Digital Assets

Yahoo Webmaster Tools

May 17, 2008 – 9:14 pm

Yahoo has their own version of Google Webmaster Tools, called Yahoo Site Explorer. Site Explorer lets you notify Yahoo of your sitemap files, web feeds, etc. to help facilitate faster indexing.

Many webmasters discount yahoo in their search engine marketing efforts, since Google has emerged as the clear winner of the search wars. The problem is that one fifth of U.S. web searches still use Yahoo. So it’s probably worth heading over to the “Yahoo Webmaster Tools” to submit your sitemap.

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Getting Backspace to work normally in the Nano editor

April 25, 2008 – 10:26 pm

On many Linux configurations the Nano editor has an annoying quirk: when you hit the backspace key (regular delete on the mac), the character to the right of your cursor gets deleted instead of the one on the left. To fix this, edit the /etc/nanorc file and uncomment this line:

# set rebinddelete

so that it looks like this:

set rebinddelete

If you don’t have access to this file, you have my condolences.

I originally saw this fix here. Thanks!

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My Website Traffic Boost (Cheers to SEO)

April 11, 2008 – 3:17 pm

About a month ago, I noticed that money was pouring into my google adsense account like crazy. My first thought was: finally, my work has paid off! My second thought: I must be getting some serious traffic on one of my sites.

A quick glance at google analytics showed that traffic was growing spectacularly for one site in particular. This particular site was the one I’d focused my SEO efforts on, following the advice given to me by Aaron Wall on his SEObook site. (In fact, I’m pretty sure the increased traffic is a direct effect of the strategies I learned over at SEObook. A membership there isn’t cheap, but believe me, it’s worth every penny.) There’s a ton of new visitors coming in through google and the other search engines.

More good news: the traffic continues to roll in, and so does the ad revenue. In the past several days there has even been another growth spurt. Cheers to SEO.

Posted in Website Traffic | 2 Comments »

Clear Nonexistant Apps from “Open With” Menu on the Mac

February 5, 2008 – 11:03 pm

There is a weird glitch on Mac OS Tiger (and apparently Leopard too) whereby a ghost icon of un-installed apps remain in Finder’s “open with” list. You reach this menu by navigating to Finder > File > Open With. You can also reach a limited context menu version of this list by right-clicking (or Command-clicking) on a file you’d like to open.

This little issue can get pretty annoying if you’ve updated an app a few times, each time trashing the old version and installing the new version. You’ll end up with several versions of the same app in the “open with” list.

Fortunately, there’s an easy fix for Tiger (although there is a side-effect — see below). Here’s what to do:

1. Open up Terminal.

2. Copy the following code (both lines), paste it into Terminal, and press Enter:

/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

3. Close Terminal. Close all finder windows. The “open with” app list should update shortly (sometimes it seems to take a minute or two).

4. Rinse and repeat when necessary.

As mentioned above, there is a smallish side-effect: your file-type associations will be erased, so you’ll have to reset those.

Alternate method:

There’s also another method recommended by Apple. Some say that this changes other settings as well, and to avoid it. I haven’t tried it myself.

Posted in Mac | 1 Comment »

$2 off gototrafficschool.com with promo code XMK-K34-2BF | discount coupon

November 26, 2007 – 12:59 pm

Use this promotional discount to get $2 off when you register at gototrafficschool.com: XMK-K34-2BF

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What is Digital Asset Management?

August 16, 2007 – 10:36 pm

Digital Asset Management (sometimes referred to as DAM) is a somewhat vague term that can mean different things in different industries. In general, Digital Asset Management refers to the use of specialized software to organize, protect, and access files containing rich digital media. By rich media I mean images, graphics, video and audio.

Digital Asset Management (DAM) products range from simple, consumer oriented software applications to integrated enterprise-level solutions allowing for realtime media collaboration and access across the globe.

Some popular examples of consumer level Digital Asset Management systems include music and video management software such as Apple’s iTunes and the Windows Media Player. Photographers use products such as Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture to keep vast photo collections organized and accessible.

At the other end of the spectrum, large organizations who rely heavily on digital media are increasingly eager to consolidate, streamline and protect their unwieldy media libraries. Companies such as ClearStory Systems, a Digital Asset Management industry leader, promise to “put the power of digital media to work” for your organization.

To answer the question “What is Digital Asset Management?”, it might be helpful to look at some key features that many Digital Asset Management solutions have in common:

• Digital Asset Management systems usually use of metadata such as keywords to facilitate organization and easy access to the media
• Digital Asset Management systems typically integrate with the authoring tools of the particular media type (think Adobe Illustrator for logo designs, etc)
• Digital Asset Management systems often include basic media editing functionality (cropping and resizing of images, for example)
• Digital Asset Management systems can provide built-in file format conversion functionality
• search functionality
• tools to facilitate group collaboration
• version tracking tools to manage the workflow of media creation
• publish content

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