Whilst I hate search engine optimisation, it doesn’t mean that they don’t occassionally come out with some useful tools. Search Engine Roundtable have just brought to my attention a Firefox PlugIn by Joost de Valk which provides a PageRank and the anchor text for each of the inlinks found through either Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo Site Explorer, and Microsoft Webmaster.
December 13, 2007
Link Analysis Firefox Plugin
Record numbers visit Webometric Thoughts!
Whilst it wouldn’t be much of a record in comparison to Google, MSN, or even the local corner shop’s web site, Webometric Thoughts finally got the 30 unique visitors in a day that have eluded it for so long. In fact it got 31 on Tuesday, and then 40 yesterday.
If the number of visitors continues grow at 29% each day, in forty days (and forty nights) I will get a million visitors in a day for the first time. Although I may wait before I upgrade my server data package.
OAP loses £16,000: It’s hard to have sympathy
A story on the BBC yesterday pointed out how an OAP had fallen for an internet scam saying they were to inherit millions of pounds…but obviously they had to send some cash first. Whilst the story is meant to tug on the heart strings, as they talk about an 80 year-old widow, the story I am reading is someone who threw away their money due to greed. Whilst we don’t know the full story, its hard to believe that a homeowner with £16,000 in the bank is so close to the poverty line that they saw the promises in these emails as the only way out. Greed didn’t pay, boo-bloody-hoo.
My favourite part of the story was the fact that a police officer who advised “anyone who receives a scam e-mail to contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111″, somehow I think the Crimestoppers line would quickly crash if someone called for every scam email…it would probably also cost the economy millions of pounds.
December 12, 2007
BBC iPlayer Flash streams: Linux friendly
The Beeb have been promising flash streams for a while, and when I went to download some programmes on the iPlayer tonight, I found it had already rolled out. This should go some way to placating the linux hoardes who have been complaining. As the picture below shows it now works on firefox/linux, even on the much maligned Eee PC/RM Minibook (the rather poor quality is because I sent the picture to myself via MMS rather than messing about with a wire or bluetooth).
(nb. its Peggy and Phil in the Queen Vic kitchen).
PCMag v. Eee PC: PC Mag gets it wrong
Asus Eee News, Mods, and Hacks highlights PC Mag article about what not to buy in the computing world. The Eee PC (a.k.a. the RM minibook) is lucky enough to be singled out with a nice shiny photo:
The Asus Eee PC, which suffers the misfortune of being inexpensive, having integrated graphics and running Linux on a flash-memory hard drive.
Trying to sum up what not to buy in a single article is always a difficult task, and some would say that it is best not attempted as there will always be exceptions, but by picking on the Eee PC the article deserves to receive readers’ wrath, totally missing the laptop’s purpose. My opinion, despite having mine totally dying on me last weekend, buy an Eee PC as a second computer and it will be your favourite computer purchase ever.
As for “Don’t buy: Linux”, whilst I’m not its biggest fan, it is definately ready for the middle-of-the-road tech consumer. They only time I have ever attacked my computer with a screwdriver was to give the innards a bit of a dust.
Yale put courses online
Social Media have pointed out that Yale have placed a number of courses online, whilst by no means the first to put their lectures online it is a nice little site providing all the information that you would need to complete the course.
The downside is the limited number of courses available, currently standing at 7, and unsurprisingly none of them fall into the information science field. What sort of university is Yale anyway??
Whilst I love the fact that so many universities are making courses available online, and there are loads that I would like to follow, I personally never manage to get around to following any of them.
December 11, 2007
One Hundred Webometric Thoughts!
As the title of this blog would seem to suggest, this is actually the 100th blog posting on my ‘Webometric Thoughts’ blog since I posted my first entry a little less than 4 months ago. It therefore seems an appropriate time to reflect on both the blog, its posts, and the visitors.
When I started the blog I stated in my profile, as is still stated in my profile:
I am hoping that the blogosphere will offer an opportunity for feedback as well as the sounding-off of my personal opinions.
Unfortunately I seem to have failed to successfully take advantage of the potential of the blogosphere; useful feedback requires well thought-out opinion pieces rather than off-the-cuff thoughts on the latest sites I have come across. Nonetheless I have found the blog a useful place for sounding out my thoughts on different topics, it forces me to keep up to date with the ever-increasing number of blogs I follow, and acts as a useful aide-mémoire for some of the hundreds of sites and discussions that I come across in the average week.
Looking back at some of the posts and the aspect that immediately hits me is the wide variety of topics that I have posted on; a factor that would be likely to restrict my from getting much of a following, even if it was better written. However the eclectic blog follows my own eclectic thoughts and interests, and as I am the only person guaranteed to read every posting it will continue as such. My only disappointment is that I do not have the time to blog on every subject or news story that catches my eye, if the blog changes in the future I hope it will be by trying to include an increasing number of short entries.
Whilst my blog has very few regular readers, it is amazing how many people turn up if you put something on the web. According to Google Analytics, since I installed the necessary tracking code within my blog (9/10/07) I have had 835 absolute unique visitors, from 56 different countries/territories, from the US and Russia to Oman and Nigeria. Whilst for a long time the most noticable abscence was the French, I was finally honoured with a visit from one of them just last weekend! Whilst the numbers aren’t particularly high, and the most unique visitors in one day is a mere 29, they do seem to be slowly creeping up. In fact, by the looks of today’s numbers, I am on course to finally break the 30 unique visitors barrier.
Whilst blogging isn’t necessarily what I expected, I have nonetheless enjoyed it and would recommended it to anyone who’s thinking about it. Just don’t have too high expectations.