Distraction of the Day

I am Smarter than a 5th Grader

2008-03-18T15:14:00.001-07:00

June Jones to SMU

2008-01-07T13:15:00.000-08:00

It's a say day for Warriors fan. June Jones, the winningest football coach in University of Hawaii history has accepted a 5 year deal from Southern Methodist University worth approximately $2 million / year.

UH had made offers to Jones in the 1.1 - 1.3 range over the past week, but according to his agent Leigh Steinberg, it was not a financial decision. Instead it was the lack of commitment shown by the University toward the football program and their facilities. It is very possible that the University of Hawaii football facilities are the among the worst in the country.

SMU was lucky to land a coach like June Jones. I have no doubt that he will help to turn their team around.

The search will now begin for UH's next head coach. The general consensus is that they will select from within the existing assistant coaches. According to sources, Morrison (QB coach), McMackin (Defensive coordinator) and Suan (RB coach) will be following Jones to SMU. Rich Miano, the current DB coach has expressed interest in the head coach position at UH. However, I'm betting that they offer the position to Cal Lee. He ran a similar offense at St. Louis and has indicated that he will be staying in Hawaii. It will be interesting to watch how this all plays out...

Absolutely No Class

2008-01-01T22:57:00.000-08:00

Georgia just killed Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl 41-10. What bothers me, is not that the Warriors lost, but the fact that Georgia and it's fans have no class.

1) Late in the game, Georgia already up by 4 scores, 4th and goal and they try to pass for another TD. At this point, what does another TD accomplish? Why not just kick the FG and get on with it instead of rubbing it in Hawaii's face? I don't buy all the BS about next years pre-season rankings. How about show some respect for a 12-0 team that simply had an off night?

2) Again very late in the game, after a short completion to Ryan Grice-Mullen, after the play is whistled dead, the Georgia defensive player keeps pushing him back, while another comes in for a late hit. The late hit was obviously uncalled for as forward progress had been stopped for some time. They were penalized 15 yards for a personal foul.

3) The fans were yelling "Overrated, Overrated" at a Hawaii team that obviously had an off night. To me, that is disrespectful. The Georgia fans could definitely learn a little "Aloha Spirit" from the Hawaii fans.

Irregardless of the Sugar Bowl results, the Warriors had a great season. I'm certain that a bunch of players will get a shot at the next level and I look forward to watching them play on Sundays.

Congratulations on a great season Warriors!

Brennan Third in Heisman voting

2007-12-10T00:50:00.000-08:00

Colt Brennan had a great season, but not good enough to win the 2007 Heisman. He finished 3rd behind Tim Tebow of Florida and Darren McFadden of Arkansas.

One of the biggest arguments against Brennan was the weak schedule that Hawaii faced this year. I have a hard time understanding how that can be held against him. The Athletic Director is responsible for scheduling teams... Does that mean that Herman Frazier is responsible for Brennan not winning the Heisman?

The Warriors won a number of games in which they were losing or tied in the 4th quarter. Colt brought them back in all of them (except the game he was injured) and helped ensure Hawaii's first undefeated season. I strongly believe that out of all the candidates, Colt made the biggest impact to his team.

Colt didn't win the Heisman, but he will have a chance to prove how good he is when he enters the NFL. Analysts estimate that Brennan will be drafted in the 1st or 2nd round. I look forward to watching him succeed at the next level.

Colt Brennan - 2007 Heisman Finalist

2007-12-06T03:14:00.000-08:00

Colt Brennan was officially announced today as a 2007 Heisman finalist and will be one of 4 finalists flying to New York for the Heisman Trophy presentation. Colt passed for 4,174 yards and 38 touchdowns during the 2007 season. Unfortunately, injuries kept him out of a few games or those totals would be even higher.

Also nominated were Florida QB Tim Tebow, Arkansas RB Darren McFadden and Missouri QB Chase Daniel.

The slight favorite is Tebow who passed for 3,132 yards and 29 touchdowns. He also ran for 838 yards and 22 touchdowns.

The winner of the Heisman Trophy will be announced at the New York's Nokia Theater on Saturday night. Good luck Colt!

Hawaii Warriors - How Sweet it is

2007-12-03T02:49:00.000-08:00

The University of Hawaii Warriors were extended an invitation to the Sugar Bowl to face number 4 ranked Georgia on New Years day. This is only the second time that Hawaii has been invited to a bowl game outside of Hawaii. In 1992, the Warriors were able to defeat Illinois at the Holiday Bowl.

Approximately 7,500 fans gathered at the Stan Sheriff Center to be a part of Fox's coverage of the Bowl Championship Series Selection Show. The announcement that Hawaii was selected to play in the Sugar Bowl set off a huge celebration.

Colt Brennan will lead his team against the Bulldogs, who are one of the top teams in the country. The Bulldogs were a candidate to play in the BCS championship game, but were snubbed in favor of LSU and Ohio State.

There is no doubt that Georgia will be Hawaii's toughest test of the year. Early lines already have the Warriors as an 11 point underdog, but they always seem to find a way. The nation has yet to see how good the Warriors actually are, but in order for them to win, they will need to find a way to stop the run.

Good luck Warriors!

Hawaii Warriors - Perfect Season (12-0)

2007-12-02T01:28:00.000-08:00

The University of Hawaii Warriors put the finishing touches on a perfect 12-0 season tonight, by pulling off a narrow win (35-28) over the University of Washington Huskies. The Warriors opened the game very flat and turned the ball over on 3 fumbles in the first quarter. The 3 turnovers helped the Huskies pull out to a 21-7 advantage at the end of the first quarter.

June Jones employed some sneaky tactics in the first quarter, basically running the ball with a series of hand-offs and shovel passes. This was done strategically to counter the pressure UW was sending at Colt Brennan. As it turns out, by the second quarter, UH was back to it's run and shoot offense and the Huskies didn't bring much pressure after that.

In the first half, the Huskies running game looked unstoppable. However, the Warriors defense picked up the intensity in the second half, and didn't allow a score in the 3rd or 4th quarters.

The Warriors played rather uninspiring offense until the 4th quarter. It really felt like Colt Brennan wasn't comfortable passing the ball early on. When the last quarter came rolling along, Colt looked like his normal self completing long passes to various receivers, including a 40 yard score to Jason Rivers. The Warriors scored the go-ahead touchdown with less than a minute left in the game on a 5 yard pass from Brennan to Grice-Mullen.

The Warriors ended their season in dramatic fashion and remain the only undefeated team of the 2007 season. Tomorrow, the BCS will announce which bowl game the Warriors will be invited to, and as a result, an estimated payout of 4 million dollars for participating in that bowl game.

Only one game remains for Colt Brennan and the rest of the UH seniors. It's been a perfect regular season, and the seniors are hoping for a win number 13 to close out their college careers.

How to Setup Google Analytics on a Blogger site

2007-11-29T18:36:00.000-08:00

Google Analytics is a powerful tool to help you understand the visitor traffic on your site. It will help you understand where your visitors are coming from, and what they are doing once they have reached your site.

Setting up Google Analytics on a Blogger (or blogspot.com) blog is fairly easy. Here are step by step instructions assuming you already have a Google account, and a published blog on Blogger.

1) Go to http://www.google.com/analytics and login with your Google credentials.

2) Once you are logged in, you must enroll by clicking on the "Sign Up" button.

3) Next you must provide information about your website. The URL is simply the web address to your blog (i.e myblog.blogspot.com). The Account Name is a name you'd like to refer to the blog (i.e. myblog). Specify your country and time zone and click "Continue".

4) Fill out the Contact Info with your name, phone number and country. Then click "Continue".

5) Accept the Terms of Service by placing a check box agreeing to the terms, then click on "Create New Account".

6) You will now be presented with a snippet of code. Copy the code by highlighting everything in the text box. Right click on the text and select "Copy". Once you have copied the code, click on the "Continue" button.

7) Now login to your blog at http://www.blogger.com and navigate to the Template -> Edit HTML section.

8) In the Edit Template section, scroll down in the box of code to the very bottom. You should see a < /body > tag very near the bottom. The code we copied earlier must now be pasted above this tag.

9) Save your template by clicking on the "Save Template" button.

10) Go back the Google Analytics browser and look for the "Check Status" link for your site. Click on this link and verify that your site is now communicating with Google Analytics. If successful, you will see a message indicating a successful install.

11) Click on the "Finish" button. Congratulations, you are now able to gather data on visitors to your blogger site.

University of Hawaii Football team Undefeated

2007-11-28T14:40:00.000-08:00

The University of Hawaii (UH) football team is currently 11-0, and the only undefeated team in NCAA Division 1-A. With the defeat of Boise State (39-27) this past weekend, Hawaii has also won the Western Athletic Conference outright for the first time ever.

The victory helped the Warriors move up to No. 12 in the BCS poll, which makes them eligible for a BCS bowl game. However, the Washington Huskies have a chance to end Hawaii's unbeaten season, and kill their chances of a BCS bowl bid this weekend at Aloha Stadium. The Huskies come in at 4-8 and last place in the Pac-10, but no one should be taking them lightly as they beat Boise State earlier in the year (24-10). The Pac-10 is a strong conference with major powerhouses like Arizona State, USC and Oregon.

Kickoff is at 6:30 pm (HST) and once again the game will be aired nationally on ESPN. A strong showing by Hawaii may be just what it needs to silence some of their critics. Needless to say, Hawaii should be prepared for a tough game. I'm certain that UW is treating this as their bowl game and will come out ready to play some football.

Free Web Hosting

2007-11-26T15:28:00.001-08:00

In a previous entry, I discussed getting Free Domain Names. Once you have a free domain name, it is important to be able to host your pages somewhere. What would be better than a free web host for your free domain name?

Here is a list of some Free Web Hosting providers that do not force you to display banner ads:

1) X10hosting: http://www.x10hosting.com/
Diskspace: 100MB - 2500MB
Bandwidth: 3GB - 45GB
Databases: MySQL

2) FreeHostia: http://freehostia.com/free_hosting.html
Diskspace: 250 MB
Bandwidth: 5 GB
Databases: MySQL

3) AwardSpace: http://www.awardspace.com/free_web_hosting.html
Diskspace: 200 MB
Bandwidth: 5 GB
Databases: MySQL

4) LeadHoster: http://www.leadhoster.com/
Diskspace: 250 MB
Bandwidth: 6 GB
Databases: MySQL

5) WebsitesNetwork: http://www.websitesnetwork.com/
Diskspace: 200 MB
Bandwidth: 2 GB
Databases: MySQL

There are many reputable and free web hosts available across the web. If you have found one that has provided you great features and service, please let me know in the comments below.

Free Domain Name

2007-11-26T14:57:00.000-08:00

I've been browsing for free stuff on the web, and came across some information on obtaining free domain names. Please note that I have not signed up for any of these services so I am unable to comment on how it works or the quality of service provided.

Free Domain Name:

Option 1) co.nr is basically a URL redirection service. The website lets you register the name of your choice and will help you redirect this URL to an existing web site. The website claims that they will not force any banner ads or pop-ups. Visit the site for more information.

Option 2) Dot TK seems to be very simlilar to Option 1, with the exception of ads. Apparently, this service will place ads on your site across the top of the page.

Option 3) Free-Webhosts is different than Options 1 and 2 in the sense that the domain names offered are the more traditional .com .net or .org extensions. Apparently in order to get the free domain name, one must complete trial offers (and cancel them before the first billing). In exchange for your time and signing up for the affiliate offers, you are rewarded with a domain name for 1 year. See the site for more details.

I may consider looking into one or more of these services. If you have any experience with these sites, feel free to leave a comment below about your experiences.

Not getting indexed by Google

2007-11-21T13:15:00.000-08:00

Today makes 13 days since the inception of this blog, but as of yet, this site has not been included in the Google index. I've followed the suggestions posted all around the web... Adding the site/feed to blog directories, adding to dmoz.org (which I think is a complete waste of time, but more on that later), leaving comments, signing up with Technorati, and a variety of other tactics. I've also signed up for the Google Webmasters Tools and submitted my sitemap to make it easier for Google... Not only have I not been indexed, but I don't even see the Google spiders crawling this site.

On day 1, I submitted my URL via the Google Add URL tool. I've read mostly horrible reviews of this tool, primarily that it doesn't work. If the tool doesn't work, and you aren't going to index someone's site, don't get their hopes up by making the tool public! On the other hand, Google probably has to keep this tool around since Yahoo, MSN and all the major search engines allow for this functionality.

The other blog that I setup (1 day before this one) has not been indexed either, but at the very least, I saw Google spiders crawling the site early this morning.

Perhaps it's the lack of content, or perhaps the spiders view this as a low quality site. Only time will tell, but I will definitely keep monitoring Google to see when and if this site gets indexed.

*note: MSN indexed this site within 3-4 days. Yahoo also has not indexed.

Increasing Traffic to Your Blog

2007-11-15T13:59:00.000-08:00

Once your Adsense blog is up and running, the next thing you should be concerned with is driving traffic to your site. No traffic to your site, means no one to click on your ads.

Content:
This is probably the most important aspect of your blog. Unique and personalized content (not something you copied off another site) will drive visitors to your site, and more importantly keep them coming back.

Interaction:
Another strategy important in visitor retention is interacting with your visitors. Always respond to any comments left by visitors. Additionally, utilize polls and ask questions of your visitors. Chances are if it's a topic they really care about, they will come back to your site, or subscribe to your feed at the very least.

SEO:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a topic covered in depth by many articles across the web. Search engine traffic can be the most effective means of increasing unique visitors to your website. More visitors equals more click thru's. It really is as simple as that.

Visit other sites with common themes:
Another effective strategy is to visit other sites or blogs with similar themes. Leave comments and post a link to your site. If it's a forum, make sure your posts have a signature that also points to your site. The reasons are two fold: 1) You already know that the site has a qualified audience so you do not have to spend time targeting the right visitors. 2) Links to your site coming from another site with a similar topic will increase your search engine ranking.

Blog and RSS directories:
Adding your blog and RSS feed to the appropriate directories will also direct some traffic your way. One of the most popular is Technorati. This site allows you to register tags to your site and makes your blog easier to find.

The above suggestions should start to drive traffic to your blog. Remember that establishing your blog and generating traffic is not something that can be accomplished overnight. It will usually takes months of hard work (or even years) to generate a loyal following. However, the suggestions above will definitely steer you in the right direction.

How to Create an Adsense Account

2007-11-10T02:26:00.000-08:00

Google Adsense is an easy to use ad service which place ads on your pages based on the content of your website. When visitors to your site click on these ads, you generate revenue toward your account.

Signing up is very easy:

You must register for an Adsense account by visiting http://www.google.com/adsense. Here you will submit the URL to your site, give them a little bit of information about yourself and wait for the Adsense team to evalutate your site. There are some terms and conditions which must be read and agreed upon. Most of the rules are fairly straight forward, i.e. Adsense ads can not be placed on pages with pornographic material, you can not give incentives for or encourage your visitors to click on the ads etc.

The evaluation of your site will take anywhere from an hour to several days (approval of my site took about 2 hours) and you will be notified via email once your application has been approved or denied.

Once approved, you fill out some information about where your payments should be sent, give them some tax information (in case you start making ridiculous amounts of money) and you are ready to start putting ads up on your site.

Adsense utilizes javascript and putting these on your site might prove to be the hardest part of the entire process. Luckily, Adsense will generate the code, and you simply have to cut and paste.

To generate an add, log into your Adsense account and select the "AdSense Setup" tab. Click "Get Ads" on the menu and select "AdSense for Content".

By default, the "Ad Unit - Text and Image ads" is selected. In most cases this is sufficient. Click on "Continue".

Now you must choose the size of the add. Choices range from square boxes to horizontal and vertical ads. Luckily, you have a wide range of choices and the Adsense format you choose is up to you. Try experimenting with different sizes to see which ad type is most successful on your site. There is no "best" format for every site.

Choose the colors you would like for your border, title, background, text and URL, or choose one of the Google defaults from the drop down box. If you are unsure which to choose, select the "Default Google palette" and click continue.

The next page let's you choose a channel to track the performance of the ad unit. This tool is used to track which ads are the most successful on your site. For the purposes of this exercise you can skip this step and click continue. We will visit this feature in a future article.

On the next page, click on "Submit and Get Code".

Adsense has now generated the code that you must cut and paste into your website. The code will look something like this:

Place this code on your website in the location of your choice.

Congratulations! You have now successfully created your Adsense account and enabled your website to start displaying content from Adsense.

Remember to experiment with different size ads, as well as different placements on your site.

Maximizing Adsense Revenue

2007-11-08T11:40:00.001-08:00

So I've decided to get started with Google Adsense (http://www.google.com/adsense). What an interesting concept... getting paid for hosting a few ads on your website. In actuality, this concept has been around for many, many years. Unfortunately, most online based advertising has failed miserably, so what makes Google Adsense so different?

Adsense is primarily about targetted content. Adsense actually uses it's crawling spiders to determine what your site is about and what ads would suit your site the best. The more targeted your content is, the more targeted Google's ads will be.

Advertisers have determined that having their ads displayed on targetted content is vastly superior to having ads displayed on random content and increases the probability of the site/ad generating business for them.

With that being said, if you are interested in generating revenue via Adsense, here are some pointers which will make you be successful:

1) Traffic - Plain and simply the most important aspect. If there is no traffic to your site, there will be no click thrus. Make sure to have good quality content as well as gimicks to ensure users return to your site.

2) Ad placement - It's a proven fact that ad placement can drastically affect the click thru rate (CTR). Google released a tool for Adsense users called the Google Heatmap. The image outlines which portions of a web page obtain more attention and clicks.

3) Choosing a format - Adsense offers a large number of sizes and shapes to present your ads. Experiment with different options and monitor your reports (visit your Adsense account) to see what is the best combination for your site. There is no best size/shape... Everything depends on the layout of your site.

4) Relevant ads - If you are seeing ads not related to the content of your website, CTR's will be greatly affected. People who go to a surfing site, won't click on ads for sewing. Make use of the ad filter utility in the Adsense setup panel. Or better yet, rework some of your content so that your keywords/phrases appear more often.

5) Do not cheat - Don't try to click on your own ads to generate revenue. Google frowns upon this practice and will disable your account. It's not worth the risk.

There are people making 6 figure salaries strictly from Adsense. While this is not the norm, it shows that the possibility is there if you utilize the right strategies and have a great website. Good luck!