I’m a survivor (what),
I’m not gonna give up (what),
I’m not gon’ stop (what),
I’m gonna work harder (what),
I’m a survivor (what),
I’m gonna make it (what),
I will survive (what),
Keep on survivin’ (what),
I’m a survivor (what),
I’m not gonna give up (what),
I’m not gon’ stop (what),
I’m gonna work harder (what),
I’m a survivor (what),
I’m gonna make it (what),
I will survive (what),
Keep on survivin’ (what).

Ignore all users in the upper case, ignore all letters in the lower case; debug the system to the kernel trace retrace the face – it’s not your case ! Pretend to know what’s going on remove all data and then move on. Delete all functions in the local space pretend that you come from outer space. It’s not your case, it’s not your case and let the management do the chase. It’s not your case, it’s not your case, rejoice refill then drop the base !

Every ugly duck has the power to overcome the ridiculing, harassing, bullying and negligence from the rest of the duck flock, knowing that something way beyond that temporary shape and form, appearance and outlook is lurking, waiting to come out true and transform the ugly reality into a beautiful dream.

Every caterpillar learns not only to climb and chew leaves, but one day – after a rather drastic transformation – to fly and drink nectar happily.

Every ugly duck has the initial, granted, God-given and absolute rights to become…
a Swan.

And to start singing Swan Songs !

and struck me with and arrow right
from his bow like a lightning bright

and pierced deeply happy heart
and made my soul sing and cry loud

ascended right from down below
no darkness anymore – no hollow glow

but flight of spirit freedom flow
a chance of love a chance to grow

Prague Sep 12 2011

To fit into modern day dynamics of the real life SEO one has to spend a lot of time and energy following new in an industry where things change by the hour. What was working fine yesterday might not be the best practice of today and that is literally, no metaphorical use and pun play with the words. Rarely y0u can find a field that is so dynamic and flexible. That might seem unreliable and unstable at a glance, but is in fact more solid than it seems. There are millions of people expressing their ideas or simply promoting their products and services using billions of web pages. And of course, not all of them play fair, not all of them are extremely ethical and here we come with the heaviest task – how to filter the junk out of that huge crowd so that we have only meaningful quality present to the end user.

That task is the major drive for search engines to change and tweak their algorithm so frequently.

Our task, as SEO professionals is to adapt to the changes and withstand the storms.

All well and working now.  The hash tag is appended automatically due to the way it handles the parameter passed in the HTML code.

And the code is simple. In the part:

data-via="TWITTERNAME">Tweet</a>

I just added:

data-via="TWITTERNAME #HASHTAGS">Tweet</a>

Nice and simple dirty and fully functional hack !

Based on Sun Tzu’s teachings with quotes that focus on certain aspects of it, the articles lead you trough his visions about how it applies to modern-day SEO warfare.

The analogy is not at all wrong and out of scope – this is a highly competitive market, so one need not question its war-like association. But it is neither about aggression, nor about violence. It is about art. Strategies requires flexibility both of mind and tools, thinking outside the box and beyond the patterns.

Each piece contains a quote from Sun Tzu followed by an interpretation that fits the environment which every SEO-warrior is facing. And each interpretation is not a strict set of rules to follow but a food for thought and inspiration.

Enjoy reading them as I did and do turn back to them from time to time !

It is as simple as that – each technology, be it manifested or not, virtual or real, present or past, future or unborn, is preceded by the thought process that creates it. There should not be argument, just because it is from the type of being obvious. Neverthelessm, the argument is present and the first time I expressed such idea the chicken-egg example was brought into the discussion. And of course, I’m not totalitarian person, discussion and argument are welcome, but what was stated is that it seems redundant and useless for the concept seems rather obvious to the point of being unbeatable – and that is that each and every piece of existent or not technology has been preceded by thought. Therefore the initial technology, the utmost important one is the thought, the thinking process, labor of the mind.

Briefly, it turned out that economics is something extremely vital and not at all dull ( to all of us who live full with prejudice ). Not only that – I was asking myself one general question. Do authors who focus on certain topics only keep focused on the problems they analyze or do the offer solutions. This is a major paradigm – whether one stays onto the problem, or moves attention towards possible resolutions; and the simple answer is “yes” – with time I realized that most of them are not only discussing the issues, they are as well bringing awareness of the possible solutions.

My first encounter with “Project Syndicate” happened when applying for a programmer job.

The interview all of sudden turned direction towards “what are you doing at the moment”, and of course I had to reply with the actual facts that currently I was working on some SEO projects, one of which was media-related. That seemed to ring a bell into the interviewer’s ear, and apparently he was the CEO of the association ( “Project Syndicate” is but an association of newspapers, that’s where the “syndicate” comes from ). He asked few more questions about it, obviously interested, then he said “OK, what about you making an audit of our site”. I was totally cheered up and the report was ready within the same day. He seemed to like it and his attention was caught – and that’s how it all started.

Within the first phase of my work with them I was partially involved in some programming work; struggling to make my way around with a colleague that wouldn’t bother much to share things essential for our mutual work and my own misfit for that. I admit that during my programmer’s career there is one thing that has become crystal clear: my way of thinking ( and I’m totally fond, proud and excited about that ) is so multidimensional, so when it comes to performance within the narrow minded scope of how programming languages work I do not totally fail, for I can do it quite well, but I do not perform as the ‘gurus’ in the field do. For which I’m completely happy – the more I’m away from it, the better I feel. If anyone is still confusing intelligence with programming language skill let this human mix the two no more, please ! Thank God, human intelligence is something way beyond programmer’s heaven of one-track minds.

]]> http://seokungfu.com/writings/2010/08/17/my-story-with-project-syndicate-and-its-vast-influence-on-my-life-not-the-average-job/feed/ 2 http://seokungfu.com/writings/2010/07/18/the-flow-of-the-days/ http://seokungfu.com/writings/2010/07/18/the-flow-of-the-days/#comments Sun, 18 Jul 2010 09:55:13 +0000 admin http://seokungfu.com/writings/?p=120 The sun rises and sets down the weather changes and time goes by we feel different while staying the same we know nothing but still we urge fame we chase savings and follow our cravings towards same endings with different blending.

We know what is the price of dispair we learn only to play fair in order to break the rules learnt in schools.

Now people come asking me to work for them.

Keep your place in the line, gents !

It’s been times when I was showing off and applying on your ads with utter persistence and to receive rejects after the other; now it’s the time for me to be as picky as ya’all were, right !

No, I’m not revengeful. I’m using my human right to chose to do what I love.

And I adore and love doing SEO Kung Fu.

It was a hard, lonely fight, it was a long and hard path, but now the first mountain peak has been climbed, the first stretch of the road passed, and the first cream of the crop harvested.

It was not a pleasure to live with your neglegance and rude attitudes ( if someone tells me that receiving rejection for a job you know you fit right, for something you enjoy doing and that’s the reason of applying – that person is either callous, or senseless, or both! ), but my heart is not bad and my soul is forgiving. I had hard times not going back in industries and professions from my past, only to be dedicated to my SEO passion and love. Now we are here awaiting the industry boom. The SEO industry boom, i.e.

I refused, being natural lover, instead I used that old herb. Being sensitive enough, I discovered that it helps a lot; while meditating I can “examine” my own parts of the body and see what and how works well.

Marijuana saved my life.

And here are two sites that I support, one is “Promena” ( “Change” ) and the other is “Legalizace.cz“.

I write in Promena on medical use news, and drop a comment once in a while in Legalizace.cz, being in the same lovely country where the site is – the beautiful Czech republic.

So stop chasing the wonderful God’s medicine, do your proper jobs, cops!

That explains the use of personal involvement at first glance. So to speak I’m turning to a new web project just like I would turn to a person, and for me that is indistinguishable. The web project is a living creature, has its own life, soul, development, growth and faith. It doesn’t matter how “big” it is, what matters is how you feel about it. If it’s something that is just on the background of your thoughts, on the surface of your sences and on the edge of your perception then you aren’t living that time of yours fully ! You’re just like many others doing it because you must, not because you want and like it ! Mind the difference ?

Getting back the focus on the topic – I actually want to share what and how I do when starting a new project. First of all I don’t look at the code at the very beginning at all, no matter how experienced, in technical regard, I am. The first thing to do is to take a look at the site and to decide what is its “personality”, yes that is the word in question ! What is your first feeling, impression ? Do you feel good, or  bad, or anxious about it ? Do you like it or not ? What are the chances for the thing you see to grow and develop in a good, positive manner from your interaction ? Generally speaking, the first thing to know is how do you perceive the new acquaintance. And if you feel great about it – go ahead. If not – decide whether you want it. Is it worth time, and if your time is just money then you’re merely cynical and I don’t mind if you feel offended by that fact !

Once you get over that very first step that will be crucial for the lifetime of the project span, you must forget, for a while about all your knowledge. To get into the shoes of a normal user as much as possible. To forget all the code, formulas and spells you know and to test the usability, yes this is the word, the term that measures the interactional functionality of a web site – it’s merits userwise. How easy is to make what you’re supposed to do with it, how clear the actions are, how well unprepared person, unaware of all the features can handle the tasks that one is supposed to achieve. But, of course – back to technical grounds – this is just the minimum usability that we’ll cover for now, plus, it’s not the main focus. Although – remember that – really important !

Next action is after you check the user usability is to take notes. Start immediately, don’t waste no second, start with any assossiation that comes to mind, write down even seemingly unimportant things that cross your thoughts.

And that is just the first glance.