About my friend Todd Withnell

Todd Withnell was a friend of mine who lived in Moorhead, MN and died 30 years ago in 1982 at the age of 29. I was thinking about him the other day and Googled his name. I was surprised to find a record of his birth and death, yet there was nothing else about him on the internet. That seems a shame, and so I wanted to just share my recollection of Todd.

Todd had health problems all the years I knew him, and I'm quite sure he eventually passed away of complications relating to cancer. He didn't like to talk much about his illness, I didn't pry about it, and so I didn't learn much about it. There were days when I would go to visit Todd at his home that he just wasn't feeling up to company, and other days when his mom would tell me that he was in the hospital.  The vast majority of my visits found Todd talkative, alert, and we both enjoyed our meetings a great deal.

During the 1970's CB craze, Todd was active on the CB radio, which is where I first met him. His handle was the "Bushwacker" and his call letters were KVB-5036, which he always pronounced "KVB-five-ought-three six." Later, Todd became a ham radio operator and enjoyed talking to people all over the world.

He had a hearing aide which caused him some problems with copying Morse Code on the ham radio. It was only by his presistance and strong character that was able to earn his ham radio license, which at the time required being able to send and receive morse code, because his hearing made it very difficult.

Todd was also small in stature and wore glasses.  He spent a fair amount of time indoors, but through his radios he made a lot of friends and enjoyed many, many hours of lively conversations.  The CB and ham radios were the internet of his day.

Todd would sometimes build some of his ham equipment. I remember that he built an "automatic keyer" for sending morse code. During one of our last meetings, Todd was kind of down. He wanted to sell me a bunch of his radio equipment. I didn't need it because I had my own, but I did buy a morse code key and electronic keyer from him, which I still have today. He was very proud of this key, because it was a high end Browning paddle key, which among those in the know was a status key.

I always regret not going to his funeral, or sending a card to his parents. I found out about his death after the funeral, when I returned home from college. Information didn't travel at net speed back then. I've always wondered where he is buried.

Todd was a good guy. He was always full of opinions and enjoyed talking to people whether on the radio or in person.  He died too young.    I hope anyone else who might be searching for a piece of Todd on the internet will come across this post, and know that his life mattered.  When I'm sick, I often think of Todd and what he had to endure. It has made cancer my main charity, and I once had the honor to donate bone marrow to someone I knew. I thought of Todd that day.

Some people you know a long time and never really know. Others, you know for just a little while and they touch you deeply.  It's 30 years after his death, and the older I get the more I realize how important it was for me to know Todd during my teenage years.  Todd's life was short, but it made a difference and it's still making a difference to me. Thanks, Todd! See you again one of these days.

Google Penguin Update: After the Slaughter

Let me preface this by stating up front that I am not an SEO expert. I'm just a small businessman trying to get by.  

As I wrote earlier, I own a website that was hit extremely hard by the Panda update. Below are two charts that show just how sudden the drop was.  My site went from about 3,000 daily impressions to about 300.

The image below is a closeup of the graph following the devastating drop after April 25.

 

My efforts so far have had very little improvement on the overall traffic.
Even though the site has slowly inched forward in the rankings, its not enough to make any significant difference. The difference between clicks from page 1 to page 2 is gigantic. Even on page 1, the difference in clicks between top listing and 2nd or 3rd is also gigantic.

The net result for me has been that my Google Adwords has increased by nearly $1000 per month. Sales have declined, although its still sustainable, yet much less profitable that it was previously.

My Google Webmaster account does not give any hints. There were no emails warning me that I had bad links. Just a sudden drop.

The most frustrating part of this is the lack of transparency by Google.  There are fair questions that I and many other small business owners need to have answered so that we can either fix whatever damage that Google has perceived, or that we know to just move on and do something new.

Is Google penalizing me,  or does Google just think it found better content to replace mine? I have no idea.

If I'm being penalized, how do I know?  Can I fix it?  If so, how? 

Do I have bad links? If so, which ones, and will I be forgiven if I remove them?

By having access to all of my webmaster data and my Adwords account, how do I know that Google didn't run some special algorithm that revealed that by knocking down my organic ranking it could make an extra $1,000 a month off me in Adwords fees?

Basically, I'm leaning toward the idea that the cause is lost. I've began creating new websites with new content.  One of my new sites, a simple Blogger blog is already in 4th place on page 1, and all over page 2. My shill content is (imho) a poorer experience than the other professionally written and highly targeted content that Google hates, but what can you do.  Google seems to love content that is new, just for the sake of new.

I still think that the Penguin update must be rolled back or a major adjustment made to it, simply because I can't see this continuing... eventually Google will have enough data to see that it has made a mistake.  It will also be interesting to see how their share of the search market fares post Panda. I'll be looking for a gain in Bing at the expense of Google.

Why Google's Penguin Update Will Fail

"Quality of inbound Links and the quality of content are not firmly correlated."

Last month Google rolled out its Penguin update, the alleged purpose of which is to improve the experience of searchers by penalizing websites with "spammy links."

There is flawed logic with this approach that is destined to result in the failure of Penguin, or at least will require a major adjustment.

Yes, its true that many websites have bought links to promote their sites and also to manipulate Google's results.  Why? Because for years Google rewarded link buying behavior with a good position in organic searches.  Google created this problem, but now suddenly it wants to put the genie back in the bottle.  Google has decided that any websites that have what it considers an "unnatural" link profile will be slapped with a penalty.  I actually own a website that was rightly "A #1" for its search term, and for years sat on that throne.  Yes, I bought links.  Big deal (I won't identify the site because, well, I'm scared of Google).

The reason that Penguin will eventually fail is that in many cases, such as mine, the content of the site is excellent. In my case the content is well planned, original, updated, and the best source for its niche subject.

Although my site was knocked way back to the bottom of page 5 presumably for links Google considers spammy, that content remains excellent. In fact, its much better content than the other 200 or so pages that are ahead of it.

As with many my things in my life, I don't think my experience is unique.  If this happened to me, then it probably happened to you and half a million other websites.

It's difficult for me to believe that a company like Google, which purports to place a premium on serving up excellent content for its users, will be satisfied very long with delivering second rate content.  Just to make a point with people it's angry with.

Links and the quality of content are not mutually exclusive.  And with many articles now being posted on blogs by scared SEO Pro's who are scrambling (unsuccessfully it appears) to try to remove the thousands of links that were placed on these website, it just ain't gonna happen. Although I sense an excellent business opportunity for the owners of link and directory website to charge for the removal of links, the fact is those links are here to stay.

The only thing that Penguin will accomplish is to encourage a different kind of behavior that Google will eventually deem undesirable.   Google, do you really think I'm going to contact 5,000 link website owners with an individual request to remove my link? Really?

I've already began aging the .NET version of my site. Website owners will simply abandon their "spammy" sites with great content and start over. We go to the top once, we'll get there again because its our livelihood.

Thanks to Penguin, the web will simply become that much more cluttered....   Great content with crappy inbound links,  buried by hastily built sites with lesser content that outrank the good stuff.  Crap at the top of Google's search results, which is exactly the result they are trying to avoid.

Once Google realizes this error, one approach they could take is to consider whether any 'new' spammy links are added. If no more are added over a period of time, then give more tilt to the quality of the content and allow the sites to rise again.  But if Google takes too long to do this, then their actions will continue to encourage the pollution of the internet.

Or Google could provide us with a method to "disavow" a link through its webmasters tools.  Or how about a "badlinks.txt" file on our website that tells Googlebot that we agree with them that the following links are bad. Mea culpa!

Inbound links are not spam.  Bad search results at the top of Google are spam.  Google only has itself to blame for the problem.   If it hadn't been so easy to game Google in this manner for so many years, I wouldn't have had to play this game. I wouldn't have had to fight fire with fire.

This is why Penguin has failed.

UPDATE:

[Note: since I wrote this 2 days ago, my site has crept up from bottom of page 5 to be the last listing on page 3.  Meanwhile, a shill blog site I built to provide links suddenly now is on page 1.  That's astounding, since the content is just crap. I will begin to add good content to this site and see if I can leverage it to the top of the page 1. 

Ultimately, great content will trump inbound links. I just have to believe it. No way is Google going to continue to embarrass itself like this.  I wish I was brave enough to provide examples for you. It is a lot of fun watching Google squirm, but I don't think its in my best interest at this time.]

US Supreme Court's Outrageous Activist Decisions

As if the Citizen's United decision was not bad enough, this activist Roberts Supreme Court is one again mad, out of control, and dangerous.  Unbelievably, today the court ruled that invasive strip searches are acceptable for ANY offense in America.  Thinking of participating in a peaceful non-violent demonstration or protest? Better chill out, because that can now get you bent over naked in front of guards.

If you're a police chief or sheriff who wants to stifle any kind of legal public dissent in your community, simply drop hints that anyone arrest during a peaceful protest will have their nether regions examined.

We'll soon see if this crazy court will go so far as to deny millions of Americans healthcare coverage, even after their duly elected public officials debated and properly passed this immensely important legislation.  My bet is that this activist court will indeed overturn America's healthcare chance.

America, don't stand idly by while this nutter conservative court allows for the dismantling of your God-given rights as Americans to free expression.

Why you should NOT use Verizon's vzwpix.com service

If you're posting pictures to Verizon's Vzwpix.com, beware!
Verizon may, for any reason whatsoever, completely destroy your precious pictures without ANY accountability to you.

For those who want to store their pictures in "le cloud" this is what you're up against. Basically, you do not own your pictures.  Companies like Verizon own them, and they may do whatever they please with them.

Just read Verizon's TOS:

"Termination. Verizon Wireless reserves the right in its sole discretion to restrict your access to the Website and/or terminate your wireless service without notice for any violation or threatened violation of this Agreement. Upon voluntary or involuntary termination of your wireless service, your access to the Website immediately will be blocked and your content stored on the Website deleted. Verizon Wireless has no obligation to return or restore deleted content. This Agreement shall survive termination or expiration of your Customer Agreement.
Changes. Verizon Wireless reserves the right to revise this Agreement or impose new conditions at any time. Such revisions will be effective immediately upon notice by any means, including, but not limited to, posting on the Website"

Shit, even if you just THREATEN to violate their TOS, they can boot your ass off. So just shut up --- if you don't like Verizon, or they may choose to destroy all of your pictures without warning.

Other parts of Verizon's contract suggest that you can't even sue to get your pictures back. Verizon doesn't give a shit about your precious content. In fact, if you don't log in every so often (a time period they can change at will without any direct notification to you) they have the right to just make your content vanish forever.

So beware... if you are using a cloud storage service to keep your content "safe," in reality you do not have any safety at all. There is no substitute for a local backup copy, as Verizon so clearly demonstrates.

Spam Cannibal DNSBL spews false positives. Why Spam Cannibal Sucks.

If you are a system administrator thinking of adding Spam Cannibal's DNSBL to your arsenal, think again.  This list is the equivalent of using a chain saw to remove a small mole.  They block entire ranges of IP addresses. You will have to nurse this black list and constantly check for false positives.

Don't believe me. Read this thread from administrators discussing why spam cannibal sucks.

Then read this one.

And this one.

If you are on the receiving end of Spam Cannibal's bullshit, where important emails are lost just because someone you are not even associated with who is a few IP addresses away from you may have once sent a spam message, it just really sucks.

Spam Cannibal lies when they say, "The ONLY way you can get into SpamCannibal's database is by sending spam or virus ladened email to our mail servers!"

But then in their next sentence, they contradict this by saying that they block "IP addresses and ranges that have sent or relayed what we believe to be spam or other unsolicited email directly to our email servers."  So in fact, you don't have to send spam... you only have to have the misfortune of having been assigned an IP address near a spammer.

Spam Cannibal lacks the attention to detail that better lists have.  They really don't care who they hurt. They don't respect the importance of your user's communications.  They even don't provide a way to remove your IP address from this list, which is a huge failure of this DNSBL.  Clearly, they just don't give a rats ass.

If you value your time as a system administrator and your user's ability to receive email, then dump Spam Cannibal. Their approach is too random, too sporadic and unpredictable to be consistently useful. Sure Spam Cannibal keeps spam at bay, but so does just shutting off email.

There are better solutions than to use this DNSBL's careless nuclear approach to fighting email spam.

Online privacy and anonymity. Resources for an invasive world.

CNET Privacy Blog - keep up to date on current issues regarding online privacy

EFF.ORG -Organization that fights for privacy online

DuckDuckGo.com - internet search engine without tracking

www.dontrack.us  - information about how tracking works

www.dontbubble.us - how bubbling affects what you see on the internet

The filter bubble Ted Talk

Tor Project - free software to stay anonymous on the internet.

Free online email encryption

Reformatting a date column with a Time Stamp in Microsoft Excel

Today I've been working to clean up a database and it is has not been easy. I downloaded several spreadsheets of customer data from SWReg.  They have a nasty habit of putting Time information in the middle of the date field.

It looks like this: Feb 17 16:40:19 2011

My challenge was to create a column that formatted the date correctly, without the time stamp. Here's the solution I came up with.

To format the date from cell B2, it column C2 I entered:

=(LEFT(B2,7)&" "&(RIGHT(B2,4))

This pulled out the date from the left (I had a space in front of the date, so that's why I set it to read the first 7 characters of cell B2) and the year from the right (4 characters on the right).

Maybe there's a better way to do it. I really wish Microsoft would make it easier to clean your data in Excel.

Maybe you can help me out... One thing I was really struggling with:  How to use Find and Replace within a specified column only. I couldn't figure that out.

Good luck!