Google does a lot of things, not the least of which is providing the world’s most popular search engine for people to conduct their internet searches. One thing Google has recently released is something called Google Authorship. If you are an author and publish your work on the internet, in a blog for example, you can become a Google author. Becoming a Google author means that your reputation as a writer will influence your content within the Google search results.

Several factors influence your reputation and rank as a Google author: your interaction within Google+, the authority of the site where you publish, your outside authority ranking and more. Maximizing your authority as a Google author can have a great effect on the placement of the pieces you write, and hence how many people see those pieces.

Forbes Magazine did a great story about becoming a Google author and its new Author Rank. Click here to read the full story.

My name is Aaron Young and my business card says that I’m a Senior Programmer Analyst; but I think it should say “I get paid to write code… AND I LOVE IT!”

I'm from Bristol, England and I moved to the U.S. in 1998 after meeting my then soon-to-be wife, Debra, online.

I've had a passion for programming since I was 8 years old when my parents bought me a Commodore 16 for Christmas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_16); Little did any of us know, they were putting me on a path that would shape the rest of my life...

I quickly got bored with the games that came with the C16 (on cassette tapes - remember those?) and I decided I wanted to write my own stuff. I bought every magazine I could find looking for examples of code that I could spend hours typing into my trusty 16KB behemoth to make wondrous things happen.

I remember my first ever complete program; I was 9 years old and it was the lyrics to "Jingle Bells" scrolling across the 13” TV screen (no monitors!) with custom-made candy canes and stocking characters to the festive 8-bit sound of Christmas music - I was hooked.

I went through a variety of hardware growing up; a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128 + 2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum#ZX_Spectrum_128) and a Commodore 64 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64).

While in high-school I got an Amiga 500 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_500 ), my first power-house (it had a 3.5” Floppy Disk Drive!) and I learnt AMOS, a basic-like procedural programming language. I wrote many programs; fruit machines, a scrabble game (with A.I.), arcade-style shooters, you name it and I had created a version of it!

When High-school was ending I had to make a decision about college and my future; would I pursue Computer Science or my other passion; Art & Graphic Design?

Up to that point, programming had been a hobby; there didn't appear to be a huge future in it. I hadn’t seen a PC as we know them today and they certainly weren’t common place.

So, I decided to pursue Art...

My first day of college, I attended my introduction art class and... I hated it.

It was a disaster, I didn't like the professor (and she didn’t like me), I was unprepared and I felt out of place; at the end of the day, in a snap gut decision; I decided to change from Art & Design to Computer Science and the rest, as they say, is history!