Yakiji (Yah-key-jee)

This is hilarious! Will Ferrell busts in on a local news stations noon program. “You stay classy San Diego, I’m Ron Burgundy?”

glumbert – Will Ferrell has a Power Lunch

In Google’s efforts to continually improve search results, Google Experimental Search launched three new views to it’s experiments program.

• Map View (Example) – recognizes the user’s need to map the results of their search query and provides a map courtesy of Google Maps.
• Timeline View (Example) – pretty self explanatory, this feature provides a timeline relating to the user’s search query.
• Info View (Example) – with this view the user is provided a control panel to further refine their search through images, dates, or other relevant attributes.

Useful Links:

• Introducing new search views (Official Google Blog)

Do you have a competitor whose website you’d love to destroy? Well, then you’ll think Net Disaster if flippin’ brilliant. Blow-up the website or pee on it – either way, you won’t get bored with what you can do to the website. Enjoy this time killer!

• Net Disaster

With the writer strike in full effect, it’s hard to get much out of TV these days. Personally, I see this as my chance to catch up on old re-runs. What better to catch up on old episodes than indulging in the blooming, but plentiful TV and film library of Hulu. Under the joint ventures of two TV networks (NBC Universal and News Corp), Hulu offers a vast TV and film library that seems to grow everyday. If you’re like me, then when you think TV on the web your first question would be “how’s the quality?” Believe it or not, the quality is superb and the download time seems to be relatively fast as well – far exceeding YouTube in my opinion. By the looks of it, they are even beginning to test the waters with High Definition as well!

“Hulu offers current primetime shows like The Office, Prison Break, Bionic Woman, House and Bones, and episodes from TV classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Miami Vice, Arrested Development and more. We’ve also partnered with premier content owners like E! Entertainment, FUEL TV, SciFi Network and USA Networks to add to our growing collection of premium programming. ” – Hulu.com

Well now that I have your attention, take note that Hulu is not currently open to the public since it is still in beta testing. If you are OK with waiting a little while then you go sign-up to be a beta-tester at Hulu and be assured a first glimpse. Since Hulu seems eager for beta testers, it shouldn’t be long before you get accepted.

Useful Links:

• Digital Destroyer? The Hullabaloo About Hulu (E! Online)
• Hulu Blog

Google couldn’t be more generous to SEOs and web marketers when it decided to launch Conversion University. Articles have been posted very infrequently, until just recently when Google released the new and improved Conversion University. By the looks of it, it received quite an overhaul. It looks to provide more information than ever with such topics as Acquisition, Onsite Behavior Analysis, Outcomes, Videos and more.

Thanks Google!

If you’re a web developer then you’ve surely dealt with the headaches and pains around building websites for different browsers (-cough- Internet Explorer). While it would make us all feel a little better if this would soon go-away don’t hold your breath on that one. In fact, it’s likely that this will become more difficult before it gets easier. The bottom line is that cross-browser compatibility will continue to be hot issue for quite awhile and the key drivers are your web site’s target audience. Some of the best options for testing reside in some very nice tools around browser testing. Here are some of my favorites:

• Multiple IE (free) – most web developers will agree that Internet Explorer causes the most cross-browser issues. Multiple IE provides a free download which installs all versions of IE going back to IE3 (including IE6, IE5.5, IE 5.01, IE4.01). Most browser testing will only take screenshots of certain pages. Multiple IE allows you to browse sites in real time!
  
• Browsershots (free) – this screen-capture program offers to take screenshots of a website on windows, mac, and linux platforms. You can’t go wrong with the price – free, but be prepared to wait awhile for your screenshots.
  
• BrowserCam (monthly fee) – for a relatively low price you can get access to a very robust screen capture browser testing system. The features allowed in this software seem to be endless with a listing of almost every browser you could think of running on almost every platform available (even mobile). Purchasing options range from daily plans to full year plans.

Useful Links:

• Browser Tests, Services and Compatibility Test Suites (Smashing Magazine)
• Acid2 Test (WaSP)
• Browser Usage Stats (W3Counter)
• How to Check Your Website with Multiple Browsers (The Site Wizard)

If you’re looking for a web stats counter that’s self hosted, extensible and cheap, then look to Mint Web Stats. This light-weight application is easy to install and simple to use. Mint provides ”cut-and-dry” stats for somebody who just wants to know how many people are coming to their site, but also provides good info for the novice user. With plenty of add-on’s, called Pepper, at only $30 per site you can’t go wrong. Best of all, the data stays with you. All the stats are real-time, so you don’t have to wait in anticipation.

If there are any gripes about Mint, it would be that it’s still a very new application. While the application is relatively stable, some of the add-on’s are buggy. The GeoMint application actually crashed my version of Mint, but re-installing it wasn’t too difficult. Shaun Inman, the creator, does a good job updating and staying active with support. This is truly an up-and-coming web analytics package.

Building a small business website has never been so easy. Today, the options for low cost (or free) content management systems are practically endless. Leading the pack, I decided to check out Drupal – a popular open source content management system known for it’s robustness and endless amounts of add-on’s. In doing some research, I noticed the overall consensus around Drupal to be “you either love it or you hate it”. Some think it’s the Wave of the Future, while others say “Don’t Bother“. With that out of the way, it was time for me to roll up my sleeves and dig in.

To begin, the installation couldn’t have been easier. I was able to get the basic out-of-box template up and running within about 20 minutes. While everything seemed to start off well, one thing that surprised me was that Drupal didn’t come configured with meta description and meta keyword tags. I needed to download an additional add-on called Nodewords. For a cutting edge CMS, this seemed a little sloppy to not include this as a default.

Moving on, I started to go through all the features and options of Drupal via the administrative section. They weren’t kidding when they said Drupal was feature rich. Sadly, it felt more cluttered and packed with features than what was needed. I was finding myself getting lost in the administrative section with the non-intuitive navigation. Setting up SEO friendly URLs was slightly painful, but doable. The documentation helped, but was limited. After a couple of hours of putzing around, I was able to configure a basic website along with some hassles along the way.

Overall, Drupal was fun to play with and implement. It’s strength resides in its robustness and feature rich modules but with that came a downside – complexity. Drupal certainly isn’t for the faint of heart. If you’re considering Drupal then prepare to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. Implementing this CMS into a design was no easy feat. The complexity of Drupal gives way to relatively steep learning curve. With that said, make sure it is a good fit for the site you are installing it on. Prepare for future development and support. Drupal is definitely a powerful CMS, but bad judgment can be devastating if implemented improperly. My vote – keep it simple unless you plan on sticking it out for the long run.

Useful Links:

• Search Engines Love Drupal
• Drupal SEO Mistakes

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