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May PageRank update
2008-05-01 09:47:00
  Looks like Google decided to update the visible PageRank on the Google toolbar between the 30th of April and the 1st of May. Well, at least it came after much speculation (on Digitalpoint anyway) of PageRank updates following a string of PageRank penalties across sites that were caught selling paid links. Overall, most sites received an increase in PageRank, while others had the same PageRank, which is good news for most sites on the whole. Of course, it is bad news for guilty site owners who have sold paid links, since Google is being extremely vigilant (and smarter) on what links are considered paid. Penalties are also carried out during the update, but most of it a few days before the PageRank update. This is done so presumably so that you can address the issue, and request for reconsideration, and have the right PageRank in time for the incoming update. © 2008 Tevine.
More About: Pagerank , Update

Spam should be considered a statistic
2008-04-19 16:23:00
You hate spam. Everyone hates spam. Spam mers would hope that you mistakenly approve their spam, but that never really happens, if at all. As spam volumes continue to rise, people can easily brush it off as a regular thing. Nonetheless, let’s turn that nasty piece of garbage to a piece of “bragging right”. The idea is this: The more popular your site is, the more spam you’ll get. Why this theory is true Generally, comment spammers tend to target certain sites more than others. So, well-linked sites (and sites easily found by others through god-knows-what) tend to receive more attention by spammers. As far as anyone can tell, it does seem that spam bots are really efficient - being able to find well-concealed sites, and hitting them where you least expect them. The good news - because spam is so common, you need not worry about getting rid of them, because that’s taken care of by Akismet. (So dear spammers, your advertisements will never see the light, e...

Small Firefox update - 2.0.0.14
2008-04-18 14:58:00
  Mozilla recently released an update for Firefox  to fix a potential security threat. This update is available through auto-update. The update only fixes one flaw in Firefox related to the Javascript “garbage collector” which may cause crashes in Firefox. While this problem has not been exploited for any purposes, Firefox isn’t going to wait till it is. This is not a feature release, so no new features are added. An interesting note is that this update fixes only one issue, unlike other updates that normally patches several issues at once. In addition, the security flaw was fixed as soon as it was announced (i.e. on the same day). A pretty impressing feat, considering most other browser makers (notably Microsoft) prefer the all-in-one approach, compared to the bit-by-bit approach used by Mozilla. © 2008 Tevine.
More About: Small , Update

Update: John Cow sold
2008-04-11 15:14:00
  Update : According to the auction site, it looks like John Cow’s site is sold.  John Cow, a parody of the famous John Chow blog, is selling his blog (via SitePoint) at an (large) price of $25000, with an immediate purchase price of $50000. John Cow, while a parody, is still pretty popular, so much so that it has become a rival to John Chow. Both are Search Engine Optimisation experts, but gives a different viewpoint on the subject. What if… you had the money? Great, if you have about $50000 to spare, you can pop it in and an extremely popular blog is your’s. Of course, that is IF you even had $50000 to spare in the first place. John Cow’s blog has an earning potential of thousands a month (roughly the same amount a normal job can give), which can easily make up your “investment” after a few years. With such a popular blog, you can easily promote other stuff as well with ease. Sales of such popular sites are extremely rare, and the opportunity...
More About: Sold

Entrecard pricing changes?: Either a smart or dumb move
2008-04-11 14:00:00
  For long, Entrecard’s been plague by a whole lot of problems relating to over-inflated ad prices. It’s good to know they responded, but revising the ad system to go by the number of ads in the queue? That has to be one of the most absurd, or greatest moves made by Entrecard. What’s good about the ad pricing changes As the cost of an ad is now 2^(how many ads you have), ads on Entrecard can have the following ad prices: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024. The good news - you can buy an ad out of a popular spot, provided if you are quick enough. In addition, this change now rightly tells whose ad is more valuable, since popular sites tend to have ads that are highly-priced. What’s horridly wrong Entrecard’s move is going to mess with the entire Entrecredits economy. First off, people don’t feel the need to keep dropping cards, since they could easily snag off hundreds of ads in a day’s work. So, lesser drops means less activity on Ent...
More About: Smart , Dumb , Move

Google webmasters and analytics update
2008-04-11 06:30:00
  Google has recently updated the backlink count over the past week, so you may see new backlinks registered in the Webmasters Tools page. While a Google update usually comes weeks after this happens, don’t be too happy yet, since Google is growing more and more unpredictable. Google has also updated Google Analytics . You can now view the traffic charts by week or month rather than by day. This is useful if you want to compare traffic over a long period of time (or calculate how much traffic you have received in a particular month). Another feature of note is benchmarking. If you are tired of Alexa’s inaccuracies when you compare rival sites, you could give a shot at Google Analytics. Benchmarking pits you against sites that have similar “size” (determined by traffic, with 3 classifications: small, medium, large) to your site. Generally, this statistics help determine if your site’s traffic is above average, or below average. It can also serve as a&he...
More About: Update

Entrecard screwing Alexa rank
2008-04-09 15:46:00
  Entrecard has certain ballooned its way to the top, now having even Problogger using Entrecard as well. Entrecard is a known way of getting quick traffic, but is it worth it? Sure, Entrecard’s going to give you traffic, but it’s known that Entrecarders rarely spend over a minute in a site, often choosing the option of drop-and-run. Then again, the traffic comes in a swarm, and guess what? Alexa rank will also rise, making your site look more heavily trafficked than it would have been. Most Entrecarders have the Alexa toolbar installed. That’s because these users are webmasters, and webmasters often compete each other by traffic. Alexa is one of the most easiest and publicly places to view traffic stats for almost every site that have existed. In the hopes of boosting their Alexa rank (or viewing it conveniently for that matter), the users would install the Alexa toolbar. There you have it - a population with at least 60% of users with Alexa toolbar installed....
More About: Rank

The man of the USA obtains $2.6m for the Domain Name Pizza.com
2008-04-08 01:36:00
Chris Clark, 43, accepted the offer of an anonymous tenderer after a bidding on one week old line.It insane, insane just of the it Mr. Clark, which lives in Potomac of north, Maryland, were quoted like saying by the newspaper of the sun of Baltimore. It will make a significant difference in my life, for, sure it was added. Regret Mr. Clark recorded the Domain Name in 1994, when the World Wide Web was to start right. He had hoped that pizza.com would help to obtain a contract with a company of pizza pie for its company of consultation. He sold his business in 2000, but continued to pay the $20 annual fees to maintain the field, which he had the practice also to sell of the advertisements. In January, Mr. Clark decided to sell it after that hearing that another field - Vodka.com - was sold for $3m in 2006. “I thought, ‘Why don’t I just try to see what the level of interest is?’” Mr Clark said. “If someone’s willing to pay that much...
More About: Pizza , Domain Name

Windows XP Continues to run, And Run, And Function
2008-04-06 22:30:00
After Windows Vista the operating software was launched, each one expected a reduction in popularity and consequently, a stop of production for the Windows.xp veteran. Surprisingly, after more than six years of activity and new and improved versions available, continuous operating software to being put at the use. The decision taken involves the use of XP on the ultra GCV at reduced price (ULCPCs) and will remain effective until June with 30, 2010, or up to one year after Microsoft presents new Windows 7 – any date will come initially. The reffers of segment to the systems below $400 and is regarded as very good and advantageous investment. One expects that the systems play an important part on markets of PC all around the world, for students and purchasers for the first time of PC in the incipient markets and the world in the process of development, in the countries such as India and China. The general presentation of ULCPCs include a smaller size of screen and a flas...
More About: Windows Xp , Function

The Domain Name of Pizza.com seeks million
2008-04-06 22:27:00
Who the would’ve have it think that a Domain Name generic motionless have the capacity of draw inside large male? Chris Clark, the salesperson of Pizza .com, seemed a little in the shock after it managed to rake in $2.6 million the bidding of the Domain Name .the It insane, insane just of the it he said the sun of Baltimore after the end of the bidding Thursday. Clark, which has a company of software, recorded the Domain Name of Pizza.com it there A 14 years for Juste $20. Nothing profitable always really came from the field, thus it sat down on top during a moment, and then him and a friend transformed it into publicity and directory of pizza pie. Then, they intended to speak about the fortuitous sale of Vodka.com and decided to test their own chance with Pizza.com, according to the sun. In March 29, to offer struck $2 million and even more of the offers entered. During the days of outward journey-outward journey of the Internet, the companies full with hope and the contractors...
More About: Million

Google April fools for 2008
2008-04-02 12:44:00
Looks like April Fools went silently this year, but not without it being forgotten. Google went 14 steps further this April fools, this time with 16 April fools hoaxes, compared to the two earlier last year. Sounds like Google is pretty busy preparing for its favorite day. 1# Virgle - Google aims to built a permanent human settlement on Mars with the Virgin group. Comes complete with invitations and applications as well. 2# AdSense Blog - Looks like Google considered the literal meaning of contextual ads, going as far as to adding AdSense to your normal conversations. The link to the blog entry is here. Clicking on the supposed sign-up link takes you to a Wikipedian entry on April’s fools (wow, looks like even Google acknowledges Wikipedia). Of course, it would be really nice if Google could actually implement that. 3# Orkut - Orkut’s name was changed to “Yogurt” for the day. Well, at least they still sound similar. 4# Google Japan - Google launches the site...
More About: 2008

Wordpress 2.5 released
2008-03-30 05:15:00
  Looks like Wordpress 2.5 went gold earlier than expected. To commemorate the event, Wordpress.org underwent a complete overhaul to match the administration interface in Wordpress. A pretty cool update I must say, since no one expects Wordpress to have a behind-the-scenes planned change for their entire site. Some features are highlighted as followed: Administration interface - A complete revamp, so much so that veteran users may need time getting use to it. However, it won’t take long because it is very easy to use. Revamped Dashboard - The dashboard can be customized as easily as iGoogle (sort of) using Widgets. File Upload - You can upload several files at once, complete with a progress bar that ensures that your uploads are not stalled. Image information - If you take photos, Wordpress will attempt to extract information in the photos via information present in EXIF metadata. Improved search - Search results now include pages as well. Tag management - You can now edit...
More About: Released

Wordpress 2.5 next week
2008-03-29 11:06:00
  Looks like Wordpress 2.5 would finally be released next week, most likely on the first of April (and no, it’s not an early April fool’s joke). Wordpress trac no longer gives an accurate time line, but to hint is still there. The release is most likely targetted at 1st of April (though funny that the trac puts it at year 2030). Following Wordpress’s release candidate schedule, if the second release candidate gets the green light, then the final release would most likely occur close to a week after the lastest “stable” release of 2.5, which put the 1st at a very nice place. In the mean time, Wordpress plugin writers may want to ensure their plugins still works on Wordpress 2.5. The same goes for theme designers, though not much of a problem since nothing much was changed related to the theming system in Wordpress. Some changes from Wordpress 2.3 to 2.5 that you might want to take note of: -Easier plugin upgrade (probable): One click and an old pl...
More About: Week

Comment spam at new highs
2008-03-29 08:01:00
Clearing spam in blogs have never been more easier thanks to Akismet. Click “delete all”, and all hundreds of spam comments will go poof. Why don’t spammers realize is that spamming no longer works the way it use to? Looks like they still don’t, and increasing the bulk of spam isn’t going to make things any better as well. New comment spams are getting interesting month by month. New spam now point links to Google groups, which is a forum system in Google. However, since almost everyone of those advertisements looks almost identical, it’s incredibly easy for akismet to find it. Of course, Google has done its job of deleting the threads, making sure none of those advertisements see the light. Bloggers know very well not to show spam comments, which is why almost 0% of spam comments make it at all. Akismet lays out comments in a way that it makes pin-pointing legitimate comments, which is why few bloggers actually check through the queue (and prefe...
More About: Spam , Comment

Firefox 2.0.0.13
2008-03-26 14:18:00
  Firefox dished out yet another update in just a few weeks just a few hours ago (25-26 March). There isn’t really much changes added in this update, mainly security updates. It’s recommended that you update to this version of Firefox as some of these fixes help patch up security holes that could leave your computer vulnerable to attacks. Automatic updates should kick in immediately when you launch Firefox. © 2008 Tevine.
More About: Firefox 2

Entrecard controversy
2008-03-23 02:06:00
My earlier post on Entrecard didn’t capture much attention - it was a plain old boring post about a few Entrecard contests. The second one did better (technically the third one, but since the first post was rejected anyway for being too controversial…) - funny to think that Entrecarders will feel so uncomfortable at having suggestions for them to lower their drop rate. What inspired the controversy was none other than a post from John Cow (not John Chow), who decided to temporarily drop the Entrecard because they feel that it isn’t appropriate for them. I have to agree with John Cow*, even if that meant taking a stance against Entrecard. While Entrecard gives a large amount of traffic, what good would it do if they just went to your site so as to click on “Drop”? Entrecarders are too concerned with optimising their Entrecards, the EC market, etc. Others spend hours dropping cards, in the end actually forgetting about their blogs they were meant to...
More About: Controversy

Wordpress 2.5 delayed
2008-03-19 13:26:00
  Wordpress 2.5 has been delayed, but it should be released within the next few days. The next scheduled release is on the 21st of March, according to Wordpress Trac. Already, some feature changes are now quite visible, particularly the revamped administration panel. Currently, Wordpress 2.5 have been released as a Release Candidate. By all means try, but it’ll probably be much better to actually wait for the final release which would be due in just 2 days time. What to expect of Wordpress 2.5 Wordpress 2.5 is a new milestone, and as expected, it’s packed with features. Sadly, these features are visible mainly in the administration interface. However, aside from that, the internals of Wordpress have been changed significantly. The following are some notable changes -Adminstration interface change: Now much more “Web 2.0″ and professional looking. Some details are removed, particularly those that are not of much use to normal users. -Posting: The post editor ...

Absurd PageRank allocation in Firefox
2008-03-12 13:15:00
  Update: Ironically, this doesn’t show up on the Google toolbar for Firefox . Pretty odd, ain’t it?  Looks like Google is showering a whole lot of PageRank juice on Mozilla.org. Alone in the Add-ons section of the site, over 800,000 pages have a PageRank of 8, as if the PageRank on these pages are spoofed. Here are the following pages which have a PageRank of 8 -All extension pages -All user profiles -All themes -All pages in discussions about any extensions This is not exclusive to Firefox as well; Pages about Thunderbird, Seamonkey and Sunbird also have the mysterious PageRank 8 allocation for almost all pages viewable. Even W3 is not able to match up with the amount of PageRank 8 pages one can find on the site. Wordpress isn’t any closer either. © 2008 Tevine.
More About: Pagerank , Absurd

Wordpress 2.5 due in one week’s time
2008-03-11 13:48:00
  Looks like the next update for Wordpress 2.5 would be delayed by another week (i.e. to be released on 17th March instead of yesterday). According to the Wordpress trac (the system which tracks Wordpress developments), the new version of Wordpress is about 60% complete, with most issues addressed. The new release of Wordpress 2.5 consist mainly of bug-fixes and some upgrades to the Wordpress administration system. In short: -The installation procedure is now much cleaner and more nicer-looking. -New encryption protection for passwords -A cool-looking administration interface -”Grouping” of more important tabs in the administration interface -More visual feedback (e.g. comments icons to indicate a new comment was made) -Tons of other enhancements Another thing of note is that Wordpress 2.5 is developed alongside with 2.3.4. Of course, do not expect 2.3.4 to be released, since most features would probably be carried over to Wordpress 2.5. © 2008 Tevine.
More About: Time

Entrecard opens up blog to contributors
2008-03-10 13:02:00
  I might be a little late to announce this, but I’m going to do it anyway. Entrecard has decided to “hire” regular bloggers to contribute to their blog. This is probably a perfect opportunity for any blogger to try their hand at guest posting (if they haven’t). In order to register as a guest blogger on Entrecard, you will need to send a message to their support E-mail, with the title as “Contributor”. Of course, you would need to give a portfolio of your blogging experience, which includes your blog. They are also looking for idea-generators as well, and the creative sort of bloggers. There are only 10 slots available, and at this point in time, it does look like there are probably lesser than 5 contributor slots left. Even if you missed your chance, you need not fret as Entrecard would probably be not sticking to permanently 10 contributors - more slots would eventually be released to the public in due time. Posts wanted by Entrecard: Those t...
More About: Blog

Guest posting and the lot
2008-03-07 11:00:00
In order to spruce things up a little, I’ve decided to make guest posting more available to the public. This means that you can post here on this site, without even needing to register an account. This whole thing is currently being tested, but it works. Guest posting allows you to publicize an idea, or perhaps if you have something you want to debate about, you can use the guest posting feature. Sure, you may ask what is in for you, the poster. The simple answer is that, guest posting will act as a form of legal advertising here (provided you leave a link to your site somewhere in the post). How to guest post Guest posting is easy. You’ll only need to come up with a 100 word story, and post here. It need not be a news post. It can be a debate, or something else. However, reviews are currently not allowed. Once you are ready, you can proceed to the post submission page and submit your entry. Be sure to write a brief description of yourself at the top of the post (E.g. &l...

Yet another story on plagiarism - Friends turned plagiarists
2008-03-02 12:36:00
  I feel utterly disappointed that there are some who do copy from others… and profiteer from it. It’s even more disappointing if they are your friends. Well, looks like I have to live with that for now. Plagiarism is nothing new. Someone makes a identical sounding thing off you, and attempts to profit. But it is certainly something unfortunate if they happen to be your friends. MSN can be a scary thing. Once you set off rumors, you’ll be assured that you’ll not benefit from it, despite getting the “pioneer advantage”. For example, I let off word of the PageRank update. Perhaps I said a lot more than I should. Then, within the next 5 minutes of telling someone about that rumor and my opinions on it, they began posting on their blogs - down to the complete details I’ve mentioned! That’s convenient. In the dog-eat-dog world of news sites, having the pioneer advantage seems to help. Though, probably not anymore since once something is ...
More About: Friends , Story

PageRank Q2 2008: Silent February update & Webmasters Central
2008-02-29 12:32:00
  Google is sure quick in updating the new PageRanks - this time 2 months faster than expected (well, the update is just 1 month away from the previous, and the expected cycle is about 3 months). Though, the update is once again… sloppy and probably incomplete. Though, you should be able to see a change in the front page of your site. Sadly, this update also appears to be the opposite of the previous update - chances are inner pages may sometimes be stripped off their PageRank, despite being linked all over the place. Note that the update is probably not completed, as most sites may not have a change in PageRank. Then again, Google usually dishes out everything within 24 hours. It’s still a hit-and-miss though. Interestingly, PageRank appears to be going down yet once again this time round, with Google even hitting its OWN pages (iGoogle, anyone?). The great news, is that the new PageRanks now probably comes without a penalty in most cases (unlike that horrid update l...
More About: Webmasters , Pagerank , Update , Silent , Central

Entrecard mini updates and Wishlist
2008-02-25 11:03:00
  There are some minor changes in the Entrecard dashboard. More statistics are displayed, and sadly, some were moved away from the front page. The following (statistics) additions are pretty nice: -Credits earned via ads -Credits earned via drops -Currently running ads (i.e. ads that you buy) Some other changes -Pending Ads/Your Ads moved to its own page The changes are pretty minor, so don’t expect much from it. Wishlist To make it short and sweet, I decided to put it as a list: -Entrecard API for plugin makers like me -Make it possible to view other people’s recent drops (without asking the user) -Template glitches to be fixed (Internet Explorer) -Support for more ad sizes -Support for customizing of the card beyond the black-yellow-white design -A more “nicer” design of the ad, to cater everyone’s taste I hope that Phirate will be listening. I’ll be using Entrecard for a while more to see how things go. © 2008 Tevine.
More About: Updates , Mini

Google webmaster tools update and survey
2008-02-23 08:46:00
Google has always been pretty silent with the updates and all that. This time it’s with Webmaster s tools. First up are some minor visual changes. The blue “fill bars” that you see in certain pages like Crawl Stats are now more fatter. Colors used are also now more lighter, making the panel a lot more easier to look at. Google has also made a survey available as well. You can access the survey via the webmasters panel. Looks like Google wants to improve, so this is your opportunity to vent your complaints and annoyances. © 2008 Tevine.
More About: Google , Tools , Webmaster Tools , Survey

Entrecard falling under pressure
2008-02-23 08:21:00
Deciding to try Entrecard out, I registered and used it for a while. However, it does appear that Entrecard is getting pummeled to the ground - with traffic increasing almost exponentially, it’s no wonder. Alexa may not be accurate, but it sure shows a nice increasing trend. Sounds like it’s time for Entrecard to upgrade its servers, for they are now the top 2000 sites (now having half the traffic of Reddit, or the same traffic as Netscape). Entrecard’s now a fad. Visiting Entrecard will sometimes result in a so-called “maintanance” page. On other times, it doesn’t. Fortunately, even with Entrecard down, the ad system will not go down with it. Thanks to trusty Amazon, Entrecard hosted the entire ad system there, making the advertising network online 24/7, and unbothered by Amazon. Hopefully, they may release an API (or plugins for that matter) for their ad service…, so that it can make approving ads much faster. :) — So far, t...

Alexa glitch prevents updating of graphs
2008-02-22 02:48:00
Looks like Alexa is unable to update the graphs and information used in the Alexa site. Only information from the 15th of February remains, so the graph now appears “stuck” to where it was 5 days ago. The problem appears to be because the Movers and Shakers list appears to be stuck at the 12th of February, and rather than letting it remain there, Alexa decided to freeze almost every other thing. At least the Movers and Shakers list now works, though manually updated. (Surprise, surprise! Google is STILL at 4th place…) I guess the delay won’t really hurt Alexa that much. After all, it’s only 5 days traffic right? © 2008 Tevine.
More About: Graphs , Glitch

Admitably, Entrecard’s pretty good
2008-02-19 13:22:00
  Looking at other Entrecard users, I’m pretty amazed at how well the free ad publishing service has grown. Although the thought of Flash advertisements isn’t very new, how about “free” advertisements? You may think no one wants to put on advertisement if they don’t earn money from it, but Entrecard probably is about to change that concept here. Entrecard figured that out, and thus made the killer feature - purchase advertisements from other blogs at entirely no cash at all (mind you, some popular blogs like ShoeMoney are biting this too, though only temporarily). The trade-off is this: the entire advertising system is dependent on a “currency” called Entrecard Credits (i.e. EC) which you must use to “buy” advertising that lasts for only 1 day. 1 day may be pretty short, but it might be worth it on a mega blog since it isn’t a PPC ad. Getting those credits doesn’t require you to work your sweat off it. No, it does...
More About: Pretty , Good

Live search more popular than Google according to Alexa
2008-02-15 15:34:00
  That’s Interesting… for months Google has stayed at the 2nd position, until today where it fell to the 4th position (taken from 15 Feb). Seems like Google had a fall in traffic in their main page, relative to other pages. Though, knowing Alexa to be pretty inaccurate at times, the rankings may not really hold true. Live search overtakes Google? Strange. For a long time, Live.com has been far below Google. Now, it has shot up to have more traffic than Google.com, could be due to Microsoft’s recent offers to buy Yahoo (which Yahoo rejects). This is pretty surprising, given that if Internet Explorer 7 cannot support the Alexa toolbar, it means that much of the Alexa rank comes from Firefox and Internet Explorer 6 users, so only 30% of the Internet is capable of determining the ranking of Live.com. It’s also even more interesting to note that Firefox users are less likely to use Live search, while Internet Explorer users are more likely to use it, due to the ...
More About: Search , Popular

How a “flaw” results in a high Technorati authority
2008-02-15 14:50:00
  I’ve realized that my site got a ranking of about 60,000 position in the Technorati ladder. Pretty unusual, considering that Tevine is pretty new. Then, I found out that Technorati was counting links from the only plugin that I placed a little advertisement on (i.e. Social Dropdown). Unlike Alex King, which left pure flowing links in his popularity contest plugin, the plugin I made was specially crafted to nofollow all links, except for 1 link on the main page. It works pretty well, search engines like Yahoo and Google did not count the links I don’t want them to… sort of (there were a few sites, which didn’t update the plugin frequently to make use of the new SEO). However, Technorati went ahead, and practically counted the links I didn’t want them to count, such as in the post of a blog. This is odd, considering that Technorati themselves claim that nofollow links will not add to a site’s rank. I did the right nofollowing techniques, ...
More About: Results , Authority , High