New to SEO? Need to polish up your knowledge? The Beginner's Guide to SEO has been read over 1 million times and provides comprehensive information you need to get on the road to professional quality SEO

SEO is the practice of improving and promoting a web site in order to increase the number of visitors the site receives from search engines. There are many aspects to SEO, from the words on your page to the way other sites link to you on the web. Sometimes SEO is simply a matter of making sure your site is structured in a way that search engines understand.

Search Engine Optimization isn't just about "engines." It's about making your site better for people too. We  believe these principles go hand in hand.

This guide is designed to describe all areas of SEO - from discovery of the terms and phrases (keywords) that generate traffic, to making a site search engine friendly, to building the links and marketing the unique value of the site/organization's offerings. Don't worry, if you are confused about this stuff, you are not alone.

Popular YouTubers Rhett and Link have returned to their roots, and have finally created another incredibly cheesy-to-the-point-it-becomes-astounding local business advert

Arlen’s Transmission in Burbank, California was lucky enough to receive the R&L treatment, being treated to a new ridiculous commercial tailor made for the owner’s personality.

What resulted what the catchiest, cheesiest music video/commercial ever, entitled Shift It.

Presenting the 101 most useful websites of 2012. These sites, well most of them, solve at least one problem really well and they all have simple web addresses (URLs) that you can memorize thus saving you a trip to Google.

1. screenr.com – record movies of your desktop and send them straight to YouTube.
2. ctrlq.org/screenshots – for capturing screenshots of web pages on mobile and desktops.
3. goo.gl – shorten long URLs and convert URLs into QR codes.
4. unfurlr.come – find the original URL that’s hiding behind a short URL.
5. qClock – find the local time of a city using a Google Map.
6. copypastecharacter.com – copy special characters that aren’t on your keyboard.
7. postpost.com – a better search engine for twitter.
8. lovelycharts.com – create flowcharts, network diagrams, sitemaps, etc.
9. iconfinder.com – the best place to find icons of all sizes.
10. office.com – download templates, clipart and images for your Office documents.
11. followupthen.com – the easiest way to setup email reminders.
12. jotti.org – scan any suspicious file or email attachment for viruses.
13. wolframalpha.com – gets answers directly without searching   – see more wolfram tips.
14. printwhatyoulike.com – print web pages without the clutter.
15. joliprint.com – reformats news articles and blog content as a newspaper.
16. ctrql.org/rss – a search engine for RSS feeds.
17. e.ggtimer.com – a simple online timer for your daily needs.
18. coralcdn.org – if a site is down due to heavy traffic, try accessing it through coral CDN.
19. random.org – pick random numbers, flip coins, and more.
20. pdfescape.com – lets you can quickly edit PDFs in the browser itself.
21. viewer.zoho.com – Preview PDFs and Presentations directly in the browser.
22. tubemogul.com – simultaneously upload videos to YouTube and other video sites.
23. ctrlq.org/dictation – online voice recognition in the browser itself.
24. scr.im – share you email address online without worrying about spam.
25. spypig.com – now get read receipts for your email.
26. sizeasy.com – visualize and compare the size of any product.
27. myfonts.com/WhatTheFont – quickly determine the font name from an image.
28. google.com/webfonts – a good collection of open source fonts.
29. regex.info – find data hidden in your photographs – see more EXIF tools.
30. livestream.com – broadcast events live over the web, including your desktop screen.
31. iwantmyname.com – helps you search domains across all TLDs.
32. homestyler.com – design from scratch or re-model your home in 3d.
33. join.me – share you screen with anyone over the web.
34. onlineocr.net – recognize text from scanned PDFs – see other OCR tools.
35. flightstats.com – Track flight status at airports worldwide.
36. wetransfer.com – for sharing really big files online.
37. hundredzeros.com – the site lets you download free Kindle books.
38. polishmywriting.com – check your writing for spelling or grammatical errors.
39. marker.to – easily highlight the important parts of a web page for sharing.
40. typewith.me – work on the same document with multiple people.
41. whichdateworks.com – planning an event? find a date that works for all.
42. everytimezone.com – a less confusing view of the world time zones.
43. gtmetrix.com – the perfect tool for measuring your site performance online.
44. noteflight.com – print music sheets, write your own music online (review).
45. imo.im – chat with your buddies on Skype, Facebook, Google Talk, etc. from one place.
46. translate.google.com – translate web pages, PDFs and Office documents.
47. kleki.com – create paintings and sketches with a wide variety of brushes.
48. similarsites.com – discover new sites that are similar to what you like already.
49. wordle.net – quick summarize long pieces of text with tag clouds.
50. bubbl.us – create mind-maps, brainstorm ideas in the browser.
51. kuler.adobe.com – get color ideas, also extract colors from photographs.
52. liveshare.com – share your photos in an album instantly.
53. lmgtfy.com – when your friends are too lazy to use Google on their own.
54. midomi.com – when you need to find the name of a song.
55. bing.com/images – automatically find perfectly-sized wallpapers for mobiles.
56. faxzero.com – send an online fax for free – see more fax services.
57. feedmyinbox.com – get RSS feeds as an email newsletter.
58. ge.tt – quickly send a file to someone, they can even preview it before downloading.
59. pipebytes.com – transfer files of any size without uploading to a third-party server.
60. tinychat.com – setup a private chat room in micro-seconds.
61. privnote.com – create text notes that will self-destruct after being read.
62. boxoh.com – track the status of any shipment on Google Maps – alternative.
63. chipin.com – when you need to raise funds online for an event or a cause.
64. downforeveryoneorjustme.com – find if your favorite website is offline or not?
65. ewhois.com – find the other websites of a person with reverse Analytics lookup.
66. whoishostingthis.com – find the web host of any website.
67. google.com/history – found something on Google but can’t remember it now?
68. aviary.com/myna – an online audio editor that lets record, and remix audio clips online.
69. disposablewebpage.com – create a temporary web page that self-destruct.
70. urbandictionary.com – find definitions of slangs and informal words.
71. seatguru.com – consult this site before choosing a seat for your next flight.
72. sxc.hu – download stock images absolutely free.
73. zoom.it – view very high-resolution images in your browser without scrolling.
74. scribblemaps.com – create custom Google Maps easily.
75. alertful.com – quickly setup email reminders for important events.
76. picmonkey.com – Picnik is offline but PicMonkey is an even better image editor.
77. formspring.me – you can ask or answer personal questions here.
78. sumopaint.com – an excellent layer-based online image editor.
79. snopes.com – find if that email offer you received is real or just another scam.
80. typingweb.com – master touch-typing with these practice sessions.
81. mailvu.com – send video emails to anyone using your web cam.
82. timerime.com – create timelines with audio, video and images.
83. stupeflix.com – make a movie out of your images, audio and video clips.
84. safeweb.norton.com – check the trust level of any website.
85. teuxdeux.com – a beautiful to-do app that looks like your paper dairy.
86. deadurl.com – you’ll need this when your bookmarked web pages are deleted.
87. minutes.io – quickly capture effective notes during meetings.
88. youtube.com/leanback – Watch YouTube channels in TV mode.
89. youtube.com/disco – quickly create a video playlist of your favorite artist.
90. talltweets.com – Send tweets longer than 140 characters.
91. pancake.io – create a free and simple website using your Dropbox account.
92. builtwith.com – find the technology stack of any website.
93. woorank.com – research a website from the SEO perspective.
94. mixlr.com – broadcast live audio over the web.
95. radbox.me – bookmark online videos and watch them later (review).
96. tagmydoc.com – add QR codes to your documents and presentations (review).
97. notes.io – the easiest way to write short text notes in the browser.
98. ctrlq.org/html-mail – send rich-text mails to anyone, anonymously.
99. fiverr.com – hire people to do little things for $5.
100. otixo.com – easily manage your online files on Dropbox, Google Docs, etc.
101. ifttt.com – create a connection between all your online accounts.
     
102. If you enjoyed the above list, also check out the expanded version The Most Useful Websites which now offers a collection of 150+ undiscovered and incredibly useful websites to enhance your productivity.

Original post on labnot.org

A youtube of an bemuzed  woman trying to park her car in a Belfast street has become an internet sensation.

It shows a driver taking about half an hour and numerous attempts to reverse her car into a space between two vehicles in the Holyland area of south Belfast.

The 30-minute attempt at parking was filmed by  students living in the street, and has been viewed more than 1,000,000 times online.

The good: The Samsung Galaxy S4 has Android 4.2.2, a fantastic camera, a powerful quad-core processor, and software solutions for just about every scenario -- including working as a TV/DVR remote. It's also comfortable in hand and has NFC, a user-replaceable battery, and a microSD storage slot.

The bad: Its screen is dimmer than competitors', its plastic design gives it a cheaper look than its rivals, and we found the Galaxy S4's power button turned on at undesirable times. Not all camera modes work as promised, and a long list of software features can quickly overwhelm and confuse.

The bottom line: Its laundry list of features require time and effort to truly master, but the Galaxy S4 is the top choice for anyone looking for a big-screen, do-everything smartphone.

$199.99 to $699.99 Review Date: 4/23/13
With the Galaxy S4, Samsung clinches its goal of global smartphone domination. The supercharged Android 4.2 Jelly Bean device may look like a toy compared with the stunning HTC One and the dapper iPhone 5. But taken together, its blazing quad-core processor, colorful 5-inch HD screen, sharp-shooting 13-megapixel camera, and mile-high stack of software extras make the Galaxy S4 the most powerful superphone anywhere in the world.

What does the Galaxy S4 have? A better question is: what doesn't it have? There's the 1080p screen, zippy processing speeds that are ideal for gaming, and an IR blaster that can control your TV. Then there's the parade of camera tricks that cram action shots into one scene, use both front and back cameras, and film a video in slow-mo. The GS4 can harness your eyeballs to pause video, and it can answer a phone call with the wave of your hand. Unlike the HTC One and the iPhone 5, it also piles on expandable storage space and a removable battery.

It's true: most of the GS4's featurettes aren't essential -- and some aren't even very useful, like the camera's Eraser mode, which I never got to work, a subpar optical reader, and a translation tool that just duplicates what Google Translate already does. While none stands out as a must-have, cannot-possibly-live-without extra, these features do add up to a compelling testament that the Galaxy S4 is more than a step ahead of the pack.

So, if you want a lovingly crafted statement phone that barely strays from Android's core offering, then buy the HTC One, which also has double the internal storage for about the same price. But if you're looking for a superphone that surpasses all other handsets on the features front, then you'll find in this deserving all-around flagship a strong mix of extremely competent hardware and aspirational software with very few major drawbacks.

After bouncing around several top-level domains over the last couple of months, BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay has finally found a home in Iceland.

The Pirate Bay's search for a TLD — initiated as the site's admins fear Swedish authorities might seize its .SE domain name — recently brought the site to the Greenland-based .GL domain. That didn't last long, however, and The Pirate Bay was resigned to find a new home, which it did —  Iceland.

For now, The Pirate Bay is safe there, as the Icelandic domain registry told TorrentFreak they will not take action against the domain — unless ordered to do so by a court.

For the average user, all of this simply means the official Pirate Bay domain is now thepiratebay.is, where the site is operating as normal.


SEE : Watch the Pirate Bay Documentary Online Now Amidst is search for a new TLD, The Pirate Bay joked it would move its servers to North Korea, and later to the U.S. Jokes aside, the BitTorrent tracker has proved to be very resilient many times in its history, despite its co-founders being found guilty of copyright infringement back in 2010.

Image courtesy of Flickr, fdecomite

XBox One revealed HERE

Today, we're looking at 3  interesting stories. Is Amazon planning a set-top box? Bloomberg cites people familiar with Amazon’s plans, which reportedly involve a box for streaming video to subscribers. Microsoft issued invitations to the press Wednesday for a May 21 event, where it’s widely expected to unveil its next-generation Xbox. And real estate company Zillow will take questions during its quarterly earnings report via social media.

See  the video above for more on these stories.

Ashley Banjo steps up to face his biggest ever challenge as he attempts to get the whole town of Stockton-On-Tees , Teesside on its feet and dancing in the streets once more . In his most ambitious dance project to date, Ashley Banjo, with the help of Diversity, will hit the town of Stockton-on-Tees this summer, to persuade the people of this market town in the North-East of England to join him in a street dance extravaganza, which he hopes will bring the whole community together.

Michel Kirland, Head of Factual Entertainment, Sky said: “I am thrilled to be working with Ashley again on such an ambitious project. Ashley is hugely talented and it’s his passion and commitment to street dance that we think will encourage the whole of Stockton-On-Tees to dance in the streets”.

www.stocktonteesside.co.uk

Stockton-on-Tees has a proud dance heritage. Through the war years and right up until the 1960s, the North East’s thriving market town boasted an impressive three dance halls, more than average for a town of its size. From the jitterbug and the jive to the shuffle and swing, each weekend the halls and clubs reverberated to the sound of music and laughter as the community danced its cares away. But in the 1970s the dance halls began to close, and it seemed that Stockton had forgotten how to dance.

In recent times Stockton like much of the North East of England and Teesside in particularly has and is going through a period of economic depression .

Despite this Stockton has a proud heritage and was instrumental in Britains Industrial Revolution .

`In 1822, Stockton witnessed an event which changed the face of the world forever and heralded the dawn of a new era in trade, industry and travel. The first rail of George Stephenson's Stockton and Darlington Railway was laid near St. John's crossing on Bridge Road. Hauled by Locomotion No 1, the great engineer himself manned the engine on its first journey in 1825. Fellow engineer and friend, Timothy Hackworth acted as guard. This was the world's first passenger railway, connecting Stockton with Shildon. The opening of the railway greatly boosted Stockton, making it easier to bring coal to the factories; however the port declined as business had moved down river to Middlesbrough`

`Stockton witnessed another discovery in 1827. Local chemist John Walker invented the friction match in his shop at 59 High Street. `
Ashley Banjo commented: “I have always believed that street dance is for everyone, whether you are part of a crew or going solo. This is the biggest challenge I have ever taken on, let’s hope I can give Stockton-on-Tees their dancing spirit back.”

Now Ashley plans to change all that – he aims to create a dazzling street-dance showcase that will reinvigorate the town, create a new community spirit and get thousands of people dancing in celebration. He’ll start by bringing together people who have similar jobs but who have never met. From shop assistants and market traders, teachers and librarians, to council staff and care workers, Ashley will unite the town’s workers by choreographing a series of individual street dance routines.

Then, for one day only, Stockton’s high street, the widest in Britain, will be transformed into the UK’s largest open air venue as Ashley and his workers bring the routines together. He’ll lead the whole town in an unforgettable, show-stopping street-dance finale.

Tim Whitwell Head of Programmes, added: “This is going to be an inspirational and entertaining series, with Ashley creating an unprecedented street dance spectacle. There will be heart-warming stories, personal transformations and surprises galore, as well as some aesome choreography. It willbe a unique TV event.”

Hardwick Community Centre  -  possible venue for local trials ?

http://www.stocktonteesside.co.uk       

Stu Walker

The upcoming Warner Bros. Superman rehash Man of Steel opens on June 14th. Walmart has a special opportunity for those who want to see Superman soar again before anybody else, and is setting a new standard in film marketing.

Starting at 8am on May 18th, Walmart stores will begin selling special tickets to advance screenings of Man of Steel, in both 2D and 3D. The screenings take place at 7pm on June 13th in select theaters nationwide. The tickets will also allow you to pre-order Blu-ray combo packs of Man of Steel, and you’ll get an exclusive digital comic written by Man of Steel‘s screenwriter, David Goyer.

The studio teaming with a retail outlet for exclusive access to advance screenings is absolutely a big event in modern film marketing. We don’t think anything like this has ever been attempted before, but you can bet that if it’s a success then you’ll see a lot more of this kind of exclusive promo of content and special screenings for other films as well. There are exclusive apps that let you put your face alongside Superman in digital photos, in-store promotional materials that allow point-and-click access via your mobile devices, and of course plenty of regular retail in-store merchandise for the film.

You can see all of the details by going to the official Walmart page for this exclusive event.

I remember back in 1989, during the build-up to the very first serious big-screen Batman film. Batmania swept the country, and you couldn’t go into any store without seeing the bat emblem everywhere, merchandising galore, and it was certainly a promotional blitz unlike anything I’d seen since Star Wars.

It looks like Warner is attempting something similar again with Superman this time around, as they no doubt know that they have to make sure this film is a big success — the future of the franchise depends on it .After the previous attempt misfired and failed to launch a revival of the revamp, the studio recognized that the Superman brand needed to be revitalized for modern audiences, and that’s clearly what they’re attempting to do with Man of Steel. Warner Bros. obviously realizes the mistakes made with the promo of Green Lantern, and so are going max out to the promotion of this newest Superman movie. While I don’t think the mania will rise to the level Batman and Star Wars enjoyed, the push is clearly going to be huge.

The marketing team has definitely come up with a great idea in this team-up with Walmart — if you want to send audiences rushing to get advance tickets, there’s probably no better partner to have in the endeavor than Walmart, the biggest retail chain in the world. And merging the branding and merchandising with advance screening opportunities is a fantastic ploy, it’s different and bold and will catch everyone’s attention.

A particularly powerful part of this promo is that Warner Bros. will have Walmart doing a giant marketing campaign alongside the film’s promotional efforts, and Walmart has vast reach with not only their advertising but also in-store advance promotions. With a Walmart in practically every city and town, and with so many people shopping their regularly, that means Walmart is putting Man of Steel in front of everybody’s eyes day after day. The value of that kind of placement and marketing assist is hard to imagine.

Mainstream awareness of Man of Steel was already bound to be high. Now, awareness of not only the product but of the need to see it is going to likewise rise considerably. Warner’s marketing strategy is turning Man of Steel into the must-see movie of 2013, and those early screenings — if the film is as good as everyone’s already expecting it to be — will send thousands of ordinary people out to tell their family and friends how good the movie is, acting as free advertising building the momentum going into opening weekend.

It’s great to see Warner Bros. finding a new approach to marketing their superhero properties, and setting a new standard for branding and promotions. This should help the 3D numbers for the film as well, I suspect, which will boost the box office totals for the film’s opening.

Will you be lining up on May 18th to grab some of these advance tickets and exclusive offers, dear readers? Sound off in the comments below! And you can search for which stores in your area have tickets and which theaters the tickets are for HERE.

Orig posted by BBC

Several BBC Twitter accounts, including its weather, Arabic and Radio Ulster feeds were hijacked by a group calling itself Syrian Electronic Army earlier. A series of tweets about fake weather conditions in Middle Eastern countries began appearing on Thursday afternoon.

The accounts are the latest in a series of large corporate Twitter feeds to have been breached.

The BBC said that it now has control of all three accounts and all inappropriate content has been deleted.

A BBC spokeswoman said: "We apologise to our audiences that this unacceptable material appeared under the BBC's name."

The attacks began in the early afternoon on Thursday. At the same time, BBC staff were alerted to a phishing email that had been sent to some BBC email accounts. It is not yet clear if the two are related.

The email contained a link that if clicked on could expose password details.

The BBC weather Twitter feed, which has 60,000 followers, was among those affected.

Alongside the standard tweets from the weather feed such as "'last night was chilly" some more bizarre comments began emerging.

They included: "Saudi weather station down due to head-on collision with camel."

Another read: "Chaotic weather forecast for Lebanon as the government decides to distance itself from the Milky Way."

The group claiming responsibility has previously spread messages in support of Syrian President Bashar-al-Assad.

The BBC's Arabic and Radio Ulster feeds were also affected.

Faris Couri, BBC Arabic's editor-in-chief said in a statement: "Today at around 11.00GMT, BBC Arabic's twitter account @BBCArabicOnline was hacked. Since then, several pro-Assad news tweets were published by the account.

"We strongly condemn such action and apologise to our audiences," he said.

Social engineering The attacks on the BBC are the latest in a series of hacks on high-profile Twitter accounts.

Last month Burger King and Chrysler saw their Twitter feeds hijacked while a quarter of a million Twitter users had their passwords stolen.

"The BBC is an obvious place to attack as it a trusted brand and so anyone who wishes to broadcast a message can reach a audience that are likely to pay attention, certainly initially," said Prof Alan Woodward from the department of computing at the University of Surrey.

"The most likely source of the hack is via social engineering - someone managing to elicit the password by fooling the user who keeps the password," he added.

Increasingly experts are now calling for Twitter to step up security and offer two-factor authentication, essentially a disposable, single-use password for its users.

Writing about the hack on his blog, security consultant Graham Cluley said it was unclear how the password had been cracked.

"The good news is that the hack doesn't appear to have been done with the intention of spreading malicious links or scams. Instead, it appears that the Syrian Electronic Army are trying to spread political messages about Syria instead," he said.

"You should always use hard-to-guess, hard-to-crack, unique passwords for your online accounts that you are not using anywhere else on the web."