Like many Internet professionals, I leverage free automated tools to help me keep track of competitive keywords in specific industries. Considering that SEO is of particular interest to me, I have a Google Alert setup as well as a Google News search feed which help me track what is new in SEO. Usually, this is a very effective way to obtain relevant information in near real-time. However, in the process of reviewing my feeds and alerts this morning, I came across a story that had absolutely nothing to do with SEO. The story had to do with the Miss Southeastern Ohio 2009 (Miss SEO 2009) beauty pageant!

When I saw this story, my jaw dropped to my chest. How in the world can someone, in 2008, who is Internet savvy enough to publish a website, NOT know what SEO is? If this SEO tactic is by design, then I would surely hope missseo.com would receive a severe penalty for misusing a commonly used acronym for a site that has absolutely nothing to do with search engine optimization.

You would think that Google (just to name the big search engine) would have an algorithm intelligent enough to discern the content of the page versus the title of the page. Thus, would rank a site like missseo.com and any other site who missuses the term SEO below legitimate results that properly use the term. If you made this assumption, then you’re in for a disappointment. Here’s a few more examples of how SEO is being abused as a term.

As you can clearly see, there is trash on the first page of the SERPs for SEO and Miss SEO. Even before I got into the SEO industry, my assumption was, if someone searches for the term Miss SEO, they’re probably looking for pictures of beautiful, prominent women in the search engine industry, NOT women from Southeastern Ohio!

Upon further investigation, I went from frustrated to completely dumbfounded as I discovered yet another useless Wordpress powered SPLog with the title Google-VAOT-SEO-2009 that is on the first page of results in Google for SEO 2009! Come on Google, WTF?!

It may seem like I’m busting Google’s chops a little here, and to be honest, I am. Mainly because no search engine that claims superior results based on relevancy should have crap like this on the first page of their SERPs. It’s a poor algorithm that is to blame for why SPLoggers can manipulate the SERPs so easily. It is also the reason why ignorant marketers can misuse commonly used terms to gain high rankings.

However, I’m not going to lay the blame entirely at Google’s feet. No, Google has a screwed up algorithm, that’s for certain, but I blame the ignorant SEOs, the SPLoggers, and the uninformed webmasters most of all. It’s 2008 people! What educated person does not perform some kind of marketing research before publishing a website? This is especially true when you’re going after a term like SEO 2009. Did the webmaster/SEO not stop for one second to check and see if SEO was a common term? Was any keyword research done at all? Or, was the webmaster/SEO counting on their research to get them top ranking? If the latter is true, then it surely was effective, but definitely shady. You be the judge.

The moral of the story is simple, before you even think about a naming your company, organization or event, do some very simple keyword research to make sure you’re targeting the right market. Terms like SEO are very common. If you try to target this keyword and your industry is not Search Engine Optimization, you are going to have a tough time remaining competitive in that market. If you happen to capitalize on a weak search engine algorithm and rank highly for such a term, you’re going to step on the toes of others in the industry that the term is commonly associated with.

Keyword research. It’s not that hard. Go to Google, type in your term and click Search. Start there and you’ll get an idea of where your term fits on the Internet.

I just posted this on twitter simply because, well, I was bored. Still, there’s some good advice here for those who can see past the very poor lyrics.

Tweet this you tttwirp as I conjugate these words spspspittin it out my best in 140 characters or less

You sssit and microsplog with your dddome in the fog thinking up words with wit convinced that you’re the shit

Nevermind the wwwords you spit are are ssso useless, you have nnno defense cause you’re so clueless

Follow mmme in to the abyss as I tttype this mix into the next twithit as I wwwrite in time with this twitter rhyme

The whole wwworld’s a buzz with twitter because yyyou don’t have to make sense ttto get in the mix

You jjjust say what’s on your mind and ttthere you will find those who are like yyyou who are spittin’ craziness too

Just reach ooout and connect and ssshow some respect when some fffollows you check if you should follow them too

Give real ppprops to those who hhhelp you explode your fffollower list cause without them you ain’t shit

Add rrreal value to the conversation so my time you ain’t waistin’ wwwith your affiliate linkin’ and products that’s stinkin’

Remember kkkeep those URLs short and dddon’t be a dork if someone lllinks to you show love and link back too

Follow ttthis good advice and be twice as nice aaand someday too I mmmight follow you!

As I also mentioned on twitter, yes, that is 30 seconds of your life you will NEVER get back. You are welcome.

For many years now, I have taken great pride in my ability to consume quantities of coffee that would make lesser men tremble, literally. I’ve boasted about how I, at the tender age of 10, would brew a pot of coffee and drink it before school, on my way to the bus stop. My coffee consumption is so great, that in most of the social circles I frequent, when the terms “Java Junkie” or “Coffee Addict” are brought up, my name is at the top of the list of given examples. In fact, the following graphic has been my avatar on most public sites for several years.

Some who know me have mentioned that I bear a certain likeness to the above image. Perhaps after a couple pots of my world famous (in my own mind) Jimbo’s Special Brew coffee. It’s about 50% stronger than the recommended directions… That’s for Colombian and Black Silk blends.

As a further testament to my fascination with coffee, for my Speech 111 class, I actually did my informative speech on coffee. If your curious how that went, you can read the post I wrote titled coffee talk. The actual speech is available in audio format with my wonderful wife as narrator. (Don’t kill me Amy! )

To most people, this mindless drivel can all be summed up as, “Ok, we get it, the guy likes his coffee. Big deal!” I thought the same thing so, I never made much of it other than the passing comment where it would get a chuckle. That is, until I started experiencing the dark side of caffeine addiction. (pun not intended)

As noted, my caffeine addiction started at a young age, approximately 10 yrs old. 21 years later, I’ve developed such a tolerance for caffeine that 2 NOS Energy Drinks barely give me a nudge and 3 pots of my special brew are my daily minimum. This has been the norm for several years now. So much so that all of my family, my doctor and my dentist have all told me to lay off the coffee!

Soft numbers do not tell much of a tale, but it wasn’t until recently that I cared about how much caffeine I was consuming. After all, it was my bragging right that I could drink more coffee than anyone I’ve ever met. So what if I exceed a gallon a day. Even better! But then, the health problems started.

About a year ago, I started having very frequent chest pains. At first, I didn’t think anything of it. After all, I had been having chest pains most of my life and I’ve never keeled over. As these pains became more frequent, I started to get concerned and started monitoring my blood pressure levels frequently. I was shocked at what I saw. Stage 1 high blood pressure: 140-159/90-99! I was on the low end, but there it was, bright as day on the little LCD screen.

At the time, I thought, meh, ok, so I’m drinking a little too much coffee, I should cut down to less than a pack of cigs a day and I need a less stressful job. While all of the above were certainly contributing factors, I underestimated how much of an effect caffeine had. I made some adjustments in my diet and lifestyle and my blood pressure eventually returned back down to relatively normal levels.

Several months passed and while those months were perhaps the most stressful I’ve had in many, many years, my blood pressure stayed within acceptable levels. However, my caffeine addiction wasn’t done with me yet. I was still drinking way more coffee than I should and this is definitely not a good thing for someone with ADHD.

As time passed, my coffee consumption continued to increase again. At first, it was just 1 more 8 cup pot a day, then two, then I started having “other” side effects. I ignored these side effects for a while and just chalked them up to the stress of moving. Eventually, these effects became more pronounced and started causing real problems in my daily routine. To give you a better idea of what excessive caffeine consumption can do to you, I’ve researched and come up with the following list of 10 symptoms that are rather common. All of which I have experienced personally.

1. Confusion
2. Dehydration
3. Frequent Urination
4. Increases Heart Rate
5. Insomnia/Waking Frequently
6. Irritability/Restlessness
7. Labored Breathing
8. Ringing In The Ears
9. Stomach Pain
10. Trembling And Twitching

There are other potential symptoms, and I have had other symptoms, but the above 10 are the most common.

So, how much caffeine does one have to consume to experience such symptoms. A couple pots of coffee? Two or three energy drinks? A six pack of Mountain Dew®? The answer is, it depends. For myself, I’ve spent 21 years building a tolerance to coffee that is the stuff of legends. I’m sure there are those who can tolerate more in one sitting, but I have consistently been consuming near fatal quantities for a very long time. To find out how much caffeine I’ve been subjecting my body to, I did some conservative calculations based on reputable values. Here’s what I found out.

Source: Caffeine Content of Coffee & Teas

Source: Caffeine Dosage by Erowid

Using the above charts, which come from Erowid, a reputable source in all things psychoactive, I measured the volume of my usual coffee cups, which is 12 oz.. Then, I filled enough cups to brew my usual “8 cup” pot going by the marking on my coffee pot. It takes 3 full [my] cups to equal 1 8 cup pot of coffee. This comes to 36 oz. I then divided the amount of caffeine in a 7 oz. cup by 7 oz. to come up with a single oz. value, then multiplied it by 36. Using the ranges given, here’s what I came up with.

80mg ÷ 7oz. = ~11.43 mg/oz.
135mg ÷ 7oz. = ~19.29 mg/oz.
~11.43 mg/oz. x 36oz = 411.48mg per pot min.
~19.29 mg/oz. x 36oz = 694.44mg per pot max.

Now, on an average day, I drink no less than 3 of these pots of coffee. So, we take our min. of 411.48mg then multiply it by 3 and get a whopping 1234.44mg per day minimum. To further sober up the mind, look at the much more likely number of 694.44mg x 3 = 2083.32mg per day. A 3 pot day is a slow coffee day for me and I know I make my coffee much stronger than recommended. However, for the sake of argument, let’s go with these conservative figures.

When I sat back this evening and looked at these figures after a very unpleasant day of being mentally foggy and quite “green in the gills” from drinking too much coffee, it really hit me, I have a problem. From that, I started wondering how many of my colleagues and friends have a similar problem and don’t realize it. That’s what prompted this post. I wanted to share what info I have found with others in the hope that, like me, when you look at the facts and figures, your eyes will be opened and you too will realize how dangerous another cup can be.

Starting this evening, I’ve been replacing the coffee I would normally drink in the evening with Decaf Chai Tea. The flavor is pleasant and it gives me that warm beverage I crave on a cold evening without the side effect of sleeplessness or the hyper ramp and crash of sugary drinks like hot cocoa. It’s going to be difficult to cut down on my addiction, but given how rotten I’ve felt for quite some time now, it will be for the best. Hopefully, cutting back on the stimulants will help me to regain some natural energy through a normal sleep patter. We will see.

A good friend of mine turned me to Hordit earlier today. He was able to obtain an invite key for me, but before I could even sign up, Hordit sent out an announcement stating that they’re opening their BETA to the public.

What makes Hordit special?

We don’t know any other online service where you can save all of your valuable items in one place. You don’t need a separate bookmarking site, photo site, and RSS feed reader. And we don’t know of any service that allows you to also save documents, PDFs, notes, and more. And don’t get us started on the Research Assistant, Groups, and other advanced functions…

Source: Hordit FAQ

Right now, their servers are taking a pounding! Groups are springing up everywhere and users are signing up in a constant stream! While the look of Hordit is a bit, well, orange, there is no denying that Hordit is a hot new item and is bound to find a useful place in your social networking toolkit. What surprises me the most about this new service is that you get UNLIMITED STORAGE for $0!

I don’t know about you, but I signed up while registration is still FREE!

Once you sign up, follow me on my Hordit Profile. If you know me, and you know who you are, send me a friend request.

Today, I spent much of my afternoon bouncing between working on some new theme code for ImpressCMS to make theme design a simpler affair and posting on the forums. Other time was spent reconnecting with long lost friends who I’ve missed dearly. In many ways, it was a great day to be around such a wonderful community of people, but it wasn’t without its bitter moments.

I started out just wanting to catch up on the latest posts and goings on in the world of iCMS, but I quickly got distracted by the conversation surrounding building a new wireframe theme that makes designing for iCMS much easier. Since themeing is my primary are of experience and interest, it was inevitable that I would be drawn to this issue.

Thanks to some valuable help from the community there, we’ve come up with a way for designers to develop themes that maintain compatibility with 2.0.x versions of XOOPS (what ImpressCMS started its development from), current versions of ImpressCMS (1.1) and future versions of ImpressCMS where the core will be rewritten with no compatibility with XOOPS. The basic idea is to use a theme_functions.php file to define the SMARTY variables used in the theme. These variables can be matched to any internal (core) variables, while allowing the theme dev to assign their own theme variables that make better since to them. Of course, it would be best to use standardized variables, and that ultimately is the goal. The main point is to remove platform specific variables from the theme.html file and, using 1 include line and 1 file, make it possible for theme devs to code for past, present and future versions.

This sort of technique greatly simplifies the update process. I can recall when XOOPS first launched 2.2. There was a huge stink in the community over the fact that 2.0.x themes were not fully compatible with the 2.2.x core. This carried on for a long time. Having had that experience, I know how frustrating it can be to have that “just right” theme and then the core changes and you either have to choose between loosing your precious design or not running the latest, secure, stable code. This isn’t a compromise site owners should have to make. The simple solution, create a definition file where theme devs can update 1 file and push it out to users as a simple one-step upgrade process.

It was suggested to make this part of the core. I have some ideas on how to do that, but more details on that will come later. I prefer to keep all theme related files as the responsibility of the theme designer for the greatest amount of flexibility, but with this particular model, it might just be simpler to include these definitions in a single core file that can be updated. We’ll see how this pans out. Regardless of how it is implemented, going to such a method where all variables are in 1 file will save time for theme developers and ImpressCMS will be able to move to a SMARTY variable convention that is more intuitive than the current xoThis/xoThat model.

Then, I got distracted by chatting with friends from that community, but more so by a very interesting conversation on what brought us to ImpressCMS. For some, this is such a trivial subject, but for some of us who were around before ImpressCMS, there is some emotion in this topic. For myself, it is a very emotional thing. I tend to throw myself into what I do with extreme dedication and when I looked back at my online history and what led from my first post on XOOPS.org to my current involvement in ImpressCMS, I have to admit, I almost got a little misty. A lot has happened in 4 1/2 years since I stopped lurking and started contributing to Open Source. A lot of good things, and some things that haven’t been so good.

All this got me thinking seriously about my 7+ years of working with Opens Source software. While there have been many good times and many bad times, what I need to take from these experiences are the friends I’ve made, the lessons learned and the skills I’ve obtained. I should take all these good things with me as I go forward into my next n years of involvement in Open Source software. However, what I need to leave behind is the emotion. The bitterness I’ve assigned to past perceived harms. I need to let go of these things and just move forward on a positive note.

It’s been a day of reflection, a day of emotional upheaval, a day of self discovery and a day of reconnection. As varied as it has been, it’s been a good day.