Monthly Archives: February 2009

Of Interest

Twitter hits ABC’s Nightline

Drew Hannush by Drew Hannush (26 Feb 2009)  |  Leave a comment

Tonight, while flipping around the TV, I saw reporter John Donovan of ABC doing a story on Nightline about Twitter.  Okay, so the main stream media is finally catching up to this technology, so does that mean the end of Twitter as we know it?

I mean, think about it…wasn’t R.E.M. a lot better when no one knew about them?  Isn’t it more fun being a fan of a team that is on the rise or a spoiler, more than the perennial champion of the league?  Wasn’t it more cool to drive to Pennsylvania to bring back a six pack of Yuengling beer because you couldn’t get it anywhere…rather than now when it is one of the low priced beers, sitting next to Budweiser and Miller?

When something becomes mainstream, it always seems to find a way to hit the burnout factor and then disappear.  Remember bell bottoms and skinny ties?

Well, for my part, I guess I will be one of those lemmings and will tune in for a while to see how things go.  It’d actually be kind of fun to read a tweet from an MLB player while he’s sitting in the dugout.  Closest I had to that was when C. J. Nitkowski played for the Tigers and ran his own daily web-based recap of lockerroom talk and life in the big leagues (he still has a site by the way, and now he is in the far east playing baseball…so I may pick up on reading him again).

So enjoy it while it lasts folks…because the shine is about to dust off of that new sports car.

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Of Interest

RSS vs Atom: The feed wars

Drew Hannush by Drew Hannush (25 Feb 2009)  |  Leave a comment

Hi all, keep your eyes glued on this battle.  For those setting up blogs, you may soon be forced into a decision.  RSS or Atom?  Okay, so what is the difference really?  And why are we being forced to make a choice?

There really isn’t a big difference between RSS and Atom in terms of getting the feed loaded in your browser or news aggregator.  It is more an old versus new conversation.  According to the Wikipedia article on Atom, advocates have said they “believed that RSS had limitations and flaws—such as lack of on-going innovation and its necessity to remain backward compatible. “  Some might say RSS outgrew its usefulness.

So, in comes Google.  They bought Blogger.com and then forced all to convert to the newer Atom format.  This apparently angered many, but Google stood firm.  While it is an emerging solution, this weight behind the technology should help it to thrive.

So, can you offer both on your site until the public decides between Beta and VHS?  Sure, many blog programs offer a simple solution. For those who use WordPress (which is the blog software I know the most about), recent versions allow you to add Atom 1.o feeds with the ease of adding /atom/ to your link after /feed/…ie http://yoursite.com/category/feed/atom/.  Its that simple and it can help you greatly in the blog wars.

Appeal to the masses I say, its not like those ugly little orange buttons aren’t already looking like a food wrapper on the side of a scenic highway…what would another one really do to hurt your site? ;)

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Of Interest

Shake up at Yahoo! a good thing

Drew Hannush by Drew Hannush (24 Feb 2009)  |  Leave a comment

As I understand it, Yahoo!, who went from getting beat up by Google to graveling at Google and Microsoft’s feet for a buy out has decided to do a management reshuffle.

They can’t do much worse that the bunch that is in there now.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Fantasy Sports.  They are exceptionally run and I rely on Yahoo! Mail for its slick interface and its worth $19.99 per year to use the advanced features.  But otherwise, I really have no use for Yahoo! as a company.

First, they dumped their Yahoo! Music service to Rhapsody, who gladly raised the price as soon as they took it over.  Yahoo!’s search feature, that was once a free Directory listing then turned into a pay-for service (at $299 per year and that was no guarantee you’d be listed).  Next, Yahoo! again dumped on their audience by adding Google search results into their mix as a search engine.  Now all the people paying $299 for a directory listing were getting nowhere in searches.  Yahoo! must have seen their drop in revenue related to this issue.

Then in 2004 they dumped Google from their service and started using their own search engine.  Yahoo!’s spiders apparently drink a lot on the weekends and are slow and sluggish when they do make it back to work on Monday morning.  It seems that Yahoo’s spiders will visit your site when they please, which is not the reliable month or so that Google does, in fact it could be never again.  So if your site had an issue when spidered…be prepared to live with the consequences in Yahoo! for a while.

Oh, but Yahoo!’s solution is Yahoo! Search Submit Basic.  With this feature, you get your site crawled within 4 days…if you pay them $49.  They will spider up to 5 pages.  This is an annual fee, by the way.

As I see it, all of this defensive management by Yahoo! has lead them to the brink.  They are no longer an innovator, they are purely revenue focused.  So, that is what they focus on while Google continues to dominate them 4 to 1.

Google has an incredible business model.  They have all the good buzz still in their corner.  They are forward looking and I think it will help them to continue to dominate companies like Yahoo! and Microsoft in the search market.

Just in reading some articles today about this shake-up, I see that “Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said on Tuesday at the company’s analyst day he wants to team up with the Yahoo to take on Google.”  Team up all you want…while Google leads, you can try to tear them down.  But as long as they keep providing innovation and value, it is going to be fun for them watching Yahoo! and Microsoft eat their dust.

Yes, fortunes may change in the future, but right now, Google is where the smart money is.  Let’s hope Yahoo!’s management change will make their search service worth more than the spam delivery service it is becoming with pay-for (over honest businesses) search results.

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Of Interest

Google adds post number and date to listings

Drew Hannush by Drew Hannush (23 Feb 2009)  |  Leave a comment

How many times have you searched for the answer to a question on a search engine, only to come across a forum that either doesn’t give access or is just a meaningless page full of useless links and no real forum?

I found a nice surprise waiting for me the last time I did a search on Google.  It was subtle but very effective.  Appearing right below the name of the link in a Google result for forums, you’ll find the following information (“1 post - Last post: Mar 2, 2008“).  Wow, do you know how incredibly useful this is?

Once again, it is part of Google’s march to help people find relevant information quickly.   If you’re looking up a post on a baseball game that happened this year, then a Last post: Mar 2, 2008 is probably going to tell you to move on.  If you see 1 post now, instead of clicking that link, you can move on because no one took the time to answer (unless maybe you could be one of the charitable ones who takes the time to register for a forum where you aren’t really seeking answers, yet you help a fellow net buddy get the info they need).

So, happy searching folks…enjoy the extra few minutes you will save by this excellent new feature in Google.

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Website Strategies

Greatest Website Ever…For Developers

Drew Hannush by Drew Hannush (23 Feb 2009)  |  Leave a comment

So I’m on chat with my hosting company because one of my clients websites is down.  Now, this is a very tough position to be in, squeezed between a customer whose website is on the fritz (or so they think) and a hosting company who keeps telling me there is nothing wrong.  The ultimate feeling of helplessness.

Until the hosting tech says, hey, check the site out in this address: ( http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/ )

Genius! Eureka!

I plugged the client’s address in and boom, confirmation that their site wasn’t down.

To any web developers who host sites for clients, I urge you to bookmark this site!  Save you, your hosting company, and your customers a lot of sleepless nights.

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Website Strategies

Usability Article

Drew Hannush by Drew Hannush (18 Feb 2009)  |  Leave a comment

Nice article passed on by our programmer Jason.  Good information to keep in mind when speaking of web site usability.

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Of Interest

The Myth of the Mac

Drew Hannush by Drew Hannush (16 Feb 2009)  |  Leave a comment

Okay, today I heard the craziest statement I have heard in a while.  Apparently the guy I work with went to a computer store the other day and overheard someone say “the Mac is the greatest computer ever made” or something to that extent.

Okay, drop the kool-aid Jimmy, step away from the crack.

As a very disappointed Mac user myself, I have to say…the $1,700 I spent on my iMac never paid off.  Luckily I bought the 3 year warranty, because my iMac seemed to long for the shop, like it was Club Med or something.  The hard drive went bad, the DVD rom went bad, the memory went bad and the fan whines like a Cessna…and these were only problems within the first three months.

I bought Dreamweaver and Microsoft Office for it.  Dreamweaver was all messed up.  I had to upload everything file by file or it crashed.  When I use the file manager (called Finder in Mac) when I would update an image with Photoshop, the Finder would crash. Forget Excel, it usually crashed after every 5 rows.  The thing locks up continuously.  The fan gets so loud, my daughter down the hall complains that I need to turn it down because she can’t sleep with the racket.

Oh, but the Mac is a superior piece of equipment!

Yeah, maybe in 1993.  But now it is built on the same chip PC’s use.  It doesn’t have any more power that I can tell.  You have to buy all new software for it (forget the minor inconvenience that Vista might have in making you upgrade some of your software).

I don’t think Macs are all bad…and I know I bought a lemon and that others have had more success with theirs.  But if my wife’s iPod is any indication (a year old and already turning to garbage)…Mac makes fancy junk that is as unpredictable as any PC…people just love to buy the myth.

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