If you are a business owner or manager in Rushcliffe, and want to

• learn how to get your business ranked more highly in Google, or
• learn how to trade successfully on eBay,

then don’t miss the Rushcliffe eBusiness Day.

This free event takes place on 28 March in the beautiful surrounds of The Sanctuary restaurant in St James Park, Saxondale.

To participate in this event you will need to register with the Connected Nottingham eBusiness Club. All you need to do is take a few minutes to submit your details online and return the forms.

See full details and book your place or the Rushcliffe eBusiness Day

Or, if the city centre is more convenient, join us at The Citlodge Hotel on 29 March for the Nottingham eBusiness Day

Data Recovery

What do you think of those cool new web applications like Google Maps that lets you zoom in and out, drag around the screen, and generally let you play with the information?

The real beauty of these applications is that they’re quick – only small bits of information fly back and forth across the Internet to the web server. The bulk of the work is done right there on your own computer, so the experience can be interactive and quick.

This may all be fun, but now it is time to learn something new – these applications are developed using a technique called AJAX or Asynchronous JavaScript And XML

I’ve been using NetVibes to create my own customised home page – a drawing board where I can add my own RSS feeds, add pictures, drag and drop content. NetVibes is based on AJAX.

AJAX – your word of the day.

I’m pleased to announce I’ve been listed on BusinessLink’s National Consultants Register.

Businesses are not always confident that they can find web marketing consultants who they can trust, and who will deliver on the promises made. The National Register helps them to take the first step in finding a suitably experienced consultancy partner.

I am proud to have participated in this rigorous accreditation process. I was more than pleased to have independent assessors interviewing my current clients, verifying my academic credentials, and documenting up-to-date policies and processes.

And of course, being listed on the National Register means that projects I work on are eligible for government grants and funding.

The New York Times is reporting that Google will shortly be integrating their instant messaging service into their email service.

This combination of Google Talk and Gmail will be known as “GMail Chat.”

You may be a bit of a Billy-No-Mates since you won’t be able to chat with all those other MSN and Yahoo people, but at least you will be the uber-cool Google Chatter.

Still in beta and restricted to a small number of users. More news soon.

My mother always told me Cheaters Never Win.

BMW’s German website has been booted out of the Google index. The Google Death Penalty. Banned. Gone.

It’s crime? That black hat SEO technique known as “doorway pages” stuffed full of keyphrases and designed to fool the search engines. Gotcha. The website now has a Page Rank of zero. Break the rules, and you pay the price.

BMW have said they’re sorry and removed the pages, but too late was the cry.

BMW remain confident they will get back in the index, but let this be a lesson to us all. Don’t mess with Google!