The other day I wrote about how I have moved JewishTweets notified me of a popular recent story named The Stalled Server Room.

The short story is that this company's server room is now part of the office's bathroom. Too make a long story short, the company had to switch offices. But the new office in the building did not have room for a server room. So they put the server room in a closet that is only accessible through the woman's bathroom.

Here is the email from the building management company:

As you all are aware, we have new tenants that have moved into the 2nd floor suites. The access to the server room is now via the women’s bathroom.

There will be a sign on the woman’s door that can be changed
from OPEN to CLOSED and vice versa.

Should you need to enter the server room, please change the sign
to CLOSED. Once you are done, please change it back to OPEN.

Once you enter the bathroom, you will be able to access the
server room via the handicapped stall. Please close the stall
door prior to entry, just in case someone doesn’t see that the
bathroom is closed.

I know this isn’t ideal, but if we adhere to this protocol, I
don’t think anyone will be disrupted.

Thanks! Let me know if you have any questions.

And I was complaining about moving domains to a new server. Imagine if I had to move my servers into a bathroom.

Posted at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Category: Just Funny | Comments (2) (0)

Daily Search Coverage:

Video recap is live. Google tells us how they prevent spam and SEO tips. Moving to the US? Yahoo Slurp being banned. Use Google Ad Manager to squeeze out more income from AdSense. I wrote about Plurk. SEOs, back yourself up. How many pages do you need for SEO? Does Google crawl paths? There is a new trademark case in search.

Search Engine Roundtable Topics:

1. Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: June 29, 2008
2. Why Did Google Tells Us They May Use Cookies To Prevent Spam?
3. Moving to a U.S Hosted Server: Will it Impact Country Specific SEO?
4. Some Webmasters Are Banning Yahoo Slurp
5. Use Google Ad Manager To Set Minimum AdSense eCPM
6. Plurk Brings Micro Forums, Like Twitter Brought Micro Blogging
7. Search Engine Optimizers Should Back Up Their Statements!
8. Is there a Minimum Number of Pages Required for Decent Organic Rankings?
9. Is Google Crawling Absolute Paths?

Search Engine Land Topics:

1. Competitors Taking Action Against Competitors For Search Ad Trademark Infringement
2. Matt Cutts On SEO Tips & Fighting Spam

Daily Link Finds:

This is the June 30th, issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the Search Engine Roundtable. All links I find throughout the day that ad some commentary to the posts written over at the Search Engine Roundtable, will be in the Daily Link Finds. The purpose is two fold: (1) To help people find discussion around our articles and (2) To thank people for linking to us. How do I find these links? Only one way, via a Google Blog Search link command, so make sure that (1) you are in Google Blog Search and (2) link to us.

Daily Link Finds for June 30th, 2008:

• Forums Niches, Thirty Day Challenge Forums
• Real purpose of YouTube annotations gets unnoticed as people dive into "birth of Long-Form video" discussions, Reactive Software Blog
• Bloggers with cartoon on their blogs, Blogjer
• Overture Keyword Tool finalmente morta pelo Yahoo?, fabioricotta
• 25 Pay Per Click Survival Tips, Palmer Web Marketing
• Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool desaparece, Ojobuscador.com
• Tools For Staying Current with SEO News, Percms
• Confidential: 22 Google Laws Leaked, SPEQLEN
• Google rassegna news 30/06/08, Googlisti.com
• SEO 2.0 - Digital Asset Optimization, digital asset management weblog

Posted at 2:08 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Link Finds , Daily Search Coverage | Comments (0) (0) | Speak

It has been a long time since I had a boring weekend. In fact, I miss them. Nothing like being able to sit around, watch TV and just relax. So after work on Sunday, I came home, got a quick hair cut and then got a tie. After that, I went home and simply relaxed.

I got a green tie, I don't have many green ties.

In any event, I really want this 8-bit tie. Maybe one day, someone will buy it for me and Ill have an excuse to wear it.

Posted at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Grind | Comments (1) (0)

Many of you know I am a Neil Young fan. But I am not sure I told you about the first time I remember hearing his music. I believe it started with a song called, "Old Man." I first heard the song when I was maybe 9 years-old. I borrowed my older brother's mix tape (mix tapes, too funny) and walkman (walkman, too funny) for a class trip. No idea what was on the tape, I just wanted something to listen to while on the bus trip. I remember listening to it on the way there and really enjoying the song.

So I decided to post some YouTube videos of Neil Young performing Old Man throughout his career. Here they are:

Bob Dylan covering Old Man:

There are many more covers...

Posted at 4:54 PM | Permalink | Category: Music | Comments (2) (0)

Daily Search Coverage:

Google stops advertisers from pointing ads at search results. Google makes minor update to webmaster tools. Yahoo drops keyword tool. Google adds two more AdSense reps. Yahoo defends itself. Power to the white hats! Google looks beyond the past query. Searchers love to Google for the iPhone. A new iGoogle is being tested. Search in pictures is out.

Search Engine Roundtable Topics:

1. Google Disables AdWords Ads Pointing to Google.com Search Results
2. Google Moves Crawl Stats Charts to Statistics Section in Webmaster Tools
3. Yahoo Finally Kills Overture's Keyword Suggestion Tool?
4. Google Adds Two New AdSense Representatives to Google Groups Support
5. Yahoo Prepares Massive Upper Management Reorganization for Possible Acquisitions
6. The Evolution and Power of White Hat SEO

Search Engine Land Topics:

1. Google Looking At Multiple Previous Queries To Tailor Search Ads
2. Google Searchers Love The iPhone
3. Search In Pictures: Yahoo Volleyball & Casinos, Pamela Fox of Google, & Ask Productivity
4. Test The New iGoogle, Google's Personalized Home Page

Daily Link Finds:

This is the June 27th, issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the Search Engine Roundtable. All links I find throughout the day that ad some commentary to the posts written over at the Search Engine Roundtable, will be in the Daily Link Finds. The purpose is two fold: (1) To help people find discussion around our articles and (2) To thank people for linking to us. How do I find these links? Only one way, via a Google Blog Search link command, so make sure that (1) you are in Google Blog Search and (2) link to us.

Daily Link Finds for June 27th, 2008:

• Crea tu propio TLD, desmarkt.com
• My Thoughts On Ask.com & Core Search, BruceClay.com
• SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 26, 2008, Search Engine Land
• Google Ad Planner (beta), Media Planning Tool, WebmasterWorld
• Google preferisce lALT al TITLE (per le immagini)?, Tagliaerbe.com
• SEO Blowout From Google! Must Read! - Webmaster Forum, v7n.com
• Sphinn - Porn Continues to Invade Google Web Search Through Universal Search, Sphinn
• Sphinn - Screen Shots of Google's Ad Planner, Sphinn
• The Happening: Google Adsense Ads Missing, Technobiography
• Why your link-building techniques suck - SEO Theory - SEO Theory and Analysis Blog, seo-theory.com
• Yahoo People Search Redesigned - Yahoo! Buzz, buzz.yahoo.com

Posted at 2:17 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Link Finds , Daily Search Coverage | Comments (0) (0) | Speak

I live in New York, but I am about 20 minutes from New Jersey. New Jersey gas prices are much cheaper than New York prices - so I typically like to fill-up in New Jersey, when I pass through.

Yesterday morning the gas tank light went on. I was too busy to get gas in the morning and in the afternoon when I went out to pick up a bite, I was too lazy to stop for gas. On the way home, I learned about possible news that required me to drive to New Jersey. So I decided to hold out and see if I can make it 20 minutes to the first gas station in New Jersey.

Typically, I make these decisions when I am driving solo. But my wife was with me this time and she doesn't like it when the gas light is on. Which wife does? :) But she braved the drive with me and we pulled up to the gas station and filled up for $4.01 per gallon. Then, as we continued down the highway, I noticed gas stations selling gas for $3.55, I was bummed we didn't try to go longer and get that price.

This is not the first time I wrote about this topic, I wrote about driving on empty with my old car as well. Note the image above really doesn't due justice to the dial, the dial was on empty and the light was orange for a long long time.

So how far can you go?

Posted at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Category: Motor Vehicle | Comments (3) (0)

Last night, my wife's sister got engaged to a wonderful guy she has been going out with for almost two years (I think that it's been almost two years). So last night, we had a small party for the family, to celebrate. I won't get into the details of the party or stuff like that but I will tell you that it is now official --- I am the short and stumpy one. Yes, I am leading myself up for some fun comments below, but hey - it's fun.

Here is a picture of the (now) three brother-in-laws:

I masked their faces because I didn't obtain approval from them to post the picture and it is actually funnier this way.

Okay, guess who I am... Yea, that is me on the left. Then the most senior brother-in-law, in the middle, who has taught me a lot and guided me through joining the new family. Then the new brother-in-law, who is still skinny and tall (that will change) is on the right. Notice the progression. Typically, I should be in the middle, since I was married for a shorter period of time - but I break the rules.

So there you have it. My fate has been sealed. I am the short and stumpy brother-in-law and son-in-law. But I am proud to be in that position. At least I don't fall in between and no one notices me ;-).

In any event, Mazol Tov! Welcome to the family and I look forward to squeezing into my tuxedo at the wedding!

Posted at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (7) (0)

I got this great client that has offices both in New York City and Tel Aviv, Israel. They are named American Israel Cultural Foundation, basically they hook up sponsorships for Israel students looking to pursue their culturural talents. If you are into music, art, dance, etc - and you are computer savvy, you might like this job.

The job description is attached as a PDF file. Review it.

If you are interested in this job then email orit AT aicf DOT co DOT il.

Posted at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Category: RustyBrick | Comments (0) (0)

Daily Search Coverage:

Yahoo cleans up people search. Do more toolbar PageRank updates happen quietly? Check out a Google malware warning. Find do follow sites. Google updates links in webmaster tools. Link building tips that are risk free. Ask is not focused on core search. 404 errors galore!

Search Engine Roundtable Topics:

1. Yahoo People Search Redesigned
2. Does Google Conduct Minor Toolbar PageRank Updates Between Major Updates?
3. What Does a Google Malware Warning Look Like in Webmaster Tools?
4. Google Webmaster Tools Link Update & "Download This Table" Feature is Back
5. A dofollow Blog Google Custom Search Engine
6. Risk-Free Link Building Techniques?
7. Ask.com: Not Focused on Core Search, or is it?
8. What to Do When You Have a 404 Error

Search Engine Land Topics:

1. Sorry, Ask.com -- I Still Don't Think You're Focused On Core Search

Daily Link Finds:

This is the June 27th, issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the Search Engine Roundtable. All links I find throughout the day that ad some commentary to the posts written over at the Search Engine Roundtable, will be in the Daily Link Finds. The purpose is two fold: (1) To help people find discussion around our articles and (2) To thank people for linking to us. How do I find these links? Only one way, via a Google Blog Search link command, so make sure that (1) you are in Google Blog Search and (2) link to us.

Daily Link Finds for June 27th, 2008:

• Google reveals the ad partner information for advertisers, winandmac.com
• SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 25, 2008, Search Engine Land
• Techmeme: Google to Unveil New Ad-Planning Tool (Miguel Helft/Bits), Techmeme
• Techmeme: Introducing Google Ad Planner (Emel Mutlu/Inside AdWords), Techmeme
• 5 Authority Sites With A PageRank Penalty, SEOco
• At Google, 'Long URLs' Can Land Your Website in Trouble!, PageTraffic SEO Blog
• Google Ad Planner, Microhoo, TaT
• Higher Education Internet Marketers Links of the Week June 26th, 2008, .eduGuru
• Matt Cutts Talks about Alt Attributes in Images!, PageTraffic SEO Blog
• My Today's 10 Most Favorite SEO Blog Posts, Marc Baumann
• SMX advanced recap, sepguy.com
• Sorry, Ask.com -- I Still Don't Think You're Focused On Core Search, Search Engine Land
• Techmeme: Sorry, Ask.com - I Still Don't Think You're Focused On Core Search (Danny Sullivan/Search Engine Land), Techmeme

Posted at 3:27 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Link Finds , Daily Search Coverage | Comments (0) (0) | Speak

Many of you already saw the article from the Wall Street Journal named Web Domains Could Expand Broadly Under New Plan.

If not, in short it says, the company that manages the domain names, ICANN, said they will be offering a plan for companies and organizations to purchase their own TLD (top level domain). A told level domain is the .com or .net or .co.il portion of the domain name. So www.cartoonbarry.com's TLD is the .com. Now, I do not own the .com portion, I own the cartoonbarry portion.

ICANN is structuring a way to allow the sale of TLDs. So if IBM wanted their own TLD, they can get .ibm. If New York City wanted their own TLD, they can get .nyc. But it doesn't come cheap. The Wall Street Journal said the "cost somewhere between $100,000 and $500,000."

It isn't a crazy or unreasonable price. I say, we (SEOs & SEMs) pool together funds under an organization (SEMPO?) to purchase .SEO and .SEM (.SMO for socials?). What you think? Worth it? Think Google will ban the .seo TLDs before they even come out? ;-)

Posted at 1:32 PM | Permalink | Category: SEO Tips | Comments (7) (0)

Whooaaa....

In the past 24 hours or so, my brother and I went through a list of about 200 domains and moved all of them, except about 15 - which we are waiting on. We are moving to new managed hosting provider and we need to move the name servers as well.

The past week we moved all the sites, including this blog, to the new servers. We first updated the old name servers to point the sites to the new IP address, or the new servers. Once that was set and everything was tested as working, we imported all of our name server records (about 200) and moved them all. Keep in mind, we don't act as the name server for all our sites, but probably most of them.

I would say about half of those domain names were easy to move, because either the client made the change in their domain registrar or I had access to make those changes for them. The other half required me to obtain the registrar login information from the customer. Most of them have no clue what a domain registrar is anyway, so getting that information - was not fun.

In any event, we are almost done - only have 17 domain names left. Once we move the rest off, then we are freed completely from our old hosting provider. As you can tell, I am looking forward to that day. My realistic goal is to be freed completely no later then this Monday.

Posted at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Category: RustyBrick | Comments (3) (0)

Here is a huge poll, very fun to read and participate in. Go to Chris Hooley's blog and give it a vote or twenty.

Here are the categories I am listed in:

- SEO Most Likely to Succeed
- Most Athletic SEO
- Best SEO Blogger
- Biggest SEO Nerd
- SEO Social Media Addict
- SEO Most Likely to Become President
- Mr / Ms Congeniality

Funny stuff...

Posted at 5:50 PM | Permalink | Category: Blogging | Comments (0) (0)

Daily Search Coverage:

You can run but you can't hide from Google Ad Planner. Google Sitemaps has a new dynamic content error. Google prefers alternative text to the title attribute. Google launched map maker. Can you serve up query content? Google posts official recordings of live chat.

Search Engine Roundtable Topics:

1. Google Prefers Alt Attribute in Images
2. Google Sitemaps New Error: "Dynamic Content"
3. Detailed Screen Shots of Google's New Ad Planner :: Wow!
4. Google Map Maker Launched
5. Serving Different Content Based on Search Query: Is This Allowed?

Search Engine Land Topics:

1. Google Posts Official Webmaster Help Group Chat Recordings, Transcript & Presentations

Daily Link Finds:

This is the June 26th, issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the Search Engine Roundtable. All links I find throughout the day that ad some commentary to the posts written over at the Search Engine Roundtable, will be in the Daily Link Finds. The purpose is two fold: (1) To help people find discussion around our articles and (2) To thank people for linking to us. How do I find these links? Only one way, via a Google Blog Search link command, so make sure that (1) you are in Google Blog Search and (2) link to us.

Daily Link Finds for June 26th, 2008:

• Google Celebrates Five Years of AdSense Success, cybernetnews.com
• SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 24, 2008, Search Engine Land
• Some Great Must Read Articles for the Week, seoaware.com
• Techmeme: iPhone 3G to launch at 8:00 AM on July 11th? (The Boy Genius/Boy Genius Report), Techmeme
• All Your Ads Belong To The Goog, BruceClay.com
• Google Ad Planner Complete Walkthrough, Arthur Freydin
• Google launch Ad Planner, BackboneITGroup News
• Google Trends for Websites Begins Fireworks Early, Aloa's News Blogs
• Herramientas SEO: Google Trends para webs, Novedades 2.0
• How to Attract Links and Increase Web Traffic - The Ultimate Guide, I N F O T A I N M E N T
• Learn Success With Randy Brown, SearchFeature.Com Interview
• O que tenho andado a fazer, Ego Strip

Posted at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Link Finds , Daily Search Coverage | Comments (0) (0) | Speak

Wow wow wow. I posted screen caps of Google Ad Planner and now I decided to see who you guys - yes you, reading this blog, are.

(1) You are mostly male

(2) Mostly between 35- and 44

(3) Mostly educated

(4) All sorts of income brackets

Whoo are you? :)

Posted at 9:19 AM | Permalink | Category: Blogging | Comments (4) (0)

The iPhone is available for purchase on July 11th. I was strongly considering waiting on line that day. Today, I realized I accidently scheduled a meeting for that day.

I just heard rumors today that they go on sale at 8am, local time. This comes via Boy Genius, who has the rumor. But 8am make sense, being that you have to activate the phone in the store.

So, I'll likely move the meeting to a different date.

Posted at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Category: Apple Macs , iPhone | Comments (3) (0)

Daily Search Coverage:

Porn is an issue for Google, so they ask for help. Google AdWords search, too good? Get Google in your paid ads. Google being hypocritical? Google launched ad planner. Matt Cutts in USA Today. Is Google our moral compass?

Search Engine Roundtable Topics:

1. Porn Continues to Invade Google Web Search Through Universal Search
2. Is Google's AdWords Search Too Inclusive?
3. Get Google.com in Your AdWords Display URL
4. Does Google Needs an Ombudsman or Not?
5. Google Launches Ad Planner - What Google Really Knows About Your Sites
6. Matt Cutts Talks to USA Today About Google Optimization Techniques

Search Engine Land Topics:

1. Google The "Moral Compass" Of The US Justice System?
2. Google Adds "Report Images" To Web Search Results

Daily Link Finds:

This is the June 24th, issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the Search Engine Roundtable. All links I find throughout the day that ad some commentary to the posts written over at the Search Engine Roundtable, will be in the Daily Link Finds. The purpose is two fold: (1) To help people find discussion around our articles and (2) To thank people for linking to us. How do I find these links? Only one way, via a Google Blog Search link command, so make sure that (1) you are in Google Blog Search and (2) link to us.

Daily Link Finds for June 24th, 2008:

• SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 23, 2008, Search Engine Land
• COLD CASE: Who killed Threadwatch Last Year?, Web Professor
• David Mihm's Local Search Ranking Factors, Eric Lander
• El porno invade los resultados de Google, Pagerank SEO
• Google Adds "Report Images" To Web Search Results, Search Engine Land
• Google The "Moral Compass" Of The US Justice System?, Search Engine Land
• Google Trends para webs, adseok.com
• Lo que debemos saber sobre Google, daniblog.com
• SEO Daily Reading - Issue 81, Raven SEO Tools
• Techmeme: Introducing Google Ad Planner (Emel Mutlu/Inside AdWords), Techmeme
• What are Leapfrogg reading this week? (5), FroggBlog

Posted at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Link Finds , Daily Search Coverage | Comments (0) (0) | Speak

I am not the type of person to ask people for discounts. I just feel ashamed to ask people to give me a discount on the price they gave me. Why? Level of respect? Someone gives you a price, you would hope they give you the best possible price they can. This doesn't mean I never ever ask for a "best price," I do on occasion, depending on the situation, but I would say I rarely ever do that.

Do I have look down to people who always ask for discounts? No way! In fact, my mom is great at it. I think it is great. But it isn't for me - not my personality.

How about when clients or prospects ask me for a discount? I can tell you that I never discount my prices to prospects. I give a prospect a price and I stick with it. I believe I am giving them the best possible price. Some prospects ask if I can come down on price and I 99.9999% always say no, this is the best price. If I can do better on the price, why would I have not done that from the start? I don't believe on getting more money out of people who won't ask for discounts. I believe in giving everyone a fair price.

There is a whole part two to this post, but I don't think I will write that now. Maybe later...

Posted at 9:08 AM | Permalink | Category: Rambling | Comments (6) (0)

It all started with me sleeping on the sofa, my A/C unit broke. I had the service guy come three times and I am losing trust in my air conditioner, for obvious reasons.

The first time, I was told that the Freon level was overcharged. Meaning, the fan was on, but the compressor shut off cause it was "over charged". Supposedly, putting too much freon in the air conditioner will overcharge the compressor and it won't cool the house. Having too little freon will cause the compression not to cool the house as well.

So when they came the first time, they adjusted those levels. But they didn't do it 100% correctly. So they came back two days later to re-level the freon. Now, a week and a half later, I had them come back again. This time, the A/C unit worked for them when they came back. He did nothing to the freon levels.

He did say that the Freon levels are "almost perfect" and now that it is working, he doesn't want to change them. If it stops working again, call him and they will come back and adjust the levels slightly to make them 100% perfect. He also suggested that they might move the thermostat - but he doesn't think that is the issue.

So now, I am in wait mode. Wait for it to fail to call them back so they can play with it again. Not 100% happy but it could be worse, a lot worse - I do have it good.

How do they test Freon levels? The picture above from this site shows exactly what the AC guy was doing. The tank hooks up to those pressure gauges, which hooks up to the AC unit, somewhere. The pressure gauges tell you if the levels are proper. Supposedly, it is good to get those levels before every season.

Posted at 5:37 PM | Permalink | Category: Homey | Comments (1) (0)

Daily Search Coverage:

My video recap is live. Google Trends for websites launches. Google adds API for webmaster tools. Long URLs may hurt you, well - maybe not. We got screen shots of AdSense fonts. Google removes marker locator tool. AdSense turns five. Negative SEO is alive and well. McCain gets Google bombed. Google is a rocking corporation.

Search Engine Roundtable Topics:

1. Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: June 22, 2008
2. Google Trends for Websites : Rather Not Have It? Seriously?
3. Finally, We Get an API for Google Webmaster Tools, But...
4. Google Says, Long URLs May Hurt You
5. Screen Shots of More Google AdSense Fonts
6. Google Reconsiders "Incorrect Maps Location Marker" Reinclusion
7. Google AdSense Turns Five Years Old
8. Is Negative SEO Still Possible?

Search Engine Land Topics:

1. Google Adds API To Webmaster Tools
2. John McCain's Google Bomb
3. Google's Corporate America Reputation Ranks Top

Daily Link Finds:

This is the June 23rd, issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the Search Engine Roundtable. All links I find throughout the day that ad some commentary to the posts written over at the Search Engine Roundtable, will be in the Daily Link Finds. The purpose is two fold: (1) To help people find discussion around our articles and (2) To thank people for linking to us. How do I find these links? Only one way, via a Google Blog Search link command, so make sure that (1) you are in Google Blog Search and (2) link to us.

Daily Link Finds for June 23rd, 2008:

• Google webmaster chat: tons of fun!, Matt Cutts
• Google Launches Trends for Websites, Marketing Pilgrim
• penalite "minus 30", WebRankInfo.com
• SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 20, 2008, Search Engine Land
• FriendFeed as a Social Aggregator for Google, The Analytics Guru
• Google AdWords Team Shares Factors Influencing Quality Score!, PageTraffic SEO Blog
• How to draw cartoon of yourself, Blogjer
• Six Google AdWords Quality Score Factors, SEO Hong Kong
• Report Offensive Google Image OneBoxes, Google Operating System
• Adwords: Ladezeit als Quality faktor, Cooee.de
• Nooooo…Comic Sans en mi Adsense!, cookieface.com.ar
• Cita obligada: webmaster chat de Google, Dictina
• Como est sendo a indexao do Jotablog pelo Google, Jotablog.com
• Digital Marketing: Must Read for Week Jun-16, Rocky Fu's Blog
• Google webmaster chat: tons of fun!, Revenue Source
• Hey Googlers - It's OK To Be Honest & Direct When Answering Questions, SEOmoz
• JuneTune - I Learn Lot, My Overview & Q&A, Shrushti
• Pilgrim's Picks for June 23, Marketing Pilgrim
• Search Marketing Avanzado en Argentina, MP3d
• SEO Contests Are Gaining Industry Respect, SiteProNews
• Weekly Search Buzz (22 June 08), ankitrawat.com

Posted at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Link Finds , Daily Search Coverage | Comments (0) (0) | Speak

A few weeks ago, I told you how my air conditioner broke. Well, they fixed it and then it broke two days later. They fixed it again and it lasted about a week and a half and then it broke again last night.

I am lucky to have a separate AC unit for the bedroom level. But that is the AC unit that keeps on breaking. This weekend, we had guests sleep over - thankfully the AC unit worked throughout the weekend and pretty much died about 12 hours after they left. But now it is broken and I am losing trust in it.

In fact, I was incredibly worried that the AC wouldn't work for my guests. After the guests left, I thought to myself, "maybe it is fixed for good." Soon after, it stopped working. Did I jinx myself?

The sad thing is, it will take a while for me to be confident in it working.

Posted at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Category: Homey | Comments (1) (0)

If you check out News3Online.com, you may notice that a mysterious Barry Schwartz is running for president. Here is the news coverage:

Would you vote for me?

FYI- I'll upload a better video soon, this is a bit choppy as you can see.

Posted at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Category: Just Interesting | Comments (4) (0)

Daily Search Coverage:

Google's webmaster chat is recorded. Conversion tracking goes missing in AdWords. Do TLDs matter in SEO? Can I exclude a site in a country specific Google? Can you prevent Google Bowling? Can you hide Flash content? Tips on AdWords quality score factors. Google UK gets their own SEO thread. Google is case sensitive. Google News is experimenting. Google shows summer logo. Google Trends comes to Web Sites. Search in Pictures is out.

Search Engine Roundtable Topics:

1. Recording & Coverage of Google's Second Live Chat Session
2. Google AdWords Conversion Tracking Goes Missing for Advertisers
3. Google Does Not Give Preference to .COM's over .INFO's or Other TLDs
4. Can You Remove a Site From a Country Specific Google Search Engine?
5. Can Quality Sites Be Google Bowled & Hurt in Google's Search Results?
6. What is Acceptable Hidden Flash Content?
7. Google AdWords Team Discusses Factors that Influence Quality Score
8. Google.co.uk Dissected and Explored

Search Engine Land Topics:

1. Google "Sometimes" Case Sensitive When Searching + The Rest
2. Miss The Google Webmaster Help Group Chat Last Night?
3. Google News To Run Experiments
4. Google Celebrates First Day Of Summer With Solstice Logo
5. Google Trends Comes To Web Sites: Trends For Web Sites
6. Search In Pictures: New Yodelers, Sergey In Space & Ask.com's Got Milk

Daily Link Finds:

This is the June 20th, issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the Search Engine Roundtable. All links I find throughout the day that ad some commentary to the posts written over at the Search Engine Roundtable, will be in the Daily Link Finds. The purpose is two fold: (1) To help people find discussion around our articles and (2) To thank people for linking to us. How do I find these links? Only one way, via a Google Blog Search link command, so make sure that (1) you are in Google Blog Search and (2) link to us.

Daily Link Finds for June 20th, 2008:

• Are XML Sitemaps Actually Important Or Are They The Most Overrated SEO Tactic Ever?, Regency Interactive
• SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 19, 2008, Search Engine Land
• "Lying in a Reconsideration Request, Makes Me Angry": Matt Cutts!, PageTraffic SEO Blog
• Chat Google : traduction des reponses les plus interessantes, Referencement
• Google "Sometimes" Case Sensitive When Searching The Rest, Search Engine Land
• Google Trends Comes To Web Sites: Trends For Web Sites, Search Engine Land
• links for 2008-06-20, Oliver Willis
• Miss The Google Webmaster Help Group Chat Last Night?, Search Engine Land
• Prospector Advertising: Google's 2nd Webmaster Chat Event, Ides
• SEO Team Reading List 6.19.08, EMP
• Techmeme: Google "Sometimes" Case Sensitive When Searching The Rest (Barry Schwartz/Search Engine Land), Techmeme
• Top 10 Reads This Week - June 20, B(abble)log

Posted at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Link Finds , Daily Search Coverage | Comments (1) (0) | Speak

Last night, I went out to eat at a normal sit down restaurant in NYC. From the time that I sat down, to the time my food was off my plate, was probably less than five minutes. How did I manage to go out for dinner, order, have them prepare the food, serve us the food and finish the food all within five minutes?

I cheated. My wife and some family were in the city. My wife wanted me to pick her up, so she incentivized me by buying me breaded chicken and french fries (I am a sucker for breaded chicken and french fries). So she went to the restaurant, ordered, and they brought out the food. By the time I got there, they were almost done with their meals and I just arrived. I scarfed down the meal within five minutes and was ready to head back home.

It was a long day but well worth it. My day looked like this:

• 5:30am up
• 6:15am in office
• 7:15pm out of office
• 8:15pm in city at restaurant
• 8:20pm done with meal
• 8:45pm or so on way home
• 9:45pm finally home

FYI, how great does that picture go with the title, "Quick Dinner." I crack myself up. :)

Posted at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Category: Food | Comments (3) (0)

UPS just arrived with several deliveries, but one delivery stood out as being weird. I received a package from Bed, Bath & Beyond. The package was originally mailed to my old home, but somehow reached my office's address (UPS is smart like that). I opened the box to find that it was a present, here is a picture:

Yippie! But I decided to look closer. I noticed the gift card and read it. It reads:

I scratched my head... Who is this Amy? I decided to look at the packing slip. I noticed on the packing slip that this was ordered just about a week ago. Who would mail me a gift over two years after my wedding? I looked at the name and called my wife. We both had no idea who it was.

I assumed at that point that something is wrong. I received a gift from someone's registry. Did someone accidently purchase something from my registry, which is still live at Bed, Bath & Beyond!

This brought me back to an older post I did at the Search Engine Roundtable named Wedding Registries Being Indexed Causing Fraudulent Registry Orders. It seemed like people were buying items off my wedding registry and shipping it to other places. Yes, I believe we didn't get everything that was 'purchased' off our register. Is the same thing happening to a different new couple? Did I get their gift? Doesn't seem 100% logical.

I am not sure what is going on. But I will make sure to return the Oxo Good Grips 11" Whisk to Bed, Bath & Beyond and have them deal with this mess.

Posted at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Category: Just Weird | Comments (3) (0)

Daily Search Coverage:

Google incorporates page loading time into quality score. Google's local business center is buggy. Google tests more AdSense fonts. Link building should not cause a downgrade in rank. New video documentation on using the AdWords API is live. Google does gay pride. Should you do SEO? People fear Facebook dippers.

Search Engine Roundtable Topics:

1. Did Google Really Launch The Page Load Time Factor in AdWords Quality Score?
2. Google's Local Business Center for Google Maps is Bugging Out
3. Google AdSense Wacky Font Tests Continue
4. You Should Not See A Downgrade in Rankings From Link Building
5. Learn the Google AdWords API with Video and Useful Documentation
6. Google Shows The Gay Pride Flag in Search Results
7. Should You Stop Optimizing for Certain Keywords?

Search Engine Land Topics:

1. Facebook Group Using Google Maps To Go "Dipping" At Strangers' Pools
2. Page Load Time Now A Real Factor In The AdWords Quality Score
3. Google Continues To Play With AdSense Ad Fonts

Daily Link Finds:

This is the June 19th, issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the Search Engine Roundtable. All links I find throughout the day that ad some commentary to the posts written over at the Search Engine Roundtable, will be in the Daily Link Finds. The purpose is two fold: (1) To help people find discussion around our articles and (2) To thank people for linking to us. How do I find these links? Only one way, via a Google Blog Search link command, so make sure that (1) you are in Google Blog Search and (2) link to us.

Daily Link Finds for June 19th, 2008:

• Firefox 3: Power User's Guide to Firefox 3, lifehacker.com
• Google behavioral targeting?, WebmasterWorld
• Pimp my Conversion!, seoFM
• PPC News Roundup - 6/18/2008, PPC Hero
• SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 18, 2008, Search Engine Land
• Google Continues To Play With AdSense Ad Fonts, Search Engine Land
• Google Debunks Link Sabotage Theories, 3rd Rock Blog
• Google Shows Gay Porn In Ads, Joe Hall
• Linky Goodness, June 18, Marketing Pilgrim
• Page Load Time Now A Real Factor In The AdWords Quality Score, Search Engine Land
• SEO Team Reading List 6.18.08, EMP
• XML Sitemaps: The Most Overrated SEO Tactic Ever, Small Business SEM

Posted at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Link Finds , Daily Search Coverage | Comments (0) (0) | Speak

We recently hired three new programmers, once about a month ago and two new coders who are starting in within a week or so. The coder who started has a nice desk already, which he enjoys. The two new guys have place, but we wanted to open things up a bit.

In the "client specialists room, i.e. the programmer room, we had a corner where we stacked up food. Literally, tons of food, stacked up in the corner of the room. It is actually a place for a programmer to work, but it was covered in food and papers. So we decided to buy a Sterilite Cabinet to place all that food in. Guess what, it really all fit - we didn't think it would. The Sterilite Cabinet has huge capacity. It is great for solutions like this.

In the picture above, you can see we put the cabinet on the right of the fridge. BTW, yes we have two microwaves - one for kosher and one for non-kosher (maybe ill blog on that later). It fit perfectly. The cabinet's new location was the place of our water cooler (check out that comments on that blog post btw). We moved that water cooler, which is no longer from Sunbeam,to a new location. The office looks much cleaner.

There are still a lot of things we need to do to organize the office but we are getting there.

Posted at 1:25 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Grind , Food , RustyBrick | Comments (0) (0)

Yesterday, someone asked me if the Search Engine Roundtable's traffic is down. I said no, why? He explained that the Alexa chart showed a decline in traffic.

I decided to plot that graph with true Google Analytics data, to see if there was a decline. Here it is:

The bolder blue line is Google Analytics and the chart behind it is from Alexa. I just overlaid the Google Analytics line over Alexa.

So what is with the decline in Alexa in May? Alexa updated their ranking system. So the new chart, I guess, wasn't normalized with the old chart.

Posted at 8:23 AM | Permalink | Category: Web Development | Comments (3) (0)

Daily Search Coverage:

Google needs to be able to access your robots file, even if it is missing. Google's insertion tags. Google says links can't hurt you again. SEO for phone numbers. Don't mess with Mr. Cutts on reinclusion requests. Experts on local SEO. How about the link theme pyramid. Google adds book search to product search. Google does a rainbow for gay rights.

Search Engine Roundtable Topics:

1. Will Google Crawl Your Site Without a Robots.txt File? It Depends
2. Google AdWords Insertion Tag List
3. Google Defends Bad Link Theory & Repeats That Competitors Can't Hurt You
4. Should You Optimize Your Phone Numbers for Search Engines?
5. Matt Cutts Warns Against Lying in a Reconsideration Request
6. Local Search Ranking Factors Guide Released
7. The Link Theme Pyramid

Search Engine Land Topics:

1. Google Decides Books Have Consumer Intent, Puts Them Into Product Search
2. Google Supports Gay Pride With Rainbow Colors
3. Irony: If Google Can't Reach Your Robots.txt File, It Might Not List Your Site

Daily Link Finds:

This is the June 18th, issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the Search Engine Roundtable. All links I find throughout the day that ad some commentary to the posts written over at the Search Engine Roundtable, will be in the Daily Link Finds. The purpose is two fold: (1) To help people find discussion around our articles and (2) To thank people for linking to us. How do I find these links? Only one way, via a Google Blog Search link command, so make sure that (1) you are in Google Blog Search and (2) link to us.

Daily Link Finds for June 18th, 2008:

• Bloggers Blast AP over "Fair Use Limits", OS9USER News Room
• Diverses, TaT
• My Cartoonized Self [from Befunky via Cartoon..., Spammr.org
• SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 17, 2008, Search Engine Land
• Matt Cutts在SMX2008大会问答, SEOGG's blog
• The Art of Google PageRank Sculpting , Search Engine Journal
• Barry Schwartz of SERoundtable.com Breakin' Down The News, Web Marketing Watch
• Foxmarks: A Google Browser Sync Alternative for Firefox 3, Arthur Freydin
• Google Debunks Link Sabotage Theories, WebProNews
• Irony: If Google Can't Reach Your Robots.txt File, It Might Not List Your Site, Search Engine Land
• PPC Phishing E-Mail Scams, The Snow Patrol
• SEO Daily Reading - Issue 79, Raven SEO Tools
• TechArt by BeFunky is OMG2Fun, Cre8PC
• Techmeme: Irony: If Google Can't Reach Your Robots.txt File, It Might Not List Your Site (Barry Schwartz/Search Engine Land), Techmeme

Posted at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Link Finds , Daily Search Coverage | Comments (1) (0) | Speak

I have been talking about remote check deposit for a while and I was finally approved to get this service for free with my bank. I received the machine on Monday and it worked. So today, I wanted to demo to you how it works.

Here is a video showing how I go to a web page, enter in some information and click a button. After I click the button, the web site triggers the remote check deposit machine, which is connected via USB to the computer, to scan the check. The check is scanned and it prints a number or two on the back of the check. Then the web site is updated with the scanned check. Here is a video of the process that I made:

Note: If the video doesnt work, refresh this page and try again. YouTube has been having issues...

As you can see, it is pretty fun. If I would have 20 checks, you load them all in, and it will auto-feed all 20 checks. Then it balances your deposits and you submit it to your bank account.

For more on Remote Check Deposit, check out the Federal Reserve's web site, they have an awesome FAQ on it.

Posted at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Category: RustyBrick | Comments (6) (0)

So I have been in my new house for over seven months now. This week, I noticed that I forgot to remove the piece of paper between the battery and the smoke detectors in the upstairs bedrooms. Yes, with that paper in, the smoke detectors won't work.

You think I am dumb, don't you? Well, I am not.

Two days before we moved into the house, I had an alarm company come and install a full home safety system. Besides for burglary, we have fire, smoke, and carbon detection systems. So, those smoke/fire/carbon detectors are all working and configured. The ones that were not working were the cheap smoke detectors that came with the house.

Honestly, I have such piece of mind leaving my house overnight. Knowing that if there is fire or smoke in the house and the "central station" would automatically be notified, is a relief.

Anyway, I have activated those cheap smoke detectors, as backups.

Posted at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Category: Homey | Comments (2) (0)

Daily Search Coverage:

Yahoo Search Marketing scams going out. Did the PageRank massacre help some publishers? Google's pay per action model is dead? Google Toolbar for Firefox 3 is out. White hat link building tips from Matt Cutts. AP beats on bloggers. Google's street views car got slapped with a ticket. Google does live chat on Thursday.

Search Engine Roundtable Topics:

1. Beware of Yahoo Search Marketing Phishing Email Scams
2. Did Google's PageRank Penalty Help Publishers?
3. Google Hosting Second Live Webmaster Chat June 19th
4. Future Of Google's Pay Per Action Model Uncertain
5. Google Toolbar is Now Available for Firefox 3
6. Eric Enge Interviews Matt Cutts on White Hat Link Building
7. Associated Press Goes On Rampage Against Bloggers

Search Engine Land Topics:

1. Google Hosting Live Chat Event & SEMPO's First SEM Debate
2. License, Insurance, Registration & Google ID: Cop Tickets Google StreetView Car

Daily Link Finds:

This is the June 17th, issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the Search Engine Roundtable. All links I find throughout the day that ad some commentary to the posts written over at the Search Engine Roundtable, will be in the Daily Link Finds. The purpose is two fold: (1) To help people find discussion around our articles and (2) To thank people for linking to us. How do I find these links? Only one way, via a Google Blog Search link command, so make sure that (1) you are in Google Blog Search and (2) link to us.

Daily Link Finds for June 17th, 2008:

• Are Google Sitemaps Really That Important?, Sphinn
• SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 16, 2008, Search Engine Land
• SEO Weekend Update, BruceClay.com
• Are Google Sitemaps Really That Important?, Sphinn
• Can Google confirm on uses of Sitemaps???, Google Groups
• Google glitches e lennesima bizzarria, OMB
• Google Hosting Live Chat Event , Search Engine Land
• Google Street Maps of Sacramento: When, why?, zokuga
• Microsoft do listen, David Naylor
• Part 2: Britney Spears Does Adsense!, Adsense Consultant
• Plurkable.com :. says AIM suffered, Plurk
• Puppy's Picks for 06/16/08, Search Engine Guide
• Techmeme: Join us for another live chat - June 19, 2008 (Adam Lasnik/Official Google Webmaster), Techmeme
• Who does Matt Cutts follow on Twitter?, PingPongPie
• Who has similar logo with google's new favicon?, Blogjer

Posted at 4:23 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Link Finds , Daily Search Coverage | Comments (0) (0) | Speak

Beu notified me that he spotted someone who stole Cartoon Me (Barry). His alias is Mohamedimran and if you visit his StumbleUpon profile you will see this:

How crazy. Makes me mad, upset, kind of makes me feel violated!

He is 21 years old and from AN, India. Now, the crazy thing is, this is not the first guy from India to steal my trademark or name. There was an India SEO Company Impersonating RustyBrick back in October of 2006.

So what is up India? Is this common practice?

Update: On June 20th he replies to me saying:

Hi Rustybrick, thanks for the message,i have to tell you onething, i'm not using yours friend, i saw this pic in a website, it appears good and so cute, it seems like me. so i decided to use it as my avatar in my Social Network Pages.... thats all...

Yes, he is still using my avatar.

Update 2: He has now changed his avatar to something else. He said:

sry friend, i didn't understood, now its ok, i'll change as soon as possible.... Once again i have to say "I'm Really sry"

be my friend....!

Thank you Mohamedimran.

Posted at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Category: Blogging | Comments (7) (0)

I got myself a cartoon already. If you are not as luck as me, you can make yourself a cartoon at Be Funky. I spotted this at Labnol.

Here is a demo:

Original Picture:

Sketched Version:

Colorized Version:

Pretty neat. You can do it yourself at Be Funky.

Posted at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Category: Blogging | Comments (90) (0)

Seems like AIM suffered a major outage at about 10:40AM (EST).

My AIM died around then and then I got a couple emails from others who's AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) went offline at the same time.

So I Twittered it and received many confirmations from around the globe. Here they are:

dannysullivan @rustybrick yes aim seems dead

longhornkate @rustybrick yes, it did for me

ericjodom @rustybrick Yep... just totally crashed

sonnygill @rustybrick yup.

eddings @rustybrick wow AIM did die, I didn't even notice. thx

griffingranberg @rustybrick ya

It seems to be recovering now.

Posted at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Category: Computers | Comments (1) (0)

I was blogging about my Linksys router that died and told you I had two wireless networks in my house. Let me explain.

Verizon FiOS installed their wireless router and modem in my basement. The wireless router's signal is pretty good, but isn't as strong as I would like it upstairs on the bedroom level. The house came pre-wired for Ethernet, so, it wasn't a big deal to set up two wireless networks. One in the basement and one in the upstairs bedroom level. I also have hard-wired ethernet ports (two more) on the main level.

Here is a picture of my home network (clearly this is a crude layout). Bottom floor is basement, middle floor is main level and upper floor is bedroom area. Everything else is clearly labeled.

All my wireless access points are locked down, unlike my neighbors. :)

Posted at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Category: Computers , Homey | Comments (0) (0)

In December 2006, I hinted that my wife buy me a Linksys Wireless-G Travel Router. I think, I bought it a few days later for myself. In any event, Saturday night, the thing stopped working.

I believe it is something with the power supply. The power LED light simply won't turn on, no matter how many wall outlets or surge protectors I plug it into.

I actually used this device for my home's upstairs wireless network. Yes, I have two wireless networks in my house. I guess I can do a post on why I have two networks later.

So after about 10 months of the router being used every day, it blew up. I think from over use. This is a travel router and I assume it is not meant to be used 24/7, non-stop. But yet, it has a 3-year warranty. So I used the live chat thing on the Linksys web site, got myself a case number and issued an RMA. I will mail it to Linksys for replacement today.

I have one concern, thanks to Steve E, he showed me this blog post about Linksys losing his hardware and RMA information. Hope that doesn't happen to me.

Of course, I will let you know either way.

Posted at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Category: Computers | Comments (2) (0)

About 24 hours after complaining about Google making it hard to get to the original entry of a item in Google Reader via the iPhone, Google added it back.

The link is no longer on the footer bar, instead it is added below the body and above the footer of the item. Here is a screen capture:

I am a happy camper. Without this, my weekend would have been a pain. :)

Thank you Mihai Parparita.

Posted at 5:19 PM | Permalink | Category: Blogging , iPhone | Comments (2) (0)

Daily Search Coverage:

Video recap is live. Happy Father's Day. Google Sitemaps are important. Britney does AdSense. SEO gets longer. Google Sites can't verify. Google stops browser sync. Google to throttle users. SMX Advanced goes timeless. Google Local Business Center to be upgraded.

Search Engine Roundtable Topics:

1. Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: June 15, 2008 :: Father's Day
2. Father's Day '08 Logos from Google, Yahoo, Ask.com, Dogpile & Search Community
3. Google Sitemaps: Are They Really Important for SEO?
4. Britney Spears Does Google AdSense
5. SEO is Less About One/Two Word Keywords & More About Longer Tail Keywords
6. Google Webmaster Tools To Fix Verification "Bug" with Google Sites
7. Google to Discontinue Google Browser Sync
8. Google to Empower Users to Determine if ISPs are Throttling Them
9. SMX Advanced :: A True Classic by WebProNews

Search Engine Land Topics:

1. Google Local Business Center Undergoes Redesign

Daily Link Finds:

This is the June 16th, issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the Search Engine Roundtable. All links I find throughout the day that ad some commentary to the posts written over at the Search Engine Roundtable, will be in the Daily Link Finds. The purpose is two fold: (1) To help people find discussion around our articles and (2) To thank people for linking to us. How do I find these links? Only one way, via a Google Blog Search link command, so make sure that (1) you are in Google Blog Search and (2) link to us.

Daily Link Finds for June 16th, 2008:

• Bruceclay.com - Friday Recap, BruceClay.com
• SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 13, 2008, Search Engine Land
• links for 2008-06-14, currybetdotnet
• Links Only Your Mother Could Love - This Month In SEO - 5/08, TheVanBlog
• PageRank Sculpting with nofollow, the final words, yoast.com
• SMX Advanced - I Met So Many AWESOME People, seoroi.com
• Cun importante es el uso de sitemaps?, Blog de Max Glaser
• Google update, reindex, or new filter in progress?, Internet Business
• My Online Reputation Management Project, Kevin Gibbons Blog
• Nacionalne domene ne znae slabiji rejting na Google.com, SEO.hr blog
• URL עם סיומת .0. עף מהאינדקס, forum.g.co.il

Posted at 2:49 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Link Finds , Daily Search Coverage | Comments (0) (0) | Speak

This is the most annoying interface I have seen, but I am on it. I joined Plurk today.

Add me as a friend by clicking here.

Posted at 9:47 AM | Permalink | Category: Blogging | Comments (1) (0)

Why I was sitting in the You&A With Matt Cutts session at SMX Advanced a couple weeks ago, I twittered "mattcutts so reminds me of my older brother." Matt then asked me about that twitter the next day - but I couldn't really give a good answer. The other day, I was thinking about it...

Before beginning, I am not sure how Adam, my brother, is going to like this post. I doubt he will mind, but I am sure he won't like to be the spotlight of a blog post here. So, I am sorry in advance.

Adam, my older brother, is a Rabbi in Israel. He works with teenagers who are not exactly on the right path. In a sense, he is somewhat of a social worker or guidance counselor. From what I know, he balances the line of being part of "the law" and at the same time, being friends for these kids. I know there is a line, but from what I understand, many kids trust him and go to my brother for advice and support.

Adam has learned over the years how to speak with these kids. He uses words that reach out to them and it is his hope that they use his words in daily practices. Kind of like a "moral compass" but not exactly.

Just picture how careful he has to be with his words. He can't jump down these kids throats or else they won't trust him and won't come back to him for advice. So when talking, he kind of has to be somewhat of a diplomate and be sure not to touch on sensitive points in the wrong way.

Matt Cutts, the famous Googlers, who deals with webmasters and SEOs all day - is kind of in the same position. Each day, he has to be careful how he words things, as to not harm his relationship with the webmaster community. Matt has earned the trust of many webmasters. He, like my brother, has earned the respect, trust and friendship of many of those who practice actions that are not in accordance with Google's terms of service (TOS).

When Matt talks to webmasters, either publicly or one-to-one, I hear that same out reaching voice of concern. When it comes to certain tactics that webmasters can deploy to trick Google or the searcher, you can hear it in his voice. You can hear how his appeal is genuine, genuine to the industry and to the betterment of the searchers world.

Matt has to balance his speech to make sure he draws that line in the sand, that he is "the law." But at the same time, he wants to keep the line of communication open so that there is a healthy dialog between webmasters and Google. This way, he act as the "moral compass" in his venue.

I am not sure if this makes much sense. I really think it is about the tone I hear in their voices when they both have to balance on that line. They both know that line is easy to cross over and once they cross over it, it is really hard to get back on it.

Posted at 9:12 AM | Permalink | Category: Buddies , Family | Comments (4) (0)

When I was a kid, I use to play a ton of ping pong. I believe I played a ton when I was around the age of 11 through 15, but I can be wrong about that age bracket. In any event, I was a kid.

Slowly, I had less and less time and interest in playing ping pong and the ping pong table at my parents home began to cave in - so I stopped playing all together.

My brother recently received a ping pong table from his father-in-law and I was over twice in the past few weeks. I played a couple times when I was over. I am still pretty good.

When I was younger, I played like crazy. I had a wicked serve. I had some wicked slices, spins, backhands and overhead slams. As I played the game the other day, it all started coming back to me. I am still pretty good. Not as good as I once was, but pretty good.

In fact, I wouldn't mind getting a ping pong table to play more often in my home. Maybe one day - I just need to find some good competition. I am sure there are some people in my area that aren't bad.

Posted at 8:53 AM | Permalink | Category: Sports | Comments (1) (0)

Daily Search Coverage:

Google will power some of Yahoo's ads. Reactivating deleted AdWords keywords in the API isn't easy. What is the Google trust algorithm. PDF documents might make you a different language. Ending in dot 0, dot EXE and dot TGZ may hurt you in Google. Update your AdSense login asap. Live tests skins. Yahoo tests purple logo. Google gets fresher on related searches. Search in pictures is out.

Search Engine Roundtable Topics:

1. Google To Power Many of Yahoo Search Ads: Good for Advertiser & Publishers?
2. Can You Retrieve Deleted Keywords Using the Google AdWords API?
3. What Is Google's Trust Algorithm in Search?
4. PDF Documents May Impact How Google Defines Your Site's Language
5. SEOmoz Gets Penalized for a URL Ending with .0
6. Final Notice: Update Your AdSense Account to a Google Account Login

Search Engine Land Topics:

1. Live Search Tests Home Page Skins
2. New Purple Yahoo Logo To Demonstrate Its New Start?
3. Google Makes "Related Searches" Fresher
4. For Google, Add .0 To .EXE As File Extensions To Avoid
5. Search in Pictures: I Hate Kate at Yahoo, Google Taipei Office & Google Logo in Circles & Lines

Daily Link Finds:

This is the June 13th, issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the Search Engine Roundtable. All links I find throughout the day that ad some commentary to the posts written over at the Search Engine Roundtable, will be in the Daily Link Finds. The purpose is two fold: (1) To help people find discussion around our articles and (2) To thank people for linking to us. How do I find these links? Only one way, via a Google Blog Search link command, so make sure that (1) you are in Google Blog Search and (2) link to us.

Daily Link Finds for June 13th, 2008:

• SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 12, 2008, Search Engine Land
• SEO Headlines, BruceClay.com
• Techmeme: Google Logo Meets Hooters (Barry Schwartz/Search Engine Land), Techmeme
• Is Onsite SEO Dying Down?, WebProWorld
• PDFs verwirren Google, Prometeo.de
• Techmeme: Massive Destruction Of Shareholder Value, Employee Morale - (Michael Arrington/TechCrunch), Techmeme

Posted at 3:44 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Link Finds , Daily Search Coverage | Comments (0) (0) | Speak

Sweet, check out the TwitterCounter site. You can now add this to your site to show off how many followers you have. Here is mine:

Feel free to follow me.

Posted at 8:20 AM | Permalink | Category: Blogging | Comments (0) (0)

Last night I said that Google removed the "original item" link from the Google Reader iPhone version. Well, I was partially correct. They removed the link from the bottom but enabled the circle/chevron image next to the title of the entry as a hyperlink to the original entry. In fact, a Google Reader Engineer pointed this out to me.

To be honest, I tried that out before even complaining, but my finger had issues clicking on the tiny icon. So after Mihai Parparita of Google told me that is the link that takes you to the original entry, I tried harder. If I use the corner tip of my index finger, I can trigger the link to open to the original entry - but it isn't easy. Here is a video of me trying to do it:

This is the icon you have to click on:

On the iPhone, it is really really tiny.

Maybe Google can make the title a hyperlink also?

Posted at 7:11 AM | Permalink | Category: Blogging , iPhone | Comments (3) (0)

I am so upset. (1) My AC stopped working again and (2) Google Reader for my iPhone dropped the "see original" link.

Here is what the new links look like:

Notice there is no "see original" link!!!! How do I see the original article and the original site?

Here is an image from Google from the version before, notice the link is there:

Give it back, please!

Update: The Google Reader folks are on top of these things, as expected. They picked up on this blog post and commented. So I wrote a new entry named Google Reader for iPhone Makes it Harder To Get to Original Entry with a video demonstration.

Posted at 8:09 PM | Permalink | Category: Blogging , iPhone | Comments (1) (0)

To many of you, I have been blogging forever. But I have only been blogging since 2003. Jeremy Zawdony started blogging in 2002 and he was probably my first favorite blogger. I have been following his blog since then for years.

So, when today, he announced he is leaving Yahoo to work at a "smaller company." Yes, we all know a lot is going on with Yahoo now, and we hear rumors of a major announcement in 30 minutes from Yahoo, but Jeremy says he is not leaving for any of those reasons. 8.5 years at Yahoo and now on to bigger but smaller things. :)

In any event, Jeremy has been a role model blogger to me. I personally learned a lot about blogging from him. In fact, it was an honor to speak on a panel with Jeremy at PubCon, the panel was named Blogging For Fun & Profit. Here is a picture, although you can't see Jeremy (look for arrows pointing him out), he is hiding behind the podium when I was speaking:

Anyway, I wanted to wish Jeremy best of luck in his future ventures. I am sure whatever it is, it will be successful!

Posted at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Category: Blogging | Comments (1) (0)

Daily Search Coverage:

Google advices on country coded top level domains. Is Google behavioral targeting these days? Google loosening up image search? Yahoo not giving click fraud refunds anymore? Is on page SEO dying out? We got more tidbits on meta tags. Who is that reseller selling Yahoo display ads? Google ranks hooter logo. Zawodny leaves Yahoo, Linsley leaves Ask and Weiner might leave Yahoo.

Search Engine Roundtable Topics:

1. Country-Coded Top-Level Domains Do Not Rank Worse in Google.com
2. Is Google Using Behavioral Targeting Off the Search Page for Better Search Ads?
3. Has Google Fixed The Image Search Filter?
4. Yahoo Search Marketing Getting Stingy on Click Fraud Credits?
5. Is Onsite SEO Dying Down?
6. What's the Cutoff Length for Meta Tags?
7. Does Yahoo Offer Do It Yourself Ads?

Search Engine Land Topics:

1. Google Logo Meets Hooters
2. Zawodny Leaves Yahoo; Weiner To Go? And Linsley Departs Ask

Daily Link Finds:

This is the June 12th, issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the Search Engine Roundtable. All links I find throughout the day that ad some commentary to the posts written over at the Search Engine Roundtable, will be in the Daily Link Finds. The purpose is two fold: (1) To help people find discussion around our articles and (2) To thank people for linking to us. How do I find these links? Only one way, via a Google Blog Search link command, so make sure that (1) you are in Google Blog Search and (2) link to us.

Daily Link Finds for June 12th, 2008:

• SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 11, 2008, Search Engine Land
• Google Logo Meets Hooters, Search Engine Land
• Linky Goodness, June 11, Marketing Pilgrim

Posted at 1:24 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Link Finds , Daily Search Coverage | Comments (0) (0) | Speak

As some of you know, for a PBX system at RustyBrick, I use an open source platform named Asterisk, supported by Fonality.

This morning, most incoming and outgoing calls stopped working. We tried rebooting the server and it had some major disk failures. Here is a picture of the box running Fedora, recovering from the disk failures all on its own:

Several minutes later, the system appeared to recover. The picture here is a picture of Fonality loaded up on a Dell box - pretty cool, ehh...

Anyway, it recovered by the phone calls did not work. So I called Fonality support, something I rarely do, and pressed the emergency number. Shortly after, I got someone on the call who took care of the issue. He quickly figured out it was an issue with the caller id handler, it was an unsupported version. So he pushed down a supported version and we were back on track to placing and accepting phone calls.

This is the exact reason I wanted a supported solution. Going with Fonality allows me to support open source and also get support for my system.

I've written about Fonality in the past. I did a Features in 4.0 review as well as a full Fonality review in the past. I am still a happy Fonality user, even after 2.5 years.

Posted at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Category: Computers , RustyBrick | Comments (2) (0)

You know I do these video casts weekly. Basically, 10 minute video of the search news for the past week. In any event, Sam from Ohnuts made me this intro. What do you think?

I am personally not into the American Idol music. But other then that, it is cool.

Posted at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Category: Blogging | Comments (1) (0)

Ad Age wrote an article a couple weeks back that caught my attention. The article was named Do Bossfriends Create Great Employees? which takes the side that being friends with your employees create great employees. The argument he makes is that the more your employees like you, the more they will do for you. But I find the whole concept of being friends with employees to make them better employees to be, um..., somewhat oxymoronic. How so you ask? Well, if you're friendly to your employees only because you want them to be better employees, then your true intentions seem way off. Not sure if I am getting my point across - but to fake to be friendly in an effort to make for better employees, imo, will back fire.

My take? I don't believe employers should be on a friend relationship level. I have some of the best employees here at RustyBrick, but I make an effort to not cross the line of being their friends. Why? Not because I don't like them - it's the opposite. I really like every one of my staff members. They are all talented, creative, hard-working, honest and most importantly good people. They have the qualities I look for in friends.

But I don't feel an employer should be a friend with their employees. I personally don't think going out for drinks with employees is something I would think is appropriate. I don't think hanging with employees is a good thing. That doesn't mean I don't believe in going to an employees happy or sad occasion - but I feel there should be some sort of line drawn.

Maybe it was the way I was raised. Who knows.

Does this leave for a stale company culture at RustyBrick? No way! The guys often go out for lunch together during the day. I believe some hang on the weekends, go to baseball games, play video games in the office on Friday afternoons and much more.

In the future, I hope to write a blog post giving your more details on the RB staff. It should be fun, but it will take a while for me to start on that.

Posted at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Category: RustyBrick | Comments (15) (0)

When it comes to sharing my gadgets, I am a bit of a germy. I just don't like people touching my laptop, my iPhone or any of my gadgets. I am very possessive about them and I admit, it is a bit selfish.

Why don't I like sharing my gadgets?

(1) I am very protective over them, very (see my cartoon above, it has my bag, I always have my bag of stuff with me).
(2) Fear of breaking it
(3) Fear of losing it
(4) My life is on my gadgets
(5) I need to always be able to use my gadgets at any time, even if I won't need it a 100%

Last week or so, I found a study that shows I am not alone. Spotted via Science Blogs reports that Mac users are way more possessive then PC users. Yes, I am a Mac user and I guess I fit in that group.

The poll found "there's a dramatic and statistically significant difference between how much PC and Mac users let friends try out their new devices."

So TUAW posted their own poll:

How willing are you to let others use your new gadget?

• They must not touch said 389 Mac users (12.3%)
• They can hold it, but not press any buttons said 159 Mac users (5.0%)
• They can try it out for a few minutes while I supervise said 2166 Mac users (68.5%)
• They can try it out for up to an hour, unsupervised said 362 Mac users (11.4%)
• They can borrow it for a couple days said 65 Mac users (2.1%)
• They can have it -- I didn't really want it anyway said 20 Mac users (0.6%)

I replied "They can hold it, but not press any buttons."

Posted at 2:43 PM | Permalink | Category: Apple Macs , Buddies , Computers , iPhone | Comments (0) (0)

Daily Search Coverage:

Major catch up post. Some Google talk, some mapping, some Yahoo and so on. Enjoy.

Search Engine Roundtable Topics:

1. Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: June 8, 2008
2. Google Says, Yahoo Directory Does Have PageRank
3. An Updated List of Google's Data Centers
4. YouTube Annotations in Action
5. Google Releases AdWords API Starter Kit
6. How to Write Search Engine Friendly Code
7. Do We Need SEO Forums?
8. A Googler's Sage Advice on Absolute vs. Relative URLs
9. The Six Laws of Ethical SEO
10. Google Updates SEO Documentation
11. Losing Trust in Google?
12. Tools to Analyze Backlink Anchor Text
13. Many Webmasters Notice Major Traffic Loss From Google
14. How Does Google Handle The HTML <base> Tag?
15. Gmail Offers Experimental Features with Gmail Labs
16. Google Offers Stock Screener for Investors
17. Google Trends Features New Numeric Scales and CSV Downloads
18. How Google Handles Duplicate Content Scrapers

Search Engine Land Topics:

1. Googlers In Space: Google Founder Brin Books Flight
2. Google "Skip Intro" Link Skips You Past Splash Pages, Plus Google Offers Query Translation

Daily Link Finds:

This is the June 11th, issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the Search Engine Roundtable. All links I find throughout the day that ad some commentary to the posts written over at the Search Engine Roundtable, will be in the Daily Link Finds. The purpose is two fold: (1) To help people find discussion around our articles and (2) To thank people for linking to us. How do I find these links? Only one way, via a Google Blog Search link command, so make sure that (1) you are in Google Blog Search and (2) link to us.

Daily Link Finds for June 11th, 2008:

• SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 6, 2008, Search Engine Land
• Google Launches AdWords API Starter Kit, SearchNewz
• Is The Yahoo! Directory No Longer Useful For SEO?, SEOCo
• PPC Is The Red-Headed Stepchild of SEM, Searching Beyond the Paid
• SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 10, 2008, Search Engine Land
• Shout out to my peeps (April/May 2008), Calacanis.com
• SMX Advanced Trip Wrap-Up and Shout Outs, SearchRank Blog
• How to Protect Your Images from Hotlinking, Search Engine Journal
• Google uus favicon, Sevenline internetiturundus
• Google's New Favicon | Don't panic!, plasser.net
• How to get your website listed in Google News, ahmedbilal.com
• Las 6 leyes del SEO Atico, adseok.com
• Linky Goodness, June 10, Marketing Pilgrim
• Review of EngineWorks 2nd Presentation at SMX Seattle, EngineWorks
• Top 10 newsletters for SEO, SEM, pro blogging, Write for blogs
• WideCircles - Takes Spam Seriously? LMAO, Andy Beard
• Yahoo Optimizing Ad Campaigns Without Your Consent, Search Newz

Posted at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Link Finds , Daily Search Coverage | Comments (0) (0) | Speak

The past few nights I was forced to sleep on the sofa. It was a first for me, since being married for over two years now. But my wife didn't send me to the sofa, she actually slept with me on the sofa.

Sunday night, the first night of Shavous, one of my A/C units broke down. My parents were spending the holiday at us, it was the first time they pulled an overnighter at our place. Sunday night, we all slept upstairs (well, actually, my father and I spent the night learning in Synagogue). By the morning, it was 79 degrees upstairs. It only got worse. By midday it was in the 80s and it got as high as 91 degrees upstairs. So Monday night, we slept on the main level.

My wife and I slept in the family room, with the light on, by pulling two sofas together. Here is a picture of that.

My parents slept in our dinning room, on two mattresses I brought downstairs for them.

We slept like that from Monday through last night. This morning, the A/C people came to fix the A/C. I believe all it needed was Freon.

Thankfully, the A/C units on the main level worked. If we had one unit, I am not sure what we would have done. I honestly need a good night sleep. I can't wait to go to sleep tonight.

Posted at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Category: Homey | Comments (4) (0)

After a couple more hours of trial and error, I believe the blogs are now configured correctly. In fact, they are set up to be fully load balanced on two web servers and one database server.

We had some issues with comments being over written, but with a new rsync command, we got them working nicely.

Here is the new server architecture for our blogs:

This is very exciting because if a server blows up, you should still be able to comment and stuff without noticing. Plus, the strain on the servers can be offloaded to each other. Very exciting. :)

Posted at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Category: RustyBrick | Comments (1) (0)

So we moved all the blogs to a new server. This one, none of the others, is having issues.

Your comments will time out but eventually appear on the blog posts. So keep that in mind.

I will try to figure out why this particular blog is having issues, while all the others are working fine.

Posted at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Category: RustyBrick | Comments (5) (0)

This is another test. Feel free to ignore.

Posted at 1:27 PM | Permalink | Category: RustyBrick | Comments (4) (0)

So, I switched over the blogs from our old server configuration to a new one. We are on a new IP, in fact, the servers are load balanced.

Thing is, we need to sync the blog posts, which produces HTML files to one server, and then sync it back to the other server. Not a big deal. But when someone comments, they might comment on one server and at the same time, someone might be commenting on another server. So at some points, it may not show your comment for a specific time period (5 minutes), until everything get's synced up properly.

Anyway, this is just a test post to see if things are being synced properly.

Posted at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Category: RustyBrick | Comments (11) (0)

This Sunday night is the start of the Shavuot (שבועות) holiday. That means that I will be offline, no blogging, no email, no phone, for a 50 hour period or so. I am offline Monday and Tuesday - so please don't email me or call me and leave a voicemail. Also, please make sure there is no news during those two days. ;-)

What is Shavout? Um, I talked about it last year, so go read it here.

For those of you celebrating - good Yom Tov. For those of you not - have a happy Monday and Tuesday.

My wife and I are having my parents over, so that should be fun.

Don't expect any blog posts here during those days. We do have scheduled blog posts for the Search Engine Roundtable.

Oh, what is with the picture? It is from Noyaart.com, I found it at Flickr.

Posted at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Category: Blogging , Religion | Comments (13) (0)

Daily Search Coverage:

SMX advanced is now over. Google's first click free program is for web search also. Google drops info domains. Yahoo Directory lost PageRank. More AdWords scams are out. Google has Diego logo. Split your sitemaps by type. Video URLs are recommended in video sitemaps. SEO debate on first anchor text. Google drops watch video feature in search. AdWords Editor 6 is out. Google Maps for mobile adds transit. Search in pictures is out. The June Google webmaster report is live.

Search Engine Roundtable Topics:

1. SMX Advanced 2008 Conference Coverage Recap
2. Can Google's First Click Free Program be Used for Web Search?
3. Google Downgrades .Info TLDs Again?
4. Yahoo Directory Has No PageRank
5. Beware of More Google AdWords Phishing Scams
6. Google's Diego Velázquez Birthday Logo
7. Google Recommends You Split Sitemap Files By File Type
8. The Video URL Is Not Always Optional in Google Video Sitemaps
9. SEO Debate Over 1st Anchor Text is What Matters to Google
10. Google Releases AdWords Editor Version 6.0
11. Webmasters Report June 2008 Google SERP Updates

Search Engine Land Topics:

1. Google Drops Ability To Watch Video Directly In Search Results
2. Google Releases New AdWords Editor 6.0
3. Google Maps For Mobile Adds Transit Directions
4. Search in Pictures: Yahoo Flower Art, Jewel Performs at Yahoo, Yahoo Happy Hour Box

Daily Link Finds:

This is the June 6th, issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the Search Engine Roundtable. All links I find throughout the day that ad some commentary to the posts written over at the Search Engine Roundtable, will be in the Daily Link Finds. The purpose is two fold: (1) To help people find discussion around our articles and (2) To thank people for linking to us. How do I find these links? Only one way, via a Google Blog Search link command, so make sure that (1) you are in Google Blog Search and (2) link to us.

Daily Link Finds for June 6th, 2008:

• SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 4, 2008, Search Engine Land
• SMX Advanced '08 - Day Two Recap, Search Engine Land
• .info domain... drop again, DigitalPoint Forums
• SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 5, 2008, Search Engine Land
• Back from SMX Advanced and Seattle, Eric Lander
• Google Reader Productivity Hacks, FreeWare's Market
• Google, Yahoo!, Beware Account Phishing Scams, Search Engine Optimization Journal
• How many keyword rich domains to buy?, Department of Search Blog
• Link Building this Week (23.2008), Wiep.net
• New Google Adwords Editor release, www.eCashTalk.com
• SMX Highlights, the e of Marketing
• Techmeme: AdWords Editor 6.0 for Windows and Mac (Christian Yee/Inside AdWords), Techmeme

Posted at 3:17 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Link Finds , Daily Search Coverage | Comments (0) (0) | Speak

I have complained time and time again in my travel section about taking red eye flights. I have always vowed to avoid them. Well, for the first time in a west coast to east coast flight, I took a mid-day flight out of the west to go east.

I conned myself into believing that since my flight was leaving at 11:30ish PST, that it was already late afternoon in New York and I wouldn't be swamped with emails after the 5 hour flight. Oh boy was I wrong. I landed in Newark and the first thing I did was download email on my iPhone. I was hit with hundreds of emails! I don't get hundreds of real emails over night.

So, from now on, I am going to be taking the red eyes. At least until they get Internet access on these planes. If they had internet access, I would be able to fly 24/6, I won't care when, as long as it is not on a Saturday.

Why does it bother me so much to have hundreds of emails that I need to review, respond to and file away? As some of you know, I have email OCD and it really really impacts me.

Posted at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Category: Travels | Comments (1) (0)

I'm actually sitting on the plane thinking up a totally worthless blog post that I can write on my iPhone. The time in Seattle is 4:05 as I begin this post.

I figured I would discuss my trip down the continental blue carpet. Before doing so, I want to tell you that I wanted to create this whole stupid skit that I thought would be 'stupid funny' to do well on YouTube.

The idea was for me to video myself as I experience the blue carpet. Start off by approaching the carpet carefully. Being very careful as I step on the carpet for the first time, as one would do when going in to a cold pool of water. Then I would learn to trust the carpet more as the carpet trusted me more. Yea, the girly music would start playing in the background.

Then to be really funny, I might begin to lay down on the carpet as if it was a bed, ie totally trusting the blue carpet.

Now if this story board was placed on storybids.com, would continental airlines buy into it?

That was my plan but by the time I ended up at the blue carpet, the carpet was in use. So my plan failed.

This post is now done. It is now 4:13 and I typed it all on my iPhone. Not bad. (added after, the point was to see how fast I can type a blog entry on my phone).

Posted at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Category: Travels | Comments (4) (0)

You know how you can "Search by Company" in Facebook? Well, I recently noticed that a couple Facebook users who are not and were never part of my company, were listed in my company directory in Facebook.

So, I asked around if there was an easy way, as the company admin in Facebook, to remove false employees. No one had an answer, and some people asked me to blog about it when I did get the answer.

So I decided to use the report abuse form at Facebook to ask them. Last night, I received a response that said:

These users are not in your work network. Unfortunately, there is no way to remove this information. Sorry for the inconvenience. Let me know if you have other questions or problems.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

Well, it seems like one of the users - who was actually pretty good looking, was removed. I assume it was a fake account and they banned that account. The other user, Ernest Lau Facebook ID 14304505, is still listed in my company profile. So, if I wanted to edit my work profile and list myself under, um - Facebook, that would be cool with them? I doubt it.

Anyway, if you want to become a friend of mine on Facebook, here is my profile. While you are at it, my twitter account and linkedin account.

Posted at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Category: Just Weird | Comments (0) (0)

I am finally there. I am elite! I have elite status on Continental Airlines. This year, I promised I would stick with one airline in order to gain enough miles to give me some type of perk. My flight to Seattle a couple days ago earned me the 326 + miles I needed to obtain the 25,000+ miles to gain the silver Elite status.

What does Elite Status look like. Here is a screen shot of my account at continental.com:

It also changes at least one thing on some other pages. I now see I am automatically added to the upgrade list. I know I won't see those upgrades, because they go to platinum and then gold members before silver ones, like me. But at least it is there:

My complimentary upgrade feature is automatically on.

Why am I writing all of this? Because I wanted this type of information when I was researching it and no one blogged it. So maybe this will help someone in the future looking for this information.

In any event, tomorrow I get to board the plane on the blue carpet. I think my life is now complete.

Posted at 8:53 PM | Permalink | Category: Travels | Comments (4) (0)

Daily Search Coverage:

Yahoo adds ads for you and bills you also. Google does hot air balloon. Delete posts in Google Reader. Google fixes webmaster communication. Yahoo does tons of deals today. Microsoft does search charity. Plus tons and tons of conference coverage.

Search Engine Roundtable Topics:

1. Yahoo Can Legally Create or Change Your Search Ads & Bill You For It
2. Google's Full of Hot Air Today: Google Balloon Logo
3. How Do You Delete or Remove Your Content from RSS Results Like Google Reader?

Search Engine Land Topics:

1. SMX Advanced '08 - Day One Recap
2. Take A Ride In Google's Hot Air Balloon
3. Google Improves Webmaster Documentation
4. Yahoo Deals: Display Ads On Walmart.com, Havas Digital Partnership, Circular Program & CBS Video Deal
5. Microsoft Launches "Search and Give" Charity For Searching

Daily Link Finds:

This is the June 4th, issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the Search Engine Roundtable. All links I find throughout the day that ad some commentary to the posts written over at the Search Engine Roundtable, will be in the Daily Link Finds. The purpose is two fold: (1) To help people find discussion around our articles and (2) To thank people for linking to us. How do I find these links? Only one way, via a Google Blog Search link command, so make sure that (1) you are in Google Blog Search and (2) link to us.

Daily Link Finds for June 4th, 2008:

• Eric Lander's Day One Recap of SMX Advanced in Seattle, Search Engine Journal
• SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 3, 2008, Search Engine Land
• SMX Advanced '08 - Day One Recap, Search Engine Land
• Diagnosing Web Site Architecture Issues - SMX Advanced, SearchRank
• Google new favicon, alessordinary
• High PR sites, EDUs, Directories, still a link builders best friend according to leading SEOs at SMX, RSS Pieces
• PageRank Sculpting with nofollow, the final words, Joost de Valk
• Search Marketing & Surviving A Recession - SMX Advanced, SearchRank
• SMX Advanced: Day One Recap, Regency Interactive
• The Beat on the Domain Name Industry, DomainPulse.com
• The new G - should we be bothered?, The Adido Web Design Company blog
• Two Sides of the Sandbox - Getting Stuck and Unstuck on Google, Google Adsense Master
• Updated: Google takes strong action on Money.co.uk fake linkbait article, BlogStorm
• You&A With Matt Cutts - SMX Advanced, SearchRank

Posted at 7:02 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Link Finds , Daily Search Coverage | Comments (0) (0) | Speak

Sitting at this conference and the women in front of me is handling the AV (audio/video) stuff. Check out her console:

I am so tempted to turn some of those knobs...

Be nice Barry...

Posted at 5:37 PM | Permalink | Category: Just Interesting | Comments (1) (0)

It use to be weird for me to see people reading my blogs. But now, not so much.

Just a few minutes ago, I caught the person on my left and on my right reading blog posts I wrote hours before. Not only that, the person on my left was reading both SER and SEL.

Here is a picture for proof:

SERoundtable:

SELand:

Thanks so much for reading!

Posted at 8:53 PM | Permalink | Category: Blogging | Comments (2) (0)

So I caught Matt Cutts of Google talk about watching porn.

This is to tease Matt. It actually is part of Matt talking about his SafeSearch filter, which removes porn from image search. So again, just a Matt tease.

Posted at 8:24 PM | Permalink | Category: Buddies | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1) (1)

Daily Search Coverage:

WebmasterWorld has major security break in. Yahoo and Microsoft trims off trailing slash URL. Google blogs on cloaking. Google explains why they changed their favorite icon. Plus we are still covering sessions at SMX.

Search Engine Roundtable Topics:

1. WebmasterWorld Compromised - Security Issue Reveals Some Passwords
2. Yahoo Still Trimming Off Trailing Slash, Causing Webmaster Headaches
3. Google Ignites Cloaking & IP Delivery Debate
4. Plus conference coverage

Search Engine Land Topics:

1. Google Defines IP Delivery, Geolocation & Cloaking
2. Google Says Icon Reflects "Simple, Playful & Unique Brand"

Daily Link Finds:

This is the June 3rd, issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the Search Engine Roundtable. All links I find throughout the day that ad some commentary to the posts written over at the Search Engine Roundtable, will be in the Daily Link Finds. The purpose is two fold: (1) To help people find discussion around our articles and (2) To thank people for linking to us. How do I find these links? Only one way, via a Google Blog Search link command, so make sure that (1) you are in Google Blog Search and (2) link to us.

Daily Link Finds for June 3rd, 2008:

• SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 2, 2008, Search Engine Land
• Are SEO Forums Still Needed?, Search Engine Journal
• Free Internet Access to All Americans, Everybodysagenius
• I Know It's Social - But STFU Already!, ShoeMoney
• Live Blogging at SMX Advanced in Seattle, SearchRank Blog
• Probleme si la case mai mari, SEOpedia.ro
• SEO Bonanza, A Guy Called Nick
• Techmeme: How Google defines IP delivery, geolocation, and cloaking (Maile Ohye/Official Google Webmaster), Techmeme

Posted at 6:50 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Link Finds , Daily Search Coverage | Comments (0) (0) | Speak

I've talked about my mobile gear in the past. Last night, I took some of my mobile stuff out and put it in the bathroom. I then thought, this makes for a blog post. So here it is:

Meet my mobile hair brush, mobile tooth brush, mobile tooth paste and mobile scope. I have other mobile items, but they didn't make it into this photo.

The mobile hair brush is a bit hard to use. It really doesn't do a good job brushing my hair. But it is mobile and I really don't care if my hair doesn't look pretty.

Posted at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Category: Travels | Comments (0) (0)

Daily Search Coverage:

Is DP in a fire? Google violating California law? Are you the most dependable SEO? Too many home page links? The definition of a Doorway page has changed. Can you hurt someone by hot linking? Check out my video recap.

Search Engine Roundtable Topics:

1. Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: June 1, 2008
2. Is Google Violating a Privacy Law in California?
3. "Most Dependable" Awards From Inc Magazine or Goldline Research
4. Can I Be Penalized if I Have Too Many Links on My Homepage?
5. Google Changes The Definition of a Doorway Page
6. DigitalPoint Forums Suffers Major Outage
7. Damage Your Competitors Google Image Rankings With Links

Search Engine Land Topics:

1. Just all the research

Daily Link Finds:

This is the June 2nd, issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the Search Engine Roundtable. All links I find throughout the day that ad some commentary to the posts written over at the Search Engine Roundtable, will be in the Daily Link Finds. The purpose is two fold: (1) To help people find discussion around our articles and (2) To thank people for linking to us. How do I find these links? Only one way, via a Google Blog Search link command, so make sure that (1) you are in Google Blog Search and (2) link to us.

Daily Link Finds for June 2nd, 2008:

• SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 30, 2008, Search Engine Land
• Использовать ли WWW или нет?, seomoney.org.ua
• Daring Fireball Linked List: May 2008, daringfireball.net
• News of the day, tapas style, Silicon Valley
• Google, מנוע החיפוש המוביל בעולם, התחדש היום ב Favicon, rotter.net
• Techmeme Goes SEO, Andy Beard
• Alvin's Diary, alvin.virtual-positiveness.com
• Goolge 換了個新 Favicon, applewoods.org
• Bloques de AdSense que desaparecen, Adseok.com
• Bringing a Community Together Who is Miles Apart For a Birthday Celebration, Search Marketing Gurus
• google adsense ads disappear?, Blogjer
• Google favicon change discussion wrap up, ijajaja.com
• Google knows what's up, Hokiewalrus.com
• Google Webmaster Tool Develops Glitch, Search Newz
• Google's New Blue Fav Icon :: Google Updated Their..., mini ZuD
• new google icon and geekstogo, Selayaknya Sang Karang
• reddit.com: New Google favicon!, reddit.com
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Posted at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Category: Daily Link Finds , Daily Search Coverage | Comments (0) (0) | Speak

I didn't know he took pictures. Here are pictures of the bear in my brother's driveway and back yard, followed by one of the articles of garbage.

Posted at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Category: Just Interesting | Comments (5) (0)

Friday afternoon, a bear paid a visit to my brother's home, about a mile from my home. The bear was having lunch, which consisted of my brother's left-over garbage from his garbage baskets. The cops came, and threw rocks at the bear until the bear left through his backyard and into the woods.

My reaction to that was, how did that help? Won't it wander back to a home and possibly be a threat to someone else?

Sunday, the local paper reported that a bear was found just a couple blocks from where I grew up. Reportedly, hundreds of kids began looking for the bear and chasing it with the police and other emergency services. The bear climbed up a tree to get away from the crowds. Finally the Department of Environmental Conservation came and shot the bear with a tranquilizer gun and packed it into a cylindrical metal container.

Here is a video from a bystander:

Posted at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Category: Just Interesting | Comments (3) (0)

The only time I check bags is when I am wife my wife. Every other time I go to the airport, it is wife a carry on.

Sometimes we use what is called the curbside check in. Basically, you pay an extra fee to check your bags and get your tickets outside of the airport, on the curb.

What I find funny is that often the curbside check in lines are longer then the lines inside. Imagine this:

CURB IS OVER HERE
------------------\\//--
WALL HERE----ENTER--
------------------\\//--
NORMAL CHECK IN HERE

So, basically, if you understand my ASCII illustration, you will notice that many checkin counters are on the other side of the wall, like two more feet in, passed the curbside checkin area.

Not only do you not have to wait on a line outside, you can also checkin without paying an extra fee.

Am I missing something? What is the benefits of the curbside check in, in today's day and age?

Oh, the picture above is when I was checking in at the curb and I saw Jesse Jackson at LGA about two years ago.

Posted at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Category: Travels | Comments (3) (0)