Here are some interesting things to know about leap years.

* A troptical year is 365.242190 days long. A regular year has 365 days and a leap year 366.
* February 2008 has 5 Fridays, the last time that happened was in 1980.
* The Gregorian calendar was adopted to account for leap years. The Julian calendar had too many.

Read more interesting info about leap years at timeanddate.com

• 25 ways to Add Quality Content to Your Web Site
  A list of good ideas for content, including expert Q&A, statistics and how-to guidelines.
  (tags: SEO content)
• Jailbreak for iPhone
  Jailbreak is an app that enables you to install software onto an iPhone or iPod touch. By default you can only install using iTunes

• “Stay-at-home” servers, the book
  This is pretty funny and a very clever advertising idea for the Windows Home Server. It’s trying to get people comfortable with the idea that servers have a place in homes.

• 10 Easily mispronounced domain names (funny)
  A list of domain names of popular sites with names that can easily be confused with embarrassing meanings : )

• Appreciating the skills gap between programmers and MBAs
  An excellent article describing the different perspectives of technologists and business people and basically telling technologists to stop expecting customers to know what they want.
  (tags: programming management design)
• “Black hat SEO” company’s CEO behind bars
  The CEO of Traffic Power is behind bars because he allegedly ran a housing foreclosure scam, but it seems he should be behind bars for SEO malpractice alone. Even Matt Cutts effectively decapitated Traffic Power a few months ago. Lesson: Don’t screw with
  (tags: “black hat seo”)

• Post links from del.icio.us to your blog
  I did this for a while, but stopped for some reason I forget. This article inspired me to start doing it again. Quite often I’d stumble upon a site or article that I think could be a useful resource and this enables you to post it to your blog
  (tags: del.icio.us wordpress plugin)
• Social bookmark sites that DoFollow
  Most social bookmark sites add a NoFollow tag to outgoing links in an effort to avoid diluting their link juice. Here’s a list of sites that don’t add the NoFollow tag.
  (tags: DoFollow bookmarking social)
• Google OpenSocial (official site)
  OpenSocial is a set of common APIs that allows you to build social apps for multiple Web sites. Something to consider in addition to building Facebook apps.
  (tags: OpenSocial)

This Zurich based Google engineer has a few interesting Google hacks, check out his interesting projects. Most of these hacks use algorithms to parse Google search results.

I also like his thinking that while Google is a great company and they produce great products, they are a power house that keeps many secrets and can easily become corrupt. It would be much more comforting and encouraging if it were an open source project and everyone had free access to the search algorithms with the ability to contribute. Sure there will be smartasses that benefit in the short run, but an open source community will find ways to hone the ever growing algorithm closer to what people want from it. Google’s income comes from its ad network, what is the downside of making their search open source?

Since I haven’t posted for over a month, I figured I could at least share this useless Javascript hack. Actually it may have some use but the ethics may be questionable… Anyway, it’s quite fun! On any Web page, enter the following in your browser’s address bar and hit enter. You can then delete and edit the Web page contents.

javascript: document.body.contentEditable = "true"; document.designMode= "on"; void 0

For example, I went to Google and did a search for the “best blog ever”. Needless to say Da Vinci Planet wasn’t number 1 (or 2, or 3…), but then after pasting the text above into the address bar I was able to edit the Web page and voilà I’m number 1!

Google Maps has a sense of humor. Try this:

1. Go to google.com.
2. Click on Maps.
3. Click on Get Directions.
4. From: New York, New York.
5. To: Paris, France.
(Or go directly to the link here)
6. Then, read line #23.
7. Laugh.

Oh, and it will take about 29 days 7 hours!

There is so much hype around Web 2.0, yet very few people seem to really know what it is. I recently heard about someone suggesting that they were going to redesign their site this year to “make it Web 2.0”; and next year to “Web 3.0”. I thought that Web 2.0 was a stretch for many companies and few understood it, never mind Web 3.0! What is Web 3.0 anyway?! I figured this was just big talk, but decided to look into it because Web 2.0 is very real and I guess eventually a newer generation Web will follow Web 2.0. (more…)

Indexed is a site where the owner, Jessica Hagy, sketches diagrams of arbitrary ideas onto index cards to “make fun of some things and sense of others”. Great sense of humor!

It’s interesting from an SEO perspective because the site does not have much indexable content, but it has original content in the form of images. It’s the originality through creativity and simplicity that attracts users and that is more valuable than SEO.

Cool site of the week, typorganism, has a few very neat interactive tools. I have no idea what the purpose is, but it’s fun :). I created this image using the ASCII-O-MATIC tool.

Typorganism is a Series of Communication Experiments exploring Computational Interaction Design and Interactive Kynetic Typography based on the Metaphorical Notion of Typography, Type is a Lifeform,…

The popular Sudoku game is avaliable at SourceForge in portable form so it requires no installation.

Sudoku Portable is a an addictive puzzle game originally created in France over 100 years ago. It features a 9×9 grid containing 9 3×3 grids. Within this you arrange the numbers 1 through 9. But, each number can only appear once in each of the 9 3×3 grids. And it can only appear once in each row and on each column. It’s a simple concept, but it can get addictive quickly.

Sudoku Portable - portableapps.com

Thomas Vander Wal has a great post in his blog on social interaction with technology, which he refers to as technosocial. His perspective is that there is a gap between what information and when people need information versus what techologists provide. In my full-time job I am responsible for implementing Web metrics and it is always surprising to see how much information people *want*, but then never really look at or understand.

We (as designers and developers) focus on making our technology easy to use and providing a good experience in the domain we control.

People want to use the information when they need it, which is quite often outside the domains we as designers and developers control.

Technosocial Architect - vanderwal.net

I recently discovered the IE Developer Toolbar and it got me searching for some more hidden free tools available from Microsoft.  Some of them have been around for a while, but they are still useful utilities for Web developers.

Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool
It is not a full featured anti-virus application, but it is a quick scanner for the most popular malicious software. It is Microsoft’s version of the McAfee Stinger.

The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool checks computers running Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003 for infections by specific, prevalent malicious software—including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom—and helps remove any infection found.

Windows Defender
A very good anti-spyware tool that has received very good reviews. It has a simple interface and is very unobtrusive.

Windows Defender (Beta 2) is a free program that helps protect your computer against pop-ups, slow performance, and security threats caused by spyware and other unwanted software. It features Real-Time Protection, a monitoring system that recommends actions against spyware when it’s detected, and a new streamlined interface that minimizes interruptions and helps you stay productive.

Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar
The Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar is similar to Firefox’s Web Developer extension (not quite as good). It allows you to do several things like outline tables, table cells, images, or selected tags and validate HTML and style sheets. It includes something similar to Firefox’s live bookmarks (RSS Web feed links).

Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools
Although the title suggests that the tools are for Windows Server 2003, Windows XP is also supported. The toolkit includes useful little tools like Tail (Unix like tail for Windows).

The Microsoft® Windows® Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools are a set of tools to help administrators streamline management tasks such as troubleshooting operating system issues, managing Active Directory®, configuring networking and security features, and automating application deployment.

Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 Resource Kit Tools
SelfSSL is a tool for generating ssl certificates, which is very useful for developers trying to develop secure sites. The Log Parser is a powerful command line tool for querying log files database style.

The IIS 6.0 Resource Kit Tools can help you administer, secure, and manage IIS. Use them to query log files, deploy SSL certificates, employ custom site authentication, verify permissions, troubleshoot problems, migrate your server, run stress tests, and more.