Tag: postaday2011

Thank You to My Friends and Readers, Looking Back at Dynamicsubspace.net Site Stats for 2011

First, I would like to thank all of my readers. I appreciate your taking the time to see what I am thinking or working on, and I am also grateful for the comments that I have received from my readers. I enjoy writing on dynamicsubspace.net, and I am thankful that my friends, colleagues, and others find my writing worth spending a little of their time reading.

WordPress.com logs the visits of readers to my blog. I like to reflect on my writing and how it corresponds to these statistics. Below, I present a summary of the site’s statistics with some thoughts about the increase in visits that I received in 2011.

I was particularly interested in seeing how this year’s numbers compared to previous years, because I endeavoured to post more content this year than in any previous year as part of WordPress.com’s postaday2011 project.

My attempt at posting one new item each day has been a phenomenal success. I successfully posted one item each day save once. However, there were many days when I posted two or more items. By month in 2011, I posted 56 times in January, 42 times in February, 55 times in March, 47 times in April, 53 times in May, 42 times in June, 36 times in July, 42 times in August, 35 times in September, 43 times in October, 42 times in November, and finally, 39 times in December 2011. Each month, I consistently exceeded the number of days by the number of posts for a total of 532 posts in 2011. Since I began dynamicsubspace.net in 2007, I have written 1,239 posts.

In the chart above, you can see the number of unique page visits by month and year since I moved the blog from Apple’s mac.com to WordPress.com in March 2007. During the very first month of being hosted on wordpress.com in March 2007, I received 29 visits. So far, I have received 8,191 visits during December 2011. This is a tremendous increase in page views!

Considering the number of visits that I have received from year to year: dynamicsubspace.net received 3,772 visits in 2007, 27,882 in 2008, 32,458 in 2009, 48,245 in 2010, and approximately 76,121 in 2011. This translate to a 639% increase from 2007 to 2008, 16% increase from 2008 to 2009, 48% increase from 2009 to 2010, and 58% increase from 2010 to 2011. I believe that the increased content generation that I have done during 2011 has made the site more interesting to regular readers, and it has also created more content that non-regular readers find via search engines, social networks, and link sharing sites.

Further breaking down the visits to dynamicsubspace.net, the site has consistently increased its average visits per day. On average, the site received 14 daily visits in 2007, 76 visits in 2008, 89 visits in 2009, 132 visits in 2010, and 209 visits in 2011. This translates to a 443% increase in daily visits from 2007 to 2008, 17% from 2008 to 2009, 48% from 2009 to 2010, and finally, 58% from 2010 to 2011. These daily visit increases also, I believe, correspond with the increased content output that I have accomplished this past year.

One thing that I wonder though is how spammers influence these numbers. As you can see in the graph above, my spam filter has caught a substantial rise in attempted spam comments during 2011. It is because of this increased spam over the past two years that I began moderating all comments to dynamicsubspace.net. I would prefer to not moderate on the site, but I don’t want my noncommercial site to become a huge billboard that generates money for others (copiers of my content on other sites present a whole other problem). Also, Symantec reports here that email spam is the lowest in years, but I wonder if spammers are shifting their tactics to plaster the web instead of inboxes.

Here is to another successful year of dynamicsubspace.net. I have hinted at some lose ends that I will write more about in the near future. These will appear as I have the time to think about and write more about them.

Tom’s Hardware Review Site is Against SOPA, Too

Tom’s Hardware posted the following message today on their website (click the link to read all of the reasons why a hardware and software review site would be against the Stop Online Piracy Act):

Here at Tom’s Hardware, you know we don’t typically get political because with the heated debates between AMD vs. Intel who needs Donkeys vs. Elephants?

We’ve got no agenda beyond providing the best hardware news and reviews we can dig up.  But here at Year’s end, there’s a subject we want to share with you that may come to affect how you experience us and the rest of the internet.  It’s called SOPA, or the “Stop Online Piracy Act”, and it is headed through U.S. Congress with its sister bill PROTECT-IP in the Senate.  SOPA threatens to fundamentally change the way information is presented online by placing massive restrictions on user-generated content like posts to forums, video uploads, podcasts or images.

via Save Tom’s, Stop SOPA.

We have to work together to stop this terrible legislation. Go here to find out how you can help by alerting your elected representatives to the problems that this kind of over broad and misguided legislation.

Big Internet Companies Could Hold Their Own Demonstrations in 2012

Declan McCullagh reports on CNET News that the big Internet companies could launch simultaneous anti-censorship protests against the Stop Online Piracy Act in 2012:

The Internet’s most popular destinations, including eBay, Google, Facebook, and Twitter seem to view Hollywood-backed copyright legislation as an existential threat.

It was Google co-founder Sergey Brin who warned that the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act “would put us on a par with the most oppressive nations in the world.” Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, Twitter co-founders Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone, and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman argue that the bills give the Feds unacceptable “power to censor the Web.”

But these companies have yet to roll out the heavy artillery.

When the home pages of Google.com, Amazon.com, Facebook.com, and their Internet allies simultaneously turn black with anti-censorship warnings that ask users to contact politicians about a vote in the U.S. Congress the next day on SOPA, you’ll know they’re finally serious.

via SOPA opponents may go nuclear and other 2012 predictions | Privacy Inc. – CNET News.

Rackspace Hosting CEO Lanham Napier Gives a Reasoned Business Perspective Why SOPA Is a Bad Law

Lanham Napier, CEO of cloud hosting provider Rackspace, argues on the official Rackspace Hosting blog that the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is not the right solution to intellectual property theft:

The authors of the bill say their goal is to crack down on websites that traffic in stolen movies, music, software, and other intellectual property.  That’s a goal that we at Rackspace share.  But we’ve studied the SOPA bill closely and conferred with experts in our company and elsewhere in the technology industry, and we believe that it would not achieve its stated purpose.  Foreign IP thieves, in particular, could find ways to evade the law.

Meanwhile, SOPA would require that Rackspace and other Internet service providers censor their customers with little in the way of due process, trumping the protections present in the current Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  What’s more, the SOPA bill would seriously disrupt the Domain Name Service that is crucial to the smooth operation of the web.

via Rackspace Cloud Computing & Hosting.

Make your voice heard by contacting your elected representatives in Congress. The Stop American Censorship website can help you.

Going Back in Time to Mac OS 10.5 Leopard

Before Christmas, I had had enough with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. Despite my Late-2008 Aluminum MacBook having 8 GB of RAM and a speedy hard drive, Lion would consistently drag to a slow crawl. Generally, the RAM hog was the new Safari, but some system processes were also taking hundreds of MBs of RAM. Of course, when my Free RAM disappeared, the system would become sluggish. I thought that all of this was very odd, not just in the memory usage by the OS, but also in Safari, since I don’t run with Flash or any extensions enabled.

So, I decided to go back to basics. I made a bootable 16 GB USB drive with two partitions: one for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and one for my MacBook’s application restore DVD. I made each partition 8 GB, and I created the first partition with a GUID partition table so that it would boot on the Mac. I then restored the Leopard and applications DVDs that came with my MacBook to each partition respectively. Finally, I booted from the USB drive, formatted my internal hard drive, and reinstalled Leopard, Apple’s apps, and other apps that I regularly use (e.g., Microsoft Office 2011).

As they say, Leopard was built for speed, Snow Leopard for security, and Lion for Apple’s increasingly firm grasp on the desktop computing experience. I might not have access to the Mac App Store, iCloud, or the latest version of Safari, but I do have a snappy computer again that does everything that I need it to do. I might not expect any future security updates, but I can be smart about my online computer use, run ClamAV in the background, keep installed apps to a minimum, and patch any holes in the software that I do run.

I suppose there is a point where Apple’s regular release cycle of faster operating system experiences for older hardware had to end. I also suppose that we have passed that point with the transition from Leopard to Snow Leopard to Lion. Apple has big plans for Lion and its increasingly iOS-like user-experience. As they layer those things that work well on touch-devices like the iPhone and iPad on the non-touch Macs, it begins to weigh down what was an otherwise agile operating system. This trend increasingly makes me wonder if convergence is such a good idea. I am growing more dubious of this trend as time goes by. Additionally, I am growing increasingly concerned about the hardware and software development cycle. Getting people to buy more things certainly drives innovation through sales, but I see a lot of good things in older technology like Leopard. Also, what is the effect on the environment by our continuing desire to own new computer technology while discarding the old?

I am investigating hardware and software of a long bygone era in old PCs. Certainly motivated by nostalgic feelings, I want to uncover in the archaeology of computing things that used to work that we have gotten away from. What works and could still work today despite being 10, 15, 20 years old? What can we learn from old software? What can we continue to enjoy from old software? I will write on this more in the near future.

The Digital Humanities, Writing Technologies, and Word Processors in the New York Times

Jennifer Schuessler looks at current trends in one area of the digital humanities–to study the way published writers use computer technology to create their works–in her New York Times article, “The Muses of Insert, Delete and Execute.” The take away bit about the field is:

The study of word processing may sound like a peculiarly tech-minded task for an English professor, but literary scholars have become increasingly interested in studying how the tools of writing both shape literature and are reflected in it, whether it’s the quill pen of the Romantic poets or the early round typewriter, known as a writing ball, that Friedrich Nietzsche used to compose some aphoristic fragments. (“Our writing tools are also working on our thoughts,” Nietzsche typed.)

via A Literary History of Word Processing – NYTimes.com.

It is good to see this kind of coverage of the profession in the Times.

Maillardet Automaton and The Invention of Hugo Cabret

I have not yet had a chance to see Martin Scorsese’s Hugo or read the book that it is based on, the Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. However, I do want to see the film, because I am fascinated by automatons, the forebears of robots. The New York Times has an article about the inspiration of Hugo here: Maillardet Automaton Inspired Martin Scorsese’s Film ‘Hugo’.

Final 2011 Christmas Song Playlist

Here’s my final 2011 Christmas song playlist.

Christmas Playlist

57 songs, 3.2 hours

Winter Song Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson

Last Christmas Wham!

The Little Drummer Boy Johnny Cash

Happy Xmas (War Is Over) John Lennon & Yoko Ono

Christmas Day Dido

Christmas For Cowboys John Denver

O Come All Ye Faithful Art Garfunkel

Father Christmas OK Go

Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer Jack Johnson

Don Quixote’s Christmas Bonanza Gorillaz

Feliz Navidad Fenix TX

Christmas In Space Tori Amos

The Little Drum Machine Boy Beck

THE RETURN OF THE RED BARON The Royal Guardsmen – Snoopy And His Friens

SNOOPY VS. THE RED BARON The Royal Guardsmen – Snoopy And His Friens

SNOOPY’S CHRISTMAS The Royal Guardsmen – Snoopy And His Friens

The Chanukah Song Adam Sandler

Donna & Blitzen Badly Drawn Boy

O Holy Night Avril Lavigne, Chantal Kreviazuk

It Came upon a Midnight Clear Sixpence None The Richer

Little Drummer Boy Tori Amos

Xmas Cake Rilo Kiley

Gaudete Steeleye Span

Ring Out, Solstice Bells Jethro Tull

The Little Drummer Boy The Harry Simeone Chorale

Pavane Jethro Tull

Frosty The Snowman Leon Redbone And Dr. John

I Believe In Father Christmas Greg Lake

Christmas In Hollis Run DMC

O Holy Night Charlotte Church

Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer Elmo & Patsy

Run Rudolph Run Chuck Berry

Stille Nacht Andre Rieu

Ave Maria [After Bach] André Rieu

I Saw Three Ships Sting

Oi To The World No Doubt

Wonderful Christmastime Paul Mccartney

Sleigh Ride Leory Anderson

White Christmas Bing Crosby

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Dean Martin

Holly Jolly Christmas Burl Ives

Here Comes Santa Claus Gene Autry

Jingle Bell Rock Bobby Helms

Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Gene Autry

In The Bleak Mid Winter Bert Jansch

Silent Night Holy Night Sinéad O Connor

Walking In The Air Aled Jones

All I Want For Christmas Is You Samantha Mumba

Fairytale Of New York Pogues (Ft. Kirsty Maccoll)

Chanukah Song Part 2 Adam Sandler

In Dulci Jubilo Mike Oldfield

Stop The Cavalry Jona Lewie

Happy Christmas (War Is Over) John Lennon

What Child is This (Greensleeves) Mitch Miller and his Gang

Little Drummer Boy (Extended UltraTraxx Trance Mission Mix) CRU

Little Drummer Boy Dandy Warholes

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing Mormon Tabernacle Choir With Sissel

Happy Christmas to all!