Google has improved it’s ability to spider and index Adobe Flash SWF files. It can index textual content as well as external links embedded in a Flash site.

Although I believe they’ve had the ability to spider flash files for awhile they have officially come out and announced it and also described more about what in Flash files they do index.

Q: What content can Google better index from these Flash files?

All of the text that users can see as they interact with your Flash file. If your website contains Flash, the textual content in your Flash files can be used when Google generates a snippet for your website. Also, the words that appear in your Flash files can be used to match query terms in Google searches.

In addition to finding and indexing the textual content in Flash files, we’re also discovering URLs that appear in Flash files, and feeding them into our crawling pipeline—just like we do with URLs that appear in non-Flash webpages. For example, if your Flash application contains links to pages inside your website, Google may now be better able to discover and crawl more of your website.

Q: What about non-textual content, such as images?

At present, we are only discovering and indexing textual content in Flash files. If your Flash files only include images, we will not recognize or index any text that may appear in those images. Similarly, we do not generate any anchor text for Flash buttons which target some URL, but which have no associated text.

Also note that we do not index FLV files, such as the videos that play on YouTube, because these files contain no text elements.

Q: What do I need to do to get Google to index the text in my Flash files?

Basically, you don’t need to do anything. The improvements that we have made do not require any special action on the part of web designers or webmasters. If you have Flash content on your website, we will automatically begin to index it, up to the limits of our current technical ability (see next question).

That said, you should be aware that Google is now able to see the text that appears to visitors of your website. If you prefer Google to ignore your less informative content, such as a “copyright” or “loading” message, consider replacing the text within an image, which will make it effectively invisible to us.

So if you want to hide any text from Google just replace it with an image and it will be invisible to them?

Anyway, I think Google improving it’s ability to index Flash based sites is good news for people with Flash based sites that don’t know any better or care about their rankings because I still see using Flash in it’s entirety for a website as a bad decision SEO wise - Also see “Case Against Flash“. It’s still better to use standard CSS/XHTML or plain HTML pages if you want to rank high for your industries keywords.

Also does anyone else see black hat SEO’s taking advantage of this? You can embed the entire encyclopedia in a small flash file that Google could essentially index if you wanted to. Or what about embedded links? I can definitely see this being abused. What do you think?

Wordpress 2.6 is out and there are some cool new features available that you might be interested in.

Check out this video to learn more. Or click here.

Post Revisions: Wiki-like tracking of edits

Press This!: Post from wherever you are on the web

Shift Gears: Turbo-speed your blogging

Theme Previews: See it before your audience does

Here are some of the smaller features and improvements in 2.6:

• Word count! Never guess how many words are in your post anymore.
• Image captions, so you can add sweet captions like Political Ticker does under your images.
• Bulk management of plugins.
• A completely revamped image control to allow for easier inserting, floating, and resizing. It’s now fully integrated with the WYSIWYG.
• Drag-and-drop reordering of Galleries.
• Plugin update notification bubble.
• Customizable default avatars.
• You can now upload media when in full-screen mode.
• Remote publishing via XML-RPC and APP is now secure (off) by default, but you can turn it on easily through the options screen.
• Full SSL support in the core, and the ability to force SSL for security.
• You can now have many thousands of pages or categories with no interface issues.
• Ability to move your wp-config file and wp-content directories to a custom location, for “clean” SVN checkouts.
• Select a range of checkboxes with “shift-click.”
• You can toggle between the Flash uploader and the classic one.
• A number of proactive security enhancements, including cookies and database interactions.
• Stronger better faster versions of TinyMCE, jQuery, and jQuery UI.
• Version 2.6 fixes approximately 194 bugs.

Now released is a new Indexu Deluxe 1.0 theme / template you can use on your Nicecoder Indexu directory running the Deluxe 1.0 version. If you don’t like the way the standard template that comes with Indexu Deluxe then you can use this to spruce up your directory. I never liked the way the generic Indexu templates looked so I always ended up customizing them. I produced this template as a bonus for Web Directory Profits customers but decided that some people might want it without having to get the full package.

View the live demo

Features:

- It’s easy to install. Simply copy the files over your original Kosmos template files.

- It includes an editable Logo in PSD format to customize for your own site.

- It includes 3 separate ad spots for either Adsense or Banner ads.

- It includes thumnails of each site on the category pages.

- It is CSS/XHTML

- It has complete instructions on how to install it included in the downloadable zip file

- It has a nice price tag - Just $27 - instantly download it via e-junkie.com

PS. There’s no pesky links in the footer you have to keep in place… besides the ones for Indexu.

I can’t get over how nice looking the latest version of the Opera browser is.  Have you downloaded it yet?  It’s so silky smooth it puts every other browser to shame.  It you haven’t seen it yet give it a try.  I think you’ll be impressed.

There homepage is really slick too.  The catch phrase “beautifully engineered” says it all.  They go on to say “Discover the new standard in Web browsing. Download Opera today to get the fastest and most powerful Web browser available and make the most of your time online.”

Check out some it’s new features.

For BitTorrent downloaders this feature really stands out:

Download Manager with BitTorrent

Opera starts downloading as soon as you’ve saved the file, so there’s no wasted time. Pause and resume downloads with the push of a button, and choose multiple files to download simultaneously without any fuss. Opera also features built-in support for the social file distribution protocol, BitTorrent, which makes it easy to download Torrent files without the need for a separate application.

And I really like Opera’s Speed Dial feature.

Speed Dial feature

Typing addresses for sites you visit frequently is ineffective. Get your favorite Web page with just one click. Speed Dial is a set of visual bookmarks you see when you open a new tab, like a dashboard for your online life. To add a new page, simply click on an empty Speed Dial and Opera will make suggestions based on browsing history and bookmarks.

Quick Find feature

Have you ever forgotten the page where you found that great article or that perfect gift? When using Opera the browser remembers not only the titles and addresses, but the actual content of the Web pages you visit.

And if you’re a intense researcher and like to keep many tabs open, somtimes for days then Opera’s tab and sessions feature is great.

Tabs and Sessions

Opera is very light on your computer, so it’s possible to have many tabs open at once. Drag and drop tabs around to change their order, or get a preview pausing over them with your mouse. You can even save a session of tabs for later, making it easy to pick up where you left off.

I think it might be time to give Firefox a rest and start using Opera full time.  Internet Explorer… I waved byebye to you a long time ago.

I’m not sure about you but I am really not getting used to seeing Google’s new favicon. It’s definetely harder to find when you have multiple tabs open. And yeah…

According to Google:

“We recognized there was a need for a Google icon that would better work across multiple applications including web, mobile and client applications. We felt the small ‘g’ had many of the characteristics that best represent our brand: it’s simple, playful, and unique. We will be looking to improve and enhance this icon as we move forward.”

Simple, playful and unique? That’s not the impression I have of Google at all. Am I missing something?

What do you think? Big G or little g?

Here are some iterations of the Google Favicon:

Read more about it here.

Sonia Simone has written a great post “50 Things Your Customers Wish You Knew” that I thought I’d promote because it’s such a great article. I’ve listed some of the highlights below…

1. Your employees treat me about as well as you treat them.
2. I don’t understand a lot of the messages you send me. Can you make them clearer?
3. The wealthier I get, the more I like free stuff.
4. I don’t understand how to use your Web site, but I can’t admit that because it would make me feel dumb.
5. Our relationship isn’t equal and it never will be.
6. I hate salespeople, but I really like to buy things.
7. I want you to do the hard work for me. Even better if I can get all the credit.
8. I have the attention span of a goldfish. Go too long without contacting me and I’ll simply forget you exist.
9. embarrassment scares me more than death.
10. I believe I deserve much more than I’m getting.
11. I don’t know what I want most of the time. You need to figure it out for me.
12. It really is all about me.

If you knew, really knew, these 50 things about your customers, and acted accordingly, you’d gain their trust and even their love. After all, who doesn’t want to be loved despite all our flaws and embarrassing insecurities? The better you understand both the noble and not-so-noble secrets in your customers’ consciousness, the better you can serve them.

Read more.

With a professionally designed website you can generate leads 24 hours a day, even in your sleep.

It’s no wonder more and more agents are turning to the web to generate qualified leads. Because of the current market slump agents are spending less money on newspaper classified ads. Agents and brokers are now realizing that their ad dollars pay off more when they invest in their own websites. Investing in their own websites they own and control makes more sense.

If you plan on being in business in the next 5 – 10 years now is the time to get a website.

It’s getting harder and harder to obtain top rankings on search engines like Google. Being on the first page of any search engine when someone searches for keywords related to your business is not a random occurrence. Google and the other major search engines like Yahoo and MSN have complicated algorithms that determine who is on that first page when you search. Do you want to know what one of the factors they use to determine who should rank where?

It’s how old a website is.

That means sites that have been online longer take precedence over newer sites. It’s a fact. That means if you are not already online you are losing precious leads to those who are. A websites age is only one of a hundred or more factors that play a role in where a website ranks however. It takes more than just being online or having an older website then your competitors.

Just having a website is no longer enough.

Many businesses offering website design to agents are offering inferior, quick DIY websites that are built from templates. So your website looks like a lot of other agents websites and are built around outdated technology that makes your website immediately less favorably to the major search engines. There are several reasons for this.

They simply can’t see your content.

Online content is king and many DIY sites and even expensive website designs are designed using a technology called “Frames” which means your content is separated from the main site which makes your content basically invisible to search engines. See my post Real Estate Websites with No Frames for more info. Your content, the text on your website is a huge factor in how search engines know what your website is even about.

It’s better to be unique.

A majority of real estate website design agencies offer cheap alternatives so you can start building your website immediately online. They offer template based designs that even though might look enticing have a negative drawback – they are cookie cutter designs. The search engines can tell who is unique by what is commonly referred to as a “foot print” which a site leaves. Websites based on templates have a foot print you don’t want to have. Unique is better if you ever want to rank for your keywords and generate leads.

You have less control over your website.

When you choose a company who offers inexpensive website alternatives you are giving up your freedom to control many things you should have control over. Sure, you might be able to update colors, text and even images but there are a lot of things that you cannot control that are important to your websites rankings. Things like Meta tags, page titles, site structure and more. All which play a big role in where your website ranks in search engines.

This is where I can help you.

I can design your website so that it is unique, fully editable and found by search engines – a site that will continue to bring you qualified leads for years to come.

When you have me design your website you will receive the highest quality design — one that meets current web standards and is completely accessible by searchers searching Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Even though your website will be editable we offer complete maintenance programs to boot, just in case your not comfortable editing your own site.

And I don’t stop there.

I offer complete search engine placement services so that you rank for the keywords you need to be found under. After your website is designed I put into effect techniques for gaining top positions for your website.

This includes content creation, link building, article marketing, press release writing and more. It is a complicated process which I have mastered over the last 5 years.

See for yourself. You can check the rankings of www.bleschandassociates.com on Google right now. Just search for Redlands Real Estate, Yucaipa Real Estate or even San Bernardino Real Estate.

If you would like these types of positions – ones that will bring you qualified leads 24 hours a day please contact me. I am here to help.

If you’d like to view more real estate site I’ve designed please check out my web design portfolio.

Wow Flickr now offers video! You can upload video clips up to 90 seconds in length. If you’re a pro member that is.

But Why only 90 seconds?

While this might seem like an arbitrary limit, we thought long and hard about how video would complement the flickrverse. If you’ve memorized the Community Guidelines, you know that Flickr is all about sharing photos that you yourself have taken. Video will be no different and so what quickly bubbled up was the idea of “long photos,” of capturing slices of life to share.

I think it’s a great way to get more exposure if you’re a photographer. Bring along your video camera on your next shoot and film yourself taking photos. I can definitely see videos popping up with wannabe models posing, covert product endorsements, etc though.

Video on Flickr is going to be defined by our incredible, diverse, far-flung and fabulously talented members. Some answers that we’ve come up with:

1. A long photo
2. Personal
3. Simple – not overproduced or slick
4. Possibly the best answer so far: The Great Unknown

Personals?

Hmmmmmmm. I can already see this as not good for Flickr. Hopefully they can keep it under control.

Check out the Flickr blog and also their video faq

Designing templates in Photoshop is one thing. Turning your PSD file into a template for a website is another. Now you can easily convert your PSD files into CSS/XHTML templates for regular use or for popular software scripts such as wordpress, phpbb, blogger, pligg, moveabletype and more.

W3Markup Provides:

• Pixel-precise PSD conversion (PSD to HTML)to CSS / XHTML by hand (W3C Valid)
• CSS / HTML implementation into skins, themes, CMS, shopping carts or other software
• “Re-slicing” of existing sites (bring old code up-to-date)

With:

• AJAX, sIFR, swfIR, mootools, script.aculo.us, jQuery, Prototype code,
• Search engine friendly / semantic code,
• Usability, accessibility and page weight optimization,
• Cross Browser / Platform Compatibility { FF 1.5+, Safari 2+, IE 6+ },
• 100% control of code style and preferences via our order form,
• Easy online project management via our intranet

They can convert your Adobe Illustrator, Fireworks or Photoshop artwork into CSS / (X)HTML code for you! They handle it all: AJAX / JavaScript, CSS, (X)HTML, CSS drop-downs / flyouts, mouseovers, file optimization saving you time and headaches at a fair price.

They have a super easy to use order form where you can select all the options you want.

They have a ton of options available covering everything one would need. You can even deliver your website template to cells, Sony PSP, Nintendo Wii, Blackberries and other PDAs.

You’ll have to visit their order form to check out all the options available to you, but if you are curious if they handle the javascript functionality as well. You can see they support every major javascript library available.

Preferred JavaScript Library

Select the JavaScript Library you prefer them to work with if your project requires advanced scripting functionality.

• mootools
• script.aculo.us
• jQuery
• Prototype
• Mochikit
• Dojo
• None

Software Implementation

W3Markup can convert your PSD to be implemented into various blog, content management, shopping cart and portal software (scripts) packages.

Templates

• DreamWeaver Template $39
• Server Side Includes $19

Blog

• Blogger $179
• Movabletype $279
• WordPress $279

Shopping Carts (e-commerce)

• CubeCart $279
• Shopify $329
• X-Cart $329

Content Management Systems

• Drupal $279
• Expression Engine $279
• Pligg $279
• Mambo $279
• Symphony $279
• Textpattern $279
• Typo3 $379

Frameworks

• Joomla $279
• SMC $279

Forums

• phpBB $199
• vBulletin $279

Other

• MySpace Profile $199
• Email template $299

They can also convert PSD’s into these Content Management Systems / Frameworks / Portals »

(starting from $400)

Apache lenya, Ariadne, Bitweaver, e107, eZPublish, CleverCOPY, CMS from Scratch, CMS Made Simple, Cofax, Collaborative Portal Server, ContentNOW, osCommerse, Dotnetnuke, Dragonfly, easy Portal, Elxis CMS, Etomite, exponent, Flux CMS, Fundanemt, fuzzlime, Geeklog, Jahia, Jaws, jLibrary, Krang, Managee, MasonCM, MDPro, Microsoft Office SharePoint, Midgard CMS, MMBase, Magento, MODx, MySource, OpenACS, OpenCMS, Ovidentia, Pheap, PHP-Fusion, PHP comasy, PHProjekt, PHPnuke, PHP Website, Pivot, Plume, PostNuke, rubrics, runcms, silverstripe, SiteFrame, SlashCode, SPIP, SyntaxCMS, TRIBIQ, ttCMS, TypoLight, V2 CMS, WebGUI, Website Baker, Xaraya, Xepient Open-Point, XOOPS, YACS, YaWPS, Virb, Zope / elevateIT / Silva

If you are looking for an easy way to have your artwork turned into a website template then look no further then W3Markup.com.  Their easy to use order form makes it a snap.

David Carson is my favorite designer and here he is in the documentary about the font Helvetica.

There are 3 other videos on David Carson over at ilovedesign.com - enjoy!

Oh and if find any interest in Typography and Helvetica be sure to check out the Helvetica documentary if you haven’t already. Very good stuff…