Recruitment SEO

… a brief success story and a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A few weeks ago my colleague Dave and I launched a new blog – Recruitment SEO – all about what we have learned, and continue to learn and discover about optimising recruitment websites for search engines (our core business these days seems to be recruitment website design).  I just saw today that – almost inadvertantly, it’s become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

(SEO= Search Engine Optimisation).  We never intended that website itself to do well in the search engines, it was more an opportunity for our clients and friends to follow our opinions and tips.  As it happens, through naturally good optimisation, I seem to have got the site onto the first and second pages of Google results.

Remember, remember – the 5th of November

Something about the rather significant things going on on the other side of the big pond that makes me feel like we’ve reached a pretty momentous turning point in world history. Much in the same way that in 1997 I felt a massive relief when Labour ended a very long Tory rule in the UK, the democratic win in the US is more than a democratic win or a fantastic historical moment when a black person enters the White House; it’s the end of Bush. Hoo – bloody – ray.

When I was thinking back earlier to the great feeling in 97 that took me over (as it turned out, for good reason), today’s feeling of “I was there when…” makes me feel more slightly pensive. History, whatever happens henceforth, has been made. I really should buy a newspaper and keep it carefully in the attic, like I did do for the millennium (you’ve no idea how hard that word is to type for me), but these days it seems more apporpriate to mark history by showing what’s going on in my online world.

The Guardian online daily emails have been a part of my online world for about four years, I think, but what I hope will happen is that the attached screen grab will show history in so much more ways that are not interesting now. I hope that in future years, we’ll love to look at the number of spam messages i had in my spam box, how my gmail offered me only 7.2 mb of space, and other thiongs we accept today and will be a quirky oddment in the future.

Just the same as if I bought a newspaper today on the occasion of Obama’s historic victory, the really interesting things would turn out to be the adverts on the side of the real news items on the paper.

Photo moblogging at last

I’ve finally got round to getting to post photos directly to my Flickr account from my mobile in one very easy click. There’s something of a compromise here though. Shiny, feature-packed and lovely though my Nokia E71 may be, its piccies are clearly those of a phone, not a camera. It’s still worth it though. I love the feeling of live reportage when I can post on the spot, even though the subject matter to date has been mainly family snaps.

On The Nikon D200

Staying at Phil’s house for a few days over the weekend gave me an opportunity to play with his ‘work’ camera’, the Nikon D200. It was a stunning experience. The inordinately heavy body gave the camera an unrivalled steadiness, meaning that short at low shutter speeds were more likely to come out without camera-wobble. The Tamron lens was reliable and very happy with fast autofocus, even when firing off repeated shots.

Here are a few of my favourite shots from the camera over the weekend.

Other-worldly music animation

Quite the most delightful bit of animation that I think I’ve seen since Pixar’s ‘Robots’ – this appeals to me on so many levels; the epitome of how alive sequenced, electronic music can be if you just use your imagination. Wonderful… ten out of ten.