Random Order Weblog - Nothing’s too random!

Note: this post is a paid review of the ReviewMe.com site.

I was reading Aaron Wall’s blog over at www.SEOBook.com, and saw a new post about a service that he himself had actually released (I assume he is part of a team). The idea is a very cool one, and reminds me of what the founding principles for text link ads were just a few years ago. At that time, straight text links were really the key to high search engine rankings, and SEOs (as well as regular old web masters) were throwing money at anyone with a high PR site.

Today, what SEOs and site owners are looking for with regard to Google is a little more difficult to find. People are looking for contextual, relevant links that are incorporated into text and are on quality sites. Quality sites is no longer synonymous with high PageRank; today, the quality of a site is dependent on a number of factors, perhaps most importantly the concept of “Trust.” Is the site linked to by reputable sites? Does it have a natural linking structure? Or does it look like another SEOd spam site? The links you want are the ones from the most legitimate sites.

To the best of my knowledge, prior to the release of ReviewMe, no company has served as a facilitator for finding these kinds of links. I love the ReviewMe idea, which is essentially that blog owners could earn money by writing reviews of relevant sites on their blogs. The owner of the site being reviewed would then pay the blog owner and get a quality, contextual back link in return. All around a great deal, and a great company idea.

Having just graduated from college, I was getting ready to send out my resume to a number of prospective employers, but when I opened up the old file I quickly saw that what I had prepared a few years ago wouldn’t get me much attention. The resume looked dull and didn’t stand out, not to mention the fact that it was outdated and didn’t include my degree information or most recent employment history.

So, being the internet geek that I am, I of course began searching the web for a site that could help me put together a resume that would blow the others out of the water. I found a number of good sites explaining how to write a resume, and I feel like what I have now is a solid, well rounded, unique resume that will stand out and get me some attention.

Now that I have what I feel is a solid resume, I’ve sent it around to friends and family to get their input. I always find that it is hard to judge your own writing objectively, and hopefully this feedback will give me a unique perspective and ideally reveal some problems I might not otherwise have realized.

Once my counterparts have reviewed the resume, I’m going to look around at online job sites and also contact the career center at my old school (UCSC) to see what employers look best based on my individual skill set. I’m thinking of something that combines the tech industry with financial services—maybe a Wall Street type of firm with an emphasis on technology. The best, of course, would be a Venture Capital job, but those are just way too competitive for new college grads to really stand a chance, at least from what I have heard. I will probably try a few just in case, though, and I will be sure to keep the blog updated with my progress.

Later this year I will be taking a couple weeks off for a vacation somewhere outside of the United States.   I spent a year living in Denmark and traveled all over Europe, and while that was absolutely incredible, it has also made me want to travel in a “new,” less heavily traveled area.  I’m thinking that a trip to India could be just what I need.  Perhaps it is because I work with so many Indians on the internet and they have piqued my curiosity, or maybe it is just because India is a little bit more unique than the typical vacation destination; either way, I’m feeling pretty sure about it.

The question, then, is where in India is the best place for a tourist with absolutely no familiarity of the area to go?  I have had a couple recommendations from Indian friends online, including Tamil Nadu, Orissa, and Bihar.  Tamil Nadu is a state on the southern tip of India, while Orissa is an eastern Indian state about “mid-way” up.  Finally, Bihar is close to Orissa but a little further north.

While this is a good starting point, it is also obvious that I am going to have to narrow my selection as I am the kind of person that likes to relax in one place when I’m on vacation.  I don’t like to feel like I have more work to do when I’m away than when I’m home.  So with that in mind, I will be doing some reading on Orissa travel options as well as on Bihar travel and Tamil Nadu travel.  I think a good starting point is the forums, so that is where I’ll begin, and just sort of ask around and see what others have to say about these regions.  There is certainly no shortage of help to be found on the internet.

So maybe I am a little late, but I thought I should do a quick post on Halloween.  Chris and I both dressed up as “ninjas” (pardon my ignorance for those who are well-informed on martial arts). At first, we were trying to throw together costumes with things we had laying around the house, but we both ended up looking pretty silly and people couldn’t really tell what we were.  That would simply not do, so we started searching online for ninja costumes and what we ended up doing was purchasing costume materials from real martial arts sites.

There are a number of quality websites out there that can provide martial arts supplies that are completely authentic.  Although authenticity wasn’t our number one concern (we just wanted people to understand what we were), it was a nice bonus.  We ended up buying a bunch of sparring gear and wearing that as our costumes, so we were sort of “ninjas in training.”  I thought it was pretty cool.

We started the night out by heading to the big “Castro” party in San Francisco.  It seemed pretty insane with literally thousands of people roaming the streets.  Quite a few of the party participants were pretty heavily inebriated, and you could sort of tell something bad was going to happen.

After about an hour of hanging out, we heard a banging noise that sounded link fireworks, so we turned to look and saw that what we had thought was the bang of a firecracker was actually a gun shot.  It was quickly followed by about 10 more.  The crowd started literally stampeding away, with some people even pulling down fences to get as far from the action as possible.  Chris and I, being the morons we are, just sort of stood there.  After about 30 seconds we went over to see if anyone needed help, but the police were already on the scene and asked us to leave.  It turns out that we had actually seen seven people get shot in some kind of gang related violence.  Crazy night, eh?