HeadsetOptions Web Design, SEO, WordPress, Etcetra

When I started helping wpSnap on some of their technical issues last year, I realized that there was a lot of room to improve with the way conditional tags were written and addressed to produce the site that has among other things, featured listings, blogs and other WP themes all meshed into one pile of data in the backend. So when I was asked to redesign1 the site last month, I went a step ahead and offered to redo the backend as well.

The most prolific of issues on wpSnap (and other multi-author sites) seem to have stemmed from a new feature that was rolled into WordPress version 2.6, which was the creation of a new database table …

YouTube is the greatest video-sharing site of all times. The popularity of the site is immense. You can also download YouTube videos using certain services. It is estimated that the daily average bandwidth bills of YouTube amounts to one million dollars. People may start wondering how Google is able to keep the site online especially under such high costs. Advertisements are the main revenue source for YouTube. The sheer amount of users accumulated in the YouTube database makes the advertisers yield to the demand. It is also estimated that 74 million active YouTube accounts are at present available in YouTube. People enjoy the videos present in there. Many videos are also saved offline for watching …

Here’s a fluid bubble chart of the Olympic medal count, the coolest online map ever. Move the scale on the top to get a feel of how powerful this flash powered application really is.

One interesting note in the geopolitical context is how in 1980, USSR, the eastern block, Cuba and all the communist governments dominated the show (in the absence of US), but China, which we believe was strongly influenced by USSR, did not medal at all.

As for this year, the larger dots are mostly represented by developed nations, with only a few exceptions.

According to one news report, microbiologist Bruce Ivins carried out the deadly Anthrax attacks against “select” Senators who differed from Ivins pro-life ideology. “Killing” someone because they are not pro-life! Does that even make sense? If you cared so much about the life of an unborn child, shouldn’t you be a little more considerate towards fully developed adults? Oh, the irony is, Ivins killed himself.

If your site gets any traffic at all, chances are your RSS feed is scraped and misused by some one trying to score on SERP for the work you have toiled on. This very blog is constantly ripped by sploggers who have no regards to intellectual property rights or just plain simple dumb to realize they are stealing. Here are three sites where you can find the entire content of our blog scraped/ripped/stolen and posted as their own. Of course I did not link to them because I really don’t want you to visit them:

myblogmix.com (this m^*&*0 f$%*r even uses one of our themes on his splog!)
frenzygraphics.com
urlfan.com

How do you stop them?
Jonathan Bailey, a security expert (Plagiarism Today) who also writes on Blog Herald, lists 6 steps to identify and fight content theft. We religiously followed the suggestions for months now (that post on BH was from last November), but none worked thus far. Google is yet to acknowledged our letters (used his cease and desist letter templates, which is a good source, thanks!). I even took solace in thinking maybe they have a backlog or that they will eventually write back, but nothing really happened.

I worked on a site a while ago for a famous West Coast Kora Musician and Master Teller of Tales, Baba. Yesterday, out of the blue he sent me a nice piece of story which I thought I should share with the world. With everything that is happening around us, the war and our economy, this story offers a welcome break and a much needed dose of wisdom, wit and wonderful storytelling all in one; so without much ado, here’s the story.
[audio:fool.mp3]
Visit Baba at babathestoryteller.com for more.

I get this question a lot; do you web design or blog design? and I say, is there a difference?

Most new site that I work on are built using free CMS like WordPress and Textpattern so they tend to have a bloggy feel to it, so I see where this question might arise from. But to me, a work done specifically to be published online, irrespective of the site being a blog, is considered “web design”, if it’s on the web and it involves designing, its web design.

With that said, there are many interpretation of what constitutes as web design. Not all web designs are created equal. …

Not a big fan of Adobe, but this is worth the post. The new offering from Adobe packs more firepower than any other social media network (including Flickr). With their competitive edge in the media manipulation market with Photoshop, it is no wonder that they decided to call this online application “Photoshop Express”. I suggest you check it out, it has tons of cool features that only Photoshop can offer, it’s like having your own copy of Photoshop, only its online. You will not be disappointed. P.S. I created a gallery with a few images, all of which are “Photoshopped” using this very online application. Check it out!

We are running a poll on our site, we have a candidate in mind that we would like to endorse and promote. We would like your opinion to help us figure out if we are all on the same wavelength (or not). What will the outcome of this pool mean for our reader? If the majority of the readers support the same candidate as us, we will promote heavily as we did in the past, if not, we will limit it to occasional posts. Why would it matter? Because we do not want to distance our readers for any reason, our primary interest is in your servicing you. So go ahead and poll, don’t wait!

CNN projects that Nevada will go to Hillary. I thought it would never come to this, but I must say this to get it off my chest. I rather have Bush run this country down the toilet than Hillary, I am not sure what I dislike about her, I guess everything. Anyone but Hillary please! Tell us who you would vote in the polls.