I still have to come up with a good title..

Acceptable level of WTFness

admin — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 08:39:08 +0000

..and now I can get back to my half eaten breakfast..

Random acts of senseless nonsense

admin — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:57:26 +0000

Scratchy pans?

admin — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:32:08 +0000

..experimenting new ways of passing the message through to the new fellows of the Kitchen of Wonders..

ArmDroid – Highschool final exam

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:56:48 +0000

Spring 2007, the young codewarrior Lucas gets ready to face his Electronics and Telecommunications highschool exam..

Well, good memories about that project! Practically we had this robotic arm (ARMDROID) in the laboratory, and as it often happens with laboratory goodies, nobody was using it. Few people knew of its existence, even less knew how to make it work. Great occasion to dive into that and make it work by brute force

Using Visual Basic I developed a graphic user interface which consisted in a buttons board, each one controlling a separate motor on the machine. Visual Basic was actually not taking care of the automation: When the logic of the program required a movement of the robot (or better said, a stepper motor to activate), VB would output a package of information via the RS232 data interface using a custom communication protocol. On the other side of the cable a microprocessor would be waiting to be fed info..! After having translated the information received according to the communication protocol, an Assembly program running on the micro would manage all the logic needed to set the state of the pins of a parallel socket, only way to connect to the robot (yeps, it was THAT vintage!).

Long story short, Visual Basic -> serial -> Assembly -> parallel -> something unknown going on in the robot itself.
And that’s how the magic happens.

With time the project began to grow in scope, including a virtual representation of the robot itself (always in VB).
This was actually the power horse of the whole thing: Having been too lazy to study the maths required to do matrix calculation (i wanted to drive a robot, not study maths.), I ended up having to do all the calculations required to show a pseudo-3D object in an orthogonal view using basic trigonometry.
Pretty funny stuff, here how the calculation of one coordinate of one extreme of one line would look like:

Line15.X1 = Line3.X2 + (Cos(mano * Kmano * pgreco / 360) * Cos(polsoA * KpolsoA * pgreco / 720) -- Sin(mano * Kmano * pgreco / 360) * Sin(polsoA * KpolsoA * pgreco / 720)) * (Cos(mano * Kmano * pgreco / 360) * Cos(base * Kbase * pgreco / 360) -- Sin(mano * Kmano * pgreco / 360) * Sin(base * Kbase * pgreco / 360)) * LungDito

But hey, it got the job done!

So, having had this virtual representation of the robot running, I implemented a new control mode: It was now possible to pilot ArmDroid using a multifunction joystick.
Last goodie? How about having a “Learn mode” that would allow an operator to record “waypoints”, and having the robot automatically follow them? Yes we can!

When time for the exam came, ArmDroid was capable of executing a prerecorded program, while also granting manual control via a buttons board or using a joystick.

Now I’m awaiting for Skynet to become self aware, to crosscode it with ArmDroid and finally have a cute little robotic arm pet.
Like a handicapped puppy, with only one arm. A big orange metallic one.

Orwellian Kitchen

admin — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 09:24:05 +0000

The Kitchen of Wonders is back.. toilet humor version!

..What’s better than having a Big Brother picture staring at you in the shared bathroom?
..Having a CUSTOMIZABLE Big Brother picture staring at you in the shared bathroom!

Read more about the Kitchen of Wonders:

How to waste a lunchbreak

admin — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 10:06:49 +0000

..this job would be so much more cool if we had just a bit more creative freedom..

Halo Reach pre-release campaign: Remember Reach

admin — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 20:44:01 +0000

Remember Reach, this is the name of the campaign that will market the release of the latest Bungie’s game, Halo Reach.

In the past I read about “I Love Bees“, an award winning viral marketing campaign and Alternate Reality Game that promoted the release of Halo 2.
I was expecting something big, some really cool idea. I am not disappointed.

I found the site of the campaign querying Google for “remember reach”. It was a bit of subconscious: That is the last sentence of one of the trailers previously posted, and I wasn’t expecting to come across anything particularly new.
First result, rememberreach.org. Not the original Halo Reach pages from the developers, pages that I visited days ago. It doesn’t even show up in the first page of result when trying to Google “Halo Reach”.
So yea, curious site. A funny robot arm, 5 Halo characters represented as dotted silhouettes, a couple of trailers.
And then this mysterious ”Add your point of light” button, unusable for those not having a Facebook account (like me! wohoo!).

Ok, it took me some time to realize it, but practically by pressing that button you log into Facebook and then you are given the possibility to add your “point of light” to the main picture.
I guess that initially that picture was blank, with only the five luminous sparks marking the navigation across the different characters biographies.
Click after click, facebook login after facebook login (I guess there must be some viral element in there), the points of light begin to mark a recognizable shape, a distinguishable silhouette, that of a monument to the Noble Team, the main characters of the game.

I love the idea that every user contribution helps creating this collective experience, developed in a way that can be witnessed live.
A simple but monumental idea, that will for sure be talked about by core gamers and not.

The “points of light” in fact are positioned by a robotic arm, which seems to be (for what I read on dedicated forums) displayed via a live feed of an actual robot, that is probably piloted by the coordinates chosen by each user when placing their points.
Quoting a post that I read afterwards, “the monument IS literally being constructed by us, the users“.

I find this campaign really thrilling (i was ecstatic when I found out about the “points of light” collective experience) and I encourage you to visit the site to discover the rest of the goodies, and see them in action..!
Here the link to the site of the Remember Reach campaign.

Read more:

Halo Reach

Trying it the Guerrilla Way: 2v0

admin — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 08:13:24 +0000

The dilemma of whether the glass of water is half full or half empty is everlasting and absolute.

Confused by this consideration, it is normal to expect people to loose control over their actions, get stunned and leave the kitchen forgetting another glass of water around.

It feels like living in the cave of Superman, surrounded by crystal glasses. You have to pay attention not to raise your voice too much or there is the risk of having them suddenly exploding, resulting in a deadly waterfall of shiny particles.

..we tried to take care of this matter in various ways.. it was time to try it the guerrilla way.

Read more about the Kitchen of Wonders:

Search Engine Optimization 101

admin — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:29:35 +0000

I’ve been asked by a fellow coworker to give an eye to a site, and help optimizing it as to reach global search engine presence (or domination, if you allow me).

Tricky area, the website is about an hotel in a very turistic zone of italy, and even the name of the firm has to stand ground against competitors.
The main idea when I was contacted was to improve the ranking of the pages, increasing the chances of visitors clicking through, falling in love with the site, purchasing a long lasting idyllic holyday, and finally paying sweet dinero ~~with which to feed the capitalistic inner greed of everybody involved~~ with which to make everybody live a life freed by economic worries, contemplating the beauty of the Italian beaches while sipping a coconut flavored drink in the shadows of a palm tree (the famous palm trees that surround the zone of Venice).

I compiled a list of basic free techniques and good practices that could help these guys doing so. Nothing original, a nice crop and chop from different authors, with different experiences.
Even if I don’t expect it to be a sort of “magic checklist”, I find them useful info, and for sure there will be some webdeveloper out there that will make good use of it.

So, here we go!

Keywords METATAG..!

Metatags. Different people has different opinions about how relevant they are for spiders in the SEO process.
What is commonly agreed throughout my sources, however, is that the keywords metatag is a good way to start, as it’s free and easy to implement, and as it helps search engines to focus on the content of your site.
As it will be seen, keywords are going to be used in various contexts, such as meta tags, title tags of pages, keyword-rich content, URLs of pages, image names tags, keyword-rich description metatags etc.
Their importance however must not be pushed, as an excessive amount of words can be read by spiders as an attempt of spamming, labeled as “keyword-stuffing”.

Description METATAG..!

Among the major search engines, often the data used in the description metatag is used as the site’s description in the search results. For this reason it is very important that the tag provides an appealing descriptive summary of the site to attract visitors.
Beware the risk of being too wordy, as some search engines may truncate descriptions after X characters.

Title tag..!

Apparently the title tag and the page header are the two most important spots where to put keywords.
When crawling a page, the title tag is given the greatest weight of any other single element.
For this reason it is an important occasion to use an unique keyword-focused text, that reflects the content of the page.
Changing page title across the site to include content focused keywords can in fact greatly increase the chances of a page being indexed with a strong ranking when quering for those keywords.
If you MUST have the name of your company in the title of the pages, place it at the end of it. Unless you are a major brand, in fact, the keywords will generate more traffic to the site than the brand itself.

Create a sitemap..!

Adding a sitemap makes it easier for spiders to crawl all the pages that compose your site. There are lots of online tools and plugins out there that can help you with this task, according to the structure and nature of your site.

Search-friendly URLs..!

Self explanatory point. Keyword-rich URLs will have a higher chance of getting a strong ranking when those words reflect the query. Static URLs are preferred over dynamic URLs. The reason being the usage of non-standard characters like ?, &, %,= by dynamic indexing.
Many times everything after those characters is disregarded, so any URL that is seen this way by a search engine is going to be read as nothing more than a list of duplicate homepage URLs.

Image descriptions..!

Spiders and robots can only crawl through text, not text in images: Use the alt tags of images to include keyword-rich descriptions of every image on the site.
Alt tags make also the site more accessible to visually impaired people using text readers.
Even if the website is already content rich, the alt tags allow for reinforcement of keyword density, increasing the chances of good indexing.
Using keyword-rich text captions as descriptions near the images is also a good practice.

Content is king..!

The content on the site needs to be fresh, updated regurarly, and it is often crucial for increasing traffic.
Good, well written unique content that focuses on a primary keyword or on a primary phrase will increase the chances of both good indexing and visitor satisfaction.
Search engines want natural language content: They look at how many times a term is used in your content and if it is abnormally high, will count against you rather than for you. (keyword-stuffing, ring any bell?)
You must remember to include both unique content AND quality content.
“The best sites for users, and consequently for search engines, are full of updated, useful information about a given service, product, topic or discipline” — said a certain dude.
Content freshness adds relevance to the site in the eyes of Search Engines.
One way to ensure that the site gets new content on a frequent basis is to integrate a blog.
“An executive blog is an excellent way to reach out to your clients, create more opportunities for internal and external linking, while giving your site a more personal voice.” — said my mama.

Internal links..!

A very basic strategy for SEO is the integration of internal links into the site: Links to other pages of the same site are a good practice, for example linking visitors back to archive pages, boosting traffic and improving the bounce rate.
It’s important to keep these anchor text search-engine friendly. A “SEO tips” text link is preferred over a generic link “click here“-like one. Also the text around the anchor is important. Surround the links with relevant descriptions.
“The more relevant words point to a page, the more likely that page is to appear in search results when users run a query with those terms.”

External links..!

An easy way to direct more traffic to your site is by developing relationships with other sites. These relationships can generate external links for both sites, a win-win situation.
When link building, however, think quality and not quantity.
You must ensure to be part of a network of quality backlinks (there must be a logical reason for that link to link with you), as doing otherwise (linking to link farms or other bad neighbourhoods) can affect your site adversely.

Viral components..!

Add viral components to your website or blog — reviews, sharing functions, ratings, visitor comments, etc.
Understand and make use of social marketing. It IS part of SEO.

Web Standards..!

Using semantically correct XHTML and CSS markup is one key to search engine optimization.
Frames, CGI scripts, image maps, dynamically generated pages, Flash and Ajax can cause problems to the search engine spiders.
..and what if I want a Flash splash screen as first page..? If you really have to do that, make sure at least to place hidden text and navigation links below the splashy thingy. You can have them invisible to the eyes of the visitor, while still being phisically present as HTML, allowing for crawling by spiders.

New site..?

Submitting a new site through Google’s regular submission form can take weeks to get it spidered. The quickest way to get your site crawled by robots is by getting a link to it through another quality site.

Well, this will be enough to get me started crosschecking with what they did on that site. It’s the first time that I work with SEO (or at least, the first time that I’m doing it seriously), so it’s going to be a good learning experience.

Enjoy!

Sources, among others:

The Business Insider – 10 basic SEO tips to get your started
Search Engine Journal – 55 quick SEO tips even your mother would love
Perfect Optimization – Image ALT tags optimization
Market Position – SEO for images
Fiercestreet Networks – Search Engine Optimization tips

August 21st: Earth Overshoot Day

admin — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 17:32:35 +0000

If yesterday was Jek “Red Six” Porkins day, today we have something a bit more serious and scary to celebrate: Earth Overshoot Day.

The following comes from Global Footprint Network.

August 21st marks an unfortunate milestone: the day in which we exhaust our ecological budget for the year. Once we pass this day, humanity will have demanded all the ecological services – from filtering CO2 to producing the raw materials for food – that nature can provide this year. From that point until the end of the year, we meet our ecological demand by liquidating resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

What is Earth Overshoot Day?
Every year, Global Footprint Network calculates nature’s supply in the form of biocapacity, the amount of resources the planet generates, and compares that to human demand: the amount it takes to produce all the living resources we consume and absorb our carbon dioxide emissions. Earth Overshoot Day, a concept devised by U.K.-based new economics foundation, marks the day when demand on ecological services begins to exceed the renewable supply.

What is Overshoot?
For most of human history, humanity has been able to live off of nature’s interest — consuming resources and producing carbon dioxide at a rate lower than what the planet was able to regenerate and reabsorb each year.
But approximately three decades ago, we crossed a critical threshold, and the rate of human demand for ecological services began to outpace the rate at which nature could provide them. This gap between demand and supply — known as ecological overshoot — has grown steadily each year. Global Footprint Network’s most recent data show that it takes one year and five months to generate the ecological services (production of resources and absorption of CO2) that humanity requires in one year.

The Cost of Ecological Overspending
Of course, we only have one Earth. The fact that we are using (or “spending” natural capital) faster than it can replenish is similar to having expenditures that continually exceed income. In planetary terms, the results of our ecological overspending are becoming more clear by the day. Climate change – a result of carbon being emitted faster than it can be reabsorbed by the forests and seas – is the most obvious and arguably pressing result. But there are others as well: shrinking forests, species loss, fisheries collapse and freshwater stress to name a few.

How is Earth Overshoot Day Calculated?
Put simply, Earth Overshoot Day shows the day on which our total Ecological Footprint (measured in global hectares) is equal to the biocapacity (also measured in global hectares) that nature can regenerate in that year. For the rest of the year, we are accumulating debt by depleting our natural capital and letting waste accumulate.

[ world biocapacity / world Ecological Footprint ] x 365 = Earth Overshoot Day Day

The day of the year on which humanity enters into overshoot and begins adding to our ecological debt is calculated by calculating the ratio of global available biocapacity to global Ecological Footprint and multiplying by 365. From this, we find the number of days of demand that the biosphere could supply, and the number of days we operate in overshoot.