Category: Uncategorized

Cisco/Linksys picks a fine time to introduce an "iWhatever" product. Ripping off Apple's marketing 11 years ago has finally paid off! Gizmodo opens the Giz-kimono on their "iPhone on Monday" tease:

It's not what any of us expected. The iPhone is a voip phone made by Linksys. Cisco, their parent company, has owned that trademark since 1996. And they're announcing their product in a few hours.

So the iPhone is a VOIP handset, and not by Apple. Now, the bigger story presents itself: What will Apple call its cellphone?

 I guess the "i" in Cisco's "iPhone" stands for "instant letdown." As for what Apple might call their own iPhone, now that the name is taken, my guess is they'll call it an iPod, since one way to sell a $300 handset is to sell a $250 iPod with a $50 phone attached. If you call it a phone, people start comparing it to the thing from Samsung that Cingular is giving away for "free."

Tags: iPhone, Cisco, Linksys, iPod, Apple, Gizmodo

In The Official Google Webmaster Central Blog, they've got an article that talks about points that were covered in the Images and Search Engines session at the recent Search Engine Strategies Chicago conference. The panel apparently had some great points about using images on your site, and we're passing these points along to you:

• Don't put the bulk of your text as images. Search engines can't read text in images, and neither can readers, whether RSS or readers for the blind. If all the text on your pages is graphics, it's effectively unindexable and inaccessible.
• Use descriptive alt tags for images! “Image1” and “logo” aren't descriptive — use alt tags like “Chart showing the path of stock X” or the name of your company if the graphic is your company's logo.
• Don't overload your alt text. Be descriptive, but don't stuff it with extra keywords.
• If your company name, navigation, or other major elements of your pages are in images, alt text becomes especially important. “Consider moving vital details to text to ensure all visitors can view them.”
• Look at the image-to-text ratio on your page. How much text do you have? Try looking at your site with images turned off in your browser. What content can you see? Is the intent of your site obvious? Do the pages convey your message effectively?
• Shoppers often use image search to see the things they want to buy. “If you have a retail site, make sure that you have images of your products (and that they can be easily identified with alt text, headings, and textual descriptions).”
• Opt into enhanced image search in Google's webmaster tools. “This enables us to use your images in the Google Image Labeler, which harnesses the power of the community for adding metadata to your images.”

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(Cross-posted to the Tucows Blog)

Quite possibly the most disturbing PageRank graphic out there.

[via reddit] Here's something interesting: Vincent Kräutler has written up some code and accompanying documentation that purports to show the inner workings of Google's PageRank algorithm — and in a mere 126 of Python code to boot.

I'll have to give it a look see and perhaps “laymanize” it in a future article.

Link

Engadget is reporting that Nintendo is issuing new straps to all Wii users in the light of so many reports of strap breakages (and flying wiimote controllers):

So yeah, your strap is on the list for recall if you own a Wii. Whether the broken strap claims were bogus or not is now moot, the perception certainly exists that there's a problem with California class-actions sure to follow. So kudos to Nintendo for acting relatively quickly to address the issue before it snowballed into another Sony “rootkit” fiasco.

You don't have to return your Wii or any part of it; simply fill out the Wii Strap Relacement Form to get your replacement straps.

Of course, those new straps still look pretty wimpy next to this solution:

Links

• Engadget story on replacement straps
• Nintendo Wii Strap relacement Form
• Gizmodo story on using handcuffs as wiimote straps

“iPhone ad” from Russell Beattie's blog. Click the photo to see it on its original page.

For those of you who've been following the rumors of an Apple iPhone, this posting on Gizmodo is just too tantalizing:

Gizmodo Knows: iPhone Will Be Announced On Monday

I guarantee it. It isn't what I expected at all. And I've already said too much. — Brian Lam

It's summed up rather nicely in the latest installment of the webcomic xkcd…

Click the comic to see it at full size on its original page.

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Given this input…

…here's one match from MyHeritage.com's face recognition feature:

Yes…I can see a resemblance!

(Courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele and Hardhat.)