Here’s a handy little tip if you’d like to add a deleted items icon to your Ubuntu desktop:

Run terminal and type: gconf-editor /apps/nautilus/desktop

You should see configuration editor appear for your Nautilus settings and specifically, these useful little checkboxes:

nautilus

Just click “trash_icon_visible” and your deleted items icon will appear!

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Just incase you haven’t heard, we’re heading towards a nasty global recession. While you might feel reassured by the news that many companies are increasing their SEO spend in 2009, it can only mean one thing – SEO is going to get competitive in 2009. So, if you’re thinking about recession proofing your site in the near future, here are a few things you might want to consider doing soon:

1) Review your keyword strategy

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It’s a sad day when we lose yet another British retail institution and this failiure definitely a sign of the times. As I write this I’m watching BBC News coverage of the Woolworths collapse.

On visiting the Woolworths domain I’ve got to hand out the top “missed opportunity” prize to the administrators of the Woolworths group – they’ve taken down the website and replaced it with this:

woolworths site down

Not a single link, adsense ad or affiliate banner. That text isn’t even H1. Woolworths, we’ll miss you. At least, my Mum probably will.

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Has anyone had problems installing MSN’s Adcenter Intelligence plugin for Office Excel 2007?

I’m getting this error on install:

The zip downloaded fully – so the package that cannot be found (vstor.exe) is in the folder. I’ve got the correct version of the MS .net framework and I’m running Office 2007 pro.

Can anyone offer up a solution to this?

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I’ve just helped a very small reclaimed timber website get their first taste of SEO. Problem was the work allowed no additional development of the website, the budget was very, very small and the whole site is a single flash file. Ouch.

How do you optimise a one page flash website on an ultra low budget with no chance of changing the flash to a static HTML site? Fortunately, we all recieved a wonderful reminder of the value of <NOSCRIPT> tags from MSN’s very own Nathan Buggia at the recent SMX London.

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Here’s an idea for discussion. Is linking to your Google Local Business listing asking for feedback OK? Are other sites already doing this? I’d like to hear your thoughts…

According to David Mihm’s excellent Local Search Ranking Factors, “The number of reviews is a critical factor for both ranking and conversion.” I realise there are many, many other factors but I’m in agreement here, genuine, positive reviews are critical. So what if you need some genuine (and hopefully positive) reviews of your site / business to get started? Quite often those reviews don’t “just happen”, so, is it OK to invite customers to give you a review from your own website?

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Amazing Conky powered theme in Ubuntu using Emerald & Avant Window Navigator from startup

Here’s my my new Ubuntu Intrepid Installation running the Quicktweaks Conky setup. Conky is a powerful little tool that allows amazingly detailed levels of system monitoring and can easily be modified to perform other tasks. If you want to find out more, visit the Conky website here and see how it can be customised here. This desktop is a wonderful example of real time system monitoring and the display is even checking my Gmail inbox status and the outdoor temperature from Weather.com!

Conky themed Ubuntu Desktop using Emerald, Avant Window Manager and Conky

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Ever needed to compare lists of keywords in different data tables and match corresponding values together? For example, matching keyword volume data to search engine rankings? Today we’re going to take a look at a really simple but powerful query in Microsoft Excel called VLOOKUP which makes that possible.

Here’s the definition of VLOOKUP from office.microsoft.com:

Searches for a value in the first column of a table array and returns a value in the same row from another column in the table array. The V in VLOOKUP stands for vertical. Use VLOOKUP instead of HLOOKUP when your comparison values are located in a column to the left of the data that you want to find.

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Here be dragons!

by richardbaxterseo on November 17, 2008

I was just meandering along to my trusty old about:config settings in Firefox 3 when I was confronted with a **”Here be dragons” message…

here be dragons - Firefox 3

Highly amusing, thanks Firefox!

**May not actually be any dragons… :-)

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Cats and Dogs by RSS

by richardbaxterseo on November 16, 2008

Yesterday, I decided to start looking around for a cat, and Battersea Dogs and Cats Home came up in conversation. So, between episodes of Star Trek Enterprise (yesterday was a “sit in front of TV all day and do nothing for a change” day) Mary and I took a look at their website.

I was instantly amazed by their RSS functionality. You can recieve cats or dogs (or both) by RSS!

dogs cats rss feeds

It’s a great idea but the RSS feeds aren’t perfect. Here are the details you get on one of the animal pages: (Good luck, Bunyip!)

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