Google Pagerank Update

A new Google PageRank update is underway. PageRank is a number that signifies something about the importance of a page to Google (based on the pages linking to it) that can be seen with a Google Toolbar. The PageRank is not the most important factor in search results but it is an easy view to how important a page is so is some webmasters find it interesting. I have seen many pages rise in PageRank but also some fall by one point - noticing falling PageRank seems more common this time around.

The displayed PageRank is updated perhaps every two months. Google uses live data in determining search results, so you finally seeing the updated PageRank should not effect how your site fairs in search results. PageRank follows a logarithmic scale (so, for example, a 6 PageRank is 10 times greater than a PageRank 5 - of course really it can be from just a tiny bit better [just "over the line" that separates 6 from 5] to almost 100 times greater.

Painless Team WhiteBoarding

Looks interesting: Twiddla - Painless Team WhiteBoarding.


1000 Signups on Day One! - "This guy had some pretty good points, so I stepped out for about 15 minutes and built the 'Lemme In!' button. I pushed the build live and Things. Went. NUTS."

Kate Walsh - Homemade Album #1 on iTunes

The Songbird Who's outselling Take That with her Homemade Album:

Acoustic guitarist Kate Walsh has knocked Take That off the top of the iTunes download album chart - but does not even own an iPod. The 23-year-old guitarist recorded her album in a friend's bedroom and named it Tim's House in his honour.

Kate Walsh - My Space

Google Personalize Home Page

I like Google's personalized home page. You can include news feeds, stock quotes, gmail... on one page. The Google reader is also very nice though I find it very annoying that it often is reloading that content section (when it is reloading it spins a graphic which is distracting and more importantly removes all the content). I can't imagine it is meant to work the way it does for me where it is in that reloading state more than it is in a usable state. Does anyone know how I can get it to work more effectively for me (even turning off reloading so it only reloaded when I requested it would be much better than the current state).

Google recently added some personalized graphic headers which are without any practical value but I like the one I have been using. The graphic changes throughout the day. I am sure they are working on having it reflect the weather at your location too - I would be doing so on my 20% time if I were there :-)





Related: Suggestions for Google - Web Search Improvements - Google Search Results - Cloaking..

The Case for Physically Separated Bike Lanes

The Case for Physically Separated Bike Lanes - video with good ideas.

Related: Traffic Congestion and a Non-Solution - Urban Planning in Northern Virginia - Red light cameras

Traffic Deaths:

During the same span (2003-2006), about 4 million have died worldwide in traffic accidents. The number of these deaths is rising steadily in most nations, with road fatalities on track to become the world's third-leading cause of death - —that is, traffic accidents look exactly like a pandemic.

World Health Organization Traffic Death Report: 1.2 million deaths a year.

Google Search Results - Cloaking...

My comments on: A quick word about cloaking:

I consider the issue in a much better state now, in that most (all?) Google searchers get the identical page to what Googlebot saw. But I still consider Philipp’s February posts open for investigation, and I will get to them, in the same way that I tackled Philipp’s first two posts about this.

March 4th:
Good. This is a problem with that has bothered me for a long time. Here is one post from 2005 I made: http://management.curiouscatblog.net/2005/01/30/web-search-improvements/

I would think Google could come up with a user participation tool that could help identify this type of behavior. Just give people the ability to click something saying the search link didn’t return the expected results or something (I am sure Google can work on the details). I am sure Google can figure out how to separate, from that feedback, the problematic web sites from all the mistaken, malicious… clicks. Then those few sites, site sections and pages that systemically appear could be forwarded for human examination. This really doesn’t seem like it would be very tricky.

I suppose Google might worry about he confusion such an attempt might cause regular users. Ok, just make it an option. Then users that like me use Google alot and get annoyed at having to ignore those sites I have learned won’t provide the content Google says they will can choose to participate. Yes I understand this will create a self selected population identifying problems but I really don’t see that as a problem.

Another options I mentioned in 2005 is to give me a way of adding a list of websites I don’t want returned. Actually now I can just use a Google CSE to do this. In fact I just did - http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=002278424765197393586%3Alfichkez90e&hl=en I excluded webmasterworld.com to test it out and it does work. Less than 2 minutes to do. This doesn’t do anything for those who think it is unfair for some to have Google return cloaked pages as results, but it does help if you just want to exclude certain sites from your results.



March 23rd:
In Search results: “Do Shareholders Have the Clout to Rein in Excessive Executive Pay...
Warren Buffett’s latest attack on excessive executive compensation is another chapter in the long-running saga about how much to pay top business leaders,”

page: knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=780

But that isn’t the page the site gives web browsers who are instead forwarded to:

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/signup.cfm?CFID=6066164&CFTOKEN=76742544

As I stated before I think having these results might well be fine but options should be provided to users to exclude these sites normally (but you can click an option to provide links that are matches but require additional hoops be jumped through - hopefully the option could be separated - show free registration sites and show sites where pay is required to view results. Also over time this should have the option for me to tell Google which sites I want included by default (say I have subscriptions to 3 sites already…). When I suggested this years ago I figured it might be a bit early to expect. I would have expected it by now.

Trackback Spam

Blogger doesn't use trackback (the ability to automatically receive notice when other posts link to your blog post) which is a shame (though Blogger does have linkback). However the trackback system has been largely broken by immoral people who have resorted to sending false trackbacks. Just like the email scammers that have caused huge amounts of grief for those that attempt to use email these trackback spammers burden others with their intrusive acts. It is a shame people insist on being so immoral but just as always there are plenty of people who insist on acting immorally and technology often makes it easier for these people to burden more people with their immoral behavior than they could impose their bad behavior on without technology.

For wordpress bloggers Akismet does a great job of filtering out spam (comments, pingbacks and trackbacks). But our blogs are now getting thousands of false trackbacks per day and I don't appreciate the huge amount of spam (which makes it impossible to check and see if any false positives were found). Many site have given up and just eliminated trackback (sort of like giving up on the auto because people put big advertising signs in the street so that no one could actual use the roads for the intended purpose and we just let these people remove the rights of others to travel).

I tried a plugin from Rice University: Trackback Validator Plugin and then WordPress 2.0 / 1.5.x Plugin: Referrer Bouncer, they didn't do enough good that I could tell (I only tried for an hour but if they did anything they just reduced the spam some).

In reading the comments on those trying the above I read about an akismet option to automatically delete any spam that is on post older than one month old. This seems to be working very well, for now, and I believe it allows posts to accept legitimate trackbacks which I think is important. Another success for open source software solutions - yay.

Great Photos of Animals

Suneko's Animal Photos, great photos like this one.

Quinn and Dixie Go to the Racetrack

Moral Education:

The problem with lucking out with your children is that your children don't appreciate their luck—and the lucky feeling is more than half of the pleasure. You go to all this trouble to get them an education, and they promptly forget the lessons. On the drive home I explain to them that it isn't common for two little girls to walk into a racetrack in the middle of the day for a single horse race and wind up in the winner's circle, holding winning tickets, with the horse's jockey on one arm and the horse's owner on the other. Not to mention getting serious screen time on every OTB network.

March Madness

Join the Curious Cat March Madness group on ESPN and track your picks against other Curious Cat readers. Group name is: curiouscat.

Think Like an Ant

Last year at this time we mentioned why it is important to plan ahead by saving for retirement:

Savings for retirement is difficult mainly because of our trouble planning for the long term, it is not at all a complex problem. The fable of the ant and the grasshopper illustrates this point very simply and it is really that simple. People need to do a better job of applying the lessons from that story to their retirement savings.

This is a great time to add to your IRA for 2006, if you have not done so already and for 2007, you have through April 15th (or when you file you taxes, I think?). If you already added to your IRA for last year take this time to add to your 2007 IRA.

Related: IRA information - Roth IRAs for everyone - retirement related posts from our investment blog

Software For Virtual Teams

Software For Virtual Teams: Skype, GoToMeeting, Basecamp, Google Calendar, Code Repository, Backup, Accounting / Payroll.

In addition, virtual companies consist of happier employees. These are people who do not need to spend time in traffic, people who save money on gas, people who conserve resources and, perhaps most significantly, people who spend more time with their family. So perhaps this simple, yet very profound, application of technology is the beginning of a new trend and the way we will mostly work and communicate in the future.

I agree. Also IM, Wordpress and Wiki.

Walter Reed Patients Told to Keep Quiet

Walter Reed patients told to keep quiet:

The Pentagon also clamped down on media coverage of any and all Defense Department medical facilities, to include suspending planned projects by CNN and the Discovery Channel, saying in an e-mail to spokespeople: “It will be in most cases not appropriate to engage the media while this review takes place,” referring to an investigation of the problems at Walter Reed.

It seems to me this is the time it makes the most appropriate for the media to be engaged. The media brought to light the problem and got the Department to investigate and take action to improve conditions. It sure seems like the real reason to make it difficult for the media to report what the conditions the soldiers face is they don't want the public to know. Which is worrying.

I understand the desire to avoid bad publicity but heath care for soldiers is more important than avoiding bad publicity.

13 Things For Ubuntu

13 Things to do immediately after installing Ubuntu:

1. Enabling/Adding Extra Repositories
...
10 . Installing the extra multimedia codecs,players
12 . Installing beagle
13. Installing gdesklets

Tourists and Attractions

Roll up, roll up, and watch the Mona Lisa weep

Just a few weeks ago the Sistine Chapel took action to protect the Michelangelo and Botticelli frescoes, cutting opening hours and raising prices. My recent memory of this, the ultimate shrine of Christian art, was struggling to stay on my feet in the middle of a yammering mob while a team of young priests went hoarse calling for silence and respect. It was like Grand Central Station, except that there just wasn’t room to sit down and weep.

As anyone visiting popular sites has, I have noticed the same thing (the photo shows the room with the Mona Lisa in it). It seems like the only likely solution is to use attractions to draw the crowds, like months to a flame, and then try to enjoy what remains. This works better at places like the Grand Canyon where you can hike for days but most tourists spend 17 minutes outside looking at nature according the a Park Ranger the last time I was there.

Even on the South Rim hiking down one of the trails, leaves the crowds behind in just 30 minutes (and on the North Rim I hiked 2 different days without seeing more than a handful of people (granted it was literally the first 2 days the lodge on the North Rim opened.

But even this will be overwhelmed with time. So I figure they should add several trails at national parks just to attract the hoards and then I can go on more remote trails and enjoy them. Even if they are not the best trails they will still be great and I prefer having the option to avoid the crowds. With other museums I am sure you can do the same type of thing, though someone probably needs to repackage this concept to be "more positive" before it will be used on a wide scale.

A strategy for museums is to go early or late stay until closing (though even this at the Louvre is not that great a help but at many places it is).

Photos: Paris photos - Grand Canyon National Park - The MET, NYC - Rocky Mountain National Park

Havidol - drug parody

Havidol - when more is not enough

Problems can be avoided if you take HAVIDOL only when you are able to immediately benefit from its effects. To fully benefit from HAVIDOL patients are encouraged to engage in activities requiring exceptional mental, motor, and consumptive coordination. HAVIDOL is not for you if you have abruptly stopped using alcohol or sedatives. Havidol should be taken indefinitely.

Related: Drug breakthrough for fashionable new mental illness - Justine Cooper: Havidol - Epidemic of Diagnoses - Slogan Satire

Track Conversations Online

Worth watching.

coComment is a new service which allows you to enjoy the full potential of comment-based conversation on the web. Before coComment, comments made across different sites (such as blogs, photosharing services, news sites, and others providing the ability for readers to leave comments) did not come together into a clear conversation, but were fragmented, hard to follow, and untrackable discussions.

Using coComment, you can now keep track of all the comments and discussions your are participating in or observing on the web. When someone adds something to the comment stream or discussion, you'll be notified. And, if you're a blogger, you can display the comments you make elsewhere back on your own blog.

The Dangers of Default Passwords

The Dangers of Default Passwords:

Researchers at Symantec Corp. have devised a series of "proof-of-concept" exploits that show how an Internet user running any one of several name-brand, $50 - $100 routers under the default factory settings could be in a world of trouble in a very short time, just by browsing to a malicious Web site. One of the easiest ways to commandeer a factory-set wireless router remotely is through the use of Javascript, a powerful Web programming language that makes it easy for Web sites to monkey with or otherwise manipulate a computer's settings.

Time Series Data Library

Time Series Data Library - lots of time series data on all sorts of things: economics, sports, chemistry, crime, health...

Threesome - Flash Game

Fun, simple flash game: Threesome.