Tech Blog Buffet!

I just added a new link to my personal "useful links" list: Step Three Profit, a blog kept by my good friend and inspirational developer dude Brandon Wiley.

If anyone wants to recommend any more cool tech blogs, let me know. Here are some others I have been reading recently:

• Steven Hazel's Hackerdashery
• Horse.Pig.Cow
• Web Strategist
• Marketing Pilgrim

Portfolio Site

I've just started work on an updated portfolio site at ZaraSteadman.com.

It's been awhile since I sat down and coded a site from start to finish like the old days, so it's taking a while to get cross-browser fluency. Any feedback is appreciated!

New Discoveries

Here are some pretty cool sites I learned about this weekend at SXSW Interactive and thought I might share:

http://www.socialthing.com - Aggregate your Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and other social networking accounts into one... social... thing! It let's you keep up on what's going on with your friends in all creative spaces on the web at once. Currently in beta.

http://www.pmog.com - A game you can play, just by surfing the web in your FF browser. just install, register, and you're playing. Users set mines, leave gifts, messages, and more on pages across the web, which you (as a player) run into while randomly browsing. In retaliation or reciprocation you can set up your own surprises for other players. You gain "data points" for the length of time you spend on the web, and can even choose to play certain missions you run into and earn "badges". For example, to earn the "Indie badge," you must REFRAIN FROM USING Google FOR 24 HOURS while surfing on the web. Can you do it? In beta.

http://www.ihasahotdog.com/ - Just as charming and addictive as Icanhascheezburger.com. I think you can guess what this is about.

http://safaribooks.com/ - A great resource for tech-heads and web creatives. This is a growing modern archive of tech and development related books published by O'Reilly press that you can access from your computer, online. Check out 10 books at a time for $23 a month, or have your pick from 1000s of titles at any time for $43/month (cheaper than the YMCA!). This site has apparently been around a while.

http://www.Utterz.com - I think the concept is the same as SocialThing but from your cell phone, for people who prefer to text their updates. Or something.

http://www.bitstrips.com - Make a comic! It's fun! It's in beta though so it's kinda buggy. look:

Green Sites

In the spirit of environmentalism, check out these two sites that help save world resources while providing useful functionality:

Blackle: Google's Blackle is a way to use the famous and all-useful Google search box - and save energy at the same time. The traditional white Google background that emits light and energy on monitors across the world is now black, hence the name "Blackle." This dramatically cuts the amount of energy used when doing Google searches. Also nifty: a counter at the bottom of the page lets you know how many Watt hours of energy has been saved by Blackle users.

The Freecycle Network: This grassroots organization networks local communities across the US in an effort to reduce waste. Members join their local Freecycle community to give and get pretty much any tangible item they need - for free. Think craigslist, but nothing costs a dime. Freecycle is volunteer-run and completely free to use.

Google's Evolving Search Algorithm

I ran across this interesting article on changes to the Google algorithm this morning: Google Changing the Way it Ranks Sites

It talks about how Google may start to place less importance on linkjuice and emphasize things like geographical relevance for determining page rank. The author says this makes sense in order to strengthen Google's search algorithm in today's changing web 2.0 community. Users have a bevvy of options for sharing sites they love including video and audio - methods that aren't necessarily confined to traditional text linking. The author indicates that major players in the evolving way links are shared are social networking portals like Facebook and MySpace: an area where most links are currently hardly recognized by Google's algorithm at all.

What does this mean for SEO? In the long run, it could mean less focus on gaining inbound links for your site, and more focus on relevant content and geographical popularity or relevance.

Personally, this makes sense. Tailoring search results to the specific needs and location of the user is bound to return more relevant results. That, and paid link directories are currently making way too much money from us poor SEO folks.

Rounded Corners in CSS

Here are some links for quick help creating rounded corners in CSS:

Adam Kalsey
Spiffy Box
RoundedCornr

HTML Snippets

To center align a div: div{margin:0 auto;}

To layer a div over another div: div bottomlayer {z-index: 1;}, div toplayer {z-index: 2;}