Avianto's Journal

I know it is not spring yet here in Germany, still -5°C or so outside, but I am put a high hope for the incoming spring. So, here it is, “life’s like this – avianto’s journal” Spring 2005 Edition, code named Grass 1.0.

What’s new?

Except the graphic itself (pull it out quickly in an hour or so), there are nothing originally new but I add the new section called Linkages, which was previously known as “Recently Reading” column on the sidebar.

I thought you are busy?

I am. This update was not even in my time schedule. I was taking a break for a couple of hours and played around with some images tricks with Photoshop and boom, I created this. The rest were easy. Read them below under Implementation heading.

What’s next?

Some stuffs need to be done here absolutely:

• Re-writing my colophon page. It is getting a little bit out of date now.

• Cleaning up the archives. Especially those old entries from my Blogger‘s days. The title are messed up (Blogger didn’t have entry’s title option at that times) and the category are practically “uncategorized”.

• Re-done my photolog. It’s been long overdue.

• Re-done my front page.

Whoa! That’s a lot!

I know. I just put it here as my reminder list considering this website. After all, I still have a thesis to finish, right?

That’s all for now. Hope you all like the new layout. Time for me to get busy again.

Note: Web geekery stuff below, read this only if you are interested in web development stuffs.

Implementation

The rest were easy because this website is already structured well using XHTML. All I did was created a new stylesheet to change the overall looks (Try to do that with <table> based layout website, I dare you – Want a challenge?#[1]).

So no major code change in the HTML files?

No major change but I did a couple of minor changes just to ensure the structure of the code itself. Those minor changes were, not all, added some classes for a couple of header tag, fixed some structural mismatch tag placement and implemented Simple Clearing of Floats trick.

Neat, what else?

Well, I am still re-thinking about my understanding about accessibility and well-structured website for quite sometimes now.

[1]: The challenge is simple, try to create a well structured website using <table> based layout that could not be reproduced by a tableless based layout. Remember the sentence: “Well structured website”, er… the real question is could you built a well structured website using <table> based layout? Let me know.

I’ve been working on my Research Report for my thesis in some wee late hours currently. I found out that I was better operated after dark and not just because the school is turning pretty quiet but also the environment became enjoyable while there is only me and probably one or two other people around – it’s even better when nobody around.

Of course, working at late hours also mean that I experienced lack of sleep, I rarely sleep back at my apartment nowadays, well, to be honest I only went back home to take a shower. If this school had a shower I probably never went home grin.

I don’t know about most people but for me working late at night is still the best way to get things done more effectively. Loud music, some snacks, drinks and a healthy amount of coffee (is there any healthy amount of coffee anyway?) will keep me stay up all night doing things faster than a speed of light (OK, speed of light is an exaggeration but you get the idea).

Talking about music, I’ve been listening to Radio Wazee for the last couple of nights. I like their early morning, German Timezone, kind of music. Not too loud but not to soft, at least for me. It might not be your cup of tea but tho.

Anyway, I’ve been busy with all of this thesis stuffs so practically it means I will rarely update the journal. But, one or two surprises will come in the near future so keep watching .

Guess what, I’ve made a theme for WordPress 1.5. Huh? WordPress? Yeah, shoot me.

I called it Bricks and it can be downloaded here. So to any WordPress users out there, have fun with the theme.

Again, why did I made a theme for WP? Everybody know that I am quite fond of MovableType and still using it until now. Well, this theme is one of the alternative design created for ISNMblog and the ISNMblog is using WP. So, instead of throwing this alternative design into oblivion, why don’t I just make it available to everybody? Consider this as a good karma, right?

So yes, I am still using MT and don’t think of change it for now. To be honest I found WP’s coding style is quite scary, I like MT’s coding style better, but it is just me tho.

Anyway, if you are using WP, I hope you like the theme. Enjoy.

I really want to write about this issue for quite sometime but seems like this is a very sensitive issue for some people, especially those who done this kind of practice (Which somehow I just don’t get it why they take this as a sensitive issue). Let me assure you that this is purely my humble opinion about this particular issue. If you are feel insulted or any other of that feeling then I am practically sorry that you are feel like that but my opinion still stand, no matter what.

Shall we begin then? Let me start with a story.

There was a man living in a nice house with nice access to the main road. The house itsef is kinda nice, it’s quite huge (in fact, it looks like the house itself could expand as much as the man want) and the access to the main road is almost exclusively good – which for some people could cost a lot of money. It is a really nice house and it is free to use for the man. He doesn’t have to pay the rent, pay the maintenance (for the road and the house itself) and other payment.

The only catch is on the top of the front door, there is a sign that said were put by the provider of the house. Just a simple sign with a small logo of the provider with some unobstrusive information. Fair enough. The man is provided with a shelter and an access to the road while the provider put their small token on top of the front door.

But for unknown reason the man feel bothered with the sign. He desperately wanted to remove it. He tried couple of tricks to remove the sign. For unknown reason.

Fin.

So here is the summary, there was a man who were given a place to live and a very good access for free but in return he had to put a small sign on top of his front door. But for unknown reason he was still unsatisfied with that condition and want to get rid of that sign. For me, that isn’t make any sense or is it?

Now the real issue. Replace the ‘place to live’ to web space, the ‘very good access’ to bandwidth, the ‘sign’ to banner. And make that more specific I emphasise on three words: Blogger, Blogspot and Blogger NavBar. I hope you ‘ll get my point.

Blogger NavBar isn’t even a banner. According to Blogger:

The Blogger NavBar is a navigation bar and toolbar with a form that allows people to search just your weblog using Google’s SiteSearch and gives you the ability to check out what’s happening on other recently published blogs with one click. This bar replaces the advertisements that used to be displayed at the top of some blogs.

So would somebody be so kind to enlight me about this simple question:

What is the reason to remove Blogger NavBar if you are having your weblog hosted at Blogspot?

Please, enlight me because right now I am so curious about it.

Note: This entry was inspired by the ongoing debate in id-gmail mailing list. Read the thread (In Indonesian). It is kinda amusing read if you ask me, because this particular character was not even answering the question but covered a wide array of issue including software piracy, type of sentences, the inability to understand the meaning and so on. And this particular character also heavily using the fallacies strategy again and again! Amazing.

Search Engine Optimatisation or SEO is one of the biggest buzz word nowaday. That’s one of many reason why comment spams becoming huge too.

The definition of SEO itself are quite vary from website to website but I quote the most relevant one here:

A form of online marketing, search engine optimization (or search engine marketing) is the process of making a site and its content highly relevant for both search engines and searchers. Successful search marketing helps a site gain top positioning for relevant words and phrases. (source)

Sounds reasonable. Ah, you are hear the “but…” word coming, right?

One of the most common trick known is to manipulated the famous META tags and poluted it with some words that considered related to the particular website. This is the oldest trick ever.

Another trick is the reason why weblog’s comment spams become huge nowadays. It is the link, stupid! We will have to see the result of the “nofollow” strategy implemented by Google but I guess this tricks will getting old soon.

What a bunch of craps.

Really, I am with Tom Coates’s side on this issue. I am against those kind of SEO’s practices.

That’s also why most of SEO-expert hate weblogs so much, because by default (thanks to the default template of the most popular weblog engine like Blogger, MovableType and WordPress) weblog is practically:

• semantically structured and thus ranking higher on almost every search engine (Especially with Google).

• Use <title> tags properly.

• Has Permalink by default.

• Has CONTENT. The content could be crap but at least it is THE content. Something that most commercial-oriented website seems to forget.

Those four basic things are more important than most SEO mumbo-jumbo tricks like manipulating META tags. That is the blatantly truth. That’s why weblog get the higher ranking on the search engine and that is why most of the so-called-SEO-experts hated weblog so much. Weblogs destroyed their tricky practices. Boohoo.

If you really really want to have the SEO strategies running for your website: Don’t employ the so-called-SEO-experts, most of them will just give you bullshit, your website probably will rank up for a couple of months and then vanished into search engine oblivion. In fact do what Coates’ said:

employ people who build good sites from the start, with clear and addressable pages, clean code, good copy, decent UI and navigation etc.

Or you could use the real SEO’s strategies described in the following websites/articles:

• 456 Berea Street – Search Engine Optimisation Archives

• Digital Web Magazine – SEO and Your Web Site

• More will come…

Now, start creating your great website!!!