It’s that time of year again! Luckily I will be attending SXSW Interactive again this year after a great trip (and learning experience) last year. It was an overwhelming trip trying to catch all the break-out sessions that applied to me while trying to enjoy some of the nightlife as well. Austin is a great place with tons to do for such a condensed downtown, especially during SXSW! This time I have backup - a coworker from work will be joining in order to soak up more knowledge to bring back to Tampa. Since last year seemed rushed, I have made arrangements to stay a bit passed the Interactive portion of SXSW to catch some music, relax with family in Austin, and enjoy more of downtown.

We will be staying in the Omni - Downtown Austin for the first half of the trip. Then may have friends join and either see what else is available downtown or stay at a family member’s lakehouse on Lake Travis. Hopefully there will be some nice warm sunshine by the time we get there!

Filed under: Events, Travel — Paul @ 6:42 am Comments (0)

Just got back from Simi Valley, CA where I attended Bruce Clay’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) training. Even though I started learning basic organic SEO back in 2001, a LOT has changed in the past few years. The focus has always been to design websites following good search engine practices and code markup without the SEO tricks that others try to implement with short-term results. Over time, Google and other top search engines have developed complex algorithms that weed out the faulty content and spam.

There are a ton of new rule sets and conventions to implement which follow current SEO standards so needless to say I’ll be quite busy over the next few months!. Separate from design, my favorite quote in building a “least imperfect” spider-friendly site from Bruce Clay was “not to to build a flying pig website which you push off a cliff and hope will fly but rather re-engineer your website into an eagle that will soar”.

Filed under: SEO, Training — Tags: Bruce Clay, Search Engine Optimization, Training — Paul @ 4:24 pm Comments (0)

Planning on attending the SXSW Interactive conference this year in Austin March 9th-13th! Excited to be going after missing all the great speakers last year. I don’t have itinerary yet but am 90% sure I will reserve my spot downtown by the end of the month as well as organizing all other travel logistics. Also submitted my latest project (www.projectorpeople.com to their web awards so crossing my fingers:)

If you are a developer and plan on going to Austin for the conference, drop me a line!

Filed under: Events — Tags: Austin, SXSW, web standards — Paul @ 3:20 pm Comments (0)