Jay Gaulard Blog

Somerset Square in Glastonbury, CT

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

Last night was pretty fun. My brother, Jeff, came over and we went out to dinner.

Lately, you pretty much have to drag me out of my chair to get me to do anything. I have my head stuck staring at this horrible computer screen 24 hours a day. It really is unattractive. Jeff told me that I have to get out more often. I explained to him that it’s not like it used to be.

When I was younger, I had no responsibilities. I was also bored a lot. Now, I am always busy and running a business takes a lot out of me. There is no one else to handle things if something needs to get done. I mean, I have help, but the majority of things rest right on my shoulders. Good thing they are so muscular.

It was good to get out. I decided that we would go up to Applebees in Glastonbury, CT. We drove up there and when we passed by the restaurant, I realized it wasn’t an Applebees, but a Chilis. Jeff told me that he always goes to Chilis and would rather not go there. I really didn’t want to go there either. I made a left from Main Street onto Glastonbury Boulevard. Glastonbury Boulevard is really cool. It is tree lined and there is a lot going on. I basically just wanted to show him the road and then turn around to find somewhere to eat. We drove down the road a little and noticed a Houlihan’s on the left. We pulled in and parked.

Since the restaurant was so close to Somerset Square, I thought it would be nice to show Jeff where people do some shopping. So, we got out of the car and walked.

I gotta tell you, I really love sidewalks. I also have to tell you that it did feel a little foreign to me to be walking. I am so used to driving every little place I need to go that walking felt very out of the ordinary.

Right before we began our walk, I ran back to the car to grab the camera. I could see that Jeff was wondering what the heck I was doing. I mean, what in the world is there to take pictures of during a little 15 minute walk to no where? I explained to him that this is what blogging is all about. I told him that I searched for photos of the different things in different towns a lot before we moved here. I thought people would appreciate it if I posted some of my own. I think he got a kick out of the camera thing because he jumped on board.

Anyway, the photo above is of the tree lines and sidewalk I was talking about earlier.

Before we got to the enterance of Somerset Square, we passed the backside of a few restaurants. I didn’t think the photos would come out so blurry, but because it was getting dark, I guess that’s what happens. The photo are of Max Fish, Max Amore and some other one. Perhaps we will eat at one of these next time. I have heard good things.

We walked a bit more and made it to the enterance of Somerset Square. The lighting of this place was really cool and it felt like I was on vacation. We walked through a little bit and took a picture of Cold Stone Creamery. Jeff told me that I had to get a picture of that.

We did our thing and walked back to Houlihan’s, which I forgot to get a picture of. We went in a sat down to eat. When we did finally eat, I have to tell you, I was really very pleased. I mean, the food was really great. I could believe it. Even Jeff told me that his potato soup was the best he ever had.

I had my usual Guinness. He likes to drink sweeter drinks, and mentioned that he didn’t really like beer. He took a sip of the Guinness and I think he might have changed his mind.

What’s the moral of this long story? Try Guinness, you might like it.

Twitter, Local Search, Cool Websites, Blogs and Web 2.0

Monday, May 26th, 2008

101 Everyday Uses for Twitter

The simple dictionary definition of “Twitter” is “microblogging/social networking platform that places a 140- character limit on each individual post/tweet.” However, describing Twitter thusly would fail to encapsulate the power of this new omnipresent medium. So, instead here are 101 examples of how Twitter members regularly use the service.

Community Powered Local Search - This Could Actually Work

I found a site last night that claimed to be the “Easiest Local Search Ever”. My reaction to this: “Oh reeeaaallly.”

10 Cool Websites We Recommend

A list of 10 websites that are either useful or entertaining. Personal favorites: Cooking for Engineers (self-explanatory), thesixtyone (safari for music junkies), and Rentometer (save money on rent).

GigaOM Favs: 10 Blogs You Should Follow

Om Malik shares the comprised results of a twitter survey and personal contributions of his team members. The results are definitely useful!

Finally the definition of Web 2.0 & 3.0

One of the most misused buzzwords finally gets defined. Now we can stop people from labeling everything on the internet as Web 2.0. Please stop the madness.

Hi Everybody, I’m Still Here

Tuesday, January 15th, 2008

I feel like I haven’t been writing all to much lately. I don’t know, sometimes I start writing and writing and writing and sometimes I don’t.

I think it has something to do with all this year-end business stuff. As the years go on, the pressure gets ratcheted up a bit. I even found a gray hair on the left side of my head today. That’s pretty strange, because I think I saw some gold ones in there too. Perhaps I won’t go gray…I’ll go gold. People can look at me and say, “Yes, he’s the man with the gold hair over there.” I guess there is a gold lining to it all. At least I’ll be worth a lot of money.

Also, it’s getting a little colder out again and inside the house is looking all too familiar. Boy, those warm days really woke up the neighborhood. People were outside walking around and everyone seemed to be in a better mood. As I always say, I like Winter up until about half way through January. After that, Spring can come early. The only problem is that I freak out at the first drop of sweat. A few days ago when it was 60 degrees outside, I began to sweat. I didn’t like that. So, the dark days of Winter will last for a few more months.

I wouldn’t mind have a good game of Frisbee though. I love Frisbee.

Google PageRank Update - January 2008

Saturday, January 12th, 2008

I was sitting here last night, when I noticed that my new blog here finally had a Google PageRank. I was pretty happy about that, but there was one tiny problem. The PageRank is a 1.

Remember back when I told you that I switched this blog over to a new domain name? Well, back then, this blog (on the old domain) had a PageRank of 5. I did a simple 301 redirect for the entire blog in the .htaccess file, pointing it to this new domain. I figured that the nice PageRank I had earned over the years would follow me to this new domain. Guess not.

I did notice that the Gaulard.com domain still has a PageRank of 5. That’s weird, because all there is over there are a few static pages that never change. So what’s all this about the size of a website, the frequency of updates, etc…? I know of a very specific factor that heavily affects PageRank, but am not ready to share it just yet. I am still doing some research.

I took a look around all my sites. They all pretty much stayed the same, except for one. That one dropped a point, which is disappointing. I looked at a few blogs I know of. One got hit pretty hard and lost 3 points. Man, is this PageRank update about hitting blogs?

Network Solutions, Adobe Photoshop, Profy and Google

Friday, January 11th, 2008

Network Solutions defends frontrunning-to stop frontrunners

Network Solutions has been heavily criticized for its new policy that automatically registers domains to itself once a user searches for it. The company has now responded, saying that the policy is a “security measure” meant to protect customers from real domain frontrunners.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorials - Best Of

An overview of professional step-by-step tutorials which can enrich your design skills and improve the quality of your works.

Social Blogging Platform Profy Launches in Alpha

Today, we get a new blogging platform from Russian/San Francisco startup Profy.

Google Processing Over 20 Petabytes of Data Per Day

Google currently processes over 20 petabytes of data per day through an average of 100,000 MapReduce jobs spread across its massive computing clusters.

Understanding Search Engine Penalties

Why is your celebrity blog being penalized? Find out here…

WordPress Update - Version 2.3.2

Sunday, December 30th, 2007

In my WordPress dashboard, I just noticed that there is a security and bugfix release for WordPress. The new version is 2.3.2. I like to announce these releases in my posts because some of my friends and family uses WordPress and they might not notice the blurb in their dashboard.

Mad peace to all of you.

Monetizing, Apple, Firefox and Open Formats

Friday, December 21st, 2007

101 Ways to Monetize Your Blog (Without Irritating Readers)

Blogging is big business these days, with some bloggers reporting six-figure or even million-dollar incomes. There are a number of ways that these bloggers earn such large paychecks, and the best know how to do it in a way that won’t scare off readers. Check out 101 ways that you can earn money from your blog.

Apple has sold 5 million iPhones

Apple has sold 5 million iPhones, according to 9 to 5 Mac, an Apple rumor site. At the iPhone’s launch, Steve Jobs set a public goal of selling 10 million iPhones — next year. With the iPhone only on sale for six months, that means Apple’s already selling its sleek smartphones at 2008 speed.

Firefox 3.0 Beta 2 Is A Win For Linux

Mozilla has released the latest beta of Firefox 3 today, and the Linux efforts behind it are starting to show even more. This release, being a beta, is surprisingly stable. Here’s the killer that makes this beta release amazing: true GTK support.

Norway mandates use of open formats: HTML, ODF and PDF

Government, state and regional agencies, authorities and services may also publish in other formats, but they must always publish in one of these formats. The decree is retroactive, and by 2014 all documents published prior to this decree must have been converted and made available in one of the three formats.

10 great Web site designs/redesigns of 2007

We pick 10 of our favorite site designs and redesigns of 2007.

8 Bold Predictions on Google’s Next Moves

There’s little doubt that Google Inc. is indeed king of online media. In August 2007 alone, Google captured 57% of worldwide market share among search engines, with more than 37 billion search inquiries. Not surprisingly, this dominance has led to endless rumors about where Google is headed next?

A New Blog Directory

Friday, December 21st, 2007

My FeedDirectory.US (Feed Directory) website has been receiving an enormous amount of spam submissions for some time now. I felt that the scope was too wide for a site like that, so I reinvented it as a blog directory. The new website is called “Blog Directory - BlogLeeg.com” and will have some very strict rules. There won’t be many of them, but they will be strict…

Rules

1. For a submission to be approved, it must be a blog.
2. For a blog to be approved, it must be good.

I think those are fair rules. So, if you have a good blog, please feel free to submit your feed to the Blog Directory.

Blogging, Careers, Online Storage and Mobile

Wednesday, November 28th, 2007

There’s No Money In The Long Tail of the Blogosphere

In a recent post here, we examined the reasons that people feel compelled to blog. From the post and the comments it received, it became clear that quite a few people are blogging to make money. The reality is that it is difficult to make money in the long tail. In this post we examine why that is and look at other aspects of long tail economics.

10 Hot Computer Driven Careers

While traditional IT careers will probably stay in-demand for the foreseeable future, don’t forget the alternatives. From climate modeling to revolutionizing the very fabric of life itself, there are plenty of enjoyable computer jobs to keep the computer professional creatively engaged.

Google preps online storage service

Offering would compete with recent products from rivals Microsoft, Amazon.com and Facebook.

The Mobile Web remains far off, and inevitable

“Within 10 years more people will be accessing the Internet from their mobile . . . than in the home from a PC,” said Geraldine Wilson, vice president of connected life at Yahoo! Europe. “In emerging markets most people’s first contact with the Internet will be with a mobile phone.”

Google hopes to undercut coal with cheap, renewable energy

Google’s latest plan to put all that money to good use is to announce an initiative that will develop renewable energy that’s cheaper than coal.

Hydrogen Cars, Broadband, Recycling and AMD

Monday, November 19th, 2007

Blogger takes Honda’s $10m hydrogen fuel cell FCX Clarity for a test drive

What would you do if Honda handed you the keys to a $10 million car that emits only water vapor? Everything legal, that’s what. Read AutoblogGreen’s first in-depth review of a car some lucky people will be able to lease next summer. When will the rest of us get to drive a hydrogen car?

Broadband speeds days numbered?

Enjoy your speedy broadband Web access while you can. The Web will start to slow down as early as 2010, as use of interactive and video-intensive services overwhelms local cable, phone and wireless Internet providers

Think Recycling Computers Is A Good Thing? Think Again

Most people think they’re helping the earth when they recycle their old computers, televisions and cell phones. But chances are they’re contributing to a global trade in electronic trash that endangers workers and pollutes the environment overseas

Is AMD Doomed?

Can a $622M dollar cash infusion plus reasonably profitable GPUs give AMD enough breathing room to prove its gamble on true quad core was a good one? The jury is still out, but the portents are not very encouraging. The tech world really needs a scrappy, nimble CPU company like AMD, just like it needs a scrappy, cool computer company like Apple.

Why Car Salesmen Think its Okay to Screw you, And what you can do about it!

This is a good article on common arguments a car salesman may throw at you during the buying process. Very informative, kind of funny, but SO true!