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A Must-See Video of Microsoft's Street Slide, Better Than Google Street View

Microsoft Research demonstrated a new street-level image viewing option that knocks the socks off of Google Maps Street View this week at the SIGGRAPH conference in Los Angeles. Called Street Slide, the technology allows users to zoom out from the fish-eye pannable photos you see on standard street view options and instead see a series of flat panoramic photos stitched together like a timeline.

It's a little hard to describe, but check out the video below. In addition to being less disorienting than zooming around inside Street View, the open space opened up for annotation in Street Slide is very nice.

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Doesn't that just make you feel like a whole new world of possibilities are opened up? There's no word whether or when this feature will be added to Bing, but if it is - I'm going to try to train myself to use Bing Maps instead of Google Maps.

Blogger Keir Clarke hacked together some proof of concept demos similar to this yesterday, using Google Maps, ph/> [...]

Thu Jul 29, 2010 11:35 am

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UK Police Arrest 2 Over ZeuS Trojan

British police said today they have made Europe's first arrests in the battle against an online Trojan which threatened to compromise thousands of computers in the UK.

The ZeuS or Zbot Trojan, a type of sophisticated malicious malware, is believed to have infected and accessed personal information from tens of thousands of computers around the world.

The Trojan was configured in a way that when installed in the systems of infected computers, it recorded users' online bank account details and passwords, credit card numbers and other personal information, including passwords for social networking sites, before causing the computer to forward data to servers under the control of distributors.

Officers from the Metropolitan Police's Central e-Crime Unit (PceU), said on November 3, they arrested a man and a woman, both 20 years old, in Manchester. Both suspects have been released on bail pending further investigation.

"The ZeuS Trojan is a piece of malware used increasingly by criminals to obtain huge quantities of sensitive information from thousands of compromised computers around the world," said Detective Inspector Colin Wetherill of the PceU.

"The arrests represent a considerable breakthrough in our increasing efforts to combat online criminality."

Police said computer users' should take the following measures to protect against malware:

 

* Run anti-virus and anti-spyware software - Always run these softwares and keep them regularly updated.

* Windows update - Enable automatic updates to keep the operating system patched against known vulnerabilities.

* Patch software applications - In add/> [...]

Wed Nov 18, 2009 12:50 pm

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Why Google Doesn't Care About Bing

Google isn't competing against the other search engines. Oh, sure, it spent the first decade of its existence fighting every other search engine to not only be #1, but to be a dominating force. That's yesterday's news, however. Now, Google doesn't pay as much attention to those search engines. If the doesn't make any sense to you, check out my latest post on Internet Evolution, "Why Google Doesn't Care About Bing."

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Tue Dec 08, 2009 12:35 pm

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SEO Consulting: How To Construct Great Proposals

Like in any consulting field, SEO is rife with competition. There is only one way to win in such an environment, and that is to set yourself apart from the crowd.

Not in a bad way, of course :)

Here are some ideas on how to construct winning proposals.

Size Isn't Everything, But It Does Count

Large proposals take a long time to do. On the upside, large proposals can look impressive, simply by virtue of their size. Clients often like to see large proposals, but they don't tend to read them.

Proposals can be a tricky balance to get right. No matter how brilliant your solution, most clients will think twice about you if you present it on a single sheet, especially if they have no prior connection with you, or aren't meeting you face-to-face. A proposal of a certain size can appear more authoritative.

What is the ideal size?

One good way of presenting a proposal is to break it into three parts. The first part is a summary, including your client-specific solution and costs. Length can vary of course, but keep it succinct. No fat.

The second part is a case study or two. Again, keep them succinct. It's highly likely that the client won't actually read beyond this point.

Finally, add background information about you, your company, your history and the SEO business, all of which should be aimed at supporting the summary page and case studies. This final part can be generic and doesn't need to be re-written for each client. Clients may only flip through this section, but tend to find it reassuring that it exists.

Contrast this approach with a proposal that is threadbare. It may be irrational, but thin proposals can feel incomplete.

Give Something Of Value Away

In your summary pages, share real information.

Share the type of information that is valuable and the sort of you'd usually charge for providing. Clients are likely to assume that if the SEO is g/> [...]

Sun Feb 28, 2010 20:05 pm

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