detail - worldwide.

What defines a "hot trend"? Google told me they use a very sophisticated algorithm to determine what is "hot." I was told to think of it as Google noticing a "sudden rise" in a query phrase that is not in the norm for that query. The higher the rise, the hotter the query is. Google has a "hotness level" score for these queries, the hottest is "volcanic", followed by "on fire," "spicy," "medium" and "mild."

The Google Trends home page has been enhanced to include these Hot Trends. It will show the top ten hot trends for the day, for the United States (that's the only country currently being supported).




As you can see, you can click to view "more hot searches" at the end of the list. Clicking that link will show you a list of a 100 hot trends for that day, sorted by the hotness score. Also, you can then "change date" on this page to go back in history to see what were the hottest trends for a date in the past. See complete details at below source


Source: SearchEngineLand

Google Blog on Hot Trends

For more than six years, we have compiled a regular list of popular searches called the Google Zeitgeist. This has been our way to highlight the sorts of queries people type into the Google search box every day. More recently, we unveiled Google Trends to show the popularity of search terms in relation to each other overtime, and how different cities or regions may care (or not) about the trends.

And today we're introducing a new toy we are calling Hot Trends. It's a new feature of Google Trends for sharing the the hottest current searches with you in very close to real time. What's on our collective mind as we search for information? What's interesting to people right now? Hot Trends will tell you. At a glance, you'll see the huge variety of topics capturing our attention, from current events to daily crossword puzzle clues to the latest celebrity gossip. Hot Trends is updated throughout the day, so check back often.

For each Hot Trend, you will see results from Google News, Google Blog Search and web search, which help explain why the search is hot. For example, the #7 item on Thursday, May 17th was the cryptic phrase [creed thoughts]. The associated news stories and blog results show that this odd term is the name of a fake website mentioned on the season finale of The Office. Mystery solved. Of course, some searches are not as easily explained. Visit the Hot Trends group to read the explanations of others and offer your own.

If you want to look further back, you can also see what queries were hot on a particular day. On Wednesday, May 16th, [melinda doolittle], [halo 3 beta], and [ge dishwasher recall] were on the Hot Trends list. If you don't know why, maybe you'll learn something.

Hot Trends aren't the search terms people look for most often -- those are pretty predictable, like [weather] or [games] or perhaps [myspace]. Yes, [sex] too. Instead, the Hot Trends algorithm analyzes millions of searches to find those that are deviating the most relative to their past traffic. And the outcome is the Hot Trends list.

In addition to Hot Trends, we've updated Google Trends so that it's easier to use and, we hope, more useful to you. In addition to viewing the top search terms by country and city, you can view the top "subregions" (e.g. states within the U.S.) across more than 70 countries. You can now compare the leading presidential candidates around the country, for instance, or find out which states have the worst mosquito problems.

With the release of Hot Trends, we're retiring the weekly Zeitgest list, but we will still compile monthly lists for each country, and will continue our annual year-end roll-ups too.

Hot Trends is currently available only in English, but we hope to release international versions in the future.

http://www.ontheavenues.com/
http://ontheavenues-diy-seo.blogspot.com/
Bonnie Burns SEO Consultant

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Condemned To Google Hell. Don't anger the Google gods.

Condemned To Google Hell. Don't anger the Google gods.

That's the lesson Paul Sanar learned--too late--last year. Up until last fall, the 21-year-old New Yorker depended solely on the search engine to keep traffic flowing to Skyfacet.com, his online diamond business; Sanar says he sold $3 million dollars worth of jewelry a year. Then, he says, Google (nasdaq:
GOOG - news - people ) turned its back on Skyfacet.com, condemning the site to Internet obscurity.

Slide show: Grading Google

Beginning in September 2006, Skyfacet no longer showed up on the first few pages of Google's results when users typed in search terms like "diamonds" and "engagement ring." The site's traffic vanished, and Sanar says his sales dropped $500,000 in three months.

What happened? Sanar isn't completely sure. But he does know that his site has been condemned to the supplemental index, a dreaded backwater region of Google search results that goes by another name in online marketing circles: Google Hell.

Google Hell is the worst fear of the untold numbers of companies that depend on search results to keep their business visible online. Getting stuck there means most users will never see the site, or at least many of the site's pages, when they enter certain keywords. And getting out can be next to impossible--because site operators often don't know what they did to get placed there.

Google's programmers appear to have created the supplemental index with the best intentions. It's designed to lighten the workload of Google's "spider," the algorithm that constantly combs and categorizes the Web's pages. Google uses the index as a holding pen for pages it deems to be of low quality or designed to appear artificially high in search results.

Those pages are scanned far less frequently than those in the main index, meaning that once a page is marked for Google Hell, it can languish there for as long as a year before Google even deigns it worthy of a reappraisal. And as Google tries to manage an explosively growing Web, more and more sites are finding themselves thrown into the search engine's digital dungeon.

If that makes the world's leading Web-crawler sound judgmental, consider Google's difficult position. The search juggernaut is faced with the endless task of reading and ranking the ever-expanding Web's billions of pages, the equivalent of putting the Earth's population in order from tallest to shortest every few minutes. Meanwhile there are growing numbers of pages filled only with junk text and advertising, designed solely to fool the engine. It's Google's task to sort out the trash from the worthwhile, and to do it better and faster than competitors like Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ), Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ), or InterActiveCorp's (nasdaq: IACI - news - people ) Ask.com.

So how does Google decide what kind of pages get punished? That's where things get tricky. Google keeps the details of its decision-making a secret, since the company is trying to prevent sites from gaming the search engine. But it also means that site operators like Paul Sanar can offend Google and not know what they've done until its too late.

In retrospect, Sanar thinks he can trace his problem to a search marketing consultant he had paid $35,000 to improve Skyfacet's Google rankings. He now believes the consultant mistakenly replicated content on many of the site's pages, making them look like duplicate--that is, spam--content. But even after he reversed the consultant's changes, he couldn't get Skyfacet's pages out of Google Hell, where they remain today.

Other online businesses have similar stories. MySolitaire.com, another online diamond business, spent January to June of 2006 in the supplemental index. Amit Jhalani, the site's vice president of search marketing, says he figures that cost his business $250,000 in sales, and he says he still doesn't know why the site's pages got Google's thumbs-down.

"So many of the rules are vague," Jhalani says. But he admits that he tried gray-area tactics like buying links from more established sites to juice his traffic. "For a small site like ours, you have to stay right on the edge to compete with sites with bigger budgets," he confesses.

Jhalani says he removed the links that may have offended Google, but the site remained in Google's gulag. Jhalani wrote Google asking the search engine to reappraise MySolitaire; nothing happened. Since Google ranks sites partially by the quality of sites that link to them, he painstakingly contacted every site that seemed to be of low quality and linked to MySolitaire, asking them to remove their links, sometimes even sending cease-and-desist letters. Finally the site returned to Google's main index last June, though Jhalani has no way of knowing just what finally caused Google's algorithm to forgive him.

Chris Bartow is a search marketing consultant for Revenco.com, a real estate site that also saw the majority of its pages sent to Google Hell for six months of 2006. Bartow believes that some identical content on 90 of his site's property listing pages caused Google to mistake them for plagiarized spam sites. "I know they're trying to get rid of sites with no practical purpose," he says. " But when your pages get dumped, you lose half your traffic and a lot of money."

Bartow thinks his misfortune stemmed from a temporary glitch in Google's algorithm. But other search engine marketers say that Google Hell is only increasing in size and severity. "The supplemental index has been on the upswing for quite a while," says Aaron Wall, a search engine consultant and Google-watcher. "They've gotten much more aggressive about throwing pages in there."

Search marketer Michael Gray says he's seen the standards "tighten and loosen and tighten and loosen," but the last six months have been particularly brutal. "There has been a lot of collateral damage with some of these decisions," Gray says. He cites the growing sophistication of spam pages as one source of trouble. "Google's trying not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but it's kind of impossible. A spammer can very easily create something that resembles a legitimate site if he knows the right tricks," he says.

The criteria for which pages are targeted for the supplemental index remains a subject of guesswork. But Web designers have found that pages with duplicate content, few words or pictures, and a lack of links to other quality sites are the most likely to be pulled in. Most agree that newly created sites are especially vulnerable.

As for Google's own take on its supplemental index, the company is typically tight-lipped. Google's official page for Webmasters cryptically notes that Google is "able to place fewer restraints on sites that we crawl for this supplemental index than we do on sites that are crawled for our main index," a phrase that puzzles most search marketers.

In an e-mail, Google product manager Prashanth Koppula offers little more in the way of an explanation. Asked if the supplemental index is getting bigger, he responds that "new pages are constantly being added," but that the "algorithmic nature" of Google's spider makes it hard to measure the index's size or how fast it's growing. That's not a problem, Koppula says, because supplemental results are no less legitimate than normal results, and pages in the supplemental index aren't checked any less frequently by Google's spider.

But Jim Boykin, another search marketing consultant and blogger, doesn't buy it. "If your page is in the supplementals, it won't rank for any competitive search, and it can be really hard to get it out," he says. "That's why we call it Google Hell."

Source: Forbes Andy Greenberg

http://ontheavenues-diy-seo.blogspot.com/
http://www.ontheavenues.com/

Thursday, April 26, 2007

What Is PageRank? A Guide For Searchers & Webmasters

What Is PageRank? A Guide For Searchers & Webmasters

As an SEO Professional, I am always amazed when clients declare concern over 'that lttle green Google pagerank bar' As much I try and calm those concerns...seems like people just don't get it. And even more disturbing are those SEO's who still have no understanding of the PageRank dynamics.

Finally, the Guru of SEO Danny Sullivan has put togther a very comprehensive explanation, a white paper if you will, explaining in best of terms the PageRank factor. I have included just the brief overview below. The complete writings plus visual pictures is located here:
http://searchengineland.com/070426-011828.php
Sadly -- so, so sadly -- far too many SEOs fixated on the PageRank meter when it came out first through the Google Directory and then later in December 2000 via the Google Toolbar. They focused on getting links from high PR pages without realizing that PageRank alone wasn't enough. Danny Sullivan

PageRank Versus "Toolbar" PageRank

Those PageRank scores that you can see? Those are often referred to as "toolbar" PageRank. This is different from what's often called "internal" PageRank.

Internal PageRank are the PageRank scores that Google uses as part of its ranking algorithm. Those scores are constantly being updated. In contrast, the PageRank scores that Google allows the world to see -- Toolbar PageRank -- is a snapshot of internal PageRank taken every few months.

What's important here? If you're a brand new site, you'll likely have a low or no PageRank score reported in the Google Toolbar. That might concern you, even though it will mostly impact whether you get crawled regularly (the higher your PageRank, the more likely Google will regularly revisit your pages). It does also have an impact on your ranking ability, of course.

It's likely that after a few weeks, you'll have gained some internal PageRank. You might see more traffic, as a result. But outwardly, the Google Toolbar PageRank meter will still show your same old depressing score. Then a snapshot will be made, and the better score you get will reflect what's already been happening behind the scenes.

More info on PageRank from Google's Matt Cutts explain more about this and other aspects of PageRank. You can also try the Future PageRank tool if you hear from various sources that a PageRank update is in progress for the toolbar. It might give you an early glimpse at your score to come.

PageRank tells how important a page is, relatively speaking, compared to other pages.

PageRank is just one of MANY ranking factors used to determine ranking in search results.

High PageRank does NOT guarantee a high search ranking for any particular term. If it did, then PR10 sites like Adobe would always show up for any search you do. They don't.

The anchor text of a link is often far more important than whether it's on a high PageRank page.

If you really want to know what are the most important, relevant pages to get links from, forget PageRank. Think search rank. Search for the words you'd like to rank for. See what pages come up tops in Google. Those are the most important and relevant pages you want to seek links from. That's because Google is explicitly telling you that on the topic you searched for, these are the best.


All Links To PageRank Article

Google's Definition: PageRank As Votes
Recent Google Edits Emphasize PageRank Just One Of Many Factors
PageRank For Searchers: Google Toolbar
PR Stands For PageRank, Not Public Relations
PageRank In The Google Directory
PageRank For SEOs
Seeing PageRank In Search Rankings
PageRank Versus "Toolbar" PageRank
PageRank Tech Talk
Conclusion (Especially For Those Thinking I Don't Have Time To Read)

Source: Searchengineland
http://ontheavenues-diy-seo.blogspot.com/

http://www.ontheavenues.com/

SEO Free Tools

SEO Free Tools


Everyone wants something for nothing. Below are some Free SEO Tools. Criteria: the tools have to be FREE. Please remember, as a tool, they are automated and depending on your knowledge and understanding, may not provide you all that you need. Remember, using a tool means also understanding the tools concept and the process. It is not a quick fix

Wordtracker KEI Observation Deck

http://www.keiobservationdeck.com/


Many of you will recognize the name, John Alexander, and will
connect John to Wordtracker. John is the author of an extremely
popular e-book called, "Wordtracker Magic."

John's Wordtracker strategies take you out of the "keyword" arena
and into the behavorial research arena. His strategies allow you to
bring in targeted traffic to your Web sites without having to
compete against hundreds of thousands (or millions) of competing
pages.

If you don't believe there are decent KEI values in Wordtracker, or
if you want to learn how to get outside of the competition, stop by
the fascinating KEI Observation Deck and watch a true master of
Wordtracker at work. Remember: it's FREE!

Be sure to bookmark this page and visit again and again. It takes
practice to learn how to think laterally. Once you do, you can do
amazing things with Wordtracker.

FILExt ­ The File Extension Source

http://filext.com/

Do you ever come across a file extension that you simply have no
idea what program to connect it to? FILExt is a detailed database of
file extensions and programs that use them.

Googlesearches Tool

http://www.algotech.dk/googlesearches.asp


Use this advanced search tool to search The Mighty Google in
virtually every way you can imagine, even in language- or
country-specific searches. This handy tool is definitely one you'll
want to bookmark and come back to again and again.

Hotscripts.com

http://hotscripts.com/

Do you think that 28,959 resources in over 1,000 categories will
keep you busy for a while? Someone asked about counters and log
analyzers. This site has quite a list to choose from. Enjoy!

Bookmarklets ­

Add Extra Functionality to Your Browser with these Simple Scripts

http://www.yourhtmlsource.com/accessibility/bookmarklets.html


What are they? Bookmarklets are easy-to-use little programs that you
can integrate into your browser to make your coding, debugging, and
researching lives much easier. Give them a try!

Search Engine Decoder ­ Relationship Chart

http://www.search-this.com/search_engine_decoder.asp


This cool chart shows the relationships between the various search
engines and directories. Click on any search engine, and you'll see
which search engines/directories supply results back and forth to
that engine. It loads extremely fast, even with a 56K modem, and
it's up to date. Very impressive.

Martindale's "The Reference Desk"

http://www.martindalecenter.com/


Though not a "tool" per se, Martindale's is a reference site that
you'll want to bookmark and refer back to time and time again. What
can you find at Martindale's?

How about 19,575 online calculators? Can you imagine? You'll find
calculators for every type of project imaginable. You'll also find
translators, patent and trademark information, and world maps. The
list is virtually endless.

125 Legitimate Link Building Strategies

http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/leglinkpop.html


We all know the importance of off-page factors when it comes to
search engine rankings. Link popularity is one of the crucial
off-page factors that can make such a difference to the success of a
Web site. In this article, which can also be downloaded in e-book
format, over 30 SEO authorities offer their best suggestions for
increasing the link popularity of your Web site.

HTML Tags ­ A Free Online Cheatsheet

http://html-tags.info/

This HTML quick reference guide is excellent. All HTML tags with
attributes and values are for XHTML 1.1, also known as HTML 4.01.
Print out the guide and keep it beside your computer.


CSS Tutorial at W3Schools.com

http://www.w3schools.com/css/


Learn how Cascading Style Sheets can make your life as a search
engine marketer much easier, and how it can help you clean up your
source code. W3Schools provides an excellent CSS tutorial free of
charge, complete with a lot of examples and quizzes.

Again, thanks to all of you who shared these "cool tools" with me.
Be sure and send me YOUR list, and I'll add them to the next
article.

Thanks so much! (robin@searchengineworkshops.com)


Robin Nobles teaches 2-, 3-, and 5-day hands-on search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe as well as online courses in SEO. They have opened the first networking community for SEOs called The Workshop Resource Center for Search Engine Marketers, and they have expanded their workshops to Europe with Search Engine Workshops UK.

http://ontheavenues-diy-seo.blogspot.com/
http://www.ontheavenues.com

Sunday, April 1, 2007

Google announces free in-home wireless broadband service

Google announces free in-home wireless broadband service

New! Get FREE breakthrough broadband with
Google TiSP (BETA).

Sign up for our free in-home wireless broadband service
Sick of paying for broadband that you have to, well, pay for?


Introducing Google TiSP (BETA), our new FREE in-home wireless broadband service. Sign up today and we'll send you your TiSP self-installation kit, which includes setup guide, fiber-optic cable, spindle, wireless router and installation CD.
TiSP in-home wireless broadband is:
Free, fast and highly reliable
Easy to install -- takes just minutes
Vacuum-sealed to prevent water damage
Interested? You can learn more about TiSP via the links below, or get started now.

Learn More:
Press Release How TiSP Works FAQ

"Dark porcelain" project offers self-installed plumbing-based Internet access

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 1, 2007 - Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced the launch of Google TiSP (BETA)™, a free in-home wireless broadband service that delivers online connectivity via users' plumbing systems. The Toilet Internet Service Provider (TiSP) project is a self-installed, ad-supported online service that will be offered entirely free to any consumer with a WiFi-capable PC and a toilet connected to a local municipal sewage system.

"We've got that whole organizing-the-world's-information thing more or less under control," said Google Co-founder and President Larry Page, a longtime supporter of so-called "dark porcelain" research and development. "What's interesting, though, is how many different modalities there are for actually getting that information to you - not to mention from you."

For years, data carriers have confronted the "last hundred yards" problem for delivering data from local networks into individual homes. Now Google has successfully devised a "last hundred smelly yards" solution that takes advantage of preexisting plumbing and sewage systems and their related hydraulic data-transmission capabilities. "There's actually a thriving little underground community that's been studying this exact solution for a long time," says Page. "And today our Toilet ISP team is pleased to be leading the way through the sewers, up out of your toilet and - splat - right onto your PC."

Users who sign up online for the TiSP system will receive a full home self-installation kit, which includes a spindle of fiber-optic cable, a TiSP wireless router, installation CD and setup guide. Home installation is a simple matter of GFlushing™ the fiber-optic cable down to the nearest TiSP Access Node, then plugging the other end into the network port of your Google-provided TiSP wireless router. Within sixty minutes, the Access Node's crack team of Plumbing Hardware Dispatchers (PHDs) should have your internet connection up and running.

"I couldn't be more excited about, and am only slightly grossed out by, this remarkable new product," said Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Search Products and User Experience. "I firmly believe TiSP will be a breakthrough product, particularly for those users who, like Larry himself, do much of their best thinking in the bathroom."

Interested consumers, contractually obligated partners and deeply skeptical and quietly competitive backbiters can learn more about TiSP at http://www.google.com/tisp/install.html.

About Google Inc.
Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. wannabes Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google's targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

How It Works
Google TiSP (BETA) is a fully functional, end-to-end system that provides in-home wireless access by connecting your commode-based TiSP wireless router to one of thousands of TiSP Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines.

Installing a typical home TiSP system is a quick, easy and largely sanitary process -- provided you follow these step-by-step instructions very, very carefully.

#1 Remove the spindle of fiber-optic cable from your TiSP installation kit.

#2 Attach the sinker to the loose end of the cable, take one safe step backward and drop this weighted end into your toilet.

#3 Grasp both ends of the spindle firmly while a friend or loved one flushes, thus activating the patented GFlush™ system, which sends the weighted cable surfing through the plumbing system to one of the thousands of TiSP Access Nodes.

#4 When the GFlush is complete, the spindle will (or at least should) have largely unraveled, exposing a connector at the remaining end. Detach the cable from the spindle, taking care not to allow the cable to slip into the toilet.

#5 Plug the fiber-optic cable into your TiSP wireless router, which has a specially designed counterweight to withstand the centripetal force of flushing.

#6 Insert the TiSP installation CD and run the setup utility to install the Google Toolbar (required) and the rest of the TiSP software, which will automatically configure your computer's network settings.

#7 Within sixty minutes -- assuming proper data flow -- the other end of your fiber-optic cable should have reached the nearest TiSP Access Node, where our Plumbing Hardware Dispatchers (PHDs) will remove the sinker and plug the line into our global data networking system.

#8 Congratulations, you're online! (Please wash your hands before surfing.)

Note: If you have any difficulty installing, operating or simply living with TiSP, we suggest joining the
TiSP Help Group. .

Advance Options

Professional Installation ServiceYou can also choose to request our professional installation service, which dispatches an army of factory-trained, sub-contracted nanobots from the TiSP Access Node. The nanobots travel with exhilarating nano-speed through the sewer system and into your home to perform the installation service, which should be complete within 15 minutes. Note: For your own physical safety and emotional well-being and in consideration of the nanobots' working conditions, please make absolutely certain that your toilet is unoccupied at the scheduled appointment time.

In-Commode Package DeliveryWith professional installation service, you can also have your Google Checkout purchases delivered directly through the sewage network into your bathroom. Each package comes pre-sealed in a watertight and nanobot-resistant bag made of biodegradable corn-based plastic. For a limited time, TiSP subscribers who sign up for a Checkout account will receive free bathroom delivery on their first ten Checkout purchases.

TiSP for EnterpriseWe're actively developing a higher-performance version of TiSP specifically tailored to small and medium-sized businesses, including 24-hour, on-site technical support in the event of backup problems, brownouts and data wipes.
Learn more about TiSP: Frequently Asked Questions

Ontheavenues

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Search Engine Smackdown: The Video Game

Search Engine Smackdown: The Video Game


Go have some fun and start playing Search Engine Smackdown!

Bored? Be bored no more because we have created a video game that will keep you entertained and teach you about the search industry. Search Engine Smackdown is a fun game where you can be the Google founders (Larry & Sergey), Yahoo founders (Jerry & David), or Microsoft founders (Bill & Paul) and duke it out with each other in a wrestling ring with Danny Sullivan.



www.ontheavenues.com

Monday, March 26, 2007

Yahoo Widgets

Yahoo Widgets


Yes! Yahoo Widgets 4 is now available for download. This version has a lot of cool new features for users as well as developers of Widgets.

For those that think we’ve been sitting around drinking tequila and not really focusing on Konfabulator/Yahoo Widgets, today’s the day we show you what we’ve really been up to for these past months. Well, we’ve been drinking some tequila too, but let’s stay focused, shall we? What?!

Note, by the way, that our new release is called simply Yahoo! Widgets. No more ‘Engine’. It was too much of a pain to say, quite frankly. Not to mention users don’t care about engines, they care about Widgets. Developers might care about the engine, which is why as of this release we are once again calling the core engine Konfabulator! Why not? Everyone still calls it that both inside and outside of Yahoo!, anyway.

And now, without any further ado, let’s get into all the awesomeness we’ve added in this release.

Widget Dock

First and foremost is the shiny new Widget Dock. Finally there’s a way to manage your Widgets in a neatly organized fashion. This was always an area we knew we needed to work on, and in this release we were able to spend the time and get a really polished UI in place for it (and make it dock to any corner or edge of multiple monitors). Does it do everything we wanted it to? No, but it’s pretty darned close. It’ll be changed and enhanced as we move forward and get feedback from you, the home viewer. Use that ‘Provide Feedback…’ link - we really do listen.

Not only can you manage your Widgets with the Dock, but Widgets can now show you what we call ‘vitality’, i.e. live info. Basically, it’s a mini Widget. So the Weather Widget can show the temperature, etc. in a smaller, more organized form factor. As more Widgets get updated to work on Version 4, you’ll see more and more information in the Dock.

Updates and Widget Discovery

We now support automatic Widget updates. When an update is available for one of your running Widgets, you’ll get an indicator in the Dock. Click it and you’ll be running the update in seconds. While this magic only exists for our Yahoo!-built Widgets right now, we plan to make similar functionality available to third-party Widget authors as well in the near future.

If you ever get bored with the Widgets you have on your machine, there’s now a much easier way to get new ones - the new Gallery Widget. With it, you can browse the Widget Gallery’s 4300+ Widgets and get new ones with one click, all without ever opening a web browser. The Gallery Widget will ship with every copy of Yahoo! Widgets 4. You’re welcome.

But for people who can’t get enough web page excitement, you can still visit our Widget Gallery page. We’ve enhanced it for this release to allow one button install and run of Widgets that catch your fancy. If you don’t like a Widget, you can right-click it in the dock and forever vanquish it from your machine. Oh, the power! Use it for good.

Improved User Experience

We’ve simplified a lot of our interface features based on user feedback and testing. For example, we used to have a series of window levels a Widget could use, but each Window level tied on extra features. In this version, we’ve broken them out into separate preferences. So now the level of the window is separate from whether the Widget is clickable, for example. It should make a lot more sense now.

To further simplify things, there’s also a new “hidden” state for Widgets. The hidden state allows the user to run a Widget without displaying its full interface on the screen. Widgets running in “hidden” mode continue to display live updates (or vitality) in their tile in the Dock. To display the full Widget again, just select the “show” control on the miniaturized Dock tile or click the tile. This feature replaces the old ‘Heads-Up Display Only’ window level for Widgets. Just hide a Widget and if you want to see it, bring up the Heads-Up Display mode or click its tile in the dock. It’s much more intuitive and straightforward now.

Improved Performance

Even with all those features packed in there, we’ve managed to reduce our memory consumption by about 40%. This number is based on what Task Manager shows as ‘VM Size’ or the Mac (under top) shows as ‘RPRIV’. This is real, allocated memory by a process. It’s the one true number an application can really make a dent in. I’ll post a tome on how measuring memory usage is not as simple as adding up ‘Mem Usage’ in Task Manager some other time.

A Powerful Flickr Widget

Another new Widget is our Flickr Widget. Not only will it stream your favorite Flickr photos right to your desktop, the Flickr Widget also has powerful drag-and-drop upload which allows you to do highly customized batch uploads without having to open a browser. You will love browsing pictures in this Widget. I can personally attest that the manner in which it allows you to browse the Interestingness category is just plain awesome. This is by far the most full-featured Widget we’ve ever created. The Flickr Widget is just one example of what this latest Konfabulator engine can do, as well as the direction we are heading.

Developer Features

For the Widget developers out there, we’ve added cool features like SQLite support, canvas support (the old puzzle blog post was done via the canvas feature), submenus, rotation of pretty much anything, and DOM-like traversal. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you want the full list of new features, check out our release notes. A lot of what we’ve added is based on feedback from the current developer base. So by all means, keep posting in the forums.

And how will you get this new information into your brains? Well, along with the usual reference guide in PDF, we now have online docs for the first time in our history. It’s our first cut at it, and we will be adding certain features that you might have come to love about other online docs solutions, but at least you now have it on the web as well as in PDF. Choice is good.

One big question that developers have had for some time has been “How do I deliver my Widget and have the engine come along automatically?” Well, with our new Widget Gallery web site, you can submit your Widget, and part of the magic we have in place is to automatically deliver the engine (or upgrade it as necessary) when the user downloads your Widget. No more two-step install. Push one button, and it all happens automatically. This is a huge deal for publishing your Widgets. Just link to your Widget’s detail page in our Gallery and you’re good to go.

As mentioned above, we will soon be allowing developers to set their Widgets up for auto-update as the Yahoo!-built Widgets are. And look for a lot more to happen in the developer space over the coming months.

What are you waiting for?

As you can see there’s a lot to take in with this release of Yahoo! Widgets. The best way to find out what’s new and exciting is to just go and download it. So, have at it!

onthevenues SEO Firm

Friday, March 16, 2007

Google Talk - Google Talk Gadget

Google Talk

Google Talk is Google's instant communications service. Like Gmail, Google's free webmail service, Google Talk uses Google's innovative technologies to help people communicate more effectively and efficiently. This means Google Talk is fast, intuitive and fun to use.

It also means you can start thinking about instant communications in a new way. Google Talk offers you different ways to integrate real time communications into your online experience. The Google Talk Gadget lets you see who's online and send instant messages from your Google Personalized Homepage, without installing any software. You can also add the same instant messaging capabilities to your own webpage or blog by cutting and pasting a single line of code. And by downloading the Google Talk Client, you can make voice calls and transfer files to your friends.

And if you use Gmail, Google Talk offers you even more. You'll find all of your Gmail contacts organized in your Talk contacts list. Gmail also archives all of your Google Talk chats and makes them searchable. And since Google Talk is integrated into Gmail, you'll be able to chat with all your Talk contacts there, too.

Google Talk Gadget
You can now add Google Talk to your Google Personalized Homepage. The Google Talk Gadget lets you see your contacts and chat with friends right on your homepage, and it doesn't require a download. You can even add the Google Talk Gadget to your own webpage or blog by pasting a single line of code into your site.

There are a couple of new features to try out in the Google Talk Gadget. If you paste a URL from YouTube or Picasa Web Albums into your chat, the Google Talk Gadget will let you preview the videos and photos right in your conversation.

Windows Vista Support
You can now use Google Talk with Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system.

orkut integration
Google Talk makes it easier than ever to chat with more of your friends. If you use orkut, Google's free social networking service, you can chat or place Internet phone calls with your orkut friends using Google Talk. orkut friends will automatically appear in your Friends list, and you'll find out instantly if you've received a new orkut scrap. Learn more

Offline Messages
Now if your friends have chat history enabled, you can send them messages even when they're not online. Just enter a message into the chat window as you would normally, and they'll get it the next time they sign into Google Talk. In Gmail, offline messages can be searched and organized -- just like instant messages in their chat history. Learn more

File Transfer
With this top requested new feature, you can send unlimited files and folders to your friends through Google Talk. There is no restriction on the file type or size and the peer-to-peer transfer is fast and reliable. Learn more

Voicemail
If your friends aren't around to answer your call, you can leave them a voicemail message instead. Just record your voice after the "Meep" and your friends will get an email to their Talk contact address with the voicemail attached as an audio file. They can play your message when they check their email and save it for as long as they want. Learn more

Music Status and Music Trends
Listening to music while chatting on Google Talk? Now you can let your friends see what you're listening to by selecting "Show current music track" in your status menu. Your status message will change when your song does!

You can also choose to contribute your music tastes to Google Music Trends, and check out what Google Talk users are listening to across the world. Learn more


Bonnie Burns SEO Expert OnTheAvenues

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Turn Google into your own free napster

Turn Google into your own free napster to download music

type this. or cut and paste, {-inurl:(htmhtmlphp) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(wmamp3) "Music Name"} in the search bar and replace Music Name with your favorite band, and you will only find open indexes that contain downloadable music files. This really works.


ontheavenues - Bonnie Burns SEO Expert

Friday, March 9, 2007

Make Your Own Google Logo

Make Your Own Google Logo

There were several “create your own Google logo” websites in the past, but many of them disappeared – possibly in some connection with the Google lawyer team!

Devshots.com however survived, or is new, and it even contains a fun interface where you click the logo to type any text over it. Let’s see how long this one survives

But give it a try…it is fun. Click here to see how you can become the new look of Google

Bonnie Burns OnTheAvenues SEO Services

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Cool Site: Animal Vegetable Video

Animal Vegetable Video

What does a flock of sheep do when it's alone? In 1988, Sam Easterson strapped a video camera to a sheep's head to find out. (The answer: a lot of starting and stopping and checking in with each other). Sam has since outfitted a wide range of wild animals with his custom-designed "helmet-mounted" cameras.

And, with the sample footage available here, he allows us to glimpse his astonishing work. A wolf snuffles and digs in the undergrowth; a baby chick squeakily trails another hatchling; a tarantula pads across the rocks. There's a lot of nosing around: A wheezy pig pokes in the mud with its wide snout; an alligator nudges through the swamp, occasionally flaring its nostrils. We're even offered a tumbleweed's point of view as it plunges onward. The videos are choppy and brief, but they're unfettered by human presence -- and that's enormously satisfying


Bonnie Burns SEO Expert www.ontheavenues.com

Cool Site: Skeletal Systems of Cartoon Characters


Skeletal Systems of Cartoon Characters

Like so many Americans, Michael Paulus grew up watching cartoons. But unlike most children who become adults and shed interest in their animated friends, Michael matured into an artist who applies grown-up analysis to the animated characters of his youth—and their bone structure, in particular.

That pondering led to detailed illustrations of the skeletal systems of such preeminent cartoon actors as
Barney Rubble, Shmoo, and Baby Huey. If you accept the maxim that a large cranium indicates great intelligence, then Michael has revealed that Charlie Brown might just be a genius (footballs notwithstanding). Hello Kitty is a whiz. And Pigpen is a veritable Stephen Hawking. As for Betty Boop, it's a wonder she can even hold her mastermind-sized head up above those dainty little feet.


Bonnie Burns SEO Expert www.ontheavenues.com