Was cleaning out some old bookmarks last night and ran across Nirmal T V’s post about popuri.us. Seems someone was trying to tell me something because I had recently run seen popuri.us at Diary of My Life and Untwisted Vortex.

What is popuri.us? It’s a single site where you can check a number of your blog’s rankings and popularity stats, including:
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I use Google for a lot of my search needs – sites, blogs, images, video, mapping, addresses, reviews, etc. The list goes on.

But I’ve always wondered if Google is always the best option.

Well Phil Bradley has compiled a list of what he calls Finding What You Need With The Best Search Engines. I’ve looked over the list and found the usuals like Google, Yahoo! Search and MSN Live Search for keyword searches.

But there’s some other gems in the list. Like using Encarta and Answers.com for facts searching or GooFresh for new additions to Google. KartOO, of course, gives some beautiful, visual search results (try it if you haven’t) and can be fun to use. I’d never seen Quintura before, but I can see its usefulness. It displays search results with a tag could of similar search keywords.

There’s lots of good stuff on his list. Much you’ve probably seen but some I’m sure you haven’t. So take a look, and let me know what gems you find.

By the way, he plans to continue updating this list on a regular basis. Maybe this is a resource to bookmark.

I almost never work on the weekends. And I rarely work in the evening. So, then, how do I manage to remain a thriving solopreneur? How do I get my work done on time and under budget? Simple (mostly) through good productivity practices.

I have a number of processes that help me keep a stable and productive workflow. Yet I’m always looking for better and more efficient ways to run my business.

So is Ben Yoskovitz. But he wants to help all of us with our productivity. That’s why he’s instigated (sorry Ben, couldn’t resist) the Ultimate Guide to Productivity Group Writing Project Meme.

Ben kicked it off by tagging Alister Cameron, Adam Kayce, Chris Brogan, Guy Kawasaki, Andrew Wee, David Armano, Tony Clark, Mike Sansone and Chris Cree. As of tonight, Adam and Andrew have responded with some solid tips. I’d love to hear from everyone else Ben’s tagged.

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It’s a little known secret that I’m a want-to-be RSS evangelist. I’m not interested in RSS so much from the tech-geek side of things. No, I’m interested in the everyday person side of things – how to get the word out about the simple power of RSS to people who haven’t found it yet. Perhaps when I get a bit more time, I can begin my second career.

In the meantime, here is the best example of explaining RSS that I’ve seen. Thank you to Common Craft for creating this video. And thanks to Andy Beal, David Peralty, Amit Agarwal, Alex Raiano, and Brand Linder for putting this in front of me enough times that I couldn’t help but watch it and share it.

I just completed A List Apart’s Web Design Survey 2007. Simple set of 37 questions. Probably took me 7 minutes to complete.

I had been avoiding it. So what changed my mind? First it was reminding me by showing up in my reader in a few places. So I took at look at ALA’s survey page and got the answser for me…

People who make websites have been at it for more than a dozen years, yet almost nothing is known, statistically, about our profession. Who are we? Where do we live? What are our titles, our skills, our educational backgrounds? Where and with whom do we work? What do we earn? What do we value?

So get over there and take it. Whatever website design has given you, I’m sure you can spare 10 minutes to give back to it.

Need one more motivation?

Selected participants, chosen by random drawing, will win one free ticket to An Event Apart event held in the continental U.S.; an Apple 30GB video iPod, an Event Apart jump drive, or a funky A List Apart T-shirt.

If I’m honest with myself (and you), I’ve failed at more things in my life than I’ve succeed. Yeah sure, if I look at my life over time, nothing’s really been a failure. I’ve succeeded at number of things from sports to business, mountain climbing to blogging.

But when I look at each, individual event – each day or moment – I’ve failed far more than I’ve succeeded. I mean, just something simple like not wanting to worry – I’ve failed at that a number of times today alone.

So what is failure? In general, failure refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective. Basically, failure means having things not turn out the way you want them too.

Is that a bad thing? I think not. As a matter of fact, I think it’s quite necessary.
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You know, I’ve never really been one for conferences. Outside of MacWorld in San Francisco, they’ve never really lived up to the hype. So while I still go to conference from time to time, it’s often without much excitement.

Yet, as SOBCon07 gets closer, I can’t help but be excited. I going to get to rub elbows with 250 other bloggers – a number of whom I’ve already met in the blogosphere. So it’s going to be great to meet up.

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For a few weeks I’ve been on a campaign to rid the blogosphere of the dreaded nofollow attribute. Of course, I didn’t start this. But I’m convinced that nofollow must go. So much so that I’ve been asking everyone I know to spread the word.

A few days ago, Randa Clay had the great idea of creating a badge. Great idea, I thought. Why didn’t I think of that? Well, the great thing is, she has.
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Do you use ‘click here’ as link text on your site? I have. And I would say almost every one of my clients over the past nine years has too.

But why? Why do we think that we need to tell our readers to click here?

I guess we believe that click here will make it clear to our readers that this is a link and that behind the click here link is something they want to read. But does it? Really?

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I’m always intrigued by Guy Kawasaki. While I know he’s controversial – and outright disliked by some, I still find amazing value in what he says.

Guy’s perspective the core of a successful businesses is to make meaning. He says, “…those companies that are fundamentally founded to change the world, to make the world a better place, to make meaning are the companies that make a difference. They are the companies to succeed. My naive and romantic belief is that if you make meaning you will probably make money. But if you set out to make money you probably won’t make meaning and you won’t make money.”

I happen to agree with Guy on this point. It’s something my good friend Adam Kayce and I were just talking about this morning.

Take a look at this short (two and a half minutes) video of Guy talking about the three ways to make meaning with your business.

He cites the three ways as to make meaning as:

1. Increase the quality of life
2. Right a wrong
3. Prevent the end of something good

I’ve been thinking about this all morning in relation to where my business is now AND where my business is heading. Now I’m looking at my business from the stand point of all three points.

How about you? Does you business make meaning? How? Could it do more?