Optimize Your Web

Ever wondered what the purpose of User Agent settings were for?  Well it has changed over the years, and was used to determine what type of browser or service was accessing your website.  Mainly it is used by people to determine what browser their main subscription base is using in order to tailor their website to that viewing.  One thing that I have seen is that some people use a spoofed user agent setting are trying to see things that they only want a website crawler such as Google’s GoogleBot to view.  This may be taking advantage of if they are showing the crawler special files that they may try to SEO optimize in order to get better ranking.

If you are looking to see whether or not the GoogleBot that has visited your site is legit, visit this list to check and see.  Also, if you are looking to tweak your user agent settings (that I mentioned in my “Top Firefox Pluggins (Addons)”) through your Mozilla Firefox, download it here.

Make sure that you use the correctly formatted user agent information, which you can get a huge list here.  For more information, please feel free to contact me with questions or tips.

Many people know about Ebay and want to make big bucks by buying those, “How to Make Money in Ebay” books. One of the drawbacks of Ebay is that it’s known by everyone. Therein lies the problem that if someone finds a “deal” so will someone else. And after the bidding wars finish, you are normally left with prices that are the same as buying it off of reseller site such as Bestbuy once you add in shipping.

Another notable problem is the ability to rip someone off with wording and shipping costs. Many people may only charge a small amount for the item, but list the shipping for an outrageous amount, actually costing more than if you bought it local or through a retail store online. Wording can also get people into trouble. Some people will sell information to a good deal on <insert item here> and some people think they are selling the actual item. With these problems, that’s why I suggest Craigslist.org

Craigslist.org is free to use, buyer or seller. It was offered a buyout, but Craig (the owner) who has a very small office in California (San Fransisco, I believe), did not budge because he believes in it staying free. Another benefit is that everything and anything is listed on Craigslist, such as dating, and services. There are local versions of each site for your nearest large city, so give it a try.

One thing I must note is that Ebay does have quick payment and has checks in place to fight against fraud listings and buyers/sellers.

Lastly, I must just ask that you give craigslist.org a try and see how you like it. And if you do, feel free to give it a little donation for staying free for everyone and remaining what the internet should be about.

When Gmail was first announced, the amount of space that they offered was unheard of. Hotmail, which was one of the most popular free email sites at the time, offered space in terms of MB instead of GB. As more and more people migrated from using hotmail, among other free email providers, to Gmail, the only thing that these other companies/sites could do was to give in and try and match Google’s free services.

As more and more companies, such as AT&T – Uverse and Verizon – Fios, try and compete against home internet connections from cable companies, will we soon see someone break into the market in the next few years and offer bandwidth at a good price with great speed? There is also the upcoming purchase of the wireless airwaves in which one startup hopes to offer it for free! I am hoping so, but with the new release from CNet about Comcast capping their bandwidth, I am unsure if it will happen.  Is there any possible breakthrough for ISPs as there was with email services when Gmail came about?

Everyone nowadays has video on their websites, which is not always the method people want to receive their news. CNN, MSNBC, and any other large news source needs to understand that while video clips are great for some people, it’s not great for all.

I myself have a hard time watching news clips at work because it may bother those in offices close to mine. Why not have an article that goes along with the video so those that do not or cannot watch the video can still get information that they want. It’s very frustrating to want to see some breaking news but cannot due to the inability to watch the video.

Let me know what you all think and if you think it’s a good idea for news companies to take a little extra time and write a print form of the video news.

MySpace users will often want to hide certain parts of their MySpace
profile. This is easy enough to do, but you do need to know the
correct MySpace code to enter into your profile.

These MySpace codes are readily available on different MySpace sites
around the internet. I’ve compiled a list of the most popular MySpace
Hide Codes here for your convenience. Be sure to follow the
instructions carefully. Enjoy!
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Call it a trick, call it a hint or whatever, but what you are about to see is just plain cool.  Say you signup for gmail and have the username google.  Well you can receive email that comes to the names: go.ogle@gmail.com, goo.g.le@gmail.com and any combination of periods. That may not be exciting as this next little setting. (continue reading…)