After 6  hours of messing around - I finally have a wysiwyg editor working on the the new drupal site

What a nightmare to get this working - I tried so many permulations

I wanted to use tinymce - but that drupal module has been deprecated - with a large red message telling me I must use the new  wysiwyg api

Foolishly - I decided to try use the wysiwyg api  module

The instructions of getting IMCE and tinymce point to this location and are followed by 100 comments of people saying "that worked for me", "no that didnt work". It didnt work for me.

So I decided to switch to FCKEditor (but within the wysiwyg api module) - In this comment I discovering I needed  imce_wysiwyg module

Installing that worked - I had

all working together - great. But now I wanted to be able to enter code in blocks inside the editor as well

I came across Genshi Pro - but I couldnt get it to work.

So I decided to ditch the wysiwyg module - took the advice here and installed

that worked - I once again had FCK editor and IMCE working together

I then installed GeSHi filter and configured it correctly

Then followed the instructions here  to GenShi(code highlighting) + FCK Editor(wysiwyg editor) + IMCE(image upload) - all working together. There was error on this page - the <style tags must have a capital S

 

I think there is a fundamental difference between a opensource appstore and the iphone app store in terms of competitors for a particular app. If a plugin is open source how do you stop people cutting and pasting the code and claiming its theirs - or simply shortcutting by reading the source code and rewriting - so an open source app store is not the same as a everyone for themselves fight it out iphone app store. Its closer to a drupal plugins site - where multiple maintainers - add features to a code base - and there is big difference between the best plugin for a task and a random plugin that a developer uploaded at the end of a project.

Since end of Jan 2009 I have been working on horseandcountry.tv

After a lot of very late nights and a small team of bright tech and editorial people the site is live.The site runs on

  • ubuntu
  • amazon EC
  • OpenX for graphical and videoads
  • Limelight as the CDN
  • Drupal as the CMS
  • Flowplayer as the video player (which inserts video ads)
  • Apachesolr as the search engine (with faceted search)

I have spent some time reading and talking to a SEO - thought I would include some of the things I have learned.

SEO is about exposing good quality content not ticking the google-bot. blackhat SEO and spammers get punished. It is becoming harder each year to trick the algorithm.

image source: http://www.redcardinal.ie/

The top link on the SERP (search results page gets 42% of the clicks)

In EU, all SEO should focus on pleasing the googlebot - Yahoo! is only 8% of EU market - its not worth the effort and Y!bot is harder to please.

user tracking

google tracking is an essential tool for an SEO

basic SEO steps

  1. define site taxonomy by theme vectors
  2. implement homepage linking to themes
  3. build theme pages, add content
  4. link themes to leaf layer
  5. echo incoming link theme in leaf content
  6. generate chaotic interlinking for crawler (google bores after 4 clicks)
  7. ensure pagination surfaces content
  8. leaf layer has an agnostic url

step 1) define as many taxonomies are we can think of

  • genre
  • show category hierarchy
  • celebrity / presenter
  • time of show

think of the site as 3 types of page

  • home page
  • category-style page per taxonomy
  • article/product page

Step 2)
plaster the homepage with these taxonomies
have a different type of category page for each taxonomy
each leaf page(article/product) wants links from every category page

This basically creates in the google-bots mind a well connected graph - with loads of links pointing to the leaf page.

Echo themes

you want to reinforce the theme from the category page in the destination page. eg. if you have a link from a "harddrive" page - you want to have the word "harddrive" in the leaf page. This boosts the strength of the vote created by the incoming link saying this page is about "harddrive" by 20%.

the CMS needs to support dynamic meta descriptions because you cannot handcraft meta descriptions for every page. So you want a system that allows the SEO to login and edit strings like - "get your $category_name tips here" for a subset of the pages on the site.

Url structure

for url structure you want

http://www.example.com/ - homepage -
http://www.example.com/hardware/hardrives-1231.html - category page
http://www.example.com/westerndigital-1tb-13331.html - article page

  • google likes "exact matching" words and gives words to the left in the url more weight - so its ok to have category node numbers or article ids on the right of the url
  • you don't want the category name in the article url because you want the words the user searched for eg. "katie price" as close as possible to the left of the url

Call to action

seo is about call to action for the user - in the google SERP there are 3 things displayed - you want to reinforce the users action in all 3 elements

Katie Price Official Fanclub - Home - "the page title"
Official Katie Price (Jordan) website. ... And welcome to the official home of Katie Price. This is where you can keep in touch with me, find out about my ... - "the meta description"
www.katieprice.co.uk/ - 7k - Cached - Similar pages - "the url"

example of bad title:

Page on Red Pandas from the Wellington Zoo:
- Current Title: Red Panda
- Recommended: Red Panda - Habitat, Features, Behavior | Wellington Zoo

  • google likes old urls - so get holding pages like "low-price-videos" in now
  • google likes domains that are registered for 10 years (it shows commitment)
  • google does not like it when the regista details for the domain name change (it looks like someone may have stolen the domain)
  • google really really doesnt like a change is hosting provider and a change in registra details at the same time(really really looks like someone has stolen the domain) (this is of moderate importance)

page format

  • title, h1 and meta description should be unique and relevant to each page
  • inline links in body content are worth more than anything
  • do things a little at a time - build the reputation of the site
  • never change urls
  • urls are lower case with hyphens and push in a slash or .html at leaf level
  • nerves of steel, dont panic
  • have a inbound link strategy-(distribution strategy)
  • dont use google site map - no matter what anyone says

hosts migration strategy

  • need to define the re-hosting process very carefully. Changes in host can affect SEO ranking.
  • Changes in host and domain registration details can make it look as if the domain has been stolen.
  • Changes in url should be migrated using a 302 followed a month later by a 301.

distribution strategy

youtube is a sandbox - very hard to link out of - problem for distribution

link bait brainstorming

(from http://www.seomoz.org/article/beginners )

"When attempting to create the most link-worthy content, thinking outside the box and creating a document, tool or service that's truly revolutionary can provide a necessary boost. Even on corporate image or branding sites for small companies, a single, exciting piece of content that gets picked up en masse by your web community is worth a small fortune in public relations and exposure. Better still, the links you earn with an exciting release stay with your site for a long time, providing search visibility long after the event itself has been forgotten.

With content that generates links becoming such a valuable commodity, creating solely for the purpose of gaining links has become a popular practice for talented SEOs. In order to capitalize on this phenomenon, it's necessary to brainstorm. Below are some initial ideas that can help you build the content you need to generate great links.

  • Free Tools
    Automated tools that query data sources, combine information or conduct useful calculations are eminently link worthy. Think along the lines of mortgage calculators and site-checking tools, then expand into your particular area of business/operation.
  • Web 2.0 Applications
    Although the term Web 2.0 is more of a buzzword than a technicality, applications that fit the feature set described by the O'Reilly document do get a fantastic number of links from the web community and followers of this trend. Think mashups, maps, communities, sharing, tagging, RSS, and blogs.
  • Collaborative Work Documents
    Working in concert with others is a good way to produce content more quickly and with generally higher quality. If you can get high-profile insiders or several known persons in an industry to collaborate, your chances for developing "link-bait" substantially increase.
  • Exposes of Nefarious Deeds
    Writing a journalistic-style exposé detailing the misdeeds of others (be they organizations, websites, individuals or companies) can generate a lot of links and traffic if done in a professional manner (and before anyone else). Make sure you're very careful with these types of actions, however, as the backlash can be worse than the benefit if your actions provoke the wrong type of response.
  • Top 10 Lists
    Numbered lists (of tips, links, resources, etc.), particularly those that rank items, can be a great way to generate buzz. These lists often promote discussion and thus, referencing.
  • Industry-Related Humor
    Even the most serious of industries can use a bit of humor now and again. As with exposés, be cautious not to offend (although that too can merit mentions) - use your knowledge of stereotypes and history inside your market to get topical laughs and the links will be yours.
  • Reviews of Events
    Industry gatherings, from pubcrawls to conferences to speeches and seminars, can all garner great links with a well-done review. Write professionally, as a journalist, and attempt to use as many full names as possible. It's also wise to link out to all the folks you mention, as they will see the links in their referral logs and come check you out.
  • Interviews with Well-Known Insiders
    Anyone inside an industry whose name frequently appears in that industry's internal press is a great candidate for an interview. Even if it's a few short questions over email, a revealing interview can be a great source of links, and esteemed professionals are likely to answer requests even from smaller sources, as they can benefit from the attention, too.
  • Surveys or Collections of Data
    Offering large collections of industry data culled from polling individuals, an online survey, or simply researching and aggregating data can provide a very link-worthy resource.
  • Film or Animation
    Particularly in industries where video clips or animations are rare (i.e. Geology, not Movie Reviews), a high quality, entertaining, or informative video or animation can get more than a few folks interested.
  • Charts, Graphs, or Spreadsheets
    These standard business graphics should certainly include analysis and dissection, but can provide a good source of links if promoted and built properly.
  • High Profile Criticism
    Similar to the exposé system, well-written critiques of popular products, companies, sites, or individuals in a sector have the ability to pull in quite a few links from folks who agree and disagree
  • Contests, Giveaways, and Competitions
    Giving away prizes or public awards (even if they're just website graphics) can get a lot of online folks interested and linking.
  • Trend-Spotting
    Identifying a story ahead of the crowd is commonly called "scooping" in journalism. Do this online, and all (or many) blog posts on the subject will reference your site as the first to "call it."
  • Advice from Multiple Experts
    If you're creating an article that offers advice, pulling opinions from the well-known experts in the industry is a great way to make sure links flow your way. The experts themselves will often be inclined to link.

There are dozens of other great ways to get bloggers, writers, and website editors in your field to add links to your site. Imagine yourself as an industry blogger, seeking to cover the most exciting, unique trends and pages in the sector. If this individual stumbled across your content, would they be likely to write about it? If the answer is yes, it qualifies as link-bait."

Traffic quality


concept: A user who searches for "Hugo Boss Men's Suit" is more likely to make a purchase decision than someone who searches for "mens suit"

therefore people are prepared to pay more for more specific search terms.

Traffic growth

 

important to manage clients expectations with regards to sudden spike after launch - due to buzz of the site being new

what is the PPC budget to keep traffic up while we wait for SEO to kick in

(return on $PPC vs $SEO is 1000 vs 1million - SEO hours are much cheaper(although I guess it depends on the size of the site:) )

 amusing article about the importance of measuring "bounce rate" also refered to as "I came; I puked; I left."

I maintain that the fastest way to understand a new system - is look at the ER diagram - this gives you the names of the entities (and hence classes) and the relationships and cardinality between these entities. I am now working on openx and the schema has lots of tables and no referential integrity. Also it seems there was no database coding standard :( - as table names have mixed singular(eg. ox_channel) and plural names(ox_banners), primary keys and foreign keys have no standard such as _id (zoneid is the same thing as zone_id). The name of the key also changes  (ad_id is the same thing as banner_id).

java -jar schemaSpy_4.1.1.jar -t mysql -u root -p omitted  -db openx -dp ./mysql-connector-java-5.0.8/mysql-connector-java-5.0.8-bin.jar -host 192.168.2.2:8889 -hq -o openxshemadump -meta openx_schema_meta.xml

generates this ER diagram

    Friday eve - my macbook harddrive died on me. I had spent ages getting my machine into work state.

This is one week into my contract - and I need a decent work environment.

a new work machine:

I went down to the apple store and bought a new 15" mackbook pro.  I am now sitting in the apple store using their fast internet connection to download all the software I need including vmware fusion, virtual machines, firefox, firefox plugins, thunderbird, lightning, adium, skype - much faster than the connection at home.

I am a bit worried about the temperature of the keyboard - after a while it could be a little like typing on a hotplate - not good for the tips of your fingers.

old macbook:

I am going to but a new 2.5" stata drive - from ebuyer.co.uk and use this as a home laptop.

 here is a list of different suppliers of video advertising

testing bitsontherun.com hosting :

contracting   I have ended up spending a huge amount of time setting up my macbook so that I can use it for contract work. I had created a massive debt in setup time by relying on work laptops and machines in the past.

Mac setup (mostly using Tom Fogg's advice):

  • installed vmware fusion and setup a copy of windows XP to run inside this - (so that I can run any windows programs I might need)
  • installed my old photo processing tools inside this windows machine (an old version of acdsee, breezebrowser pro and breeze downloader pro)
  • I the bought 4GB of ram and replaced the 1gb installed - this gives me 3GB ram. Until I did this my machine was spending ages swapping when I ran vmware. It was amazing how easy it was to replace the ram, youtube videos supply all the necessary information.
  • installed skype - this is by far that best messenger client
  • installed thunderbird and associated plugs (lightning  and threadviz)
  • firefox plugins to help with tabs (aging tabs, tabs open relative, ctrl-tab, yahoo messenger for osx - but have now switched to adium. The latest version supports apple-f to search for friends by name. ( I have over 700 contacts in messenger - so visually looking though the list is not an option). I was using profiles.yahoo.com/contacts.php to search for a contact in a web page and clicking on the users messenger id to launch a web page - but this is a hassel as I spend a lot of time talking to various contacts on messenger)

I have also spent some time looking at accountants that can run the books for my company.

I read about SEO requirements for a CMS - there are loads and bascially all CMS' are poor at supporting SEO features. You just end up with the SEO expert telling the webdev what to manually change in the markup.

I am also looking at getting a 22 inch monitor that Tom recommended.

 

Truevent is a search engine built on top of the Yahoo! boss api.

I was talking to a search researcher about their offering.

researcher: i think the underlying theory is a bit overstretched...

researcher: well, i think there's nothing new about it

Paul Birnie: you mean the linking of words associated to other words

Paul Birnie: well at least boss is achieving something - making lots of people try different things

researcher: they fed the system with documents about eco-stuff

researcher: modeled, somehow, the word patterns

Paul Birnie: like simple signature detection

researcher: and now do some kind of re-ranking of boss-results based on the similarity to that model

6 easy steps to making a fortune by creating a cool vertical search engine startup based on the boss api are:

  • signup for the boss appid
  • use the boss mashup framework to retrieve search results from boss api
  • pull data from another webservice at the same time
  • mix and rerank the results based on some "patent pending" technology
  • get bought by Yahoo!, Google or Microsoft - either because its good PR or because your product actually works.

The problem with search is it very hard to get users to switch from one search engine to another. All of the major search engines use MLR to do ranking of results and finding a new page feature that can provide >1% improvement in ranking for the average user, is very hard (All the easy and even hard stuff has been done)

Custom vertical search engines:

Creating custom vertical search engines is not new: Google and Yahoo have both supported "site restrict" to create a custom vertical search engine for years

Google provides Google Co-op Custom Search Engine

Yahoo has shut down sitebuilder which also used to support site restrict to a custom list of sites.

afaik. The boss api is currently limited to around 22 site restricts before you run out of space in the GET webservice call. I wonder if POSTS are supported- POSTS are not yos compliant

The problem with the search market is its really hard to get users to switch to another supplier.

Boss mashup framework:

I really like the mashup framework that comes with boss - it allows you to simply instantiate a object and pass a webservice url in the constructor. The mashup framework will automatically find a collection in the response and create a dictionary from the webservice response. You can then write sql-like syntax to mashup (mix) the data returned from each of the services.

About a year ago I met Douglas Mc Ilwraith, who is working on research into body sensor networks at Imperial college

The device I like is the accelerometer that fits behind you ear and uses bluetooth to transmit information about your head movement

here are some links

http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/hotelscom_introduces_visual_hotel_search/
I think the thing about it is that it sells you on a experience before you buy
The emotive pictures sell you on the idea of of the holiday - I found myself imaging my ideal holiday and was really keen to book the trip

Another example of a tool that allows users to have a discussion around a visualization - this time focused around stock prices - Why has google not already created this feature and a community around it - because they are crap at creating user communities.

Checklists are :

  • A practical means of capturing processes and procedures
  • Ensures that issues are not missed
  • Quick to create
  • Quick to update
  • Easy to follow
  • Easy to adapt to any situation

A quote from Steve McConnell, author of Code Complete and Rapid Development, editor of IEEE Software's "Best Practices" column.

"Create and use checklists. Checklists are an often-overlooked, low-tech development tool, but they are useful in many areas. They are created from experience, so they're inherently practical. Use them during requirements time to avoid missing key requirements. Use them at architecture and design time to be sure your design accounts for all relevant considerations. Use them during design and code reviews to help reviewers catch the most common problems. Use them at software release to assure that, in the last-minute rush to release the software, you don't make careless mistakes. "

Principles related to checklists:

When using a checklist, if an item doesn't apply, then don't use it. If you aeroplane doesn't have retractable undercarriage then you don't have to check that you undercarriage is down.

"Everyone knows the story of the engineer who in the 1970s cut a hole in the roof of a 3 Series car in his garage and cobbled together BMW's first convertible to wow reluctant board members. Production engineers in the paint shop recently racked up an impressive first with a new powder-based technology to apply the final clear coat on a car, providing a more perfect finish and better scratch resistance, and completely eliminating toxic waste. "All the Japanese and American auto makers have come to view it," says Walter Wimmer, head of the paint shop at the Dingolfing plant."

It was a Ford engineer, Harold K. Sperlich, who in the 1970's came up with the idea of a van big enough to haul a family but small enough to fit in a standard garage. (Granted, vehicles like the VW Microbus and Corvair Greenbrier had been there before.) Mr. Sperlich's boss, Lee A. Iacocca, took the proposal to top management, but they dismissed it as too risky, given the cost it would entail. When the two men wound up at Chrysler in the early 1980's, they resurrected the idea and the minivan was born. A concept deemed too risky for Ford ended up saving Chrysler from extinction.

People mention the story of the engineer at BMW - but what happened to him - Did he get a bonus, a promotion, a $1million?

pie chart

axiom: When brainstorming - Engineers should be given the "problem use case" first, then brainstorm solutions

Engineers often come up with an idea - then find a problem and apply the idea - the risk is that what they thought was a problem isn't really a serious one.

It may be better to split brain storming into three steps:

  1. "problem use case" extraction from problem space
  2. "problem use case" prioritisation
  3. brainstorm possible solutions for a chosen use case

For example:

I could think of 100 ideas on how to improve the search quality in answers.yahoo.com - but when real life tests are run I could easily find that the feature I have defined only applies to 0.001% of situations in reality.

Step1: "problem use case" extraction

It is better to start with looking at what the user was trying to do eg: Gemma was trying to find an idea for a good date but when using answers.yahoo.com and got the following answers

Problem: user is looking for advice that is local. User is subjected to some random unhelpful comments.

Percentage occurrence of this use case: 65%

Step 2: "problem use case" prioritisation

Sort list of problem use cases and pick high priority cases

Step 3: Brainstorm possible solutions for important use cases

Predictify.com - Specializes in prediction market questions - a special category of question - something that we don't know the answer to now but will be able to definatively know the answer to in the future.

This can be used for :

Supports reporting the current prediction by user demographic or by area of expertise of the user

Other random features:

  • You are able to start asking a question straight away - T&C + reg are deferred to end
  • Popup tips while you are asking the question
  • Question ask progress meter
  • Outcome is either multiple choice or numeric
  • User chooses "end date" and "verification date"
  • Option to upload an image associated with the question
  • They mention getting a group of people together who are specialized in a particular area - for example: creating Brittany Spears page
  • No community moderation features - questions are sent to the "predictify team for review"
  • Because of the time nature and fact that it is based around answer options options - The questions are poor for SEO

more info in this video - The rise of crowdsourcing

(Warning: please check the date of this posting - as the information provided here is not up kept up to date)

1) you can phone 0845 010 5200. opening hours are 0900 - 2100 Monday to Friday. is very good for any questions.

2) to write the "life in the UK test" -
search engine with "test centers" are details how to book for the test is on this site.

THERE ARE 2 TYPES OF BOOKS FOR THE TEST. Get the small study guide, Large book is a waste of time.

You need to study - for the test - its multiple choice based on the simple facts in the book.

3) fill in form AN - see http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/britishcitizenship/applying/applicationtypes/naturalisation/

You don't have to get entry-exit dates 100% correct - I did it to the best of my ability. I had 70+ entires in the exit and entry dates, some of the dates must have been incorrect. I used an excel spreadsheet to capture the dates from my passport and old emails from BA confirming my flight details (some of the dates are complex to reverse engineer - eg. fly from US, stamp in US date is not same as UK entry date. UK tends to only stamp on the way into the country - so you end up with 3 stamps per trip (3 columns in my excel spread sheet + plus another for "days out country" calculation).

4) application it cost me £655 - - I just gave my debit card details when I went to the Nationality checking service (see below)

5) I went though the nationality checking service - I just phoned around till I found a place that had an appointment that I could book soon. the list of numbers was on the site (http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/britishcitizenship/applying/checkingservice/). They checked my application form, photocopied my passport and dispatched the application off to the correct address - all worth £30. I suspect that my application was processed faster because I used this service.

6) ceremony - you have to do this within 3 months of you confirmation letter - have this tomorrow.

7) apply for a british passport - another £80

From http://www.lovemytool.com/blog/2008/06/bootstrapping.html

"My own experience with starting and running startups is that time has indeed changed. I am not saying that time has changed so completely that the old model (using VC money to start companies) does not exist, I am just saying (humbly) that a new model has emerged that allows entrepreneurs to bootstrap meaningful companies achieving sustainable revenues, starting with their own money and their sweat equity (and more precisely, avoid taking VC money).

Entrepreneurship is all about wealth creation and it should be a conscious choice. As entrepreneurs, our goal is to maximize our returns and minimize our risks, and my experience is that ultimate success has a lot to do with impedance matching. Should we match the impedance for the VC's, which means big exit, big risk, big team and big funding? Or should we try to match the impedance for the entrepreneurs, which calls for modest exit, modest risk, modest team and modest funding?"

BBC visualization tool for weather rocks

This tool allows you to see the animated weather in UK - clouds, wind and temperature - brilliant- too bad the may bank holiday weekend had such poor weather.

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