Page speed has always been a factor in web design.  Today, it is not only a factor in good design but also good Search Engine Optimization. Both factors are important to creating a good user experience.  Ten to fifteen years ago, before high-speed Internet connections were commonplace there was a 30 second rule that good designers lived by; if a page took longer than 30 seconds to load it was too big. With the advancement of graphics design programs creating smaller and smaller file sizes, high-speed Internet and faster computers the average person has increased expectations and if a page does not load in 5-10 seconds they are more likely to click back and pick the next page in the search results list.

Google (who maintains a 65% share of the search engine market), has now incorporated page speed into their search algorithm for determining page rank and position.  Page rank (the importance of a page relative to the rest of the Web) is the culmination of many factors and is a key component in determining the overall position of a web page in search results.

Everybody wants their website to come up first but it does not happen by accident and once you do get there it takes work to keep the position. It is the ultimate King of the Mountain game with thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake. Every click-through is a potential new customer, contact, referral or sale. Knowing how to gain a leading position and also how to ensure the most promising user experience takes more than just knowing the in and outs of web design, it has to work hand in hand with industry experience and knowledge.

Nobody knows your product better than you. There may be thousands of companies selling pumps but every one of them has something unique that set them apart. When so much of it might be the same, focusing on what you have to bring to the table can often be the difference in clicking on the contact button or the back button. Page speed is certainly an important aspect. When put together with well thought-out, efficient, customer focused web design that that has been shaped with industry knowledge and technical expertise King of the Mountain is a great place to be.

Anyone who works in graphic design or web development knows the importance of starting with good, clean images.  The amount of time it takes to clean bad images is costly.  The brain-numbing drudgery of erasing, copying and stamping parts of an image, 3 pixels at a time, is enough to make grown men cry. (OK I’m exaggerating a bit) The point is Photoshop CS5 is going to make the process of cleaning up images faster, better and happier.

Here is Adobe’s leaked preview from the CS5 blog.

If you’re pressed for time skip to 2:47

The official release date for Adobe CS5 is April 12th, 2010.  For more Photoshop CS5 goodness http://cs5.org/?cat=3

1. Sinopec Awarded $1.3B Polypropylene Plant
2. J. Ray McDermott Awarded Saudi Aramco EPC Project
3. ICA Flour Wins $622M Clean  Fuels Projects from PEMEX
4. SNC-Lavalin gets new contract in Venezuela

Sinopec Awarded $1.3 bln Polypropylene Plant

• Estimated Cost: $1.26 billion
• Engineering Firm: Sinopec Engineering
• Construction Firm: Sinopec Engineering

Description: As reported by Reuters - a unit of China’s Sinopec will build a $1.26 billion polypropylene plant in Kazakhstan, Kazakh Deputy Oil and Gas Minister Aset Magauov said on Thursday.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLDE62O06T20100325

J. Ray McDermott Awarded Saudi Aramco EPC Project

• Estimated Cost: $
• Operating Company: Saudi Aramco
• Engineering Firm: J. Ray McDermott
• Construction Firm: J. Ray McDermott
  

Description: As reported by Oil and Energy News – J. Ray McDermott, S.A. (“J. Ray”), a subsidiary of McDermott International, Inc., has been awarded a project to upgrade crude gathering and power supply facilities in Saudi Aramco’s Safaniya field.

http://www.oilandenergynews.com/2010/03/j-ray-mcdermott-awarded-epci-project-by.html

ICA Fluor Wins $622 Million Clean Fuels Projects from PEMEX

• Estimated Cost: $622 MM
• Operating Company: PEMEX
• Engineering Firm: ICA Fluor
• Construction Firm: ICA Fluor

Description: IRVING, Texas, Mar 24, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — ICA Fluor, the industrial construction joint venture of Empresas ICA, S.A.B de C.V. and Fluor Corporation, announced today that PEMEX Refining, has awarded the company engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts for two low-sulfur gasoline projects in Mexico valued at $622 million.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ica-fluor-wins-622-million-clean-fuels-projects-from-pemex-2010-03-24?reflink=MW_news_stmp

SNC-Lavalin gets new contract in Venezuela

• Estimated Cost: $
• Operating Company: PDVSA
• Engineering Firm: SNC-Lavalin
• Construction Firm:

Description: MONTREAL — SNC-Lavalin has been awarded a contract for conceptual and basic engineering involving production facilities and the upgrading of heavy oil in Venezuela’s Orinoco oil belt.

The value of the deal announced Thursday was not disclosed, but SNC said it is “the first of several expected work authorizations” under the contract signed with Venezuelan Petroleum Corp., a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A..

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gn4ntQhqWVm5Cm3FpWh_o9ptBRpw

HOUSTON, Feb. 22 — Oil and gas services provider Schlumberger Ltd. announced plans to acquire Smith International Inc. in a stock-for-stock transaction worth an estimated $11 billion.

Both companies’ boards unanimously approved a definitive merger agreement. Smith, based in Houston, provides products and engineering services used during oil and gas drilling, completions, and production.

Among its products and services, Smith provides drilling and completion fluids; solids control and separation equipment; waste-management; water-treatment systems; production chemicals; directional drilling tools and services; two-cone, three-cone, and diamond drillbits; turbine drilling products; and drilling and fishing tools.

Subject to Smith stockholder approval and customary regulatory approvals, closing is expected in this year’s second half. Upon closing, and issuance of new Schlumberger shares, Smith shareholders are expected to own 12.8% of Schlumberger’s common stock.

Terms call for Smith shareholders to receive 0.6966 of a share of Schlumberger in exchange for each Smith share. Based upon Feb. 18 closing stock prices for both companies, the agreement places a value on Smith stock of $45.84/share.

Andrew Gould, Schlumberger chairman and chief executive officer, said the Smith acquisition will add Smith’s drilling expertise and its drillbits to Schlumberger’s product offerings.

Gould believes increased levels of drilling are required to sustain and increase global oil production. He said more wells are being drilling in challenging environments and new resource plays, which increases a project’s complexity.

“We firmly believe, however, that the next breakthrough will be through engineered drilling systems that optimize all the components of the drillstring, allowing our customers to drill more economically in demanding conditions,” Gould said.

Schlumberger expects the acquisition will generate pretax savings of about $160 million in 2011 and $320 million in 2012. The merger is expected to increase earnings per share in 2012, said the company, which has major corporate offices in Houston, Paris, and The Hague.

The acquisition will increase Schlumberger’s ability to compete with rival Halliburton Co. Last year, Baker Hughes Inc. announced a $5.5 billion deal to acquire BJ Services Co.

The US Department of Justice’s antitrust division has asked for more information from Baker Hughes and BJ Services regarding the proposed merger of the two firms (OGJ Online, Oct. 19, 2009).

Analysts expect antitrust regulators will closely examine Schlumberger’s acquisition of Smith.

Smith employs more than 20,000 employees operates through three operating segments—M-I SWACO, Smith Oilfield, and Wilson. Smith said two thirds of its revenues are concentrated in markets outside the US.

Both Schlumberger and Smith own M-I Swaco, which sells drilling fluids, as a joint venture . Schlumberger currently owns 40%.The Smith acquisition means Schlumberger will own 100% of M-I Swaco.

While on site you start collecting and reviewing history. There are several key points that you observe right away. Before the failure, process conditions change, causing a different load condition in the turboexpander.

The original equipment manufacturer reviewed this data as well and concluded there should be no problems since the unit was operating well within the design limits.

Previous rotordynamics work indicated a small imbalance, but that was to be expected with the machine loading and unloading.

In every case there was no warning of the pending failure. This would eliminate aerodynamic excitation, build up of the impeller or degradation of the impeller. Bearing temperatures would remain within normal limits and would not exhibit any issues of concern.

The impeller was investigated, and there was no evidence of foreign particle damage or liquid carryover.

The cause of the failure was due to a rub that occurred between the impeller and the shroud. Clearances are tight in the turboexpander to obtain desired efficiencies and performance. As the impeller spins at normally very high rpm, the clearances are tighter due to the centrifugal load. During a process change it is possible for the temperatures to vary several hundred degrees. Due to the thermal lag between the housing and the impeller, it is possible for clearances to close up and lead to a failure.

An approach to avoid these failures and make sure the equipment functions properly across all operating ranges is as follows:

1. Perform a process analysis of the unit concerning all steady state and transient conditions of the turboexpander.
2. Utilize computational fluid dynamics to model the impeller to look at local temperatures and determine the possibility of any liquid formation.
3. Based on design clearances, perform a finite element heat transfer analysis of the turboexpander to evaluate the clearances.
   The model should consider the “spin up” conditions to obtain the final location and configuration of the impeller. The analysis would have to be a transient heat transfer analysis to include the thermal lag in the system.
4. It is important that the turboexpander handle all the fluid states that come from the process. In some cases there may be ice formation or dust particles that can cause issues if not considered in the design.
5. The rotordynamics of the system are important, with rotor stiffness a major consideration.
   The rotor should also be designed to handle some imbalance due to solids buildup. Remarkable thrust conditions must also be handled by a robust design.
6. A good seal design appropriate for the application must be considered. Make sure the materials are compatible to handle temperature transients as discussed in this article.
7. Develop and incorporate the necessary instrumentation to address the reliability issues of the machine.

Turboexpanders are basic in design and are not that complex in structure. However, like many pieces of rotating equipment, the details of both process and mechanical design are what affects a successful outcome in operation. A qualified professional engineer competent in rotating equipment should be involved with troubleshooting and implementation of any fix of this equipment.

For more information, visit www.knighthawk.com or call (281) 282-9200.  Click here to find suppliers of rotating equipment.

Let these truly awful images stick in your mind, make you smile and feel better about yourself and your place in the world. Let’s celebrate the ugliness of the past, and in doing so we will feel good about the present and look forward to a new decade of hope.

(This post  made possible by the Way Back Machine at web.archive.org.)

Click on an image to see more.

ThomasNet  Mar. 2000

"Man this internet thing is easy."

GlobalSpec Jan. 2000

So much to blue.

Alford Services Jan. 2000

"This company was a fall back plan, our true passion is in science book art."

Capital Process Equipment Jan 2000

This site also available in 4 x 6 flash card.

Knighthawk Engineering

You know you want to hit "Print Screen." The right side is for taking notes.

Macaulay Controls

They could print new business cards with their new web address but really whats the point?

Jogler

You'd be amazed at how much time people spent on this site

If you have an ugly industrial website from the past decade worth including in our list write it in the comments section.

1. Asab 3
2. Ammonia and Urea plants at FERTIL fertilizer complex
3. Refinery Receiving and Loading Facility

1. Asab 3

   • Estimated Cost: $409 million
   • Operating Company: Gasco
   • Engineering Firm: Technip
   • Construction Firm: Technip

   Description: Engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning (EPC) work on Gasco’s “Asab 3″ project, which will be completed in the third quarter of 2012. The “Asab 3″ project is being developed to process an additional 150 million cubic feet per day of associated gas from the existing Asab, Shah and Sahil oil fields resources.

2. Ammonia and Urea plants at FERTIL fertilizer complex

   • Estimated Cost: $1.2 billion
   • Operating Company: FERTIL
   • Engineering Firm: Samsung Engineering
   • Construction Firm: Samsung Engineering

   Description: Turnkey contract worth $1.2 Billion to construct Ammonia and Urea plants at its fertilizer complex in Ruwais.

3. Refinery Receiving and Loading Facility

   • Estimated Cost: $multi-million
   • Operating Company: Laffan Refinery
   • Engineering Firm: Qatar Kentz
   • Construction Firm: Qatar Kentz

   Description: Turnkey engineering, procurement and construction with Laffan Refinery in Qatar. The contract is for a receiving and loading facility, which will be built at the Ras Laffan Industrial City. The project includes developing a new automated gantry facility to load diesel products into up to eight road tankers simultaneously, as well as transferring by pipeline to the Ras Laffan Port area. The commercial structure will be based on several shareholder companies owning a share of the asset, but maintenance and operation of the facility will be managed by Woqod.

Cap and Trade Passes Committee

Cap and Trade Passed by Committee

The Environment and Public Works Committee has approved carbon cap and  trade legislation sponsored by Barbara Boxer (Democrat – California) and John Kerry (Democrat – Massachusetts). It now moves to the full Senate.

At a time when our economy is struggling and unemployment is above 10%, Democrats are pushing for legislation that will cost us jobs and increase the cost of energy for virtually all Americans. Democrats supporting this initiative are ignoring and/or dismissing all studies that indicate that this legislation will have a significant negative effect on our economy.

Effects of Cap and Trade on the Petrochemical Industry

The National Petrochemical and Refiners Association (NPRA) cited an Energy Policy Research Foundation Inc. study earlier this month that said even before US refiners face higher costs from carbon emissions they would face a higher cost structure and increased international competition, which would threaten to close 2.5 million barrels/day (b/d) of the existing 17.5 million b/d of US refining capacity.

In written testimony the NPRA submitted for the record the effects pending climate legislation would have on American energy jobs. The NPRA believes that both House and Senate versions (H.R. 2454 and S. 1733) would drive domestic gasoline and diesel production away from the USA, resulting in lost jobs for American workers and the outsourcing of our nation’s energy security to regions of the world that do not follow our already stringent environmental protections.

As energy prices rise, and American companies find themselves less competitive, businesses and jobs will flow to countries without stringent environmental controls, allowing emissions to increase. The additional energy costs will raise the cost of all U.S. goods and services. This will result in further job losses.

Cost of Cap and Trade

John Kerry (Democrat – Massachusetts) said comprehensive climate change legislation would create jobs. He dismissed reports such as the one cited by NPRA saying, “Your studies aren’t credible because you haven’t considered the impacts of inaction.” This is the same attempt that Dems are using on the health care bill to confuse the public on the impact of inaction. These studies and analysis performed by the Congressional Budget Office are based on the difference between continuing with current policies vs. the proposed legislation. He disagreed with Kenneth P. Green, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI), that a cap and trade system would be an inappropriate greenhouse gas control tool that would cause economic damage, cost jobs, and provide little environmental benefit.

Who Benefits From Cap and Trade?

“Legislation now before Congress will create regional winners and losers,” Green said. “Cap and trade creates a poorly understood financial instrument, which will increase debt. As biofuels gain favor, more agricultural farmland will be converted to fuel from food production.” The amount of revenue that will be moved into greener energy is extremely small in comparison to the huge carbon tax that we will all be paying. In addition, the private sector companies that could possibly benefit from these green funds, are already being targeted by unions that are using the threat of tying up permits in our courts as a way of forcing themselves into the labor side. Is part of the objective to tax all American’s energy consumption, give a small portion to Dem supporting organizations and use the rest to fund bigger government?

Instead of these energy alternatives that are not economically feasible without subsidy, why aren’t we promoting nuclear energy?

Margo Thorning, senior vice-president and chief economist at the American Council for Capital Formation, said “Macroeconomic studies show significant costs,” she maintained. “As [the US Environmental Protection Agency] and others have admitted, the environmental benefits will be almost nil if the US goes it alone.”

White House officials have hinted that if cap and trade isn’t approved in Congress, the EPA could regulate greenhouse gas emissions by all businesses. “The actions the EPA has taken and its plans to regulate greenhouse gases are a serious concern,” said Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), according to the Wall Street Journal. “However, EPA’s actions should not scare Congress into passing bad legislation.”

The fact is that both the House and Senate versions of cap and trade legislation would have devastating impacts on American businesses across the economic spectrum.

The possible SEO options are endless. Don't be a fool doing things without good reason.

SEO - the art of being googled by the most relevant googlers, bingos, and yahoos.

The world of SEO is often clouded with arguments of what the best practice is for various technical tactics.  It is made more confusing by arguments of what constitutes white-hat (good) and black-hat (evil) tactics. In this post I will not get into complex or controversial SEO. There are a million things you can do for SEO, many that YOU shouldn’t attempt and many that NOBODY should attempt.  I’m going to skip all that and give you the most basic and long-lasting SEO tactics that exist.  These are the tactics you will want to use as a foundation for all your SEO efforts, whether you decide to soldier on into more advanced SEO, or find a trustworthy SEO company worth outsourcing to.

1. Unique & Useful Content
   Every webpage has information on it. To have a page win in search engines, it must first win in content.  The information you provide should be useful, organized, unique, and entertaining (at least give it a goofy picture).
2. Internal Linking Structure
   The desired content should be easy to get to from anywhere on a site.  This means your linking structure should be tight, always link to other related content that a user may be interested in.  (Ex: Basic components of an SEO’d blog post)  You should also have an internal search function.  If you don’t have the means of developing a search algorithm in house, you can use Google Custom Search.
3. Sitemaps
   Every site needs a sitemap.  Actually that’s not true.  Every site needs 2 sitemaps.  An XML site map for search engines so they can index your site, and an html sitemap that can help both users and search engines navigate your site. A good free sitemap generator is available at http://www.xml-sitemaps.com. Enter your site’s url and download the xml file and ftp it up to your site.  If you have a google webmaster account you can submit your new sitemap.PetroPages real-life experience:  When we submitted our first free sitemap, it helped google to index 18,000 new pages.Note: At PetroPages we have a large site with 80,000 pages.  If you have a large site and the free sitemap generator worked you may want to pay the $20-30 to generate a sitemap that can handle an unlimited number of pages.
4. Nice Clean URLs
   The sooner you do this the better. The theme for all the major networking sites (twitter, facebook, linkedin, etc.) is vanity URLs.  People choose the URL for their personal or company profile.  So why does Facebook want me to have the option of having the webaddress facebook.com/adrianisawesome?  The reason is Facebook, myspace, linkedin, all want to come up on search-engines for searches on people and brands.  If you search “petropages” on google, right after our main page, our blog, one of our clients main page, and an aboutus wiki, you’ll see PetroPages’ Twitter page, then Facebook page, and then LinkedIn page. Results #6, #7 and #8.Take a lesson from these giants of the web and whenever you make a page, give the page the actual keyword you want to come up under.
   Also: keep it as simple as possible. No numbers. No parameters. No ugly www.sitethatwontcomeup.com/jk9t9/5rhujs/huh/?col=5#panel63 URLS.

Hope this gives you some direction on where to start your common sense SEO efforts.  You can check back for more uncommon sense SEO tips in the future.

1. Great Looks

So fresh and so clean

We are all suckers for good looks. A great looking site is easy to promote and likely to get users to keep coming back.  The looks of your website reflects your brand’s style and attention to detail. Petropages.com blends sharp industry specific images with a clean design that makes for a rich user experience.

2. Intuitive Site Navigation

Simple, fluid navigation

A problem with many sites is having a high bounce rate.  This is when users come across a site and quickly leave the site.  If a search engine returns your site, its because your site is relevant to the user’s query.  If someone remembers your site URL or guesses it, they are coming because they think your site will have what they’re looking for. So the problem of having a high bounce rate is rarely that the site is off topic. The two most common causes for users quickly leaving your site is that your site is either: a.) ugly or b.) confusing. It does not matter if a site looks great, if users get confused on where they are supposed to go to get what they are looking for, they will leave.

3. Full of Useful Content

Knighthawk provides its published material for free

No matter what you are trying to accomplish with your website, you should make every effort to fill it up with useful content.  If you are selling products, include information on the products.  Add a blog to your site, and give away information relevant to your industry.  Giving away information does 3 things:
1. Improves your brand’s image. (If you are giving away information for free, you look good for helping people out)
2. Gives you “expert” status.
3. Exposes your site to more users.

4. Search-Engine Friendly

After you have considered the looks, navigation, and content for your site, making the experience as rich as possible for users, you will want to make sure your site is easy find for search engines.  You want your pages to be indexed fast and come up on relevant queries. This can be done by editing the underlying code of every page to include all of the relevant information that search engines pick up on as they crawl your site.

5. Cross Browser Compatibility

Sneak peek at PetroPages new site

Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera.. the list of internet browsers continues to grow every year.  When you make a website you must code it in such a way that it looks good on all browsers for most, if not all different computer sizes. You should write your code in HTML and CSS, and so separate the content from its appearance.  Then you can  edit the appearance, without tampering with the functionality of the site, until the appearance looks great in all different browsers.

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