Entries from September 2008 ↓
September 18th, 2008 — Extanet Projects
I promised myself (and everyone else in the company) that I wouldn’t use this blog to shamelessly self promote. But we’ve been working with a company by the name of Unomobi that has just released a ridiculously useful service and - here’s the kicker - it’s totally free.
In a nutshell, Unomobi has developed a way for anyone in North America to recieve all of their emails as a text message on their cell phone. Now, admittedly, this email push service is not totally new, but I’m quite sure the this type of service has never been offered at no cost to the end-user.
To take advantage of the service, just visit www.MyInboxNow.com and follow the directions when signing up. Within a couple of minutes, you’ll be receiving text messages each time someone sends you an email.
You can actually setup more than one account with the same phone number, which is really useful if you hate going back and forth between gmail, yahoo, hotmail, and work accounts. They also have a bunch text message commands that allow you reply to emails via SMS and even download and view documents.
Best of all, the whole thing is ad supported, so you’ll never have to pay a dime.
If you asked me, the service has HUGE potential around the world - especially in developing markets where very few people have smart phones but everyone is text messaging.
Only problem I see with this is that it may have a short shelf life now that the iPhone has truly brought the web to our pant pockets.
Would love to hear your thoughts about the service…
September 12th, 2008 — Miscellaneous
You can’t.
BUT….
The real solution to this problem will clearly only be resolved when Google finally starts including the ability to either import Add-Ons (ideal) or for developers to start creating their own. I’m personally shocked that they haven’t already included this since they will lose a lot of the momentum they have garnered from the impressive performance.
HOWEVER … you have not made it this far down this post for nothing. I am dedicating this post (and open thread) to make-shift solutions to any sorely missed add-ons.
That said, here are three that I’ve just figured out:
Spell Check:
The spell-check is built-in to Chrome - okay that was easy.
Managing Bookmarks in Google Chrome
For starters, you can import your bookmarks from any other browser at any time with Google Chrome (and they even remain in the same order and folders). Of course, this does me no good since I’ve been using Foxmarks to manage my bookmarks AND RSS feeds. HOWEVER, I have figured out a pretty good solution.
- In Firefox, install the GMarks add-on.
- Using GMarks, synchronize all of your Firefox bookmarks with Google Bookmarks.
- In Chrome, open a tab with your Google Bookmarks and save any Chrome bookmarks in there.
- For greater bookmark functionality, use Google Notebook
- For even greater ease of use, I recommend embedding your bookmarks directly into your iGoogle page.
*Once this is done, I highly recommend uninstalling GMarks since it overrides the very useful bookmarking system used in Firefox 3.
RSS Feeds in Google Chrome
Tragically, there is still no auto-recognize feature for RSS feeds and they are definitely not available in the toolbar. This, to me, is the worst thing about Chrome right now, though I’m confident Google will be addressing it very shortly. However, there is a simple web-based solution to this, assuming you have all your bookmarks in Google Bookmarks:
- Sign up to Google Reader
- At the bottom left of the screen you will notice “Manage Subscriptions”
- Click “Import/Export”
- Follow the directions to import your feeds into Google Reader.
- Voila! Chrome RSS feeds - well, not exactly, but at least they are now just a tab away.
- Again, I recommend embedding your Google Reader feeds into your iGoogle home page to have everything in one tab.
Firefox search bar in Chrome:
I love the ability to change the search engine on the fly in the firefox search bar. This is actually possible in Chrome as well:
- Hit the Customize Google Chrome button at the top right of Chrome (the wrench).
- Select Options.
- In Basics, you can manage the default search engine.
Of course, if you haven’t imported your search engines from Firefox, then you won’t find all the engines you want. But assuming you have done this, they should all be there!
Got any other go arounds we haven’t thought of? Would love to hear them in our comments section.
UPDATE:
Found this GREAT link providing additional info about this:
Not sure if all the stuff works in there, but it is very promising.
September 10th, 2008 — Miscellaneous
Google launched their Chrome browser last week and I’ve been using it since day 1. I have to admit - I’ve been a Firefox junkie for over two years now - in large part due to the plethora of add-ons.
I’m the guy that uses FAR too MANY plug-ins and that has at least 4 toolbars showing at all times. Here’s a screenshot of my regular Firefox toolbars:
So when I installed Google Chrome the other day, naturally one of the first things I did was try to install my beloved Firefox Add-Ons.
At first I noticed that Chrome automatically imports all your bookmarks from any other installed browser of your choice. Good sign! My bookmarks folders were even laid out across the bookmarks toolbar folder in exactly the same order:
I quickly noticed, though, that my RSS feeds - which are normally organized within these folders - were no where to be found.
So what about those Add-Ons? Well, I have good news and bad news.
The Good:
Chrome comes equipped with a ton of Chrome plug-ins, pre-installed. That makes it more user-frendly off the bat than Firefox and basically results in a truly “plug and play” experience upon installation.
Additionally, at any time you can import your bookmarks and settings from any other browser installed on your PC.
The bad:
For starters, there is no Google Toolbar. Yes the address bar works just like a search bar, but if you’re looking for all those extra gadgets the Google Toolbar provides - like PageRank Checker and AutoFill - fawget about it!
Most importantly, there is as yet no ability to import or download third party Firefox Add-Ons. Personally I love the Alexa toolbar, can’t work much without SEO for Fireox, and rely on Foxmarks to keep all my RSS feeds in line across PCs (it’s brilliant).
Aside from the utter lack of add-on capabilities, I have to say that Chrome is far ahead of the competition. It is sleeker, cleaner, more intuitive, and much … MUCH faster than any other browser I’ve ever seen. It seems to use about a quarter of the CPU compared to other browsers. Additionally, it’s got some really cool features such as incognito browsing and customizable application shortcuts.
All this to say … I love my add-ons but DAMN I LOVE CHROME! What to do…
Read my upcoming post for how to get Firefox add-ons in Chrome - really.
September 2nd, 2008 — Online Marketing
So I was browsing through the Google results for Web Design when it hit me - Google PageRank means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING anymore. Okay, maybe not nothing, but definitely nowhere near the importance it once held and definitely not a determining factor in how a page ranks for a keyword anymore.
How do I know this? Well, for one, it’s no secret Google has frowned upon anyone selling or buying links for years. But it appears that lately they have really stepped up the attack on paid links by in the PageRank department.
Word on the street is that Google has already begun the shift from text links to social bookmarking and networking sites like Digg and Facebook. Google actually has it’s own (terribly marketed) link sharing service called Google Bookmarks. How much you wanna bet bookmarking a site in that service leads to better organic search result improvement than most text links?
All this to say SEO is a game that is almost not worth short changing anymore. My advice on how to rank well is (and probably always will be ) this:
Become the best damn site out there on your chosen topic.
Plain and simple. All search engines are trying to present their users with the most relevant content for their querries. So if you want to rank well and NEVER have to worry about changing policies and algorithms that will always be out of your hands, just produce the best content. Search Engines will be scrambling to make sure you are on top of their organic results.
Of course, easier said than done. Then again, still easier than reverse engineering algorithms that change at the whim of people you’ve never met!
