Monthly Archives: February 2007

Yahoo! Pipes, Your One Stop XML Retooling Shop

Websites

Yahoo! have just released an amazing new service named Pipes. The short explanation of Yahoo! Pipes is that it lets you combine multiple streams of XML data into a single XML stream with contextual filtering and other magic along the way.

The name of the new Yahoo! service is inspired by the Unix pipe command, which allows you to seamlessly send the output from one program in as the input of the next program in the command line. A simple example of using the pipe command in the shell might be:

  • ps -A | grep firefox

In the above example, the first command (ps -A) is asking for a list of all the running processes on the machine. The output of that command is then sent into the next command (grep firefox), which filters the input and only returns information relating to the string firefox; you could think of the grep utility as a crude search facility. The little vertical bar (|) in between those two commands is the pipe.

If you then apply that type of logic to the Yahoo! Pipes service, the name makes a lot of sense. Yahoo! Pipes allows you to combine various XML feeds into a newly created feed. As you add or combine each feed of information, you can perform all sorts of processing along the way (just like the grep example above).

To give you an idea of the processing you can do along the way, some of them include:

  • adding as many XML feeds into a single stream as you want
  • adding filters, so that only items with a particular criteria are passed through
  • stripping out duplicate items
  • sorting the output of the combined XML stream
  • looping over each item of a feed and replacing blocks of content with other content or adding new information to each item based on the content of each one.
  • combining XML feeds which you have previously filtered.

Other than this being a really great utility for the geek or power user among us; I can see some amazing applications to certain businesses. Imagine for a moment you want to publish breaking news from around the world about a particular topic on your web site. Through combining various XML streams from other pertinent sources, you could then apply specific filtering to give you exactly what you want. You’ve then got your own targeted news reporting service that you only hear from when it has something to report; what a great signal to noise ratio.

Google Webmaster Link Explorer

Internet, Search

The development group behind the Google Webmaster Central are in over drive, they’ve just pushed out another update.

The latest addition to the Google Webmaster Central is within the tools section and it appears under the Link tab at the top. What you’ll see is an enhanced version of the link: query you could have performed through the normal Google search engine. You’re probably thinking that isn’t all that impressive and you’d be dead wrong. The newly updated Google Webmaster tools provides you with a far more comprehensive view of the links that are involved with your domain.

At the moment, the Google Webmaster link explorer is broken into two sections:

Internal
An internal link is defined as any link which links to another resource within your domain from within any other page within your domain. It is important to note that Google are defining your domain as your base domain name; so for this site it would be lattimore.id.au. As such, if this site used subdomains; all links from all subdomains to another resource within the domain would be considered an internal link.
External
As you can imagine, an external link is essentially the direct opposite of an internal link. Any link originating from a web page not within your domain is considered an external link.

Using the webmasters link utility, you can now explore how your site is being linked around the internet. As an example, you can drill down into your site and select a particular page. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to see all of the other web pages around the internet which are linking to that page. Likewise, if you are viewing the internal links for your site; you’ll only see the links for that page which originated from within your domain.

Keeping in step with all of the existing Google Webmaster tools, you are also able to download the tables of information for analysis outside of the webmaster utilities. You can download any particular table of information, such as a list of 30 links starting at the 90th link or you could also download all linking data available to you.

After clicking around within the new Google link utility, one thing that became apparent is how important it is to have a link strategy for your site. As an example, permanent links in the main navigation and the footer are benefiting the most within this site with approximately 200 links into each of them. However, as soon as you move away from the major sections – you see a rapid drop off with the next most highly internally linked page sitting at approximately 120 and most normal pages within a 10-60 link range.

Now that we have a utility which provides webmasters with such an accurate view of their sites; it seems like a really good time to start evaluating and formulating new strategies for internal and external linking.

Microsoft Comfort Keyboard

Hardware

All good things come to an end and today saw the retirement of my good friend the Microsoft Internet Keyboard Pro. The Microsoft Internet Keyboard Pro has been a faithful keyboard over the last five or so years. It has seen a hell of a lot of typing, a lot of gaming and has gone swimming more than once. Even after that period of time (and abuse), the keyboard is still in perfect working order – which really is a testament to the build quality of the Microsoft keyboards.

Though functioning perfectly, my existing Microsoft keyboard was getting a little long in the tooth so a replacement was sought. After having a look around for a replacement, I ended up going with the new Microsoft Comfort Curve Keyboard 2000.

So, why the Comfort Curve 2000 keyboard over top of the others?

  • The comfort curve keyboard is a small form factor
  • It uses laptop style short key depression, so you don’t have to press the keys as far as a traditional keyboard
  • The keys don’t "click" when you press them, they are nearly silent

All and all, I’m very impressed with the new Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 keyboard and for a whopping $40; they were practically giving it away. I’m just disappointed I wasn’t lucky enough to pick it up the weekend before last for around $28!

An Inconvenient Truth

Movies

I’ve just finished watching An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary about global warming by Al Gore.

Toward the start of the documentary, Al Gore presents a little bit of history about himself. One particular anecdote is about two teachers he had when he was at school; one he disliked and the other who he thought was a bit of a hero. The hero teacher presented his class with some pretty staggering information some thirty to forty years ago that sets the tone for the rest of the documentary.

The staggering information that Al Gore learned about all that time ago had to do with the levels of carbon dioxide in the Earths atmosphere. The teacher presented his findings, which were collected over a six to eight year period and when graphed told a very strong story. Since the 1970’s, the human civilisation has had a profound impact on the Earth and if we don’t change what we’re doing now; there isn’t going to be much of an Earth left for our children or theirs.

One thing that I thought was quite interesting that he pointed out was that the petroleum companies are trying to swing the opinion of the public such that global warming is an idea or myth and not fact. Al Gore says that doubt is their weapon and that if they could put enough doubt into everyones mind that they would not worry about it and just keep doing what they are doing at the moment. Funny he should mention that in his speech because last night I read about a think tank (funded by Exxon/Mobil) that are paying $10,000 to essentially debunk global warming.

I really enjoyed the documentary and it opened my eyes to just how far down the rabbit hole the world is at the moment. If you’re interested and you should be, you can rent it from your local video shop.

Google Adsense & Text Link Ads Irony

Humour, Internet

Google Adsense showing advertising for Text Link Ads (an up and coming competing online advertiser) - the ironyThe definition of irony or ironic:

  • containing or exemplifying irony: an ironic novel; an ironic remark.
  • coincidental; unexpected: It was ironic that I was seated next to my ex-husband at the dinner.

I was viewing a site today which used Google Adsense and what should come up in the advertising than something for Text Link Ads.

Text Link Ads are an up and coming advertising network which uses plain text advertising. Text Link Ads say that what they offer is unique because they are static HTML links that can drive targeted traffic and help your link popularity which is a top factor in organic search engine rankings. In the short time that Text Link Ads have been around, there have been lots of positive reactions to their service.

It gave me a chuckle anyway.