So shift gears for a second here. Sure, there is the Google we all know and love for searching, SEO, email, chat, shared documents, YouTube, etc. etc.. Literally, the list goes on for quite a while.. But how much user data are they actually harvesting from a) the people that use their sites, and b) the sites that gladly log their data with Google in trade for some poor analytics? It’s one thing to gather some data from your own group of sites, but now hook up millions and millions of websites with billions of users logging data into your systems. The best part is that all you have to provide in return is some approximate/estimated metrics that are older than 24h. You don’t need to provide database access, and they’re completely limited to exactly what you give them. Do you honestly believe that because a specific item of user data isn’t available in your GA account that they’re not storing it?

So why then are we using it? Well, for small sites it’s cheap and it’s good. Even for medium sized sites it’s a good solid platform that can provide the necessary data to make good decisions. The challenge here is that  I have a big issue with large corporate sites giving away their data. Ok, but what are the alternatives, right? Well, sadly there isn’t much. There are a bunch of companies that claim to have superior analytics, and one I’ve found that answered a lot of questions about the specific database that started all of this.. Not sure how good their product is, however, it is very interesting to say the least.

Anything available that is Open Source? Well, actually, now that you mention it – sorta. While doing some of this digging I came across PiWik:

Piwik is a downloadable, open source (GPL licensed) web analytics software program. It provides you with detailed real time reports on your website visitors: the search engines and keywords they used, the language they speak, your popular pages… and so much more.

Piwik aims to be an open source alternative to Google Analytics.

Oh really? After installing it on my trusty webserver, and noticing how truly dismal my traffic is (meh, most of the content is ready by RSS anyways which sometimes makes me wonder why bother having anything other than an RSS feed), I began to notice that this crew is onto something. Sure, it’s still got a ways to go before it becomes a serious contender to GA – but wow!

Ok, so now look at it this way: GA is top dog, but barely gives a dog a bone – right? PiWik is out proving that you can own your own data, they have made great strides in gathering data just like GA, and really, if they had some funding/more coders they could be in serious contention in a very short time. The question now begs, if you’re a massive corporation who has the bankroll + developers who could actually make this happen – then why are you giving your data away?

Data is everything, because without it you cannot convert it to information, you cannot gather sufficient information to convert it to knowledge, and without knowledge, you cannot take action.

data, google analytics, PiWik, knowledge

So, in an attempt to not actually re-produce that blog here (yet this very post is in that general theme), we’ll keep this one short and concise.

Are we back? Yes.
Who is “we”? The guy writing this, and his brain – sometimes singular, yet sometimes not…
Why are we back? Figured some things out.
Like what? Well, things like massive blog posts take a lot of time, but Twittering doesn’t. Big blog posts can provide much content/context/etc., but tweets cannot. Blog posts can be any number of characters (*DING!*), but Twitter posts can only be 140 characters…
So what? That means I don’t have to spend hours cranking out a blog post, but I can provide more than a tweet for things that need more. Blog posts from now on will be greater than 140 characters, yet less than my previous novel-like posts. Frequency should increase, and anything that is an ongoing theme/exploration can be split into bite-size posts where they can be re-explored with new things learned since the last post on the subject.
Are you going to change your theme 10 times and blog about it each time? No. Theme stays for a while and it should meet the needs of the new posting concept (new to me anyways).
Do you still have readers? I have no idea.

Ok, that’s it – and yes – I have posts lined up.

A while back I discovered a great little tool that allows you to see all the sites hosted on a single server. Tully.ca is hosted on a shared server (in Texas?), which means that I get a chunk of hard drive space in a server along with a whole bunch of other sites, and we all share the same server. Think of it as an apartment building where your main address is the same, but you still have apartment numbers that let people find you specifically. This little tool lets you see who else is living in the building. Pretty neat, eh?

Ok, so who else is sharing on this server, right (I’ll pull some highlights)?

2.www.babyo.com.mx – um, it’s young, it’s music, there’s Britney in there… yeah..
3.www.datastatistik-indonesia.com – “Improving data for decentralized planning” – in Indonesia!
7.covertrationingblog.com – The Covert Rationing Blog: Healthcare Rationing in America
8.911scholars.org – Scholars for 9/11 Truth: Exposing Falsehoods and Revealing Truths (possible crazy people warning!)
13.www.consciouscoffees.com – Conscious Coffees
18.www.taxidesigndemo.com – the Clear Channel Taxi Media site for all your taxi advertising needs!
21.campuganda.org – Camp Uganda, “an educational camp in wildlife conservation for underprivileged seventh grade Ugandan children and their teachers.” Cool!
29.ray-dale.com – A multimedia designer with some great work
32.www.syrtis.com – and I quote: “The hottest guys modeling bikinis, thongs, g-strings and nude” – you can’t always pick your neighbours
37.www.djpollo.com.mx – DJ Pollo who is actually pretty good! hrm…
42.www.canaandogrescue.com – “helping owners, breeders, and shelters pair Canaan Dogs in need of a new home with a forever home.”
44.eaca.org – The Evangelical Anglican Church In America – oh lord…. RRRRUUUUNNNNN!!
55.www.electricbikeworld.co.uk – Electric Bike World!
72.american-rails-forums.com – for the hardcore train lover in America.
73.spanispringsteen.com – a spanish Bruce Springsteen fan site! Crazy!
87.weaim2pleezknives.com – Gateway Knives – for all your knifey needs?
117.www.angelfishkisses.com – The World Angelfish Forum

… and that’s about it. Quite a few more religious sites, a bunch of dead forums, and a few photographer sites. Where this tool gets really interesting is when you start to use it on various company sites where they might be developing something new on a subdomain.

Oh right, the site – http://www.guerrilladns.com/ is where all the fun begins!

Enjoy.

It isn’t every day you get to take a stand against something. Usually you can insist or persuade the viewpoints or actions of others, yet very rarely do you actually get to tell someone – full stop – that, no, this isn’t going to happen. So what the hell am I talking about, right?

Well, to kick off the new blogging challenges here on LE, I decided to update and overhaul the site template. It isn’t nearly as customized as the old one (props to Brian Gardener & Douglas Karr) yet, but with a few tweaks and modifications here and there it’s all rather refreshing. After spending a few hours hacking away (it’s what I do), everything for the most part is looking as it should and nothing is screwing up in most browsers – EXCEPT – Internet Explorer 6… and I don’t even care.

I do believe that enough is enough, and IE6 will not be supported by this blog. Period.

At work we support just about every browser imaginable and that unfortunately includes IE6. Across the sites, IE6 traffic accounts for 15%, and when you’re dealing with sites that have significant traffic, we are talking an insane number of unique visitors that are using this outdated software. Sure, the common argument is that “my company requires that I use IE6″, but when you think about it is just plain sad. You’re telling me that the business you work for is knowingly using outdated software that is buggy and full of security issues that have never been patched? Wow. The typical answer is, “yes, but some of the business stuff we use will only work on IE6″ which is even more scarry. This means that even older/outdated software is holding companies hostage and forcing them to use a browser that is a security risk, thus opening them up to just about anything imaginable.

The amount of time spent trying to make sites IE6 compliant for a small percentage of users is incredible, and the fact that this MINORITY is still able to dictate to the web world that sites must be compliant to their outdated needs is truly insane. I looked at the current template here in IE6 once I was essentially finished, and wow, it is not pretty. So should I then spend at least another 2h tweaking and fixing something for a small number of users? Well the nice part of me says that I should try and give everyone the same experience when visiting, whereas the realistic part of me says that I should not support these people, yet provide alternatives.

To just stop supporting something is a bit of a jerk move, so what can be done to helpfully guide those users to the alternatives?

• provide a notice when someone arrives using IE6 that their software is outdated, and that they should upgrade immediately. Provide the link to the most current version of IE, and also provide links to alternative browsers
• promote alternative browsers that can be installed on the same system as IE6 which would allow the (business) user to use IE6 for certain business applications, and a real browser for 99.9% of everything else
• promote the use of RSS feeds for sites. Still want to use IE6 but hate the look of the site? Great, subscribe to the RSS feed so that you can get immediate content without the need to visit the site!

Taking a stand always seems so harsh, yet it is a great way to put an end to something (or start something new), and the people it affects are forced to actually deal with it.

So, for this blog, sorry, we don’t support Internet Explorer 6 or earlier.

A while back someone pointed out that the news is filled with sensational stories about bad things that happen. If something major happens that you truly need to be aware of – someone will let you know. Heck, they’ll let you know even if you don’t need to be aware of it.

Am I anti-news? No, not at all – I’m just anti-depressants and the news is one of the biggest ones around. Am I uninformed? Nope. If I need to know something I know where to look it up, I have family and friends who will keep me in the loop, and there is enough chatter throughout the office that will keep me well informed whether I want to be or not. Now, where this gets interesting is how you can know what is going on without actually accessing a news site.

I was rolling through the list of people who I am subscribed to and who are subscribed to my Twitter feed, and I was looking for people I should be subscribed to, who are subscribed to me, yet I am not subscribed to them. On a quick side note – Twitter, your interface could seriously use some work. After a couple pages of subscribers who I am subscribed to mixed in with a bunch of people I’m not (and have no intention of – unless there is a real full name associated with you account, I’m not likely to subscribe to ‘quickcash4u’ or some other crap like that), I came across TweetStats, which lead me to their main page. After doing some stats generating on my own Twitter activities (yeah, pretty strong at the beginning of 2008, and then everything seems to have died), I came across the overall trends section which gives a small snapshot of what’s going on in Twitterville:

Hmmm, I wonder what could possibly be going on in the world today… Christmas is the surprising trend today given that it was finished over a week ago, but I’m guessing that it’s people talking about their christmas vacation as they prepare to return to work (for those of us who had a nice long break and are NOT looking to return to the office tomorrow!). Without going to news.google, I’m pretty sure that the Israeli and Hamas are at it again in Gaza, the Colts and Chargers are playing (or just did play) a game, and Macworld has some news… verification with news.google… Hamas ready for bitter urban battle, Chargers shock Colts in overtime, and finally Apple fans pray for Steve Jobs surprise at final Macworld…

We are inundated with news, about everything, from just about everywhere. So what’s my point, right? Do yourself a favour this year, read/watch less news (I’m not saying become more ignorant about the world you live in), instead, keep your eyes open for small updates from many sources to get the overall picture of what is happening (then drill in on specifics), and when something major happens, trust me, you’ll know.

Doing a bunch of site development and implementations as a freelancer has provided me with some great time flexibility, and when my good friend Dean (and his business partners) decided to buy an existing SCUBA diving retail store, and move it to a new location, I was in a great position to lend a hand.. some blood.. some brains.. some muscles… some 16h days.. and really, about 8 weeks of pure mayhem.

The shop they purchased was the Float n’ Flag Dive Centre located in Burlington, Ontario. The shop has been around for over 30 years and the original owner decided it was time to retire. Dean, recognizing a great opportunity, seized the chance with two other business partners and the mayhem began.

So what happens when you buy a dive business and decide to move it? Well, just about everything. Dive shops are unlike any other retail businesses in that they combine a full retail store, a warehouse for inventory and rental equipment, offices and a classroom, a full service lab for testing and repairing equipment, as well as a gas supply factory for filling SCUBA tanks…

When we finally got the retail space finished and open for business:

the initial thought was “Great! We’re half way there!”, which couldn’t be further from the truth. The retail space has been open for just over 4 weeks now, the gas supply part has been functioning for 3 weeks, the warehouse has barely been functional for 2 weeks, the lab is 75% finished, and the drywall in the office just got it’s final sanding and priming on Thursday morning… The carpet for the office has arrived, the computers have arrived (no accounting software yet), the racking for the rental gear wash bay has arrived, the stainless steel counter-tops for the lab are being picked up tomorrow, Transport Canada is due to arrive once the hydrostatic testing system is finished being hooked up, and then it is simply a matter of getting all our tools out and finishing up the little bits like doors, trim, and well, figuring out office furniture and tool organization for the lab…. Did I mention that there is a fully operational retail store going on at the same time with an unbelievable amount of traffic?

Needless to say, it’s been one hell of a ride!

Moving two 400lb air compressors, twenty eight 100lb cylinders our of a basement, and installing a 300lb I-beam 12 feet in the air, test your physical abilities. Designing and building retail space, classroom space, office space, a lab, a warehouse, and a gas supply factory on the fly tests your mental abilities. Running on little sleep for weeks on end, dealing with customers, suppliers, and business partners definitely tests your emotional stability to say the least.

Much has been learned already, and much has yet to be learned – I can assure you of that.

The weird part in all of this is that somehow I have managed to land full-time employment in the technology sector, and I start on Wednesday… Talk about culture shock! I go from freelance web-bum, to retail construction guy, and now I’m throwing myself in to a corporate environment complete with suits, meetings, benefits packages, and limited vacation days…. Weird, I know! The plus side to this move is that I was sought out and recruited for my skills, and the job appears to be challenging, exciting, and right up my alley when it comes to technology – I can’t wait.

Am I going to miss the dive shop? You bet! The two passions in my life are: my wife, and SCUBA diving. The great thing is that I was able to help lay the foundation for a friend’s ultimate success. This is his opportunity to make his mark, use his years of experience, and apply it to something he is truly passionate about – I wish him all the success in the world.

So what does all this mean for LOGICal eMOTIONs, right? Well, with somewhat ‘normal’ hours in the very near future I will actually have time (and the mental capacity) to keep adding to this blog. I’ve felt bad that I essentially vanished from this blog for the last while and had every intention of posting a quick update – except 2am blog posts of unintelligible gibberish isn’t really good for anyone. I knew there would be an end to the intensity at some point, and I’m glad you’re still here now that I’ve found it.

To sum up: after a blurry and fuzzy 51 days – we’re back!

It started out innocently enough thinking about an upcoming blog post which is written in a text editor on another computer, but not actually recorded anywhere else – which is both surprising given today’s technology, and at the same time, definitely a topic for ANOTHER blog post. That’s right, we could have a total of 3 posts this week this month … but I digress..

Anyways, I was off thinking on the whole readership/subscriber numbers, they’re god-like status in the analytics realm, and I dared to wonder: Well, who the hell cares? The same also applies to comments and somewhat on the our boundaries of the blog theme we’re goin with here, are total blog post numbers/frequency… You know what I mean.

When it comes to blog subscriber numbers, just about every blog owner, can spout off their latest FeedBurner subscriber target number before you can actually finish asking…

“I want 100 subscribers by the end of next month!”
“I want 2000 subscribers by tomorrow!”
“I want 10 subscribers before I die!…”

Rock on belt+onion people, rock on.

If you look close enough, you can usually see a post about subscriber numbers, how they’re not really that important to their blog, they’re greatful for their readership and damnit, aren’t they simply the best readership in the world… Oh yes, we’re all guilty here.

But stop and think about your readership for a second. Offering up my own blog as the sacrificial example, if we look at LOGICal eMOTIONs, we see that the total subscriber number is somewhere between 65 and 70 depending on the day. For last month the number was the same. For the previous month, the number was the same… Actually, this number hasn’t changed in about 12 months. Weird. I know.

My brain then flipped to the opposite of my blog – you know, one of those single, double, and sometimes triple daily article sites. It isn’t that I have anything against them, seriously – just when I think of the opposite of this one, that’s what I come up with.

Large blogs such as those have huge numbers in both the number of comments and the subscriber number departments. They get everyone – the good and the bad – the two sides of ‘quality’. When it comes to small blogs with smaller numbers, it is generally all one or the other with very little happy middle.

So if this is true, for smaller blogs (which are small, or have recently started out), how do you know whether or not your readership is a bunch of dolts, or some of the most influential people in the blogging community? “But I haven’t seen any trackbacks to my articles” – well, is there anything worth linking to? Oh, right but you write for yourself, I forgot… Hey, we all write for an audience, and the true audience is only visible to you when the keys on the keyboard are pressed – otherwise it’s just your imagination.

How do you know that your readership aren’t the influencers just waiting for you to actually let go of whatever it is you’re holding onto, and run your blog?

The same happens in our personal and professional lives, so why not in a digital community controlled and operated by the same people you could meet, say, at the grocery store tomorrow?

Ok, so how does this apply to quantity vs. quality?

Simple, when it comes to Q vs. Q, we generally think that it is either one or the other – black vs. white – insert “opposite” cliche here. You get the idea. The reality is that it is a mix of both when it comes to blogs and there are 4 possible combinations:

• HIGH Quantity and LOW Quality
• HIGH Quantity and HIGH Quality
• LOW Quantity and HIGH Quality
• LOW Quantity and LOW Quality

Wait, you can have LOW + LOW? Sure, last time I checked, 1+1 doesn’t = 0 (oh, and it doesn’t = 2 either..).

Basically, the numbers obsessed set a goal of where they think they should be/would like to be, and then start writing for the influencers (on some level of the brain), ASSUMING that their readership are dolts. “If I just write more, and better, then people will take notice!” – um, sure, whatever you want to go with. Whereas if they just ignored the numbers, assumed that the influential people recognized quality when you didn’t, but also recognized what was keeping you back – all you ever had to do was let go…

I believe that there is a percentage of those who simply increase frequency in blog posts,  will have a subtle ‘ah HA!’ moment at which point they realize that the numbers don’t mean anything and their blog takes off (likely most of the blogs you respect the most). There is of course the other percentage that simply writes more without the moment, and just crank out stuff..

“But numbers are important to advertising revenue” – sure, but I’m willing to bet that those who make money from advertising on their blogs gave up caring about the numbers and simply started tracking them…

So what’s the point, right? Well simply, stop using statistics as a shield from that which is holding you back. Also, you get to make up in your head who your readership is, so you might as well assume they’re the audience you want.

Photo by glennmitchell23

Thought I might drop a quick note about how we’re now up on WordPress 2.5 so if you see anything that doesn’t quite look right/work – please do tell (I also needed an excuse to try out the new post writing layout).

Oh, also as far as upgrading, I used the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin which worked brilliantly!

WordPress automatic upgrade upgrades your wordpress installation by doing the following steps.

1. Backs up the files and makes available a link to download it.
2. Backs up the database and makes available a link to download it.
3. Downloads the latest files from http://wordpress.org/latest.zip and unzips it.
4. Puts the site in maintenance mode.
5. De-activates all active plugins and remembers it.
6. Upgrades wordpress files.
7. Gives you a link that will open in a new window to upgrade installation.
8. Re-activates the plugins.

The simple fact that it makes a couple backups for you, and looks after the plugins (it found one that wouldn’t work), this plugin makes upgrading too easy.

For anyone who setup their blog using Fantastico, and has been using that to do all the upgrades, keep in mind that if you use this plugin Fantastico will no longer look after your upgrades for you. On the other hand, this plugin can be used for all future upgrades… I have yet to see WP 2.5 in the Fantastico listing, and nothing has notified me about the upgrade yet, so really the choice is yours: you can use the plugin and upgrade now, or wait for Fantastico to release the 2.5 upgrade. Use the plugin and you’re looking after future upgrades through the plugin – use Fantastico and it will remain the upgrade overseer. Personally? I’d use this opportunity to bail on Fantastico – works great for initial installs (quick and easy), however, I’ve run into issues with some of the upgrades and I just don’t trust it.

Photo by .: sandman

Pretty great, eh? The challenge I have is that they specifically asked you to do something, then through a curve-ball at you, and made you feel bad that you didn’t do something they also expected you to do but didn’t tell you about…

Yes, I agree, it is difficult to see something when you’re not looking for it, and never did I imagine to look for a break-dancing bear. Yet, at the same time I wasn’t supposed to. I was asked to count the number of times the white team made a pass. It’s like asking you to count the number of times you check your email, oh, and did you notice how many times the letter “a” was used anywhere in your email program? No, and why would I? It was never part of the process to begin with.

I see the message that they are trying to make – watch out for cyclists on the roads. Right, got that, but wait, isn’t that part of driving? If they were to ask you to count the number of passes, AND notice the dancing bear it would be a different situation – especially if you didn’t notice the bear too (when told to) which is exactly what is happening on the roads – which is the whole issue.
Watching for cyclists, pedestrians, other cars, kids, dogs, old men with hats, people on cell phones, etc. etc.. IS PART OF DRIVING. It’s the people who don’t notice cyclists, and are dismissive about it falling under the responsibility of the driver to notice – these are the people who should be slapped in the face. Don’t slap the ones who count the number of passes or notice cyclists, thereby doing exactly what they’re supposed to do.

Nod to sensibilid(ad)

The Songwriters Association of Canada recently came out with a ‘brilliant’ proposal to charge $5 to everyone who uses wireless or internet and make music file sharing legal.

Once I picked myself up off the floor from laughing so hard, I did some quick calculations and quickly realized that this may actually happen!

First we look at Canada – all ~34 million of us. For argument sake, lets say that 25% of Canadians have just a simple internet connection – all 8,500,000 of us. Let’s say you charge these 8.5 million $5 per month to try and legalize file sharing. Companies such as Rogers, Bell and Primus now share in a monthly revenue of $42.5 million dollars. Take this out over a full 12 months and we’re looking at $510 MILLION dollars per year collected for the songwriters of Canada. Now, what percentage does each company take as a collection fee for our poor songwriters, what does the number look like for anyone who has multiple internet connections and cell phones, and how do I get to be a songwriter?

Lets say that 20% of the $5 collected went to the company doing the collection, and we’ll say that there are 10 companies in Canada doing the collection. Can you honestly believe that Bell wouldn’t be pushing for this $5/mo from each of their subscribers when it could drop a cool $10,200,000 to the bank account (even based on my LOW estimations)?

Oh wait, got 2 cell phones that don’t even have music capabilities? Thanks for the $10. Having a hard time figuring out this ‘webmail’ thing let alone know what an MP3 even remotely is? Thanks for the $5 – the songwriters of Canada, and everyone else who has their sticky little fingers in it thank you.

Sure, at the outset, charging everyone $5 to legalize file sharing (wait – music only!) within Canada seems like a ludicrous idea, yet when you start throwing some $$ around, who wouldn’t want a cut of a $+510 million fee including songwriters, you, me, big business, and let’s not forget our friends in the government who will want their cut too..

this would present a major financial improvement for the music industry. Since the license fee would be paid by all internet and wireless accounts, the amount of income generated annually could adequately compensate the industry for years of declining sales and lost revenues, and would dramatically enhance current legal digital music income. Sales of physical product would continue to earn substantial amounts, albeit gradually decreasing.

Adequately compensate for years of declining sales? Wow. Next thing you know, GM will be looking to slap a $5 fee on your water bill when they realize that hybrids might be preferred over a gas-guzzling pig and it’s hurting their sales.

Wake up music industry. Perhaps the business model needs to be updated to meet the DEMANDS of the market, rather than trying to keep the market within your demands.