Bye Bye Geocities

I recently received an email from Yahoo saying that "GeoCities is closing." Geocities users won't be able to access their accounts after October 26, 2009.

I joined this free web site building service and community way back in 1998 and built my first web site on it. The site was about my favourite places, my attempts at poetry, photographs, my research on pines and favourite links. It also had an "Environmental" page talking about my concern about Mother Earth.



At that time Geocities was one of the most popular sites on the Web and We had a real sense of community then. I was really fond of their Page builder interface which let amateurs like me get a feel of designing web pages without using html. I did eventually learnt html and later CSS. Designing my pages by trial and error was really frustrating and exciting at the same time. My web site would often disappear completely or appear as a mass of strange coding.

I guess Yahoo never really harnessed the full potential of Geocities like Google did with Blogger. I mean, even after more than 10 years, it was almost the same. No user friendly innovations or updates. I guess one reason for the decline was the growing popularity of blogs especially blogger with their blogspot blogs. I got tired of static sites and hardly updated my Geocities site. I cannot even recall the last time I actually visited it but I still left it online as most of my old friends found me via the site.

I will definitely miss Geocities.

Does anyone else have fond memories of Geocities?

Gadget and software advisor site

I regularly prowl the net looking for gadget sites and love reading reviews about gadgets in development or have just been launched in the market. Just found out about the Gadget Advisor site - relatively new but has loads of good stuff.

The name "Gadget Advisor" may be a bit misleading. Besides news about new gadget releases and computer hardware information, the site is also a great resource for the latest tech news and software. As a Firefox fan, I found their extensive list of the Best extensions for Firefox really informative and useful. Needless to say, I downloaded a few on the list including the Google Cache Checker Firefox extension.

Do check out the site and tell me what you think.

SEO Analysis site

Just got to know about yet another SEO Analysis site. Go over to SEOSiteCheckup.com, type in your site URL. It will automatically analyse your site and provide recommendations to enable (in their words) "your site to load faster, rank higher for search terms, and attract more visitors". And it's totally free.

Here's the report for my blog. Quite detailed as well.

I was quite impressed by the speed of analysis as compared to some other sites I have tried out. I am already aware of some of the problems given in the recommendations but unfortunately I won't be able to implement them all. I have reading up on ways to add a site map and may have found a solution finally.

Thanks for the info Rachel.

Videos on energy and environmental issues

Yes! I am still continuing my green theme. I am sometimes bewildered by people who are not concerned at all with the on-going debate on climate change. In fact, I found some people to be against the very idea of changing the current energy policies to more eco-friendly ones, because that might mean paying a little bit more or a change in their lifestyles.

Thankfully, many are coming round to the idea that being environmentally friendly is a good idea and it is worth paying a little bit more or changing your lifestyle for a better future. The survival of the Earth may very well be at stake if we continue what we are doing without any change.

It may not necessarily be that costly to be eco-friendly as some imagine. I was watching a video showing Battelle, a major U.S. research organization, unveiling its new report, Global Energy Technology Strategy: Addressing Climate Change. It was really interesting.

...if the present suite of energy technologies is improved and key advanced energy technologies developed and deployed.

I watched this video on Energy Policy TV's climate change Channel. Energypolicytv.com hosts your videos relating to energy and environmental issues, totally free of charge. These can include speeches, seminars, presentations, news conferences, etc. However, they do not accept video news releases or product or service video ads. This site should interest policy makers as well as any one interested in these issues.

Grow your favorite environmentally friendly news

Do you consider yourself environementally friendly?

Though I am no longer as active an environmentalist as I was during my younger days (now it's mostly limited to email petitions and blogging), I do still take an interest and try to keep myself abreast with latest environmental issues and news. As the Kenyan proverb goes "We have not inherited this land from our ancestors; rather we have borrowed it from our children.".

Well, now I have added another site to my "regularly visited" list. Grow Green News was just launched today. It is a news service from AboutMyPlanet.com and is very similar to Digg - apart from the fact that this site focuses on user submitted green or environmental news.

Like Digg, registered users can vote for stories they find interesting - called "Grow" here. Popular stories that reach a certain growth level it will be promoted to the front page of the site and may eventually be picked up by the main site (www.aboutmyplanet.com).

There are a few other features that differentiates this site. Users can attach both photos and videos to the stories as well. Registered members can also discuss all the stories submitted. The latest discussion appear on the top left corner of the site.

Travel directions website for the UK and US

If you are planning a trip in the near future, I recommend that you plan the travel route way before hand. Don't wait until the last minute and under no circumstances, assume that road signs are sufficient.

I am talking from experience here. I have had a bad experience once when driving to Nottingham. I thought that I knew the way and I remember telling my wife "We won't get lost. They have excellent road signs there." Well we got lost for nearly an hour before our friend came over to their house.

There are several route planners on the web and one of them is Publicroutes.com, which provides convenient travel directions for major cities in the United States and United Kingdom. However, unlike other route planners which give you only driving directions routes, Public Routes gives you the directions for various travel modes, including bus routes, walking times, and subway information or a combination. For example, take a look at Seattle driving directions on their site. You can also get directions if you are driving, walking, by bus or by rail. It's a great idea as sometimes we might want to discover the city by using public transport and walking, instead of driving around. It's a great service because they also provide real time traffic information. So next time you are going on a trip to a city in the US or the UK, don't forget to consult the site beforehand.

New full service Internet consulting firm

I was going through the site of a Tech consulting firm based here in the Midlands and was shaking my head as I was going through their site. It looked so amateurish, even I could come up with a template like that in less than an hour. And the funny thing was that this so called "professional" company listed web design as one of their services. Going down to their footer I discovered that the site itself was designed by some other web design firm.

It was the total opposite as I was going through the lifeBLUE Media site. It really looks professional. Formerly known as Teneo Design, the company was launched early this year. The firm is a full-service Internet consulting firm and it would be wrong to call it a SEO firm. They offer more than search engine marketing services. However, I can see that their main strength lies in web design and I was really impressed with their portfolio. Their list of clients includes Fortune 500 companies as well as start-ups. Their blog also carries a number of interesting and useful posts on web design and online marketing among others.

Projector rentals

You may require a portable LCD projector for a number of reasons - a get-together, parties, a meeting, a sales presentation or any other event where you need to show a video or a presentation. However, these equipment do not come cheap and it may be a better idea to rent them whenever you need them, rather than buy one.

In case you are not aware, you can rent the latest in projector technology from Projector123.com across the United States. So if you are in Chicago looking for a Chicago Projector Rental, you might want to consider this company. They will deliver it right to your door by FedEx.

besides, CHicago, IL, they are now targeting customers in New York City (Long Island), Los Angeles (LA County), Philadelphia, PA, San Jose (Santa Clara County), CA, Detroit, MI, Indianapolis, IN, Jacksonville, FL, San Francisco (north to Santa Rosa), CA and Columbus, OH.

To order, all you need to do is complete the online order form on their site.

Won a T-Shirt

Have been neglecting this blog for sometime. I was planning to put the domain up for sale but later decided against it.

In my last post I had written about the T-shirt contest being organised by TheBlogWorld . Well, I just learnt that I am one of the winners.

Thanks a lot Amanda.

Starting a business with $100

If you are whining that you need at least a few thousand dollars in order to start up a business, you might be interested to learn that you can start up an Internet Businesses with only $100. Yes, that's right "Only $100". The list of businesses includes among others, starting a blog.

I got the tip from the Dumb Little Man blog who in turn got it from Terry Ng.

Real SEO expert

I started this blog to poke fun at all the so called SEO experts around but then along the way learnt that some of them have really good advice. It seems like there is a lot of confusion as to what exactly a SEo consultant does. Are they for real? Can they really help you get your site up on the search engine rankings?

I have just discovered Shimon Sandler's blog. His blog has a Google page rank of 6 and has loads of SEO and other Internet marketing tips.

One simple indicator is to look at the page rank of their own website. If they can't even increase their page rank, how can they hope of helping others. I found his post on pricing really informative and useful. It will definitely benefit companies looking for a SEO consultant as well as other SEO consultants. I definitely recommend this site to all my readers.