Reminiscence 1

In an effort to celebrate the increase in PageRank for Geekie.org and a number of other FreddyWare assets, I have changed the wallpaper for Geekie.org to that of the site in February. The image is called Lime Light, and is royalty-free photography from stock.xchng . Thanks to stock.xchng for that!

In the future, there will be a number of “Reminiscence” posts where I relate something to a time in the past. Usually, there will be something that brings back memories of a prior time. In this case, Reminiscence 1 brings us back to the start of Geekie.org.

Another matter: in order to most effectively deploy wallpapers and CSS changes, I need to know what the screen resolution of my users are. That would help in resizing wallpaper photos to a suitable size so that it doesn’t take too long to download. Besides, it’s important that the wallpapers appear properly for any resolution.

That’s it for now.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

We prefer ATOM

There are a number of syndication formats that can be used for “feeds” on blogs like Geekie.org. WordPress 2.3 natively supports RSS 0.92, RSS 1, RSS 2.0, and ATOM 1.0.

Geekie.org now favours ATOM as the default syndication format, and I’ve changed the links throughout the site in order to reference the ATOM feed as opposed to the RSS feed. You can find the current ATOM feed using the button on the right side of your location bar, the icon next to the site title, or the icon next to the “Functions” panel in the right sidebar.

Why? There isn’t much to it, but certainly ATOM is a newer and more advanced format. Thus, we prefer ATOM.

Do you have a blog? Switch to ATOM if you can. Google likes it. (That’s not the only reason.) Read this Wikipedia article on ATOM.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Google PageRank update!

The Googlebot remains one of my favourite search engine bots yet. Simply take a look at your Google Toolbar (if you have it installed) for the PageRank of this site. It’s PageRank 2 now, while it was PageRank 1 yesterday.

Similar changes are occurring all over the web, as Google makes another one of its PageRank updates. This site talks about MAJOR sites, like Forbes, dropping in PageRank.

Why is that? Well, many are theorizing that it’s due to Google’s recent announcement about how paid links would be penalized. The site linked in the previous paragraph has a list of major sites with PageRank 7 or so, dropping to PR 5 or lower. All of them had paid links.

Due to this, Geekie.org and FreddyWare Administration will need to make some serious SEO choices for our sites, including the elimination and prohibition of paid links. We are in that discussion right now.

It’s good for FreddyWare overall, however. Many pages across our network have increased in PageRank to 1 from 0, and our StudyNucleus branch has been awarded PageRank 1, after only a few months on the Internet. Good job!

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

More sites, less time

Now that FreddyWare Articles has become a project here at FreddyWare, I’ve become more busy. With less time, it means that some things will be coming less often, like changes to the FreddyWare home site. Additionally, due to Apache upgrades in process on the PersonalLog server, all blogs are currently suspended (non-functional), and development of the PersonalLog project is postponed until such upgrades are completed.

With less time, it also means that I won’t have the opportunity to write that Pathfinder novel I’ve been trying to write for the past year and a half.

Anyways, if you have experience with writing articles for an article site, join us at FreddyWare Articles. I will grant people certain privileges depending on their English skills — grammar, spelling, punctuation, sentence/paragraph structure, capitalization, etc. It’s not our purpose at the moment to monetize FreddyWare Articles, but that may occur in the near future. In sharing the work and credit for FreddyWare Articles, I’m bringing more people into the FreddyWare organization, and hence improving the chances of its expansion.

Please, please… submit an application with your name, e-mail, a link to your article or the text of an unpublished article, and your current web site or blog (if you have one) using the FreddyWare contact form.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Gmail with IMAP?

Not long ago, I blogged about Gmail storage space nearing 4 GB. Now, Gmail and Google Apps for Your Domain webmail accounts have already exceeded that number.

As of today, October 26, 2007 @ 17:33 EST, Gmail is at 4417 MB. The best improvement now — and it’s got little to do with storage, is IMAP.

As some may know, IMAP is simply another e-mail protocol, in some ways superior to POP3. Very few public (free) e-mail providers offer POP3 in the first place, and much fewer support IMAP. Hotmail doesn’t support either one — they want to make money off the advertising on the webmail interface.

Gmail, and e-mail users of Google Apps for Your Domain can now benefit from IMAP access, which allows for the constant synchronization of your local and server mailboxes. When one accesses one’s mailbox through IMAP, he is retrieving an index of all of the e-mails present on the server in his account; irrelevant to what he has on his software, IMAP will let him and any other person connected to the mailbox maintain the same structure and same messages. IMAP also has some additional benefits, such as server-side searching, server-side folders & sorting, and doesn’t require the full download of every message.

The addition of IMAP is just another reason why I love Google so much. Windows Live Mail, Yahoo! Mail, and Gmail all now have AJAX interfaces; but it is Microsoft that has failed to catch up. Blinded by the huge revenues they could bring in through their more corporate developments, like SharePoint, Communicator, Outlook, and Exchange, they have failed to recognize the benefits of allowing mail access through a desktop application. The reasons are simple: with so many users, there is a huge drop in ad sales if everybody switches to using a piece of software.

The most ironic part about this is that Netscape Communications, Microsoft’s competitor in the 1990’s, recognized the benefits of developing the web. (FreddyWare shares this view.) Microsoft seemed to find little potential in Netscape, but still attempted to prevent Netscape from competing (thus the anti-trust suits). Now, Microsoft must learn to move away from the online platform that has evolved with Hotmail, and move it to a system that integrates the ONLINE and the OFFLINE.

Strangely, I’ve always thought that the Internet was where the most potential lies, not the desktop.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Branded merchandise for corporate events

I was recently made aware of a site called “Gimmees” that offers a number of promotional items such as badges, T-shirts, mugs, magnets, keychains, and more.

You might know that I am a member (supposedly an executive member) of RASA, also known as the Space Club. RASA is planning on fundraising sometime within the next little while. Interestingly, Gimmees offers some of the things that can help us raise cash.

RASA could do one of the following things:

• Order custom badges, and distribute them to club members; sell badges to students;
• Order custom pens/pencils, and sell them at a price CHEAPER than the “little shop in the wall”, thus encouraging competition for the monopoly that the “little shop” is;
• Order frisbees with the logo, and sell them for profitable prices;

There are all sorts of things that we could do with the products offered by this business. Might I add that Gimmees offers a lot of things that you don’t find elsewhere?

Interestingly, this sponsor offered something that I could actually benefit from buying, unlike some of Geekie.org’s previous advertisers. I am being honest when I say that I will try to promote Gimmees over the course of a few months, as well as increase its awareness within our fundraising operations at RASA. It’s one of the first times that I’ve found an advertiser that I would buy from.

Unfortunately, some of the minimum purchase quantities make it a bit less feasible for RASA to buy — Student Council / the school Administration are unlikely to approve a $250+ purchase for 200 frisbees. It’s not the individual unit prices driving the cost up — those are quite good — but rather the setup prices.

Fortunately, Gimmees’ prices (including setup costs) are lower than their competitors, and we will give some thought to this provider. Larger companies, school-approved events, will have no problems getting what they want at a suitable price from Gimmees.

Now, if you’re a student at Richmond Hill High School, be sure not to leak out the low, low prices that Gimmees offers; a few weeks from now, you might see us selling them at largely inflated prices!

(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

 Loading ...