I heard someone on NPR talking today about how we're likely to have some huge online catastophy where someone really malicious releases a virus that causes huge enough problems that people will be willing to accept some sort of "license to code" (whether regulatory or de facto) before programs that people write can run on...
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In response to user requests, I just released Moray, a script which uses CaRP and Grouper to filter and aggregate RSS feeds, and republish them in RSS 2.0 format. It's a free download, and can be used with the free version of CaRP, but requires the commercial version of Grouper ($17.97 for a single user)....
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We finished up the specification for the Atom Syndication Format back in July, and now at last the process of getting an RFC number is complete. Atom 1.0 is RFC 4287--the first standards track syndication format specification! How long, I wonder, till Blogger switches from Atom 0.3 to Atom 1.0? Perhaps I'll have to write...
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Question: What would cause Google to load one page (http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/) over 700 times in 24 hours? Answer: I'll tell you when I find out.

Over the last few weeks, an ever increasing number of requests have been coming in from a few of Google's IP addresses loading the same page over and over and over......
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I had an idea for a website today, the value of which would be greatly enhanced if it were able to display the PageRank of pages that it linked to. I checked Google's API documentation and discovered two roadblocks: first, it doesn't include PageRank checking capabilities, and second, even if it did, it's currently limited...
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We all know that getting lots of inbound links is a critical part of search engine optimization. And most of us know that joining link farms, which create lots of links between totally unrelated sites, is not a good way to do it, because if Google catches you at it, they'll penalize you. So how...
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The Chordata RSS and Atom newsfeed directory is offering a 90 page eBook (PDF) on search engine optimization to anyone who rates 25 feeds by November 21. You'll need to create an account and log in to rate feeds. Once you've rated 25, you'll find a link to the eBook on the My Account page....
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Web surfers have essentially become blind to the standard 468x60 banner ad, and to a lesser degree to other forms of web advertising. Web ads must avoid the stereotypical "ad" look to be effective. So on the one hand, advertisers and designers integrating ads into websites need to be "sneaky", but on the other hand,...
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Every time I see someone selling or trading a link bragging about it coming from a PR4 page, I'm not sure whether to chuckle or boggle. "PR4?" I think. "That's supposed to be impressive?" I guess it impresses some people, even if it doesn't impress us all. Which raises the question, what is "good" PageRank?...
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So, you want your site to show up as high as possible on Google. Join the club. 20 gazillion other websites are clamoring for the same thing. And guess what? Google has its own agenda. They don't care whose site comes up on top--whose business gets the free advertising. What they want is to give...
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