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Sign the petition to save the Swedish National Guidelines for Public Sector Websites

As I mentioned in Swedish National Guidelines for Public Sector Websites in danger?, the Swedish Administrative Development Agency (Verva) was closed down on 31 December 2008. As far as I know there is still no information available on which government agency, if any, will be responsible for maintaining and keeping these guidelines up to date in the future. It would be very sad if this means the end of the official version (there is an unofficial version available at eutveckling.se) of these guidelines that help improve the accessibility and usability of Swedish public sector websites. To show the powers that be that many people who work with public sector websites in Sweden consider these guidelines useful and important, Jens Wedin has created a petition to save the guidelines: 24-timmarswebbens framtid. If you design, develop, maintain, or commission Swedish public sector websites and think the guidelines are important, please sign the petition and spread the word.Posted in Accessibility, Usability, Web Standards.
Publication date: 2009-01-28 more

Take part in WebAIM

Most designers and developers who care about accessibility are not regular users of screen reader software. Yes, screen reader users only make up one group of people with disabilities. However they are one of the trickiest groups to cater for, especially when you use JavaScript and Ajax. There are many recommendations about what to do and what not to do when you develop a website in order for it to be usable by people who rely on screen readers. But do those recommendations really help screen reader users? To hopefully find an answer to that question, WebAIM is conducting a survey for screen reader users. The intention is to find out more about how screen reader users use the Web and what their preferences are. If you use screen readers, either full-time or for testing only, please consider spending some time reading the Screen Reader Survey blog post and taking the Survey of Preferences of Screen Reader Users. If enough people who use screen readers participate in this survey, the results should provide us with valuable information to base our decisions on when developing accessible websites.Posted in Accessibility.
Publication date: 2009-01-28 more

Reformat and repartition hard drives before using them with Time Machine

A month or so ago I bought an external hard drive to use as a backup disk with Apple
Publication date: 2009-01-28 more

JavaScript Tools bundle for Textmate

In my post about TextMate productivity tips I didn
Publication date: 2009-01-28 more

Specify each HTML document

Always specify which natural language (spoken, written or signed human language) is used for a document
Publication date: 2009-01-28 more

Headings, heading hierarchy, and document outlines

Recently my coworkers and I have been discussing HTML headings and heading hierarchy. This may not sound like something you need to spend a lot of time discussing, but there are some situations when it seems very difficult to find a solution without compromises. The importance of headings First a little detour about the function and importance of headings in HTML. If you already know why headings are important, feel free to skip to the next section. HTML headings, created with the h1-h6 elements, are very useful and should be used for anything that visually looks or acts like a heading. This is partly because it is the semantically right choice, partly because it may help your search engine rankings. But the most important reason is that using real headings improves accessibility. Screen reader users, for instance, can use keyboard shortcuts to skip from heading to heading in a document. To see this in action, check out Importance of HTML Headings for Accessibility, a video showing how a screen reader user navigates a document by skipping from one heading to another. Likewise, some browsers allow keyboard-only users to use shortcuts to skip from heading to heading, speeding up navigation through a document. So there are several reasons to use headings, and to use them properly. Requirements for a good document structure The outcome of the discussions we
Publication date: 2009-01-28 more

Make HTML messages readable in Apple Mail

Long time readers may have noticed that I dislike receiving email in HTML format. It
Publication date: 2008-11-28 more

Browser Market Share?

I hadn’t looked at my browser marketshare in a while, so I fired up Google Analytics: Rough browser numbers are Firefox 57.58% IE 26.07% Safari 6.48% Chrome 5.11% Opera 2.35% Mozilla 1.44% SeaMonkey 0.48% Mozilla Compatible 0.18% Konqueror 0.13% Camino 0.04% OneStat says that they see 0.54% share for Google Chrome. Net Applications provides an hour-by-hour graph, which is nice, but they hardwired it to look for the string “Chrome 0.2″ when Chrome is on version 0.3 [...]
Publication date: 2008-11-26 more

TextMate productivity tips

If you saw my post about the DOMAssistant bundle for TextMate, you will already know that my favourite coding tool at the moment is TextMate. If you missed that post, well, now you know. For anyone who is new to TextMate or considering trying it out, I thought I
Publication date: 2008-11-26 more

Dissecting the Web with Opera

The people at Opera have created a tool called MAMA. MAMA is short for
Publication date: 2008-11-25 more

Where did udevmonitor go?

In case you’re looking for the “udevmonitor” program on the Intrepid Ibex version of Ubuntu, it’s changed; use “udevadm monitor” now: $ udevadm help Usage: udevadm COMMAND [OPTIONS] info query sysfs or the udev database trigger request events from the kernel [...]
Publication date: 2008-11-23 more

Trying (and failing) to get Ubuntu to work

I really want to run Ubuntu, but it shouldn’t be this hard. Plugging in an SD card reader that I picked up from Best Buy shouldn’t cause a hard freeze of my system (on both Gutsy Gibbon and Intrepid Ibex): The card reader works fine in Windows. At this point, I’m honestly thinking about crashing the [...]
Publication date: 2008-11-23 more

Virtual terminals not working? Check your keyboard.

(This is a boring post that I’m writing for people that have this same problem in the future. Just skip it.) Every good Linux user knows that if you want to drop from X down into a text-based virtual terminal, you can press control-alt-F1 (or any other key up to F6), and control-alt-F7 returns you to [...]
Publication date: 2008-11-23 more

Reindeer Car Antlers are a Great Holiday Present

Last year I got these reindeer car antlers for my wife. This year she let me have them for my car. They look like this: (Note: this is the picture from the catalog, not one of our cars.) Tons of people stop, stare, and then break out in a smile or start pointing out my car to [...]
Publication date: 2008-11-23 more

The order of link pseudo-classes matters

Common knowledge to most who have been working with CSS for a few years, but perhaps not something that relative newcomers have come across yet: the order in which you define the different link states affects the end result. I prefer the following order: :link, :visited, :hover, :focus, :active. Eric Meyer explains why the order matters and why he also prefers defining the states in this order in Link Specificity, Ordering the Link States, and Who Ordered the Link States?.Posted in CSS.
Publication date: 2008-11-19 more

9 tips for the Google Mobile App for iPhone

Here are some tips to help you get the most out of Google’s new Mobile Application for the iPhone. To get Google Mobile App on your iPhone, go to the App Store and search for “Google Mobile App,” or click on this link to install from a computer. If you have an older version of Google [...]
Publication date: 2008-11-19 more

Google Adds Voice Recognition to iPhone App

I have a very good feeling about Google’s new iPhone app that does voice recognition. I’ve been playing with this voice recognition application for several weeks and I have to say that I’m really impressed. First and foremost, the voice recognition works really well. Crazy long-tail specialized vocabulary is tricky (more on that later), but [...]
Publication date: 2008-11-18 more

Dyslexia and accessibility

One large group of people with special needs that is often overlooked
Publication date: 2008-11-18 more

A word about metrics, part III: market share of Google Docs?

I’m not sure what Google Docs market share is, but I thought it would be interesting to mention a couple data points and add a new data point. Data point #1: Compete. Compete just estimated that 4.4M visitors stopped by Google Docs in September, which is just a hair below 2.4% of the U.S. online population, [...]
Publication date: 2008-11-17 more

Remember to specify a background colour

Jeffrey Zeldman recently posted Is your (website
Publication date: 2008-11-14 more

Pubcon/WebmasterWorld conference, here I come!

I arrive Wednesday afternoon for the 2008 Pubcon conference, and I’ll be staying until after the networking event on the last day, which is the heart of the event. It’s the heart because the networking event is held at a pub, and the original idea of Pubcon was that some of the best parts of [...]
Publication date: 2008-11-12 more

Writing good alt text

I do quite a bit of quality assurance work, specifically looking at the accessibility and web standards use of websites. In many cases I make remarks about the use of alternative text for images and other graphic elements. It is, not surprisingly, common for alternative text to be completely absent, but it is probably even more common to see inappropriate use of the alt attribute. In most cases this is caused by well-meaning people using the alt attribute to describe the image itself instead of the function it has or the content it presents. Two rules of thumb I use when writing alt text for images are these: If you were to describe the document to someone over the phone, would you mention the image or its content? If you would, the image probably needs an alternative text. If not, it should probably have an empty alt attribute. Does the alternative text of any images in the document make sense if you turn off the display of images in your web browser? If not, change the alternative text so it does make sense and does not provide redundant information. These are just rules of thumb and there are exceptions, but as a general rule I have found that they work well. In practice this means that images should often have empty alt text, alt="". Be aware though that if the image is within a link that does not also contain descriptive text, the image needs an alt text that describes the link. Much more detailed instructions for writing alt text are available in an article at WebAIM called Appropriate Use of Alternative Text.Posted in (X)HTML, Accessibility.
Publication date: 2008-11-12 more

Find nasty JavaScript with the Obtrusive JavaScript Checker

When reviewing websites to find areas that may be improved, one of the things I look for is whether any JavaScript has been implemented in an unobtrusive way or not. I normally do that by turning JavaScript on and off, and viewing the source code. It can be a bit tedious. But now there is a quicker way to find obtrusive JavaScript: Robert Nyman
Publication date: 2008-11-11 more

Fun email

Every so often I get an email like this: Dear Webmaster, I have browsed your site and I’m interested in purchasing advertising space in it. I am mainly interested in placing a new page on your site with content and links that I will supply. Please let me know if you would like to discuss this further or if [...]
Publication date: 2008-11-08 more

Going from WCAG 1.0 to WCAG 2.0

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 is currently in W3C Proposed Recommendation status and may be advanced to W3C Recommendation status before the end of this year. To prepare for this it
Publication date: 2008-11-07 more

Character encoding

Character encoding can be wickedly difficult to get right, especially when you want to start using UTF-8. It seems there is always at least one part of the chain from your brain to the end user
Publication date: 2008-11-05 more

Vote vote vote!

The polls will be closed by this time tomorrow, so don’t forget to vote, everyone.
Publication date: 2008-11-04 more

Reading up on WAI-ARIA

One of the more problematic areas of web accessibility is how to handle the custom widgets and dynamic changes to content used in most web applications and on many content-based websites. Using JavaScript to add custom behaviour and update content can cause problems for people who rely on assistive technology (AT) such as screen readers. The problems often consist of the AT not being aware that content on the page has changed, the user not noticing that something has changed, or the user being aware that something changed but not what. These problems can be tricky to solve, but there is hope in the form of Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA). From the WAI-ARIA Overview: WAI-ARIA, the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Suite, defines a way to make Web content and Web applications more accessible to people with disabilities. It especially helps with dynamic content and advanced user interface controls developed with Ajax, HTML, JavaScript, and related technologies. I have only just started reading up on WAI-ARIA, but it looks very promising. It is also time to start using it to improve the accessibility of web applications that make heavy use of JavaScript. Since I
Publication date: 2008-11-04 more

Halloween 2008 wrap-up

I missed a few Halloween tidbits: - Our Halloween post on the Google webmaster blog gives you a feel for Halloween at Google. The dog dressed up as a lion was pretty awesome. There was also a guy dressed as the Android from Google’s mobile phone OS. - What happens when a witch accidentally collides with a [...]
Publication date: 2008-11-03 more

My Halloween 2008 Costume: Rick Astley

digg_url = 'http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/my-halloween-2008-costume/'; For Halloween this year, I decided to be Rick Astley. With a little bit of hair spray, spray-on hair color, and some make-up for a widow’s peak, it looks like this: What fun. To make the costume complete, I took my Android G1 phone and bought a copy of Never Gonna Give You [...]
Publication date: 2008-11-01 more

Halloween easter egg: Google protects itself from zombies

You probably saw Google’s Halloween logo today: But you may not have noticed that Google made another change for Halloween. Check out Google’s robots.txt file today: That’s right. Zombies are disallowed from accessing /brains on Google today. You can never be too safe! Hat-tip to Google Blogoscoped spotting it first and to Search Engine Land for [...]
Publication date: 2008-11-01 more

My Halloween 2008 Costume

For Halloween this year, I decided to be Rick Astley. With a little bit of hair spray, spray-on hair color, and some make-up for a widow’s peak, it looks like this: What fun. To make the costume complete, I took my Android G1 phone and bought a copy of Never Gonna Give You Up from Amazon [...]
Publication date: 2008-11-01 more

Happy Diwali!

A little late, but I hope everyone had a good Diwali! I enjoyed some good Indian food and I hope you did the same.
Publication date: 2008-10-31 more

Validate an entire site with the Free Site Validator

Validating the markup of a single page is quick and easy
Publication date: 2008-10-31 more

How (a couple of) screen readers handle JavaScript events

Screen readers don
Publication date: 2008-10-30 more

Moving the locked top panel in Ubuntu/GNOME

A new version of Ubuntu (Intrepid Ibex) is coming out this week, so I’m trying out the release candidate. Here’s an annoyance I hit and how to solve it. I keep a list of steps to perform after installing Ubuntu, and one of my steps is Drag the bottommost taskbar/panel to the right and the topmost [...]
Publication date: 2008-10-29 more

Scroll Magazine puts web stuff on paper

As you might guess from the number of book reviews I have posted here, I like reading things printed on paper. Yeah I know, that
Publication date: 2008-10-28 more

Signs of Los Angeles

I have a pet theory that you can tell a lot about a city by paying attention to its signage. So I like to keep my eyes open when I’m in a new place and take pictures of things that strike me as especially interesting. When I was down in Los Angeles, here are a [...]
Publication date: 2008-10-27 more

noindex test

Pay no attention this to page with a noindex tag. I just want to check on how Yahoo/Live/Ask treat pages with noindex meta tags.
Publication date: 2008-10-27 more

Join the webmaster chat today!

At 9 a.m. Pacific time (noon Eastern) today, we’re going to do our third Google webmaster chat. People will be able to ask questions via Google moderator and we’ll answer a bunch either in Google moderator or over the audio portion of the chat. There will also be several Googlers doing short presentations. I hope [...]
Publication date: 2008-10-23 more

The WebKit/Safari Web Inspector is getting even better

A few weeks ago the WebKit team posted an update about the Web Inspector Redesign. I
Publication date: 2008-10-23 more

Upgraded to Movable Type 4.21

It's been almost five years since Movable Type 2.65 was released . Currently the latest version of Movable Type is 4.21. Yet version 2.65 is what I've been using to run this site up until a week or so ago. I delayed upgrading partly because I did not feel like dealing with the unavoidable upgrade breakage, partly because MT 2.65 actually has been working pretty well for me - it does the job it's supposed to do. Nevertheless I did not want to feel like an IE 6 holdout anymore. It was time to clean up the cruft that's been building up in my Movable Type installation over the years, take the plunge, and upgrade to Movable Type 4.21. And
Publication date: 2008-10-21 more

Hidden text on a television

I was thinking of taking a few days and doing some photo blogging of various pictures I’ve collected in the last few months. For example, lots of people know what hidden text is on the web. What would hidden text look like on a television? I think it would look something like this: That’s some tiny [...]
Publication date: 2008-10-20 more

NoScript for Firefox

The other day I mentioned a few Firefox add-ons that I have recently discovered. One add-on that I forgot to mention is NoScript, which I have been using for a few months now. As the name indicates, NoScript blocks the execution of JavaScript in Firefox. But it isn't the same as simply turning off JavaScript support. NoScript gives you control over which sites are allowed to run scripts, Flash and other active content, and has tons of settings that will let you configure it to your liking. NoScript is very popular - at the time of this writing it has been downloaded over 29 million times, so surfing the web with it installed (and thus JavaScript at least semi-disabled) is hardly a fringe case. Many people download and use NoScript primarily for security reasons, but my main reason for using it is that it makes many sites that normally are a pain to visit (mostly newspaper websites) much more responsive, quicker loading, and less intrusive. Surfing the web with NoScript installed also makes it quite obvious which sites have not been built with progressive enhancement and unobtrusive JavaScript in mind. I don't know about other NoScript users, but I tend to leave sites that don't work pretty quickly unless they offer something I really need.Posted in Browsers, JavaScript.
Publication date: 2008-10-18 more

Alerting webmasters to webserver vulnerabilities

I’m really happy about a new experiment that we’re trying that has the potential to help a ton of site owners. A new blog post on the Google webmaster blog (you are subscribed to the webmaster blog, right? You’ll find at least as much good SEO and search-related info on that blog as on my [...]
Publication date: 2008-10-17 more

Authentic Jobs October 2008 promo: 30% off

Looking to hire some web talent? Need a designer or a developer who keeps track of what's going on in the web world? In case you haven't already, give Authentic Jobs a try. Right now there is a promotion that lasts until October 31 (this year ;-)) and will give you 30% off on both full-time and freelance listings if you use the promotion code BEREA31 when you create your job listing. Should you not find the talent you are looking for there is a money-back guarantee that applies even if you use the promo code. In other words you have nothing to lose. Not hiring but looking for a job? Check out the listings or subscribe to an Authentic Jobs listing feed to make sure you don't miss any of the opportunities that are posted.Posted in Job openings.
Publication date: 2008-10-17 more

Recently discovered web developer-related Firefox add-ons

I have recently discovered a few Firefox extensions that can be quite useful when building websites. They are likely old news to many, but I figure there are at least a few others who have not come across them. ColorZilla is a handy extension that makes it easy to grab colours from the web page that is currently open in the browser. It sure beats having to open a screen shot in Photoshop just to find a colour code for something. ColorZilla does some other useful things as well, so it is not just a colour picker. Firefox Accessibility Extension adds features that are useful to people with disabilities and helps developers evaluate accessibility. Screengrab! among other things lets you take screen shots of what is inside the browser viewport, without the browser chrome. I could have used this recently when I was taking a whole bunch of screen shots of various websites for an upcoming course on web development. Unfortunately I didn't know about it then so I used the built in screen shot functionality in Mac OS X and cropped the images to get only the browser viewport. Oh well. WAVE Toolbar lets you run the WAVE web accessibility evaluation tool inside Firefox, without sending any information to the WAVE server. Perfect if you're like me and spend a lot of time working on password-protected sites. Posted in Accessibility, Browsers.
Publication date: 2008-10-15 more

Free links to your site

I can’t believe a new feature from Google isn’t getting more notice, because it converts already-existing links to your site into much higher quality links, for free. The Google webmaster blog just announced that you can find the pages that link to 404 pages on your site. Let me back up and give you a little [...]
Publication date: 2008-10-14 more

Stupid Digg + a kitten

Sorry that the blog was down for a few hours. Yesterday I did a throwaway post that somehow ended up getting 3800+ diggs or so. I didn’t have WP-Cache or Supercache turned on, so my blog melted to a little puddle of fail. “Matt, you idiot! How you could run a modern WordPress blog [...]
Publication date: 2008-10-11 more

YouTube adds

A couple weeks ago, xkcd ran this funny comic: Randall Monroe, the creator of xkcd, suggested that if YouTube commenters had to listen to their comments read back to them aloud, it might lead to better discussion on YouTube. Some Googlers thought that was a pretty fun suggestion, so they did it. YouTube now has an [...]
Publication date: 2008-10-09 more

Halloween costume for 2008?

I think I know what I’m doing for Halloween this year, but if anyone wants to throw out suggestions, I’d be delighted to hear them.
Publication date: 2008-10-08 more

Google to webmasters: Write clean HTML and consider accessibility

I suspect that the recent release of Google Chrome, based on Webkit, has at least something to do with the Google Webmaster Central Blog post Workin' it on all browsers. In the post webmasters are encouraged to make sure their sites work regardless of what browser their visitors use, and Google is likely interested in websites working properly in their own browser. The blog post points to an article in the Webmaster Help Center called Making sure your site appears properly in different browsers. That article contains four main tips: Test your site in as many browsers as possible Write good, clean HTML Specify your character encoding Consider accessibility All good advice of course, though obviously there is a lot more to be said about good HTML and accessibility than what is brought up in the article. Nevertheless it's good to see this kind of information on Google where it may reach people who would not otherwise bother writing proper HTML and CSS or consider accessibility at all.Posted in Accessibility, Web Standards.
Publication date: 2008-10-08 more

My Five Months With Google Chrome

Om Malik wrote an interesting post about Google Chrome one month after the public launch. While I was reading Om’s post, I realized that I wrote a post for the Google Chrome release that I never published. I’ll include it here, and then let’s meet at the bottom and compare notes. Like many Google [...]
Publication date: 2008-10-06 more

Quick comment for pixelrn

I tried to leave a comment on pixelrn.com but the problem with talking about hacked sites is that you often end up using language that gets flagged as spammy. Here’s what I tried to say but the WordPress installation over on pixelrn wouldn’t let me: Hi Beth, I checked and it doesn’t look like you have [...]
Publication date: 2008-10-04 more

Google Blogsearch and Techmeme

More and more people are spending free time (and work time) online and lots of those people want to discover interesting things on the web. Google Blogsearch’s new home page applies that insight with a browsable version of what’s going on in the blogosphere. The UI design is a little reminiscent of Google News, but [...]
Publication date: 2008-10-03 more

New meme: Tag five friends to register to vote

Okay, I’ll help on this. A Google blog post and the corresponding video ask people to register to vote (find out how at http://maps.google.com/vote ) and/or send this video to five of their friends. I’m game for that, mainly because Jonah Hill is the funniest man in the world and he says to do it. [...]
Publication date: 2008-10-03 more

Multiple form labels and screen readers

Just about every website needs some forms. Sometimes there are many of them, sometimes just a single contact form. Regardless of their number, they need to be usable and accessible, which can sometimes be a little more work than it would be if theory and practice aligned a little better. Say you have a simple form with an input field whose value needs to be validated, either by a JavaScript running in the browser or by a script on the server (preferably both). When the data entered by the user does not match what is expected, you need to notify the user somehow. For sighted users this is generally not a problem. If you output some text stating what the problem is and highlight it visually, most people will notice it. For screen reader users it's a little more tricky though. To make sure that the screen reader associates the message with the correct input field, the text should be in a label element that is explicitly connected to the field. No problem so far actually, but then the designer tells you that it has to look differently. The validation message should be below the input field instead of next to the label text. Or it should be next to the input field, or some other location not directly adjacent to the label text. You start fiddling with extra markup, absolute positioning, negative margins, and end up with something that seems to work reasonably well. Until you resize the text, at which point things get misaligned. You may be able to find a half-good solution that works within certain constraints, but if you've been down this road you probably get the point. Positioning error messages this way is fragile. It would be so much easier if you could just put the error message in a second label element associated with the input field. Well, it turns out you can do that. From The LABEL element in the HTML 4.01 specification: The LABEL element may be used to attach information to controls. Each LABEL element is associated with exactly one form control. The for attribute associates a label with another control explicitly: the value of the for attribute must be the same as the value of the id attribute of the associated control element. More than one LABEL may be associated with the same control by creating multiple references via the for attribute. Sounds great, doesn't it? A quick check in graphical web browsers shows that they associate multiple labels with the input field (as evidenced by the input field gaining focus when either label is clicked). But what about screen readers? It would be so useful if this would work... Unfortunately, and perhaps unsurprisingly, it looks like it doesn't quite work as well as you'd hope. I mentioned this briefly in Use the label element to make your HTML forms accessible, but I think it's worth bringing up again since full support for multiple labels would help us make forms more accessible to screen reader users while keeping visual designers happy. I am far from an expert user when it comes to screen readers, but I've done some limited testing with mostly disappointing results. Apple VoiceOver does not recognise more than one label element associated with a form control and reads only the label that comes first in the document's source order. JAWS and Window-Eyes both do the opposite and read only the last label when an input field gains focus. The only screen reader of those that I tested that does handle multiple labels is Fire Vox. The exact results may obviously depend on user configuration and reading modes, and there may be other screen readers that get it right, but these results indicate that screen reader behaviour is too inconsistent for multiple labels to be a reliable technique. A couple of years ago, Bob Easton set up a multiple label test case that reveals similar results, discussed in Speaking form labels - Summary. Sorry to write at such length about something that appears to have no practical use. I just wanted to highlight a case where I think screen readers following the HTML specification more closely would help web developers to increase the accessibility of HTML forms they don't have full visual control of.Posted in (X)HTML, Accessibility.
Publication date: 2008-10-01 more

Five fun smartphone tips

Tip #1: See what you’re ordering. You’re at a restaurant and looking over the menu. But you don’t know the difference between a turkey bolognese and a turkey piccata. What to do? Fire up your iPhone, Android, or other smartphone and go to images.google.com and do a search for turkey bolognese. In just a few [...]
Publication date: 2008-09-29 more

Where to submit Chrome feedback?

The best place to submit Chrome feedback is at http://groups.google.com/group/google-chrome-help Not here (I’m going to disable comments on this post) and not over at Search Engine Roundtable. I still see a comment a day or so trickling in over there, probably because the post ranks highly for “Chrome feedback.” Just to repeat, if you want a Chrome [...]
Publication date: 2008-09-28 more

Traveling => Light posting

I’m not-in-California for a few days, so expect light posting. If you want to try to guess where I’m visiting, I may start posting “Where is Matt?” hints on my Twitter stream for people that want to play along. While I’m gone, enjoy the Android coverage. Even though I love my iPhone, I think lots of [...]
Publication date: 2008-09-25 more

Google Moderator launches

Here’s a fun link for you. Google just released a free service called Google Moderator. This is a port to Google App Engine of an existing tool we use all the time at Google. Internally it was called Dory (after the fish who asked questions all the time in Finding Nemo). What does Google Moderator do? [...]
Publication date: 2008-09-25 more

Turn Firefox into a screen reader with Fire Vox

I've sen Fire Vox mentioned plenty of times but have never had any luck getting it to work on my Mac. Until now, that is. Not sure what I've been doing wrong the other times I have tried it, but the other day I gave it another shot and it worked without any problems. For anyone who hasn't heard of Fire Vox, it is a free, open source screen reader extension for Firefox that works on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Among other things it has support for WAI-ARIA and the CSS3 Speech Module, and is a good alternative to VoiceOver if you're on a Mac and need a screen reader for web browsing (or testing). One thing that had me a little bit confused at first is that, at least as far as I can tell, you need to tab into a freshly loaded page before the "Auto Read" option (Ctrl + Shift + a) will work. Read Next (Ctrl + Shift + f) and Read Previous (Ctrl + Shift + d) work even if the focus is still in the location bar. Not sure if that is intentional or not, but if you load up a site and nothing happens when you press Ctrl + Shift + a to have Fire Vox read the entire page, try using tab or (Ctrl + Shift + f) to move keyboard focus to the loaded page first. For developers Fire Vox makes it easy to check how their sites work in a screen reader. Sure, it's just one of several available screen readers, but this one is free and cross-platform. In other words there is no reason for you not to have it installed, so grab a copy right now.Posted in Accessibility, Browsers.
Publication date: 2008-09-24 more

Yo ho ho! Happy Pirate Day, mateys!

I hope everyone be havin’ a great Talk Like a Pirate Day! It looks like Google added support fer Pirate in our user interface. I ‘ave t’ admit that I didn’ see that one comin’. Special thanks t’ th’ online pirate translator fer help wit’ this post, don’tcha know. May the “black spot” not darken your [...]
Publication date: 2008-09-20 more

Sergey starts a blog!

I’ve checked with folks at Google and they confirmed that http://too.blogspot.com/ is Sergey Brin’s blog. The name “too” reflects Sergey’s additional life outside work. One of his first posts is about the fact that he might be more likely to develop Parkinson’s Disease when he’s older. That’s based on data from 23andMe, the personal genetics [...]
Publication date: 2008-09-19 more

Opera Web Standards Curriculum: A "do things the right way" learning resource

In July the Opera Web Standards Curriculum (WSC) was launched. It is a great initiative that aims to provide a free course for anyone who needs a thorough introduction to the web and how to create standards-based and accessible websites. The WSC consists of a large number of articles covering topics, including the history of the web, graphic design for the web, HTML, CSS, and accessibility. At the time of this writing 23 articles have been published, with many more to come. The editor, Chris Mills, asked me if I would be interested in writing a few articles. I said yes, but unfortunately I soon realised that I did not have enough spare time to write as many WSC articles as I would have liked to. My single contribution to the WSC is Choosing the right doctype for your HTML documents. Considering the quality of the articles written by the other authors I think my lack of time may have been for the best. For a long time I've missed having something like the WSC to refer people to when they ask me where to start learning about modern web design and development, so it's great to finally have a place to send them to. Even better, the entire course is Creative Commons licensed to allow universities, companies, and other organisations to use it freely. Know someone who needs to catch up with Web Standards? Help make the web a better place by referring them to the Opera Web Standards Curriculum (WSC).Posted in Web Standards.
Publication date: 2008-09-17 more

Shiny Chrome bits, plus a fresh tip

A few neat Chrome things that I’ve seen recently: CrossOver ported the open-source Chromium browser over to Mac and Linux using Wine. Bear in mind that this is more of a proof-of-concept and not the official version, but you can still download the binaries and play with it. If you like the look and feel of Chrome [...]
Publication date: 2008-09-16 more

Best Yogurt in Silicon Valley?

Hi, my name is Matt, and I have a yogurt problem. It started last month when I discovered the joys of Pinkberry yogurt on my trip down to Los Angeles for SIGGRAPH. Pinkberry is different from “normal” yogurt like TCBY because it has a tart (or slightly sour) taste. If you’re living in middle America with [...]
Publication date: 2008-09-15 more

How to delete

Lazyweb, here’s a quick question for you. On a FreeBSD system, suppose I own a directory called “foo”. Inside that “foo” directory are some files (file1, file2, file3) owned by the “nobody” user. How do I delete those files? When I type the command “rm file1″ I get the response “rm: file1: Permission denied” even [...]
Publication date: 2008-09-14 more

How to delete files from a directory I own in FreeBSD?

Arrrrr you prepared for Talk Like a Pirate Day with pirate fonts?

Are you ready for Talk Like a Pirate Day? It’s September 19th (same date every year), so it’s coming up fast. I recently stumbled across some really nice pirate fonts online. This one is called Windlass, for example: Hat-tip to KPAO! which is a fun blog. Every time I start looking at fonts, I always surface 3-4 [...]
Publication date: 2008-09-08 more

Arrrrr you prepared for Talk Like a Pirate Day with fonts?

Twitter added nofollow to

Yesterday John Battelle emailed me to ask about Rae’s post. This will be a little inside baseball to some people who don’t live and breathe search and Twitter, but I figured I’d take what I emailed to John, add some pictures, and post it here. Here’s the email: Sorry for the delay in replying; I’m really [...]
Publication date: 2008-09-06 more

Signs of life

As you may have noticed it's been over three months since I last posted anything here. Just in case you missed it, the reason is that I have been on parental leave. Well, as of this week I am now back at work, and hope to start posting reasonably regularly here again within the next few weeks. There will be a few changes compared to how things have worked here in the past. Time is becoming more and more precious for me, especially with a one-year-old to take care of, and I need to find ways to remove as many time eaters as possible. One of those time eaters is - unfortunately - comments. Yeah, I know. I have said in the past that comments are very important here and on other blogs, and I still think they are. But managing comments, whether they are positive or not, takes a lot of time and effort for me, so I am going to disable comments for the time being. Others have argued for not allowing comments on blogs, and Jeremy Keith sums it up pretty well in Commentary. I used to partly disagree with what Jeremy and the others he is quoting are saying, but I have changed my position on this. Thank you to all readers who have taken the time to post constructive, thoughtful and encouraging comments through the years. I really appreciate it, but from now on there will be no comment form at the end of each post here. Another thing I want to do is simplify. The design, the code, the publishing system, my writing process, everything that has to do with writing and posting content here. I really want to have a stable setup that lets me focus on writing instead of worrying about pixels or scripts or databases. I am also going to (try to) stop worrying about things being broken in inferior browsers. I get quite enough of solving IE CSS bugs at work, so I am going to minimise the time I waste on it here. These simplifications will be a work in progress, so if you see anything that is broken or experience any other kind of hiccups around here, it's most likely caused by me changing things and will (hopefully) be temporary. Or not. Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Life.
Publication date: 2008-09-05 more

Google does not want rights to things you do using Chrome

Alright, I’ve got another conspiracy theory misconception to dispel. After reading through the Chrome Terms of Service, some people are worried that Google is trying to assert rights on everything that you do on Chrome. From one example story by Marshall Kirkpatrick: The terms include a section giving Google “a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and [...]
Publication date: 2008-09-04 more

Google Chrome user agent

It’s easy to find out what Google Chrome’s user-agent is. Using the same trick as I did with the iPhone, I searched for phpinfo HTTP_USER_AGENT in Google Chrome. Click on one of the results and search for HTTP_USER_AGENT on the page. Here’s the image that I see: My exact user-agent is Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; [...]
Publication date: 2008-09-04 more

Live-blogging the Google Chrome announcement

Update, 12:49 p.m.: You can try Google Chrome at http://www.google.com/chrome and I hope every Windows user takes it for a spin. It’s only a seven megabyte download, which means it’s really fast to download and try. Update, 12:46 p.m.: Chromium, the site dedicated to open-sourcing Google Chrome is now open at http://www.chromium.org/ According to a press release [...]
Publication date: 2008-09-03 more

Preventing paranoia: when does Google Chrome talk to Google.com?

For better or worse, my blog is popular with the Google conspiracy-theorist demographic. I knew that as soon as Google Chrome launched, some readers would ask tough questions about privacy and how/when Google Chrome communicates with google.com. So I decided to tackle this issue head-on. I talked to the Chrome team to find out if [...]
Publication date: 2008-09-03 more

Answers to common Google Chrome objections

I spend a fair amount of my time debunking misconceptions about Google. So when I found out that Google Chrome was going to be released, I put on my thinking cap about what objections people would throw out about Google Chrome. Here are the questions that I came up with, along with my personal answers. [...]
Publication date: 2008-09-03 more

Get Ready for Google Chrome: New Open-Source Web Browser

Google just officially confirmed that it will release a new open-source web browser, called Google Chrome (that link should go live sometime tomorrow). I can’t wait to talk more about Google Chrome, but I’ll hold off until it officially launches. Once people can download Google Chrome, I plan to talk about my experiences using Google Chrome, [...]
Publication date: 2008-09-03 more

My favorite books of 2008 (so far)

Okay, so we’re more than halfway through 2008. I’m a voracious reader, and I wanted to share my favorite books that I read in the first half of 2008. 1. American Shaolin. Matthew Polly grew up in Kansas and decided to go study martial arts in China with Shaolin monks. I dare you to read the [...]
Publication date: 2008-08-28 more

Three tips for

This is my personal blog. I don’t run my draft posts by Google’s PR or legal team, other than maybe 2-3 times when I thought a post might have legal implications. But I have learned a few hard-won lessons. So, when someone recently asked me for tips about talking to the public, I couldn’t resist. [...]
Publication date: 2008-08-25 more

Digging out from SIGGRAPH and L.A.

I’m up to my ears in email from last week, but I had a great time down in Los Angeles and at SIGGRAPH: I’ll try to write up a little bit about the trip, but for now I’m gearing up for SES San Jose. Places to find me: - I’ll be on a keynote panel on Tuesday. [...]
Publication date: 2008-08-18 more

What to do in Los Angeles?

I’m going to be down in Los Angeles for the SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference next week, but I hope to have a little sightseeing free time. What would you recommend seeing or doing in Los Angeles?
Publication date: 2008-08-09 more

A Quick Tutorial on JavaScript Bookmarklets

Bookmarklets are very handy pieces of JavaScript code that you can bookmark. In HTML, if you want a link to open in a new window, you’d write it like this: <a href=”http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/” target=”_blank”>Matt Cutts</a> Go on, try it on this link: Matt Cutts If you wanted to create a bookmarklet to open a new window or tab, you’d [...]
Publication date: 2008-08-05 more

Ben Gomes on Google

This summer several people in Google’s quality group have pulled back the curtain on how people think about search quality at Google. We’ve had Udi Manber give an overview of search quality and the groups that work on it. Then my office-mate Amit Singhal discussed some of our principles of core ranking. Amit followed that [...]
Publication date: 2008-08-02 more

eBay's Paul Strong on Building the Data Center of the Future

Publication date: 2008-07-29 more

EBay launches international ad division

Publication date: 2008-07-29 more

eBay: Changes to Item Specifics in Jewelry & Watches, Books, DVD & Movies, Music and Video Games

Publication date: 2008-07-29 more

AuctionChex Facilitates International Payments

Publication date: 2008-07-29 more

Ecommerce Packaging the Green Way: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

Publication date: 2008-07-29 more

Surfers buy into eBay way

Publication date: 2008-07-29 more

Confessions of... an eBay addict

Publication date: 2008-07-29 more

Ebay hopes to give independent developers a pathway by using the new Project Echo

Publication date: 2008-07-29 more

Software Group Contemplates Suing eBay

Publication date: 2008-07-29 more

Feedback mixed on eBay real estate auctions

Publication date: 2008-07-29 more

PayPal Canada Appoints Country Manager

Publication date: 2008-07-29 more

PayPal Sharing Customer Information With Government

Publication date: 2008-07-29 more

Overstock.com Adopts Fur-Free Policy

Publication date: 2008-07-29 more

Alibaba Exports Recycled Ink Cartridge

Publication date: 2008-07-29 more

Alibaba Opens Taiwan Branch

Publication date: 2008-07-29 more

My schedule for late 2008

Every few months I like to give people an update on where I expect to be over the next few months. I apologize in advance if I have to decline other speaking invitations, but I’m genuinely trying to travel less and speak less these days to get a better work/life balance. Here are my tentative [...]
Publication date: 2008-07-29 more

Twitter/Summize search flaky?

I’ve started to post more on my twitter account recently. Less than two weeks ago, Twitter bought Summize. Good for them; I like both companies. But http://search.twitter.com/search?q=wordpress+mattcutts should return this entry in Twitter’s search results. I don’t see it in Twitter’s search results: What’s the story, Twitter/Summize folks? I can’t escape the feeling that I would [...]
Publication date: 2008-07-28 more

Best WordPress Plugin for Related Posts?

On my “Matt Cutts” twitter account a few days ago I asked other folks which WordPress “Related Posts” plug-in they would recommend. It seems like “Related Posts” extensions go in and out of vogue every few years, so I wanted to hear what smart folks were using lately. The plugins that got recommended the [...]
Publication date: 2008-07-27 more

Get your search fix with two videos

I was going to wait until part 2 was posted, but I’ll point people to part 1 now. The video from the SMX Advanced keynote is now live, so you can watch the first 25 minutes of questions and answers. Read the intro here, or just watch the video: And Juliane Stiller from Google’s German Webmaster [...]
Publication date: 2008-07-25 more

New Toolbar PageRanks coming

Hey folks, I wanted to let you know that new toolbar PageRank values should become visible over the next few days. I’m expecting that also in the next few days that we’ll be expiring some older penalties on websites.
Publication date: 2008-07-25 more

I love my pedometer

I’ve written about my Omron pedometer once before, but I wanted to mention it again because I like it so much. Recent research suggests that using a pedometer can lead to more walking and better health. I’ve been carrying a pedometer for a little over a year now, and I’ve done almost four million steps since [...]
Publication date: 2008-07-25 more

eBay slot machine: Bidding for big buck

Publication date: 2008-07-24 more

Tough Times for eBay Entrepreneurs

Publication date: 2008-07-24 more

eBay issue discount coupons for tech categories

Publication date: 2008-07-24 more

eBay Australia cheap listing days for Computers

Publication date: 2008-07-24 more

More bang for the buck at online gun and ammo auction site

Publication date: 2008-07-24 more

Alibris Improves New and Used Textbook Sales for Sellers and Savings for Shoppers

Publication date: 2008-07-24 more

Behavior Launches New Design for Red Roller's Easy-to-Use One-Stop Web-Based Shipping Service

Publication date: 2008-07-24 more

RedRoller Launches Web-Based Package Shipping Solution for SMBs

Publication date: 2008-07-24 more

eBay rebels take PayPal issue to the Reserve Bank of Australia

Publication date: 2008-07-24 more

China's Alibaba says it has expanded into Taiwan

Publication date: 2008-07-24 more

ECO International Acquires eBay Drop-off Store turned Liquidator

Publication date: 2008-07-21 more

eBay: A Message from Dinesh Lathi: Fixed Price for Just 25

Publication date: 2008-07-21 more

Legislation Targets eFencing on Sites Like eBay

Publication date: 2008-07-21 more

eBay revenues defy worldwide army of bitter users

Publication date: 2008-07-21 more

eBay Announces Marketplaces Executive Changes

Publication date: 2008-07-21 more

eBay Subsidiary Marktplaats.nl Grows Its Business with Sun Microsystems' MySQL Database

Publication date: 2008-07-21 more

eBay UK pimps users' privacy for targeted ads

Publication date: 2008-07-21 more

New Merchants, Account Growth Propel PayPal's Non-Auction Volume

Publication date: 2008-07-21 more

Alibaba online payment unit ties up with Amazon China

Publication date: 2008-07-21 more

Generic Toolbar Indexing Debunk Post

Sometimes people think that the Google Toolbar led to Google indexing a page. Here’s a recent such story, for example, which speculates how urls with the substring “mms2legacy” got indexed. Here’s where I started to disagree: The reason for this [supposedly unlisted urls getting crawled --Matt], explained Ken Simpson, CEO of anti-spam company MailChannels, is that [...]
Publication date: 2008-07-21 more

What are the best iPhone applications?

Here are some of the applications that I’m trying out right now: What applications do you like on the iPhone 3G?
Publication date: 2008-07-21 more

Idea for an Android/iPhone app: Call Me a Cab

I still like my last start-up idea about converting MP3 music collections to be legal and cleaning up mangled/ugly filenames. As Amazon and others start to sell MP3s, a startup could easily offer some interesting services. For example, I just saw that a new product called TuneUp will clean up your filenames, metadata, and cover [...]
Publication date: 2008-07-21 more

Two Cats One Laptop

The new iPhone 3G camera seems to work pretty well. Here’s a test shot with me, two cats, and a laptop: The iPhone 3G still doesn’t work great for close-ups on very small stuff, but it seems to work well in the four to six foot range.
Publication date: 2008-07-18 more

5 Steps to Upgrade From a Hacked iPhone to an iPhone 3G

I know what you’re thinking: “Matt, I hacked my original iPhone. Now I want to share in the iPhone 3G fun, but I’m worried that something horrible will happen if I upgrade to the iPhone 3G.” Buck up, fellow iPhone hacker. I’ll tell you how to upgrade from your hacked Apple phone and keep all the [...]
Publication date: 2008-07-17 more

EBay to Ban Sale of Cat and Dog Pelts in Germany

Publication date: 2008-07-16 more

Peel Out! Shipping Label Sheets ? for Paypal

Publication date: 2008-07-16 more

Alibris and Abe Bookseller News

Publication date: 2008-07-16 more

UpperBid Online Auctions Forms Partnership With Trufina to Combat Online Auction Fraud

Publication date: 2008-07-16 more

ebay: A Message from Jeff King: Update on the New Search Experience

Publication date: 2008-07-16 more

National Auctioneers Association Estimates Industry to Grow 2.3 Percent in 2008

Publication date: 2008-07-16 more

eBay: A Message from Lorrie Norrington: Updates on Feedback

Publication date: 2008-07-15 more

Tiffany loses legal fight against eBay over counterfeit goods

Publication date: 2008-07-15 more

Generic Malware Debunking Post

Yup, I’m about to do another blog post where someone says that a website is clean but it doesn’t look like it to us. I did a very similar post in January 2007, and in that post I said I
Publication date: 2008-07-15 more

Buy.com Deal With EBay Angers Sellers

Publication date: 2008-07-14 more

Paymate files eBay complaint with ACCC

Publication date: 2008-07-14 more

eBay to ban email communications from August

Publication date: 2008-07-14 more

eBay?s perfume ban confirmed

Publication date: 2008-07-14 more

eBay.com postpone new links policy

Publication date: 2008-07-14 more

iPhone 3G: Come on in, the Water

If you read all the press on Friday, it sounded like a full-out iPocalypse as Apple’s in-store activation of the iPhone failed, which left a bunch of people steamed. I left a Summize search for [iphone] up in my browser; there were probably 10K+ twitters on Friday that mentioned the iPhone. By afternoon I noticed that [...]
Publication date: 2008-07-14 more

eBay Takes Neutrals out of Feedback Percentages

Publication date: 2008-07-11 more

Flippid Removes Fees, Adds Custom Storefronts

Publication date: 2008-07-11 more

eBay.com.au: No insertion fees for 10 days when you start your item at 99c or less

Publication date: 2008-07-11 more

PayPal Claims Now in eBay Dispute Console

Publication date: 2008-07-11 more

73% of Ebay Van Tyres ?Potentially Unsafe?

Publication date: 2008-07-11 more

Aftermarket finds new customers on eBay

Publication date: 2008-07-11 more

Gmail uses DomainKeys to lock out eBay phishing attacks

Publication date: 2008-07-11 more

eBay Mobile 1.0

Publication date: 2008-07-11 more

eBay's iPhone app now out of the box

Publication date: 2008-07-11 more

Seamlessly integrate applications with eBay using its Windows SDK

Publication date: 2008-07-11 more

Infopia Forms New Customer Support Team

Publication date: 2008-07-11 more

Wigix Announces Board Appointments

Publication date: 2008-07-11 more

PayPal Application Available on Apple App Store at Launch

Publication date: 2008-07-11 more

Paypal: A year of free fees

Publication date: 2008-07-11 more

Alibaba launches a lifestyle service platform

Publication date: 2008-07-11 more

Wigix: "Tell Your Friends" Challenge - From 7/9 thru 7/10, we'll be offering triple points

Publication date: 2008-07-10 more

New PayPal Currencies: Mexican Peso and Israeli Shekel

Publication date: 2008-07-10 more

eBay India motors launches online truck bazaar

Publication date: 2008-07-10 more

Amazon.com to use Bill Me Later payment service

Publication date: 2008-07-10 more

Alibaba stock continues to tumble

Publication date: 2008-07-10 more

eBay Italy: ?0.01 listings, free Gallery, Best Match

Publication date: 2008-07-10 more

Fighting phishing with eBay and PayPal

Publication date: 2008-07-09 more

ACCC Says eBay PayPal Requirement Not a Concern

Publication date: 2008-07-09 more

Window Book Offers Return Merchandise Labels for Shippers

Publication date: 2008-07-09 more

Is eBay Expanding Their Finding 2.0 in the U.S.?

Publication date: 2008-07-09 more

Ebay's loss is retail industry's gain

Publication date: 2008-07-09 more

Cool: Google Releases Protocol Buffers Into the Wild

I love that Google just open-sourced Protocol Buffers. Think of Protocol Buffers as a very compact way of encoding data in a binary format. A programmer can write a simple description of a protocol or structured data and Google’s code will autogenerate a class in C++, Java, or Python to read, write, and parse the [...]
Publication date: 2008-07-09 more

Interview with eBay Seller Jennifer Heist

Publication date: 2008-07-08 more

eBay Seller Wins Trademark Case Against Laurel Burch Artwork

Publication date: 2008-07-08 more

Cisco ignoring fake routers on eBay?

Publication date: 2008-07-08 more

eBay.co.uk: List for just 5p

Publication date: 2008-07-08 more

eBay.ca: 5 cent listing day for Fixed Price or Auction format

Publication date: 2008-07-08 more

For eBay, Lawsuits Could Result in Profit Squeeze

Publication date: 2008-07-08 more

French ruling on counterfeit goods could have far-reaching effects for eBay

Publication date: 2008-07-08 more

How to write Terms & Conditions that your buyers will love

Publication date: 2008-07-08 more

PayPal isn?t compulsory on eBay UK (if you?re a big enough seller)

Publication date: 2008-07-08 more

Why eBay tried to screw Aussie users

Publication date: 2008-07-08 more

The business case for goodwill

Carolyn Y. Johnson has a great article about companies that listen online today in the Boston Globe. She mentions that Comcast and Southwest monitor Twitter for frustrated users and Dell for improving its customer service as well as providing a site called IdeaStorm where people can provide feedback. Dell has implemented over 50 of the [...]
Publication date: 2008-07-07 more

Setting up Your Own Shop with Shopify.com

Publication date: 2008-07-07 more

Trolling for Seller Tools at eBay Live

Publication date: 2008-07-07 more

Andy Sernovitz Advises eBay Sellers on Word of Mouth Marketing

Publication date: 2008-07-07 more

Editorial: Should EBay be copyright cop?

Publication date: 2008-07-07 more

eBay pays the price for PayPal debacle

Publication date: 2008-07-07 more

TradeMe in court for "black market"

Publication date: 2008-07-07 more

Q2 Predictions for eBay Business Segments

Publication date: 2008-07-07 more

Changes to eBay could favour Power Sellers over small sellers

Publication date: 2008-07-07 more

Alibaba Group invests 2 bln yuan in online auction unit Taobao.com

Publication date: 2008-07-07 more

Tensions Flare at eBay IMA Trade Group

Publication date: 2008-07-04 more

Auction sites are hotspot for fake goods trading

Publication date: 2008-07-04 more

eBay backs down on PayPal plan

Publication date: 2008-07-04 more

COO Of Star Group Joins Alibaba

Publication date: 2008-07-04 more

buySAFE Selects MerchantAdvantage as First Product Syndication Partner

Publication date: 2008-07-04 more

Auctionblip Makes Auction Service Free for Collectors

Publication date: 2008-07-03 more

Where Do eBay Fakes Go to Die?

Publication date: 2008-07-03 more

eBay.co.uk: List for a penny in technology categories

Publication date: 2008-07-03 more

Canadian fiddler looks for quick payday via eBay

Publication date: 2008-07-03 more

How to spot a fake on eBay

Publication date: 2008-07-03 more

eBay eyes Filipino e-commerce developers

Publication date: 2008-07-03 more

From handbags to diamonds, eBay a target, but safe

Publication date: 2008-07-03 more

eBay Chatter - external links are extremely restricted

Publication date: 2008-07-03 more

Could Twitter become the next PayPal?

Publication date: 2008-07-03 more

CheckMEND Service Addresses Online Auction Sites' Problems

Publication date: 2008-07-03 more

Suggest what webspam should work on next

Today is July 1st, which is a special day because it marks the beginning of the second half of the year. Just in the last day or so there have been a couple pieces of good news: better indexing of Flash, and we re-wrote our “What is an SEO?” guide to improve the [...]
Publication date: 2008-07-03 more

Protect yourself: get a free credit report

I wanted to write down 3-4 easy steps to protect yourself from identity theft and help you check your free annual credit reports. Credit check options - If you haven’t checked your credit in the last year, visit the official site that lets you get a free credit report from each of the three major credit bureaus. [...]
Publication date: 2008-07-03 more

How to stop junk mail

I’ve been learning how to stop receiving junk mail, and I thought I’d share what I’ve learned. Reducing Junk Mail There are several services that will help you reduce your junk mail: - GreenDimes offers a free basic service, but I decided to do their $20 one-time fee because it offered a few extra things I wanted. GreenDimes [...]
Publication date: 2008-07-03 more

Publication date: 2008-07-02 more

eBay: Expand Your Business Overseas! Add the International Site Visibility Listing Upgrade for 5

Publication date: 2008-07-02 more

eBay: Updates to the eBay User Agreement and Privacy Policy

Publication date: 2008-07-02 more

eBay Product Roadmap

Publication date: 2008-07-02 more

In search of the real deal

Publication date: 2008-07-02 more

Ebay to appeal against French ?40m counterfeit goods penalty

Publication date: 2008-07-02 more

The Ebay Way Of Life

Publication date: 2008-07-02 more

A real shopping experience beats eBay anyday

Publication date: 2008-07-02 more

Internet Marketing Company Releases New Ebay Seller Tool

Publication date: 2008-07-02 more

The Nitty-Gritty of Selling on Amazon.com

Publication date: 2008-07-01 more

eBay.ca: Canada Post to introduce new specifications and pricing for Oversize Lettermail

Publication date: 2008-07-01 more

eBay.co.uk: Testing Shops items display

Publication date: 2008-07-01 more

EBay Ordered to Pay $61 Million in Sale of Counterfeit Goods

Publication date: 2008-07-01 more

The eBay PowerSeller Business Practices Guide on Boosting Sales and Managing a PowerSeller Business

Publication date: 2008-07-01 more

eBay and TRUSTe PARTNER TO IMPROVE SAFETY OF DOWNLOADABLE SOFTWARE

Publication date: 2008-07-01 more

eBay Sets up Shopper Community to Conduct Market Research

Publication date: 2008-07-01 more

Google gets better at Flash with Adobe

If you haven’t seen the official posts, Adobe has been working to make Flash more index-able by search engines. Google has recently rolled out better code for Flash, e.g. you’re now more likely to see useful snippets on Flash pages in Google’s search results. I’m a fan of this change, and I’m a fan of Adobe [...]
Publication date: 2008-07-01 more

Free search engine optimization tips for beginners

Jefferson Graham didn’t just write an article of free SEO tips — he also brought his video camera along. The result is a five minute video interview with more easy, free search engine optimization tips. Again, this is targeted at beginner SEO and small business SEO instead of advanced marketers. You can watch the video [...]
Publication date: 2008-06-30 more

eBay Sellers Keep Buy.com in their Cross Hairs

Publication date: 2008-06-28 more

Trends On Ebay Are Just Cuckoo

Publication date: 2008-06-28 more

China enjoys online auction boom

Publication date: 2008-06-28 more

Online auction sets world records for Indian artists

Publication date: 2008-06-28 more

Free Bellsouth Radio On Buy.com Through Google Checkout

Publication date: 2008-06-28 more

Google CheckOut: Sergey, You Can't Be Serious

Publication date: 2008-06-28 more

eBay: Changes to Item Specifics Now Available ? Important for Jewelry Sellers

Publication date: 2008-06-27 more

Swiss Auction Site Integrates Moneybookers Payment Service

Publication date: 2008-06-27 more

Amazon.com Rolls out New Seller Payments Page

Publication date: 2008-06-27 more

How eBay merchants can earn higher ratings and pay lower fees

Publication date: 2008-06-27 more

ADESA to Acquire Internet-Based Auction Software Company, Live Global Bid

Publication date: 2008-06-27 more

BizAuctions Listings Through June 2008 Increase by 67%

Publication date: 2008-06-27 more

EBay tries Bollywood route to boost revenue

Publication date: 2008-06-27 more

Moneybookers Hires Experienced CFO as Revenues Surge

Publication date: 2008-06-27 more

Crap. My Ubuntu machine won

This sucks. On some very rare occasions, when I connect an SD card reader to my Ubuntu machine, it freezes. Normally I just reboot and everything is fine. But this time my Ubuntu machine won’t boot, and it shows a message like Starting up … Loading, please wait… kinit: name_to_dev_t(/dev/disk/by-uuid/bd656dcd-04b4-412f-a880-62a6553bd8b) = sda5(8,5) kinit: trying to resume from /dev/disk/by-uuid/bd656dcd-04b4-412f-a880-62a6553bd8b kinit: No [...]
Publication date: 2008-06-27 more

Amazon.com Acquires Fabric.com

Publication date: 2008-06-26 more

eBay Motors ?Need for Speed? Insertion Fee Sale: 20 Cents in Certain Categories Through June 26th

Publication date: 2008-06-26 more

Amazon: Restrictions on Top-selling Video Game Products

Publication date: 2008-06-26 more

eBay.com.au: Catch yourself a bargain hunter with no insertion fees 26-29 June

Publication date: 2008-06-26 more

Amnesty takes human trafficking issue to eBay

Publication date: 2008-06-26 more

Merchants give eBay an earful at its annual gathering

Publication date: 2008-06-26 more

Guide to eBay's New Finding (Search) Technology

Publication date: 2008-06-26 more

SearchDome Adds New eBay Search Feature: "Search by Seller Feedback Rating"

Publication date: 2008-06-26 more

eBay to argue case for PayPal at ACCC conference

Publication date: 2008-06-26 more

Overstock.com Adds PayPal Pay Later

Publication date: 2008-06-26 more

eBay launches Developer Programme in SEA

Publication date: 2008-06-26 more

eBay.com.au indefinitely postpone PayPal only

Publication date: 2008-06-26 more

eBay, PayPal, Kijiji Celebrate Milestones

Publication date: 2008-06-26 more

eBay's StumbleUpon Partners with FotoLog Blogging Site

Publication date: 2008-06-26 more

Craigslist to surpass eBay in 2009? Compete and Quantcast seem to think so...

Publication date: 2008-06-26 more

Review: Kitt-In Box

(In the webmaster chat last week, someone asked about my cats, so I thought I’d throw out a cat post.) A little while ago someone mentioned the Kitt-In Box. It’s like an inbox for your desk, except that it holds cats. My cat Emmy likes to hang out in box-like objects, e.g. So I decided to [...]
Publication date: 2008-06-25 more

eBay Considering Utah for Major New Data Center

Publication date: 2008-06-25 more

Reader voices: Angry at eBay

Publication date: 2008-06-25 more

Making eBay Your Business Ally

Publication date: 2008-06-25 more

PayPal Celebrates 10 Years of Giving People a Safer and Easier Way to Shop Online

Publication date: 2008-06-25 more

Overstock CEO offers $75,000 for Wall Street's soul

Publication date: 2008-06-25 more

Shipping Delays from Floods Hurt eBay Sellers' DSRs

Publication date: 2008-06-25 more

Try Gallery Plus for 10

Publication date: 2008-06-25 more

eBay defies ACCC on PayPal

Publication date: 2008-06-25 more

EBay Users Set to Question CEO on Changes

Publication date: 2008-06-25 more

eBay calls for end to grey import laws

Publication date: 2008-06-25 more

McCain's EBay Model for Jobs Finds Few Buyers Among Economists

Publication date: 2008-06-25 more

eBay secretly acquires visual media company Vuvox

Publication date: 2008-06-25 more

ChannelAdvisor Announces Multi-Channel Assist Feature to Aid in Online Bid Management

Publication date: 2008-06-25 more

Cash-strapped seniors turning to eBay to pay the bills

Publication date: 2008-06-25 more

New Perks for eBay Sellers Help Boost Traffic and Listing Exposure

Publication date: 2008-06-25 more

Short article of free SEO tips

Jefferson Graham of USA Today stopped by the Googleplex a little while ago and we talked about SEO tips for business owners that want to run their business, not live and breathe search 24 hours a day. The result is an article of search engine optimization (SEO) advice that you could hand to any friend [...]
Publication date: 2008-06-23 more

An eBay Live! 2008 Message from Dinesh Lathi ? More Updates for Sellers

Publication date: 2008-06-23 more

Other News from eBay Live! 2008 - New Item Page

Publication date: 2008-06-23 more

Google Trends for Websites

If you’re a site owner, webmaster, SEO, or otherwise have an interest in website metrics, I think you’re going to like Google Trends for Websites. It’s almost as addictive to me as Google Maps is for, you know, normal people. You’re probably familiar with regular Google Trends, which lets you see trends in how [...]
Publication date: 2008-06-21 more

Google webmaster chat: tons of fun!

By the way, we had our second webmaster live chat yesterday. I think almost everyone had a good time. It was free for anyone to dial in, and hundreds of people showed up. Thanks to the Google presenters and everyone that asked questions or talked in the chat. I got a chance to answer lots [...]
Publication date: 2008-06-21 more