TONI ZOVA

It’s good to see good people int he world doing things simply to help others. I don’t do enough good but I try. Just saw a few bloggers raving about a company close by in Rhode Island and how they’re involved in a $100,000 + scam and people claim that there’s an investigation under way.

What’s interesting about this, and you can read about the Tango Pix Scam here, is that this is a relatively small local company so for them to have that much pull and scam people for that much, can’t help but wonder you know?

If small companies are now managing to pull 6 figure scams, what are the big companies doing? It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out and how Tango Pix handles this situation.

Again, it’s just really nice to see that the so called under dogs don’t get away with this sort of thing.

Beyond the title, I can’t post anything related to this topic without first posting a little disclaimer that may or may not serve it’s purpose:

DISCLAIMER:
I’m not promoting black hat SEO. I do not practice blackhat SEO on any of my sites or any of my clients sites. I don’t work for a search engine but I have in the past so much of what I’m going to be writing here is based on observation and speculation as well as past experience that in no way divulges information of any kind that I may have learned from working for a Search Engine in the past that i’m in some way forbidden to discuss. I have been wrong before and could be wrong here so I can’t be held responsible for anything you misinterpret or act upon thereby getting screwed over royally as a result of what i write here. I’m also not trying to convince you that white hat is better or worse than black hat SEO. I’m not trying to defend the existence of blackhat seo nor am I in any way justifying its use.

With that, I’m going to start off by making this simple statement that i’ll end up elaborating on and explaining in detail in the next couple of posts:

Blackhat SEO is WhiteHat SEO, but automated.

I know a few of you are a little dense so i’ll go into a little detail. First off, what the hell is blackhat seo? This is asked over and over, and wherever you look, it’s answered in very similar ways. In my opinion, it depends on ‘who’ you ask. Ask a WhiteHat SEO what BH SEO is and they’ll recite the Google Webmaster Guidelines like a bunch of fanboys&girls. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I mean, ‘the sheep dog can’t bark without the sheep’…right?

Google publishes those guidelines because they know as well as you and I that they have no way of detecting or preventing what they preach so loudly. They rely on droves of webmasters to blindly repeat everything they say because they are an internet powerhouse and they have everyone brainwashed into believing anything they tell them. What this means is that the vast majority of internet marketers and SEO professionals are completely blind to the vast array of tools at their disposal that not only increase traffic to their sites, but also make Blackhat SEOs hundreds of thousands, if not millions in revenue every year.

As I stated above, in my opinion, Black Hat SEO and White Hat SEO are almost no different. White hat web masters spend time carefully finding link partners to increase rankings for their keywords, Black Hats do the same thing, but they write automated scripts to do it while they sleep. White hat SEO’s spend months perfecting the on page SEO of their sites for maximum rankings, black hat SEO’s use content generators to spit out thousands of generated pages to see which version works best.

Are you starting to see a pattern here? You should, Black Hat SEO and White Hat SEO are one in the same with one key difference. Black Hats are lazy. They like things automated. Have you ever heard the phrase “Work smarter not harder?” Most real blackhat’s live by those words. Why spend weeks or months building pages only to have Google slap them down with some obscure penalty?

You see, some WhiteHat SEO’s will argue that “the search engines will ban your sites if you use Black Hat techniques”. Sure, this is true if you have no understanding of the basic principals or practices. If you jump in with no knowledge you are going to fail, as is the case with anything in life.

Remember that a search engine can’t possibly penalize you for outside influences that are beyond your control. They can’t penalize you for incoming links, nor can they penalize you for sending traffic to your domain from other doorway pages outside of that domain. If they could, I one could simply point doorway pages and spam links at their competitors to knock them out of the SERPS. It’s Common sense. If Google and other major search engines can’t point a finger at you that you did something they frown upon, you’re in the clear.

Another thing people confuse is the fact that Blackhat SEO is NOT illegal. Spamming maybe illegal in most countries but spamming is NOT a technique real blackhat’s use. The problem is people take what Google has written in it’s webmaster guideline as law. It’s not, it’s one companies terms of services. If you don’t follow them they’re entitled to knock you out of their search results. That’s it though.

Who elected the search engines the “internet police”? I certainly didn’t, so why play by their rules? Black Hat SEO is thinking outside the box the corporate industry has built around everyone.

I’ll discuss some of the blackhat techniques used these days in my next post.

PS. Dear Google, i really don’t want to have to egg the google complex so don’t slam me in the rankings for this post…First Amendment, freedom of speech. Peace ;]

Hi, I just feel like ranting for a bit, mainly at you IEB’s (Internet Exploring bastards)…you know, those of you using IE right now. So ok, if you’re browsing my site using IE, you might not be getting the best user experience ever. Honestly, it’s not going to get any better anytime soon, see, you make my life miserable, you make the lives of many designers miserable. While we as developers/designers try, time and time again to get you sons of cows to see straight, it just never works. Here’s the deal, we can’t spend extra hours tweaking sites to suit your Internet Explorer Browsing ShitStink Ways. OK?

If you’re still reading this, and you’re an IE user, you’re an asshole and your browser is an asshole, your parents were most likely assholes and there’s not much I can say about your future family. If you’re ever able to reproduce you IE using scum bag, I hope to god they don’t get the IE gene from you, otherwise they’re doomed to assholism, like you.

So look, I’m going to be honest: I don’t like you, yes you, IE user, fucking twat shitlicker. BUT…big but here, we can see eye to eye with a little work, so listen up. I need you to boot up your stinking Toshiba ShitBook© that probably weight like 65 pounds, and I know that as an IE user it is mandatory that you eat your meals butt naked right off your monitor so clean that off and hose down your screen, download FireFox, delete Internet Explorer from your computer, grab the keyboard and bash yourself repeatedly in the face, install and run FireFox. You’re one step closer to becoming my friend, you’re not there, God you’re not even close, but you’re one step closer now, well done.

So I’m slowly redesigning parts of this blog, soon it’ll be the icons/some of the graphics, then later the header, then the nav and probably the footer etc.

So today I spent a few minutes knocking up a few social media icons for myself to use, but…butttt i’m a nice guy and gonna share them with you buggers to use. Nothing at all unique, very basic and goes with where my blog design will be headed.

There’s 7 icons, I’ll be updating the package fir 8 others when I have time tomorrow or something so if you like them in the first place and want them, check back some time. For the sake of making these into a pack i’m going to come up with a name for them, a really lame name mind you, PAPERCUT ICONS. Woohooo right? I know, I’ve got to get out more. So, enjoy…

Click the following link to >> download the free Papercut Icons

Or Wee, you know, urine. Yeah, there is such thing as Environmental Pee, and I’m going to talk to you about how to pee Green. No, green energy drinks are not involved, I really do mean being Green when it comes to urinating.

This mostly applies to men, truck drivers actually but I’m sure it could apply to some men and women alike all over the world. But truck drivers are the worst, really, they are. How many times have you spotted little gallon milk jugs all over the side of a highway or something? Seriously I think i’ve seen more milk jugs on the side of roads than I have any other form of trash. It’s crazy.

You do know what happens right? See, truck drivers drive for hours, long distance, and sometimes skip stopping for a restroom break, instead choosing to relieve themselves in a, yes, you guessed it, a bloody gallon milk jog. Then they just hurl it out of their window and if you’re a lucky sod and don’t get hit by the sudden burst of yellow rain the jug finds its way to the side of the road.

What’s wrong with this, some of you truck drivers must be wondering…well, the potential biohazard road litter for one, so here’s a solution to eliminate that biochemical misshap/shower and also to reduce your vehicles NOx emissions. Keep reading, this is going to be a life changing article, it will for the most part change the way we drive forever.

This is a disclaimer: performing the following mods to your vehicle will probably void your muffler warranties, most likely also void your automobiles warranty and most probably will land you in jail. Come to think of it, you’ll be in violation of a lot of state laws, yeah, definitely in California…but hey, it’s for the good of our planet! (i may not be held responsible for your stupidity.)

What you do is simple, fit a funnel between the your leg area, passenger or driver doesn’t matter. Both if you want to really do the world a favor. Get creative, I opt for the goosenek mic but you can use whatever you want. Now here’s the fun part, you have to punch a hole, or drill one that is, into the catalytic conv. or muffler on the end facing the engine (the Muffler is preferable). Mount a one-way valve on the converter or muffler with the flow indicator pointing toward the exhaust system. Mount an electric pump on the underneath of the vehicle away from the hot exhaust system.

Put a switch mounted on the dash labeled “Pee”, or “Wee” or “Piss”, or if you’re a girlie girl then “tinkler” or if you’re French “Wee Wee”..maybe not but you get the point. mount that between the battery fuse block power and the pump. Run a very-high-temperature tube from the funnel to the electric pump and another very-high-temperature tube. Make sure all connections are totally sealed as you do not want to get CO2 poisoning…yeah we would not want that.

See, to use it just turn on the Pee switch and Pee to your hearts content though please keep in mind that some states, like Cali, require handsfree operation so you have to get clever there too. Remember to turn off the switch when you’re done.
You’ve now reduced the Nitrous Oxides (NOx) and saved a water-wasting flush on a toilet. You’ll also be proud that you improved air quality and conserved water at the same time. You also saved your urea from joining the fish wee and whale poop in the ocean.

Just pee while you drive and save the environment as well as your money, please.

If you set something up like this please shoot me some pictures, preferably of you using it to better provide my readers with a visual example of it all.

Hey guys, how’s everyone doing?

Alright, not your ordinary blog post but my cousin wants to clear out her childrens toy closet, they’re moving back to the UK and just can’t be bothered with taking a lot of what she refers to as “excess blah blah”. So apart from her 2 little spoiled brats hating my guts now, I told her to give them all to me, and she did.

Now, I’m giving a bunch away to a fw foster care homes around the Manhattan/Brooklyn here in new york, but I still have so many on my hands to give away. I’ll list the ones left below and if you want one, just drop me a comment and make sure to enter your real email address so I can contact you for your mailing address!

The board games are for the most part in really good condition. Don’t worry about shipping costs etc, I’ll mail them your way for free. This will be first come first serve, so all you do is list the board games you want (no more than 2 per address to be fair and so as many people as possible get them!) - i’ll cross off the board games that are sent out.

List of the free board games(sorry i cant take individual pix or provide more information, you’ll have to google the games or link me and ask me if that’s it and ill check for you, some of these board games are so bloody weird!!! haha):

Cranium
Arthur Cartoon Board Game
Mastermind
Digimon
Mad Gab
Monopoly (classic)
Chinese Checkers
Dames
Backgammon
Risk
Rummy-o
Caves & Claws
Battleship (classic)
Marvel heroes Board Game
Heroscape
Concentration
Bionicle
Life
Stock Ticker
Clue Jr
Pictionary
Connect Four
Scrabble (classic)
Scrabble (for juniors)
Ancient Rome
Snakes and Ladders
Spider Man Board Game
Max
Boggle
Christmas game
Chess Set
Checkers
Clue
Pepper
Stone Age
Jambo!
You’re Bluffing
Mouse Trap
Pirate’s Cove
Fiasco

To those that have asked, yep, will ship to Canada/UK. No problem

Update: Those crossed out have been sent, i’ll be sending more out Monday (tomorrow) so please, if you still wants something not crossed out let me know, I have yet to check them off my list or get back all the emails I sent out confirming mailing addresses that those particular games are supposed to be sent out to!

Update: All board games are no longer available. For those I have contacted, it might be 5-7days before I can shoot off the second wave of board games your way, please be patient. God Bless.

If you’re a web designer then you know how bloody annoying and time consuming it can be to do some of the most simple things like tweaking the CSS, editing little typos in your code, measuring stuff and then slipping the figures into your style sheets etc. I mean, we waste so much time doing little bits and bobs that it’s ridiculous, but I, as perfect as I am, don’t waste a second. I use Add-ons to make my life easier while coding and you should too.

I’m going to go through a list of the Add-ons I use and explain what each does, trust me, at first, once you have a good 5-10 or even 15 Add-ons strapped into your browser, you might be a little overwhelmed, but trust me, it’s worth it and you’ll get used to utilizing these extra browser features!

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One of my all time favorites is the Firebug Add-on. Quoting them right off the source;

Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. Firebug gives you full control over the CSS, HTML and JavaScript of any page that you choose. Inspect and edit HTML, Tweak CSS to perfection, Visualize CSS metrics, Monitor network activity, Debug and profile JavaScript, Quickly find errors, Explore the DOM, Execute JavaScript on the fly, Logging for JavaScript. Best of all, every change that you make is done live and instantly, so you can quickly test out different changes and see the results of those changes instantly.

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Another great Add-on is the CSS Validator/HTML Validator Add-on.

CSS Validator is a Firefox extension which Validates a page using the W3C CSS Validator. Adds an option to the right-click context menu and to the Tools menu to allow for easy validation of the CSS of the current page. Opens the results in a new tab. Will only work on pages that have a CSS file associated. For example it will work with http://www.w3.org/ as the URL has a CSS file. When using the HTML Validator, you can choose to validate directly in the browser (where any errors are shown as a status bar icon), show the source with explanations of errors after the validation or a validation with proposed solutions to any errors.

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For those annal about screen resolution etc, here’s one that will make your day, the Browser Window Resizer add-on. As simple as this add-on is, it’s def a nice help to quick check out your site in dif screen resolution settings.

The Browser Window Resizer is useful tool for testing different screen sizes. It accurately resizes your browser so you can test to see if the web page you’re working on looks right in all of the standard resolution sizes. This will allow you to see if your design is going to look good to visitors who aren’t using the same resolution as you. The best thing about this add-on is that if you are using it in conjunction with the other add-ons in this list (specifically Firebug), when you see that something isn’t displaying properly, you can instantly make adjustments to your code and see if that fixes the problem, all without ever leaving your current browser window. Browser Window Resizer add-on resize your Firefox window to 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×1024 and 1600×1200 resolution sizes.

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Here’s a nifty Add-on for you guys, the CSSViewer Add-on!

With this extension you can view CSS properties of related page elements. Very handy, when You got large CSS file with styles overlapping each other, to analyze why something is not displayed in the way You wanted.

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I also suggest you take a look at the JavaScript Debugger, FirePhp and the Palette Grabber Add-ons. There are tons of others so feel free to drop by the FireFox Add-on Archive.

And I know, a short list but I hope this is more of an introductions to FireFox Add-ons for you, really, step out of that plastic bubble ok? Smell the fresh air and see what all the big boys are playing with

So I’ve been a member of LogoPond for a few years, and I do enjoy it there. It’s a source for logo inspiration, it’s also full of drama queens (guilty as charged) but in all honesty there are some talented folks over there, and some really good people. What I want to touch base on here is LogoPond as a community, what it is doing to help/hurt the general design community and how we, as Logo Designers contribute to both.

First off I just want to say that the owner, David, while he’s someone I respect and enjoy bitching back and forth with, the guy really does try, he’s providing us all with a resource to not only get inspiration from but to also showcase our work and that helps designers get much needed exposure. For starters, he hasn’t banned me from LP yet, although we’ve exchanged emails and all, he really should have booted me off years ago, i’m an asshole, but, he chose to keep me around, deep down he must love me! But seriously, over the past few months, almost year, I’ve watched LP drop a little on that cool scale. The traffic might be the same if not more, users are submitting more stuff perhaps, but a couple things just scream to be addressed. Some of the crap being featured, and then brandstack. Those are the 2 main issues I have with LP and in all honesty seem to be the 2 factors that sort of hurt the logo design industry in general. Let me elaborate…

We all know I don’t get along with BS (brandStack), and i’m not going to yodel too long on that subject, Wes might have another cow and feel obligated to send me one of those “I hate you so much and wish a death by way of flaming-cow-shoved-up-ass upon you a thousand times over” emails, but come on. I get they’re paying to grab an ad slot on LP, or are they? But what the fuck David? You’ve explained your stance, noted that you would not favor BS for sale logos over regular truly inspiring logos when it comes to featuring them, but I just see that as a way out. I’d respect you a whole lot more if you just came out and said, well yeah BS pays me, so I’ll do what I want, it’s my site. But to pretend like you’re not favoring their shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit?

Ok, BS rant over, onto quality of some of the featured work and how either comments are being overlooked when complaints are made or intentionally ignored. I for one think they’re ignored because the second I tell someone to piss off on there, I get emailed or a forum thread goes up announcing how I’m the devil in tights being mean and picking on poor designers (it’s always indirect, you’d think these guys have balls to speak their minds). Give me a break, judge for yourself, tell me how these logos are feature worthy…how they are worthy of inspiring people, representing the best at LP, read the comments too, on some, people LINK to sources showing the logos in some instances as not even original, right down copies…

Some Featured logos on LP:

Eh, check this out…his excuse for using this and claiming it as his own was:

Thanks for feedback guys.
Ok, I necessarily that having whole different, I have a licence for this, and this VECTOR designed by my friend.

Now, this vector sold to INDIAN YOGA CLUB.

FAQ Center

I have no fucking idea what he’s on about either…nima is a nice kid, don’t get me wrong I’m sure he’s talented, but little back handed BS like this only does one thing, hurts our industry. I did something similar to prove a point a while back, while I couldn’t get my message across because people are so think sometimes, I honestly like to think that we could have a bit more pride and dignity when it comes to what we do for a living, no?

Here’s another,

Here’s where he got it from

So yeah, obviously over inspired? Yet it got featured, I’m betting that font is not even custom. His response? silence….and this says what to the rest of those kiddies out there running around popping out $15-$25 logos to clients? You not only get pocket change for this shit but you might also get rewarded, some recognition and hey hey, a feature spot on LP and other showcases!

I could go on, and on, really, but instead of making this a rant, it already is isn’t it? yeah, well I want to hear what you guys think about LogoPond in general, drama queens like me (have to say that so none of those fuckers think im personally attacking them) and the quality of work on there and what it represents.

Due to a lack of a better blog post title, this will have to do. I decided to redesign my prev personal logo for several reasons. I’ve always loved my own logo, but it held onto too many memories that I’d rather let go, and as corny as this might sound, the logo had to go for that to happen.

So for the past few months I’ve played with concepts on and off, some were so horrific I almost deleted Illy and called it quits (while some of you bastards would have loved for that to happen, sorry, it didnt.)
Kept on trying till I decided to drop the “toni” and work with branding myself, and my work etc as just ZOVA.

(off topic. wow, Jared had to link me to this - nsfw….I’ll get back to this post in 10min…)

Ok, back, so here’s what I came up with, it’s a simple mark but I think it does it’s job well and represents my style nicely. Bold, in your face, sharp and modern. I’d like to add perfect but while I might be perfect, I know the mark is far from it, will always remain a wip I suppose, isn’t that the case with all out personal logos? The font is also custom made for the mark, gotta thank Jared here for giving me his constant feedback, appreciate it dude (goes back to look at more links…damn it, fucker…)

Alright, that’s it, just wanted to let people know of the news. Will be sure to update you once my hot new business cards come in etc. Keep it real.

It’s always nice to hear from friends, specially when you don’t expect to. Karen and Rick are two of my oldest friends and have been on a crazy sort of vacation spanning over a 4month period. From Paris to Venice to Malta to here to there to Fira Santorini etc. etc. etc.

Malta

They send me pix and we get on cam and talk a lot but I hadn’t heard from them for like 2weeks, figured they got lost in china or something (j/k Rick has a human gps thing built up his arse, guy never gets lost), today I got a nice surprise in the mail. Pix and a little tiny glass bottle with some sand in it from malta, a little mini Eiffel Tower key ring from France…Italian Pizza flavored gum? from Italy? Obviously smart arse Rick was responsible for that one, and a bunch of other little bits and bobs.

Venice

So yeah, I don’t usually share things like this but figured, this is sort of my personal blog, so what the hell.

Paris

Can’t wait to go with them next year (prob be going myself on a month long trip around Europe end of this year). So yeah, Karen, Rick, if you’re reading this, i’m jealous, and will be hacking away at the voodoo dolls tonight Keep it real guys and look after each other

Greece