Recently paid a visit to the NTX Car Museum in Richardson. Took a lot of great pics on my iPhone. Old Mercs and BMWs. I knew old cars were built like tanks, but it’s really something to see them in person. More pics in my Gallery.
I used to hate Flash with a passion. It’s only taken them a decade to get the performance right on the Mac. Not to mention that little news blurb about discontinuation on mobile devices such as Android phones and iPhone..
Build 11.2.202.96, or 11.2 Beta 2 has made leaps and bounds over previous versions.
“Multithreaded Video Decoding (Windows, Mac OS, Linux)* – This release introduces a new fully multithreaded video decoding pipeline which resolves a number of legacy playback issues. This modern architecture will also enable future performance enhancements across all platforms.”
I am only on a dual core system without hyper threading, but I have noticed CPU usage is down significantly. I can stream 1080p video using my Geforce 9400m graphics card using ~50% cpu. Before it would take almost 100%. 480p video playback is down to 30%. This will hopefully be release candidate by the end of the year. We need it.
Pursuing some new career leads and working on a few side gigs. Doing my best to make one of them pan out. That stated, taking a brief hiatus from the usual posts here while I commit my resources to more. Plan to post a more relevant update in the coming days. 
I’m adding Google Analytics to my websites. Google Analytics:
- Allows site owners to track visitors from referrers such as search engines, pay-per-click networks, e-mail marketing and links within documents.
- Allows you to see which pages / links are clicked the most.
- Is very easy to install. Several years ago I created a GMail account. All I had to do is create a new website profile for this domain (http://therealmac.net) and tell the Google Analytics plug-in for WordPress to sync with that profile and instant monitoring. Typically a piece of JavaScript is inserted into the HTML pages for a website. For example :
<script type="text/javascript"> var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-10930373-3']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); </script> - It’s free. I didn’t pay a dollar to use the software and it’s extremely reliable.
- Integration with Google AdWords and AdSense.
It can be blocked easily too with browser plug-ins or other settings, so it’s not an end-all and be all for site tracking.
By being able to see where traffic is coming from, you can better optimize your online campaigns and determine what kind of content will attract more traffic.
As you can see by the Dashboard, there are lots of ways to measure your traffic using Google Analytics. It’s the tip of the iceberg but a tool I believe many webmasters should be utilizing.
This is the 1st part of a series of blog posts I’m composing to both clear my understanding of SEO and communicate with others who may be unfamiliar with what it’s about.
As new technologies emerge, so too do new ways of capitalizing on them. One technology I will mention briefly in this blog post is SEO – Search Engine Optimization. Simply put it refers to specific strategies/practices to improve a website’s rankings on the major search engines.
There are a number of companies in the space of helping individuals and businesses better market themselves on the Internet. One local company that impressed me is Globe Runner SEO. Instead of simply looking at words to focus on, Globe Runner SEO has adopted a much more holistic approach by acting more along the lines of a business consultant.
While almost all of us understand how to use a search engine, what goes on behind the scenes is a little bit more complicated. Programs have been written by search engine companies called crawler, spiders, and robots which literally catalog data on various websites and write the data to a database.
The ranking of data on the search engine is heavily dependent on multiple factors such as location (where a term appears on a page may cause it to rank higher), frequency (if a word is used 5 times in the page is most likely ranked higher than a page that mentions it once), links (links to the site and links leading back to the site and links within the site, the number of relevant links plays a significant role), and clickthroughs (the number of clicks for particular search terms can result in those terms having a higher ranking).
Some common strategies for improving SEO rankings are as follows:
-using meta-tags (Part of the HTML code that search engines pick up on to provide additional information about a site), content, graphics, and keywords
-getting other relevant sites to link back to your site
-using popular keywords that apply to your site and having people click on your site through usage of those keywords
-submitting your website to search engines manually, essentially planting a seed in their directories
Ideally a website should be written from the ground up with SEO in mind. Flash-based content or anything else requiring a plug-in is much more and challenging to rank high than combinations of text, images and video.
The business case for SEO is profound. If a company has a product it’s trying to get people to buy, optimizing search engine results for the product can drive more qualified traffic to its website. The same can be said for individuals such as writers, artists and any other type of professional trying to make a name for themselves.
I’ve always been fascinated by the Internet’s ability to pull people together and bring ideas to fruition. My desire to connect with people began back in the late 90s. in my spare time I briefly did some software and hardware reviews for an downloadable e-zine / website called RealMac Magazine in the late 90s and later did work for a startup called Spunk Network in the early 2000s right after the.com bubble burst.
From those experiences I learned that without motivation from within, projects rarely get completed. For some it is a monetary incentive, for others it’s the feeling of learning or giving to those who are less fortunate or unable to do the work on their own.
The reason why I have registered two domains, elliotrobinson.com (2006) and therealmac.net (2003) largely has to do with personal branding. At a very basic level, we identify with our birth names. It is a unique identifier for dealing with the outside world. Unless you have a very common name or wish to be completely shut out of the world of personal branding on the Internet, it makes sense to see if your name has been registered. if the.com has already been registered, look at other top level domains such as .net, .org, to see if they are available.
As the popularity of different social media websites comes and goes, I have control over what content goes on my websites. If I decide to delete my Facebook, MySpace or Twitter accounts tomorrow, I can still have a central space on the Internet to voice my thoughts. So long as my data is hosted and the domain stays registered.
Search engine optimization is also a major selling point for having your own website. If I happen to be a really talented artist in the middle of a farm town in Idaho and have built a portfolio of work I’ve done, it’s much easier to illustrate that on my website instead of a mishmash of different websites or through traditional local media.
Along with search engine optimization is the ability to track visitors to your website using a service like Google analytics. Seeing what areas are most popular and what conversion rates are if selling a product or service can be highly useful for assessing strategy.
It’s cheap to get a hosting account setup and the pros far outweigh the cons. Stand out from the crowd, make a name for yourself in your industry. Whether you’re just starting out or been doing it 20 years. Make an impact.
Got to ride in a Porsche GT3RS with my friend Nugget (macnugget.org) at Cresson Ranch, it’s an experience I will never forget. An intense rush of adrenaline and amazement at the same time. The equivalent of being on a roller coaster on the ground.
3.8L V6 at 450hp. I felt a little underwhelmed getting back into my 175hp car afterward. My car is more ‘green’ at least. Yeah that, better for the environment… 
I never met Steve Jobs and I never worked at Apple (though I did apply to work in a Retail store 8 years ago). I was sold on Apple products since around 1989. My first exposure was in Elementary School with the classic Apple ||/c and II/e models.
Imagine never having used a computer and not even really know what one was. Then being exposed to something pretty revolutionary at the time. A machine capable of performing calculations that would make all of our lives easier. Less paper, more accuracy, taking the human element from highly repetitive tasks.
In 1994 my family got its first Macintosh system, a Performa 550 desktop that by today’s standards had a fraction of the storage capacity of an iPhone. I was sold on the rich GUI, multimedia and the external world of eWorld and later AOL. The machine was noisy, the screen was small, keyboard noisy and modem slow. Even with limitations at the time, that machine brought out a piece of me that I never knew existed. A level of curiosity that simply reading books alone simply would not have provided.
Since then, Apple products have permeated my life. Desktops, laptops, iPods, iPhones, I’ve had them all. I was drawn to the level of detail and sophistication of Apple products, the notion that such effort went into designing a product that was different and designed to work the way I thought. Before I even knew it.
The brain, the man behind this revolutionary company was Steve Jobs. He attracted talented people at Pixar, NeXT and Apple who got more talented people and eventually build world-class companies. He was a great businessman, a philanthropist and just all-around a person many of us younger folks looked up to.
One quote I will remember is this:
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma–which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Rest in Peace, Steve.
Welcome to TheRealMac.net. I’m not sure how you found this site, perhaps it was through Twitter, Facebook or a search engine but thanks for reading. The name is Elliot. I’ve been blogging since 2000. Twas a long time ago, but at the time this post was composed, I was 27 years of age. My world view has been shaped by my experiences in life and below are some of the more relevant ones…
- Total technie. In a former life, I’d be best described as a MacAddict, both loyal to Apple Inc. and salivating at each new product that would be produced from the factory. These days I take a much more balanced approach, but in many ways believe the walled garden approach to hardware and software results in a superior product.
- College-educated. Three degrees by the time I turned 25. Is it impressive? Perhaps. I did it because I like having options. My college experience expanded my world view and instilled a sense of discipline. The older I get, the more I realize that classes don’t qualify an individual to be an expert on a topic. That takes passion, guts and the ability to step back a bit and put your knowledge into perspective.
- Friends. They have been with me through good times and bad. I am up for connecting with people around the world, provided we have some common interests and can respect one another… Often they remind me to reach higher in life and take time to enjoy the simple things. For that I am grateful.
- Being the underdog. I’m used to a challenge. Learning new things and applying them to make my life better is like a high to me. Life is too short to waste time just thinking or worrying about what would happen if I tried to do a, b, or c. I’m not foolish, but I also know that if your gut instinct is telling you to go a certain way, those feelings exist for a reason.