WDTalk

More and more I see entire websites that consist entirely of RSS feeds – and while most of them contain content relevant to the theme of the site, that content is often not categorized, so I lose focus and move on to other sites (as I suspect others do). And on the rare occasion a headline captures my attention, more often than not, once I read the summary and click to ‘read more,’ I’m taken to another summary, then another summary and finally the complete article (four or five times removed). 

On the flip side, if someone is looking to add – content to their site and your RSS feed contains content exactly matching what they’re interested in, you’ll have a better chance of getting syndicated. The good news is, if you’re using WordPress (as millions do) and publish a variety of topics, you can publish multiple feeds – matching your categories. When you submit your feeds to feed directories, instead of submitting a feed for the entire site, submit your category feeds. 

How do you know – your category feed URL’s? If the category page URL looks like “http://example.com/blog/category/web_hosting/”, then the RSS feed URL for the category is “http://example.com/blog/category/web_hosting/feed/.” 

My recommendation – If you want your feed syndicated, publish interesting information and publish it often. If your readers are looking for regularly updated content, they’ll be less tempted to move elsewhere. Be careful not to trade quality for volume though

All in fun – I actually love Microsoft products and technology, but these are still hilarious.

If Microsoft built houses:

• the oven would say “Are you sure?” before heating up
• they’d all be leasehold
• would take 5 mins between hitting the switch and the lights going on or off
• the roof would only be finished two years later as a patch

And if General Motors had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

• For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.
• Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to
  buy a new car.
• Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason,
  and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
• Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause
  your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would
  have to reinstall the engine.
• Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought
  “Car95″ .” But then you would have to buy more seats.
• Apple would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable,
  five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run
  on five per cent of the roads.
• The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be
  replaced by a single “general car default” warning light.
• New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
• The airbag system would say “Are you sure?” before going off.
• Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out
  and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the
  door handle, turned the key, and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
• GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of
  Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they
  neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option
  would immediately cause the car’s performance to diminish by 50% or
  more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the
  Justice Department.
• Everytime GM introduced a new model car, buyers would have to learn
  how to drive all over again because none of the controls would
  operate in the same manner as the old car.
• You’d press the “start” button to shut off the engine.

I first saw Let Me Google That For You  on a web hosting forum this morning. One of the members asked a question he clearly should have Googled first. OMG, he was flamed by the moderator with a response from www.lmgtfy.com that started a trend by others on the board.

I tried to think of some good keywords for examples, but you can use any search term you want. Click on any of the links below to see why this made me smile.

What is a Virtual Private Server?

Is the correct term bandwidth or data transfer?

What does BGP mean?

What is a favicon?

Why can’t dogs fly?

Super Bowl Champions – Saint Louis RAMS

The Best Places to SELL Domain Names? 

If you have a domain you’re not interested in anymore, here are some options to consider. 

Should you use – a broker or advertise your domain yourself? Brokers normally charge fees, but that’s not always a bad thing. Brokers offer increased exposure and sometimes that’s what it takes to move certain domains. There are plenty of free options as well, like advertising on popular web hosting forums. 

Which methods are recommended – by those in the industry? 

Surprisingly, eBay is favored among the top venues, followed by 

• Sedo
• Afternic
• GoDaddy
• NamePros and
• DNForum 

Other venues recommended are 

• Flippa.com
• Dnchat
• ddboard.com
• SnapNames
• Websitebroker.com
• DigitalPoint &
• SitePoint 

One of the great divides across cultures has always been the language barrier. Not only do I not know how to speak, read or write other languages, often I cannot tell what the language is just by looking at it – for example, Korean, Chinese or Japanese. I received an email in Chinese? today and went to my normal online translator to see what it said, but Chinese to English wasn’t one of their options.

Auto Detection
I’m thinking, what if this isn’t Chinese? Do I try multiple translators until one works, or is there a translator out there that simplifies this whole messy process? To my amazement, I found Bing Translator which has an auto detect option. Wow! I plugged in my email message and was able to instantly read Chinese spam in English. LOL.

Online Translators
Google’s language tools currently offers the following interface languages:

Yahoo also has it’s own language translator named Babel Fish, allowing you to translate a block of text up to 150 words.

Of course, there are variations of translators, like The Dialectizer. The Dialector can translate web pages and text into Redneck, Jive, Cockney, Elmer Fudd, Swedish Chef, Moron, Pig Latin, or Hacker. I just tried Redneck on our site and it’s hilarious.

I am a HUGE fan of cutting edge technology, so when I stumbled across this video http://www.wimp.com/sixthtechnology posted on a web hosting forum, I had to watch it – from start to finish (approximately 15 minutes).

Why?
Time after time, my jaw dropped as new innovations were presented, linking objects in the physical world to the digital world. The video started with a simple upgrade to a two roller mouse, enabling the user to mimic finger movements on his monitor. And it kept getting better – taking pictures by framing objects with his hands, making outbound calls via a projected keypad on his palm, projecting live weather information onto his newspaper map, and on and on.

I’m Excited
The future is here today, and I’m proud to share its contribution to innovative technology with articles that compliment the delivery of new ideas and broad vision.

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