Sitemap Protocol - Microsoft & Yahoo Joint Support

Google Sitemap is now getting support from Microsoft & Yahoo. They have moved to a new name space called www.sitemaps.org with now version 0.9.

In case you are new to site map, using a site map not only makes it easy for your users to see the entire structure of your website, but it also makes it easier for the search engines to spider your site.When the search engine spiders come to visit, they will follow all of the text links from your main index page. If one of those links is to a site map, then the spiders will go right to the sitemap, and consequently visit every page you have text linked to from that site map.

Let examine a sample of valid sitemap protocol

<blockquote><?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url>
<loc>http://www.example.com/</loc>
<lastmod>2005-01-01</lastmod>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
<priority>0.8</priority>
</url>
</urlset></blockquote>

Easy stuff

SEO - How Does Your Site Score?

I found a cool tool called Sitescore. This is a free check-up on how well your site stacks up in search engine ranking and offers you tips on how you can make your site easier to find by the search engines most frequently used by the general public.

I really like the final report. It shows the overall summary consists of Marketing, Design, Accessibility, Experience and Visitor Ranking of your website. The report also shows all the good or bad points complete with breakdown descriptions and suggestions.

The generated reports for each domain will be cached. You need to sign-up (it's free) to re-generate report for the same domain.

Unbelievably my blog scores 7.1 out of 10. So how's yours?

Blogger Beta Hack - Expandable post entry

This is a very useful hack. The purpose of this hack is to display only the summary of your full article / story on the main page. When reader click the "read more" it shows the full article on the next page.

To me it is so important and I hope that Blogger Beta should add this feature ASAP, but I simply just can't wait. I've done it in previous Blogger build, so I look around and I found a Blogger user that dedicate himself to hack Blogger. Thanks Ramani (I think he is from India).

Anyway here are the steps.

1. 1. Search for "post-header-line" to find this portion of code in your template and add the lines in as shown below.
   
   

   <div class='post-header-line-1'/>
   <div class='post-body'>
   <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
   <style>.fullpost{display:inline;}</style>
   <p><data:post.body/></p>
   <b:else/>
   <style>.fullpost{display:none;}</style>
   <p><data:post.body/></p>
   <a expr:href='data:post.url'>Read More......</a>
   </b:if>
   <div style='clear: both;'/> <!-- clear for photos floats --> </div>

   
   
2. (optional step) Goto Settings->Formatting. At the bottom, you will find the text box provided to specify the "Post template". Copy/paste these lines into that text box and save the settings.
   

   Type your summary here
   
   <span class="fullpost">
   Type rest of the post here
   </span>

Voila, now every time you want to create a post, "Type your summary here" and "Type rest of the post here" will be display. Just replace it with your entry.

With all the fuss you will be rewarded with at least double page views in your blog stats. Just make sure you don't reveal everything in the blurb.

Bright Future for Adobe Apollo

In case you haven't heard of this, Apollo is the code name for a cross-operating system runtime (like Flash itself) being developed by Adobe that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, JavaScript, Ajax) to build and deploy Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) to the desktop. It's due to release on Adobe Labs in early 2007.

The idea is that developers will be able to bring their web applications off line and take advantage of things a desktop application can do like drag and drop file, etc. Despite that, Apollo will be running on a cross platform machine like PCs, Macs and Linux.

Bringing visual rich content like Flash isn't new. Macromedia started it with Macromedia Central. Central acted as an application manager and Flash applications written for Central ran inside a Central desktop client instead of as separate applications, the model Apollo uses now. Some said that developing apps with Central was a nightmare. I don't really know because I never touch Macromedia Central before, but later Macromedia Flex (now Adobe Flex) has made writing applications in Flash much more simple. In fact, Apollo wouldn't have been possible without the Flex framework.

I heard that the AJAX support in Appolo will make AJAX development much more easier. Currently AJAX developers need to deal with a variety of different browsers and that requires extra time and cost. But since Apollo is a cross platform itself, so you can ditch the hacking process as you are now dealing with RIA desktops. You can just port your current Ajax application to Apollo with almost no code changes.

In conclusion, Apollo seems uniquely positioned to open the world of desktop application development to the average web developer, so that should spur the development of a lot of new apps. It's up to the developer to create applications that make people's lives better and that are easy enough for the average user. So keep on refreshing the Adobe Lab.

Reciprocal Link - Find Out How Deep The Bunny's Hole Goes

Photo by lottuh1977

What the heck is a reciprocal link?

A reciprocal link is a text and/or banner link to a site that, somewhere in its pages, carries a similar text/banner link to your own site. Easier word - a link back to your website.

Some benefit of reciprocal linking :

1. Increase Your Website Traffic
2. Increase Page Rank in Search Engines
3. Offer Your Website Visitors Valuable Resources

Some says that reciprocal links are losing their value or even Google discredited all type of reciprocal linking. Many said that to overcome this, choose sites relevant to the subject of your site and trade/beg/ask permission to put your link there.

I say let's create an experiment which I would like to call it "How Deep The Bunny's Hole Goes". The objective of this experiment is to analyze how reciprocal affects your website traffic and page rank.

It's a simple experiment, make it fun like playing a tag game. Copy the following script and post to any website, blog of your friend or what so ever.

You were tag no ### by <a href="http://azowebsphere.blogspot.com">Your site name & link</a>. You may tag to others too.
Find out more at <a href="http://azowebsphere.blogspot.com/2006/11/reciprocal-link-find-out-how-deep.html">How Deep The Bunny's Hole Goes Experiment</a>.

Replace the ### with total no of tag that you have create and of course your site / blog name with your own link. To make it effective, install a Google Analytic script before you start.

Let's share how much you website / blog gain out of this experiment.

AJAX Edit-In-Place - Flickr Style

If you have ever use Fickr, you might be wondering how on earth they can save the title and description by simply hovering on the elements without reloading the whole page.

With this feature you can imagine how many page load you can save or at least it can impress your friends or boss :D

Ok basically it has two components, the user interface manipulation and the AJAX call itself. This AJAX uses Prototype,a JavaScript Framework.

I uploaded a working source codes so that you can test it on your own.

Happy programming.

CSS Layout - Back to basic

For the past 5 years I created numerous of websites, some are simple, others cause me restless night and part of the job may require CSS layout design. It sounds not so important, unfortunately it does. For the past few years, SEO has become part of the design requirement and it helps a lot on pushing the content and boost the page rank.

Instead of starting out with blank CSS and HTML documents every time you need to build a layout, you can create a bunch of layout templates as it will give you a solid basis for creating the rest of the design.

You can create 2 column layout, 3 column layout, centered, fixed and others. You may explore other possibility from this CSS website.

These templates can be really basic, in fact that is exactly what you want as the final design. The fonts, the colours and so on will be different every time. It’s just the main sections we want to be able to quickly get into place.

As for example, here is a sample of my most common CSS layout:

1. The HTML page
2. The CSS file

Since I can't find a way to post the source code in this Blogger entry, I make you life easier by posting a zip file using the online storage service by esnips.

Netvibes - The real executive desktop

While glancing through some of the freelance projects frowarded to my email, I saw a job which require cloning a site called Netvibes. The price offered were around USD100-300 and it is all AJAX. Sound reasonable to me, but when I browse through Netvibes :O USD100-300 is too small for this kind of job. It could take ages (for me) to clone it. Well see it for your self.

Netvibes claims their service as Web 2.0 expert and currently based in Paris. Netvibes still in beta (like every industry player), but when using the application I feel like using Yahoo Desktop with steroid (lots lots of steroid) or should I say Pageflakes alike?

Looking for a freelancer or want to become one?

Occasionally a friend of mine always ask for people or any of my friends that has capability for certain type of job. It was hard for me to find a suitable candidate for the task but by googling a bit it wasn't hard at all.

I found a website that focus on IT freelance resources called GetAFreelancer.com belongs to a Sweeden company. Basically it almost look like the everyday job seeker portal with 2 types of target user; a Buyer and a Provider. A buyer post a job into the system pool by adding the job description and choose criteria such as programming language, OS platform and so on. A provider will search any job that match with their criteria/specialty and engage the price bidding. It is up to the buyer to choose which provider suitable for the job.

Now the catch here is that none of the buyer or provider are allowed to insert their contact infomation as it will violates their terms of service. I guess this will be a thread for their existance. Furhtermore, GetAFreelancer.com will act as the payment aggregator, which means a buyer will only pay to the sites not to the provider directly.

I manage to join this site for a couple of days now and I subscribe to the buyers job email alerts. To my surprise the system does alert me many jobs posted by the buyer from all over the globe. This look like a lucrative business to me.

Ramadhan is leaving us

Ramadhan is known as a month with thousands of blessing (Bulan penuh rahmat), has just left three more days. I wish every month is a Ramadhan, but Allah has set it for reasons. So I hope I can do much more prayer- terawih, kiamulail, reading Al-Quran and gifts to the one needed.

For Muslim all over the world, this month brings opportunity to them - interms of selling anything related to celebrate the Eidl Fitr: Cookies, cloth, household stuff... and much much much more. Even in Jalan TAR Malaysia itself the flow of crowd never stop.

So I take this opportunity to wish every muslim Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri & Maaf Zahir Batin. To friends, have a save journey. Like the TV3 said Aidilfitri adalah hari untuk di rayai bukan ditangisi.

Packages2Go In Kosmo

While doing my daily maintenance on Utusan's Kosmo server today, I saw a few familiar faces. Who others that our dearest Nurezali (not Nurazeli) and Jeffry Noor. Well kudos guys, you guys are now officially famous.

I've spent 5 wonderful years with you guys. Keep the ball rolling.

Yahoo first Open Hack Day

When I first read it I thought it was black hat kind of hack, but I thought wrong. Yahoo initiates this first hack day to gather all the coders to hack Yahoo applications. I can smell some new innovation coming up next.

Anyway, here are the list of the Open Hack Day Winners:

• Best Overall: Blogging in Motion: wearable technology. Blog from your purse. - Diana Eng, Emily Albinski, Audrey Roy
• Second Place: YBox: Turn TV into a simple, web configurable dashboard. - Josh Rooke-Ley, Tarikh Korula
• Thired Place: Search Hack with Dynamic Tagging: Semantic Search using Yahoo Search API for Seed Documents, Evan Hoff
• Best Sharp OSA Hack: Print a Pretty Impromptu Poster, pick a Flickr tag and print impromptu posters on the colour photocopier. - Ben Metcalfe (with assistance from Tim Shattuck)
• Best Social Commentary: Y! Space. It's like Yahoo! 360. But not for old people! - Winona Tong
• Too Useful: shill.icio.us. Find users who are trying to drive traffic to their sites by artificially boosting del.icio.us popularity. - Jason Gurney
• Best Schtick (and Worst Hack): Blabber. It's a talking head! Except it has the same voice as you! - Mo Kakwan
• Best Messenger Hack: Lingo! Y!Messenger plugin to help put Yahoo! Services in Context. - Kristopher Tate, Matt Olson, Qingfeng Huang, Aiguo Fei
• Best Messenger Hack, Second Place: Plaxo Yahoo Messenger Plugin. A plugin for Yahoo messenger that allows you to look up your friends' Plaxo contact information. - Trevor Gattis, Amber Haq
• Best Messenger Hack, Third Place: Ask questions to Y! Answers from Messenger. Allows users to ask question by typing their request into a messenger secondary window. - Sharan, Vincent
• Best Upcoming Hack: Gutentag. Describe yourself, then find people, events, and places that you'll love but would have never known about. - Josh Dewald, Mabel Liang, Taylor Dondich
• Best Local/Maps Hack and Worst Kiss-Ass (for comments made to the moderator during the demo): Road-Trip Radio. Take a trip down the coast and know exactly when and where to turn that dial...so you never miss a moment of your favorite NPR or radio program (and don't have to buy a satellite radio)! - AJ Arora
• Best Flickr Hack: The Color Field Camera. A 1950s snapshot camera with built-in LCD screen. Blends live video with flickr images that match the color of the object in the center of your view. - Bjoern Hartmann (presenting)
• Best Mail Hack: Yahoo! Mail with Flickr Image Association. Use photographic association to easily recall and visualize email. - Dan Lindquist
• Best Mail Hack, Second Place: Flickr Photo Postcard. Send a postcard of a Flickr photo to a friend's email. Just find a cool photo on Flickr, click the send postcard button, fill in the email and message, and click send! - Leah Culver, Tantek Celik
• Best Mail Hack, Third Place: Something With Your E-Mail. Just a draft of turning microcontent from email to actionable goodness. - Christine Hodges

Hard Disk vs Online Back Up

I've been thinking is it worth it to buy a SATA hard disk to back up my stuff or find any online back up service to store everything online. The same thing happen previously when I try to decide to search for web hosting with a big storage or a small one.

Browsing the web today lead me to a service provided by Amazon (yeap that Amazon.com). They call it the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). If you are a developer and having headache to store your data, this is might be the right choice. What's catch my eyes is the pricing. There is no minimum fee, and no start-up cost. $0.15 per GB-Month of storage used. $0.20 per GB of data transferred.

Well again it is up to your personal preference. With Bluray coming up next, I think storage price will keep cheaper & cheaper.

YouTube soon to follow Napster history

Read it from the Yahoo news today. It says Universal Music Group, the world's biggest record company, recently accused YouTube of being a serial copyright infringer.

I guess life is like a roller coaster. YouTube now is like at the top of the peak and soon or later will going down. It just a mater how steep the slope is. Currently YouTube is the 3rd most viewed website in the world (damn Alexa is down to confirm this). I even uploaded a few videos in there.

But hey YouTube is not the only free video sharing out there. Some of it like MetaCafe are equally interesting, but I think YouTube has the much volume compare to the others.

Not to forget, recently Yahoo acquires online video editing JumpCut as part of the Yahoo family. I did try it, and it is simple enough.

PHP Editor - A complete list

While searching for a good PHP editor, I found this site , which is a link from the PHP.net itself. All this while I was using the Eclipse & CFStudio only. Hmm, feel like live in the box :D. Now I wonder which one is the best.