Thursday, 23 June 2011
foreclosure listings
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Friday, 17 June 2011
Making Money Jobs
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Thursday, 19 May 2011
Surface Encounters on the subject of granite and business
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I'm brand new to collecting and not sure where to go with this one.
I've found some pennies that have a bubbly surface usually on both the obverse and reverse.
Whats the deal with these? It's amusing to see lincoln with measles or "liberty" with an extra dot over the I...but how does this happen and are they worth anything?
Thanks!
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Small Business Events, <b>News</b>, Resources
It's Small Business Week and we begin with news related to this celebration of the most important part of our economy. We then move on to resources with some.
Figures. Obama's Secret Service Bashes FOX <b>News</b> on Twitter | The <b>...</b>
You know, I'm really, REALLY glad Fox News is out there and they're trying to be fair and balanced. And as to how successful they're being, how do you measure that really? But I really, REALLY hate some of their production values. ...
Transfer <b>news</b>: Tottenham target Didier Drogba and Birmingham <b>...</b>
Spurs target Drogba and Foster, Liverpool eye Serie A playmaker and Brazilian starlet keen on Chelsea switch.
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Saturday, 7 May 2011
Friday, 22 April 2011
Alt Attribute & SEO Optimization
SEO Optimization images is becoming increasingly more essential in SEO (Seo optimization) for websites. The ALT attribute is a critical step that is sometimes forgotten. This can be a lost chance of better rankings.
In Google's webmaster guidelines, they advise using alternative text for the images in your site:
Images:. Use the alt attribute to provide descriptive text. Additionally, we recommend utilizing a human-readable caption and descriptive text round the image.
Why would they ask us to do that? The answer is simple, really; search engines have the same problem as blind users. They cannot begin to see the images.
Many webmasters and inexperienced or unethical SEOs abuse the use of this attribute, trying to stuff it with keywords, looking to achieve a certain keyword density, which is not as relevant for rankings now as it once was.
On the contrary, high keyword density can, on some search engines, trigger spam filters, which may create a penalty for the site's ranking. Even without such a penalty, your site's rankings won't benefit from this plan.
This process also puts persons who use screen readers in a greater disadvantage. Screen readers are software-based tools that actually read aloud the items in what's displayed on the screen. In browsing the net, the alt attributes of images are read aloud too.
Imagine hearing a paragraph of text that is then repetitions of numerous keywords. The page will be not even close to accessible, and, to put it mildly, would be found quite annoying.
What exactly is an Alt attribute?
An ALT attribute shouldn't be used like a description or perhaps a label to have an image, though many people use it in that fashion. Although it might seem natural to assume that alternate text is really a label or a description, it's not!
The words used within an image's alt attribute ought to be its text equivalent and convey exactly the same information or serve exactly the same purpose the image would.
The goal is to provide the same functional information that the visual user would see. The alt attribute text should be the "stand in" when the look is not available. Ask yourself this: Should you replace the look with the text, would most users get the same basic information, and would it create the same response?
A few examples:
Some SEO Optimization Tips
If your search button is a magnifying glass or binoculars its alt text ought to be 'search' or 'find' not 'magnifying glass' or 'binoculars'.
If an image is meant to convey the literal contents of the image, a description is appropriate.
If it's meant to convey data, then that information is what is appropriate.
If it's designed to convey using a function, then your function itself is what ought to be used.
Some Alt Attribute Guidelines:
Always add alt attributes to images. Alt is mandatory for accessibility as well as for valid XHTML.
For images that play only a decorative role in the page, make use of an empty alt (i.e. alt="") or perhaps a CSS background image so that reading browsers don't bother users by uttering things like "spacer image".
Keep in mind that it is the function of the image we're trying to convey. For example; any button images shouldn't range from the word "button" in the alt text. They should emphasize the action performed through the button.
Alt text should be based on context. The same image inside a different context may need drastically different alt text.
Attempt to flow alt text with the rest of the text because that is how it will be read with adaptive technologies like screen readers. Someone hearing your page should hardly remember that a graphic image is there.
Please remember that using an alt attribute for each image is required to satisfy the minimum WAI requirements, that are used as the benchmark for accessibility laws in UK and also the remainder of Europe. They are also necessary to meet "Section 508" accessibility requirements in america.
It is useful to categorize non-text content into three levels:
Eye-Candy
Mood-Setting
Content and Function
I. Eye-Candy
Eye-Candy are things that serve no purpose apart from to make a site visually appealing/attractive and (in many cases) satisfy the marketing departments. There is no content value (though there might be value to some sighted user).
Never alt-ify eye-candy unless there is something there which will enhance the usability of the site for someone using a non-visual user agent. Use a null alt attribute or background images in CSS for eye-candy.
II. Mood-Setting
This is actually the middle layer of graphics which may actually set the atmosphere or set the stage as it were. These graphics aren't direct content and may not be considered essential, but they are essential in they help frame what's going on.
Attempt to alt-ify the 2nd group as is sensible and is relevant. There might be instances when doing this may be annoying or detrimental with other users. Then avoid it.
For instance; Alt text that is just like adjacent text is unnecessary, and an irritant to screen reader users. I recommend alt="" or background CSS images in such instances. But sometimes, it's important to get this content in there for all users.
Most times it depends on context. Exactly the same image in a different context may need drastically different alt text. Obviously, content should always be fully available. How you go in this case is really a judgment call.
III. Content and Function
This is when the look is the actual content. Always alt-ify content and functional images. Title and long description attributes may also be in order.
The main reason many authors can't understand why their alt text isn't working is they don't know why the images exist. You have to determined exactly what function an image serves. Think about what it is concerning the image that's important to the page's intended audience.
Every graphic has a reason for being on that page: because it either improves the theme/ mood/ atmosphere or it is advisable to what are the page is attempting to explain. Knowing what the image is for makes alt text simpler to write. And exercise writing them definitely helps.
A way to look into the usefulness of alternative text would be to imagine reading the page over the telephone to someone. What would you say when encountering a particular image to make the page understandable towards the listener?
Besides the alt attribute you've got a couple more tools at your disposal for images.
First, in level of descriptiveness title is within between alt and longdesc. It adds useful information and may add flavor. The title attribute is optionally rendered by the user agent. Remember they are invisible and never shown as a "tooltip" when focus is received through the keyboard. (So much for device independence). So make use of the title attribute just for advisory information.
Second, the longdesc attribute points towards the URL of a full description of the image. If the information contained in an image is important to the meaning of the page (i.e. some important content will be lost if the image was removed), an extended description than the "alt" attribute can reasonably display ought to be used. It can provide for rich, expressive documentation of a visual image.
It ought to be used when alt and title are insufficient to embody the visual qualities of the image. As Clark [1] states, "A longdesc is really a long description of the image...The goal is by using any period of description necessary to impart the details of the graphic.
It wouldn't be remiss to hope that the long description conjures an image - the image - in the mind's eye, an analogy that is true even for the totally blind."
Although the alt attribute is mandatory for web accessibility as well as for valid (X)HTML, not every images need alternative text, long descriptions, or titles.
Oftentimes, you're better off just going with your gut instinct -- if it's not necessary to include it, and if you don't have a strong urge to do it, don't add that longdesc.
However, if it's necessary for the whole page to work, then you've to add the alt text (or title or longdesc).
What's necessary and what's not depends a lot on the function of your image and it is context on the page.
The same image may require alt text (or title or longdesc) in a single spot, although not in another. If the image provides absolutely no content or functional information alt="" or background CSS images may be appropriate to make use of. But if the image provides content or adds functional information an alt will be required and maybe a long description would be in order. In many cases this kind of thing is a judgement call.
Image Seo optimization Tips
Listed below are key stages in optimizing images:
Choose a logical file name that reinforces the keywords. You should use hyphens in the file name to isolate the keyword, but avoid to exceeding two hyphens. Stay away from underscores as a word separator, such as "brilliant-diamonds.jpg";
Label the file extension. For example, if the image internet search engine sees a ".jpg" (JPEG) file extension, it's likely to assume that the file is a photo, and if it sees a ".gif" (GIF) file extension, it's going to assume that it is a graphic;
Ensure that the written text nearby the image that's highly relevant to that image.
Again, do not lose an excellent opportunity to help your website together with your images searching engines. Begin using these steps to rank better on all of the engines and drive more traffic for your site TODAY.
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Search Engine Optimization
Manufacturers of retails goods need to leverage their Facebook presences to manage product recalls more cost effectively.
Some companies like Johnson & Johnson are starting so see the damage product recalls are costing in the modern age of fast information sharing — the company estimates over $900 million in lost sales and related expenditures last year. The brand is just one example are one of many companies that have undergone recalls in the last year and are still working to regain customers’ trust.
Cautionary tale
Kraft experienced a big debacle last year of moldy kids’ juices — and the problem is still continuing — so the creation of a Facebook tab to help manage the issues started out as very proactive. Alas, the tab moved to the very back of the page within days.
Moms were upset and consumers visiting the Facebook page for moldy juice information (many times referred there by a friend) thought the the tab appeared was missing rather than moved. Kraft learned the hard way that moms and other concerned parties wound up going elsewhere for information. They Googled the issue and stumbled across any pages mentioning it — including the brand-damaging image shown to the right.
Then other moms who were upset looked for information on Facebook and found groups like “I wont buy CAPRI sun till it comes in a clear juice package!!” Such groups had only a couple hundred members and no centralized, authoritative source of information, but instead had lots of unverified information further fueling hatred of the company. Perhaps Kraft should have created a page just for recalls or even just the juice recall, and that would have preserved the brand’s integrity on the site.
Three questions
Here are three important questions for product managers to think about amid recalls:
- What does this mean for our search engine optimization?
What about the amplification risk?
What would the newest consumer find about the brand online?
In case the anecdote above hasn’t sold you on why a product recall is best managed on Facebook, below are three reasons.
Facebook is free
Besides a staff or the intelligence behind outbound communications, social media in general is free. Companies have brand pages that were no cost to setup. Tabs are free to setup. Interested consumers generally like products they use. Put together is a stage and microphone, what is your corporation saying? Read 44% of Fortune 50 Brands Show Facebook Icons.
Leverage your fans
If fans and consumers are going to spread seemingly harmful information to keep their friends safe, companies should be the initiator of the dialogue. There could be encouragement to share recall information or even incentives like discounts. Some companies even have Facebook commerce pages for shopping, support for recalls and exchanges could be easily integrated.
Communicate with customers
While silence tends to be seen as the best policy in a real-time updated world, silence immediately is seen as guilt and even worse so, the holding back of information from consumers. Quick updates, even if on Facebook pages is a way to engage and even remind fans as to why they are following you. Even if the news is the most positive to share, consumers would be reminded why they choose to connect themselves with you.
Consumers understand mistakes happen and are happy to get involved. Facebook offers many ways to share information with others and track how conversations travel — that provides one of the best ways to manage a recall.
Ellie Cachette is the Founder of ConsumerBell.
Thursday, 14 April 2011
Bench Craft Company on the focus
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San Francisco Giants' Tim Lincecum donates $25,000 to Bryan Stow Fund
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Great <b>news</b>: Working population percentage drops to three-decade <b>...</b>
Great news: Working population percentage drops to three-decade low.
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Candella defends Alien Jihad game <b>News</b> - PC - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net
Read our PC news of Candella defends Alien Jihad game.
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China is a notoriously tough market for American brands. The last few years has seen tech giants like Google struggle to do business due to restrictive censorship and retail giants like Best Buy and Home Depot have found that heavy price competition makes it hard to gain a toehold. Yet, despite the conventional wisdom, Apple’s business in China is booming and it’s not lower prices but better presentation that’s driving their success.
The Chinese economy is having some of its best years ever due to the rising world demand for consumer electronics, much of which is manufactured in China’s city-sized factories. The Mercury News reports that this has led to the average Chinese citizen being more flush with cash than ever before and ready to spend it on what would previously be deemed as unaffordable luxury.
Paul French of Shanghai-based Access Asia indicates that the increase in middle class affluence is behind the increase in purchasing power. “There is now enough of an urban middle class with enough money to afford Apple products. Five years ago — or even two or three years ago — there weren’t enough of those people.”
Five years ago, Apple didn’t have a retail store in China, now it has four, including a stunning split-level glass and metal flagship store in Sanlitun, an area of Beijing known more for its nightlife than its retail outlets. Those stores aren’t barely surviving either, with $2.6 billion in revenue this year, four times what we saw last year from Apple in China. This should mean that Apple is fighting the price war well in China, offering its products for less than they can be purchased in the US, but that’s not actually true. In fact, Apple sells a comparatively specced 13-inch Macbook Air for $180 more in China than it does stateside.
This success seems to fly in the face of conventional wisdom, typically premium products have not sold well in cost conscious China. Some, like Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, say that Apple will have to eventually compete on price or risk losing the Chinese consumer. “The iPhone is going to be huge in China. That’s a given.” he tells the Mercury News. “But if Apple wants it to flow out across China, it has to come up with lower price points.”
Yet Apple shows no signs of slowing down in the Chinese market, which is projected to account for 10 percent of Apple’s revenue within 5 years.
When asked, locals said that in a country where the people like to try products out before they purchase them, Apple is doing the best job of presenting those products. Apple’s retail stores offer the Chinese consumer a chance to test the products in a beautiful and visually stimulating atmosphere and those efforts are paying off with big sales numbers. This kind of attention to the senses and emotions of the consumer wasn’t pioneered by Apple of course, but they are one of the first major companies to bring that kind of experience to China’s city centers in a big way.
This difference in the way that the products are presented is doing its job in separating Apple’s products from the rest of the pack almost everywhere that its retail stores are located, but nowhere is that effect felt more than in China. A country where consumers are hungry for polished products presented in a stimulating atmosphere and they finally have the cash to afford them.
China is a notoriously tough market for American brands. The last few years has seen tech giants like Google struggle to do business due to restrictive censorship and retail giants like Best Buy and Home Depot have found that heavy price competition makes it hard to gain a toehold. Yet, despite the conventional wisdom, Apple’s business in China is booming and it’s not lower prices but better presentation that’s driving their success.
The Chinese economy is having some of its best years ever due to the rising world demand for consumer electronics, much of which is manufactured in China’s city-sized factories. The Mercury News reports that this has led to the average Chinese citizen being more flush with cash than ever before and ready to spend it on what would previously be deemed as unaffordable luxury.
Paul French of Shanghai-based Access Asia indicates that the increase in middle class affluence is behind the increase in purchasing power. “There is now enough of an urban middle class with enough money to afford Apple products. Five years ago — or even two or three years ago — there weren’t enough of those people.”
Five years ago, Apple didn’t have a retail store in China, now it has four, including a stunning split-level glass and metal flagship store in Sanlitun, an area of Beijing known more for its nightlife than its retail outlets. Those stores aren’t barely surviving either, with $2.6 billion in revenue this year, four times what we saw last year from Apple in China. This should mean that Apple is fighting the price war well in China, offering its products for less than they can be purchased in the US, but that’s not actually true. In fact, Apple sells a comparatively specced 13-inch Macbook Air for $180 more in China than it does stateside.
This success seems to fly in the face of conventional wisdom, typically premium products have not sold well in cost conscious China. Some, like Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, say that Apple will have to eventually compete on price or risk losing the Chinese consumer. “The iPhone is going to be huge in China. That’s a given.” he tells the Mercury News. “But if Apple wants it to flow out across China, it has to come up with lower price points.”
Yet Apple shows no signs of slowing down in the Chinese market, which is projected to account for 10 percent of Apple’s revenue within 5 years.
When asked, locals said that in a country where the people like to try products out before they purchase them, Apple is doing the best job of presenting those products. Apple’s retail stores offer the Chinese consumer a chance to test the products in a beautiful and visually stimulating atmosphere and those efforts are paying off with big sales numbers. This kind of attention to the senses and emotions of the consumer wasn’t pioneered by Apple of course, but they are one of the first major companies to bring that kind of experience to China’s city centers in a big way.
This difference in the way that the products are presented is doing its job in separating Apple’s products from the rest of the pack almost everywhere that its retail stores are located, but nowhere is that effect felt more than in China. A country where consumers are hungry for polished products presented in a stimulating atmosphere and they finally have the cash to afford them.
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During today’s Google earnings call, one analyst asked for some color on Google’s mobile business. CFO Patrick Pichette didn’t give much more in terms of specifics, but he did offer up some color. “Without any radical effort, we already announced at end of Q3 this is a $1 billion run-rate business,” says Pichette. Mobile is “growing at an amazing blazingly pace,” he says. “We tripped into $1 billion.”
Mobile search is definitely something Google is keenly focussed on. Senior VP of Local Jeff Huber noted on the call: ” In terms of where it trends over time, the smartphone is becoming an extension of the person, and how they do everything.”
Google is tackling that opportunity with mobile search obviously, but also with Android, which comes with Google search built-in as the default. Google is seeing 350,000 Android devices being activated a day.
Asked whether Google would have to build out a local salesforce with feet on the ground to take advantage of the new mobile and local advertising opportunities, sales chief Nikesh Arora didn’t rule out any possibilities. “we will use a combination of existing sales teams and methods and others that might be required,” he responded. Sounds like Google is picking itself up and going after the next billion dollars or two in mobile search.
Photo credit: Flickr/ Jeffrey Beall
Over the years, entrepreneurs and corporate executives have devised any number of clever ways for getting rich off the working poor, but you'd have to look long and hard to find one more diabolically inventive than the RAL. Say you have a $2,000 tax refund due and you don't want to wait a week or two for the IRS to deposit that money in your bank account. Your tax preparer would be delighted to act as the middleman for a very short-term bank loan—the RAL. You get your check that day or the next, minus various fees and interest charges, and in return sign your pending refund over to the bank. Within 15 days, the IRS wires your refund straight to the lender. It's a safe bet for the banks, but that hasn't stopped them from charging astronomical interest rates. Until this tax year, the IRS was even kind enough to let lenders know when potential borrowers were likely to have their refund garnished because they owed back taxes, say, or were behind on child support.
Hewitt didn't invent the refund anticipation loan. That distinction belongs to Ross Longfield, who dreamed up the idea in 1987 and took it to H&R Block CEO Thomas Bloch. "I'm explaining it," Longfield recalls, "but Tom is sitting there going, 'I don't know; I don't know if people are going to want to do that.'"
Tax-prep shops are as common as fast-food joints in many low-income neighborhoods—there are at least half a dozen on one three-block stretch of South Broadway in Yonkers, N.Y., where these photographs were taken. A few offer reasonably priced accounting, while others charge hundreds of dollars for 20 minutes of work. But Longfield knew. He worked for Beneficial Corp., a subprime lender specializing in small, high-interest loans for customers who needed to finance a new refrigerator or dining-room set. His instincts told him the RAL would be a big hit—as did the polling and focus groups he organized. "Everything we did suggested people would love it—love it to death," he says.
He also knew Beneficial would make a killing if he could convince tax preparers—in exchange for a cut of the proceeds—to peddle this new breed of loan on his employer's behalf. Ultimately, Longfield persuaded H&R Block to sign up. But no one was as smitten as John Hewitt—who understood that people earning $15,000 or $20,000 or $25,000 a year live in a perpetual state of financial turmoil. Hewitt began opening outposts in the inner cities, Rust Belt towns, depressed rural areas—anywhere the misery index was high. "That was the low-hanging fruit," he says. "Going into lower-income areas and delivering refunds quicker was where the opportunity was."
Customers wanting a RAL paid Jackson Hewitt a $24 application fee, a $25 processing fee, and a $2 electronic-filing fee, plus 4 percent of the loan amount. On a $2,000 refund, that meant $131 in charges—equivalent to an annual interest rate of about 170 percent—not to mention the few hundred bucks you might spend for tax preparation. "Essentially, they're charging people triple-digit interest rates to borrow their own money," says Chi Chi Wu, a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center.
In 1988, the first year he began offering the loans, Hewitt owned 49 stores in three states. Five years later, he had 878 stores in 37 states. And five years after that, when Cendant Corp.—the conglomerate that owned Avis, Century 21, and Days Inn—bought Jackson Hewitt for $483 million, his earliest backers received a $2 million payout on every $5,000 they'd invested. Today, with 6,000 offices scattered across the country, Jackson Hewitt is more ubiquitous than KFC, and has about as many imitators.
THERE WOULD BE NO refund anticipation loans, of course, without tax refunds. And by extension there would be no RALs without the Earned Income Tax Credit, the federal anti-poverty initiative that served as the mother's milk nourishing the instant-refund boom. Welfare reform was the catalyst for the EITC, which was aimed at putting extra cash in the pockets of low-income parents who worked. What motive does a single mother have to get a job, conservative thinkers asked, if there was scant difference between her monthly take-home pay and a welfare check? It was Richard Nixon who first floated the idea that led to the Earned Income Tax Credit; Ronald Reagan dubbed it "the best pro-family, the best job creation measure to come out of Congress." In 2007, the US Treasury paid out $49 billion to 25 million taxpayers.
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Taptu allows iPad owners to “DJ your <b>news</b>” | VentureBeat
Anthony is a senior editor at VentureBeat, as well as its reporter on media, advertising, and social networks. Before joining ...
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Former ABC <b>News</b> President David Westin Announces Next Move - The <b>...</b>
He's named president and CEO of the News Licensing Group, launching this summer.
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