Recent updates on Facebook may have changed your default feed settings to show posts from, “Friends and pages you interactive with most“.  Basically if haven’t interacted with your friend or page recently, they won’t show up in your feed.

From what I understand, in the last week or so, facebook updated profile default settings for the facebook news feed.  This is the news feed that is displayed when you visit the facebook home page.  Previously, when you clicked ‘Most Recent‘ at the top-right, the news feeds from all your friends and pages would display.  Now your default settings could be set to: “Friends and pages you interactive with most“, which would eliminate many of your feeds.

After making this quick change, all my friends status updates and page subscriptions show.  What I think facebook means by ‘interacting with most‘, is people you often like, share, or comment on their status updates,  pictures, pages, events, etc.  If there’s no interaction then there’s no news feed from that friend or page.

How to change your Facebook News Feed Settings

Step 1: When logged into your account visit the Facebook Homepage.  That’s http://www.facebook.com and can always be reached by clicking on their logo.

Step 2: On the top right of your feed page you’ll see “Top News” and “Most Recent“, click the drop-down beside Most Recent and click, “Edit Options“.

Step 3: The “Edit Your News Feed Settings” window will pop up and just click on:  ‘All of Your Friends and Pages‘

Hopefully this will be helpful to those of you who follow my blog.  Other information and resources:

• News Feed Option Show Friends You Interact With Most – AllFacebook.com
• Facebook Changes News Feed Settings – InsideFacebook.com
• Facebook News Feed filtering can make friends vanish – WashingtonPost.com

OK, so I haven’t blogged much lately, been real busy but I do run into this quite a bit working on the Internet and with web sites and feel that URL Canonicalization is worthy of a post.

For many of us, http://www.justinsblog.com and http://justinsblog.com look the same and more often than not, will take you to the same website. Generally speaking, most of us don’t give any thought at all to our URL structure or the difference between using www and not using www. However, the difference in your URL structure is VERY important when it comes to Search Engine Optimization and login cookies on your website.  Choosing the best URL structure for your website is very important.

Why should I choose a URL structure?

First and most importantly you should choose a canonical URL structure for the purpose of SEO. Because WWW. is essentially a sub-domain and search engines that will pick this up, (for example): justinsblog.com and www.justinsblog.com as two different domain names, likewise, search engines may split the page rank between the two if the same content is found on one version of the URL as found on another. This is considered page rank leakage and not something we want. If you have back-links going to both the www. and non-www version of your URL, one will benefit and the other will not.

Secondly, some search engines that pick up both URLs and backlinks coming into www and non-www versions of your URL with the same content, will consider this duplicate content and search engines don’t like duplicate content. Your site could be penalized because of this.

Third, you want to choose a canonical URL structure for the benefit of your visitors when it comes to navigating your site. If you use two different domain names and they are logged into one, they may visit the other URL and not be logged in. To them, it’s the same site but according to their browser cookies, they are not the same site. This could cause confusion.

WWW vs. NON-WWW URL, Which one should you choose?

WWW vs. Non-WWW is a good argument and can go both ways. If you ask me personally, I always choose the non-WWW version of the url for several reasons:

1. Shorter Domain – I prefer shorter domain names so the search engines can get to the keywords after the domain name that tell them what the page is about. If the domain name is too long and full of session ID’s etc, then it may not be picked up quite as easily. There is no benefit at all having the www. in front of my domain name.
2. Pure Domain Name – Using only the domain without the subdomain WWW is making use of the domain name in it’s purity. Being a domainer myself, I’m a purist when it comes to the use of domain names and don’t like the www. prefix.
3. WWW Antiquated IMHO – When the web was in it’s infancy it was considered the World Wide Web, hence the WWW. Today it’s the Internet and in the past you’d see WWW.mydomainname.com advertised on TV, today you rarely hear anyone say, ‘visit my site at www…‘. Now they just advertise the domain name only.

The use of www vs. non-www URL structure is a matter of personal choice. However if your website has been online a while and has back-links and internal links, and they were www. to begin with, then I’d recommend staying with the www. prefix and making that my canonical URL structure as you see on this site. However, if you are building a new site and don’t have a lot of back-links or page rank, then I’d suggest using the non-www version for all your URLs and linking.

On this site, we’re using WWW although I personally don’t use WWW on all new sites but since I started this site with www, I’ve decided to set it and forget it.

The important thing is to choose a URL structure and then stick with it!

How to I force it to one or the other?
On a Linux server you can use a 301 permanent redirect in your .htaccess file. This is the correct method that will allow search engines to combine the value of any incoming links to your site.  The .htaccess 301 redirect from non-www to the www version looks like this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^justinsblog.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.justinsblog.com/$1 [L,R=301]

You could alternatively use something like this for WWW to Non-WWW:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.(.*)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]

Or  this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.domain.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^.*$ http://domain.com%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

Or even something like this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Always backup your website before messing the the .htaccess file or at least back that file up and then see what works best for you.

Other Resources:

• Free .htaccess Generator – Just punch in the correct information and this will help you create a .htaccess redirect.
• Matt Cutts, (from Google) on URL Canonicalization – Get your information right from the horses mouth.
• .htaccess 301 Redirects and SEO from the SEOBook.com – Some nice how to and explanations of .htaccess redirects with comments.

It’s no secret that in America today, jobs are leaving the country daily and more and more folks who were in the manufacturing and automotive industry have lost their jobs and retirement packages and for many, that’s the only job they know.  Jobs some of us have had since high school are now gone.  Companies going out of business right and left, jobs security has gone out the window.  In the last 10 years the Unemployment Rate has nearly doubled.  Stimulus packages, while putting a band aid on the problem, ultimately doesn’t help because it sends us into even more debt and offers yet more opportunity corruption, as if we didn’t have enough already.

Even though we are in tough times, there’s never been a better time to start your own business.  The sky is the limit and you’ve never had a better more opportunistic time in history than right here, right now.

Global Transformation

We are in the midst of one of the largest and greatest transformations in the history of mankind.  Since the Internet and continuing onward, communication has broadened and how we communicate has evolved and transformed the way we do business.  News, yellow pages, newspapers, libraries, University courses, everything has changed in is changing constantly to keep up with the every advancing technology of communication and collaboration.  A transparency revolution and a global shift in consciousness is upon us and with these changes, business are going to change and adapt.  New business opportunities are available and will continue to make themselves available during this stage in the world’s economic cycle.

In this shift, we’re changing how information is produced, gathered and consumed.  Once it was hard to get your article or opinion read by others now, you can write something and the world can see it.  The expansion of the ability to communicate like this very blog or facebook, linked in, etc. etc. has brought forth to us limitless boundaries of wealth and information.  If we want to take a university course at Yale, it’s not only possible, it’s free.  The resources are available to us, all we have to do is reach out there and utilize them.

Starting a New Business

OK, so now I want to start a new business, what’s next.  While I’m not going to go into too much detail in this post on starting a new business because that can be a lengthy process and this blog would end up very long.  However, plant the seed.  Take a look at this tough time we’re in as an opportunity to grow and grow into something or someone you’ve in the past only dreamed about.  So while we’re not going to get into the mechanics of starting a new business there is some important information that will get you headed in the right direction.

Look at it Differently

Starting a new business is easier today than ever, the difficult part of starting a new business is editing your outlook on it.  We can sit around and complain and wait for things to happen or we can be pro-active and look at the smorgasbord of opportunities that are already available at our fingertips.  Couple things you’re going to need to get started.

1. Computer – If you don’t have one, get one.  I know a good handful of folks that have been laid off and while some don’t have a computer, they still have cable with all the movie channels.  Turn the cable off and invest into a computer.  I recommend a laptop and you can get these for less than $300 these days.
2. Internet – If you don’t have the Internet at home, plan to get it and while you don’t have it at home, there’s probably a coffee shop in your area where you can use their Internet.  Use it.
3. Excuses – Everyone has them, dump them.  Economic downturns can either kill you or make you adapt and today, in this shift, it’s all about adaptation.  There has never been a better time than now to start a new business and ideally, doing it in something you love and have an interest in like a hobby.  There are no excuses anymore so forget about them.

In a Nutshell

Get up and get going.  This is an exciting year, do something with it.  Stop dragging your feet and sitting around playing games on facebook and yahoo and get started in business with something you love and something you are passionate about.  No matter how narrow the niche, you can bet their are others that have the same interests as you do.  Get started today.

Here are a couple proven opportunities that can help you get started:

• The Niche Blueprint
• Michael Jones Affiliate Code
• Market other People’s Products through Clickbank

The above are just a few ways to get started on the web.  Read them, take a look at the resources and then discover your niche and turn your dreams into their physical counterparts by doing what you love and love what you’re doing.

Recent Earthquake In Haiti

Little off the subject of the blog but non-the-less, people of Haiti need our prayers and positive energy more now than ever.  There’s power in numbers so say a prayer, meditate, send your blessings to those effected and if you’d like to donate, give to a reputable charity.  See Charity Navigator.

After 3 years of administering and developing the PhilosophyForum.com, I’ve come to the conclusion that’s it’s time to sell it and move onward.  PhilosophyForum.com, the domain name and the content are currently for sale at Flippa.com with a current bid of $15,000 and No Reserve!

While I realize that I’ve not done a very good job of maintaining my blog, my hopes are to do more writing once I have facilitated the transfer of ownership of the Philosophy Forum to it’s new owner.

About the Philosophy Forum

PhilosophyForum.com is was a domain name originally purchased in 2005 from BuyDomains.com and then developed into a forum using vbulletin and vbseo.  The philosophy forum has grow steadily over the past several years to become the most active Philosophy Forum on the Internet today.  With more than 500 active members usually more than 100 people on the forum at all times with 20 or more logged in members at any given time.

At the PhilosophyForum.com you can expect to find a good discussion on any numer of topics including the the traditional branches of philosophy as well as religion, videos, etc. etc.  We also have a ‘dream team’ of well-educated, mature, and highly proficient moderators on the staff that do what they can to promote peaceful conversation without flaming or trolling.

What’s included in the sale?

The sale of the forum will include the following:

• PhilosophyForum.com domain name with 9 years registration
• Owned vBulletin license
• Owned vBSEO license
• Owned vBadvanced Link Directory license
• vB Gameroom license
• owned vBtube license
• All data and content

Basically, the entire thing.  If you’d like to find out more details on the sale, plase visit the PhilosophyForum.com sale page.

Why Am I Selling the Forum?

There comes a time where it’s time to say goodbye and move on and after 3+ years of pouring time and energy into the forum, I’ve decided that it’s time to let go and allow for a new owner to take this forum to the next level.  Besides, I want to spend more time reading and writing and while I love philosophy, I’m not as adept on the academic side of philosophy and I’m confident the new owner will be able to continue on with the forum in a way that will benefit it’s members.

I do have an emotional attachment to the forum because of all the hard work and time put into it but above and beyond that, the relationships with the members and moderating team.  It’s not just a wonderful forum, it’s an exceptional community with some very intelligent discussions.  I do hope to continue membership in the forum and do some blogging there as well as making a positive contribution to the community and it’s new owner for a long time in the future.

I wish the best to the new owner and look forward facilitating a smooth transition of ownership.

The Cleveland Cavaliers are taking it to the limit this year and are expected to bring home the NBA Championship.  With Mike Brown winning Coach of the Year award in combination with Lebron James bringing home the 2009 NBA MVP Award, Cavs fans have never been more excited than they are right now and the opportunity to bring it home has never been better.

I’ve never been all that much of a basketball fan and frankly, the only sport I’ve really enjoyed is golf, however after moving to the Cleveland Ohio area and watching the Cavs team pull together I’ve become a die hard fan of this entire Cleveland Cavaliers organization.  From Mike Brown’s ability to allow his coaching staff to coach to the leadership that Lebron has shown both on and off the court, if there’s ever been a dream team in Cleveland, we have it right now.

The unique thing about this team by comparison is that they are a team.  Lebron may have one the NBA MVP award but that’s not at all a discredit to those who surround him.  Watching this team evolve over the last few years and observing the bumps and bruises and the player trades it’s given me a new outlook on basketball and the meaning of teamwork and the Cavs team today is leading by example.

The image above says 2009 NBA Champions because I can see no other outcome.  I know, it’s a bit premature but I’m optimistic and certainly hopeful.  Cleveland has struggled in sports for many years and it’s great to be a part of what I’d consider, possibly the greatest sports team in the history, of not only the NBA, but all of pro sports.  YES WE CAN!

Thank you Cleveland Cavaliers

I’d like to send out a special thanks to all the people who have made this 2009 NBA season possible and for converting me into a die-hard Cavs fan… something I never thought I’d be interested in.  It’s not about basketball, it’s about camaraderie, teamwork, patience and above all the leadership that this team has displayed in their communities and on the basketball court.

Thank you to the teamates:  Daniel Gibson, J.J. Hickson, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Daniel Jackson, Lebron James, Tarence Kinsey, Aleksandar Pavlovic, Joe Smith, Wally Szczerbiak, Anderson Varejao, Ben Wallace, Delonte West, Jawad Williams, Mo Williams, and Lorenzen Wright.

Also the coaching staff: Mike Brown, Hank Egan, Melvin Hunt, Chris Jent, John Kuester, and Michael Malone.  Along with Stan Kellers and Max Benton in the atheletic department.  This team would not be what it is today without each and every one of your efforts.  You’ve been an inspiration in Northeast Ohio and we expect great things to come.

Go CAVS!

CavsForum.com

On a side note and as a domainer, I’m brokering the sale of the domain name, CavsForum.com which poses a great opportunity for anyone wanting to open a Cleveland Calvalier fan forum.  Currently the seller is accepting offers above $1000 with an unknown reserve.  If anyone would like to make an offer please visit CavsForum.com sale sheet.  Likewise if you like the domain and would consultation on developing this domain name into a forum, feel free to contact me for more information.

Have you ever thought about moving your WordPress website?  Better yet, have you ever thought of creating a duplicate or backup of your WordPress website to use as a clone for reproduction?

If you are a webmaster or domainer, chances are you’ve heard of WordPress and have possibly used it and if you’ve been around a while, you may even have several or many WordPress sites up an running.  Either way, at some point you may want to move or copy your website so let’s get going.   

Moving WordPress

WordPress consists of two major components which make up an actual website, data and files.

1. Database - is a database of tables that stores all of the content of your website.  This will contain every stitch of content on your website including users, links, basically everything.
2. Files – These are the actual files and directories (folders) stored on the server of your host.  A file manager is where you’ll find these.  Files are what makes your website look like it does and communicate with the database to display your website information within the confines of css and templates.

In my case, I have a small business website where I installed a bare bones, WordPress 2.7.1 with nothing but Maintenance Mode installed and a customized temporary landing page.  The objective is to duplicate or copy my website onto another domain name to save time.  Some may do this differently but I’m going to list my steps below how I do it.

Seven Quick Steps to moving your WordPress site:

1. Backup database tables
2. Backup and download WordPress files
3. Upload WordPress backup .tar file to new location
4. Change wp-config file (database access)
5. Import tables to new database
6. Run mySQL queries in phpMyAdmin
7. Update WordPress General settings

Step 1 – Backup WordPress database

While there are of course, many ways to do this I prefer going right into phpMyAdmin in cpanel and clicking on my wordpress database and then clicking on export and making sure all the tables are selected.  I use the “zipped” compression level and save it to a folder on my hard drive.  I like to call mine, Site Recipes.  So now I have a backup of the basic tables within database, now what?

Step 2 – Backup WordPress files

1. Go into File Manager and to the directory where WordPress is installed.
2. Select All the files – Usually there’s a checkbox.
3. Compress Files – in cpanelX theme there is button for that.  I use the .tar selection when it prompts me.
4. Download the file you just compressed into the same folder as your database tables.

Now that I have both a database backup and a file backup we’re going to have to put these both on the new server.  There are a couple things that you should have completed in order to move your website… like a new host or a new cpanel account or simply a sub-directory or add-on domain.  In my case, I’m moving this WordPress site from domain ‘A’ to domain ‘B’ so I have the necessary elements already set up.  These are my Cpanel hosting account and I’ve created a database with username and password.

Step 3 - Upload and Extract WordPress Tarball to location

Do not extract that .tar file you downloaded, simply use an ftp program or cpanel to upload it to your new domain where you’ll be moving the site.  On my hosting account with Hostgator, my files are stored in the /public_html/ directory.  This is the web accessible directory, (when you go to www.yoursite.com it automatically takes you to the /public_html/ directory on your server.  In there it’s going to look for an index file.   So upload that backup to the location of your new website and extract it there.

In cpanelX 11, you can do this within cpanel.  Just select the file and extract it to the location on your server that it was uploaded to, change nothing.  We uploaded to /public_html and that’s where we will extract it.

Step 4 – Change wp-config

There are three things in the wp-config.php file you’ll want to change, (This file is located in the directory you unzipped the wordpress backup in.  The three changes are: (in bold)

/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘cpaneluser_databasename‘);

/** MySQL database username */
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘cpaneluser_username‘);

/** MySQL database password */
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘DatabasePassword‘);

Cpaneluser – refers to your cpanel user login name which is a prefix followed by an underscore then the database name and username.  This information is needed to communicate with the database.

Step 5 – Import the WordPress Database Tables

Now that we have the files and all have been uploaded and extracted and we have configured the WordPress files to communicate with your database, we must now populate the database with the tables we saved from our site recipe or site backup.  Once we have the new database tables in place we’re going to have to run some database queries using the MySQL replace() function to change links within the database.  You’ll need to stay in phpMyAdmin to do this step.

Step 6 – Run MySQL Queries to Change the WP Database Links

First SQL querie we’re going to run is replacing the siteURL in the database.  Rather than looking for the exact table, just select the database we added tables to and select the 2nd tab, SQL.

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = replace(option_value, ‘http://www.old-URL.com’, ‘http://www.new-URL.com’) WHERE option_name = ‘home’ OR option_name = ‘siteurl’;

The next database query we will run is going to replace the URLs within the WordPress posts and pages and stored in wp_posts.  Here is the querie:

UPDATE wp_posts SET guid = replace(guid, ‘http://www.old-domain.com’,'http://www.new-domain.com’);

Again, simply replace the old-domain with your new domain name leaving everything else in tact.  The last query we will run is going to replace links within posts or internal links.

UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = replace(post_content, ‘http://www.old-domain.com’, ‘http://www.new-domain.com’);

Now that all the links are changed within wordpress, we are almost done.

Step 7 – Change your WordPress General Settings

Login to your WordPress now under:   yourdomain.com/wp-admin and go to settings, general and change the information in there including your email address and the name of your website.

That’s it!  Your new wordpress site should be up and running.  Below are several links to other methods of moving your wordpress website that you may find helpful.

• Moving WordPress to another domain 9 steps
• Moving WordPress To A Different Domain
• How to move WordPress site to another server with zero downtime
• Moving WordPress to a Different Domain

Today the website Bido.com will auction off it’s first ever, India cctld, SUCCESS.CO.IN.  This domain will be auctioned in a public online auction using the Bido platform and the power of one.

For those not familiar with Bido.com, they sell domain names on a successful ‘power of one’ platform.  This is one domain sold daily with an opening bid of $1.00 starting at 1:00 PM EST and the auction runs for 1 hour.  During the auction, Bido.com invites guest members and domain professionals to chat for the hour during the auction and answer questions.  This is a good time to meet some of the other domainers in the industry.

Since Bido has opened the auction floor to accept CCTLD’s they have proven to be very successful.  Recently bido sold the following country code domains:

Recycle.IT – US$ 6,712.00

Today.US – US$ 2,409.00

Today’s Bido auction is sponsored by Jeff from the INForum.in and he’ll be available in live chat to talk about the Indian domain extensions and the forum.  Here is the excerpt from Jeff’s blog:

Well, the big day is finally arriving – on Friday at 1.00 p.m. EST (10.30 p.m. IST) Bido will auction its first Indian domain – Success.co.in.

INForum is the sponsor for the day, and as you can see, Bido has skinned their site with the INForum logo and colours – it looks great!

During the auction, I’ll be interviewed in the chatroom and everyone is welcome to drop by and chat about Indian domains and anything else that crosses your mind.

Success.co.in should be a success in the Bido.com auction.

Other notable sales demonstrating the SUCCESS of the bido auction platform are:

While I do admit that some of these domain names are not what I’d consider premium, they all sold.  If you’d like to take a look at all Bido sales, you can visit the Auction Archive here.

Twitter in Plain English

Click here to view the embedded video.

Stumbling around the net, I found a couple other articles about twitter. Rebecca Reisner writes in Business Week that Frank Eliason, a customer service manager for Comcast, is using twitter to aid in customer support and that other companies are following suit. You may also want to take a look at How Much Twitter is Too Much? Another one that you may find interesting is that Twitter just hired their first business development guru who’s been “… hired in part to handle the “crushing amount” of partnership proposals that Twitter receives.”.

It’s very easy to tie up a lot of time in social networking. If it’s set up and used wisely, it can also save time, maintain relationships and provide solutions while increasing productivity. Like everything else, these too will only be what we make of them.

I’m just learning twitter and if you want to follow, click here!

Facebook vs. Myspace vs. Twitter

According to mashable, Facebook closed out 2008 by passing Myspace by very small margins, however according to techcrunch, back in April of ’08 Facebook had more members.  Makes you wonder who’s accurate here.

Compete.com Graph for Facebook vs Myspace vs Twitter

The economy may be collapsing but social networking is on the rise.  As more and more people stay at home, more and more people are obviously using social media to connect with friends.  Notably, twitter is a reasonably new application that has enjoyed over 700% growth in the second half of 2008.  Although it’s nowhere near Facebook and Myspace, it will get closer when people start figuring out how to use it.

I don’t have a myspace account, wait, I do have a myspace account but it’s so cluttered up and spammy that I don’t use it so when facebook came out, it was like a breath of fresh air.  The video below signifies the difference in these two powerhouse social networks.

Click here to view the embedded video.

1. Disconnect your Zune from USB and AC power sources.
2. Because the player is frozen, its battery will drain—this is good. Wait until the battery is empty and the screen goes black. If the battery was fully charged, this might take a couple of hours.
3. Wait until after noon GMT on January 1, 2009 (that’s 7 a.m. Eastern or 4 a.m. Pacific time).
4. Connect your Zune to either a USB port on the back or your computer or to AC power using the Zune AC Adapter and let it charge.

Below is another fix that was found on Yahoo News and there’s a video to follow.

A Zune.net user named Dmodegirl claims to have solved the problem. She said the Zune needs a “hard reset” and suggested using a small screwdriver to pop off the plastic shielding where the Zune cable plugs in and remove the two screws on either side of the plug.

“Pop the cover off and locate the battery plug at the top left corner of the Zune. Using your screwdriver, pop the cable connection halfway off, and do this to the other plug on the right side,” she wrote. “Wait three seconds, then push down the right connector and then the left battery connector. Your Zune should start up immediately. Press the backing of the Zune down (make sure headphone jack is aligned) and put the screws and cover back in place.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

This method of fix above is not recommended by Microsoft because it does void the warranty. This seems to be a software malfunction and hopefully other Microsoft products like the xbox don’t have similar problems. All this goes to show the superior quality of the Apple products and the open source software community. We’ve always liked our Zune but in the future will be leaning towards the IPOD.