Please forgive me for not posting my articles everyday like I usually do but as I explained to you all ... Im having alot of trouble with my computer and this is why I have been asking for donations for a new computer so I can keep on blogging. My compujter had crashed onme for a few days and I could not post a thing nor get online till now so you see this is why Im asking for donationd from you all to help me stay online and continue blogging and I hope you all will open your hearts up and help me out.. Thank you... These tips will show you how to work smart, but don’t forget that the more effort you put in the greater the reward!
No matter how much effort you give, or how much money you spend, none of your ventures, online or off, will EVER succeed unless you believe they will! Erase all negative thoughts or nothing you do will work. Believe in yourself first and foremost! You CAN be whatever you choose!
Whether or not what I give you has worked for others, it will NOT work for you unless you believe in yourself! You must have the I AM attitude.
You CAN make ANYTHING possible! Inspired yet!?! I hope so! Now let’s get on with it!
#1 Choose your product or service:
Holy Hell, the market is so vast right now with everything you can possibly think off! You can choose actual physical products, in which case you must set up a distribution
network for delivering said product, digital products, which if your reading this you have the means of delivering, business opportunities, etc, etc.
#2 Locate your Target Market
Any particular product or service you choose will have a very specific group or groups of people interested in that product or service. For example, say you choose to market online video games, your target market will be gamers.
There are also secondary markets (such as gamers parents), but for now you should stick with your target market.
#3 Create value for your product or service
Whether or not you believe in karma or fate, Helping someone achieve something they need or want will Always come back to you ten-fold! The Universe has a funny way of keeping everything in balance! The more value you create in not only your product or service but also yourself, the more you will get in return! Always make it so that the consumer gets more for using your product or service than you do! Confused? The more value you have, the more you are wanted!
“Hey man, I just got 2 free game downloads just to look at this site!” Word of mouth is still the best form of advertising anywhere in the world!
#4 Set-up a distribution method
Once you have your product or service, you have located your target market, and you have created huge value, you need a system in place for delivering said product or service. If your just starting, digital products are a good way to go as you don’t need any special delivery methods other than your computer! I won’t go into too much detail, but anything you choose to market MUST have a sure-fire, reliable way to get into your customers hands!
#5 Advertise to your Target Market
Now this is the tricky part! In this day and age it’s very possible to reach millions world-wide right from your own home!
There are so many different ways to go about it that I cannot begin to cover it now! Remember though, once you have built value in yourself, it only takes reaching a few people, who in turn tell others and so forth!Your own circle of family and friends have their own circle of family and friends, you get the point right? Experiment and don’t be afraid to fail!
Learn from your failures.
#6 Be Ready for Success
You will not ever get what you want until you are ready to receive it! Visualize yourself with everything you want, see it clearly in your mind, live as if you already possess it and the universe will comply! These are the things EVERY millionaire does and are vital to your success!
#7 Use the Law of Attraction
I could write for hours about this, but here it is in a nutshell! If you were to take everything in the universe and break it down to it’s singular core what would you have? Energy! It’s all around us all the time! What goes hand in hand with energy? Magnetism! What happens when you try to push opposite ends of a magnet together? They push apart! Just like magnets, we attract exactly what we put out! Positive attracts positive and negative attracts negative!
It’s not just about thinking positive, you must FEEL positive! Some examples: You don’t feel like going into work, so you call in sick even though your not, and a few hours later you start feeling all crappy! Why? Because you put it out there that you were sick and the universe complied! Not a believer yet? How about this one:
You’re thinking about an old friend and out of nowhere they call you! Little things like this we have all experienced at some time or another, you can dismay it as coincidence, or you can begin to see how the universe really works!
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Hello from A2
We set up shop in Ann Arbor, Mich. nearly two years ago. And we’ve been so busy, we’ve barely had time to say hi. But before we tell you about the interesting things we're doing in our new location, we figure you might want to know a little bit more about our state and our town.
Sandwiched between two Great Lakes, peppered with forestry, and teeming with kindhearted Midwesterners, Michigan is the kind of place you'd be lucky to visit and we get to live here. Not only that, but we’re located in Ann Arbor, a town with a great progressive story:
Sandwiched between two Great Lakes, peppered with forestry, and teeming with kindhearted Midwesterners, Michigan is the kind of place you'd be lucky to visit and we get to live here. Not only that, but we’re located in Ann Arbor, a town with a great progressive story:
- Popular Science magazine ranked Ann Arbor in the top 25 greenest cities in America.Some 50,000 trees grow along Ann Arbor streets, and city parks boast another 50,000. And while no trees actually grow in the Google office, our cheeks do seem to be turning a nice leafy shade of green — probably from walking and biking to work as part of Ann Arbor’s Commuter Challenge, swapping paper for reusable dishes in our cafeteria, and educating ourselves on composting and recycling.
- On Oct. 14, 1960, President John F. Kennedy announced his proposal for the Peace Corps on the front steps of the Michigan Union, in downtown Ann Arbor. Nearly 50 years later, we "A2ooglers" feel a similar sense of urgency — but this time, it’s a desire to work with our very own state, from soup kitchens to river cleanups. We’re also connecting local schools and businesses with Google products.
- In the first Rose Bowl Game in 1902, University of Michigan (located in Ann Arbor) defeated Stanford 49 - 0. Like our Wolverine neighbors, we're burning with competitive spirit — one that’s given birth to office teams for kickball, soccer, volleyball, tennis, basketball, skiing, ultimate Frisbee and trivia.
- AARP Magazine recently named Ann Arbor the healthiest hometown in America, based on 20 factors ranging from the community's water purity to the eating habits of its citizens.
- According to Forbes.com, Ann Arbor is America's 4th Smartest City.
- Oprah Winfrey included a brisket sandwich from our own Zingerman's Deli on her Top Sandwiches in America.
- Ann Arbor ranks in the top 21 cities for cyclists, says Bicycling magazine.
- And even more...
Back to school with more than 1 million users worldwide
Google Apps is rapidly gaining momentum in education. We now have more than a million people on campuses worldwide actively using Google's suite of email, calendar and docs to share information and study. This makes perfect sense. Schools have always been a proving ground for innovative ideas. And as we prepare for the new school year, we are happy to welcome more than a dozen universities across the U.S., joining the thousands of other schools that have already embraced cloud computing in education. Here are the new additions:
Jeff Keltner
- Collin County Community College District
- Francis Marion University
- George Washington University
- Indiana University
- Kean University
- Kent State University
- Kishwaukee College
- Loyola Marymount University
- Montgomery County Community College
- New Jersey Institute of Technology
- University of Florida
- University of San Diego
- University of Virginia
Jeff Keltner
More transparency in customized search results
As we continue to refine our search algorithms to deliver more relevant results, we strive to be as open as possible about how we use data to improve your search experience. Today, we're rolling out a new feature in Google Web Search that will help you better understand how your search results are already customized. Over the next few days, you may start to see messages like this in the upper right corner of your search results page (click on the image to view larger):
You can click the "More details" link to get to a page like this:
You'll see these new messages whenever your search results have been customized based on one or more of the following types of information:
You can click the "More details" link to get to a page like this:
You'll see these new messages whenever your search results have been customized based on one or more of the following types of information:- Location. By default, we identify your approximate city location based on your computer's IP address and use it to customize your search results. If you'd like Google to use a different location, you can sign into or create a Google Account and provide a city or street address. Your specific location will be used not only for customizing search results, but also to improve your experience in Google Maps and other Google products.
- Recent searches. We take into account whether a particular query followed on the heels of another query. Because recent search activity provides such valuable context for understanding the meaning behind your searches, we use it to customize your results whenever possible, regardless of whether you're signed in or signed out. In order to customize your results and show you the customization details, we keep the most recent query on your browser for a limited time. After that, the information is removed from your browser and disappears immediately if you close your browser.
- Web History. If you're signed in and have Web History enabled, we customize your search results based on what you've searched for in the past on Google, and what web sites you've visited. One important note about Web History: it belongs to you and you have complete control over it. You can remove specific items or pause the service at any time. And if there's a particular search that you'd rather not have personalized based on your Web History, you can also just temporarily sign out of your Google Account.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Rubyweekend #2 and Blood Frontier
RubyEarly Monday. Pioneer rays of light touched my face like golden hair. It was then that the second Ruby weekend game programming competition came to an end.
The results are not impressive, but much more than I had anticipated. The previous Rubyweekend took place only 1.5 months ago, and the weather motivates to spend time outside the reach of game-creation-suitable input devices. Also my humble opinion is that the topic "opposites" was way too liberal.
Many games weren't finished, though are playable to some degree. Two of the submitted games had incorrect-case directories/filenames!!!! /me rages !!!!11!! Well, let's blame the weather, shall we? :D
Me and kiba wanted to create a simple rts called Playground Wars and we failed. No problem, lesson learned (don't try to make an rts in little time.) No regrets but if I'm to participate in a game creation compo this summer again, I will work for it at night so I can sleep in the sun at daytime!
I like Opposite Islands [video]. Here are all the games. You can take a look at the videos of the other contesting games. You can vote too.
DungeonFarmer is pretty freaky because it has to do with farming in a dungeon! O_o Super StarHawks Gaiden is awesomely neo-retro [video], but was submitted too late. o_O
Regarding other short-time game programming challenges: The next Ludum Dare will happen in 2 weeks and 2 days. It's more than a month until PyWeek #7.
I can't find any official PyDay site any more :(
In other news: I recorded another video of TORCS (slightly better synchronized), after finding out that there is at least one map that looks rather pretty (by my standards.)
Blood Frontier recently started interesting me very much, because it is fun to play. It has great maps and a fine, small weapon selection and it's movement style is definitely something fresh. Give the new alpha a try, it's worth it! [video] The fact that most maps are not just very, but too dark, is something I consider a problem for deathmatch games.
I'm currently reading Learn to Program, it teaches via Ruby. I like it because it takes me by the hand without making me feel stupid. Next up will be the Lua Reference Manual. When I'm done with that, hopefully Python 3000 will be ready for use and learning.
I just checked if I covered in this post everything I have to share and realized that this is about 10%. Next post soon I guess.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Goodbye to Randy Pausch, a great teacher
Randy Pausch, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University and a good friend of Google, passed away last night. In addition to being recognized as a pioneer in virtual reality research, he became widely known as a gifted teacher and a mentor to many. Millions of people saw his inspiring "Last Lecture" on YouTube. Read more about Randy and his contributions on our Research Blog.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Ragogmakan (Google) goes to the Amazon
Last month, a group of Googlers traveled to Brazil, to conduct our first-ever project in the Amazon. Organized by our Google Earth Outreach team, we went at the special invitation of Amazon Chief Almir Naramayoga Surui, who'd invited us down to train his people on using Google Earth, YouTube, blogs and other Internet tools in order to preserve their history and culture, protect their rainforest, and create a sustainable future for their tribe.
This was an unusual request, especially because until recently, the Surui Indians used stone tools and hunted and fished with bows and arrows. But as we considered this request, we realized that it was very much within the mission of Google Earth Outreach, which helps people around the world learn how to use Google Earth and Maps for public benefit. We had previously collaborated with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to map destroyed villages in Darfur, with UNHCR to show "A Refugee's Life", with Appalachian Voices to illustrate mountaintop removal coal-mining, and with the Jane Goodall Institute to follow chimpanzees in Tanzania. Maybe, we thought, it was time to go to the Amazon.
"New Technologies and Indigenous Peoples" - the logo
created by the Surui for our partnership
We learned from Chief Almir that just as the Amazon rainforest is disappearing at an alarming rate, so too are the indigenous peoples who live there. This loss of biological and cultural diversity, of natural resources, habitats and human beings, has profound consequences both locally and globally. Al Gore has called the Amazon rainforest "the lungs of the planet" for the vital role it plays in consuming carbon dioxide and producing oxygen for all of us to breathe. Chief Almir explained that his tribe had already begun replanting thousands of hectares of their forest which had been illegally logged by outsiders. He hopes that through this project, they will be able to participate in the emerging carbon offset marketplace. And he wants to use Google Earth, YouTube and blogs to give the world a virtual tour of these projects, to raise awareness, and educate other tribes in how to do the same thing.
So we spent several months preparing special training materials. We partnered closely with the Amazon Conservation Team, who'd previously taught the Surui how to GPS-locate their significant sites that the Surui now wanted to map in full 3D, in Google Earth. Along the way, we found that many people asked us these questions: "So why is Google going to the Amazon?" "Why are you trying to train Indians?" "Won't technology harm their culture?" "Are Amazon Indians even capable of learning to use the Internet?"
Without giving away too much of the story, the answer to the last question is YES. During the trainings, we were moved to see how committed the young Surui students were to learning everything they possibly could. Their first two web searches were "Povos Indigenas do Brasil" (Indigenous peoples of Brazil) and "Desmatamento Amazonia" (Deforestation of the Amazon). They succeeded in importing their cultural map into Google Earth (see image), as the starting point for their virtual tour. They showed their warrior spirit in their very first YouTube video. They began building a Google Site. All of these are now works in progress, and when they are ready to release to the world, we expect that they will be unlike anything anyone has seen before.
The Surui call Google "ragogmakan", or "messenger", because they are using our tools to get their message out. Although we traveled to the Amazon rain forest expecting to be the teachers, there are lessons for all of us in the story of the Surui. As they engage with the modern world, they are making choices about what to adopt, adapt or reject. If we pay attention, we may have as much to learn from them as they from us.
Read more on the Lat Long blog, and experience the story of our trip on the Google Earth Outreach site.
Surui cultural map
This was an unusual request, especially because until recently, the Surui Indians used stone tools and hunted and fished with bows and arrows. But as we considered this request, we realized that it was very much within the mission of Google Earth Outreach, which helps people around the world learn how to use Google Earth and Maps for public benefit. We had previously collaborated with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to map destroyed villages in Darfur, with UNHCR to show "A Refugee's Life", with Appalachian Voices to illustrate mountaintop removal coal-mining, and with the Jane Goodall Institute to follow chimpanzees in Tanzania. Maybe, we thought, it was time to go to the Amazon.
"New Technologies and Indigenous Peoples" - the logocreated by the Surui for our partnership
We learned from Chief Almir that just as the Amazon rainforest is disappearing at an alarming rate, so too are the indigenous peoples who live there. This loss of biological and cultural diversity, of natural resources, habitats and human beings, has profound consequences both locally and globally. Al Gore has called the Amazon rainforest "the lungs of the planet" for the vital role it plays in consuming carbon dioxide and producing oxygen for all of us to breathe. Chief Almir explained that his tribe had already begun replanting thousands of hectares of their forest which had been illegally logged by outsiders. He hopes that through this project, they will be able to participate in the emerging carbon offset marketplace. And he wants to use Google Earth, YouTube and blogs to give the world a virtual tour of these projects, to raise awareness, and educate other tribes in how to do the same thing.
So we spent several months preparing special training materials. We partnered closely with the Amazon Conservation Team, who'd previously taught the Surui how to GPS-locate their significant sites that the Surui now wanted to map in full 3D, in Google Earth. Along the way, we found that many people asked us these questions: "So why is Google going to the Amazon?" "Why are you trying to train Indians?" "Won't technology harm their culture?" "Are Amazon Indians even capable of learning to use the Internet?"
Without giving away too much of the story, the answer to the last question is YES. During the trainings, we were moved to see how committed the young Surui students were to learning everything they possibly could. Their first two web searches were "Povos Indigenas do Brasil" (Indigenous peoples of Brazil) and "Desmatamento Amazonia" (Deforestation of the Amazon). They succeeded in importing their cultural map into Google Earth (see image), as the starting point for their virtual tour. They showed their warrior spirit in their very first YouTube video. They began building a Google Site. All of these are now works in progress, and when they are ready to release to the world, we expect that they will be unlike anything anyone has seen before.
The Surui call Google "ragogmakan", or "messenger", because they are using our tools to get their message out. Although we traveled to the Amazon rain forest expecting to be the teachers, there are lessons for all of us in the story of the Surui. As they engage with the modern world, they are making choices about what to adopt, adapt or reject. If we pay attention, we may have as much to learn from them as they from us.
Read more on the Lat Long blog, and experience the story of our trip on the Google Earth Outreach site.
Surui cultural mapWe knew the web was big...
We've known it for a long time: the web is big. The first Google index in 1998 already had 26 million pages, and by 2000 the Google index reached the one billion mark. Over the last eight years, we've seen a lot of big numbers about how much content is really out there. Recently, even our search engineers stopped in awe about just how big the web is these days -- when our systems that process links on the web to find new content hit a milestone: 1 trillion (as in 1,000,000,000,000) unique URLs on the web at once!
How do we find all those pages? We start at a set of well-connected initial pages and follow each of their links to new pages. Then we follow the links on those new pages to even more pages and so on, until we have a huge list of links. In fact, we found even more than 1 trillion individual links, but not all of them lead to unique web pages. Many pages have multiple URLs with exactly the same content or URLs that are auto-generated copies of each other. Even after removing those exact duplicates, we saw a trillion unique URLs, and the number of individual web pages out there is growing by several billion pages per day.
So how many unique pages does the web really contain? We don't know; we don't have time to look at them all! :-) Strictly speaking, the number of pages out there is infinite -- for example, web calendars may have a "next day" link, and we could follow that link forever, each time finding a "new" page. We're not doing that, obviously, since there would be little benefit to you. But this example shows that the size of the web really depends on your definition of what's a useful page, and there is no exact answer.
We don't index every one of those trillion pages -- many of them are similar to each other, or represent auto-generated content similar to the calendar example that isn't very useful to searchers. But we're proud to have the most comprehensive index of any search engine, and our goal always has been to index all the world's data.
To keep up with this volume of information, our systems have come a long way since the first set of web data Google processed to answer queries. Back then, we did everything in batches: one workstation could compute the PageRank graph on 26 million pages in a couple of hours, and that set of pages would be used as Google's index for a fixed period of time. Today, Google downloads the web continuously, collecting updated page information and re-processing the entire web-link graph several times per day. This graph of one trillion URLs is similar to a map made up of one trillion intersections. So multiple times every day, we do the computational equivalent of fully exploring every intersection of every road in the United States. Except it'd be a map about 50,000 times as big as the U.S., with 50,000 times as many roads and intersections.
As you can see, our distributed infrastructure allows applications to efficiently traverse a link graph with many trillions of connections, or quickly sort petabytes of data, just to prepare to answer the most important question: your next Google search.
How do we find all those pages? We start at a set of well-connected initial pages and follow each of their links to new pages. Then we follow the links on those new pages to even more pages and so on, until we have a huge list of links. In fact, we found even more than 1 trillion individual links, but not all of them lead to unique web pages. Many pages have multiple URLs with exactly the same content or URLs that are auto-generated copies of each other. Even after removing those exact duplicates, we saw a trillion unique URLs, and the number of individual web pages out there is growing by several billion pages per day.
So how many unique pages does the web really contain? We don't know; we don't have time to look at them all! :-) Strictly speaking, the number of pages out there is infinite -- for example, web calendars may have a "next day" link, and we could follow that link forever, each time finding a "new" page. We're not doing that, obviously, since there would be little benefit to you. But this example shows that the size of the web really depends on your definition of what's a useful page, and there is no exact answer.
We don't index every one of those trillion pages -- many of them are similar to each other, or represent auto-generated content similar to the calendar example that isn't very useful to searchers. But we're proud to have the most comprehensive index of any search engine, and our goal always has been to index all the world's data.
To keep up with this volume of information, our systems have come a long way since the first set of web data Google processed to answer queries. Back then, we did everything in batches: one workstation could compute the PageRank graph on 26 million pages in a couple of hours, and that set of pages would be used as Google's index for a fixed period of time. Today, Google downloads the web continuously, collecting updated page information and re-processing the entire web-link graph several times per day. This graph of one trillion URLs is similar to a map made up of one trillion intersections. So multiple times every day, we do the computational equivalent of fully exploring every intersection of every road in the United States. Except it'd be a map about 50,000 times as big as the U.S., with 50,000 times as many roads and intersections.
As you can see, our distributed infrastructure allows applications to efficiently traverse a link graph with many trillions of connections, or quickly sort petabytes of data, just to prepare to answer the most important question: your next Google search.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Sell your Entrecard Credits
Not to long ago I came across the EntreCard site and started reading what it had to offer and what I read I liked for it offers more traffice to your sites, new eyes will stop by to see what your site is about thats if you have the EntreCard widget you see these new visitors are Entrecarders and belong to Entrecard they show they are members of EntreCard by placing the Widget on their site. Your site of course is made known that you are a member of Entrecard by having the EntreCard widget on your site so the other members can stop by and drop their EntreCards on you, and then you can stop by and visit their sites and Drop an EntreCard on them. ITs a Fair Exchange, you Drop, I Drop and so on. EntreCarders will surely stop by to Drop their EntreCards. And now ENtreCard has something new to offer the much talked about and long awaited Entrecard Credit Exchange was partially implemented on June 3rd, 2008 and it is now possible to buy Entrecard Credits (ECs) directly from Entrecard. Coming soon will be the full implementation of the Credit Exchange where individual Entrecarders can sell their own ECs anonymously to other Entrecarders, which is even a bigger and more important development. But for the time being, let’s congratulate Entrecard for their boldness and wish them great success in their attempt to create a viable web currency with real dollar value.
To be sure, Entrecard isn’t going to get rich from the spread they are making on the sale of Entrecard Credits. Currently they are buying the ECs they are offering for sale from trusted Entrecarders at $7.50 per 1000 and they have Paypal fees to account for when they sell them at $9.50 per 1000. The small profit they will make will help pay for servers and other necessary expenses, but isn’t going to be what makes Entrecard a financial winner. No, the reason that this is a big move for Entrecard is that it provides a reason to stay in the Entrecard community for years instead of just a few months, and that’s what will help build Entrecard into a viable web property, ripe for the picking by cash-laden Internet biggies.
The mere fact that Entrecard could sell approximately 40000 ECs at $9.50 per 1000 shows that a captive market is more important that good market information. The current price of ECs via 3rd party vendors is around $3 per 1000, although that price should rise and needs to rise if the Credit Exchange is going to work. The big advantage Entrecard has isn’t the “trust” or “convenience” they are touting, but instead is the ability to advertise on each member’s dashboard. The Entrebank and other 3rd party EC vendors have been selling ECs since January and most–if not all– of the transactions have been completed quickly and without a hitch, using Paypal just as Entrecard does. However, I believe the point will soon be moot as once the Credit Exchange is fully functional there will be little need for 3rd party vendors and Entrecard will likely ban the practice so as to control all the sales of Entrecard Credits and reduce the likelihood that someone will abuse the system by creating splogs specifically to farm and sell ECs.
So, the first shoe has dropped and hopefully we won’t have to wait another 3 months for the other one to hit the floor heralding the arrival of the Entrecard Credit Exchange. What a great day to be an Entrecarder!
Tags: Uncategorized // 2 Comments »
An EntreAxe Falls
Be Sure to Leave Your Comments!
To be sure, Entrecard isn’t going to get rich from the spread they are making on the sale of Entrecard Credits. Currently they are buying the ECs they are offering for sale from trusted Entrecarders at $7.50 per 1000 and they have Paypal fees to account for when they sell them at $9.50 per 1000. The small profit they will make will help pay for servers and other necessary expenses, but isn’t going to be what makes Entrecard a financial winner. No, the reason that this is a big move for Entrecard is that it provides a reason to stay in the Entrecard community for years instead of just a few months, and that’s what will help build Entrecard into a viable web property, ripe for the picking by cash-laden Internet biggies.
The mere fact that Entrecard could sell approximately 40000 ECs at $9.50 per 1000 shows that a captive market is more important that good market information. The current price of ECs via 3rd party vendors is around $3 per 1000, although that price should rise and needs to rise if the Credit Exchange is going to work. The big advantage Entrecard has isn’t the “trust” or “convenience” they are touting, but instead is the ability to advertise on each member’s dashboard. The Entrebank and other 3rd party EC vendors have been selling ECs since January and most–if not all– of the transactions have been completed quickly and without a hitch, using Paypal just as Entrecard does. However, I believe the point will soon be moot as once the Credit Exchange is fully functional there will be little need for 3rd party vendors and Entrecard will likely ban the practice so as to control all the sales of Entrecard Credits and reduce the likelihood that someone will abuse the system by creating splogs specifically to farm and sell ECs.
So, the first shoe has dropped and hopefully we won’t have to wait another 3 months for the other one to hit the floor heralding the arrival of the Entrecard Credit Exchange. What a great day to be an Entrecarder!
Tags: Uncategorized // 2 Comments »
An EntreAxe Falls
Be Sure to Leave Your Comments!
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
TORCS = fun, Dungeon Hack = beauty
TORCS 1.3.1It has been a while since the last time I gave The Open Racing Car Simulator a try and this time I had unexpectedly much fun with it. Though some things are strange about it: the game generally runs smoothly, except for some rare, sporadic lags which make controls problematic for a second. There are great textures in the game but some of them are just bad (probably heritage from darker times.) I like the track's layouts but I wish there was an environment artist who would spice up TORCS' landscapes. Still, I think it's great.
There is a lack of a damage model, but it's still fun to practice an aggressive driving style sometimes. :) Oh yeah, I nearly forgot to tell you that I made a stupid little gameplay video.
I tried to compile the racing simulation from CVS and failed, but fortunately it is available in binary forms for Win/Lin/Mac and is easy to install.
One unusual aspect of the game's installer is that you can to choose to not install the unfree car models (although I don't know for sure how free the TORCS team's definition of free media is.)
Dungeon Hack landscapeDungeon Hack, a spiritual remake of Daggerfall, will be blessed with an editor some time soon. Hopefully they will make the jump from awesome landscape generator to kick-butt role-playing game!
I also hope there will be a GNU/Linux version available soon. The only other application of which I'm eagerly waiting for a GNU/Linux port is FxGen.
Other than that, there's not much to say about Dungeon Hack. The current aim is programming and not already bother with gameplay/visual details. I think this is a good sign: they're not trying to rush things or to do everything at the same time.
You can get version Alpha build 23 of Digital Paint Paintball 2. The game is one of those, which I never figured out how to play. Problem was with the last version I tried, that I was unable to disable the too-much-for-my-gfxcard-water/reflection-effects.
FreedroidRPG 0.11rc1 town's new lookFreedroidRPG 0.11rc1 has lots of new features:
- Level changes and additions
- Weapon additions and balancing
- Programs (spells) balancing and a new skill
- New music!
- Engine improvements (for example performance)
- Editor improvements (for example undo/redo functions)
I need to find some time for checking out that editor thingey!
CatchemRPG detailCatchemRPG is supposed to become a Pokemon games-like game. Can't say I'm very interested, but the sprites do like rather nice (wonder where they are from. RPGMaker XP?) Also it's written in Java, so you don't loose much time giving it a shot.
PS: Apricot aka Yo Frankie! (sight) would very much like you to animate a character for them.
Knol is open to everyone
A few months ago we announced that we were testing a new product called Knol. Knols are authoritative articles about specific topics, written by people who know about those subjects. Today, we're making Knol available to everyone.
The web contains vast amounts of information, but not everything worth knowing is on the web. An enormous amount of information resides in people's heads: millions of people know useful things and billions more could benefit from that knowledge. Knol will encourage these people to contribute their knowledge online and make it accessible to everyone.
The key principle behind Knol is authorship. Every knol will have an author (or group of authors) who put their name behind their content. It's their knol, their voice, their opinion. We expect that there will be multiple knols on the same subject, and we think that is good.
With Knol, we are introducing a new method for authors to work together that we call "moderated collaboration." With this feature, any reader can make suggested edits to a knol which the author may then choose to accept, reject, or modify before these contributions become visible to the public. This allows authors to accept suggestions from everyone in the world while remaining in control of their content. After all, their name is associated with it!
Knols include strong community tools which allow for many modes of interaction between readers and authors. People can submit comments, rate, or write a review of a knol. At the discretion of the author, a knol may include ads from our AdSense program. If an author chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with a revenue share from the proceeds of those ad placements.
We are happy to announce an agreement with the New Yorker magazine which allows any author to add one cartoon per knol from the New Yorker's extensive cartoon repository. Cartoons are an effective (and fun) way to make your point, even on the most serious topics.
Everyone knows something. See what people are writing about, then tell the world what you know: knol.google.com
The web contains vast amounts of information, but not everything worth knowing is on the web. An enormous amount of information resides in people's heads: millions of people know useful things and billions more could benefit from that knowledge. Knol will encourage these people to contribute their knowledge online and make it accessible to everyone.
The key principle behind Knol is authorship. Every knol will have an author (or group of authors) who put their name behind their content. It's their knol, their voice, their opinion. We expect that there will be multiple knols on the same subject, and we think that is good.
With Knol, we are introducing a new method for authors to work together that we call "moderated collaboration." With this feature, any reader can make suggested edits to a knol which the author may then choose to accept, reject, or modify before these contributions become visible to the public. This allows authors to accept suggestions from everyone in the world while remaining in control of their content. After all, their name is associated with it!
Knols include strong community tools which allow for many modes of interaction between readers and authors. People can submit comments, rate, or write a review of a knol. At the discretion of the author, a knol may include ads from our AdSense program. If an author chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with a revenue share from the proceeds of those ad placements.
We are happy to announce an agreement with the New Yorker magazine which allows any author to add one cartoon per knol from the New Yorker's extensive cartoon repository. Cartoons are an effective (and fun) way to make your point, even on the most serious topics.
Everyone knows something. See what people are writing about, then tell the world what you know: knol.google.com
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Back from dusmania, right to RubyWeekend...
Surt's goblin
Surt contributed the first model to OpenDungeons (and it looks good!) The model also was quickly incorporated by Timong into jClassicRPG.
Meanwhile, JackyJ (creator of the cool 3D platform-marble and physics game irrlamb) released the first version of Choria, which seems to be a parody of MMORPGs. It reminds me of the funny (though unfree) Progress Quest.
Word War vi has reached release 0.19! Controls are fine now and the side-scrolling arcade is lots of fun to play. It might be the first game with Xbox 360 controller rumble effects on Linux!
RubyWeekend #2 is happening this weekend. I'll be helping kiba with art stuffs. It's gonna be fuun! As you might have figured, the rules are to use ruby inside the time span of the weekend to create a game. :)
The 3D Ultima Online client remake Iris 2 scored first price (best project) at dusmania (german indie games ...party :) ).
Part of the dusmania was a overnight games creation competition. Our result (made with LÖVE) is lalalove (working title), a game inspired by Lost Garden's Celestial Music. Basically you connect stars, asteroids and planets, to create musical compositions. The current state isn't polished but playable and fun for some seconds. We're definitely going to make it kick ass!
Also: No more game videos on Vimeo allowed. Not sure if they permit videos of games you did yourself.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Remove No Follow Attribute on Comments
All Blogger templates have the No Follow attribute built into their comments. This is done to discourage comment spam. However you can, especially if you are a new blogger, encourage people to comment onyour blog by removing this attribute. The Nofollow attribute instructs the search spiders not to follow the link thus preventing the spread of "Google Juice"...........You can encourage people to comment on your blog once they recognize that links in comments are being followed. Also put a prominent text widget in your sidebar proclaiming that links in your comments are followed by the search bots. This will act as a freebait by sharing your link juice with fellow bloggers.
MODIFYING THE TEMPLATE To do this login to dashboard and click on layouts of your blog. Then click on Edit Html subtab of Template tab. First backup your template by clicking on the Download Full Template link. Put a check in the Expand Widgets Template Checkbox at the top of the Edit Template text box. This expands the Blog Posts Widget Code within which is the comments code. Then scroll down till you come to : the words in the code rel='nofollow' Delete the words rel='nofollow' and save the template. What can you do about it? Turn off “nofollow”. Show your commenters that you appreciate them. Spread the link love.
Turning off the “nofollow” on blog comments has become a sort of “movement”.Well, if we’re going to have a movement, we should have something to show our readers that we’re part of it, don’t you think? these logos were created by Nanieku and you can place them on your sites once you remove the No Follow attribute:
MODIFYING THE TEMPLATE To do this login to dashboard and click on layouts of your blog. Then click on Edit Html subtab of Template tab. First backup your template by clicking on the Download Full Template link. Put a check in the Expand Widgets Template Checkbox at the top of the Edit Template text box. This expands the Blog Posts Widget Code within which is the comments code. Then scroll down till you come to : the words in the code rel='nofollow' Delete the words rel='nofollow' and save the template. What can you do about it? Turn off “nofollow”. Show your commenters that you appreciate them. Spread the link love.
Turning off the “nofollow” on blog comments has become a sort of “movement”.Well, if we’re going to have a movement, we should have something to show our readers that we’re part of it, don’t you think? these logos were created by Nanieku and you can place them on your sites once you remove the No Follow attribute:
Make Money Blogging with MoreNiche
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
Be Sure to Leave Your Comments!
Bloggers need help with your Blogs
At some point in our journey with a blog all of us need help. It could be that you have no idea about how to get your blog started. It could be that along the way you hit an obstacle that you just can’t overcome. It could be that you would like to know how to make money with your blog. It could be that you need to know how to make your blog easier to find on the search engines. It could be that you are a business realizing the potential that blogging offers. It could be a lot of things.
The Importance of a Domain Name
After you have decided that you want to start a blog, choosing a domain name is one of the first decisions you have to make (The other early decision is whether you want to use a paid service to host your blog or use one of the free services available. We will talk about this in our next article in the series) . A domain name adds a lot to your site and is also valuable in helping you get noticed on the search engines. For this reason, the choosing of a domain name requires some thought. Here are some questions to think through:
What will your blog be about?
How do you plan on marketing your blog?
Would your name be a good choice?
Is it easy to remember?
Dos it make a difference if it is .com, .org, .net, .info, or .biz etc.?
And you thought choosing a domain name would be easy. Let me walk you through the questions.
What will your blog be about? Your domain name should most likely reflect the content of your blog. If I was going to write a blog about chicken wings (I really like chicken wings) I would consider getting a domain name with chicken wings in it. A name like chickenwings.com.
How do you plan on marketing your blog? In other words, how will you attract visitors to your site? Most blogs rely on the search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc.) to bring traffic them. If you will be depending on search engine traffic then your domain name really needs to have your blog content in mind.
Would your name be a good choice? For most people the answer would be no. Unless your name is already very recognizable, or you plan on using advertising to bring traffic to your blog and not rely on the search engines, you should probably stay away from your name. Having said that, some people have very successful blogs which use their name as the domain name. If you think that your name will eventually be the best brand for your blog then you can go with it. It will require more work up front.
Is it easy to remember? Stay away from long complicated domain names or domain names that are initials. For example, Ireallyreallylovechickenwings.com is to long. IRRLCW.com is impossible to remember. Where the process gets a little tricky is that even after you settle on a domain name, it is probably already taken by someone else. So you have to get creative. Instead of chickenwings.com you may have to go with chickenwingsoline.com.
Does it make a difference if it is a .com or .org or .net etc.? If you can get a .com that works for you then you should get it. However, if the .com isn’t available then the othe
r extensions are fine. This site is a .biz because the .com is being used by someone else.
Once you begin to settle on a domain name you need to see if it is available. I suggest you go to Good News Domains (www.goodnewsdomains.com) and use the free domain checker service. It is simple. Go to the site and where it says “Start Your Domain Name Search Here! just type in your proposed domain name and hit search. Let’s try it with chicken
wings:
And here come the results:
Chickenwings.com is taken. So are all the other chickenwing extensions. However, the people at Good News domains have provided you with some options that might work. Chirckewingsonline.com is available, as is chickenwingsblog.com, etc. So there are always options. Sometimes you might be able to find the domain name you really want if you are willing to pay an exaggerated price. I wouldn’t recommend it for most bloggers. You can find a variation of the name you want if you get creative. Why pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for something that shouldn’t cost more than 10 or 15 dollars a year?
Be Sure to Leave Your Comments! Author: Stephen Lawes
The Importance of a Domain Name
After you have decided that you want to start a blog, choosing a domain name is one of the first decisions you have to make (The other early decision is whether you want to use a paid service to host your blog or use one of the free services available. We will talk about this in our next article in the series) . A domain name adds a lot to your site and is also valuable in helping you get noticed on the search engines. For this reason, the choosing of a domain name requires some thought. Here are some questions to think through:
What will your blog be about?
How do you plan on marketing your blog?
Would your name be a good choice?
Is it easy to remember?
Dos it make a difference if it is .com, .org, .net, .info, or .biz etc.?
And you thought choosing a domain name would be easy. Let me walk you through the questions.
What will your blog be about? Your domain name should most likely reflect the content of your blog. If I was going to write a blog about chicken wings (I really like chicken wings) I would consider getting a domain name with chicken wings in it. A name like chickenwings.com.
How do you plan on marketing your blog? In other words, how will you attract visitors to your site? Most blogs rely on the search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc.) to bring traffic them. If you will be depending on search engine traffic then your domain name really needs to have your blog content in mind.
Would your name be a good choice? For most people the answer would be no. Unless your name is already very recognizable, or you plan on using advertising to bring traffic to your blog and not rely on the search engines, you should probably stay away from your name. Having said that, some people have very successful blogs which use their name as the domain name. If you think that your name will eventually be the best brand for your blog then you can go with it. It will require more work up front.
Is it easy to remember? Stay away from long complicated domain names or domain names that are initials. For example, Ireallyreallylovechickenwings.com is to long. IRRLCW.com is impossible to remember. Where the process gets a little tricky is that even after you settle on a domain name, it is probably already taken by someone else. So you have to get creative. Instead of chickenwings.com you may have to go with chickenwingsoline.com.
Does it make a difference if it is a .com or .org or .net etc.? If you can get a .com that works for you then you should get it. However, if the .com isn’t available then the othe
r extensions are fine. This site is a .biz because the .com is being used by someone else.Once you begin to settle on a domain name you need to see if it is available. I suggest you go to Good News Domains (www.goodnewsdomains.com) and use the free domain checker service. It is simple. Go to the site and where it says “Start Your Domain Name Search Here! just type in your proposed domain name and hit search. Let’s try it with chicken
wings:And here come the results:
Chickenwings.com is taken. So are all the other chickenwing extensions. However, the people at Good News domains have provided you with some options that might work. Chirckewingsonline.com is available, as is chickenwingsblog.com, etc. So there are always options. Sometimes you might be able to find the domain name you really want if you are willing to pay an exaggerated price. I wouldn’t recommend it for most bloggers. You can find a variation of the name you want if you get creative. Why pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for something that shouldn’t cost more than 10 or 15 dollars a year?
Be Sure to Leave Your Comments! Author: Stephen Lawes
Hitting 40 languages
One of our goals is to give everyone using Google the information they want, wherever they are, in whatever language they speak, and through whatever device they're using. A huge part of that goal is making our services available in as many languages as possible. And as I’m sure you can imagine, that isn't as easy as simply as translating a few lines of text.
Take Hebrew or Arabic, which are written from right to left. An Arabic speaker may search for [world cup football 2008] [كأس العالم 2008 لكرة القدم]. Part of the query will be written from right to left in Arabic, while the numbers will be written left to right. Sometimes the right-to-left difference can mean having to change the entire layout of a page, as with Gmail.
Or take Russian, where words change depending on their placement and role in a sentence. In Russian, for example [pizza in Moscow] is [пицца в Москве] but [pizza near Moscow] is [пицца рядом с Москвой].
Then there's the whole challenge of ensuring that results are locally relevant. While many Australians searching for [freedom] are looking for the Australian furniture chain, UK and US users are often looking for the definition of the word itself. Our search results, then, have to take into account these local differences.
Our efforts to make Google products available in as many languages as possible dates to 2001, when we started Google in Your Language, which lets volunteers translate and edit translations of Google products in their native languages.
As more and more users, advertisers, and partners interact with Google across the world, the need for local products has become even more obvious. In 2007, we undertook a company-wide initiative to increase the availability of our products in multiple languages. We picked the 40 languages read by over 98% of Internet users and got going, relying heavily on open source libraries such as ICU and other internationalization technologies to design products. Do you need web search in Chinese or AdWords online support in Spanish? Perhaps Google News in Hindi or Google Scholar in Korean? Not a problem.
Here's a taste of how far we've come.
Growth in local language versions.
Take Hebrew or Arabic, which are written from right to left. An Arabic speaker may search for [world cup football 2008] [كأس العالم 2008 لكرة القدم]. Part of the query will be written from right to left in Arabic, while the numbers will be written left to right. Sometimes the right-to-left difference can mean having to change the entire layout of a page, as with Gmail.
Or take Russian, where words change depending on their placement and role in a sentence. In Russian, for example [pizza in Moscow] is [пицца в Москве] but [pizza near Moscow] is [пицца рядом с Москвой].
Then there's the whole challenge of ensuring that results are locally relevant. While many Australians searching for [freedom] are looking for the Australian furniture chain, UK and US users are often looking for the definition of the word itself. Our search results, then, have to take into account these local differences.
Our efforts to make Google products available in as many languages as possible dates to 2001, when we started Google in Your Language, which lets volunteers translate and edit translations of Google products in their native languages.
As more and more users, advertisers, and partners interact with Google across the world, the need for local products has become even more obvious. In 2007, we undertook a company-wide initiative to increase the availability of our products in multiple languages. We picked the 40 languages read by over 98% of Internet users and got going, relying heavily on open source libraries such as ICU and other internationalization technologies to design products. Do you need web search in Chinese or AdWords online support in Spanish? Perhaps Google News in Hindi or Google Scholar in Korean? Not a problem.
Here's a taste of how far we've come.
Growth in local language versions. - 30 in 30: Today we have more than 30 products in more than 30 languages, up from 5 products in 30 languages just a year ago.
- In 2004, we had 150 local-language versions of various products (e.g. a product local to the UK, not just the English-speaking world); today we're at more than 1500.
- From January to March of 2008, we launched 256 local-language versions of various products, compared to 55 in the same period of 2007.
- We've upgraded to Unicode 5.1 to make sure that we can handle any characters people read or write in.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Celebrating young computer scientists
Last week, the ten grand prize winners for the first Google Highly Open Participation Contest, our initiative to get pre-university students involved in open source development. We were very excited to welcome these burgeoning computer scientists and their families to Silicon Valley in a celebration of their many accomplishments.
Chosen from more than 350 students worldwide, our winners created software, documentation and marketing materials for ten different open source projects, getting all this work accomplished in just over two months. For more details, including interviews with the winners and their mentors, check out the Google Open Source Blog.
Our grand prize winners and the Open Source team
Chosen from more than 350 students worldwide, our winners created software, documentation and marketing materials for ten different open source projects, getting all this work accomplished in just over two months. For more details, including interviews with the winners and their mentors, check out the Google Open Source Blog.
Introducing our European 2008 Anita Borg Scholars
A few months ago we had the great pleasure of announcing the fifth class of Anita Borg Scholars in the U.S. and our first class of Scholars in Canada. Now it's the Europeans' turn.
This scholarship program, originally established in the U.S. to honor the work of Anita Borg and to recognize outstanding young women scholars in computer science and related fields, expanded to Europe most recently. Nearly 300 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 31 countries applied for the award. Sixty-three finalists were selected; 20 women received a €5,000 scholarship for the 2008-2009 academic year. The remaining 43 finalists received a €1,000 award.
Each of the finalists visited our Engineering Centre in Zurich for our annual Scholars' Retreat, which included tech talks, career panels and social fun. All of it was a way for the young women to share experiences and come together as leaders in the computer science field.
Visit the Google Europe Anita Borg Scholarship page for more on the program. Hearty congratulations to these winners!
The 2008 Europe Anita Borg Scholars
- Cynthia Liem, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
- Despina Michael - University of Cyprus, Cyprus
- Dina Petri - University of Reading, UK; Aristotle University, Greece; Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
- Inbal Talgam -Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel
- Katy Howland - University of Sussex, UK
- Kerstin Wendt - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
- Ksenia Rogova - Petrozavodsk State University, Russia
- Mirela Ben-Chen - Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
- Nadezhda Baldina - Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology, Russia
- Olga Boronenko - University of Reading, UK; Aristotle University, Greece; Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
- Patricia Moore - Dublin City University, Ireland
- Rebecca Stewart - Queen Mary, University of London, UK
- Sara Elisabeth Adams - University of Oxford, UK
- Seda Gürses - Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
- Silvia Breu - University of Cambridge, UK
- Siska Fitrianie - Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
- Stefanie Jegelka - Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen, Germany
- Svetlana Obraztsova - Steklov Institute of Mathematics, Russia
- Sylvia Rueda - University of Nottingham, UK
- Ulyana Tikhonova - Saint Petersburg State Polytechnical University, Russia
Update: Added photo.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Blogging Tips - Trackbacks
Introduction to Trackbacks
The following post has been submitted by Andy Wibbels: A topic constantly asked for information about.
Summary: TrackBacks automate the interlinking of blog posts, but often don’t contribute to search engine ranking.
TrackBacks are notoriously difficult to explain and is an exercise that makes a great judge of the skill of any self-described ‘blogging expert.’ So here I go!
You get comments right? Easy enough. You write a post on your blog. Someone reads it and thinks you’re either sliced bread or vile ooze and comments accordingly. Just like having a mini-guestbook for each post.
What if I want to leave a comment about your blog post on my blog? That’s where TrackBacks come in.
Let’s say I read something pretty fantastic on your blog and so I write up a post about on my blog: “Hey you gotta check this out, here’s a quote from it and here’s the link to it.” And I link to that particular post on your blog. And I click publish.
Unbeknownst to most, your blog platform - whether it is WordPress or Movable Type or TypePad, scans all the links in a post each time a post is published. It finds my link to your post and then goes out to your blog and checks to see if your post is accepting TrackBacks. If so, my blog sends a little ping! to your blog as if to say, ‘Hey! Andy’s talking about you over on his blog.’ and your blog answers the ping and says ‘Alright, I’ll make a note of it.’ And then your blog makes a little note on that particular post that in effect says, “Besides all these comments under this post, here’s someone talking about this post on their own site - and here’s the link to it.”
So readers of your blog can see not just what the commenters are saying about it on your blog - but what other bloggers are saying about. I’ve seen a post’s list of TrackBacks described as ‘Other blogs linking to this post.’ Many blog tools, like WordPress, lump comments and TrackBacks into the same list.
You don’t have to know how TrackBacks work in order to use them, you can simply set a post to be able to receive trackbacks and set your blog to send them when you publish new posts. Your blog platform should do all the heavy lifting and email you when there are new TrackBacks - just like it does when there are new comments to a post.
TrackBack was first created by Ben and Mena Trott during the early days of Movable Type and has gradually been integrated into the features of most popular blog platforms. A similar technology is pingbacks which has the added security of checking to see if the pinging site actually exists.
Of course like anything fun or cool online, the evil bastard spammers got busy funneling their sewage into automated TrackBacks pingbots that left everyone’s blogs with dainty messages about mortgages, online poker and Viagra. Most comment spam blockers are now configured to also scan TrackBacks to help stem the tide of spammy TrackBacks.
One of the best parts about TrackBack is that it helped to increase your blog’s linked-ness and search engine ranking. With the introduction of the ‘no follow’ attribute, links in comments and TrackBacks are usually often not included in the calculation of your blog’s Google PageRank. I presume this applies to the other search engines as well. Still, the findability may not be in the search ranking - but links from other blogs is always a Good Thing.
In TypePad:
To enable TrackBacks by default in TypePad, go to Weblogs > (Your Blog) > Configure > Preferences > Comment and TrackBack Preferences: Check the checkbox ‘Hold comments and TrackBacks for approval.’ And set Default TrackBack Status set to ‘New posts accept TrackBacks.’ (for receiving TrackBacks)
In WordPress:
To enable TrackBacks by default in WordPress ,go to Options > Discussion: Check the checkbox ‘Attempt to notify any Weblogs linked to from the article.’ (for sending TrackBacks) Check the check box ‘Allow link notifications from other Weblogs. (for receiving TrackBacks)
In Movable Type:
To enable TrackBacks by default in Movable Type, go to (Your Blog) > Configuration > Preferences > Publicity/Remote Interfaces/TrackBack: Check the checkbox ‘Allow TrackBack Pings On by Default.’ (for sending TrackBacks) Check the checkbox ‘Email New TrackBack Pings.’ Check the checkbox ‘Enable TrackBack Auto-Discovery.’ (for receiving TrackBacks)
Source:
Andy Wibbels is an award-winning blogger and author of Blogwild! A Guide for Small Business Blogging. He has helped companies all over the world use blogs to market their businesses through seminars like Blog Your Way to a Bestseller, Easy Bake Weblogs, RSS Essentials, Podcasting Bootcamp and Business Blog Basics (co-creator). Andy is co-creator of the Six Figure Blogging seminar, with Darren Rowse.
Be Sure to Leave Your Comments!
The following post has been submitted by Andy Wibbels: A topic constantly asked for information about.
Summary: TrackBacks automate the interlinking of blog posts, but often don’t contribute to search engine ranking.
TrackBacks are notoriously difficult to explain and is an exercise that makes a great judge of the skill of any self-described ‘blogging expert.’ So here I go!
You get comments right? Easy enough. You write a post on your blog. Someone reads it and thinks you’re either sliced bread or vile ooze and comments accordingly. Just like having a mini-guestbook for each post.
What if I want to leave a comment about your blog post on my blog? That’s where TrackBacks come in.
Let’s say I read something pretty fantastic on your blog and so I write up a post about on my blog: “Hey you gotta check this out, here’s a quote from it and here’s the link to it.” And I link to that particular post on your blog. And I click publish.
Unbeknownst to most, your blog platform - whether it is WordPress or Movable Type or TypePad, scans all the links in a post each time a post is published. It finds my link to your post and then goes out to your blog and checks to see if your post is accepting TrackBacks. If so, my blog sends a little ping! to your blog as if to say, ‘Hey! Andy’s talking about you over on his blog.’ and your blog answers the ping and says ‘Alright, I’ll make a note of it.’ And then your blog makes a little note on that particular post that in effect says, “Besides all these comments under this post, here’s someone talking about this post on their own site - and here’s the link to it.”
So readers of your blog can see not just what the commenters are saying about it on your blog - but what other bloggers are saying about. I’ve seen a post’s list of TrackBacks described as ‘Other blogs linking to this post.’ Many blog tools, like WordPress, lump comments and TrackBacks into the same list.
You don’t have to know how TrackBacks work in order to use them, you can simply set a post to be able to receive trackbacks and set your blog to send them when you publish new posts. Your blog platform should do all the heavy lifting and email you when there are new TrackBacks - just like it does when there are new comments to a post.
TrackBack was first created by Ben and Mena Trott during the early days of Movable Type and has gradually been integrated into the features of most popular blog platforms. A similar technology is pingbacks which has the added security of checking to see if the pinging site actually exists.
Of course like anything fun or cool online, the evil bastard spammers got busy funneling their sewage into automated TrackBacks pingbots that left everyone’s blogs with dainty messages about mortgages, online poker and Viagra. Most comment spam blockers are now configured to also scan TrackBacks to help stem the tide of spammy TrackBacks.
One of the best parts about TrackBack is that it helped to increase your blog’s linked-ness and search engine ranking. With the introduction of the ‘no follow’ attribute, links in comments and TrackBacks are usually often not included in the calculation of your blog’s Google PageRank. I presume this applies to the other search engines as well. Still, the findability may not be in the search ranking - but links from other blogs is always a Good Thing.
In TypePad:
To enable TrackBacks by default in TypePad, go to Weblogs > (Your Blog) > Configure > Preferences > Comment and TrackBack Preferences: Check the checkbox ‘Hold comments and TrackBacks for approval.’ And set Default TrackBack Status set to ‘New posts accept TrackBacks.’ (for receiving TrackBacks)
In WordPress:
To enable TrackBacks by default in WordPress ,go to Options > Discussion: Check the checkbox ‘Attempt to notify any Weblogs linked to from the article.’ (for sending TrackBacks) Check the check box ‘Allow link notifications from other Weblogs. (for receiving TrackBacks)
In Movable Type:
To enable TrackBacks by default in Movable Type, go to (Your Blog) > Configuration > Preferences > Publicity/Remote Interfaces/TrackBack: Check the checkbox ‘Allow TrackBack Pings On by Default.’ (for sending TrackBacks) Check the checkbox ‘Email New TrackBack Pings.’ Check the checkbox ‘Enable TrackBack Auto-Discovery.’ (for receiving TrackBacks)
Source:
Andy Wibbels is an award-winning blogger and author of Blogwild! A Guide for Small Business Blogging. He has helped companies all over the world use blogs to market their businesses through seminars like Blog Your Way to a Bestseller, Easy Bake Weblogs, RSS Essentials, Podcasting Bootcamp and Business Blog Basics (co-creator). Andy is co-creator of the Six Figure Blogging seminar, with Darren Rowse.
Be Sure to Leave Your Comments!
Templates bring Docs to life
What do wedding planners, gas mileage calculators and photo albums have in common? They're all examples of templates available in the Google Docs Template Gallery that Sarah Beth Eisinger (Docs Templates engineer), Grant Dasher (intern), and I built and (happily!) released today.
When researching how people use templates, we saw that lots of you create documents for all aspects of your lives. You need resumes and cover letters to look for jobs and fax cover letters and invoices to run your businesses. And of course you want to use documents in fun ways with family and friends, such as unique designs and layouts for invitation cards and calendars. Finally, everyone wants to be able to have tools that "just work": print mailing labels, track portfolio values, and manage projects without having to painstakingly create documents from scratch.
These needs inspired our new templates and gallery. We developed these in conjunction with Avery Dennison, Vertex42.com, TemplateZone, and Visa Business.
Many templates leverage the collaborative aspect of Google Docs so that several people can work on a single document online without having to email attachments back and forth. To hear the story behind two templates, watch these videos:
To get started, go directly to the template gallery or access it from the "New" menu in your document list. Templates are currently available only in English, but other languages are coming soon. They're also available to Google Apps users.
(Cross-posted on the Google Docs Blog.)
When researching how people use templates, we saw that lots of you create documents for all aspects of your lives. You need resumes and cover letters to look for jobs and fax cover letters and invoices to run your businesses. And of course you want to use documents in fun ways with family and friends, such as unique designs and layouts for invitation cards and calendars. Finally, everyone wants to be able to have tools that "just work": print mailing labels, track portfolio values, and manage projects without having to painstakingly create documents from scratch.
These needs inspired our new templates and gallery. We developed these in conjunction with Avery Dennison, Vertex42.com, TemplateZone, and Visa Business.
Many templates leverage the collaborative aspect of Google Docs so that several people can work on a single document online without having to email attachments back and forth. To hear the story behind two templates, watch these videos:
To get started, go directly to the template gallery or access it from the "New" menu in your document list. Templates are currently available only in English, but other languages are coming soon. They're also available to Google Apps users.
(Cross-posted on the Google Docs Blog.)
Technologies behind Google ranking
In my previous post, I introduced the philosophies behind Google ranking. As part of our effort to discuss search quality, I want to tell you more about the technologies behind our ranking. The core technology in our ranking system comes from the academic field of Information Retrieval (IR). The IR community has studied search for almost 50 years. It uses statistical signals of word salience, like word frequency, to rank pages. (See "Modern Information Retrieval: A Brief Overview" for a quick overview of IR technology.) IR gave us a solid foundation, and we have built a tremendous system on top using links, page structure, and many other such innovations.
Search in the last decade has moved from give me what I said to give me what I want. User expectations from search have rightly increased. We work hard to fulfill the expectations of each and every user, and to do that we need to better understand the pages, the queries, and our users. Over the last decade we have pushed the technologies for understanding these three components (of the search process) to completely new dimensions.
When we talk about queries at Google, we use square brackets [ ] to mark the beginning and end of queries (see "How to write queries" by Matt Cutts), a notation I will use throughout this post. (Pages and search results change frequently, so in time, some examples used here may not behave as explained.)
Search in the last decade has moved from give me what I said to give me what I want. User expectations from search have rightly increased. We work hard to fulfill the expectations of each and every user, and to do that we need to better understand the pages, the queries, and our users. Over the last decade we have pushed the technologies for understanding these three components (of the search process) to completely new dimensions.
When we talk about queries at Google, we use square brackets [ ] to mark the beginning and end of queries (see "How to write queries" by Matt Cutts), a notation I will use throughout this post. (Pages and search results change frequently, so in time, some examples used here may not behave as explained.)
- Understanding pages: Over years we have invested heavily in our crawl and indexing system. As a result we have a very large and very fresh index. In addition to size and freshness, we have improved our index in other ways. One of the key technologies we have developed to understand pages is associating important concepts to a page even when they are not obvious on the page. We find the official homepage for Sprovieri Gallery in London for the Italian query [galleria sprovieri londra], even though the official page does not have either London or Londra on it. In the U.S., a user searching for [cool tech pc vancouver, wa] finds the homepage www.cooltechpc.com even though the page does not mention anywhere that they are in Vancouver, WA. Other technologies we have developed include distinctions between important and less important words in the page and the freshness of the information on the page.
- Understanding queries: It is critical that we understand what our users are looking for (beyond just the few words in their query). We have made several notable advances in this area including a best-in-class spelling suggestion system, an advanced synonyms system, and a very strong concept analysis system.
Most users have used our spelling suggestion system at one time or another. It knows that someone searching for [kofee annan] is really searching for Mr. Kofi Annan, and is prompted: Did you mean: kofi annan; whereas someone searching for [kofee beans] is actually looking for coffee beans. Doing this internationally with very high accuracy is hard, and we do it well.
Synonyms are the foundation of our query understanding work. This is one of the hardest problems we are solving at Google. Though sometimes obvious to humans, it is an unsolved problem in automatic language processing. As a user, I don't want to think too much about what words I should use in my queries. Often I don't even know what the right words are. This is where our synonyms system comes into action. Our synonyms system can do sophisticated query modifications, e.g., it knows that the word 'Dr' in the query [Dr Zhivago] stands for Doctor whereas in [Rodeo Dr] it means Drive. A user looking for [back bumper repair] gets results about rear bumper repair. For [Ramstein ab], we automatically look for Ramstein Air Base; for the query query [b&b ab] we search for Bed and Breakfasts in Alberta, Canada. We have developed this level of query understanding for almost one hundred different languages, which is what I am truly proud of.
Another technology we use in our ranking system is concept identification. Identifying critical concepts in the query allows us to return much more relevant results. For example, our algorithms understand that in the query [new york times square church] the user is looking for the well-known church in Times Square and not for articles from the New York Times. We don't just stop at identifying concepts; we further enhance the query with the right concepts when, for instance, someone looking for [PC and its impact on people] is in fact looking for impact of computers on society, or someone who searches for [rainforest instructional activities for vocabulary] is really looking for rain forest lesson plans. Our query analysis algorithms have many such state-of-the-art techniques built into them, and once again, we do this internationally in almost every language we serve.
- Understanding users: Our work on interpreting user intent is aimed at returning results people really want, not just what they said in their query. This work starts with a world class localization system, and adds to it our advanced personalization technology, and several other great strides we have made in interpreting user intent, e.g. Universal Search.
Our clear focus on "best locally relevant results served globally" is reflected in our work on localization. The same query typed in multiple countries may deserve completely different results. A user looking for [bank] in the US should get American banks, whereas a user in the UK is either looking for the Bank Fashion line or for British financial institutions. The results for this query should return local financial institutions in other English speaking countries like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa. The fun really starts when this query is typed in non-English-speaking countries like Egypt, Israel, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland. Likewise the query [football] refers to entirely different sports in Australia, the UK, and the US. These examples mostly show how we get the localized version of the same concept correctly (financial institution, sport, etc.). However, the same query can mean entirely different things in different countries. For example, [Côte d'Or] is a geographic region in France - but it is a large chocolate manufacturer in neighboring French-speaking Belgium; and yes, we get that right too :-).
Personalization is another strong feature in our search system which tailors search results to individual users. Users who are logged-in while searching and have signed up for Web History get results that are more relevant for them than the general Google results. For example, someone who does a lot football-related searches might get more football related results for [giants], while other users might get results related to the baseball team. Similarly, if you tend to prefer results from a particular shopping site, you will be more likely to get results from that site when you search for products. Our evaluation shows that users who get personalized results find them to be more relevant than non-personalized results.
Another case of user intent can be observed for the query [chevrolet magnum]. Magnum is actually made by Dodge and not Chevrolet. So we present the results for Dodge Magnum with the prompt See results for: dodge magnum in our result set.
Our work on Universal Search is another example of how we interpret user intent to give them what they (sometimes) really want. Someone searching for [bangalore] not only gets the important web pages, they also get a map, a video showing street life, traffic, etc. in Bangalore -- watching this video I almost feel I am there :-) -- and at the time of writing there is relevant news and relevant blogs about Bangalore.
Finally let me briefly mention the latest advance we have made in search: Cross Language Information Retrieval (CLIR). CLIR allows users to first discover information that is not in their language, and then using Google's translation technology, we make this information accessible. I call this advance: give me what I want in any language. A user looking for Tony Blair's biography in Russia who types the query in Russian [Тони Блэр биография] is prompted at the bottom of our results to search the English web with:
Similarly a user searching for Disney movie songs in Egypt with the query [أغاني أفلام ديزني] is prompted to search the English web. We are very excited about CLIR as it truly brings us closer to our mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.I hope my two posts about Google ranking have made it clear that we live and breathe search, and we are more passionate than ever about it. Our fervor for serving all our users worldwide is unprecedented. We pride ourselves in running a very good ranking system, and are working incredibly hard every day to make it even better.
I could go on and on showing examples of state-of-the-art technology that we have developed to make our ranking system as good as it is, but the fact is that search is nowhere close to being a solved problem. Many queries still don't get satisfactory results from Google, and each such query is an opportunity to improve our ranking system. I am confident that with numerous techniques under development in our group, we will make large improvements to our ranking algorithms in the near future.
Students surf their way to success
Early on in my career at Google I was approached by a former professor of mine, Jamie Murphy, who was eager to give his students hands-on exposure to online marketing. Apart from delivering a great learning experience, Jamie wanted to make sure that his students would leave university with skills they could take directly into the workforce.
Together, Jamie and I recruited a panel of professors from all over the globe and came up with the Google Online Marketing Challenge. Student teams had to identify a local business with a website, but no experience of online marketing, and then were given free Google AdWords vouchers worth the equivalent of US$200. The student teams worked with the local business to set up an AdWords account and structure an online marketing campaign which would increase web traffic and sales for the local business. The teams had three weeks to run the campaign and had to submit their campaign report to a panel of international academic judges.
Today we're announcing the winners: an innovative team from the University of Western Australia who worked with an indoor rock-climbing school that scaled the heights and scooped the global prize. The winners will be whisked off to Mountain View, California for a tour of the Googleplex and meet with the creators of AdWords and other executives. To help them in their ongoing studies, each team member will also receive an Apple MacBook Pro.
These four teams were clearly deserving winners, but the enthusiasm all the students and professors showed for the challenge was inspiring. We initially expected slightly more than 1,000 students to take part, and were thrilled when c. 8,500 students from 47+ countries put their marketing skills to the test.
The success of the challenge and the positive feedback we've had from both professors and students was more than we had hoped for. As Dr. Fang Liu, who taught the winning team, notes:
Together, Jamie and I recruited a panel of professors from all over the globe and came up with the Google Online Marketing Challenge. Student teams had to identify a local business with a website, but no experience of online marketing, and then were given free Google AdWords vouchers worth the equivalent of US$200. The student teams worked with the local business to set up an AdWords account and structure an online marketing campaign which would increase web traffic and sales for the local business. The teams had three weeks to run the campaign and had to submit their campaign report to a panel of international academic judges.
Today we're announcing the winners: an innovative team from the University of Western Australia who worked with an indoor rock-climbing school that scaled the heights and scooped the global prize. The winners will be whisked off to Mountain View, California for a tour of the Googleplex and meet with the creators of AdWords and other executives. To help them in their ongoing studies, each team member will also receive an Apple MacBook Pro.
L to R: Dr. Fang Liu, Glen Linthorne (from the partner business),
Victor Tsen (hanging), Amy Smith, Aaron Balm, and Lauren Bobridge. Absent: Anna Usikov.
There were also three regional winners, including students from Pennsylvania State University, who won in the fierce Americas field, while a team from the Universität Bern in Switzerland beat some impressive competition to win for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The Asia Pacific winners came from the Australian Graduate School of Management with a skillful campaign for a small specialty cake business (actually based in California).Victor Tsen (hanging), Amy Smith, Aaron Balm, and Lauren Bobridge. Absent: Anna Usikov.
These four teams were clearly deserving winners, but the enthusiasm all the students and professors showed for the challenge was inspiring. We initially expected slightly more than 1,000 students to take part, and were thrilled when c. 8,500 students from 47+ countries put their marketing skills to the test.
The success of the challenge and the positive feedback we've had from both professors and students was more than we had hoped for. As Dr. Fang Liu, who taught the winning team, notes:
“The Online Marketing Challenge offers a great opportunity for students to develop their skills and experience in online marketing. Local businesses also benefit as the AdWords campaigns have helped promote their business to a wider community. I feel absolutely thrilled that one of my student teams is the global winner."We're delighted to have worked with professors to find a fun and innovative way to introduce online marketing into the university curriculum. And we're happy to say the Challenge will carry on next year, and we hope it will go from strength to strength. Here are more details on the Challenge and our winners.
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