Can't Believe We Haven't Updated For So Long

It's very hard to believe all that time passed and we never bothered to update the blog. Horrible! The fact that we've been pretty busy is not a good excuse. We will try to be more consistent posting new stuff here.

We'll try to give you a brief overview of what's been accomplished so far. We are constantly working on improving the quality of iAuto and iRealty. We are improving our internal development processes: work flow management, project and task planning, coding, testing, and control.

We have made substantial product improvements that will appear in the new version of the software to make iAuto and iRealty more reliable, robust, flexible and smart. We've also added several smaller features that improve the overall functionality of the software and make it more usable and powerful.

Our iAuto/iRealty community is growing, and the forum is slowly becoming a focal point where information about updates, fixes, tweaks and bugs is gathered and made available to those who need it.

We've been engaged in several bigger projects where iAuto/iRealty were used as the platform for custom solutions and even developed a totally independent solution from scratch. We will announce one of the projects shortly when it goes live with the permission of the owners.

This should be it for now, we'll be keeping you informed as we go along.

New Automotive Groups at Google Groups

Syd's Eastside Auto is proud to announce that it has started two new groups at Google Groups:

Autos & Automotive
An automotive and motorsports group for discussing all things automotive related. Topics may include autos, automotive mechanics, auto shows, automobile racing, automotive parts, salvage, classic cars, collector cars & more. Pickup trucks, tractor trailer trucks and motorcycling are also allowed. New members must be invited, although non-members may request membership. Each membership request must include a personal response so that we know that they aren't a spam bot collecting email addresses from such group mailing lists.

AutomotiveParts
Hunt for or offer automotive parts. Anyone may join to find or sell auto parts. All posts offering auto parts must include whether it is a used, rebuilt or new auto part. New parts should further indicate whether they are OEM, aftermarket or high performance parts. This group offers a unique opportunity for entreprenuers, salvage yards, parts shops, auto parts search pools and other automotive industry products. We welcome new aftermarket automotive and high performance auto parts sellers from drop shippers and wholesalers. Discuss the business or advertise your goods. Anyone may view the posts, but membership is required to post. New members must be invited, although non-members may request membership. Each membership request must include a personal response so that we know that they aren't a spam bot collecting email addresses from such group mailing lists.

Whether you are an automotive industry professional or just an automobile enthusiast, you will probably want to join the first group, which is more of a general subject group for anything automotive or motorsports related.

The second group is intended to offer a format for parts searches and querries, as well as offer a format from which automotive professionals can offer automotive parts, products and supplies.

We certainly encourage those of you who wish to join to do so. We are asking for a personal response from all new members in order to keep spam bots and spammers out of the group. We get enough spam as it is, I imagine you do to, as spam has alarmingly become a significant problem for anyone who conducts business on the internet.

-Syd's Eastside Auto Parts, Used Cars, Used Trucks & Rebuilders

New WebRing: "Automotive" - Seeking New Automotive and Motorsports Membership Sites

Syd's Eastside Auto Parts is happy to announce a new WebRing.

Automotive WebRing

Syd's Eastside Auto Parts, Used Cars & Rebuilders sponsors the Automotive SEARCH Network, which will also serve as the initial starting site for the new Automotive WebRing. The Automotive WebRing Hub is an official WebRing.com webring.

As we have previously announced, Automotive SEARCH is a selective search engine for automotive and motorsports related resources. More information about this new search facility is available in a couple of our previous posts, Automotive Search and Automotove Search Homepage.

Syd's Eastside Auto Parts is also a member of the webring, of course. Funny thing is, another member joined before actually getting the webring code implemented on that site and so the sponsor's site is the third on the list in their own webring. LOL!

But we are happy to have any and all family friendly automotive and/or motorsports related websites join our webring. The more membership we have, the better of a webring community it will be. The better the webring will be, the better the Automotive SEARCH Network will be, as well.

Automotive WebRing

Google PageRank Updates: January 2007

For those who don't know, Google maintains a numeral rank for each website it indexes. This rank is called the Google PageRank, and is often refered to as the PR of a site. According to Google's toolbar, PageRank is Google's measure of the importance of a page. In fact, a PageRank was one of the very first measures of trust for a website. More often than not, web surfers armed with a PageRank enabled Google toolbar in their browser would not trust a site which reported that the website they were visiting had a Pagerank any lower than 3. Some sites won't even link to another website with a PR of less than 4. It's all pretty paranoid, really.

When we started hearing that Google had updated its PageRank values for websites on about January 7th, 2007, we were getting excited that ours should update soon, as well. As time marched on our PR did not update, and this was making me and my boss more and more nervous (and frustrated). Our main website at Syd's Eastside Auto Parts has been trapped in the Google Sandbox with a lowly PageRank of 1 (on a scale of 0 to 10) for over 6 months, now. I was starting to think of the Google Sandbox as a sandpit filled with only quicksand.

Apparently, we are pretty far down on the list of websites for Google to update. Then, on January 25th, 2007, Google finally showed us a new PageRank of 4 for our website. I was so releived, as we had been fighting for a decent PR value for well over 6 months, and the strain on our business seemed intolerable. I was actually quite happy, having thought we would have to struggle another 3 months, until the next update, without any recognition of our hard work and effort in building the website, our brand, and for our considerable online marketing efforts.

But, Google wasn't done, yet. On Monday I came to work to find that our local shopping, tourism & business listings directory for Southeastern South Dakota, Yankton Shopping, had also been updated to a PR of 3 (from 0). To top this off, today I found that our Automotive Search Network and this blog (which you are reading now), were both among the websites further updated with Google PageRanks of 3 (each, they had both previously been rated 0).

Now, we hope that Google will take into account our last few pages that we put up recently durring the next Google PR Update... Our SydsEastside homepage at Google Pages, and our new Autos & Automotive group at Google Groups. ;)

If you are interested in joining our automotive and motorsports related group, Autos & Automotive, please be sure to check out our Group Welcome Page. We are very interested in signing-up automotive industry professionals, auto enthusiasts, car clubs and motorsports related members!

Look for further announcements concerning our group in the near future!

One thing I should mention, before I close this entry, is that Google's PageRank has not yet updated on all of Google's web servers. In fact, in the course of a day, I will notice that the Google toolbar will report a PR1 and later a PR4 and then flip-flop between the two throughout the day. Once Google updates all of it's servers that serve the Google Toolbar's PageRank, the PR should remain steady throughout the day. Let's hope that it won't take another Google update for the PR to be distributed to all such web servers. Hopefully, Google will address this in the future.

We hope you have a great day/night ahead of you! ;)
- Syd's Eastside Auto Parts

Q : What is car insurance?

A : Car insurance is insurance consumers can purchase for cars, trucks, and other vehicles. Its primary use is to provide protection against losses incurred as a result of traffic accidents. An insurance company may declare a vehicle totally destroyed ('totaled' or 'a write-off') if it appears replacement would be cheaper than repair. Recommend that car owner should make a car insurance because we do not know the future when the accident will happen.

Insurance can cover some or all of the following items:

• The insured party
• The insured vehicle
• Third parties

Different policies specify the circumstances under which each item is covered. For example, a vehicle can be insured against theft, fire damage, or accident damage independently.

Q : What is Annual Percentage Rate (APR)?

A : Often confused with interest rate, an APR supplies the cost of credit over the course of a year. It is supplied as a percentage taking into consideration the amount finance, any charges, and the term of the loan.

New Automotive Articles Online

Syd's Eastside Auto is proud to announce that over the past month we have been adding articles to the website, in the new Articles section.

We have started this section with 3 articles about vehicle maintenance and preparation:

• Winterization discusses how to prepare your vehicle for the winter, as well as preparing yourself for cold weather roadside emergencies.
• Coolant Change illustrates the mechanics and positive affects of changing and maintaining your coolant levels.
• Spark Plugs explains the basic knowledge required behind changing your spark plugs and wires. This is actually quite a good article since spark plugs usually are a tell-tale sign of exactly how your engine is performing. We plan to expand on this article in the future.

We hope that you will find these articles helpful. We are planning on adding even more automotive articles and mechanical tutorials in the near future.

Syd's Eastside Auto has also added more online contact web forms to make it easier for our customers to contact us and to direct specific comments or requests to the correct department or person. This should help expedite email based assistance for our customers. Our physical address and telephone contact information will also be found at the bottom of each of these web forms incase you would like to contact us more directly.

We will continue improving the website and invite everyone to offer thier own suggestions and feedback concerning our website, as well. In fact, the Site Feedback web form is also online to facilitate any such comments criticsm about the website.

We hope that you enjoyed a HAPPY HOLIDAYS and will have a GREAT NEW YEAR!