Effel Design

GeoTweets – an error free version of the Sencha Touch tutorial

Aaron — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 21:33:56 +0000

I have been messing around with Sencha Touch over the last few weeks and it is proving to be a very useful framework for mobile development. The main getting started tutorial is a GeoTweets application. It’s a neat example that ties in the Google Maps API and the Twitter API to create an app that shows twitter users’ tweets within a certain mile radius of the user location. The tutorial itself has a few errors that I thought I would fix here to hopefully save others the time it took me to debug. There is nothing more annoying than errors in tutorials.

The only adjustments that will need to be made are within the main index.js file. Below is the corrected code:

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Ext.setup({
tabletStartupScreen: 'tablet_startup.png',
phoneStartupScreen: 'phone_startup.png',
icon: 'icon.png',
glossOnIcon: false,
onReady: function() {

var timeline = new Ext.Component ({
title: 'Timeline',
cls: 'timeline',
scroll: 'vertical',
tpl: [
'',
'

',
'

{from_user}

',
'

{text}

',
'

',
''
]
});

var map = new Ext.Map ({
title: 'Map',
useCurrentLocation: true, //changed from getLocation
mapOptions: {
zoom: 12
}
});

var panel = new Ext.TabPanel ({
fullscreen: true,
cardSwitchAnimation: 'slide',
items: [map, timeline]
});

var refresh = function() {
var coords = map.geo.coords;
Ext.util.JSONP.request({
url: 'http://search.twitter.com/search.json',
callbackKey: 'callback',
params: {
geocode: coords.latitude + ',' + coords.longitude + ',' + '5mi',
rpp: 30
},
callback: function(data) {
data = data.results;
timeline.update(data);

for (var i = 0, ln = data.length; i < ln; i++) {
var tweet = data[i];

if (tweet.geo && tweet.geo.coordinates) {
var position = new google.maps.LatLng(tweet.geo.coordinates[0], tweet.geo.coordinates[1]);
addMarker (tweet, position);
}
}
}
});
};

var addMarker = function(tweet, position) {
var marker = new google.maps.Marker({
map: map.map,
position: position
});

google.maps.event.addListener(marker, "click", function() { //added this function
tweetBubble.setContent(tweet.text);
tweetBubble.open(map.map, marker);
});

};

tweetBubble = new google.maps.InfoWindow(); //added to display tweets on marker click

map.geo.on('update', refresh);

var tabBar = panel.getTabBar ();
tabBar.addDocked({
xtype: 'button',
ui: 'mask',
iconCls: 'refresh',
dock: 'right',
stretch: false,
align: 'center',
handler: refresh
});

}

});

The changes:

Line 27: Changed getLocation to useCurrentLocation – getLocation is no longer supported within the Google Maps API. Changing to useCurrentLocation will fix the map display.

Line 70-78: These lines are necessary to add the functionality to display tweets when their marker is clicked on the map. Without them, nothing will display.

Another working example can be found at: github.com/nelstrom. The code in this post borrows from this link but stays as close to the original Sencha code as possible.

View GeoTweets working demo

A great HTML5 resource : http:…

Aaron — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 19:20:22 +0000

A great HTML5 resource : http://www.html5rocks.com/

A great twitter visualization …

Aaron — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 21:49:05 +0000

A great twitter visualization using XHTML/CSS and javascript. jQuery is hard at work here. http://toriseye.quodis.com/

How Google Instant Search affects your adwords campaigns

Aaron — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 08:16:21 +0000

Today, Google released Instant Search. Users will now see results from popular searches displayed as they are typing in their search query. In other words, type in a search query “watching weight” and you will see results displayed for “Wal-Mart”, “Watching Movies”, and so forth as more letters are typed.

As these results are displayed, so are the associated ads for those search queries. This will lead to an increased number of impressions for all those broad keywords you may have in your campaign.

So how does this affect an ads click through rate?

According to Google, an impressions will only be counted if:

A user types in a search query and then clicks anywhere on the page (a search result, an ad, related search, etc.)
A user chooses a specific query by clicking the search button, pressing Enter, or selecting one of the predicted queries
The user stops typing and the ad is displayed for at least 3 seconds

The 3 second rule will probably lead to the greatest increase in non-qualified impressions and thus decrease an ad’s CTR.

A slow reader may take 3 seconds to read the suggested searches as they are typing out a query leading to a false impression if you happened to have an ad up on the temporarily displayed results page.

Of course it is far too early to predict, but Google believes the effect in impressions will be outweighed by the fact that Instant Search helps users build search queries that more directly relate to them.

Instant Search is a great feature that increases the usability of Google, but Adwords advertisers should keep an eye on their stats particularly for their broad keywords.

SEO, Content Strategy, and Cold Callers

Aaron — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:41:00 +0000

Like many website owners, my inbox is constantly flooded with contact form submissions from marketing companies promising to take my site to the top of the search engines. One of these companies called the office the other day so I decided to see what they had to offer.

The representative I spoke with began by saying his firm had conducted research on my company and found some key markets I was not tapping into. Any time I deal with these people I inform them I am a numbers guy and have no real SEO experience. This gives me a better idea of what they are selling most people. The sales guy went on to throw around some dollar figures stating how I was really losing out on some excellent business. Luckily, they would be able to help me with this. After 5 minutes of him throwing around SEO buzz words, I finally asked him to cite some specific examples of what my company could improve on. His response, “what is the name of your company again?”. Wow. The least these guys could do is keep the company name handy when they are cold calling businesses.

Over the last 10 years of dealing with these companies and clients who have hired them, I have come up with a standard rule of thumb: avoid them at all costs. These companies are more concerned with client acquisition than retention. Trying to cancel a contract with them is about as difficult as canceling a contract with Gold’s Gym. You are in for at least several months of recurring billing. Sign up a client, sit on the account, charge them for several months, and move on. That is their business model.

The bottom line is there is no easy way to achieve top results in the search engines. Like anything else, there is no substitute for hard work. Search engines have become much more intelligent creatures than they were in the past. In the old days, you could put keywords into the right places on a site, get some good inbound links and voilá , top results.

Today’s market is much more content-centric. Good content will drive people to your site, keep them longer, and keep them coming back. If you want a top ranking, a content development strategy is one of the most important elements needed to achieve those results. Equally important is how to leverage the content. Taking advantage of the ever-expanding list of web 2.0 and social media sites will help deliver your content to a new audience that would have otherwise missed your site completely.

Our content development team combines social media experts with professional writers to ensure top quality content is delivered to the right channels. If you are interested in starting a content development strategy as part of an SEO campaign, send us an email and we will get started on a custom-tailored solution for your business.

White Hat vs Black Hat SEO

Aaron — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 00:11:55 +0000

Search engine optimization is a lot like a John Ford western. You have the good guys and the bad guys. White hat search engine optimization is a way of organically and ethically building your web presence. Black hat is a way of spamming the search engines to increase your web rank and, if caught, you can get the “google slap” all the way to the bottom of the search engine results. While black hat can sometimes deliver fast results, white hat organic is the only way to deliver SEO properly. Always be sure you know what your search engine marketers are doing to help boost your rank and visibility.

Here is an interesting article that covers some of the tactics black hat SEOs employ.

Patagonia

Aaron — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 00:08:31 +0000

Effel Design is excited to be part of the revamping process for Patagonia Adventure Expeditions.