Hello StatCounter, Goodbye Sitemeter (Including How To Add StatCounter And How To Delete Sitemeter)

I've been chronicling my problems with Sitemeter for a while.  My Love/Hate Relationship with Sitemeter and Sitemeter Out of Control  are two examples.  I suspect all the younger more tech savvy folks have abandoned Sitemeter long ago.  It's a story that highlights one of the downsides of capitalism -

Step 1:  clever entrepreneur following his passion creates great product and services his customers well
Step 2:  clever entrepreneur gets a great offer for his product and is tired of all the work he's created for himself, so he sells
Step 3:  new company doesn't really care about the product, just the potential money it can make, or wants to eliminate a rival,  and stops servicing customers and basically ruins the once good product

Sitemeter was created by David Smith, who sold it (as I understand) to My Space who sold it to someone else.  Here's the page that I really liked about Sitemeter and made me reluctant to give it up even when it was slow and then buggy.  It consolidates a lot of information about individual visitors.  It's not that I was trying to pry, but I was trying to get a sense of who was visiting and connecting location, sometimes organization (when it showed in the domain name), what they looked for on google, what post that took them to . . . all that helped me understand what an individual sought and sometimes told me that an agency or company I'd posted about was looking at what I posted about them.   

When I first saw all this information that was gathered on each visitor I was shocked.  But I came to understand that Sitemeter merely reformats the information that my computer has already gathered about visitors.  I like to show this page to people to let them know what kind of tracks they leave when they visit websites. 

But the recent problems - shutting down for nearly a week and selling of client websites and their readers to third parties, like x-vindicosuite - started to bring things to a head.  I quoted this before from a google forum:

x.vindcosuite.com seems to be "passive DNS replicator", which may be performing a genuine function; but apparently buggy software at sitemeter results in pages with sitemeter counting code on them getting redirected there.

In the screenshot below, you can see the message in the lower left, that things had been sent to this mysterious site.  It was like it was sending stuff through x-vindicosuite before I could see the next Sitemeter page, often slowing things down terribly.  

When I posted about this recently, commenters suggested StatCounter as an alternative, but I had lots of things vying for my attention,  so I procrastinated.  But I finally went there to check how difficult it would be to add StatCounter.  It turns out not difficult at all. 

Here's the StatCounter page that tells you how to put the code into your blogger template  It's pretty straightforward and took me less than five minutes.  

After poking around at StatCounter for a week, I see that the kind of information that I got from Sitemeter is available in different formats, and as I'm getting more familiarized, I think it probably gives me most of the same information in better (ie faster to go through) templates, and it allows me to drill down to more information on a specific visitor if I choose. 

For example, here's an example of one of the pages that tracks visits on Sitemeter.  This one tracks by search word:

StatCounter has several pages that do a similar list, but with a lot more information.  Here's one, for example:

click to enlarge and focus

And I can drill down (magnifying glasses in second column next to "Page Visits" to get more information on any of the specific visitors.

There's actually lots and lots of reports and I still have to figure out all that I can get and what I need and want.  And it shows me how Sitemeter was left to stagnate, while StatCounter found new was to display available data. 

And I also found out why so few actual 'search terms' are visible these days compared to four or five years ago.  StatCounter had a link next to 'search term unavailable' that led me to a 2011 Google page that says: 

"As search becomes an increasingly customized experience, we recognize the growing importance of protecting the personalized search results we deliver. As a result, we’re enhancing our default search experience for signed-in users. Over the next few weeks, many of you will find yourselves redirected to https://www.google.com (note the extra “s”) when you’re signed in to your Google Account. This change encrypts your search queries and Google’s results page. This is especially important when you’re using an unsecured Internet connection, such as a WiFi hotspot in an Internet cafe. You can also navigate to https://www.google.com directly if you’re signed out or if you don’t have a Google Account.

What does this mean for sites that receive clicks from Google search results? When you search from https://www.google.com, websites you visit from our organic search listings will still know that you came from Google, but won't receive information about each individual query. They can also receive an aggregated list of the top 1,000 search queries that drove traffic to their site for each of the past 30 days through Google Webmaster Tools. This information helps webmasters keep more accurate statistics about their user traffic. If you choose to click on an ad appearing on our search results page, your browser will continue to send the relevant query over the network to enable advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns and to improve the ads and offers they present to you."

OK, I'm only four years behind the times, and StatCounter is what is getting me a little more up-to-date.  And even if they can't tell you what the search words were, they can tell you if you ranked high in the search.  For example:

Of course, this will depend on the exact words they used on google.  Other visitors to that page must have used other terms to get there and What Do I Know?  didn't rank high enough to get a note on StatCounter.  (What you see is just the little balloon with the #3 on it, but if you hover the cursor over the #3, you get the popup that says "Your page ranked #3 on Google for the query."

A blogger forum gives instructions on how to remove sitemeter from your blogger template.  It is technical, but not that hard.  They highlight the key script in yellow, so scroll down. 

I've still not deleted Sitemeter, but because of the x-vindicosuite problem, I must.  But I need to copy some of the summary pages for when I left to document the number of hits they say I have had.  I don't know how accurate it actually is, but it's something.  So you can look for the sitemeter logo and tracking numbers (well it just shows a black box now)  in the column on the right above "About Me" if you read this today, but I'll try to delete it in a day or two.  You can check back then to see if I was successful.   Here's a summary screenshot I just did saying there's been 811,778 total unique visits and 1,245,231 page views since I first installed Sitemeter. 

I tried to figure out when I first added Sitemeter to the blog.  My email shows a message from Sitemeter in Feb 2009 thanking me for setting up an account.  But I have a post about my 10,000th visitor in December 2008 based on Sitemeter stats.  I'm guessing I set it up in 2007 sometime.  I started the blog in July 2006. 

Goodbye Sitemeter.  Hello StatCounter

Sitemeter Out Of Control - UPDATED Again: July 9

[UDATE July 27, 2015:  I've switched to StatCounter,  Hello StatCounter, Goodbye Sitemeter explains why, and has links that show how to do it.]

[UPDATE July 9, 2015:  Sitemeter has been working again for the last two days for me.  It is still going to Vindicosuite and I will be looking at Statcounter as people have recommended when I have a little more time.]

[UPDATE June 30, 2015 10:45pm Alaska Daylight Time:  An hour ago I checked Sitemeter and it was still saying to try back in a few minutes.  But now there is something back up, but it's still whacked.  There are days with way more hits than I ever get and there are days with zero hits.  But it's a sign someone is working on it.

OK, back to the original post.]



I signed up for Sitemeter probably back in 2007.  At that time it was a one man operation and if I had a question I could email him and get a quick personal response signed by David Smith.  It gave me formats for seeing who was visiting my blog that were different from others - more precise and meaningful.  It also revealed to me how much data websites get from visitors - ip address, location, kind of computer in detail, search terms, browser, and much more.  Not everything from every visitor, but more than most realize.

I've voiced praise and frustration with Sitemeter in the past.

Then at some point Sitemeter apparently was bought by MySpace.  Since then things have gone downhill.  Reports about MySpace selling information about  Sitemeter users would come up.  Sitemeter stopped answering any of my help requests or comments.

Recently, something called vindicosuite started showing up and gumming things up.  From a google forum:

Mark Liberman said:

I posted about this on Language Log (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=16345).

x.vindcosuite.com seems to be "passive DNS replicator", which may be performing a genuine function; but apparently buggy software at sitemeter results in pages with sitemeter counting code on them getting redirected there.

I've been seeing intermittent flashes of this sort of thing from sitemeter for over a year, and during that same period of time, the company has failed to respond to repeated questions directed at their "support" team.

As of yesterday evening, the problem was categorical rather than intermittent, so I removed the sitemeter code from the WordPress theme, and the problem went away.

As far as I can tell, this is a symptom of incompetence rather than malice, but in any case, sitemeter is clearly more trouble than it's worth.

Then Sitemeter was down for nearly day and when it returned, it was totally whacked.  It would show the same hit 30 or 40 times in my stats.   My stats are totally crazy.  I'd note that the number of hits Sitemeter tells me I get (generally in the 200 range each day) is wildly different from Google's count of over 1000.  But the Sitemeter info on individual hits tells me more about who visits what pages.  (No, there are no specific names connected to the visitors, but for some repeat visitors I can tell.)

I'd totally get rid of it, but that just adds one more thing to my todo list - finding another good stat counter.  And my todo list is already way too long.  

My Love/Hate Relationship With Sitemeter

The Love Part

Sitemeter has a visit detail page that looks like this:

[This is an image so the links don't work]

 

Google Analytics gives me charts which aggregate information in different categories, so I can see, for example, a list of each place people came from and how often, or a list of pages people looked at and how often.  But I haven't been able to see, with those reports, the correlation between where people are, how they link to the site, and what page they look at.

But Sitemeter also gives me an individual, detailed report (above) about each individual visitor.  This can show me how an individual (and I almost never know who the individual is) behaves.  For instance, I have been able to see that someone from the Department of Justice or FBI was using google (or an email link) to look at what I'd written about a trial DOJ was involved in.  Or that the Congressional Information office was looking at my post on the number of black Congress Members.   I don't know how I could get that sort of information from google or other stat counters.  That doesn't mean they don't offer it, I just don't know how to see it.  

For instance, in the one above, I can tell that someone in San Bernadino, California linked from facebook to my post  "Tina Delgado is Alive, Alive." The time spent is misleading though.  If they only looked at one page, the time is always "0 seconds."  They calculate the time between links used by the visitor.  But if the visitor doesn't use a link, they don't catch the time.  So the time on last page viewed isn't captured.  

I think they should be able to capture that.  If I look at the "Who's On?" option, it shows me the current time and the time the visitor began.  I can't believe that some smart techie couldn't figure out how to use that information to figure out the real time for each visitor.  

The Hate Part

Sitemeter is so frustratingly slow at times.  Often, I can click on a link on Sitemeter and I get the next page immediately, but far too often it takes 20 seconds, even minutes.  Today was so frustrating that I checked Is It Down Right Now?  a site that lets you know if a website is down for everyone or just you.  Here are some of their charts:

 

 Actually, Sitemeter was available for me, but it was taking minutes to download a page, which I guess counts as unavailable.

 

This chart gives a sense of how long the wait times are.  

And this last chart shows me some other similar websites - in this case other stat counters - that I can check out to see if I can find an alternative that does what I like at Sitemeter, but doesn't do what I don't like. 

When I first started using Sitemeter, I got emails back from "webmaster@sitemeter.com" and they were signed by David Smith addressing my question quickly.
 


But he sold the company and the new owners don't care about it the way he did.

Now I get unresponsive emails from smsupport@sitemeter.com like this:

Steve,
Your request has been received and a member of our support staff will
review it and reply as soon as possible. Listed below are details of this
request. Please make sure the Ticket ID remains in the subject at all
times.

        Ticket ID: ZMU-187705
        Category: Technical Issue
        Priority: Normal
        Status: Open


Please let us know if we can assist you any further,

Site Meter Support

And I've stopped asking for help because there never is any follow up.   I found this comment on "Is It Down Right Now?" that says Sitemeter was bought by My Space.

Ellen Meister · 5 August 2013 - 05:46

United States · Optimum Online

Doesn't matter if you send a hundred report to Sitemeter. No one reads them. No one is minding the store. They don't even monitor the site to see if it's working. FYI, Sitemeter owned by MySpace, so if you want to reach an actual person, file a report there.That's the only way to even let them know the site is down. It's quite unbelievable.

I'd note that I eventually decided to pay the annual fee for Sitemeter which gives me a lot more data and apparently saves me from other problems that other people report - like horrible pop-up ads.

Spanish (U.S.)

Sitemeter tells me many things about the people who visit here.  One line in each report says Language.  It's the language the computer is set at.  There are lots of different English settings, for example:

Language         English (Australia)
                         en-au
Language         English (U.S.)
                         en-us
Language         English (U.K.)
                         en-gb
Language         English (Ireland)
                         en-ie
Language         English (New Zealand)
                         en-nz
Language         English (Canada)
                         en-ca

Not to be confused with

Language         French (Canada)
                         fr-ca

And the same is true for Spanish. Most common for me is Spain (España), but South and Central American countries show up too.  Each has its own Spanish designation:

Language         Spanish (España)
                         es
Language         Spanish (Unknown) [the location said Venezuela]
                         es-41
Language         Spanish (Mexico)
                         es-mx
Going back a few days I found a couple from Columbia and one from Argentina, but they were just the plain Spain Spanish - es.  I've been guessing that when something like that happens (or a US English from Turkey) it's because someone is traveling with his computer set to his home country's language.  Like this one from Columbia:

Language         Spanish (Argentina)
                         es-ar

But today I saw one I hadn't noticed before:

Language         Spanish (U.S.)
                         es-us



Maybe this has been around a while and I just never noticed.  But it's probably an acknowledgement that something has changed.  There now is something called Spanish - US. I know that Spanish language television networks are doing well in the US and Hispanics are regularly hailed as the important new voters in national elections.  And now I see that someone who can do these things on the internet has recognized something called Spanish (U.S.)

If you click on the Sitemeter numbers in the right hand column (below "Blogs of Friends and Acquaintances" and above "Labels"), you should be able to see the reports and see the kinds of information Sitemeter reports.  I leave that publicly available because I believe in transparency. 

Blog Invasion - Trying To Figure Out What's Going On

Yesterday I had, according to Sitemeter,  744 hits. (Google Analytics says 1,192 which is about normal for them).   Sitemeter had been showing around 225 to 300 individual hits a day, sometimes more, sometimes less. Here's what the last seven days look like.  There were already 33 hits in the first half hour after midnight today. 

That's a pretty noticeable spike.    Below is today at 12:30pm.  I already have more hits than all of yesterday.  (Yellow are discrete visits, orange are page views)

Normally, when I get a spike like this, it's because I've put up a post that gets a lot of hits from links on other blogrolls, or some high profile website(s) has linked to a post.   That's not the case here.

A lot of the hits were coming from Bulgaria, Romania, Venezuela, Poland, and Spain, but also Greece and Turkey.  They were going mostly to posts that haven't been looked at in months.  There would be spurts of three or four hits on the same  few post in a ten minutes, sometimes within two minutes, then it would be on to other posts.  

There are old posts that get hits everyday.  Usually ones I never expected would become so popular over time - Alaskan Seemantham, How to Grow Tamarind Seeds, Fruit fly or Fungus Gnat? for example.  But yesterday people were hitting posts that just haven't been visited very often since they were originally posted, and many would seem to have limited appeal to Bulgarians or Poles. 

What's going on?  I don't know, but I thought I'd post this in case others are experiencing things like this.  Or if someone knows what's happening.

• Has google changed its algorithm?
• Is my blog being taken over by hackers?  
• Has sitemeter started reporting differently?

One particular post will suddenly get hits.  Then it fades away and another post gets the action.  Posts that have lain there unviewed for months.  Why is this happening?  Why these little clusters for a short period on one post and then a new one on another post.  It's like bees coming to one flower and sucking out the nectar and then moving on to another.

Does this have anything to do with another puzzling sitemeter reading?  The user, Feb. 2, was identified as Carlson and Partners in New York.  But the time was Alaska time rather than Eastern time and the eight pages on my blog it went to were the same pages I had gone to at about the exact same time.  Did Sitemeter mix up my search and their info?  Or had they invaded my computer and somehow followed me?  They're an advertising firm, but there's not much available about them today.  The company's founder, from what I can tell, Sandra Carlson, was closely connected with Ralph Lauren and had that account until she died in a car crash in 2003.  After that, I can't find anything. Not even a company website. 

I noticed once before that an advertising agency, Edelman, that had Anglo-American as a client, had visited a Pebble Mine related post..  And I've read that Edelman monitors the internet for their clients and even post comments.  I got a comment on that post not long after the Edelman hit that sounded suspiciously like a company flack hit job.


Here's the kind of thing I'm seeing:

http://whatdoino-ste...to-tok-in-13000.html
Greece  1:45
Turkey   1:45
Indonesia 1:46 

Here's what things looked like between 2:02pm (Alaska time) and 2:32pm yesterday.  I've left out eight hits that looked normal (I could see search terms or the links that got them here and they were all US or Canadian time zones.)  I do get various foreign hits every day, but these patterns are strange. (I also added in a couple before 2:02 that went to the same pages.)

From 2:02pm  to 2:32 pm

http://whatdoino-ste...g-so-well-these.html\
Venezuela 2:02  200.8.58.216
(There had been one from a Polish computer at 1:51, one from Chile at 1:53, one from Spain at 1:53;)

 http://whatdoino-ste...14/01/1972-book.html
Venezuela 2:06  190.79.100.245
Venezuela  2:10pm
Romania  2:11pm

 http://whatdoino-ste...g-so-well-these.html
Thai  2:06pm


http://whatdoino-ste...w-year-of-horse.html
Greek language 2:02pm 
????  - 2:07  11 hour time difference

http://whatdoino-ste...rday-films-benz.html
Mexico 2:07pm
UK (Brighton) 2:10pm
(There'd been one from Brazil at 1:55, and a French language one at 1:58)

http://whatdoino-ste...3_07_01_archive.html
Italy 2:08


http://whatdoino-ste...errymandered_15.html
Italy 2:08
Italy 2:10
Romania 2:13
(there had been one from Spain at 1:47pm and Venezuela at 1:48  201.243.123.246 ^?)

http://whatdoino-ste...lks-race-at-uaa.html
Turkey 2:13pm
Brazil  2:22 


http://whatdoino-ste...cidental-racist.html
???  2:18  11 hour time difference

 http://whatdoino-ste...eeting-victoria.html
Venezuela 2:13pm  201.209.4.13
Venezuela 2:26   190.79.8.59 ^?

 http://whatdoino-ste...gs-at-off-chain.html
Bangkok  2:18
Says USA, but the computer language is Russian and there's an 11 hour time difference 2:25   
(There had been one from Spain at 1:51pm)

 http://whatdoino-ste...o-start-and-end.html
Serbia 2:23 
Tunisia 2:32

http://whatdoino-ste...n-back-we-go-to.html
????  2:12   9 hour time difference
Macedonia 2:29 
(There'd been a Spanish language (es 41) at 1:54pm)
  I did check the IP addresses of some from Venezuela and as you can see they don't match, though two are really close.

Am I just being paranoid?  Is it just a mistake at Sitemeter?  Should I just be happy that suddenly my blog was discovered?  Or is someone messing with my blog?  

So, anyone have any ideas what's going on?  As I post this at 3:22pm I already have 962 hits today.  
 

"Welcome to the World of Miracles and Wonders" and Other Spam Comments

There's a lot of spam comments you don't see. They are caught by the Blogspot spam filter. And then there are those that get through, but I move into the spam box as soon as I see them. A while back I decided to save some and share them with you. Spam comments have gotten more sophisticated and, generally, the English has improved.

Mostly they tell me how nice, superb, amazing, or whatever the site is.

Then they want you to check out their site.  Sometimes, but not often, this is really just someone trying to get more hits on their personal site.  Usually it's from an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) company trying to get more hits for a commercial client.

I think my favorite among these is "I have an excited synthetic eye with regard to detail. . ."

Then there was the series of comments that give a first hand account of how good this particular Indian escort service was for him.  I even got some of these from China!  Imagine, India is outsourcing to China.  Bizarre.

Enjoy.  These come from Blogspot's list of my spam comments.  They cut out any links in the text, but they leave links in the id.  But I've removed them.  The links still there are to the posts on my blog that they were posted to.  

	Very nice post. I just stumbled upon your weblog and wanted to say that I've really enjoyed surfing around your blog posts. In any case I will be subscribing to your rss feed and I hope you write again very soon! Visit my site-> facebook password cracker on UAA Redistricting Panel and the Disappearing Panelists	Anonymous	at 2:21 PM
	Superb site you have here but I was curious if you knew of any message boards that cover the same topics talked about here? I'd really love to be a part of group where I can get comments from other experienced people that share the same interest. If you have any recommendations, please let me know. Thank you! My page; hack a twitter account on UAA Redistricting Panel and the Disappearing Panelists	Anonymous	on 11/5/13
	Heya just wanted to give you a brief heads up and let you know a few of the pictures aren't loading correctly. I'm not sure why but I think its a linking issue. I've tried it in two different browsers and both show the same results. Review my blog - blackbox rdp on Mandatory Winter Tire Bill	Anonymous	on 11/3/13
	Amazing blog! Do you have any recommendations for aspiring writers? I'm planning to start my own website soon but I'm a little lost on everything. Would you propose starting with a free platform like Wordpress or go for a paid option? There are so many options out there that I'm completely confused .. Any tips? Cheers! Feel free to visit my site on Ron Mueck Hyperreal Sculpture - Images To Stretch Your Mind	Anonymous	on 10/27/13
	We have look at your blog post post about Disposal of Sharps and i also were built with a useful and also knowledgeable advice through the website.this is a legitimate great post. Click Here on Disposal of Sharps, Artsy Waxed Cloth, and Adams, St. Helens, and Goat - PDX (and beyond) Sights	Natalie Caisse	on 10/27/13
	Greetings from Ohio! I'm bored to tears at work so I decided to check out your website on my iphone during lunch break. I love the information you present here and can't wait to take a look when I get home. I'm shocked at how quick your blog loaded on my cell phone .. I'm not even using WIFI, just 3G .. Anyways, very good blog! My web blog-> Get Twitter User Data Back on How Do We Screw You? Let Us Count The Ways - Are You in An Abusive Relationship With Your Credit Card Company?	Anonymous	on 10/20/13
	Wow, this paragraph is nice, my younger sister is analyzing these things, therefore I am going to convey her. My site on How Do We Screw You? Let Us Count The Ways - Are You in An Abusive Relationship With Your Credit Card Company?	Anonymous	on 10/20/13
	Thanks to my father who shared with me about this weblog, this website is in fact awesome. Feel free to surf to my homepage password cracker on East and West Finally Connected - Very Low Key Opening Of Campbell Creek Bike Trail Under Seward Highway	Anonymous	on 10/19/13
	Howdy this is somewhat of off topic but I was wondering if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML. I'm starting a blog soon but have no coding knowledge so I wanted to get guidance from someone with experience. Any help would be enormously appreciated! Here is my web pagethere Crack passwords on You Are My Editor And What Sitemeter Tells Me About You	Anonymous	on 10/17/13
	Hi, its nice piece of writing regarding media print, we all be familiar with media is a wonderful source of information. Stop by my blog posthere Recover Twitter Password Tutorial on Wind, Kitter, Candles	Anonymous	on 10/16/13
	Has anything ever bothered you in life? Do you have any problem you need to solve? A pending court case you want to resolve in your favor? Health, relationship and finance. Welcome to the world of miracles and wonders, there are supernatural treasure and power to liberate mankind from all afflictions. Why cant you live a life of your dream? Why must you work so hard and yet earn so little? Why cant you be happy with the one you love and desire or why cant the one you love reciprocate and appreciate that love? Why would the doctor tell you there is no solution or cure to your problems? Why would your lawyer say you stand no chance, that your case is hopeless? Have you been cheated by anyone or those owing you money refuse to pay back? Do you need a rapid job promotion in your place of work? You want to venture into politics? Now I understand certain things are hard to believe and comprehend, but all I ask from you is only 3 days and if you will follow my instructions and use the on The Alaska Parkinson's Rag - Gets National Accolades	Mariam	on 10/16/13
	I'm impressed, I have to say. Actually hardly ever do I encounter a weblog that's equally educative and entertaining, and let me inform you, you may have strike the nail on the head. Your concept is outstanding the issue is one thing that not sufficient individuals are speaking intelligently about. I am very joyful that I stumbled throughout this in my find for anything referring to this. dallas party bus dallas airport transportation on Rosa Parks' Bus, Kennedy Dallas Limo, Lincoln's Ford Theater Seat and More at Henry Ford Museum	Arturo Garcia	on 10/11/13
	This websitе was... how do I saу it? Relevаnt!! Finally I hаve fοund something which helpеd mе. Many thanks! My ωeb blοg - 5 Star Hotels In Pattaya on The Pros(e) and Cons of Computers Grading Essays	Anonymous	on 10/2/13
	What а infоrmаtion of un-аmbiguitу anԁ preserνeness of νaluablе κnоwleԁge οn the topіc of unexpected fеelings. my weblog - Resort in Thailand on Finnish Education - Focused on High Quality Education For All	Anonymous	on 10/2/13
	Be confident in yourself when interviewing for positions. When you are confident in your skills and abilities it will show through during the interview. Confidence and the ability to lead are qualities that employers look for. There are probably many eligible job seekers interviewing for the same position, so make sure that you stand out from the rest. Also visit my blog Non Profit Jobs on More Fred Douglass Intrigue - Fighting Prop 8 and Fake Descendents	Anonymous	on 10/2/13
	Thanks very nice blog! Take a look at my blog post ... stairlifts on How Many Years Did The Pony Express Last? And Other Tidbits From The Autry Center For The American West Part 1	Anonymous	on 10/2/13
	Never, ever lie on your resume, even if you think the truth is something that will never be discovered. If there is something in your past, you are not proud of, simply do not put it on your resume. You never know if the potential employer could somehow find out the truth. my site :: gis entry level jobs on Second Applicant Incredible: Laurel Hummel, Vet and Geographer	Anonymous	on 10/1/13
	Hi thеre cοlleagues, goоd piecе of writing and niсe uгging cοmmented at thiss place, I am reallу enjoying by these. Feel freе to surf to mу web site: file:///c:/users/rick/downloads/big boobs 3d 01 (4) wmv on Georgia O'Keeffe Caught With Porn and Other Mr. Fish Creations	Anonymous	on 10/1/13
	I have an excited synthetic eye with regard to detail and may anticipate complications before they will occur. Here is my weblog :: 清潔公司推薦 on Things Hanging In The Air	Anonymous	on 9/30/13
	hey nice post meh, I love your style of blogging here. this blog reminds me of an equally interesting blog on my reading list which is http://danieluyi.com . keep up the good work meh and also, please visit my blog and drop a comment even if it's a simple "nice post" reply. Regards on Cormorants Joined By Gull - Harlequin Duck and Spotted Towhee Too	Daniel Efosa Uyi	on 9/29/13
	Appreciate the recommendation. Will try it out. Check out my homepage minecraft 1.0 on Reinterpreting "Like A Deer In The Headlights"	Anonymous	on 9/29/13
	I do not drop many responses, but i did some searching and wound up here "Public Records Act Says "Shall Give On Request" NOT "Shall Give When They Get Around To It"". And I do have a few questions for you if you tend not to mind. Is it only me or does it appear like some of these remarks appear like coming from brain dead individuals? :-P And, if you are posting on additional sites, I would like to keep up with everything new you have to post. Would you make a list of the complete urls of your shared sites like your Facebook page, twitter feed, or linkedin profile? my blog :: password cracker on Public Records Act Says "Shall Give On Request" NOT "Shall Give When They Get Around To It"	Anonymous	on 9/28/13
	Hello friends I am Jas Das from Gujarat in India. I was in Kolkata and need the Escorts service then I search on Google and found the Swachhata pal Website. Swachhata pal high profile independent escorts in Kolkata .she is the perfect Girl for person who wants a real open mind independent girl experience in Kolkata. She make my wishes complete. I really happy that time when I was with her. on Bookshelf Porn	jay das	on 9/14/13
	Hello friends I am Jas Das from Gujarat in India. I was in Kolkata and need the Escorts service then I search on Google and found the Swachhata pal Website. Swachhata pal high profile independent escorts in Kolkata .she is the perfect Girl for person who wants a real open mind independent girl experience in Kolkata. She make my wishes complete. I really happy that time when I was with her. on Visiting A Well-To-Do Thai Home - 1919	jay das	on 9/14/13
	Hello friends I am Jas Das from Gujarat in India. I was in Kolkata and need the Escorts service then I search on Google and found the Swachhata pal Website. Swachhata pal high profile independent escorts in Kolkata .she is the perfect Girl for person who wants a real open mind independent girl experience in Kolkata. She make my wishes complete. I really happy that time when I was with her. on Condom Law For Porn Films Doesn't Violate Free Speech, But . . .	jay das	on 9/14/13
	I am really satisfy with the services of Independent Escorts in Kolkata girl provide me, the selection of that independent agency have world class, that agency have all type of girl, and also you can get 18 to 35 year old beautiful girl from Independent escorts In Kolkata. Darei was awesome to me, she is very young only 18 year old girl, provide full erotic services to make customers happy and satisfy. She is awesome real independent escorts in Kolkata, she is Hi Profile Escorts Near Eden Gardens Kolkata on Bookshelf Porn	sonu shugh	on 9/2/13
	I was looking for beautiful girl escort on during my official meeting in Delhi for spending my free time, and for make me happy, so I search about independent Delhi Escorts Services online and got the many awesome websites, Shilpioberoi.com is one of them. That’s night can’t forget when I was with stunning girl Shilpi Oberoi, she is real independent lady staying in Delhi, she is only 20 year old pretty girl, I amazed the services she provided me. I was totally in heaven. Thanks Shilpi Oberoi on Bookshelf Porn [Feedburner note:  This was published at 10:15am on Nov. 7 and my email telling me it was posted is dated Nov. 8 at 2:40am.  There's already another post up, but it hasn't gotten picked up yet through Feedburner.]]

Jury Duty Day 2 And More Feedburner Complaints

As I said at the end of the last post, I didn't have to go in today and it was a beautiful day.  Worked at home most of the time.  Called in today and they don't need any jurists tomorrow.

I'm still a lot frustrated by feedburner not pinging other blogs in a timely way.  Here's an example of what I mean.  This is the Blog List from  Off and On The Alaskan Parkinson Blog 

I posted that at about 6pm yesterday and it only got to other blogs around noon today. [UPDATE 11:30pm Actually, I put that post up twice to see if the second one might be picked up when the first one wasn't.  I didn't check which one the links went to.  I would guess the second one would have been picked up and so the first one - had it been a different post altogether - never would have made it to the other blogs for their readers to link from.]   For a lot of posts, it probably doesn't matter, but if I'm posting something timely, it does.  Or if I post several posts in a day, they may not all get up.  I'm trying different things, and there are some instructions from feedburner about the code I could fix.  If I understood the html code well enough to be sure I wouldn't make things worse.


And then sometimes it works right away.  Grrrrrrr. [UPDATE 9pm:  This one seems to have gotten up pretty quickly.  The first person I can see through Sitemeter getting to this post from another blog was about 45 minutes after it was posted.  So it worked fine this time.  What about next time?  I'll start keeping track on the posts until it either goes away on its own or I figure out how to fix it.]

The Vagaries Of Google For Bloggers

Yesterday I began getting hits for something I posted a year and a half ago:

Friday, February 03, 2012

Nobodyhere: Digital Genius - The Most Brilliant Website I've Ever Experienced

This happens now and then.  Somehow a photo or a post moves up on google's algorithm and people start showing up at the blog.  Sitemeter, less and less frequently, shows me the actual search terms people used.  I'm not sure why, but I don't fret over it.

In the Nobodyhere case, people were coming using google, but not one of the sitemeter reports showed the search term.  I googled "Nobodyhere" but What Do I Know didn't show up.

This morning they were still coming.  This time I tried "The Most Brilliant Website" and bingo, the Nobodyhere post showed up number 5 on google. 

I really don't know for sure what that means either since google personalizes the searches and so when I search I'll get a different list than others will get.  And I don't know why, seemingly out of the blue, this post suddenly got a more prominent placement.  Sometimes, when I suddenly get hits for a specific post - often about a person - it indicates to me that the person is in the news.  I can google a bit and find out what's happened - they were appointed to a new position, they've been arrested, or there's some other new story about them.  But this one was more like the time when my post about J's broken ankle suddenly (like overnight), a year or so later, was getting lots of hits.  At that time, a picture of an ankle that I borrowed (with attribution) suddenly got near the top on google image search.  But that one had search terms attached.  I could see what people googled.  The oddest part about this one is that none have had search terms. 

People from around the world finding that post through google:

East Brunswick, New Jersey; Cebu City, Philippines; Jakarta, Indonesia; Songkhla, Thailand; Winter Park, Florida; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Brampton, Canada are a few of the locations. 

Blog Musings

When I first started blogging I did quite a few posts about my attempts to figure out how to use this blogging medium and my minor struggles and triumphs.  I was learning about blogging and that was a fair topic to cover.  It got me assistance some times and perhaps helped other bloggers.  And I thought it was important for readers who are not bloggers to understand what was going on behind the scenes.

My posts about the process of blogging have been much less frequent lately, in part because I got comfortable with the tools I was using and stopped stretching and learning new tricks.  I'm somewhat ok with that because it allows me to concentrate on other content.  But getting comfortable is also a bad sign.  It means I'm not learning.  And I do need to pay more attention to making the blog more usable.

I've come to realize that I've got a lot of posts (over 4000)  here - google hits to old posts is one way I get the point - including some that are pretty good.  I need to help readers find some of those Golden Oldies - probably using the tabs on top - like the tabs for the Redistricting Board and the Anchorage International Film Festival.  This (these?) tab would give some better organization and guidance to other topics I've covered over the years, but not in the same concentrated way as the Board and the Festival.

I'm telling you all this as a way of committing myself publicly to do it.  So bug me if you don't see any progress in the next couple of months.

Meanwhile go visit the Nobodyhere post.  Or just go directly to the site by clicking on the image below which I took from Nobodyhere. 

 

It's a unique site by a sick (in a brilliantly and positive way) mind in, I'm guessing, Holland.  It's interactive and fun. 

You Are My Editor And What Sitemeter Tells Me About You

I once lamented to an Anchorage Daily News reporter that I needed an editor and the reply was, "You don't want an editor!"  I was thinking about someone who would correct my typos and flat out mistakes.  The reporter was thinking of someone who made assignments and set deadlines and cut out things the reporter didn't want cut out.  I guess freedom from an editor, on the whole, is better than getting my typos corrected.

And I have readers who help with the typos.  AKHarpboy leaves comments or sends emails when he catches something.  My mom used to let me know about mistakes when she could still read the blog regularly.  And others chip in now and then and I just want to say thank you.

I also get some unintentional editors - people who come to the site and get to a page that has a typo or needs updating.  Every now and then I'll see that someone went to a page and I can't remember what it was about and I'll look and be appalled to see a glaring typo. (I can tell on Sitemeter where people go.  I've left it open for anyone to look at so you can see what computers know about you.  It's down on the right side column below Blogs Of Friends Or Acquaintances and above Labels.  Just click on the number.)

Here's the page they got me to update the post on people born in 2011.  Vietnamese General Giap was, at that time still alive at 100.   I'd heard the news the other day that General Giap had died and when I saw this inquiry, I realized I needed to update the post.

Here's what that user looked like on my Sitemeter.   (The links don't work because this is a screen shot.)  If you click on the Sitemeter link on the right, click on any of the categories under 'recent visitors' and then click on a number, you'll get a page like this.  Not every page has all the information, I'm not completely sure why, though I know if you browse through a proxy server - this link offers you some examples - you can clean your tracks to some degree. 

 Another post I try to keep current is the one on the number of African-Americans in Congress. This time, though, I was aware there was a likely new Black US Senator and made the changes as they were happening.

Visit Length is often a misleading category.  I've been told that it only has the time until the last page visited.  So if someone only looks at one page, it says '0'.   Experts say there is no way to know how long someone has been there unless they click on something else.  So, if someone visited only one page but clicked out on a link, it would tell me how long she'd been there until she did the link.

But there is a section called "Who's On?" (left column near the top).  That tells me the time they got there.  So even if they've only been on one page, but they are still there I can tell they've been there, say five minutes.  Why can't trackers use that to calculate how long they've been just on one page?  I'm sure it just hasn't been a priority for anyone.

Anyway, to my many editors, THANKS!  You make this a better blog.  Keep those corrections coming in. 

Odds and Ends

I've got a backlog of things I want to post.  Here's a preview of what I'm hoping to get up:

Election night I was an observer when they brought the voting machines and materials to election headquarters.  I've got pictures and some video plus comments on how things went.  Generally it seems well organized, but there are lots of places where unscrupulous people could mess with the system if they wanted to.

The Citizens Climate Lobby had its monthly meeting Saturday and heard from Dr Wendy Hill on the health consequences of global climate change.  Then on Thursday I went with CCL Anchorage coordinator Jim Thrall to meet with the news manager and meteorologists at Channel 11 to discuss how they cover climate change issues on the air.  We also had an Alaska climate expert from Fairbanks there by phone.

Chinese class continues to consume lots of time.  I do want to write about some of this.  Particularly how much easier it is to study Chinese in 2012 than it was in just 2003.  Take a look at Yellowbridge.com to see part of the reason. 

I've gotten a new page up on top here for the 2012 Anchorage International Film Festival.  It's a guide to the festival including links to some old posts - FAQ's for the festival and Film Festival for Skeptics.

And Sitemeter is down again.  Not a good sign.  Something is going wrong there and the comments on my recent post about Sitemeter do show that people aren't very tolerant of problems.  It would help if Sitemeter would reach out and let people know what's happening.  They have their users' email addresses.  I'm starting to check with Google Analytics, but I really don't like their layout compared to Sitemeter.  Someone recommended StatCounter in the comments and that looks good.

Oh yeah, I was at UAA earlier this week and was reminded of all the things going on there - particularly speakers who are available to the public.  Here are some posters - two are already over and two are still coming.










Sorry, this one is over already, but I thought I'd put it up anyway.  Same with the next one.

Sorry, this one is a little small (it's just an 8X11 sheet) but it hints at why it's good to have universities around and people researching different options that can help create new energy options and jobs.

Click any of them to enlarge them a little.

This one is coming a week from Monday.  This is through the Confucius Institute at UAA and our Chinese teacher said he's a really great calligrapher.  

And this one is this coming Monday.  Fallows is one of our (the USA) best journalists.  (The link goes to his Atlantic Monthly blog which is very entertaining and this latest post raises similar thoughts to the ones I raised about the Fiscal Cliff.)  He spent a lot of time in Japan and wrote very insightful articles for the Atlantic.  He's also spent time more recently in China.  I have a book club meeting Monday so I'm going to miss this, but it should be outstanding and it's free to the public (free parking too.) 

Deborah Fallows is here too and they will both be at   the UAA bookstore on Monday at noon.




There was one more that I forgot:

Other things I probably won't post about:

Met with some of my new UAA faculty group over lunch and we'll meet again next week with two faculty union reps.

The Alaskan Apple User Group met Wednesday night.

Reviewing a paper for an academic journal.

Trying to help a few people connect with the right people to get out of their jams.

And there are always the clutter wars here at home, though I've generally neglected them lately.  I did clear this morning's snow from the driveway and sidewalk.  And I'm a little sore from taking a spill on the bike this afternoon.  I guess mountain tires aren't enough.  I need to get studs.



UPDATE:  Thanks to reader DH for the editing help.  Sometimes I do get tired and lazy.