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cyberSaps business: blogging news, internet biz, communities, UK angle
A pure blogging company. With history (4 years 356 days ) in hosting Manila weblogging communities and building customised blogging environments for a range of companies and Government quangos. The latest project: building the intranet for the Government Office for the West Midlands, based entirely on Manila. Next project: their internet and extranet. See more details on services and history.

23 January 2005   

 

Nofollow May Be a Rank Solution

Rogers Cadenhead: "The most far-reaching impact could be from publishers who adopt nofollow on external links to boost the effect of their internal links, taking a bajillion rank suggestions right out of Google's algorithm."

Actually, I don't really care about Google. But I do care that when reading many of the nationals or internationals like The Guardian or The Register that they articles they speak of are not linked to.
Usually, I have to do a search in Google to find the articles that they should be directly linking to. These professional newspapers don't link because the don't want to send traffic off their site. Though I never considered that they were more Machiavellian and they didn't want to lower their Google Juice—perhaps that is another reason they don't link.

Perhaps now with the advent of rel=noFollow these newspapers WILL link. I doubt it. I think the "less off site linking as possible" rule will still apply. No, it'll still be blogs who trade links freely.
 


2071 Also posted to: Home page , serviceBF . At: 12:13:19 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Nofollow May Be a Rank Solution

 

21 January 2005   

 

Browser stats

This in from December 2004, the rest of the 4 years this site has been monitoring are here. I spy many more MSIE 6 than I think should be there.

There is some evidence that some browsers mask their identity but not that many to really influence this chart, and if I remember from wayback, it was usually MSIE pretending to be Netscape.

Sad that Mozilla is still so low.

1. MSIE 6.x 39945828 (80%)
2. MSIE 5.x 4569062 (9%)
3. Mozilla 1662809 (3%)
4. Netscape 5.x 1101858 (2%)
5. Unknown 893435 (2%)
6. Safari 405196 (1%)
7. Netscape 7.x 389338 (1%)
8. Opera x.x 351607 (1%)
 


2070 Also posted to: Home page , serviceBF . At: 11:26:56 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Browser stats

 

 

Pubsub: Over 8 Million Blogs Served...

"That would put the minimum blog census at 16 million while there are probably more than 24 million blogs. Personally, I would bet on the higher number."

In all the blogs in all the world...
 


2069 Also posted to: Home page , serviceBF . At: 10:24:27 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Pubsub: Over 8 Million Blogs Served...

 

 

Hate linking

"Most Google-conscious bloggers avoid linking to spam sites but it's also common to hear about various de-linking nonsense because someone was offended by words on a page. Now you can have a decision when you make a link: do I want my viewers to see it but not promote it in Google, or do I not mind promoting it in Google because I want other people to see it as well."

All you need to do is include the rel=noFollow in a link, and Google will ignore it, though others can click through. Like the below example
<a href = "http://astonVilla.blogFootball.com/" rel="nofollow">blogfootball.com</a>
 


2068 Also posted to: Home page , serviceBF . At: 9:25:30 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: rel nofollow non linking

 

20 January 2005   

 

Big List of Blog Search Engines

Of all the blogs in all the world, you had to submit to all these blog lists. It would be nice to build a central submission page to submit to all these sites. If I had the time.
 


2067 Also posted to: Home page , serviceBF . At: 11:07:15 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Big List of Blog Search Engines

 

19 January 2005   

 

Comment spam and Google

Not that we get attacked by comment spam here, but I've implemented the rel=noFollow idea from Google on comments, trackbacks and referers. (However, I've not added the rel=noFollow to the actual links to [comments 0] and [trackbacks 0], this is to allow the indexing of comments, but no Google Juice from any links inside comments and trackbacks.) Knowing spammers as I do, I think this will be part one of the war of attrition. Chuq Von Rospach thinks that the comment spammers will still spam even if there is less return, so long as there are some vulnerable weblogs.
 


2066 Also posted to: Home page , serviceBF . At: 12:44:02 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Comment spam and Google

 

 

How British people don't say what they mean

"If a British person says 'very interesting', they mean in fact the opposite. For a Dutch person this is very confusing as we are not used to playing with language in such a manner."
Some examples:
What the Brits say What they mean What the Dutch understand
Oh, by the way… or,
Incidentally… 		The primary purpose of our discussion is… This is not very important.
I hear what you say. l disagree and do not want to discuss it any further. He accepts my point of view.
With the greatest respect… I think you are wrong (or a fool). He is listening to me.
 


2065 Also posted to: Home page , serviceBF . At: 12:19:04 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: How British people don't say what they mean

 

 

Converting Manila to Movable Type

"This is a script, written in UserTalk (the language of Userland Frontier), which will export a Manila (or Weblogs.com, or Buzzword.com, or Weblogger, etc.) weblog to a file suitable for importing into Movable Type or TypePad. It will also write all of the images contained within the Manila site out to files, convert Manila discussion group threads into MT/TypePad comment threads, and convert any Manila News Item departments into post categories."

Most excellent! I hate lock-in. This just goes to prove that if you have a Manila blog, you needn't fear that you're stuck. I'd like to include this script as a page within all myManila blogs. Thus, not only is there an existing download your site page (/downloadMySite/MySite.root), but there will be an export your site to these formats page.
 


2064 Also posted to: Home page , serviceBF . At: 12:07:52 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Converting Manila to Movable Type

 

 

Using SOAP to post to Manila from Word

"This was a Word macro I wrote that uses PocketSOAP to create a new story in Manila"

Amazing the stuff I miss. This is from 3 years ago. I found it via Steve Kirks who found something similar for Radio. When I have a bit of time I'll play with this a little, I can see a few of my customers using it, perhaps.

 


2063 Also posted to: Home page , serviceBF . At: 11:52:05 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Using SOAP to post to Manila from Word

 

 

The BLOG Shirt

"Smal text at the bottom of the design is: "She wanted to stop reading it- but she had nothing better to do! Produced by average people who seem to think their lives are interesting. Filmed in thrilling HTML-O-Scope with exciting new fonts!""
blog_lg

 


2062 Also posted to: Home page , serviceBF . At: 11:41:27 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: The BLOG Shirt

 

18 January 2005   

 

Google's Aging Delay for New Sites

If you are launching new sites for clients, make sure you set the expectation that it is likely to be 7-8 months before the site achieves any real results in Google.

Due to the search engine optimisation tricks employed by the SEO industry, Google is more reticent about adding new sites correctly.

I've certainly seen this lately, brand new sites are there, but only show for obscure searches, I cannot confirm that it takes 7-8 months to index correctly. I can confirm that I have been banging my head trying to get such sites to appear in the expected results.

scarygoogleasis
 


2061 Also posted to: Home page , serviceBF . At: 8:22:57 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Google's Aging Delay for New Sites

 

 

Cashing in with podcasting gear

podcasting gear Podcasting is now officially the new blogging which is officially the new black, so it’s no shock that someone is already cashing in with a line of “podcasting gear”. PodcastGear.com is basically selling the same pro audio recording gear, mics, and mixing software you could get before, just bundled together. The Pro Interview Package will only set you back $1,695, too.[via: Engadget]

Told-ya podcasting was-a-coming!
 

 Source: Engadget; 18/01/2005; 12:45:41.
2060 Also posted to: Home page , serviceBF . At: 5:03:09 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Cashing in with podcasting gear

 

 

The Long Tail: What is the Long Tail?

"The Long Tail comprises the almost infinite variety of human interests and desires that mainstream offerings cannot fully satisfy.'"

At least this is one of the many definitions. This page is good. Very good. I'm going to spend a lot of time here. There's even a wikipedia page.

 


2059 Also posted to: Home page , serviceBF . At: 4:22:20 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: The Long Tail: What is the Long Tail?

 

 

Technorati: Search for google nofollow

There's a lot of comment and speculation about the possible Google's comment spam solution, if indeed that's their solution. I'll implement it on my hosted blogs—of course, and it'll be transparent to the user.

However, I wonder at it's effectiveness. Sure, it takes the incentive away, but will this be enough to stop comment spam? There's the point about getting other search engines to do the same, getting all blog technologies and individual blogs to incorporate the feature... Maybe the incentive to comment spam will disappear over time? I wonder how long that will be.

My problem, currently, is with referer spam, though we tell Google not to look at the referer page, still they spam. Their reason, "if I spam a million sites a day, and a handful of links actually increase my Google Page Rank, that has to be worth it, since it cost next to nothing to do, and pays in better search listings."
 


2058 Also posted to: Home page , servicebf . At: 11:24:35 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Technorati: Search for google nofollow

 

09 January 2005   

 

Microsoft's Consumer Electronics Endgame

Say you're technologically agnostic (i.e. a "dumb consumer"). First, you immediately notice the Microsoft logo on any consumer product you're about to buy and since you have a Windows PC at home, you immediately think "ooh, good that'll work." Now you bring it home - maybe it's an music player or a video player or what have you. As soon as you grok that PlaysForSure logo, the *next* consumer device you buy for yourself or friends or family, is going to have that logo on it as well, just to make sure. The first time you buy a device that's outside the WMA world, you will do nothing but bitch about it to all your friends. As soon as you buy something which does allow you to move content around, you'll proudly *show* all your friends, "Hey look, here's last night's 24, on my phone!" It's a classic vicious or virtuous cycle. As consumers get more intwined with Microsoft DRM content, they will start to migrate towards more Microsoft OS devices: set-top boxes, smart phones, video gadgets, etc. Just like in the PC world, Microsoft will sit back and collect royalties on all this software, why the device manufacturers compete tooth and nail and survive on insanely-low margins.

Listen to the wind blowing... What's it saying? Microsoft is going to be everywhere, soon. Very soon.


2053 Also posted to: Home page , serviceBF . At: 1:14:50 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Microsoft's Consumer Electronics Endgame

 

05 January 2005   

 

Tsunami - before and after squences

These are overlaid images of the tsunami, before and after. Toggle between the two. Found at waveofdestruction.org

I've been waiting for an email. My neighbour has a friend who's been out near Phuket as a diving instructor. Though he says that at 8.30am in the morning, he'd still be pissed and sleeping on the beach. My neighbour asked me to email him. That was four days ago.


2051 Also posted to: Home page , personal . At: 3:41:58 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Tsunami - before and after squences

 

 

BBC: Blog reading explodes in America

About 32 million people in the US read a blog in 2004, says a Pew (pdf) survey. Also 6 million use RSS aggregators and as a reality check on the blogosphere and its prominence, we decided to ask a general question of all internet users: “In general, would you say you have a good idea of what the term internet 'blog' means, or are you not really sure what the term means?” Some 38% of internet users said they had a good idea and 62% said they did not.

Combine this with the rumour that SixApart are buying LiveJournal and 2004 was when Webster said 'blog' was one of the most looked up words, 2005 looks like blogging will finally take off.
 

 Source: BBC News | Business | E-Commerce | World Edition; 05/01/2005; 11:46:38.
2050 Also posted to: Home page , serviceBF . At: 2:44:07 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: BBC: Blog reading explodes in America

 

 

Propaganda posters old and new

I love the textures and colours of these, and not forgetting the emotional and cerebral aspects, well, they are propaganda. Posters are fantastic.

Lots of British World War Two posters
Here's some from The Propaganda Remix Project
Some Chinese posters
A collection of 1400+ from Russia, Czech republic, Poland and Cuba.

John ashcroft

Propaganda remixer says. "A weird True Crime novel I found at the bookstore..."
china propaganda poster

The above poster by Yu Zhenli (1946). Born in Dalian, Liaoning Province. In 1968, he graduated from the Art Department of Dalian Normal University. After he took a refresher course in Oil Painting Department of the Central Art Academy, he was employed in the Dalian Municipal Mass Art Institute.
Russian poster

Peace, Work, May. On her T-shirt: USSR. The revolution continues.
ATSblonde

Artist/Designer: Abram Games Published by: The War Office Date: 1941
 

 Source: Metafilter; 05/01/2005; 11:47:02.
2049 Also posted to: Home page , serviceBF . At: 1:23:11 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Propaganda posters old and new

 

02 January 2005   

 

Top players dial up the standard for Super 3G

"The basic specifications for the networks are due to be agreed upon by 2007. NTT DoCoMo said it could offer the service as early as 2009.

With 30 to 100 megabits of data being transmitted a second, Super 3G would allow video to be played over mobiles with a quality similar to a high-end television. It is expected to increase the use of phones to play games, send video messages and watch movies."

Vodaphone's in there too so the UK will get this along with the rest of Europe, say 2013?


2047 Also posted to: Home page , serviceBF . At: 11:30:05 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Top players dial up the standard for Super 3G