I love the essence of  my office keyboard – it’s my writing tool, my prose facilitating contraption and my ultimate reason for being. Plus it ensures I receive a regular pay cheque each month. I’ve grown attached to it despite the dust and chocolate wafer crumbs collecting between its keys (a feather duster and some Mr Sheen may be the order of the day tomorrow).

But what’s a girl to do when her finger nails are attacked by her keyboard? The ends of my shortened nails are currently crying out for attention. “Please Javaria… we need some hand and nail cream, an emery board and a coat of red lacquer” they say. But I’m in two minds – why bother if they are just going to get ruined again.

The hue I’m fashioning at this particular moment is a classy taupe (otherwise known as brown) but I may have to apply a devilish red just to spice up my hard working mitts.

I used to visit a nail salon a while ago that had an unnerving atmosphere. The nail technicians would quietly whisper to each other whilst wearing bandannas that were carefully positioned over their mouths to prevent the inhalation of nail dust. The staff didn’t appreciate friendly banter with the customers so since then I’ve humbly painted my own nails and talked to myself.

Of course I’d rather sacrifice having a healthy nail bed over producing healthy content each day (because I need the healthy salary). But the other fabulous women in the office have tidy nails that ooze sophistication and I’m jealous. My  sad looking fingers are in need of some desperate tlc. So I’m just going to have to get used to reapplying nail varnish a million times each week or opt for the natural look.

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Ever shrinking bandwidths, an influx of new staff and our ever demanding needs means our poor internet seems to be feeling the pressure at the moment! *sob* Instead of standing up to the pressure like a true redsaucerer our internet seems to be doing everything it can to shy away from our needs which, as you can imagine for an online company like ourselves, is not a whole lot of fun!

Now with an internet connection which is currently up and down more times than our dodgy kitchen light, you can imagine our delight when a team of American boffins this week announced that within the next few years they could make the internet 1000 times quicker! Oh yes, you did read that right – 1000 times! Woohooo!

The clever chaps at MIT have revealed that they’ve been working on intelligent research which involves looking at how routers translate signals. According to Vincent Chan from MIT, if we replace electrical signals within routers with faster optical signals, the internet could become 1000 times faster! Hurrah!

As well as speeding up browsing speeds; the new signals could reduce the amount of energy the router uses too! But wait it gets even better; using fiber optic cables could also help to knock the price of high-speed internet down, resulting in speedy, low cost internet for all! Triple hurrah!

Without a solution, experts predicted a bottleneck within the internet as new technology which requires more bandwidth, such as 3D gaming, becomes more popular and powerful. It’s thought this new research “could transform the internet as we know it” and effectively act as a bottle opener to the imminent blockage! Wowawewah!

So redsauce.com says thank you MIT! You’ve dried our tears and restored our hope in the internet once again! Now… where’s that pesky router hiding?!?!

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After some frustration at technology I said something I immediately regretted in the heat of the moment: “ARGGHHHHH! WHY CAN’T I JUST USE A SCROLL AND INK?! WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE SO COMPLICATED?!? I WISH THERE WAS NO INTERNET!!”  To a redsaucerer this is like saying that you wish Christmas didn’t exist.

After some consolation from the rest of the redsauce gang, a few pats on the shoulder (“It’s okay, we know you didn’t mean it..”) and a few quiet moments to ponder my thoughtless moment of sacrilegious madness, I actually started to consider a world without internet. Would I be able to survive for an day, a week or even a month without my beloved browsing? In my experience it is more than possible to describe the anxiety caused by lack of internet as characteristic of withdrawal.

Nearly 1.67 billion people worldwide are internet users and 76.4 percent of the UK’s population use the internet. Could you be in the 23.6% who don’t? Where would we be without the reassuring Linus’ blanket of knowing you’re just a click away from friends, family, entertainment, shopping, TV, music, news, the list goes on…? Could we handle being without the internet when we have become so dependent on it in every area of our lives? I don’t think I could.

However, I once went for a year without watching any live television. This didn’t come about by choice exactly, but rather I had just moved to Japan, didn’t have a TV and had no need to buy one unless I planned to spend hours watching Japanese game shows. Without TV, I didn’t really know what I was missing, it was actually easy to go the whole year and not feel left out. But as a result of my lack of TV, I spent even more time on…you guessed it….the internet!

I’m quite sure that I could go a day, a week or even a month without internet as a means of experiment but I wouldn’t be able to survive as part of the modern world without it. I need it for my job, I need it to socialise and keep in touch with family across the world. Without it, life wouldn’t be anywhere near as much fun. John Lennon never asked us to “Imagine there’s no internet…”, but take a moment just to think about how much it has revolutionised our world. Maybe then when technology fails you, you’ll be a bit quicker to forgive!

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I was one of the few who didn’t fall for the charms of baby faced Leo when he starred in mega box office hit Titanic but the special effects and the enigmatic nature of the sneak preview I’d seen on tv was enough to draw me in to his latest on-screen effort.

The plot was complex and keeping-up was essential to get to grips with the theme. At its core the screenplay was about planting an idea into a person’s subconscious by entering their dreams.

DiCaprio, who played Dom Cobb, explained that during dream sequences people exercise their creative muscles and come up with fresh innovative ideas as well as harbour their innermost secrets. It was these ideas and secrets that he would tease out of people’s thoughts whilst they slept. However, in his latest mission, Cobb was hired to implant rather than take information, known as inception.

He gathers a team of people, including an architect who builds dream scenarios in her head, to complete the assignment issued to him by a Japanese businessman. The plan becomes ever more intricate where dreams occur within dreams so that layers of plot are playing out at the same time – mind boggling but cool all the same.

I don’t want to go into too much detail because I want you all to see it. I imagine you’ll all arrive from the cinema and start googling the movie in a feverish attempt to allay the confused synapses flickering in your brain (as I did). So I shall leave it at that.

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The redsauce team share my husband’s characteristics when it come to client well being. Let me explain further (in a rather long-winded fashion).

My visit to the supermarket last night was stupendous. Why you ask? Well I managed to reach the store at the exact moment that one of the staff members was handling her pricing gun. In other words it was time for a discount bonanza! Herds of shoppers turned up at the oven area and clambered passed me trying to get their hands on a juicy roast chicken at a knock down price. But they were no match for me! I grabbed by oven baked bird and ran to the cake section.

I was in the mood for something sweet that would tickle my taste buds but didn’t quite know what I wanted. I ended up picking some mini muffins only to find my other half recoiling in disgust; he preferred trifle. But I didn’t want trifle. “Try it. You’ll prefer it over cake”, he said. I reluctantly bought the custardy dessert, headed home and proceeded to eat it. To my horror I had to admit that I rather enjoyed it and that it was the best choice after all.

So what am I getting at here? My point is that on occasion none of us realise what’s best for us and it takes another person to make us do something different and change our lives for the better. My husband makes me try things that I really don’t want to eat and most of the time he’s right (he wasn’t right a couple of days ago when he made me eat a vegetable pasty – it was a crime against all pastry encased foodstuffs I tell you and it shall never be repeated again!).

At redsauce our words are your trifle. We write content for clients who believe they know how they want their site to read, which, of course, we dutifully take into account. However, we also know that increasing site hits is not always about straightforward prose and off hand syntax; we put the correct words, in the correct order with the correct tautology to make search engines put our clients at the top of the list. Just like a layered dessert we layer our best content ingredients onto websites and blogs.

My colleagues and I use tools and methods that don’t make sense to non SEOers but when put into practice our techniques work. The intelligent thing to do is allow us to do our job because we sometimes do know best.

After all we love you and we want you to try new things.

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WordPress is used by hundreds of thousands of bloggers worldwide and has just celebrated its one hundredth million plug in download. Despite its current champion status, it seems the WordPress dream could be about to come crashing down.

WordPress has new competition in the form of Posterous. The blogging site has already claimed Blogger and Twitpic but now has WordPress firmly in its sights and there’s a good chance Posterous could also dominate this blog platform too.

From this week, users will be able to import their WordPress blogs and move to Posterous. The advantages? Posterous simplifies the whole posting process. Unlike WordPress, Posterous places an emphasis on real time content, much like Twitter, and allows bloggers to post content via their e-mail. In essence, this eliminates the need to log-in from a desktop.

Other plus points to the latest offering from Posterous include a less bloated back end, an elimination of annoying spam comments and an ultra-efficient service. If you do decide to switch then it couldn’t be easier. Simply add your WordPress URL to Posterous and they’ll go and grab all your content for you!

“After a few months of adding features like standalone pages, better photo management tools, SEO improvements, autopost upgrades (you can now autopost to 25+ different sites), we feel we have the best platform and want to remove all barriers to trial – and re-trial by folks who just thought we were a micro blog,” bragged Posterous.

The downside? It seems Posterous haven’t quite fine-tuned the new system yet. According to The Guardian, the photo and video compression isn’t quite up to scratch and it could take a bit of getting used to.

If Posterous do succeed in taking WordPress’ users it could mark a sad day for WordPress. Used to riding at the top of the blogging pile, WordPress could be about to come back to earth with a very heavy bump. But don’t worry WordPress – we still love you!

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The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, or whatever he’s calling himself these days, sparked controversy throughout the internet world this week when he announced the internet was dead! Hmm… that’s news to us!

According to the “Raspberry Beret” legend, the internet is like so yesterday! “The intenet’s completely over… ,” he proclaimed while trying to stir up hype over his new album. In words which will come as a dagger to the heart of intenet-based companies like our good selves, Prince went on to say the internet was like (shock horror) MTV – “At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated,” he told the (ahem) high-brow newspaper The Daily Mirror.

As part of his publicity trail, the artist announced he would be giving away free copies of his album exclusively with the paper and nowhere else. Shunning the internet like this is a brave move for any artist, no matter how high-profile. Since its launch in January 2001, iTunes has become THE place for downloading music on the web.

In 2010 it’s all about MP3 tracks, not old-school CDs! OK, I’m the first to admit that I still love CDs but unfortunately things are a-changing! Sticking with the CD format might go down with well with the artist’s older fans but it is sure to leave his younger fans dumbfounded and down right confused!

And announcing the internet is “dead” is quite possibly one of the most unfounded and unjustified comments I have ever heard. A large percentage of the Western world are now dependant on the world wide web for anything and everything. From buying your groceries online to booking your holiday; the internet is the quickest and easiest way to do just about anything.

If the internet is “dead” like Prince claims then a think a lot of people, like redsauce.com, might have a little cry and a little panic (and that’s putting it lightly!). Fingers crossed he’s just being “Delirious” and living in “1999!” 4 Prince song titles in this blog – now I do “Feel for you”!

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Take for example the recent sporting events that are the World Cup 2010 and Wimbledon 2010. Would so many people have watched football without the hype? Or for that matter how many people would have drank Robinsons and ate strawberries without the hype of the tennis?

It is something to consider…

Perhaps ‘hype’ is just the same as advertising but I think hype isn’t just on a mass scale via a media source but is also a person-to-person phenomenon and that is something that can become invaluable when marketing a product.

A company needs the hype, as when people “talk up” a product it becomes even more popular, word spreads and soon that product is bigger than it ever was before.

Take for example the hype of the Twilight saga, the reason it is so popular is that so many people talk about it and express an opinion. It wasn’t so much the ad campaign or the quality of film but the fact that people talked about it, that’s what made it so big.

This ‘talk’ kind of creates a hysteria where people cannot escape ‘the talk’, everywhere they go and whoever they speak to they hear about the film and as a result the idea to watch it becomes ingrained in them. And even if they know they will hate it they find themselves wanting to watch it just to see what all ‘the talk’ is about.

So maybe you can’t always believe the hype as it’s often just subjective opinions and hearsay but nevertheless isn’t hype what you want for your product?

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Now, I’m talking about Germany’s rather splendid tactical setup that has seen them dispose of England and now Argentina with astute accuracy. It hasn’t come from Germany being the absolute best squad, far from it, Germany only have one genuine world-class play in their squad and it is their current right back and captain Philip Lahm. Though that only goes to prove what a dubious title of world class is.

Germany have had their problems behind the scenes with Joachim Loew having a contract dispute that may seem him leave after the tournament and a few players were injured, the most famous being former Chelsea player Michael Ballack.

There is one thing that Germany have done when they go out on the field and that is get their tactics right. They have taken players with great pace and technique, though most certainly not the best in their positions to form a formidable counter-attack. It has ripped apart teams time and time again during this World Cup and as of yet no one has really come up with an answer (except Serbia but that would spoil things now) that is worth noting.

You have to champion Germany for taking this approach with the personell that they have. They have no real superstar of the Messi, Ronaldo or Rooney caliber but they are in the Semi-Finals and their compatriots are not.

The assets they do have ensure that they exposed every team, by assessing the situation in front of them and taking it apart when the time strikes. In whatever work you do, and in whatever walk of life you are in. Take the time to ponder if you have the time and think more like the German team, assess then pounce!

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For lunch today I dined on a nutritious chickpea salad and drank a gallon of water. As any health conscious woman knows, hydration is the key to a keeping a steady weight, promoting a blemish free face and exhibiting a radiant visage; but it can be difficult.

Guzzling two litres of water can be heavy going on a dreary day but thankfully the recent warm weather has put me in the mood for H2O overload and, despite the problem of evoking regular bathroom visits, which encroach on my content writing time, I feel much better for it.

The body needs water to run smoothly, build new tissue, lubricate joints and moisturise the skin making it the world’s best naturally ocurring wonder drug! What’s more, it’s exceedingly cheap and luckily for me it tastes rather nice from the faucets of Newcastle-under-lyme .

Staffordshire water agrees with my bodily system but I’ve realised the more I drink the thirstier I feel. Perhaps it’s all part of a conspiracy by the Staffordshire water companies to get me drinking excessively until I rely completely on the aqueous beverage and have to pay a rather large quarterly bill. Call me a cynic but I’m guessing that’s not the case.

What I do know is that water is vital to human life and content is vital to web-life. A generous glug of content can help a site grow and spawn off plenty of extra links like a complex irrigation system. We are the farmers of content drizzling the rain of interesting prose across your website garden. Ready with our hose pipes and watering cans we could almost be described as a veritable bunch of rain clouds that shower our words onto thirsty clients and bluster away to leave behind a colourful rainbow of keyword-laden verse.

The more our clients work with us the more they realise they need our saturated content to quench their thirst and ensure their sites have the healthiest and wholeheartedly-heavy hydrated home pages.

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