links for 2009-02-13

Microsoft issued a draft of the Windows 7 Technical Guarantee Program to their OEM partners on December 10, giving them exactly one month to provide their feedback before Microsoft finalizes the program details. We managed to obtain a copy of the draft, which tentatively refers to the program as the "Windows 7 Upgrade Program". Let's take a look at the key points outlined in the draft.

Great tracking service

Moms are one of the Internet’s most desirable groups. eMarketer estimates that there were 35.3 million US mothers online in 2008, a number that is expected to reach 39.6 million by 2012. New communities and content sites for moms appear practically every day. Marketers and advertisers are constantly trying to reach this all-powerful group, who not only carry strength in their numbers but also in their purchasing power.

Obama Economic Plan

The U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of Barack Obama's revised $787 billion stimulus package on February 13, 2009 with a vote of 246 to 183.

I know. I know. I promised you another promotion in this week's article.

But I've been doing really cool research in call tracking lately, and I wanted to share my findings with you. My information could make all your promotions super-killer.

In my previous post, Personal Branding 101, we discussed the importance of branding in this web 2.0 world, as well as how to discover and create your brand. In Personal Branding 102 we’ll discuss how you’ll communicate your personal brand, using social media tools and proven marketing tactics, and then how to sustain your future growth by performing brand maintenance.

Social media is hot, just take a look at Google Trends and to see the comparison between topics like “search marketing” being eclipsed by “social media” in terms of search volume and news references – at least according to Google. Along with all that “hotness”, there’s good and bad when it comes to the way companies are beginning to engage social media channels.

The Ohio Justice & Policy Center sued on the offender’s behalf after his probation officer ordered him to place his name on Ohio’s registry of sex offenders, even though the state exempts him from the database because he served his sentence before the registry law took effect in the late 1990s.

After two weeks sitting by his wife's bedside hoping she would wake from a coma, Andrew Ray was at his wits' end.

Doctors had told him Emma could become a real-life sleeping beauty when she failed to regain consciousness after a heart attack.

The distraught father of two played her tapes of their baby son crying and their daughter shouting 'wake up Mummy!'.

Finally, in desperation, he leant over her hospital bed and pleaded: 'Emma, if you can hear me, please just give me a kiss.'

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have just announced a new tag, which we can use to tell the search engines which URL it should have for the current page. This is probably best explained with an example, so here goe

What type of link is better for getting search engine rankings: an absolute or a relative link?

The web is full of duplicate content. Search engines try to index and display the original or “canonical” version. Searchers only want to see one version in results. And site owners worry that if search engines find multiple versions of a page, their link credit will be diluted and they’ll lose ranking.

Today, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft (links are to their separate announcements) have united to offer a way to reduce duplicate content clutter and make things easier for everyone. Webmasters rejoice! Worried about duplicate content on your site? Want to know what “canonical” means? Read on for more details.

duplicate content is history. or some what

Ding It's Up is a free service that alerts you via text (SMS), twitter or email when a website goes down or when it comes back up. We will never send you a text/email unless it is to inform you about a website you requested information for – you can unsubscribe at any time. If you would like to talk to us just email us at mail@dingitsup.com – Thanks!

VCalendar (Virtual Web Calendar) is an open source Web calendar application for posting and maintaining events and schedules online, in calendar format. This is an excellent and free solution for use by online Web communities and any commercial and non-commercial organizations. Unlike any other online calendars, VCalendar comes with source code in multiple programming languages: PHP, ASP and ASP.NET (C#); with potential for adding more technologies in the future.