miercuri, 28 martie 2012

Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics


Celebrities That Look Like Mattresses

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 05:50 PM PDT

Spend long enough playing on Facebook and you find some crazy stuff… like this collection of photos that match up celebs and matresses.

Even stranger is the fact they are from a photo album on the Walthamstow (unofficial) Tourist Board page.

Lindsy Lohan


Miley Cyrus


Elizabeth II


Alan Cumming


Sandra Bullock


Mickey Rourke


David Mitchell


Diane Kruger


Stephen Fry


Ashlee Simpson


Lakoda Rayne


January Jones


Kirstin Dunst


Britney Spears


Nadine Coyle


Perez Hilton


Jessica Simpson


Jason Statham


Nicki Minaj


Leonardo Dicaprio


Pixie Lott


Brian Harvey


Lindsy Lohan


Felicia Day


Rihanna


Famous Australian Actors in Hollywood

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 12:11 PM PDT

A number of Australian actors have become internationally known. Below you will find a list of famous Australian actors. This is not a comprehensive list of all celebrities from Australia, but it does show some of the better known actors and actresses.

Heath Ledger




Hugh Jackman










Nicole Kidman










Russell Crowe






Cate Blanchett






Chris Hemsworth




Liam Hemsworth




Sam Worthington




Geoffrey Rush




Julian McMahon




Xavier Samuel




Richard Roxburgh




Joel Edgerton






Craig Horner




Ryan Kwanten




Paul Hogan




Bryan Brown




John Noble




Nicholas Rogers




Luke Bracey


Nick Cave




Hugo Weaving


Guy Pearce




Craig Parker




Naomi Watts






Alex O'Loughlin



The iPhone Boom Mic

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 11:43 AM PDT

We all know how great the iPhone 4S is at recording video content. Some have shot amazing videos which you would think have been done with professional cameras. But the biggest problem with any phone is the mic, they're not made for high quality sound recording. Photojojo has a solution for you: the iPhone Boom Mic.

The mic attaches to the headphone jack and adjusts to hold the back of your phone, even over a case! It is super lightweight, so it won't throw off the balance of your phone as you record.

Shooting your friend's show? Use the directional setting to capture all of the sound coming from the stage. When you're interviewing the band afterward, switch to the super-directional setting for more precisely focused recording. The mic works through the LiveAction app, which also lets you upload your videos instantly.








Facebook Timeline Overview [infographic]

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 11:33 AM PDT



Lately the internet has been buzzing with the word Timeline. Personal pages have been using it for a little while now, but as of March 30th all pages will implement the Timeline layout, and the residual changes that come with it. Using one of our clients, Starbucks, as an example, we've developed an infographic that sums up some of the important changes and features of Timeline, and serves to answer some of the questions floating around about what it all means.

Ultimately the introduction of Timeline will mark a shift in the way brands use their Facebook page and engage with the community. Visually stimulating content will be more important than ever, something particularly exciting to a designer like me.

We encourage you to download, read, and share our insights on the new Facebook Timeline.


Via: Edelmandigital


Festival Of Colors: World's Biggest Color Party

Posted: 27 Mar 2012 08:39 PM PDT



Devin Graham and his buddies grabbed a bunch of hi-tech Canons and headed down to Spanish Fork, Utah, for the largest celebration of Holi — the Hindu Festival of Colors — in the Western Hemisphere.


Via: Thedailywh


30 Perfectly Timed Photos of Animals

Posted: 27 Mar 2012 04:44 PM PDT

Whether it was a professional photographer or just the luck, these animal pictures were taken at the perfect time.




























































Via: buzzfeed


Photo: Oval Office Phone Inspection

The White House Your Daily Snapshot for
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
 

Photo: Oval Office Phone Inspection

Throughout February, official White House photographers captured some great candid shots of the Administration, including this photo of Corbin Fleming, pictured below, inspecting the President's phone.

Make sure to check out the full collection for more candids – Let's Move! celebrated its 2nd Anniversary with top chefs and NFL stars, and the President sang with Mick Jagger and B.B. King in the East Room during "In Performance at the White House: Red, White & Blues."

Check out more photos highlighting big events from February at the White House.

Corbin Fleming plays with phone in the Oval Office

Corbin Fleming, brother of 2011 March of Dimes National Ambassador Lauren Fleming, plays with the President's telephone during his family's visit to the Oval Office, Feb. 7, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

In Case You Missed It

Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog:

Vice President and Dr Biden Celebrate Women's History Month
Vice President and Dr. Biden hosted a reception to celebrate the history, accomplishments, and contributions of women across the spectrum of American life, from academia and science, business and labor, philanthropy and advocacy, athletics and the arts, to the military and government.

First Lady Michelle Obama Marks the Cherry Blossom Festival Centennial
The First Lady returned to the Tidal Basin along the Potomac River to plant a new sapling for future generations to enjoy.

President Obama Sees Progress on Nuclear Security
In South Korea, President Obama says that the world has made significant progress in securing nuclear weapons.

Today's Schedule

All times are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).

12:45 PM: The Vice President delivers remarks at a campaign event

2:00 PM: Press Briefing by Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest WhiteHouse.gov/live

7:30 PM: The Vice President attends a campaign event with local supporters

WhiteHouse.gov/live Indicates that the event will be live-streamed on WhiteHouse.gov/Live

Get Updates

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The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111

 

The Lowdown on Structured Data and Schema.org - Your Questions Answered!

The Lowdown on Structured Data and Schema.org - Your Questions Answered!


The Lowdown on Structured Data and Schema.org - Your Questions Answered!

Posted: 27 Mar 2012 02:10 PM PDT

Posted by Daniel Butler

First of all, thank you to everyone who listened in to the Microformats and Schema.org webinar with Richard Baxter and myself. If you are a PRO member and haven't had a chance to listen in, be sure to check it out!

During and after the webinar we received a ton of great feedback and questions which we unfortunately just didn't have time to cover off (ah man!). But…as they were awesome questions, SEOmoz have given us the chance to rock out a blog post as a follow up. So, sit back and enjoy as we take your head from confusion to conclusion.

1. Can you show/speak about pros and cons of using Schema versus using micro formats?

I don't think we can really compare micro formats to schema.org directly - micro formats are a form of structured data, like microdata and RDFa with a limited set of pre-defined properties. The sole purpose of Schema.org is to extend the vocabulary used in structured data, and at the moment only microdata can be combined with Schema.org. Although there has been talk of plans to start using RDFa.

Due to the extensive vocabulary on offer and universal support from the major search engines, the future is looking bright for the growth of Schema.org. Can the same really be said for micro-formats? IMO no, it's an easy to understand mark up but doesn't have the universal support to maintain growth.

2. What are other advantages of using schema and microdata except for getting better rich snippets?

Marking up items on a web page creates a stronger overall definition of what the content is really about. Aaron Bradley wrote a great blog post on seoskeptic.com deciphering Google's semantic search intentions.

You only need to look at Google's recipe search as an example of what is starting to evolve from the data contained within the mark up we install.

3. Did you guys notice any improvement in rankings after implementing schema?

I personally haven't seen a direct impact on rankings from integrating any form of structured data, but that doesn't mean it won't happen in the near future. With the purchase of Metaweb/Freebase back in 2010, and new developments for its Semantic search on the horizon, we can only guess this will be playing a greater role.

4. What are some practical applications of micro data or micro formats with a higher education institute? Is it possible to define a new "item type" such as courses, degrees, etc?

Ok, let's break down a few ideas which have the potential to generate a rich snippet for an Educational institute, first up ‘Place'.

There is a schema type for Educational Organization that allows us to mark up the name and location of the institute, resulting in the address featuring in the rich snippet. The mark up would resemble something like:

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/EducationalOrganization">
<span itemprop="name"></span>
<div itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="schema.org/PostalAddress">
<span itemprop="streetAddress"></span>
<span itemprop="addressLocality"></span>
<span itemprop="addressRegion"></span> <span itemprop="postalCode"></span> </div>

With regards to the courses themselves, why not gather some reviews from recent graduates for each course. This can then be marked up with standard Review schema, but then combined with some additional mark up to describe the actual person who left the review as a recent graduate. This can be done using the itemprop="alumni":

<span itemprop="alumni" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">
<span itemprop="name"></span>

So now that we have a few reviews and ratings from recent graduates, why not take this one step further and create an aggregate rating with schema.org, which will ultimately lead to the star rating rich snippet.

If the resource is available another awesome addition to a course page would be a very quick introductory video of each course. This in turn can be marked up using schema's VideoObject, which when combined with video XML sitemaps, correct video formatting and a bunch of other items described in this cool post by Geoff of Distilled, will lead to a video thumbnail being generated in the search results. Here is a quick piece of Schema video mark up:

<div itemprop="video" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/VideoObject"> <span itemprop="name">[feature the exact title of the video]</span> <meta itemprop="duration" content="[duration of the video in the format: T0M53S]" /> <meta itemprop="thumbnail" content="[video thumbnail url]" /> <meta itemprop="uploadDate" content="[the upload date and time of video in ISO format e.g. 2012-03-14T09:00:00+09:00]"> <span itemprop="description"></span>

Here are a few other things which could result in a rich snippet for an educational institute:

  • Selling books/resources for use with each course online? – This content could be marked up using a combination of Book and Product schema.
  • Are you running open days/workshops for related courses? – Perfect opportunity to use the EducationEvent schema.

As for defining new ‘item types' it is totally possible, check out the extension mechanism. This will allow applications to develop a basic level of understanding of the mark up used, but it's unlikely to lead to a rich snippet being generated unless there is a large/growing popularity for the particular item type.

However the Schema vocabulary is growing, so although there may not be a defining type right now there could well be in the near future. For example there has been recent talk of collaboration between ESPN and Google to define a new Sports schema.

5. With the review section... wouldn't this allow websites to manipulate their ratings? How will this be monitored by Google?

Yes, and it's been happening, A LOT! Originally there was an approval process for a domain to become white-listed for rich snippets, which involved informing Google via a simple form submission. But I remember it having a pretty heavy waiting list, anything from 4 weeks to 6 months.

This eventually changed, and the approval speed for websites significantly improved (relying primarily on algorithmic validation). Within a day or so of implementing a set of mark up, rich snippets were being generated. This of course then led to a lot of the abuse, and a crackdown on spam by Google allowing people to report rich snippet spam.

There are always going to be questions on the validity of review data, but it's a really tricky one to judge. I wonder whether trusted third party review platforms could play a greater role in helping to filter out spam in a similar way to that seen in Google Shopping, but even then they are still open to abuse.

6. In the IMdb example the image has an item property on it but it is not in the search result. Why is this?

Very good question, this would make for such an awesome rich snippet. Outside of video thumbnails, software applications, recipe search, and news/articles, rich snippet support for the image property is still quite restricted.

7. Do you have an example of breadcrumbs showing up in results?

Motorauthority.com uses microdata to mark up its breadcrumb trail, resulting in the following snippet:

8. Do you know of any way to mark up a "product category" page? Not a product aggregator page (a list of the same products available from different vendors), but, say, an e-commerce category page that lists different products?

Ok, let's say we are a kick ass clothing store and stock merchandise from a number of cool brands like Animal, Quicksilver, Rip Curl etc. Let's take a broad category like ‘Animal' as our example, which includes products like bags, shirts, shorts and hoodies – there are a couple of things we could affectively do:

  1. Aggregate review data across all Animal products to create an overall rating (– or ‘popularity' score if you like) for the brand category.
  2. Aggregate the price of all products in the category using schema.org/AggregateOffer - marking up the total number of products available in the category, and the min and max price of associated products to add the price range to the rich snippet.

The code for this would resemble something like:

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Product"> <span itemprop="name"><span itemprop="brand">Animal</span></span> <div itemprop="aggregateRating" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/AggregateRating"> Products in the Animal category have been rated <span itemprop="ratingValue">5</span> out of <span itemprop="bestRating">5</span> based on <span itemprop="ratingCount">387</span> reviews. </div> <div itemprop="offers" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/AggregateOffer"> There are <span itemprop="offerCount">120</span> clothing products on sale, ranging from <span itemprop="lowPrice">$10.00</span> to <span itemprop="highPrice">$120.00</span> </div>

Using the above code, here is an example rich snippet:

9. Does associating CSS with these microformat classes have any negative effect?

Applying CSS formatting directly to any of the properties of the mark up language shouldn't affect the rich snippet code in any way. As long as the correct naming conventions have been used, there shouldn't be any trouble.

10. Is there a Rich Snippet Generator and Schema Generator you would recommend?

There aren't a huge amount of actual code generators, but here are the ones I'm aware of:

Here's a list of some other tools and plug-ins which may also be of use.

11. Does it matter where you put any of these markup codes on the site?

The actual location of the mark up on a web page doesn't impact the ability to generate rich snippets. The ordering of mark up can however, especially when nesting elements, so be sure to test thoroughly using the Google testing tool, or the Bing WMT equivalent.

Thanks again to all those who submitted questions. We hope that this post provides the answers you were seeking, and if there are any new questions please fire away in the comments!


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Romanians are Smart or How to Change the Google Autocomplete Suggestions

Posted: 27 Mar 2012 03:52 AM PDT

Posted by gabandrei

I am a Romanian. I am proud of it, despite of what the world thinks about Romanians. What people think about Romanians could be influenced by Google. Google is a voice in the world, which influence in a positive or negative way, even if we do not like it.

But let me start with the beginning.

In November 2011, someone noticed that if he typed in Google romanians are (English), romanii sunt (Romanian), les roumains sont (French), los romanos son (Spanish), i rumeni sono (Italian), rumanen sind intelligent (German) the Autocomplete gave only negative suggestions.

Trying to find out what's going on, he understood that the suggestions are determined based on a number of purely objective factors (including popularity of search terms) without human intervention. If you would like to find out more details about it, Danny Sullivan wrote a really nice article on How Google Instant's Autocomplete suggestions work.

Starting from this, one of the most well knows Romanian brands, ROM, launches a campaign to change the Romania's image on Google. They build a website: Romanians are smart (with a Romanian version on Romanii sunt destepti), where they persuade Romanians to search on Google on specific terms, so they will change the Google Autocomplete suggestions. The campaign's call to action is "Change with a click"; users get the option to search directly from the website in six languages: Romanian, English, German, French, Spanish, Italian with the final goal of changing the Romania's image on Internet:

On Youtube they uploaded a tutorial that helps users to understand why and what they are supposed to do:

At the launching date, in November, there were very few searches, and they were only on negative terms. As you can see in Insights for search the number of searches increased quickly, the positive terms having a higher volume than the negative ones.

Of course, some negative searches were still in use, probably a lot of users wanted to see how the results look like.

One month later, on December 21 st 2011, a Romanian blogger piticu.ro shows for the first time that positive suggestions started to appear next to negative ones.

On the website we can see live how many searches have been made in all languages (and different websites too). Today there have been already made on the website over 600000 searches:

  • 163,779 searches for romanii sunt destepti (Romanian)
  • 133,892 searches for les roumains sont intelligents (French)
  • 137,782 searches for romanians are smart (English)
  • 62,948 searches for rumanen sind intelligent (German)
  • 79,628 searches for i rumeni sono intelligenti (Italian)
  • 78,829 searches for los romanos son inteligentes (Spanish)

For some languages, the suggestions are completely changed, and only positive terms appear:

For some languages, there's still work to do. For French for example, where the positive searches appears next to the negative ones.

Google gives bad suggestions about your name or brand? With a bit of work this can be fixed.

Romanians are smart, aren't they?


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Seth's Blog : Why isn't it better?

Why isn't it better?

  • Perhaps you don't know enough
  • Perhaps you don't care enough, or
  • Perhaps you're unable to execute because of committees, the status quo and fear

These might be three ways to say the same thing.

The combination of fear and ignorance (two sides of the same coin) can be paralyzing.



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