Author Archives: Nadir Garouche

Defining Web 2.0 to CEOs

Webmasterworld’s administrator trillianjedi started a thread where he gives a short and clear definition of “Web 2.0” that you could give to the CEO of your client company :

1. A BS framework enabling your website designer to pursuade you that you need a website redesign because your existing wesbite is “… just so Web 1.0″

2. A “mash-up” of different technologies. Web meets TV meets radio and other media types. See YouTube and Google “podcasting” for examples.

3. Community is King.

4. Push technologies, dynamic HTML and AJAX (yeah, basically all that stuff we started doing in 2001).

5. Lot’s of 3D stuff (OK, I admit I’m scraping the barrel with that one).

While the CEO could argue that fancy stuff such as AJAX or 3D animations already existed before, you really should convince him that “community is king” and that people just love mash-ups.

Kosmix launched 4 new vertical search engines

A few months ago, Kosmix launched a vertical search engine dedicated to Health. I first discovered this search engine  in February and blogged about it. Like I said in this previous post, the guys who are behind this search engine are Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan , two guys who both studied at Stanford university, at the same time as Lary Page and Sergey Brin.

Here’s what you can read on their About page:

“At Kosmix, we’re passionate about building a world class search engine that lets people search less, and discover more great stuff. There are billions of pages on the web that are useful, but never see the light of day through a standard search engine. We want to help you find those great pages, and make it easy and fun to do in the process.

Right now we’re in the early stages of Kosmix, and at this point only cover a handful of categories. Our list is growing fast, so check back with us to see what’s new.”

I have checked their website today and realized that they have launched four other vertical search engines: Video Games, Finance, Travel and U.S Politics.  According to this article, they recently raised $18.3 million in funding.

It provides really interesting results. For example, if you search for “debt free” with the Finance search engine, you can choose to see results related to Finance News, Magazines, Retirement, or Taxes. Since it’s debt related, it also gives you links such as calculators, scholarships articles, etc.

It’s still too early to judge it, but I think they’re doing a great job so far. What do you think about it?

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Java EE 5!

Here’s a programmer who can sing: Roumen and his Java EE 5 song.

I just love the lyrics:

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Java EE 5!

One, two, three, four, five
There’s a technology I use day and night
For my application with a web frontend
They told me to use .Net
But I really don´t wanna

So many bugs I fixed last week.
My code is neat and talk is a cheap
I like Glassfish, JSF, persistence API
And as I continue you know they´re gettin´ sweeter

So what can I do I really beg you my Lord
To me codin’ it´s just like a sport
All the bad code from the past, let me dump it
Please set in the trumpet

A little bit of injection in my life
A little bit of persistence by my side
A little bit of NetBeans is all I need
A little bit of EJB’s what I see
A little bit of standards in the sun
A little bit of XML all night long
A little bit web services here I am
A little bit of code makes me real man

This is Java EE 5!

Jump up and down and move your code around
Shake your head to the sound bury bad code under ground
Move one step left and one step right
One to the front and one to the side
Refactor it once and refactor it twice
If it looks like this you’re doin´ it right

A little bit of injection in my life
A little bit of persistence by my side
A little bit of NetBeans is all I need
A little bit of EJB’s is what I see
A little bit of standards in the sun
A little bit of XML all night long
A little bit web services here I am
A little bit of code makes me real man

This is Java EE 5!

Hot hot hot…

I can’t handle this temperature anymore! That would be ok if there was a beach in Paris, or outdoor swimming pools everywhere, but no, stop dreaming Nadir, you’re not in San Diego anymore 🙂

Really, the temperature just became unbearable, it’s ok when it’s hot, but please, only when I’m on holiday! I love hot weather indeed, but not when I have to go to a meeting and use a crowded subway, or while I’m at work and can’t concentrate or when I need to sleep…

It’s just too hot! I guess I should take some vacation.

Google Maps vs. Windows Live Local

This post provides a nice comparison of Google Maps and Windows Live Local. The author compared, for the same address, different views: standard, plain view, and detail (3D view), and he explains that he prefers Windows Live Local for detailed maps and Google for standard views.

I agree with the author, the “Bird’s eye” view option provided by Windows Live allows you to have a very detailed view of a location, something that’s not available with Google Maps. This option is only available for a few cities such as San Francisco and New York.

Evaluate your CSS and HTML Knowledge

How good are you at CSS?

I came across an article that is both funny and accurate called Levels of CSS knowledge, from Emil Stenström. It lists 6 levels of CSS knowledge and explains how each one is affecting the web, from the average user to the most renowned web designers.

I love the sentence he used to describe those who are at level 0:

“CSS? Isn’t that a multiplayer game?”

lol, that’s exactly what one of my colleagues answered me yesterday when I asked him if he knew CSS.

456 Berea ST published a similar article for HTML, called Levels of HTML knowledge that is also very interesting.

A helpful Yahoo! feature for keyword research

I’ve never really paid attention to the “also try” feature in Yahoo!, which allows you to see related keyword. Each time you run a search in Yahoo!, they display a short list of related keywords, that you can expand by clicking on “more”, then “show all” to see the complete list of related keywords.
I wish I used this feature before, because I have to say that it’s pretty useful if you’re running a keyword research. It can help you find related keywords that you may not have found with other keyword tools.

Apparently, they only display keywords that are popular enough, you can use Overture to verify the popularity of each keyword. One other good thing is that it makes the difference between plurals and singulars.

See the example below for the term “internal audit“:

Google and bad neighborhood links

Vanessa Fox posted an interesting blog post on the Google SiteMaps blog. The post followed Search Engine Watch Live Seattle and she wanted to use this blog to share two of the questions the Google team received during the event.

In the post, she notes that links from “bad neighborhood” sites cannot hurt a site’s rankings, but it won’t help at all. On the other side, she confirms that outgoing links to bad neighborhood and spam sites can hurt one’s site rankings:

“In general, linking to web spammers and “bad neighborhoods” can harm your site’s indexing and ranking. And while links from these sites won’t harm your site, they won’t help your indexing or ranking. Only natural links add value and are helpful for indexing and ranking your site.”