CrossFit Wed 7.23.08

KB workout

30 KB swings

30 SDHP

60 push presses (30 each side)

30 Squat/front extension/raise thingies

30 KB tricep extensions

3 sets of lunges (crossing KB between legs each step)

Bunch of figure 8s, etc. (Like the basketball drill)

Then a bunch of ab stuff.

CrossFit Tues 7.22.08

“Helen”

3 rounds for time of:

400M run

21 KB swings

12 pullups

11:03 :-/

Also, I tore 3 calluses off of my hands during the workout, so I found these links adressing that: Quick repair, taping.

sub 7 Helen!

CrossFit Mon 7.21.08

I missed a few days due to a trip to Vegas.

3 rounds for time of:

100 rope skips

20 In-and-outs

20 Beck’s Burpees (burpee with a standing broad jump instead of a vertical leap)

20 Exploding situps

20:50 or something like that?

CrossFit Tues 7.15.08

4 rounds for time of:

20 wall balls

20 hand stand pushups

20 medicine ball slams

1/4 mile run

This officially sucked.   19:40

CrossFit Sat 7.12.08

Kettle Bell Swings 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
Burpees 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
(Do 1 KBS, 1 Burpee, 2KBSs, 2 Burpees, etc.)

8:30

CrossFit Thurs 7.10.08

30 Box Jumps
Run (w/ medicine ball)
60 Squats
Run (w/ medicine ball)
50 Pushups
Run (w/ medicine ball)
90 Mountain Climbers
Run (w/ medicine ball)
30 Knees to Chest

15:38 (iirc)

CrossFit Wed 7.9.08

50 Kettle Bell Swings
Run (1/4 mile uphill, round trip)
50 KB Sumo Dead Lift High Pulls
Run
50 Wall Ball
Run
20 Burpees

I’m just beginning so I used a 20lb KB and finished in 14:38min

Adventures in Search Engine Optimization - Part 2

Ok, it’s been about two weeks, and the first round of optimizations is complete. It took a little longer than hoped to get the changes rolling, but now after a week, we’ve improved to a “B-” up from an “F” in the SEOMoz “Term Target” tool for dental office design! That’s a huge improvement! (To get any higher will require a pretty major overhaul.) The other two categories we are using as our yardstick for this test, the Rank Checker and Pagestrength tools, are still about the same. For round two, we will go after those by spreading the word about the site.

Adventures in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - Part 1

Ok, so I’ve been working on internal web-based applications for the better part of a decade now, so I really haven’t had the need to optimize a site for search engine placement. The whole “science” of search engine optimization (SEO) has always intrigued me though. I’ve tried to stay current on the latest tricks and tips regarding SEO by flipping through books and reading SEO blogs, but until now, I haven’t delved into optimizing one for myself. That’s all about to change! Recently, I was approached and asked if I could help a new site get better rankings.

The site is for a fledgling design and architecture firm called the Enviromed Group (http://www.enviromedgroup.com.) The Enviromed group specializes in dental office design and medical office design. They have a very nice site that was put together by one of their team. It is well organized and has a nice layout. It has clear, easy to use navigation and gives the user a great sense of who they are and what they can provide. However, it has one big problem! It’s been “live” for about a month now and unless you search for the exact URL or company name, you can’t find it!

I have my work cut out for me! This will be my little SEO pet project; my test bed. The ultimate metric I will use to gauge my effectiveness will the be the page rank on Google, but to chart my progress along the way, I’m going to use some of the tools available from Seomoz.org. Here are the baseline stats from Seomoz for the Enviromed site:

Term Target F!! - Zeros straight across the board for the keywords “dental office design!” (Term Target ranks how well your site targets the desired keywords.)

Rank Checker Not in the top 100! (results) Yeahhh, ouch.

Page Strength 1.5 out of ten.

I’ve submitted a list of suggestions to the site’s designer and they will be implementing the changes over the next few days. I’ll share the progress with you here. Wish us luck!

Greasemonkey Yahoo! Player

On January 8th, Yahoo released their Yahoo! Media Player. It’s a really slick little app that lets you quickly and easily embed play buttons next to any MP3 links you may have by simply adding a script tag to your site.

I was playing with it some and though to myself, “Man, this would be a really cool thing to add to a Greasemonkey script that automatically adds the player to any page I’m browsing that serves up Mp3s.” Anyway, here it is: yahooplayer.user.js

If you don’t have Greasemonkey for Firefox installed, I’ve compiled it into a Firefox browser extension as well. Just unzip the yahooplayer.zip file and drag the extracted xpi file into the firefox window. (The host I’m using throws 404s when I link directly to the xpi, so I’ll find a workaround for that and link directly to it soon and save a step!) The script simply looks to see if a Yahoo! Media Player is already installed, and if not, adds one to the page. (It’s ugly if you have two! :D)

Enjoy! Please feel free to leave any comments or suggestions. To test the install, you can visit your favorite music blog, or visit 3hive and look for the player.