The 28-year old first baseman has been on L.A.’s most wanted list for a while, considering he was about to be a free agent. But talks of securing him came to an end after a game-changing deal yesterday, when the Cincinnati Reds extended Votto’s contract for another ten years and $225 million–the largest contract ever given to a player who wasn’t a free agent. This–along with Matt Cain’s $112 million deal with the San Francisco Giants–will certainly change the landscape of baseball contracts forever.

“There will be an impact, I’m sure,” Brewers GM Doug Melvin said. “Any signing impacts other people who haven’t signed.”

Votto, who is both an MVP and a Golden Glove winner, will now be with the Reds until 2023.

Twitter is buzzing with the news today as Votto fans give their approval of the deal, although some think the amount is outrageous.

The Chromium Projects page features a new design document that details a password generator for Chome that seeks to make passwords harder for people to steal by not even having the account holder know the password. It’s somewhat scary due to the user not being able to know their own passwords anymore, but in theory it might just work.

The extension’s first job is to detect when a user is on a sign up page that requires a password. If the extension determines that the user is on a sign up page, it will put a small key symbol in the password box. Clicking on the key opens a dialog box that asks the user if they want Chrome to manage the password for them.

If they choose to let Chrome handle the password, a new dialog box will pop up with a random password. The generator will use a single generator for all sites that should be compatible with any random requirements the site has, including the sites that require alphanumeric punctuation laden passwords.

A potential problem will be sites that don’t allow the autocomplete function to operate on their page. This would make any attempt at saving the password that was just generated useless as the user doesn’t know it and the browser didn’t save it.

The team feels that the extension will be able to handle other types of Web pages that deal with passwords including those for changing a password. It’s all a matter of having the extension recognize the page. The extension should also be able to fill in the space for the old password when changing to a new one.

Of course, not everybody can use Chrome all the time. There may be a time when a change to a different browser is required. At those times, they want to have a Web site where users can sign in to access their passwords.

Some of the anticipated problems include not being able to function on all Web sites, old passwords are still unprotected, doesn’t work with Google’s GAIA single sign-in feature and could make Google a higher priority hack target.

It’s an interesting feature and I’m sure a lot of people would use it to gain some peace of mind, but I don’t know if I would let an extension create passwords for me.

Would you just like the old Facebook back?

Well, if you use Google Chrome as your browser, you can.

A browser extension for Chrome called Facebook Classic fixes you right up. You have the option to turn off that annoying ticker. It removes the little tabs from the corners of each post. And, best of all, everything is back in chronological order.

Before Facebook Classic:

And after (ticker turnoff is optional)

With news about iPads getting ready to rule the tablet market as the holiday season approaches, the 70-inch add-on is a perfect way to accessorize these soon-to-be gifts. Courtesy of Crunchy Logistics, the Padzilla Interactive iPad/iPhone Case allows users of Apple’s mobile devices — in this case, the iPad — to expand their viewing area from the standard 9-plus inches to a screen that’s big enough to hold movie parties with. Another feature, besides the expansive screen, is the touchscreen interface is still available, even with the 70 inches of screen real estate.

From Crunchy Logistics’ description:

This interactive case allows you to use your iPad/iPhone with a massive screen that is multitouch capable. Shown in the video is a 70″ version but can be made in any size up to 150″. Jailbreak is not required. However this is an accessory and does require an iPad or iPhone (3GS or 4) to work properly. This unit can be positioned vertically or in a table mode thanks to our special mounting system.

Meaning, if 70 inches isn’t large enough, you can always go larger. There’s a video of the extension in action, for those who are wondering how a large iPad works:

Considering the price of larger high-def televisions, and the technology needed to keep Apple’s touchscreen technology as a method of input, it’s logical to assume such a large iPad addition will cost a pretty penny. Of course, when it comes to accessorizing devices, people have been known to go all out, sparing no expense. When you consider the solid gold iPhones, it only furthers the point about accessories and price.

Thoughts on the oversized iPad? Would you consider such an accessory, or is something like the Padzilla case reserved for those who don’t worry about money?

These lucky few included such noted contributors at lonelygirl15. Despite promises to bring the program to more of their content creators, for the last seven months there hasn’t been any news on this front.

Today, YouTube announces that they’re opening up the Partners Program to a much broader group of videomakers. Anyone in the United States or Canada can apply to be in the Partners Program now.

The other criteria:

• You create original videos suitable for online streaming.
• You own the copyrights and distribution rights for all audio and video content that you upload — no exceptions.
• You regularly upload videos that are viewed by thousands of YouTube users.

The premise behind the program is simple:

These partners decide which of their videos they would like to generate revenue on YouTube, and in turn, they receive a portion of the revenue generated from ads that run next to those videos. Even in this limited release, the program has been an amazing success – already, millions of video views each week are earning revenue for our partners.

While this issue hasn’t been directly addressed, I would assume that, if YouTube offered InVideo overlay ads on original videos and participating content providers chose that ad format for some or all of their videos, the videomakers would then receive a share of the revenue from that ad as well.

Is it worth it? YouTube reports on their test group:

Many users who joined the program months ago have already seen great success. Those partners who are regularly producing videos with over 1M views are earning several thousand dollars per month.

Another bonus: YouTube doesn’t require an exclusivity agreement to participate, meaning that you can upload videos to other sites even while those videos are on YouTube in the Partners Program.

However, not everyone who applies will get in. At the conclusion of their announcement video, YouTube encourages rejected applicants to “keep uploading and apply again later.” YouTube doesn’t state whether everyone meeting the criteria listed on the partner site will be automatically accepted.

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• Use the Flashblock extension (provided you have Flash installed in the first place). This will put a placeholder over any Flash, allowing you to click it before the Flash shows. (To specifically allow a website to show Flash you can open the Tools -> Add-ons -> Flashblock options dialog and enter e.g. “www.youtube.com”.)
• Disable animated GIFs. To do so, type about:config into the Firefox address bar. Look for the entry “image.animation_mode”, double-click it and set its value to “none” (no quotes).

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A Reuters report said Senate members who wanted a shorter ban, and those who wanted to make it permanent, reached the agreement ahead of the November 1st expiration of the 1998 ban.

The House of Representatives had already agreed on a compromise, but only for a four-year ban. Congress will have to reconcile its differences and send something along to the White House for President Bush to sign.

Without a ban in place, state would likely look to the millions of Internet-using people and businesses as a ready stream of new revenue to exploit. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) praised the extension, saying it “has helped the Internet expand and has protected entrepreneurs from burdensome taxes.”

Uptime watchers Pingdom came up with Mr Uptime in response to the horrid disappointment a 404 or 503 result can bring to someone. The extension keeps trying to reach an unresponsive site in the background while the individual continues using Firefox as normal.

“The rapid success of Mr Uptime proves what we were convinced of all along, that there are a lot of frustrated people out there who have frequent problems with unavailable websites and find a tool like this really useful,” Sam Nurmi, CEO of Pingdom, said in a statement.

Once the plugin finds a site has returned, it can open the site in a new tab or window, or simply alert the person that the site is back from the dead. Mr Uptime defaults to rechecking the site over a 168-hour period, which can be changed in its settings.

I am thoroughly impressed with the hospitality I was shown in Milwaukee. Everyone was very helpful and welcoming. I appreciate that very much. I intend to return to Milwaukee and see more of this great city.

A special thanks to Tiffany, Bill, and Erica for the extra work they did to make sure I was taken care of during my trip.

Regarding the 3 main points I made about constructing quality websites for your clients, here are some links for additional reading.

Code Quality

• W3C Markup Validator — Enter a URL in the first box and click the “Check” button to validate any page on the Web.
• Firefox web developer extension — This is the tool I use to turn stylesheets off and do other geeky website evaluation tricks.
• Adobe on Accessibility — A great primer on accessibility.
• CSS Zen Garden — This is the site that illustrates the power of semantic markup and separating website content from presentation.

Search Engine Optimization

• The Goal of Search Marketing — Sometimes ranking first isn’t necessary to achieve your goals.
• Guide to Link Building for SEO Purposes — Linking is a powerful SEO strategy…this article discusses link building strategies in depth.
• Choosing Keywords Wisely — An overview of the keyword selection process.

Manageability

• 10 Reasons Every Website Needs a CMS — There are more than 10 but this is a good start!
• Sitemaps and SEO — An overview of the Sitemap XML protocol we discussed.

Miscellaneous

• Ten Buzzwords and What They Mean
• All Websites are Not Created Equally

I also had a few requests for information about the services my company offers as well as about Tweak, our content management system so here are links to both of those.

Agency Fusion
Tweak CMS

If you’re interested in learning more about our CMS, I recommend having one of my project managers do a brief online demonstration of the system for you. They’re really good at showing you specifically how you and your clients can benefit from using Tweak.

Please don’t hesitate to post a comment below if you have additional questions or have suggestions on my presentation. I love receiving feedback!

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Joost has written GWT External Links++, which are scripts on top of the popular Greasemonkey Firefox extension. After you’ve installed both whenever you check your links at Webmaster Tools you’ll gain some extra information beyond what Google gives. The script will take a few seconds to start showing the extra data and how many links you have will determine how long it takes finish.

What extra data can you expect to see?

• The PR of the page sending the link
• The anchor text of the link
• If the link has nofollow applied
• If the link isn’t found
• If the link is an image and the alt text on the image

I gave it a test drive and Joost’s scripts work exactly as advertised. The only problem I noticed was that some links the script claims it couldn’t find were indeed there, but that’s a small problem for all the extra data you get. I particularly like being able to see the anchor text on the links. It’s also interesting to see the nofollow on some links as it shows that Google does crawl nofollow links.

You will need a Firefox browser with the Greasmonkey extension installed before the GWT External Links++ scripts will work. For those of you not familiar with Greasemonkey, the extension allows you to alter the appearance and functionality of web sites and pages by writing simple and complex JavaScript to alter the page before it fully loads in your browser. userscripts.org has many sripts you can download for popular sites.

Check out Joost’s page for the GWT External Links++ script for a screen shot of what the extra data will look like and give the script a try.

Thanks to Barry Schwartz and Search Engine Roundtable for calling my attention to the script and thanks to Joost for creating a nice addon to the link data from Google Webmaster Tools.

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