MeetUp (http://www.meetup.com/) is a real social networking site. By that I mean you use MeetUp to get in contact with people near you with shared interests and you actually meet up with them.
Not that I was getting lonely in Dublin or anything– but I joined a MeetUp called – New and Not So New in Dublin (http://newintown.meetup.com/662/). I found it by doing a search in Google for Dublin Meetup. I have to say that MeetUp is one of the most user-friendly web sites I have seen. The first page I got to I could search for a group in Dublin by name/topic or take a look at all of the MeetUps scheduled for that week.
The range of MeetUp groups in Dublin is diverse. There are a couple of business-networking groups, a couple of tech user groups and a few that were more social. I decided that my choices were this or Goth Dublin – but I left my black fingernail polish in St Paul so New and Not So New won out.
Patrick (my husband and I) met up with the group and everyone was very friendly. Now I get email messages whenever a new event is scheduled. You can RSVP (yes, no, maybe) so others in the group know who’s coming. In fact someone had obviously checked the RSVPs before we met up as they recognized me from my picture – which was nice.
After the event you can send a note, grade, the event, and tell how many people joined. This is helpful when you are looking for new groups. Maybe you want to find a group where there are just a handful of new people, maybe you want a mob.
The MeetUp group has a web site and a mailing list. Any member can post to the mailing list. Only the organizer or assistant organizers can schedule events – but it is easy to suggest an event. It looks as if anyone can start a MeetUp group.
Today you get two Bytes in one. Both are really just nibbles.
Wikipedia bans people and IP blocks
I wanted to post an addition to a Wikipedia article (http://www.wikipedia.org the big collective online encyclopedia) but I’m blocked. Actually I am not personally blocked but another eircom customer in my area has ruined it for us all. Some other customer made edits that got him (or her) booted from the privilege – but since we have shared access we all suffer; our IP addresses are blocked. I think I could appeal but I wasn’t that into it.
Funny enough after this happened I read an article in the Trinity College newspaper saying that their whole campus has been blocked. Like me, they can view the site but not edit. Apparently there is one avid editor on the campus who has ruined it for everyone.
I just thought that this blocking was interested and maybe a sing that the do police the site in some ways.
Anagram Genius
The other nibble is not nearly as helpful in day to day life – the Anagram Genius (http://www.anagramgenius.com/server.html) will find an anagram of your name – or any name you enter. (Mine was Any Nectar.)
I thought I would send a quick follow up on last week’s Byte based on some good questions and suggestions I received.
Once you have a Skype number you can easily forward it to a landline or cell phone: http://skype.com/intl/en/allfeatures/callforwarding/
This is very convenient for the times that you aren’t going to be online.
Bill in St Paul asked me about Grand Central (www.grandcentral.com). It is a great service that gives you one phone number that will ring at all of phones. It also gives you an online voicemail box. So you can track and store your voicemail messages online. It also allows you to:
• Record phone calls (great for podcasts)
• Receive notification of voicemails via email or text message
• Screen and block callers
• Filter calls – send various callers to various phones
• Switch phones in the middle of a call
I would love to try Grand Central – I even got an invitation to try it – but sadly they don’t accept members outside of the US right now. I signed up (and was wait-listed) over the summer but received the invitation to join a couple of weeks ago. So I can’t speak on the service firsthand – but I’ve heard great things.
I think I wrote about Skype a few months ago – but I thought I’d write again now that I’ve been using it for 6 weeks.
Skype (http://www.skype.com) is a phone service that lets you make cheap long distance phone calls through your computer. You need
- to sign up for an account
- a way to talk (microphone) and listen (speakers or headphones)
- an Internet connection
That’s it – you’re set up. Once you’re signed up you can call other Skype users for free..
If you upgrade to SkypePro, you can call any phone cheaply. It’s two cents a minute for me to call the US from Ireland. Upgrading costs about $25 a year. (Sorry for the estimates all of my pricing is now in Euros.)
A SkypeIn account gives you a phone number – originating from whatever county you choose. Friends, family, and clients can then call you for free (assuming the number is local to them) on your Skype In account. Skype in costs about $50 a year – unless you upgrade to SkypePro first – then it’s cheaper. The very nice thing is that you also get voicemail. So if you call me and I’m not around you can leave a message.
There are more featured – such as video phone service, which just requires a web cam and apparently you can get temporary SkypToGo numbers – which I should look into if I ever meet anyone in Dublin who wants my number.
The quality of the service is pretty good. When it works it works very well – but I have seen the audio cut out suddenly where either I can’t hear or be heard. I find that hanging up and calling back seems to work well to fix the connection.
Thanks to Jan in Wisconsin for sending me an interesting article on search engines and PDFs. A few years ago most search engines did not track PDF documents. Most of them are smarter now. It’s still not the best way to go but there are plenty of times where PDF makes sense and I thought I’d share a few ways to help PDF rank higher:
Write the document as you would a web page for ranking purposes. Use lots of good keyword terms – especially near the top of the document.
Be sure to add a title and meta tags – you can do this in the document properties. Titles are always important – meta tags are less important but still valuable.
Build links into the PDF document. This is good for the PDF and the pages to which it links.
Pay attention to version and size. Search engines don’t like large files – so try to optimize PDF for size. And saving for Acrobat 7 will ensure that more search engines can read it. (Acrobat 8 is out there but still pretty new.)
Don’t bury the document. As with all web documents you don’t want to store it away in numerous folders – leading to very deep links. It’s harder for the search engines to track those pages.
You can read the original article here http://searchengineland.com/070912-095906.php
