Post highlighting some of the potential phrase and directory related penalties and filters Google may be using, and why it would make sense for them to use them.

Most companies, especially from the banking domain, develop a large amount of their software in C/C++, and generally, they are not interested in redeveloping the code in any other new generation language, such as .NET or Java, due to cost and performance reasons. One well known advantage [1] to sticking with the C++ legacy application is performance. Most scientific applications are intentionally developed in C++ for the same reason. But then, integration of this existing functionality with the new application is a big issue. The solution to this problem is incubating service orientation into the application architecture and accessing the legacy code by exposing it as a service, based on open standards so that it can be used across various platforms.

I'm spending the weekend reading a new book called ASP.NET AJAX In Action . You can get portions of it now as part of Manning Publications' early access program. I get my copy for free because I'm doing a manuscript review for them. I haven't started reading yet, but I'm excited about this book because of the authors: Alessandro Gallo (a.k.a. Garbin) , David Barkol , and Rama Krishna Vavilala . All three are notable contributors to the ASP.NET AJAX community through blogging and the forums . Alright, now that my expectations are high, time to crack open the manuscript and put a critical eye to it! Read More......(read more)

SEMPO's annual look at the State of Search Engine Marketing finds that search continues to grow, reaching $9.4 billion in North America in 2006.

What's new in search? Found in the forums: Is SEO Necessary? Top Ten Search Factors 2007; Bringing SEM In-house; and more.

Skyway Software, the award winning provider of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) design and delivery solutions, and GT Software, a leading provider of rapid SOA development tools for mainframes, today announced a formal partnership encompassing sales, marketing, and product integration. The combination of Skyway SOA Platform and GT Software's Ivory product offers a new element to the SOA marketplace -- a solution that can build new services, assemble existing services, while managing and governing reuse across multiple platforms from any type of data source, including mainframes.

Update: So that's embarassing... It's obvious now after comparing the pictures side-by-side that, in fact, it was Mike Champion who made the post, not Dr. Michael Rys... Mike Champion > | < Dr. Michael Rys I know... I KNOW! It's...

So this week I am working on a more hands on post that highlights the usage of Ruby, XML, and the .NET platform. The Gardens Point Ruby.NET development team recently released beta 0.6, and I've been getting my hands dirty,...

Post about how ranking for some keywords can actually have a negative affect on your business, offering tips on what you could do if it happens to you.

Marketing doesn't have to be expensive if it is targeted, especially if what you are marketing is of real value and you convey it.

One of the things we did as we were working on the Web Client Software Factory was try to make things easier for users. I know there is still a lot for us to do in the area (like simplifying installation and the pre-requisites that are needed), but we did make some progress. One of the things we did was create a preview of the changes that recipes will make to your solution. This preview is shown before the recipe executes. Rather than explaining this myself, I'll let David Hayden, a user of the WCSF, do so in this blog post: Add Business Module Using Web Client Software Factory - Solution Preview Rocks! I hope everyone else finds this feature as useful as David does. Read More......(read more)

One of the highlights of my recent trip to Europe was getting the chance to publicly show off some of the new features in our next release of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework (codename: "Orcas") for the first time publicly. You can download the deck I presented here . You can also watch a version of the Belgium talk that Tom posted on the web here (note: another version taken from my WebDD talk in the UK will also be posted shortly). "Orcas" is going to be a pretty exciting release, and contains a ton of great functionality that I think you will really love. I'll be drilling down into more details of it over the next few months in many more blog posts. Below are a few screen-shots from demos I showed over the weekend in my talks in Europe....(read more)

Biased viewpoints are typically much more remarkable (and thus linkworthy) than more balanced statements.

I am sure that most of you have heard about or have had a chance to use Google Maps. It's a great service and I was really impressed by the responsiveness of the application and the ease with which users could drag and zoom maps from a Web browser. It has in many ways heralded the arrival of AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), which I am sure will revitalize Web development in the days to come.

The 3 rd installment of the “Live From Redmond” – AJAX Security Webcast Series is now available for on-demand viewing. On-Demand HERE Read More......(read more)

If you weren't lucky enough to be one of the estimated 10,000 in attendance at Lotusphere 2007 in Orlando, Fla., you can still catch up on the hot topics. In this audiocast, you'll hear Lotusphere attendees' thoughts on this year's Lotusphere conference, the upcoming release of Lotus Notes 8.0, and some of its best new features.

We asked our SearchDomino.com experts to tell us their favorite freeware tools for Lotus Notes and Domino Server administration and other everyday IT administration tasks. Find out what freeware tools and applications they say are the best on the Web.

Earlier this week developerWorks Lotus published an article by Julie Kadashevich about The new IBM Lotus Notes 8 Out of Office functionality. ? Ed Brill blogged about it, and in the comments to his post, a few questions came up about the current functionality. ? One of the things I noticed is that some readers did not know you can set exceptions which tell the OOO Agent when NOT to send an email.

Since the article shows the new look of Notes 8, I thought I'd show you how to set exceptions in your current version of Lotus Notes.

When you enable OOO (Tools - Out of Office)


you are presented with the dialog box below. ? Click on the 4th tab, label Exceptions, and you will see several options.


The first is "Do not automatically reply to mail from internet addresses". ? This is a great option if you simply want to turn off all external notifications telling people that you are away. ? Don't worry, the people in your company will still be notified.

The second choice is "Do not automatically reply to mail from these people or groups". ? ?This provides a great way to eliminate sending responses to any of the mailing lists you belong to, or any other type of email that does not accept replies. ? For example, if you subscribe to daily newsletters, you don't want to be sending responses to these.

The third option, "Do not automatically reply to mail which is addressed to these groups", is similar to the option above. ? This is very useful if you belong to something like Yahoo or Google groups, or any type of listserv mailing list. ? ?Enter the name of the group email, and OOO will not send notifications.

The final option "Do not automatically reply if the subject contains these phrases" allows you to define at a very granular level which emails to not respond to.

When you are done, click Enable.

I hope this helps you get a little more out of the Out of Office Agent. ? Please make sure to read the developerWorks article about the new Notes 8 features, as OOO has been greatly enhanced. ? ?My two favourite changes are that OOO now can run automatically instead of on a schedule, and the notification emails now tell you the subject line of the original email sent.

Yahoo Pipes is a cool RSS feed mixing tool.

Bend pixels with Bert Monroy, buy 100 hearts, make your own Scanner Darkly, and create some snazzy border effects. Lots of stuff to keep you at your desk, because it's so cold out... (posted by Jennifer Apple)