This is an box for a short bio to be edited in the header.php file. Of course you can try to persuade people to Edit HTML in Realtime »
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- We try to post about free and low-cost software that we find specifically related to web development and graphic design, etc. Recently, we found a pretty cool little coding tool from squarefree.com. It is a real-time HTML code editor. It is handy if one is trying to learn the HTML basics because they will be able to see instant results in a split-screen format. Enter the HTML code in the top section of the screen and the bottom of the screen will show you how your code will be displayed in a web browser.
So, if you are a noob (PS. You are a noob if you do not know what a noob is) and you want to wet your feet with a little HTML coding, check it out. Plus, it is free to use 
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Adobe Creative Suite 4 Voice Recognition »
Adobe has updated and released its Creative Suite 4 for professional media production (aff). This latest version is Adobe’s largest software release to date and contains six application bundles.
A new feature that I particularly keyed in on is Creative Suite’s ability to recognize human speech contained in a video. That is awesome! This means that if you create a video, you can compile the spoken words in that video into searchable metadata. How long before the Search Engines are able to crawl videos and pull out speech for use in indexing? Cool stuff.
Another new tool is the Rotate View tool which will allow the user to view images at any angle with no distortion. More cool stuff.
PPC Click Fraud Rate Q2 2008 »
There is good news and bad news for PPC advertisers on the issue of click fraud for the second quarter of 2008. Click Forensics has released their click fraud numbers for last quarter and so I will give you the good news first:
- Click fraud rates went down last quarter (16.0 percent) compared to the previous quarter (16.2 percent).
Other than that, that is about all the good news for PPC advertisers and click fraud. Here is the bad news:
- Most click fraud happens on Search Engine content networks (Google Adsense and Yahoo! Publisher Network, for example). On those networks, the fraud rate was 27.1 percent last quarter.
- 27.6 percent of click fraud traffic came from botnets, which is up more than 2 percent from last quarter (25.2 percent). Another reason for users to protect their computers from hackers.
- Russia (4.9 percent), France (4.8 percent) and the U.K. (3.5 percent) are the coutries most responsible for click fraud traffic outside the U.S.
The sad thing about this is that, according to Tom Cuthbert, president of Click Forensics, a primary reason for the slight decline in click fraud from last quarter is because of the efforts of the ADVERTISERS, not necessarily the Ad networks. According to Click Forensics, the advertisers have spent more time checking their clicks and filtering out the fraudulent ones before their campaigns were affected. The Ad Networks have made better strides in doing that automatically, but it is still not enough. In the end, it is still up to the people who pay to double-check their accounts, which is unfortunate that it has to be left up to them.
With the PPC click fraud rate being 16 percent industry wide, that loosely translates into $16.00 out of every $100 you spend is lining the pockets of some person who is not the least bit interested in your product or service. If your monthly budget is $100, you are paying a lot per year for fraudulent clicks. Pretty steep to me.
If you only advertise on Google and Yahoo, that number could climb to $27 out of $100, loosly figured.
This indicates that one should not just jump into Internet Advertising without examining all the angles. It can certainly provide great benefits, but also presents risks that one should measure first.
It should also be noted about Click Forensics that their data are gathered from their own network called the Click Fraud Network. That network is made up of more than 4,500 online advertisers and agencies, but it does not include everyone. So, if you are weighing the pros and cons of PPC advertising, you should review data from multiple sources including the actual Ad Network you are considering joining.
Yahoo! Rolls Out Web Analytics Beta »
Five months after acquiring web analytics company Index Tools, Yahoo! has announced that they are launching Web Analytics Beta. That is actually a pretty quick turnaround, I think. There is quite a bit of work involved in platform modification. Maybe the threatened mutiny by Yahoo! shareholders fanned the flames .
Currently, the Beta version is only released for use by a targeted group:
- Yahoo! Store
- Yahoo! Developers (Y!OS)
- Yahoo! Head Advertisers (Microsites)
If you do not fall into at least one of those categories, “No soup for you”. You will have to be patient and wait your turn.
You can, however, visit the Yahoo! Web Analytics website and signup to receive updates and get a sneak peek at some screenshots of the dashboard.
Dennis Mortenson explains on his blog:
…this is not a free-for-all-come-and-get-it launch, but a carefully planned controlled access launch, which will keep all of our functionality in place and even enhance it. There is no dumbing down of the tool in any of the engagements above – and we will be working hard to add to the list of customers who can get access. So expect the above list to grow rapidly over the course of 2008.
Michael Stebbins also reported on this on his web analytics blog, which is a must read.
Until everything is released to the masses, we will just have to wait and keep using Google Analytics and ClickTracks.
Microsoft Opening European Search Centers »
Steve Balmer of Microsoft announced Thursday that they were opening 3 R&D centers in Europe as part of their ongoing efforts to catch up to Google in Search Engine market share. The search center locations would be in Munich, Paris and London.
Microsoft also announced that it was going to be increasing its $600 million/yr European research and development budget. They are also anticipating employing several hundred including software developers.
The center in Paris is expected to be open in March 2009 and they are getting some pretty nice tax breaks too. Microsoft will get 30 euros back for every 100 euros it invests.
Speaking in Paris, Balmer said:
We are the challenger, not the leader, in search, but we believe strongly that search is in its infancy and there is so much room for innovation. For companies like Microsoft search is the key for unlocking huge new opportunities in advertising.
In the US, Microsoft barely has 8% of the search market share, compared to Google’s 62%. But in Europe, Microsoft’s share is even less at 2 percent.
Faststone Screen Capture is an absolute "can't do without" piece of software. Capture screenshots in a fixed window or with the scrolling window feature. It even has a screen color-picker that will tell you the code for any color that is displayed on your screen. Love it. Oh, its free too! 
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