Deepak Ananthapadmanabha is at it again…

Here’s episode three of the incredibly funny nine episode season of Mojo’s The Circuit.  At only around 8-9 minutes this is the funnest way to take in some tech new on the net.

Stay tuned every Friday for the next episode!

Shhh - this is a secret…

Okay, maybe its not a secret, but it’s not well known… Until now.

Search engines, especially Google will give you better placement if you have strong sites linking back to you.   And when I say strong I’m talking about a high PR (pagerank).  It’s best if the sites are relevant to the content you’re trying to rank well on, but having a few .gov and .edu domains linking back to you regardless of the relevancy is always good - especially the .gov sites.

I came across a way to find .gov and .edu blogs and forums that will help give you the link juice you need to rank all that much better.  To make spotting whether or not they’re “nofollow” or not I would suggest you install the Search Status plugin.  After you install this, enable “highlight nofollow links” by right clicking the search status icon in the top left corner of your browser and then make the appropriate selection.  Once this is done any links that are nofollow will be highlighted in red.

How to find .gov and .edu sites that will link to you

Now, here’s the juicy part of this post.  In order to find the .gov and .edu blog and forums simply do a search in Google, Yahoo, and MSN with these terms “inurl:.gov+inurl:blog”, inurl:.edu+inurl:forum”, inurl:.gov+inurl:blog, and “inurl:.edu+inurl:forum”.

Now take a few minutes to browse through your results and find the blogs and forums that offer links via comments and forum posts/replies that aren’t nofollow.  It will take some time to sift through the results but will be worth it in the long run.  Hot tip: Only add 1 or 2 comments/posts/etc. per week.  The search engines are smart and will recognize if all of the sudden there’s like 20 new .gov links pointing back to you and you’ll get penalized for it.  Be patient and just add a link or two every week or so.  In a couple months you’ll see you PR increase a healthy amount (it does take some time).

I know the value of .gov links as my photography website (www.TyHurd.com) only has about 40 backlinks, but one is from the US Dept. of Agriculture (I shoot for them) and it helped my photo site to achieve a PR 3 ranking.

Just remember to NEVER spam anyone - leave thoughtful relevant comments/posts.

Good luck, and remember; patience is key…

Fun for the kids

Today I was browsing Youtube.com with my step daughters and they had some pretty funny videos to show me.  I in turn showed them the evolution of dace, the most viewed video on youtube (and I though they’d enjoy seeing the dance moves I grew up with).

Here’s a my faves they showed me and the the evolution of dance - good clean fun for the whole family.  Enjoy…

This is called the evolution of dace, it’s the most viewed video on Youtube - pretty funny stuff…

This show rocks

As I promised in last Friday’s Mojo’s The Circuit, here is installment number two in the nine part series.  As always, Deepak Ananthapadmanabha put’s on another funny yet informative show.  Stay tuned next week for episode three!

Enjoy!

Twitter isn’t too shabby…

It took me a while to jump on the bandwagon.  Almost every other blogger I know is on Twitter (and has been forever), but I just didn’t see what the big deal was.  Well, the last few days I’ve been on a following frenzy and I’m pretty pumped on the results.  I’ve already made some new friends/contacts, connected with existing contacts and my list of followers is growing exponentially (I’ve gone from around 15 followers to almost 300 in 24 hours alone - bet I’m at 450+ by the end of the tomorrow, at least that’s my goal…).

I took a few minutes to customize my Twitter page, got it all pimped out and invite you to follow me!  I’ll return the gesture.

So, with my newly found fondness of Twitter I decided to find a cool, but unobtrusive widget I could place in my sidebar with my latest tweet that also made it easy for my readers to follow me.  I found the snazzy 125×125 you see on the right at TwitterCard.com.  It’s by far the simplest widget I found and setting it up was a snap!!!

If you like the card and want one for yourself all you have to do is copy the code below and change xxxx to your Twitter username.  It’s that easy.

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://twittercard.com/js/xxxx”>
</script>

So now that I’m on Twitter FOLLOW ME (I’m working on becoming the most followed person there!  lol… not.)

YES!!!!

Today I received an email from the American Coalition for Fathers and Children (ACFC) about an article in Parade magazine (in the Sunday insert in most major newspapers).  The article is about father’s rights and includes a poll on whether it’s readers think fathers should have equal time with their children after a divorce or separation.

It’s very troubling to me to see how people are voting on this one.  Here’s what the email said:

Yesterday, July 6, 2008 Parade Magazine ran a brief blurb about whether family courts discriminate against fathers in custody cases.  Parade magazine is distributed in millions of papers across the country on Sundays.

More importantly, the magazine initiated a poll asking ‘Should Divorced Dads Get Equal Time With Their Kids?’  Through late Sunday evening the numbers were coming in at a 2 to 1 ratio supporting the statement.  As of several minutes ago the margin had narrowed to 51% to 49% in favor of the statement.

Perhaps this is a ‘normal’ vote swing, however it appears unlikely given the constancy of favorable opinion throughout Sunday.  We are asking you to visit the link below and cast your vote.  It takes only a moment to make your voice heard.  Follow the link, support shared parenting and equality.  Please forward the link to others you know who would support reform efforts.

http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2008/edition_07-06-2008/Intelligence_Report

Please also support the ongoing work of ACFC with a contribution.  Your gift helps continue reform efforts and assure the message “Children Need Both Parents” will continue to spread.  Click here to contribute.

Thank you,

Mike McCormick, Exec. Dir.
ACFC

Being that I’m a dad that has been fighting an uphill battle for three years to get equal time with my daughter I maybe biased on this one, but I’m certain I would feel the same if I didn’t have a kid.

Please take a moment to vote on this, and I hope to see people voting in favor of equal time - it really is what’s best for the children!!! I can’t believe 40 something % of people don’t think dads should get equal time… That’s really disappointing to see.

(And to save you the time of having to go to the Parade mag site, I just poached the code for the poll so you can vote directly from here! )