Recently I had to spend a month working on a massively important, yet incredibly tedious/repetitive, web dev project. I started with our company's standard-issue dev environment: Windows 7 running Sublime Text. I got fed up with the slow speed and having to make 3x as many mouse clicks, which add up to a lot of repetitive motions after a while. I switched back to KDE because I could use Kate with the "fish://" protocol. I was able to finish the project in 1/4 the time it would have taken me otherwise. This is not an exaggeration, though it may be a conservative estimate. Much less wear-and-tear on my hands, too.
I keep meaning to learn vim and, in so doing, finally become a [SERIOUS PROFESSIONAL COMPUTER MAN], but KDE, when configured the way I want it, is the perfect development environment for me. I keep coming back to it. I have used every major computer operating system, different flavors of Gnome, XFCE, MacOS, Windows, and Linux under various lightweight window managers. If I need an OS for an older desktop machine, then I generally prefer razor-qt though :)
I've mostly outgrown the whole militant-OS-partisan thing, but I guess I'm kind of passionate about KDE. Passionate enough to write a long-winded thing on the internet, at any rate.
KDE is far from perfect. It's a resource pig until you learn how to use it effectively. But, so is everything else. It does seem like KDE development will chase the latest trends, but I hold out some hope that they might make some concessions for those of us who just want a lightweight system with a few powerful features.
There's not enough information to explore potential causality here. All we have is the word of an aggrieved site owner who swears up and down that he was engaged in perfectly unimpeachable conduct. There's no evidence, just whining.
Of course there's more to the story, but I don't think that's the issue here. Google still doesn't have a way to dispute these kinds of things in a timely manner, and that scares people who rely on them for their business.
If by "green screen" you mean 3270 terminal, then ... yes, but it would be pretty hard. The networking hardware for a 3270 is pretty expensive. (I was going to say "getting pretty expensive," but in reality SNA has always been expensive; it's just that other networking hardware has gotten dirt cheap by comparison.) And, of course, you need some sort of actual backend computer to attach the terminal to.
But sure, if you had a terminal, a spare IBM system (the iSeries is probably the lowest end) set up to support SNA, and then a networking controller to attach the 3270 to, you could probably get Lynx working.
Alternately, if you just want the effect, you could just pick up an old green/black monochrome display and hook it up (via a physical adapter) to any VGA card. Buggy implementations excepted, all VGA cards should be backwards-compatible to MGA.
Add a nice IBM Model M keyboard and you'd be all set. I suspect someone has probably done this as a case mod before (if not ... I might); stick a modern mobo in an old IBM PC case with the original monitor and keyboard.
"...the ranking makes sense."
PR and rank are often correlated, but PR is not a good predictor of actual rank.
"How in the world Altavista has a PR of 9 is a mystery though."
A large volume of natural links is probably the explanation here. altavista.com probably ended up in some trusted repository as well, which may render it relatively immune to "penalties" or other dampening factors.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - nevertheless, there is always a cause and effect. Admittedly, in complicated systems it can be hard to find either.
Strongly agree with this comment. The "wounded indignation" tone is very familiar to me, as the online SEO community is full of these stories which don't seem to go anywhere and which hamper real discussion. Reminds me of alcoholics who are deep in denial - "I don't have a problem, you should have ducked when I threw that TV at you!"
Google is not required to provide customer service. If "SEO" is important to you, I recommend rereading Google's terms of service and landing page quality guidelines. Google Webmaster Tools is the best way to get feedback on your particular site, though I don't recommend using it on every site in your network.
Since we're focused on Google, logically the best strategic decision is to accept that you can't change the terrain on the battlefield, and adapt your strategy accordingly.
All of the articles I've seen thus far on studiobriefing.net are scraped verbatim from another source, assumedly celebrifi.com. This is against Google's terms of service, and this activity is likely to result in a ban. Instead of whining about how Google is persecuting an innocent website, these guys should have an honest discussion among themselves about what they are trying to do with the website and why their activities might have pissed off Google. Or they should hire competent in-house SEO help. For a 2k monthly retainer, I might be available, as long as I can telecommute (I don't want to move to SoCal).
There's usually a reason for Google bans. It's best to address this reason directly and honestly instead of stirring up drama. If the entirety of HN became consumed with righteous indignation, Google still wouldn't reinclude a low-value affiliate spam scraper site.
I agree, but the complete lack of transparency on Google's part is still disturbing. I understand that customer service isn't Google's strong spot and that there may even be valid reasons for being a bit opaque when combating black hat SEO, but there's no excuse for not telling you what you're alleged to have done in the termination email.
And there needs to be a better appeals process than the current system of "find someone who works at Google to escalate your issue for you."
OK, quick: Everyone who, upon installing a new piece of software, reads EVERY LAST SENTENCE of the terms of use and prints out the terms for future reference before hitting "install", raise your hand.
As a separate issue from the quality (or more precisely, lack thereof) of studiobriefing.net's content, I do think it's reasonable for studiobriefing.net to want to know what, exactly, they have done that is against the terms of service. Yes, you are in theory supposed to pay close attention to all of the terms of service, understand completely how your web site complies with said obligations, etc. But in practice, people don't always know what the problem is, or understand the legal and/or technical issues involved.
So even if Google is 100% justified in cutting off studiobriefing.net, I think that as a matter of courtesy, Google should be willing to state specifically what studiobriefing.net did to get cut off, i.e. the enumerated paragraph/sentence in the terms of service that governs the issue.
Of course, that is assuming that the studiobriefing.net account is an accurate report of the communications from Google.
If the software is important to you, because, for example, your livelihood depends on it, then yes, I recommend reading the EULA closely :) IMO the same applies to running a business that is reliant to a significant degree on traffic from search engines. Failing to at least achieve basic familiarity with what Google does and doesn't like is equivalent to neglecting vital market research before undertaking any other business venture.
In general, if your site does not present any original content then don't be surprised if it's delisted by any of the search engines. Also don't be surprised if the original source sends your ISP a take-down notice for copyright violations.
I keep meaning to learn vim and, in so doing, finally become a [SERIOUS PROFESSIONAL COMPUTER MAN], but KDE, when configured the way I want it, is the perfect development environment for me. I keep coming back to it. I have used every major computer operating system, different flavors of Gnome, XFCE, MacOS, Windows, and Linux under various lightweight window managers. If I need an OS for an older desktop machine, then I generally prefer razor-qt though :)
I've mostly outgrown the whole militant-OS-partisan thing, but I guess I'm kind of passionate about KDE. Passionate enough to write a long-winded thing on the internet, at any rate.
KDE is far from perfect. It's a resource pig until you learn how to use it effectively. But, so is everything else. It does seem like KDE development will chase the latest trends, but I hold out some hope that they might make some concessions for those of us who just want a lightweight system with a few powerful features.