RORY HANSEN

So, if you haven’t wasted 30 minutes yet flipping through the new Gmail themes, go do it now. Then come back and join the conversation. ;-)

My favourites were Ninja, Cold Shower, Shiny, and Tree, but I also did like those cartoon-ish themes like Bus Stop and Tea House, too.
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I just found out I won a $350 multi-function color printer!

A few weeks ago, I entered the TechVibes Small Business Week contest by commenting on one of their small business posts. It’s the kind of contest I don’t mind entering, because it’s quick and easy to write a comment, plus you might also get a few extra hits from your website link in the comment signature.

Anyway, I’m pretty stoked. I don’t have a printer at the moment, so I’ll be sure to put it to good use.

Here’s what it looks like:

Thanks TechVibes!

One of the WordPress plug-ins I use on my blog is the great Show Top Commentators plug-in, which displays the top commentators each month on the blog sidebar. I feel it really helps to create a sense of community and even GIVE BACK to the community of readers by rewarding those readers who help to keep the dialog going each month. Each of the top commentators receives a site-wide link back to their website/blog, which is essentially a free (unpaid) text link ad.

Half-way through November, the top commentators on my blog are:

Stew Babcock

Heather in Beautiful BC

PuReWebDev

Annalise

This is a really easy way to advertise your website and generate a little more traffic. So, if you have something to add, please leave a comment!

On Halloween, I wrote that my SERP’s (Search Engine Ranking Positions) were totally off-the-wall, with keywords that I was once ranked #2 and #3 and #4 for showing no ranking at all. My niche website had essentially disappeared from Google’s radar for these high-traffic keywords, resulting in a > 75% drop in traffic. Forums like SitePoint and DigitalPoint and WebmasterWorld were filling with posts of weary webmasters, concerned about their keyword positions changing for the worse.

Thankfully, SERP’s seem to be returning to where they were pre-Halloween, as in the last 24 hours I’ve started to regain my keyword positions. (At least for some keywords.) I expect the Google Dance to go on for another 24 hours or so, after which time things should be back to normal.

I’ll be doing a more complete write-up of this after work today, but from the reading I’ve been doing, it seems to have been a Google error, where they accidentally reverted to old indexing data.

Are you on Twitter? I am.

If you’re looking to add to your daily intake of distracting tweets, feel free to add me. You can find me under @rhansen.

On other Twitter-related news, Darren Rowse (of ProBlogger.net fame) has launched his newest blog TwiTip, with the clever tagline, “Twitter Tips in 140 Characters or More.”

The most amusing part of the site so far is his blog’s tag cloud.

Can you imagine what it’s going to look like when the blog really get’s going?! “T”-overload!

A friend sent me this video tonight. I think it’s amazing.

This post is by guest contributor Jay Lee, an aspiring filmmaker and creative writer who provides commentary on movies, literature, and video games through his blog, TrainWreckIdeas.

Vulgarity and crude jokes are the basic ingredients of a great Kevin Smith movie, and never have they been used so fittingly.  Funny while funny looking Seth Rogen, alongside up and coming Elizabeth Banks, star in Silent Bob’s “Zack and Miri Make a Porno”. 

Two lifelong friends find themselves in a monetary crisis and make an amateur porno to dig their way up.  As with all solutions, it includes pitfalls that can trap you in a deeper hole than the one before.  Bye-bye money issues, hello relationship issues.  “Never thought of the repercussions of sleeping with someone you’ve known your whole life? What are you, slow?”

Seth Rogen had always been a funny cat with his unforgettable roles in “Freaks and Geeks” and “Undeclared”.  In the last few years, he had proven himself to be Hollywood’s newest comedic powerhouse with his roles in Judd Apatow’s “40 Year Old Virgin”, “Knocked Up”, and “Superbad”.  Now throw in some witty dialogue from Kevin Smith’s repertoire, and you get comedy’s hottest dynamic duo, a funnier, not quite Oscar-esque version of Depp and Burton if you will.

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and has been the hype for the last couple of months.  With great reviews outside of his core audience (unlike Mallrats), Smith might be looking to crack the $30 million barrier on the opening weekend (His previous highest grossing flick was Dogma which grossed approximately $30 million in total).  With a gut busting supporting crew that includes: Jason Mewes (Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back), Jeff Anderson (Clerks, Clerks 2), Craig Robinson (The Office, Pineapple Express), Justin Long (Live Free of Die Hard, Accepted), Brandon Routh (Superman Returns) as well as adult industry superstars Traci Lord and Katie Morgan, that barrier doesn’t look too hard to break at all.

My friend Keith, who is an avid contributer to a few technology podcasts, is working on a new mission: To get his KickJoey website to PageRank 1 within the week.

For those that follow PageRank updates, you might already know the unlikeliness of this happening, considering that Google hasn’t updated PageRanks since July (or February, depending on what info you follow). But, hey, a mission is a mission, and you never know!

Anyway, head on over to the KickJoey website and share your PageRank opinions. Does Keith have a chance?

Just got back from Green Lemon Grass restaurant, where John Chow (yes, that John Chow) was hosting this week’s Dot Com Pho meetup. It was my first time attending Dot Com Pho, and driving to the restaurant, I had no idea what to expect.

In total, there were about 11 people there, including the focus of one of John’s recent posts, Tim Sykes. In a nutshell, Tim’s story is that, as a teenager, he managed to turn his $12,000 of Bar Mitzvah gift money into $1.65 million dollars by shorting stocks. He’s in town for a seminar, and I guess John convinced him to come out to Dot Com Pho as well.

I really enjoyed the 2 hours we spent at the restaurant, casually chatting about politics (both Canadian and American), blogging, and any other topic that sprang to mind. But most of all, I appreciated meeting so many new contacts in the Vancouver-area that are interested in blogging, blogging for money, and making money online through a variety of mediums. Of course, meeting John Chow, Internet Blogging Celebrity, was definitely a bonus.

Actually, no, the real bonus was walking away with some Dot Com Pho schwag. Courtesy of Market Leverage, I received an “I’m blogging this” t-shirt, and from Tim (or John, maybe) I got a signed copy of Tim Sykes’ new book An American Hedge Fund, which details “How [He] Made $2 Million as a Stock Operator & Created a Hedge Fund.”

Have you seen the updated Yahoo! Sports website? What do you think?!

Personally, I like most of the new look. Not sure I dig the excessive use of graphics on the homepage, but whatever, it’s their website not mine. (I mean, the main reason I visit the Yahoo! Sports website in the first place, instead of TSN.ca or Sportsnet.ca is because it’s quick loading and the information I want is readily accessible. More graphics mean it takes longer to get to what I want.)

I do like the sharp new look and the fresh colors. Out with the old off-white and grey and in with some bolder, more vibrant colors.