joshhall

November 24, 2009

TinyChat Eyes Live Video Broadcasters With TinyChat.tv

Filed under: Uncategorized — terrancesaunders1972 @ 4:14 pm

The live video service TinyChat is best known for its ability to sync together up to 16 broadcasters in the same room, but it has also been adding new services and functionality to its line-up. Recently, it launched a dead-simple video chat service reminiscent of Skype.

Now TinyChat’s decided to use its live video technology to directly compete with live video powerhouses Ustream (ustream) and Justin.tv. The company has just launched TinyChat.tv, a service for making “your own live web show.”

It has all of the basic necessities to start a live video T.V. show: customization options, scheduling, subscriptions, and promotion via Facebook (Facebook) or Twitter (Twitter). Since it’s TinyChat (TinyChat), you can have multiple simultaneous video broadcasters in your show, the service’s big advantage. It also has live chat and commenting. If you want to start a simple live show, TinyChat.tv is definitely a usable option.

We’ll be honest though: it’s nowhere near ready to compete with Justin.tv or Ustream. Getting a live stream up and running is a long-winded process, as opposed to the main TinyChat service, which is as simple as typing random characters after “Tinychat.com.” It took 6-7 screens of settings and customization before we could get broadcasting, which was annoying.

Competing against Ustream and Justin.tv isn’t as simple as putting up a live video TV service. Both of them has perfected some powerful technology and attracted thousands of loyal users and broadcasters. From our tests, we doubt TinyChat.tv could handle the load that these other services endure — for example, there were over 500,000+ simultaneous viewers for a recent Carrie Underwood concert on Ustream.

In summary, TinyChat.tv is good, useful, and has features that other live video services don’t have. It’s an impressive display of their API (which is free), but there’s more to live video broadcasting than just the technology you use. It’s early though, so we expect the service to grow and improve as time goes on. If you try it out for yourself, let us know what you think of TinyChat.tv in the comments.

Disclosure: Mashable (Mashable) has partnered with TinyChat to create The Mashable Lounge, our live Twitter chatroom.

November 23, 2009

EPA Targets Construction-Site Pollution

Filed under: Uncategorized — terrancesaunders1972 @ 2:51 pm

Why a Deal With News Corp Would Make Bing the Trader Joe's of Search

A confession. Sometimes I use Bing.com. Stop looking at me that way. I said I use Bing.com. I didn't say …

Apple exec Schiller discusses App Store | iLounge News

If you have a comment, news tip, advertising inquiry, or coverage request, a question about iPods or accessories, or if you sell or market iPod products or services, read iLounge's Comments + Questions policies before posting, …

Bing Tries To Buy The News

Rupert Murdoch is pointing a gun to Google's head, and Microsoft is helping him pull back the trigger. For the past few weeks, …

Naples Fl. Construction

WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency issued a final rule Monday aimed at reducing pollution from construction sites, saying that it will significantly improve the quality of water nationwide.

The rule will be phased in over four years, starting in February, and when it is fully in effect, the EPA estimates there will be four billion fewer pounds of sediment discharged from construction sites each year.

Nearly 82,000 home builders, commercial and industrial building contractors, and civil-engineering companies are expected to be covered by the rule, which the EPA estimates will impose about $953 million of annual costs.

Such costs could raise home prices and cause a small number of builders to go out of business, resulting in some job losses, the EPA said in a draft version of the final rule.  It said job losses may be temporary given the relatively high turnover in the construction industry, and acknowledged that the new rule is being introduced at a time when construction has fallen off sharply.

“However, the four year phasing process is expected to give the industry sufficient time to experience several years of growth before all the rule requirements are in effect,” the EPA draft said.

Construction site owners and operators covered by the rule will have to use best management practices, including soil stabilization and erosion control, to ensure that soil that is excavated, moved or otherwise disturbed by construction activity doesn't pollute nearby bodies of water. In addition, owners and operators at larger construction sites will be subject for the first time to federal monitoring requirements and limits on storm water discharges.  The monitoring requirements will take effect first at sites that disturb 20 or more acres and eventually at sites of 10 or more acres.

The EPA said the rule, which will establish minimum national standards, is intended to work in concert with existing state and local regulations that may be more stringent.

Adoption of the rule came in response to a court order in a lawsuit brought by a handful of states and nonprofit environmental groups alleging that the agency had failed to issue regulations required under the Clean Water Act.  A U.S. district court ordered the EPA to issue the rule no later than Dec. 1, 2009.

A spokesman for the National Association of Home Builders couldn't be reached immediately for comment. A spokesman for Associated Builders and Contractors Inc. said the group wouldn't be able to comment until the final rule is published in the Federal Register.

FEMA's trailers have become a symbol of FEMA's potential disorganization. Many remember the photos of FEMA trailers standing unused in parking lots, while citizens are in need of homes. Last year's fermalgyheide incident, involving FEMA trailers, did not help reduce this stigma. FEMA's trailer program has once again been thrust into the spotlight.

After last year's flooding, many Iowans were left either with homes in disrepair, or without home altogether. Many of these citizens were provided with a FEMA trailer. FEMA's trailers gave these displaced Iowans a place to live. Especially for citizens who either did not have flood insurance, or whose insurance was not sufficient to repair their homes.

FEMA announced that Iowans, in FEMA trailers, would soon be asked to pay rent. TheHawkeye.com reported, “FEMA spokeswoman Crystal Payton says charging rent after a time is a standard practice that is deemed necessary to extend a program. Displaced residents faced a Nov. 27 deadline to be out of FEMA-provided housing. According to Payton, trailer users will be charged the fair-market rate set by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which in the Cedar Rapids market is $649 for a two-bedroom unit.” (FEMA trailer users to start paying rent, 2009)

Readers may find it hard to put the $649 rental charge into perspective. Factors such as average household income, health care costs, food costs, and/or utility costs figures into whether or not rental rates are affordable. To provide a little perspective, I compared my town in Missouri (Jefferson City) to Cedar Rapids, Iowa using PayScale.com. In Jefferson City, Missouri, a two bedroom, 1 and ½ bath town home may be rented for $575 a month. PayScale.com states that Cedar Rapids housing costs 3-4% higher than Jefferson City (Cost of Living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa by Expense Category, 2009). That would put a two bedrom town home between $592.25 to $598 per month. That would put FEMA's proposed rental rates of $649 higher than the average.

It is also important to consider how FEMA's $649/mo rent compares to the average Cedar Rapids household income. PayScale.com lists City-data.com lists the avergage household income, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at $43,704/year (Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 2009). FEMA is asking Iowans to pay $649/mo or $7,788/year. That equates to asking these citizens to pay approximately 22% of their income (after taxes) for rent. By Dave Ramsey's standards this is a little high but not unreasonable. The real question is, while the rent may not be unreasonable, are FEMA's trailers worth it?

References
FEMA trailer users to start paying rent. October 2009. TheHawkeye.com. Retrieved on October 28, 2009 from http://www.thehawkeye.com/story/k0134-BC-IA-FEMATrailers-10-27-0244
Cost of Living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa by Expense Category. October 2009. PayScale.com. Retrieved on October 28, 2009 from http://www.payscale.com/cost-of-living-calculator/Iowa-Cedar-Rapids/Missouri-Jefferson-City
Cedar Rapids, Iowa. October 2009. City-Data.com. Retrieved on October 28, 2009 from http://www.city-data.com/city/Cedar-Rapids-Iowa.html

Could Bing pull this off?

Filed under: Uncategorized — terrancesaunders1972 @ 1:02 pm

Rupert Murdoch is pointing a gun to Google’s head, and Microsoft is helping him pull back the trigger. For the past few weeks, Murdoch and his officers at News Corp. have been very vocal about their distaste for Google and their desire to lead other media companies in a boycott of sorts.

Murdoch keeps threatening to stop letting Google index the WSJ.com and his other media sites, and wants other news sites to join him in this self-imposed silence. The folks at Microsoft’s Bing think this is a great idea. Not only that, but the FT reports that Microsoft is in fact in discussions with News Corp. and other publishers about the possibility of paying them to remove their sites from Google’s search index. This report comes on the heels of a meeting in Europe where Bing dangled the prospect of premium spots in search results to publishers and outright money for search R&D.

Microsoft is not afraid to buy search market share, which is what it’s doing with the Yahoo search deal and even its Cashback program. But with these latest talks, it is literally trying to buy the news, or at least exclusive access to the news.

Bing can’t buy all the news, it can only buy certain brands. If Bing can somehow become the only place you can find news results and working links to the Wall Street Journal and other top papers such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the LA Times, for instance, that would be a big reason to switch for a lot of folks. But it’s not clear how much Bing would have to pay the news companies of the world for them to give up all the traffic Google sends them in return for a fraction of that traffic and some cash.

Even Google couldn’t afford to strike such deals. Says Murdoch, of Google, “If they were to pay everybody for everything they took from every newspaper in the world, and every magazine, they wouldn’t have any profits left.”

In order to actually make a dent in Google’s market share, Bing would have to pay such exorbitant sums to so many different news companies that it would be difficult to recoup its investment. Bing certainly get some marketing buzz out of any such move, but that’s about it.

The big problem with a search engine trying to buy market share by buying parts of the news is that information spreads so quickly these days, exclusives last about 30 seconds. That information will end up on a site that is indexed by Google. Or the same news will be broken by someone else on the Web before the WSJ.com even gets to it.

Exclusive indexing goes against the Web’s inherent openness. Companies that try to curtail that openness don’t last long on the Web.

November 9, 2009

The good news is commercial space seems to be picking up

Filed under: Uncategorized — terrancesaunders1972 @ 4:16 pm

Things looking up for Naples Commercial Real Estate Brokers?

After years or relatively low house and land prices, most of us were surprised when they fell even lower during late 2007 early 2008. Land isn’t something we’re short of here, but prime land has always been just that. Some areas like Port Royal have always fetched a premium, and always will whatever the economic climate.

However compared to figures released this month by Colliers International Property Report we’ve got it good and maybe Naples commercial real estate property prices aren’t so bad after all. According to the report the most expensive place in the world to rent commercial space is Tokyo with an average price of $23 per square foot. Compare that to the average around Naples of between $1-2 per square foot, you can see that maybe things aren’t so bad.

With Hong Kong coming third with an average price of $15, you can see why only the most successful companies rent space there. To purchase land in Hong Kong it would cost approximately $680 per square foot, and that is for industrial space. Prime residential and office space is much higher than that.

Despite these astonishing process, the property markets in both Japan and Hong Kong are seeing signs of growth over the past couple of months. After significant losses, along with the rest of the world, they are now seeing a slow rise of up to 5%, which is expected to stay steady for the next twelve months.

Surprisingly the second most expensive place to rent warehouse space, in the world was Heathrow Airport in the UK. It costs an average of $21 per square foot to rent space here, although that price is sure to be negotiable. With a decline of almost 25% over the past year, landlords are sure to want to deal. Land cost here is also expensive, the most expensive in Europe at $61 per square foot. Space is so limited in the area, and planning laws so strict, that there is unlikely to be any new land made available for the foreseeable future, which has held the prices up despite the decline in rentals and sales.

With the theory of the recession having bottomed out, prices aren’t likely to fall much further. Holding out for a good deal may begin to be a bad idea, as news of recoveries or “green shoots” become more prevalent.

So if you’re a business planning to expand or move to the Naples area, think twice before complaining how expensive it is to rent or buy land here. We have it easy compared to the rest of the world!

Après des années ou une maison relativement faible et les prix des terrains, la plupart d'entre nous ont été surpris quand ils sont tombés encore plus bas au cours de la fin 2007 début 2008. La terre n'est pas quelque chose que nous sommes à court d'ici, mais la terre principale a toujours été que cela. Certaines zones comme Port Royal ont toujours chercher une prime, et sera toujours quelle que soit la conjoncture économique. Toutefois, par rapport aux chiffres publiés ce mois par Colliers International Property Report we've got it good commercial Naples et peut-être les prix réels de biens immobiliers ne sont pas si mal, après tout. Selon le rapport, la place la plus chère du monde pour louer un espace commercial est à Tokyo, avec un prix moyen de 23 $ par pied carré. Comparez cela à la moyenne autour de Naples entre 1-2 $ par pied carré, vous pouvez voir que les choses sont peut-être pas si mal. Avec Hong Kong, venant en troisième avec un prix moyen de 15 $, vous pouvez voir pourquoi seules les plus performantes sociétés louent de l'espace là-bas. Pour l'achat de terrains à Hong Kong, il en coûterait environ 680 $ par pied carré, et qui est pour l'espace industriel. Premier résidentiels et de bureaux est beaucoup plus élevé que cela. En dépit de ces processus d'étonnant, les marchés immobiliers, tant au Japon et à Hong Kong entrevoyons des signes de croissance au cours des deux derniers mois. Après des pertes importantes, avec le reste du monde, l'on voit maintenant une lente montée jusqu'à 5%, ce qui devrait rester stable pour les douze prochains mois. Etonnamment, la deuxième endroit le plus coûteux de louer des entrepôts, dans le monde a l'aéroport d'Heathrow au Royaume-Uni. Il en coûte en moyenne 21 $ par pied carré d'espace à louer ici, bien que le prix est sûr d'être négociable. Avec une baisse de près de 25% au cours de l'année écoulée, les locateurs sont sûr de vouloir y faire face. Land coût est ici aussi coûteuse, la plus chère d'Europe à 61 $ par pied carré. L'espace est si limité dans la région, et la planification des lois si strictes que, il ya peu de chances d'avoir de nouvelles terres disponibles pour l'avenir prévisible, qui a occupé les prix à la hausse malgré la baisse des locations et des ventes. Avec la théorie de la récession ayant touché le fond, les prix ne sont pas susceptibles de tomber beaucoup plus loin. Interdiction de se présenter pour une bonne mai commencera à être une mauvaise idée, que des nouvelles des recouvrements ou "pousses vertes" deviennent plus nombreux. Donc, si vous êtes une entreprise envisage d'agrandir ou de déménager pour la région de Naples, réfléchissez bien avant de vous plaindre Combien coûte ce soit pour louer ou acheter des terres ici. Nous l'avons facile par rapport au reste du monde!

<b>News</b> Corp. May Block Google From Searching Newspaper Content <b>…</b>

<b>News</b> Corp. (NWS) CEO Rupert Murdoch said the company will eventually remove stories from Google's (GOOG) search index as a way to encourage people to pay for content online, according to a story in the Guardian, which apparently was …

<b>News</b> Corp. Considers a Google Ban - Digits - WSJ

Rupert Murdoch set the Internet abuzz after he said <b>News</b> Corp. is considering blocking Google from being able to search its Web sites.

Conversation: Caroll Spinney, the Man Inside Big Bird: <b>News</b> Desk <b>…</b>

This unit strapped to your chest—in your memoir, “The Wisdom of Big Bird,” you jokingly call it an “electronic bra.” I spend a lot of time time thinking about <b>news</b>, so to me it looked like a bomb strapped to your chest. …

Adding a room to your home can be a very expensive endeavor. The cost of adding an addition can actually exceed the costs of building a house on a per square foot basis. This is due to the additional costs of tying in the new structure to the existing one. Throughout almost every phase of the construction process, each new system of the structure must be tied into the existing system. For example, both the interior and exterior walls, the plumbing and electrical lines, the roof, and the heating and air-conditioning systems must all be connected.

Because investing in a room addition is such a costly undertaking, you'll want to carefully examine the potential resale value of your home before doing so. The most important factor to consider in your analysis is the relevant size of your home compared to the other houses in your neighborhood. If your house is one of the smallest houses compared to those around you, then it may make sense to expand the size of yours by adding another room. On the other hand, if your house is already one of the largest houses in the neighborhood, investing your hard-earned money to make it even larger would most likely yield negative returns.

Expanding the size of a house by adding on a room can actually cost more than the house's current resale value due to the difference between construction costs of 20 years ago and those of today. This holds true even after compensating for the cost savings in land.

A less expensive alternative to an addition that is tied into the existing house is a sunroom or an all-seasons room. The cost of this type of structure is generally much less than that of adding on an actual addition that is designed to match your house. A sunroom, for instance, typically has exterior walls made of mostly glass reinforced with metal framing, unlike a full room addition that will have exterior walls made of vinyl or brick with insulation and drywall on the inside of them. Furthermore, the roof on a sunroom is usually a lightweight design and does not offer the protection or longevity that a roof with composition shingles on it.

While sun rooms are most often unheated and designed for milder climates, all-seasons rooms incorporate heating and air conditioning into their design. As its name implies, an all-seasons room can be used year round. It's construction is similar to that of a sunroom using less expensive materials, but it includes additional design elements for insulating elements for insulating the room. Both types of rooms, however, offer affordable alternatives to the more expensive room addition.

November 3, 2009

Naples Search Engine Optimization

Filed under: Uncategorized — terrancesaunders1972 @ 12:51 am

Naples Search Engine Optimization

10.30.2009 | google, seo

seo

The term “SEO” stands for search engine optimization. SEO refers to the process of getting your site primed and ready for the search engines. There are things you do to your own site and things you do on other sites that will effect your SEO. In this post we will go over a few of the different factors.

First we will go over the different things that you can do to your own site which will effect your search engine placement. Everything I’m about to say are basically educated guesses because with the exception of Google engineers, nobody knows exactly what works and what doesn’t.

The main parts of on site SEO are: META tags, page titles, and text

Page Titles

The most important part of on page SEO is the page title. If you want to rank for “keyword 1″ in Google then your page title should ideally be “Keyword 1″. Sometimes a client will want to have their company name in the title as well as the main keyword so it may look something like “Company Name | Keyword 1″ which isn’t quite as good as the first variation but it’s still pretty good. I’m sure we have all seen page titles like this:

Company Name | keyword1 keyword2 keyword3 keyword4 keyword5 keyword6 keyword7 keyword8 keyword9

One may think this is a superior page title because it contains so many of the desired keywords right in the page’s title. Unfortunately the more keywords the title contains to more watered down and less important each keyword is. You want to keep all your page titles short and sweet and make sure each page title accurately describes the page that it represents.

META Tags

Today META tags aren’t nearly as important as they were back in the day. Years ago the search engines would pretty much take META tags at face value and rank you according to what you had in your META tags. Of course you can probably guess how that worked out in the end so today there is much less importance placed on the METAs.

This doesn’t mean you should ignore the METAs, you should always write unique keywords and descriptions for each page if possible.

Text & Content

You must have unique content if you plan on ranking for any terms which are worthwhile. The text should ideally contain the keyword or phrase that you want to rank for at least once or twice. For example if you want to rank for “naples web design” then you would try to get that phrase into the body of the text once or twice, put it in the page title, and even make sure you get it in the META tags too.

You can never have enough unique content, ever. Think of it as fishing and you’re fishing for leads, sales, or new clients. Each article or post on your site acts as the fishing pole, the more content you have on your site the more poles you have in the water. We all know that the guy with 20 poles in the water is probably going to catch a lot more fish than the guy with one pole.

That pretty much sums up the major parts of on page SEO. The factors above are certainly not the only parts of on site SEO but they are the main ones.

The main parts of off site SEO are: external links, the authority of the external links, and the anchor text

External Links

The art of getting other websites to link to you, without a doubt the most important part of off-site or external SEO.  You can do this by tricking webmasters using link bait, creating blogs or profiles on their sites and doing it yourself, blogging on 4rd party sites, exploiting security holes in the script the host is running on, and various other ways.

Authority

There is a lot of debate on how important this is. There is no question that a link from a site like microsoft.com is far better than a link from napleswebdesign.net. What is open for debate surrounds how much effect low authority sites have on ranking. Many people say that it depends on the site being linked to. For example, if you took microsoft.com and pointed 500 low quality links at it you would probably rank for the keyword you were going after because of the trust and authority microsoft.com already has, so Google is going to take that into account. Now if you were to go to GoDaddy and register a brand new domain and then point 500 low quality links at it, it will probably raise some red flags with Google because you have an untrusted site getting lots of backlinks from other untrusted sites.

Anchor Text

Anchor text refers to the text that the actual link is made up of. Here is an example of Anchor Text. When you get links to your site you should definitely try and get your keywords in the anchor text but don’t always use the same anchor text, mix it up some. When I get links to this site I may get 20 links with the anchor text of “naples web design” then 20 that say “naples website design” and so on. The words you use in your anchor text directly effect how Google ranks you so you should be sure to choose your anchors wisely.

If you don’t have enough time or patience to do your own search engine marketing I encourage you to contact us and see how we can help you.

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