Archive for the ‘Business’ Category
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
10 Green Projects That Just Might Save The World
Faced with massive population growth, melting ice caps and the need to own an ever-increasing number of gadgets, the world needs to find sustainable solutions.
Satellites Show Air Pollution is Way Worse Than We Thought
A new way of comparing ground and satellite collected data on air pollution has shown that 15 of 20 highly populated cities have air pollution levels that 5 to 10 times higher than the World Health Organization’s guidelines.
Texas the world’s 6th biggest wind-power producer
Although many Texans seem to doubt that climate change is man-made, they are still firm believers in clean energy. According to a new report released by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), Texas once again leads in wind- energy capacity and largest wind farms installed, ranking sixth in the world behind Germany…
Chinese Electric Car Company Led by Charasmatic CEO
BYD, a battery and electric car manufacturer, is led by Wang Chuan-Fu. Wang has built BYD into a global leader but still wants to be environmentally friendly. To that end, BYD has developed a nontoxic electrolyte battery fluid. “If we’re going to help solve environmental problems, we can’t create new environmental problems with our technology.”
China’s Grand Plans for Eco-Cities Now Lie Abandoned
Mostly conceived by international architects, China’s eco-cities were intended to be models of green urban design. But the planning was done with little awareness of how local people lived, and the much-touted projects have largely been scrapped.
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Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
I spoke to an old friend last night on the telephone. We chatted about all kinds of stuff, including the economy, the world in general and the stock market. Now, I have known this person for many years and thought I knew what he was all about. Last night’s conversation revealed that I wasn’t aware of nearly as much as I thought I was.
As it turns out, my old friend knows quite a bit about the stock market and is very enthusiastic about his knowledge. Now, you know me…I’m always ready to listen and discuss the world of high finance. We had a grand old conversation about the various types of stock indicators. The funny thing is, as much as I have heard about all the different types of tools my trading account offers, I really had no idea what any of them did. Last night’s conversation peaked my interest.
For a long time, I have had a suspicion that people were getting rich off of this stock market. I always knew that by setting “buy” and “sell” triggers, you can basically set your purchasing and sales on auto-drive. Whether or not that’s true, is debatable. I suppose that if it were true, everyone on earth would just take a class on how to set triggers and we would all be rich. Now I know that by analyzing stock indicators, you can get a much better picture of how to analyze past performance of a stock to predict its future movements. The problem is that our predictions are oftentimes so wrong, that we lose money.
If you have the time, the brains and the patience, I believe that you can study stock indicators and how to set triggers and make money in this stock market. There are some conditions that would have to be met first (in my opinion). They are: you would really need the time (all day), the money (and the willingness to lose it) and the intellect (to realize what exactly you are doing). I suspect that many people would get excited about learning about this type of thing and jump in to the market being a bit green. That basically describes me. The good part about how I roll is that I know what I am good at and what I’m not. I tend to stick with things that don’t offer very many negatives. I am a very patient man.
I suppose my point for this post is that we can all make money in this economy if we put out minds to it. If you are a stock market wizard and care to share your success stories, you can leave a comment on this post. I am sure you would have an audience of very interested readers.
By the way, if you would like a short description of stock indicators, you can visit this page. If you would like to delve into what each technical indicator does or its definition, you can visit this page.
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Saturday, January 3rd, 2009
If you have read any of my tennis posts, you would have seen me writing about this guy I play tennis with. You know the guy…if I tell him my leg is hurting, he hits me in the leg with the tennis ball. He is vicious on the court, a true competitor.
Well, as it turns out, he is also famous. I’m not sure if I ever told you this, but this fella (Mike) is in the golf business. He manufactures and sells all type of golf equipment out of his Hartford warehouse. He primarily sells online through Ebay and his online store called Linksman Golf.
Recently, Mike was on TV. How he gets all over the place and ends up on TV, I’ll never know. Some people just have it, I suppose. You gotta check him out by clicking here.
Michael Blair and Fox News reporter
Golf equipment at Linksman Golf
Linksman Golf online
Now, I wonder if I should post those videos I took of Mike’s tennis serve on YouTube. Hmmm…
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Sunday, November 16th, 2008
You know, I have been looking for an industry magazine for about a century now. It’s amazing how difficult my search has been.
One would think there would be hundreds of magazines out there geared towards people who work on the web. I mean, jeez, Google figured out how to target the “webmaster” community about 10 years ago and I think they hit the nail on the head.
For the uninitiated, the webmaster community is the group of people who have a lot to do with what goes on the web. If we didn’t have these folks, we would have a bunch of sales guys and a bunch of programming geeks getting a whole bunch of nowhere. The webmasters are those “middle of the road” folks who have some social ability as well as some technical ability and are able to speak to both the business side and the technical side. It’s a huge market and the population is growing every day.
For years, Google has had the good sense to target these individuals with all sorts of web tools and products. I can go on forever about who does well and who does not so well on the web, but my point here is that if Google has done it, where the heck is everyone else?
As a web guy, I get advertised to for a few things. Mainly hosting companies, domain names, software, etc…It’s most likely a heck of a lot more than I realize.
One thing I have been trying to do for the past few years is to really get involved with reading about the industry. I have been looking for a magazine. I mean, they have magazines that target butterfly catchers in Brazil. I thought a magazine for people who work on the web would be a no brainer.
A few years back, I almost got lucky. I found “Revenue Magazine.” This has been a pretty good magazine, but mainly targets the affiliate side of things on the web. It’s almost there and they do include many areas that I am interested in, but they are also lacking in many. I think they come out with a paper magazine about once per quarter, so there certainly is some downtime in between.
I recently discovered “Website Magazine.” Now, this is much more up my alley. Website Magazine is for the web guy or gal. If you like to get your hands dirty, this might be a good fit. I get emails about once per week with some pretty good articles and I just received my first paper magazine yesterday.
Website Magazine
I must warn you, this is a fairly new magazine. The pages are quite thick, so you think there is more packed inside. I flipped through a few pages and soon realized that I was about half way through the whole thing. I am sure that more content is forthcoming though. I am patient.
In the meantime, I am at least satisfied that someone with a brain out there decided it was time to actually give a very hungry market what they are looking for.
Now, if I could just get someone to start delivering wood pellets…
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Saturday, November 15th, 2008
I thought I would write a quick post about something I experienced yesterday. Actually, I have experienced this quite a bit, but never had any sort of motivation to write about it.
A friend of mine has been getting some video work done for one of his websites. He is having a few videos produced for an attempt at some viral marketing (which, by the way is my new forte). This is a new for most, but not so new for many, area of marketing for pretty much anything. I guess you could say that Barack Obama had some success with it. For those unfamiliar with viral marketing, it’s easily described as “word of mouth” or “buzz.”
Whatever. This post isn’t about viral marketing. It’s about a company I contacted to have some video work done for some of my sites.
I have an idea for some video. It’s basically the same idea my friend had. Since I don’t do video in house, I decided to do a little research and contact a few people to feel out the scene. The first organization I contacted hasn’t written back yet. Okay, forget them. The second company did write back, and this is where it gets annoying.
ME: Hi, I would like to discuss some video production for a few of my websites. One of them can be seen here – ****. Please contact me so we can discuss further. Thank you. Jay
THEM: Hi Jay. Please let me know what you were looking for so I can tell you if we can do it. Also, what’s your budget?
There are a few issues here.
What do you mean, “If we can do it?” Your website had about 30 sample videos on it. I know there are many different roads one can travel down in the video arena, but as far as business goes, don’t you think it would be a wise idea to hear a potential customer’s ideas before showing your lack of confidence?
Actually, that’s not even the part that bothered me. That part happened to creep up on me as I was writing.
The part the bugged me was this line – “What’s your budget?”
That ticks me off. Now, if you know me, you know that I don’t get ticked off easily (haha). Also, I am really sorry for venting on this poor fool about this whole topic, because I have brewed about this many times in the past.
Let’s look at a pro and a con of the question, “What’s your budget?”
The pro is that the business providing the service can immediately identify an individual without the resources for the project. If someone wrote back, “My budget is $25,” then the company knows to cut off all communication, or at the very least, write back something along the lines of their services costing a wee bit more than that.
Here is the con. If we translate the question and look at its actual meaning, we can see that the company is actually asking, “How much do you have to spend?” Some companies seriously are screening out the people with no money. Others are simply trying to squeeze you. No one I know would actually tell a service provider how much they are looking to spend…well, besides me. I’m that guy who low balls and looks for a fight.
“Umm, yes, sure, my name is Jay and I have allocated $300,000 for our video production endeavor.” This makes for an interesting email exchange. I am sure the guy is thinking something like, “Gee Jay, we only charge $100 per video, but for you, I would say $50,000 per.”
Why on earth would I throw a random number at a company before even knowing a cost range for their services?
I know, I am beating a dead horse here.
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Friday, November 7th, 2008
The desk portion of my new office furniture arrived this afternoon. I have to tell you, I am loving Pottery Barn furniture.
About a week and a half ago, I received the console table I ordered. I was very pleased with the quality. Today’s desk is going to make me go back for more. It’s the kind of furniture that you look at and say, “Wow.”
Pottery Barn Aris Desk
The desk is the Pottery Barn Aris large desk. It said something about being framed in some hardwood, but all I know is that it looks really cool.
This is a big change for me. I am used to sitting at a pretty high desk on a chair that is the height of a stool. This is the traditional 30 inches, so things are a bit lower, but actually more comfortable. I now have drawers too.
There are a few more things that I need. We are going to take a trip back to the store next week sometime to pick up two small tables, a garbage can and a floor lamp. I should be set for a while for this office. Now, for the other office, that’s another story.
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Tuesday, October 14th, 2008
Incredible Images of the Sun
The Sun is now in the quietest phase of its 11-year activity cycle, the solar minumum – in fact, it has been unusually quiet this year – with over 200 days so far with no observed sunspots. The solar wind has also dropped to its lowest levels in 50 years. Seen below are some recent images of the Sun in more active times.
How Much Oil Do You Eat?
Over the past few years, as the ‘green movement’ has grown, more attention has been paid to our food system. Pollution is rampant, we’ve become removed from knowing how or where our food was grown, and food-borne illness outbreaks are a constant problem. But should our food supply become a priority to the next administration?
Spectacular Crystals & Mines Explored
Interesting piece on discovery & exploration of 1 of richest crystal mines in world — with huge crystals among largest in world.
House Uses Hydrogen For Power
Hydrogen power is usually associated with vehicles, but a house in the UK is showing that there are a multitude of uses for fuel cells. The grid-connected West Midlands home is powered by hydrogen as part of a £2 million University of Birmingham and Black County Housing Group (BCHG) project.
Globalization Theories Win American Nobel Prize
Paul Krugman has won the Nobel Prize in economics. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences says the Princeton economist won “for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity.” Krugman is also a columnist for The New York Times.. Reporter Curt Nickisch talks with Renee Montagne about Krugman’s work.
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Sunday, October 12th, 2008
European Union Bans Incandescent Light Bulbs
The switch to energy-saving bulbs was approved by EU ministers this past week. Advocates claim that replacing the worst-performing lamps with today’s best available technology will reduce domestic energy consumption for lighting by 60 percent; equivalent to preventing 30 million tons of CO2 pollution every year.
Is Cheaper Oil A Good Thing?
It has plummeted nearly 40% in just three months, from about $147 a barrel in July to below $83 on Friday, with no obvious bottom in sight. If that sounds good, you are probably a driver who winces these days at filling your gas tank. But the downward spiral could mean trouble for oil-rich countries and for the environment.
2010 Toyota Prius Adds Muscle at Expense of Fuel Efficiency
A Toyota spokesperson said the changes were to increase the vehicle’s mass-market appeal, but with the changing economy and increased concern for the environment, it remains to be seen whether top speed will be among buyers’ concerns.
Introducing the World’s Largest Solar Powered Winery
The largest solar installation of any winery in the world is set to be built for Constellation Wines’ Gonzalez winery in Monterrey County, CA by Pacific Power Management.
Exposing the Bi-Partisan Myth of Clean Coal
There’s at least one topic the candidates in the US elections won’t be wrangling over: so-called “clean†coal. That’s because they all support it.
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Sunday, October 12th, 2008
This is a follow up post to my previous posts about my friend’s Google ranking drop. As you may remember, his Google ranking was restored a few weeks after he blocked the proxy website from copying his entire website and submitted a Google reinclusion request. As you may have guessed, he was quite thrilled to see his SERP ranking shoot up again.
Well, as luck would have it, I received a phone call last night from my friend telling me that his website was bombing again. I Googled his favorite keywords and they seemed to rank fine over at my end, but he explained that he traffic stats from Google was flat. They nosedived a day or two ago. I chalked up the results I was getting to Google adjusting the results.
This new twist got me thinking. What in the world could be making this website’s ranking bounce around like this? Looking back, the proxy website may not have been 100% at fault. There has to be something else.
I began doing a little research and learned about few things about duplicate content. The reason I looked at that particular area is because there is absolutely nothing else I can find wrong with this website. Duplicate content seems to be a rather popular culprit.
I came across a pretty well laid out website called “Google Rankings Diagnostics” that describes a whole heck of a lot of issues you might be having with your website. This website validated what I pretty much already knew…that if you have multiple URLs (on a domain) with the same exact content, Google has trouble figuring out which page is the original and may throw all of them out.
I took a very close look at my friend’s website. Again, I took a unique line of text from his homepage and searched for it in Google (inside quotes). A funny thing happened. I saw the homepage result, but there were a few extra results as well, all on his domain. There were about 5 extra pages in total.
Now, some of these extra results have been there for years, so I don’t attribute the issue to those pages being duplicate content. What struck me was one of the extra pages.
A few months ago, my friend moved one of his pages. He put a 301 redirect in his .htaccess file, which was the correct thing to do. So now, the old directory where the page was held forwarded to a new page. It looked something like this:
Redirect 301 /olddirectory/ http://www.hiswebsite.com/newpage.php
The redirect worked fine, but here is what that extra page in the search results looked like:
http://www.hiswebsite.com/newpage.phpoldpage.php
Guess what page was showing at that URL…yup, the homepage. The dynamic nature of his website sends unknown page results like this to the homepage. This was a fluke. My friend forgot that there were pages inside the old directory he redirected to the new page. Every old page in that old directory was tacked on to the new page, like you see above. To make matters worse, there were a bunch of links from other websites pointing to the old pages in the old directory.
I am not sure if this would cause the ranking drops that he is experiencing, but the timing certainly lines up with when the issue began. It is also certainly considered duplicate content.
So, here is what I did to deal with the issue this time. I deleted the redirects in the .htaccess file and blocked the URLs of all those extra results in the robots.txt file. Hopefully, this will tell Google to not spider or index those pages and it will also tell Google that those links into the site are dead.
Now, we have to wait. I am not going to submit another reinclusion request to Google because I want to see if the ranking returns naturally. If it does, this was the problem for sure.
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Thursday, September 25th, 2008
This is a follow up post to my “Sudden Drop In Google Ranking post.
This morning, I checked the ranking of the website in question. To my surprise, the site had again ranked number 4 in the Google Search Engine Results. This was most definitely good news. In fact, all key phrases now ranked on page one of the Google SERPs.
I can only hope this persists. So, what did we do? Here is a short list:
- Noticed the website had dropped in Google ranking.
- Took a unique phrase from the website homepage and searched Google using quotes, “like this.”
- Found a direct copy of the website and discovered it had been “Proxy Hijacked.”
- Found IP address of website that Proxy Hijacked our website and blocked it using the .htaccess file.
- Submitted a “Reconsideration Request” to Google.
After about a week and a half, our website had regained its ranking in Google.
I read a long article about Proxy Hijacking and it mentioned that Google had fixed the problem. If this was the case with my friend’s website, this certainly isn’t true. While I can not be totally sure Proxy Hijacking caused this case of Google ranking loss, the facts seem to lead down this path.
What is my advice to you? Check either Google or Copyscape once a month to see if someone has taken text or Proxy Hijacked your website.
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