Last Wednesday, Google posted a draft proposal to change the DNS protocol to enable “authorative DNS servers to see the addresses of their clients” (read more about DNS here). Google proposes to include more information in the user’s IP address data sent to the Internet provider that enables them to get a better idea where their client at.

This way, Internet providers will be able to respond quicker to client request by sending them through the nearest data center geographically:

“… geographically distributed content delivery networks can tailor their answers to a specific client’s network location. So a client from California would talk to a server in California, while a client in the Netherlands would talk to a server in the Netherlands.”

However, while it has the potential to increase the user experience, some parties criticize that Google’s proposal may be intended towards its online marketing advantage:

“It’s not clear that Internet users really want Google to keep control over so much more of their Internet experience than they do already – from Chrome OS at the bottom of the stack to Google Search at the top, it is becoming an end-to-end infrastructure all run by Google, the largest advertising company in the world. I prefer a heterogeneous Internet with lots of parties collaborating to make this thing work as opposed to an Internet run by one big company.”

Read more about this news at this Ars Technica post or the Register article here.

Sky Soft Consulting is currently working on a new e-commerce website, Dadu Stationery. The website utilize a highly customized Zen Cart back end system, which enable each product to have multiple attribute quantities. Stay tuned for more updates soon.

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According to arstechnica blog, the internet has used 90% of its IPv4 capacity as of January 2010 (see what is an IP address here).  The increase to 90% from the previous number the blog reported, 81%, came in about only a few weeks.

The Internet community has come out with a solution (IPv6) with greater range of numbers to use from, however the blog suggested that the IP usage is moving much faster than anticipated and there might be a problem in the transition.

Read more about the topic here here.

IE is rejected by French and German Government Agencies

Two major nations’ government agencies now officially “recommends” their citizens to stop using all kinds of Internet Explorer all together, a DailyMail article reported. In addition, both agencies instructed French and Germans to use a browser other than Internet Explorer to “ensure their computer security”.

Microsoft admitted that its browser was the weak link after hackers in China hacked Google last week. It said that the security hole can be closed by setting ‘high’ on the browser’s security zone. However, when the BSI, a German’s Federal Office on Information Security, did a test run, the security mode still “did not render it fully safe”.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1244138/Internet-Explorer-Germany-warns-using-IE-Microsoft-admits-browser-weak-link-China-Google-hacks.html#ixzz0dB6rPivN

Personally, I say: good riddance. I spent too many extra hours to make things work in IE as a designer and developer. It is time for Microsoft to step up and do a better job in putting together a worthy product in the market. There is too much free, open source browsers out there that are more standard compliant, safer and designed better than IE.

On its Security Research and Defense blog, Microsoft Corporation yesterday announces that the combination use of Internet Explorer 6 and Windows XP could become a potential security risk to the users’s computer and network.

The attacks we have seen to date, including the exploit released publicly, only affect customers using Internet Explorer 6. As discussed in the security advisory, while newer versions of Internet Explorer are affected by this vulnerability, mitigations exist that make exploitation much more difficult.

The announcement comes after the recent hacker attack on Google and over a dozen other major US infrastructure from China.

So, all of you who are laggards and late adopters of new browsers, I guess this time it is a good time to upgrade, not only for aesthetic and design, but also for security reasons.

Companies who want to dramatically boost their traffic in 2010 must rank on the first page of search engine results. But what are the essential parts of a successful SEO campaign? How can you beat your competitors and own the search engine results page?

1. Using W3C Web Standard in your website.
There are a lot of benefits to make your website in conformance to the W3C Web Standard. I believe if your structure is not optimized then every other things (SEO strategies) will not make sense.

Check this out to find out more: http://tinyurl.com/webstandardsbenefits

You can check your website using this validator: http://validator.w3.org/

2. On-Page Optimization.
On page optimization is one of the very first step of SEO which every webmaster should look into. It probably won’t even take you an hour to learn and implement some of these on-page optimization techniques.

But you may ask me, why it is so important? – Well literally speaking, if you can do proper on-page optimization for your website you can not only rank well in a search engine but also can increase the overall readability of your website for your visitors.

On-Page Optimization includes:
a. Title Optimization
b. Meta Tags Optimization
c. Important HTML Tags
d. Keyword Optimization and Synonyms
e. Link Optimization
f. Image Optimization

Look for my next blog in which I will discuss this On-Page Optimization methods in depth.

3. Developing Domain Authority
This is the factor which most determines your site’s rankings. Domain authority is a measure of how authoritative a given domain is. Domain authority is determined by number and quality of inbound links to a domain and is a major determiner of search engine rankings.

Search engines view each page in your website as a unique micro-site. As a result, each page can rank on its own accord if the appropriate signals are created. Building strong relationships from page to page in your site is what produces a dominant domain in search engines.

However before domain authority occurs, each page must be optimized for a specific series of key words and phrases if you want to pass that trait on to other relevant pages.

4. Advanced Linking Techniques.
Link building needs dedication and consistent effort. It is the hardest, time-consuming and imperative task an SEO performs to get a website ranked well. Certain tactics are well known to SEOs, while others are in the realm of the experts or forward-thinkers who confuse them out.

Stay factual to your objective. Only link to those web sites that have relevancy on what your website is providing, steer apparent from off-topic neighborhoods, spam sites and link farms at is will not offer you good return. Your focal point should be to link on websites that would provide you your preferred result.

5. Keyword Strategies
Choose the right keywords!

If you don’t choose the right keywords, all of your other strategies won’t help you at all, because those strategies build on top of choosing the right keywords.

If you haven’t taken time to choose the most effective keyword phrases, you may have done something like use the name of your company as your main keyword. If your company has significant name recognition, like Sony, that’s fine. But, if your company is like the vast majority of companies on the Net, optimizing the page for the name of your company has just cost you some business.

6. Create Content Silos.
This is the art of organizing your content in a way that search engines best understand your website.

The larger your website, the more sophisticated your search engine optimization (SEO) needs to be in order to avoid the problem of diluting or diffusing the focus of your website.

Let’s say you have a sporting goods website selling equipment for a dozen sports — football, basketball, softball, tennis, disc golf, etc. You have also written lots of content about each sport to attract search engine traffic — good idea!

The problem is that people don’t search on “sporting goods.” They search much more specifically: “tennis balls.” But your soccer section may be so well integrated into the rest of your site that the search engines don’t see it as a main theme of your site. If each of your individual sports were represented by a primary color, when all dumped together, the site can appear “gray” or muddy to the search engines, with no single color standing out.

How can you get rid of the mish-mash that the search engines see and create clearly-defined, tightly focused content themes, each of which rank high in the search engines?

a 48 hour humanitarian campaign to help Haiti earthquake victim, done over mobile payment has achieved $8 Million by Friday, DOUBLING the total mobile payment donation for AN ENTIRE YEAR of 2009 of $4 Million.

Original article here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/01/15/online.donations.haiti/index.html

This might prove several things:

1. The improvement in mobile device subscriber
2. The improvement in mobile payment use as a payment method
3. The power of social media that utilizes mobile devices such as Twitter and Facebook

Some of you bloggers and content writers, might have encounter a problem where you want to refer to a URL, but it is way too long to be put in your space. I am not just talking about just long, but really *long* url, like this example:

This will definitely distract your readers and ruin the design. Here is two solutions to alleviate the problem:
1. Utilize URL forwarding services. There are websites like: tinyurl.com, snipurl.com, notlong.com, etc. The service that they provide is basically to give a shorter address for any URL links, and it can be any links, not necessarily the web page in your site. Most of them are free, permanent, and easy to setup. You can see their features comparison here: http://notlong.com/links/

2. Hide the URL in the a HTML tag. Instead of displaying the full link, just display some shorter word that describe the link, and put the full URL hidden in the A tag of the HTML. Example:
Instead of: Click this website for Sky Soft’s Corporate Website: http://skysoftconsulting.com
Write this: Click here for Sky Soft’s Corporate website.

Both links are going to the same URL.

We have the privilege to redesign the website for Aquila Funding Group, a prominent mortgage company in the Seattle. We originally developed the website for them in 2006 with the primary purpose to improve the visual look and feel of the website. In the work that we will do this year, we are not just focusing on the design aspect, but also incorporating the new standards, trends and new the Internet technologies that has been developed over the last few years.

McAfee Labs released its 2010 threat predictions, and –surprise, surprise– social networks, including Twitter and Facebook, are at the very top of the list. Social networks are constantly evolving, so security flaws present themselves on a somewhat regular basis, and new users are constantly adopting these services, so there is always going to be a n00b around to click the link that nobody with a brain would normally click. It’s a circle-of-life thing.

For more information, click this source.

We are currently working on a website for a comprehensive new book on Vitamin D

When it is released, there will be a library regarding the food and nutrients that contain Vitamin D in regards of their health benefits. There will be an e-commerce module as well to purchase the products online.

We just got the privilege to build a website for a local sport horse medicine veterinarian.

The work involved the development of Content Management System for easy web update, and also client access section where the client can login and get some documents online.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sky Soft Consulting Receives 2009 Seattle Award

U.S. Commerce Association’s Award Plaque Honors the Achievement

WASHINGTON D.C., June 8, 2009 — Sky Soft Consulting has been selected for the 2009 Seattle Award in the Computer Graphics Service category by the U.S. Commerce Association (USCA).

The USCA “Best of Local Business” Award Program recognizes outstanding local businesses throughout the country. Each year, the USCA identifies companies that they believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and community.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2009 USCA Award Program focused on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the USCA and data provided by third parties.

About U.S. Commerce Association (USCA)

U.S. Commerce Association (USCA) is a Washington D.C. based organization funded by local businesses operating in towns, large and small, across America. The purpose of USCA is to promote local business through public relations, marketing and advertising.

The USCA was established to recognize the best of local businesses in their community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations, chambers of commerce and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to be an advocate for small and medium size businesses and business entrepreneurs across America.

SOURCE: U.S. Commerce Association

CONTACT:
U.S. Commerce Association
Email: PublicRelations@us-ca.org
URL: http://www.us-ca.org

For more information, click here.

Sky Soft Consulting has the privilege to build an enviro-social network website called Green Awakening.

Green Awakening provides environmentally friendly people with online collaboration tools (custom online chat, online forum, etc) to solve environmental problems.

The first phase of the website will be done in August of 2009.

Here is a snapshot of the project:

We had the opportunity to REDESIGN Team 80/3 website again. They were looking for something that could describe their business model.

Team 80/3 is a group of real estate investors and entrepreneurs who truly have THE Stimulus Package to assist many Americans in getting back on their feet in lieu of relying on the bailout. Real estate has always been one of the major components in building one’s wealth. In this current economic climate, why aren’t more Americans focusing on adding real estate to bolster their financial health along with properly leveraging mortgage and life insurance products?

Visit their website at: www.Team803.com