Why negative reviews show up at the top of search results

From the mailbag:

The medical director at my hospital is relatively high profile and a lot of people write reviews on yelp, yahoo, etc. about our hospital and especially him.  He was wondering why it is that when you google his name, the really bad reviews are the ones that come up first.

Google results have a lot to do with a) what content is available online and b) how web pages link to each other. People are much more likely to write a review for a bad experience than a good one (this is true for everything). So, even if most people are very happy with the medical director, they probably won't write a review, whereas a really angry person may post reviews in 5 different places. One factor in ranking web pages is looking at how many other pages link to a particular page (it can indicate authoritativeness and popularity). People tend to link to content that is sensational or generates a lot of interest. Positive reviews probably don't generate much interest, so the negative reviews probably get linked to the most -- just like how bad news generates more interest than good news.

The best way to "outweigh" the bad content to encourage the creation of positive content. For example, asking patients who have had good experiences to post reviews on Yelp, Yahoo, etc. Also, the hospital might consider enhancing its website to put more content online explaining what the hospital does, it's philosophy, experience, etc. And if the medical director has a personal website or webpage, he can develop that content as well. There are also some optimizations you can make to your website to ensure they are being properly indexed and displayed in Google results -- for example, you can customize the description (or "snippet") that is shown in the search result for the hospital website:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769

I'd also encourage the hospital to set up their directory page on Google Maps and Yahoo Local to ensure that the correct information is presented:
http://www.google.com/local/add/
http://listings.local.yahoo.com/
http://list.infousa.com/dbupdate.htm -- this is used by MapQuest for their business info

Viewing chinese, japanese, and korean web pages in Windows XP

new handy post on my tokyo blog This Tokyo Life.

no jumper? use a piece of tinfoil

Recently I needed a jumper to flash the firmware of my OCZ Vertex SSD (which by the way is amazing and I highly recommend).

However, I didn't have one handy and instead used a piece of tinfoil. See the thing about jumpers is that they're just a piece of metal that bridges two pins. Data isn't traveling across the jumper, so it doesn't matter what kind of metal you use as long as it's conductive.

So I ripped a tiny piece of tinfoil, mushed it into a tiny little roll, and then shoved it onto the pins. And it worked! If you try this, make sure the tinfoil isn't touching any other pins or other metal parts of your drive or PC.

Good luck!

Welcome to Japan's mobile universe

Techy folk often talk about how mobile usage in Japan is so high compared to other countries. They point out the souped-up handsets available only in Japan ("high-spec" in Japanese English) with a TV tuner with DVR capability, non-crappy cameras, and other such niceties. But what they forget is that Japanese people use their phones in a totally different way from other countries.

For many Japanese people, the phone is their Primary Computing Device. Let's digest this for a second: They use their phone (or keitai) for computing more than they use their PC (which has "computer" in it's name). We're not just talking about mail or IM (which by the way, no one uses on their phones). We're talking about web surfing and actually doing work. For example, I've been told that college students will look up information and WRITE PAPERS on their phone using predictive text entry. If you told an American college student to write a paper on their phone, they would laugh and go back to drinking.

And the web they are surfing? It's not the same internet you're surfing right now. It's a complete, self-sufficient universe of Japanese-only mobile sites. There's everything: blogs, social networking, porn, shopping, you name it. It uses it's own variation of XHTML and takes into account factors like screen size, input method, and Japan's affinity for all things cute. Take a gander at some of the sites in this gallery.

To me, it looks like someone shoved Geocities onto a Zune, <blink> tag and all. But to many Japanese people -- particularly young women -- this is The Internet. The internet you're using now? That's the "PC internet" -- a foreign land where you have you use a full keyboard instead of your keypad. So if you want to tell Japan about your cool website/toaster/robot, you can't just promote it on your internet, you need to promote it on Their Internet as well.

(Screenshot from Asiajin)

nLite and why you shouldn't leave Modem Support out of XP

When I was creating my super l33t XP SP3 slipstream CD with nLite, I didn't include Modem Support. When was the last time you used a modem?

Anyhow, I was trying to get BlueSoleil Bluetooth drivers to work with my aforementioned Zonet dongle (it didn't work), but the installer was failing because it was missing Modem Support.

Turns out not including Modem Support can cause issues if you're trying to install a 3g modem or a bluetooth dongle. And there's no easy way to restore modem support without a fresh XP install (god no).

So, with some intensive Googling, I figured out a solution. I'm not sure exactly which steps are required, but if you do all of them you should be good.

Manual way:
1) Follow the instructions in post #8 in this thread -- you'll need an XP CD or a known good XP install to copy files from. One file that is not listed that should go into system32 is msports.dll.
Important: To extract files from your XP CD, you can't just copy them directly -- they will be garbled. You have to use the command line Expand utility.
2) Expand mdmgen.inf to your PC, right-click it, and click "Install." (tip from here, but I don't recommend downloading inf files from the net, unless they are from me :D )
3) Reregister mdminst.dll.
4) Restart and try your install again.

That was painful, no?

Slightly less painful way:
- Download modemsupport.zip (dear Microsoft, please don't sue me)
- Copy the files in the inf, system32, and system32_drivers (system32\drivers) folders into the corresponding directories in your Windows directory.
- Double-click modem.reg, and confirm.
- Right-click mdmgen.inf and click "Install."
- Start > Run > cmd. Type: regsvr32.exe %SystemRoot%\System32\mdminst.dll (it will give you an error message, but that's fine)
- Restart

Note, I am running XP SP3. Performing these steps on a different OS may cause your PC to melt.

Thanks to all the people on the internet that made this post possible.

Zonet Bluetooth USB dongle drivers

I purchased a cheap Bluetooth dongle from Newegg a few years back.

Zonet ZUB6201C USB 1.1 Bluetooth V2.0 Adapter, class 1

It still works, but I ditched the driver CD long ago. With some sleuthing based on the FCC ID printed on the back of the device, I realized it's the same exact board on the inside as the MSI StarKey. I was able to install the MSI drivers on XP without a hitch.


Direct download link

Since Taiwanese gadget makers are not known for maintaining the best driver archives, I'm also making the drivers available here.

Speaking of which, anyone know of a Bluetooth headset that doesn't pick up WiFi static? I have a Logitech Mobile Freedom, which works fine as long as you don't step away from the PC.

The difference between American web design and Japanese web design

Something to make you think a bit before serving the same page to the entire world:

IE8 Download Page (US)

IE8 Download Page (Japan)

IE8 Yahoo Edition download page (US) - must be running IE or use User Agent Switcher to view

IE8 Yahoo Edition download page (Japan)