Anyway for those interested the music used on the what’s on the bbc this week adverts is River Flows in you by Yiruma a South Korean pianist and composer

If you are currently taking part in (or planning) a link building campaign you should ensure that your back-link portfolio is looking natural. You should be looking at having 50% – 80% of your back-links using keyword rich anchor text relevant to the page you are linking to but remember, overusing specific keyword phrases can result in a penalty from search engines if you suddenly begin to amount large numbers of inbound links. Try to mirror you historical link growth rate and do not assemble to many inbound links in short space of time.

Keyword rich anchor text is only of the many simple techniques for search engine optimization (SEO) at your disposal.

Anyway I divulge, the music to the BBC’s “need some clarity on election issues” background music caught my attention being quite catchy so I immedietly turned to the net to find out who wrote the track. After a bit of looking around I found the music is The XX – Intro.

BBC “need some clarity on election issues” advert music.

Artist: The XX

Track : Intro

Hold down the home button and quickly press the button at the top of the iPhone. The screen will flash and if your sound is on a ’shutter’ noise will be heard and hey presto you will find your iPhone screen grab in the photos section.

This works with iPhone OS 2.0 and later I believe if I’m wrong please feel free to leave a comment

Opera Mini Tabbed Browsing

Thankfully not and having downloaded and installed the app there are certainly advantages as well as a few disadvantages of using Opera Mini over Safari on the iPhone or iPod touch.

Speed

Speed, quite rightly bolded, quite simply if you are using the net over the mobile connection you should consider Opera Mini right away. With 3G access here in the UK only really reliable in major cities most of us rely on 2G access most of the time and the major speed advantages that Opera Mini gives you makes Opera the number one choice.

How is Opera Mini so much faster?

Well from the outset Opera Mini was designed with mobile browsers in mind both for usability on mobile devices and speed. Opera Mini uses a proxy server to render the pages before sending the heavily compressed document to the handset, which is noticeable even over a Wi-Fi connection. Added to this is Opera Minis ability to turn images off or downgrade images makes the speed increase even more impressive.

Opera Mini also loads faster than Safari although for those of you with nice shiny 3GS iPhones the load time isn’t so noticeable for older 3G users when multitasking arrives with iPhone OS 4 then this may become an issue.

Opera Mini Features

Opera Mini Settings

One thing which I missed right from the onset with Opera Mini is the ability to ‘pinch’ the screen to zoom in and out although this isn’t required for every page this is a feature that I think needs to be integrated into future releases. Double tap the screen and the browser will zoom in to a set level although the integration isn’t as slick as that of Safari.

Some web pages don’t render quite as well as Safari, some pages will need horizontal scrolling now and again which can be a pain but if this annoys you then there is always Safari to open the page in!

Opera Mini Features

What you do notice are features such as speed dial, which shows all your bookmarks as thumbnails at start up which is a real bonus for me.  Tabbed browsing is far more user friendly under Opera Mini than Safari I have always found that Safari can take an age to display tabs so this should speed about my browsing.

Opera Link

Opera Mini Speed Dial

Opera link allows you to sync your bookmarks, speed dial, saved Searches, Notes and history with your desktop Opera installation basically storing these features in ‘the cloud’. You can also save a web page to view offline, which is a nice touch and email links something which is desperately needed in Safari.

Conclusion – Opera Mini

It’s a nice little app which will certainly be staying on my iPhone there are a few gripes with zooming and some rendering problems but on the whole it is certainly worth installing on your iPhone, iPod Touch even if its for the speed increase that Opera Mini brings.

There are certainly features that I think Apple will implement into Safari at some point and vise versa as I am sure that Opera Mini will incorporate some of the better features on Safari. My advice is to download and use both!

Its a classic clip so enjoy!

Borovets – On the Piste

Borovets Piste Map

Borovets is a nice enough resort which, if I’m honest better suited to the beginner skier rather than those who have been going for a few years. Although the resort has its fair share of Red runs there are plenty of long green and not to steep red runs for beginners to feel comfortable with. For me not an expert snowboarder by any stretch of the imagination the ski area is to small and although due to the weather (more on that in a bit) we could not cover every run I’d say it would take half a day to a day at most to cover the lot. To be fair many of the runs are nice and spacious which is great if you dislike some of the more narrower runs (as you sometimes get with beginner runs) but sadly for the intermediate skier / snowboarder they are two short.

I have been to Borovets twice now, the first time being in March 2007 and both times snow has been rather lacking on the lower slopes. Granted conditions this time were far better than in 2007 but still the lower runs were very slushy and wet and were not really skiable.  The runs opposite the Rila hotel (see the piste map) were particularly bad up until midweek when we had a decent fall of snow but for intermediate skiers you really want to head over to Musala (served by the main Gondola) which is far larger. Conditions at the top were good at the start of the week but the good fall of snow midweek higher up made for lots of powder and of course the associated fun it brings. There is a fantastic off piste section if you cut across from Markudjk 2B over to Markudjk 3 plenty of fun if the snow is good!

I should mention the cost of the lift pass. Although we had a package deal and the price was all-inclusive a weekly lift pass was around £90, which is great compared to the alpine resorts where we paid £190 last year in Austria. The lift system does need a little upgrading in places with drag lifts still in operation in some places but the gondala and chair lifts do give you acess to the vast majority of runs.

Borovets – Off the Piste, Apres Ski

The bars were not packed at the end of the day, well there were plenty of people milling around but compared to Solden in Austria (its Bonkers) fairly quiet! There are a few bars/restaurants by the main Gondola and the Rila hotel bar is pretty busy at the end of they day with people having a beer after dropping their equipment off.

Borovets – Off the Piste, Nightlife

The bars are quite lively not over the top with a pint costing around 4 Levs (£2.00) which is of course fantastic when you look at some of the French resorts. This is of course why many Brits come here, cheap (ish) beer and cheap (ish) food. There is a nightclub inside the Rila hotel and a lively late night bar called Buzz, which is more of a nightclub than a bar if the truth be told.

We were lucky enough to go into a bar called White Magic owned by Christo Angelov ex Bulgarian World Champion and Olympic Skiier. A top bloke so if you have time pop in for a drink and even a bite to eat, the food was fantastic probably the best steak I have ever had! In fact Christo has made a fantastic video below of the run from the Gondola down to the bottom of the slope.

Christo Angelov downhill run

Borovets – Accommodation

We stayed in the Iglika Palace hotel  (the second time we have stayed here). The rooms are spacious, excellent shower after a days skiing although it can be a bit slow if you use it around 4-5pm with everyone getting off the slopes. The swimming pool is a added bonus if a little small and slippery but you get what you pay for and the overall cost (half board as well) couldn’t be beaten.  Yes the food isn’t the best but its passable but you get what you pay for, it doesn’t cost lots to eat out so we did three times during the week. The bar was nice enough and you have the added bonus of free WiFi allowing you to keep in touch with people back home. I found Skype invaluable!

All in all I would recommend Borovets to the beginner / intermediate skier if you’re a competent skier and you can afford to go elsewhere then Borovets probably isn’t the place for you. It is well suited for families with the lift pass being relatively inexpensive compared to alpine resorts but the lift system does need a bit of upgrading in places.

Borovets Photos

Jumping in Borovets

I took a few pictures whilst away which can be found in my Photos section.

Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors that visit a page on your website and don’t visit any other pages. For example someone may come in to this page via a search engine and then go to another site without visiting any of my other pages

The Exit Rate on the other hand is the percentage of people who have left the page but would have previously visited other pages. The figure is worked out by the percentage of visitors that leave your website from a page based on the number of visits to that page.

If your Bounce Rate is high and the average time spent on the page is very low then perhaps it is time to worry. Users are more than likely scanning the page and haven’t found what they are looking for.

I still cant decide if it was actually a good film was I so taken aback by the visual feast that I forgot to think about the predictable Bad Guts Vs Good Guys will the  good guy get the girl (yep you get the picture!). Perhaps my view would have been so so different if I had seen the 2D version but then again being so visually awe inspiring would the 2D version left me thinking the same?

Well perhaps I have answered my own question here simply because I am considering watching the 3D version again this time in an iMax cinema. Would I go to see the 2D version? The answer has to be no, its the visual experience I am drawn to and not the storyline.

Internet Explorer

Microsoft have confirmed that Internet Explorer was used in the December cyber attacks on Google and some other outfits and this has led to calls from France and Germany to use safer browsers. However Microsoft has stated that Internet Explorer 8 is one of the ‘most secure browsers on the market’ these attacks exploited a security hole in Internet Explorer 6 however, Microsoft admit there is a vulnerability in Internet Explorer 8 and experts have indicated that this exploit code can be adapted to target other browsers.

Would the French and German Governments say to their citizens do not use Windows as its unsafe? No probably not. As mentioned above the exploit code can be adapted to target other browsers so does this mean that Internet Explorer is far more  susceptible to attack than say FireFox? Well maybe but it more to the point the hackers target Internet Explorer simply because it is so popular these ‘hackers’ wanted access to Google accounts and what browser was more than likely being used by the people who’s email they wanted access to? Yep you have guessed it Internet Explorer.

So the advantages of running other browsers is that the bad guys are less likely to be going after you, still that said using a better browser than Internet Explorer is advisable but what are the options?

FireFox

FireFox

Firefox is the worlds second most popular browser and is the browser of choice for so many because of the wide availability of plugins. Firefox itself has had quite a few vunerabilities patched by Mozilla (the makers of Firefox) but they are found far less frequently than those in Internet Explorer. FireFox is my browser of choice (along with Ubuntu OS – hey why use a operating system that is so popular and targeted by hackers?!) but a few plugins or Add-ons offer another layer of security.

First of all there is no-script a must have Add-on for all FireFox users. No-Script blocks Javascript from running on the webpage you are visiting, well most browsers can do this but the beauty with No-Script is that you can allow some scripts to run from the domain you are visiting but block other third party scripts from running whilst on site. For example you may be on www.direct.gov.uk and allow all scripts from www.direct.gov.uk to run. Now you may also find that scripts attempt to run from say evil.com (say the site had been hacked for example – don’t panic I’m sure the direct gov site is fine!) these would be blocked allowing you to view the page normally but preventing you from being exploited by a third party script. No-Script in this way will stop 99% of web based attacks.

Another great plugin is Web of Trust (WOT) which helps block access to potentially unsafe sites that you may visit. This is from the WOT website:

The WOT plugin adds small icons to google searches telling you if the site is potentially dangerous whilst if you do visit a site that may harm your computer it will block access to the site unless you override the settings. You can also add your comments and rating to the site in order to help others avoid potential pitfalls.

With these plugins (and some others) FireFox is certainly my browser of choice at the moment.

Opera

Opera

Opera would be my second choice and is installed on all of my computers. Opera has one over many fans for its ease of use and security credentials although security alerts do appear from time to time they are quickly patched by Opera.

Opera also boasts email support so you can pick up your email from within the built in email client. I must admit I do not know Opera that well but I will say it leaves Internet Explorer far behind. If your still using IE then using Opera will be a like a breath of fresh air, oh and you will be much safer online!

Safari

Safari

Sorry Mac fans (hey I use a mac in work and I love it) but Safari is a no no for me. Firefox and Opera are my choices of browser on a mac I leave Safari well alone. Why? Well it is god dam slow that is why! Its Javascript handling is poor so using Javascript intensive pages such as Google Ad-Words or Google Analytics it brings my machine to a crawl. This doesn’t just appear to be my Mac either I tried installing the Windows version of Safari with the same result.

I am also dubious of Safari’s security claims when vulnerabilities are found with Apple products they are notoriously slow to patch them so with this in mind I’d stay away from Safari.

Sorry Mac fans but as I said I love my Mac in work and would like to use them at home but I am less than convinced with Apples attitude to security updates leaving them un-patched until exploit code is produced – not good enough!

Google Chrome

Google Chrome

I’m really not in a position to judge Google Chrome. I must admit I installed it on my windows machine and didn’t care to much for the interface and my Mac in work is running Tiger (OS X 10.4) and Chrome needs Leopard (OS X 10.5) to run on the Mac. I have heard that the Javascript engine is the fastest out of all the browsers whilst security wise I know that Google has fixed two high-severity vulnerabilities which is quicker than Apple do with Safari!

Another advantage with Chrome is that each browser tab runs as a seperate process so if one page crashes it does not crash your entire browser.

I conclude – Secure Browsers!

I’d recommend anyone move away from Internet explorer ASAP, well if you are a web developer you have to have it to check your designs work! I mentioned earlier that my browser of choice is FireFox with the plugins No-Script and Web of Trust installed this should protect you from most on-line threats (still use some common sense when visiting web sites!). Opera is also installed on my machine which I use now and again without problems and I see no reason why you shouldn’t try Google Chrome. My personnel opinion is to leave Safari alone unless you use nothing else but Apple….

There are other browsers out there of course so please mention any other browsers you use