Ramblings, rumblings, grumblings, and rambling grumbly rumblings.

For my friends who have posted pictures to their LJ account:

A friend of mine pointed out to me a method of getting around "Friends Locked" filters, so that it is possible to view items that only people on your Friends list should be able to view. The items in this case were photographs that might not want to be made public.

The kicker is that he wasn't trying. He was just randomly clicking about, following interesting links and people, "chasing Rabbits" as we say back home, sorted a list in a certain way and, lo and behold, the Friends Only filter fell away and he was able to browse pretty much everything. To his credit, he noted the steps, backed out, and emailed me the warning.

So, if you've posted pictures and think they're private, be aware that they aren't necessarily.

Ah, The Internet. Making the private, public, since 1993.

Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
- The Princess Bride


I am an expert at optimizing websites for the maximum impact on search engines. An expert, seriously. I know as much as the dudes getting $500 a month who optimize websites for a living.

It's simple. Ready? Write this down:

It's all about text content.

Not images. Not Flash. Not Ajax. Certainly not keywords.

Content. Text. Text Content.

Google™ doesn't use KEYWORDS, and never has. Yahoo!™ doesn't.

If you want Google™ to rank you for "pottery" in "Lawrence, Kansas", then make sure that those three words appear as often as is logically possible in your content. It doesn't get simpler than that.

( Techie-shit snipped... )

The best we can do is make educated guesses, do all the things we know to do, and hope that Google™ doesn't screw us both. And if it does, we live with it.

Beware the guy who tells you, "For $100 a month I can guarantee you a high ranking on Google™." That's true, for a couple of weeks, until something else comes along that's optimized a little bit better, or has content that's a little bit newer.

Anybody who can write a website can "do" SEO: keep your content relevant, fresh, and easy for Google™ to read.

It's not a task to be done. It's a process to be followed.

So, you may be asking yourself, "Why, Bill, are you writing this?"

Easy answer: DataGuy. He wants to be liked. He wants our customers to be happy, but most of all he wants them to like him. He wants them to feel warm when his name is spoken.

He wants to give them The Ultimate Answer. If he can do that, they'll like him.

So, when this issue comes up as it does from time to time, he promises to look into it. The difference between him and me is that he means, literally, that he will look into it. He'll do internet searches. He'll do research.

He'll call our SEO consultant in ... Indiana, somewhere. The SEO consultant will tell him everything I've written here, and confirm that we're doing it all.

He'll ask for a code review. I will spend the better part of an hour explaining to him what I have written here, and confirm that we're doing it all.

Every time.

It's like being nibbled to death by a duck. A panicky, gregarious, untrainable duck.

It took till friggin' 1:30 this morning (okay, so I started at midnight) but the DSL modem is connected and functioning.  My router was even so kind as to inform DynDNS of the change, so I can still RDP to home without having to know my IP address.  Yea.

( Skip-able stuff. )

Had a wonderful dinner (buffalo burgers, smoked; garlic-rosemary oven potatoes; home-made applesauce) and visit with glesyn last night.  More more more!  Kate, next time we're coming to you...and I'm bringing my tools!


* For the record, I was connected with the ComCast modem, looking for the registration information for my DSL account to plug into my router.  Next time, I'll just let them send me the installation CD...not that I'll use it, but it comes with the registration info.