Archive: Posts about Internet
May 23rd, 2007, 7 Comments »
SHEREEF: hello and how are you doing this is Mr Agdar [name changed] and i would like to order some flowers from your shop to my company in West Africa and can you tell me the types of flowers you have and their prices each so that i can make my selections. hope to hear from you asap..
ME: I’m afraid you have the wrong email address–I don’t sell flowers.
Best of luck.
SHEREEF: Ohh Okay What do you sell?
ME: Nothing, really, we do services work.
SHEREEF: Dont you know any shop there so tht you give me their address so that i buy some of their goods?
This guy wants to buy anything wholesale and re-sell it. Where should I sent him?
I’m sure this happens to everybody, but certain Google users have a mentality about their search results. It goes like this:
“Because your site is ranked highly in Google, you must be an expert in my search terms. Furthermore, you must sell them for a living.”
He no doubt found me because of Flowers For Al and Don. If he’d asked for something other than flowers, I would have thought it was just a variation on Nigerian spam.
Another recent example is horse soccer balls. If you Google “horse soccer ball”, my site is the fourth result. The first result is a site which actually sells horse soccer balls (the excerpted text in the search results even implies this).
And yet I’ve received more than one call from people wanting to buy just such a ball. Odd, eh?
7 Comments »
May 15th, 2007, 19 Comments »
If so, which one do you use?
We’re kind of money nerds, and when we move to a new place, we like to closely monitor our spending for a month or two. We want to see where our money’s actually going.
A few years ago, we would have used Microsoft Money for this task. I was pretty happy with that product. However, we’re on Macs now, and we’d prefer a solution that isn’t tied to one computer.
So, we’re hoping for a nice lightweight, modern solution. I’ve done a bunch of searching, and many of the options feel very old and busted, or offer way, way too much functionality for what we need.
The closest we’ve gotten is OurCashFlow, but that still seems like overkill. For example, they want us to import our banking data into their system. For one, that’s scary, and for another, I don’t really need them to know about our accounts. I basically just want to track outgoing expenses.
Any bright ideas? Otherwise, I guess we’re going to go with a good old Googles Docs and Spreadsheets, uh, spreadsheet.
19 Comments »
April 3rd, 2007, 1 Comment »
Ever since the early days of the web, aspiring Hendrix-philes could download guitar tablature–a popular form of musical notation. This material was created by amateurs and uploaded to sites like OLGA, the Online Guitar Archive which started in 1994. OLGA has been taken down at the, uh, request of music industry lawyers, but there a million other resources for tablature out there like it. Just google, say, “tablature shine on you crazy diamond” and sift through the 385,000 results.
I hack away at my acoustic guitar when no one’s within earshot. My favourite tablature site du jour is Chordie, which seems to be a cut above the rest and even has some Web 2.0 bits. There’s an RSS feed for the top 100 songs (currently inexplicably at #1, “I Don’t Want To Talk About It” as sung by Rod Stewart), you can (obviously) contribute your own tab, you can assemble a songbook of favourites, and so forth.
One great feature of the site is that you can you transpose on the fly. Check out the sidebar on, say, Neil Young’s “Borrowed Tune”. Is the song too high for you? Just change the key with a click of the mouse. Fancy.
I got on to this subject because Bob Tedeschi has written a really poorly-researched piece about a tablature site that’s going legit:
Last year popular sites like Olga.net, MxTabs.net and others — where users post tablature, usually called “guitar tabs,” for rock songs — suspended operations after the music publishing industry threatened them with copyright infringement lawsuits. Under the new initiative, MxTabs, which is owned by MusicNotes, will share an undisclosed portion of advertising revenue with music publishers, who in turn will give a portion to artists.
Tedeschi makes it sound like music publishers sued every such site out of existence, and that MusicNotes has arrived to deliver us to a chord-filled Nirvana. Later in the article he uses the past tense again, writing “guitar tablature sites were typically small operations”. At best, MusicNotes will be the iTunes of tablature–a one-stop shop for folks who want to be legal. Tedeschi doesn’t display any scepticism about their approach, revenue model or the existing clout of other sites. All told, the piece reads a little too close to the MusicNotes media release.
1 Comment »
March 21st, 2007, 2 Comments »
A kindly, bilingual fellow named Jun volunteered to translate Get a First Life into Japanese. I’m not sure how the humour will translate, but hopefully people will at least grasp the gist. In any case, here’s Get a First Life in Japanese.
If it looks like gobbledegook, do the following:
- In Internet Explorer, click the View menu. Select Encoding, then select, then select More and choose Japanese (Auto select).
- In Firefox, click the View menu. Select Character Encoding, then choose Japanese (ISO-2022-JP).
Coincidentally, next month Second Life is apparently releasing a Japanese language client for the game.
Because my Japanese is limited to “nori”, “edamame” and “salmon maki”, I have idea how to promote the site in the Japanese web. Is there a Japanese Digg?
In unrelated news, tonight I accidentally visited www.cbc.com instead of www.cbc.ca. It’s a “Comic & Break Club” in an eastern Asian language with creepy avatars and scantily clad women.
2 Comments »
March 12th, 2007, 2 Comments »
In the same day, I encountered the websites of two different nations doing stupid things. First, the Maltese Ministry of Foreign Affairs actually notifies you with an alert message when you’re leaving their website. It’s a read-only website–you’re not logged in or doing anything fancy. It just pops up the message when you click an external link.
Then we were trying to access our tax account on the Canada Revenue Agency’s site (they’re having some other computer issues these days, of course). It does a browser check when you try to log in, and these are the browsers they support:
On Microsoft Windows Operating Systems:
- Internet Explorer 6.0;
- Netscape Communicator/Navigator 7.02;
- Netscape Communicator/Navigator 7.2;
- Mozilla Firefox 1.0.6.
Wow, that’s great. So they support, what, about 60% of Internet users?
To add insult to injury, when you click the login link, you get a spinning GIF graphic and this message
Please wait.
The system is processing your request.
This may take several minutes…
Several minutes? Is Canada’s tax agency running on software from 1985? In truth, it only takes a couple of seconds, but I thought the error message was hilarious.
2 Comments »
March 10th, 2007, 4 Comments »
The other day I was creating a Squidoo lens for DeSmogBlog, and happened to check Squidoo’s list of its top 100 lenses. It’s really peculiar.
The number #1 lens is run by Vancouver’s own Kate Trgovac, and is entitled Funky, Chic and Cool Laptop Bags. There are two other lenses about handbags in the top twenty. Other oddities include:
#5 - UpDos For Proms, Weddings or Just Everyday
#10 - Make Your Own Fairy Wings
#19 - OOAK Polymer Clay Babies
It’s as if Squidoo is filling in a bunch of holes that the rest of the Internet missed.
I have yet to figure out how much scope Squidoo has. I hear people discuss it occasionally, but I don’t have a clear picture of its influence.
I also recently discovered (an apparently new) list of top articles on Wikipedia. This is a really effective real-time, transparent Google Zeitgeist, and can give you a pretty clear idea of what the Web wants to learn, right now. Predictably, it’s all about Pokemon and the movie 300 at the moment.
UPDATE: Coincidentally, Seth Godin just published an ad hoc year-end report on Squidoo. It doesn’t really help me gauge Squidoo’s reach, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
4 Comments »
March 6th, 2007, 13 Comments »
I started GeekyTraveller.com back in April, 2005. Ever since, it’s never really received enough of my attention. In that time, I’ve only written a couple of hundred blog entries on it, and have made only occasional attempts to seriously promote it.
Ultimately, I guess I was disinclined to split traffic between this site and GT, and didn’t have the energy, free time or inclination to promote the site.
I do think the site still has great potential. It’s got a distinctive design, and a good basis to build a popular and lucrative blog. I’ve had an inordinate number of enquiries for reviews, joining networks and the like. Here are the details:
Google PageRank: 6
Incoming Links (according to Google): 1410
Technorati Rank: 98, 860
Visitors in 2006: 16, 314
Current average daily visitors: 65
The site belongs to the Washington Post’s new blogroll program (they invited me to join) and the Blogburst network, so it’s syndicated on newspaper sites like the San Francisco Chronicle and the Austin American Statesman.
It currently has a trickle of AdSense revenue–US$5 per month. In the past three months, I have had six enquiries to write ReviewMe reviews on GT, which are worth US $50 a pop.
I’ve never sold a site before, so I’m pretty naive about the market, pricing and everything else. GeekyTraveller might be a good addition to a blogging network, or even for a travel company, travel writer (or travel product manufacturer) who wants to liven up their online presence.
What are my options for selling? Two that I’m aware of are SitePoint’s forums, or good ol’ eBay.
Have you ever sold a site? How did you do it? Any advice?
13 Comments »
March 6th, 2007, 2 Comments »
I’ve never been a big fan of Evite. It’s fine, but it’s clunky, gaudy and rife with promotions and ads. I’ve never looked very hard, but I’ve never found a suitable alternative. Upcoming is really for public events–its private event functionality requires everybody to register and log in, which doesn’t cut it.
I was interested, then, to watch a demo of MyPunchBowl.com on Robert’s blog:
There are typically lots of pieces to organize: picking a date, sending invitations, choosing catering and entertainment, purchasing party supplies, and renting party equipment just to name a few. It can be a time-consuming process, and it usually isn’t much fun.
To solve this problem, we’ve created MyPunchbowl, a new approach to at-home party planning that is easy, comprehensive, and personal. MyPunchbowl provides software for every stage of a party. If you use MyPunchbowl.com to plan your party, you’ll have a better party.
I haven’t tried it yet, but I like the Flickr integration and the well thought-out workflow.
2 Comments »
March 4th, 2007, 4 Comments »
It really works. It magically aggregates knowledge, like a slow and methodical mirror, mirror on the wall.
Back in September 2005, I started a Wikipedia article about Cougar Annie. Here’s what it looked like back then.
Cougar Annie was a pioneer who settled near Hesquiat Harbour in Clayoquot Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada. Born Ada Annie Rae-Arthur, she moved to the land in 1915 with the first of her four husbands. She gave birth to at least eleven children, eight of them in this remote location. She acquired her nickname because of her famed marksmanship, which she learned while living with her family in South Africa. She shot dozens of cougars on her property over long life.
185 words, one external link and no photos. That’s pretty good, considering she has some very regional notoreity–she’s barely a household name in Tofino.
Fast forward to today. Five people have edited the article seventeen times. It now has 806 words, three extenal links and two photos. Most importantly, check who just came by to add about 400 words:
The changes are made by Annie’s granddaughter, Patricia Meadows and are substantiated from interviews of her Grandmother before she died.
How cool is that? The article I started on cage dancing hasn’t received quite so much attention, but all in good time.
4 Comments »
March 2nd, 2007, 4 Comments »
As the Christians among you surely know, last week was Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. Traditionally, during Lent, you give something up. From Wikipedia:
Many modern Protestants and Anglicans consider the observation of Lent to be a choice, rather than an obligation. They may decide to give up a favorite food (e.g. chocolate, alcohol) or activity (e.g. going to the movies, playing video games) for Lent, or they may instead decide to take on a Lenten discipline such as devotions, volunteering for charity work, and so forth. Roman Catholics may also observe Lent in this way, in addition to the dietary restrictions outlined above, though observation is no longer mandatory under the threat of mortal sin.
Somebody should build a site which enables people to describe what they’re giving up for Lent, track their progress and encourage others who were giving up the same thing.
You could call it 43Penances (I see Lent gets a mention on 43Things). Such a site probably exists, but my 12 second Google search didn’t produce any promising examples. ForLent.com is owned by some company called Forlent Technologies.
4 Comments »
