SEO Secrets v2 Review

UPDATE: Glenn Murray’s SEO Secrets eBook is no longer free. Keep reading for a review and purchasing information.

 

If you’ve not heard of Glenn Murray’s eBook titled “SEO Secrets” then you’re either living in a cave on pluto (which is no longer a planet, remember) or you’re just missing out! Glenn’s book is amazingly well written and very informative. I dare say, it’s probably the best SEO ebook out there. Another thing Glenn has going for him is that he’s on twitter, so check him out!

If you’ve read this far, you’re either interested in my review of the ebook or the ebook is no longer available for free so you’re hoping I can help you.

—————————————

Let’s get on with the review!

After the first few pages I was already hooked. No bull, seriously. The introduction explains what you’ll be getting into, how it’ll be explained, and how to find out more information about the topics that are covered.

From there we read along procedurally (as explained in the intro) so that everything logically follows everything else. There’s no jumping all over the place with random tangents and ideas, everything’s contained in sections. So far all I’m saying (in big words) is that the writing style is spectacular.

The tips and explanations are clear, accurate, and well thought out. He follows through on topics that need clarification, and alerts you when you can gloss over something.

All the way through from the first to the last chapter, Glenn gives an expert’s view of how to optimize your website to climb up the search engine results. In the latest version of this eBook, he really hits upon some topics that everyone with a website should be aware of. He delves into some great web2.0 stuff, such as how to optimize a WordPress site, making use of newer social media like Twitter, StumbleUpon, etc.

I only have one negative review for the book… okay, two, but one’s silly:

1. Some topics can be a bit complex, and though he gives you a glossary and a bibliography, you may still need to do some extra reading to fully understand the ideas presented.
2. I want more. (This is the silly one.)

So now you’re asking where you can get this book, right?

Click here to view more details about the book and how to purchase it.

Now, go forth and OPTIMIZE!

I’m literally going to attempt to use all the information in the book on my sites from now on. I will be using it for reference whenever I can keep it handy. It’s already made it onto my iPhone, and that’s coveted space.

Good Luck!

-Lee

One Bad Apple

For Christmas, my brother Todd and his family got me an iTunes Gift Card worth $50. I was quite happy, seeing as now I could finally buy a couple games in the iTunes App Store that I’d be wanting on my iPhone for so long. I redeemed my card in iTunes, confirmed the $50 credit, and went to purchase a couple apps… and that’s when things went bad.

I’d removed my credit card from my iTunes account because I mostly buy free apps. The few times when I buy apps that cost, I’ll manually re-add my credit card. My reasoning is that clicking the “Buy” button is way too easy in the App Store and thus I wasn’t about to risk overspending.

Attempting to purchase TouchGrind in the iTunes App Store resulted in no luck. iTunes wanted my credit card, or no go. I didn’t understand… Apple already had my $50 gift card, why did they still want my credit card? After a few more unsuccessful tries, I went googling. My first hits surprised me.

The forums claimed:

You can’t buy apps with gift cards in Canada!

What? You’ve got to be kidding. I decided to go straight to the source, and pulled up Apple’s Terms of Sale for Canada.

Sure enough, Apple’s Terms of Sale strictly (and ridiculously) state:

iTunes Cards may not be used to purchase software, games, or apps.

Apple iTunes Store Terms of Sale (Canada)

Take note: Reading the back of the iTunes Gift Card, and the packaging that came with it revealed nothing about this. They left out this vital piece of information. Coincidence?

Normally, I’d let something like this go. Wait, who am I kidding? No I wouldn’t! So I submitted an email request to iTunes Store support…

I redeemed an iTunes Gift Card for $50. After a very grueling process of attempting to purchase some iTunes Store Apps for my iPhone, I read the terms of sale to find that according to your policy, iTunes Gift Cards cannot be used to purchase software, games, or apps.

I don’t use iTunes otherwise to purchase music, movies, etc. I will NOT be using it to purchase music, movies, etc.

Why am I not able to purchase apps/games using this $50 credit? Is it strictly a Canadian thing, and if so, why?

As you can probably infer, this request was written while I was understandably upset. Here’s the response I received today:

Dear Lee,
I hope this message reaches you in good spirits, my name is [name censored] and I’ll be more than happy to assist you with the problem you’re having. Thank you for contacting Apple about the App Store. We’re glad you’re interested in this new offering.

I’m sorry, but you will not be able to purchase games or applications with store credit or an iTunes Gift Card in Canada. Customers residing in Canada may only purchase games and applications using a credit card. I’m not sure why this is, I heard that its some kind of law in Canada preventing anybody living there, from purchasing games or apps with store credit.

Hope to hear from you soon! Have a great rest of the day!

Sincerely,
[name censored]
iTunes Store Customer Support 
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ww/

Yes, he actually said he didn’t know why this policy was in place.

Is Canada so backwards that we’re not allowed to purchase software or games with store credit? That evil store credit! Tearing families apart! Sacrificing small animals! Promoting unsafe sex! … Riiiiight.

I’ve emailed them back and I’ll follow up with another post once I receive another response. Way to go, Apple! Let’s hear it for your awesome policies and clueless support staff!

Eye-Opening Politics!

I’m reading an amazingly well-written editorial by Naomi Wolf of The Guardian. This woman has guts. She compares the current state of affairs in the U.S. to a fascist regime. She outlines in so many steps how fascist governments come to be, and how the U.S. is already far along this path, following in the footsteps of people like Hitler and his Nazis, Stalin, Mussolini, etc. She backs up all her claims with documented research, so it’s hard not to feel about ill and a bit uneasy about how much truth there is to all this. Wow!

Link

Revision3 gets DoS’d… but not by who you’d expect.

Revision3, a large and popular entertainment firm (hosting such shows as Diggnation, Tekzilla, etc) recently had massive downtime over the holiday Memorial Day weekend due to a Denial of Service attack. Rev3 uses a BitTorrent tracker to distribute (legally) their shows, because the BT protocol greatly reduces the amount of bandwidth necessary to distribute files. Let me be very clear on this… They host no illegal content. Their BT tracker is only used to distribute shows that they have the rights to. So now, on to the fun part…

Someone, or some company, apparently took offense to Revision3 using Bittorrent to distribute its own slate of shows. Who could that be?

A bit of address translation, and we’d discovered our nemesis. But instead of some shadowy underground criminal syndicate, the packets were coming from right in our home state of California. In fact, we traced the vast majority of those packets to a public company called Artistdirect (ARTD.OB). Once we were able to get their internet provider on the line, they verified that yes, indeed, that internet address belonged to a subsidiary of Artist Direct, called MediaDefender.

Now why would MediaDefender be trying to put Revision3 out of business? Heck, we’re one of the biggest defenders of media around. So I stopped by their website and found that MediaDefender provides “anti-piracy solutions in the emerging Internet-Piracy-Prevention industry.” The company aims to “stop the spread of illegally traded copyrighted material over the internet and peer-to-peer networks.”

Who pays MediaDefender to disrupt peer to peer networks? I don’t know who’s ponying up today, but in the past their clients have included Sony, Universal Music, and the central industry groups for both music and movies – the RIAA and MPAA. According to an article by Ars Technica, the company uses “its array of 2,000 servers and a 9GBps dedicated connection to propagate fake files and launch denial of service attacks against distributors.” Another Ars Technica story claims that MediaDefender used a similar denial of service attack to bring down a group critical of its actions.

So I picked up the phone and tried to get in touch with ArtistDirect interim CEO Dimitri Villard. I eventually had a fascinating phone call with both Dimitri Villard and Ben Grodsky, Vice President of Operations at Media Defender.

First, they willingly admitted to abusing Revision3’s network, over a period of months, by injecting a broad array of torrents into our tracking server.

Second, and here’s where the chain of events come into focus, although not the motive. We’d noticed some unauthorized use of our tracking server, and took steps to de-authorize torrents pointing to non-Revision3 files. That, as it turns out, was exactly the wrong thing to do. MediaDefender’s servers, at that point, initiated a flood of SYN packets attempting to reconnect to the files stored on our server. And that torrential cascade of “Hi”s brought down our network.

There’s lots more in the original article but what you’ve read so far is really what happened. MediaDefender are nothing more than thugs working for the highest bidder. A “legit” company trying to stop internet piracy … how? Ah right, by executing Denial of Service attacks and distributing fake torrents of copyrighted material. Sounds pretty subversive… In fact, it doesn’t sound “legit” at all. Rev3 lost a lot of revenue that weekend, so let’s hope MediaDefender will pay. According to Rev3, they’ve got the FBI involved.

I’m trying to get this news out because everyone needs to be aware. It’s not alright for companies to use illegal means, no matter who they’re fighting, and it shouldn’t be condoned simply because the company has the backing of large government-supported groups. Don’t brush this off, tell your friends. Write, call, and email your Government!

Link1, Link2

YouTube displays Demographics

We knew it wouldn’t be long before Do-No-Evil became Try-Not-To-Do-Much-Evil, but that day came and went a loooong time ago. Google buying YouTube wasn’t even that big of a deal, and now it’s just “how things are.” Though now… perhaps we were a bit hasty letting everything go unmentioned. YouTube will now show you demographic stats for videos you’ve posted, the feature was rolled out as a new part of YouTube Insights, which appeared in March.

From mashable.com

For now, you get a bar chart representing the percentage of your audience in different age groups, and a pie chart showing the breakdown of gender. You can then filter that data by country or for a specific time frame. Additionally, YouTube has rolled out aggregate data, so you can see the combined demographics for all of your videos. The data is all anonymous.

Link

Gay Marriage Upheld in California

Taken from CBS News:

The long-awaited court decision stemmed from San Francisco’s highly publicized same-sex weddings, which in 2004 helped spur a conservative backlash in a presidential election year and a national dialogue over gay rights.

….Today’s ruling by the Republican-dominated court affects more than 100,000 same-sex couples in the state, about a quarter of whom have children, according to U.S. census figures.

Link to the Article, Link to the official documents.

In my opinion, this is great. California has set an exemplary precedent, now let’s get the conservative states to open their minds a bit.

The Future is Now

Zero Pollution Motors is a U.S. based car import company that plans to bring Air Cars to America! These new clean-cars seem almost too good to be true. Who would have thought we’d have cars powered by compressed air?

According to the website:

To drive the world’s cleanest car is no longer wishful thinking. The Air Car is the first affordable and accessible clean car. It brings us our dream: to drive pollution-free and free of fuel dependency. By Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards, the Air Car is classified as a “zero pollution car”, as there are no emissions from the tailpipe.

So how does it work?

Since the Air Car is running exclusively on compressed air, it emits only air – zero pollution. The air expelled from the tail pipe is actually cleaner than the air used to fill the tank. This is because before compression, the air is run through carbon filters to eliminate dirt, dust, humidity, and other urban Air impurities that could hamper the engine’s performance.

Well that’s great, but is it really possible to power a car solely with compressed air? Not quite, says the website.

At speeds over 35mph the Air Car uses small amounts of fuel–either gasoline, propane, ethanol or bio fuels–to heat air inside a heating chamber as it enters the engine. This process produces emissions of only 0.158lbs of CO2 per mile. That is up to 4 times less than the average vehicle and 2 times less than the cleanest vehicle available today. (Toyota Prius 07 Emissions: 0.34 lbs of CO2 per mile. Source: www.hybridcars.com)

That’s still pretty good, though. I’m impressed and amazed that this technology is so close at hand. We’re really at the cutting edge now. (Thanks to my Twitter feed [and whoever tweeted this] for the lead!)

 

 

 

I can has canned cheezburger?

There is something wrong with the world. Let me elaborate a little…

I was humbly minding my own business when an acquaintance posted a link to an article on Gizmodo. I like Gizmodo, so normally I wouldn’t hesitate to blindly follow a link to a Gizmodo article. This time, though, I guess I just don’t know what to think.

http://gizmodo.com/350091/cheeseburger-in-a-can-is-both-the-best-and-worst-thing-ive-ever-seen

A cheeseburger in a can. I just don’t think I could eat one of these. I wouldn’t mind ordering one though. The manufacturer is in Germany, perhaps that’s a clue as to why this “interesting” canned food was conceived.

Open Letter to TransLink

Dear TransLink:

My name is Lee Ingram and I’ve been riding your buses for many years, over a decade now. In fact, I was riding back when B.C. Transit was the acting transit authority. I consider myself to be pretty knowledgeable about transit in the lower mainland. I know the fares, I have my ticket/pass ready when I board, and I’m courteous and respectful to your staff and fellow passengers. Let’s just say I’m definitely on the ball when it comes to “Transit Etiquette.”

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I have a complaint. Recently you introduced 3-door boarding for your 98 B-Line buses (Richmond/Vancouver) and that in itself is great. My complaint does not lie with that service, as I find it rather useful to board at the rear doors if I’ve already prepaid or validated my fare. My complaint is directed towards your transit security (“Transit Cops”) who check fares fairly often. Since the 98 B-Line now supports 3-door boarding, I’ve had my fare checked more often than I think is necessary. Many riders on the 98 B-Line board the bus early on in Richmond and exit the bus downtown. Your transit security checked my fare twice today between when I boarded and when I arrived at my destination. I realize that you may be losing money due to people entering through the rear doors and not paying their fare, but for those of us who do pay our fares it’s an inconvenience at the least.

My suggestion is to have your transit security communicate better and choose one location to check fares. Perhaps only at airport station, or 70th avenue seeing as that’s the zone 1/2 boundary. Having transit security check fares twice or three times per bus, per trip, is irritating and it probably eats up time that security could be using to deal with other issues, like vandalism. I’m suggesting this because the 98 B-Line is a bit special when it comes to the riders, mostly because many people stay on for the entire route (myself included) and therefore we’re subjected to at least two fare-checks a trip.

Please, give your riders a bit of credit and courtesy. Reduce the amount of fare-checks on the 98 B-Line. We’re not all free-loaders, most of us pay our fare.

Sincerely,
Lee Ingram

Risen from the ashes…

Welcome to SoylentCola, where I’ll be reporting on just about anything and everything. Consider this my personal blog, filled with anecdotes, adventures, and asinine quotes.