Digsby's Where it's At

Digsby is where it's at. When it comes to Instant Messaging clients, there hasn't been one do-it-all that has captivated my appreciation as much as Digsby, the lovely spawnchild of a recent start-up named .

These guys are awesome. Digsby not only
works with MSN, Yahoo, Google Chat, ICQ, etc. but also with social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn. In other words, you can get messages and updates all through your desktop without having to go to the websites and poll for the info yourself. Transalation???? ......pure awesome.

Without further hesitation, you should proceed to do the following 2 things:

1) Get digsby (http://www.digsby.com/)

2) Throw on a custom skin, so you can strut it in good style'

I say the second point because unfortunately I think the one downside of Digsby is its default look & feel. Not the sleekest sexiest looking app around out of the box, luckily though it allows theming, which is great because you can match the looks with how good it is under the covers. My personal favourite is the Carbon Fiber skin, and I highly recommend it. To install it, simply download the skin and unzip it to {Your_Digsby_Install_Path}\res\skins\. After you unzip it, the directory structure will loo something like this:

So try it out, play around, and let me know what you think!

It's definitely one of my favourite new apps I've bumped into this year.

Give it up! to SMX Advanced: A search marketing experience from the eyes of an intern

This week I attended my first conference ever, SMX Advanced. Why SMX? Well because it was an expo on Search Marketing. Why Advanced? Well because it was aimed strictly at experienced search marketers, both on the paid search side and search engine optimization. The premier sponsors included Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Google amongst others. Danny Sullivan was the chair, host, host, and lead organizer of the event, and his 10 years of search engine coverage experience showed through even in my search marketing-inexperienced eyes.

The conference was a blast. It was such an intellectual experience for me that I am craving for the next one already. I got an inside glimpse at the wonderful world of online businesses, SEOs, and the online ecosystem as a whole. My interest in the Internet has been injected with booster juice. I met a whole bunch of interesting people and had some great conversations about what life is like when it all depends on this fluffy thing we all refer to as the Internet. Search rankings are extremely important. Link structure is the definition of community. Web traffic is the juice of life. Individuals own hundreds of thousands of pages. Wikipedia is the king of the jungle. Universal search is changing paradigms and user behaviour. Duplicate content is a scary topic for both white & black hats (Mikel brought forth a nice preview of Markov chain text-generation in the Give It Up! session which made this spicy topic even hotter).

And in all this, I was simply known as..... the intern. With a whole 4 weeks under my belt, I had nothing to fear and everything to discover. I managed to gather up 9 business cards, only one of which I asked for myself. I met some lovely people from SEOmoz (check out Rand's interview with Matt Cutts for several engine insights), Party Gaming, SEO Chicks, evilgreenmonkey, Anvil Media, Power Reviews, Net Concepts, and others.

The Monday night Google Dance was a mix & mingle success, the Sunday night Microsoft cocktail party had the funnest river & boat toy ever; with configurable pieces mountable on a water-pump fake river & dam, naturally attracting all the engineers within vicinity. I even got a few seconds of fame on WebmasterRadio.org while they were interviewing Vanessa Fox from our team about our very own, the Webmaster Console.

Thanks to all the great speakers, it was such a pleasure. Here's a warm shout out to all the people I met during the last couple days. See you next time!

Google, an inspirational marvel in the world

So I've been here at Google three weeks now, one of which I spent eye-gazing at the beautiful, witty Mountain View "headquarters" campus during my intern orientation. I say headquarters because at Google headquarters seems to have a different meaning than one is normally used to. The strategy, thinking, and approach to solving problems in this place is truly unique. I'm not talking about engineering problems - that is a given obvious. With an intent to hire the best of the best people from all around the globe you would expect no different. However it stretches far past that. It is noticeable in every corner of the hallways and gardens amongst which you walk.

Some of my first impressions I got when I looked around were: "wow, is this really a workplace?" and "how come everybody looks like they're having fun?". Don't get me wrong, the jobs I have had in the computer science field have been so rewarding and I had a blast learning and being challenged and being inspired by the people around me. It was something else.... Maybe it was the yellow green blue red colours, circles, kindergarden-like shapes all around me. Maybe it was the garden-like bushes, golf-green grass, nature-bursting outdoor decor. Maybe it was just the massage chairs, free restaurants, swim-in-place pools, or the volleyball court. The lounges at every turn had to do with it a little. All this was definitely distracting and made everything seem particularly surreal. It's kinda like seeing your favourite DJ spinning in the hallway on your way to your next meeting. Something about it just doesn't fit. Yet it Google it does. (By the way, there is no DJ spinning, let's not start any wild rumours here... I know I for one would never make it back to the desk. Though perhaps this is something to consider.......)

I am in Kirkland now and things are not quite as crazy down here, though everything is in Google spirit and all the core goodies are replicated and offered here as well. The perks are very perky, no doubt there, but this is not what I want to spend time blogging about. The true amazement to me is the ongoing atmosphere which this company has been able to induce in its workers through its creative approach to... well everything! So far my favourite inspirations are the Tech Talks and weekly Friday events. Tech Talks are given by Google employees on random topics of interest (random is a bad word, vast is probably better) and though I am quite familiar with them from my past employment experiences, they average at about 3-5 a DAY! That's just how much people here are in touch with advancement, innovation, and thinking about the future. That's more than you lectures in school!

I will be looking for a 20% project to share my efforts on because there is just so much that you can do here, which is really what Google is ultimately all about. This company holds probably the world's most powerful platform for creating things which induce technological change in the world. Without giving away anything, there are literally thousands of projects ongoing here that span across all corners of advancement. From the Google Earth Darfur effort which is a G-Earth integration that now showcases the damage, destruction, stories and genocide that is ongoing in the Darfur region to the many mini-apps that are together forming the massive platform for using the enormous body of information humans can gathere around the world.

This is the place to make a change.

I am only beginning to understand the possibilities and how the culture allows the cross-functional, organic movement of ideas across the variety of idea-booming individuals all around me. As for my goals for the summer, I am excited and open to getting some real hands on experience in what it's like to be part of this outgoing, vibrant community. However, I am going to be realistic and ultimately be a student to my possibilities; I can honestly not see a better place to spend my last co-op undergrad experience and where I can better have the chance to direct my efforts before I graduate. As I wrote in an e-mail to a close friend of mine, "I hope I can stay a nice puffy sponge and soak in as much of the wealth of knowledge around me as I possibly can."