bookmark_borderBrowser Stats

Prompted by the news that there have now been 16 million downloads of Firefox 1.0 in two months. I thought I’d check my stats and see what the browser share for this site is. Previously IE (5 & 6) was running at about 96% and that has dropped to around 82%.

Of course there is the small issue of the user agent used by Firefox which, it appears, is being picked up differently by different referrer statistic packages – it shows as Netscape 5 & 7 in my stats. Ohh and let’s not forget that you can also change the user agent if you want.

Anyway, the bottom line is that the browser share for Firefox is definitely growing, but you should always bear in mind that there are three untruths: lies, damned lies and statistics. Continue reading “Browser Stats”

bookmark_borderChoice

Springer protests pour in to BBC, 15,000 of them apparently.

I’m very much FOR the Beeb showing it. I’m quite capable of choosing whether or not to watch it myself, thank you very much. And to all those naysayers who are complaining about the profanity and religious imagery may I suggest they talk a walk around their nearest city. Or just fuck off altogether.

OK, that was childish and lazy. I should really be putting together a better argument shouldn’t I. Well I would but it’s early, I’m only halfway through my first coffee and I really don’t think this deserves much more space than a “rolling of the eyes” type post. Pah.

bookmark_borderReal life

Silly website things aside, real life continues apace and it’s only the 6th January.

The Christmas decorations came down last night, I think we were the last house in the street to do so, but then traditionally they are due down today. I think. Anyway, the house is feeling bare and I’m fighing off the temptation to go for a wander at lunchtime and maybe buy a print or two. Well that plus the fact that it’s cold, wet and windy outside, and that I wouldn’t buy something like that without approval from the boss wife.

And of course if I’m out and about I’ll also be tempted to wander into FOPP but I’m trying to see if I can make it to the end of January and still have some money in my account for a change, in fact I think that would be a first.

Did you watch Big Cat Diary last night? I wonder how long it takes them to get that footage? Ohh and did anyone watch Desperate Housewives? Looks like it’ll be good show and I have to admit that having Sky+ has already changed my viewing habits. It’s so much easier to record and watch programmes. For example, we were de-Christmasifying the house when Big Cat Diary was on, but I’d already set it to record the series so we watched it later on. In fact I’ll need to be careful as I’ve been hitting that record button willy-nilly. Maybe I’ll need to get that extra hard drive BEFORE we go on holiday.

bookmark_borderWordPress stuff

Permalink structure
What gives? Is it because I have my index.php file outside my WordPress directory? I can get it to build the structure but then the permalinked post loses the link to the CSS (it presumes it’s in a different folder I think).
Sorted.

Comments, Trackbacks, Pingbacks
I’m still using HaloScan for the comments, so any pingbacks don’t get displayed. Is there a way to have Pingbacks and Trackbacks displayed in a new window (like the comments are)?
I’m still swithering over switching my comments to WordPress. I get almost no comment spam at all using HaloScan, can I achieve the same with WordPress? And can I have it display the same way it currently does? I know I can display recent comments easily but is that reason enough for change?

Archive tags
What format of archives would you find useful? Date, Category, anything else?
Sorted, and I’ve updated both the Archives and the Search facility with this nice little plugin: condensed content for archives.

Plugins
I’ve found some here, here, here and here. I’ll be checking out the del.icio.us ones later but what others should I be looking at?

Information
My biggest gripe with WordPress is the way information is handled. It’s all a bit random and unpredictable. I know it’s open source but they really need to agree on a method of delivering new information, and storing current info. Sometimes you get info from the Docs, sometimes from the Wiki, sometimes from the forum, more often from a Google search and someone’s blog. This is NOT good. Example: The recent 1.2.2 release. It stated that it “fixed some things” and despite asking, and getting some extra info, I’ve still to be able to find a comprehensive list of what was fixed (or what was broken), and what is new in that release. Very frustrating. Unless, of course, this is all explained somewhere and I’ve just missed it.

bookmark_borderCategorically

I’ve slowly been importing some non-blog posts into WordPress. I think I’ve got most of them in there now and I finally have a few categories completed. So you can now get a list of all my movie reviews (I used the term advisedly), some of the before blog posts, and more specific stuff like the Firefox posts.

Or you could do something interesting. You know, like.. well.. anything else I guess.

bookmark_borderDid you know

If you have a .com you can’t opt-out from whois searches like you can with .co.uk domains?

It was just brought to my attention, and once I’d stopped freaking out (my address was writ large on the interwebnet via a WHOIS search for chrissakes!) I just went and changed the details. I would like to apologise to Andrew who, after bringing this to my attention was accused of … well nevermind all that. Suffice to say I have already sent a grovelling apology.

Anyway, just a heads up for anyone who, like me, used a service to register a .com domain. They’ll just dump your contact details right in there for you and all the world to see.