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Well the last few days have been brutal! I have spent more time moving and rearranging on my desktop computer I’m actually tired and it still isn’t quite finished yet. It all started this past Saturday when I decided to analyze then defragment all of my directories.  What started out to be something simple turned into very long process as the main directory had a small amount of space on it.

So what I did was skim through my directories and uninstall programs that were no longer being used. I couldn’t make up my mind which I wanted to keep and that made things more difficult. The program I used was a real hoot as when booted then showed my C: drive, it was so messed up, the colors reminded me of Skittles candy!

I used this program called Tune Up Utilities which analyzed the system then corrected any registration errors. After that I ran another program called O & O Defrag. There still are a few other programs to be but I’m not sure if I want to remove them just yet. Eventually I will format and install Linux I just don’t have the time to go through all of that process.

It is about to get very exciting in our television world the next few months if it has not started already. All television stations will be changing from analog to digital as of February 17, 2009. This is an issue that is occurring by law so everyone with an analog television will be effected if they are not ready before hand. I’ll explain it in easier terms, this means residents who own televisions with antennas (aka bunny ears) will no longer get a signal. That also means they will no longer be able to receive their favorite programs. The good news is this can be corrected very easily. You have a few options to choose from depending upon your situation and how you wish to resolve it.

First, don’t panic. The next thing to do is calmly ask yourself the question,”do I want to keep my current television or do I want to purchase a new one?” That answer will help determine a lot. If you are ready to purchase a new television, keep your options open as there are multiple sets on the market so be prepared to ask questions and not settle with the first thing you see. If you are not in the market for a new television just yet that’s okay, you have other options.

You can purchase cable if it is available in your area. After you purchase cable, you won’t need to do anything else as you will have all of your television stations back. Another option is to purchase one of the many converter boxes available on the market. It is best to research the many boxes that are on the market and find the best product that will work for your situation. They come in various shapes and sizes so it is important to see what is available for your price range and your television. The National Association of Broadcasters built a web site that discusses the digital television conversion and includes information answering multiple questions regarding this conversion. The web site URL is:

DTV Answers

Apparently Google hasn’t budged yet. I saw an interesting article today discussing a letter from the ex AOL patriot that has been trying to push this deal through for Microsoft from day one. The most interesting of this has been the fact that Mr. Icahn would gain an extreme amount out of this merge as he has put a lot of interest in Yahoo and spent a lot of money to build a nice stock pile. It raises the question, who would actually get the most benefit out of this merger, Microsoft or Mr. Icahn himself personally? Microsoft has already made their millions with Windows. Yahoo is technically a risk investment that can slowly regain its profit.

I also wonder if Google has given up on the idea of obtaining Yahoo and assumes they would be safer without making a buyout purchase. At the same time, this situation also makes me visualize a snow lion hunting for prey. The lion (Google) will continue to circle until the prey (Yahoo) has gotten tired and stopped running. The lion can then pounce on the prey when the timing is right.

It will be interesting to see how things develop now that businesses are entering into their new fiscal year.

Just a note to the readers wishing you all a safe and Happy Memorial Day!

God Bless the troops across America and overseas! Thank you for your service!

I read an interesting article that discussed Yahoo and it has raised some questions. What I have difficulty understanding is why would a web master ban Yahoo from crawling their web site? Does the search engine no longer qualify to be worthy enough since it was due to be purchased from Microsoft and now Google is looking at it?

Does Your Web Site Need a Workout?
By Kalena Jordan (c) 2008

Here’s an analogy for you. Yesterday, I was working my butt off in the gym on the cardio machines, panting wildly with sweat dripping off me and my face as red as a beet. Not the most attractive sight, but I figure, you’re at the gym to work out right? I might as well “go hard” or “go home”, as they say.

As I looked around me, I could see all these people simply going through the motions. There they were, minus perspiration in their shiny new lycra and expensive gym shoes, casually walking on the treadmill or lazily turning the wheels on a bike while reading a book or glued to the TV screens in front of them. Only a few seemed to be there for the actual purpose of working out. The rest seemed to be there to check out the talent or to simply keep up the appearance of fitness, while doing the bare minimum.

Huh? I don’t get it. Why have these gym bimbos paid so much money for a gym membership and all the related gear if they aren’t going to take full advantage of their investment?

Then it struck me - these gymbos were just like those companies who spend thousands of dollars on a shiny new website with all the bells and whistles like graphic design, blogs, shopping carts, web analytics, the lot and then fail to take advantage of it. I see it so often, regardless of company size. Web sites that could easily be bringing in loads of traffic and revenue simply wasting away because nobody can be bothered tracking visitor activity, analyzing trends or checking for search engine compatibility and usability.

These companies are simply keeping up appearances, investing heavily in Internet technology because their competitors are doing the same. But no thought has gone into the search engine compatibility of the site, how usable it is for visitors or whether it meets accessibility guidelines. They don’t look at their site statistics, they don’t check for broken links and they sure as heck don’t investigate why their sites aren’t converting traffic into customers. What a waste!

Is your web site working hard enough for you? Run it through the following 20 point fitness assessment to find out:

Is your site fully search engine compatible? Are all your pages being indexed by the major search engines?

Do you track your visitor statistics on a regular basis? Do you use the information provided by your visitor statistics to improve your site?

Is your web site accessible to visually-impaired visitors? Does it meet the international standards set down by the Web Accessibility Initiative [http://www.w3.org/WAI/] (WAI)?

Do you know which sites and search engines provide you with the most traffic? Do you use this information to increase your traffic further?

Do you track the source of all reported errors in your site statistics and fix them promptly?

Do you know which keywords your site was found for in the search engines? Have you conducted keyword research to determine what search terms your target markets are looking for so you can optimize for them?

Does your web site HTML code validate to W3 standards (http://validator.w3.org/)? Do you check for validation regularly?

Does your site contain zero broken links? Do you check for and fix broken links (http://validator.w3.org/checklink) regularly?

Has your site been fully search engine optimized to integrate your target search terms into your Page Titles, META Tags and visible page text?

Have you created and submitted an XML sitemap to Google Sitemaps (https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login)?

Have you created and submitted a sitemap to Yahoo Site Explorer (http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/)?

Have you checked to see if your site meets Google’s Webmaster Guidelines (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769)?

Do you measure your visitor sign-ups and conversions on a regular basis? Do you tweak your landing page copy to increase the conversion rates?

Is your site navigation intuitive and are your visitors following the navigation paths you intended?

Do you encourage feedback from your site visitors and provide an obvious way for them to provide such feedback?

Are there at least 250 words of text on your home page to satisfy search engines?

Does your site contain a visible, text-based site map to aid user navigation?

Do you have an ongoing link building campaign running to secure more incoming links to your site and improve your site’s link popularity score?

Does your site have a high percentage of repeat visitors? Are the majority of your visitors staying on your site for more than a minute?

Do your search engine referrals and site traffic figures grow each month?

Unless you can answer yes to all the questions in the above checklist, your web site is not working hard enough for you and needs a workout. Get to it!
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Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running a daily Search Engine Advice Column (http://www.ask-kalena.com/), Kalena manages Search Engine College (http://www.searchenginecollege.com/) - an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and other Search Engine Marketing subjects.

As a child from the 1970s, I have seen the Atari, Intellivision, and the Nintendo while growing up. I remember coming home from school and playing all of the big video games that were really hip back in the day. I think my favorite ones were Zelda and Ms. PacMan but then again I did like Castlevania and Qbert was pretty good. There were some others I can remember like Asteroids and Space Invaders on Atari.

Many years later, the Nintendo Wii comes onto the market. It took us awhile to get one but we finally managed to and I have to say it is impressive. The controllers are easy to handle and there is a band which wraps around your wrist and allows you to tighten so it stays snug. The most interesting thing I have found with the Nintendo Wii is how they have programmed it to work. For example in the bowling game, you actually hold the controller like you would a bowling ball then act as if you are going to throw it but release a button instead.

I’ve played a few of the others and they aren’t too bad for the sports games. All in all I have to say, I’m happy with it and I think Nintendo did an okay job. I would be happy to hear what other’s opinions are regarding this.

I just saw a release on wired.com today that Mozilla is really making speed with the browser application and it sounds awesome. There still is a little ways to go with development and removing the bugs before it can be released to the public however Mozilla has made progress and I’m getting excited to see what they have done to it. From the reading, it sounds like speed will be improved when obtaining mail which always is a good thing.

According to wired.com, since Firefox 3 is in beta mode, Mozilla is asking for developers who want to help test for bugs so they can obtain a final product. Here is the link to read the full article and obtain all information if you are interested in getting involved:

http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2008/05/mozilla-firefox.html

I knew it was only a matter of time and Windows XP will be coming to an end. We can say goodbye to Windows XP updates as Microsoft will no longer be doing them. Why is this happening? It is unsure however the best guess would be this is so all companies that sell a computer with a Windows operating system are forced to use Windows Vista install.  When is this due to happen? The date listed for Windows XP to go farewell is June 30.

I read a May article of Computerworld that discussed why Windows was closing. It does raise the question what users are going to do once XP is discontinued considering the problems with Vista. Will customers move ahead and hope for the best or would they consider changing to Tiger or Ubuntu for a whole new system? On a good note, the author noted, Windows XP will be available after the 30th of June it just has to be purchased on E-bay or places such as Amazon. Here is a link to read the article in its entirety:

http://cio.com/article/370363/FAQ_Microsoft_XP_Operating_System_Discontinued_End_of_Life/1

I happen to do some searching on the Internet tonight and stumbled across a web site via dev.opera.com which I actually found quite interesting. I’ve been out of the loop for awhile and not paying attention to W3C but there has been a few things occurring. The HTML language I have come accustomed to writing over the past many years is now developing.

In an an article I located on the Internet, that was discussing the differences and it sounds this upgrade will be an improvement. From what I have read, it sounds as if W3C is improving the HTML 4 code structure and providing additional structure so it is going to benefit all browsers without excessive coding.

Here is some helpful documentation explaining the upgrade to HTML 5 including additional information.

The first working draft of HTML 5

HTML 5 differences from HTML 4