Sheara Wilensky . com

Bye-bye metal trees. Roxy Paine’s three stainless steel sculptures were taken down today after nearly 11 months on display at Madison Square Park.

The two 40-foot metal trees - Conjoined and Defunct - and a 7-foot high metal boulder - Erratic - have been up since last May as part of the Park’s ongoing modern art displays. They were supposed to have been taken down in December. I guess the public responded well to the display, or the Park department got lazy to take them down. I’m interested in seeing what crazy sculptures will be featured next.

New Yorker Roxy Paine is an internationally recognized conceptual artist who’s sculptures are on display in public parks across the nation. For more information on the three sculptures check out the Madison Square Park website.

Blind Melon gave the second performance of their 5-month nationwide tour last night, March 1, 2008, at the sold out Hiro Ballroom at the Maritime Hotel in Chelsea. Shannon Hoon’s replacement, lead vocalist Travis Warren, surprisingly rocked the audience. I was unsure how they would perform with the new lead, given Shannon’s unique and easily distinguishable voice, but they did a great job. The sounds were familiar, the hits were all there. Many songs were dedicated to Shannon, such as “Change” Shannon’s favorite (and mine). The playlist included Soup, Galaxie, Toes Across the Floor, and of course No Rain. They also played new songs from their new album which will be out on April 22nd. Travis’ mother came out to join the vocals on Cheatem Street.

The sound quality was fantastic and the venue was small and intimate, only 250-300 tickets were sold. A lot of true fans were in the house. I was able to get pretty close to the stage. Check out a clip of No Rain.

Google Sites is a new application that allows users to essentially create web pages in an easy to use, code-free manner. If you’ve ever used Google Docs, or Google Spreadsheets, it works in a similar fashion - the program is within the browser window. Google Sites allows you to import videos, documents, calendars and other attachments into a web page with just the click of an insert button.

Google Sites is a structured wiki - a collaborative database environment - typically used as a shared writeboard allowing users to add, remove and edit information. This allows for the free and simple sharing of knowledge which everyone can use.

Officially launched this past Thursday, February 28, Google Sites in my opinion is best for creating intranet pages within a small organization because it is template based. It’s also good for managing projects. Especially for startups on a budget. If you take a look at the Google Sites overview page, you’ll see what I mean. In the vision of Google, Sites, of course, has a simple user interface.

Google Sites was developed by JotSpot, which it acquired in 2006. JotSpot was the first company to create wiki applications in 2004, targeted to small and mid-sized business. JotSpot has been working on Googe Sites for the past 16 months.

Google Sites has been getting a lot of mixed reviews. Critics are disappointed that given the time it has taken to develop the software, it should be able to create more sophisticated sites. They are saying though that soon developers will be allowed to create advanced applications for the product (think: Facebook) so in the future Google Sites will be more flexible.

I think what Google set out to do - allow the non-coder/non-techie community to participate in the creation of web applications - should work fine for now. Can’t wait to see how Google takes this new application to the next level. Thoughts?

I was walking around today and was pleasantly surprised when I passed by a Chabad House on East 20th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues (we Jews are everywhere). It looked like a brand new building, and yet the front doors were completely boarded up.

When I searched Google, the Chabad of Gramercy Park came up at 199 West 19th Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues (Chelsea/Flatiron), with a complete and active website. So what’s going on at the East 20th Street location? Is the building abandoned? When I Googled the address, 340-342 East 20th Street, all that came up was a NY Times real estate listing from 1998 - the building was listed at a mere $785,000! Ah the good old days.

We need to spread the Jew love in neighborhoods other than the Upper West Side. If anyone has any further information as to the status of this building, please let us know.

I like to read www.1010wins.com a couple of times a day because it’s a great site for local NYC news and events. Yesterday they posted a poll “Who has the best coffee?”, and the choices were Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s, the Coffee Cart Guy, Other, and I Don’t Drink Coffee. Dunkin’ Donuts took first place with 34%, slightly ahead of Starbucks’ 26%. Only 13% of those who voted don’t drink coffee. For New Yorkers, is that surprisingly high, or surprisingly low? It seems to me that a big part of the fast-paced lifestyle of New Yorkers is coffee consumption, giving them that extra oomph in the morning, you know, that oomph to cram into the subway car or knock you over on the street on the way to the office. During the morning rush, it is rare to see someone without a cup of coffee in hand.

This morning I grabbed a free Metro paper at the subway entrance. The front page article was about how Starbucks closed 7,100 locations yesterday for three and a half hours of barista training. Front page. A lot of people felt upset and inconvenienced. One person quoted in the article stated “I don’t know what we are going to do now. I guess we’ll have to go somewhere else”. I haven’t yet decided if this statement is utterly ridiculous, or if I sympathize with the guy!

Now, I myself am a coffee drinker. I usually have one cup a day, though I can go without. My coffee of choice is Dunkin’ Donuts, though if I don’t pass by one, the coffee carts are fine. I go to Starbucks so infrequently that I never remember the difference in sizes between the Venti and the Grande. In fact, I think I may hate Starbucks. It’s not just the too-strong coffees. Once last year, a colleague from another office was visiting, and the two of us went to Starbucks, as I offered to treat him to a cup of coffee. He ordered some crazy mocha double soy latte something or other. The bill was 13 bucks for 2 coffees. But it’s not just the fact that I can get 2 slices of pizza and a coke for the same price as a Grande Latte. Who the hell has the time in the morning to stand on a Starbucks line for 15+ minutes? Apparently Starbucks enthusiasts do. I just don’t get it.

A friend of mine was a barista in a Starbucks in a NJ suburb several years ago. She would tell me how days would go by without the coffee machines and filters being cleaned out. But that’s another story. I am getting off topic, this post isn’t meant to bash Starbucks, but rather to discuss how we New Yorkers need our caffeine!

According to a newsletter called Nutrition Action, here are some things caffeine may be good for:

• Parkinson’s Disease
• Gallstones
• Mental Performance (duh)
• Mood
• Physical Performance
• Headaches (note caffeine as an ingredient in many over-the-counter pain relievers)

Here are some things caffeine may not be good for:

• Sleep
• Fertility
• Miscarriage
• Birth Defects
• Counteracting Alcohol - Interesting, as most people treat hangovers with black coffee! According to the magazine, caffeine is more likely to reverse the subjective effects of alcohol than performance effects. People who are drunk and caffeinated will think they are ok but their reaction time and judgment will still be impaired.
• Migraines

Now migraines and coffee is interesting to me. As a long-time migraine sufferer and avid reader of any migraine-related article, study, or publication, I can tell you that coffee can both cause and cure migraines! Drinking too much coffee can give you a headache, yet if you don’t drink coffee on a regular basis, than a cup of black can help to alleviate the pain when a migraine does occur. It’s all about finding the balance.

Caffeine roughly works like this:

Adenosine is created in the brain to help prepare the body for sleep. When adenosine binds to receptors, it causes drowsiness by slowing down nerve cell activity and increasing the flow of oxygen by causing blood vessels to dilate. To a nerve cell, caffeine looks like adenosine. So when the caffeine binds to the receptors, it doesn’t have the effect of slowing down nerve cell activity, and the adenosine are blocked. Instead of slowing down, the cells speed up, and you are more alert. The caffeine also causes the blood vessels to constrict rather then dilate, because they block the adenosine which serves the function of opening them up. The constricting of blood vessels helps to relieve headaches as well.

Here are some things that caffeine has no positive or negative effects on:

• Heart Disease
• Cancer
• Diabetes
• High Blood Pressure
• Dehydration (caffeine is not a diuretic, contrary to popular belief, at least not in the average consumed amounts)
• PMS
• Weight Loss
• Growth (there is no good research to support that caffeine may stunt a child’s growth)

So, how much caffeine are you consuming?

Cup of Starbucks coffee (grande) - 330 mg

Dunkin’ Donuts medium regular coffee - 145 mg

Starbucks Frappuccino - 130-145 mg

16 oz cup of black or green tea - 60-100 mg

Cup of instant coffee, Maxwell House or Folgers - 5-15mg

Bottle of Arizona, Snapple, or Lipton Tea - 30-60 mg

11 oz cup, Starbucks Iced Coffee - 200 mg

Can of Red Bull - 80 mg

Bottle of SoBe - 150 mg

20 oz bottle of Vitamin Water (energy) - 50 mg

10 oz can of Bud Extra beer - 55 mg

Here’s a good tip for all you coffee-lovers: next time you go to Dunkin’ Donuts, ask for a coffee card. Buy 5 cups, get one free. They don’t advertise this.

I have had the same hair cut since maybe the second grade. Long, brown, straight. Maybe in college and right after I highlighted here and there, went back and forth from light brown to dark brown. But still, always, long and straight. So one week ago, I cut bangs, don’t know, just felt like it! And let me tell you, over the past week, everybody had something to say.

One friend called me Punky Brewster. Which is actually kind of accurate because when I was a little girl I definitely looked like her, and dressed up like her. Pigtails, bandanna around knee and all. I carried the doll with me everywhere.

Someone called me Winnie Cooper, you remember, from the Wonder Years.

I personally think I look like Alyson Hannigan in How I Met Your Mother. We have a similar fashion style.

Who do you all think I look like? I’m curious!

On Tuesday, March 18th 2008, Best of the Web will be hosting their 3rd awesome charity event, from 8 pm to midnight. Tickets are $40 each, and this time around, the search community will be voting on the charity from the following choices:

• HMBANA Milk Banks, a non-profit which collect, screens and sends out breast milk to micro-preemies and premature infants who were born too early for their mother to provide them with milk.
• Camp Interactive, a technology-focused summer program for underprivileged youth.
• The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, dedicated to funding blood cancer research to cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s and myeloma.
• National Association for Colitis and Crohn’s Disease, which provides support for those affected and raises funds for research into a cure.

To vote for one of these charities, visit: http://botw.org/helpcenter/sesny08_charity.aspx.

The party will take place at Black Finn NY, located at 218 East 53rd Street, New York, NY. The last charity event was a lot of fun. So even if you are not a member of the search community, you should come! Good people, good cause, good food and lots of alcohol.

BOTW is trying to reach a goal of 300 tickets at $40 each.

Email me for more information and spread the word!

Arguably one of the most important factors in increasing your website’s visibility in the search engines is the quality and quantity of incoming links to your site. Search engine crawlers find you by following links leading to your site, and if these links carry authority, it will deem your site important and push you up in the rankings.

There are many ways of acquiring links. You can swap links with another site (I’ll give you a link to your site if you give me a link to mine), although this practice is antiquated and not effective like it use to be, and it may hurt you if you link to sites in the wrong “neighborhoods”. Nothing beats creating the most amazing website ever that will entice the “linkerati” to naturally link to you. For example, if you sell digital cameras, than you want to have detailed descriptions of all your products, reviews, discussion forums, photos, videos, etc. The more compelling and accurate information you provide to the users, the more people will want to read your site, participate, and link to you so others can find you. A more controversial method of acquiring links is purchasing them through a link broker such as Text Link Ads. Acquiring powerful links, or “link baiting”, is an important aspect of SEO.

Be careful when purchasing links. A “bad” or “shady” link may hurt your site more than help it. Think about it like this. If you have are selling digital cameras, you want links from sites like PC Magazine, the Wikipedia digital camera page, the How Stuff Works camera article, electronics blogs, even travel sites because tourists use cameras. Buying links from beauty products sites, swimming pool equipment, medical websites etc. have absolutely no relevance to your site. If you purchase a link on a medical site, someone who is reading it will probably ignore your text link ad because they are focused on getting medical information and not in a shopping frame of mind. But if someone is reading an electronics article or review, they are arming themselves with the knowledge to make an informed purchase. They are considered a qualified lead and will be more likely to follow the link to your digital camera store and perhaps even buy one.

Now, say you are about to purchase a link on an electronics blog. This may be relevant to your own site, but you also need to consider the quality of the blog. If this electronics blog is two months old, and gets maybe 10 page views a day, and has only 5 or so incoming links itself, well that site is not exactly going to send traffic your way, is it? So just because the topic is relevant to your own does not necessary mean you should invest in buying a text link.

There are several ways to determine the quality of a website. One way is to do a Yahoo Link Domain check. Go to Yahoo.com and type in linkdomain:www.yoursite.com. It will provide you with a list of indexed pages and a list of sites linking to your website.

Another way is through Google Page Rank in the Google toolbar. You might already have this installed in your browser. The PR tool ranks pages on a scale of 1 to 10. Toolbar data is often misleading, so be sure to understand the cons of using toolbar PR data when making a text link purchase decision. What Google puts on its Page Rank toolbar tends to be a quarterly (often less) update of what that webpage was at one point in time. A PR of 1 – 3 maybe just tells you that the site is indexed. A PR of 5 – 8 maybe tells you the page is better. But new pages take time to develop Page Rank, no matter how good they are, and no matter how many links they get. So Google Page Rank is misleading as well. But in your link buying process, if you see a PR of 5 or better, it may be a cue to dig deeper into buying a link from that page.

A third way is through the Alexa toolbar. Alexa is a subsidiary of Amazon.com that prepares web rankings based on statistics. Their toolbar ranks sites in numerical order so the lower the rank, the more trafficked the site (theoretically).

There is controversy over the accuracy of Alexa based on typical internet behavior. First off, Alexa can only gather data from sites that have the Alexa toolbar installed, and so the data is skewed. Alexa users tend to be in the internet industry and more web-savvy than the average user. Additionally, the higher the Alexa rank, the less accurate it is, because there are billions of web pages so at certain point the rankings tend to be all over the place. There are ongoing debates on whether Alexa is good or bad so you need to take it with a grain of salt. It’s the best data that’s available for free. Another similar free product is compete.com.

Now if you are prepared to pay tens of thousands of dollars for data, you can use Hitwise. Hitwise collects their data from ISPs, but is also skewed. The big-name internet service providers like Roadrunner, Comcast etc. don’t allow Hitwise to collect data from their customers due to privacy issues. So Hitwise is mostly accurate in areas that are not monopolized by broadband providers.

Google also has a tool similar to Yahoo Linkdomain, link:www.yoursite.com. But this tool is terrible. Don’t use it. Google is more protective of SEO’s messing with their algorithms so the tool is not accurate. It’s garbage data for beginner SEOs. That’s how dubious Google is.

So always do a Linkdomain on Yahoo. Yahoo also tends to generate results based on order of importance of the sites, so you can find a lot of other quality sites through this tool from which to acquire more links.

One more thing to know about purchasing links. Pace yourself. Don’t purchase say 100 in one day over the course of a year, because it appears unnatural to the search engine (they know all) and it may trigger a red flag. Set yourself a time line for purchasing links.

This list came out back in 1999 but was recently given to me by a web developer friend of mine, and still applies today. Of course this list could go on and on, but here are some highlights of basic mistakes to avoid.

1. Using frames. It’s a big no-no. Frames are difficult to index. Some companies may require the use of iFrames for advertising. Note the difference. iFrames (inline frames) is an HTML element that makes it possible to embed another HTML document inside the main document. While regular frames are typically used to logically subdivide the content of one website, iFrames are more commonly used to insert content from another website into the current page.

2. Scrolling Text. Words that move are bad! Period. Avoid it because people won’t use it.

3. Complex URLs. Avoid too many variables in the URL. Not only does a clean, simple URL eliminate the potential problems that you could have with getting a page indexed, but you’re also more likely to acquire more deep links from other sites because the URL looks user-friendly, and easy to copy-and-paste. Further, if you know your customer, you will know certain subpages that they will want to log as a favorite. Be cognizant of keeping the URLs short, especially if you know it will end up being a favorite.

4. Too Cutting Edge. Many people do not have the latest versions of web browsers. A site that is to cutting edge will not be supported by older browsers. Also, users do not like downloading plug-ins and will likely leave your site if they have to do so.

5. Orphan Pages. An orphan page has no links to it. Therefore the only way it can be found is through a search.

6. Long Scrolling Pages. It can be overwhelming to the user. There are ways to work with a lot of text from a design perspective to make the scrolling page usable.

7. Lack of Navigation Support. No matter how big your site, make sure you have a search feature and a site map so that users and search engines alike can navigate through the information you are presenting. Otherwise they will feel lost.

8. Non-standard link colors. Make sure the link changes to a different color for a part of the site they have already visited.

9. Out-dated information. It’s very unprofessional, and search engines favor fresh content.

10. Long download times. Users are impatient.

For those of you who remember, the original Paradise Hotel aired on Fox in June 2003. What a fabulous show. A group of great-looking single men and women frolicking around a Caribbean hotel in bathing suits and cocktail dresses, with the ultimate goal of hooking up for a chance to win a large cash prize. I was completely hooked. I was addicted to that show like I was addicted to Melrose Place in the 90’s. I was sad to learn that Paradise Hotel was canceled after just one season.

The best part of the show was Dave Kerpen. He had a huge crush on the young dumb girl Charla. She didn’t want to hook up with him, but he used his brains to outwit everyone and made it to the final four. Check out Dave Kerpen’s blog. Apparently he is running for New York City Council in 2009. Hey, if he could outsmart the Paradise Hotel gang, he has my vote.

Another notable cast member was Toni Ferrari. Notable for me, because besides having a memorable personality on the show, I was very excited when I saw her that summer (while visiting Chicago) at a restaurant on Division (she didn’t see me!).

Now nearly 5 years later (desperate from the writer’s strike?), the reality television producers finally did something right. They created Paradise Hotel 2.

The show is not quite what it was 5 years ago. Maybe it’s because I’m older, maybe the cast is not as hot, or maybe because they replaced the catchy ‘Take Me Back to Paradise, I’m Gonna Pack My Bags and Leave Tonight’ theme song. But regardless, the formula is still the same and host Amanda Byram is still fabulous. Check it out Monday nights at 9 on UPN9.

I hope they bring back Dave as a surprise guest.