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Link Building 101

Link Building 101

By Joseph Parish

 

I would be hard pressed to provide a complete course in link building in such a short amount of space such as this, however I would like to present a few basic fundamentals to you in order to get you started down the SEO road.

 

We have all heard about the importance that both Yahoo and Google search engines place on links when determining site rankings. One can think of links as individual votes and the more of these links that you have the higher you end up in the rankings.

 

When venturing around the net we find several types of links. The first type being the “internal link”. This link is nothing more then a link on the same site to another page of the site. An “external link” on the other hand will navigate you from one website to another. When your site is being linked in this manner to another it is known as a “backlink”.

 

With this under our belt we can now progress to the four types of links involved in SEO work.

 

  1. The first one is a URL link. This type of link is nothing more then a link to another site.
  2. The most common type of link found on the net is the “Text Link”. These are also referred to as static links and are nothing more then a word or phrase that when clicked on will take you to another site.
  3. The third type of link is the “Image Links”. Just as they say these are links where one clicks on the image to be transported to another site.
  4. Lastly we come to the “Dynamic Links”. These links are usually constructed in a particular programming language such as JavaScript. Although these types will also take you to another website they may also have other functions as well.

 

As an SEO professional you should be able to easily recognize each of the above stated links.

 

Links provide the proper navigation needed by both human visitors as well as search engine spiders to allow either a visit or to index the page. When search engines index your page they gather various bits of information concerning your website and list it within the confines of the search engine database. This allows others to request information from the search page and in return receive links to your site.

 

You must understand how a search engine functions to be able to manipulate them. When a search engine indexes your site it will follow the links you have listed to travel from one page to another. Search engines do not follow “dynamic links” and as a courtesy to the website it does not follow the html links which are coded as “do not follow”.

 

These “do not follow” tags are usually embedded within the sites meta tags. The meta tags are bits of information which are intended solely for the search spiders and not for human visitors. To view meta tags select “view source” in your browser.

 

There are several types of links that you would want to get. These are “One-way links” and “Reciprocal Links”. A one way link is just what it indicates. It is a link to you but no return link is required whereas the Reciprocal link is one where you link back to the site that provided you with a link. To a search engine the one way links are the more valuable ones, however, both links have their own value based on the relevance towards your site, the text associated with the link, the authority of the website which is linking to you, etc.

 

An important point to be brought up here is that you can have links which have no value what so ever to the search engines but still manages to delivers hundreds or possibly thousands of visitors to your site.

 

In short, the more sites which link to you the better you will fair with the search engines. Building links can be very time consuming but well worth the effort. This is all we have time for now but it provides you with a starting point to center your efforts on. Good luck.

 

Copyright @2010 Joseph Parish

www.wordwriter.info

 

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Yahoo: JMP Upgrades On MSFT Deal; RBC Also Bullish

Yahoo (YHOO) shares are getting a boost this morning from a pair of bullish notes on the company’s advertising business.

  • JMP Securities analyst Sameet Sinha today upped his rating on the stock to Market Outperform from Market Perform, setting a price target of $21. Sinha’s note focused on the financial impact of the search outsourcing deal with Microsoft (MSFT). He thinks the deal will spur Street estimates to be revised upward throughout the year as the impact of the relationship is incorporate into financial models. SInha lifted his own 2010 adjusted EBITDA forecast to $1.9 billion from $1.76 billion; he raised his 2011 forecast to $2.17 billion from $2 billion. Sinha notes that the stock trades at 3.9x his 2011 adjusted EBITDA forecast, toward the low end of the company’s historical range of 2.7x-10x.
  • RBC Capital analyst Ross Sandler focuses on a different aspect of the Yahoo advertising story: the company’s move in January to allow advertisers to bid for keywords on the Yahoo-owned properties separately from partner sites. He says the impact of this is that as much as 20% of the company’s search revenue could shift away from network sites and over to owned-and-operated sites. That would be huge, since Yahoo doesn’t pay TAC on clicks on the sites it owns. Sandler thinks the move could boost 2011 EBITDA by an incremental $200 million.  Sander maintains an Outperform rating and $22 price target.

YHOO is up 35 cents, or 2.2%, to $16.41.

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AT&T 3G LaptopConnect devices


AT&T has announced two 3G LaptopConnect devices, which are the USBConnect Turbo and the USBConnect Velocity. The USBConnect Turbo is made by LG, which basically works as a USB 3G modem that keeps the user connected to the Internet via 3G/HSPA 7.2 while they’re on the run.

The AT&T USB Velocity is an aGPS device with 3G connectivity for your laptop, made by Option, which keeps you connected with location GPS-based services.

It works with Option’s free software, the Option GPS control panel, which is able to make use of location-enabled web services such as Yahoo and Bing for directions and local points of interest.

Both devices have microSD memory card slots, allow you to carry your data on the go. The USBConnect Turbo retails for $99 with a 2-year DataConnect that runs you at least $35 a month. While the USBConnect Velocity is priced at $29.99 after $100 mail-in rebate and also with 2-year DataConnect of at least $35 a month. Both devices will be available on line in AT&T stores starting March 7.

via techfresh

Written By TechChee.com, AT&T 3G LaptopConnect devices
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Yahoo's Microsoft search pact: Dissecting the returns — Yahoo's search partnership with Microsoft is expected to be a financial boon to the company and boost free cash flow by 20 percent in the years ahead, but there are multiple wild cards that could hamper the deal.
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Yahoo's Microsoft search pact: Dissecting the returns — Yahoo's search partnership with Microsoft is expected to be a financial boon to the company and boost free cash flow by 20 percent in the years ahead, but there are multiple wild cards that could hamper the deal.
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Pandora Was Saved By The iPhone, Now It's Thinking IPO

iphone pandora now playing

Pandora was saved by the iPhone, and now it has ambitions to turn public, Claire Cain Miller at the New York Times reports.

The music streaming service was profitable on $50 million in revenue last year, according to Claire's reporting. An analyst tells her it could do $100 million this year. Revenue comes from advertisements, subscriptions and payments from Apple and Amazon.

Read the rest of this story »

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Yahoo Mail Gets Facebook Contacts ImporterThe Yahoo - Facebook integration that was announced last December is beginning to take shape, with Yahoo announcing that users will now be able to import their Facebook friends into Yahoo Contacts. The move is significant not only for Yahoo, as it signals its increasing reliance on third-parties for social services, but also for Facebook, which has bee... (read more)
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International Women's Day Shortbread — International Women's Day Ars Technica: Why ad blocking is devastating to the sites you love Yahoo! News reports China to punish hackers, says no Google complaint The Register: 9TB in 20 minutes? Sign me up ...
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Yahoo Releases Search Marketing Desktop Just In Time To Kill It — Yahoo announced they have removed the BETA from the Yahoo Search Marketing Desktop client. Yahoo Pete, Yahoo's search ad representative, said in both a WebmasterWorld & Search Engine Watch Forums thread: Just wanted to make you aware that our desktop...


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Does Dmoz Matter?

Does DMOZ Matter?

By Joseph Parish

 

There’s one search engine that has been around for a good many years now but few people are even aware that it exists. This search engine is the open directory project known as DMOZ.org. Often times this search engine is referred to as the mother of all search directories.

 

Over the recent years the DMOZ directory has dropped drastically in popularity and can usually be found in a negative light by many of the webmasters who express criticism at the difficulty of getting included in the listings. The original intent for DMOZ was to establish a directory for the people and one which is created by the people. It was suppose to be the answer to the closed Yahoo directory. 

 

Many of the DMOZ users have become critical of the “for the people” philosophy and the use of this directory has continually be declining. It is so bad that DMOZ figures show sharp declines in visitors and page views over the last seven years. They have failed to exceed three million visitors in one month since reaching their peek at 15 million in March 2003.

 

When mention is made of search engines the word Yahoo or Google quickly surface but little is mentioned of DMOZ. A major point that is often overlooked here is that DMOZ was not intended to replacing Yahoo or Google. It was created to compliment them. You can find all sorts of information on the web and the broader the topic is the more useful it is for a researcher using DMOZ.

 

The largest complaint against DMOZ is not the material that it can provide to the masses but rather from those who are submitting sites for review. The usual claim is that DMOZ fails to provide an effect means of submitting sites. It is not unusual to find that authoritative sites are omitted while those sites containing mediocre content are readily available.

 

It is generally extremely difficult to get a DMOZ link and this has been a great factor in its decline. In all, the database has a good foundation however more effort needs to be expended in allowing the sites to be listed. If you as an SEO professional can get your website listed on DMOZ by all means do so for hopefully in the future it will bring itself up to par with its competitors.

 

Copyright @2010 Joseph Parish

www.wordwriter.info

 

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Olive Telecom India announces AAA-powered handset
Looks like someone else out there thinks that non-removable batteries are seriously uncool. Olive Telecommunications' FrvrOn V-G2300 is a GSM phone with a 1.5-inch color display display and an FM radio -- small potatoes, right? That is, until you take into account the fact that it's dual-powered: not only does it pack a rechargeable Li-ion battery, but should that run out you can get an additional hour's worth of talk time from any standard AAA battery. Indeed, this is a pretty sweet deal if you're living / traveling in an area without consistent power. Throw in a decent price point ($37) and we're guessing this would do pretty well in Madhya Pradesh. Get a closer look for yourself after the break.

Continue reading Olive Telecom India announces AAA-powered handset

Olive Telecom India announces AAA-powered handset originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Yahoo  |  sourceOlive Telecom  | Email this | Comments

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Ryosuke Tochika: REGZAのメール予約をyahoo,gmail(プロバイダメールは使用していない)など色々試してみたけどNG。ネットで調べたら、どうも ”Outbound Port25 Blocking” に原因がありそうなことがわ
Ryosuke Tochika
REGZAのメール予約をyahoo,gmail(プロバイダメールは使用していない)など色々試してみたけどNG。ネットで調べたら、どうも ”Outbound Port25 Blocking” に原因がありそうなことがわかった。そもそもこの機能を使うと電気代も上がるらしいので止めた。
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Microsoft suggests Internet usage tax to combat viruses — The increasing frequency of computer virus infections and attacks by hackers around the Internet is a growing concern. The Web has remained largely open like the Wild West with very little policing of any kind. Microsoft wants to change all of this by suggesting an Internet tax that could help put some structure around the [...] Related posts:
  1. One million computer viruses expected this year
  2. One million Chinese computers get hit by holiday viruses
  3. Google CEO claims Microsoft Yahoo deal bad for Internet – Surprised?
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Bambang Dwi Atmoko: Likes this RT @dianarakeren Task #1: Mulai mengalihkan para klien dari yahoo ke gmail. Saatnya pake gmail, Dian! Hare geneee — Bambang Dwi Atmoko Likes this RT @dianarakeren Task #1: Mulai mengalihkan para klien dari yahoo ke gmail. Saatnya pake gmail, Dian! Hare geneee 16 minutes ago from Twitter - Comment -...

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March 7, 2010 4:35 PM - Sign in to comment - Link

"Two Pakistani officers and a government official said Sunday that an American charged with treason for working with al-Qaida had been captured, a development that could deliver another significant blow in the U.S.-led battle against the terror network. U.S. defense, intelligence and law enforcement officials could not immediately verify the reported detention of Adam Gadahn, a 31-year-old spokesman for al-Qaida who has appeared on videos threatening the West, including one that emerged earlier Sunday."

- Jason Huebel
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RT @hustlerflower: WaPost Azadliq.org, Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo Mail blocked in #Azerbaijan. “Facebook, Azadliq &WP now working”. #censorship — From twitter RT @hustlerflower: WaPost Azadliq.org, Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo Mail blocked in #Azerbaijan. "Facebook, Azadliq &WP now working". #censorship 28 minutes ago from...

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Glen, grandfather of FF posted a message
March 6, 2010 8:46 PM - Sign in to comment - Link

"A bilingual 4th grader hurt in an Arizona bus accident that killed six people and injured more than a dozen others translated from an ambulance stretcher for busy rescue workers as they hurried to set up a triage center, authorities said Saturday. Oscar Rodriguez of Las Vegas, Nev., was labeled a hero by firefighters and paramedics for helping them communicate with non-English speaking passengers just after Friday's pre-dawn crash on an interstate."

- Glen, grandfather of FF

Way to go, kiddo.

- Ayşe E.
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March 6, 2010 7:46 PM - Sign in to comment - Link

"LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Home-school mom Susan Mule wishes she hadn't taken a friend's advice and tried a textbook from a popular Christian publisher for her 10-year-old's biology lessons. Mule's precocious daughter Elizabeth excels at science and has been studying tarantulas since she was 5. But she watched Elizabeth's excitement turn to confusion when they reached the evolution section of the book from Apologia Educational Ministries, which disputed Charles Darwin's theory."

- Katie is Frittering

I've looked at homeschool materials for the future and have had a hard time finding anything that isn't Christian.

- Rochelle

Fwd: Top home-school texts dismiss Darwin, evolution - Yahoo! News - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100306/ap_on_re/us_rel_home_school_evolution (via http://ff.im/h4EKZ)

- winckel

Children seem routinely inculcated with their parents ideas - even when these seem ludicrous. I fear "evangelical Christians" among others have a lot to answer for :(

- winckel

http://www.basicincome.com/bp/havingread.htm

- Melanie Reed

I hate defending these publishers ((shudder)). But I have to say that these parents home-school their kids for a reason. They disagree with what's being taught to their kids in public school. Yes, disavowing science is nuts. But how parents educate their children in their own homes is their business. And I would want that right for myself if I had kids.

- rowlikeagirl

I suspect there are lots of reasons to homeschool but I'm not sure one of them should be to teach kids absolutely whatever you like. If parents routinely teach their children things we know - to the very best of our knowledge - to be wrong, this is presumably not something the state should stand by and allow. We protect children from physical abuse, at what point does teaching them untruths in an institutionalised homeschool context become some other form of abuse?

- winckel

It's not easy Rochelle, but I'd have to think there is something out there. If you want to home-school, you could look for an online school that helps to supplement homeschooling, but that has more secular texts. http://distancelearn.about.com/od/onlinepublicschools/a/OnlinePS.htm

- Jen (SquirrelGirl)

Is fundamentalist religion abuse?

- rowlikeagirl

I think the question would probably be, is it abuse to teach kids on a systematic basis something which we know to be untrue?

- winckel

Again, I don't agree with fundamentalist religion. But I believe people should have a right to raise their children in their own home as they see fit. If one doesn't agree with what's being taught in schools, he or she is welcome to do it themselves (within the confines of the law, of course).

- rowlikeagirl

Sadly, people have been doing that for centuries and centuries, and it won't end. :( They're welcome to move to some remote area and declare secession from the Union. :P

- rowlikeagirl

From what I've seen on FF there is a deep divide between Europeans and Americans on this issue. It's a complex issue, but I support the social democratic approach where the state provides a minimum curriculum that every child has to go through. There are many limits to what parents can subject their children to, and I think it is right to have some limits in education as well. After all, a child cannot choose its parents.

- Eivind

Winckel, This statement is the crux: "If parents routinely teach their children things we know - to the very best of our knowledge - to be wrong, this is presumably not something the state should stand by and allow." of why there is an issue to begin with: "...things we know - to the very best of our knowledge - to be wrong" . To the very best of your knowledge? That is very shaky ground. I have seen people adamant on both sides about insisting on their right to indoctrinate the other and after words, dogfacedly (in the best of cases) apologize with a "well we were wrong" It is a parents right to teach their children without interference because it is their primary responsibility and not the states'. Invade this right, and you will not see it end until the state has even more control of your family and then your person. You want a society that is free...and yet you are on a path of giving up your fundamental freedoms supposedly to obtain it. You will not find freedom there but a distopia and many of those from history's...

- Melanie Reed

Flying the freedom of thought kite high is no bad thing but we are talking here - in many cases - about people who believe things which are simply not true - say, that the earth was created 8,000 years ago - and who systematically teach that to their children and misrepresent the knowledge that we have, so that these children grow up with a deliberately misshapen view of their world and of their own biology. I'm not completely sure that keeping communists from the door is a sufficient justification for it (though it does depend to some degree of your relative value systems): I'm struck that religion appears to have a privileged position here which I suspect we'd do well to remove if we want healthy societies for the future.

- winckel

@Winckel, have you ever considered that maybe your state-imposed education is the reason you believe in Darwinism so strongly? Children, after all, cannot choose their sovereign state. The "we" that "know" Darwinism to be true are primarily state-schooled, yes?

- Reformed Goadkicker

I don't wish to hold "darwinism" up as some shining standard. But we do know the earth isn't 8000 years old (or thereabouts) - whether we went to state schools or not.

- winckel

This is very irritating.

- Kamilah Gill

On matters where instrumentation is used, the ground is also shaky because the instrumentation is only as accurate as the designer's understanding. Science while priding itself on its ability to be "current" doesn't stop to admit that being wrong makes you, well, wrong. And so many of those wrongs sets a track record that the healthy skeptic would be advised to consider before putting faith in the current results or beliefs as a "standard".

- Melanie Reed

Maybe, but I smell sophistry in the air; a heartening endorsement of skepticism and I'm all for healthy skepticism, but I suspect this is more about a group of people who choose (allow?) faith to override their normal natural rational understanding and so ignore what is known and evidenced because it conflicts with their religious belief. They may be free to do it - it's their choice - but it's a slightly different matter to inculcate that in children who are still learning to learn and understand. I'm reminded of the Jesuit adage - give us a child by the age of seven and he's ours for life. I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing.

- winckel

it must be so frustrating. And I agree, there must be an enough online resources to help fill in the gaps left out by the lack of book resources.

- Katie is Frittering

:(

- winckel

This may be me showing ignorance about homeschooling, but would it be possible to build a curriculum around a text that the local public school is using? Is that prohibitively expensive?

- Aaron Hood

Aaron, I don't know that much about homeschooling but I don't see why a parent couldn't buy the same textbooks/teacher guides that the local school is using, instead of buying a different textbook/teacher guide. I would assume the prices are generally the same. I think, at least for some families, part of the reason they may homeschool is because they do not agree with the teaching system/methods/textbooks at the local public school. If that's true for them, they probably do not want to use the local textbooks.

- Rochelle

I'm not particularly troubled by this. I feel sorry for the children who are receiving substandard education, but it's a choice made by their parents. It's fewer children for my son to have to compete with. Once one escapes the grip of their parents, there is plenty of information to absorb to fix the damage if desired.

- Tad

Aaron, I think a lot, though not all!, of parents who home school do so because they feel the Public School system is flawed. They often don't trust the curriculum, etc.

- Tad

Ok, I understand that aspect of mistrust of the public school system. It is a shame that most of the materials geared toward home schooling is based on christianity, but there has to be some acceptable alternative texts for these concerned parents to use that may not be tailored to home schooling, but could be if the parent's put the leg work into it.

- Aaron Hood

I'm sure there's plenty of available useful material Aaron. I know that there is a large community on the internet attempting to create excellent free educational material that would have no religious bias.

- Tad

It's definitely concerning that most of the homeschooling material is religious based, but when you look at the stats, the overwhelming majority of home schoolers are fundamentalist Christians. Like, Tad mentioned, there are definitely non-religious based materials out there, it just takes work to find them.

- Mary Carmen

The exact same goes for the state-run educational system. To "inculcate" children that the ordered universe has come about by chance (as opposed to design) and that, by extension, mankind is the highest moral authority seems to be the whole purpose of the system. It is not as if the state-run educational system is neutral, for they do hold to a particular worldview. It is just that the worldview they hold is directly in opposition to "mainline" religion. Therefore, they create children who think that order can rise from chaos (given a gazillion years) without design, even though the world around them says otherwise in no uncertain terms.

- Reformed Goadkicker

Didn't really intend this to become a debate on merits of intelligent design or similar. The issue is that state schools aren't (on the whole) dominated by religion, homeschooling is, and hence people who are home schooled are systematically taught things we know to be untrue (for example, that the earth is say 8000 years old or whatever). Their parents are inculcating faith. Adults can choose to believe that if they wish (I suspect it's better if they don't but that's a choice they make), but children are still learning to learn and understand the world and there must be a good deal of doubt that this is a reasonable thing to do. It seems to me it's typical of causes to try to subvert education and a fundamentalist evangelical approach is in this regard no different.

- winckel

In the US, ID has been declared *not science* by the courts. Will the next legal battle argue that the Kitzmiller v. Dover case should extend into home schooling?

- Kurt Starnes

But winckel, children belong to their parents, not the state. The state wants to inculcate faith in the state and its worldview especially the more socialistic and communistic it becomes. When those children grow up and you want to persuade them to another worldview, then they are of an age to make their own choices in that regard.

- Melanie Reed

Well said above, winckel.

- Kurt Starnes

certain things are true incontrovertible truth gravity 2+2 If the home schooler wishes their child to learn that these things are falso al wel and good but lets not give them the legitimacy of a state approval after REAL school I can teach my daughter the earth is flat and Bible trumps Darwin but without any seal of approval for my fanatic willful gleeful ignorance

- WarLord

@Mellie. Belong? Maybe, in some respects, but not to do as they please surely. The state would intervene in cases of systematic physical or emotional abuse. At what point does systematically teaching children things that are not true (that parents - because of their faith - have chosen to believe) constitute inappropriate behaviour or abuse? Wouldn't it better for kids to be able to choose when they're adults having not been taught that "evangelical christianity" is the only true religion? (or however one wants to phrase it). Perhaps this is - as Eivind says - a cultural difference between US and Europe but if there's an ill here, that wouldn't to my mind excuse it.

- winckel

@winckel I didn't say to do as they please, but neither should the aberrant behavior (physical abuses) of others towards their children take away a loving parent's fundamental right to the society and education of their children. The Irish Constitution in a landmark case was challenged on this very point and it was conceded that a parent had this right in regard to their children.

- Melanie Reed

There's absolutely a strong parental right. But to teach what's not true because of the parents faith? I suspect that crosses a line.

- winckel

One of the major problems we're seeing here is the unfortunate outcome of state-run schooling that has individuals equate molecules-to-man evolution with gravity and stating that anyone might know "for fact" that the earth is older than 8000 years.

- Reformed Goadkicker

Some things are facts not opinion not controversy to balance but facts gravity 2+2 evolution age of earth in millions of years ;)

- WarLord

I recall things I was taught in science when growing up, indeed, in many areas and most of it has not stood the test of time. But here is the point: those things were taught as fact, indisputable fact. One of the reasons we have new textbooks is that these "facts" keep changing: its a high dollar business. And its one of the reasons we now have the Open Textbook Community that is reviewing a building a growing wiki base of updatable textbooks. There are no indisputable facts when it comes to science and technology. It is ever-changing.

- Melanie Reed

water boils at 212, freezes at 32, to say that no facts are indeed facts is sophistry. Gravity is 2+2 is but it is necessary in all things of late to revere balance as if someones opinion that gravity was an Obama plot makes it less real ;)

- WarLord

See, warlord, you definition of evolution as "fact" as well as "millions of years" is where you demonstrate your ignorance (no rancor meant). By definition, they are not facts, but are theories and untestable ones at that.

- Reformed Goadkicker

at a certain point after many years theory becomes fact by repeated validation and failure to refute. To the point of course that many people find it needful that certain things are never facts but always subject to political and religious editting but really gravity evolution 2+2 the age of earth are of a piece the facts come to suit the prior politics

- WarLord

I very much doubt any reasonable person could stand by a claim that there are no indisputable facts when it comes to science and tech. And I'd be somewhat surprised if someone on the search for facts, was seeking to replace what we know - as a result of hard won study, research and evidence - with faith which by definition we believe rather than know. I am embarrassed for some of the comments otherwise reasonable (intelligent, educated?) people have made above.

- winckel

Would you home-schooling-can-teach-anything supporters support teaching kids revisionist history? (if so, how outside the mainstream would be OK with you? Actually, come to think of it, there are people who want to change *regular* schoolbooks to downplay the evils of McCarthyism...)

- Andrew C

Can you demonstrate that the earth is X billion years old? No. You can see the earth in its current state and work backwards by making several (often telling) assumptions, but to state it as a fact is incorrect. The same with "evolution." You see the world as it is and you can imagine how it got that way, but it is not a fact at all.

- Reformed Goadkicker

@Andrew - You're assuming that McCarthyism was, in fact, "evil." I'll argue that those that wrote the textbooks you are familiar with had a particular slant to them that might have been a revision.

- Reformed Goadkicker

By studying behavior of the current world it's possible to extrapolate what has happened in the past and how long changes take. By drilling through the ice and crust and analyzing the layers scientists can determine what has happened thousands or millions of years ago in the past (climate changes, volcanoes etc). There are many ways to look back before there was any instrumentation.

- Jemm

can you tell how old things are? Yes. You can date using a number of techniques (carbon dating among them). Just Google it. That someone wouldn't know this, worries me.

- winckel

Ahhh, winckel and Jemm, you assume that the methods tell the truth. The fact is that the methods are not consistent (all the dating methods, from carbon dating to potassium-argon) for all "ages," and the methods, as I said, rely heavily on several assumptions (i.e. rate of decay, element seepage, amount of daughter element in original, etc) that really make it just so that the unwashed masses must take it on faith from the white-coats.

- Reformed Goadkicker

I'm gonna hit the hay, but I'd be honored if you'd take a look at some info: http://www.icr.org/article/myths-regarding-radiocarbon-dating/

- Reformed Goadkicker

Thanks for the funny reading:)

- Jemm

My son will most likely learn about evolution at school (we are not yet decided if he will go to a public school or a private Christian school), but we will be teaching him about Creation and why we don't believe evolution is the truth. He can decide for himself what he believes.

- Joshua Doyle's Wife

Is the link above is intended to demonstrate that the earth is in the region of say 8000 years old? I'm not sure but I do suggest it's beneficial to look quite widely and perhaps use less tendential sources - there is a huge amount of data out there from very reputable sources to prove beyond any reasonable doubt it seems to me that that sort of timeline isn't credible. If people choose to believe that the earth is, say, 8000 years old (or for example that communion wine and bread becomes the actual body of Jesus Christ as its ingested) then that's their own free choice and perfectly permissible, but I would personally rate that as lacking credibility because of the extent to which they have allowed their faith to override their rational and reasoning mind. I'm reminded of the old Chinese proverb that people lose their freedom when words lose their meaning and having a good basis to a school curriculum is one of the safeguards. Causes and ideologies typically try to subvert education (for the Jesuit reasoning above) and I'd...

- winckel

@Reformed Goadkicker - No, the *direct accounts* of how McCarthyism (1) ruined lives and (2) was a witch hunt based on nothing aren't "revisions".

- Andrew C

Evolution is indeed fact -- it happened and is happening. The term theory only applies to the processes of evolution.

- Kurt Starnes

Re McCarthyism - watch Point of Order a verite documentary it is eye opening and will make you squirm al to the good....

- WarLord

Let the parents teach their kids whatever they want, use whatever books they want...BUT...those kids better be able to pass the standardized tests the kids in the public schools have to pass, otherwise the parents should lose the right to home school their kids. And if it is of concern that home schooled kids will be missing all the science they should know, then it's time to add that stuff to the standardized tests, like they did with the HSPA test in NJ, which all must pass in order to receive a high school diploma, even home schooled kids. And yes, evolution is part of it. http://www.state.nj.us/education/njpep/assessment/TestSpecs/ScienceHSPA/lifesci/grade12.html

- April Russo (app103)

The facts are, April, that home schooled children surpass their public educated peers by a wide margin across the board. http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000010/200410250.asp

- Reformed Goadkicker

I think I'd be disappointed to see the test results issue obscure the key point here which is whether teaching faith as facts in the context of homeschooling is appropriate given its obvious conflict with established science. More reasonable (and less extremist) Christian groups (for example the mainstream Church of England in the UK) would wholly accept evolution. This issue in point here is whether fundamentalist homeschooling (for want of a better term) is damaging children by teaching them something is true simply because their parents believe (wish to believe) it is true. It's outside the scope here, but it would be interesting (and disheartening I suspect) to hear a reasoned account say of how Genesis is literally true.

- winckel

Well, if they don't learn about evolution, they aren't going to get a diploma in NJ. Just picture this scenario and you'll understand the problem better: "Hi, I'd like to apply for admission to your college. No, I don't have a high school diploma. I was home schooled. When I took the state mandated test that measures whether or not I learned the minimum required to have a diploma, I flunked it. Yeah, I didn't learn all that important stuff required to pass it. My parents didn't believe in all that stuff and filled my head with bullshit instead. Would have been fine if the test from the state was on how much bullshit I know, but it wasn't...it was science. (ugh!) Can I still go to your school even though the state says I don't know enough to have a high school diploma?" (Guess what? NJ is also considering becoming the first state to shun the GED program and require anyone that wants a high school equivalency diploma to take the same test the high school kids have to take. No more proving you are as smart as a 5th grader to...

- April Russo (app103)

So, "reasonable" here means "agrees with my worldview?"

- Reformed Goadkicker
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Translation Is A Slog

Jessica Crispin explains:

It's mostly women's work, and it's not a job from which you can retire comfortably (unless you are lucky and skilled enough to make it into the top echelon where publishers are interested to hear the new discoveries you made about a 400-year-old classic). When you do turn in a year's worth of work in exchange for what must end up being $.75 an hour — more likely to be a multigenerational soap opera than a work of art — you get the added bonus of the news that if you're an academic, translating can actually hurt your chances for getting hired or making tenure, or you get some jerk showing up at your reading to harangue you for translating the German "reise" as "holiday" instead of "trip," because obviously the author intended "trip" and by choosing "holiday" you have changed the meaning of the entire work. Or maybe you have some yahoo declaring that translation is an impossible act and philosophically suspect. After a 35-year career of this, I would probably be a little angry.



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Gary Helps You Find SXSW & Austin Events

sxswWe are just a few days away from the annual event known as SXSW. I’ve provided a primer for the 2010 SXSW which should help you get around and make the most out of the event.

So how do you keep track and/or find all of the events and then figureo out which SXSW events you want to attend? Here are some options – it’s important to note that none of the guides seem to have all of the events listed.

  • Plancast – the popular valley-based service has a list of “plans” aka events around SXSW interactive. Considering how popular SXSW seems to be with the Plancast community, it was very hard to find the page listing the events – they should probably link to it from the Plancast homepage.
  • Gary’s Guide – the NY-based service has event listings for about 20 cities. Gary appears to have the most comprehensive listing for Austin events. What I like about Gary’s list is that it also shows tech events not-related to SXSW – i.e regular meetups – which is great to meet locals and get a deeper look at a topic or subject.
  • Upcoming – Yahoo’s Upcoming event list service has a list of SXSW events. I’ve never found Upcoming to be that useful to me but it does appear to be a very popular service on the west coast.
  • SXSW – The official list of parties and events around the conference.
  • Meetup – Typically a good resource for a listing of events for a city and/or time, I was unable to find a list of sxsw or even Austin-based events for next week. It appears they have redesigned the site and the formerly-easy way to find meetups has been removed.

I think Gary’s Guide has the best listing of events. The list is easy to browse and also very simple to add an event to a calendar and/or share the event with friends. Leave a comment if you know of other good event listings for SXSW and I will add them to the post.


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David: I notice a lot of small businesses still use yahoo, gmail, and hotmail addresses. Wonder why? — David I notice a lot of small businesses still use yahoo, gmail, and hotmail addresses. Wonder why? 11 minutes ago from Twitter - Comment - Like

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Post Twitter and Facebook status from the GNOME panel

One of the nice, but somewhat hidden, features of the upcoming Ubuntu 10.4 release is that you can access chatting, tweeting, and social network all from a simple panel applet. Now I will warn you, this feature is not production-worthy. In other words, it will crash on you. But to see what is in store is certainly worth the effort of working with the tools.

In this article I will give you a preview of what is to come for Ubuntu 10.4 and how easily it will be to tweet, IM, and facebook – all from the GNOME panel.

How it works

What this feature does is work with Gwibber and Empathy to enable users to connect with various types of accounts. As it stands you can connect with quite a few different types, including:

  • IM
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google Talk
  • gadugadu
  • GroupWise
  • ICQ
  • MSN
  • MySpace
  • Yahoo!

and more.

How you connect

Figure 1

Figure 2

From the Ubuntu 10.4 GNOME panel the login username is listed (see Figure 1). If you click on that a drop-down will appear (see Figure 2) where you can either set your status or connect to an account. There are three different types of accounts to connect to:

  • Chat accounts: These will go through Empathy and are standard “IM’ing” accounts.
  • Broadcast Acounts: These work through Gwibber and are social networking accounts.
  • Ubuntu One: If you have an Ubuntu One account, connect here.

Let’s make a Twitter connection. Click on the Broadcast account and then, in the new window, click the Add button. A drop-down will appear allowing you to select the type of broadcast account you want to add. Select Twitter from that list and then, in the new window, enter your Twitter username and password. You can do the same to add a Facebook (or any other supported) account.

Figure 3

When attempting to connect to Facebook you will have to walk through a couple of extra steps. Make sure you allow Gwibber to connect to Facbook. When you enter your credentials and click Connect (see Figure 3) you will then have to enable Gwibber to access your Facebook account. Once you have done that you are finished and you can then update your FB status from your GNOME panel.

Updating your status

One of the drawbacks to this system is that your status updates will go out to all configured accounts. So if you want to only update a Facebook or Twitter account alone, make sure you only configure that particular account.

Figure 4

But to update your status you only need click on your name in the upper right hand corner, enter your status in the text area (see Figure 4), and hit Enter. That’s it. Once you do that your status will be updated on the associated account.

Final thoughts

As you can see Linux is become quite a user-friendly experience. Not many other OSes can say they offer such features out of the box. Not that this particular feature is going to bring Linux to the masses, but if Ubuntu continues growing the OS in ways like this, it’s going to become a choice that is certainly hard to resist.

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