My Name is David M. Auble, and I Oppose SOPA

STOP SOPA

STOP SOPA

This is important — I’m sure you’ve heard a little bit about SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), but I think it’s important to stand out against it.  If you search anything on Wikipedia today, you’ll not be allowed to view the results.  Instead, you’ll be automatically redirected to a page asking for your zip code to contact your state representatives and tell them you are against SOPA.

It’s important to oppose SOPA because to summarize it, webmasters would be in charge of filtering EVERY bit of information posted to their sites.  For small companies, this would be a tremendous task, as they’d have to filter all comments, posts, or bulletins before being displayed online.  This would in turn cut into company budgets, due to having to hire someone full time to monitor the information.  On a larger scale, websites such as YouTube, Google, Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia, would be responsible for filtering every post that’s made.  This would create a hassle, as a team of people would have to moderate every single post/comment.  With thousands of Twitter messages, Facebook status updates, and videos uploaded to YouTube every second, you can see how this can begin to be a BIG issue, and a big bottleneck for most websites.

It’s important let everyone know that you oppose SOPA.  We have several late-aged men and women making decisions about how the Internet is being formed and how it “should” be managed, instead of letting the youth dictate how information should be shared.  It’s no secret that the world’s youth download/share music/videos/media in an illegal manner.  It’s the same as recording a song to a cassette tape from the radio.  The government and other agencies will never be able to stop people from breaking the law — it’s simply impossible.

SOPA is affecting your freedom of speech, in the digital format.  Although the principle of regulating what is shared online is a good idea on paper, SOPA has been developed for all the wrong reasons.  Voting begins on January 24th, 2012, so it’s imperative everyone speak up!

For more information, look at Google’s “Doodle” today — you’ll see that the Google logo has been censored.  Do a search on Wikipedia — you’ll be surprised at what you may find.. or won’t find.

If you oppose SOPA, please sign the petition below:

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

My name is David M. Auble, and I oppose SOPA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E46

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

Please feel free to pass this post on to anyone and everyone you know.  People need to know and be educated about SOPA and the real threat it can be.  Watch more information:


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The Panda Effect

The Panda Effect | Google PandaBy now, most businesses are implementing some form of basic SEO.  Whether it’s optimizing page titles and structure, or optimizing all pictures, content and folder structure, it’s important to build your site with SEO in mind.

Most people agree that Google is the leading search engine (by a significant margin).  By receiving over 65% of all search traffic, Google has been busy at work with trying to return the most relevant results as quickly as possible.

Recently, the search engine giant has released their latest version of their algorithm, Panda.  With the release of Panda came a series of changes and new factors that are taken into account when “grading” a website. The Panda release affects nearly 12% of all search results.

Let’s take a look at some of the new factors Panda takes into account when crawling a website.

  • Focus on the basics: UI/UX
    It may sound scary, but Google’s web bots (the Googlebot) are becoming more human-like by “understanding” page layouts.  By taking factors such as bounce rate, time spent on each page and site, page response times and conversion rates, the Googlebot is able to determine if the page contains content that people are actually wanting to view.

    With this information, the Googlebot is able to make an educated guess as to how people are engaging with your website.

  • Content Quality, Including Spelling
    Something our content writers always ask themselves is “How original is my content?”  It’s no secret that Google has virtually limitless space to store indexes of your content.  Because of this, it’s relatively easy for Google to determine the uniqueness of your content.  Pages with trustworthy and reliable content are favored more by the Googlebots, too.

    It seems trivial, but you would be surprised at the number of websites that have small spelling and grammar errors.  Googlebots recognize this and actually penalize sites with errors.  By looking through a website’s PageRank, or how reputable the website is, spelling and grammar affect this significantly.

  • Ad Spacing and Layout
    If you’re like me, you probably despise ads.  Googlebots are no different.  If they deem your page to have too many ads, your website may become flagged as a link farm, or may be seen as a page that serves no purpose other than to advertise for other companies. Being flagged as a link farm will severely affect your rankings, as most link farm websites have no real value.
  • Cleanliness of Code
    Any developer will agree that clean code is much easier to manage.  By writing clean code, it’s much easier to ensure your website renders the same way in any browser, regardless if it’s Internet Explorer or Chrome.  By validating your website against the W3C, this is your best ally in making sure everyone and Googlebots can view your website properly.

The Internet changes constantly. Google recognizes the inevitable changes and continually updates their algorithms.  Panda is the latest big change and certainly won’t be the last. By keeping these tips in mind, a website can please the “Google Gods” and improve its page rank.


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Photography for the New Decade: Harry Potter Style Pictures?

I’m sure by now every person on the face of the earth has heard of a 17-year-old British kid, Daniel Radcliff.  If not, perhaps Harry Potter.  I was first introduced to Harry Potter when I was a freshman in high school, when the first movie came out, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.  The magic in the movie, or “movie magic” I should say, really fascinated me.  I think the thing that stood out the most, was the moving pictures.  I’ve always been obsessed with the “latest and greatest” ever since I was a little kid.  It didn’t matter if it was a new car, a new computer or some new gizmo.

Anyway, I’ve stumbled upon a few pictures recently that have really sparked an interest with me.  They’re called Cinemagraphs, and are super awesome, to say the least.  I read an interesting article from a web design blog the other day and it featured a lot of cinemagraphs.  Cinemagraphs are more than your typical late-1990′s animated GIFs, as found on just about every GeoCities page.  You know the kind I’m refering to.. the awful “Under Construction” graphics.  If not, here’s one for your viewing pleasure.

 

Yes.  You all remember them now.  Oh how the Internet has evolved, thankfully.  Enough about them, let’s check out the cool parts of cinemagraphs.  Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg can be credited for creating this new type of image.  They would define a cinemagraph as “an image that contains within itself a living moment that allows a glimpse of time to be experienced and preserved endlessly.”  In other words, taking a picture, then animating a small aspect, capturing a glimpse of time, eternally.  I think they’re on to something, and may start a new revolution of photography, or even be the inspiration to new camera and/or printing technology.

Enough technical mumbo-jumbo, let’s see some of my favorites, pulled from Noupe and Beck/Burg’s website.

Pretty cool, huh?  They’re more than simple animated GIF images; they’re higher quality GIF images that reflect scenes and take some time to stitch together.  What do you think, would you be interested in seeing some of these on your website or social media pages?

[Via Noupe, Cinemagraph]


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Freelance Portfolio Update

It’s been a little while since I’ve had a chance to update my website, but today I had a few minutes and decided to give my portfolio a bit of a facelift.

If you’d seen my portfolio before, you would have noticed it was divided into three columns — one for Web, Print and Graphics.  In taking a step back and thinking about how most portfolio sites are laid out, I discovered that most are not broken into columns and that it could cause some confusion.  Not to mention it made my work seem more spaced out.

So, I decided to group everything together and list them by piece.  Now, it looks much better and items can be found just as easily.

Take a look and let me know what you think!


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Review: HTC Inspire 4G

Over the past couple of months, I’ve had a new toy to play with: a new phone from AT&T, the HTC Inspire 4G.  This is one of AT&T’s first 4G phones, although their network doesn’t fully support 4G speeds yet.  Using the HSUPA+ speeds for now, it is one of the fastest devices AT&T offers.

Design:
Boasting a brilliant 4.3″ WVGA screen with a 480×800 screen resolution, there is plenty of screen to view everything you could imagine on a smartphone.  It’s your typical candybar  type phone, however is much thinner than most phones I’ve seen.

HTC Inspire 4G screen

HTC Inspire 4G screen

HTC Inspire 4G thickness

HTC Inspire 4G thickness

Performance:
Boasting a 1GHz processor, the HTC Inspire 4G seems to be plenty fast.  With the 2.2 Froyo operating system, the Inspire 4G multitasks much nicer than the iPhone 4.  It has 768MB of RAM, which is more than most phones available from retailers.

Hardware:
The Inspire 4G is pretty tricked out with faster hardware than most other devices available on the market.  As mentioned previously, it has a 1GHz processor, 786MB RAM and 4GB ROM.

Battery:
This is my favorite part of the phone.  The battery life is amazing.  With the Froyo update, I can easily leave WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS on all day and still have approximately 70% battery remaining by 5pm.  By listening to internet radio on WiFi, I can usually have 50% remaining at the end of the day.  Texting, surfing and calls are kept to a minimum, which I usually send/receive a few text messages, receive 30 emails and talk for approximately 5 – 10 minutes each day.  I can comfortably stay unplugged for 12 – 15 hours.

Pictures:
Coming from an iPhone 4 and being used to a phone with a 5MP camera, I figured this camera would be much nicer, seeing how it boasts an 8MP camera.  It has two built-in LED flash strobes which are surprisingly bright.  During the day, the pictures come out pretty crisp and clear, as seen below:

HTC Inspire 4G picture, in daylight

HTC Inspire 4G picture, in daylight

In dimly lit conditions, the camera begins to lack, as seen here:

HTC Inspire 4G picture in dim light

HTC Inspire 4G picture in dim light

The camera has a built in auto-focus feature, where you can tap anywhere on the screen and set the auto focus point.  This works very well, yet it can still be difficult to get a crisp picture.

Video:
Video playback is smooth.  YouTube videos and other web videos appear sharp and load quickly, whether on WiFi or  on HSUPA+.  The YouTube app launches quickly, whether surfing the web, or from another app such as Facebook.

Audio:
The back of the phone says it has Dolby Mobile audio, yet it sounds like any other phone.  I’ve found it a bit difficult to hear the phone when it’s in my jacket pocket, or when I’m driving in the car with the sunroof open.  Other than that, in most situations, it’s easy to hear and plenty loud.  The speaker in which one listens to voice calls could definitely use a volume tweak — I’m constantly finding myself wanting to turn it up louder.

Dual LED flashes and Dolby Mobile audio

Dual LED flashes and Dolby Mobile audio

Apps:
Being an Android phone, there is a large amount of apps available on the App Market.  You can find an app for anything, and now that mobile app development has taken off, it’s easy to find an app for just about anything.

Conclusion:
Of the phones that AT&T now offers, I think this is by far the best Android phone.  I’ve had experience with the HTC Aria, but liked this phone much more.  I’m now used to the massive 4.3″ screen and am getting used to it, although I would prefer to have something a bit smaller.  Since the phone is so thin, it does not take up much space in a pocket, however, it does tend to slide out of jacket pockets easily.  The case seems to be durable, however it is a bit slick and can slide out of your hand easily.

Overall, I’m happy with the phone and the features it offers.  HTC has done a magnificent job bringing this to AT&T.  Let’s just hope AT&T releases their 4G network soon, and that it’s reliable.


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