miercuri, 23 februarie 2011

Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics


The Art of Flight

Posted: 23 Feb 2011 05:13 PM PST

Just when you thought the producers of "That's It, That's All" couldn't top themselves comes a new breed of snowboarding entertainment.

The Art of FLIGHT follows Travis Rice, John Jackson, Mark Landvik, Scotty Lago, Jake Blauvelt, Nicolas Muller, Gigi Ruf, DCP and Pat Moore as they dream up new global adventures and progress the sport to unimaginable levels.

Brain Farm has gathered an arsenal of the most advanced and progressive film making technology to bring the masses a snowboarding adventure of epic proportions. Filmed on location in Jackson Hole, Alaska, Chile, Aspen, Patagonia, British Columbia and more, FLIGHT brings the viewer along for the perfect blend of adventure/travel drama and high-energy snowboarding action. The Art of FLIGHT releases September 2011.

More infos here.


Changing Skylines of Different Cities

Posted: 23 Feb 2011 03:47 PM PST

Change is an expected part of life and so is the growth of a city with each passing decade. Enjoy these awesome pictures showcasing the changing skylines of different cities.

Dubai, U.A.E.
in 90s



2011


Fortaleza, Brazil
During the 70's, view of the Meireles and Aldeota neighborhoods



2011


Tokyo
After war, 1945



2011


Seoul
Seoul river 1961



2011


Melbourne Docklands
1920s



2011


Downtown Atlanta aerial
1960



2007


Bundaran HI - Jakarta
1960s



2005


Makati City, Philippines
1980s



2004


Midtown Manhattan
1931



2003


Athens, Greece
1860



2008


London, Canary Wharf
1997



2008


China, Lanzhou
1980s



2008


Shanghai, Pudong
1990



2008


Hong Kong
1970s



2007


2011


Moscow
2004



2007


Yuzhong Peninsula of Chongqing
1900


1950


1998


2004


2005


2007


Downtown Tampa
1956



2005


Yokohama
1978



2006


Seattle
1970



2007


Paris
1900



2000s


Mexico City, Reforma Avenue
1950



2006


Singapore
1974



2004


City Wharfs
1960



2007


Houston
1960s



2007


Baltimore
1900



2007


Muammar al-Qaddafi's Lipsticked Virgin Bodyguards

Posted: 23 Feb 2011 02:46 PM PST

Since 1969, Colonel Gaddafi has had a firm grip on the leadership throne in Libya. He is one of the longest serving rulers in history although he is more famous for his flamboyant and unusual sense of style that makes him stand out like a sore thumb in a room full of politicians in suits.

It's no secret that every man loves being surrounded by beautiful women and Gaddafi is no different – check out his staff of virgin bodyguards fondly referred to as the Amazonian Guard.

















































Narrator: When the leader sleeps, the soldier stays awake, and it's the women who do the fighting. Gaddafi trusts his security to ladies only. The head of the Libyan Jamahiriya has a total of 300-400 girls on his security detail. According to the official story, all of them are virgins. Selection is done by Gaddafi himself. This whim has an explanation for it: In ancient times, they believed that the best guards were either virgins or lesbians, the underlying belief being that they could sense threats, the so-called wind of death. The girls were even sterilized to make them more aggressive toward men. There can be different views on these stories, but it was the girls with Kalashnikovs who saved Gaddafis life several times. During the assassination, they shielded him from gunfire and grenades. One died, two others were wounded. The bodyguards are with Gaddafi day and night. Each of them can handle several strong men. According to some sources, most of the girls are Cuban.

Now Muammar al-Gaddafi as the Fashionista


















































The Art of Levitation

Posted: 23 Feb 2011 02:19 PM PST

Meet Natsumi Hayashi from Tokyo who simply loves to levitate. Levitation is one of the oldest tricks in the book. Appear as though you're floating in mid-air and people just flip out. She always brings her camera with her and creates these photos of her floating. It is not that easy to do as in order for her to look like floating and not like a jump, the facial expressions should be controlled as well as hair or body flailing shouldn't be noticeable. I can say, that she reached her goal.








































































Source: yowayowacamera


The Secret of the US Dollar Bill

Posted: 23 Feb 2011 02:02 PM PST

The US dollar bill holds a very important secret as these photos reveal. You have to look very closely. Most people have no idea that this secret of the US dollar bill even exist.












Sanitation Trucks With Hilarious Signs & Messages

Posted: 23 Feb 2011 01:57 PM PST

This collection of pictures proves that one must always maintain a sense of humour about their work – especially when it involves working with crap for ten hours a day.


























How to Make a Real Life Ghost illusion

Posted: 23 Feb 2011 01:48 PM PST

Easy way to scare or surprise your friends. Here is a brief manual.


















SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog


Link Building Training: Do You Already Have All the Links You Need?

Posted: 22 Feb 2011 04:36 PM PST

Posted by willcritchlow

You've got all the links you need, right?

No matter how advanced an SEO you are, there are few people who can make that claim (in-house at Wikipedia, maybe?). For the rest of us, there's more to learn.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been working with our speakers to plan the sessions for the advanced link building conferences we are running in New Orleans and London. Keep reading for the full line up of speakers and sessions.

Link building seminar

I have learnt a load of things just in speaking to all these experts during prep. I can't wait to hear the gems they are going to share in person. We're focussing on the advanced end of things - I've asked all our speakers to focus on teaching you things I don't already know. Our speakers are ready to deliver only the most up-to-date advice and implementable suggestions for taking your link building project to the next level. Further down on this page, we've got details of what each and every one of these experts will be teaching you.

In the meantime, here are the particulars:

get your ticket now

Incidentally, remember that SEOmoz currently has a free trial promotion running for PRO membership. We're offering a PRO discount on the training. Yes, that means you just need to sign up for the SEOmoz free trial to get the discount.


This post is all about making the pitch that you should make the trip. The cities are worth it just for themselves - in the words of the everywhereist:

New Orleans:

"I suggest you put down whatever you are doing and go, immediately."

London:

"I am finding myself with the overwhelming desire to pack up my bag and hop on the next flight to Heathrow"

As well as all the serious learning, there'll be an opportunity to hang out with the speakers and attendees at after-parties in both cities. I can't wait.


Who is speaking?

Link building speakers

The line-up is pretty damn cool - we only ask people to come and speak when we have seen them deliver the goods before and then we brief them to give the presentation of their lives. The goal is advanced tips and tricks. You know how the value is normally shared privately in the bar at conferences? We're trying to push that stuff on stage. Here's the line-up:

  • Rand Fishkin (you might have heard of him) - always pushing the boundaries of the next thing you need to know, Rand's presentations are always unmissable and we push him hard to bring his best material to these sessions
  • Wil Reynolds of Seer Interactive - Wil is not only one of the smartest SEOs I've ever met, but you can't help but smile as you watch him speak. The man's a dynamo. I can't wait to hear some more of his stories.
  • Jane Copland of Ayima - many of you got to know Jane during her days at SEOmoz before she moved across the pond to Ayima. Few people have worked hands-on with the kinds of brands that Jane sees daily. She's bringing some great tips and I'm thrilled to have her speaking at another of our events.
  • Russ Jones of Virante - I have learnt huge amounts from Russ over the years. Back when I got started in SEO, we used to exchange views right here in the SEOmoz comments. He's one of those rare people who combines technical and marketing chops. The stuff he talked about when we spoke to plan his session was brilliant. A must-see speaker.
  • Chris Bennett of 97th Floor (US only) - Chris is not only a nice guy, he runs one of the most effective link building companies around and he's promised to share his secrets. I last saw him speak in London last year and I'm still trying to incorporate some of the lessons into the way we do things.
  • Martin MacDonald of Seatwave (UK) and Kris Roadruck of click2rank (US) - two guys who have taught me more than I sometimes want to know about the shadier arts. Both can play the whitehat game, but both know exactly what works and where the limits are. I'm pushing them hard to share the real secrets of their research so that those of us who work with clients and brands can learn appropriate tactics and amuse ourselves with tales of derring-do.
  • Not forgetting myself, Distilled's own Tom Critchlow and Paddy Moogan (UK only) - you probably know Tom and me. Some of you might not know that Tom is now in Seattle running SEO and content for SEOmoz for a few months and working with our US office. It's been great learning and growing alongside my bro over the last few years - I don't think it's biased to say that he has a lot to teach. Many of you will also know Paddy who is one of our more recent UK hires and team leads (if you don't know Paddy, I recommend reading one of his recent personal blog posts to get a feeling for the passion he brings to his work - he's one of the most effective SEOs I know).

What are they going to be talking about?

Link building mistakes - Wil Reynolds

I was as shocked as anyone to hear that Wil has made mistakes. Luckily he's man enough to tell us about them and help us avoid making the same ones. He'll also be calling out some of us (in a friendly way) with "link building mistakes made by advanced SEOs":

  • Common misconceptions
  • Mistakes made by advanced SEOs
  • Mistakes we've made and lessons we've learnt
  • Too much strategy = no actual links. Too little strategy = poor results. How do you find the right balance?

Getting actions from competitor research - Jane Copland

There has been plenty written about clever ways to see what your competitors are doing to build links. Jane is going to be showing us how you should build an actual plan based on what you see from your competitor research:

  • Why should you bother researching what your competitors are doing?
  • What should you do when you find different kinds of links and tactics?
  • What should you definitely not copy? - How to work out what is not actually helping other sites

Where to get the old "linkbait on digg" effect - Russ Jones

You remember when Digg could take your server down? Definitely happened to me a few times. Before Digg it was Slashdot (OK, I'm showing my age now). What works now? How should you go about getting links to your linkbait these days? Russ and his company are at the forefront of understanding this stuff and he has some amazing data and great insights to share. He's going to talk about:

  • Infographics and widget-bait on social media
  • How to use real-time analytics
  • Real-world statistics - insight into actual traffic from different sites
    • Where are the up-and-coming traffic sources?
    • Who's on the decline?
  • How do you actually get links from your linkbait [with real case studies and examples]

How to structure a major link building project - Tom Critchlow

You may have heard by now that Tom is in Seattle for a few months running SEO and content strategy for SEOmoz. He's already feeling the pressure of doing SEO under the microscope, so we thought we'd just turn that up a couple notches. He is going to present his strategy for getting SEOmoz the links they need (once he's worked out what those are!). Thanks to Rand and the team for their typical transparency in allowing Tom to talk about all of this publicly. The details of this session are TBC because Tom hasn't done the work yet (he landed in Seattle on Saturday), but I imagine it will cover:

  • Working out what links SEOmoz needs
  • Thinking about how to move the needle on a site with millions of inbound links
  • Building a link building ethos into the company (he's only there for a few months so it has to continue after he's gone)
  • What developers, product people, community managers and executives can do to build links

We're all pretty excited to see the results of this one, as you can imagine. It's a rare chance to see into the inner workings of a link building campaign.

Myths and case studies of outreach success - Paddy Moogan (UK) and Chris Bennett (US)

When I'm talking to people at conferences and answering Q&A, outreach is one of the topics that people find hardest to get their head around and make work consistently. Paddy and Chris bring different perspectives to this one, but both of them will be talking about:

  • Content that works
  • Great content != links
    • Outreach for traffic
    • Outreach for branding
    • Outreach for links
  • Tips and tricks of what actually works in the real world

And that takes us up to lunch time! I feel tired already just thinking about it.

After lunch:

The future of link building - Rand Fishkin

We are increasingly seeing that off-site signals other than traditional followed links are critically important parts of any link building campaign. Rand called this before it was officially announced and I'm excited to hear him talk about the impact some of these new signals have on ranking as well as analysing some other recent trends to look into the future of link building:

  • Social media shares that aren't links
    • Why you should care
    • How to get them
  • The benefits of nofollow / private / emailed links
  • The impact of usage data
  • The future of search engines' link analysis
    • Context / LDA
    • Page analysis, chunking and position on the page

Lessons from the dark side - Martin MacDonald (UK) and Kris Roadruck (US)

Following the strategic, forward-looking session from Rand, we're going to head straight into some down-and-dirty 'effective' tactics. Martin and Kris consistently blow my mind with the information they share in private. I'm pulling them, blinking, into the light. I believe that every SEO should have an appropriate interest in darker tactics to really understand how everything works. You'd be amazed at the filthy tactics some of the whitest SEOs have experimented with on their own time.

Martin and Kris have promised to share some of the tactics they know work that they'd normally only talk about over a beer. You'd never use these on a client or brand site, but in my opinion, you need to understand why they work and learn to apply some of the principles and automation to your day job:

  • Disclaimer [important!]
  • LinkSoup - the vital ingredients of a great link and how to mix them together
  • How to make links and influence the SERPs
  • Watch your back... links
  • Go big or go home - how to scale, automate and compete

Scaling white hat link building - Me

White hat link building tactics tend to be labour-intensive. If you really want to compete with white hat tactics, you need to think hard about how you can scale without access to all the automation and time-saving tricks of your greyer competitors. Some of this is sensibly learning from them where you can, some is accepting that you need to scale with elbow grease and thinking about how you can manage that. I will be covering:

  • Ways to scale
    • Manpower
    • Budget
    • Automation
    • Outsourcing
  • The role of scalable content
    • Why and how
    • Cost vs. quality
  • Incorporating brand and strategy

Expert Q&A and final tips

What's the point of getting all these experts in a room if you can't hear their biggest secrets? There will be Q&A at the end of each session for specific questions, but we'll also be wrapping up each day with a group session where each speaker gives up their top tip and all the speakers answer the audience's toughest questions.

In the UK, we will be dedicating this session to the memory of Jaamit Durrani who passed away at the end of last year and whose passion for sharing knowledge was unsurpassed. Some of his family and OMD colleagues will be there and the evening drinks will include a fundraising element in his memory.


If all of this sounds like your kind of thing, go book your tickets. Don't forget the PRO discount (go get yourself a free month's PRO trial if you need it to get the discount).

get your ticket now


In addition to the unparalleled expertise we have gathered together, we have some social fun planned as well. The VIP dinners the night before the shows are now sold out in both venues, but there will be a chance to pick the speakers' brains and mingle with other attendees over drinks at after-parties in both cities.

I look forward to seeing you there.


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