Author Archives: Casey Woods

9 Reasons To Love WordPress

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I’m sure that there are more that 9 reasons to love WordPress as a blogging platform, but here’s the ones that stand out for me:

#9 – Free Themes Galore!
I built my own theme from scratch but I’m not exactly your average blogger either. Do a quick search and you’ll uncover thousands of free themes that can be downloaded and quickly applied to any WordPress Blog. If you’re not a designer, or don’t know how to PHP, then you have a lot of options. If you want to build your own them then there is no shortage of downloadable source code to peruse. Theme Viewer is a great place to start if you’re looking for some inspiration or to download a new theme.
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Using Social Networks to Research Your Website’s Audience

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Using social information to measure user information is an effective way for bloggers to understand what their readers like. It is also possible to use the methods we’ve outlined here to measure the popularity and effectiveness of pages on a corporate web site.

I check my Google Analytics quite frequently to get a feel for what my readers are most interested in. My WordPress Popularity Contest Plugin is also helpful in showing me which posts are getting the most attention. And lastly, the number of comments is also a good indicator of what you’re all interested in.

It hadn’t occurred to me to actually do research in Digg and Del.icio.us to see which of my posts got the most play on the social networking scene. Nice work by the guys at Read/Write Web to document their research process.

Google Local Search is Going to Kill the Yellow Pages

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If you run a business then you NEED to be registered in Google Local search.

Remember the Yellow Pages? I’m sure I must have a phone book around here somewhere? Maybe I’m just really “bleeding edge”, but I can’t remember the last time I went to the phone book to find a local business. I just go straight to Google and I don’t think that I’m alone. Seriously, when was the last time you looked for a local business in the Yellow Pages?

Google is now giving preferential treatment in their main search results to businesses that have registered with Google local search. When I say that, I mean that local search results are showing up at the top of the page when you do a search that includes a place name and product/service (e.g. “Calgary Computer Consulting”). You can add your business to Google’s local search results by clicking the “Business Owners: Add/Edit Your Business” link at the bottom of any Google Maps page.

Times have changed. You need to change with them. If you’re not in Google’s local search results then you are losing business right now.

What are you waiting for? Stop reading this blog and go get your business listed!
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Memo to ISPs: The SPAM Problem is Partly Your Fault

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ISPs are one of the most vocal opponents of SPAM because it eats up their bandwidth. Yet, a lot of ISPs continue to allow their customers to send email out to the world on TCP port 25 with no restrictions. Huh?

I’m of the opinion that the ISPs need to take more responsibility for the email that is leaving their networks. If you are an ISP and you have SPAM zombie PCs on your network spewing thousands of outbound SPAM messages per day, then you need to shut them down. Continue reading →

LTSP Linux Thin Client School Project Update

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I just got back from my son’s school where we’ve been rolling out LTSP thin clients into the classrooms. Eventually we’ll be converting almost all of the computers in both buildings (200+ PCs) into thin clients.

Why Thin Clients?

Let’s get one thing straight: 200+ Windows 2000 desktops in a K-12 setting is a Gong Show. There are no other words to describe it. Continue reading →

Computer World Windows Expert Ditches Windows For a Mac

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Bye-bye Windows! My three-month Macintosh trial has ended, but my permanent gig with the Mac is just getting started. Apple’s MacBook Pro and Mac OS X are now my computer and operating system of choice.If you give the Mac three months, as I did, you won’t go back either. The hardest part is paying for it — everything after that gets easier and easier. Perhaps fittingly, it took me the full three-month trial period to pay off my expensive MacBook Pro. But the darn thing is worth every penny.Windows expert to Redmond: Buh-bye

I can’t say that I’m terribly surprised.

Almost everyone I know who has spent any quality time with Mac OS X has bought one (or developed a serious case of Mac Envy) in relatively short order.

Unless you’re a hard-core 3D gamer, the combination of Mac X and Parallels running Windows XP (when absolutely necessary!) is a very tough combination to beat.

Official Support for “freebsd-update” in FreeBSD 6.2 is a Big Deal

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Before the FreeBSD veterans jump down my throat, I know that the “freebsd-update” command (and its accompanying unofficial binary security updates) has been available in the ports collection for ages.

However, as a relatively recent FreeBSD convert, I think its a pretty big deal that it is now offically supported as part of the base install. You see, a lot of Linux folks have gotten pretty used to typing “aptitude update” and then “aptitude upgrade” in order to install security updates. As a result, the idea of moving to FreeBSD and having to deal with source code, patches, compiling, etc. seems pretty old school and even a little scary. I know its not (if you can read the handbook) but it is certainly a barrier to entry for some. Continue reading →

XHTML Sitemaps, WordPress, and Google

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I was just reading an article on setting up an XHTML sitemap over at Pearsonified (Use an XHTML Sitemap for Better Indexing) and remembered something that I had read recently on the Google Webmaster Guidelines:

Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).

Before you say it: I’ve already got the XML sitemap and it has been submitted to Google and it does list all the pages on my site. I’ve also submitted it to Yahoo! Continue reading →

Navigate the Anti-SPAM Filter Maze With Common Sense!

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Getting your legitimate email through the maze of SPAM filters is a tricky business. Many of the “gotchas” are the result of an improperly configured technical details on your end of things (eg. your server, your DNS, your mail client, etc.). The problem for 99% of email senders is they have very little control over these details but they can control the content of their emails. Here is where the common sense kicks in: If you email looks like SPAM then it is going to get treated like SPAM!

SPAM filtering 101

Most good SPAM filters use some form of Bayesian Analysis to do statistical analysis on the text content of your email. I’ll spare you the gory details, but essentially these filters learn common text patterns from SPAM email and then use that information to filter out SPAM.

If you send email that contains “spammy” content then there is a much better chance that your message will end up getting blocked. Continue reading →

Try an OpenWRT Wireless Distribution System (WDS) to Extend Your Network

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My home network is based on a Wireless Distribution System (WDS) that runs on two Linksys WRT54G wireless routers that have been flashed with OpenWRT open source firmware (currently Whiterussion RC5).

Last year I was forced to move up to the second floor of the house due to the noise generated by 3 kids under the age of 7. Yeah, the house is noisy. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the foresight to run ethernet cable upstairs back in 1999 so I had a bit of a problem: How do I get my Shaw cable modem connection from the basement ot the second floor? (I’ve had it with Telus – DSL was not an option) Continue reading →