Archive for the 'Robert's Blog' Category

Search is back up

Monday, June 16th, 2008

All it took was a swift kick. Thank you for your patience!

Search is down

Sunday, June 15th, 2008

Our Google Mini Search Appliance is temporarily out of service. What does that mean for you? It means that search is down for the entire site. None of the search boxes or tag clouds will return search results.

Apart from search, everything else on the site, including the session tool, should work fine.

We are working on restoring service and will keep you updated. Thank you for your patience.

Certificate Errors and Other Warnings

Sunday, June 8th, 2008

Some Firefox and Internet Explorer users may have seen warnings saying a certificate had expired and that our site was not secure. The warning would have appeared when entering secure parts of ziizoo.com.

Rest assured that we take security very seriously and ziizoo’s security certificate is 100% up-to-date. However, our partner that provides the mash-up for our “need help with this page?” links, Demofuse, let their security certificate lapse. As a result, any page with a “help” link was deemed insecure by Firefox and Internet Explorer, hence the warning.

We have removed all links to Demofuse and the warnings have gone away. If users run into any problems please contact us at help@ziizoo.com.

Waiting to Connect - the temporary solution

Monday, June 2nd, 2008

More and more data suggests that the problem is isolated to users that have the most recent version of Flash Player 9 installed (version 124). This was released in April and explains why this error suddenly cropped up in late April / early May. Below are the steps to rollback to version 115.

MAC OS X USERS

  1. uninstall your existing Flash player by downloading and running Adobe’s official Flash uninstaller
  2. install version 115 based on if you use a PowerPC- or Intel-based Mac
  3. - PowerPC users (e.g., iBook, Powerbook, or pre-2007 iMac or PowerMac): download and run Adobe’s official Flash Player 9 v115 installer hosted our server

    - Intel users (e.g., MacBook, MacBook Pro, or post-2007 iMac or PowerMac): download and run Adobe’s official Flash Player 9 v115 installer hosted our server

  4. run Adobe’s official version check to make sure you have v115 installed

WINDOWS XP USERS
please note that the process for PCs is a bit more involved, so if you are not comfortable with computers please find a friend to do this for you!!!!

  1. uninstall your existing Flash player by downloading and running Adobe’s official Flash uninstaller
  2. [this is the slightly scary part] select Start > Run > regedit, then delete the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Macromedia \ Flashplayer \ SafeVersions \ 9.0
  3. install version 115 based on which browser you use - Internet Explorer or Firefox (or you can install both)
  4. - Internet Explorer users: download and run Adobe’s official Flash Player 9 v115 installer hosted our server

    - Firefox users (or any other Mozilla/Netscape based browser): download and run Adobe’s official Flash Player 9 v115 installer hosted our server

  5. run Adobe’s official version check to make sure you have v115 installed

“waiting to connect” and other stuff

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

Is anyone seeing the “waiting to connect” error on a consistent basis? Poor Rene Jumper can’t seem to get around it, but my impression is that most everyone can successfully enter a session now. Please let me know if this is not the case.

Also, Rakhi Agrawal took the initiative to create and upload two promotional posters to the Facebook tutor group. Feel free to download and print them out. And if you have a creative urge, we’d love to see what you can do. Be funny, edgy, cute or bland - it’s your call. Just upload them and then let us know they are up there.

Robert

Top Unreturned Searches for January 2008

Friday, January 25th, 2008

Courtesy of our Google Mini, below is the list of the top 50 UNRETURNED searches on ziizoo.com for the month of January.

  1. asian languages
  2. professional & academic counseling
  3. romance languages
  4. Organizations that sets up standard units
  5. slavic languages
  6. metric system
  7. metric system help
  8. middle eastern languages
  9. performing arts
  10. mark-up languages
  11. abigail moeller
  12. according to Mohs scale of hardness, which mineral would mineral would have a hardness of 10?
  13. alegebra
  14. english measurement
  15. motion
  16. swot
  17. calculs ab
  18. carrying capacity factors
  19. cells
  20. elements
  21. fermentation
  22. fithgrademath
  23. how to call a 6 sided shape
  24. kochen
  25. lauren sinclair
  26. law vs. conscience
  27. productivity software
  28. programming languages
  29. programming/scripting languages
  30. proprtties
  31. protor/algebra
  32. sinclair
  33. Stoichiometry
  34. western philosophy
  35. 2x 3x y=
  36. african languages
  37. agincourt
  38. algebras
  39. algrbra slope
  40. alli smith
  41. ancient greece/rome
  42. atomic / molecular physics
  43. below human hearing
  44. calculas
  45. can an eel light up a light bulb?
  46. capacity
  47. carrying
  48. carrying capactiy factors
  49. chemistry scientific notation
  50. conversqation of charges

Top Returned Searches for January 2008

Friday, January 25th, 2008

Courtesy of our Google Mini, below is the list of the top 50 RETURNED searches on ziizoo.com for the month of January.

  1. algebra
  2. chemistry
  3. physics
  4. math
  5. algebra 1
  6. calculus
  7. algebra 2
  8. mathematics
  9. elementary algebra
  10. elementary math
  11. geometry
  12. basic math
  13. basic geometry
  14. high school math
  15. elementary geometry
  16. college algebra
  17. english
  18. high school geometry
  19. basic grammar
  20. essay writing
  21. essay writing help
  22. fractions
  23. english literature
  24. harvard math
  25. sat essay
  26. english essay writing
  27. math equations
  28. kids math
  29. college essay writing
  30. editing
  31. ap calculus
  32. effective essay writing
  33. english language grammar
  34. biology
  35. poetry
  36. grammar
  37. math tutor
  38. critical essays
  39. science
  40. spanish
  41. pre-algebra
  42. advanced mathematics
  43. english
  44. integrals calculus
  45. trigonometry
  46. ap chemistry
  47. essays
  48. sat
  49. algebra i
  50. chain rule

Win a Wacom Tablet Promotion

Monday, January 14th, 2008

Log-in and win a 4×5 graphire wacom tablet!

wacom tablet

Yes, it’s that simple. Log-in and win a $165 wacom graphire. Over the course of the next two months we are going to give away four tablets - so roughly every two weeks a new winner will be announced.

If you have not used one before, wacom tablets are really cool. Basically they turn your computer into a notepad. Check out this review on Amazon for detailed product features.

With a tablet you can take full advantage of the ziizoo whiteboard and draw on it as though you were writing on a chalkboard. Drawing geometric shapes, solving math equations, handwriting notes and much more are a cinch using a tablet.

That said, the promotion does have some basic rules:

  1. The promotion is only available to tutors.
  2. To qualify, tutors must have a complete profile - a picture, summary description, service tags, and academic information.
  3. Only the presence statuses of “available” or “active session” will count - any time with a presence of “away” or “offline” will not count, even if you are logged into ziizoo.
  4. Unanswered session requests will result in a 30-minute penalty.
  5. Unreturned emails will result in a 15-minute penalty.
  6. Active session minutes are worth 2X (e.g., a 30 minute session is worth 60 minutes for this promotion).
  7. Promotion is limited to one wacom tablet per tutor

Tutors already using tablets have said they greatly enhance the online tutoring experience - the tablet is a tool every tutor should have in his/her toolkit! So what are you waiting for? Log-in and win!

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions about the promotion.

Good luck!

December’s Top Tutor Pages

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008

It was a short month but traffic to the tutor profile pages was still strong. Below are the top 5 tutors by total number of page views for the month of December. Congratulations again to Jeff Seguritan for 1,700+ page views in a single month.

  1. Jeff Seguritan : 1,714
  2. Kate Sims : 589
  3. Dalmo Mendoca 325
  4. Jennifer West : 283
  5. Michelle Sharp : 110

5 easy tips on how to improve your placement in search results

Friday, December 14th, 2007

Like Amazon or Google, search results on ziizoo are a function of a lot of things. While the precise algorithm is our own secret recipe, we thought we would share these five easy tips on how to improve your placement in search results.

1. Availability The single greatest (and easiest) thing you can do to improve your placement in search results is to log-in. We heavily favor tutors that have set their status to “available”. Remember you do not have to be physically staring at ziizoo.com to be logged-in. You can have ziizoo open in a separate tab or window so you can surf the internet while staying logged-in.

2. Feedback In these early days, a single rating can help separate you from hundreds of tutors and multiple ratings almost guarantees a spot on the first search result page. One way to get some quick feedback is to participate in the 60 Minutes for Free promotion so students have a risk-free way of trying you out (but make sure they leave feedback!).

3. Profile/Credentials Next to logging-in, the easiest way to be found is having a rich summary description and adding all your academic credentials (including your high school!). Students are more likely to believe you to be an authority (and so will our search algorithm) if you have extensive academic background (as opposed to leaving that section blank).

4. Tags Students can’t find you (and neither can our Google search appliance) unless you have tags (and the more the better). While most students search on generic terms like “algebra”, many also search on more refined terms like “algebra II” or “quadratic equation”. Be sure to round out your profile by adding tags to your tutor services page.

5. Digital Locker Content All session transcripts are automatically stored in your Digital Locker, but you can round out your locker (and improve your placement in search) by uploading relevant documents in your Digital Locker - things like solution sets, syllabi, essays or anything else you think a student would search on. Update your Digital Locker by clicking here.

Need more help? Check out the Faculty Lounge section of our blog for other best practices.