Greg Austin

I found this interview with Matt Cutts very interesting. Even after all of the backlash about Goolge’s section 508 compliance, it seems as though the debate about “hidden text” on a website is a confirmed killer of PageRank. For the last few years, there have been debates about the use of the hidden jump menu’s and other tactics used by Black Hatters and White Hatters, either way you choose to go, here it is from the horses mouth. Use hidden text at your own peril.

I also enjoyed the comment he made about Niche sites and starting small. I have been preaching that for years. Every time I have a client come in and say “I want to be #1 on Google when someone types in xxx”, I have to explain this.

Also, pay attention to the end of the interview when Matt is asked what he would do if he had more time on his hands.

Enjoy!

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Big news in the web development world today. Adobe released a statement saying that it has been working with Search Engine engineers and they started to release algorithms that are searching for and indexing content in Flash based web content. Here is a blog post from Google on the matter.

What does this mean?
It means that you are going to start seeing more Flash content features and full-blown websites. Up until now, developers have had to use frames, alternate content and other forms of trickery to get their flash based content indexed in search engines, not anymore.

The iPhone and Mobile dilema
Unfortunately, with the current world-wide push to mobile devices such as the iPhone, which does not currently support Flash, Flash based web content will still need to be used with a caveat that a customer will be segregating their website from mobile users. Developers can still use sniffers and alternate content but, why? The ability to auto-scale Flash on a development level has been out for years. I really hope Apple opens its eyes on this and the issue of mobile TV. Time will tell. Do I even need to mention the issue of forcing customers to use AT&T?

The 3 Year Rule
Typically, engineers and developers are ~3 years ahead of consumers so, my hope is that in the next 3 years, the mobile players realize that we all like really cool websites with VIDEO and FLASH. Plain text might be cool to the WC3 but, consumers want eye candy. Visit the new Diablo 3 website for a recent example of some nicely done flash and video work. That is what I want my internet to be. What do you think?

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The first thing you need to know about WordPress is that it is free software. WordPress has a large development community which is constantly looking for bugs and security vulnerabilities. For this reason constant updates and feature enhancements are released.

Once a blog is installed by our engineers, you will receive a link and log in information. Below is a picture of a typical log in screen. Read more…

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Today, Steve Jobs announced the date of July 11, 2008 for the release of the new iPhone 3G and today also comes news of a new entry from Samsung called the Omnia. The iPhone 3G site is now live on Apple.com and the tech specs indicate it has the same 2 megapixel camera without flash and basically the same hardware features as the current model, with exception of GPS, 3G data (quad-band GSM and tri-band UMTS/HSDPA) and a slimmer form factor. At the same time, the Omnia enters with features such as face and smile detection on its five-megapixel camera, video support in the form of DivX, XviD, H.264, WMV and MP4, and a good-looking GPS, seen below.

And here are the spec’s:

Samsung Omnia
Network: HSDPA (7.2 Mbps), EDGE / GPRS 850/900/1800/1900
OS: Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
Display: 3.2” WQVGA TFT LCD (240 x 400)
Camera: 5 Megapixel CMOS, Auto Focus, Image Stabilizer, Geo-tagging, Auto-Panorama Shot,
Wide Dynamic Range (WDR), Face Detection, Smile Detection
Video: DivX / XviD / H.263 / H.264 / WMV / MP4
Video recording: Video Editing: Trim video, Audio dubbing, Live dubbing, Add subtitle, Image capture
Audio: FM Radio with RDS, MP3/ AAC / AAC+ / WMA / OGG / AMR
Bluetooth Stereo Headset (A2DP)
Value-added Features: GPS, TouchWiz UI, MS Office Document Viewer, Advanced PIM Apps, Push Email, Auto Rotation, TV Out, Connectivity, Bluetooth 2.0 / USB 2.0 / Wi-Fi
Memory: 8GB / 16GB Flash + External Memory slot : microSDHC™
Size: 112 x 56.9 x 12.5
Battery: 1440 mAh

Apple iPhone 3G
Screen size
- 3.5 inches (diagonal)
Screen resolution
- 480 by 320 pixels (163 ppi)
Input method
- Multi-Touch
Storage
- 8GB and 16GB
Cellular
- UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz)
- GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
Wireless data
- Wi-Fi (802.11b/g)
- UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz)
- EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
- Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR
GPS
- Assisted-GPS
Camera
- 2.0 megapixels
Battery
- Talk time: Up to 5 hours on 3G;
- up to 10 hours on 2G
- Standby time: Up to 300 hours
- Internet use: Up to 5 hours on 3G;
- up to 6 hours on Wi-Fi
- Video playback: Up to 7 hours
- Audio playback: Up to 24 hours
Dimensions
- 4.5 by 2.4 by 0.48 inches
- (115.5 by 62.1 by 12.3 mm)
Weight
- 4.7 ounces (133 grams)

Leave comments and tell me what you think.

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Today, I read an article by Dana Blankenhorn posted over on Zdnet asking readers if there was room for two open source office suites. Well, I have to say the answer for me is, yes.

I use Microsoft Office daily. I use hosted exchange for push email and it works great with my Treo 700WX. Every once in a while, while creating a presentation or spreadsheet, I like a little bit of change. I switch over to OpenOffice from time-to-time and now I can utilize IBM Lotus Symphony.

I will say, it took almost an hour to download the ~200meg package from IBM and during the install I received 2 errors but, everything seems to be running fine. The program itself is a little bit slow to start and I have a pretty beefy laptop using Vista (Mac fans don’t flame me, I know you rule the world and I bow to your greatness).

Anyway, back on the topic of IBM Lotus Symphony versus OpenOffice.org. I think there is plenty of room for both in the market and I will continue to use them both. As for which is better in certain situations, stay tuned for future posts here and please leave a comment with your own findings.

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I have been using Joost for the last few weeks and I have to say, it’s awesome. I love it!

Joost has music videos, network Television shows on-demand, sports, comedy shows, news, you name it.

More important than everything (for me) is that it is super easy to use. The user interface is brain-dead simple to use and very responsive. Those of us who have to suffer through the Verizon Fios guide interface can appreciate not having to wait for options to display….

Anyway, try Joost for yourself and let me know what you think.

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Due to our extensive experience building custom search engine friendly websites, and an ever-growing consumer demand for ecommerce website design, I find myself explaining The Long Tail concept a lot. Whenever I repeat the same advice 3 times in one week, it’s time for a blog post so, here we go.

This very simple concept was first coined by Chris Anderson in an article written for Wired Magazine in 2004.

As desribed on Wikipedia, The Long Tail means that the distribution and inventory costs of businesses allow them to realize significant profit out of selling small volumes of hard-to-find items to many customers, instead of only selling large volumes of a reduced number of popular items. The group of persons that buy the hard-to-find or “non-hit” items is the customer demographic called the Long Tail. Read more…

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Working at Delaware.Net allows me to work with some of the coolest geeks in the world. One of them sent me a link to the following video called “Design Coding”. I have three words for this guy, We are hiring!

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A good Search Engine Optimization or SEO strategy takes time, money and commitment.

I get asked for advice on making websites come up higher in search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN all the time. There is no one-size fits-all solution for this, if there were, everyone would be #1.

Simply put, Search Engine Optimization or SEO comes down to content (text) and structure (code).

When a client comes to Delaware.Net, Inc. for custom website design, we ask a lot of very pointed questions, we save the answers to those questions for later in our conversation and for the overall development of the website. Read more…

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The Psystar open computer has received very little positive press from big media for good reason. According to Zdnet, the company has problems keeping an address, no credit card processor and has failed to prove to anyone that the system works or will not be blocked by Apple from receiving updates, do we even need to start talking about support?

I have to agree with Adrian Kingsley-Hughes on this one. The system sounds like a lot of lost weekends and, for what gain? So you can be “uber l33t” and have something “cool”? I have work to do! Work that requires a stable computer to accomplish my many daily tasks. Reading Adrian’s article reminds me of the first time I over-clocked (and destroyed) a processor ~15 years ago.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I do my share of exploring new and innovative ideas but, life is short and I am choosing my battles more carefully these days. Years ago, I spent about 3 months playing with a flavor of redhat, only to realize that everything I wanted it to do was pre-packaged in windows 3.1….

Moral of the story? Life is short and now that I am older, I am more willing to bow-down and enjoy an OS and Computer that WORKS. I still get small annoyances with each OS upgrade that comes down the pipeline and it is usually related to a 3rd party driver but, it’s a small price to pay for the convenience of having confidence in my business equipment.

*Side Rant: I refuse to use Quicktime and iTunes. Web Developers, PLEASE stop making website customers use the Quicktime plug-in to view your website videos! It’s annoying, learn Flash! Yes, I am pointing to the Psystar website…

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