I apologize for the lateness of this post today. Work got in the way. However, I promise to make it up to you with something I don’t think has received much coverage outside of Toronto.

A diehard Toronto Raptors fan named Mark Michalkoff has decided to sue Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, owners of the Toronto Raptors. Michalkoff paid $30,000 per “personal seat license” and then $90,000 for his tickets in the 2006-2007 season for “Gucci Row”, or front row, season tickets to Toronto Raptors games (in other words, $120,000 for Toronto Raptors seats). He wanted to renew his seats for the 2007-2008 season, but wasn’t informed by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment until September that his front-row seats would become second row seats, as MLSE elected to add another row of seats in front of Michalkoff’s “front row” seats. If Michalkoff wished to maintain his present “front row seating”, he would have to pay $1,650 per game instead of $915 per game. Michalkoff was upset because he didn’t get what he thought he paid for, and appeared on Prime Time Sports last night to speak with Bob McCown.

Listen to the FAN590 podcast from Prime Time Sports (about 3/4 of the way through is when Mark Michalkoff appears).

So it seems pretty straightforward, right? Michalkoff probably got screwed. $120,000 and he didn’t get what he wanted. Sound about right?

Not really.

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In response to the complaints of numerous webmasters on various web design and SEO websites and conferences, Google has announced that they will be unveiling a new version of PageRank on November 1, 2007, which will incorporate a new metric known as RedRank. RedRank will be used by Google to disclose manual PageRank penalties imposed on web pages; this measure is intended to serve both the advertiser and publisher, as it will provide both parties with the necessary information on any penalties in advance of any SEO-related link buying purchases.

Any sites deemed to be participating in SEO-related link buying and selling will have their PageRank reduced to 0, and their RedRank penalty will appear in red on the left of the PageRank section of the Google toolbar, as well as on any pages which display PageRank information for other pages.

I have obtained an exclusive IE7 RedRank screen capture from a Google insider who I pinged and that may only be identified as MJF. MJF has been very kind in helping me gather information on RedRank and promised that he would provide future exclusive Google insights and updates to me in the future, so I hope you can understand why I cannot reveal this source. However, rest assured that MJF is an “official” Google insider.
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Welcome to a special Monday edition of Search Query Info, where our slogan is “You’ve got questions. I’m going to make up some answers, and they may or may not be correct.”

This week will have a tech support flavor to it, as there are a few queries that I’ve received referrals for and that I suspect are a lot more common than even I realize. I’m going to answer a few voting questions as well. Hopefully we can all learn something. And if you do, can you teach it to me?

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Waterbuses

I don’t know how many of you out there are like me, but I had no idea that there was such an animal as a waterbus. But I saw the waterbus pictured to the right on Thursday passing under the Atlantis Pavilions hallway at Ontario Place during the Toronto Regional Green Building Festival. This particular waterbus is operated by a tour company called Toronto Hippo Tours, and they own both waterbuses and the more conventional land buses.

This review of Toronto Hippo Tours provides more information on the company, their pricing, and their tours and appears to be the most comprehensive review of the company.

An Interesting Bret Hart Interview

Former World Wrestling Federation superstar Bret “The Hitman” Hart was on Prime Time Sports this past Tuesday to plug his new book Hitman: My Real Life In The Cartoon World Of Wrestling. I haven’t read the book as of yet, but I have always been a big Bret Hart mark (come on, admit it: all of you wanted one of those early 90s Hitman jackets with the shoulder pads, didn’t you?) The Hitman has always come across as a very intelligent person with a lot of insight into the wrestling industry, and the Prime Time Sports interview was no different. Hart was both entertaining and insightful throughout the interview, and it really is a great listen. He covers things such as travel, how much wrestlers get paid, sideline/endorsement deals, and lots of other stuff.

Listen to the Bret Hart interview.

Future “Green” Projects

I will hopefully be launching a pair of future “green-related” websites on behalf of a client of mine in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, posts may be shorter than usual as I try to get things done. Please bear with me; time’s a-tickin’, and rather rapidly at that.

I will still do Search Query Info, but tomorrow (Monday) instead of today. Tuesday will be back to abnormal.

On Thursday, I came across a piece on CBC.ca outlining the plight of a company called ZENN Cars and their inability to sell their vehicles in Canada, despite being based in Saint-Jerome, Québec.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with a ZENN Car, it is a fully electric car (yep, as in no gas whatsoever) designed for use as a low-speed urban vehicle (speeds of up to 50 KM/h, or 31 MPH). ZENN car owners plug in their ZENN cars into an ordinary outdoor electric outlet, and their cars will be fully charged in no more than 4 hours.

For those who may think this is excessive, it should be considered that the time required to charge a ZENN car is approximately the same amount of time a cell phone on average would take to fully charge, and a car owner can charge his/her car at any time that hydro is available without having to find an available gas station. It should also be remembered that these vehicles are primarily designed for use in urban area where both CO2 emissions are at their highest and where low-speed driving conditions (e.g. one-way roads, residential streets) are most prevalent.

For more information on the ZENN car and how it operates, check out their Youtube video below:

The ZENN car is a gift from God for the country of Canada, especially when one considers that over 30% of Canadian citizens live in three major urban centers. At a suggested retail price of $14,000, it is certainly affordable, and would do wonders to alleviate the smog issues associated with these cities. It doesn’t suit the needs of all drivers, but the ZENN car could certainly find a niche among the urban population.

There’s just one tiny little problem: ZENN is not allowed to sell the car, due to Canadian federal government bureaucracy.

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I’m just in the process of organizing the photographs for Toronto Regional Green Building Festival 2007, and as promised I’m going to share some of the better ones with you.

Day 2 featured the trade show and awards presentation, and I’ve got some cool shots from both to share with you.

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I don’t really have much to say for a change, but I did want to share some of the photos of the Toronto Regional Green Building Festival 2007 that I took earlier yesterday (Wednesday). I’ll add some more tomorrow as well.

These aren’t the greatest shots in the world, but for a $150 digital camera I can’t complain too much. It’s also the first time I’ve ever used my camera in an indoor setting. And as soon as we can get all the information organized, I think there’s going to be a conference recap of info and photos. These are just “teaser” shots to give you an idea of one of the conference aspects.

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I finally caved in to peer pressure (mostly John’s, and he didn’t even know he was applying it) and decided to give a little bit back to a resource that has given me quite a lot without me asking for it. That’s right, kids, I downloaded the StumbleUpon toolbar and tried it out.

One of the first sites presented to me was LocalCooling (yes, this is a referral link, but no I don’t make any money off of it…I just want to see how much energy I can help others to save!)

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There are a number of reasons why you could be receiving the same email twice. I’m going to cover the most common one that I know about (an Outlook/Outlook Express setting) and how to fix it.

In the case of Outlook/Outlook Express, checking the “Leave a copy of messages on the server” box from the Advanced tab for an account will sometimes cause emails to appear to be unread by the email client itself. A copy is stored on the server, and for whatever reason, appears to be unread by Outlook/Outlook Express.

The steps outlined below will fix the problem within Outlook or Outlook Express. However, these steps will vary depending upon your email client. If you use a client other than Outlook or Outlook Express, please consult the Help documentation or places such as Google Groups for help.

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Part 2 of our 3-part Search Query Info series focuses on something quite a few people have had questions about: the advance poll. I’m going to provide as much information as I can on the topic, and please feel free to ask questions if you have them.

I’m going to cover:

• what an advance poll is;
• how it works;
• the pros/cons of advance poll voting;
• and whether or not you’re eligible to vote for it.

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