Some time after the previous post, I gave up using Google's Blogspot.  I can't remember why.  Most likely it was something that it did that pissed me off.

So, for future blogs I tried Wordpress. I imported most of these posts from Blogspot into it and you can find it at fredwilbur.com/blog.

Sorry Google. I may come back, but for now. I'm using Wordpress.

Google - Do no evil - ref: mobile friendly site

As you read this blog post, keep in mind the famous Google company mantra: “Don’t be evil".


Recently, there is a lot written about Google making, yet another, "major" change how search engines results are determined. They make these major changes as often as we buy new underwear. 

This one is about websites being 'mobile friendly'. To prepare for this change, Google introduced a new tool that checks websites to see if they are mobile friendly.  The word has it that starting in April, 2015, they will change the way search results are determined and give favor to those sites that qualify as mobile friendly. 

Also, today, if you use a smart phone to do a Google search, the results will note if the site is mobile friendly. 


Being curious, I wondered how Google viewed itself as being mobile friendly or not. So, I searched for "webmaster tools" on my cell phone. 


The results are shown on the left. Note the red circle where Google says their own site is "Mobile Friendly" (This does not show up today on a desktop search, only mobile devices.)

BTW, is it not surprising that Google's webmaster tools show up first (and second) on the search results list? 

Bing's webmaster tools page shows up near the end of the list of results way below the 'fold'. Also Bing is not tagged as being mobile friendly.

Before I show you what the Google webmaster tools page looks like on my smart phone, let me digress some.

When I ran the Google mobile test against the website I support,  it came back with two types of errors:   Content wider than the screen and links are too close together.


The left shows what Google said about this site. The site does not look that bad until you scroll below the 'fold'. There lies the problem. There is a table of images that is actually coded using table tags, which is a no-no in the mobile screen size world. 

So, even thought the top looks mobile friendly, the bottom is not.


This is valid for the site does need some work to make it mobile friendly. 

Enough digression, I just wanted you to see two reasons why a page can be viewed as not mobile friendly.

 So, remember how Google marked their webmaster tools page as 'mobile friendly'?

It is shown on the left.

Would you call this 'mobile friendly'?  

Google did not say their site content was too wide, for they squeezed it down to fit my mobile phone screen. 

They did not say anything about how the links are spaced.  Looks to me like sardines packed in a can.  

Can you click on a link without making a error?

Do you think that maybe Google is not being total fair about how their own webmaster tools page qualifies as being mobile friendly?

Does Google have two sets of rules: one for Google pages and another for everyone else?

Is Google being true to their manta: "Don’t be evil"?

More stuff

So, it has been a while.  

Since my last post on this blog, Apple released a new iphone, ipad, ipod. Now the talk is about iTV, iPouch (I made that up).  And the stock analysis are concerned because Apple only made a 42 billion  an increase of 7% over last year. That's more money than Dell, HP, Blackberry, and another company I can't remember, combined!  So why are analysis so concerned?  Because they failed to meet expectations!  

Meanwhile, last year Samsung has established itself as a major competitor in the smart thing market. Tables have established themselves enough that the PC makers are very concerned   In 2012, there were over 120 million tables sold.  Technology waits for no one.  Mobile is moving on.  There is 3-d touch screens (do you touch above it or what), displays are getting bigger, better, and batters are improving all the time.  Communications are faster with 4g becoming favored and 3g is becoming slow.  Who of us remember dial-up speeds of 2400 baud?

While this is going on, the population of earth had increased by, what, as much as the number of tablets sold last year?  In researching this question I stumbled across the smallest country, population wise, in the world. It is Tokelau. Funny country. It has a population of 1100.  Other than being a island that is basically a circle and may become the first country to produce 100% of their electric using solar power, it is has a upcoming industry is selling domain names.  

Go figure!

So do you see the link between technology and Tokela?  It is a good example of just how evasive technology is becoming.  Yesterday, when I shut my Windows 7 PC down, it notified me that is was installing updates to my operating system. Over 12 of them!  My Droidx spends more resources on updating the software in it than I use making phone calls.  I used Google's spreadsheet for the first time in a few days and the user interface has changed to add new functions and change how other work. It is a form of cloud computing and changes willy-nilly when they want to, not when I want them to.

My friend, a sound designer, spent six days recovering his PC from a bad software upgrade to his OS.  I started  Firebox on my wife's PC and logged into Turbo Tax, only to see Firefox get a address violation.  Come on folks!  How can we produce such crappy sotfware and while it we become more dependent on it?

I dread the day that they install a chip in my body to keep my heart pumping and then it gets an software update that needs a reboot to recover from. Now, that can be called a 'fatal error'!

Ok, I ranted enough.  I just wanted to post something new.

Silly bureaucrecy

At my day job, one of the web sites I have to work with to ship goods out of the US is a site called AES direct.  It is the classic example of government bureaucracy. 

This morning I got an email from them, which is not unusual. However, the subject and content made me giggle. The subject line said: AES Unscheduled Maintenance Outage.

I won't include the whole email, but here is the part that made me giggle:

The AES production and education regions will undergo an unscheduled maintenance outage beginning at 11:00 PM EST Saturday, March 24, 2012.  Both regions will be restored by 3:00 AM EST Sunday, March 25, 2012

"Unscheduled"?  Hum...  Wonder if I can schedule a unscheduled day off?

Silly goverment.
 

I'm at work having a

I'm at work having a great time.

Some thought provoking quotes

"If you don't know how to be alone, all you can ever be is lonely." - from article in Time online about Sherry Turkle and her book: "Alone Together"

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2041714,00.html#ixzz1DjiABQtA

Hum...

Thought food.
"I believe we will achieve the original goals of communism (“from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”), which forced collectivism failed so miserably to achieve."


Quote from Ray Kurzweil
http://www.kurzweilai.net/ask-ray-we-could-have-had-the-benefits-of-the-singularity-years-ago?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Weekly+Newsletter&utm_campaign=fe82dad49f-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email