Recent Blog Posts
Blogs ยป Archive for May, 2005
The Mouseover DOM Inspector
Steve Chipman over at SlayerOffice has released version 2.0 of his Mouseover DOM Inspector bookmarklet. The MODI, as he calls it, “allows you to view and manipulate the DOM of a web page simply by mousing around the document”. Tools by web developers, for web developers. We can’t be that far from a complete Dreamweaver-a-like editor that runs completely inside the browser, what with tools like these around. Someone ought to do that; not an in-browser rich-text editor, but a proper editing suite. About the only thing you can’t really do is drag-and-drop into the browser window to insert an image or text, and I think that (although that’s probably the best way to do it) we could live without it. Build such an editor and the world will be happy, I think; don’t use XUL or Browser Helper Objects, no “installation” routine, no extensions, just the DOM. It would be possible, and it would be really cool as long as everyone could use it. It might even avoid the badly-crafted HTML that tools tend to produce.
Quick Hits, Would Be News
It’s Friday… let’s round up a few things that got lost in the shuffle this week, some deservedly so.
Google has announced lower pricing for their recently acquired Urchin On Demand web analytics product. Which probably affects at least 2-3 readers of this blog. Who probably already know about it.
Hitwise sort of launched a new service called Keyword Intelligence. It’s still in beta, and not available yet, but if you’d like to go to the Keyword Intelligence website, you can attempt to give them an email address (mine failed due to some kind of poorly-informed DNS lookup address validation scheme) to receive information whenever they launch the service. I have no further information on this, but I’m trying.
The ‘internet marketing gurus’ are currently ga-ga over Googspy which, when it’s actually available (their server is probably getting hammered to death by bots already) is the beginning of a nice free competitive intelligence tool. Check out competitors to see (some of) the search terms they are ranked for and advertising against.
The Googspy frenzy in the marketeer world should die down soon, now that Stephen Pierce (creator of the ’smart pages’ doorway page template) and someone else have just announced some sort of new …
Inside the prospect’s head at the moment of truth
I’m about to hire a developer on a project that will cost around $7,500 of my money. I’ve checked with developers in my network, rentacoder, prosavvy, and elance. Easly 50 people have applied, and I’m in serious talks with 5.
Now I’m nearing the moment of truth when it is time to decide. The winner will be the firm that can convince me of the following:
- They are excited about the project
- They will be there for me throughout, and respond to my questions
- The project (and me) is important to them
- I don’t have to worry. While there are no guarantees, they will get it done — and they can provide evidence through similar projects and the way they take ‘ownership’ of my project.
Lessons for you? At the moment of truth, your prospect is nervous about pulling the trigger. Be reassuring. Show you want the work. Ask questions to understand their concerns. Find a way to show that you will be there for them (and have been there before).
Until I get the above sense of reassurance, I probably won’t pull the trigger. And I don’t think I’m unique.
Quick suggestion to get more clients
Here’s a suggestion that is bearing fruit for one of my consulting clients, and so why not pass it on here.
Your homework: Make a list of 20 people you know pretty well and haven’t been in touch with for the last 2-3 months. Call them. Meet for coffee. Talk about how things are going. Ask how you can help them with their business, career, or anything else going on in their life. Then tell them what you are up to in your business. Probe a bit to see if they know anyone who might need your services. Educate them about the types of prospects you look for. Brainstorm together about each other’s business and career challenges. Agree to check in again in another month of so. Repeat.
This is basic advice that everyone knows to do, but few people do it.
So start today.
Press Releases Revisited
Bob Gladstein of Raise My Rank clearly has a bit too much time on his hands, but this is too funny to let it go without comment.
In my post SEO Showdown: Real Results vs. The Straw Man I lamented the current trend of exploiting press release services to build links.
This tongue in cheek press release was distributed recently, representing a new standard for newsworthiness, or lack thereof.
Thanks to Bob for giving me a very good laugh.
Google’s TrustRank Trademark
As has been widely reported and discussed, Google has registered a trademark for “TrustRank.”
Behind the trademark, we find a research paper from the usual suspects at the Stanford Digital Libraries project. This paper discusses a method of weeding out spam from search results by using a “seed set” of trusted web sites.
TrustRank, as described in the paper, uses a method similar to the PageRank algorithm to determine how trustworthy a given web site is, or put another way, how likely it is that the site can be trusted.
There is always interest in the SEM community when a search engine files for a patent or trademark, acquires a company with interesting technology, or when an individual remotely associated with the search engine publishes a research paper.
It’s important to retain a sense of perspective about these things, because all of the major search engines pay a lot of people to do research and invent stuff. Just because a patent has been applied for or granted, that does not automatically translate into the search engine implementing the patent within their primary search results.
TrustRank appears to be a bit different, because trademarks actually have to be used in order to be maintained. I’ve …
TILT! Tables sneak in the backdoor
There’s been a lot written about using the DOM to retro-fit HTML to make to work and look nicer than is otherwise possible. Little did we know the dark force we were tinkering with. Pining for the simplicity of table-based layout, Dimitri Glazkov has come up with a cunning way to slip tables to the kids while their parents aren’t watching.
TILT, or ‘Table Injection Layout Technique’ takes a healthy, well-structured page of DIVs and refits an old-school table layout into it.
You can see it in action here. View the source normally and you’ll see the sent markup. But view the page in Firefox, hit CTRL+A (select all), and then right-click to select ‘View Selection Source’ and you’ll see ‘em there trying to look innocent. Tables.
I have to admit I’m slightly in two minds about it, and it’s certainly very clever. Even his original name for the technique is a chuckle. ‘…BOTOX, a quick way to smooth over nasty old wrinkles by injecting normally toxic stuff into the facial area of your page.’
But ultimately, it seems to me like prescribing chemotherapy for a slight sniffle. It’s fairly extreme, potentially harmful and brings in a range of nasty …
Aaargh….shut up and ask a question already!
So I’m talking to one of 5 potential developers by phone today. This guy keeps on talking at me: “Here’s why we are the best. Here’s why our developers are the best. We aim to please. We will give you what you want. Our pricing is great because we outsource here. We develop in PHP, which is much better than .Net…”
But he never took the time to ask me any questions about what I was trying to achieve — other than reading some high level specs I provided him. Well, he did ask some questions, about budget and my long-term commitment to him. But his questions were all about him and his needs, and nothing about what I wanted to achieve as a potential client.
Then, when I asked him some questions — like how he went about estimating time for the project, what kinds of open source modules he might know about, how to handle change requests — he got defensive, as if I was annoying him. (And he is the president of the company).
Do your prospects a favor. Don’t preach to them. Ask them more than basic qualifying questions. How do they define success? What are their concerns? How …
DWR is AJAX for Java
Java and JavaScript. Such similar names, but the technologies they refer to are worlds apart… or at least they were until now.
The technique of remote scripting enables JavaScript code running in a Web browser to do things on the Web server and display the results without loading a new Web page. When the results sent by the Web server are in XML format, the technique is called AJAX.
The newly-released Direct Web Remoting (DWR) library greatly simplifies AJAX with Java Web applications.
The library takes all the drudgery out of remote scripting with a Java Web application, but it does require that you know what you’re doing. Beginners in either JavaScript or Java are likely to have a tough time.
You must add a JAR file to your Web application on the server, set up a special servlet to handle the script requests, and then configure one or more classes that you wish to make available from JavaScript. The configuration is done with a nice, clean XML file, where you can specify how each class is instantiated (per request, per session, etc.).
On the client side, you have to include the general DWR JavaScript library as well as the JavaScript code generated …
Java 5 available for Mac OS X
Also on the Java release front, Apple has finally released Java 5.0 for Mac OS X. You’ll need to first upgrade to Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) to get this–previous versions of the operating system need not apply.
Apple is taking a cautious approach to the rollout of Java 5.0 for Mac. This first release of the new platform does not replace the default version of Java (1.4.2) on the system, but rather installs alongside it.
By default, therefore, Java 5.0 will only be used by Java programs bundled as Mac applications that contain an Info.plist file that specify a JVMVersion of 1.5+ or 1.5*.
Alternatively, users may configure Java 5.0 to be the default version of Java on the system using the new Java Preferences utility included with the update.
In short, this means that if your Java application requires features of Java 5.0, then to run it on Mac OS X you’ll either need to bundle it as a Mac application and provide instructions for users who haven’t installed the update, or you’ll have to ask your users to modify the default Java version in use on their system. Neither option is particularly feasible.
For now, take this opportunity to test your Java …
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