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RSS Awareness Day - May 1st 2008

Thursday, May 1st, 2008
RSS Awareness Day

Rssday.org are trying to build awareness of RSS technology and I am adding my support to the project. Many of us in the web design, graphic design and internet marketing business use RSS technology every day. It is important that our industries try to promote it and get it in front of all general internet users.



Q: What is RSS, and what are RSS feeds I keep hearing about?A. Wikipedia explains RSS feeds as:“RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts.[2] An RSS document (which is called a “feed” or “web feed”[3] or “channel”) contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with web sites in an automated manner that can be piped into special programs or filtered displays.[3]RSS content can be read using software called an “RSS reader”, “feed reader” or an “aggregator”, which can be web-based or desktop-based. The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed’s link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The RSS reader checks the user’s subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading any updates that it finds and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds.

The initials “RSS” are used to refer to the following formats:

Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0) RDF Site Summary (RSS 1.0 and RSS 0.90) Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91). RSS formats are specified using XML, a generic specification for the creation of data formats. Although RSS formats have evolved since March 1999,[4] the RSS icon (”") first gained widespread use in 2005/2006. “

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format)

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One Week After 301 Re-directs

Sunday, April 27th, 2008
One week ago, we made the official switch from Aurora Web Technology to Brian Joseph Studios.

Google came by awebtech.com a few times to find 301 re-directs on all pages of the website, leading the user to a corresponding page on BrianJosephStudios.com

After careful preparation for the switch, one week later, Googlebot is starting to figure it all out. At the time of tpying this post, brianjosephstudios.com is the number 1 result on Google for “Aurora Web Technology”.


So, what does this mean? Well, it means that the Googlebot has figured out that not only has awebtech.com switched over to brianjosephstudios.com, but important words, names and phrases have also made the switch. The words “Aurora Web Technology” do not feature on BrianJosephStudios.com more than 3 or 4 times. So, evidence shows that Google now knows that old phrases that showed awebtech.com in a search results page, should now apply to brianjosephstudios.com

Googlebot hasn’t fully figured this out yet though, as we are still not ranked number 2 and number 3 as we were for awebtech.com for our targeted keywords. We have seen an increase in our rankings however since the initial drop off when the switch first took place.

We will continue to monitor our rankings and the log files to make sure Googlebot understands exactly what is going on here and to get our site ranked number 1 again. I think we still are number one for several of our targeted keywords though. :)

So, as a potential client, these posts will hopefully show you that we have an expert knowledge of search engine marketing and search engine optimization (SEO), and we are SEO leaders in the Fort Myers, Naples, Estero and Bonita Springs areas.

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Wordpress 2.5 Screencast

Friday, March 28th, 2008
Wordpress.org have released a screencast showing the latest Wordpress revamp and some of its new features. Have a look here

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Bagvertising : Your walking advertisement

Monday, February 11th, 2008
We all see those girls….walking around with 20 shopping bags full of over-priced clothes that will probably sit in her closet and never be worn. But the thing that I notice, are the shopping BAGS.

The design, the logos, the imagery. Shopping bags are now an important piece of marketing for most retail companies, and it only makes sense. It gives them the chance to have a small piece of advertising wherever their newly acquired customer goes. What an inexpensive way to continually splash your marketing around the city centre, or busy shopping mall, especially due to the fact that they provide a bag regardless.

Below are a few examples of some really cool uses of this shopping bag media for advertising:


A really clever way to promote this reach out program for children with autism. I bet more people would take notice of this much more than anything they could put together for a 14 ft x 48 ft billboard ad on the side of the road!

The bag below is a little wrong, and may cause some issues in a busy street!


This one below may cause issues of another kind….possibly traffic accidents and men walking into poles….

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Photoshop Tutorial - Text with Watery Reflection

Monday, February 11th, 2008
I recently saw a photoshop tutorial on this little trick, and I personally have a different way of creating this effect…so…a post was needed!

Firstly, you have your image of water, or whatever you will be placing your text on, and reflecting the text onto. Add your text. I gave it an outer glow just for interest and to stand it out from the water a little more.


Rasterize your text, (Layer > Rasterize). Now, time for the reflection text.
I like to use shortcut keys in Photoshop, so here is how to duplicate the text you have already made pretty quickly and easily.

Click on the text layer, hold down “Alt” and you should see the double arrows show up. Still holding “Alt”, hold down “Shift” and drag the new layer below the text. (If you don’t like to use shortcut keys, go to Layer > Duplicate Layer). Now we need to flip the text vertically to create the reflection.

The quick way, is to click on the edge of the layer (you must have the checkbox “show transform controls” checked) and right click (ctrl + click on a Mac) and click on “flip vertical”. Hit the “Enter” key or click ont the “check” mark at the top of your toolbar to confirm this transformation.

You should have something like this:


Now we need to give the reflection some work to get it to look like a real reflection on a water surface. First thing to do , is remove the layer style (outer glow) from the layer. (Layer > Layer Style > Clear Layer Style)

Now, reduce the opacity on the copied layer. Make sure you still have this new copied layer selected, and all you have to do is type the number “30″ on the number pad on your keyboard. This reduces the opacity of the layer to 30%.

So, we have the reflected text in place with a nice amount of opacity. I like the transform the angle of the reflection rather than just leave it be as it is now. So, free transform again, and select the center bounding box area to reduce the vertical size of the copied text layer.

It now looks like this:

Finally, we “Liquify”. Appropriate name for this tool eh?
Filter > Liquify (in CS3, I can’t remember where it is on older photoshop versions, sorry!)
Select the “Forward Warp Tool” at the top left of the Liquify tool interface, or hit “W” on the keyboard.

I used brush size of “7″ , density “50″, pressure “37″.

Now , with your brush, just go nuts, click and drag your brush over the entire layer, left and right, continually until you get a nice “wave” like effect. Hit “Ok” and you will see your creation!

Mine looks like this:

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