Waffling

International Federation for Alternative Trade ifat.org dropped

Looks like someone dropped the ball at the International Federation for Alternative Trade IFATand forgot to renew the domain ifat.org

It is now pointing to a new site and passing on all the PR and link juice from all the fairtrade websites who haven’t noticed the site is no longer there and are still linking to it.

The site it is being pointed to appears to be in the process of being set up as a directory, no doubt to use the PR7 status to get people to register.

Who says black hat and opportunism doesn’t pay

Who’d have thought some air freight would get me back in the good books?

This week I’ve earnt myself some serious Brownie points with my beloved wife! And yes, it’s such a rare occurrence that it makes me want to blog about it!

My partner came home from work incredibly stressed the other evening. She does have a one hell of job though, as she’s responsible for transportation and logistics at a small London-based clothing company. This ‘fall’, as the Americans say, the label has been invited to show their spring 2011 collection at New York Fashion Week for the first time ever!

Now whilst you and I would think this is good news, for my wife it meant working out how to get the goodies over to the US of A. It seems air freight is the only way to transport these precious payloads (as she keeps telling me, each piece is lovingly made by hand and a one off, so technically priceless!).

Problem is, air freight is also notoriously expensive. Having spent the best part of a working day trying to get quotes for airfreight companies, my nearest and dearest came home tired and (dare I say it) grumpy.

Recently, I read about a website that claims to sort out the most competitive quotes going for all types of shipping, including air freight services from the UK. Once I’d found the site at deliveryquotecompare.com, I registered and put up the details of the shipment.

Now what happens next is the clever bit. I chose the auction format, which means all companies bidding to air freight your goods can see what each rival company has bid, which generally means the price gets lower, not higher! Brilliant!

Sure enough a couple days later there was a raft of quotes from international air freight carriers to choose from. I have to say my wife was suitably impressed and the website has been firmly bookmarked as a favourite in the office for future shipments. Result.

Michael Dawson Injury

Anyone have any idea how bad the Michael Dawson Injury is yet?

Hurricane Earl

Why is it called Hurricane Earl ?

What does Randy think about it?

Did something go wrong at Google August 12th to August 20th

Seeing a lot of strange google cache problems between August 12th and August 20th and also seeing pages that have got cache dates between August 12th and August 20th are not appearing when doing a site: search.

Did something go wrong at Google between 12th August and 20th August 2010?

Hen Themed Christmas Hampers

Nice to see our friends over at AHIFC – A Hen is for Christmas have put together a special section of Themed Christmas Hampers

They appear to have 3 hen themed hampers at the moment

1. Egg themed Christmas Hampers
2. Poultry themed Christmas Hampers
3. Hen Gift Themed Christmas Hampers

No prices displayed yet, but from what I can remember, their chicks were going cheap last year.

Does anyone actually use google when shopping

It may sound strange – but think about the last 20 products you purhased online and how many of them did you actually buy via a google search?

I’ve just checked the purchases I have made this year;

A couple of  album downloads – iTunes

Software for PC – Amazon

wii games – Amazon

Clothes – Marks and Spencers

Clothes – Next

Clothes – Joules (catalogue in post)

Toys for kids birthday – Argos

Books for kids bithday – Amazon

Toys for kids bithday – Amazon

New washing machine – Currys

Stationary – Staples

Ink – CartridgeSave (got a sticker on my printer from somewhere)

New cooker – Currys

Vacuum cleaner – Currys

In fact I can’t remember a single thing I have bought via a google search, I might flick through google to compare prices, but still end up going direct to the same places even if they are up to 20% more expensive.

How long will Google Blog Search stay in BETA

I must have been using Google Blog search for at least 2 or 3 years so are surprised that it is still in BETA testing.

Just how much longer will Google Blog Search stay in BETA or is it one of those things that they will be constantly testing and experimenting on?

Which leads to the question, as Google search is constantly tweaked and experimented with, Why isn’t that classed as being in BETA?

Things you put off, then after doing, wish you had done months before

I’ve always just used email addresses on by business directory site but have been meaning to set up contact forms for at least 18 months.

I finally got round to doing a couple today and can see straight away how much easier it is going to make my life.

Rather than just receive emails with only half the information I need to update business listings, I now have a couple of forms set up with fields for the relevant questions.

It’s already showing how much better it is, I’ve done 3 updates and 4 password retrievals already, and what used to take minutes now only takes seconds.

Must get around to looking at other things I have been putting of, as I wish I had set these forms up months ago.

Inside AdSense blog allowing comment spam

We all have problems with comment spam and blog spam, but surely Google should be doing something about all the comment spam they allow on their own blogs.

The Inside AdSense blog is full of comment spam, including links to porn sites.

Why are Google allowing this?

Not only does the spam appear on the comments of the page, they are also sent to my gmail account everytime someone comments on a post I have previously commented on.

Come on Inside AdSense team, Sort out all this comment spam please.