Archive for July, 2007

How to Build a Powerful Silent Computer

Tuesday, July 31st, 2007

We needed to add four new workstations to our Foliovision office in Bratislava. In my experience working on quiet computers really increases the productivity, so originally we were considering laptops. After quite a bit of thinking and research we’ve made the decisions to base our computers on Intel’s Core 2 Duo chipsets, as they’re fast and cool (they run almost at half of the temperature of their AMD alternatives).

WHY DUAL CORE

I’ve found dual processors to be great for design and internet related tasks, as you can leave an upload running in the background while still working at full speed in a text editor or browser. If the Core 2 Duo is good enough for Apple, we decided it was the choice for us. Going with a budget chip would save you a $100 or $150 on the unit but at the cost of additional heat, noise and problems.

After doing up a budget for Intel Core 2 Duo laptops and desktops, we found laptops would have:

• smaller screens (1440×990 versus 1680×1050)
• smaller and slower hard drives (80 GB versus 200 GB)
• much higher price tag (25,000 SKK ~ $900 versus 17,000 SKK ~ $625, including Samsung 20” 205 monitors)
• would be much harder/more expensive to repair

We also thought long and hard about whether we needed or wanted to be moving our computers around. We already have three laptops in the company so we already have some portable units – if we need them. And we found that portability was a small concern. The guys didn’t feel like taking their work home for the weekend or to Switzerland for holiday. Why should they? Always having your work with you can be the bane of one’s life, costing peace of mind and whole relationships.

Keep reading How to Build a Powerful Silent Computer

By Alec

IT | 9 comments

Test to see a plugin URL

Monday, July 30th, 2007

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By Alec

WordPress | No comments

Dropping eBay for Amazon

Thursday, July 26th, 2007

Every time I've used eBay, I've hated it.

• Last minute bid sniping (been on both the giving and taking ends:
  frankly, there's no point in bidding until the last two minutes
  talk about interrupting one's day)
• Fraudulent sellers given nearly free rein (i.e. Apple computer, Canon cameras)
• No real buyer protection policies
• Horrible mediation procedures
• High fees

There's not much to like about eBay.

It turns out I'm not the only one not to like eBay. Finally, the tide is turning against eBay - and much of their trade is moving to Amazon.

I am not surprised to hear about Amazon. I work with retailers who used to be 100% eBay.

A year ago, when someone sold on eBay and Amazon, they did about 70% eBay vs. Amazon in volume. About 6 months ago, it was 50/50. Today, they are selling more on Amazon - at much higher prices and margins.

eBay's bad reputation is turning it into a lemon market, if you remember from an economics class.

This evidence is anecdotal but supports my experience. In difference to eBay, my experiences with the Amazon marketplace have been very positive. When I've found a fraudulent seller, they've been policed out very quickly (overnight).

I'm glad to see good businesses on the web are at last reaping the rewards for the safer and more pleasant environment they provide.

By Alec

Internet Marketing | No comments

Link Vices: Selling Virginity

Thursday, July 19th, 2007

One of the sites I've occasionally used for picking up links for clients early in the SEO cycle is LinkAdage.

It used to be simple. Go in and pick your links - the URL would often be given. Now the URL must be kept a secret to avoid easy penalisation from Google.

And the language has changed to reflect that selling links is now considered a vice. Here is an example: PR6 Link on Great Non-Profit Website.

This non-profit site has a bunch of very nice natural backlinks from other non-profit organizations. This is a very clean site and it is the first time they are selling links.

Something like selling virginity - "first time they are selling links". Happily enough like virginity, links can be sold over and over again.

By Alec

SEO | No comments

Alexa Rank: Fact or Fiction

Wednesday, July 4th, 2007

The accuracy of Alexa rankings is always something I've wondered about.

Some of my clients have put great store by it.

After putting their SEO work on hold - "We like our rankings just fine the way they are" - two months later they start to see their Alexa rankings plummeting and are back on the telephone.

"I've seen our Alexa numbers are way down? What can we do about it?"

Of course, I'd have already seen a month ago by the traffic and the search engine referrals that urgent site promotion was called for. I always thought Alexa only provided the roughest ballpark figures.

It turns out the situation is even more dire than one would think. Alexa Rank can be wildly wrong - by a factor of ten.

But the same clients like the Alexa ranking system - it's as inherently easy to understand as a high school popularity contest. Am I more or less popular than my competitors? Am I in the top 200,000 websites in the world or not?

That should read "most popular in the English-speaking world" - Alexa doesn't matter anywhere else. There are a lot of very popular international websites with extremely low Alexa numbers.

In any case, here are the hard numbers from SEOlogs.com: Putting Alexa Rank to the Test - SEOlogs.com:

Nice work compiling these figures.

By Alec

SEO | No comments