Sitemaps and Yahoo Site Explorer

I was excited to hear that Yahoo and MSN have taken up the sitemaps format. And today I was adding one of our niche e-commerce sites to Yahoo and noticed that they upgraded there Site Explorer to include sitemaps and site authentication.

However, Yahoo requires that you add a phisical html file to the site for verfication. Which, might not be a  big deal unless your entire site is run by a custom content mangment system. It would be alot easier for us if I could just add a <meta tag like Google’s Webmaster Tools site verfication method.

Sitemaps

This is particularly good news to my ears. “Google sitemaps has been adopted by Yahoo and Microsoft.”

We have been participating in the Google sitemaps program for awhile for our new sites at Indoff. Here is a sample sitemap.xml file from one of our sites.

TechCrunch has the sitemap scoop.

Grrrr! MacBook Pro going back to Apple for repair

I received my new MacBook Pro yesterday and this morning I noticed my back-light was working on my PowerBook but wasn’t working on the MacBook.

I turned off all the lights in my office and the back-light still didn’t come on. I put my arm over where the sensors are and it dimmed the screen but the keyboard back-light still didn’t come on.

I called Apple and I have to send it back for 5-7 days for service. What a pain! Day 1 and it needs a repair. Oyee

Attention all Grocers

Excellent article in the NyTimes, finally a Grocer stands ups and says wait a minute . I hope other Grocers will follow Hannaford Brothers lead.

The chain, Hannaford Brothers, developed a system called Guiding Stars that rated the nutritional value of nearly all the food and drinks at its stores from zero to three stars.

Our government is failing us on this issue. Labels are maybe not to the point of making “Fake” claims but IMHO a lot of labels are misleading and/or confusing.

The thing is, a lot of claims we see out there are puffery,” said Joseph R. Baca, director of the office of compliance at the F.D.A.’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. “But they don’t get to the point where we can call them fake or misleading.

Via NyTimes

Products also bank on people not reading the back of label. So, making it easier to decipher nutritional balance is a good thing. Stars might not be perfect but it’s a start. Grocery stores could also put simple universal symbols on the shelf tag for foods that contain one of the 8 major allergens. It would help the millions of people like my daughter who suffer from severe food allergies.

BTW, I won’t patent that last idea it’s free for anyone to take. Hell, I would be even willing to pay for those universal symbols to be created.

The Revolution

While at home sick on Friday I downloaded  and watched The Revolution by the History channel from iTunes.

It was excellent!