Only Network

Here’s an interesting one for the Search Engine watchers. As you know, I have a website called Ugh!!’s Greymatter Honeypot. Well, I always keep an eye on how it’s doing in the search engine ranking, and one thing I keep bumping against is ugg boots.Turns out that search engines tend to thing that the two are linked in some way, probably because the spelling is so similar.

It’s funny really, because if it wasn’t for this case, I would never have known what those boots were; don’t think I’d ever have come across them in my every day life.

Interesting anecdote, huh?

Have you ever found yourself wishing you had a better laptop? You know, a better laptop means you can work faster and be more productive, but really how much are you ready to spend on that? Well, I’ve been using this laptop for a few years now, and I can still all the stuff I need to do perfectly fine. It may not have all the bells and whistles, but it suffices.

So, make sure you get the right laptop for the job, and a an extended laptop warranty cannot hurt. Remember, you’re buying something that has to last you a while, so making sure it’s covered is always a good idea.

Oh, and get one with a wide screen. It’s a great boost to your productivity!

It’s been great watching Arthur, my 4-year old son, start exploring technology and getting up to speed on his computer. But we all know there are dangers online, so I’m trying out an interface designed for kids called KidZui. Here’s what you need to know about the software:

The KidZui Browser was designed from the ground-up to allow children to safely and independently search, share and discover more than 2 million parent and teacher approved websites, pictures, games and videos.

KidZui’s purpose is to keep kids safe online, empower their curiosity, and engage parents with their kids’ interests (through weekly parental emails and parental controls). In addition to the core service, the KidZui Web Network includes ZuiGames (the best site for child-appropriate flash games on the web) and ZuiTube (the best site for kids to watch and explore kid-appropriate YouTube videos).

Looks great huh? We even have his laptop set up in the corner of the sitting room using preschool furniture so he’s ergonomically settled while he’s playing on his laptop.

Now .. when shall I start teaching him to code?

I’m playing with a new location-based social network called Locaccino. Here’s how it describes itself:

Locaccino is the only location-sharing system that gives you precision control over who can see your location. While most location-based systems only allow you to list which of your contacts should or shouldn’t be able to see your location, our privacy settings allow you to create rules as simple or complex as you want them to be!

Our technology allows you to easily define the times when you want to share your locations. Locaccino lets you create groups for your friends to simplify your location preferences. With Locaccino, allowing your co-workers to see your location from 8AM – 5PM is a snap.

Locaccino also allows you to specify where you can be located. Using a Google maps interface, you can define regions where you do and don’t want other people to be able to find you.

Sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it? I like the emphasis on privacy above all else, after all, you wouldn’t want your boss to know you’re shopping for landscape lighting when you’re supposed to be at work, now, would you?

Did you know that Search Engines can penalise your pages if they are deemed to contain duplicate content? Just how much of a penalty you may incur is not precisely known, but bearing this in mind, you should try and avoid duplicating content across your site. So, how do you find out if you have too much duplicate content? Well, there’s a tool that can help you identify the problem, called the Similar Page Checker. You simply provide the URLs of two pages you want to check and it goes off and calculates how similar they are.

You can use this for any type of website, whether it’s a joke site, a site about motor home repairs or even a webmaster site like this one. Just another tool to add to your toolbox!

Here’s another game I’ve been playing recently. It’s called Desktop Defender and it’s a Facebook game. I’ve always been a fan of “defense-style” games which involve popping shots at a bunch of different things trying to get through your defences. This particular one used to be a stand-along game before it became a Facebook game, and I used to play it way before that.

The transition to Facebook as worked well, using your social graph to make the game much more fun than it ever used to be. You also get a bunch of power ups, from Boosts to Blue Advantage to all sorts of power ups. Check out out .. just make sure you have loads of free time before you get stuck in.

I’ve been playing this game on Facebook that I thought I’d recommend to my readers. It’s called Bejewled Blitz and involves matching up as many jewels as you can in under a minute. Sounds simple you may way, but it’s really quite addictive. You’ll be wanting to hit the exit alarm when you realise that you’ve spent half the night playing the game.

It has an interesting viral element where you compete with your friends for high scores; so if you’re my friend on Facebook, you’ll see my score compared to yours and all the other friends in your network that play the game. Pretty compelling I though!

You know, the more I use WordPress, the more thankful I feel that I have a framework I can deploy easily and quickly which allows me to get great results quickly. It’s especially poignant when I find a site like this vig rx which claims to be a blog, but isn’t really. I’ve checked the source on the page and it looks like a static HTML website, as opposed to a dynamic one.

The great thing about WordPress is that it allows you to manage your content easily. The problem with static HTML sites is that they’re a pain to update, and if you don’t have the skills, you have to pay someone else to do it for you. So check out your options, and make sure you find a way to update your site easily and cheaply. If you don’t know to do it, just drop me a line!

Have you ever used Augmented Reality? It’s a way to combine the real world and the digital one to get some great effects. Well, if you haven’t you can give Virtual Suzi a try. If you head down to the Gadget Show site for Virtual Suzi, you can install the plugin, follow the instructions and watch Suzi come to life. And she looks great, definitely not needing any phentremine or anything like that.

Oh, and you’re going to need a webcam to make the whole thing work, but a lot of laptops have them built in and they only cost a few quid anyway. The question is .. is this the future of advertising?

I’ve just noticed that on the LegoLand site you can buy your tickets online and you can get 10% off. It’s always good to be able to get a discount online and it also means that you spend less time in the queues when you get there. It’s amazing when you see the discounts you can get online, from 20% off H&M all the way to the best prices on best weight loss supplements.

The reality is that providing a service over the Internet is always going to be cheaper than paying shop rent and having staff to man it. So more and more businesses are using the Internet to deliver their services and this allows them to offer discounts and coupons to their customers.

Do you shop online?