After reading this article on Firefox 3.1 Beta 2’s new features which concentrates on it’s Private Browsing Feature, I thought I would elaborate a little on it’s other features.
The improvements and new features are as follows:
This beta is now available in 54 languagesThe offer for you to download your local version of Firefox and let them know if it looks right.
A new “Private Browsing Mode” that allows you to browse without Firefox storing any traces of where you’ve been.- Now I do think this is a good idea, particularly if you are shopping for something for the missus and you don’t want that dreaded drop down list popping down and showing her the websites you have been browsing whilst looking for her special pressie.
New functions that make it easy to remove the history of your past few hours of browsing, or remove all traces of a website.Again, great feature. Especially for piece of mind that your credit card details are not stored in the browser.
The new TraceMonkey (AKA SpiderMonkey) JavaScript engine is now on by default for web content.
Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
Removed the new tab-switching & preview behaviour based on feedback from Beta 1 users
Support for new web technologies such as the <video> and <audio> elements, the W3C Geolocation API, JavaScript query selectors, CSS 2.1 and 3 properties, SVG transforms and offline applications.
So in reality, there are many new features! - Download Firefox via the link above to have a good play and then feel free to post your thoughts in the comments section below.
Posted December 12, 2008 by Spartacus under under SEO Techniques
Google Page Rank
The Google algorithm is said to be made up of several hundred factors which ultimately determine a page’s PR (Page Rank).
It is also said to be named after Larry Page, one of the founders of Google!
Google themselves describe Google PR as follows:
PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives. It also analyses the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important”.
This does kind of make some sense really because what this means is that PR (Page Rank) is not unlike a massive voting system. The pages that receives the most votes become the most important pages and gains an award of 0-10 points.
Therefore this in it’s self is an admission by Google that PR is determined by the amount of links pointing to a said page and the PR award of the pages pointing to it.
So where can I find out my page’s Page Rank?
There are many tools on the internet and I must warn you that most of them are probably quite inaccurate. Without knowing exactly how many pages you have linking to you in the Google index & what factors Google uses (Google has a reputation for not being completely honest), how can anyone possibly build a tool for measuring Page Rank?
The answer is that they can’t, however Google themseves do offer a tool which will tell you your page’s PR; the Google Toolbar! - Download It Here (External Link)
Page Rank Works In Reverse!
Something that people don’t know is that a great deal of research shows that Page Rank works in reverse too!
For example, if a PR8 website links to a PR0 website then it would dilute it’s own Page Rank and Google will in refection reduce that page’s PR by a very small amount. - This could be as much as 1 PR point if, out of 0 links on the page, there were 5 outbound links on the PR8 page were to linking to PR0 pages.
Posted December 11, 2008 by Spartacus under under SEO Techniques
SEO Page Formatting
As a website developer, there are some guidelines that you should stick to. I am going to outline the most basic elements of SEO below - It’s a long document, so give yourself around 10 minutes to read it.
Read On…
Website TITLE Tag:
Your website TITLE tag is the second most important SEO element after your domain name.Your website’s title tag should be at least 30, but no more than 70 characters. This is because Google & other search engines truncate the title at 70 characters OR the last complete word before 70 characters is reached.
A guideline on how title should be formatted is as follows:
SEO HTML Title Tag Examples:
Home Page:
<title>Website Theme In 5 Words | Website Name</title>
Product Page / Top Page:
<title>Product Name < Category | Website Name</title>
Website Description Tag:
Some people suggest that Google & other search engines ignore your website page’s DESCRIPTION meta tag. This is simply NOT true! - Google & other search engines will look at the meta Description to try to assess the page’s topic before comparing it to the content of it’s <h1> and <p> tags, which I will cover later in this document.
Your website meta description should be 2 full sentences with a capital letter at the start and a full stop at the end. You should write your description as if you were talking to a Human Being, however, keep in mind that you should ensure that your target keyphrases are in the first sentence.
SEO Meta Description Tag Example:
<meta name=”description” content=”Using Search Engine Optimisation to choosing a good title for your website homepage. Six steps to a successful title for your website homepage.”>
The above example came from this website: Kanga Internet
Website Keywords:
On this subject I will agree that Google & most other search engines do completely ignore the keywords meta tag. However I must stress that website directories and some of the smaller search engines DO use it. Therefore it’s still worth having included in your pages.
Keywords tags should be made up of phrases of no more than 4 words, separated by a comma but no space and use plural phrases where possible - as people tend to search by plural keyphrases, such as “sheds” or “bathrooms”.
The four main content tags are as follows: <h1>, <h2>, <h3> & <p>. Some people also use <h4> but i only use that for product page sub titles. None the less all of the four above are VERY important and equaly as important is their order and page placement.
Example of HTML tag order:
<h1>Article Title</h1>
<p>Paragraph describing the article, or an intruductory paragraph.</p>
<h2>Article Sub Title</h2>
<p>Another paragraph, part of the article</p>
As you can see, the <h1> tag comes first, then a <p>, followed by a <h2> tag, then another <p> etc. There is also two other tags to talk about…
<strong>target keyphrase</strong>
A paragraph html tag is very important as Google & other search engines read the <p> tags (as well as everything else) to determine the theme and subject of a page. If you emphasise a certain target keyphrase, then a search engine will pick up on this and gives more weight to that phrase than the rest of the sentence. Use this technique sparingly and only once per sentence otherwise a search engine will probably asume it to be spam
Example? Re-read the paragraph above.
Page Links:
Inbound links are what transfer weight from your home page to your internal pages and visa-versa. But how is this weight transfered? The answer is with what is referred to as keywords & anchor text (The same rule applies to incoming links - which I will do an article on at a later date).
As you can see from the short example above of an internal category link, we are linking to a page called “Sony TVs” and therefore we use the words “Sony TVs” as the link text. We also have a TITLE attribute to our link tag, which we will also place the keyphrase “sony tv”.
This will give that page weight as it now has an incomming link with the anchor text, telling a search engine, before it even get’s to the page, what the page theme will be.
URL Link Format:
Your url should also represent the theme of the page and what is on the page. You should also try and follow your category heirachy as much as possible. For example, the path to a paroduct may be:
And, inkeeping with the TITLE tag guidelines above the meta titles would have been:
Electronics | Your Shop Name
TVs < Electronics | Your Shop Name
Plasma TVs < TVs < Electronics | Your Shop Name
Sony XYZ Plasma TV < Plasma TVs < TVs < Electronics | Your Shop Name
This may be getting a little complicated but, there is one more rule that I design websites by:
Only ever go 3 directory/category/taxonomy/hierarchical levels deep otherwise a search engine **might** not travel that deep into your website. I have no facts to back this up, it’s just my oppinion, but you would have to have a HUGE website to need any more than 3 category levels.
Page File Size:
There is a great deal of debate on this subject however, it is well known and documented that Google & some other search engines give more weight to prominence, therefore the first <p> tag on the page has more authority than the second, and so on.
Therefore it stands to reason that page size is a factor in search engine rankings. For example, if your page is 200K and has 20 <p> tags then the page is “diluted” when it comes to keyphrase density.
However, a 100K page with 20 internal links and 1 <h1> tag, 2 <p> tags is heavily concentrated therefore my prominence, proximity and density rule applies.
I would advise an HTML page size no larger than 150Kb (before CSS style sheets & images).
Finally, I have found a great PDF on SEOmoz which covers most of what I have written above, but on a handy pritable PDF. Feel free to download it. - Click here
Scientists have confirmed that there is a giant black hole in the centre of our galaxy, The Milky Way!
Using the European Southern Observatory in Chille, German astronomers have been tracking the movement of 28 stars circling the centre of The Milky Way.
What’s a black hole?
A black hole is formed when a star of sufficient mass undergoes gravitational collapse, with most or all of its mass compressed into a sufficiently small area of space, causing infinite spacetime curvature at that point (a “singularity”). Such a massive spacetime curvature allows nothing, not even light, to escape from the “event horizon,” or border. - Curtessy About.com
Researchers from Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany suggest that the black hole was 27,000 light years, or 158 thousand, million, million miles from our Earth.
“Undoubtedly the most spectacular aspect of our 16-year study, is that it has delivered what is now considered to be the best empirical evidence that super-massive black holes do really exist,” said the head of the research team, Professor Reinhard Genzel.
“The stellar orbits in the galactic centre show that the central mass concentration of four million solar masses must be a black hole, beyond any reasonable doubt.”
Posted December 9, 2008 by Spartacus under under PCs & Laptops
Facebook Virus
120 Million users’ credit card numbers may be at risk as a mallicious virus infects Facebook users’ computers.
‘Koobface’ - as it has been nicknamed, spreads by sending a message, pretending to be from a facebook friend, to people’s facebook.com inbox.
It says something like: “you look funny in this new video” or “you look just awesome in this new video”. When a user clicks on the video link provided they’re then asked to watch a “secret video by Tom”.
When users try and play the malicious video they’re asked to download the latest version of Adobe Flash Player. If they do, that’s when the virus takes hold and attacks the computer.
Guy Bunker works for Symantec, who make Norton AntiVirus, and says there are two ways Koobface gets people’s credit card details.
“It can either wait for you to make an online purchase & simply remember the details you type in on your keyboard. Otherwise it can search your computer for any cookies you might have from when you’ve bought something in the past, and take your card details from there.”
This case is one of the latest cases of how fraudsters are using social networking to gather card numbers and sensitive information.
Some technology & computer experts will tell you that you should turn off cookies on your browser, however the problem with that is you will not benefit from the full features of some of the world’s best websites.
I am a website programmer and my advice to anyone is to simply clear your cookies after any transaction, but whilst generally browsing there’s really no need - just make sure that you regularly run virus scan program.
Posted December 9, 2008 by Spartacus under under Music & TV
Blur Reform
Blur have confirmed that they are to reform and will headline the Hyde Park concert in July 2009.
The last time we saw Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Alex James and Dave Rowntree together as the band Blur was their performace at London’s Royal Festival Hall in 2000.
Graham Coxon left the band in 2002 to pursue his solo career and it was reported that his relationshop with Albarn became a little “frosty”.
In April 2008 Alex James hinted that Blur may reform. The band met up two months later and revealed on the Official Blur Website that they “met up for an enjoyable lunch” but there were no “other music plans for Blur”.
Then in November 2008 Damon told BBC news: “It’s very possible I’ll go back to Blur, it really is very possible.”
Posted December 9, 2008 by Spartacus under under High Street
Retail Sales Continue To Drop!
A closely watched survey has reported that, for the first time in 13 years, retail sales have dropped in consecutive months.
This means that instead of sales rising in the festive period this year, they seem to have fallen.
The survey shows a 0.1% decline in October, and almost 2.6% in November.
An absolute contrast on Food sales however, with the B.R.C. confirming that the food & drink industry was the only industry to see a rise in sales.
For most retailers the Christmas period is a key time for their annual sales turnover, for some companies it can represent almost 2/3 of their annual total revenuel, and this could mean the end of some smaller retailers.
Posted December 9, 2008 by Spartacus under under Music & TV
X Factor 2008 Finalists JLS
Five teenage girls were injured last night at a free concert featuring X-Factor finalist group JLS.
The fans were allegedly pushed forward as the 2000 strong crowd tried to get tickets to see the realist show boy band on Monday at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon, South London.
The ambulance service reported that four of the girls were taken to hospital to be treated for minor injuries.
Four ambulances had been called to the scene, said a spokesman.
“We treated five patients. They were all teenage girls. Four of them were taken to Mayday Hospital in south London,” he said.
“There was one with a hand injury, one with difficulty in breathing and two who were also just taken unwell. The fifth was treated at the scene.”
One concert-goer told the Croydon Guardian she was helped from the crowd after suffering an asthma and panic attack. “I’d been queuing since 1pm but when the school kids turned up it became so busy with them all pushing us towards the front,” she said.
“There was a pregnant woman in the crowd. It was horrible. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t get out.”
The Metropolitan Police said officers were called to Fairfield Halls at 4pm GMT after “reports of crushing at a free music event”.
The Fairfield Halls management would not comment, but did confirm the band were playing at the venue.
The relaity TV show group, JLS, whose name stands for Jack the Lad Swing, have made it through to the X-Factor final this weekend along with Alexandra Burke and Eoghan Quigg.
Posted December 9, 2008 by Spartacus under under Computers
First Computer Mouse
Today, 9th December 2008, the computer mouse celebrates it’s 40th anniversary!
40 years ago today Douglas Engelbart demonstrated the world’s first Computer mouse.
The first mouse that Dr Engelbart demonstrated at the Fall Joint Computer Conference (FJCC) was made of wood and had one only button.
He demonstrated how the mouse had two tracking wheels to track from left to right & up and down. It was demonstrated with a small cursor on the screen.
A celebration is planned today to mark the occasion in California where many of the original researchers will be reunited for this momentous day.
Posted December 8, 2008 by Spartacus under under Music & TV
Clarkson Cleared
Ofcom has ruled that Jeremy Clarkson’s comments on the TV series Top Gear about lorry drivers murdering prostitutes did not breach the broadcasting code.
Ofcom, the media regulatory body received nearly 340 complaints and the BBC themselves received over 1800 last month regarding Clarkson’s humerous comments.
Clarkson’s comments follow the conviction of Forklift Truck driver Steve Wright, jailed in Feb 2008 for killing 5 prostitutes.
As he completed a lorry-driving task, Clarkson said: “This is a hard job and I’m not just saying that to win favour with lorry drivers, it’s a hard job.
“Change gear, change gear, change gear, check mirror, murder a prostitute, change gear, change gear, murder. That’s a lot of effort in a day.”
Ocom have ruled that Clarkson’s comments were in jest and “was clearly using exaggeration to make a joke”.
“Ofcom did not believe the intention of the comments could be seen to imply that all lorry drivers murder prostitutes, nor would it be reasonable to make such an inference,” the watchdog said.
“In Ofcom’s view, the presenter was clearly using exaggeration to make a joke, albeit not to everyone’s taste. The comments should therefore be seen in that context.”
The BBC’s oficial response to the complaints was: “This particular reference was used to comically exaggerate, and make ridiculous, an unfair urban myth about the world of lorry driving, and was not intended to cause offence.”
