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Girl Geek, Integrated Search, Website Optimisation and… Pandas?

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Google Buzz Settings – Where are they?

February 11th, 2010 · Social Media

I’ve seen quite a few people getting frustrated with the latest Google toy over the last 24/48 hours – principally because it is very noisy and it is right there in your inbox so very hard to ignore – especially with email notifications coming in on everything.

Google also haven’t made it very obvious how you can get rid of buzz if you don’t want it, or at the very least disable email notifications. I’m sure they will respond to demand for these fairly basic features in due course but for the moment these are the only easy options I’ve managed to find.

1) Switching Buzz off completely.
Scroll to the bottom of your gmail inbox and you will see a list of footer links at the bottom – one of which is the option to switch Buzz off.

Switching Buzz off

2) Filtering out the email notifications sent by Buzz

So far at least, I haven’t seen an option to swith email notifications off… the only method I know of to at least not have to visible see the emails is to set up a filter so that these are auto-archived – ie. they still exist in your inbox, you just don’t see them unless you do a search on them.

  • Create a new filter
  • Choose search criteria as: Has the words: is:buzz (It may give you a warning to not to use this – ignore it!)
  • Choose action as: Skip the inbox (Archive it)
  • Choose action: Apply the label: Buzz From (or whatever you want to call it)
  • Create filter.

Email Notification filter – Step 1


Filtering out Buzz Email Notifications - Step 1

Email Notification filter – Step 2

I like to use the label becuase it allows you to quickly access everything you’ve auto-archived, just in case you did want to see it all.

Filtering out Buzz Email Notifications - Step 2

Apologies for the  ‘idiot’s guide to’ approach but seems there are quite a few people getting a tad irate with the amount of noise Buzz has been adding to their inbox who’ve never set up a gmail filter before.

→ No CommentsTags:buzz·buzz settings

Spotify Playlist: Pain & Productivity

February 4th, 2010 · Music

Just a quick post of another playlist for y’all. This one’s themed ‘Pain & Productivity’ based on two key reasons. Yep 1) I was in quite a lot of pain and 2) I needed to be pretty productive.

The Pain: Returning from a week’s snowboarding holiday having cracked my ribs on the 2nd day. I got through the rest of the days through a combination painkillers overdosing and indecent amounts of vin chaud. The eventual return to work (and earth, with one hell of a bump) caused the rib pain to feel a lot more real.

The Productivity: Well after a week away, my inbox had returned to its usual overflowing good self and all those ‘little’ tasks I’d put off in the anticipation of a holiday had come right back around to smack me in the face (well ribs).

I’ve scientifically tested this playlist’s ability to both reduce pain and increase productivity numerous times this week – and I am confident in proclaiming its effectiveness.

One apology for the poor quality of the Ada song – its taken from a mix rather than her album. Blame Spotify, soz. On that note however, the Ada album – Blondie is a must-own for anyone half into minimal/melodic electro.

Spotify Playlist – Pain & Productivity here: http://open.spotify.com/user/pachanga17/playlist/0oNkynAwG1rkvRe79MPgvf

Tracklisting here:

Neutral Milk Hotel – Two-Headed Boy
We Are Scientists – After Hours
Phoenix – If I Ever Feel Better
Spinnerette – Geeking
The Postal Service – Such Great Heights
Röyksopp – What Else Is There? (Trentemøller Remix)
Ada – Cool My Fire (I’m Burning)
Young Love – Discotech
Erykah Badu – You Got Me
Gary Hobbs and the Hot Sauce Band – Maniac
Jenny Wilson – Like A Fading Rainbow
Queens Of The Stone Age – Go With The Flow
Johnny Flynn – Tickle Me Pink
Modest Mouse – The View
Mos Def, Pharoahe Monch, Nate Dogg – Oh No
The Roots – The Seed (2.0)
Idlewild – When I Argue I See Shapes
The Cure – A Forest – Tree Mix
Dntel feat. Erlend Oye – (This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chang (Safety Scissors Spilled My Drink Mix)
Mylo featuring Freeform Five – Muscle Car – DJ T Remix
Woolfy vs. Projections – Absynth – Marcus Worgull Remix

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Optimise vs Optimize Part Deux

January 15th, 2010 · Analytics, SEO

UPDATE

Google were clearly having their usual playaround, just joshing wit’ ya, haha funny funny joke around yesterday – and the SERPs for “search engine optimisation” are back to their usual selve with no auto-correct from optimisation to optimization.

However Malcolm Coles has done some more research into Google and its desire to change the way we spell and has made some really interesting points. It’s not auto-correct as such but Google is certainly nominating itself as a rather over eager teacher – telling you when you’ve spelt something ‘wrong’ and what it is you most probably really searching for – WHETHER (weather) YOU LIKE IT OR NOT.

Another example I stumbled across is Humour/Humourous. Aside from auto-correct, I’d also be interested to know more about how the algorithm works on ‘did you mean’ suggestions and whether this then relates to search volume, leading to possible auto correction.
So for example e.g. Humour has no “did you mean” suggestion and only shows correct results for the UK-spelt Humour with a u.

humour serps

Meanwhile Humourous does have a “did you mean: humorous” suggestion with the top two results from that serp being shown.

humourous serps

Interestingly Insights for Search shows that like Macolm’s Stationery/Stationary example, there has been a crossover in search volume – with the volume of searches for ‘humour’ dropping while the volume of searches for ‘humor’ has increased.

YET – there is not even a ‘did you mean’ let alone any form of auto-correction for that keyword! (Apologies for the poor quality of my images – few technical issues…)

I’m definitely planning on monitoring a few of these examples more closely going forward – there is obviously a logical reason behind auto-correcting poor spelling to some extent. However Google is taking is to absolute extreme in some cases, and seemingly not touching it in others.

And again for a user’s perspective – is it really preferred to by default auto-correct rather than give us the option of clicking on a ‘did you mean’ button?
Maybe not auto-correcting would actually also help teach us to spell more correctly in the first place if we are erring of the righteous path – AND allow those that spelt it correctly in the first place the option of not shouting irritably at the computer for auto-correcting yet again.

Meanwhile from an SEO perspective, being constantly aware of the possibility of auto correction may take a serious toll in keyword research. If I run a website of ‘humourous photos’ in Britain and I optimise for it – I don’t want to find myself in 3rd position (which is technically 1st) just because Google sees fit to show me the first two results for ‘humorous photos’ above JUST IN CASE.
Similarly – should I then be focusing my efforts on my ‘humorous photos’ just because I know I will be top for both humourous and humorous thanks to “did you mean”? Seems a tad unfair to me.

→ 1 CommentTags:Analytics·SEO·uk serps

Search Engine Optimisation or is that Search Engine Optimization?

January 14th, 2010 · SEO

Bit of an outcry today about Google changing its default results for Search Engine OptimiSation to Search Engine OptimiZation.

Search Engine Optimisation SERPs

I’m fascinated by this subject as I spend a lot of my time looking at multilingual SEO and the localisation that entails as well as the difference that accents etc. can make. The English language is supposedly simpler than that and not subject to so many tiny but impactful tweaks.

Unfortunately my to-do list currently has about 10,000 things on it and a well-resesarched post into the ins out outs of this topic is sadly fairly low down the priority level.

For my entire life at least, I’ve understood the -ISE version of words to be innately British (and usually Australian, Kiwi etc. too) while the -IZE version of words is all-American.

According to Nichola over at SEO-Chicks’ research, this is not entirely true. Roll in the  Greek vs. French war. I still struggle to believe the search results data Nichold found a little – if there’s one thing the Brits are good at, it’s pointing out what the ‘correct’ English is and I can’t think of anyone I know who wouldn’t vote for the  -ISE option, let alone deliberately search for -IZE.

Meanwhile Andrew Girdwood from Bigmouth notes that it is perhaps only the phrase SEO that is really affected by these latest fun times with Google, meanwhile other examples such as Gloablisation or Privatisation still only maintain the old “Did You Mean” option.

I don’t think it’s any real surprise that Google has gone as far as auto-changing the search results. The SEO industry is the USA is far greater than it is here, for the most part the two countries’ worlds cross over massively as do their SEOs and all the optimisation/optimization searching that goes with it.

What does bother me is the extra step it’s taking towards so-called Utlitarianism (ooh hark back to my days of being a Philosphy undergraduate – ack). It’s the constant idea that it’s all for the greater good. With all the changes to the UK SERPs in recent months, and now this auto-change. It seems that Google is ever increasingly only focusing on the bigger picture.

Note definition according to wikipedia: Utilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its utility in providing happiness or pleasure as summed among all people. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome.

The problem with the Utilitarianism theory put forward by Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and the like is that the criticisms of it can be critiqued to death and so on and so forth. Is there a solution? Should we just accept that -IZE is correctly, supposedly equally if not more popular in usage in Britian and definitely more popular in the US and therefore bow down to the auto-correct?

I like a rant, I can’t help it. Yes optimization is recognised as correct spelling usage, yes us UK-ers understand it and are used to having to suck up auto-correct in MSWord and all the rest of it. But even if the search results, like Nichola’s post shows, are really majority in favour of -IZE (and this only by a margin), does it really really need to be auto-changed?? I don’t mind the old ‘Did You Mean’ feature, we’re used to it, we can choose to click it if we want to and us 49% who still prefer searching for Search Engine OptimiSation, it’s nice to have the option.

Oh and as a final note, look at my Google suggest (UK – not personalised). Isn’t that pretty. :P

search engine optimisation - google suggest

→ No CommentsTags:SEO·uk serps

Mac Leopard – Frozen Dock Problems?

January 13th, 2010 · Mac Pointers

I still haven’t figured out WHY the darn thing keeps doing it but if like me you’ve been gradually been driven crazy but a Mac dock that seems to freeze regularly while the rest of the your programs continue to run fine – for no apparent reason – I have found the answer to your prayers. Maybe I’m just a slow naive mac user, but I couldn’t figure out the solution.
Of course – turns out it’s crazy simple obvious mate init.

1. Go to Spotlight
2. Search for the Terminal
3. Type (case sensitive) killall Dock
4. Breathe huge sigh of relief as your frozen dock restarts and all is well with the world again.

Over and out.

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