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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Understand the full value of links. Simplify the link value technique. After you have the fundamental understanding of placing a value on a link (which you should constantly revisit) – here’s some information to simplify it even further. I knew someday I’d have the opportunity to reference Edward Deming’s quality management ideas from my business school days.

The Quality Management Link Building Cycle

1. Build a list of potential link request sites

I’m making the assumption you know about “link building starting points” – you’ve figured out how to identify potential places to buy, borrow, beg, or barter for links (comptetitor backlinks, google directory, hubfinder, linkharvester etc. etc.) Build a list of potential candidates to audit with the rest of the cycle.

2. Pick a site from the list.

Pick your first site, and start the cycle by clicking on the site.

3. Is it a scraper site?

Yes, it is slathered with ads, and offers no real value – Return to step 2

No – Move to step 3

4. Check their backlinks – Are they legit?

**A lot of additional training time should be spent on this evaluation

1. Yahoo site explorer – handy extension

Yes, their backlinks are mainly on-topic, and there are more than a dozen decent sites linking to them. See step 4.

No, the site is brand new, has no links, or is a part of a ring of mortgage, real estate, or poker sites despite being about baby clothes. Return to step 2.

5. Outbound link evaluation.

Tool – Outbound link bookmarklet -

Installation – drag this to your browser toolbar.

Are there more than 150ish links?

Yes – Back to step 2 buddy

No – Next question

Are the outbound links on-topic?

Yes – Proceed to step 5

No – They’re all payday loans, viagra, and bankruptcy collectors – Back to step 2 chief.

6. Determine the value of the request – How much time is it worth for your e-mail?

Very strong link – take your time these are few and far between, and quite valuable. Do whatever you can to increase the likelyhood of a response, and/or successful link. Offer cash.

Strong link – Spend a little time on the site and personalize the message. Offer a donation.

Good link – Spend time on the site and personalize the message.

Meh’ link – You got this far, break out your link request draft and customize it for a quick send.

Send mail –

Back to step 2 buck-o.

Don’t Beat Your Employees

Now – if you’re an employer, please don’t expect your employees can keep up the 3 minute cycle for longer than an hour without jumping out of a 13th story window after a week. Teach them the process and reward smart people who pick it up with flex time – if you don’t, your young grasshopper will be jumping along quite shortly. There’s no shortage of jobs for good link builder/ SEO types at this point.

Let your employees spend A LOT of time reading about links and how to understand them better. The process is mundane, but the success rates improve if they understand the intracacies. Each of the six steps in the process can be studied with a level of detail that Deming would truly appreciate to improve the results of the process.

More recent link advice goodness:

Jim’s link commandments

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Bookmark WebProNews:

Todd Malicoat aka Stuntdubl made his first horrible looking website full of animated .gifs in 1997, and after fours years of failure and experimentation ended up in the world of SEO and internet marketing in early 2001. He is currently an independent marketing consultant from the SEO school of thought. Todd earned a bachelors of business adminstration from Northwood University in 2003 while running an web design and consulting firm Meta4creations, LLC. Todd is a speaker at both Webmasterworld and Search Engine Strategies conferences.

After you have the fundamental understanding of placing a value on a link (which you should constantly revisit) – here’s some information to simplify it even further. I knew someday I’d have the opportunity to reference Edward Deming’s quality management ideas from my business school days.

The Quality Management Link Building Cycle

1. Build a list of potential link request sites

I’m making the assumption you know about “link building starting points” – you’ve figured out how to identify potential places to buy, borrow, beg, or barter for links (comptetitor backlinks, google directory, hubfinder, linkharvester etc. etc.) Build a list of potential candidates to audit with the rest of the cycle.

2. Pick a site from the list.

Pick your first site, and start the cycle by clicking on the site.

3. Is it a scraper site?

Yes, it is slathered with ads, and offers no real value – Return to step 2

No – Move to step 3

4. Check their backlinks – Are they legit?

**A lot of additional training time should be spent on this evaluation

1. Yahoo site explorer – handy extension

Yes, their backlinks are mainly on-topic, and there are more than a dozen decent sites linking to them. See step 4.

No, the site is brand new, has no links, or is a part of a ring of mortgage, real estate, or poker sites despite being about baby clothes. Return to step 2.

5. Outbound link evaluation.

Tool – Outbound link bookmarklet -

Installation – drag this to your browser toolbar.

Are there more than 150ish links?

Yes – Back to step 2 buddy

No – Next question

Are the outbound links on-topic?

Yes – Proceed to step 5

No – They’re all payday loans, viagra, and bankruptcy collectors – Back to step 2 chief.

6. Determine the value of the request – How much time is it worth for your e-mail?

Very strong link – take your time these are few and far between, and quite valuable. Do whatever you can to increase the likelyhood of a response, and/or successful link. Offer cash.

Strong link – Spend a little time on the site and personalize the message. Offer a donation.

Good link – Spend time on the site and personalize the message.

Meh’ link – You got this far, break out your link request draft and customize it for a quick send.

Send mail –

Back to step 2 buck-o.

Don’t Beat Your Employees

Now – if you’re an employer, please don’t expect your employees can keep up the 3 minute cycle for longer than an hour without jumping out of a 13th story window after a week. Teach them the process and reward smart people who pick it up with flex time – if you don’t, your young grasshopper will be jumping along quite shortly. There’s no shortage of jobs for good link builder/ SEO types at this point.

Let your employees spend A LOT of time reading about links and how to understand them better. The process is mundane, but the success rates improve if they understand the intracacies. Each of the six steps in the process can be studied with a level of detail that Deming would truly appreciate to improve the results of the process.

More recent link advice goodness:

Jim’s link commandments

Comments

Add to Digg | Yahoo! My Web | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

Todd Malicoat aka Stuntdubl made his first horrible looking website full of animated .gifs in 1997, and after fours years of failure and experimentation ended up in the world of SEO and internet marketing in early 2001. He is currently an independent marketing consultant from the SEO school of thought. Todd earned a bachelors of business adminstration from Northwood University in 2003 while running an web design and consulting firm Meta4creations, LLC. Todd is a speaker at both Webmasterworld and Search Engine Strategies conferences.