Bachelor's Hometown Visits: The Good, the Bad and the Creepy

ABC/RICK ROWELL

We finally get to see the four remaining girls in their own habitats, and find out if bachelor Brad Womack fits in.

Let's recap what happened tonight on The Bachelor...

MORE: The Bachelor: Michelle refuses to be upstaged by other women's breasts

Brad started out in Chantal's hometown of Seattle, and after her recent emotional outbursts he seemed happy to see her in a lighter mood. Of course, that didn't last long. Before the waterworks began again, Chantal let us know that she lives four streets away from her parents, and told her possible future husband, "If they don't like you, you're out!" Pressure much? Then Brad had to complete the approval test with three other important figures in Chantal's life, that would surely make the move to Austin if they should get hitched: her pets. Lucky for him, Chantal's pup, Boca, enjoyed his company. That's one down. After throwing back a couple beers, the duo head to Chantal's parents massive house and made us wonder what her parents do and how we can do it too. In the end, Chantal's father gave Brad their blessing and we all got a little teary-eyed watching her heart-to-heart talk with Mom.

Then it was off to Madawaska, Maine with Ashley. This tiny town near Canada made you question whether they were still in America. Between the French-speaking locals and the honor system for buying groceries, anyone would get a little confused. But the trip was very educational, especially for Brad. First, he learned that you don't reply to a French question in Spanish nor do you eat poutine (french fries topped with cheese and gravy) with a fork! Finally, after a mini PDA photoshoot, they headed off to meet Ashley's family who could pretty much be described as a minor league cheerleading squad. Brad simply described them as "such a happy family."

After that, Brad headed to Chico, CA to see Shawntel, where they met at her—wait for it—family-owned funeral home. It gets better. The two start their conversation by deciding whether Brad will be cremated or not, and if so where he will be placed. Then it moves into the embalming room where Shawntel mimics her procedure on Brad, showing him the steps she takes and all her nifty tools. Brad goes along as well as he can, politely saying that he doesn't handle death well. And when it was time to go meet the family, pressure mounted as Shawntel's father, Rick, explained that it is her duty to take over the business.

Finally, the bachelor landed in Charlotte, NC to visit Emily and meet her five-year-old daughter, Rikki. To say it began awkwardly would be an understatement. Rikki was shy and seemed less-than-interested in mommy's new friend, but luckily Brad brought her a gift. If it wasn't for that butterfly kite, there might've been no dialogue that whole segment. The three of them spent the day in the park and the night at Emily's house playing board games. Brad said he enjoyed the family scene. But after Rikki was tucked in for the night, Brad explained to Emily that he didn't feel comfortable kissing her out of respect for her daughter. Does this annoy Emily? Hell, yes. The two are finally alone, and he's taking the high road. She tries to play it down by saying she respects that he's being sweet, but that doesn't stop her from planting a big one by the door before he leaves. And he seemed to like it.

When it finally came down to the rose ceremony, it was between the two brunettes with the near-identical names: Chantal and Shawntel. As much as we would've loved to see them both walk up thinking their name was called, Brad very precisely enunciated that Chantal would receive the last rose. Apparently dealing with death as a living wasn't for him.

Prepare for some more lovin' next week, South African style!

Car Training...... Training for Your Role

I-CAR training is structured around your role as a collision industry professional. Within each role, there are three expected levels of knowledge that build upon each other. I-CAR courses will help you achieve the knowledge that is required for your role at each of the three levels. Training is available in a classroom setting, online, and through the Industry Training Alliance. Collision Repair Professionals Estimators inspect and analyze collision damaged vehicles to create a repair plan and apply pricing. Builds relationships with vehicle owners, repairers, and insurance personnel to negotiate costs and sell work. Uses computers to write estimates and interact with other computer software. Also known as a customer service representative, stays in contact with customer during entire repair process, and works to address all customer concerns, and insures satisfaction when repairs are complete. A Steel Structural Technician restores structural dimensions and integrity to collision damaged vehicles. He or she uses measuring and frame equipment to diagnose damage and return damaged frame or unibody parts to manufacturer’s specifications. Hand tools and power tools are used to remove or repair damaged parts, weld as needed, and properly install new parts. This individual also works with a variety of metals and plastics, as well as glass, electrical, and mechanical parts. An Aluminum Structural Technician restores aluminum structural dimensions and integrity to collision damaged vehicles. He or she uses measuring and frame equipment to diagnose damage and return damaged frame or unibody parts to manufacturer’s specifications. Hand tools and power tools are used to remove or repair damaged aluminum parts, weld, and properly install new parts. This individual also works with a variety of metals and plastics, as well as glass, electrical, and mechanical parts. A Non-Structural Technician restores damaged vehicles to their original structural integrity, function, and appearance. This technician uses hand tools and power tools to remove or repair damaged parts, weld as needed, and properly install new parts. He or she works with a variety of metals and plastics, as well as glass, electrical, and mechanical parts. The Electrical/Mechanical Technician diagnoses and repairs collision-related mechanical damage including steering, suspension, air conditioning, engine, brake, and electrical systems. This individual uses measuring and alignment equipment to diagnose damage and return front and rear wheel alignments to manufacturer’s specifications. Hand tools and power tools are used to remove or repair damaged parts and properly install new parts. A Refinish Technician prepares and applies paint to repaired vehicles. Duties may include final sanding, masking, color mixing and tinting, spray booth operations, applying primers, sealers, color, and clear coats. He or she may need to blend color into adjacent panels for a better color match to existing vehicle paint. This individual works with potentially hazardous materials, so attention to safety and personal protection are essential. Vehicles must be correctly prepared and refinished to ensure proper adhesion, color match, and overall appearance. Insurance Professionals Auto Physical Damage Appraisers inspect, analyze, and evaluate damaged vehicles to create a comprehensive and accurate estimate of repair. These individuals travel to a vehicle’s location, which may include tow facilities, repair facilities, dealerships, and customer locations. They may work in a company drive-in claims center and use computers to write estimates and interact with other company computer software. Those in this role documents all aspects of claims investigation and processing and follows company claims processes that account for a fair and accurate settlement, customer satisfaction, and cost management.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tips for Joomla1.5

Search engine optimization is a key element of online business, and today I am going to reveal the secret of Search Engine Optimization with Joomla 1.5

Joomla, which is one of the most popular and self optimized CMS, comes with many paid and free extensions. However, to make Joomla fully SE Optimized and SEF (I’m doing it at zero cost) please follow these guidelines and make your Joomla website SEF and SERP winner.

One of the most reported issues with Joomla 1.5 websites that they have duplicate meta descriptions in search engines.  Majority of the data entry persons or webmasters are not aware of this issue which leads to their website being placed at lower ranks in search engines.

• Please open head.php located at (yourjoomlawebsite.com\libraries\jomla\document\html\renderer\head.php) in edit mode Find (Ctrl+ F):

  $strHtml .= $tab.'<meta name="description" content="'.$document->getDescription().'" />'.$lnEnd;
  $strHtml .= $tab.'<title>'.htmlspecialchars($document->getTitle()).'</title>'.$lnEnd;</li>
   <li> 

  
  Replace With:

  $doc_desc=htmlspecialchars($document->getTitle()).". ".$document->getDescription();
  $strHtml .= $tab.'<meta name="description" content="'.$doc_desc.'" />'.$lnEnd;
  $strHtml .= $tab.'<title>'.htmlspecialchars($document->getTitle()).'</title>'.$lnEnd;
  $strHtml .= $tab.'<meta name="title" content="'.htmlspecialchars($document->getTitle()).'" />'.$lnEnd;
  

• Please install the following joomla extensions
  SC Meta – Section Category Meta Manager:
  This extension actually enhances the scope of optimization of your website; it gives you the power to edit meta tags of Joomla sections and categories, generally, by default you don’t have access to edit meta tags of sections and category.
  
  SEO Boost:
  This plugin will add a small code if anyone copies and pastes your content; this plugin will automatically give your website credit with a back link. This technique is used as advanced level link building; it’s much more powerfull than any other link population techniques such as directory submissions, link baiting, reciprocal link building etc because it saves the time and money you would otherwise spend on link building.
  Social Widgets:
  This module helps your visitors to share you content with a single click.
• Add Google Analytics tracking code and Google Webmaster tools to keep track of your website.
• Pick some of the high traffic keywords and generate catchy content.
• Share your content using social bookmarking websites and start getting organic traffic from search engines.

I follow these practices and get amazing SEO results, with no meta duplication, no crawler errors.

Tablet Wars

Let’s face it, the iPad dominated 2010. However, we have Google entering the ring with an as-yet-un-appraised contender in the form of Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). All that’s really required for android tablets to become a major competitor for Apple is that the volatility of the OS is decreased. Apple boasts (and delivers) a distinctive feature set whereas Google so far has pretty much been saying “Wait for it, waaaiit for the next version, it’ll be awesome!”

Also, the iPad 2 will inevitably upgrade some of the aspects that weren’t so appealing last year. Second generation android tablets are, however, built up as a tablet OS from scratch, and Honeycomb has almost brought it at par with the iPad. And then there’s the fact that it still looks and functions differently from anything on the market so far.

However, this battle fought between fan bases on forums and the like means one thing at the end of the day; better more competitive products for the regular consumer! Tablets wars = happy consumers

Google Vs Bing – “Let’s Keep This Fight Clean, Gentlemen”

One week after the net exploded with news of Google’s “Bing Sting” and Microsoft’s subsequent vague roundabout answers (which later became a firm denial, which later became an explanation), we’re going to take you through what actually happened.

So Google caught its competitor with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar. And here’s how. (In very basic terms, for the non techie readers) In a nutshell: last summer, Google’s search results were showing up on Bing’s page after a minor time lag. Normally, that has nothing to do with anything except the web pages’ listing/ranking. However, these were no ordinary results, they were the results for misspelled queries!(images courtesy: googleblog.blogspot.com)

Lo and behold, the same result for said misspelled unusual query later on started showing up on Bing’s results without the corrected query as was the case with Google.

Short of employing super-sensitive psychics whose job it is to predict the correct spellings for a misspelled query AND then magically shovel out the same results as Google’s searches; there is no explanation for Bing’s results except they cheated.

Now Google, being the tech-savvy pirates they are, verified this by generating about a 100 “synthetic queries” (search queries that users would not type in, like hybbprqag) and linked with each a unique and unrelated web page as the top result. Imagine their surprise (I trust there was no dismay, just a victorious “Gotcha!” in their minds) when the same unrelated page later showed up as Bing’s top result for the same synthetic query.

Google topped off their Bing Sting accusation with a high handed “at Google we believe in innovation etcetera etcetera” sermon, which later prompted Microsoft’s denial. Initially, Bing said “We use multiple signals and approaches in ranking search results” which said nothing about anything, until it later became a categorical “We do not copy Google’s results.”
Here is an excerpt from Bing’s explanation later about their “multiple signals” for ranking search results.

“We use over 1,000 different signals and features in our ranking algorithm. A small piece of that is clickstream data we get from some of our customers, who opt-in to sharing anonymous data as they navigate the web in order to help us improve the experience for all users.
To be clear, we learn from all of our customers. What we saw in today’s story was a spy-novelesque stunt to generate extreme outliers in tail query ranking. It was a creative tactic by a competitor, and we’ll take it as a back-handed compliment. But it doesn’t accurately portray how we use opt-in customer data as one of many inputs to help improve our user experience”

In other words, Bing says they get a small amount of their data from users, but they very neatly avoid stating where the rest of their data comes from. Kudos. Also, they’ve very wisely taken the tolerant wiser person approach, calling Google’s moves a “back-handed compliment from a smart competitor”.

Words, may I add, to talk around some very compelling evidence. Well, we don’t know how much of a compliment it really is, but here’s what our scoreboard looks like this:

Which Smart Phone Are You?

So a couple of friends gave in to the dark side. They’ve gone the smart-phone way, while I sat down to take notes and document their journey. Three people sharing their opinions on the BlackBerry Bold, the iPhone 3GS, and the Motorola Droid.

At a relatively higher price than its counterparts, does the BlackBerry Bold offer value for money? The design is pleasing, with the display very sharp and detailed. Also, it comes with a leather backing that may appeal to some users who want their handset to look more sophisticated than just modern. The call quality is good, and browsing the web is speedy and efficient. Like all BlackBerry smartphones, it can handle up to 10 separate accounts (personal or professional). There’s a pricey upgrade for the software capability to create new Microsoft Office documents, however. The verdict: while it will cost you extra, it does deliver the functionality and ease of use which is associated with BlackBerrys, of which this is the crème-de-la-crème’.

How impressive is the iPhone 3GS? Well, for starters, it’s faster than a first generation iPhone by far (or so my friend swears) along with some nifty voice controlled call features. Web access is also noticeably faster, and of course, with Safari, viewing web pages is smoother. Also, the iPhone 3GS is not a necessary upgrade, iPhone 3G users can download the iPhone software, version 3.0, for a free upgrade. And of course, it retains and upgrades the excellent iPod feature, which now allows users access to iTunes to download music and movies. The verdict? This may very well be the best smart phone in the market at this point.

The Motorola Droid (with the Android OS) apparently takes some getting used to. It’s not as visually sleek as, say, its Apple counterpart. Also, the OS gets confusing, since there are many versions out there which don’t always run on every handset. However, no other OS provides the same leverage for customization, as long as you are willing to put in the time and effort to get comfortable with Android. Verdict: It’s a great phone, if you’re into the slightly geeky side of technology as opposed to just the “ooh shiny” variety.

So which smart phone are you?

The NEW iPhone 5 Is Released THIS YEAR

Not An iPhone 5 - Just a picture to make the hub look pretty

The NEW iPhone 5 Is Released THIS YEAR

Are you as excited about the release of the new iPhone 5 as I am? Probably not, because I'm the one writing this hub and you're the one reading it (hopefully). I hate to admit it but somehow I've managed to become one of those Apple fangirls that you see walk into the Apple store and spend 30 minutes asking the employees all sorts of uber geek questions.

For one reason or another I've taken it upon myself to find out as much as possible about the new iPhone 5 so that I could spread this knowledge. What do I get out of it? The benefit of knowing I'm helping rid the world of lesser non-Apple phones (*cough HTC Evo cough*).

As if the iPhone 4 wasn't groundbreaking enough, the iPhone 5 is going to revolutionize the world of cell phones. Here's why:

One of the biggest benefits of owning a new iPhone 5 is that it'll come with dual core processors that will make it load at super fast speeds. Not only that, but it will be incorporating even more powerful graphics chip cards, which will provide you with better video and still images. As if the 20 gigawatt gazillion megapixel already in the iPhone 4 wasn't enough...

Right now it looks like the new iPhone 5 will be running on a 4G network (instead of the usual 3G). That means that some of the most likely network carriers to get a plan under are Sprint, T-Mobile, and maybe AT&T and Verizon. But we've all heard a lot of complaints about AT&T's network in the past, so I'm not sure how many people would opt to go with them for the new iPhone.

In fact, one of the reasons behind the increase in Jailbreaks of the iPhone 4 was that AT&T's network had way too many problems with it. Rather than deal with AT&T a lot of people ended up jailbreaking their phones instead, a fair deal considering you can get free ringtones, themes, and apps when you jailbreak your phone.

Also, anyone who says Android based cell phones are going to be able to compete with the new iPhone 5 are completely delirious. They won't even come close to the capabilities offered by the new iPhone when it comes out.

If you're thinking about buying the iPhone 4, you'll be better off waiting for the iPhone 5 instead, as it should be coming out really soon this year. Here are some of the expected features:

• The new iPhone 5 is expected to have Face Recognition Security so that you don't have to worry about other people stealing your phone and trying to use it... That is, unless they steal your face too. (Anyone seen Face Off?)
• Video Chat on a 4G network instead of a slow 3G one
• Much nicer overall body design of the phone. It's going to be even thinner and have a shiny black piece.
• Shatter Resistant and Scratch Resistant Screen
• The lowest model will come with 32G of space and 64G of memory. I'll be able to store my whole computer on the lowest model of the iPhone 5. Yippeee for me.
• Longer Battery Life - Up to 14 Hours of Talk Time On The 3G and 7 Hours on the 4G. With 14 hours of talking to my girlfriends, I'm only going to have 10 hours to sleep =(
• HD Audio - The quality of sound is going to be extra crisp.
• Built In GPS - You'll never get lost or have to download one of those stupid GPS apps.

How much will the new iPhone 5 cost? I can't speculate on that, but I'm going to assume it'll run you over $500. It's definitely going to be worth it though, and I can't wait for it to come out.