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September 25 2008
Have you ever linked to another web page using the phrase “click here“?
If you are a webmaster, a web author, or a web content editor and you answered yes to that question, keep reading because this blog post is for you.
Why is “click here” the enemy? Let me start with a little anecdote about a phenomenon known as Google bombing.
One of the methods that Google uses to determine what your page is all about is to look at the link text (or anchor text) that others have used to link to your website. So, if there are a million links that say Amazon and link to Amazon.com, there is a good chance that a Google search on the word Amazon will return a first hit to Amazon.com. Seems logical, right?
Google also has a button called “I’m feeling lucky” that is often overlooked. Try it out. Go to Google and search on “Innovative Solutions Inc.” Instead of clicking the “Google Search” button, click the button to the right that says “I’m feeling lucky.” This will take you straight to our home page. Why? Because the “I’m feeling lucky” button takes you to the first search result that you would have seen if you had done a regular Google search.
How does this relate to Google bombing? Once upon a time, somebody decided to use their knowledge of Google’s indexing system to further their own political objectives. In particular, I remember being introduced to the George Bush Google bomb when I was in college. What happens is, a particular blogger, website, or internet community puts out a request to their readers to create a link to George Bush’s bio on the white house website with the link text of “miserable failure.” Eventually, as the scheme gains momentum, there are so many “miserable failure” links to the president’s bio that the Google bots integrate those links into their knowledge base. Eventually, you could type “miserable failure” into Google, click “I’m feeling lucky,” and there was George Bush’s smiling face on your computer screen. Pretty knifing, yes?
The point of this anecdote is to teach you that link text matters. If Google uses your link text to determine what a website is about, why not provide more useful information than a generic “click here”?
This is a helpful link to our website:
Our favorite technical training center in Sacramento, CA – Innovative Solutions Inc.
This is not as helpful:
Click here to go to our favorite technical training center in Sacramento, CA – Innovative Solutions Inc.
That is why I call it altruistic linking. You are doing your neighbor a favor, you are going to help their search ranking by linking to them with appropriate keywords. And hopefully, in turn, they will do the same for you.
It’s often we have requests from customers on Proclarity, but few know that it is part of a much more complete Business Intelligence (BI) package from Microsoft called Microsoft PerformancePoint Server. This solution encompasses more than just traditional charts and graphs. It provides modules that integrate with the applications you use on a daily basis. Microsoft PerformancePoint Server 2007 is built from Microsoft’s Proclarity Analytics product.
Traditionally we think of BI as just the reports we run off of our database. While this model works, it is a limited view of what it can provide your organization. This is why Microsoft has invested heavily in this space and came up with PerformancePoint. Their goal was to provide a tool that can become a framework for delivering reporting across your organization. Without a standard tool it is difficult to see trends in your data outside of your group.
How many excel reports do you get? Do you use more than 1 tool to perform reports within your company? Do you have Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Reporting Services but only have a few reports to show for it? PerformancePoint is a solution that can give you a consistent, common data model to work from for monitoring, analytics and planning.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) are tools you can use to make quick decisions. The challenges are getting all of this information in a format that can be used for reporting. The other challenge is how to disseminate this information to the masses in a way that is secure, easy to understand and highlights the right information. This is one of the many features such as dashboards and scorecarding built into PerformancePoint. You can deliver this information via SharePoint Web Services to your employees, also incorporating security from the various sources such as Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Reporting Services.
Finally, if your business has to do financial reporting, this is a tool that can help you with the planning and delivering of these reports.
ISInc has recently put together a number of PerformancePoint courses that will help you get up to speed on all of the available features in this application. We have courses on just the planning modules, or on the end-to-end solution. This is a great compliment to SharePoint Training.
September 17 2008
Running an Enterprise IT Environment has more cost than just the equipment and power that is used. Now we need to keep in mind the entire eco-system to run our infrastructure, from the power each machine uses to the amount of time people need to support it. Running a “Green” IT will not only help the environment, it will often relieve some of the stress on your IT staff.
Here are some steps your IT group can take to make your company more environmentally friendly. More »
Did you plan on how you would train your employees for an upcoming software migration/upgrade?
More »
September 10 2008
Learning web design can be easy with a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor, like Dreamweaver or Microsoft’s Expression Web. You create a new document and edit it like a PowerPoint slide or a new file in Microsoft Word. You add text, tables, and pictures. Voila, you have a web page.
More »
September 9 2008
ISInc is now proud to be providing our customers access to the SANS Institutes 401 course this December!
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August 5 2008
DOD 8570 Requirements and Training
– The Department of Defense has put together a requirements list for anyone who works in Information Architecture (IA). You have to obtain at least one of the “approved certifications” to meet the minimum requirements for each category.
They have skills broken down into 6 certifications:
- Technical Level 1
- Technical Level 2
- Technical Level 3
- Management Level 1
- Management Level 2
- Management Level 3
Each of these levels requires you to have at a minimum one of the professional certifications listed below:
Technical Level 1
- A+ – CompTIA A+
- Network+ – CompTIA Network+
- TICSA – TruSecure ICSA Certified Security Associate
- SSCP – System Security Certified Practitioner
Technical Level 2
- GSEC – GIAC Security Essentials Certification
- Security+ – CompTIA Security+
- SCNP – Security Certified Network Professional
- SSCP – System Security Certified Practitioner
Technical Level 3
- CISSP – Certified Information Systems Security Professional
- SCNA – Security Certified Network Architect
- GISO – GIAC Information Security Officer
- GSE – GIAC Security Expert
Management Level 1
- GSLC – GIAC Security Leadership Certificate
- Security+ – CompTIA Security+
- GISO – GIAC Information Security Officer
- TISCP – TrueSecure ISCA Certified Security Professional
Management Level 2
- CISSP – Certified Information Systems Security Professional
- GSLC – GIAC Security Leadership Certificate
- CISM – Certified Information Security Manager
Management Level 3
- CISSP – Certified Information Systems Security Professional
- GSLC – GIAC Security Leadership Certificate
- CISM – Certified Information Security Manager
If you need to quickly get one of these certifications and you don’t see the class on our public schedule, please contact us. Also, we can provide on-site, customized training to help your group meet these requirements as well as online via our e-Learning training that utilizes Microsoft Lync to create a virtual classroom. Click here for additional information on our e-Learning training.
Please follow the link below for detailed DOD 8570 information:
DOD 8570 FAQ
The full DoD directive 8570 can be read or downloaded online.
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June 11 2008
Get your own free copy of Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition with selected Windows Server classroom training.
ISInc is excited to offer you top level training on the latest technology, direct from the experts. You’ll learn the powerful new management tools and security enhancements of Windows Server 2008 and come away with the skills you need to configure, maintain, and troubleshoot Windows Server 2008, as well as a free copy of the software.
Enroll and attend any one of these three top Windows Sever 2008 training classes between June 27 and Dec 31, 2008 (while supplies last) and you’ll receive the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition— FREE.
This offer is available for a limited time and only while supplies last so act now. The following courses are the ones that include free software. Please contact ISInc at 916.920.1700 or at sales@isinc.com for more information.
Course Number: 6416b Updating your Network Infrastructure and Active Directory Skills to Windows Server 2008
Course Number: 6421a Configuring and Troubleshooting Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure
Course Number: 6424a Fundamentals of Windows Server 2008 Active Directory
May 10 2008
ISInc has been participating at the government technology conference for more than fifteen years. Why GTC you may ask when ISInc normally just relies on word of mouth advertising? We feel this show provides us with the opportunity to touch a lot of potential new state customers and introduce them to our organization, as well as say hi to our friends and clients that we have been working with for years. If you or someone from your organization is attending GTC in Sacramento on May 14-16, 2008, please be sure to stop by our booth #713 and say hi.
Whether we are wearing baseball jerseys to promote spring training, race car outfits to get you up to speed and ahead of the crowd quickly, or cooking attire (as in this year’s theme of helping “cook up some knowledge”), our staff is pretty easy to pick out of the crowd. Why a cooking theme this year and how does it relate to training and consulting? Well, for one thing, ISInc has become well known for our weekly spring and summer barbeques and the fresh vegetables and fruits from our organic garden at our office. Secondly, with the release of new software from companies such as Microsoft, we felt it was important to remind people that there is a lot of new information on new products to get up to speed on. So, whether you select training or consulting, know that our staff is up to speed and ready to transfer their knowledge to you so you can implement the new technology quickly and effectively. We hope to see you at GTC!
May 1 2008
If you haven’t heard of our Guest Instructor Series, you have been missing out on the opportunity to come and learn first hand from some of the industry’s top experts!
ISInc selects guest instructors that are known internationally for their background, specialties, writing, and for talking at the most attended conferences. We hope you will be able to take advantage of some of the upcoming sessions. The next three in the series are included here. To keep up to date on new ones as they are added, please subscribe to our newsletter. Remember, these seats often fill quickly, so please don’t wait too long to register.
TOGAF 8.1 Certification, Course No. TOGAF, Jun 2-5, limited seats left
TOGAF is an architecture framework – The Open Group Architecture Framework. It enables you to design, evaluate, and build the right architecture for your organization. Customers who design and implement enterprise architectures using TOGAF are ensured of a design and a procurement specification that will greatly facilitate open systems implementation, and will enable the benefits of open systems to accrue to their organizations with reduced risk. To register, or for more information, click here.
ITZIK BEN-GAN TEACHES ADVANCED TRANSACT-SQL
Itzik Ben-Gan, international expert and the author of Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Querying (MSPress, 2006) and Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Programming will teach the course, Advanced Transact-SQL Querying, Programming and Tuning for SQL Server. Course ISI-1119, Sep 15-19. A limited number of seats are left. Itzik Ben-Gan is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP (Most Valuable Professional) since 1999, Itzik has delivered numerous training events around the world focused on T-SQL Querying, Query Tuning and Programming. Itzik is the author of several books on Microsoft SQL Server. He has written many articles for SQL Server Magazine as well as articles and whitepapers for MSDN. Itzik’s speaking activities include Tech Ed, DevWeek, various SQL User Groups around the world, PASS, SQL Server Magazine Connections, and other events to name a few. Don’t miss out on you opportunity to learn from him directly here in Sacramento. Find out more information on his course by clicking here.
KALEN DELANEY TEACHES SQL SQL Server 2005 Architecture, Internals and Tuning, Course ISI-1079, Sep 8-12
You’re reading her books. Now you can attend her class. The instructor, Kalen Delaney, a well-known world expert in SQL Internals, is the author of the best selling books, Inside SQL Server 2000 and Inside SQL Server 2005. Kalen has been a columnist at SQL Server Magazine since the first issue, as well as writing for MSDN and TechNet Magazines. The course includes extensive demonstrations and hands-on exercises that illustrate the details of SQL Server internals as well as tuning techniques. This course will be presented on SQL Server 2005 and cover features specific to that version, but much of the information is relevant to SQL Server 2000 as well. For more information on this course, please click here.
Please contact ISInc at 916.920.1700 or email us at sales@isinc.com if you want more information on any of our current Guest Instructor Series courses or if you have requests on future guests you would like to see at ISInc.
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