The World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and IDG World Expo today announced the debut of the WOW Iron Chef of Web Design Competition at Macworld Conference & Expo(R) in Boston. During the live competition, attendees will get a first-hand look at what it takes to conceive and create a working Web site. Macworld Conference & Expo will take place July 12-15, 2004 at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center (BCEC); the competition will take place on the exhibit floor on Wednesday, July 14.
The WOW Iron Chef of Web Design Competition will feature teams of three competing head-to-head -- against the clock and against other teams. Monitors will display to the crowd all keystrokes made by each team as they design, code and deploy a working Web site for a non-profit institution. At the end of the competition, one winning Web site will be selected by a panel of judges for use by the non-profit institution.
Each team of three will include designers and developers who will identify the main needs of the non-profit institution for whom they are creating the site; create a visual design for the site including graphics and navigation; render three to five pages of its content in HTML; add any specialty features they can adequately plan for in the time allotted; address a specific Web design challenge pre-conceived by the judges; and be able to describe to the judges their process and rationale for the design approach taken.
To qualify, participating teams must have no knowledge of the non-profit organization's Web site needs prior to the event. In addition to providing a general design, navigation scheme, and deployment of the site, each site will have one specific, identified challenge to overcome. While discussion of server-side technologies certainly should be brought into the planning of the site, the focus will be on the client-side needs: visual design, markup, and style. Teams will not be allowed to use any external or third party resources to assist in their design, using only common Web design tools and skills to achieve their goal.
About IDG
International Data Group (IDG) is the world's leading technology media, research, and event company. A privately-held company, IDG publishes more than 300 magazines and newspapers including Bio-IT World, CIO, CSO, Computerworld, GamePro, InfoWorld, Network World, and PC World. The company features the largest network of technology-specific Web sites with more than 400 around the world. IDG is also a leading producer of more than 170 computer-related events worldwide including LinuxWorld Conference & Expo(R), Macworld Conference & Expo(R), DEMO(R), and IDC Directions. IDC provides global market research and advice through offices in 50 countries. Company information is available at http://www.idg.com.
About WOW
The World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) is a non-profit professional association dedicated to the support of individuals and organizations that create, manage or market Web sites. WOW provides education as well as certification, technical, employment and member advantage services to thousands of aspiring and practicing Web professionals worldwide.
2009年2月23日星期一
Former governor Locke likely commerce nominee
Gary Locke, a former governor of Washington state, is the "likely nominee" for US commerce secretary, an administration official said on Monday.
Locke, a Democrat, is the third nominee for the post. The first two, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Republican Senator Judd Gregg, withdrew their names from contention.
Locke, 59, served two terms as governor of Washington from 1997 to 2005 and was the first Chinese-American governor in US history. He oversaw a state with a diverse economy that includes corporate giants like Boeing and Microsoft, as well as wheat farmers in the less-populated eastern half.
At the Commerce Department, he would be in charge of a huge bureaucracy functions of which range from export promotion to monitoring global climate change.
Locke has a law degree from Boston University and began his career in public service as a deputy prosecutor.
He was elected to the Washington state House of Representatives in 1982 and later served as chief executive of King County, Washington, which includes Seattle.
President Barack Obama has had an usually hard time filling the top job at commerce, typically seen as the chief advocate for business within the cabinet.
His first choice, Richardson, withdrew in the face of a legal probe into a California-based financial company that had done business with the New Mexico state government.
Richardson denied any wrongdoing, but said he feared the inquiry would delay his Senate confirmation at a time when Obama needed his top economic aides quickly in place.
Gregg, a Republican, withdrew two weeks ago in an embarrassing setback to Obama's efforts to bridge party differences on the economy.
The third-term senator said he realized his policy differences with Obama were too great and it would be a "bigger mistake" to stay and serve in the administration.
The vacancy at the Commerce Department highlights other administration jobs that are not filled.
Obama still has not named a replacement for Tom Daschle, who withdrew as nominee for US health secretary because of personal tax issues.
And the Senate Finance Committee has not scheduled a hearing yet on the nomination of former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk to be US trade representative. That hearing is now expected next week at the earliest.
There are also many senior positions at the Treasury, Commerce Department and trade office that remain empty.
Locke, a Democrat, is the third nominee for the post. The first two, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Republican Senator Judd Gregg, withdrew their names from contention.
Locke, 59, served two terms as governor of Washington from 1997 to 2005 and was the first Chinese-American governor in US history. He oversaw a state with a diverse economy that includes corporate giants like Boeing and Microsoft, as well as wheat farmers in the less-populated eastern half.
At the Commerce Department, he would be in charge of a huge bureaucracy functions of which range from export promotion to monitoring global climate change.
Locke has a law degree from Boston University and began his career in public service as a deputy prosecutor.
He was elected to the Washington state House of Representatives in 1982 and later served as chief executive of King County, Washington, which includes Seattle.
President Barack Obama has had an usually hard time filling the top job at commerce, typically seen as the chief advocate for business within the cabinet.
His first choice, Richardson, withdrew in the face of a legal probe into a California-based financial company that had done business with the New Mexico state government.
Richardson denied any wrongdoing, but said he feared the inquiry would delay his Senate confirmation at a time when Obama needed his top economic aides quickly in place.
Gregg, a Republican, withdrew two weeks ago in an embarrassing setback to Obama's efforts to bridge party differences on the economy.
The third-term senator said he realized his policy differences with Obama were too great and it would be a "bigger mistake" to stay and serve in the administration.
The vacancy at the Commerce Department highlights other administration jobs that are not filled.
Obama still has not named a replacement for Tom Daschle, who withdrew as nominee for US health secretary because of personal tax issues.
And the Senate Finance Committee has not scheduled a hearing yet on the nomination of former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk to be US trade representative. That hearing is now expected next week at the earliest.
There are also many senior positions at the Treasury, Commerce Department and trade office that remain empty.
2009年2月12日星期四
Top 10 SEO Mistakes
Every search engine optimization (SEO) campaign is a double-edged sword. It’s like traveling in space: one wrong calculation here and one there and you can end up billions of light-years away from your destination. In this post I’m going to suggest 10 SEO mistakes that you should definitely avoid. There are 100s of things that can go wrong, but these top 10 SEO mistakes can cause you the most harm. Here they are:
1) Wrong title of the page
Your title is the first thing the search engine crawlers encounter when they visit your web page. Your title tells the search what your page is about. Even when your link appears in the search results page, it’s your title that attracts the users and makes them click the link. Avoid deceptive titles. Use keywords in your title and be as clear as possible. Another mistake regarding the titles is that sometimes all the pages belonging to a website have the same title: this is a big mistake. Every page of your website should have its own unique title.
2) Wrong selection of keywords
Almost every SEO effort revolves around the chosen keywords and lots of money and time is spent on obtaining a high ranking for the keywords. All the effort will go down the drain if you focus on the wrong keywords. Carefully study what keywords and key phrases your target market is using to find what you have to offer, and then optimize accordingly. Use the free and commercial keyword-analysis tools to zero-in on the precise keywords. Never assume on your own what keywords your target market is using.
3) Having no textual content
No matter how snazzy a website you have, if it doesn’t have enough text, the search engines will never find out what you represent and what product or service you intend to sell.
4) Having wrong content
It is as good as having no content because your bad content will give all the bad information to the search engines. This is partly related to selecting the wrong keywords because even by selecting the wrong keywords you can easily generate wrong content.
5) Choosing the wrong target market
You should know to whom you want to sell, and only then you can properly steer your SEO campaign. If the target market is wrong, how can optimise your website correctly. With wrong target market you’ll be choosing the wrong keywords and misplaced search engine campaigns. Always be sure of whom you want to target.
6) Indiscriminate use of graphics and animations
Graphics and animations look cool, but they only look cool once. They are like a movie: the more times you see them, the less attractive you find them. Unnecessary frills bloat your pages and push your real textual content downwards. Always remember that when the search engine crawlers visit your website they can make no sense of your graphics; they are only looking for the text content.
7) No use of header tags
Header tags— are very important tags because they are supposed to highlight the gist of your web page. To create heading people often use bigger fonts for the
1) Wrong title of the page
Your title is the first thing the search engine crawlers encounter when they visit your web page. Your title tells the search what your page is about. Even when your link appears in the search results page, it’s your title that attracts the users and makes them click the link. Avoid deceptive titles. Use keywords in your title and be as clear as possible. Another mistake regarding the titles is that sometimes all the pages belonging to a website have the same title: this is a big mistake. Every page of your website should have its own unique title.
2) Wrong selection of keywords
Almost every SEO effort revolves around the chosen keywords and lots of money and time is spent on obtaining a high ranking for the keywords. All the effort will go down the drain if you focus on the wrong keywords. Carefully study what keywords and key phrases your target market is using to find what you have to offer, and then optimize accordingly. Use the free and commercial keyword-analysis tools to zero-in on the precise keywords. Never assume on your own what keywords your target market is using.
3) Having no textual content
No matter how snazzy a website you have, if it doesn’t have enough text, the search engines will never find out what you represent and what product or service you intend to sell.
4) Having wrong content
It is as good as having no content because your bad content will give all the bad information to the search engines. This is partly related to selecting the wrong keywords because even by selecting the wrong keywords you can easily generate wrong content.
5) Choosing the wrong target market
You should know to whom you want to sell, and only then you can properly steer your SEO campaign. If the target market is wrong, how can optimise your website correctly. With wrong target market you’ll be choosing the wrong keywords and misplaced search engine campaigns. Always be sure of whom you want to target.
6) Indiscriminate use of graphics and animations
Graphics and animations look cool, but they only look cool once. They are like a movie: the more times you see them, the less attractive you find them. Unnecessary frills bloat your pages and push your real textual content downwards. Always remember that when the search engine crawlers visit your website they can make no sense of your graphics; they are only looking for the text content.
7) No use of header tags
Header tags— are very important tags because they are supposed to highlight the gist of your web page. To create heading people often use bigger fonts for the
tag which is totally wrong. Search engines look for important keywords within your header tags so always use them to highlight the main points of your text, and if possible, use the keywords within the header tags.
Excessive use of keywords
People think the more keywords their pages have, the better is the chance of getting ranked hire; this is a complete misconception. Excessive use of keywords can get your website blacklisted on various search engines. Although you must have your keywords and their synonyms in your text they don’t have to appear in every sentence. Just have them in the beginning, within your title and other header tags possibly as anchor text.
9) Wrong linking policy
Linking is a very potent SEO services methodology, but only if done properly. Indiscriminate incoming and outgoing links can severely harm your search engine rankings. Try getting inbound links from reputed websites and never link to websites that are considered “bad” (porn, spamming, scams, etc.) by the search engines.
10) Not blogging
Not blogging is a mistake because even if it directly may not affect your rankings (or it may), you can rest assured that your competitors are using it to boost their search engine rankings to get highly relevant traffic.
So avoid these top 10 SEO mistakes and gradually keep climbing up the ladder of higher rankings.
Romance blooms at the office, US survey say
Forty percent of US workers have dated an office colleague, with 31 percent of them going on to marriage, according to a survey released on Tuesday.Ten percent work with someone they would like to date and 18 percent have dated a co-worker twice or more at some time in their careers, the office romance survey for online job website CareerBuilder.com showed.
Those eyeing a co-worker was skewed between the sexes, with 14 percent of men but just 5 percent of women saying they would like to date a colleague.
Of those who dated a co-worker in the last year, a third said it was someone with a more senior position in the company. Of those, 42 percent have dated their boss, said the survey.
Nearly three-quarters said they did not have to keep their romance a secret but 7 percent said they had left a job due to an office romance.
The survey of 8,038 full-time adult employees was conducted online by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder.com between November 12 and December 1, 2008.
The overall results have a sampling error of plus or minus 1.09 percentage points, it said. CareerBuilder.com is owned by Gannett Co, Tribune Co, The McClatchy Co and Microsoft Corp.
Those eyeing a co-worker was skewed between the sexes, with 14 percent of men but just 5 percent of women saying they would like to date a colleague.
Of those who dated a co-worker in the last year, a third said it was someone with a more senior position in the company. Of those, 42 percent have dated their boss, said the survey.
Nearly three-quarters said they did not have to keep their romance a secret but 7 percent said they had left a job due to an office romance.
The survey of 8,038 full-time adult employees was conducted online by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder.com between November 12 and December 1, 2008.
The overall results have a sampling error of plus or minus 1.09 percentage points, it said. CareerBuilder.com is owned by Gannett Co, Tribune Co, The McClatchy Co and Microsoft Corp.
2009年2月3日星期二
President to visit Africa to consolidate friendship
President Hu Jintao will pay state visits to four African nations as well as Saudi Arabia from Tuesday to Feb 17 in his first overseas trip this year, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu announced Tuesday.Analysts said the trips to Mali, Senegal, Tanzania and Mauritius would help prove Beijing's sincerity in consolidating friendship with the continent.
Jiang said the purpose of the visit was to help in "further consolidating China's friendship with these countries and promoting the implementation of the measures announced at the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation".
At the Beijing summit held in November 2006, President Hu announced an eight-step package to provide assistance to Africa in three years. "This November will be the deadline for China to fulfill its promises," Xu Weizhong, an expert on African studies with China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, told China Daily.
Zeng Qiang, another researcher with the institute, said the Chinese government had completed roughly 80 percent of its work in fulfilling the promises.
In an interview with the Beijing News last month, Xu Jinghu, director of the African department under the Foreign Ministry, said China has signed financial aid deals with 48 African countries and preferential loan agreements with 20 nations.
At the Beijing summit, China also promised to cancel 168 debts owed by 33 African countries, which matured by the end of 2005, and 150 of them have been settled, he added.
Premier Wen Jiabao, when meeting with Angolan President Jos Eduardo dos Santos at the end of last year, said that China would not reduce its aid to Africa despite the global financial crisis.
Hu's Africa visit will also indicate that Beijing values the importance of Africa not on its resources, as some western media have suggested, but on the friendship and from a long-term view, said Xu Weizhong.
Strengthening cooperation in the financial crisis will also be a major topic during the visit, Xu said. Trade volume between China and Africa reached $106.8 billion last year, fulfilling the goal of $100 billion two years ahead of the agenda.
"And there might even be a tiny increase in Chinese investment in Africa, as the financial crisis has forced Chinese enterprises to explore other markets," Xu Weizhong said. Other benefits Hu's visit might bring to Africa include expanded cooperation between China and Africa on infrastructure construction, he said.
"That's exactly what Africa needs. The ongoing 12th African Union Summit of heads of state has even picked the infrastructure issue as their theme," he said. Hu's visit to Senegal will be the first visit by a top Chinese leader after the two countries re-established diplomatic relations in 2005.
Senegal broke relations with Beijing and turned to Taiwan in 1996, but it severed relations with the island nine years later. Hu last traveled to eight African countries on a visit in 2007.
Jiang said the purpose of the visit was to help in "further consolidating China's friendship with these countries and promoting the implementation of the measures announced at the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation".
At the Beijing summit held in November 2006, President Hu announced an eight-step package to provide assistance to Africa in three years. "This November will be the deadline for China to fulfill its promises," Xu Weizhong, an expert on African studies with China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, told China Daily.
Zeng Qiang, another researcher with the institute, said the Chinese government had completed roughly 80 percent of its work in fulfilling the promises.
In an interview with the Beijing News last month, Xu Jinghu, director of the African department under the Foreign Ministry, said China has signed financial aid deals with 48 African countries and preferential loan agreements with 20 nations.
At the Beijing summit, China also promised to cancel 168 debts owed by 33 African countries, which matured by the end of 2005, and 150 of them have been settled, he added.
Premier Wen Jiabao, when meeting with Angolan President Jos Eduardo dos Santos at the end of last year, said that China would not reduce its aid to Africa despite the global financial crisis.
Hu's Africa visit will also indicate that Beijing values the importance of Africa not on its resources, as some western media have suggested, but on the friendship and from a long-term view, said Xu Weizhong.
Strengthening cooperation in the financial crisis will also be a major topic during the visit, Xu said. Trade volume between China and Africa reached $106.8 billion last year, fulfilling the goal of $100 billion two years ahead of the agenda.
"And there might even be a tiny increase in Chinese investment in Africa, as the financial crisis has forced Chinese enterprises to explore other markets," Xu Weizhong said. Other benefits Hu's visit might bring to Africa include expanded cooperation between China and Africa on infrastructure construction, he said.
"That's exactly what Africa needs. The ongoing 12th African Union Summit of heads of state has even picked the infrastructure issue as their theme," he said. Hu's visit to Senegal will be the first visit by a top Chinese leader after the two countries re-established diplomatic relations in 2005.
Senegal broke relations with Beijing and turned to Taiwan in 1996, but it severed relations with the island nine years later. Hu last traveled to eight African countries on a visit in 2007.
Google in need of SEO
I had one of the best laughs of my life recently while reading a page explaining what Google's homepage would look like if they had to Search engine optimization their site like everyone else.
It was beautiful, and I'm so jealous I didn't think of it first.
So with that funny story firmly planted in my mind, we got an enquiry at SearchMasters coming from the search term "search engine". Because we are optimized for "search engine optimization", by default we are optimized for "search engine" as well.
As I normally do, I went out and scoped out the SERPS to see what was happening...
Above: SearchMasters outranks google.co.nz for the term "search engine"
Outranked!
Funny how SearchMasters and others are beating Google for this phrase. Maybe if Google applied some of the seo services suggestions recommended in the above link, they could rank top for this term :)
Clearly there isn't any bias being applied here - Google's homepage isn't optimized for this term, and it's not ranking top as a result. Great to know we are (at least sometimes) operating on a level playing field.
Update
So after thinking it through, I thought it a little unfair to pick on Google over this one, so I decided to check out Yahoo and MSN as well.
Nuff said really. Out of the 3 major engines, Google is ranking itself best. Even Yahoo is listing Google as the first result, which says all kinds of things really. I kept these results to NZ only for consistency with the original Google result, but upon thinking about it, MSN probably doesn't have a NZ site and could well be filtering itself out of the results. Yahoo on the other hand is branded as Yahoo Xtra, so one would assume this is a New Zealand site, or at least it should be.
If you search the worldwide versions of these phrases, you get all kinds of funny results. MSN lists every major search engine you can think of, except itself, on the top 10 results.
It was beautiful, and I'm so jealous I didn't think of it first.
So with that funny story firmly planted in my mind, we got an enquiry at SearchMasters coming from the search term "search engine". Because we are optimized for "search engine optimization", by default we are optimized for "search engine" as well.
As I normally do, I went out and scoped out the SERPS to see what was happening...
Above: SearchMasters outranks google.co.nz for the term "search engine"
Outranked!
Funny how SearchMasters and others are beating Google for this phrase. Maybe if Google applied some of the seo services suggestions recommended in the above link, they could rank top for this term :)
Clearly there isn't any bias being applied here - Google's homepage isn't optimized for this term, and it's not ranking top as a result. Great to know we are (at least sometimes) operating on a level playing field.
Update
So after thinking it through, I thought it a little unfair to pick on Google over this one, so I decided to check out Yahoo and MSN as well.
Nuff said really. Out of the 3 major engines, Google is ranking itself best. Even Yahoo is listing Google as the first result, which says all kinds of things really. I kept these results to NZ only for consistency with the original Google result, but upon thinking about it, MSN probably doesn't have a NZ site and could well be filtering itself out of the results. Yahoo on the other hand is branded as Yahoo Xtra, so one would assume this is a New Zealand site, or at least it should be.
If you search the worldwide versions of these phrases, you get all kinds of funny results. MSN lists every major search engine you can think of, except itself, on the top 10 results.
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