March madness
So, March was a fun month on the blog front! For some reason, I’ve been post-happy, with 41 posts in March alone, or 1.32 posts per day. The previous high was in January when I posted as often as I took my daily vitamins, an even 31 posts.
Traffic was also high, with the second highest monthly total for page impressions (67,511; 2,177 per day) and by far the highest number of visits (19,764; 637 per day), dwarfing the previous monthly high of 13,846 back in July 2005.
The most popular single post visited in March was Pastas, maybe in part thanks to a direct link from Alan some time ago.
Search terms included the ever-present Beckhams (searches for Brooklyn Beckham directed people here 187 times; Romeo accounted for a further 20), PAS 78, lots of Deal or No Deal formula-related traffic and Karl Pilkington’s diary. Also, lots of recent interest in the corn on the cob card, which I’d forgotten about.
And the international community is loving it, the most visiting countries being the US, Costa Rica (?), the UK, Australia, Brazil and Argentina. India, Canada, Japan and Holland complete the top ten, Holland accounting for just over 200 hits.
The total post count has crept up to 432, or 300 if we’re working base 12! That’s a decimal average of 0.682 posts per day since it all started on 6 July 2004 (0.823 in twelvimal).
osirra.com, now brought to you in three senses
My friend Francis has come up with the idea of creating what I’m calling blogcasts, and what he’s calling Robocasts. Basically, it’s a podcast of your blog using automated speech software, delivered through an RSS feed; he’s using me as a guinea pig for the initiative. Here is the feed (the posts are not in the right order, for some reason – that’s me raising a bug, Francis), while an example mp3 file can be found here.
Please feel free to subscribe to the feed so that I can accompany you with my thoughts on your respective journeys to work. Happy listening!
With Braille hardware, this site is available through the sense of touch, as well as sight and sound. I now have to figure out how to deliver against the two remaining sense: taste and smell.
Another double-meaning headline from the BBC
Here’s another confusing headline from the BBC: BBC used to entice cyber victims. Are they using the past tense (I used to, you used to, he or she used to), or is it the present, with an inferred is?
e-Accessibility in the UK government
This BBC article, currently getting top billing in technology, highlights some research showing poor levels of e-Accessibility in government. Disappointing to say the least.
I’m proud, however, that Directgov is held up as an example of how things should be done. AA, I’m not sure, but certainly up there with the best! Awesome, in the American sense of the word.
UK government websites and direct.gov.uk
Yesterday, I created my first Wikipedia entry, presumably increasing the total number of English articles to 1,049,001. I’ve dabbled in editing existing articles before, correcting grammar and adding information where I thought it lacking; but this was my first page creation.
If you can’t find a page that you think deserves a place, you simply type in the desired title, complete with spaces, in the browser’s address bar after the http://en.wikipedia.org/. You’re then invited to create your content. Really simple!
The page I added is called UK government websites. There didn’t seem to be a consolidated list out there of all gov.uk domains, so I created one. The e-Government Unit within the Cabinet Office is responsible for administering such domains (over 3,000), but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t publish the exhaustive list. The page I’ve created is not yet exhaustive; it’s a result of searching on Google for the word the within gov.uk domains. (That should pick up most, right?) I then took the first 500 results, de-duped, suppressed local government sites (there are a few sources already out there that list these) and sorted by domain.
There are some that tickled me while manipulating the data. First of all, the DTLR still has a landing page, despite being disbanded five years ago. Then there’s www.darwin.gov.uk (dedicated to bizarre deaths in government?) and www.magic.gov.uk, that presumably gives you untold benefits and tax deductions. Actually, the latter seems to represent a government department created for the purpose of fulfilling an acronym. Then there’s the Farriers Registration Council (I kid you not), NetRegs (its site didn’t seem to tell me what NetRegs is short for), the Office of the Queen’s Printer for Scotland (I can’t find an English equivalent), RedBox (careful, the Back button doesn’t work when you get there!) and the Tanzania Online High Commission, commission spelt incorrectly in the title bar of its site.
I’ve already been told that there’s at least one missing: www.hedgehogs.gov.uk. If you notice anything missing, please feel free to update the page. I’d like this list to become as comprehensive as possible.
Apparently, there’s a big push going on at the moment to promote Directgov. I project managed the site’s technical implementation through Spring 2004, and in the meantime it has steadily increased its draw, attracting over 2m visitors in February.
Its main stumbling block is that it’s competing for traffic against the rest of government, within which branding is all over the place – the above analysis begins to highlight the issues it faces. One thing I didn’t mention is that on visiting these sites, rarely are any two consistent in their look and feel or behaviour. Often, campaign sites are created so that an advertising campaign can be supported by a call to action, further diluting the enormously powerful brand that government could realise.
The list of government websites should serve as an overdue warning to the government’s brand custodians, should these people exist. Directgov offers an ideal opportunity for the government to re-group under a single, orange umbrella, in the process hopefully reducing the length of the list I created. This is one example where less is indeed more.
Bad web browser bug gets patched
This is the BBC’s headline for its article about Microsoft releasing a patch for the latest IE vulnerability. Not sure which noun bad refers to. Maybe some subtle editorial humour going on in the newsroom today.
Where to sit on a train
Back in the UK, when I used to catch an evening train from London to Leeds to see the folks, I used to request a rear-facing window seat at a table, on the left-hand side of the train in a non-smoking carriage. A table was preferable to looking at the back of someone else’s seat; I felt that rear-facing was a safer way to travel (or should I say a safer way to crash – no evidence to back this up, just a hunch); I prefer to be by the window than have passers-by nudge be as they walk past; and the left-hand side would offer me the opportunity to appreciate the descending sun on the northbound journey.
Nowadays, I get an eastbound morning train to work. It’s a first-come first-served seating system, so I hunt for a window seat facing in the direction of travel on the right side of the train, in a row where I face other passengers, in the carriage that alights at the optimal spot on the destination platform. The rationale for the window and facing other passengers has not changed; I face the direction of travel so that there’s no glare on my laptop from the rising sun; and I sit on the right so that I can appreciate the same sun rising.
I’m sure most other people have criteria for choosing their seats, but most of them will likely be based on the proximity of other people (or lack thereof). Maybe mine are unique.
What are you looking at?
Each morning, I have a train journey of just over an hour. Before I leave home, I log on so that I can pick up any recent mail, check the weather to inform my clothing choice for the day, pop into BBC News, and check my RSS feeds.
Social networking allows you to liken yourself with others, people with similar interests or behaviours. Wouldn’t it be nice if, in addition to downloading my standard RSS feeds, my PC could pick up the URLs that these people had recently visited and had highlighted as being of interest. Not necessarily something that they’d thought blog-worthy, but something they’d stumbled upon and actively marked as worth sharing (via a Firefox extension?). StumbledUpon is the kind of place where this sort of thing belongs, or maybe Technorati.
Imagine: not a great track
I had a documentary on in the background this evening entitled Imagine: John Lennon. You can probably guess the subject matter.
Anyway, it signed off with the version of Imagine in which Lennon, wearing white, sits at a white piano in an otherwise empty white room with floor-to-ceiling windows.
I have to say, the song can only be described as foundering. Maybe this post will become a Googlewhack, through the words imagine and foundering.
Tomorrow, I will begin critiquing Michelangelo’s Creation of Man.
US tax return: a pleasing experience
Last night, I finally got around to completing my US tax return, given a looming deadline of 10 April. I say tax return. It should really be plural, as I had to file a Federal one, along with two state returns, one for my state of employment and one for my state of residency. Anyway, all in all, it was rather a pleasing experience. Here are some highlights.
First of all, an excerpt from a statement by the IRS commissioner:
American taxpayers made history in 2005. For the first time, over half of all individuals filed their tax returns electronically. More than 68 million people "e-filed".
Quite an impressive achievement!
Last year I got an accountant to sort it all out, given that I was relatively new to the country, and had little idea what I needed to complete, less still how to complete it.
While this cost me, the help was invaluable. The most useful thing she did (apart from the filing itself) was to give me a full copy of everything she filed, both for my records and so that I could copy her work this time around. It was relatively straightforward to use last year’s W2 and tax return, along with this year’s W2, to figure out this year’s tax return. It was kind of like a set of equations: I was substituting this year’s values of x (items on this year’s W2) and constants (e.g. standard deductions), where I had been given the relationship between x (items on last year’s W2) and y (items on last year’s tax return).
The software (I used TurboTax) was very simple to use, although the lure cost of $9.95 for the Federal return was augmented with a healthy $24.95 per state thereafter (cunningly communicated after I’d done the hard work), taking my total bill up to $59.85. I assume that’s tax deductible next year.
The most satisfying aspect was that there was little authentication; specifically, there was no pre-processing to the actual filing that I needed to go through. I didn’t need to register for a password and await its delivery.
It seems that the only authentication they needed was my correctly inputting a specified amount from my previous year’s Federal return. If I entered this correctly, then it assumed that I was who I said I was, and that no one else would be willing to solicit this information for the sake of completing the tax return on my behalf.
Cops in hunt for donuts
Every so often, traffic and pedestrians using a street or avenue in Manhattan are forced to a standstill. This is because a crazy number of police cars (well over 50) are heading in convoy down said street/avenue, flashing their lights and whooping their sirens. Traffic is forced to the sides of the road, while pedestrians can’t cross for an age, even when the white man is showing.
Church Street is a favourite for this futile pastime, as is the West Side Highway, the venue for tonight’s escapade.
There’s no obvious reason for their doing this: no armoured truck for them to defend, no presidential motorcade to escort. Somewhere, there’s a donut shop awaiting their imminent arrival.
Conditional minimums in Excel
Simon asked me today how to return the lowest positive value from a horizontal range in Excel. Given that there’s no MINIF function, at first I struggled. (Create an interim series and work off that – not very elegant.)
Then I re-phrased the question: how do you return the Nth lowest value in a range? Ah, we can do that with the little-known SMALL function. And can we find N? Sure we can, using the COUNTIF function.
So, the following formula gets you what you want:
=SMALL([range],COUNTIF([range],"<0")+1)
From the range, count the number of non-positive values, add 1 (the result being N), and return the Nth lowest value.
Beautiful, even if I do say so myself!
Tea-bags and pearl necklaces
I can’t believe that I missed the references to the above in my first reading of the Department of Justice’s verdict on the Google vs. government case. Sure enough, in the footnotes on page eight, both are referenced, the former not relating to traditionally British drinks, the latter having little to do with jewellery, as far as I can tell.
Delay to Windows Vista
If you want an event to be delayed, then let me know what it is along with its due date, and I’ll put it in my Countdown module over on the right, complete with a trailing question-mark.
First, the Shuttle’s launch was delayed. Now, Andy Helm has pointed out that Windows Vista has been pushed back by six months to January 2007. Everything I’ve questioned so far has been proven optimistic.
Transportation in Manhattan
Manhattan’s transport system truly is a work of art, but like that of many big cities, the only feedback you hear comes in the form of complaints.
Basing the road system on a grid makes for simple journeys; numbering rather than naming the streets may avoid some of the charm that accompanies London, but it certainly makes life easier – there is no equivalent of The Knowledge for New York taxi drivers. The accompanying one-way system and synchronisation of traffic-lights up and down the avenues helps keep the city flowing.
Beneath ground, the artistry doesn’t stop. There are two mainline train stations: Grand Central Terminus feeding the north and Penn Station feeding Jersey and Long Island. There are over 40 platforms at Grand Central, over 20 at Penn. Yet you rarely see trains or tracks in Manhattan, save some interweaving of lines with roads north of Central Park.
There are weaknesses with the subway system (it’s confusing to the novice, there’s little coverage on the Upper East Side, accessibility is a serious problem), but it’s efficient and relatively reliable, save the odd strike.
It’s human nature to complain about what you have (everything could be better), but considering the complexity of the system and the fact that it serves many million people every day, it’s hugely impressive. The same is true of London’s system: people are too quick to complain when a train is late or a diversion is in place. True, they could both be better, but once in a while, you should step back and marvel.
Google Finance
So, Google Finance has launched. Although he’s likely to be biased, Matt Cutts highlighted a clear benefit. If you search for a company name, you don’t get an error indicating that you’ve not entered a ticker symbol. Instead, you either get the finance page you were looking for or a list of close matches. Simple, yet so effective.
The draggable maps are elegant and neat (try flicking between the zoom levels and tell me that ain’t sweet!), but maybe more cool than useful.
John Battelle raises some good points, one of these being the fact that Google is slowly intervening in its own search results through its own content offerings – generally for the better, but intervening nonetheless. Keywords such as map, convert and calculate keep you within the Google world. Search for a ticker symbol on google.com (or .co.uk for that matter), and the first result returned is the one from Google Finance. Whether this ethos goes against its core values is another question.
Experienced Polish Woman
We received a flyer under our door earlier today. Under the headline House Cleaning came the following supporting bullet
- Experienced Polish Woman
Due to the capitalisation of each opening letter, I’m not sure whether she’s Eastern European or particularly nifty with the duster.
Worst primary navigation on the internet
I’ve just found the worst primary navigation on the internet. It’s on a site called Britain USA, maintained by the Public Affairs Team of the British Embassy in Washington DC.
The primary navigation that sits atop the entire site consists of a set of images that stereotypically typify Britain, each of which links to a page on the site. Each has an alt text (which is one thing, I suppose), but for those using Firefox, this doesn’t show up on hover (rightly so), leaving you to guess where you might be taken. Here are the images and their destinations.
- Carnarvon Castle (I think): takes you to a page about Wales
- London Eye pod and St. Stephen’s Tower: tourist information (why of course)
- Tennis balls: culture, sport and leisure
- Prince William: the British Royal Family
- Some tartan socks: Scotland
- A bag of fish and chips: food and drink
- A London Underground sign: "Bringing a pet to Britain". Huh?
- The door of Number 10: UK system of government.
Overall, a thoroughly dreadful experience.
Search comparison: CenSEARCHip
Some people have come up with ways of comparing the results of Google’s .com and .cn engines, but here’s the best I’ve seen so far by the Infomatics department at Indiana University.
Allowing comparisons between any two of .cn, .fr, .de and .com (why no .co.uk?), it then creates keyword clouds representing the top ten results from each. It even allows you to do a comparative image search, the images appearing on either side of the screen. An image search for tiananmen is somewhat revealing.
Search anomalies
Some amusing search anomalies on Google of late, both of which still exist at the time or writing. Search google.com for liar and the first result returned is the biography of our beloved Prime Minister; from the Number 10 site itself! Here’s a screenshot if they’ve since "fixed" the problem.
And search for ashley cole and you get a nice prompt asking whether you want to show results for ashley cole gay midway down the screen.
The former was due to a link bomb, which has linked a whole bunch of liar-related pages to Tony’s bio. The latter is due to the number of articles containing that combination of words, no doubt fuelled further by this post.