Get more traffic, and become a better writer at the same time.

I'll start with an example: My most visited post is a collection of free images. Yet I didn't use the word "free" (I overlooked the obvious) when I first wrote the post. Later I noticed someone who found it by searching for "free vertical wallpaper." Once I saw that, I rewrote the post to include the word "free" where appropriate.

Add words to articles you've already posted from time to time

So here's my advice: Whenever you see someone using words to find a post that you didn't use in that post, consider adding those words to the post. You'll get more traffic from the search engines, and more of it will be people actually looking for what you have to offer.

To keep it simple, take a look at this live tracking of visitors to this blog. Scroll down. See the word in pink? Those are the keywords visitors typed into search engines to find this blog.

You could also look through your site analytics for keywords to add, or do keyword research in advance with the aid of a tool (the pro method), but a simple starting point would just be to sign up for the free visitor tracking service from feedjit and take a look at your live results from time to time. Easy and fun!

Learn from your readers

Of course, this is another way of listening to and learning from your audience. And that always makes for a better writer! People will share concepts relevant to what you are writing about beyond simple synonyms if you'll listen to them.

Another advantage to reviewing the keywords people are using to find you is sometimes you'll realize there is more to be said on a particular topic. Yesterday my wife noticed dozens of new visitors to her blog coming from the keyword PhotoFunia (it's cool--take a look!) She immediately expanded the post they were coming to, and more people have now begun visiting additional pages on her blog.

Watch how people are finding your site, and your readers will have helped you learn what you have to share that can help them, making you a better and more popular writer!

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Is a new generation of smart objects about to change our lives?

An MTI Micro Mobion fuel-cell recently worked for 2,700 hours of continuous use in a cell phone. (Press release.)  



While amazing, what really startles me is how much this could change our world. This was a very small, lightweight battery. Combined with technologies like Skyhook, a technology that can fit on a mere camera memory card and yet can pinpoint your location without GPS in 70% of populated areas in the U.S. and Canada (and 50% of Europe), our world---and privacy---is changing rapidly.



For example, the just-released iPhone pinpoints your location in three (!) ways: by GPS, and by triangulating from both Wi-Fi hot spots (Skyhook) and cellphone tower proximity (Google system). It really strikes me how there has been a very small technology barrier--mostly having to do with cost---that has kept a lot of new "smart devices" from invading our lives. As new products come faster and faster to market (particularly in Japan) it seems there is very little keeping smart objects in products and materials from dramatically changing our lives.  



How could smart objects change our world?



How about sensors built throughout bridges, transmitting data about stress, aging and damage? Locks could transmit their state. Know the status of all doors at your house, business, storage unit, vacation cabin, etc. What if you could call your key ring (or purse, bicycle, pet collar, etc.) and have it beep, flash a light, send a GPS coordinate and a low-res 180 degree photo from it's current location? Any valuable object of sufficient size could come pre-built with an embedded device for tracking.



Kiss your privacy goodbye?



The forces that want to track our every movement have several technology barriers to doing so. The biggest one is not being able to use inexpensive devices with simple power requirements. Add wireless, GPS and RFIDs to self-powered smart objects and it's game-changing. Low power sensors and displays could last for decades with this kind of technology, all without being connected to any kind of power. Security cameras could be in a lot more places. You could embed RFIDs into building components and have workers wear transmitters at work (or vice-versa) to quickly find workers on large projects.  



Instantly more popular devices



Things like wearable computers, wireless photo frames, battery-operated lights (like stick-up closet lights) and electric screwdrivers just got a lot more popular. Toy designers can now look forward to what they can create with a lot more action to them now that worrying about frequent charging or battery changes can be a thing of the past. But add a little solar power boosting and a wireless data connection and it's mind-boggling what is possible (not to mention GPS, RFIDs, motion sensing, etc.) Smart objects could be everywhere and anywhere.  



Remote controls



This means more things could be operated with a remote control. Your office chair could work like the electric seat adjustments in a luxury car, with a touch control under the armrest operating a battery pack under the chair. You could have stick lights under railings that glow to illuminate the stairs for safety, recharging via solar when bright, glowing only when needed.  



Combine with RFIDs, GPS and motion sensors



For things that move, put a motion sensor and GPS on them and transmit via the mobile phone network or local wireless to a computer interpreting their data. The problem with RFIDs is that something has to generate power to read their data. Now, anything can generate power so you can have more data reading stations, or make them mobile.



Instead of putting an RFID chip on a pet collar, you could put the reader in the collar, and put the chips throughout the home. Now the pet can transmit their location by having a computer triagulate to RFIDs they are near. Will computers one day track the 3D travels of your pets throughout the house to analyze if their health has changed?



While this is all just top-of-my-head speculation, long-life portable power DOES have huge implications for the world we live in.

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Most important internet patch of all time happened yesterday!!

First, go to this site and click the "Check my DNS" button immediately to see if you are vulnerable! Vendors from around the world formed an unheard of alliance to attack this problem.

Researchers from around the world recently met (at Microsoft) to figure out how to fix the internet. It was broken, but they couldn't tell anyone, lest someone try to take advantage of it. This was a design flaw that showed up in EVERYONE'S network.

Yesterday, companies around the world simultaneously released a patch to protect us from the problem.Why all at once? So the bad guys don't learn about it from one company's patch, and then attack the other companies.

Read more about this amazing problem and the process that took place to fix it. This is a DNS problem so serious it can hijack not only ALL email, but even cause large sites such as Google and Yahoo! to tale unsuspecting visitors to malware sites.

Another interesting article is Once-skeptical security researchers now agree that the critical bug in the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) protocol is the real deal.

Quote: 'It is way more serious than we had imagined,' says critic after closed briefing. Note: It's still not "fixed," it's only patched. Several months are still estimated to be needed to fix the problem. The patch was done in a complicated manner to slow down the bad guys from breaking it, but it's still possible.

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Fix computers (and more?): Safe mode and cold booting

Electrical charges build up in computer and appliances that use circuit boards. Remove those electrical charges and you fix—or extend the life of—your favorite devices. It just takes seconds, here's how:

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