Category Archives: Oblog

Sneak Peek at the new BestPartyEver.com

Lately we have been focusing a good bit of attention on one of our projects http://bestpartyever.com. We are in the midst of an overhaul of the current system, moving it over to Code Igniter(CI) and revamping the entire system, while adding an entirely new user experience. The CI PHP framework is nearly effortless to use, and even for a more designer-type like me, writing functional code is pretty easy.

I have been blogging a bit about the process here on the bpe dev blog.

Code is something no one will see (unless it doesn’t work) and users tend to judge on the visuals. Have a look at this screenshot of the new user profiles that are still in progress. (image scaled down, click to expand)

bpe_profile.jpg

As you can see the screen is pretty sparse at the moment. We have a ways to go still, but the overall feeling is there. Hopefully its comes across as feeling very ‘clean’ and ‘refreshing’. Thats it for the sneak peak, feel free to subscribe to the bestpartyever development blog to follow the progress of the new site as we get closer to an expect late september re-launch.

P.S. I was 18, 11 years ago.

UPDATE: After getting a few requests for more… here is screenshot of the new registration page.

Things in 3

This is a post in ode to the #3. It is a very versatile number. Lets look at famous uses of the #3, and maybe you can come up with your own.

  • The 3 amigos.
  • Einstein’s Three Rules of Work: 1) Out of clutter find simplicity; 2) From discord find harmony; 3) In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
  • The movie Trilogy (LOTR, Star Wars, Spider-man, Bourne.., etc)
  • March 3rd (3-03)
  • e3 expo
  • Easy as 1,2,3..
  • Of course 3 is used in marketing
  • 3 strikes you’re out
  • The triangle (one of the strongest architectural shapes)
  • 3D
  • The holy trinity
  • The first Nuclear test was named Trinity
  • It is great for using in comparison of two things
  • The 3 branches of the US government, even if 2 are useless…
  • Best two out of 3
  • Rock, Paper, Scissors
  • The 3 stooges………
  • Name your band with it
  • The founder of twitter likes it.
  • Kermit the frog weighs in on blogging.
  • 3 letter .tlds
  • Protons, Neutrons, and electrons
  • The Primary colors
  • 3 is the first odd prime number
  • Orion’s belt has 3 stars
  • Earth is the 3rd planet from the sun
  • Freud: Ego, super-ego, and id
  • Cerberus the 3 headed dog
  • The 3 wise men
  • The 3 holy cities of Islam: Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem
  • Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals
  • Reading, Writing and R’itmetic
  • 3 is pretty close to pi
  • The hat-trick (sports/hockey)
  • The 3 letter acronym (XML,PHP,NBA,NFL,USA,MBJ)
  • The “3rd eye” (intuition)
  • This page where much of these tidbits came from
  • Muhammad Ali was 6 foot 3
  • Newtons 3 laws of motion
  • Morning, noon, and night
  • The infamous 3 toe’d sloth (slowest land animal)
  • Three’s company
  • The ie 3pixel gap bug
  • China’a 3 gorges dam
  • The Impending WWIII
  • The boy scouts dig it
  • “threesomes”
  • The fabled 3 dollar bill
  • The 3 tenors
  • Photography: the rule of 3rds
  • Three card monty (not to be confused with the full monty)
  • Tantek thinks in 3’s
  • And of course the The Three Musketeers

Notable 2’s and 4’s that just don’t quite get the same love as 3.

  • black and white
  • the square
  • being “2” faced
  • 2D (boring)
  • 4D (too out there for most people)
  • the quartet
  • 4×4
  • The duplex and fourplex (housing)
  • Noah’s Ark: Animals 2×2
  • In rugby, the #2 is worn by a hooker
  • Twins
  • The Audi quattro
  • The 4 horsemen
  • 4 letter words
  • 4 seasons
  • The “fab” four

I bet you could group just about anything in 3’s. So remember, make sure you use the #3 in your everyday life as much as you can, everybody is doing it. Heck I think I might just move to the number 7842 as 3 is getting so played out, but I wouldn’t make a big deal about it.

3 is preferred of course, but when presented with an oddball, 3 can make room for a 4th

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=WUb6YZctOqQ[/youtube]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WUb6YZctOqQ

43 Totally Awesome Retro Flash Intro’s

I came across an old flash intro I did back in the day, and it gave me a chuckle, so I decided to see what else is out there. Here is list of 43 retro flash intros for web design related companies. Some of these are still in use. I cannot decide which I like better, the ones with the thumping music or the ones with the 0101010101 animated text. In no particular order:

* Are some of my favorites.

  1. * http://www.arizonawebservices.com/oldintro.html
  2. http://youvegotmail.warnerbros.com/flashintro.html
  3. http://www.e4effect.com/flashintro.html
  4. http://www.dynamicweb-design.com/html/flashIntro.html
  5. http://www.planbsquared.com/planb_retro/flashintro.html
  6. http://www.adriateam.it/v01/AT05.swf
  7. http://www.dhvg.com/collection.swf
  8. http://musicandcinema.com/mc_website.swf
  9. http://www.ozline.net/tutor/intro.swf
  10. * http://www.my1.com.au/index.swf
  11. * http://www.pendletondesign.com/intro.swf
  12. http://www.dominiopublicidad.com.ar/digital/p2ingl.swf
  13. http://www.exponent.com/ergonomicswbt/teaser/intro2.swf
  14. http://groovetheweb.online.fr/grooveintro.swf
  15. * http://www.fri-ideas.com/menu.cat.swf
  16. http://www.rafigopro.com/RafiGoPro.swf
  17. * http://3dpersian.com/index8.swf
  18. http://www.blaserco.com/kelly/blaser_kellyfinal.swf
  19. * http://www.homestarrunner.com/cheatintro.swf
  20. http://www.imagenincdesign.com/index.swf
  21. http://www.dg-graphics.net/images/homepage.swf
  22. * http://www.aliensystem.com/2004/intro.swf
  23. http://www.kswebdesign.co.uk/images/flash/intro_06max.swf
  24. http://www.aiara.com/aiara_movie.swf
  25. * http://www.ishouldhaveawebsite.com/swffile5.swf
  26. * http://www.q-creative.com/flash01/swf/main.swf
  27. http://www.diamondmedia-atlanta.com/intro.swf
  28. http://jameras.com/sol/home.swf
  29. http://www.ecalpemostech.com/ecalpemos.swf
  30. * http://www.technology-now.net/intro.swf
  31. http://www.artnetstudio.com/menu.swf
  32. http://www.digitalvistas.com/Movie10.swf
  33. http://www.thesidegig.com/index.swf
  34. * http://www.dmwebsolutions.com/dmws2.swf
  35. http://www.inet7.com/flash/service.swf
  36. * http://www.awsolution.com/samples/Flash/Advantage/advantage.swf
  37. http://www.tmkdesigngroup.com/TMK.swf
  38. http://portfolio.kemmerly.net/flash/bowcutter_tour.swf
  39. http://www.benwechsler.com/archives/benwechsler.swf
  40. * http://www.solidmark.com/solidmark_v2.swf
  41. http://www.solidmark.com/solidmark_business_solutions.swf
  42. http://www.katakismet.com/bizcard.swf
  43. http://www.multimediaelements.com/index.swf

New SEO/SEM Guide Launched

We are happy to announce the launch of our new website dedicated to all things Search. As our business has grown, our SEO services have become worthy of their own website. We will be redirecting many of the SEO pages on this website over to the new website.

On the new website you will find an in depth 5 part guide on Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing techniques and best practices, as well as a few SEO case studies, and a few myths about SEO and SEM dispelled. Finally our staff will be blogging regulary on the new website regarding SEO topics.

Contact us at anytime regarding SEO services for your business.  Obu web is your partner in Arizona SEO services.

Worlds Worst SEO?

What you are about to read is true, and that is why it is so disturbing.

First a little background. Search Engine Optimization or (SEO) is a skill that takes time and energy to master. Professional SEO’s invest a great amount of time into learning the craft, and after achieving a bit of ranking success will have a valuable service worth selling to clients.

Unfortunately, just as in web design, everyone including their slow in the head brother thinks they can do SEO and jump on the selling SEO train in hopes of making a quick buck. Below is an email I received this morning.

Gerald Gerbrone Here,

We recently started our blog here http://blog.yourseoconsulting.com and linked to your website hoping you would notice us and maybe link back. To be honest we don’t know what the fuck we are doing and are desperate god help us we arn’t even ranking for anything in msn , yahoo or google and need your help. And link would be of great help thanks again, Gerald.

Sincerely,

Gerald Gerbrone CEO
A-Built Computer Systems and Consulting
14781 Memorial Drive
Office 2464
Houston, TX
77079-5210

If it is not apparent why this is so disturbing, lets look closer.

  • This is a wannabe SEO company, charging money for their services. Clearly they do not have the slightest clue as to what is going on.
  • This is the kind of thing that gives the whole seo industry a bad rap. (Snake Oil)
  • Visit the website: http://blog.yourseoconsulting.com Here is a short list of no’no’s that are probably keeping him from getting the rankings he so desires
    • Site is in Frames
    • Title Tag?
    • What do Digital Camera’s and Dr Suess have to do with SEO (Relevancy)
    • Looks like the posts may be scraped (duplicate content)

So the moral of the story is; buyer beware. Not all SEO is created equal. Ask to see verifiable ranking results, ask to speak to a few of their past clients, and most importantly just trust you gut. You could probably smell this guy coming.

I was going to link to him in this post.. but thought better of it.

The value add of Google Analytics.

Will the real obu please stand up, part 2.

google-analytics.jpg Google Analytics is a pretty slick package offered by the big G that is free to use. It gives you tombs of website visitor and traffic data to poor over. The obvious benefit is to track visits and visitor behavior on your website. But deep into a long session of analyzing data I stumbled upon an additional easter egg not advertised in the brochure.

Look at the highlighted regions of this next image. On the surface you say big deal. Wait for it…

google-pages.gif

These highlighted pages DO NOT EXIST on our website. So this then begs the question, why is our Google Analytics report showing pageviews of pages that are not present on the website.

It seems that in the act of stealing our website, a few wiseguys neglected to remove the tracking code.

Examples. (these are ripoffs of our old layout pre May,1,2007 see below)

This is a real bad rip off of our old site.

This web designer even took credit for his bad ripoff

This UofA student is probably upset with us because he was pulling our CSS file which we moved.. so all his layout went bye bye.

We had problems with this guy before

And Finally this guy

I don’t make a habit of pointing things like this out. But It really really bugs me when someone steals our stuff and passes it off as thier own. And do it poorly at that. Another good tool to use to find content thieves is http://copyscape.com

So finally here is one more way to spot interesting visits in your Google Analytics. Click Content > Content by Title, if you see any page titles that do not look like yours, grab them and then do this search in Google: allintitle:<page title> and the first or second result it probably the culprit.

Here is the real question, Does this hurt our website? We know that Google tracks all this stuff for their own reasons. They give Analytics away so they get behind the scenes access to your website, and mine that data for all sorts of Google projects. So if they are tracking data on obuweb.com that does not match the REAL obuweb.com, are we getting slammed?