Tom Doyle :: TALK

I wrote a post a couple of months ago about how you could convert 3gp files to FLV using FFMPEG.

Because of the post, a lot of people are finding the website looking for a desktop application to convert 3gp files.

So for those of you here for that reason, I suggest using a program called SUPER by eRightSoft. Super is a free desktop application which is great for converting many different video format files. Whether it’s avi, 3gp, wmv or mpeg it does them all. It even converts directly from a DVD which is very handy.

So I recommend you download it - http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html 

It doesn’t matter anymore, because Google have announced that they now dynamically detect the direction of your query. So if your native language is Arabic or Hebrew, searching Google just got easier!

Using location specific Googles (e.g. google.co.il/ or google.com.eg/) - when you type your query it will automatically align to the right so you can type to the left.

A minor update I guess, but something that makes a lot of sense for a lot of people. More info here >>

I just ordered a new laptop last week from Dell - to my horror, after placing the order I was told that my laptop will not be delivered until the 26th of MARCH!!

But maybe that’s not a bad thing. I opted for Windows Vista Ultimate against all the best advice and apparently Microsoft are about to release Vista service pack 1 on March 18th.

So when I get my lovely, shiny new laptop, it looks like I’m going to need to download a massive service pack update, before doing the usual migration of gigs of emails etc.

Worryingly, Microsoft have released a list of programs that you may have trouble using with the service pack update - the list is here >>

Maybe I should have held out for service pack 2, or better still waited for XP service pack 3!

Yahoo! have launched a new service similar to Digg called Yahoo! Buzz.

Just recently Digg has been under fire from regular publishers for apparently censoring it’s content internally. Basically publishers are suggesting that Digg are beginning to choose the stories they want to appear on thier homepage.

Personally I can’t see Yahoo! Buzz doing anything differently, but it will certainly be interesting to see how popular or effective it becomes over the coming months!

According to Eoghan McCabe SEO is Bullshit. He posted a little rant about it here.

But today I think he went a little too far by basically manipulating a response from Dave Davis of RedFly to make it suit his opinion, without delving deeper into fact.

At some levels I agree with him, SEO can be bullshit at times, especially when the search results are filled with spamming websites. However, Google do a pretty good job (although not as good as they used to) of removing a lot of the spamming resuts. Other search engines such as MSN and Yahoo have a long way to go before they can match the techniques used by Google to eliminate these nasty results.

He does have one valid point, that if web designers coded their sites properly from the beginning, there would lesser need for an SEO’er to get your site ranking on the search engines. A great example of this would be the SEO work we are currently doing for a Irish Mortages Broker. The site was created by David Behan and he did a fantastic job. Because of the competitiveness of this market, we have a lot of off-site work to do, but the majority of on-site work was done by the designer. If the market wasn’t so competitive, the site would definitely have appeared in the top results. However, in this case, there is a lot more work to be done. So what did we do for the client? Researched keyphrases, made small changes to the website and managing their off-site optimisation.

The bottom line is simple, there will always be gangsters out there trying to jump on a new hyped business, no industry is different. When crunch comes to crunch, the good people will come out on top. If you want to achieve results with your website, SEO is an avenue that you should seriously consider. 

We’ve had some strange entrants in the Eurovision over it’s time, but I have to say I’m quite disappointed with our choice this year. As much as I loathe the Eurovision, I can’t help but think we are just making complete arses of ourselves this year.

Right lets face it, for years (i would say since public voting) the talent has taken a nose dive. In the past, we had some terrible songs, but we did have some quite talented people. God forbid, we might never have heard of Abba (that wouldn’t have been a bad thing I know…) or Bucks Fizz even ….

As funny as the song is, I think the Turkey is just going to add to the demise of Eurovision Song Contest. We did we bother entering? Is it to show how arrogant as a nation we have become?

It’s been 3 long months of development, but we’ve finally completed a new Irish YouTube type website for buying and selling new and used cars.

CarShowOnVid allows users to buy and sell their cars online using only a video of the car.

I’m looking forward to seing how sellers and dealers start to become creative and more inventive in how they can use the web to sell cars online. Video opens a host of possibilities that they have never had before.

Maybe someone will have a beautiful lady stretched across the bonnet of a car, others may have a silly dance - whatever they decide to do, I’m sure the site will be a great success!

Toshiba announced today that they will no longer develop, manufacture or market HD DVD players or recorders. Toshiba say they will continue to work with companies such as Microsoft who helped promote the format.

This should end the VHS versus BetaMax type war that has been ongoing between HD DVD and Sony’s BluRay High Definition Format for some years.

I just installed the Google Toolbar 5 beta. How disappointed am I? Well the fact that it now acts like a piece of malware software by hijacking any 404 error page (page not found) with their lovely search engine is enough for me to uninstall it straight away.

I did once love my Google Toolbar, it was unintrusive and only appeared when I required it. Now however, it insists on being in my face if I type something by mistake, go to a webpage that is no longer there or simply just to annoy me.

Once step too far for me Google, I’ll be uninstalling this straight away and praying that you don’t enforce the use of this in the next official release.

I’m sure I’m not the only one that will feel this way…

Anyway, so how do I turn this feature off?

1. Click the wrench icon on the Toolbar
2. In the options window, select the Search tab
3. Uncheck “Browse by name in the address bar”
4. Click save. All done..

I think Matt Cutts has a very naive opinion of how obtrusive this is. Doesn’t he remember how obtrusive he felt it was when Rogers hijacked Google.com? I know it’s a slightly different situation, but it amounts to the same thing.

I was watching Mark & Olly’s  Lost Tribes on Discovery Channel. The program is about to western guys who visit the last remaining tribes of our world to investigate how they live, their traditions and typical daily lifes.

As I kid I loved watching programs on tribes who continue to live in our rain forests or some remote parts of the world and I guess I’m no different today. In those days, my Mother encouraged me to watch these programs so that I could get an understanding of how life once was and still is for people today. Most, if not all of these shows portray some sort of nudity, at the end of the day, it’s not as if they have high street stores to shop in.

I have to say I was quite shocked when between each advert there was a warning. The warning stated that the program was likely to have nudity and that parents should be aware of this. Like how sad is that??

Why as a parent would you want to prevent your kid from seeing how other people live in other societies? Do we want all our kids to live in the little bubble that is your home town and be naive to what is going on in the rest of the world?

On Friday nights Jonothan Ross show, Vivenne Westwood was a guest. She reckons some of her early work would have caused a bigger uproar now that it would have back then.

It’s sad to see the world going backwards in terms of what we think should be censored, instead of moving ahead.