I’ve decided that if I’m going to become more active in the SEO community, I shoul probably find a nickname/domain that is slightly less audacious than “Towering Intellect.” Frankly, I’m not smart enough to pull it off (yet). So I’m in the market for a new SEO name. I’d love to get Jazzcat.com and go as Jazzcat, but that’s not really a possibility at this point, as somebody else owns the domain. If you have any other suggestions, let me know.

I’m starting to realize that as I try to figure out this whole “well-rounded SEO” thing, I’m not 100% sure where to start. I feel like I have a million and a half things to learn, and extremely limited time to learn it, and I really want to get a solid foundation under me. So I’m trying to figure out which things are most important to learn first, and which things can come later. A couple of ideas I’ve had about trying to figure out what to learn first are as follows:

• Read SEO blogs and figure out what gets talked about most. Learn those things first.
• Just do it: build a site using a template, and start throwing mud at the wall to see what sticks.
• Ask knowledgeable SEOs what they recommend.
• Open it up to an SEO forum and see what comes back.

Of these, I feel most comfortable with the last two options. I don’t really want to have to reinvent the wheel if somebody else has already been there. So maybe what I’ll do is send a couple of emails to SEOs I’ve come to respect, and go out and post on some forums and see what I get back, before I decide what to learn first.

Michael Gray (a.k.a. Graywolf) has mentioned a site called Squidoo a few times, and today I finally decided to try it out. Squidoo, one of Seth Godin’s pet projects, allows you to create a “lens”, which is essentially a collection of links and other web resources collected around one subject. Anyway, Graywolf has been talking about how some of his squidoo pages are ranking in the SERPs, and I figured I might as well get in while there are still some good lens names still available. I picked up a few today, and I’ll probably grab a few more over the weekend, it just seems crazy to not pick up some potentially valuable web real estate when it costs me nothing but the few minutes it takes to set up a new lens. I’ll keep y’all posted on how this works.

For the past few years, I’ve been doing all my personal computing on an old Toshiba Satellite Pro 4300. It was a pretty bad machine (as in good bad) in its day, the only problem was that its day was about 5 years ago. Needless to say, my little Toshiba was really outdated and underpowered for today’s applications, particularly as I have begun to experiment with web design (expect a redesign of TI soon!). My frustration finally came to a head and I decided to buy a new laptop that was a little more powerful. On the recommendation of several people, I bought a 2 GHz MacBook Pro, and needless to say, I’m pretty pleased.
My initial impressions upon pulling it out of the box: sexy. The slim, silver anodized aluminum case looks really sharp, hinting at the power that lies within its sleek trappings. It’s really slim, and weighs about 5 lbs. I love this because up to this point, I’ve been lugging around a 13″ laptop that’s three times as thick and weighs about the same, if not more.
Next impression? The screen is stunning. Ultra-high-res goodness. And the graphics are smoothly rendered and sharply detailed. I had to wipe drool off of my lip as the startup screen loaded.
Now, those who know me know that up to this point, I’ve been a PC man. I come from a long and storied line of PC men. My uncles and father and grandfather are PC men. In fact, I am probably the first person in both my immediate and extended family to own a Mac. This kind of ingrained training doesn’t die easily. And I will admit that once I started using OSX, I was a little disoriented. Gone was my familiar ‘Start’ bar. Gone was ‘My Computer.’ gone was my right mouse button! However, after using the OS for the past couple of days, I have to admit that the interface has been really intuitive and extremely user friendly. I still haven’t figured out how to fully leverage the power of OSX, but I’m sure I’ll get there.
Other things I like: the Front Row media interface is really awesome. It’s visually attractive and simple to use with the included infrared remote. It’s perfect for using the MacBook as a media player, which is convenient because…
The MacBook Pro comes with TV-compatible DVI out. So I can plug my laptop into my high-def bigscreen and enjoy HD goodness until my brain melts. You better believe that I plan on trying that out.
Everything is just so snappy. I guess this if born of using a craptastic laptop for a while, but I still appreciate how quickly this computer runs.
So, all in all, I’m fairly pleased with my purchase. I think I’ll like it even more once I get some of my favorite software up and running on it so I can start to use it for what it was intended. Hopefully it will pay for itself.

About a year ago,a guy in England created a revolutionary website with the intention of paying off his student loans using the proceeds from his site. The concept? Create one million pixel-sized blocks and auction off each pixel for a dollar. The idea was that advertisers would buy blocks of pixels and use the space for advertising. The idea was a hit and the kid got his million (check it out at The Million Dollar Homepage). It was a proud, proud day for internet entrepreneurs everywhere.

I am sad to report, however, that after enduring several other copycat-style stunts, like the Million Penny Homepage or the House for Kim homepage, where you can help a woman pay for her house, pixel by pixel, we have hit an all-time low. Now you can buy a pixel at the Utah Valley Million website, which is a shameless ripoff of the original million dollar homepage. At least the other guys had the decency to try to disguise the fact that they were being unoriginal. These guys? Same color scheme, same layout, sheesh, these guys could barely even come up with their own tagline! The biggest difference? They only charge 10 cents for “a piece of Utah Valley internet history.” Personally, I’m not sure there’s enough pieces of Utah Valley internet history to justify spending ten cents on a piece, because a piece of nothing is… oh yeah, nothing. Seriously, name one milestone of the internet that has happened in Utah Valley. Just one.

And I don’t even want to start on the horrible site design. I mean, forget the menus that make you feel like you’ve had too much to drink, even when you’re stone cold sober, and the obnoxious red ball that follows your pointer across the screen.

So anyway, I really didn’t want to link to these guys because I think they’re sorry, unoriginal, and the epitome of so many things that are wrong with business thinking in Utah Valley, but I did (using rel=”nofollow”, for what good it’ll do me), just so you can see what I’m talking about. Please, please don’t buy advertising from them. And for you guys at PowerTri.com, go and try to create something new, original and useful, instead of clogging the internet with your copycat moneygrubbing stunts.