plainbeta

The New World Design Association - Coming Soon

Remember when I told y’all about the World Design Association - but didn’t tell y’all anything?

Well, I now have more information for you.

The World Design Association is coming soon! The tentative launch date is February 1st, 2008.

The WDA is something that the online design world has not seen the likes of before. It will feature an archive of designers, a job board, a high-quality showcase, forum, and blog.

So what does this have to do with you?
Lots!
If you are a designer and want to get in on this web revolution, head over to WorldDesignAssociation.com and fill out the contact form!

But wait, there’s more!
Stick around! In the coming weeks I’ll be giving out more information about this web revolution as well as starting a contest for one month of free advertising on the WorldDesignAssociation.com!

And one final note.
If you’re interested in writing some guest posts about any aspect of design, then now is your chance!
Fill out the contact form and get in on the action! Armen Thomassian has already agreed to write some guest posts, so why shouldn’t you?

Any other questions? Comments?
Drop a comment here or fill out the contact form!

» WorldDesignAssociation.com

The Quest For PageRank - How PR Works

Google PageRank - it’s what all web designers, web masters, and bloggers covet. Despite this desire for a higher number, an aura of mystery surrounds both Google and it’s PageRank - and for good reason. Google’s inner-workings is a closely guarded secret. However, back when Google first started they published the equation that calculates PageRank. They most likely use a variation of that equation, but the original will be good enough for our exploration purposes.

The Formula:
PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + … + PR(tn)/C(tn))*
where t1 and tn is the pages linking to Page A, C is the number of outbound links on Page A, and d is the ‘damping factor’ - which is normally 0.85.

If you’re mathematically challenged (like me) - here’s a simpler way of looking at it:
Page A’s PageRank = 0.15 + 0.85 x (a share of the PageRank of every page that links to it)

Basically, get links - get PageRank.

But there’s more to it than just links - so let’s dive into that.

When Page B links to Page A, Page B is ‘voting’ for Page A. Page A’s new PR is Page B’s PR x 0.85 + 0.15.
If Page B and Page C links to Page A, then Page A’s new PR is Page B’s x Page C’s x 0.85 + 0.15.

Simple, right?
Well, it seems so - but there is more to consider.
To keep this post manageable, I’ll speed through them.

If you look closely at the equation, you’ll notice that the worth of the link is divided by the quantity of links on that page. Thus, the more links on one page, the less they’re worth.

Google’s PR system isn’t the smartest. For example, http://plainbeta.com, http://www.plainbeta.com, and http://plainbeta.com/index.html are different pages to a crawler.
(So standardize your pages!)

The maximum PR increases as the number of pages on the site increases. So the more pages you have, the greater your PR can be. This is why you should submit your sitemap to Google through Google’s Webmaster Tools. If you’re a blogger using Wordpress, use the Google Sitemap Generator to index your site and submit it to the Google God.

Paid links are another thing to consider. In fact, there has been quite a hype in the past with bloggers losing their PR because of paid links and then getting it back by removing them.
So, don’t put paid links on your site if you’re concerned about PR - if you do, you’ll be penalized.
Update: However, if those links have “nofollow” (What’s NoFollow?) enabled, then it’s alright to have them. However, Google can be finiky, so things could get a little hairy - but you should be alright. (thanks to David Airey for the reminder)

And link farms… Some people believe they’re great - others don’t. If you get a link on a link-farm - it won’t be worth much. Remember what we learned earlier, the more links on a page - the less they’re worth. And often, Google will ignore link-farms in their calculations. Furthermore, if you link to a link-farm, you could be penalized.

And finally, Cookie-cutter pages (multiple pages that are exactly or nearly alike) can penalize your site. If you were to buy half a dozen domains, and put the exact same thing up with links to your web site(s), that would be a cookie-cutter site. That could spell trouble.

Want to get some tips on how to increase your page rank?
Check out the next post in The Quest for PageRank series: How to Increase PageRank.

Don’t Buy Vista

img via PseudoMarketing.com

“The shipping version of this OS is late beta, at best.” -Chris Pirllo - Key Windows Advocate.

“It’s an absolute travesty that Microsoft would have released such a half-baked product.” -Jason Busch

Chris Pirllo pushed for Vista during it’s launch, and then moved back to XP*.
Christ tried it out, and came out with a long list of Vist Woes. (I find it quite funny)

Not many positive reviews are out there about Vista - and those that are, aren’t raving. (Example)

Brian Heys found his first weekend with vista an “irritating experience.” He later went as far as to reccomend that is readers don’t buy vista.

Jeff Ventura claims that Vista buzz “borders on nonexistent.”

So tell me, why would someone want to buy Vista?

My New Toy at Work

Currently I an assistant webmaster at Community Bible Church. I work two days a week, and get paid $8 an hour to do what I love. Good deal right?
I have been working with CBC through the entire summer using my personal iBook G4 for all of my web work. My software set-up is pretty simple: Photoshop CS2 for image editing, Taco HTML Edit for all of my coding, and Transmit for FTP usage. My iBook is running Mac OSX Tiger with a 1.2 GHz Power PC G4 processer, 512 RAM, 60 GB hard drive, and a second 17″ Dell monitor. It’s a pretty simple set up - but it works.

However…
Yesterday CBC gave me a new toy to play with: a Power Mac G5!

Ok, so it’s not the latest and greatest, but it sure does out do my iBook!

This Power Mac is running a Dual 1.8 GHz PowerPC G5 Processor, sports 2 GB of RAM, 575 GBs of internal hard drive, and a 500 GB External hard drive! In addition to that, I get Photoshop CS3, Aperture, and Studio 8 (Dreamweaver 8, Flash Pro 8, Fireworks 8, and more).

I am so spoiled now. I don’t like using my iBook because it is so slow, but I don’t like using the Power Mac because it has only one screen and it doesn’t have all my personal settings! But hey, I still bring my iBook to work - so I use them side-by-side. Thus, I get both - the speed and power of the Power Mac, and my personal settings and the dual screens! It’s pretty nice.

The New iPod Nano (and iPods)

I’m a little late in posting this, but as most of y’all know, Apple just announced their new iPods (among other things). They are quite amazing.

They now have the new iPod Touch which is virtually the iPhone without the phone portion.

With the introduction of the iPod Touch, Apple kept the iPod Video, but re-named it the iPod Classic. The only main difference between the iPod Video and the iPod Classic is the incorperation of the new iPod Menu and the option of a 160 GB hard drive.

And finally, the product that shall give the meat of this post, the new iPod Nano. The new iPod Nano is smaller (again) than the older iPod Nano, it has a brighter screen, and it offers crisp video playback.

Now it’s time for the whole purpose of this post - the redesign of the iPod’s menu. As you can tell from the picture of the iPod Classic, the menu looks different - it now has an image.

“Ok, so it has an image in the main menu - big deal Brian! What’s so amazing about that? Hasn’t the Zune been doing that for a while?”

Yes, the Zune does have a customizeable image in the menu. However, what the Zune doesn’t have is the information that that space occupies. What you can’t tell from the picture is that when certain menu options are selected, that space will display a very slick looking visual aid as well as some information. For example, if you high-light a specific playlist, then that space will tell you how many songs are in that playlist. Or, if you have highlighted a video, that space will be filled with a snapshot of the clip.

“Granted, the visuals are better - so what?”

Yes, the visuals are much better with the iPods re-design, but there several other features with the menu re-design. Now, all the screen-iPods have Apple’s famous Cover Flow - allowing the user to browse the music by album art. Further more, the iPods Nano and the Classic offer a search option using the click wheel. Now you can search that new Classic’s massive 160 GB hard drive instead of manually looking through the wealth of titles you have. And just like Mac OSX’s Spotlight, the iPod’s new search is extremely comprehensive.

Now let’s move back to visuals for a moment. The previous iPod generation introduced purchasable games for your iPod. iPods have just about always come with three games - well, now they’re better and crisper. The graphics are incredible - especially for something so small. Not only are the games crisp, but so are the movies. I watched Ratatouille’s featurette (which can be viewed on Apple.com/Trailers) and it was amazingly crisp and smooth. Other than the screen being less than three inches wide, I would have thought I was watching it in big screen HD! The new Nano’s screen resolution is actually 65% greater than the old Nano^*, and features the greatest resolution shipped by Apple yet.

All in all, the new iPod line-up forms an amazing collection of high-tech gadgets. I think Apple did an extraordinary job with these technological marvals.

Microsoft Really Good Edition

Dean Liou has launched the greatest addition to the Windows OS System yet - Microsoft RG (Really Good Edition)

It’s quite hilarious.
Long live Macs!

The Coolest Birthmark Ever

Does that look like anything to you? How about… the Apple logo?
Ok, so it may be a slight stretch, but it’s still cool!

Read some of the comments on a different picture. They’re fairly funny.