Free Open Source alternatives to PAYING THE MAN

Image from Flickr


Just literally stumbled this site and it's full to capicity with great tools that i know you'll all love.

Hope they come in handy:

http://downloadpedia.org/Open_Source_Alternative_to_Commercial_Software

Why arent webmasters more like guppies

I've been working on social media and link building for a few years now, its an arduous task at times and can be a thankless one. I always get really new world order over it, punching the air and singing "What the web..needs now, link love..link Love. But it usually falls on deaf ears, like I'm trying to sell ice to an Eskimo (whom i am assuming 'wrongly perhaps' has some).

I mean the links I'm offering are to relevant sites for their customers. I'm not that dumpy angry looking east end woman standing up on a high stool behind a market stall saying "You want relevance love, come on.. 2 for a paaand". No... I'm offering quality, helping them give their users a better service, improving the relevancy with keyword rich text in the anchors.

How do i know this? because i optimised the clients site in the first place and i know their business in side and out. My main concerns are for the user, the client and the webmaster, that means new content, ease of use and increased ROI.

But anyway, back to the Guppies. My guppies breed, they breed like its the last day on earth. Why? because they see another Guppy, they swim around it a bit, pop behind the plastic acropolis (tacky perhaps) and "watch it vicar" - a new life is created.

Now if my male Guppies were like webmasters and my female guppies were like links, the story would be very different. You'd have little link condoms all over, they'd be arguments over whether the male like blue tails or red tails, they'd want the females to bring them tiny gifts in return, and this would be hell on their fins. The result would be in many cases - No bambino el fino, or a very long gestation period of up to 12 months.

Ok, so my tank at the moment looks like I've been royally spammed, but - it would be nice, if webmasters would "give a little" rather than "take a lot and consider GOOD sites that help the traffic flow in the right direction instead of just how much money they can get from BAD SITES that send their users to the nearest "smiley friggin central".

OK, rant over.. i'm off to feed the fish

Self promotion in social media is unethical?

Whilst reading my one of my favorite blogs: www.copyblogger.com, i stumbled across a fantastic post entitled 'The Jim Morrison guide to strategic content promotion', now i wouldn't even try to paraphrase a genius like Brian Clark, but i do wish to embellish upon the point he made.Brain asked the question "are you OK with spending the time to create truly exceptional content while simply hoping that everyone “organically” discovers it?"

This is a very good point, i mean not everyone who has something vital and inspiration to say on the passionate subject of their choice will get those words read. I for one, would rather read this persons views than not, and if that means that a few of their friends spin, stumble or digg their post, then i think that's OK. I know that withing the social media area and the many networks, this kind of shameless self promotion would be frowned upon for not relying on its own merit. But i think it is safe to say that some people who are already well networked and do not have to work as hard as others to make their mark.

I'm sure that lots of people disagree with this, but i have poised my finger over the stumble or Sphinn button of one of my posts that i feel delivers an interesting opinion of a current issue or news item.

Online marketing banter did a fantastic post about "Is it a sin to Sphinn yourself", James was very brave in this post, pointing out the fact that although he is a regular Sphinn user and in his own words has been 'a pretty solid contributor'. But he admitted that he doesn't submit alot of articles and the those he does, tend to be his own. The reason being as a young blogger with a virtually virginal blog - if he didn't Sphinn his posts, who would?.

I'm almost done, but before i go, another post that caught my eye was the interestingly named 'The paradox of self-promotion with socail media'. Here it states "The Paradox of Self-Promotion with Social Media:

Social media generally frowns on self-promotion, in many cases admonishing outright those who practice it. But with the sheer numbers of new videos, posts, sites, pictures, and stories appearing each and every day, self-promotion is a necessity for anyone starting out and hoping to gain any sort of foothold."

It also gives some good Do's and Don'ts

I think this about round up the frustration felt - and it made me giggle:

I blog.

I blog about things that I dig.

So why wouldn't I Digg what I blog?

The way I see it, Digg is a way to show the world what you dig on the Internet.

If what you dig is something that you did, is it wrong to Digg it?


In the meantime, i think i'll balance up my sphinning of others with a few of my own of course.

Related articles

• Social Media and Simplicity, Part 4: Learn [via Zemanta]
• New study: Social Networks and Connection vs. Reputation [via Zemanta]
• My Experiences on Getting a Blog Started [via Zemanta]
• Getting mixed signals about my Twitter Usage: Tell me what you think [via Zemanta]

How to add Zemanta to Blogger & Firefox

Source: Wikipedia

Zemanta is a plug in that analyzes the article that you are writing and provide suggestions of images, tags, related articles and content to your post.

If that sounds interesting all you have to do is download Firefox browser as Zemanta works better in this browser. Then go to and click on download Zamanta and select from the supported blog platforms: Blogger - Wordpress and Typepad.

You will then be asked to login to your platform and then when you go to write a post you will see a yellow box nexxt to the compose tab.

Before writing your post, 5F to refresh Mozilla and the Zemanta bar appears as shown above.

It is a great tool and i will be using it in future in my posts.

More articles on Zemanta:

Related articles

• Blogging with Zemanta [via Zemanta]
• A content suggestion engine for blogging? That could work... [via Zemanta]
• Trying out Zemanta [via Zemanta]
• Burn rate of a startup [via Zemanta]

The art of writing Blog post titles

I was wondering how to jazz up my personal blog posts and came across some great blog titles written by both established bloggers and non established newbies. I started to notice that a lot of these post titles all followed a pretty similar format. I found a few great posts describing this format on both; www.copyblogger.com and www.contentrobot.com blogs, things such as ask a question, activate the minds eye and start a little controversy seamed to be exactly what I had been noticing on my travels in cyberia.

The most important thing I’ve realized and the one thing that is drilled in, in every SEO post you read is to “keep it simple”. The most proficient titles I came across were short, slick, simple and easy to understand. It seams obvious once you stop and think about it, I mean of course shorter titles are going to be better for Search Engines, they are textual and to the point and they hold key phrases. I liked Gray wolf http://www.wolf-howl.com depiction of the Google bot as a “5 year old niece or nephew” and so I guess it makes sense to help give them “easy to follow” directions to the toilet, especially if you’ve got a lot of pot plants around.

So for example: Say I am the owner of confectionary focused blog called “Sweet’s fa” most people like sweets right, so it should be a winner? .Here are a few examples of me having a go at creating eye-catching blog titles. Enjoy!

1) Activate the imagination -
“Do you remember Anglo Bubble Gum?”

I remember racing off the Ella’s corner shop, and although Ella looked like the love child of Willy wonka and giant haystacks, her range of confectionary was a tweens paradise. These days even images of the traditional sweets available in the 70’s and 80’s getting the nostalgia bubbling and set the thoughts of candy cigarettes, blood skulls and black jacks rustling away in the little white paper bag of my youth
http://www.aquarterof.co.uk/anglo-bubbly-bubble-p-200.html

2) Ask a Question –
“What ever happened to Space Dust?”

My friend always reminds me about space dust and that it exploded in children’s bellies who drank a concoction of fizzy drinks and space dust it huge quantities and i still can't hate it. I used to love this stuff, you’d put half the packet on your tongue and open and close your mouth to realize the wild cracking sound to the great amusement of your friends. Now you play Wii.. and where’s the risk in that huh?
http://www.aquarterof.co.uk/whatever.php

3) Tell how to –
“How to make Coconut Ice”

To achieve the traditional pink and white effect, make two separate batches of coconut ice, colouring the second batch pale pink and pouring it on the set white mixture.Ingredients - 450 Gram Caster sugar (1 lb) - 150 ml Milk ( 1/4 pint) - 150 Gram Desiccated coconut (5 oz) -Red food colouring

Go here for the rest of the recipe: http://www.greatbritishkitchen.co.uk/recipes_result.asp?name=coconutice

4) Add controversy –
“Jesus Christ Crucified in Chocolate”

Being a obsessively self confessed atheist I would pay to see this, a six foot sculpture of gods only begotten son as a mars bar. The artist Cosimo Cavallaro has “obviously” received a lot of negative criticism for this piece that he called “My Sweet Lord” was to be displayed over the Easter period in a Manhatten gallery called the Lab Gallery. Shame if you ask me… check out the rest of the post here…http://www.artnewsblog.com/2007/04/chocolate-christ-crucified.htm

5) Use interesting Stats -
Americans eat (4.5 kg) of chocolate a year

I couldn’t find anything funny about this so this is taken directly from the site and all creadit to them - The average American eats 10-12 pounds (4.5 kg) of chocolate a year. The average Swiss eats 21 pounds (9.9 kg) a year. Despite the fact that the average swiss eats 21 pounds (9.9 kg) of chocolate, they have the lower incidences of obesity and coronary heart disease in Wester Europe. Whereas the United States consumes half less, they have the highest lean body mass index in the Western world
http://www.tea-or-chocolate.com/chocolate-facts.html

That’s a miniature dachshund a year in Chocolate a year for godsake!

6) Use Quotes -
I never met a chocolate I didn't like.

Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) in Star Trek: The Next Generation
Here are a few more chocolate related Quotes for you

Forget love-- I'd rather fall in chocolate!!! - Deanna Troi in
I could give up chocolate but I'm not a quitter - Lora Brody, author of Growing Up on the Chocolate Diet
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/3-24-2005-67582.asp

7) Include Metaphor -
Like a kid in a sweet shop

“He discovered that there's an old-fashioned doorbell that rings as you enter the shop, and an infinite stock of sweets of all colours in jars that crowd the shelves. The store even has its own distinctive smell; the aroma of those sweets you may also remember from the 60s and 70s - Sherbert Dabs, Parma violets and Love Hearts. There's a cash till that rings behind open racks of sweets such as Banana chews individually wrapped in that familiar shiny paper. As he moves around lifting lids off jars, feeling the weight of coins in his pocket, key emotions arise: curiosity, excitement and anticipation http://www.cleanlanguage.co.uk/

My feelings exactly

I bit like a good poem, always relate the ending to the opening, so here goes.
So with these to be getting on with I’m going to try these title methods out on the Brain Dry blog from now on and see what happens as a result.

It has to be done…. Here it is people. “Chocolate Rain!”

Taming the Fox

I don't know about you, but i am head over heels in love with the FOX. I was sold on the browser around 3 years ago by a Mac obsessed colleague of mine, but never really used it to its full capacity. It was a little clunkier then and i only really used it for tabbed browsing and a couple of SEO features that out performed both I.E and Netscape. Then I.E came out with tabbed browsing and i tried it out for all of 8 hours and then downloaded the lastest FOX. What i love about Firefox is its tireless evolution and ease of use, its a browser that you can really make yours, you can pimp it to your hearts content and i for one am i big fan of
downloading the latest add-ons, testing them out to see if they work for me and getting rid of what i dont need.

If you havent done this before you will firstly need to download Mozilla Firefox. Then from the browser you click on Tools - Add ons, this will then launch the Mozilla Homepage for addons and you can browse all addons from their. You can search for the tools using the titles i have shown below and i have also shown you the image tags for you to recognise them. Have fun with it!

Heres a few of the add-ons i use everyday

For SEO

I.E tab - This is really handy for site testing, you can switch between mozilla and I.E in one click by clicking on the icon in the bottom right had side of the browser screen. It basically lets you check how a site is rendering in engines and for the die hard I.E fans, it gives them the benefits of what Mozilla has to offer.

iWEBTOOL
This is a very handy little tool that gives you instant access to website link popularity-keyword suggestions-density checker-website download speed test-quick optimiser check for meta data etc, alot of if is pretty basic, but it is very handy indeedy.














SEO Quake
This extension is aimed mainly at webmasters and SEO managers, it gives you an instant preveiw of website performance from your search results, this is really handy for making mesurements against client competitor sites ie: inbound links, socail media tags etc. It gives a quick snapshot of how a site is doing and you can also adjust the displayed perameters depending on what work you are doing for a client.


For Search and tagging





Co comment - I started to use this functionality when i was manageing client socail media, its a great way to keep track of any comments you make across the web, blogs or forums anywhere. You can also track replies etc, it is in Beta stage so it does have a few hiccups, but it is a good tracking tool.





ALL in one side bar
Click on the left edge of your browser window to open the sidebar and get easy access to all your panels. I use this in a way that i used to use tabbed browsing, but that had a tendancy to slow things down. I now drop all my clients websites into the bookmark side bar, all my daily blogs, SEO news sites etc and you can arrange it with titles etc to break it all up. It also allows you to flick quickly between your delicious - wikalong and Jeteye accounts without loosing anything your working on.




Image editing

Jet eye - I found this around 2 years ago in its beta stage and loved the ease of it, you simply open an account get a confirmation email and drag and drop any images you want into it, you can also tag these images and share them but i am still only using it to store my jpegs etc instead of littering the harddrive with them.














Themes


Pimpzilla - this is a very funky theme i had running for around a year, its filled with lounge lizard velvet, leopard skin back ground and Glitter and Bling!.





Metal Lion - This is a nice slick design and doesnt deflect from the dashboard. I think this isnt fadish and would more likely be a theme to keep.

This is the the Lion-blue version.

I hope that this was useful and for those that already knew i hope you enjoyed the pictures.

"We Code - Therefore we are!"

SEO, isn’t all technical, there’s SMO for starters. And just in case a few people in the back didn’t know, "there is no one answer to solve it all, no flick of a switch that will crack all your search marketing ills and get you a ranking of 6. Sorry!". A visit from the Web design/SEO fairy will not grant you thousands of inbound relevant links over night, left in a tiny pink purse beneath your pillow, and Doug can’t help you get dug as much as Doug thinks he knows how to digg. It’s a hard slog and I tell this to my clients day after day, just how much work needs to go into a full long term campaign, if the best results wish to be achieved is a HELLOFALOT.
Ok, so there is the technical part, the start up ... and I for one admit that this is the absolute nuts of the campaign and I know how important getting this bit right is, if the site is to have any hopes of future growth. Sing aloud....

Inspiring content - meta data - optimised key words in content and navigation - textual navigation - breadcrumb trail - site map - 301 re-directs - less than 3 parameters and no ID= if it has to be dynamic URL - header tags - bolded text - hyperlinks - internal links in navigation - bookmark button - hosted in country served - User centricity

But this is like a brand new car sitting on the forecourt waiting all shiny and new for its owners to arrive... the off the page stuff is what drives it, social media plays a mammoth part in getting a brand, web presence and I don't know the exact figures of on page vs. off but I know if I were to buy shares in anything, it'd be in Social Mediums (forums, optimized article submissions, blog comments, blogs). The time, sweat and tears it takes to construct a memetic brand, an interactive proposition that people are willing to submit to is an art. And SM is as much an unsung hero as CSS once was.

So please, web designers of the world, next time you propose to a client that you'll take on their SEO, consider this - "can you honestly offer a complete interactive online proposition that works both on and off the page and that can change and compete in an evolutionary user driven tornado". It's just a thought?"