Pogo have been working in conjunction with AICOL to transform their existing website into websites in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Portuguese and Arabic. The significant challenges presented by working in a foreign language have made for interesting times but we’ve been resourceful and creative and we’ve had the language resources of the English school at our disposal.

The bulk of the websites are getting a fully functional and translated front page only. Sub-pages are merely links to AICOL’s existing website that are linked via a Google Translate service. The pages are rendered in the required language and become part of the cache (so they’re open for Google indexing). We have relied heavily on Google translations for the websites but we have also had the aid of native speakers. A language like Japanese does not translate very well via online translation services so it will get a complete translation.

Some have asked, since the existing English website can translate and cache in foreign languages, why do we need to create translated websites? The answer is, it’s mostly for the SEO benefits of having a website hosted in that country and in that country’s language. These are important markets for AICOL and relying on a Google Translate version is not good enough. Some of these countries (such as China) do not have search engines usage dominated by Google and there are advantages to being locally hosted in the local language that make the exercise worth the effort.

We’re not finished yet but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. There is no doubt that working on six translations at once has been doing our heads in at times but we’ve got  considerable momentum at the moment and will have the sites hosted and functioning quite soon.

There have been similar ideas before but Google has the power to simplify and to bring together so many very useful apps into its browser. Examples are, the every-popular Angry Birds, a handful of CMS and other productivity apps, graphic apps and so on.

If you’ve signed into your account before you loaded the app it will automatically be available on any other computer where you’re signed in on Google Chrome. The apps are portable and platform agnostic. So you could, for instance, load eBuddy Web Messenger and use that for MSN on any PC you use. You could master Angry Birds up to level 19 on one computer and complete levels 20 onwards on another PC later on.

I had a play with a couple apps and have varying success with them. The Facebook app is essentially exactly like visiting facebook.com, so why bother really. One app I did take a fancy to was Pixlr-o-matic, an app for mucking about with your photos. I started off with this rather nice photo of Lottie:

And finished with this rather charming photo a few minutes later:

There are hundreds (or probably thousands) of photos in the Chrome Web Store so go ahead download Google Chrome and go have some fun.

Good news is they’re all slashing prices. The Kindle is yet to officially reach Australia but it is selling for a mere $200 in the US. That has perhaps led other manufacturers to realise the only way to compete in the tablet market is to cut prices. Sony has knocked $100 off the price of its tablet.

Sony S

Perhaps some people miss the point of the Kindle Fire. It is a loss leader designed to draw customers to the Amazon website. Sony, HTC, Samsung etc aren’t content providers so they need to make money on the tablet, which prices them uncomfortably close to the superior options from Apple. Until they offer better products I would think they would need to offer better prices. Here’s hoping we can soon buy cheap tablets.

The good news is there is a way to adjust the delay in the audio and it doesn’t involve messing with the space/time continuum. First up, if you don’t already have it, you’ll have to get yourself the wonderful media program called VLC.

• http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Now, watch the little how-to video below and it’ll explain how to adjust your audio to take make your video and audio sync up.

While the video is running in VLC use the keys J and K on your keyboard to adjust the audio delay up or down. It’s that easy.

For products such as external drives I recommend you plunder whatever stocks still lie on retails shelves of the majors, assuming they haven’t increased in line with the incoming prices.

While the recovery process from the floods remains slow you can expect that hard drive production will not get back online and that prices will  remain high at least for a while yet.

Blog or News pages can be very effective on websites if done even half properly. Here are a few simple tips:

• keep an eye on your keywords
• write it in friendly English
• update it regularly

Use and repeat your keywords. This can be very simple. Instead of saying, “Tomorrow we release our new calendar with updated product shots in it,” say, “Queensland Widgets releases its new calendar tomorrow featuring shots of all our widgets”. Almost every post can fit in a keyword or two. Don’t waste an opportunity.

Write in in friendly English

If you want bullet form, then use bullets, but for the rest of the text use full sentences. Don’t write, “Calendar! New products! Coming soon!” Write like you’re speaking to your audience. You don’t speak in staccato bursts of phrases so don’t write like that.

Keep it friendly. None of use are paid writers so it’s more than possible that our writing style isn’t perfect. This is all the more reason to write like you’re talking to a friend. Engage with them. You’re not writing up your lab report. There is hardly a successful blog anywhere on the web, whether on serious matters (like bikes!) or something something more trivial (like IT?) that doesn’t maintain a friendly attitude.

Update it regularly

Okay, so I’ve been guilty of neglecting my Pogo blog…and my search engine results reflect that. Whereas I have been busy on my bike blog and that’s going great guns. Try to put aside time at least one hour a week and update your blog. Google loves to see new content. It knows your website is alive and healthy and worth providing links to. A little discipline is required to set aside an hour a week but the benefits are more hits and more clients.

Like anything you do regularly, it becomes easier and easier to do. The writing become easier and you will begin to see just how many interesting things you have to contribute. So don’t hide those ideas and don’t let your website down. Get blogging.

http://www.greatvalueholidays.com.au/

This replaces their existing website with a website that is much more SEO focused, is easy to update an integrates with all the most popular forms of social networking (Facebook and Twitter).

We look forward to seeing Great Value Holidays prosper with many new customers coming through their updated website.