Here’s wishing for happiness and health for everyone in the New Year.

(Although 2006 could’ve ended better…)

Technorati Tags: 2007, This Is The New Year

In case you were curious, here’s the crawler for the Digg podcasts service. There’s no identifying information (either referrer or user agent) on the crawler itself.

Host: 64.191.203.34 (WHOIS)
/category/podcasts/feed/
Http Code: 200 Date: Dec 31 10:15:40 Http Version: HTTP/1.1 Size in Bytes: 62802
Referer: -
Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0)

/wp-content/content/cp1.jpg
Http Code: 200 Date: Dec 31 10:15:41 Http Version: HTTP/1.0 Size in Bytes: 37811
Referer: -
Agent: -

Technorati Tags: Digg, Digg Podcasts, crawler, user agents

Since Rutgers had to go to a mediocre bowl, at least they did spank the competition.

Also, this NY Times article about the pregame festivities before the Texas Bowl is pretty amusing.

Technorati Tags: Rutgers Football, Texas Bowl, Next year it’s the BCS

A very excited 8 year old is tracking Santa via the NORAD Web site:
http://www.noradsanta.com/en/map/index.php

Update: As heard a few minutes ago: “Mom, will you stop blogging so I can track Santa?”

Technorati Tags: Santa Claus, Santa, NORAD

Email deliverability update, from the front lines. Two trends I’ve heard of interest.

1)I’m hearing that Verizon residential email accounts can’t send outgoing email messages to more than 10 recipients at a time.

2)I’ve written in the past about Yahoo email deliverability issues, and I’m starting to hear of reports that Yahoo isn’t greylisting, but that they are rate-limiting incoming mail. Apparently, Yahoo will accept emails in queues of less than seven but not a continual mail queue.

A note, I’m still seeing lots of interest on this topic, as evidenced by the numbers of visitors from small and medium sized businesses who continue to find my earlier Yahoo deliverability posts.

Technorati Tags: Email deliverability, Verizon Mail, Yahoo Mail, mail, spam

Is the right hand nav bar the rounded tab of (almost) 2007?

I hadn’t really thought about it before, but it seems that there is a higher concentration of content based Web sites with right hand nav bars, I mean not only this blog (and others), but also Google SERP pages (just think of the right hand Google ads) and now the newly redesigned digg with no sort of navigation on the left hand side.

Now I’m wondering how many other sites have right hand nav bars exclusively. And I wonder if right hand nav bars change Information Architecture in any significant way.

Technorati Tags: Web design, Web navigation, Web

Well, I’m sorry to say that I am officially out of the fantasy football league playoffs this year. My playoff opponent (who I beat once and then tied) had Peyton Manning, Frank Gore, Steven Jackson and the spitworthy T.O.

For me, while I had Tony Romo, LaDainian Tomlinson and Brian Westbrook, they just weren’t enough. My WRs were wildly inconsistent week to week along with a Dolphins D who piddled around on Sunday.

Ah well. Good matchup and I do hold the bragging rights (and prize money) of being the regular season leader. Not bad for someone who was asked before the draft “Hey, do you even watch football?”

Technorati Tags: Fantasy Football

Here’s one search engine that’s certainly not Web 2.0.

If you follow the URL in the user agent, you will go to blaiz.net. While the Web site is rockin’ like it’s 1999, there’s a box at the top of the page which gives some information about the Blaiz-Bee crawler and tells visitors that the crawler belongs to the RawGrunt Search Engine. The most notable aspect of the RawGrunt search engine is the boast that it runs on Windows 98 using low cost domestic, clustered hardware.

Host: 203.87.123.139
/2006/12/02/seo-cagefight-real-estate-marketing-guide-serp/

Http Code: 200 Date: Dec 17 22:13:40 Http Version: HTTP/1.0 Size in Bytes: 41488
Referer: -
Agent: Blaiz-Bee/2.00.6000 (+http://www.blaiz.net)

Technorati Tags: RawGrunt, Blaiz-Bee, Search Engine

Some quickie SEO analysis by searching for cleverhack on both Google and Yahoo.

Google results for cleverhack - 22,800 results

Yahoo results for cleverhack - 13,300 results

What’s obvious: Having a clever domain name helps with blog branding. Also, Google loves cleverhack.

What’s changed: It appears that raw RSS feeds are not as useful for blog SEO as they were a year or even 6 months ago. For example on the first few pages of the cleverhack Google results, we don’t see any mentions of the raw RSS feed.

What’s interesting: Both search engines have indexed directory listings for the cleverhack podcast. So, for you podcasters out there, it’s definitely worth your time to list your podcast URL with podcast directories.

What’s constant: Both search engines have indexed cleverhack RSS feed listings on RSS feed aggregators or directories.

What else I would recommend: Getting your blog listed on blog directories.

What’s variable: I’ve been using a few different descriptions for the blog on various directories, so that may have skewed results a bit.

A resource listing RSS feed and blog directories: Robin Good’s Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites

Technorati Tags: Search Engine Optimization, SEO, RSS feed, RSS directory, RSS aggregator, Blog, Blogging, Blog Branding, Blog Publicity

This is based on a link I found on a number of blogs today.

It wasn’t that long ago I was writing clever copy (among other duties) for some nifty products. And I’m pleased that my Web marketing efforts made this and other gadgets visible online, especially if one used Google.

Some miscellaneous, not exactly technical thoughts for a Sunday morning.

-People who know me professionally ask if I’m bothered by them reading this blog. “Not really,” I reply. “I lead a pretty simple lifestyle.”

-One of the few things I enjoy on the weekends is sleeping in late and on Sundays, cooking breakfast. This morning there was a small glitch in that the milk had allegedly expired a two days ago.

-I am Fantasy! Football! League! Overall! Leader! going into this Sunday, however my crafty opponent has Willie Parker, who scored 28pts on Thursday night.

-There is a Guinea Pig named Cookie now residing in the household.

-I have this really lame joke about my PowerBook. When people ask me how old it is, I reply with “It’s three years old. I’ve had a longer relationship with it than with most guys I’ve dated.” Lame. Yes. I know. Well, what’s lamer is that the other week, I figured out that I’ve known my trusty, absolutely fabulous Web hosting provider for over four years. He indulges my obsessive log reading. I’ve known him for so long, I’m on a first name basis with him. Let the puns begin. ;-)

Technorati Tags: Easy Like Sunday Morning

West Virginia 41 - Rutgers 39. Triple overtime. There was a bit of heartbreak as Rutgers couldn’t seem to muster just enough to seal the deal. The kids did really well, coming off of their best season ever in the history of Rutgers Football.

I noticed that Rutgers let the ball move way too much. Also, just looking at the West Virginia offense as compared to the Rutgers defense - the West Virginia guys are brutes. While Rutgers is fast, I think we need a few brutes.

Good game. And the upside is most definitely going to another bowl game this year. There is always next year for the BCS.

Also, just a factoid: I was driving around Southeastern PA during the early part of the game, and I passed by a local sports bar with all of their TV screens showing the game. As an alumni, I was a bit awed by that.

Technorati Tags: Rutgers, Rutgers Football