Cameron Olthuis

I’ve finally got some new pictures of the girls up. Everyone in the family keeps asking me when I’m going to update the pictures so here they are…

Adalyn’s Album

Celia’s Album

I’m trying out Flickr with these pictures instead of putting them directly on the web site. I think I like it better when they’re just here on the site. Flickr’s a little more cluttered.

I’d love to hear what you guys prefer, since the pictures are for you. The positive thing about Flickr is Amy can use it so the pictures will probably be updated more often.

Somehow today I came across Rent A Drunk.

THINK HOW MANY TIMES YOU’VE SEEN A GUY PASSED OUT AT A PARTY - AND HOW MANY PICTURES ARE TAKEN OF THAT GUY PASSED OUT AT THE PARTY - NOW THINK OF YOUR MERCHANDISE ON THAT GUY FOREVER DOING STUPID DRUNKEN THINGS THAT PEOPLE WILL TAKE PICTURES OF AND KEEP POSTING OVER AND OVER ONLINE…

THE R.A.D AGENTS ARE AVAILABLE TO HAND OUT BROCHURES ON THE SHOW FLOOR - ATTEND AVN AND HAND OUT MERCHANDISE TO SURFERS AND TO ATTEND ANY OF THE INDUSTRY EVENTS THAT A LOT OF WEBMASTERS WILL BE ATTENDING WHERE MOST COVERAGE WILL BE ATTAINED

This has got to be one of the most creative yet dumbest ideas of the year. It’s very creative in that no one else would ever come up with something like this, yet it’s dumb because no company wants their brand associated with a bunch of belligerent, obnoxious drunks. Ok so maybe there’s a few companies that this could actually work for, but not many.

Nothing better then having a couple drunks crash your party, and paying them to do so. Hell, I could think of dozen people off the top of my head that would to this for nothing more then the free beer.

This gives new meaning to “do what you love for a living.” Nice try!

I hate getting writers block, it’s so frustrating when you have some free time to sit down and write and you’re just stuck. Before you know it the kids either need attention or it’s so late that if you don’t go to sleep now you won’t survive the day tomorrow. Time is money and writers block is like a tax.

Well I just discovered a good way to prevent writers block. It might be common sense to you but it’s rocket science to me and it’s really helped

In the past I’ve found that I was wasting a lot of time trying to write catchy titles for my blog entries. I was not only wasting a lot of time but I was also creating a block that would prevent me from completing the entries. By the time I ‘d come up with the good titles I’d forget all the good ideas I had just a few minutes ago. Then I’d spend the next hour staring at the screen trying to finish. Sometimes I’d get frustrated and just end up deleting what could have been a good blog entry.

Tonight it hit me, when I get an idea for a blog entry just go ahead and start writing the entry, forget the title. I can always worry about writing the title later, in fact they usually end up better that way. Use my creativity for the writing and then pull a title from the entry, simple isn’t it.

If this helps you pass it on.

I’m sure you’re all familiar with del.icio.us. By now you either use it religiously or you’ve just heard me mention the name and you’re curious what it’s all about. Delcious is a social bookmarking web application, or in their own words… “del.icio.us is a collection of favorites - yours and everyone else’s.” If you don’t use delicious yet this tutorial is for you, if you do use it then it’s very basic and you’ll find it boring, it’s just a getting started tutorial.

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The one feature wordpress really needs is autosave. My computer just froze up when I was the middle of a really long blog post. Just think how nice that we would be if wordpress automatically saved an entry if your computer froze. I’d sure be in a much better mood right now.

Needless to say I have to start from scratch on that entry, so if you’re listening how about adding that feature somehow. I’m not very familiar with the programming end of things but I’m sure with the technology these days it can be done.

It’s really hard to predict the future of the web, with some many cool new technologies it’s anyones guess which one’s going to be the next big thing. Why does it have to be just one? If it makes your internet experience more enjoyable and efficent you’re all for it right?

One of the technologies I’ve really been getting into lately is RSS. RSS (aka XML), allows you to easily create one or more of our own personal web pages, you decide what information is displayed there by subscribing to RSS feeds. You can use it to get the latest news, weather, sports, blog entries, events, and pretty much anything you can imagine, all on your own personal web page. I use my Yahoo! , it ties right in with my email account so it’s convenient. If you don’t already use RSS I suggest you start, it’s a very effecient way to get all the lastest information you’re looking for in one page.

Lately all sorts of web companies have been offering RSS feeds for all sorts of different things. I just learned that New York Times Job Market (source: Micro Persuasion) offers an RSS feed, if you’re looking for a job you can now track openings as they’re listed on New York Times. No longer do you have to check the New York Times everyday to see if there’s new job listings, the RSS feed will tell you.

RSS really is going to play a big role in the future of the web. It’s definitely one of the next big things to watch that’s taking over the web. Thanks to RSS you’ll soon be able to incorporate most everything you do online into one experience. By allowing you to get all the information you want in one place, it increases effeciency and saves time. Best of all it’s a very easy to use, even for the average person that isn’t computer savvy.

So what does this mean to marketers? I think it means there’s a big need to figure out what products are marketable using RSS. I ‘ve already started working on some for different clients. I believe these will offer a valuable service to our users, and will be things they’ll actually want to use. RSS feeds can really set your company apart, at the same time providing a very valuable service. Don’t go overboard with it though, not everything needs RSS.

I’m certainly looking forward to more companies offering RSS. For example, won’t it be cool when we’re shopping for a certain product on eBay and we can see all the listings as they come in, without having to actually visit eBay. It can get pretty annoying spending the time looking for new listings only to find there aren’t any. What about keeping track of items we’re already bidding on? Now I’m sure someone already offers a eBay software that does this but I’d really like to see these things coming from the actual companies.

I predict RSS will be one of the big things next year, if not THE big thing.

Subscribe to my RSS feed.

In a recent entry, 5 Things That Won’t Help With SEO, I talked about the dangers of link exchange programs and why you should avoid reciprocal linking with sites that don’t offer value to your users. Now there’s word straight from the horses mouth.

Barry Schwartz from Search Engine Roundtable has been providing complete session reviews from the Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago. His latest review, Search Engine Q&A On Links, is from a session where representatives from the 4 major search engines (Ask Jeeves, Google, Yahoo, and MSN) discuss proper linking strategies and also conduct a Q&A. This is one session I wish I really could’ve attended, it clears up a lot of questions about link strategies.

Here’s some quotes that I found interesting from Barry’s review:

Kaushal Kurapati, Senior Product Manager of Search, Ask Jeeves

- Be Cautious of reciprocal links and buying links
- Avoid link farms, cloaked pages, hidden links and links by images.
- Focus on your business and content, the rest will follow

Charles Martin from Google

- Be the user when building links
- use unique relevant content to attract links
- Avoid; recip links, poor quality link exchanges, fishy looking sites, who you link to can affect your reputation.
- He specifically says “You can be held accountable for linking to people”
- Do not obsesses with back links
- Design site with user in mind

Tim Mayer, Director of Product Management, Yahoo!

- There is this intense focus on link building, Tim says. There is very little focus on building quality content. If you build good content, people will link to it.
- Links should be related and designed to help the user
- Add unique and useful content that invites others to link to your site
- Don’t use link exchanges or buy links

I noticed they also mention that you shouldn’t buy links. I would agree that you shouldn’t buy links for the purpose of increasing your search engine rankings. I do however think it’s ok to purchase links as a form of advertising if you think it will drive targeted traffic to your site. It won’t boost your rankings but if it will increase your sales then why not.

Another thing I found very interesting is that all of them talk about focusing on your users first, a point I try to get across every chance I get. I briefly mentioned this in the 10 Rules For Web Startups entry but I’ve also been writing an in-depth article on focusing on your users first. I was hoping to have it done by now, hopefully the amount of time it’s taking indicates the quality of the article.