Yahoo Announces Severance Plans
Autor admin | 20.02.2008 | Category SEO
It must seem like a long way to fall. Well, at least now there’s a safety net. Yahoo’s board of directors has created an expansive severance package for all full-time employees who are either terminated without “cause” or leave on their own with “good reason” following a “change in control of the company.” The severance packages would extend regular compensation for a period of four months to two years, depending on the employee’s job level. Employees would also receive continued health benefits, financial assistance for finding a new job (up to $15,000) and accelerated vesting of stock options. The move comes as reports are circulating that Microsoft will go hostile in its acquisition bid, waging a proxy battle to replace Yahoo’s board rather than raise its offer. (Read the full post about ‘Yahoo Announces Severance Plans’…)
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Why You Shouldn’t Trust (Some) IRS eMail
Autor admin | 20.02.2008 | Category SEO
WASHINGTON — At the heart of the U.S. Government’s ability to raise funds is the Internal Revenue Service. It stands to reason that hackers find it a useful target. During a keynote address before a capacity crowd at the Black Hat security conference here, Treasury Department Special Agent Andy Fried discussed in general terms how the IRS is being attacked and what it’s doing about it. RELATED ARTICLES Cisco Pushes Big Firewall For Big Business Needs Teleworkers Feel Safe, Threaten Network Security Black Hat Descends on Washington For more stories on this topic: But first, a little history. The first IRS phishing site appeared in 2003, the second in 2004, he noted. Both were quickly shuttered. (Read the full post about ‘Why You Shouldn’t Trust (Some) IRS eMail’…)
Amazon, Universal to Support Blu-ray Format
Autor admin | 20.02.2008 | Category SEO
Amazon.com announced its support for Sony’s Blu-ray format on Wednesday, days after Toshiba pulled the plug on the rival HD DVD format, as key studios and retailers also took Blu-ray’s side.
The online retailer said it would continue to sell HD DVD products for customers who already use that format.
The Amazon move comes after General Electric’s Universal Pictures, one of a few studios using the Toshiba-backed HD DVD format, said on Tuesday it will switch to the rival Blu-ray format now that Toshiba has officially pulled the plug on HD DVD.
Officials from other HD DVD backers, such as Viacom’s Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation had no immediate comment.
(Read the full post about ‘Amazon, Universal to Support Blu-ray Format’…)
Can Sun’s Blade Slice Server Sprawl?
Autor admin | 20.02.2008 | Category SEO
Sun Microsystems today beefed up its blade offerings with a new high-end, higher capacity product capable of running a variety of operating systems on any of three processors.
Sun reentered the blade market in mid-2006 and has since released 29 blade-related products, including eight blade server modules, four chassis, and 17 I/O products. The company has two blade product lines, the mid- to high-end 6000 series and the very high-end 8000 series.
Today’s announcement is for the Sun Blade X8450 server module, the first to offer quad-core Intel Xeon processors on the 8000 family. It can use Xeons, AMD Opterons or Sun’s Niagara 2 processors, all of which are quad-core.
(Read the full post about ‘Can Sun’s Blade Slice Server Sprawl?’…)
Sony to Sell Chip Facility to Toshiba
Autor admin | 20.02.2008 | Category SEO
Sony said on Wednesday it will sell its microchip production facilities in western Japan to Toshiba for 90 billion yen ($835 million), in its latest move to focus on the company’s core businesses.
The equipment will be used by their semiconductor joint venture that will make high-performance cell chips and RSX graphic chips, in Sony’s PlayStation 3 game console, as well as other microchips that go into Toshiba products.
The venture will be established on April 1.
Sony, which is focusing on image-sensor chips for digital cameras and pulling away from heavy investments for cutting-edge chip production equipment, said in October it would sell production facilities for making key microchips used in the PS3 to Toshiba, but the price has not been disclosed.
(Read the full post about ‘Sony to Sell Chip Facility to Toshiba’…)
Microsoft-Yahoo Fight Heats Up
Autor admin | 20.02.2008 | Category SEO
Microsoft-Yahoo Fight Heats Up
Microsoft’s unsolicited bid to acquire Yahoo is heading down an unpleasant path. This week, Microsoft is reportedly undertaking a proxy fight, sending letters directly to shareholders to garner enough support to oust Yahoo’s board of directors and replace them with a merger-friendly board. A proxy fight is estimated to cost Microsoft up to $30 billion, but was likely seen as a cheaper alternative for Microsoft than raising its bid price.
“We sent them a letter and said we think that’s a fair offer,” Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman, told The AP on Monday. “There’s nothing that’s gone on other than us stating that we think it’s a fair offer.
(Read the full post about ‘Microsoft-Yahoo Fight Heats Up’…)
How to Drive More Organic Traffic by Understanding Search Engine Algorithms
Autor admin | 20.02.2008 | Category SEO
How to Drive More Organic Traffic by Understanding Search Engine Algorithms
This morning over at Seattle-based blog SEOmoz, Rand Fishkin asks "What is an Algorithm? How does it apply to the Search Results at Google, Yahoo! & MSN/Live?" The post, How to Track the Evolution of Search Engine Algorithms & Why It’s Important to Do So, amounts to a free clinic regarding the "whys" and "hows" for professionals seeking to garner more organic search traffic.
"The vast majority of search marketers operating in the organic space at least lay claim to "following the latest algorithms" at the search engines, and in 90% of the client pitches I’ve ever heard (or made, for that matter), the subject comes up at least once.
AMD Joins Open Source With Framewave
Autor admin | 20.02.2008 | Category SEO
Chip vendor AMD wants to help developers produce applications that are faster than ever before. To do that AMD has open sourced its AMD Performance Library (APL) as the Framewave open source project.
AMD claims that it has been working on APL (now Framewave) for almost three years and that over 3200 performance routine optimizations are now part of the library. The AMD effort is intended to be open and not exclude other chip vendors like Intel, though Intel has its own open source effort for driving optimizations.
“We’re taking a set of performance libraries that we’ve been working on and releasing them as open source,” Margaret Lewis, AMD director of commercial solutions, told InternetNews.com.
(Read the full post about ‘AMD Joins Open Source With Framewave’…)
Google Tightens Restrictions on AdWords Display URLs
Autor admin | 20.02.2008 | Category SEO
Google Tightens Restrictions on AdWords Display URLs
Beginning April 1, Google will no longer make exceptions to its policy requiring advertisers to match the display URL in an AdWords ad to the landing page to which it leads. Google’s existing policy already requires that an ad’s display URL matches its destination URL in the AdWords interface and the landing page to which it leads, but exceptions had been made for things like redirects or vanity URLs.
Under the new rules, all advertisers, regardless of past exceptions, will need to show users the same top-level domain in the display URL and the landing page where a user is sent.
(Read the full post about ‘Google Tightens Restrictions on AdWords Display URLs’…)
SEW Experts: Landing Page Optimization for SEM: Design and Execute
Autor admin | 20.02.2008 | Category SEO
SEW Experts: Landing Page Optimization for SEM: Design and Execute
As a search marketer, you need to understand landing page optimization because it impacts your results. Higher conversion means a bigger impact for everything you do with search, and the availability of more dollars to invest back into search marketing. In today’s By the Numbers column, “Landing Page Optimization for SEM: Design and Execute,” Eric Enge outlines some of the best practices outlined in Tim Ash’s new book, “Landing Page Optimization.”