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EGYPT AND ISRAEL
May 31, 2010
The sites and blogs of Hugo Roberts have attracted visitors from over 75 countries.
Egypt was the 75th and Israel the 76th country to visit us. You can see the names of these countries with top 10 and top 20 ratings. For the list, click: FAQ. You will also be able to look up all countries on the map below this list.
The total number of viewers of the Cambodia travel videos that are also on YouTube was up to today 18 (see "MORE VIDEOS ON YouTube" below).
146 viewers watched my videos on YouTube since I started to upload them six weeks ago, and 21 watched one video on Flickr loaded before that time. The total number of video viewers is 167 up to today.
To return to this page, click the "BACK" button (←) on your browser.
Click the "BACK" button (←) on your browser to return to this page.
SEO WORK PAYS OFF
December 31, 2009.
Below are the results of six months of Search Engine Optimization Work
The work we've been doing on SEO (Search Engine Optimization; see SEO, pagerank, and backlink explained) is paying off. Below is a comparison between the Google Page Ranks (PR) and the Yahoo Backlinks (BL) by the end of June versus these numbers by the end of December 2009. The level of June was attained in the preceding six months, as you can read below in AGAIN: PAGERANK AND BACK LINK INCREASE.
Because of the closing of Yahoo! 360° and GeoCities, the pageranks may only show a slight increase. Nevertheless, the Google Page Ranks have increased significantly as well as the number of visitors.
Site (Page) or Blog June Google PR & Yahoo BL December Google PR & Yahoo BL
New Staff member
Recently Rajendra Dhami joined our full-time team as a web designer, he was a part-timer for over two years. There are now two full-time web designers and two freelancers on our staff (along with one full-time writer/editor and two freelance writers/editors). Rajendra will be focusing on PHP and HTML for forms, etc. You can read his resume by clicking: Resume of Rajendra Dhami.
New Blog
The staff has been occupied with SEO and other task to improve the sites. Recently only one new blog has been added: http://aboutnamesakes.blogspot.com/. On this blog you will be entertained and informed about names and namesakes. You'll find out the meaning, origin, and popularity of your name, Famous Namesakes, statistics, history, etc. The meaning of most names is given, not only of American and Anglo-saxon names, but also of African, Arabic, Chinese, French, Hindi, and Spanish names.
You can post questions, comments, or articles or discuss everything about names and namesakes. Feel free to add a link to your site in all comments, essays, columns, and articles you post here or on any of my web sites or blogs. This will increase the popularity of your site (see pagerank, back links, and SEO terms explained).
GEOCITIES CLOSED DOWN TODAY
October 26, 2009. Those who read this news page regurarly have seen it coming and were fully prepared. That means: they have found themselves a new host and have moved their site to that new host.
There is one more thing that needs to be done: everybody who linked to your GeoCities sites have to link to your new site. If they don't make that change, they and their visitors—and what is worse, the search engines, will run into a broken link.
Another site I moved over from GeoCities is now hosted under the name www.hugoroberts.info. Please visit this interesting site by clicking: The Best of the Web and My Favorite Writers Links.
Who deserves a Nobel Peace Prize?
For the first time Americans find themselves in a position the rest of the world population always occupies. Usually, Americans determine who is going to be the most powerful person in the world. This time, five Europeans have decided that this most powerful man is also the most peaceful. Much to the chagrin of many Americans who would like to have waited with accolades till there are more tangible results. However, this is not one of the requirements.
Nobel Peace Prize Committee's head Thorbjoern Jagland said they followed the guidelines: "Alfred Nobel wrote that the prize should go to the person who has contributed most to the development of peace in the previous year." Jagland added, "Who has done more for that than Barack Obama?" The committee mentioned Obama's: "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," his efforts to ease U.S. conflicts with Muslim nations and to strengthen the U.S. role in combating climate change. Finally, they attached "special importance to Obama's vision and work for a world without nuclear weapons".
The prize has been awarded to many "undeserving" Nobel Prize laureates, most of which are long forgotten. For example:
1. Bertha von Suttner (1905) who corresponded with Swedish philanthropist Alfred Nobel about the peace movement.
2. Henri La Fontaine (1913) Belgian professor of international law and senator.
3. Ludwig Quidde (1927), a pacifist of the early 20th century. Quidde shared the Nobel Peace Prize with:
4. Ferdinand Buisson (1927), a French educator.
5. Norman Angell (1933), English author and economist.
6. Arthur Henderson (1934), British politician and trade unionist.
7. Eisaku Salto (1974), Japanese statesman.
8. Alva Myrdal (1982), for her work on behalf of disarmament; she shared the Nobel Peace Prize with:
9. Alfonso Garcia Robles (1982), Mexican diplomat who devoted himself to the cause of nuclear disarmament.
10. Joseph Rotblat (1995), who founded an organization that works to eliminate nuclear weapons.
As far as results of the Nobel Peace Prize are concerned, we still have no nuclear disarmament, no peace in the Middle East, but instead we have scores of wars and armed conflicts raging throughout the world.
In an interesting article posted on Internet: “Obama Not First Surprising Nobel Peace Prize Winner: Seven Controversial Recipients,” David A. Graham mentions:
Elihu Root (1912), former U.S. secretary of state, who formulated the U.S. policy in the Philippines. “The brutal American occupation there resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos—some estimates range as high as 1.5 million—between 1899 and 1902.”
Woodrow Wilson (1919) “had brought the world's states together under the umbrella of the League of Nations,” and was instrumental to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, that could not prevent World War II, while the “…league, for its part, was impotent to stop the rise of Hitler, the militarization of Germany, and Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia.”
Henry A. Kissinger (1973) “…was implicated in the escalation of America's Vietnam War strategy and accused of supporting right-wing dictators to advance American Cold War policy, at the expense of democracy and human rights in their countries.”
Anwar al-Sadat (Egypt) and Menachem Begin (Israel) shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize.
James Earl (Jimmy) Carter (2002) for whom “…the finest moment of his career was overseeing the Camp David accords that produced Begin and Sadat's treaty.”
Earlier Graham wrote in his article that “Obama [is] closer to Woodrow Wilson than Yasir Arafat on the "Wait, seriously?" spectrum of winners.” Nevertheless the 1994 prize went to: Yasir Arafat (Palestine), Shimon Peres (Israel), and Yitzhak Rabin (Israel).
Six winners who have yet to produce tangible results.
Another questionable recipient Graham labeled “seem beyond dispute” Mother Teresa of Calcutta (India) (1979). In my opinion, she did not do much to promote world peace. She didn't even make a big difference to the poor of India besides working with and for them (Obama's specialty) and discouraging the use of birth control in a country that needs it the most.
Still I feel that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee serves a useful purpose, not in the least because it keeps peace on our minds by awarding the prize to “undeserving recipients.” Perhaps this may cause Americans to be more thoughtful about electing the most powerful person in the world.
Of course many Americans feel that President Barack Obama did not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. There are a couple of reasons for that:
1. He is only nine months in office and has many years to go; nobody knows what will happen in those years.
2. He has inherited a lot of problems that are screaming for an immediate solution.
Why I think he deserves it:
1. He has already changed the way the world sees the United States: from bully to a much needed strong friend able to bring peace and other changes to the world.
2. He has set the tone and changed the culture in which the world views peace, the environment, and many other issues.
3. Anybody with such a track record (after only nine months in office) and such an ambitious agenda needs to be encouraged. Only timely encouragement will do any good.
Why is he experiencing such strong opposition in his own country?
1. People do not like changes: it is difficult for them to change the way they think and act. This president requires that.
2. The change that seems to bother most people is that from viewing America as a strong, independent nation, to an interdependent part of a greater world.
3. There are no immediate results for America's pressing problems.
I already see changes in the attitude of other countries: Russia and China, for example. I'm convinced that this prize will stimulate President Obama to continue on the path he has envisioned and I hope he will succeed. It is not for nothing that he has four A's in his name.
August 1, 2009. In my piece "LIFE AFTER GEOCITIES?" of April 26, 2009
(see news (below) and my blog), I expressed my concern that the clipart I (and many other clients) obtained from GeoCities wouldn't be available after GeoCities closes down on October 26, 2009. We got the pictures from http://pic.geocities.com/clipart/ (this link lead ominously to GeoCities' control panel). Yahoo has emailed me what I could do to keep using their clipart. They wrote:
“With your pages and images saved offline, you can re-create your site
with any hosting provider, including Yahoo! Web Hosting. Learn how to
move to Yahoo! Web Hosting (http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/geocities/close/close-06.html).
The simplest way to download your published pages and images is to visit your GeoCities web site...”
However the steps given do not download images (only HTML). To learn how to do that, visit:
How to Download a Picture From the Internet.
By the way, make sure you bookmark the http://www.ehow.com site. They not only have useful information on how to do things on Internet, but on virtually everything. There are tips from Arts & Entertainment, Business, etc. all the way up to Travel, and Weddings.
CLOSING DATES
July 17, 2009. This week Yahoo has given us a couple of firm dates:
“Yahoo! 360° closed on July 13, 2009. You can still move your blog posts from 360° until August 19.”
“GeoCities is closing on October 26, 2009. On October 26, 2009, your GeoCities site will no longer appear on the Web, and you will no longer be able to access your GeoCities account and files.”
If you're not sure about what to do, read my posting “LIFE AFTER GEOCITIES?” below or on one of my blogs: http://hugoroberts.blogspot.com or http://writerhugoroberts.blogspot.com.
DIGITIZATION: CURSE OR BLESSING?
June 11, 2009. What I wrote on March 16, 2009 in reaction to Mr. Warren Adler's The E-Book Revolution, has stirred a vigerous discussion among my readers, my friends, and me. I've also posted the item on my web site http://www.hugoroberts.com/news.html.
In my comment (eBooks or Paper Books?) I wrote that “…digital books are easier to use and enjoy than the paper ones... [also] for ... research.” This is an interesting discussion that's going on for a long time; please read, for example, THE END OF BOOKS by John H. Lienhard, or Coover, R., The End of Books. The New York Times Book Review, June 21, 1992.
These discussions stimulated me to write the following sequel.
For me digitization is not progressing fast enough; for others, it's like an approaching tsunami. Washington Post published a letter to the editor expressing fear that “…Google will be privatizing our libraries."
It turns out that Google was the only one willing to invest in the gargantuan project of digitizing millions of books held by libraries. A spokesman of one of those libraries assured the readers in response to this op. ed. letter that “...the print works of the 20th century will be searchable, findable, readable and generally usable online, with large parts of the text readable online for free. [And that...] publicly owned library and others will keep print and digital copies safely in not-for-profit hands.”
Wikipedia states that Google Book Search is a tool from Google that searches the full text of books that Google scans, converts to text using optical character recognition, and stores in its digital database. The service was formerly known as Google Print when it was introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2004.
Google has been working on digitization and book search since 1997 and was sued repeatedly for copyright infringement. Despite all this resistance progress is being made. In the second letter to the editor I quoted from in the above, the author declares: “As the steward of one of those libraries, a library that has had some 3 million of its works digitized by Google, let me assure readers that Google will not have a monopoly on the information that we hold.”
Three million sounds like a lot, until you realize that it's estimated that there are 300 to 400 books published every day. Digitizing them is an ongoing and necessary chore, but there is more...
As you already know, computers and Internet have changed the appearance of text drastically. No more drab pages and pages of black on white text, but colorful, moving, text that seems to be alive. Text that's often integrated with other media. These are exciting times. Let me leave you with a quote from Hyperizons that boggled my mind. I understand that since the early nineteen-nineties, authors, scholars, and technicians have been working on expanding the appearance and function of literature with
...hypertext fiction (aka hyperfiction, interactive fiction, nonlinear fiction) [it] is a new art form that while not necessarily made possible by the computer was certainly made feasible by it. Its creators make use of hypertext--of which the Web is only one widespread albeit limited incarnation--to create fiction with many features uncharacteristic of print fiction: multiple paths through the same text; multiple endings (and beginnings); questions posed to the reader which, once answered, influence what the reader will read; audiovisual attachments; navigable maps; and so on and so on. Readers seeking more extensive definitions of hypertext fiction are invited to browse through the Theory and Criticism section or, better yet, simply start reading a few works--artists always outstrip their would-be definers.
WARNING: YAHOO! 360° IS CLOSING! will soon be archived
May 30, 2009. After I've shocked some of my friends and readers by announcing that GeoCities will be closing later this year, today I came across stuff that's even scarier: Yahoo! 360° is closing on July 13, 2009. After July 1, 2009, you will no longer be able to add or edit posts since your blog pages will be frozen. You have to act fast and even consider getting some help.
I've outlined the steps you have to take in my news column of April 26, 2009 (see LIFE AFTER GEOCITIES? below). If you can't do all that by yourself, consider getting some help from site movers like me (with or without tattoos). You can contact me by clicking Quick Comments, or work via email: click here for a Question/Feedback/Contact form or the next link for a Service Request form.
Yahoo states that they will make “…it easy to download your posts and comments in a format that can be transferred into another blog tool. Please visit the Yahoo! 360° blog export page to begin moving your blog now.
For more details on this change and options for your blog, please visit the help center."
The first link said that you could move your blog to your profile and start blogging there.
When I clicked the second link. I came into contact with the help center. I didn't have a question about the move, but I had one troubling me for months. I've posted it everywhere (at least once), except here. The question is: will clipart be available after GeoCities has discontinued its services later this year?
Explanation (optional): Later this year GeoCities will close down. I've used scores of artwork that I got from http://pic.geocities.com/clipart/ (this link lead to GeoCities' control panel). Will this service be still available after GeoCities HOSTING services closes down? I'll be grateful if you could tell me the answer a.s.a.p. If Yahoo also closes this service down, I'm in for a lot of work.
Of course there are other good sources of artwork on Internet. Find out about them and everything else you need to know in order have and maintain your own site; please click: Webmaster and Webdesigner's Tools. Meanwhile, good luck with the move (if you have to, like I do).
ON DOMAIN NAMES AND FREE HOSTING will soon be archived
May 18, 2009. In my previous news column, I argued against free hosts. Running into an outfit called A Dime A Dozen (“Web service providers are a dime a dozen, so why pay an arm and a leg?”) caused me to change my mind. The free hosting of A Dime A Dozen is like most others: ad supported. Yet they do it in a way that make me feel more comfortable with it. For one thing, the ads are small and non-intrusive (go see for yourself at http://www.hugoroberts-writer-editor-webdesigner.com. This site is going to replace http://www.geocities.com/writerhugoroberts when GeoCities discontinues its free hosting services later this year).
The other thing is that the free hosting is given as a reward when one registers a domain name with A Dime A Dozen. That gives me the idea that I'm their customer. Registering with them is a feat by itself. For the price of only registering my .com domain elsewhere, I could register all these domain names: hugoroberts.org, hugoroberts.net, hugoroberts.info.
Why would anybody want to do that? Most registration outfits will try to sell you those TLDs (TLD stands for top-level domain, the letters following the dot, like the "com" in: mydomainname.com. For more/better explanations, see Note *). They argue that by owning them, your competitors can't take away your business because of a typo or another mistake.
I have a more important reason. I looked up those domain names: THEY WERE AVAILABLE!
Then I began to imagine (I'm a writer, remember?) that ANYBODY could become owner of those names and use my name for God knows what seedy business. No way! If any disreputable business wants to use my name, they have to pick one of the more obscure TLD like .ws, .cc, .cn, .gs, .jp, .me, and .mobi (the two last ones are also more expensive than the popular ones I own).
I then continued to imagine the businesses I wouldn't like to bear my name. They are (in alphabetical sequence):
0 a bank (President Barack Obama--the man with four A's in his name--is working on restoring our faith in them, but for now: no thanks)
0 a racist (Obama is having a positive effect on those as well, by just being himself)
0 a terrorist (Obama is helping us to become less paranoid than we've been before
President Bush left office, but still…)
0 a thief or other blue-collar crook (I haven't figured out what effect Obama is having on
those, but I suppose he's watching them).
Back to the domain names. I urge you to claim the most popular TLD for your web site: .com, .net, .org, and .info; like I did. Check them out, they're not available anymore, click: http://www.adimeadozen.com. Fill in a domain name (for example, hugoroberts.org) where it says Start Domain Search.
April 26, 2009. Yahoo has recently announced that GeoCities will be closed later this year. I, and I'm sure many other users, are grieving. Fortunately, Yahoo has given us enough time to prepare. I realize that there are a couple of things I have to do to before the shut down:
1. I have to think up a domain name. It is clear that I will not be able to use the old (GeoCities) URL. So far I've used one of my domain names writerhugoroberts that GeoCities had neatly prefixed to: http://www.geocities.com/writerhugoroberts/ . So I will have to dream up something new or else prefix and/or suffix writerhugoroberts again.
2. I have to find a place to host the site. I'm pondering over the question whether to use a gratis site again or not. Although free hosts offer a small monetary advantage, the disadvantage is that something like this may happen again. No matter how small a hosting fee one pays, it constitutes business that the host may want to retain or sell, instead of discontinuing it (even “After careful consideration...”). One of the tools I used: Web Hosting Reviews Thousands of web hosting USER reviews. Don't sign-up with any web host before checking out the web's biggest web hosting reviews site first, available at WebHostingReviews.com.
3. My biggest problem is the loss of SEO work (PageRank & back links, see the news item on PageRank below or click: Frequently Asked Questions
for an explanation of these terms). The reputation and popularity of the site will vanish when GeoCities does.
4. I also have to recapture the links from other sites by asking everybody to link to the new site. It's to their benefit, since they will otherwise end up with a broken link.
5. Then comes the actual move, you've guessed it: I hate moving.
All in all, I think I'll opt for a host who's charging for the services. I don't want to put my friends and myself through this again.
If you still have to go through this, I'll be happy to ease your pain by taking your GeoCities sites through these five steps for a small fee. As a bonus I'll throw in a SEO tune-up that may increase your PageRank and/or back links. For a free price estimate or to request my services, please click here for
Help or Services.
AGAIN: PAGERANK AND BACK LINK INCREASE
April 20, 2009. The home (index) page of the site you are now visiting: http://www.hugoroberts.com/index.html has attained a Google PageRank of 2 and 118 Yahoo back links.
These numbers also increased for practically all other pages of this site; for example, this News page has a Google PageRank of 1 and 15 Yahoo back links.
Those who understand these terms, know that this is good news, for those who don't, they are explained in the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ),
along with a link to find out and increase these numbers for your own site;
please click: Frequently Asked Questions
WRITERS' CRAFT SCHOOL IN PARAMARIBO, SURINAME (Schrijversvakschool in Paramaribo, Suriname)
Because a lot of visitors to my websites are seeking information on the new Schrijversvakschool, I'm offering some help. Briefly: it is the first school of its kind in Suriname. The idea was conceived by the Bukutori foundation and is supported by several organizations in Suriname, The Netherlands, and Belgium. It came into being after many years of research, preparation, and even an experimental project. Classes started in October 2008. The training will take four years. Graduates will receive a certificate; no BA or MFA degree will be awarded. I'm not aware of any relationship with the Anton de Kom University of Suriname. Because of donations, aid, and other financial support, the students pay a mere € 50.00 tuition per month. For a developing nation fifty euros is still a lot of money. The address and bank account numbers of the Schrijversvakschool are listed in their website under "Maak Contact." I'm sure they will appreciate a donation.
ePress-online has recently appointed Hugo Roberts as a reader of manuscripts submitted to them. They produce electronic and printed books. Read more about them by clicking: ePress-online
To browse through part of their exciting collection, please click: ePress Collection in print, or ePress ebooks ready to be downloaded.
HUGO ROBERTS FINALIST IN WRITING
CONTEST
With the short story “Gita's Song” Hugo Roberts was chosen a
finalist in a writing contest organized by A.B.C. (Authors for the
Betterment of Children) Words in Action. This organization was going
to publish the ten best stories. Part of the proceeds would have gone
to UNICEF. Unfortunately, the contest was postponed to 2008 because
there were not enough finalists in 2007.
“Gita's Song” is a 30-page long story about Gita, a
fourteen-year-old bonded laborer (Kamaiya) in West Nepal, who was able
to set herself and her family free.
On June 24, 2007
Nepal became the fifth country where a story of Hugo Roberts appeared
in print. On that day The Kathmandu Post/Fiction Park published
"Highway Jaywalkers," a drama of one of the bus drivers who maneuver
their vehicles on Nepal's dangerous roads. To read the story click: http://www.TheKathmanduPost.com (it's on the modelwatch page featuring Nepalese beauties). To accommodate the readers in Nepal, the editor has changed the original story “The Jaywalkers”. Besides Nepal, the
countries where Hugo Roberts's stories were published (in English or
Dutch) are: the U.K, Suriname, The Netherlands, and the U.S.A.
THE BOOK IS OUT
The first story written by Hugo Roberts to be printed in English, "Bustle in the Bus," is published by The Paper Journey Press. The name of the anthology is: BLINK: Flash Fiction Before You Can Bat an Eye, Wanda Wade Mukherjee (Editor); click: http://www.thepaperjourney.com
To read Hugo Roberts's "Bustle in the Bus," along with other exciting "flash" stories, please purchase it via Amazon, all you have to do is; click: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0977315649/ref=sr_11_1/102-1647967-0320960?ie=UTF8
... and Blogs http://writerhugoroberts.blogspot.com.
Offers an easy way to post comments/questions or discuss issues and displays a new Inspirational Quote every time you visit. You could read the latest news about computers and internet or look for a gadget, widget, or other program. http://hugoroberts.blogspot.com/
also offers an easy way to post comments/questions or discuss issues and daily displays a new Notable Shakespeare Quote. I also post some of my essays, columns, and articles here. You'll also find Flight Status (airport arrival, departures, etc.) Personal Travel Agent (book your own low cost flights), and Travel coupon/promo codes. There is more for travelers on the page Hugo Roberts's Travels. http://aboutnamesakes.blogspot.com/ is a blog where you will be entertained and informed about names and namesakes. You’ll find out the meaning, origin, and popularity of your name, Famous Namesakes, statistics, history, etc. The meaning of most names is given, not only of American and Anglo-saxon names, but also of African, Arabic, Chinese, French, Hindi, and Spanish names. You can post questions, comments, or articles or discuss everything about names and namesakes. Feel free to add a link to your site in all comments, essays, columns, and articles posted here or on any of my web sites or blogs. This will increase the popularity of your site (see pagerank, back links, and SEO terms explained).
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