• I’m now running Firefox 3 betas thanks to MultiFireFox.
• MidnightFox was updated the other day with incorrect buttons.  Oops.  That has been re-uploaded and should be made public soon.
• yExplore and GA? have been updated for Firefox 3. Actually, for the beats not the official release.  That’ll happen when the final release comes out.
• Now that I am running Firefox 3, I can start theming it.
• Just started to watch Entourage.  It seems like a pretty cool show.
• Watching the second season of Monk too which is an awesome TV show.
• I’m totally lost on Lost but I love it.
• I’m going to be speaking on SEO and web design next week at the Art Institutes MN.  That’ll be fun since I use to go to school there and I’m not big on public speaking.
• I just bought Delicious Library.  It’s such a great program to keep track of music, movies and games.
• I’m now using MoodBlast to update my Facebook, Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku status’.  I’d love to see this as a web based app much like TwitterFeed so it can automatically post my blog posts too.

That’s what I got at the moment.

Granted, I think that even being dead, he’s got better link love. He’s a Harvard grad that has written eighty scientific papers, two scientific books, had six inventions patented, and published three novels. Yea, well I’ve created like eight Firefox themes.

If you’d like to help me beat out Thomas McMahon (Harvard guy) in Google searches, link back to this post (or www.twistermc.com) with ‘Thomas McMahon’ as your link text. If you want to vote for the other guy, well that’s just rude.

Yes, it’s true, I could probably go and re-optimize my website for ‘Thomas McMahon’ but I don’t really want to go that far. I’m hoping just a few links help. If not, oh well.

What do I get if I become #1? Nothing. Except the satisfaction that if someone searches for my name, it doesn’t immediately pop up and tell them I’m dead.

Thanks to those who wrote in requesting the update. It really helps me get a feel for who’s using it.

In the latest version of MacOSX, Wikipedia has it’s own tab in the dictionary. It’ll connect up to the internet and do your Wikipedia search for you.

I kind of have mixed feelings on this. Wikipedia is a good source for information, but is it really worthy of beign added into the OS? We never added any other type of encyclopedia service in the past. On the other hand, Wikipedia is very nice for researching topics. They seem to have all the facts and a good community driven site. So I guess it’s not a bad thing.

Wikipedia just kind of showed up one day and has been building momentum ever since. Google backs it quite a bit by ranking most Wikipedia pages very well. But what’s the future for Wikipedia? Will it continue to grow and be a valuable resource? Or will it end up corrupt and pointless like the DMOZ?

However, with advancements comes a few more bug reports.

1. GA? doesn’t update the status bar icon when switching between windows . Actually this may be a non issue. I’m still thinking that one over.

2. GA? only detects Google Analytics if the code is embedded in the body of the document. If the Google Analytics code is in the head of the document, that that doesn’t count. I’m looking into ways to check all HTML, not just the body copy. However, Google does tell you to put it in the body of the document

Enjoy and let me know if you come across any bugs.

GA? can be downloaded at Mozilla’s Addon site.

yExplore 1.6.1 has been updated and released!

The new version updates the domain URL structure to work correctly with the updated Yahoo Site Explorer. It also adds in support for newer versions of Flock and adds Netscape 9.0 support.

Enjoy!

Now, lets forget the basics of personalization here and just focus on the message I received:

At what point would you pitch a blogger who has got a design background when you can’t even get your fonts to match?! There are bold, italic, all caps, and more than one font in use in this email. My first impression of comes from your email and that’s definitely not a good one.

Needless to say, I didn’t respond.

The first thing I love is the ability to have multiple profiles.

I have a handful of profiles and where as switching between each one isn’t to difficult in Google Analytics, it is a bit tedious. With Google Analytics Reporting Suite, I can save profiles (aka bookmarks) for each account I want to access. Then I just double click and I’m in. No more having to load the GA website, enter a password, choose a profile then a site and then getting to the stats. This is just so much simpler.

Then, once you’re in the layout is a bit different and the look is new too.

I’m not saying it’s better but it’s not bad and grows on you. I like it a little more each day.

One of the nice features inside is that it records every area you click in a tab. That way you can cruise your analytics account and easily backup to previous areas.

I have to say I was skeptical at first, but Google Analytics Reporting Suite running on Adobe AIR is a great application. It allows you to quickly access your stats and get the data you want easily. To make it even better, it runs on Mac and Windows, so go check it out!

In this example, I searched for Carrie Underwood and got a bit of spam instead.

Since YouTube is owned by Google, you’d think they could detect this. Tons of keywords strung together should be pretty easy to detect. Or what about noticing that a video is tagged with nude or porn but it’s not marked as adult? How hard would it be to detect that? Or what about videos that have the same title, same description, same running time and that were uploaded at the same time? Can we say duplicate content? It seems Google’s SEO rules are not in play at YouTube.

Come on YouTube, you’re starting to show weakness and if you don’t watch out, some other video site will take all your users.

Each extension will be undergoing some updates as I work towards version 1.0, but testing is a big part.

Thanks

Here are some visuals:

Refreshments

Networking

Partying at the Google Dance at Google’s Offices

Inside the Googleplex looking for ranking insider tips or Matt Cutts.

Stalking Matt Cutts.

Totally BFF with Matt Cutts now.*

TopRank Blogging Team, minus the boss.

The boss getting interviewed by NBC.

Many more photos at the TopRank Flickr account and session recaps at the Online Marketing Blog.

*No, not really.

Here’s what I have so far:

• Turn down the screen brightness as far as it can go and still be usable.
• Turn off BlueTooth
• Turn off Airport when not in use.
• Turn off any applications not in use.
• Turn Quicksliver to only re-index every day, not hour.
• Optimize the energy saver preferences.

What other thoughts do you have to share? How can I get my MacBook Pro to last all day without plugging in?

If you happen to be out at the search engine strategies conference, keep an eye out for me and say HI! You’ll be able to notice me with my shinny new MacBook Pro!

To get the best results out of Google Analytics, you need to ensure it’s installed on each page of a website. To automatically check for you, I’ve created a Firefox extension to do all the work.

GA? will put a little icon in the status bar of your Firefox web browser. It will then check each page you load to to see if it has Google Analytics installed. If so, it’ll show a colored bar chart. If Google Analytics doesn’t appear to be installed, it’ll show a gray bar chart.

This is a handy little tool if you have a smaller website, if want to do a spot check on a handful of pages or if you want to ensure that certain pages are being tracked.

Works with Firefox 1.5, 2 & 3.

Known Issues:
1. It doesn’t currently re-check for each tab or window you cycle through. It only checks the page that completed loading last. Updates are planned for it to refresh per window or tab focus.  : Version 0.5 updates on tab change.

2. It doesn’t detect Google Analytics code put in the head of the document.  It only searches the body of each page. Working in version 1.0.

Try it out and let me know what you think.

GA? can be downloaded at Mozilla’s Addon site.

Developed and tested on a Mac running Firefox 2.x & 3. Works well on Windows too. Unsure of how well it work in Firefox versions less than 2.x.

Google Personalized Search Switch is a Firefox extension that adds the ability to turn on and off Google’s personalized search results by just clicking on the icon in the status bar.

When you want personalized search results turned off, click on the eyes and close them. The extension will then add the pre-defined Google variable, &pws=0, to the URL of any future Google web searches. There is no need for you to log out of your Google account.

When you want personalized search back on, simply click the eyes in the status bar and the extension will remove the custom variable from future web searches.

If your eyes are grayed out, then it appears that you are not logged into your Google account.

The Google Personalized Search Switch extension is still in development. Any comments on how to make it better, or bug reports, are very welcome.

CLICK TO INSTALL - Google Personalized Search Switch v0.5 - Beta

Developed and tested on a Mac running Firefox 2.x. Works well on Windows too. Unsure of how well it work in Firefox versions less or greater than 2.x.

Mint
This has to be one of the best stats programs out there. For $30 you get the code and install it on your own server. It’s no harder than installing Wordpress which means it’s quite easy. It comes with the basic functionality and you get to choose what elements you’d like to install to customize your own stats look and feel. It’s kind of like Firefox and having the ability to add extensions/functionality as you wish. Very easy to use and you have all your stats information at your fingertips, on your own site.

Google Analytics
A must install for any website. Sure, it may give you more data that you know what your looking at, but you should at least have it for the future. Google Analytics is 100% free and very in-depth. It’s great for those who want details and like digging into every aspect. I do like this information, but feel it’s a bit much to look at on a daily basis.

Clicky (aka Performancing Stats)
I liked the interface and it seemed to work quite well. However, it is a work in progress and is getting better all the time. They recently added the ability to report on blocks of time (like the past month) so it’s starting to rank higher in my book. It’ll be interesting to see where this one goes. The free version maxes out at 1000 visitors a day though so it doesn’t work for this site without paying.

FeedBurner StandardStats
I like FeedBurner’s StandardStats too. Simple and easy to use. All the basics are there; incoming traffic, outgoing traffic, pages and visitors. Another nice, and free, basic stats program. However, now that Google purchased it, I wouldn’t be surprised if the stats all rolled into Google Analytics.

103Bees
I’m not sure if it’s the bland interface or the odd usability but I’m not overjoyed about this one. It seems like it should be nice but I just can’t myself to use it.

Wordpress.com Stats (blog only)
I’m getting mixed signals with this one. With one site, it worked for a few days, then didn’t work for many more afterwards . I about gave up when it started working again. With other sites, it just works. Overall, it is a nice and simple interface that anyone can adapt to. Plus it’s free. It’s not that indepth, but is great for those that just want a quick overview of the past day or two.

Webalizer/AWStats
Ok, I’m really just putting this on the list so that people know that they are not the best stats programs. They usually come installed by default on most web servers and are better than nothing. However, they have a tendency to track things like css files and javascript files. In reality, we only want to track what pages visitors go to. If you just run Webalizer or AWStats, it’s time to look into something more indepth.

Now I know there are lots more stats programs out there. Some cost money, others are free and not all are worth the time and effort. Those above are a mix of free and low cost stats programs that all work well and they are a great addition to any site.

What stats program have you found that you like?

Another one of their billboard says ‘The Algorithm Killed Jeeves’. Well, that doesn’t make me want to use it. If the algorithm offed the butler, it doesn’t sound like a cool thing to me. I liked Jeeves!

It’ll be interesting to see where Ask goes with these commercials. From what I understand, they are done by an agency that does the Burger King commercials and I don’t like most of them either. Except the ‘Spongebob No Pants’ one. That one made me smile.

I like Ask and I think they are doing a good thing by getting their brand in front of more people. I just question if the tactics being used are going to resonate with viewers, or be over their heads.

Ohh and if you don’t know what an algorithm is, it’s the way a search engine ranks websites in order to give the user the best results.

Now, I haven’t read the book yet, but since I’m in it, it has to be good. Right?

You can get your copy of Search Engine Optimization with PHP on Amazon today. From what I’ve paged though, it looks like it should be a great read.

The first on was a Thai restaurant. Now if you ask me where I’d like to go eat, I’d say KFC or out for pizza. Thai however has never been on my radar but I went anyways.

My group helped me pick out something good to eat based on my likes and dislikes. Non spicy was a high priority. I ended up with something with chicken and big rice noodles and I have to say, it was very good. The table also ordered some sushi and other things that I did try. I have to say it was quite a good experience and reminded me of a Chinese restaurant.

On a separate night, and with a different group, we decided to go to a Greek restaurant. Now I’ve seen A Big Fat Greek Wedding but that’s as close to Greek food as I’ve gotten. The menu was much easier to understand and I ended up with a fantastic chicken dish with potatoes and rice. The table also shared flaming cheese which was literally on fire when it came. I’ll definitely try a Greek restaurant again.

When I’m alone, or with the wife, I think that a Thai restaurant is not something we would have really given a chance. Greek on the other hand has been on our mind, but not a high priority. Overall, I was very happy with both my experiences and am glad that I gave them a chance.

So, if I don’t get back to your blog comments, form posts or email in the next few days, you’ll know why.