It wasn't me! Stinks to High Heaven

There is something in our office that started stinking the joint up a couple of weeks ago. It's a funky old building with lots of character. But there are those days when the temperature drops, the wind howls, and the furnace can't keep up with the drafts and holes throughout this old lady. Lately, those drafts and holes have become a nemesis, as the stench of some sordid mess wafts through the joint turning nostrils inside out.

The first day it was noticed, the occasional stare at one another, wondering with a hint of accusation who the Turd is that keeps dumping air bombs in his drawers. One morning, with no one in the office all night, Riel and I both arrive at the same time to find the thick taste of this stench becoming quite palpable, and most definitely not palatable. We open the windows, let the air through, freshen the place up a little with some incense, and we manage through the day without to much to do. All the same, precautions were taken.

The next day the Landlord's general contractor's arrived to track down the odour. The building's old oil furnace had long since been removed and replaced by a boiler forcing radiated heat along exterior wall baseboards. If you occupy the right corner, you roast comfortably. If you're like me, you want the window seat where you can watch the cobwebs waving as the wind blows through the cracks and splinters along this drafty frame. As it stands, this open and exposed vent seems to be a strong source for the offensive soupy smell.

Not able to fish or poke around into the walls adequately to find its' source, they resort to the crafty handyman's ultimate work-around. Patch the hole and seal it. It might have been a good idea in a building with far fewer drafty cracks and crevices. Two weeks later they were in the office today as mutiny amongst the ranks followed upturned noses right back out the door after they arrived this morning. Lucky me. I sat around, in the smell, waiting for help to arrive.

I can't tell you what a fiasco today turned out to be. I managed to take some pictures, but they won't do justice to the mess that was created and the hilarity of who and how. I literally had to wait for the dust to settle. Oh yes, this will be good for our computers, workstations, etc.

Bluetooth Advertising

Since we created SellFM.com Talking Signs we`ve been looking at ways to increase the breadth of the application for our technology. Lately we`ve been experimenting with a couple of bluetooth advertising mechanisms. We`re getting ready to launch an extension to the FM product which would also offer bluetooth advertising.

The first market application will be with our existing relationships with Realtors, through our subsidiary StrataXL Software.

But we are eager to explore additional relationships based in other markets.

For some background, I found this video interesting it talks about the rise in bluetooth availability in devices.

Google Presentations not quite ready for prime time

I thought this was sorta crappy.

Not sure if it's just a temporary glitch on the google server side, but to require a login to show a slide show that I made and shared publicly is really not acceptable there google guys.

Anatomy of a well designed website

I just wanted to take a minute to share this screen grab with you.

I've been looking for alternatives to adsense for monitising blog traffic and other site traffic. I really don't want the LIVE IN websites we're working on to have that banner / adsense look to them.

I was interested in the various "INLINE" text advertising networks that I've noticed popping up around some of the more commercial blogs that I keep tabs on. (another post)

I found www.Kontera.com which is one of the leaders in this field and couldn't help by appreciate how effective and well done their site design was.

Take a minute to review my notes on the screen grab itself. Suffice to say their navigation layout is top notch, they have a clear message that starts with their logo and tagline and they ask for the "call to action" right up front before the fold on the home page.

All... top notch, take notice of the details and you'll see what i mean.



Click on the image to get a full size view.

More Validation of the SEO Value of XLsuite

I've noticed with Rick's site and some others that we perform well in the search engines, I've attributed a lot of that simply to the fact that we're using pure CSS generally, and to the fact that I'm somewhat aware of titles, headlines etc... when building the initial structure of the pages.

However, this latest thing I noticed is really interesting.

As you may or may not know, StrataMeeting.com was an early project that I developed and was ultimately what got Rick interested in investing in XLsuite's development, beyond his own interest for his real estate business.

Anyway, long story short, I have a clunky old Joomla based application on the .com with many more pages, several active users, and ... it's been somewhat languishing on the side lines while we got XLsuite up to the level where it could be used to replace the current version.

As a test site, as I often do, I've got StrataMeeting.net set up with xlsuite's 1 page demo. Nothing has really happened with it in almost a year either.

However, when you type in "strata Meeting" into google, you get the .net in the #3 position, despite having "lorem ipsum" text on the home page and even in the search results.

The .com with an active application doesn't show up until page 2. ???

Could the framework itself really have that much to do with search results? Would be nice to be able to show that more conclusively.