mindplunge

So what’s new and exciting?

Well… it’s mainly work related at this point. The New Year started of with a bang which means a bunch of workload on my desk at the dental website design company I work for. Given the current state of the economy not a bad thing but it’s eating up my weekends as well. Again, not a terrible thing but it also keeps me away of updating this blog. So finally a little spot in my schedule to give you an update.

Saturday we will be in Oakland. Our best friends Jason and Cindy getting married and A. is one of the bride maids. They will go shopping for a dress which means Jason and I will chill out in Oaktown! Since I’m shopping around for a netbook we probably will be roaming the city for this little gadget. I’m really drawn to the HP mini 1000 MI edition and apparently it’s only available at HP’s online store. We’ll see if we can find it somewhere.

So far the weather’s been pretty forgiving with temperatures in the lower 70′s but yesterday it finally started to rain. And rain is what we need. It’s been so dry here in NorCal and this could mean some potential problems later this year. California is notorious when it comes to water meaning no water at all…

Other then this I’m consistently working on my two other sites, richardlemon.com and eightdegree.com. Another reason I neglected this blog. Too bad a day has only 24 hours…

Oh yes, before I forget: mom, you can see my twitter updates here and here. The second one is mainly SEO orientated so not much of a fun to read…

Personal Branding

Finally! After several years I now own the domain richardlemon.com. When I tried to register this domain 3 years ago it already was taken by a realtor in Florida sharing both my first and last name. The most annoying part was that he didn’t use this domain for years.

Two months ago I noticed his renewal was coming up and I was praying he didn’t have the auto-renewal turned on. He didn’t! After the domain expired it went into a grace period and I was able to bid on the domain. His last opportunity to renew the domain past as well and here we are. My brand new domain name.

I tried to transfer the domain to my current host Media Temple but since the domain has a new registrar I have to wait 60 days before I can transfer it. Currently it’s parked at GoDaddy and I could sign up for a hosting service. I rather have all my domains under 1 roof so Media Temple is the clear choice. Other then this Media Temple is also one heck of a host! I’ve been with them for over 5 years and their service is just outstanding. Great costumer service and there tools are phenomenal.

I’m using their Grid Server (gs):

• 100GB premium storage
• 1TB network transfer
• Host up to 100 domains
• 1000 email accounts
• Clustered architecture
• Rails & Django Containers
• MySQL SmartPool v.2
• FREE Urchin Analytics

More about Media Temple’s Grid Server

I guess I have to get started on designing my personal site pretty soon! Can’t wait to show it to you all.

Cuil—the world’s biggest search engine?

From the cuil website: The Internet has grown exponentially in the last fifteen years but search engines have not kept up—until now. Cuil searches more pages on the Web than anyone else—three times as many as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft.

Now that’s a statement!

Part of their faq:

How does Cuil improve search results?

Cuil’s goals are to index the whole Web, to analyze deeply its pages and to organize results in a rich and helpful way that allows you to explore fully the subject of your search.

So we started from scratch—with a fresh approach, an entirely new architecture and breakthrough algorithms.

Our approach is to focus on the content of a page and then present a set of results that has both depth and breadth.

Our aim is to give you a wider range of more detailed results and the opportunity to explore more fully the different ideas behind your search. We think this approach is more useful to you than a simple list.

So Cuil searches the Web for pages with your keywords and then we analyze the rest of the text on those pages. This tells us that the same word has several different meanings in different contexts. Are you looking for jaguar the cat, the car or the operating system?

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

Exciting times

Life is pretty exciting on a professional level. Last week I got promoted  and I’m totally psyched about it! It’s so rewarding when a company is able to see your potential and show you their trust. I can’t express how happy I am and what all of this means to me.

With a promotion there also will be more responsibilities to take and for me this is the exciting part. We have a bunch of projects lined up and each and every one of them will be fun to work on. It also means a lot of work but the good part is that I love doing it. It’s no secret I’m a internet-junkie. It’s my job and the hours I spend online after office hours are equal if not more. So it pays of for me to stare at a screen 15 hours a day! Information gathered late at night I use during the day and vice versa.

For those not familiar with my job description: I’m a Search Marketing Analyst. Some call it SEO Developer or SEO Strategist. Basically it’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Lately SEO is a buzz word on the internet. Although SEO is almost as old as the first Search Engines (SE’s) appeared it got mainstream a few years ago. All of a sudden bloggers are optimizing their blogs. Numerous plugins pop up for WordPress, one the most used blogging platforms. All for generating a better placement at the SERP’s (Search Engine Result Page) and thus generating traffic.

So it a nutshell:

SEO is the active practice of optimizing a web site by improving internal and external aspects in order to increase the traffic the site receives from search engines. Firms that practice SEO can vary; some have a highly specialized focus, while others take a more broad and general approach. Optimizing a web site for search engines can require looking at so many unique elements that many practitioners of SEO (SEOs) consider themselves to be in the broad field of website optimization (since so many of those elements intertwine).  – definition taken from SEOmoz’ beginner’s guide

I could go on and on about my job description and I intend to do so in the span of the next couple of weeks. Another exciting part is the European Soccer Championship! Did I mention the Dutch are going to win 3-2 from Russia?

PBHS dental website design

I’m usually hesitant about blogging about the company I work with but in this case I’m going to make an exception. There are several reasons for doing this. First reason is the work environment. Even with a good amount of workload and the stress that comes with it PBHS manages to keep it all ‘sane’. The group of highly educated and brilliant coworkers is part of the joy of working with PBHS.

Secondly is the standard of website design. We are pushing boundaries every day to meet the expectations of our dental clients. Although we make custom designs for our clients our dental website templates are state of the art as well. Just read one of our client’s testimonial!

I’m glad I’m working with another great company after I left Best Image (a company I would recommend if you’re working in the real estate industry). If you happen to be a dentist, plastic surgeon or any profession related to the dental health industry I encourage you to look at PBHS’ website design services!

FYI: We’re about to launch version PBHS 2.0 pretty soon! I’ll keep you posted!