Hybrid is a WordPress theme framework created by Justin Tadlock. It may be downloaded for free at Justin’s Theme Hybrid website.

If you are good with CSS and not afraid to dive into some PHP now and then, Hybrid theme is worth considering. And for a measly $25, I strongly recommend the theme support because it gives you access to numerous tutorials and a well-managed support forum should you run into any problems.

Of the WordPress theme frameworks I’ve used (including Thematic, Atahualpa, and Twenty Ten), Hybrid makes the least amount of design assumptions. It’s as close to a blank slate as I’ve gotten with a theme framework (if you want a more stripped-down theme, you can try the Skeleton theme by the same creator).

Many SEO (search engine optimization) features are built into the theme. In a project I did for a Dallas mattress wholesaler, I didn’t even bother installing the All in One SEO Pack because the same functionality is built into the theme.

Hybrid comes very cleanly coded with no images and heavy Javascript code. Several base stylesheets are available to help you get your child theme going.

Web designers intimidated by PHP can use the Hybrid Hook Plugin instead of generating action and filter hooks for the functions.php file. With a little CSS and graphic design knowledge, you can get some amazing results with Hybrid.

Hybrid is not without its problems, but they are relatively minor. For instance, some of the tutorials don’t seem to apply to newer releases of the theme which can be frustrating; however, this type of problem can be resolved quickly via the support forum. Overall, I enjoyed working with the Hybrid theme and would do so again.

So you have interesting ideas that you would like to put into writing. You’re thinking about starting a blog, but you don’t want to invest any money at this point. Chances are you are considering creating a blog for free at Blogger.

Blogger is not the only free blogging service available (you may also create a free account at www.wordpress.com), but it integrates well with other Google accounts (like Gmail), it’s easy to setup, and it provides you with options to monetize your blog. Just create your Blogger account, pick a blog name (something appended by .blogspot.com), and start writing.

If you blog regularly, your concerns will eventually turn to readership. The following tips will help you attract visitors to your Blogger blog. While some of the following tips can be applied to other blogging platforms, the intent here is to address Blogger specifically.

Search Engine Optimize Your Blog Titles

By default, Blogger will precede your blog post titles (the ones you see in both your web browser’s title bar and the search engine results) with the title of your blog. For example, if you write a new post entitled Easy Chicken Enchiladas Recipe for your blog, Delicious Delights, the blog post title will appear as “Delicious Delights: Easy Chicken Enchiladas Recipe”.

In the above example, removing the “Delicious Delights:” from each blog post title will allow the search engines to focus on the important part, “Easy Chicken Enchiladas Recipe.” Ultimately, this will set the stage for your blog posts to rank higher in the search engine results.

To change this default behavior, you will have to do a little HTML editing. Don’t worry, this procedure is documented very well here.

Create a FeedBurner Blog Feed and Activate the PingShot Service

Assuming you know what a blog feed is, creating a FeedBurner blog feed (as opposed to using the default Blogger feeds) has several advantages of which I will focus on two. First, if you decide to change blogging platforms (and domain names), you can keep the same feed name. Second, FeedBurner offers a service called PingShot that, when activated, automatically informs web feed reading services of your newly published blog posts.

Don’t forget to place a link to your feed somewhere on your blog; you can use a Blogger gadget to easily accomplish this. If your content is good enough, you can pick up subscribers.

Create a WebMaster Tools Account and Submit Your Sitemap

WebMaster Tools is Google service (as are Blogger and FeedBurner) that provides information about things like recent internet search queries for which your blog was displayed and links from other sites to your blog. One of the most important things you can do with WebMaster Tools is submit your blog’s sitemap; it will force Google to acknowledge and index your blog posts.

To find your blog’s site map, type in the URL for your blog followed by “/robots.txt” (e.g. http://yourblog.blogspot.com/robots.txt). The sitemap name should be listed in this document; this is what you will submit to WebMaster Tools.

Make Friends with Other Bloggers and Start a Blog Roll

If you are a fan of other bloggers, let them know it. See if they would be willing to exchange links with you. Links to your blog can boost your standing in the search engine results. You can easily create a blog roll (list to other blogs) within Blogger by adding the Link List gadget to your blog’s sidebar.

Submit Your Blog to Blogger Directory

Another way to gain links to your blog is through web directory sites. Blogger Directory (http://directory.bloggerplugins.org/) deals exclusively with blogs that use the Blogger platform. They may request that you link back to them via your blog roll.

Many other web directories exist – some require you to pay in order to submit your site. If you have the time, you can research and submit your blog to as many web directories as you’d like.

Use Social Media to Promote Your Blog

Use your Facebook, LinkedIn, and/or Twitter account to let your friends, connections and followers know about your latest blog post. Place a Facebook Like button on your blog if you want to. You can take it a step further by creating dedicated Facebook and Twitter pages for your blog.

Write Search Engine Optimized Post Titles

Think about what keywords or keyword phrases you want to target with each blog post. Try to anticipate what phrases people will search to reach your blog post. Do your best to include these relevant keyword phrases in your post’s title.

Use Labels to Target More Keyword Phrases

Come up with 3-4 keywords/keyword phrases that are relevant to your blog post. Create a label (in the Labels field) for each keyword phrase.

Write Often

Search engines love new and original content. Keep writing.

If you have any other suggestions for attracting traffic to Blogger blogs, please share them with us in the comments section.

The unit of measurement in relation to the width of your camera’s aperture is called “f-stop”. The higher the f-number, the larger your depth of field. For the average photographer, the f-number scale starts at f/1.4 and moves forward in “full stops” to f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22, etc. F-stop is not limited to those numbers, although they are the most popular. You can also shoot with half-stops, third-stops, and quarter-stops.

Low f-number, shallow focus.

The photo of the dog, shown on the right, is an example of “shallow focus” and a small depth of field. I wanted the focus to be on his eyes and his face, so I set the aperture to f/4.0. This allowed the camera to record the image with a very narrow focus, making the grass in the background completely blurred in bokeh. Even the dog’s hind legs are blurred, which brings direct attention to his face. Small depth of field is useful when you want to bring direct attention to one part of the photo, such as a portrait or a macro shot of an object. If you were photographing the intricate pistil of a flower, you would want the rest of the flower to be blurred, bringing the eye directly to the pistil.

High f-number, deep focus.

In the next photo, taken at the capitol building in downtown Denver, a higher f-stop (f/9) was used. This allowed the dome of the capitol building to be in focus, but also the trees in front of it. Had I used the f/4.0 of the previous photo, or an f/2.8 or f/2.0, the trees and clouds may have appeared slightly blurry, which wasn’t my intention. A wide aperture is most often used for broad scenic photos of vast landscapes. This allows the photo to include everything across miles of ground. Famed American photography Ansel Adams used to use extremely high f-stops like f/64 and f/90 to capture some of the most striking landscape photos of the photography era.

So use your camera’s aperture wisely, make sure your focusing on the right subject, and think of where you want your audience’s eyes to focus. Practice makes perfect!

You have to decide between “brandable” and “Google-friendly”

This is process is particularly important when you’re pondering the future domain name of a company, website, or blog that you know you’ll pour a lot of energy into. I’ll use our company as an example. When we were starting out, we had purchased two domains; one was “quillik.com” and one was “dallasseoco.com,” and we decided to develop the latter. As time went on, however, we started to despise seeing “dallasseoco.com” in the URL box. We weren’t Dallas SEO Co., we were Quillik. Sure, dallasseoco.com would have been granted a small SERPs boost thanks to the keywords within its domain, but we didn’t want that domain to define us. We alluded to Google, Yahoo, and Bing – they all own successful brands because their names are unique and memorable. We wanted people to refer to the company as Quillik, and seeing “quillik.com” in the URL field solidified that brand.

.com or Bust!

See a domain you like, but the .com extension is taken? The .net and .org extensions are wide-open, but you don’t know what to do? In my humble opinion, run away and don’t look back. For example, the deal website SlickDeals, as mentioned in my SlickDeals vs FatWallet post, owns SlickDeals.net. I’ve been using the site for at least four or five years, and I still type in slickdeals.com. Why? Because the .com extension is synonymous with the Internet. When people think “Internet” or “website”, they think .com, it’s as simple as that. If SlickDeals.com didn’t redirect to their .net site, it would get pretty messy. That’s not to say that non-.coms will never succeed, but it will be harder if you’re gunning for ease and memorability. Scoring coolbeans.info, coolbeans.cc, or coolbeans.name may seem cool at the moment, but Google (and readers/clients) won’t like it very much.

Hyphens, “The,” and Domain Names Don’t Mix

The domain name aftermarket can often be a funny place. You’ll often see people who couldn’t score pizza.com, so they invest their hard-earned money in i-want-to-order-pizza-right-now.com. While their is a general acceptance that hyphenated domains can be flagged as spam, the literal search engine value of hyphenated vs. unhyphenated domain names is somewhat controversial. Regardless, it only takes a bit of common sense to realize that hyphens (a.k.a. dashes) aren’t the way to go. If ugliness was a domain name factor, hyphens would tip the scales in the wrong direction. Do you want to have to tell potential customers or visitors that your URL is My dash Neat dash SEO dash Blog.com?

“The” before domain phrases can also be a deal killer. Not only does it look and sound sloppy (save some rare occasions where it doesn’t), but search engines probably won’t give you the boost it would give a domain without “the” in it. Search engines typically rank in a chronological fashion, so your keywords need to be close to the front of your URL. If bestburritos.com and thebestburritos.com are competing strictly on a domain-to-domain basis, the “the” domain will be KO’d every time.

The Shorter the Better

This is kind of common sense, but avoid lengthy domain names, even if you’re going for some miraculous long tail SEO phrase. They’re hard to remember, can lead to typo issues, and have an overall “spammy” vibe to them. Do it right!

Our Website Mockup

Having dabbled a bit with the popular Atahualpa WordPress framework for a recent web design/SEO project, we thought we’d really put it to the test for our next project: our own website. Adam put together a mockup of what he wanted the website to look like.

Would we be able to bend Atahualpa to our will, or would we end up going back to the tried and true Twenty Ten or Thematic? Or, would we end up having to design our own WordPress theme?

In the end, Atahualpa prevailed, though we did encounter some bumps along the way. We also radically departed from Adam’s original design which made things fun.

What is Atahualpa?

Atahualpa is a WordPress theme that puts a lot of design power in the hands of people with little to no HTML, CSS, PHP or JavaScript knowledge. Experienced developers, however, are not limited either and can quickly churn out a basic website layout, allowing them to devote most of their type to styling.

Atahualpa’s neophyte appeal was, at first, a big turn off for me, but it’s impressive theme options eventually lured me in. Let’s see how it handled our abuse.

What I Liked About Atahualpa

Getting an initial default page/sidebar layout is easy with Atahualpa and can be accomplished within the Atahualpa Theme Options (ATO). ATO also allows you to easily arrange header items, such as page menu, category menu, header image, and logo, as you see fit.

As far as the horizontal drop-down menus are concerned, you can choose whether you want them left-aligned, right-aligned, or center-aligned. I was not initially aware of these choices and centered the website’s main navigation menu the “hard” way with CSS.

Atahualpa includes a rotating image banner for the header section. If you are interested in such an option, this saves you time you would otherwise be spending coding in JavaScript or searching for the right WordPress plugin.

If you run into an Atahualpa development snag, an excellent support forum is available at the theme’s website. The forum moderators were quick to respond when I posted a question and were able to point me in the right direction.

Things I Didn’t Like About Atahualpa

When working with any WordPress framework, you have to accept the bad (or inconvenient) with the good. Atahualpa is certainly no exception.

The rotating banner was a big consideration of ours when choosing Atahualpa. We wanted the Quillik logo and contact information (image) to sit atop a revolving background of images. Our needs were met for the most part; however, if you want your company logo or any other image to overlay the banner, you cannot have the images rotate with any fade effect – a limitation that seems to bother other people as well, judging by some of the Atahualpa forum comments.

Because Atahualpa is geared toward the novice, it makes assumptions that may annoy more experienced developers. For instance, the ATO wants you to select default background colors for the navigation menu items in various states (hover, active, etc.). Our design didn’t call for these background colors, so I had to override them in CSS.

Atahualpa uses a table instead of DIVs for page layout – a practice shunned by many web developers. According to one of its forum moderators this is done so fluid layouts will look good in IE6. I thought I’d read somewhere on the forum that the theme would be doing away with the table in a future release.

The Finished Product

The Result

In the end, I think we ended up with a nice looking website. We will definitely keep Atahualpa in mind for future projects. When we revamp our website again next month, we’re going to try the Hybrid theme.

Note: this list was composed in April, 2011. It will not include any titles released after April, 2011.

10. Borderlands

Borderlands truly is a cel-shaded, wackier, funnier version of Fallout 3. Both are FPS, RPG, and post-apocalyptic, but Borderlands seems more “laid back.” For the most part, it seems like people either like one or the other, but I like them both. When the dark, depressing scenic realism of Fallout 3 gets me down, Borderlands always has my back with bright colors, lunatic characters, Skag-splattering vehicles, and lovable Claptraps. If you love looting, and doing lots of it, then get Borderlands.

9. Lost Odyssey

Better than Final Fantasy XI, Final Fantasy XII, and just about any other JRPG (Japanese RPG) on Xbox 360…combined (Tales of Vesparia excluded). For offended FF diehards, Lost Odyssey was produced by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi and the soundtrack was composed by FF composer Nobuo Uematsu. The turn-based combat system and random encounters are no surprise, but the Aim Ring and the dream sequences set Lost Odyssey apart from its counterparts.

8. FIFA Soccer 10

Unless you consider racing a sport, this is the only sports title that made the final cut. I’m a big sports game fan, especially on non-Wii consoles (save Wii bowling), but nothing seemed “worthy” of a top 10 tag beside FIFA 10. I was tempted by the trend-setting control scheme of Skate, Skate 2, and Skate 3, but they didn’t surpass FIFA 10. If there’s a reason that the popularity of football is on the rise in the United States, it’s our 2010 World Cup run and EA’s FIFA franchise. I’ve been playing FIFAs since the Playstation 1/Sega Saturn days, and have been hooked on the 360 titles since FIFA 08. FIFA 10 seems to have the best balance of speed and skill, while sanding down most of the nasty exploits from FIFA 09.

7. Viva Pinata

How do you get more original than Viva Pinata? Unlike its cover and title implies, this game isn’t just for kids. Give it a good hour and you won’t be able to put it down. For those who grew up in the 90s playing games like Pokemon, Animal Crossing, or even The Sims, will find their inner tween resurrected. You’ll wait for hours to spot that elusive pinata you’ve been working toward, then you’ll be pushed to tears when the pinata finally changes from black-and-white to color. Helpful tip: a site like GameFAQs.com can be your best friend for a game like this.

6. Forza Motorsport 3

I never knew “racing with your thumbs” could feel so realistic until I played Forza Motorsport 2. When Forza 3 was released, Forza 2 got the shaft. If you think Forza 2 looked like you were watching a real video of an auto race, prepare to be blown away. The car models for Forza 3 are absolutely spotless. I’ve never had to take a turn with a Bugatti Veyron, but if I had, I imagine it would be a lot like how it happens in Forza 3. The “paint” feature from Forza 2 is back as well; if you’re not the artist-type, check out the auction room for some pre-designed masterpieces.

5. Red Dead Redemption

Other than Vice City, I’ve never been a huge GTA (Grand Theft Auto) fan. GTA IV was good, but it was more because of sheer size and audacity than the gameplay itself. Red Dead Redemption, on the other hand, completely invents an era, and Rockstar does it well. Perhaps it’s the Texan blood, but I’ve always been fascinated with John Wayne movies, and RDR makes me feel like I’m living out Stagecoach or Red River on my TV. The missions rarely feel tedious, like the grunt errands often did in GTA IV, and there are so many awesome features (saloon fights, random encounters, lassos, etc.) that make this game good. Did I mention that the open sandbox world is huge?

4. Mass Effect

Mass Effect, to me, was always the next best thing to the nonexistent KOTOR III (Knights of the Old Republic). Bioware has always been “up there” with elite video game companies like Bethesda, Square Enix, and formerly Bungie, and Mass Effect was their magnum opus (or was it KOTOR?). Mass Effect 2 almost stole a #9 or #10 spot on this list, but Mass Effect deserves the spotlight, with its expansive environments, inventory system (hey, I liked it), the Citadel, and overall RPG feel. The ever-changing “life decision” system can’t be beat. Regardless, if I had to guess which pick would catch the most flak on this list, I’d say it’s this one. Mass Effect 1 vs. Mass Effect 2, as with any original-sequel battle, can get ugly.

3. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Personally, Oblivion is my favorite Xbox 360 game to date. It’s just an opinion, but nevertheless a statement in Oblivion’s favor, considering the game is over four years old. However, this is a top 10 list of merits, not favorites. Oblivion makes you feel like your living out a movie or a book, which should be the ultimate goal of the campaign mode for any video game. The game feels a lot like a prettier version of its predecessor, Morrowind, but part of me longs for the endless hours of inter-city traveling (or hailing a Silt Strider). It seems too Fable-esque and “hold your hand,” but I digress. However, I might have to rewrite this list on November 11, when Elder Scrolls V is scheduled for release…Bethesda can do no wrong.

2. Battlefield: Bad Company 2

There are a few “shooters” on this list, but Bad Company 2 is the only true shooter. Nope, no Halo or Call of Duty titles here. While I will make the argument that Halo 2 was one of the greatest video game titles of all time, Halo 3 and Halo Reach join the entire 360 Call of Duty line in exploit-land ground zero. Bad Company 2 will definitely “feel better” to CoD players; it’s definitely more of a simulation than a Halo arcade type. It just feels right, from the bullet drop to the sound effects, it just seems like DICE nailed it. BFBC2 also features one of the most balanced class systems that I’ve ever seen. While Medics might level up faster, they’re not a juggernaut in the field. I almost passed out when I figured out people were actually choosing something other than the Recon class, because using a sniper rifle in BC2 doesn’t have massive advantages unless you have dead aim. EA doesn’t like when people buy the game used though, so make sure to invest in VIP status if you buy Bad Company 2 secondhand.

1. Fallout 3

Post-apocalypse at its finest, and in reality, Oblivion with guns. Not just any guns though, we’re talking Tesla Cannon, Plasma Rifle, Mesmetron, and Fat Man. But the missions and the storyline are more important. By the end of the main story, you will hate the Enclave and gleam with pride at the Brotherhood of Steel. VATS is one of the most creative ideas that I;ve ever seen, and I can only imagine what a game like Mass Effect would be like with VATS incorporated. In addition, the soundtrack is one of my favorite parts of Fallout 3. By soundtrack, I mean Galaxy News Radio. Three Dog’s howls can get pretty obnoxious after the first few hundred times, but the songs never get old, and it solidifies the feeling that time has “stood still” since the Great War. “The roads are the dustiest, the winds are the gustiest…”

Disagree with these results? Has your favorite game been blatantly omitted? Let us know in the comments!

Image courtesy of thingsthatmakeyougoaahh.com

Naturally, co-operating this SEO blog (and a Dallas SEO firm to boot) involves a lot of time staring into the caverns of an internet browser. Unlike most “normal” people, I was pretty excited when I heard about the official release of Mozilla’s Firefox 4. I had been testing the beta for a few months, on and off, and was pretty happy with the results, especially after Mozilla removed some of the initial bugs.

However, beta aside, I had actually given up on Firefox 3.6 for the past month or so, due to some plugin-related speed issues. My favorite feature of any Firefox release has always been its enormous library of open source, free license plugins. But along came Firefox 4, so I gave it a shot.

Appearance

Generally speaking, I strongly believe that appearance (and therefore, subsequent changes in appearance) is one of the most important factors in the general public’s browser selection. Google Chrome’s no-menu-bar epiphany revolutionized browser competition, and now Firefox has opted to go down the Chrome path. This is good, and one of my favorite features of Firefox 4.

The new Firefox 4 menu bar -- lookin' fine.

It combines the former menu bar and tab bar into one concoction, with a big, orange, all-menu-encompassing “Firefox” button sitting to the left of all of the tabs. Not only does it clean up your workspace, it gives you a solid 25-30 pixels of extra site space. Along with the menu bar, the status bar bit the dust too. Mozilla’s decision to reduce the status bar to a temporary feature only visible on mouseovers gives the user another 10-15 pixels of space. Liked the status bar? Status-4-Evar has you covered.

Speed

According to Wikipedia, Firefox 4 has tested well with improved JavaScript and HTML5 support and speeds. Also, hardware acceleration has been auto-enabled on Windows Vista and Windows 7 machines using Direct2D and OS X machines using OpenGL. In layman’s terms, Firefox 4 transfers some of the processing load to your GPU (graphics processing unit) in order to cut down on the work that your processor has to do. If you’re like me and you like to flaunt fancy-shmancy video cards for no apparent reason, this is another good thing. Speed was one of the reasons I left Firefox 3.6 for Chrome, but with all of these performance upgrades, I might be back to Firefox for good.

Plugin (a.k.a. Add-on) Support

Add-ons are now displayed in-browser, as opposed to a menu.

Naturally, with any new major release of Firefox, some of the plugins will have compatibility issues off the bat. Two of my most-used plugins, Download Statusbar and RankChecker, are officially up and running. However, Tab Kit, my absolute favorite plugin of all time, is still incompatible with Firefox 4. Obviously, this comes down to the add-on’s respective developer (not Mozilla) and when they decide to update the plugin. It’s a minor setback for plugin aficionados, but most of the major add-ons are already cleared for Firefox 4 support. We are still using Firefox 4.0, after all.

Glitches, Issues, and What-Have-You

After a few days using Firefox 4 for standard browsing and WordPress purposes, I have yet to encounter a crash. Firefox has, however, hung for 30 seconds or so on more than one occasion. It tends to happen when I’m trying to save an image to my hard drive (it happened when I saved the image of the “real life Firefox” for this post), but it’s also happened once or twice with no correlation to images. All in all, not bad for a final browser release that’s only a week old.

Firefox 4.0 grade: A-

If it weren’t for those daily browser hang-ups (which have happened on multiple PCs), this would probably be a straight A. Thankfully it’s version 4.0 and is only a week old, with many revisions to come. Firefox 4.1, here I come!

Under the Fair Act Doctrine, we can legally use Ripoff Report's logo. Please don't sue us.

Hurt consumers have many Internet avenues through which they can expose shady businesses. One of the most empowering of these options is Ripoff Report (www.ripoffreport.com), founded by consumer advocate Ed Magedson. These complaints (referred to herein as ripoff reports or complaints), which rank so highly on Google search, can efficiently expose bad business practices. Unfortunately, they can also quickly bring damage upon honest businesses.

Ripoff Report and the Consumer

From a consumer’s perspective, Ripoff Report is a very powerful way of exposing a company’s wrongdoings. These reports end up at the top of Google’s search results, making them difficult for accused businesses to ignore.

I became aware of Ripoff Report a few years back, when I and many other individuals dealt with an unscrupulous builder in Austin, Texas. A few people (not yours truly) posted ripoff reports that still show up in the search results today. I remember how generally defenseless I felt during this period of my life and how grateful I was that — at the very least — forum like Ripoff Report existed.

Ripoff Report and the Business Owner

Simply put, you don’t want your business to be the subject of a ripoff report. If you care anything about your business, you’ll have to take some form of action. Ripoff Report has a policy of not removing complaints, but allows individuals to file rebuttals for free.

It can be especially frustrating if your business becomes the target of an untruthful complaint. A good example of this is a Dallas internet marketing company that was accused of placing links on customer websites that pointed back to its own website. The title of the complaint contained words like “illegal”, “scam” and “ripoff”.

In fact, link exchanges between businesses are a common SEO (search engine optimization) strategy. While there are those who do question the validity of link exchanges as an SEO tactic, it certainly is not an illegal practice, nor is it a scam or ripoff — it’s just one of many SEO tools.

The business owner who was targeted in the above ripoff report quickly filed a rebuttal, effectively casting doubt upon her accuser’s credibility; however, the report remains active for all potential customers to see. After or instead of filling a rebuttal, many companies will use the services of an SEO company to help them push the complaint(s) down in the search engine results.

Sometimes the complaints are so plentiful and damaging that a business feels compelled to take further action. Ripoff Report offers a couple of services, arbitration and corporate advocacy, to help businesses to repair damaged reputations

Through its VIP Arbitration program, Ripoff Report has an independent arbitrator review a business’s case against its accuser and determine whether or not the accuser’s complaint is truthful. If the complaint is found to be false, it will be noted before the title of the original complaint.

Ripoff Report’s Corporate Advocacy Program involves helping businesses systematically deal with complaints and restore customer confidence. Both the advocacy and arbitration programs are available for a fee, leading critics to accuse Ripoff Report of extortion.

Many businesses have tried to sue Ripoff Report for defamation and failed. The Communications Decency Act (CDA) is a law that protects website owners like Ripoff Report from responsibility for visitor-generated content.

Because the CDA offers Ripoff Report protection against defamation lawsuits, businesses have begun suing the company on other grounds. In her article entitled The Anatomy of a RipOff Report Lawsuit (which features a rebuttal by Ripoff Report), Sarah Bird examines several lawsuits filed against the company and their outcomes.

Like it or not, Ripoff Report is a forced to be reckoned with. May it be used solely to expose the worst of the worst. And may your business never become the victim of a fraudulent report.

FatWallet had fallen to my #2 spot for a while, but the addition of the “Best Deals” page gave them a much-needed boost. After the downfall of the Windows Live cashback program, many were left alone in the dark, helplessly searching for a way to get some of their money back from common purchases. FatWallet has installed a very similar cashback program that can pay off on bigger buys from websites like Newegg, eBay, and Buy.com. Also, for forumgoers, the “Hot Deals” section of the FatWallet forums can’t be beat.

Slickdeals is like a simpler version of FatWallet…sort of. Its clean, primarily-text front page takes the term “user-friendly” to a whole new level, listing the newest deals first. However, beware of the phenomenon known to the SlickDeals community as the “SD effect”. When a deal shows up on the front page, it usually doesn’t last long – watch out for the dreaded “OOS”. Slickdeals also has a new feature: the simultaneous display of deals from all of the Groupon-type sites in your area, known as “Local Deals”. I can get $20 worth of burgers for $10? I’m in.

For hardcore bargain hunters, the best aspect about going to multiple websites is making sure that no stone is left unturned. Dealsplus users often find the “sleeper deals”: deals that most of the deal sites miss out on. For the visual learners among us (myself included), Dealsplus also implements an eye-pleasing “big pictures” strategy to their front page. A cool “plus” rating system – one “plus” for every person that likes the deal – also adds to the long-term value of Dealsplus. For people who don’t like communicating via forums, but prefer a comment system instead, Dealsplus is your site.

Company logo images are courtesy of FatWallet, Slickdeals, and Dealsplus respectively.

Although they may provide health benefits too, herbal teas are not the subject of this post. Benefits of drinking tea include the following:

• Tea can help improve your mind’s alertness. Of all the tea varieties, black tea has the highest concentration of caffeine, yet it has approximately half the caffeine of coffee. So if you find coffee’s jolt to be a bit much, black tea may do the trick.
• Tea may reduce your risk of cancer. Antioxidants called flavonoids are abundant in tea. Studies have suggested that tea’s antioxidants may help combat cancer causing free radicals. By some estimates more cancer-fighting antioxidants are found in teas — including green tea and white tea — that undergo the least amount of processing; however, all tea contains high levels of antioxidants.
• Tea may reduce your risk of heart disease. The same flavonoids that fight cancer have been shown to fight heart disease as well.
• Black tea may protect your lungs against cigarette smoke damage. According to WebMD, studies also indicate that black tea may reduce your risk of stroke.
• Tea may help you lose weight. Certainly unsweetened tea instead of sugary soda at lunch will result in lower caloric intake, but studies in animals actually indicated a link between tea consumption and weight loss.

No matter how you prepare your tea (a topic that deserves its own blog posting), you should reap some of the health benefits discussed above. For more information, check out the latest tea research findings at WebMD.com.