Archive for September, 2005

Enchanting at the Apprentice Level

Tuesday, September 13th, 2005

Enchanting is perhaps one of the most difficult trade skills to level up, especially at low levels. Materials generally have to be extracted from magic items or dropped from tough creatures, so they can’t be farmed in the same way as ores and herbs. Despite this, there are a few ways to help increase your [...]

Why I Don’t Watch the News

Monday, September 12th, 2005

I have a coworker who is always going on about something, be it oil prices or a pandemic bird flu. He does this because, in my opinion, he’s buying into everything that the popular media tells him. I know other people like him who are all hooked on some kind of daily news, be it [...]

The Deadmines

Monday, September 12th, 2005

My big event over the weekend was going partying in the Deadmines, an instance dungeon located beneath a building in Moonbrook. It is probably one of the more popular dungeons in the region, lovingly referred to as the “DM”. There are a few words of wisdom I have to impart for those brave enough to [...]

SEO the White

Friday, September 9th, 2005

In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the white wizard Sarumon goes from being wise and benevolent to sharing in the domination of Middle Earth. This character shift quite eloquently demonstrates the differences between white hat and black hat search engine optimization. Try to remember scenes from the movies and the parallel becomes clearer. Imagine [...]

The Adventure Begins

Friday, September 9th, 2005

I bought World of Warcraft last weekend primarily as a way to spend time with my brother and feed my starving need for fantasy. Of course, there was also an element of personal fascination as well. In college, I was a big fan of Final Fantasy XI. I also recently discovered that a good number [...]

The Golden Equation of Online Marketing

Wednesday, September 7th, 2005

Making profit on the web may be a well-accepted fact of the information age, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Many would-be internet entrepreneurs lose focus of the ultimate goal. A website may have a lot of traffic but produce few conversions, or turn over a great conversion rate with very little value. The [...]

Overworked and Underpaid

Wednesday, September 7th, 2005

I looked through the news on Slashdot this morning and came across a listing of average salaries for the information technology industry. This made me curious, so I decided to do some searching on the web to find out what the general concensus was. According to the rest of the world, how much is my [...]

Over Optimization

Tuesday, September 6th, 2005

Often thought of as the bogey man of SEO circles, the supposed penalty for excessive optimization is a matter of some debate. The real question is quite simple. Do the search engines penalize sites that appear to be over-optimized for rankings? If so, what constitutes an unacceptable level of optimization? Furthermore, where is the line [...]

Change of Pace

Tuesday, September 6th, 2005

Since my brother stopped coming to Talan and gas prices have gone through the roof, I’ve been looking for a way to spend some time with him from a distance. At the same time, my D&D group hasn’t met in well over a month now, so I’ve been jonesing for some fantasy immersion. I came [...]

Outsourcing SEO

Friday, September 2nd, 2005

The question inevitably comes to many website owners whether or not to bring in an outside expert to manage their site’s search engine optimization. It is, after all, a specialized discipline in and of itself, no less detailed than web development or graphical design. Given its importance, should it be entrusted to a competent but [...]