Xfernal's Techno-Dev Mumbling

I despise Apple's QuickTime because when I install it, they try to cram other crap on my machine during the install. This always ticks me off. I had decided that I could live without QuickTime because most websites are kind enough to offer different file formats that just QT movies. However, from time to time I have come across sites that did not offer any other movie file formats and since I refuse to install any Apple software on my machine in fear that their liberal ideologies might rub off on me, I was unable to view the movie...until now. Scott Schecter told me about a QuickTime alternative that does not install a bunch of crap on my machine and works quite well. I have been using it for about a month now and have viewed a total of 2 QuickTime movies, both with success. Thankfully this is free software, because I would go back to not being able to view QT files if it ever changed. Let's just hope that more sites start offering multiple movie formats so I can get rid of any QT needs all together.

An article found on CNET - Power could cost more than servers, Google warns claims that with rising power cost, "If performance per watt is to remain constant over the next few years, power costs could easily overtake hardware costs, possibly by a large margin,".

Interestingly, over the past year we have replaced several old servers from our stack. Specifically, we removed an old HP 3000r NetServer and replaced it with a Dell 1550, 7 U smaller in size and wattage of 217 when compared to the HP's 1464 total wattage. I'd say that is a huge difference when compared to performance and wattage consumption, even talking about a couple of old servers we use just for development.

"If server power consumption grows 20 percent per year, the four-year cost of a server's electricity bill will be larger than the $3,000 initial price of a typical low-end server with x86 processors. Google's data center is populated chiefly with such machines. But if power consumption grows at 50 percent per year, "power costs by the end of the decade would dwarf server prices," even without power increasing beyond its current 9 cents per kilowatt-hour cost, Barroso said."

While this is definitely true, what about the fuel cell technology? The promise of this technology WILL reduce power cost. With devices already on the market but primarily for industrial use because of hydrogen storage issues, it becomes uneconomical. However, several scientist are looking at methods of extracting Hydrogen from the air. I guess we will see... In the meantime, I will be exploring how to use a fuel cell to power our server stack

How Fuel Cells Work

National Fuel Cell Research Center

FC2K

Fuel Cell Vehicles

Yahoo! released their beta version of Yahoo! Answers today. Their release of "answers" comes only 3.5 years after the release of Google Answers, leaving lots of "questions" to what took so damn long?

The first major difference between the 2 are that Google Answers utilizes about 500 handpicked researches, whereas Yahoo! Answers allows anyone to post an answer who has a Yahoo! account. While making it public seems to be a good idea at first thought, you have to consider the problems that wikipedia has faced with bad information. One of the first questions I looked at on Yahoo! Answers was COMPLETELY wrong.

Example:

What is the difference between an INC and a LLC?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

Its all about cya. In an Inc, the owners can have their personal property taken away. An LLC is designed to shield the personal property of the owners from lawsuits and bankruptcy. - Link to question

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WTF?  I think Yahoo! Answers would be the LAST place I would look for business advice. Even worse is that the Asker accepted this as the best answer before anyone else could respond. Pathetic. Now, only comments can be added to this question.

The second difference is that Google Answers cost $ (starting at $2.50), while Yahoo! Answers is currently free.

I think I'd rather pay $2.50 for an answer on Google that has a better chance of being correct than relying on anyone to post the answer. Maybe a basic intelligence test and category questionaire would be appropriate before people could begin posting questions?

I will admit I do like the design and interface that Yahoo! has used better than Google's but I think I will wait a bit to see how everything pans out before I start relying on their answers.

The word is Microsoft is developing an online classified ad system code-named Fremont.

Features:

1. MSN IM alerts for buying/selling items
2. Buddy list only selling, or limiting by domain in email addresses
3. Geography based searching via ZIP
4. Free service

In the news:

Microsoft joins classified ad race

So, is Google planning on using Google Base as an online classified ad system as well? If it is true that Google is working on an online payment system and combines it with Google Base for ads, it would definitely be interesting and would generate much attention.

Supposedly Fremont would be a free service because the business model involves ad revenue. Lets just hope that they do not use image/flash banner ads like they do on the MSN home page. One thing I have always liked about Google is there are no ads on the home page and text only ads on their search results pages. Keep it clean!

What about Ebay? They bought Craigslist and they already have the online payment system PayPal. I doubt they will sit idle while this war is brewing, but I am afraid they will get stomped by one of the 800 pound gorillas being the smaller monkey they are. Eeeep!

I heard from a friend that Google Jet was in town at RDU last week. Shows how much I keep up with local news, just finding out about it a week later eh? Anyway, after looking around to see why Google was in town, I found this story: Google looks for local offices

While looking for other information about Google being in town, I ran into this interesting article: Google-Mart - Sam Walton taught Google More About How to Dominate the Internet than Microsoft ever did. 

"And unless Google comes up with an ecosystem to allow their survival, that means all the other web services companies will be marginalized. There will be startups and little guys, but no medium-sized companies. ISPs, which we've thought of as a threatened species, won't be touched, but then their profit margins are so low they aren't worth touching. After all, Wal-Mart doesn't try to own the roads its goods are carried over. And the final result is that Web 2.0 IS Google.

Microsoft can't compete. Yahoo probably can't compete. Sun and IBM are like remora, along for the ride. And what does it all cost, maybe $1 billion? That's less than Microsoft spends on legal settlements each year.

Game over." - Robert Cringely

A very fascinating prediction and with Google having billions in cash it is definitley do-able.

Is Google planning on starting a marketing office here in Raleigh, or maybe just recruiting local engineering talent with so many being in RTP? Or is it something more "evil" like buying up dark fiber that may have been laying around after alot of the dot bubble failures. Hell, there may not even be any dark fiber in Raleigh as I am sure TWC owns most it. I guess only time will tell, but I am betting Google's plan for Raleigh is simply a place to recruit top engineering talent in RTP. I guess we will see...

I have decided to create a blog just for DotNetNuke. I will still post new stuff I find, hear, or encounter concerning general technology and development here, but will post all things related to the DNN community on the Venexus DotNetNuke Blog.

I feel that DNN has much potential in the open-source community. Being that I work with it everyday, I decided to create my own blog just to keep up with it and really expand categories that would not be appropriate here. So, stay tuned...

I have several sites running off a single DotNetNuke installation and I wanted to add the Google Analytics Javascript to several of the sites. I had a few options: 

1. I could change default.aspx to include the JavaScript code in the HTML head
2. I could incorporate the Urchin Javascript in a DNN Skin
3. I could go I could go into each pages Page Settings>Advanced Settings>Page Header Tags and drop the JavaScript into the textbox
4. Just run a SQL statement

Option 1 does not work because all installations would have the same JavaScript and I could not be site specific with the Google Analytics Site ID. Option 2 is probably the best option but I am lazy and did not want to update each skin and upload them each to the site. Option 3 is just ridiculous for a few of our larger sites and would take forever...so, I picked Option 4, the quick sql statement:

UPDATE Tabs SET PageHeadText = '<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
           </script>
           <script type="text/javascript">
                _uacct = "UA-xxxxxx-x";
                urchinTracker();
           </script>'
 WHERE (PortalID = 0)

Before you use this sql update statement against your DNN database, make sure you update your Google Analytics ID, "UA-xxxxxx-x", and PortalID #.

This will automatically change all pages for that portal to include the Google Urchin JavaScript. If you do not want certain pages such as the Admin pages to include this JavaScript, simply filter out any by ParentID's 

Example:

UPDATE Tabs SET PageHeadText = '<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
           </script>
           <script type="text/javascript">
                _uacct = "UA-xxxxxx-x";
                urchinTracker();
           </script>'
 WHERE (PortalID = 0) AND ParentID <> '38'

You could easily use this same script to add other HTML head code. Hope that helps!

Google allows for a LSI keyword search. By prefacing a tilde (~) before the search term in Google, LSI keyword results will be returned.

Example search: ~automobile

Results would include many “car” related results with the LSI keywords bolded.

Example Results:

Toyota.com

Honda Cars Motorcycles Watercraft ATVs Engines Generators, Acura

Buy new & used cars online, research prices & dealers, sell your ...

Car Talk

Notice “Toyota”, “Honda Cars”, “vehicle” are all bolded in the results. Very handy for getting more keywords

Sometimes the menu on a website will alter search engine results because the links in the menu change the importance of the overall page, especially if the links appear before the content of the page. So, optimizing for search engines should include trying to get the actual content of the page higher up in the HTML. Doing so might affect the overall look and feel of the page, but there are ways to get around it. I think most people are accustomed to left navigation menus and expect them to be available, so by using a simple table trick, you can move the menu of a page below the content, giving the content more importance over the menu links for better ranking.

	Main Content Goes here. Even though it appears to be right of the menu when viewed, in the source this content comes before the menu...
This is a menu

Basic HTML Example: Table-Trick.html (.52 KB)

This can easily be used in DotNetNuke skins to move items like SolPartMenu or modules in the "LeftPane" below the "Content Pane".

DNN Table Trick Example:

dnn-skin-example.html (.49 KB)