orkut.com - Google's First Social Network

orkut.com is a social networking service developed in association with Google. Why the name Orkut? Orkut Büyükkökten, a Google employee that has a significant interest in social networking, developed the service. How did Mr. Orkut have time to develop such a project? Google has a creativity policy of sorts that encourages its employees to use 20% of their time for personal interests. Google has officially stated that orkut.com is not part of their service offerings (yet) but the fact that the phrase, “in affiliation with Google” appears on every page leads one to believe that this social networking service isn’t going to spin-off into a non-Google entity any time soon. ...

January 31, 2004 · Chris Short
Construction of an Optimized Web Page

Construction of an Optimized Web Page

This article is designed to help individuals build web pages that are search engine optimized as well as human friendly. It will focus intently on the process used to develop web pages for this web site and how pages are optimized before being published on this web site. Any good web developer or webmaster will tell you that your site should be themed. This means your site should have the same look and feel across all of its pages. Colors, layout, navigation, positioning, and numerous other elements fall into creating a good theme for a web site. However, developing a site theme mainly deals with the content of the web site itself. A site’s theme is essentially the topic of the site and that site’s content should relate to the topic or theme. However, this article isn’t about creating themes for a web site it’s about building an optimized, user friendly web page to include in a site that’s already themed. ...

December 20, 2003 · Chris Short

Microsoft and the Death of the Internet

Microsoft and its products and services are slowly destroying the Internet or at the very least changing the dynamics of the Internet. There are three main reasons for this rift in the Internet. The first reason is Microsoft’s standards. The second reason is the popularity of Microsoft software. The final reason is the security (or lack thereof) of Microsoft software. When you combine these three reasons together you get a potential Internet killer. ...

October 9, 2003 · Chris Short

Moving to Linux - Linux Hopes Dashed

This will be the final article in the “Moving to Linux” series. The Moving to Linux plan had been going along as it should. My Western Digital 200 GB hard drive arrived and I was ready and waiting with a freshly burned copy of Red Hat 9. All the research I had previously done indicated that there shouldn’t be any major issues because of all the key components in my computer being compatible with Linux. ...

September 28, 2003 · Chris Short

Blogs Explained

What is a blog? Blog is short for weblog. Blogger.com defines a blog/weblog as, “a web page made up of usually short, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically - like a what’s new page or a journal. The content and purposes of blogs varies greatly - from links and commentary about other web sites, to news about a company/person/idea, to diaries, photos, poetry, mini-essays, project updates, even fiction.” Blogs are essentially evolution of Internet communications. E-mail, instant messaging, newsgroups and forums are all great forms of communication but a weblog or blog offers unique, personal communication on a global scale. Also, blogs have become increasing simple to implement and there are numerous “turn-key” solutions to creating a blog. The weblog’s ease of use is a key factor in their increasing popularity. Not only can blogs be easy to setup they are easy to maintain and update. Once a blog is created adding content can be as simple as typing and sending an e-mail. The ease of use of blogs is probably the key reason for their rampant popularity. However, their ease of use could be their demise. ...

June 24, 2003 · Chris Short