How Can I Improve My Web Site's Search Results Ranking?

Tonight my friend contacted me and asked how she could get her store's new website to show up in search results.  While I don't claim to be an expert I do have a little experience with web sites, ecommerce, blogging and SEO (search engine optimization).  Here's a list of what I told her just shooting from the hip.

I told her it's definitely a multi-faceted approach.  First, her site looks good, is easy to navigate and has relevant information.  Without a decent place to start none of the rest of this will matter.

1. Start with a good site with good, relevant content.
2. Be patient. It takes time to rise to the top, or even to rise at all.
3. Get visitors. The more traffic your site gets naturally (sometimes called type-in traffic) the better it will rank in search results. Give the URL to all your customers. Print it on their receipt, on the merchandise bags, put a flyer in their bag. Put your sites address up in your stores. Outside the stores. Basically anywhere you can. Get your existing customers to go to the site.
4. Add content (merchandise and info) to your site often as possible.  Keep the site fresh. Use the island names (or your location) in product descriptions if/when possible. Basically you want the search words people would use to find what you offer throughout your site as much as possible.
5. Have your own blog and use it to make announcements about new products, etc.  This helps fulfill the previous suggestion. And post to it regularly. Again using key words.  And make sure it links back to your store.
6. Inbound links are invaluable, particularly from higher traffic sites. Post the link on facebook, twitter or anywhere you can. Try to get written up and linked in your local paper, citysearch, kudzu, places like that. Trade links with other sites where it makes sense, etc. Inbound links are the holy grail of high-ranking search results, and ultimately more site traffic.
7. Work your networks, get people going there, linking to it etc.
8. Use site analytics.  Make sure to enable some kind of site analytics (either from your hosting provider or Google Analytics or other) so you can monitor activity to your site over time; and track key words people used to find your site; and where they came from (search engines, inbound links, etc.).
9. While it's harder and harder these days to get good domain names it really helps if the site name is something that makes sense, is easy to remember.  It is also really important for it to match the name of your business.

Again, be patient.  It takes time to build traffic, especially search traffic and to get ranked higher in search results. While no one knows exactly the algorithms that Google and other search engines use it is no doubt a combination of the things listed above (and certainly more).  Build your traffic organically using the customers already interacting with you.  Make sure your site is easy to navigate, looks good and has lots of content, particularly the key words you believe people might use to find products or services you offer.

If you're ever in the Charleston, SC area go to Islands Mercantile on both Seabrook and Kiawah islands for some great T-shirts, hats and other souvenirs.

Google Maps Gone Bad

Trying to find a Quiznos and according to Google Maps there are two a couple miles apart, however their addresses are several states apart...  WTF Google?

How To Disable Google Instant

While I pretty much love (or at least strongly like) Google, there are a few features that I cannot stand.  Google Instant is one of them.  Google's autocomplete is a little annoying, albeit a bit entertaining at times; but Google Instant drives me crazy.  Every time I go to Google from a new computer (which is fairly regularly) I disable Google Instant.  Disabling it is easy, just go to Preferences (http://www.google.com/preferences), scroll down about half way and select Do not use Google Instant, then save your preferences.

How Digital Detectives Deciphered Stuxnet, the Most Menacing Malware in History

Stuxnet required an enormous amount of resources to produce, but its cost-benefit ratio is still in question. While it may have helped set Iran’s program back to a degree, it also altered the landscape of cyberattacks. Stuxnet’s authors mapped a new frontier that other attackers are bound to follow; and the next target for sabotage could easily be a nuclear facility in the United States.

Read entire article (a great read).

How To Upgrade to Gingerbread After Rooting and Removing Crapware From Your Droid X

About 6 months ago I set out on a quest to root my Droid X (running FroYo) in order to remove/disable unwanted apps like CityID, BlockBuster, VZ Navigator, etc.  While that was very successful, it did impede my ability to update to the much desired Gingerbread.  While I consider myself smart and quite educated in the ways of technology (I've made a decent living in the IT field for 20 years) I have really struggled to figure this out & it's frustrated me greatly.  There are a number of forums which discuss what to do and how to do it, but they almost always throw out terms which the lay person (with respect to Android OS in particular) won't understand or instructions that are written in short hand.  While this may be fine for those "in the know," it's not fine for the rest of us.  So after pulling my hair out several evenings and weekends recently and reading a ton of stuff, I believed I finally stitched it all together enough to have upgraded my rooted Droid X to Gingerbread - but wait, there was a problem.....

I'll address that problem later (perhaps even in another post), but suffice it to say that although my Droid X reported it was on the latest and greatest Android OS, Gingerbread (AKA 4.5.596) it would often tell me there was an update available, and display the message, "Info.  Download of update failed."  This has finally gotten to me and I'm in the process of correcting it, writing this as I progress with correcting this.

Here are the basic steps, then I'll expound on each.

• Backup data (and apps)
• SBF back to stock FroYo
• Verizon OTA update to Gingerbread
• Restore data (and apps)

Important note: this will leave you with the stock version of Gingerbread from Verizon/Motorola which includes the undesired built-in apps like CityID, BlockBuster, VZ Navigator, etc. that I worked so hard to remove previously; and as of this writing there is no way to gain root access of this version of Gingerbread (although you could always install a rooted SBF of Gingerbread....).  On the bright side, at least you'll be running Gingerbread on your Droid X.....

NOTE: There are a few gotcha's and things to watch out for, so please read and follow these instructions carefully.  For example at various points your phone may not start or the battery won't charge, but these things are addressed in the instructions.

Step 1 - backup your data and apps

Ever since rooting my Droid I've been using Titanium Backup Pro to backup my stuff, and it's been great.  However, in my attempts to upgrade to Gingerbread, which was somewhat successful except that I lost root so I wasn't able to use Titanium Backup to do a current backup as it requires root.... If you use TB and still have root access use that to backup everything you desire and skip to step 2, otherwise keep reading.

Since I couldn't use TB after losing root I got a copy of MyBackup and backed up everything, particularly the data on my phone.

NOTE: make sure you do a backup and/or be prepared to lose all your data (SMS, call logs, etc.) as one of the following steps requires wiping your phone.

Step 2 - SBF back to stock FroYo

First, WTF is SBF? The .SBF file basically consists of the original software platform that your phone was released with. It doesn’t seem like anyone truly understand what SBF stands for...

Download and install Morotola's RSD Lite - as of this post the latest version is 4.9, which is the version I used for these instructions.  The best way to find it is to do a web search for "rsd lite 4.9 download" and download from one of the file sharing sites - I didn't include a link here because 1) it may be outdated either by being removed from the download site, or a newer version of the program may be available; and 2) I don't particularly like these sites and didn't want to endorse any with a link.

NOTE: I did see some references that people reported problems running RSD Lite on Windows 7 64-bit however, that's exactly what I'm using and this all worked just fine for me.

Download the (FroYo) Full 2.3.340 Official SBF (filename VRZ_MB810_2.3.34_1FF_01.sbf).  This thread has a link to the file I used.

NOTE: Make sure your battery is full or as close as possible before proceeding as it can take a while (30 minutes or more) and the battery doesn't charge during most of these steps.

• Connect your Droid via USB cable.
• Launch RSD Lite.
• Reboot Droid into Boot Loader (pull battery, or use power button to turn off; hold volume down and camera buttons, and press & release power button - continue holding volume down and camera buttons until triangle with exclamation point icon appears).  Once Droid is in boot loader it should be listed as an available device in RSD Lite.  The Droid's bootloader screen looks something like this:

Bootloader
2C.5C

Battery OK
OK to Program
Transfer Mode:
USB

• In RSD Lite select the device (Droid) and browse to the SBF file downloaded previously, then press Start.
• Sit back and let RSD Lite do it's thing.

After RSD Lite is done the Droid will restart, however you will likely just get to the animated red Droid Eye, sit there for a couple minutes & reboot over and over again.  At this point you need to wipe the phone, and since you have a good backup it shouldn't be too painful... Right.!?  To wipe the phone power it off (have to pull the battery), then press and hold the home button and power button (you can let the power button go after a couple seconds, but must continue to hold the home button).  This will take you to the Android system recovery utility.  Next, press both up/down volume buttons at the same time to display the menu, then press the down volume button to select "wipe data/factory reset" and press the camera button.  You will be presented with at least one warning that you will lose all data, but since you have it backed up you should feel pretty good about proceeding.

NOTE: While in the Android system recovery utility you will also want to "wipe cache partition" as not doing so may cause your battery not to charge after completing these steps.

Finally, reboot the system.

 After the phone boots you will have to follow the prompts to activate the phone with Verizon.

Step 3 - Droid X OTA Update
This is perhaps the easiest part - doing a standard OTA update.  On the phone go to Setting, About Phone, System Updates and download the Gingerbread (4.5.596) update.  Once downloaded install it.

And, success....

Step 4 - Restore Data & Apps
Go to the Android Market and install your backup software (in my case it's MyBackup), then restore your data and apps.

NOTE: after the OTA update to Gingerbread my Droid wouldn't actually charge, although it said it was charging.  In an earlier step I addressed wiping the cache partition - which did the trick when I had this problem previously.  At this point I was a bit concerned, but a simple battery pull corrected the issue and it's working great now.

Happy Androiding with Gingerbread on your Droid X....  Oh, and stay tuned as I will definitely post detailed instructions on how to remove the crapware (CityID, Blockbuster, VZ Navigator, etc.) from Gingerbread soon as I figure it out.

These Damn ATM Fees Are Killing Me!

Never mind that I have nearly one hundred million...

Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus

Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus from Patrick Clair on Vimeo.
An infographic dissecting the nature and ramifications of Stuxnet, the first weapon made entirely out of code. This was produced for Australian TV program HungryBeast on Australia's ABC1

Direction and Motion Graphics: Patrick Clair
Written by: Scott Mitchell

Production Company: Zapruder's Other Films.

2012 Mayan Calendar - What It Really Means

How To Remove City ID (and other crapware) From Droid X (and other Android phones)

I've been on a quest to remove City ID, Blockbuster and other crapware that came bundled with my Droid X which Verizon won't allow me to remove.  Searching for "uninstall city id" or "remove blockbuster" will net thousands of results of people asking how to do so - almost all of which have nothing good to say about Ciquent (the developers of City ID), Blockbuster or Verizon.  I pretty much agree with all I've read.  In fact I have vowed to never use products ever again from Ciquent or Blockbuster, and I've notified both of my disgust and vows.

In my quest I haven't been able to find any specific instructions on how to remove this crap.  Most "instructions" say something like, "root, remove, reboot."  Well I persevered and figure it out.  It's actually pretty easy to get rid of these unwanted (cr)apps; in fact, it can be done using three readily available apps (actually four, but one gets installed automatically).

Here I'm going to provide detailed instructions (including pretty screenshots) on how to obtain and install the apps you need to root your phone (and unroot when you're done if desired) and remove those undesired bundled apps like Blockbuster, City ID, VZ Navigator and others.  First some warnings and notes though:

• WARNING: Removing these annoying apps (rather than disabling or freezing them) will make it difficult to upgrade your Droid X to Gingerbread.  Not to worry though, here are detailed instructions on how to Upgrade to Gingerbread After Rooting and Removing Crapware From Your Droid X.
• WARNING: use these instructions at your own risk.  You are responsible for what you do to your phone - not me.
• WARNING: the web is replete with posts saying rooting your phone may void the warranty or brick your phone; however there are also a number of posts either disputing this or saying they haven't had a problem with warranty issues after rooting.  Again, you assume all risk for what you do to your device.
• These instructions were used to remove unwanted programs from a Motorola Droid X running Froyo version 2.2.1 (system version 2.3.340).  It may or may not work on other devices or with other versions of Android.
• These instructions work as of the date of this post.
• Good luck and be happy to be rid of crapware from Verizon!

Android apps used in this guide

• Superuser
• z4root (AKA z4mod) by RyanZa - z4root.1.3.0.apk download mirrors (not in Market - use this link)
• Busybox (automatically installed by z4root)
• Titanium Backup

Step 1 - Download/install Superuser from Android Market (search superuser)

Step 2 - Download and install z4root, and root your device

• Download z4root from one of the mirrors listed in the link directly to your Droid (may not be available in Android Market - click download link.  If not available via link leave a comment with a way to contact you and I can provide one).
• Click the z4root-2.1.3.0.apk file to install (you may have to enable installation of non-Market applications - Home screen, Settings, Applications, check Unknown sources)
• Launch z4root/z4mod

• Select Permanent Root.
• This may take SEVERAL minutes - be patient.
• While it's running Busybox will be downloaded and installed.
• You will also see various messages about the progress of rooting your phone.
• It will either reboot your Droid or prompt you to do so.
• NOTE: on my first attempt I selected Temporary Root which didn't appear to work as later steps failed.
• NOTE: you can undo or unroot your Droid at any time.
• NOTE: my first few attempts to root with z4root didn't work.  My Droid locked and I had to pull the battery to reboot.  I uninstalled z4root and installed again from one of the links above and it worked fine after that.  In fact, I did all these steps again so I could make sure these steps are accurate and grab some screen shots.
• After rebooting open z4root/z4mod and if you see this screen you know you're rooted.

Step 3 - Install and run Titanium Backup (search titanium backup in Market)

• NOTE: the free version of Titanium Backup works for this, however as it does much more and is a great app I'd recommend upgrading to the pro version.
• When you launch Titanium Backup it will tell you if you don't have root.  If you do have root it will say "Root access: OK" and look like this.

• Click on Backup/Restore which will display a list of installed apps on your phone.
• Scroll to the (cr)app you no longer want and click on it and select Un-install.

• You will receive a warning asking if you're sure.  If so, click Yes and it's gone!
• Remove other unwanted crapware to your heart's content.

I used this to remove Blockbuster, City ID, Skype and VZ Navigator.  I'm definitely feeling better after removing all this crap!

That's all there is to it.  Of course you can use z4root to un-root your phone if desired.

Uninstall City ID from Droid X.  Uninstall Blockbuster from Droid X.  Uninstall Skype from Droid X.  Uninstall VZ Navigator from Droid X.

How Many Secret Service Agents Does It Take To Get Obama's Limo Unstuck...

This is classic!  Obama high-centered.


Obama's Car Gets Stuck At US Embassy - Watch more Funny Videos

During his visit to Ireland, Obama's car got stuck at the US Embassy's gate. Or as Fox News reported, "Oh God, This Guy Has Embarrassed America, AGAIN!"