The Christmas Gifts You Wished You Had Gotten

I love science, cool gadgets, new technologies, and lifelong learning. When it comes to being a consumer of high-tech wizardry, I’m an enthusiastic early adopter. If you are too, then hopefully you got some cool presents this holiday. If instead Santa left you a lump of coal or a knitted sweater, fear not: you can treat yourself. Here are a few of my recommendations for your “indulge yourself” post-Christmas shopping (in order by price, from least expensive to most):

Discovery DNA Explorer Kit – Extract DNA and run electrophoresis and chromotagraphy experiments in the comfort of your own home! Complete with centrifuge! (Sold out on Amazon, so head to eBay instead) – $50

Discovery Forensics Lab – If you’re a fan of any of the CSI shows on TV, you’ll surely appreciate this kit – $80

(If you or your kid is into science, here are 25 more cool science kits/experiments/toys)

iBreath iPod attachment – For the gadget lover who already has every conceivable gadget… I bet you don’t have this one! Who DOESN’T need a portable breathalyzer that looks cool and hooks into your iPod? Well, I don’t. But that’s beside the point… – $80

23andme genetic analysis – Get your DNA genotyped for dozens of genetic markers. It’s not as good as getting fully sequenced, so nobody’s going to be able to clone you from the data you get back, but hey, it’s a start! 23andme was founded by the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin. – $400

GTD Connect subscription – I’m a huge fan of the productivity methodology known as “GTD” developed by David Allen and described in his best-selling book Getting Things Done. Here’s my quick synopsis of GTD. Any serious GTD practitioner needs a subscription to GTD Connect. – $480 (per year)

Spider II GX laser – Who wouldn’t want a laser pointer with a 100 meter range that can melt plastic? – $1700

The Elite Retreat conference – Learn how to become a self-made Internet millionaire – $5000

Zero G zero gravity flight – Float weightless like the astronauts in parabolic flight – $5200

More cash to burn than that? You could fly a Russian MiG for $15k. Or better yet, become a space tourist and visit the ISS in orbit for $20 million (payable to the Russian government).

Tips, props, and new revelations from Matt Cutts of Google

Google engineer Matt Cutts presented at WordCamp 2007 last weekend. (Session notes available from Stephanie Booth, Lisa Barone, and P Havens.). Matt’s session was recorded… when the video is posted, I’ll let you all know. Matt will hopefully be posting his Powerpoint to his blog, if he gets approval from the PR department.

Matt Cutts gave me props twice in his presentation, and even called me out to the audience (even pronouncing my name right! Thanks Matt!):

1. He recommended my WordPress plugin SEO Title Tag
2. He recommended attendees read my blog post series about blog optimization

In this News.com blog post that I authored this week, I reported that, according to Matt, underscores in URLs are now or soon to be treated as word separators by Google. That’s a departure from their previous stance and offers an indirect clue that Google does give weight to keywords in URLs (which we at Netconcepts already knew from empirical evidence). TypePad and Movable Type bloggers can rejoice at this news, since the majority of them run blogs with a URL structure using underscores (including Lisa Barone), and up to now that was detrimental to their Google rankings. I would like to see Six Apart stop truncating keywords in URLs (by restricting length of URL to something like 15 or 17 characters by default), because that still is detrimental even after this underscore “fix” from Google.

A few other highlights from Matt’s talk:

• Dynamic URLs are treated the same as static URLs, as long as you keep the number of parameters to a minimum.
• Directory depth doesn’t matter to Google.
• File extension doesn’t matter to Google, unlesss it’s .exe.
• Google’s status as a domain registrar is inconsequential to them accessing other registrars’ domain data.
• Google won’t admit blogs into Google News that have only one author.

UPDATE: The video of Matt Cutts’ presentation at WordCamp is live now. Check it out.