Index of /Content/Online

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	[Parent Directory]	-	Sat May 23 11:18:18 2009
	Search Engine Optimization	-	Sun Apr 04 08:21:19 2010
	Every now and again I seem to fixate on some topic for a few weeks and attempt to learn everything I can about that topic. To give you an example, earlier this year it was woodworking with hand tools. It was a fun topic, and I learned a lot. Anyway, this new phase finds me a bit obsessed with Search Engine Optimization, or just SEO for short. I figure since I’m starting to get back into web design again, I might as well learn how to promote a site correctly since this seems to be something that is overlooked by most web designers. The problem with learning SEO is that it is treated like Voodoo – many people claim to practice it, but most people have no idea how it works. Those that do, make it seem very mysterious so that they can sell you either some information or tools that allow you to do it better. It also doesn’t help that when learning about SEO you will eventually cross paths with the internet marketers. These guys not only want to sell you tools to help you manage your SEO “empire”, but they also want to charge you every month to be part of their network and send you information. Everything I’ve learned so far says say away from these guys since much of the back-end information these tools allow you to access are being pulled from publicly available sources like Google and Alexa anyway – you just have to dig to get it. These guys marketing to the same type of people that start playing MMORPGs and buy the top quality game equips so that they can be “733t” on the server from day one rather than learning how to play the game. Already the research is starting to pay off as I’ve managed to promote the Dragoon web site in the Google search rankings from #48 to #28 when I checked this morning. Not bad for making a few adjustments to the HTML and waiting just over 2 weeks. At some point I need to do a revamp of this site and take the information I’ve learned about SEO so far and do something with it. The question is: Do what with it? Filed under: Online, SEO. No comments.
	Dragoons.info Website Makeover	-	Thu Mar 11 21:20:32 2010
	Some of you might remember me saying in the past that I don’t do web site development for people. Dealing with clients can be a very unpleasant experience, and this is the primary reason that I was happy to just do corporate intranet stuff at Big Pharma. Well, now that I find myself unemployed for longer than expected (even after taking most of January off) I find myself in need of a web site portfolio for some of the jobs I’m considering, and trying to describe web sites that that are behind corporate firewalls isn’t going to cut it. So, I now find myself making a few exceptions to that rule. The first exception in finally online, and while changes are still being made to the site (photos being updated, last of the old pages being converted), I invite you to have a look for yourself: www.dragoons.info. To really get an idea as to how much of a change this was, let me show you some screen shots of how the site used to look… As you can see from the screen shots, the old version of the site was not far away from centered links and animated GIFs, but for circa 1999, the site was par for the course. Given that it had been almost 10 years since the last major update, you could see that an update was required. Filed under: Online. No comments.
	January Posts	-	Thu Feb 04 20:36:05 2010
	In case anyone is bothering to read this I’m still in the process of cleaning up a few January unposted entries that may or may not appear in the near future. Rather than let this hold things up, I’ve decided to proceed with newer posts and fix the old ones later. It’s not like I’ve been doing anything interesting last month, so you are not missing much. Filed under: Online. No comments.
	Copper Plating	-	Fri Aug 07 21:50:00 2009
	One problem with casting Rev War era coins is that many of the ones that were in common use were made of copper or silver. The “silver” ones are easy to make using pewter because the metal looks about the same. The copper ones, however, are a bit more of a problem - or were a problem until I ran across this video… This is nice in that it doesn’t involve any dangerous arsenic-based solutions like gold and silver electroplating processes do. A more complicated setup for copper coating lead bullets can be found here. I do believe my copper coin problem may be solved. Filed under: Coin, Online, Pewter Casting. No comments.
	#2 on Google - WTF?	-	Tue Jun 16 21:17:40 2009
	This is really strange. If you Google the words “banknote” design” you will, for some unknown reason, see this site listed in the #2 spot (#2 out of 819,000 total hits). I thought this was a glitch in the ranking system when I first noticed it last month, but it seems that was not the case since my ranking is still the same. Either I’m a genius with the Google keyword/ranking game (not likely) or I’ve stumbled across a very under manipulated set of keywords. Filed under: Online. No comments.