Search engine ranking and your web sites traffic are directly influenced by four main areas:

With this update I have drastically reduced and simpified the code to produce the same results.  I did some rigorous testing of my own to make sure this script will calculate the correct date, but that doesn’t mean it’s bullet-proof.  If you find a bug, please email me so I can fix it.

first-friday.php

 
  // Calculate next Friday
  for ($x = date('d'); $x <= (date('d') + 6); $x++) {
    $timeStamp = mktime(0,0,0,date('m'),$x,date('Y'));
    if (date('w',$timeStamp) == 5) {
      $nextFriday = mktime(0,0,0,date('m'),$x,date('Y'));
    }
  }
  // Check if next Friday is the first friday of the month.
  if (date('d', $nextFriday) <= 7) {
    $firstFriday = $nextFriday;
  } else {
  // Calculate first Friday of next month
    for ($x = 1; $x <= 7; $x++) {
      $timeStamp = mktime(0,0,0,date('m')+1,$x,date('Y'));
      if (date('w',$timeStamp) == 5) {
        $firstFriday = mktime(0,0,0,date('m')+1,$x,date('Y'));
      }
    }
  }
 
  // Echo next first Friday
  echo date("F j, Y", $firstFriday);
 
?>

After my phone finished booting I forgot all about taking pictures.  The following pictures were taken about a week later after I had been using the phone for a while.

I’ve now had my Storm for just over 3 weeks and I love it!  Every aspect of it is great.  Sure there are some problems with the software, but nothing major or inconvinient, and since it’s software, there’s a good chance it will be fixed in the near future.  Bottom line though, I don’t know how I lived without a BlackBerry up until now!

The following items are clean, honest ways to optimize your site.  I do not condone, nor solicit, any form of “black hat” search engine optimization and frown upon it greatly.  If that’s what you’re aiming to implement, I sincerely hope that Google blacklists your site tomorrow.  Please don’t send me any emails asking how to get your sight listed as #1 tomorrow.

Now, onto the list.

Code to Standards

Whether or not you’re aiming for SEO, keeping your code standards compliant will make your site better all around and help make post-development changes much simpler.  While the effectiveness of coding to standards is still debated in the SEO community, it’s generally believed that a standards compliant page will rank slightly higher than a non-compliant page with the same content.

Also, by adhering to standards, you’ll have a much easier time implementing the rest of the processes on this list.

Content is King

The first and foremost rule you’ll hear from many SEO “experts” mouth will most likely be “content is king.”  Of all the processes detailed on this page, if your site doesn’t contain valuable content to the end user, your page rank will likely not be very high.

To take this concept one step further, I’m going to add to that saying to create my own spin off.  As opposed to just “content”, my saying specifies that “dynamic content is king.”  While a site with any content at all is far superior to one without, I believe that adding something as simple as a twitter feed to your home page will help convince the search engines that your site is more important.  After all, users (and therefore, probably search engines) love new content.  To expand upon this idea, if it would fit your site, try adding a blog or a forum to keep that content fresh.

Separate Content and Style

When a search engine crawls your site, it doesn’t see the same thing your end use sees.  The search engine sees the underlying code that is output by your site.  For an example of what the search engine sees, right click your web page and choose “View Source.”  This is a much more accurate (though not exact) representation of what the search engine sees.

If you clutter your code with multitudes of nested tables and lots of in-line styling properties the search engine may have a hard time finding your content to index.  Instead of nesting table after table, consider using divs.  If you don’t know how to use divs, I strongly suggest you learn.  Also, instead of adding the “style” property in line with your (X)HTML, create a separate file named style.css and add the following code between your pages head tags to call this file upon page load:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" type="text/css" />

All you have to do now is add your CSS elements to this style.css file, and give your (X)HTML element either a class or id.  For more on classes and ids, see http://www.w3schools.com/Css/css_syntax.asp.

Use Human Readable URL’s

The ability for a user to accurately guess what a page will contain by looking at a link will not only help your users find what they’re looking for, but is also a good SEO technique.  See below for an example of human readable URL’s.

Good Examples:

• www.domain.com/dog-food
• www.domain.com/dog/food

Poor Examples:

• www.domain.com/1337
• www.domain.com/index.php?page=1337

Page Title Format

While it may not seem too important, the title of your page can make a difference to your page ranking.  While a title in the format of “Site Name | Page Title” is in no way bad, it’s generally believed that the best format for a tile is “Page Title | Site Name.”  Also, there are many pages out there that list every directory in their title, this is not necessary and clutters the title so readers have a tougher time identifying the page.

Good examples:

• SEO Guide | Web Geek
• CK-Gallery • Web Geek
• Menu – Taco Bell

Poor examples:

• Web Geek | SEO Guide
• Web Geek > Web Development > SEO Guide
• www.web-geek.net | projects | php | ck-gallery

Header Tag Prioritization

The importance of a title should directly affect which header tag that title gets (ie <h1>. <h2>, <h3>, etc…).  The more important a title is, the closer to <h1> the title should be with <h1> being the page title and something like a paragraph heading being an <h2> or <h3> depending on it’s importance.  If one topic is just as important as another, they should have the same title tag.

Create a Sitemap

Every website with more than a single page should have a sitemap.  You can make a sitemap in many ways and in many formats, though the most widely accepted by most search engines is an XML sitemap.

My favorite site for sitemap generation is http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/.  This site will automatically crawl up to 500 pages and generate XML, GZipped, and HTML sitemaps that you can then upload to your own site.  Once you have uploaded your sitemap, head on over to https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools and add your sitemap for Google to index.

Note: Even though you can put a sitemap anywhere, the most common location for a sitemap is in your sites root directory (http://www.web-geek.net/sitemap.xml)

Use Relevant Keywords

Keywords are a difficult area in SEO.  You need to specify keywords relevant to your site but you don’t want to have too many keywords or you’ll be hurting your site more than helping.  The generally accepted maximum number of keywords to include on your page is usually 10, for most sites, and definitely no more than 20 for larger sites.  Though major search engines don’t take the number of keywords on your page into consideration when assigning you a page rank, by having to many keywords, it’s harder for a search engine to identify which ones are more relevant than others.

To include keywords on your page, place the following code between your head tags.

<meta name="keywords" content="keyword 1, keyword 2, keyword 3" />

Also, you generally don’t want the exact same keywords on any pages unless they’re content matches.  Give each page keywords that are relevant to the content on that page.  You also may wish to consider generating your keywords dynamically.

Use the “title” Attribute for Links

When creating a link, be sure to include a relevant description of the link using the title attribute.  This adds content for a search engine to pick up and also, when a user hovers over that link, they will get a popup showing your description.

Example:

<a href="http://www.web-geek.net/ck-gallery" title="Dynamic PHP Photo Gallery">CK-Gallery</a>

The above code will create the following link (hover over it to see the title): CK-Gallery

Submit your site for indexing

One of the best ways to get your site noticed by a search engine is to manually submit it for indexing to major search engines.  This is especially useful when your site isn’t yet listed in a search engine.

Google: http://www.google.com/addurl/

Yahoo: http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit

Create a robots.txt file

A robots.txt file can be used to limit what directories/files a web robot can access.  This helps prevent a robot from accessing data you do not wish to be cached by search engines and instead cache only the pages you want to appear.  A good resource on creating and using a robots.txt file can be found at http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html.

Skills marked in Bold are skill I have and have used, or have all the essential knowledge to perform without reference.  My notes are [encased in square brackets].

View the original article @ http://gizmodo.com/5078829/the-50-skills-every-geek-should-have

Check out the list after the break.

The List

1. Install a hard drive in a laptop
   
2. Perform a clean OS install on a machine with two OSes
   
3. Swap out the battery on your iPod/iPhone
4. Jailbreak an iPhone
5. Wire your house for Ethernet and Coax cable
   
6. Use BitTorrent and RSS to automatically download new shows from trackers
   
7. Use an A/V receiver to its fullest capability (every port is taken) [with the right equipment]
8. Calibrate an HDTV without the manual
9. Use a DSLR in full manual mode
10. Hack the encryption and mooch your neighbor’s Wi-Fi
11. Solder cleanly enough to get around a circuit board
    
12. Use your 3G phone as a Wi-Fi access point
13. Shove the guts of a modern game console into a retro game console
14. Design a webpage in HTML by hand that features a picture of your cat
    
15. Use Photoshop to imperceptibly doctor a photo
16. Abstain from buying extended warranties [a definite must for a geek]
17. Know where to buy cheap cables and accessories [newegg.com is a good start]
18. Fix your parents’ computer over the phone without looking at a computer19. Enter the
    
19. Konami code [Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start]
20. Comment on Gizmodo from your phone
21. Type quickly using T9 texting
22. Program a universal remote
23. Contribute code to the Linux kernel
24. Hide porn from your significant other [though I'd prefer to share it with her ]
25. Avoid DRM on everything
26. Know how to back up your data to networked storage—and actually do it [set this up on a scheduled task]
27. Watch TV shows on the internet for free [hulu.com, BOOM BABY!]
28. Edit together digital video ripped from YouTube
29. Play any SNES game on your computer through an emulator
30. Reset expired trial software by messing with the registry [been a while, but have done this]
31. Hackintosh your PC
32. Download pre-release movies from Usenet
33. Hack the Wii to play homebrew games
34. Get around web content filters on public computers
35. Get into a Windows computer if you forgot your password
36. Securely erase your data so it can’t be recovered
37. Share a printer between a Mac and a PC on a network
38. Build a fighting robot
39. Write your own Firefox plugins
40. Navigate and reorganize the files on your computer in DOS
41. Get something on the front page of Digg
42. Get through to executive customer service
43. Rip a CD to V0 quality MP3s
44. Rip a DVD to DivX
45. Build your own computer from parts [there is no other way]
46. Swap out the hard drive in your DVR for a bigger one
47. Get an NES cartridge working again by blowing in it
48. Calibrate a 7.1 surround-sound system
49. Play downloaded games on a Nintendo DS
50. Talk about things that aren’t tech related [possible, but difficult]

30 out of 50… not too bad I guess, though I’m sure a simple Google search or two and I’d have the knowledge most of these other skills require.

Examples:

http://www.google.com/search?q=Rip+a+CD+to+V0+quality+MP3s

http://www.google.com/search?q=Hack+the+Wii+to+play+homebrew+games

Now that’s where the true test of a Geek lies, in his ability to find solutions where he has none, aka Google-fu.

While developing phx2600.org, I ran into a slight dilemma.  The PHX2600 meetings occur once a month on the first Friday of every month, and we wanted to display that on the site.  However, it was becoming a tedious chore to change the date once a month manually.  So, being the automation addict I am, I thought, why not write a script.  So one night I hammered out the following script that will calculate the first Friday of next month:

<?php
 
  /***************************************
  *  FILENAME: first-friday.php          *
  *  AUTHOR:   Chris Kankiewicz [PHLAK]  *
  *  WEBSITE:  http://www.web-geek.net   *
  ***************************************/
 
  // START FUNCTIONS
 
  function get_day($describer,$weekday,$reference_date) { // $reference_date format = m-Y
 
    $d = explode('-',$reference_date);
 
    switch ($describer) {
      case 'first': $offset = get_day_offset($reference_date,$weekday); break;
    }
 
    $r = mktime(0,0,0,$d[0],1+$offset,$d[1]);
    return $r;  //returns timestamp format
  }
 
  function get_day_offset($anchor,$target) { //$anchor format = m-Y
 
    $ts = explode('-',$anchor);
    $ts = mktime(0,0,0,$ts[0],'01',$ts[1]);
 
    $anchor = date("w",$ts);
    $target = strtolower($target);
    $days = array(
      'sunday'=>0,
      'monday'=>1,
      'tuesday'=>2,
      'wednesday'=>3,
      'thursday'=>4,
      'friday'=>5,
      'saturday'=>6
    );
 
    $offset = $days[$target] - $anchor;
 
    if ($offset<0) $offset+=7;
 
    return $offset;  //returns 0-6 for use in get_day();
  }
 
  //END FUNCTIONS
 
  $t = getdate(); //Get today's date
 
  $today = date('m-Y',$t[0]); //Display today's date as MM-YYYY
 
  //Calculate Next Month
  if($t[mon] == '12'){
    $nm = '1-'.($t[year]+1);
  } elseif($t[mday] <= '7' && $t[wday] <= '5') {
    $nm = ($t[mon]).'-'.$t[year];
  }	else {
    $nm = ($t[mon]+1).'-'.$t[year];
  }
 
  $date = get_day("first", "friday", $nm);
 
  //Checks if today is after the first friday of the month
  if($t[mon] == date('m',$date)
    && $t[mday] > date('j',$date)
    && $t[mon] == '12') {
      $nm = '1-'.($t[year]+1);
      $ff = get_day("first", "friday", $nm);
  } elseif($t[mon] == date('m',$date)
    && $t[mday] > date('j',$date) && $t[mon] != '12') {
      $nm = ($t[mon]+1).'-'.$t[year];
      $ff = get_day("first","friday",$nm);
  }	else {
    $ff = $date;
  }
 
  // I know this code is crap, deal with it or fix it yourself!
 
  echo date("F j, Y", $ff);
 
?>

I apologies for the crappy code, I was either tired, drunk or both the night I wrote this.

I have broken this article into four parts to make it easier on both you, the reader, and me.  As I publish the other sections of this article, I will add a link to them.

• Part 1 – Communication/Business Tools
• Part 2 – Security/Performance Tools
• Part 3 – Media Tools
• Part 4 – Miscellaneous Tools

Avast! Antivirus

Replaces: Norton Antivirus, McAffee Antivirus
Alternatives: AVG, Avira
Pros: Unobtrusive, Lightweight, Fast

Avast! antivirus is powerful anti virus software, but, unlike its mainstream competitors, Norton and McAffee, you’ll barely be able to tell that it’s there.  Avast! is lightweight and unobtrusive, it wont bog down your system and barely bugs you unless it finds a virus or other malicious code.  The home edition of Avast! is free for 13 months if you register it, and when it expires, all you have to do is register again to get another 13 months of updates.

Download Avast! Antivirus: http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

Mirror: http://www.filehippo.com/download_avast_antivirus/

Windows Defender

Replaces: Ad-Aware
Alternatives: N/A
Pros: Unobtrusive, Lightweight, Fast

What’s that?  A product by Microsoft that isn’t a piece of crap?  And it’s free to anyone with Windows XP or Vista?!  It’s hard to believe, but it’s true, Windows Defender is actually a solid product, and free so long as you’re using XP or Vista.  Also, unlike it’s alternatives, Windows Defender never bugs you unless it finds some malicious software.  The one thing I will say that it has working against it though is that it uses Windows Update for maintaining its spyware list.

Download Windows Defender: http://tinyurl.com/dyvaw

Mirror: http://www.filehippo.com/download_microsoft_antispyware/

CCleaner

Replaces: N/A
Alternatives: N/A
Pros: Lightweight, Fast, Automation

From CCleaner.com:

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system – allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it’s fast

Download CCleaner: http://www.ccleaner.com/download

Mirror: http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

Defraggler

Replaces: Windows Defrag Tool
Alternatives: N/A
Pros: Lightweight, Fast

Defraggler is a freeware hard drive defraging tool by Piriform, the same people who created CCleaner.  Defragglers differs from most defrag tools on the market, by allowing you to easily defrag individual files, without the need to defrag the whole drive.  All you ahve to do is run it, select the file(s) you would like to defrag and in seconds that file will be fully defragmented.  Of course you always have the option to defrag the whole drive.

Download Dfraggler: http://www.defraggler.com/download

Mirror: http://www.filehippo.com/download_defraggler/

UPDATE (11/1/08): Simplified the header code and edited the syntax of the list element echo code.

The PHP

Add the following to the top of your page (before the DOCTYPE or HTML tag).

<?php
  // Get current page file name
  $page = basename($_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]);
?>

Then add the following to your menu item where you want the class designation to show up.

Each link should have this piece of code in it.  Make sure you replace “index.php” with the appropriate file name for the page. Example:

<div id="navigation">
  <ul>
    <li><a href="index.php" <?php if ($page == "index.php") echo ' class="current"' ?>>Home</a></li>
    <li><a href="resume.php">&gt;Resume</a></li>
    <li><a href="photography.php">&gt;Photography</a></li>
    <li><a href="about.php">&gt;About</a></li>
    <li><a href="contact.php">&gt;Contact</a></li>
  </ul>
</div>

Note: the 2 chevrons “>>” at the end are on purpose. One closes the PHP tag the other closes the ‘a’ tag.

The CSS

Lastly, add the following element to your style sheet and style it as you please.

#navigation ul li a.current {
  background-color: #FFF;
  border-bottom: 1px solid #FFF;
}

This process will result in the following:

I have a fairly complex, yet powerful, Windows box that I run as my primary machine and it runs great.  Now this is by no coincidence, it’s taken some hard work to make this thing run like a well oiled machine.  I do, however, owe a great deal of thanks to the plethora of free (as in beer), lightweight software I have installed.  What software you might ask?  Well here’s a list I’ve compiled of some of the best software I’ve run into that will keep your computer from slowing down and your resources free so you can do more important things, like surf for porn.

I have broken this article into four parts to make it easier on both you, the reader, and me.  As I publish the other sections of this article, I will add a link to them.

• Part 1 – Communication/Business Tools
• Part 2 – Security/Performance Tools
• Part 3 – Media Tools
• Part 4 – Miscellaneous Tools

Firefox

Replaces: Internet Explorer
Alternatives: Safari, Chrome, Opera
Pros: Speed, Extensions, Open Source

Firefox is an open source alternative web browser by Mozilla that provides a much better web browsing experience than it’s defacto alternative, Internet Explorer.  Some of the key features of Firefox include enhanced security features, increased speed, and virtually limitless customization through themes and extensions.  Be sure to pay attention as Mozilla will soon be releasing Firefox 3.1 which is supposed to include a few new features and even more speed improvements.

Recommended Extensions: Adblock Plus, Filterset.G Updater, Foxmarks Bookmark Synch, and IE Tab

Download Firefox: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Mirror: http://www.filehippo.com/download_firefox/

Thunderbird

Replaces: Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express
Alternatives: Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Windows Live Hotmail
Pros: Extensions, Open Source
Cons: No Exchange support (yet)

Another great product from the Mozilla team, the Thunderbird email client, is a great alternative to the pre-installed Outlook Express and, with the right extensions, an adequate replacement for Microsoft Outlook.  The biggest drawback with Thunderbird right now is the lack of MS Exchange support, but (as far as I know) they plan on changing that with the release of Thunderbird 3.0.

Recommended Extensions: Lightning, Provider, Enigmail

Download Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/

Mirror: http://www.filehippo.com/download_thunderbird/

Pidgin

Replaces: AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger
Alternatives: Trillian
Pros: Ad Free, Plugins, Open Source
Cons: No Video Chat (at the moment)

Pidgin is a free instant messaging platform designed to centralize the vast array of popular instant messaging protocols in to one easy to use program.  Pidgin allows you to be logged on to multiple instant messaging systems at the same time through one simple user interface.  The following protocols are supported: AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, Gtalk/Jabber, ICQ, Gadu Gadu, and more…

Download Pidgin: http://www.pidgin.im/download

Mirror: http://www.filehippo.com/download_pidgin/

OpenOffice.org

Replaces: Microsoft Office
Alternatives: N/A
Pros: Plugins, Open Source, Can read from and write to MS Office files
Cons: (Very) Slight Learning Curve

Just get a new computer and don’t want to fork out another $150 for word processing software?  Well then OpenOffice.org is your answer!  OpenOffice.org is a free and open source office software suite.  Included are applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more.  And just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, OpenOffice.org 3.0 is currently in it’s third revision of a release candidate and will hopefully be out with a final version soon.

Download OpenOffice.org: http://download.openoffice.org/index.html

Mirror: http://www.filehippo.com/download_openoffice/

Notepad++

Replaces: Notepad
Alternatives: Notepad2, Jedit
Pros: Lightweight, Plugins, Open Source
Cons: N/A

Notepad++ is one of many Notepad replacements.  Unlike typical Notepad, however, Notepad++ features many front and back end improvements.  On the front end you have such noticeable features like tabbed files, line numbers, syntax highlighting, syntax folding, and code completion.  In terms of back end improvements, the following is taken from the Notepad++ homepage:

Based on a powerful editing component Scintilla, Notepad++ is written in C++ and uses pure Win32 API and STL which ensures a higher execution speed and smaller program size.

Download Notepad++: http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

Mirror: http://www.filehippo.com/download_notepad/

Foxit Reader

Replaces: Adobe PDF Reader
Alternatives: N/A
Pros: Lightweight, Fast, Plugins, Annotation Tool
Cons: Occasional Rendering Mistakes (very rare)

Of all the software on this list, you will probably notice the biggest difference in speed and performance when using Foxit Reader.  Compared to the “official” Adobe PDF Reader, Foxit Reader is incredibly small (just over 2.5MB),  blazing fast, and its core function is compatible with PDF Standard 1.7.  Foxit Reader also comes standard with an annotation tool, unlike Adobe, who would charge you $299 for their pro version to get feature.

Download Foxit Reader: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader_2/down_reader.htm

Mirror: http://www.filehippo.com/download_foxit/

CutePDF Writer

Replaces: Adobe PDF Writer
Alternatives: N/A
Pros: Lightweight, Fast
Cons: N/A

Lastly, CutePDF Writer is a very lightweight PDF creation program.  After installing CutePDF Writer, creating a .PDF document is as easy as 1, 2, 3.  All you have to do is 1) choose the print option from the document you wish to convert.  2) Select the CutePDF option under the list of printers.  3) Choose a location to save the document and hit the save button.

Download CutePDF Writer: http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp

Mirror: http://www.filehippo.com/download_cutepdf_writer/

How would you go about doing that you might ask, well I’ve got the solution for you: IPCop!

What is IPCop?

IPCop is a secure Linux distribution managed through a web-interface. It turns an old PC into a firewall and VPN gateway. Features an Intrusion Detection System.  Check it out at http://www.ipcop.org.

What are the hardware requirements for IPCop?

I ran IPCop on an old system I had lying around.  Specs:

• Pentium 2
• 320MB PC100/133 RAM
• 20GB HDD (Overkill, but the smallest I had)
• 2 NICs
• ATI Rage 8MB Video Card *
• CD ROM *
• Cardboard and packaging tape (to keep as much cat/dog hair out as possible… and for STYLE!)

* Only needed for install

The actual requirements are pretty low.  You probably only need a 2-5GB hard drive, smaller if don’t plan on keeping any logs.  Also, if you’re not planning on running the intrusion detection system, you could get away with 64MB of RAM easily.

Where do I get it?

Go to http://www.ipcop.org and choose “Download” from the menu on the left.  This will forward you to a SourceForge page.  Find the latest version and download the .ISO file.  You will then have to use some CD burning software to burn the .ISO as a bootable CD.

How do I install IPCop?

IPCop couldn’t have been easier to install.  You just pop the CD you burned in the last step into your CD ROM drive and boot the computer.  Make sure your computer is set to boot from the CD drive first, otherwise this wont work.  Once the install CD boots, just follow the on-screen instructions.  Most of the options are pretty straigt forward, if you’re at all confused about any of it, refer to the documentation found here: http://www.ipcop.org/index.php?module=pnWikka&tag=IPCopDocumentation

Also, this episode of Systm was a great resource: http://revision3.com/systm/firewall/, I highly recommend checking this out before you start your project.

Got anything else?

Web interface screenshots @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/kankie/sets/72157607445592055/detail/