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Blog Details for "Metafluence"
MetafluenceMetafluenceStrategic Web presence development tips for the modern Internet Articles
5 tips for productivity
2007-05-07 19:03:00 I’ve been a busy person for several years now. During these busy times I’ve been searching for a system that would allow me to stay on top of my workload. I’ve tried David Allen’s GTD system to no avail. I’ve tried using a PDA, again to no avail. About six months ago I decided it ... More About: Tips , Productivity , Prod
What to do if your MySpace account has been hacked
2007-04-30 08:07:00 Several months ago I wrote a post about how to hack a MySpace account. About half of the comments left on that post where from people who have had their MySpace profiles hacked and would like to know how to recover it. This post is for all of you who want to reclaim their stolen ... More About: Myspace , Hacked , Pace , Count , Account
Opening night party for WebVisions sponsored by Nemo Design
2007-04-25 01:17:00 Hey everybody it’s party time! My company, Nemo Design , is hosting the opening night party for the WebVisions conference here in Portland. It’s a no host bar, but the first 100 attendees will receive a free drink ticket. If you don’t know, WebVisions is a great conference. In the words of Brad Smith, the Executive Director: WebVisions ... More About: Party , Sponsored , Night , Opening
Really good SEO tips
2007-04-18 20:18:00 The funny thing about sites that have killer information on them is that they tend to look amateur in design. I recently discovered a blog that has a hot bed of great SEO knowledge, but if you didn’t know any better it looks like just another blog. Aaron linked to this blog, which is how ... More About: Tips , Real , Good , Really , Ally
What do y?all think about OpenLaszlo?
2007-04-17 10:38:00 Ok, so, I’ve been consumed with the rich web for a while now. Specifically, I am interested in developing sites that offer the rich interface that provide humans with a more meaningful interaction with online content, but degrades elegantly to allow for the greatest accessibility, aka progressive enhancement. It’s all part of my quest for ... More About: Flash , Hat , About , Think , Laszlo
Yahoo!s malicious business practice
2007-04-17 10:21:00 I was helping a friend of mine set up a Yahoo ! Store to sell jewelry online. She had already purchased her domain name from BlueHost, so I was trying to figure out what the DNS info was for Yahoo! to update her domain name. I am a very capable web developer, but after a solid ... More About: Business , Mali , Practice , Ness
Read Massive
2007-04-05 17:53:00 This now abandoned blog has a handful of juicy promotional secrets. There’s a particularly good one about how releasing a WordPress Theme is a great way to gain backlinks (everytime someone installs it, there’s a credit link to you in their footer). Check it, don’t wreck it. More About: Read , Mass
Whoa, this is a big deal!
2007-04-05 17:48:00 Kathy Sierra, A-list blogger and tech conference speaker, has had a troubling experience that involves some of the most well respected names in the Internet. Apparently people have been saying life threatening and sexual aggressive comments about her on her own blog as well as another blog that has been taken down. It’s a big ... More About: This , Deal , Whoa
I hate the Open Directory
2007-04-05 04:58:00 And all of you who are in the know, know why I hate it. They couldn’t update their records if life dependeant on it. It should be a wiki. You know this is true. More About: Open , Hate , En Directo , Hat , Direct
Super secret ninja tricks
2007-03-23 08:54:00 Ok, so I don’t know why it just occurred to me to post some of my favorite ninja tricks, but it did, so here: Trick 1 - Instant links Did you know that your can permanently redirect various versions of a page to a single address to increase your number of links to a page? That means ... More About: Rick , Ninja , Tricks , Super
Getting a better price for SSL
2007-03-23 03:23:00 Secure certificates, also known as SSL, are a strange thing to buy. Price s range from thousands of dollars to $20. What’s the difference between them that would account for this massive price range? Insurance. Expensive SSLs will cover much larger fraud claims than the cheap ones. But if you want a better price on SSLs ... More About: Rice , Better , Bett
Google bait
2007-02-17 17:29:01 This promotional tip is dedicated to Andrew Wee for popping my MBL cherry. If you’d like to pull in some Googl e traffic, this tip is for you. Google bait is a post that a blogger intentionally writes to pull in Google traffic. The basic idea is that certain topics have a high volume of interest and a low volume of competition. The only real trick to this promotional technique is determining what to write about. You could go through the tedious task of looking up search terms in the Overture inventory and then searching the various engines to guage competition (my former business offered a tool called Scout to do just that). Personally, I prefer to look through my traffic logs for keyphrase trends and then pick a few concepts that I suspect might be of mass interest. I prefer this technique because I’ve learned that people type hundreds of variations of similar keyphrases and the volume of one iteration doesn’t reveal the true volume of interest. Also, if a keyphras...
9rules goes social with my.9rules
2007-02-14 05:26:02 Well, that’s not exactly a fair title. 9rules has been a member based blog aggregator since it’s inception, which is social in nature. However, the only way to contribute to the conversation on the 9rules site was as a member accepted via a tough, annual screening. The blog aggregator made a name for itself as a source of high quality blogs. With their previous version, 9rules introduced Notes, which allowed anyone to sign up and participate in a forum. Participants had basic profiles that were a couple of data points and a link to their site. Paul, Mike, and Tyme have just rolled out their latest version code named “Ali“. It is a truly significant upgrade in the community department with the introduction of messaging and social aggregation via feeds. I am personally a big fan of 9rules and have been since version 1. This most recently development will lead to an explosion in participation because the community is comprised of quality members and open to all ... More About: Social , Soci , Rules , Rule
Broken images in ZenPhoto
2007-02-08 23:21:02 I’ve installed ZenPhoto a couple of times and both times I had broken images. At first I thought it might have been the permission settings for the “/albums” or “/cache” were not set to 777. That wasn’t it. Then I did a Google search, and the ZenPhoto forum popped up with suggestions that my .htaccess file wasn’t configured properly, but that wasn’t it either. It turns out the issue was needing to override the paths, which can be done at the bottom of the zp-config.php file. It looks like this: Now, I thought having figured this out during my first installation that I would have no problem with my second. Well, it turns out that I got a little confused because my second installation was for an add on domain. So, in order to make it work, I had to use the full server path plus the directory that contained my add on domain for the ‘SERVERPATH’. I had installed ZenPhoto in the root of the add on domain, so I thought I would s... More About: Images , Image , Broken , Ages
What do you call yourself?
2007-02-08 23:21:02 Are you an Internet strategist? SEOer? Do you do SEM? SMO? Do you make websites? Do you know Web 2.0? Are you a web designer? Web developer? What exactly do you do? I hear these questions all the time. It’s a challenge these days to describe the work I do, which is not because I’m unclear, rather it’s because the online arena is still rapidly unfolding and full of overlap. Everyday new areas are exposed and we scramble to define the accompanying services. My career began as a print designer, which was easy for me to explain to people. Then I got into web design, which lead to learning XHTML, CSS, and some JavaScript and PHP. So, now I could call myself a web designer. Then I realized I was being judged on whether or not my work brought a return on the client’s investment, which lured me into traffic promotion. I added search engine optimization skills to my bag of tricks so my work was not just pretty, but also pulled in visitors. Soon afterwards I began expe... More About: Yourself , Self , Hat , Your
I’ve recently been writing a few posts about the evolu
2007-01-15 11:09:01 I’ve recently been writing a few posts about the evolution of web design, particularly the impact of rich media, namely Flash, on modern web design. Other web design thinkers, such as Jeff Croft, have also been thinking about the new era of web design and the problems we need to address. For more than a decade web designers have relied on site maps and wireframes to be their staple tools for designing websites. While these tools have served us well, they fall short of the modern information architecture needs called for by AJAX and rich media sites. The problem is interactive experiences are evolving beyond the idea of a page, which are the fundamental building blocks of a site map and wireframe. So, here we find ourselves wrestling with the question: How do we design for modern interactive experiences? The page problem Site maps become problematic when websites aren’t just a series of linked pages. Flash was the first to challenge the notion of a “page” by a... More About: Writing , Post , Cent , About , Recent
#8 marketing trend for 2007
2006-12-29 22:56:02 On his blog Influential Interactive Mark et ing , Rohit identified the Top 7 Marketing Trend s for 2006. His list includes: Sharing a Corporate Personality Widget Marketing Social Media Optimization AutoTagging and AutoSorting Human Filtered Search Contentcasting Online Identity Shifting In the spirit of things, I wanted to offer one more trend of 2006. Viral Buttons. These include all of the little buttons and badges to encourage your visitors to bookmark, share, or subscribe to your posts. The bookmark options got so out of control that Dave Shea felt they’ve jumped the shark.
StumbleUpon is really cool
2006-12-26 10:53:01 I recently noticed a spike in my traffic that brought more than double my daily traffic. Looking into it, I found the spike came from Stumble Upon , which is a service designed to help surfers discover new sites. I knew about StumbleUpon, and if I recall correctly, it’s been around for more than 5 years. However, I have an aversion to toolbars, which is why I never considered the service before. I’m always looking for new tricks to add to my bag of promotions, so I decided to install their toolbar, which is when my problem began. The problem is that StumbleUpon is really cool and is sucking away hours of my time. I’ve tried surfing the internet in the same way I watch T.V., but I could never decide to start a surf session?it just had to happen, like finding a great new blog full of cool links or happening to hit a new topic vein. I know some people visit sites like Digg, BoingBoing, Fark; but they don’t inspire surfing for me. I like StumbleUpon because the Stu... More About: Cool , Real , Really
Cock blocking Microsoft
2006-12-14 22:43:02 If you haven’t noticed, the web is currently experiencing some tremors of wars to come. By wars I mean things like the browser wars, search engine wars, and the CSS revolution. Interestingly, everyone thought the search engine wars were over before Google even hit the scene. In that same historical pattern, it looks as if the browser war is far from over as the newest rival, Firefox, continues to take market share from Intercrap Explorer. Digg.com, for example, has already reported that 70% of their users use Firefox. Adding to the Firefox arsenal, a new partnership between Adobe and Mozilla threatens to unseat HTML as the lone standard for built in browser support. If Adobe, through Firefox, can open source Flash and make it a default feature set in the fastest growing browser in the world, that allows them to expand the sales of Flash development products. But why only open Flash to Mozilla? Could it be because the 800 pound gorilla in Redmond may be preparing to step toe to... More About: Microsoft , Soft , Bloc , King , Micro
Hacking a MySpace account
2006-12-07 16:37:01 Have you ever seen your friend post a bulletin on MySpace about how they made a $1,000 on the weekend? It’s the first sign your friend’s MySpace account has been hacked. Maybe you’ve had your MySpace account hacked and would like to know what you can do to prevent it from happening again in the future. Then this post is for you. Phishing Most people have their account hacked by clicking on a stranger’s profile only to be taken to what looks like the MySpace login screen. Turns out it’s not a MySpace login screen and the username and password you just entered is saved for future use by the bad guys. The biggest thing is if you find yourself suddenly sent to the login page when you haven’t signed out, look at the url and make sure it says myspace.com in the address bar. If it has happened to you, you should be able to remedy the problem by simply changing your password watching for the proper web address in the future. Netcraft explains MySpace phis... More About: Myspace , Hack , King , Pace
A critique on the changing face of video and MTV?s new websi
2006-12-03 16:34:01 I recently wrote about the new video era. The basic idea was that because of limited bandwidth and lack of technological answers, Internet video has not been a threat to the stranglehold of broadcast TV. Users still want HD quality video and full digital surround sound when they are watching Grey’s Anatomy. Comcast is one company working hard to bring that quality level online so they can position themselves as a connectivity leader in the new IPTV era. They are already a broadband ISP, an Internet telecom, and on-demand content provider. And, while they do have an intelligent strategy for leveraging their huge broadband network infrastructure, I think they’ll lose their on-demand content services to online channels. That’s right, I said online channels, and not ABC, NBC, or CBS. The channel market is being shaken up by players like MusicPlusTV.com, who just landed their first round of financing to become one of the first breakout IPTV stations on the net; offering... More About: Video , Webs , Changing , Face , Ique
On web design
2006-12-02 16:33:04 I just had a really good conversation with some of my fellow designers and developers at NEMO Desi gn about designing for the web. Our conversation began from Josh’s frustration with the positioning power of CSS, which evolved the discussion into one about tables vs. CSS vs. Flash. At first we all fell into the traditional roles of, “I belong to this camp.” Once we got past our fan boy differences, I found myself having one of the most rewarding discussions about web design. It was so good, I felt compelled to capture some of the talking points in this post. I wanted to memorialize some of our sentiments to contribute to one of the most conversations in the history of design. We are in the heart of transitioning from print to electronic design. Computers have completely changed the exchange of information, which has made radical impacts on how we present it. We are in the formative years of the layering of information. Meta data, semantic labeling, tagging, ids, cla... More About: Web Design , Sign
Digital life management
2006-11-26 14:03:02 In this modern world much of our life happens in the electronic realm. I’ve compiled of few of the methods I use for managing my digital life. Passwords I have literally hundreds of usernames and passwords I need to remember, so I developed a 4 tiered system to manage them all. I have username and password combos for: Systems that I control, which would be my own computer or server. I tell it to no one. Sensitive accounts like my bank or AdWords. I would tell very trusted people on a need to know basis. Things I care about but don’t see as a security issue, such as my 9rules login info. I’m not going to publish my login, but I don’t sweat who I tell. Things I’m forced to sign up for, such as the NYTimes.com or a software download. I don’t care who knows that info. I also keep a black binder that I handwrite my login info because some places won’t accept my username and passwords of choice, such as I can’t change my 9rules Notes passw... More About: Life , Management , Men , Digital , Digi
Gaps and spaces around my images
2006-11-23 14:00:01 So, the other day I was having trouble eliminating gaps between an image and the top of an unordered list. I was trying to make a box with rounded corners to look like a giftcard. No matter what I tried, there was a 2 pixel space between the top and bottom graphics and the list. The client wanted the images to print, so I couldn’t use them as background images, which I typically use for non-content images. (Does anyone know if you can override a browser’s default settings to make a background image print?) At first I tried placing my images and the unordered list into a div. I thought if I set the list’s margins to zero and made the div the same width as the images, then the images should sit on top and bottom of the list. The code looked like this: <style type="text/css"> div {width: 280px;} ul {margin: 0; padding: 0; border-left: 1px solid #000; border-right: 1px solid #000;} li {margin: 0; padding: 10px; list-style: none;} </style> <div> <img src="t... More About: Space , Images , Image , Pace , Round
Rich Web
2006-11-18 13:54:03 I’ve been spending some time thinking about the realms of the Internet as I’ve been developing my traffic promotion series. In doing so, I’ve also been thinking a lot about Web 2.0. The Quite Web The Quite Web is the era we are in right now. It began when the Internet began and it is the period of time dominated by text and image data (data that is quiet and stationary). Up until recently, rich media has been inaccessible to all but a wealthy few. However, now that bandwidth is becoming more widely available at cheaper costs combined with the fact that rich media input devices, such as cameras and microphones, are widely available at affordable costs; we’re seeing more and more rich media information on the web. Look at the explosion of YouTube, a video sharing community that would have been inconceivable 5 years ago. Becoming evermore common place, VoIP has greatly increased the usage of the Internet for transporting rich data. So much so, that I’m goi... More About: Rich
Gravatar?s are back!
2006-11-13 01:42:04 I’m taking the credit for having posted my whine about them not being up yet. ;) More About: Back , Avatar , Gravatar , Rava , Grava
Really want my Gravatar
2006-11-11 13:36:02 I know Tom is hard at work on the new server and admin, but I don’t know if I can wait any longer! I want my Gravatar ! Whaaaa!!11 More About: Real , Want , Avatar , Really
Social bookmarking ?Found is the new search?
2006-11-10 13:33:02 Yeah, so I stole my headline from ma.gnolia. Ma.gnolia is a social bookmarking service developed by Zeldman and crew. They are one of about one hundred such services including del.icio.us, reddit, furl, and many more. All of these social bookmarking services offer the ability to save bookmarks to their database and they differ significantly from there. The idea is that if web surfers collectively pool their links into a single database, each surfer can browse that database to find more of the sites they want to see. While there are 100 or so bookmarking services, each one exists because they have different information that is saved along with the link and different methods for browsing links. Let’s take a look at some of the major players. Popular social bookmarking services del.icio.us del.icio.us is one of the most important players in the social bookmarking arena because they are the largest and close to the oldest. Much of the way they organize their links for users to br... More About: Social , Bookmark , Search , Book , The N
Naming your divs
More articles from this author:2006-11-01 13:18:01 When I first started designing with standards, I used to name some of my ids and classes things like “FloatLeft” and “BlueText”. It wasn’t long before I discovered the problem with using names that indentified with style. For example, if I decided later that I wanted my element to float right instead of left then I either had to rename everything or just be confused. My friend Ben has recently come to the same realization and has decided to take a unique approach to solving the problem. His elements will now be named Sally, Rahid, Estella, and the like. I hear him saying things like, “Come on, Jack. Move to the left just a little for Daddy.” And, Ruth will always be a name because that is his grandma’s name. Awwww, ain’t that cute. ;) More About: Your , Ming , Nami , Naming 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
