Recent Posts

76

Living Room / Re: Is SEO worth the trouble?

« Last post by Bamse on January 26, 2011, 02:06 PM »

About the term SEO you should probably look at it the way most look at ADS! Sometimes crap and waste of space, other times hmm, interesting. There are SEO services with sales letter type websites who try to make you an expert if only you... others try to complicate the topic to make you believe you need them. Some might move your business to new heights and are worth every cent Those who are real pros know more than technicalities about WP and Google - or some stupid program which can spit out what keywords to use. Market analysis, competitor analysis, other off-page stuff like dear Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc. And they can implement it. They are almost coaching your business. So I think there are different classes of SEO people/businesses. Not sure it is fair to go zzzzzz I will not pay you, get away from google when I search "SEO". Normal people trying to make money with their whatever they do have no time and ability to know these things. Invitation to scams is another way of looking at it but if an SEO dude (web expert sounds better) is fair and know what not to do it can be a legit way of making money. Exchanging money via internet will grow and grow and grow. Get used to SEO

77

Developer's Corner / Re: Safe programs for File Recovery

« Last post by Bamse on January 26, 2011, 01:42 PM »

Yes, wrong to say it only work with <64kb. I guess test must be so fool proof that there are zero signs of anything. If signs detected disk can be send off to some recovery genius and then who knows. Scanning is as paid version so that should do.

78

Living Room / Re: Is SEO worth the trouble?

« Last post by Bamse on January 26, 2011, 01:38 PM »

You should always sign up for Google Webmaster Tools and whatever MS has, Bing Webmaster something. Yahoo Site Explorer is dead or dying. Everything can look great but not much use if bots can only see half the site - for whatever weird reason. Also quite a bit of SEO related info there.

Might be stating the obvious but when you see "Clean code" attached to a theme it only means that a default out the box setup is clean. Once you add content and plugins, perhaps via plugins, hell can break lose. Selecting best plugins is the trick - and theme of course. And what Renegade said about markups.

For SEO plugin some are more useful than others but I think this is cool Wordpress SEO Plugin http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/ by a WP-guru who can afford to share Notice the almost official title, he know this will be popular. His name Yoast is almost a brand. Site has most SEO info a normal person needs to know btw. Plugin like his is what people use if not theme is "SEO ready". I especially like snippet preview, don't think many pay attention to that. Is what people see in search engine so important. You do it already but may be not optimal for the end user experience - and willingness to click, click.

SEO ready means some features, not all, of a typical SEO plugin are build in the editor page. So you can attach meta tags for example, change title. 8There will be more like how theme loads css, js. easy way of attaching Google Analytics/Adsense code and what not. More important is you use something that is updated and supported, not likely to go out of business any time soon. Now WP 3.1 is close, so does all your handpicked stuff work, will it be fixed/updated? Quality more valuable than pretty colors of course. Can always use plugins, not must have feature. Actually I don't know what SEO ready means but this covers some of it. Can be whatever, "optimized code" is also an SEO feature if that means speed.

Does not really matter if theme is SEO ready or not because it can be dumb to use theme for this. If you later change theme all info is most likely gone, seo content is in themes datatables. The plugin I mentioned has import functions for this reason, one of the first with this I think. May be there is one which let you import/export among the most popular tools, don't remember. But some have learned the hard way, as in strange drops at Google =  game over! If plugin is used theme SEO-stuff must be disabled and the other way around.

Checking all what has been mentioned about alt, meta something is easy with SEO-doctor http://www.prelovac....er-addons/seo-doctor real-time and by another (smaller) guru. They know how to build a business those 2 Firebug + extensions for Firebug, Google Page Speed http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/ can do the same and more. Select right tools with "Don't waste my time, I do not think it is that interesting, thank you!" as one of the parameters and there is close to no work involved. If you always forget to use alt info for image then just install a plugin which does it automatically, like SEO Friendly Images http://www.prelovac..../seo-friendly-images

As Renegade said most is simply technical things any site admin should know anyway, Google Webmaster pretty much cover what is important as far as technical SEO goes. Not much need for extras but you could be missing out! Can be difficult to select but go after popularity and check homepage, some are made by pros and even WP employees. Others by 16 year olds with more ambition than experience. You can tell. They don't review pluigins that closely, just poor them out so it is a supermarket. Close to 13000 to pick from. Lots of buggy outdated stuff and potential for conflicts with both themes and other plugins. Where it can go wrong, look at any WP forum - once you start tinkering door is wide open for "problems". KISS principle apply here as well. Less is often better with WP. Not always easy to remember when it stinks so much with some features Still true, the more you add the more you must know and to some degree maintain.

If you want max. number of visitors fastest way possible I suggest pixel boobs not SEO.

79

Developer's Corner / Re: Safe programs for File Recovery

« Last post by Bamse on January 26, 2011, 01:21 PM »

Was about to say R-Studio but will just add that demo only work with <64kb files. But you can get a forensic report to be used in a court, always useful.

80

Living Room / Re: Perils and Pitfalls of Online Community Management

« Last post by Bamse on January 24, 2011, 07:24 AM »

You will and have seen those reactions I mentioned and that is a small step to what she says about revenue, usernames becoming part of management, detachment. I do remember the NOOOs and concerns were not a bot!

The closest relationship to her article must be LiveJournal.

Some platforms live on, hosting specialized conversations or niches. LiveJournal is an example I use all the time. It was MySpace before MySpace and by the time MySpace was Facebook, LiveJournal was forgotten. Except for the thousands of people that still use it. Niche communities of many kinds still live and thrive there and while LiveJournal is not on the front page of TechCrunch, it's not dead or even dying. Sometimes the best thing for an online community is for everyone to just leave it alone. ^_^

May be you could define what does NOT apply to DC before asking for comments on "what do you think apply?" Whole article does not apply if you ask me, if we must be technical, but yes DC is not immune to controversy from changes and I do believe any testing of ad-bots will show that as well. As innocent, peaceful and misunderstood as it might be. Mainly because if you think black and white ads pretty much stinks, end of story. Ads/marketing get a bad rep from all those crazy site admins she obviously have seen mess up. If DC in 2073 were to experiment with ads I would not worry so much or look up effects of doing that in a book. Destiny is decided by own actions, there are no rules and even so there are exceptions - or make some up

81

Living Room / Re: Perils and Pitfalls of Online Community Management

« Last post by Bamse on January 24, 2011, 06:36 AM »

Well he is expecting more chaos and uncontrolled user groups than what you see now - and see use of Scoble like characters as hints they are all about clicks/hype and so will fail. "noise from the masses" will overwhelm them, matter of time.

Related to the article and reasons you posted it I have no important comments - other than I agree with mahesh2k. DC probably belong to the group she refer to as LiveJournal sites. Strangely below the radar of typical community forces, happy and free. But this can quickly change. Find the thread about Mousers wet dreams of introducing advertisement while not change anything! I am sure it is possible but requires careful considerations. I remember some going NOOOO! If he actually did started with just handpicked affiliate deals, tiny weeny ads, this will be enough to get some out of control, perhaps leave. There will be the type of controversy she refer to. I think NOOOOs are highly influenced by the fact most sites/forums starting with revenue hunting go crazy and let not only site design but also content reflect marketing relationships. Like doing "reviews", not caring for where ads are placed and stuff. And they certainly do not ASK for permission either! Decrease of actual useful information/community values is expected, road of no return so NOOOO! Given the right/wrong circumstances DC will also face the music but more or less out of context to use her article as a roadmap to compare with.

82

Living Room / Re: Perils and Pitfalls of Online Community Management

« Last post by Bamse on January 24, 2011, 02:39 AM »

I did not know what Quora was so had to read a blog post. Why I Don’t Buy the Quora Hype If he is correct, like use of high profile tech names is part of success for community, then it make no sense for them to think big picture stuff or even ahead

83

Living Room / Re: Google? Spam? Ads? No... No Conflict of Interest Here...

« Last post by Bamse on January 23, 2011, 05:10 AM »

Ooops, I have fixed links.

With all those pages to deal with they must use automated algorithms and so mistakes happen. What they do to manually fix errors is more interesting. We need a former employee to get chatty about how Google work internally with this. Not much valid info is available I think. Not easy to complain when no one has any fact based info. I am optimist and believe they just need to change priorities, get finger out.

84

Living Room / Re: Google? Spam? Ads? No... No Conflict of Interest Here...

« Last post by Bamse on January 23, 2011, 03:23 AM »

Seems like grabbing Youtube videos including comments is a favorite. At bottom it says "Powered by Yahoo Answers" though. Search term only give them no. 27 place here. Not too perfect that auto thingy, some articles are out of context like birdcagesforsale. net/help-me-arrange-my-new-living-room which is identical to another crap site livingroomideas. net/?p=831 where it is more fitting. Yahoo Answers I assume.

If bored one day I will try but are you stating the obvious by saying it is waste of time? Is it a known fact? Got any links?

No they won't take anything down just like that, only "In especially egregious cases".

85

Living Room / Re: Google? Spam? Ads? No... No Conflict of Interest Here...

« Last post by Bamse on January 23, 2011, 02:07 AM »

Hmm, well so this page https://www.google.c...port?hl=en&pli=1 which is identical to what the better security companies have will not trigger a reply? If I spend 1 hour diagnosing a site, suggesting it should be penalized I would be very annoyed if reply was not of some quality. They can disagree but I want a reply. They encourage you to help them so what choices to they have? Seems to me most Google complaints are hard to understand, when not in anti-Google mood, but if someone were to test this complaint system and prove it useless that would be cool to see in a headline

86

Living Room / Re: Google? Spam? Ads? No... No Conflict of Interest Here...

« Last post by Bamse on January 23, 2011, 01:47 AM »

I would rather not check out those tools mahesh2k but have run across similar stuff over the years. They just change name. I think the point with my PC-Tool hate is that directly or indirectly screwing up search results is more accepted than what I think Renegade refer to in first post. Everyone wants to be at the top. I can understand Googles trouble with how to draw the line. They should fear "Google is useless" campaigns but also "Google is censoring the internet".

Here is a long thread about the question of what is what, what should be penalized or not http://www.google.co...;hl=en&start=120 He starts off somewhat convincingly but goes downhill fast though he also have a good point by saying similar sites do not have same problems. People disagree of both his site and claims of being penalized unfairly, personally I would not trust him for a second and went YES when a person noted that 1 posters somehow seem to enjoy his site and support his case How old and naive! And after all that chitchat a Google Employee make the last post saying almost nothing other than stating the obvious. I don't think they know what to do with questions like how much original content is enough to cover up affiliate links, what is original btw!

I was more interested in checking how Google handle complaints by suggesting to report a site, preferably one that cannot be debated. How long does it take to get a reply?, is it worth anything?

87

Living Room / Re: Google? Spam? Ads? No... No Conflict of Interest Here...

« Last post by Bamse on January 22, 2011, 12:07 PM »

Goal should probably not be set higher than "less garbage" because cat and mouse game will continue regardless of Google hiring 500 more people to clean up.

PC Tools is not hiding anything because there is full acceptance of the method http://www.pctools.c...partners/affiliates/ FAQ is even worse. No mention of providing user any info what is going on, of course not because as soon as people become aware they start to think. Doubts are a risk. Does not mean affiliate logic is wrong or should be avoided but when arrangement is so automated it stinks.

Q: What sort of assistance do you provide to your Affiliates?
A: We can provide copy and content for your site, images, banner ads, links, testimonials, reviews, articles, HTML emails and more. You will also have a dedicated Account Manager who will provide you assistance and advice to ensure you get the most success out of partnering with us.

88

Living Room / Re: USB Madness With Cooked-Off Ports

« Last post by Bamse on January 22, 2011, 11:27 AM »

It is portable, check bottom of site. You have to install full package first though. One of those programs you instantly know can do much damage so no need to warn against it I have had actual use for it a couple of times when a service seem to be stuck in registry.

89

Living Room / Re: Google? Spam? Ads? No... No Conflict of Interest Here...

« Last post by Bamse on January 22, 2011, 11:07 AM »

Would also help if those companies who encourage affiliate deals started to police their rules for being accepted as member of that club. I have seen products, like PC Tools, which offer a complete package with templates and all, basically an inviation to spam for those with a mindset to live off affiliate deals, set up useless sites with copy and paste content. Why so many clueless people run in to Spyware Doctor when searching for malware removal - and Google helps by including program in their Google Pack. Such companies will of course have rules for what not to do etc. but they could not care less. At least for indexed tech sites this plays a big role for noise level. Actually it also play a big role for sites with original content and all the best intentions in the world but here it is called using your head to monetize

90

Living Room / Re: Google? Spam? Ads? No... No Conflict of Interest Here...

« Last post by Bamse on January 22, 2011, 08:35 AM »

One way to find out would be to report a site which without a doubt piss all over their own rules and tons of advices on good behavior. Start the clock and see what happens. Do they let a bot give link to bing.com or will you get a human response with argumentation for why and why not.

91

Living Room / Re: Google? Spam? Ads? No... No Conflict of Interest Here...

« Last post by Bamse on January 22, 2011, 08:08 AM »

They already have that, is called Google SearchWiki http://en.wikipedia....ki/Google_SearchWiki Oh they used to have that, now discontinued or melted in with Chrome. I am not surprised, most people can't be bothered and just click, click among top hits.

Their launch post SearchWiki: make search your own

92

Living Room / Re: Google? Spam? Ads? No... No Conflict of Interest Here...

« Last post by Bamse on January 22, 2011, 06:48 AM »

And we’re evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content.

Not like they don't know or are stupid Be happy they make these posts so you have something to hold against them should they fail.

Why not report those sites? https://www.google.c...port?hl=en&pli=1

93

Living Room / Re: USB Madness With Cooked-Off Ports

« Last post by Bamse on January 22, 2011, 12:51 AM »

Will not fix hw problems but I just remembered Device Remover http://www.pro-it-ed...tware/deviceremover/ Very advanced and complex - check screenshots http://cid-13a411233...emover%20Screenshots Fun

94

General Software Discussion / Re: LastPass - What are your thoughts?

« Last post by Bamse on January 21, 2011, 04:11 PM »

From what I know of RoboForm the strength of encryption rely on your master password. Same way as with Firefox master password. Encryption is done on your computer, before sending off any data and why you don't have to worry about all those Roboform files, and if you can't remember password all is lost since RoboForm have no clue of password = also not content. That setup is supposed to shut up those who do not trust anything "cloudy" How online database work I have no clue about but would expect it do equally secure. Have not tried new Everywhere thingy but old RoboForm Online did not reveal everything just because you could log in, if entry was set up with master password required nothing was shown until that was punched in. Was synched with preferences of "offline" RoboForm. Lastpass has same features.

95

General Software Discussion / Re: LastPass - What are your thoughts?

« Last post by Bamse on January 21, 2011, 02:19 PM »

No Lastpass is not a worthy swap because 1. RoboForm 7 has initial attempts to provide log-in to applications like you log-in to DC and 2. A very much improved secure notes feature which goes hand in hand with log-ins. LastPass does not know about applications and has poor note feature. What this means of course depend on what program is used for. RoboForm is a program (eventually system wide), Lastpass a plugin (browser only). The question of what supports which browser the best will probably even out over time. I am not advanced user but read of problems with this browser on this page etc. - they are both supported and will mature, like over and over

96

Living Room / Re: USB Madness With Cooked-Off Ports

« Last post by Bamse on January 21, 2011, 01:41 PM »

Nirsoft to the rescue http://www.nirsoft.n...sb_devices_view.html or not?

97

General Software Discussion / Re: Upgrading RoboForm from v6 to v7: worthwhile?

« Last post by Bamse on January 21, 2011, 01:24 PM »

First time "trial" appeared was in changelog for one of the countless betas of version 7. I don't bother looking it up but I think at least 2-3 months before final arrived though still very late in beta cycle. Already then some people complained on their twitter and not much have changed since. Now they say that yes we have made some mistakes regarding communication but have been busy with new website and all. Like they did not realize trial means a whole new situation towards customers and now have to deal with the sad news best way possible. They have never had focus on easing the pain for at least those with 1-2 year old licenses. Instead they go Let us help each other They have planned this since early stages of 7 or you can slap me silly.

Their arguments make sense, much is almost out of their hands but behavior towards customers they control. That is why people are pissed off. Don't feel sorry for them because "lifetime" has same value as "minimum system requirements" for a game or Windows! With a more fair upgrade policy and less marketing nonsense complaints would have been 1/10th of what they are now. Also because 7 is way better than 6

98

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Release: JottiQ

« Last post by Bamse on January 20, 2011, 10:01 PM »

Guess not many use Vista 64bit so should say I cannot provoke crashes on that OS.

99

General Software Discussion / Re: Upgrading RoboForm from v6 to v7: worthwhile?

« Last post by Bamse on January 20, 2011, 08:35 PM »

We want to make everyone happy. If you feel we are still not justified in charging for upgrades please contact us at the emails below. Perhaps we can find a way to make you happy and keep you as a customer for life.

I read this as they would love to shut you up . Would be fun it some get free upgrades because of crying emails. They will announce new found love and then hell break lose again. Worse solution than none/ignoring I think.

"Customer for life" sounds kind of scary.

100

General Software Discussion / Re: Unlocker punishes you for not installing toolbar.

« Last post by Bamse on January 20, 2011, 12:15 AM »

I think it is a nice touch from Unlocker that they list extra "Promotional features" in changelog. Most do not, almost seems like they would not want you do take too much notice - just click, click Unless installation is set up to trick users into clicking wrong buttons or make them dizzy with too many unrelated windows, information of process should take away most annoyances. He does not highlight it that much, not like Registrybooster crap, and may be it will vanish after next update since no longer news but under the circumstances which is 2011 internet and almost everything goes, it is better than nothing. These sometimes sneaky marketing add-ons should be part of license policy for program. Should be mentioned right next do download link. Then anyone know what to expect and cannot claim X program secretly hijacked search box in browser or other evils.

Notice how he melts Registrybooster in to download section http://cedrick.collo...r/unlocker/#download almost as part of his site. Old trick and a hint of how he look at marketing towards users and what to expect 30 sec timer is just his way of annoying you in his defeat. Still think it is good he give a little mention of promotional features.