The iPod has given Apple CEO Steve Jobs plenty to smile about, regardless of how many unauthorized bios of his father are being tossed by unethical journalists, according to a strange AppleInsider story.
The iPod is the handheld heavyweight wrestling champion at the moment, given the recent Blackberry patent troubles that have been occupying the news recently.
In other iPod related news, AppleInsider also asserts that QuickTime Pro licenses are selling like hotcakes for both the Windows and MAC OS.
These software license sales are trailing the iPod video and nano players’ sales respectively; they’ve proven to be the most popular items in the Apple stock at the moment.
Apparently, video iPod sales have been taking off since I first spoke of the video iPod market entry in an earlier news blog entry.
It looks as if iPod shuffle sales are also still going strong.
Given that worldwide handheld device shipments are down for the seventh consecutive quarter, things are not as comparably rosy for Pocket PC and Palm owners.
One aspect of the whole handheld mess that is proving expedient for we PDA advocates is the blistering rate of technological advancement.
New products like the new Palm smartphone complete with Windows Mobile round out this confusing, yet welcome, picture.
Of course, given the Pocket PC game developer penchant to produce for the OS du jour, it looks like Windows Mobile is the toughest neighbourhood bully to beat.
It’s been repeated ad nauseum by forum lurkers that Windows Mobile and not the Palm OS will prove to be the epicenter for a new wave of gaming goodness.
This may not be far wrong, judging from the quality Pocket PC games that are available in abundance. We’ll see what the future holds.
Damian Julien is a Pocket PC gaming authority and long time general gaming hobbyist and reviewer.
He is an IT specialist by trade and has posted numerous articles on Pocket PC emulators, gaming and trends in the industry.
http://www.pdagameguide.com/
While it can be spelt a variety of ways, agreement after that can be difficult.
It is a business to some, and understandably, they extol their own theories.
However, search engine optimisation doesn’t have to be complicated beyond the reach of the average site owner.
Its essence is to simply make your page as spider friendly as possible, and having keyword, search phrases, density somewhere close to the accepted requirements of search engines.
Too high a density may be considered “spamming”, and is dependent to some degree on the particular engine in question. The correct density is one that will satisfy such an engine that the keywords, phrases, are repeated often enough not to be incidental. Logically, the word “false teeth” which is now within the body text of this article should not cause a search engine to believe that is what it is about. Remember, we are not dealing with a human editor, and relevance must be established with software, less sympathetic to context, in its English meaning, as we are.
Search engines can have different algorithms or indexing criteria.
S.E.O. must change as the indexing criteria changes, so what is good today, may have to be re-considered tomorrow.
The view of many is to make the site/page easy to navigate, with respect to internal and external links. Java script can present a problem for some engines, and should perhaps be kept to a minimum. Some people will tell you that raw HTML is simpler to “read”, spider-wise. Sure, it might be simpler, but javascript rich pages are indexed none the less.
For anyone to guarantee that they can get you to number one, is a little optimistic, as everyone cannot practically or theoretically achieve such a goal.
Surely, anywhere on the first page of matches would not be a bad thing. All of us don’t necessarily opt for the number one match, and those with any research experience will “skim” through the descriptions, to go some way in deciding the best match. Descriptions, should you be favoured by an engine, may tip the balance towards you.
Of course, this approach doesn’t represent all surfers, so variables will always exist.
To achieve number one for a spurious or unusual term/word/phrase is relatively easy, and no great boast. Like wise, for less unusual terms or keywords for rare products or less competitive markets.
Little or no search engine optimisation experience should be needed in such cases.
It is almost certainly true to say that any advantage in the case of competitive keywords/markets, is really where the benefits of search engine optimisation come into play.
It is also true to say that where searches are confined/focused or country specific, the task is somewhat easier than if the search was “web-wide”. For example, if your product was rubber tyres and you only delivered within your own country, then the web results will have a less commercial benefit to you.
Of course, another variable would be if your country produced unusually high numbers of rubber tyres, in which case search engine optimisation would need extra consideration and input.
Generally speaking though, any use of the search engines may convince you that the major players seem to dominate. However, it is not to say that they cannot be toppled, so to speak. From an engines’ relevance viewpoint, these may or may not be “tightly themed”, but often have relevance, with respect to time. This is a bid by the engines to return results appropriate with the time we live in. The annals of history are not foremost on the minds of surfers/researchers, and therefore updated content carries some weight.
The events of history can be searched more specifically, where that is the desire of the user.
An issue for some people is to be indexed in the first place.
You can join the queue and wait, or get indexed through a spidered link on a site that is regularly indexed. One purpose of a spider/robot is to follow links, and this also ties in with suggestions that javascripted links may obstruct/slow down the spidering process.
A simple way to get such a link is to contribute something/anything to the article directories. In return for your “textual” input, a link via your resource box can point to your domain.
It is generally agreed that spiders like text, or more importantly, new text.
A sensible defence of such a claim is that we don’t especially want MATCHES for banners, images or anything uninformative. Such images, like the annals of history, can be searched specifically.
Another logical defence of such a claim is that we really are living in the INFORMATION AGE, and mediums to relay information are still predominately verbal and textual, however delivered.
While it may be an overstatement to say that Search Engine Optimisation is to webpages, as Neural Linguistic Programming is to humans, it may not be too ridiculous.
Remember
1.You are dealing with software that is attempting to analyse like a human. It cannot do this as readily as organic intelligence.
2.You are dealing with software, familiar with abusive human strategies of deception, and has in-built counter measures. There are humans behind the software, wise to the will of cheats.
3.You must help it with your selected keywords/search phrases, which you deem to relevant. Their densities will determine relevance from a textual degree, whatever about a “site-relevance” degree. Too often is word spamming, and not enough is irrelevant. Anywhere between two and five wouldn’t be too bad, and depends on who you talk to, or indeed, listen to. Make more pages instead of trying to fit every conceivable keyword into one page. A lot of people do this at the beginning, which is understandable as well, but the body text just won’t make any sense and any visitor will get a headache as surely as you will. Spare both parties.
4. Some engines insist on robot text, and should probably be facilitated, even though some have a commercial interest in their insistence. Robot text is not difficult to learn or implement and the name of it, should not be a deterrent.
5. Metatags are designed to assist as well and are nothing to be feared, but favoured, should you decide to use them.
6.You must get indexed, to bear any optimised fruit. This should no longer be difficult either.
ISO 9001 2000, Getting started
Before starting the ISO 9001 2000 route to registration you will need to have the top management on board. This can be achieved by highlighting to top management the cost benefits to the business of ISO 9001 2000 registration.
If you feel unable to sell the benefits of ISO 9001 registration to your business or that you are unqualified to do this then it will be worth you contacting a consultant to assist you with this process. The consultant will have all the necessary tools and examples to hand.
Next you will need to consider what your business is trying to achieve, most businesses want to make money but as with all things there are many ways of achieving the same goal. Some businesses are very good at what they do but I have never yet encountered the perfect business.
If you feel there is no room for improvement in you business you may need to see your doctor about delusional thoughts.
(If you genuinely think you have the perfect business, be it ISO 9001 2000 related or otherwise please contact me at [admindriso.co.uk] and invite me to audit your business. Yes I do charge, albeit the normal daily rate.)
Okay, so you now know what your business is trying to achieve. I’m sure it will be something like:
“We aim to provide our customers with the best value (Widgets or service) on time, every time etc.
Well done, you have just written your companies Quality Management System Policy.
Next we have to look at how your business is going to work towards and then achieve its new Policy. A good starting point is to identify the objectives each department need to set in order to meet the requirements of your policy. Some typical examples for a Sales order process might be:
Reply to customer enquiries within 1 hours of receipt.
Update sales database with customer details before order acknowledgment.
After sales database entry send order acknowledgement on the same day as order received.
Send product catalogue to new customer on day of order receipt.
Run credit check on new customers before loading order to production schedule.
The process objectives can be documented in text format or as flow simple flow diagram. Many businesses now opt for a simple flow diagram because it dictates pictorially how a process works.
Great, you have now documented your first process. Next we need to consider what records to keep so that you can demonstrate the process objectives have been met. In the above example all the necessary records are kept on the sales database. The database automatically records the time between order entry, reply to customer, completion of customer details, acknowledgment sent, product catalogue sent, completion of credit check and loading of order to production schedule. The database will only allow things to be completed in a certain order; for example it will not allow the order to be loaded to the production schedule prior to an acceptable credit check being received. To ensure that only authorised people access the sales database it is password protected and it records the computer users ID against each sales database entry.
At the end of each week the sales manager runs an exception report to identify which targets have or have not been met, this gives him the opportunity to implement corrective action if the process is not being operated as planned. The corrective action may simply involve the re-allocation resources or additional employee training. You can of course run this process without a computer system by using a check-sheet where the process checkpoints are recorded. Using a paper-based system relies heavily on your business not entering into a blame culture, otherwise your employees may decide to falsify results rather than report a process failure. A business that operates a blame culture will never be successful, as there is no incentive for employees to report process errors and more importantly the business does not know where its processes are breaking down.
Excellent, you have documented a Quality Management System policy for your business, set departmental objectives needed to meet that policy and generated records which can be used for business process improvement.
Driso provide ISO 9001 2000 consultancy, auditing, software, and training Services.
They also supply Easy ISO 9001 2000® software for initially setting up an ISO 9001 2000 compliant Quality Management System or improving upon an existing one.
To contact Driso Consultancy Services visit the web site below and see what they can do for you and your business.
Contact: http://www.driso.co.uk for more details.
