Google Earth has landed for Android 2.1

When the Google Nexus One was announced, there were a ton innovative new options shown for the device and Droid: interactive wallpapers, 3D stuff and support for G Earth. The latter wasn’t available then, and there was not a date set, but it looks like its ready to go on Android Market soon.

If we had The Droid 1.5 or 1.6, dont bother. Not to ruin the mood, but your phone doesn’t have the hardware needed to power such an hard core program. Users reporting the applications availability have all been iPhone users, and that means this is a 2.1-only app for now. DROID fanboys will have to hold their horses for the 2.1 update, which would appear to be taking longer than most would have wanted or expected.

There’s not a word official yet from the Google Devs, but we’ll be sure to keep you updated when the announcement is official.

Dell's Android-Powered Mini-Tablet Could Be a Serious Rival for the iPad

BY: Ed Hardy,
Brighthand.com Editor

PUBLISHED: 2/22/2010

The announcement of the iPad last month threw a spotlight on tablet computers, but Apple is hardly the only company working on one. Dell is also prepping its own model, which will offer many of the same features in a more pocketable design.

The iPad will sport a 10-inch display, while the Dell Mini 5 will have a 5-inch one with a WVGA (800 by 480 pixel) resolution. This will be a capacitive touchscreen with support for multi-touch.

Apple's tablet will use its iPhone OS, but Dell's will run Google's Android OS on a 1 GHz processor. The prototype of the mini 5 that has been shown around for the last month or so runs the older OS 1.6, but unconfirmed reports say it will debut with something more recent, possibly version 2.1.

Wireless Comparison
While users of some version of Apple's iPad will be able to get 3G data service through AT&T, Dell's mini-tablet will reportedly be offered by AT&T and T-Mobile, and include both voice and data service.

Both models will include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Flash Inside
Adobe has been demonstrating Flash running on the Mini 5, but Apple's CEO has made it clear that the iPad will never support this technology.

Flash is widely used on websites to allow users to watch streaming video, play games, and even do basic navigation. The vast majority of desktops and laptops have it, but it is only just now starting to make its way onto smartphones.

Adobe prepared a demo video of Flash running on the Dell Mini 5:

Pricing & Availability
During a recent brief interview, Michael Dell was willing to say that that the Mini 5 will be released in the next few months, but he declined to be more specific about when.

He also wouldn't talk about pricing.

Related Articles:

• Readers' Dilemma: The Kindle or the iPad
• MSI Prepping an iPad-like Tablet Running the Android OS
• Google's Chrome OS Will Be for Tablets, Too
• Apple iPad Could Debut with iPhone OS 4.0
• Apple May Start iPad Pre-Orders this Week

If you are unfamiliar, HipLogic is an app that is currently only available for Symbian and WinMo based devices. And now, HipLogic has announced that they will soon be releasing an Android version. HipLogic gives you one touch access to all your various social networks, news stories, and apps, all in one. HipLogic Live is always-on, so you will get live notifications of status updates, news, sports and entertainment highlights.

“We’re seeing an increased demand for a custom solution as the number of Android devices and offerings explode onto the market. HipLogic will empower operator networks and OEMs with the capability to create differentiated Android services and experiences” said Mark Anderson, CEO of HipLogic.”

Sounds like a good organizational tool to keep track of all your social networking applications: facebook, twitter, and myspace. Maybe since it is for Android it will also include the new Google Buzz? Here is an example/demo of HipLogic running on Windows Mobile to give you some sort of reference point:

Anyhow, should be interesting to see the Android version. Anyone a fan of it on a Symbian or WinMo device and excited to see it on a Android smartphone?

[via HipLogic]

After two decades online, I'm perplexed. It's not that I haven't had a gas of a good time on the Internet. I've met great people and even caught a hacker or two. But today, I'm uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community. Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.

Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.

Consider today's online world. The Usenet, a worldwide bulletin board, allows anyone to post messages across the nation. Your word gets out, leapfrogging editors and publishers. Every voice can be heard cheaply and instantly. The result? Every voice is heard. The cacophany more closely resembles citizens band radio, complete with handles, harrasment, and anonymous threats. When most everyone shouts, few listen. How about electronic publishing? Try reading a book on disc. At best, it's an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you can't tote that laptop to the beach. Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.

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What the Internet hucksters won't tell you is tht the Internet is one big ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. You don't know what to ignore and what's worth reading. Logged onto the World Wide Web, I hunt for the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. Hundreds of files show up, and it takes 15 minutes to unravel them–one's a biography written by an eighth grader, the second is a computer game that doesn't work and the third is an image of a London monument. None answers my question, and my search is periodically interrupted by messages like, “Too many connectios, try again later.”

Won't the Internet be useful in governing? Internet addicts clamor for government reports. But when Andy Spano ran for county executive in Westchester County, N.Y., he put every press release and position paper onto a bulletin board. In that affluent county, with plenty of computer companies, how many voters logged in? Fewer than 30. Not a good omen.

Point and click:
Then there are those pushing computers into schools. We're told that multimedia will make schoolwork easy and fun. Students will happily learn from animated characters while taught by expertly tailored software.Who needs teachers when you've got computer-aided education? Bah. These expensive toys are difficult to use in classrooms and require extensive teacher training. Sure, kids love videogames–but think of your own experience: can you recall even one educational filmstrip of decades past? I'll bet you remember the two or three great teachers who made a difference in your life.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/106554

Real Estate Investing Strategies For Today’s Market

Posted on January 24, 2010
Filed Under Unemployment Will Cause The Most Foreclosures In 2009! |

Real Estate Investing

Real estate investing probably makes you think of a number of things. You may think of real estate investing as real estate portfolios and real estate retirement plans, or you might focus on short sales, bulk reo investing and virtual real estate investing. You probably also wonder how these things play out in real estate investors’ life in the current economy.

You will need to know a lot about real estate investing. The best way to get the most out of your real estate investing education is to be familiar with some basic information ahead of time. No matter whether you are interested in short sales, bulk reo sales, virtual real estate or just enhancing your knowledge as a real estate investor, knowing some real estate investing basics will help you succeed. Review these three real estate investing basics that even some experts don’t yet know:

1. You always will get a positive result from investing in real estate investing education. In any real estate deal, there will be thousands of dollars in potential wealth. Knowing about getting that wealth is the key in the end to your success. Learning about real estate increases your chances of success when you do a real estate deal. Small investments yield big results when you invest in learning and then implement what you learn.

2. You have the ability to succeed in real estate investing in any economy. Often people think that you can only be a success in real estate when the economy is good. In reality, poor economies are great for real estate investors. You can often buy properties at deep discounts. In addition, you can find deals that simply would not exist in a booming economy. Real estate investing may also turn the tide for a poor economy. When the economy is not so good, short sales, bulk reo sales and virtual real estate are great. Knowing how to do these deals can create wealth for you and save others from major financial difficulties.

3. A lot of money is not vital to your success as a real estate investor. You can be a success in real estate investing no matter how much money you have on your own. There are many deals that will let you use other people’s money to do them. If you are a good investment private lenders may let you use their money. The best way to be a good investment is to know as much as possible about real estate investing. This will help you show people that you are a good investment if they have the money to help you with real estate investing but they do not know how to use it.

Real estate investing is a great way to create a good amount of wealth. You can create an income in any economy. Using knowledge of real estate investing, short sales, bulk reo sales and virtual real estate you will be able to create success for yourself. Real estate investing basic knowledge will help you succeed as a real estate investor.

Real Estate Investing Ideas For Today’s Market

Posted on January 28, 2010
Filed Under Unemployment Will Cause The Most Foreclosures In 2009! |

Real Estate Investing

A number of things likely come to mind when you think of real estate investing. You may think of real estate investing as real estate portfolios and real estate retirement plans, or you might focus on short sales, bulk reo investing and virtual real estate investing. You probably also wonder how these things play out in real estate investors’ life in the current economy.

There is a lot to learn about real estate investing. The best way to get the most out of your real estate investing education is to be familiar with some basic information ahead of time. Whether you are interested in short sales, bulk reo sales, virtual real estate or just improving your abilities as a real estate investor, you need to know some real estate investing basics in order to succeed. Review these three real estate investing basics that even some experts don’t yet know:

1. You always will get a positive result from investing in real estate investing education. Each real estate deal can represent thousands of dollars in potential wealth. Understanding how to get that wealth will be the key to your success. When you know about real estate your odds of success increase with each real estate deal. A small investment in education has the ability to yield big results when it is implemented.

2. Any economy allows for success in real estate investing. Lots of people believe that real estate success is only possible in a booming economy. In fact a bad economy is not a bad economy for real estate investors. You frequently can get properties at deep discounts. You might also find deals that simply would not exist in a booming economy. Real estate investing often is what turns the tide for poor economies. Short sales, bulk reo sales and virtual real estate all thrive when the economy is less than thriving. You will have the option of saving yourself and possibly others from serious financial difficulties if you know about these types of deals.

3. A lot of money is not vital to your success as a real estate investor. You can make a success of real estate investing no matter how much or little money you have. There are lots of deals that you can use other people’s money to do. If you look like a good investment a private lender may let you use their money. A person who is a solid investment knows as much as possible about real estate investing. This will enable you to show people who have money for real estate investing but may not know how to use it that you are a good investment.

Real estate investing is a great way to generate wealth. You will be able to create an income no matter what the economy. You can create your own success using your knowledge of short sales, real estate investing, bulk reo sales and virtual real estate. Knowing the basics of real estate investing will help you succeed as a real estate investor.

Moving Home. Getting Ready for the Movers

Democratic leaders have been busy patting themselves on the back this morning following the tentative deal struck last night between liberal and conservative Democrats over how to approach the public option. Details remain purposefully thin while the Congressional Budget Office crunches the cost estimate, but the various elements of the plan that have been reported leave plenty of reason to think the proposal has a tough road ahead.

1) The deal not really a deal, but simply an agreement to send a blueprint to the CBO. Even some members of the “gang of 10″ that negotiated the proposal are already voicing their discontent.

2) The strategy reportedly eliminates an immediate public option, instead creating a trigger that would launch a public plan if private companies don’t meet certain cost and coverage benchmarks. That could lure the support of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), but liberal Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Roland Burris (D-Ill.) have hinged their backing for the overall bill on the inclusion of a strong and immediate public option. And Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has said in no uncertain terms that he’ll filibuster a bill that contains such a trigger.

3) The strategy reportedly keeps the plan’s administrative responsibilities in the hands of private companies. It’s unclear what this means, exactly, but if the companies will be tasked with screening claims, they have every incentive to deny needed services for the sake of generating profits and rewarding shareholders. Indeed, fixing that problem was one of the central reasons to reform the health care system to begin with.

4) The strategy reportedly would force insurers to spend at least 90 cents of every premium dollar on health care services — as opposed to administration, marketing and salaries. That’s sure to be attacked by the powerful insurance lobby, not to mention conservative lawmakers who don’t want the government dictating the business practices of private companies. Indeed, a similar proposal was shot down withdrawn in the Senate Finance Committee earlier in the year.

5) The plan reportedly would expand Medicare to allow folks aged 55 to 64 to buy in. Again, it’s unclear how patient cost-sharing and provider reimbursements would be structured, but if reimbursement mirrors that of the current Medicare program, it could lead to care access issues for those patients. Doctors have long complained that Medicare reimbursement is too low, and many providers don’t see Medicare patients at all.

For all these reasons, Democrats were smart to withhold the details of their plan, which allows them to tweak it as is necessary to keep costs down. For now, though, the ball is in CBO’s court.

AmSpecBlog

AP: Dems Drop “Public Option” As Part of Health Care Deal

By Philip Klein on 12.8.09 @ 8:29PM

The Associated Press is
reporting that Senate Democrats have reached a tentative deal
that would drop the so-called public option.

Although they have not yet announced details, reports in recent
days have centered on a pact that would have the entity that runs
the federal employee health care system oversee the creation of
privately administered non-profit plans that would be offered on
the new government exchanges. In return for giving up the
public option, liberals would be rewarded with a plan to expand
Medicare to those age 55 and over, and to expand Medicaid
eligibility to 150 percent of the federal poverty level.

The new proposal would have to be evaluated by the Congressional
Budget Office.

UPDATE: Brian Beutler
reports that the deal still leaves open the possibility of a
“triggered” public option, and that the Medicare expansion would
be begin in 2011. While there would be no subsidies for the first
three years, after 2014, Medicare would be offered on the
exchanges to those over 55, who would be able to use the
subsidies already created by the bill to pay for it. And,
according to Beutler, Medicaid would not be expanded to 150
percent of the federal poverty level.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama on Wednesday praised a Senate health care compromise that would jettison a full-blown government insurance plan in favor of expanding Medicare and creating new private plans modeled on the federal employee program.

“The Senate made critical progress last night with a creative framework that I believe will pave the way for final passage and a historic achievement on behalf of the American people,” Obama said at an event near the White House to announce spending for community health centers and other initiatives.

“I support this effort, especially since it's aimed at increasing choice and competition and lowering costs,” the president said. He spoke with the Senate at a critical juncture in the second week of debate on a sweeping health overhaul bill. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is hoping that the deal announced Tuesday night can hold together a fragile 60-vote coalition and clear the way for passage of the legislation before Christmas.

There were some positive signs Wednesday. A much-courted moderate — Connecticut independent Sen. Joe Lieberman — signaled he might be able to live with the compromise, and liberal Democrats also spoke out in favor of the idea.

“I am encouraged by the progress toward a consensus,” Lieberman said in a statement that also underscored his opposition to any new government insurance plan that would compete with private carriers.

Meanwhile, former presidential candidate and one-time Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said the Medicare option for people age 55 to 64 was “a positive step forward.”

Dean, a physician, has been one of the most vocal supporters of the idea that the government should get into the health insurance market. But as it became increasingly clear in recent weeks that a new government insurance plan did not command the necessary votes in the Senate, Dean contacted Reid and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., to offer the Medicare expansion as a way forward.

“Using Medicare makes more sense than reinventing more bureaucracy,” Dean said Wednesday on CBS' “The Early Show.”

Rep. Anthony Weiner, a vocal New York liberal who has strongly supported a public insurance option, issued a statement calling the Medicare expansion “one idea I like a lot.”

However, as the Senate continued to debate, the American Hospital Association and the American Medical Association — both groups that have been generally supportive of Congress' health overhaul efforts thus far — raised red flags. Both groups are concerned about adding more patients to Medicare, because the program pays providers significantly lower rates than private insurers do.

“The AMA has long-standing policy opposing the expansion of Medicare given the fiscal projections for the future,” said the group's president, Dr. James Rohack. “We believe a health insurance exchange without an expansion of Medicare will provide more affordable choices and better access to care for Americans ages 55-64.”

A powerful small business group also swung into opposition. The National Federation of Independent Business, which was instrumental in defeating then-President Bill Clinton's health care bill in the 1990s, said the Democratic bill would raise costs and make it harder to create jobs.

Nonetheless Reid, D-Nev., was upbeat.

“We've overcome a real problem that we had,” Reid said in announcing what he called a “broad agreement” Tuesday night.

Officials said it included nonprofit national health plans administered by the Office of Personnel Management, which runs the popular federal employees' health plan, as well as the idea of opening Medicare to uninsured Americans beginning at age 55, effective in 2011.

Greater government involvement could kick in if private insurance companies declined to participate in the nationwide plan. If they didn't, one possibility was for the personnel office to set up a government-run plan, either national in scope or on a state-by-state basis.

Reid planned to describe the plan in greater detail after getting a cost analysis from the Congressional Budget Office. The compromise was negotiated over the past days by five moderate and five liberal Democrats.

The Senate's 10-year, nearly $1 trillion legislation would dramatically remake the U.S. health care system and extend coverage to millions of the uninsured, with a new requirement for nearly everyone to purchase insurance. New purchasing marketplaces called exchanges would make it easier for small businesses and people without government or employer coverage to shop for health insurance, and unpopular insurance company practices such as denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions would be banned.

The deal reached Tuesday would put even more requirements on insurers by requiring that 90 percent of premium dollars be spent on medical benefits, as opposed to administrative costs, officials said. The officials who described the details of the closed-door negotiations did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.

More challenges lie ahead. On Wednesday, senators began debating an amendment by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., to legalize the importation of prescription drugs from Canada and several other countries as a way of holding down consumer costs. The idea enjoys widespread support but is opposed by the pharmaceutical industry, which has worked closely with the administration on health care and has spent millions of dollars on television advertisements in support of legislation.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a letter saying it would be “logistically challenging” to assure the safety of imported drugs, raising concerns without stating outright opposition.

Half a day later, we know a lot more about where the key players who will determine the fate of health care reform stand on a burgeoning public option compromise. Unfortunately, there's still a substantial lack of clarity about where we go from here.

The long and short of it is this: It is possible that Democrats will reach a consensus on a plan to trade the public option for several concessions, including a plan, supported by progressives, to allow people age 55-64 to buy into Medicare. That could be the grand bargain that allows health care to pass the Senate. But not a single Republican–including Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME)–seems to support the ideas on offer. And with Democrats unable to lose a single vote, one of them–Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE)–could defect over the issue of abortion.

As I reported this afternoon, Snowe (R-ME) says she's not a fan of the ideas coming out of series of meetings between Democrats seeking accord on the public option. Snowe didn't explicitly say she'd filibuster the health care bill if that compromise emerges, but she has told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid she doesn't support the idea.

That makes it seem quite likely that Reid needs all 60 of his members to support whatever compromise comes out of the negotiations. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) made no promises, but seemed open to the trade-off on the table. Optimistically, that makes 59.

That leaves Nelson. Nelson is threatening to filibuster over a different issue: abortion. He wants the health care bill to prevent the millions of people who would be receiving federal insurance subsidies from buying policies that cover abortion. His amendment, codifying that idea, is not expected to pass.

Reid says he's happy to continue negotiating with Nelson if his abortion measure goes down in smoke. And perhaps Nelson will take a second crack at a compromise, or will relent on his filibuster threat. But we likely won't know until after his amendment goes down.

At his weekly press conference today, I asked Reid what his next move is if Nelson defects. Reid suggested more compromise is the only option. “The purpose of legislation is to build consensus,” Reid said. “It's not often that you have a piece of legislation that is perfect. But we can not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) was a bit more dramatic “I'm unafraid of everything, and afraid of everything. I'm exactly where I should be…. we have no votes to lose.”

The tax wouldn't apply to surgery intended to correct deformities resulting from disease or injury, so the aim would be to generate revenue from the purely elective procedures. As a luxury tax, it's unlikely to face much opposition. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons, however, sees hidden problems that it says will lead to unintended consequences.

Also, since 86% of cosmetic surgery patients are women, some critics are raising bias accusations. Jill Filipovic, a 26-year-old lawyer and blogger, told USA Today that women are under much more pressure than men to look younger: “It's an easy choice for senators who are overwhelmingly male to tax something they probably aren't going to use.”

Additionally, the excise tax wouldn't be as targeted as many believe. Plenty of lower-cost cosmetic procedures are available, which has made the services much more accessible to the middle class. Dr. Ali Vafa, who runs New York Medical Aesthetics, a nonsurgical cosmetic medical practice in Manhattan, says some treatments cost as little as $250, which opens the industry to a far larger constituency than just the high-net-worth set. In fact, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons says 60% of female patients buying cosmetic surgery have annual incomes of $30,000 to $90,000.

Liposuction Abroad?

In some cases, the tax could become difficult to enforce because the line that separates exempt and taxable procedures may be vague. USA Today reports that according to Dr. Phil Haeck, a nose operation that clears an airway wouldn't be taxed, but throwing in a nose straightening could change the situation. If a tax official were to examine the transaction, there's no guarantee as to how it would be interpreted.

And there's the risk that an excise tax on cosmetic surgery would boost medical tourism because wealthier patients — those targeted by the bill — might dash off to foreign countries to beat the tax. In the wake of a 6% cosmetic surgery tax in New Jersey five years ago, patients set out for New York and Pennsylvania instead. A federal measure could push medical consumers to foreign, and higher-risk, markets such as Thailand, Mexico and Costa Rica.

Vafa, whose practice has been growing robustly this year, indicates that the business risks associated with a tax on cosmetic surgery are palpable. “It would affect us,” he confirms, saying, “We would have to raise our prices, and people seem to be very conscious about prices as it is.” Patients are shopping around, he says, “which they didn't do as much before the recession.”

Little Sympathy

Unfortunately for the cosmetic surgeons, their concerns aren't likely to resonate with large portions of the American public. Cosmetic surgery is still seen as a luxury few can afford, especially with high unemployment so prevalent. Those who can shell out the cash for these procedures, of course, probably won't win much sympathy.

So, it isn't surprising that Tom Ochsenschlager, vice president of taxation for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, thinks this provision will survive the debate. The senators generally haven't shown any opposition to it, and the real fight will probably remain centered on government-funded insurance alternatives.

A look at key issues in the health care debate:

THE ISSUE: Would restrictions on medical malpractice lawsuits mean cheaper health insurance?

THE POLITICS: Republicans rally around the idea that the health system would save substantial money if limits were placed on frivolous lawsuits by patients or their families, and on the size of awards paid out when medical mistakes are made. Some in the GOP see "tort reform" as a magic bullet for runaway costs and have been pushing it for years. The proposal never goes far with most Democrats, who call it a red herring. This contest of ideas has as much to do with special interest groups as with the two parties. Trial lawyers, who oppose proposed limits on the suits, are heavily connected with Democrats in their political contributions. Traditionally, doctors have given more to Republicans. Their leading trade group, the American Medical Association, counts controls on medical liability as a priority. President Barack Obama opposes what he calls "an artificial cap" on malpractice awards.

WHAT IT MEANS: Lawsuits — or the threat of them — can drive up health care costs in several ways, but it's questionable by how much. Most directly, malpractice insurance is expensive for medical professionals, and it can cost upwards of $100,000 to bring a case to court. Still, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated last year that savings achieved by limiting medical liability would amount to less than 0.5 percent of health care spending. In addition, the office studied states with their own controls on medical lawsuits. It found no proof that those limits have reduced "defensive medicine" — expensive and unnecessary tests and procedures ordered by a doctor only to reduce the risk of a lawsuit.

On Afghanistan, the cable anchor rendered his verdict: "C. Took him far too long to make a decision. That helped the Taliban and it rattled Pakistan. All right? Pakistan is scared. They don't know what the USA is go to do so Pakistan isn't going to invest in their army and their blood unless they know we're growing to be in that region." On the jobs front, he was kinder, giving the President a B, saying that Obama "stabilized" the economy.

However O’Reilly was a much tougher grader than ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, rumored to be the next co-host of GMA. During the 2008 presidential election, Stephanopoulos went four-for-four, declaring Obama or Joe Biden the "report card winner" in every debate.

A transcript of the December 7 segment, which aired at 7:12, follows:

7am tease

DIANE SAWYER: Rallying cry. The President makes a rare visit to the Capitol, pitching senators on health care reform, all as he’s set to unveil a new jobs plan. Bill O’Reilly is here with a presidential report card.

7:12

ROBIN ROBERTS: As we told you earlier, this will be a critical two weeks for President Obama as he makes a big push on two critical issues, health care and jobs. And of course, just last week, he announced a new policy concerning Afghanistan. The President dealing in a major way with three major issues at the same time. We're going to get a presidential report card now from Bill O'Reilly, the New York Times best-seller on the list for 49 weeks with his Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity. And, of course, he’s also, the host of the O'Reilly Factor on Fox News. 49 weeks?

BILL O’REILLY: It’s President Obama’s favorite book, I hear. I just made that up. But, it can’t hurt, right?

ROBERTS: Sounds good. Sounds good. Let's give a report card on three fronts. Let's start with health care.

O’REILLY: Okay. Health care, I'd say D as in dog. And the reason is, we need health care. I think everybody understands in America, it's chaotic now. But, you can't be putting out a 2,000-page bill, which the Senate did, and President Obama has not been able to explain it. I mean, it's our job to watch him when he goes on TV to try to explain it.

ROBERTS: Right.

O’REILLY: Do you understand any of this? I don't.

ROBERTS: But we do know that if something is passed, Harry Truman couldn't get anything passed. President Clinton couldn't get anything passed. It will be an historic moment.

O’REILLY: That's good. But we won't understand what it is that’s historic. We’ll go, "Hey, it's historic, but I don't know what it is!"

ROBERTS: But, haven’t you- I think I heard you say it's imperfect in a lot of ways but if we do nothing that would be worse.

O’REILLY: All I want, Robin, all I'm pleading for, I want to understand the bill that's going to cost a trillion dollars and nobody can explain it! And he can't explain it. That’s why he gets a D.

ROBERTS: He gets a D for that.

O’REILLY: D for dog.

ROBERTS: How about for jobs? We’ve seen an encouraging trend.

O’REILLY: B-boy for dogs. Dogs? B-boy for jobs.

ROBERTS: Okay.

O’REILLY: Because more dogs have jobs. It's very, very encouraging that this month the unemployment rate actually went down even though it's the Christmas/Hanukkah season. We had chaos, and Obama stepped in and he did a lot of things that people criticized him for. So I think he stabilized the economy to some extent. So I'm giving him a B right now on the jobs front because it’s a tremendously difficult situation.

ROBERTS: We got such great news. Great news being 11,000 jobs lost last month. When you look at the beginning of the year, 700,000 jobs lost.

O’REILLY: That’s right. And that’s why he gets a B.

ROBERTS: And that’s why he gets a B. So, a D, a B and now Afghanistan?

O’REILLY: C. C. Took him far too long to make a decision. That helped the Taliban and it rattled Pakistan. All right? Pakistan is scared. They don't know what the USA is go to do so Pakistan isn't going to invest in their army and their blood unless they know we're growing to be in that region. So, by taking too long, he gave the Taliban encouragement and rattled Pakistan. The benefit that came out of taking too long is he sent a message to Karzai, you better clean it up as far as you can. But I have to give him a C there because I think he could have acted more decisively. And his speech at West Point was not good. He needed to get a little General Patton in there. He should have said we're going to kick some you-know-what. He didn’t do that and cadets were falling sleep. It’s never good when your army is falling asleep. That’s never good.

ROBERTS: But you were not critical as some others were about the time line. That didn’t bother you so much?

O’REILLY: The time line? What do you mean?

ROBERTS: About the time line of withdrawing troops?

O’REILLY: No, no, he has to say that to get the Europeans to cooperate. He has to say, we're not going to be there forever, but help us now. But when it comes right down to it, is Obama going to pull them out? If it's an intense in Afghanistan? He's not. He didn't do in Iraq. Look, I’m not an ideologue. I know why these guys do it and why they do it. And that’s why that didn’t bother me. All the ideologues were "Oh, yeah! Now! The Taliban is going to hide in the weeds!" That’s bull. Everybody knows if it’s not going well in that juncture, he won’t pull them out, unless it’s hopeless. So, that didn’t upset me.

ROBERTS: So, it's a bit of a mixed bag, when you look at all of the things he has on his plate. The remaining time, my friend, Diane Sawyer. You can't give her a grade. There’s no superlative well enough- good enough.

O’REILLY: Diane Sawyer? For Good Morning America all these years?

ROBERTS: Yes.

O’REILLY: Just getting up. You guys- Just getting up, you get a B-plus. Showing up at this morning at this hour, a B-plus.

DIANE SAWYER: What do we have to do to get an A from you?

O’REILLY: That's what you start with, Robin, then if you do anything intelligent in three hours, it bumps to the A. Now, some days you do, some days you don’t Particularly Cuomo. How long are you guys going to carry him? How long are you going to carry him?

ROBERTS: Sorry about that, Chris. Didn’t mean to-

CUOMO: I was excited about the B-plus.

O’REILLY: And I’m excited for Diane hosting Jimmy Kimmel. That’s what she’s doing, right? Aren’t you taking over for Kimmel?

SAWYER: Chris was just collateral damage in all of this.

ROBERTS: Mr. O’Reilly, thanks so much.

O’REILLY: Merry Christmas, everyone.

CUOMO: Merry Christmas, Bill. Coal in your stocking.

—Scott Whitlock is a news analyst for the Media Research Center.

Vegetarians, look away now.

Potatoes and tomatoes make good eating but they may also have a vicious side that makes them deadly killers on a par with venus fly traps and pitcher plants.

They have been identified as among a host of plants thought to have been overlooked by botanists and explorers searching the world’s remotest regions for carnivorous species.

Researchers at Royal Botanical Gardens Kew now believe there are hundreds more plants that catch and eat insects and other small animals than they previously realised. Among them are species of petunia, ornamental tobacco plants, potatoes and tomatoes and shepherd’s purse, a relative of cabbages.

“Widely recognised carnivorous plants number some 650 and we estimate that another 325 or so are probable additions – so an increase of about 50 per cent,” said Dr Mike Fay, of Kew.

Researchers realised the plant world was more bloodthirsty than had been realised when they carried out an assessment of carnivorous plants to celebrate the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth.

Darwin himself had been fascinated by carnivorous plants and conducted many experiments in which he fed them meat, and in 1875 his book on them, Insectivorous Plants, was published.

Dr Fay said it is likely that the meat-eating qualities of many plants has gone unrecognised because they are missing some of the prime characteristics associated with carnivorous species.

Pitcher plants and venus fly traps have specialist structures to kill and devour their prey but other plants are more subtle and rely on supplementing their usual diet by passive means.

Among them are plants such as ornamental tobaccos, and some species of potatoes and tomatoes which have sticky hairs which trap aphids and other small invertebrates. It is thought that rather than devour the prey directly the dead bodies decay slowly and the nutrients fall to the ground where they are taken up by the roots.

“They catch little aphids on the sticky hairs all the time. As these insects break down and drop to the ground the ground becomes enriched and the plants absorb them through the roots,” he said.

Such an ability is comparable to that of Roridula in Southern Africa which has sticky leaves on which flies get stuck but has no means of digesting them. It relies on a bug which devours the flies and the plant is then able to extract nutrients from the faeces which drop to the ground.

Domestic varieties of tomatoes and potatoes retain the ability to trap and kill small insects with their sticky hairs and are likely to absorb the nutrients through their roots when the animals decay and fall to the ground.

They are, however, thought to derive little benefit because they are so well-supplied with fertilisers whereas in the wild it might be an important source of food.

Professor Mark Chase, of Kew and Queen Mary, University of London, said: “The cultivated tomatoes and potatoes still have the hairs. Tomatoes in particular are covered with these sticky hairs. They do trap small insects on a regular basis. They do kill insects.

“We suspect in the domesticated varieties they are getting plenty of food through the roots from us so don’t get much benefit from trapping insects. In the wild they could be functioning in the way that could properly be considered carnivorous.”

Shepherd’s purse is thought to be carnivorous, at least in part, because its seeds are covered in a thin layer of a substance that both attracts tiny organisms in the soil and kills them. Furthermore, the seeds secrete an enzyme which can break down the bodies so the nutrients can be taken up during germination.

Dr Fay said the study’s findings backed up the idea that all flowering plants began with the capacity to eat meat when they evolved but that only some of them made use of and retained the ability.

The researchers, publishing their finding in The Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, added: “We may be surrounded by many more murderous plants than we think.

“We are accustomed to think of plants as being immobile and harmless, and there is something deeply unnerving about the thought of carnivorous plants.

“Overall, angiosperms [flowering plants] of many types may be involved in a degree of carnivory and be ‘proto-carnivorous’; perhaps we should be more curious about why more plant species have not developed a ‘taste’ for animal-derived nutrients.”

Blood-curdling tales of meat-eating plants have fascinated people in Britain ever since the first live venus flytrap to reach London caused a sensation across Europe in the 18th century.

Stories of man-eating specimens have held a particular attraction since featuring in such stories as The Day of the Triffids (1951) and The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) – more recently in the Harry Potter books, whose Venomous Tentacula tries to seize living prey with its grasping vines.

One 19th-century tale of a tree in Madagascar with tentacles that would grab hold of people and drag them to their doom even purported to be based on eyewitness accounts and was only discounted in the 20th century. Another reported a man-eating tree in Central America which would crush bodies with its tentacles “until every drop of blood is squeezed out of it and becomes absorbed by the gore-loving plant”.

The potato can only dream…

Now TinyChat’s decided to use its live video technology to directly compete with live video powerhouses 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 () or Twitter (). Since it’s 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 () has partnered with TinyChat to create The Mashable Lounge, our live Twitter chatroom.

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Naples Fl. Construction

By JUDITH BURNS

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

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.

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>

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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.

10.30.2009 | google, 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.