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Showing posts from July, 2012

Wiener and Cybernetics

From experiments with anti-aircraft systems that interpreted radar images to detect enemy planes,  Norbert Wiener  coined the term  cybernetics  from the Greek word for "steersman." He published "Cybernetics" in 1948, which influenced  artificial intelligence . Wiener also compared  computation , computing machinery,  memory  devices, and other cognitive similarities with his analysis of brain waves. The first actual computer bug was a  moth . It was stuck in between the relays on the Harvard Mark II. [1]  While the invention of the term 'bug' is often but erroneously attributed to Grace Hopper , a future rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, who supposedly logged the "bug" on September 9, 1945, most other accounts conflict at least with these details. According to these accounts, the actual date was September 9, 1947 when operators filed this 'incident' — along with the insect and the notation "First actual case of bug being found"...

Shannon and information theory

Up to and during the 1930s, electrical engineers were able to build electronic circuits to solve mathematical and logic problems, but most did so in an  ad hoc  manner, lacking any theoretical rigor. This changed with  Claude Elwood Shannon 's publication of his 1937 master's thesis,  A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits . While taking an undergraduate philosophy class, Shannon had been exposed to  Boole's  work, and recognized that it could be used to arrange electromechanical relays (then used in telephone routing switches) to solve logic problems. This concept, of utilizing the properties of electrical switches to do logic, is the basic concept that underlies all electronic digital computers, and his thesis became the foundation of practical digital circuit design when it became widely known among the electrical engineering community during and after World War II. Shannon went on to found the field of  information theory  wi...

Emergence of a discipline

The mathematical foundations of modern computer science began to be laid by  Kurt Gödel  with his  incompleteness theorem  (1931). In this theorem, he showed that there were limits to what could be proved and disproved within a  formal system . This led to work by Gödel and others to define and describe these formal systems, including concepts such as mu-recursive functions  and  lambda-definable functions . 1936 was a key year for computer science. Alan Turing and  Alonzo Church  independently, and also together, introduced the formalization of an  algorithm , with limits on what can be computed, and a "purely mechanical" model for computing. These topics are covered by what is now called the  Church–Turing thesis , a hypothesis about the nature of mechanical calculation devices, such as electronic computers. The thesis claims that any calculation that is possible can be performed by an algorithm running on a computer, provi...

Birth of computer science

Before the 1920s,  computers  (sometimes  computors ) were human clerks that performed computations. They were usually under the lead of a physicist. Many thousands of computers were employed in commerce, government, and research establishments. Most of these computers were women, and they were known to have a degree in calculus. Some performed astronomical calculations for calendars. After the 1920s, the expression  computing machine  referred to any machine that performed the work of a human computer, especially those in accordance with effective methods of the  Church-Turing thesis . The thesis states that a mathematical method is effective if it could be set out as a list of instructions able to be followed by a human clerk with paper and pencil, for as long as necessary, and without ingenuity or insight. Machines that computed with continuous values became known as the  analog  kind. They used machinery that represented continuous nume...

Binary logic

In 1703,  Gottfried Leibnitz  developed  logic  in a formal, mathematical sense with his writings on the binary numeral system. In his system, the ones and zeros also represent  true and  false  values or  on  and  off  states. But it took more than a century before  George Boole  published his  Boolean algebra  in 1854 with a complete system that allowed computational processes to be mathematically modeled. By this time, the first mechanical devices driven by a binary pattern had been invented. The  industrial revolution  had driven forward the mechanization of many tasks, and this included  weaving .  Punched cards  controlled  Joseph Marie Jacquard 's loom in 1801, where a hole punched in the card indicated a binary  one  and an unpunched spot indicated a binary  zero . Jacquard's loom was far from being a computer, but it did illustrate that machines could be ...

History of Computer Science

Early history The earliest known tool for use in computation was the  abacus , developed in period 2700–2300 BC in  Sumer . The Sumerians' abacus consisted of a table of successive columns which delimited the successive orders of magnitude of their  sexagesimal  number system. [2]  Its original style of usage was by lines drawn in sand with pebbles. Abaci of a more modern design are still used as calculation tools today. The  Antikythera mechanism  is believed to be the earliest known mechanical analog computer. [3]  It was designed to calculate astronomical positions. It was discovered in 1901 in the  Antikythera  wreck off the  Greek  island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete, and has been dated to c. 100 BC. Technological artifacts of similar complexity did not reappear until the 14th century, when mechanical  astronomical clocks  appeared in  Europe . [4] Mechanical analog computing devices a...

Year of the computer introduced in India.

In the early days of computer, only large corporations and businesses could afford a mainframe computer, and these machines were used for tasks like issuing payrolls and for analyzing huge data-sets (like a population census). The Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta acquired the first computer in Indian in 1955. Additional computers were purchased in India, mainly from IBM. By 1972, there 172 computers in India, and three-fourths of these were made by IBM. In 1977, the Indian government refused to allow more than 50 percent ownership by foreigners of any company operating in the nation. IBM refused to sell majority ownership of its Indian operations, and was thus forced to leave India. Later, after 1984, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi changed government policies to encourage an indigenous microcomputer industry. Imports were liberalized, and international standards were followed by Indian computer manufacturers so that their products could compete more effectively in the global mark...

5 Fabulous New Features Google

Near Instant Voice Translation A new prototyped product allows not just search by voice, but near instant translation between English and Spanish in the cloud, via your mobile phone. Gundotrpha spoke a paragraph's worth of words into his phone and within seconds the phone recited a translated version back in Spanish. It was amazing. Google hopes to have support for all the world's major languages completed sometime in 2010. Customized Suggest Based on Location Google Suggest is a very smart, if under-appreciated, feature. The feature will soon make use of location information when searches are performed on mobile devices. Gundrotrpha demonstrated on one phone that believed it was in Boston and one that believed it was in San Francisco. Upon typing the letters "RE" the Boston phone suggested searches for Red Sox, the local baseball team. The San Francisco phone suggested a search for REI, the outdoor gear outfitter. Google Product Search Combined With Inventor...

PPC as a Link Building Tool

Buy relevant traffic with a pay per click campaign. Relevant traffic will get your site more visitors and brand exposure. When people come to your site, regardless of the channel in which they found it, there is a possibility that they will link to you.

Internal Link Building within Content

Notice the first paragraph in this article. It has what is called an in-content anchored text link which links to another post on this site. Not only does this introduce why this article was written it has the same benefits as the related articles/posts/ You Might Like list at the end of your page: You entice your visitors to look at other pages on your site. On an eccomerce site they usually call this section You Might Also Like. On a blog, these are previous posts on the same subject. This will get the search bots to go visit those other pages. It will add to your internal link building for the page. The principles of in-content internal link building are the same as previously discussed for your site construction: Use text links, not linked images. Link to your domain name when you want to link to your home page. Use absolute links, not relative links. Include the title attribute in your links. Use keywords/phrase for your linked text.

General Site Construction Internal Linking Tips

Use the same extension at the end of your links for all links. This is mainly applicable to static websites or maybe an ecommerce site that produces static HTML pages for you but you should check any type of site for this. services.htm and services.html are both the same page and yes, linking to either will work. But, as with absolute links they look different to the search engines. Pick one way to do the extension of your pages and be consistant throughout the site. It makes it easier to remember how to link to your pages. Make your internal links absolute links. Absolute links are the exact path to the page on the web server. e.g.http://www.yourdomainname.com/services.htm is the absolute link to your services page. If you are using a WYSWYG or online editor when creating your internal links, it will just put the relative path in the hyperlink. e.g. <a href="services.htm">Services</a> This is a carry over from developing your site offline and testing you...

Website Construction for Internal Link Building

Site Navigation Site Navigation can be broken down into the main page navigation and a sub navigation. The main page navigation generally links to the main pages on the site. e.g. Home Page, About Us, Site Map, Contact Us A sub navigation menu could include categories (for services, an ecommerce site or blog). Whether you decide to have all your site navigation together in a dynamic menu or split up into a main navigation bar and sub menu there are some things you need to do to improve your internal link building and on-site search engine optimization. Use text links instead of image links. Search engines do not read images (yet) and neither does assistive technology people use to read web pages to them. Your visitors that use a non graphical browser won’t see the image either. And what if you make the link names too small in the images and people can’t read them? Text navigation links will add a search engine optimization element to your pages, add accessibility and add ...

Link Building Made Easy

Make no mistake about it:  if you want to speed your site to the top of the search engine listings, you're going to need inbound links. In fact, Google, king of the major search engines, states unequivocally that "the quantity, quality and relevance of links count towards your rating." And according to search marketing guru Aaron Wall, "Link building is going to be the SEO trump card for the foreseeable future." In fact, inbound links give you double benefits - first, it boosts your search engine rankings and second, it brings potential visitors direct to your site.

Is it Time to Hire a Firm Providing SEO Services?

There will come a point where all your efforts in optimizing the site and promoting it online seem to be not working. This can be frustrating especially if you have infused a lot of money and effort into these ventures. If you are on this stage, and you don't want to take this sitting down then what you need to keep in mind is that there is still a way out of the misery. You can still make your fledging website relevant, one thing that you can do is to get the services of an SEO services provider. The services of the professional will come for a fee, but the fee that you will shell out will be for nothing if you compare this to the overall benefits that you can get. But before you can hire one that can extend SEO services for your needs, it is right that you conduct some initial assessment first. For example, you must ask the right questions so that you can get the best SEO practitioner for your needs. Here are some things to consider, as suggested by Google on how y...

Focus on Keyword Research

When designing line frames, choosing client journeys and sitemaps, you can always commence to build, on top of that, web pages for content that concentrated on the majority of these certain keywords based upon your research. My suggestion is take the time to  better research keywords . The process of creating •    Generate a list of possible keywords (i.e. phrases that are relevant, but not exceedingly used) •    Record your planned keywords into a keyword research tool (i.e. Adword Keyword Tool, Wordtracker, Wordstream, etc) •    Conclude your keyword list based upon study (Build a list of both broad and targeted keyword phrases) •    Arrange them for launch (generally go after 3-4 related keywords per page)

OFF PAGE SEO

Basic SEO for the Beginner

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is one of the most rapidly growing forms of internet marketing. SEO companies spring up almost overnight, and in the volatile world of the internet, most of them die away just as fast. Why is SEO doing such booming business? Is SEO important for your website? How can you choose a good company to handle your SEO needs? Is SEO something you can do yourself? This article looks to answer some of those questions. Why is SEO doing such booming business? As more and more commerce moves online, from shopping to wholesale to banking and investing, it's only natural that marketing should move with it. SEO is, at the moment, the most effective form of online marketing. And, arguably, since billions of people use search engines every day, being found by search engines is certainly one of the more important aspects of online marketing, if not  the  most important aspect. So is SEO important for your website? The answer is a resounding  Yes ...