Check out these links:

• The promise of a 3G MacBook - Too many hands in the pot?
• The Internet - 2008 Facts and Figures ~ All Things IT - Wow! Some interesting figures here. Pretty cool when you think about it.

About a year ago I wrote of a MacBook Pro scam on Craigslist that was showing up in various cities around the United States. To this day, I’ve gotten over 250 comments on that particular post from concerned consumers who had either stopped themselves before sending their money or already gotten scammed.

Unfortunately, I’m assuming Craigslist hasn’t found a resolve for this problem, as the scammers are still at it! Here is the original email I received after inquiring about this dirt cheap MacBook Pro:

Selling a slightly used 15.4″ Macbook Pro. I’m asking for $680/obo but please do not lowball me, I am in no hurry to sell this machine. I use it only for word processing and internet use, so I don’t need such a powerful laptop. Here are the specs:

-15.4″ Macbook Pro
-2.16 Ghz Core 2 Duo Processor
-2 Gigs Ram
-100 Gig HD
-Superdrive DVD+-RW Drive
-Airport Extreme
-Axio Hardsleeve

Preloaded with
-Adobe Creative Suite CS3
-Microsoft Office 2008
-Mac OSX Leopard 10.5
-Final Cut Pro Studio

Naturally, I emailed the seller asking them to call me to discuss the product. I wasn’t about to get screwed! Linda, which I know isn’t his/her name, emailed me back, completely avoiding the fact that I asked her to call me. She told me she lives in the UK now and will ship through a company called TNT. She told me the company was comparable to FedEx and UPS and gave me this link:

http://cargoexpresstnt.com/about.tnt/index/details.html

The scammer/scammers are going by several different names including:  Linda Hamilton, Lisa Carter, Megan Sneddon, Dennis, Ryan McCoy, Warren Caldwell, Andrew Lonegan, Jenny, Steven Lewis, Andrew Hogan, Linda Cullison, Amy Benson, Thomas Haley, Kyle Mosson, David Summers, Warren Duggan, Bradley Henderson, Sean Barry, Martin Macy, Thomas Hardie, Ashley Arsh, Amelia McGuire, Roger Matt, Lucya Matt, Carl Nichols, Amanda, Brave Taraza, and more.

It also looks as though they are expanding to different products and not just MacBook Pro’s. According to several comments, a lot of people are getting their local law enforcement involved. For all the other comments and responses go to:

 http://chrisclemons.com/blog/index.php/2008/macbook-pro-scam-on-craigslist/

I will continue to post about this scam. If you run into any of this on Craigslist, post as much info as possible here in a comment.

Moral of this story is: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

As social networking sites have increased in number, their capabilities have become more robust and resourceful. For example, no longer is a simple MySpace bulletin only used to break up with your boyfriend of 2 months. You can relay more important information and solidly link to friends and followers across many social outlets like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and your own personal blog.

Not that a failed long-term relationship is unimportant… But, sites like Twitter have made available new ways to communicate and learn. I learn quite a bit every day by scrolling through the tweets of my fellow Twits (is that right?). From Chris Pirillo’s plethora of tweets linking to his often-updated technology blog to Ariel Walden’s daily observations, which, by the way, are quite interesting. Sure, I’ve never actually met these people, but I feel like I’ve established a pretty good idea of who they are by what they share with the iWorld.

Because of its ease of use and the communication possibilities Twitter has, it would be a fantastic tool to be utilized in a classroom setting. No, not for first-graders. Middle-school students and up, all the way to college grad-school students can benefit greatly from the service. Instructors/Teachers would be taking a more progressive, catered approach to learning in a way that is relevant to today’s wide-spread technologically inclined population. Can you imagine a discussion on Sylvia Plath’s,  The Bell Jar taking place on your mobile phone while you are out with friends grabbing a cup of coffee?

Silverlight is a fairly new plugin for your favorite browser (IE, Safari, Firefox, Opera) that displays animations, vector graphics, MP3 & WMA audio, and WMV video.  What’s cool about Silverlight:

• It’s quick
• Embedded text is searchable
• Works in conjunction with many programming languages
• Has a superior streaming video quality

As we make progress with Merchannex I will definitely consider utilizing Silverlight as a means of sharing content. The most beneficial feature that I see is that it makes your content searchable and indexable. Because my primary focus as of the present is SEO, this feature directly ties in and improves visibility on the web, if only a little. Every bit counts, right?

When putting together your website it’s a common fact that Search Engine Optimization is key to the success of whatever it is you are setting out to accomplish. Keywords, however only a portion of some important details, are key (haha). So when deciding which keywords are best for your site and all of your pages, it’s relatively easy to want to throw as many in there as possible, which could potentially hurt your rating!

Include 2-3 different keywords per page. If you are writing about a motorcycle jacket on your blog, be specific. Don’t include “leather” as a keyword. Instead, put the brand or name of the jacket in your meta tags. This allows your material to be found by people searching for more specific things and if you are creating unique, specific content, you are more likely to drive visitors to your site.