Google Analytics

As this blog nears its first birthday, I thought I'd share some of the Google Analytics statistics from the last 12 months. Although Google Analytics is far from perfect, as it misses all the RSS readers, and anyone like me who runs NoScript, it does provide a pretty graphical view of traffic.

The visitor overview below shows that throughout the year we're averaging about 10 visitors a day, with the obvious spike in interest after Rosalie's birth in July.




The dashboard view below for the last month bears this out with some interesting stats on Pages/Visit, average time on site etc. Of course, the accuracy of these figures are limited by the manner in which they are gathered - for example a single visit may be read for a while, but will always be recorded as 0 seconds if the next page is off-site, but these are standard deficiencies in web analytics.




One graph I always like to check out is the Map Overlay, below the city view is shown. This blog has been viewed on all continents, and from 52 countries. A warm welcome to all readers in Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, Chile, United Arab Emirates and Senegal. Just why there was a visit from Quantico, Virginia, USA is still a mystery to me - what interest could the FBI, Marine Corps or the Drug Enforcement Administration have in me? Surely not my harsh stance on copy protection mechanisms for Digital Media :-)




On a lighter note, it's fun to see what browsers visitors to this site are using. Internet Exploder remains the top weapon of mass distraction, but at just over 33%, Firefox is gaining ground.




BTW, it's not depicted here but the OS split is 94%, 5% and 1% for Windows, Mac and Linux respectively. There's still some work to do for Linux on the desktop ;-)

Secure your USB Stick

If like me you like to carry sensitive data around on a USB stick you'll know the following two facts:

1. It's incredibly useful to have your data with you.
2. It's only a matter of time before you misplace the USB stick.

In order for this to be not a drama, you need to have the sensitive data encrypted. I've been using truecrypt for this purpose for a while, and it's a fantastic solution, with one major drawback - you need administrator privileges on the host machine - mostly not possible on client sites.

So I was glad to hear on the latest Security Now about omziff, a little non-installing app which can be used to encrypt and decrypt files. Simply download the exe, encrypt your sensitive data, pop the encrypted file plus the omziff.exe file onto your USB stick and you're good to go.

The feature set is not large, but what's there is done well. All the major modern open encryption standards are covered (e.g. Blowfish, IDEA, Rijndael, Twofish), and make no mistake, encryption with one of these algorithms is safe.

An extra feature which I really like is the shredder, which eliminates your sensitive files from the host machine after use, by writing random characters over the disk space multiple times. This is a program to help you sleep at night :-)

Apps for a new machine

As mentioned in the previous post, I just got my hands on a new Lenovo laptop courtesy of my new employer, and I thought I'd post details on my priority apps that I installed asap. And to you, Mr Concerned-IT-Helpdesk-Guy, please look away now...

1. Firefox: Unlike 62.84% of visitors to this site, I do not like to use Internet Exploder for browsing. I appreciate that version 7 is improved, and it's not as unsafe as it once was, but I simply prefer the Firefox experience. BTW, extensions NoScript, Foxmarks, Googlepedia, PasswordMaker, Cookiesafe, GSpace and GUtil are as important to me as the original program.

2. Google Pack: A bit of a cheat this, as it includes many must-haves such as Adobe Reader, Google Earth, Picasa, Skype, Google Photos Screensaver, etc. A no-brainer, though I don't take the browser toolbar or the spyware stuff, as I prefer other options for those.

3. iTunes: I listen to a lot of podcasts, and it's simply the best PC experience to doing so. One downer is the migration of iTunes playlists and account from one computer to another - not as nice as it should be.

4. PureText: This little app is just so elegant, it's no wonder Microsoft never thought of it themselves. Don't you mostly prefer just to cut and paste text, and not the surrounding formatting junk? Especially between Office apps, this is great. Cannot recommend highly enough.

5. FreePDF XP: The kind folks in the IT department included a PDF generator in my software load, but it doesn't measure up. FreePDF simply works in a simple, intuitive and useful way.

There are other apps which I'll install over the coming weeks and months, but these are to me the important ones. If you know of further great apps and/or Firefox extensions, please let me know in the comments.

2007 - a review

Since this blog is nearing its first birthday, I thought a review of 2007 would save me the trouble of reviewing the first blog year ;-)

One event which hit us pretty hard in January was Hurricane Kyrill, which damaged our roof. The roofer took his sweet time to do the repairs, but fortunately this was covered by our insurance company. January did have its upside though, my sister Fiona had her third boy, Oran, who has proved to be a most agreeable little chap.

In February we attended an assortment of Fasching events including the TraBü Ball and Albertus Saal Prunksitzung. I like to think that I'm well integrated into German society because I can withstand such punishment to my sense of humour ;-)

Skiing was not a family option this year due to pregnancy, but I did manage to get in a weekend with my father in Mayrhofen in March, which was fun. Then over Easter we visited Amsterdam with Hans-Günther, Tina and some other Kurpfälzer Trabanten. This was a lot of fun up to the train home, when Liam got sick after a dodgy sausage. Suffice to say he used up 4 sets of clothing on the way home, and Tina never asked for the towel back which we wrapped him in for the last hour.

Heike and Liam celebrated their birthdays in April. Liam had taken possession of his main present of a Laufrad early, but it was only by about his birthday that he really began to master it. Google "Youtube Liam Laufrad" to find video evidence of his antics.

By the time summer came around Heike was not enjoying the heat. So there was relief as well as joy when Rosalie arrived on the 16th July. The high point of this year for us as well as the traffic on this website.

In August Corina and Christoph got married, and over various weekends Doireann, Aedamair and my parents visited us. Then, after only six weeks, Rosalie's status of youngest grandchild was usurped by Alannah Conneely.

The last few weeks have been pretty busy -we were over in Dublin at the end of November for my 20-year school reunion, then two weeks later the whole Cassidy clan descended on Heidelberg for Rosalie's christening. Then Xmas, which was great for the kids, Liam got the hang of the whole present-opening thing pretty quickly.

These are just the highlights, I encourage you to trawl through the blog for further tidbits.

We wish you all a happy New Year!

Macartan, Heike, Liam and Rosalie

Microsoft PowerToy Alt-Tab Replacement

Here's a useful tip from the Lifehacker guys. Normal use of Alt-Tab enables you to switch applications with an icon, so that e.g. 2 instances of Word are indistinguishable. Installing the Microsoft PowerToy Alt-Tab Replacement enables you to see a mini-screenshot of the app window, making the choice easier.

Here's the direct link to the Microsoft Download.

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British History Timeline

The BBC has a fantastic interactive timeline view of British history here. Take a look around, it's very imformative, starting from 6000 BC (Britain becomes separated from the European mainland) and going up to Dec 2005 (Civil partnerships give same-sex couples legal rights).







I was especially interested in the 1666-1714 timescale, as this is the time period dealt with in Neal Stephenson's "Baroque Cycle" trilogy, of which I'm currently reading the final book, "The System of the World".

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European Railways to Challenge Discount Airlines (we can hope)

Spiegel amongst others are reporting on the Railteam consortium's attempts to stem the tide of budget airlines stealing their passenger (English version here). The idea is simple enough, rail companies from Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands and Belgium along with British operator Eurostar plan to co-operate on ticketing, connections and customer reward packages, in order to make the European cross-border rail experience competitive.

Sounds like a great idea, which I support fully. However, I think these guys have their work cut out for them. A quick visit to www.bahn.de reveals that I cannot book a return to Paris this weekend, because the advance order deadline has passed. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, then tried to book the following weekend, i.e. travelling 8 days in the future. The website couldn't calculate a price, even after taking my BahnCard and age into account. If I really had wanted to travel to Paris, I guess I would have had to physically go to the station and buy a ticket. Scary inefficiency in an online world.

This is not just a problem between Germany and France. I tried to book a train journey from Munich to the Dolomites for my father last year, the online rail booking was terrible, enabling me only to buy a ticket to Venice! Even on the train things are more chaotic than necessary - recently on the way back from Amsterdam to Heidelberg I overheard the following surreal conversation between conductor and an unsuspecting American passenger:

(P): To Frankfurt please, here's my credit card.

(C): You have to pay 29 Euros cash, as I can only charge a credit card for the German leg of the journey.

(P): I have no Euro cash, just the credit card.

(C): Then dollars or off at the next station.

(P): ???

I wish the Railteam consortium luck in sorting out this mess.

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Robot Recipes

The Register is reporting about a DIY robot kit, funded by, amongst others, Google, Microsoft and Intel. El Reg sells the story as a high-tech conspiracy to take over our living rooms with self-build cyborgs. In actual fact, the Telepresence Robot Kit (TeRK) project seems rather quaint. There are even a number of Recipes for robots to try out at home.

For example, you can build the Qwerkbot Classic:





or go for the more advance Qwerkbot+:





If anyone builds one of these things, please let me know how it goes.

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Podiobooks

After getting the tip about Podiobooks from net@nite #17, I've been trying out Podiobooks. The concept is pretty simple: an audio book released on an RSS feed like a podcast. The price is compelling, yes, it's free, i.e. ad-supported.

Scott Sigler was the author interviewed, he had written and agreed publishing terms for Earthcore in 2001, but after the September 11 attacks the publisher clammed up. Desperate to get published, he started reading the book himself as a podcast in 2005 on Podiobooks. Now an established author, he has several other books for sale, see his website. Amazingly, he says his ad-generated income from Podiobooks is still higher than that which he gets from selling paper copies!

This kind of cutting out the middleman is exactly what the internet is good at, and it's great to see it succeed without any DRM or other nasty stuff. I'll go the same way with my novel, whenever I get around to writing one ;-)

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Google Reader

As many of you know, I'm a bit of a Google fanboy, using as I do GMail, Google Talk, Google Earth, Google Analytics, Blogger, Picasa, Calendar, and of course Search in all its forms. Thus it may not come as a surprise that I'm very impressed with the Google RSS Reader. Even so, I like it so much that I feel I have to recommend it.
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and basically enables you to subscribe to news and blogs without visiting each site. This blog for example, can be read entirely by pasting the URL "http://www.macartan.de/rss.xml" into a news reader. The news reader then fetches the updates as soon as I post them, which is much more convenient that manually checking my site each day.
There are many web-based and client RSS readers available these days, see here for a list. Up to a few weeks ago, I used a combination of Thunderbird and Firefox, and was very happy with both.
Then I stumbled upon the Google Reader. Like most Google products, it's browser-based, so there's no need to install anything. All you need is a Google account. Then add a few feeds and away you go. You don't even need to know the feed URL, e.g. for this feed just click "Add subscription", type "macartan.de", and the Reader finds the URL for you.
The beauty of the web-based system is that regardless of what machine you happen to be using, your feeds are always there, and the read items always synced. The integration with Firefox 2.0 is particularly smooth, so that Reader Subscribe and Next buttons can easily be placed on the Task bar. There's even a Firefox add-on which keeps count of your unread items at the bottom of the browser (I'm on 723 unread today, feedreading is difficult at weekends :-).
Apart from reading your news and blogs, Google Reader also gives you the opportunity to share and email what you read. You can even set up a feed of what you're sharing. For example, on macartan.de, there's a box with "Macartan's shared items" - this shows what I've found interesting in my news and blogs recently.
Note this is a beta product, and stability is still an issue. I see an "Oops, an error has occurred" occasionally, but you can usually just hit the Home link and start again.
Try it out yourselves.

Conservapedia

I was telling Heike about how funny Conservapedia is at breakfast this morning. She'd not heard about it, so I thought I'd post a quick review...
This site has been generating laughs in the blogosphere during the last couple of weeks. In the words of the authors:

"Conservapedia is a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American. On Wikipedia, many of the dates are provided in the anti-Christian "C.E." instead of "A.D.", which Conservapedia uses. Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance. Read a list of many Examples of Bias in Wikipedia.
Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we favor Christianity and America. Conservapedia has easy-to-use indexes to facilitate review of topics. You will much prefer using Conservapedia compared to Wikipedia if you want concise answers free of "political correctness"."

I'm not making this up! I recommend the following links if you want some insight into how the other half thinks (or doesn't):

• Above-mentioned Examples of Bias in Wikipedia - this includes criticism of "foreign spelling", (favour, labour rather than favor, labor); liberal bias ("Wikipedia is six times more liberal than the American public") and bias on evolution ("even though most Americans reject the theory of evolution Wikipedia editors commenting on the topic are nearly 100% pro-evolution").
• Evolution - apparently it "violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics". These people are so on top of their science.
  
• Homosexuality - The article lists 4 Bible entries saying "don't do it" (shame they missed the opportunity to list the Bible entries supporting slavery).
• Reagan - "Considered by many to be the greatest American President" - who are the "many"? I don't know any of them socially.
• Bill Clinton - clearly this article was always going to be critical, but this criticism is special - "Clinton also attempted to use the American military to kill Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, an action which was properly seen as a mere attempt to distract the nation from the Monica Lewinsky scandal". Scandalous waste of military resources - chasing the planners of 9/11.
  
• World War II - short, sweet, America wins. Has to be read to be believed.
  
• Germany - "A country in central Europe that was blamed for both Wolrd Wars and claimed to be the dominate race of mankind." That's the whole entry, spelling mistake and all.
• Gun Control - " A superior means of defense for the population is the first reason why guns should be carried by citizens". Scary article.
  

All in all hilarious - the unfortunate thing is these guys don't even realise they're parodying themselves.
I'd like to write a thoughtful critique of how I love America, but fear their government. However I'm starting to think that the America I love(d) is being systematically rebuilt as the America the world fears :-( Anyway, I have not time for thoughtful critiques - snap judgement says Conservapedia is bonkers.

Audiobook Review - Iraq Study Group Report

A click on this post title should bring you to www.audible.de, where they're giving away the free audiobook version of the Iraq Study Group Report (strangely on www.audible.com you have to pay $4.95 for this).

I listened to this over the Xmas break, here's the review I posted on audible:

"This audiobook is a must-listen. Bear in mind the authors - a crossparty set of American politicians who for the most part thought originally that it was a good idea to invade Iraq. They have changed their minds for the same reasons that most sane people never wanted the war - they see now that America can only lose, and that the Bush Administration has cynically and callously sent 3000 American soldiers to their deaths, as well as many times that number of Iraqi civilians.

The Iraq Study Group Report is a purely factual account, and there are a lot of statistics to get through, but the message that comes through is clear - a swift and managed exit is the only option that America now has available. The corollary not explicitly stated by Jim Baker and his co-authors, but implicitly drawn from the text, is that George W. Bush and his administration are at best inept, and at worst criminals."