Another SEO tip is to set-up a non www to www 301 redirect, which essentially means that any traffic arriving from domain.com will be permanently redirectly to www.domain.com. This is important to implement to avoid duplicate indexing of your site. You don’t want the search engine to view the two as different sites and the non www redirect will ensure that.

So how do you set-up a 301 redirect? Well for the vast majority using an Apache web server it is as simple as modifying your .htaccess file. As for those of us running IIS it isn’t as straight forward, but don’t worry here is a page with detailed instructions. Finally, once you have your redirect in place use this tool to make sure it is redirecting properly.

Another useful resource that I came across for tips and insider views from Google on search engine optimization are the video posts by Matt Cutts. Check them out at Google Video.

I personally don’t agree at all as I use bookmarks frequently for sites I regularly visit. Search engine technology has greatly improved, but not at the point that I can always find the exact site that I am looking for. In fact the reason I bookmark a site generally is because it is a site difficult to find and I fear not being able to retrace my steps to find it.

Rather than moving away from the use of bookmarks as the internet matures, I am happy to see new innovative ways of improving the way we use bookmarks emerging. A popular example being del.icio.us, which is a social bookmarking service quite characteristic of Web 2.0 (the term for how we have begun referring to the newly matured web). Another helpful example is Google Bookmarks, which is a personalized search to find the sites you visit frequently and bookmark your favorites. Also Google Browser Sync, an extension for Firefox by Google, that allows you to synchronize browser settings, including bookmarks, across different computers. I think these example show that bookmarking is still very much used on the web and its usefulness is growing rather than disappearing with search engine technology improvements.

The Google Calendar makes sharing calendars a breeze, which could be a big benefit to many organizations, however not needed in my case. I also understand you can configure a handheld device to synchronize with the calendar which is a great feature for a web hosted calendar. I still have to configure my PocketPC to do so. I was hoping that the added calendaring options to Microsoft Office 2007 (beta) would permit me to open the Google Calendar directly within Outlook 2007, but unfortunately this isn’t currently available. Outlook 2007 does permit you to publish your calendar to a Windows Live website, giving you a web based calendar similar to Google’s. I thought that by making this calendar publicly available I would at least be able to open the calendar within my Google Calendar so that I could keep the 2 synchronized, but this also failed. So as far as I can see there isn’t currently a means of keeping your Outlook and Google calendars synchronized. At least I was able to export my Outlook calendar data to a CSV file and then import it to Google. A great option for migrating to Google,but not a sustainable solution for those continuing to use their calendar within Outlook.

The Google Apps for Your Domain is great initiative by Google and I predict it will greatly extend the use of these applications within small businesses and education. I expect that we will see the product offerings within this program to expand to eventually include a full Office suite.

Fortunately I finally checked The Writer’s Almanac site and was able to get the poem, which I have copied below for your enjoyment.

Poem: “Tin Ear,” by Peter Schmitt, from Country Airport. (Copper Beech Press). (buy now)

Tin Ear

We stood at attention as she moved
with a kind of Groucho shuffle
down our line, her trained music
teacher’s ear passing by
our ten- and eleven-year-old mouths
open to some song now forgotten.
And as she held her momentary
pause in front of me, I peered
from the corner of my eye
to hers, and knew the truth
I had suspected.
In the following days,
as certain of our peers
disappeared at appointed hours
for the Chorus, something in me
was already closing shop.
Indeed, to this day
I still clam up
for the national anthem
in crowded stadiums, draw
disapproving alumni stares
as I smile the length of school songs,
and even hum and clap
through “Happy Birthday,” creating
a diversion—all lest I send
the collective pitch
careening headlong into dissonance.
It’s only in the choice acoustics
of shower and sealed car
that I can finally give voice
to that heart deep within me
that is pure, tonally perfect, music.
But when the water stops running
and the radio’s off, I can remember
that day in class,
when I knew for the first time
that mine would be a world of words
without melody, where refrain
means do not join,
where I’m ready to sing
in a key no one has ever heard.

?

In the search string for Windows? environment variable Windir I happened to get results for an artist? by the same name. Following the Google Link displayed the following page where artist, albulm and track information is accessible.

I assume the next option to come will be the ability to preview and purchase the song directly.

To illustrate this point let me share the following. This morning I was unexpectedly faced with a problem that allowed me to put the web to the test to see if it could give me the answer I needed. My HP iPAQ PDA decided to give me a synchronization error today when syncing with our company’s Microsoft Exchange Server. The only information I had was error code internet_31. Typing this into Google gave me 250 results to choose from, choosing the first option already gave me the needed answer. I was brought to http://www.pocketpcfaq.com/faqs/activesync/mis.htm where I found a wealth of useful information for resolving ActiveSync problems. I give me my thanks to Chris De Herrera for compiling this information and making it easily available. I found it to be a great source of help.

It gives me a great deal of satisfaction to be able to find such solutions so quickly and easily. The web harvest opinions, comments, articles and experiences of millions of users each day, all of which conglomerates into an overwhelming pool of information that today’s advanced search technology makes easily accessible. To me this is just one example of the power of the web!

URL: Google Earth Launching For Free