Google learns to crawl Flash

Posted by Ron Adler and Janis Stipins, Software Engineers

Google has been developing a new algorithm for indexing textual content in Flash files of all kinds, from Flash menus, buttons and banners, to self-contained Flash websites. Recently, we've improved the performance of this Flash indexing algorithm by integrating Adobe's Flash Player technology.

In the past, web designers faced challenges if they chose to develop a site in Flash because the content they included was not indexable by search engines. They needed to make extra effort to ensure that their content was also presented in another way that search engines could find.

Now that we've launched our Flash indexing algorithm, web designers can expect improved visibility of their published Flash content, and you can expect to see better search results and snippets. There's more info on the Webmaster Central blog about the Searchable SWF integration.

Making it better

Posted by Kristen Holway, Account Executive, Media Sales

Over the summer solstice weekend, Seattle/Kirkland Googlers posed this question to people attending the Fremont Fair: "How would you make our world, or our city, better?" The goal of the Fremont Fair "Make it Better" Project was to engage the Seattle community in an active discussion around improving our world. This is the second year we've partnered with Solid Ground to participate in the fair, a free event organized by The Workshop to benefit local efforts to address homelessness, hunger and racism. Check out the video responses to our question that were just posted on the Solid Ground YouTube channel.

Whether it's about ending poverty, improving equal access to education or any of the myriad of other challenges our world faces, we want to use our technology to stimulate creative discussion about the ideas that are important to Seattle-area citizens and to local Googlers.

Shadow game prototyping challange, FreedroidRPG lifesigns, recording GNU/Linux games with glc

Shadow & light mock-up, thrown together by Danc

Daniel Cook of Lost Garden started a shadow and light based game prototype challenge. Lost Garden is probably the best thing to read related to gaming. If you would like to participate via an open source project, feel free to gather a team on the FreeGameDev.net forums!

There's some activity surrounding FreedroidRPG. The students Kaisa Anttila, Markku Väisänen and Sami Mylly wrote an usability study of the game and it's editor. The criticism is very general and there are no direct solutions provided. The documents are supposed to serve interested developers in helping improving FreedroidRPG.

Version 0.11 of the game is scheduled for... soon? Anyways, for now the 0.11 pre-release candidate is available.

Video of Slune, made with glc

glc is now my tool of choice when it comes to recording game videos on GNU/Linux systems. It is faster than xvidcap, istanbul or gtk-recordMyDesktop and is also the only app that manages to records audio on my machine. It's also easy to install! (Hints: cat /proc/cpuinfo to find out what flags to use, O2 is written with an uppercase o, if you don't know where to install to install it to /usr/ and also execute the install script as root.) Using it is easy too! Just run glc-capture game-name and press Shift+F8 to start/stop recording. There is even a script provided, which will convert the glc files to mp4 (attention, non-free), the preferred format of Vimeo. If you know how to use ffmpeg to create an Theora/OGG video, you can probably export to that format instead.

glc is great! I want you to use it! I've used it a lot already. It is to my knowledge the first Linux direct rendering capturing tool that does not suck! If you have any trouble whatsoever with it, you're invited to ask for help in this thread. (There's also #glc on irc.freenode.net.)

Edit: Many thanks to Pyry for writing glc and making me aware of it!

Speaking of game videos, I discovered some game-exclusive video hosting services! GameVee even supports OGG/Theora!

One more thing: Apricot is looking for animators!

I got married... with Google

Posted by Jonathan Rochelle, Product Manager, Google Docs Team

We love hearing stories about how our products help people, and let's face it -- weddings are one time when help is needed. For many couples, planning a wedding can be an organizational nightmare. But for David and Bergin Boyle, the planning turned into a fun experiment on the web.

The Boyles used Google Calendar to pick a wedding date that fit both of their schedules. They created to-do and RSVP lists with Google Docs and shared them with their relatives and friends. And they created a site containing the wedding details for their guests, complete with a personalized Google Map featuring the local Stonington, Conn., sights as well as places of note in the surrounding metropolitan areas.

As a result, David reports he was undaunted by the planning process. And with the help of Blogger's "future-dated posts" feature, the couple was able to post their wedding story on the groom's blog at the same time that they strolled down the aisle. Here's the full story in their own words. Our best wishes to the Boyles!

This is BIG, BIG, BIG, Tech News

Hi Bloggers, while checking out whats going on on the web, Icame across an interesting website called Cash Blaster Pro...What intrigued me about this website was the one million dollar giveaway that will be shared to the members when they launch on 1th July 2008... ..The Web 2.0 Upgrade is coming!.We all know the world’s biggest websites are all Web 2.0 sites. For example YouTube, Myspace and Facebook.... But did you know only 5% of all websites are Web 2.0 enabled...On July 1st, 2008....THE WEB WILL NEVER BE THE SAME!GIVING AWAY MONEY & CHANGING THE WEB......Have you ever wanted to be in on the NEXT BIG THING before everyone else? We are about to show you what our member's are calling THE NEXT BIG GOOGLE!!!No, we are not just another mySpace clone or Social Networking website. ..We have taken this trend to the Next Level... We are doing something that NO ONE has ever accomplished before...ENTIRE INTERNET UPGRADEAT A CLICK OF A BUTTON!!!!This MAJOR TREND known as Social Networking has become the NORM on the Internet, though still less than 5% of all websites are considered to be Web 2.0 enabled.The Web 2.0 Upgrade is an astonishing breakthrough in what is being called THE NEXT STEP IN THE EVOLUTION of the Internet...and why people are touting this company to become the NEXT BIG ONLINE COMPANY.... Comments!

Make Money Online with more Blogging Tips

Here are some more money making deals and here is another one that you can make money online right away as soon as you sign up you are making money. Make Money Online with MORENICHE its similar to the google ads you post but this program right out of the gate will earn you $45 dollars for signing up and also pay $20 dollars per person you refer into their program. So, there is a huge incentive to join and invite your friends. The program itself appears to be great. They have tons of products, such as Aloeride, Wasspoker, Proactol, etc. that you can promote and market on your site. Some will pay you up to $300 in commission. It sounds to good to be true? But it is so go and check it out for yourself now and start earning some money today. Click on this Link http://www.moreniche.com/join.html?w=115744&ttp=3

Using data to fight webspam

Posted by Matt Cutts, Software Engineer

This post is the latest in an ongoing series about how we harness the data we collect to improve our products and services for our users. - Ed.

As the head of the webspam team at Google, I'm in charge of making sure your search results are as relevant and informative as possible. Webspam, in case you've never heard of it, is the junk you see in search results when websites successfully cheat their way into higher positions in search results or otherwise violate search engine quality guidelines. If you've never seen webspam, here's a good example of what you might see if you click on a link in the search results that's spam (click on the image to see it larger).

You can see how unhelpful such a page would be. This example is filled with almost no original content, irrelevant links, and information that is of little use to a user. We work hard to ensure you rarely see search results like this. Imagine how annoyed you would be if you clicked on a link from a Google search result and ended up on a page like this.

Searchers don't often see blatant, outright spam like this in search results today. But webspam was much more of an issue before Google became popular and before we were able to build effective anti-spam methods. In general, webspam can be a real annoyance, such as when a search on your own name returns links to porn pages as results. But for many searches, where getting relevant information is more critical, spam is a serious problem. For example, a search for prostate cancer that's full of spam instead of relevant links greatly diminishes the value of a search engine as a helpful tool.

Data from search logs is one tool we use to fight webspam and return cleaner and more relevant results. Logs data such as IP address and cookie information make it possible to create and use metrics that measure the different aspects of our search quality (such as index size and coverage, results "freshness," and spam).

Whenever we create a new metric, it's essential to be able to go over our logs data and compute new spam metrics using previous queries or results. We use our search logs to go "back in time" and see how well Google did on queries from months before. When we create a metric that measures a new type of spam more accurately, we not only start tracking our spam success going forward, but we also use logs data to see how we were doing on that type of spam in previous months and years.

The IP and cookie information is important for helping us apply this method only to searches that are from legitimate users as opposed to those that were generated by bots and other false searches. For example, if a bot sends the same queries to Google over and over again, those queries should really be discarded before we measure how much spam our users see. All of this--log data, IP addresses, and cookie information--makes your search results cleaner and more relevant.

If you think webspam is a solved problem, think again. Last year Google faced a rash of webspam on Chinese domains in our index. Some spammers were purchasing large amounts of cheap .cn domains and stuffing them with misspellings and porn phrases. Savvy users may remember reading a few blogs about it, but most regular users never even noticed. The reason that a typical searcher didn't notice the odd results is that Google identified the .cn spam and responded with a fast-tracked engineering project to counteract that type of spam attack. Without our logs data to help identify the speed and scope of the problem, many more Google users might have been affected by this attack.

In an ideal world, the vast majority of our users wouldn't even need to know that Google has a webspam team. If we do our job well, you may see low-quality results from time to time, but you won't have to face sneaky JavaScript redirects, unwanted porn, gibberish-stuffed pages or other types of webspam. Our logs data helps ensure that Google detects and has a chance to counteract new spam trends before it lowers the quality of your search experience.

Update: Enlarged image.

DNT & XUT

Today I gave DccNiTghtmare a try. I learned about the project on the LGT.

DccNiTghtmare (aka DNT) is a project to make a Free (as in free speech) 3D single player RPG in a sarcastic post-apocalyptical world. Any suggestions are welcome, just put them at our forum.

How convenient! I'm a big fan of apocalyptic settings, single-player games, sarcasm, free software and projects that encourage participation!

DccNiTghtmare

First impressions after starting: Weird music, strange resolutions limitation, interesting races (Headbanger, Strange Autistic, Mutant Human Cricket, Human Llama).

The controls are contumacious and the graphics engine is either slow or unstable (it either crashes or slows down to unplayable speed when I exit the first area.) This means that I can't say much about playability. The clown care seems right though. So if you're into bizarre humor, you should get DNT, just to be able to read the race/class descriptions.

XUT screenshot detail

DNT is a project by DNTeam, "a group of developers and artists involved on creating free (as in libre, livre) games projects." Another game they're working on is XUT, a Button football game. It looks like fun, but there is no release yet. Unfortunately it is under "not so active development."

Something to Think About

At times I will post about other topics that I think might be of interest to you after all its not all about codes, gagets, and blogging tips, not here anyway now and then I will Post some random topics and here is one that really interest me because of the high price of gas........................... Here is another idea that will help stop high prices at the gas pumps.. kindly reminder . Many of us remember what happened when we Boycott .. as a united force .. KMart was put on the knees when conservatives refused to buy from them while they had smut on the shelves in plain site that our impressionable young children had access to? They almost went out of business until they sold waldenbooks their book department .. WHERE TO BUY YOUR USA-GAS, THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT TO KNOW. READ ON--Gas rationing in the 80's worked even though we grumbled about it.It might even be good for us! The Saudis are boycotting American goods.We should return the favor. An interesting thought is to boycott their GAS.Every time you fill up the car, you can avoid putting more money into the coffers of Saudi Arabia Just buy from gas companies that don't import their oil from the Saudis.Here is the companies that sell Saudi oil These companies import Middle Eastern oil : Shell........................... 205,742,000 barrelsChevron/Texaco......... 144,332,000 barrels Exxon /Mobil............... 130,082,000 barrelsMarathon/Speedway... 117,740,000 barrelsAmoco...........................62,231,000 barrels Citgo......................from Venezuela , from a Dictator who hates Americans, nationalized (stole) the US companies that discovered, drilled for, extracted and refined the oil.......................................................................................................................................................... Here are some large companies thatDO NOT import Middle Eastern oil! Do THIS, instead: Sunoco...................0 barrelsConoco..................0 barrelsSinclair................0 barrelsBP/Phillips............0 barrels Hess.......................0 barrelsARC0....................0 barrelsAll of this information is available from the Department of Energy; each company is required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing.But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions !Here is how to do this .. just send the above information to as many people as you can telling them your findings go through your contact list and send out emails, or write Posts about this...................... Be Sure to Leave Your Comments!

Free cross-product webinar for webmasters

Posted by Jon Stona, Product Marketing Team

Three of our most useful products for website owners are Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, and Google Website Optimizer. On July 8, we're joining forces to bring you a free webinar about all of them so you can learn more about how they can boost your website when used together.

Here's the trifecta:

Google Webmaster Tools is a resource to gauge the visibility of your pages on Google. It shows you which of our search queries drive traffic to your site and lets you see where your site is included in the top search results. You'll even be able to identify your top content and view the words that other sites use to link to it.

Google Analytics provides further insight on how people land and navigate on your site, regardless of whether they arrive through Google search, pay-per-click ads, or other means. You can see which geographical regions people come from, view your top landing pages, and compare the effectiveness of all your ads, e-mail newsletters, affiliate campaigns, referrals, and keywords on Google and other search engines.

Google Website Optimizer then enables you to act on the information you've gathered about your site and make concrete improvements. After identifying your high-traffic but low-converting pages, you can test different combinations of content to determine which one most yields the outcome you're looking for.

To be clear, we keep a strict wall between search and ads; your site ranking won't affect your ad placement and vice versa. Still, by using all three tools together, you'll gain a complete, detailed picture of how your site's visitors arrive, interact, and respond to changes in content or design. And if you're already using one tool, you can use your same login for the others.

Our first-ever joint webinar for Webmaster Tools, Analytics, and Website Optimizer will take place:

DATE: Tuesday, July 8
TIME: 9:00 a.m. PT (Pacific Time)
JOIN US: Register to attend

If you can't make that date, you'll be able to access an archived version of the presentation via the same registration URL. And lest you forget, you can always visit Google Webmaster Central to see everything we offer to help you build and maintain your best site.

Apricot ripens, NO just is and Warsow wants $

Winning a game of NO

NO is a fun little puzzle game [video]. It is built on top of LÖVE, which is fairly easy to have for Win and Lin users. Mac builders wanted!

I found a list of open source games for the Mobile Edition of Java. About 25 puzzle/arcade titles, mostly GPL'ed.

The Apricot project is ripening with great speed! Further additions to blender have been made and videos of a playable prototype recorded and uploaded. The plan to unleash "real Open Source power" by opening Apricot's code repository has unfortunately not been fulfilled yet.

The opinion exists, that a game will be less fun for people who were able to play a development version of it. I don't think this problem is a big one and believe that simply because of the necessity for compiling, most people will wait for an official release.

An example of a story-based single-player game with an open Subversion repository is Rastullahs Lockenpracht, a TDE-based 3D RPG. I haven't tried it so far because the last time it caught my attention, compiling code was a large burden for me. Now I won't try it as it appears to be depending on non-free Nvidia and Fmod libraries.

Apricot: Crystal Space Preview #1

It seems that the Apricot team has the same problems that I have when recording with recordMyDesktop: The recorded field doesn't fit the selected window, which results in capturing of unwanted space above and below the targeted window.

Warsow's developers started accepting donations. They want to use it for making participation in an own LAN party cheaper. I'm becoming more and more uncertain about the ultimate goal of the project. Is it profit? A fun game? An elitist community? Being popular? PS: What I'm talking about here is the "ultimate master plan" - which I'm certain every open source project secretly has. ;)

CivCool, TremFuture, WineOne, WarzoneFree

If you have had problems viewing this blog via Internet Explorer, you should not have these problems any more. Many thanks to intelperfectionist for pointing out that css-related issue that we had!

FreeCiv, it's sooo pretty (you knew that already, I know...)

I recently learned to enjoy FreeCiv very much. It's pretty and fun. It also has a (fairly) new release called Mr. 2.1.5.

FreeCol 0.7.4 has been released.

Tremulous 1.2? Visit this page to read how you can help making the next release a reality. By playing!

The latest version of LÖVE is now 0.3.1 and a bugfix is coming soon. I can now say with complete confidence that this yet another project is an awesome one. It has style. Check out their forum community. These guys are cool. As you easily can tell, I'm still blinded by LÖVE's stylishness. Oh. And here is a terrible video of some engine demos!

OpenFracas (0.5) now has music and sound.

After 15 years of development, Wine reached version 1.0. Wine is not a windows emulator.

Remember Mars - Land of No Mercy? I at least twice mourned it's death. It seems that the game likes to revive a lot. Animations seem to be the aim at the moment.

Little video showing off what the engine can do right now

PS!!!: Warzone 2100's music and videos are now licensed under the GPL! I am so excited! Warzone 2100 is a great game that long ago was a proprietary one. The real-time strategy game is much fun, though I felt that long gameplay was dull without music and that the story wasn't very touchable without videos. Joy!!! I also discovered the Warzone 2200 project. It appears to be aiming for improving the game engine.

Looking for Free Ways to Market Your website

Include your URL in your e-mail signature block
E-mail programs allow you to create a signature block that appears on every e-mail you send. In addition to your name, title, company name, address, phone number, and fax number, include your five-to-seven word marketing tag and a link to your Web site. If you use the format http://www.YourDomain.com, the text automatically becomes a link in outgoing mail.
Conduct a link campaign
Inbound links from other Web sites not only bring you targeted traffic from other sites but also can improve your ranking in Google's search results. This is a time-consuming but free method of bringing high-quality visitors to your site.
Be Sure to Leave Your Comments!

Keeping kids safe in a digital world

Posted by Liz Eraker, Policy Analyst

In the spirit of National Internet Safety Month, we welcomed Ernie Allen, co-founder and president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to the Googleplex last week to discuss child protection issues.

For those not familiar with it, NCMEC works closely with federal law enforcement across the U.S. to help prevent child abduction and sexual exploitation and to help find missing children. From serving as the clearinghouse for reports of online child pornography to issuing Amber Alerts when children go missing to reuniting families in the wake of Katrina, NCMEC is at the forefront of efforts to protect society's most vulnerable members.

In a policy talk called "Beyond Milk Cartons: Keeping kids safe in a digital world", Ernie provided an overview of NCMEC's work and chatted with Googlers about the ever-changing landscape of child protection challenges shared by parents, educators, advocacy organizations, and technology companies like Google as we work to help families make smart choices online. Watch Ernie's talk on YouTube.

Technology is an invaluable tool for addressing some of these challenges. In a recent example, a team of Google engineers dedicated their 20 percent time over the last year and a half to build cutting-edge software for NCMEC that uses image and video recognition technology to help NCMEC analysts more effectively sort and review incoming reports of child exploitation. NCMEC analysts sort through tens of millions of images in child sexual abuse investigations, and we've tried to leverage our expertise in organizing huge amounts of data to help make their important work more automated and efficient.

When it comes to keeping kids safe on the Internet, we believe that education for families, support for law enforcement, and empowering technology tools, like our SafeSearch filter and the NCMEC software, are all critical pieces of the puzzle.

Tackling online child safety issues is no small task, but we'll continue our collaboration with organizations like NCMEC, along with other partners in schools, government and industry, to take collective strides in the right direction.

More real-time quotes on Google Finance

Posted by Matt Simmons, Market Data Gnome

We're excited to let you know we're adding more real-time market data to Google Finance, Google.com and other Google properties. Starting today, you'll have access to real-time, last sale prices from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), along with those from NASDAQ, which we recently launched. Here's the NYSE press release.

What this means is that you can now get the latest real-time stock quotes on Google for free. Wondering what Ford (F) is trading at today? Search for it on Google or Google Finance and keep the page up to have the quotes stream live.

If you use iGoogle, add the Google Finance portfolio gadget to your homepage, and monitor all your NYSE and NASDAQ traded stocks in real time throughout the day.


And if you're on the road with no access to a computer, real-time, up-to-the-second price quotes from these two exchanges are available from your mobile phone as well:


We hope this makes it easier for you to track your investments and make more informed and timely financial decisions.

Ping your Blog! Ping! Ping! Ping! Helps your Blog

You’re a blogger and are constantly hearing about pinging. The thing is, you don't know what it is and what it can do for your blog. Well that's fine because a lot of bloggers don't quite understand pinging. In this newsletter, we will explain what pinging is, how it helps your blog, and what the best pinging services are. After you've read this newsletter, you'll know exactly how to use pinging to make your blog popular. What is pinging? When a blog is pinged, it essentially tells a web blog tracking system that the blog has been updated. Thus, pinging is the process of telling tracking services that a site has been updated. So how does pinging work? Well, a ping service scans regularly blogs for updates. Whenever there is a new update for a particular blog, that is reported back to the pinging service’s site. You can almost think of ping services being just like search engine spiders—both scan sites looking for information, and both report that information back to their specific site. The difference is, a ping service only reports back new blog posts. Why is pinging useful for my blog? Pinging, in effect, tells people that there is a new blog posting available. Those who are loyal followers of your blog will see the ping and want to visit your blog. Those who haven’t read your blog before will see the ping and perhaps think “hey, there’s a new blog I haven’t been to before, I think I’ll check it out”. Pinging helps to increase your traffic because it tells people when your blog is updated. Those who visit sites with pinging services will see this information in the form of a scroll on the left or right side, or top of the page. The scroll is usually in XML format and typically includes the title and URL of your blog, as well as the date and time of the update. OK, so now I know what pinging is. Who offers pinging? The answer is, there are several pinging services available which you can use to have your blog pinged. We’ll go over some of them right now. Weblogs.com Weblogs.com is probably the most well-known pinging service. Weblogs.com monitors sites for updates and then pings whenever there is an update to report. Virtually every blog software is available to use Weblogs. Yahoo’s Blo.gs Another popular pinging service. This one is offered by Yahoo and has a built-in integration with movable type and other tools. One cool thing about this service is that it offers the ability to give out updates via Instant Messenging services like AOL and ICQ. It is a direct pinging service, so those who sign up for subscriptions to your blog will be sent an email anytime your blog is updated. Blogrolling.com Blogrolling allows its bloggers to manage their blogrolls (updates) through a web-based interface. Recently updated blogs are also highlighted on Blogrolling’s web site. Data is automatically retrieved from other sites like blogger.com and weblogs.com every 5 minutes. Often times your blog is already being pinged by Blogrolling, so you might not have to sign up for it. Search on the site first for your URL before signing it up. Technorati Available at http://technorati.com/developers/ping/, Technorati is another service that pings blogs. It gets its data from a variety of places and is definitely a site you should go to for blog pinging. These are just 4 of the many different blog pinging services available. A quick search on Yahoo or Google will reveal many other possible blog pinging services to use for your blog. It is best to sign up for as many as you possibly can to ensure that your blog is well-pinged. A well-pinged blog will definitely help your blog attract more visitors. So sign up for as many as possible and watch your blog traffic increase. Pinging tells people when your blog is updated. It is an incredibly useful, and easy to sign up for service, so be sure to sign your blog up for pinging!

Create your Own Blog animated Widget

Designing Custom Headline Animators
Print
You can use Headline Animator to create your own fully custom animated web widgets from your feed. To design your own Headline Animator (instead of using one of our pre-defined themes):
Create a GIF that will serve as the background image for your Headline Animator
Put this GIF on a web server somewhere (it needs to be available on the web)
Sign in to FeedBurner, then navigate to Headline Animator on the Publicize tab for your feed
Select "Provide your own background" from the "Theme" drop-down
Paste the URL of your new background GIF and design your Headline Animator around that
Sample Custom Headline Animators
Looking for inspiration? Here are a handful of custom Headline Animators that might kick-start your creative side.

You may also be interested in...
this article:
Headline Animator Ads

Be Sure to Leave Your Comments!

Attract Subcribers:

Ready to start attracting subscribers? Here are some tips and suggestions for maximizing your reach:Make it Easy to SubscribeChickletize your web site. Encourage people to subscribe to your feed by posting a friendly graphic in an easy-to-find location.Why confuse would-be subscribers by offering the full menu of RSS and Atom flavors? Consolidate by serving up just one SmartFeed, digestible from any destination.Pleased with your circulation stats? Promote them using FeedCountFor the XML literate, consider using the Awareness API to share your subscriber stats with directories and listings.Boost Your Cross-Promotion PotentialDo you maintain more than one blog, newsfeed, podcast or videoblog? BuzzBoost helps you cross-promote your content by repurposing your feed as go-anywhere HTML.You author some very moving headlines! Promote your content with Headline Animator.Blogs • PingOur Blog • Our Podcast Be sure to go to Feedburner and get yours, setup to attract more traffic and subscribers to your blogs. Be Sure to Leave Comments..

Blogging tips on How to Improve your Blogs Ranking?

Many advertising programs still place significant weight on Alexa rank. Naturally if you are part of any of these programs you will want to improve your rank to maximize your earnings. Or if you’re like me you do it for the pleasure of seeing your rank improve.
The three most common and effective ways of improving your Alexa Rank are the widget, the toolbar, and redirects. However there is another way to improve your rank that I haven’t seen discussed.
First, this is the explanation the Alexa FAQ gives for how rank is determined:
A site’s ranking is based on a combined measure of reach and pageviews. Reach is determined by the number of unique Alexa users who visit a site on a given day. Pageviews are the total number of Alexa user URL requests for a site. However, multiple requests for the same URL on the same day by the same user are counted as a single pageview.
I had always assumed Alexa rank was based purely on unique visits, but it would appear pageviews are also a significant factor.

Winners of the Free Domain and cash Contest

The Contest is now over and the Lucky winners of the Contest are: Kevinatdakotadn.com who has won the Free Domain name, and the winner for the $ 5.00 cash is Se7en Be sure to contact me and send me your e-mail address, and paypal address..... Congraulations to the winners. Thanks to all the people who entered the contest.... Be Sure to Leave Your Comments!

Action Games – Addictive, Interactive, Thrilling And Fabulous Way Of Enjoyment.

An action game is a game that challenges a player’s speed, dexterity and reaction time. Action games often include tactical conflict, exploration challenges and puzzle solving. Action games usually feature violent physical force, especially shooting or melee combat as their main interactive features. Most common action games are:

* Action-adventure game
* Fighting game
* Driving
* Fast puzzle
* First person shooter
* Platform game
* Shooter game
* Action role-playing game
* Beat ‘em up

Often this kind of games comes with a story line and is rich in graphic and animation. It seen that adventure games are more popular than other video games. Action games of the modern day are more interactive, it can be of single-players or multi-players. Action games give great thrill and despite called for teenagers they are for the family to enjoy them together. Action games test the response of the player and sharpen the judgment. Such games are not pure fun. They can help as training tools if used properly.

There are wide varieties of adventure and action game available in the market. Even many of the gaming sites offer various types can be easily downloaded to the PC or computer. Games have completely changed the entertainment scenario and no only entertain you but also enhance your mind.

You can also download game from internet. Online games store are flooded with revolutionary easy to play, down loadable and free games online. Loaded with sophisticated features, these advance technology games ensures interactive and thrilling gaming experience to the players. Most of the online games are free. Look for a good website and play the games. They are a fabulous way of enjoyment. As I said in the heading these games can become addictive. Take small doses and life will be a joy.

HOVR is one of the leading website for action games. You can download free action games to your PC as well as mobile from HOVR.

The Most Amazing Killing Videos

God of War -PS2 Best Action Game-



Hercules Action Game



cool online games



My First Montage - Need For Speed

Forget 10 tips to generate traffic to your sites. These FOUR Tips will do it!!

Building quality backlinks is an important to improve your blog, or website for that matter.
It is important process for the success or failure of a site.
What is a backlink?A backlink is a link from another website to yours.
Why do I need backlinks? Backlinks are important for a number of reasons:
They can increase traffic to your website.
They are an important factor when Google assigns Page Rank.
They help to improve your ranking on search engine results pages.
Submitting your sites to directories can be used to build backlinks.
Directory Submission
Submitting your blog to directories should be one of the first things you do to kickstart your link building efforts.
It is unlikely you’ll ever see any significant traffic from directories, but that’s okay. The purpose here is to gain backlinks to help increase your PageRank.
There are both general directories and blog specific directories. Seeing as this process can be quite monotonous I’d suggest starting with the blog specific directories and if you don’t run out of steam move on to the general directories afterwards.
Note: Make sure you only submit to directories with high PageRank.
Alot of directories require a reciprocal link, meaning they will only list you in their directory if you link back to them from your blog. It is generally better to stay away from these sorts of directories.
Here are a few directory lists to get you started:
Blog Directories
General Directories
Free SEO Friendly Directories
High PageRank/Non-Reciprocal Directories
For those of you who would rather not plug away at their computers all day you can find plenty of people on the Digital Point forums who offer directory submission services. It comes at a price of course, but most of them are pretty reasonable.

Mobile Phone Games – More Systems, More Entertainment

Mobile phone games are one of the most loved features in mobile phones. The great improvement in a mobile phone games is expected to bring an excitement for consumer with handset upgrades which attract hard core gamers. These excitement mobile games with visual and graphics are also laden with the amazing sound effects. All these features make these games much desirable and in demand.

Now with the improvement in the technology of mobile phone the mobile games have also improved with easy use of joysticks and high resolution. The latest mobile phones with big screen, graphics and better colour all have made mobile games better. It is noted that mobile phone manufacturers develop new way to produce higher quality software for mobile phones, much better mobile games compatible to with the newest features are introduced. There is an endless revolution in this branch of mobile industry, increasing the hopes of game manufacturers while firing up the wars between console platforms with those planning to support mobile standards in their upcoming versions. Java games for mobile phones are the latest technology comes with mobile phones.

With tremendous development in IT sector, computer games came into picture. Now mobile games have become a new buzz. Mobile game developers with their innovative mind are developing that are supported by Java. These games are quite different from conventional mobile games. With 3D effect and Java support – new age mobile games add more twist and tango with easy to use operations. Simply read the help manual and start playing the game.

Mobile phone games can be downloaded for free from many websites on the internet.

Many online sites are available that provide thousands of free mobile game. Mobile games are accessible on the internet, which is a positive point for the consumer. Network service providers on the other hand also offer latest games in their network services. Play mind boggling java games and keep your mind fresh and cool.

HOVR is one of the leading website for free online mobile games. HOVR provides a huge range of free downloadable cell phone games.

How to get incoming back links from High page rank Sites

With incoming links to your web sites , from sites that have a high page rank. THese sites can help rank your site high . So if you want one of your sites to rank high, a good way to do it is to find as many high page rank blogs or forums as you can and comment on them with a back link, and you can do this by using a software that easily finds lots of high page rank blogs to get quality back links from simply clicking a few buttons, just use this link.
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Go and check it out for yourself, I did..
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Get outdoors with GO Georgia!

Posted by Maureen Schumacher, Regional Sales Director, Atlanta

Our Atlanta office recently teamed up with the Parks, Recreation and Historic Sites Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources to support an initiative called Get Outdoors Georgia (GO Georgia). An effort to help Georgians get outdoors, get fit and enjoy their diverse natural resources, the initiative focuses on family-friendly, nature-based, healthy outdoor recreation opportunities throughout the state. As a founding sponsor of the program, Google will offer consultation on products including AdWords, Analytics, Maps, Earth, Picasa, Gadgets and a branded YouTube channel

According to a 2007 report from the Trust for America's Health, Georgia is one of the "heaviest" states in the union, ranking 14th for adult obesity and 12th for overweight children (16+ percent of its youth overweight or obese). We're pleased that our products will play a part in an historic effort to improve the health and well-being of all Georgians. And today, we're expanding our relationship with GO Georgia by spending a day in Panola Mountain State Park. Atlanta Googlers will help to restore the park and remove growth not indigenous to the area, improving the experience for Georgians and other visitors when they get out and visit the park.

For more info on this forward-looking new program, visit the GO Georgia site.

Google Code Jam is back

Posted by Bartholomew Furrow, 20% Tech Lead for Google Code Jam

If you're a great sprinter, you've probably been in a few races. And if you're a great chess player, you've probably had your share of matches. But what do you do if you're a great programmer?

Well, if you're looking for the rush of competition, the feeling of matching your mind up against the greatest in the world, you can't do better than Google Code Jam. The contests are intense: you'll have two short hours to solve some fiendish algorithmic challenges. You'll read a problem, write your code, download our test cases, and tell us what you think the right answers are. If you're right, it's time to move on to another problem -- but if you're wrong, it's time to make a decision. Debug, or look for an easier challenge...?

Registration is now open, so you can find out more about the contest, and practice on some sample problems. Practice hard! If you make it to the top 500, you'll travel to a nearby Google office for our semifinal round. If you're in the top 100, we'll fly you to our Mountain View headquarters to compete with the world's very best.

Free Online Games - The Power Of Four

The online gaming is a tool in spite of a genre. It is a method for connecting the players jointly rather than a picky pattern of a game play. The online playoffs are played over various kinds of computer networks, mostly the Internet. One benefit of the online games is that these games have the potential to link with a lot of multi player games. The single player games are also available which have earned a lot of recognition these days.

A lot of exciting and adventurous online games have come up that have gained huge reorganization in the last few years. One such internet game is the Ninja Rampage. It is an addictive and excellent game where you move on from one level to the other by killing the other enemy soldiers. At times it’s fighting or killing and sometimes it is only being an intelligent ninja! Another very exciting online game is the Monster Truck. This game involves crushing the other enemy trucks under its large wheels and reaching its target. This is a thrilling and electrifying game. The Dragon Scape is also an interesting online game which is more in demand these days. It is among the well-known killing games preferred by the guys mostly. The Blast Billiards is also yet another online game. As the name suggests, this online game is based on the billiards. It is exactly similar to the way we play manually. The people who do not get the opportunity to play this game manually can get the same pleasure by playing it in their internet connections.

Everyday more and more online games are coming up that offers more fun and excitement. Along with thrill and excitement, these games have helped to impart a lot of knowledge to the people and at the same time they are rewarding too.

RubyWeekend, but also PyDay

Yesterday the first RubyWeekend ended, which is a two and a half days Ruby game creation competition. The topic was "Pirates Versus Zombies!"

Seven contributions were made: kiba's digital piracy parody The CopyPirate [video], atiaxi's tbs Port Town [video], satoshi's console-based footracer [video], jlnr's ZombieSoccarrr [video], ippa's Zombie Horde [video], jacius' Election Year: Zombies vs. Pirates! [video] and trejs' Caribbean Onslaught.

The submitted code had to be released under an OSI-approved license and all media under one of the Creative Commons licenses (alternatively public domain for both.)

The contest is being hosted on the forums of Rubygame, which is a SDL-based Ruby media library. Most submissions are based on it, some use Gosu.

Ninjapix, probably PyDay #2's winner

Another competition ended on Saturday: PyDay #2 - a rather fresh 24-hours Python game making contest and the smaller brother of Ludum Dare, which is the granddaughter of PyWeek.

You can download an archive (.7z) of all contributions. Or pick them individually. Or just watch some of them.

I also seriously recommend two out of the three PyDay #1 games. They're in the video at the end of this post.

While some games turn out terribly (it will be either less than ugly graphics or inhuman controls), gems tend to appear on such contests. I love the idea of brain-storm programming, even though results are likely to be buggy and incomplete, the important thing is that a playable model of a game exists. It allows to see the potential for fun.

Port Town

For example I enjoy playing Port Town much more than I should. It's a game based on boring random numbers, where you get a random number of units and position them in a part of the town, where they fight and win randomly. The tiny detail that zombies will convert humans to their own kind is what makes the game shine for me. Also the zombies start on the graveyard and the pirates start on a ship. It makes so much sense! I see a lot of potential in this minimal Risk-like strategy game. It only needs a bit more complexity and then a bit more graphics.

Another example is The CopyPirate, which is no fun to play at all for me, but which has a cool scenario. You're a pirate, who has to steal some music and escape to the intertubes while avoiding the RIAA's Zombies! How awesome is that? I hope this scenario will find it's way into a decent satirical game someday.

There is one problem with short time game contests' results though: documentation. I think it's a big deal, as many contest contributors won't be willing to spend any more time on their quickie creations while being the ones who understand the game's code best. (The reasons will be "The source is sooooo dirty!!", "I would, but I got this totally awesome idea for my next game!", "I'll rewrite it instead, rly!!", "I don't care if you like it, I don't!", "I'm lazy!" and "I can only work under pressure!") But at least the small size of the games protects against total unsuitability for further development by others.

I'm looking forward to PyHour. Less is more!

PyDay #1 games (the third one is the coolest!).

[Edit] This just in: Sauerbraten has the new release "CTF Edition" for Lin/Win/Osx. There's a changelog. I've noticed following new things: pretty weapons (which have been in the code repository a long time now), new maps, new capture the flag game mode. New models too I think. Fun!

Sauerbraten CTF Edition

Elections in the Internet era

Posted by Bob Boorstin, Washington Director of Policy Communications

Days after the close of the U.S. presidential primaries, political pundits, campaign strategists, journalists, technologists, and others gathered at our Washington office to discuss how the "first 21st century campaign" is changing politics as we know it. Topics ranged from the democratization of voices in the media to the power of small donors and community organizers to Lindsay Lohan's political clout.

"Obama Girl" producer Ben Relles gave us a sneak peek at his upcoming YouTube video. Lizz Winstead, co-creator of the Daily Show, gave her thoughts on TV journalism today, and why it gave rise to political comedy online and on television. Christopher Hitchens shared why he thinks everyone wants to vote in an American election. And the Internet directors from the McCain, Obama, Romney and Clinton campaigns assessed the role of technology in getting out the vote.

Visit our YouTube channel to see all of the panel discussions in their entirety (Pop Culture Politics, Running the 21st Century Campaign and Covering the 21st Century Campaign) and Citizentube for 1-on-1 interviews with panelists. And special thanks to our friends at C-SPAN for recording and broadcasting the panels.

Check out some photos from the event, which we hope contributes to the conversation about the Internet's growing influence on American democracy.

Plug-ins converge on Washington

Posted by Michael Terrell, Program Manager, Google.org


Last week Google.org and the Brookings Institution hosted a two-day conference in Washington to showcase plug-in electric vehicles and examine how the government can support their widespread adoption. An impressive lineup of Members of Congress, auto and utility executives, and technology experts spoke to a packed house about the potential of plug-ins to reduce oil dependence, lower the cost of driving, and fight global warming. Between panels, participants were treated to a display of the latest plug-in cars, including one of Google.org's RechargeIT cars, an electric sportscar, and Detroit's answer to high gas prices.

There appeared to be overwhelming agreement that government leadership is necessary to make this industry transformation a reality. (A recent poll commissioned by Google.org shows that voters agree.) A second theme was the need to modernize and green the power grid as the country moves toward electrifying transportation. But with gas prices at record highs and enthusiasm for the promise of electric cars growing, the feeling in Washington last week was that plug-ins' time has come.

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Comments, Comments, Comments

I was reading a post that asked this question and some readers said because they did not know how to leave comments! I thought everyone knew how to leave a comment, but for those who do not then listen: just Read a post that interest you and at the bottom you will see where it says COMMENTs you click on that word and a box will come out in that box you leave a comment about the post you just read whether you liked it or not or give any comments that participate to the post your views, opinions, your thoughts about what you read. It is good to leave comments, its good for your ranking. I think it’s important to let the author know you appreciate their work, give them some kudos. If a blog catches my eye, makes me smile, shares with me some good information, or if I like the blogger or what they’re about. I want to comment them.
It starts a real sense of community. For example - I always visit the blog of someone who has left me a comment. I like to check their blog. I’ve met some great people that way. Comment on Fresh Blogs For Fresh Perspectives - If you are always among the same crowd you will find inevitably the same thoughts being reflected back over and over. Break out! I advise people to comment on new blogs every day. By not commenting on the same old blogs, or especially setting a goal to comment on more blogs than the day before, you will be forced to leave your blog-reading comfort zone and visit new blogs. This exposes you to new ideas, different ways of looking at things, and hopefully a way out of the echo chamber.
Blogging is not just about saying your piece, it is also about going out and joining the conversation where it is happening. It’s about reaching out to people and exposing yourself (steady!) to new ideas. Some giving as well as all this taking back we focus on.
When you post a comment on a blog, you often get a link out of it. Especially if that blog has a no no follow policy.
It is always best if you leave comments on the blogs that you visit. Now leave me your comments on what you think about this Post..Be Sure to Leave Your Comments!

Hex Tower Defence and Java vector tools

HexTD close view

Hex Tower Defence is a Java-powered tower defense game inspired by the unfree, flash-based VectorTD.

You can play it inside the browser or grab hold of the code and install/compile it with the help of these instructions.

Gazelle desktop

HexTD uses the SVG Salamander Java vector library. It's author is Mark McKay, who is also working on an animation suite, which supports Scalable Vector Graphics: Gazelle.

Gazelle is a movie editor that makes it easy for you to create short keyframed animations on your computer.

There are some tutorial videos available. I look forward to playing around with Gazelle, as I'm very interested in using SVGs to create (animated) game media or to even use them directly in games.

HexTD gameplay (likely to be found boring ;) - also there's no sound by default)

Amateur Bloggers Getting Sued

I came across this article and I thought some of you would be interested in reading about amateur bloggers and some Proffesional bloggers who have been blogging for years are getting sued for not wording their articles right, most are geting sued for defamation of character. A Miami real estate agent Mr.Lechuga began blogging to share his knowledge of the local market. He didn't bargain for a $25 million defamation lawsuit when he wrote that a Miami developer had gone bankrupt decades ago

Non-journalists entering the world of blogs, online feedback forums, online videos and news Web sites provide information that newspapers and other media can't or don't. But many are now turning to professional journalists for help with dilemmas they're facing: When is something libelous? What's the difference between opinion and news? And how do you find public documents?

About a dozen would-be reporters navigated the basics of journalism at a recent training offered by the Society of Professional Journalists in Chicago. The group plans similar seminars this month in Greensboro, N.C., and Los Angeles.

Lechuga, who didn't attend the training, said it would have been a good idea. Having jumped into the world of online publishing with a finance degree, he said the claims against him - which are still pending - arose from a question of semantics, and he would have chose his words differently if he had a second chance.

Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., which supports working journalists, praised the effort to offer training to so-called citizen journalists.

"I think that what we're moving toward is some king of positioning between amateur and professional," Clark said.

Amateurs have long contributed to professional news reports, including the film of John F. Kennedy's assassination and photos from the Virginia Tech massacre last year, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the tsunami in Southeast Asia in 2004, Clark said.

Now, many distribute their content on their own, and some have gotten into trouble, said Clint Brewer, the national president of SPJ.

Geoff Dougherty, editor of the Web site ChiTownDailyNews.org and a presenter at the SPJ program, is trying to prevent that by offering his reporters online training.

"I see us in five years as the go-to source for Chicago news," said Dougherty. "It's a big goal."

Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, said more than 100 judgments valued at $17 million have been handed down against bloggers over the last three years - about 60 percent for defamation, 25 percent for copyright infringement and 10 percent involving privacy.

"It's the tip of the iceberg," Cox said. "Bloggers are being asked to write checks. The threats against bloggers are very real. The costs are very real."

Other groups offer help, including NowPublic.com - a site that gathers photos, video and news tips from the public and distributes them to news organizations, including The Associated Press. NowPublic, funded with venture capital, offers resources for contributors and helps them learn to police themselves, said co-founder Michael Tippett.

MJ Tam, who has blogged about motherhood for eight years and attended the Chicago workshop, said she worried about how far she could go in rating baby products.

"I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing," said Tam. "How far can I take criticism? What's considered libel? I need those basics."---

Web News

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krank - a little casual game

krank snake, stone, links and anchors

krank is a game of dexterity, being somewhere between Breakout and billiard, where the aim of each level is to shove floating stones towards compatible static stones. You control a short chain of stones with your mouse to achieve that.

While the game's visual and audible aural style is as simple as the rules are, there is no shortage of variety. Different level layouts provide enough challenge and different gameplay elements (the interactions between different types of floating stones with different types of static stones) are introduced at a reasonable paste. If you find the hardness curve too flat or simply don't like one level: the game permits you to skip one level ahead the last finished one.

Another important aspect, which keeps me playing, is the variety of look and sound. Each level has it's own pretty background and there are different sound themes, which give a subtle but very effective feedback of what is happening on the game field.

Thorsten Kohnhorst is the programmer behind krank. He created some other games, which I will introduce in the future. Michael Abbing is the game's sound designer. Nine others contributed to the game's level designs.

The game was written in python and packages are available for Mac OS X, Windows and Ubuntu (thanks to Vadi for the latter!) On other systems you will have to make a little fix to play it. The code and media appears to be in the public domain.

If you ever enjoyed a puzzle, billiard, golf or an arcade game before, you definitely should give it a try. Especially with it being so easy to start playing (see package links above.) By the way: I haven't seen a game menu integrated so well in a game since the unfree Psychonauts! The only feature I'm missing is a save function.

Update: Łukasz Krotowski submitted a patch, which makes the game auto-save on GNU/Linux systems. Now I just have to learn how to use patches. ^^

Have a look at the gameplay in the video below but I must warn you that the sound effects (which I am unable to capture) are an important element of the game and that the video (especially with it's visual quality) is a bad representative of the actual game.

krank gameplay video - pardon the lack of sounds :(

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