Daily Twaddle

Here are some interesting statistics about the people who visit this website.

This first graphic is a USA map showing where each of my visitors come from. A big thanks to Carol for keeping it strong in Wisconsin!

This second graphic is a pie chart that shows my user’s browser and operating system. Look! Only half the people use Internet Explorer! Yay! Maybe that number will continue to decrease over the years as other browsers like Firefox get popular.

Note: This generic, non-identifiable data is collected anonymously. Websites gather this information in order to better serve the needs of their users (for example: make sure the design works with Internet Explorer since half of the people who visit my site use it).

Ever wonder if your payment went through okay? I’m a little nervous that something might go wrong when all I see on the screen after I click “BUY” is:

Thank you for your order

Well, I just received the coolest online confirmation of payment! It looks just like a real receipt! This picture is a bit smaller than the original (for my blog-loading-speed purposes). I purchased Overflow for my Mac 0S X.5 (Leopard) because stacks takes too much time to customize.

It’s nerve-racking to give up my credit card information online (which is why I prefer PayPal). But this cute little receipt made me happy! I’m impressed with this website’s creativity - thoughtful all the way until the end!

I’m a bit of a simpleton.

So, I took this quiz from this website to try and kill some of my spring-break-boredom. This quiz, combined with a quick search for “office humor” on YouTube, totally did the trick.

I almost died laughing when they asked me who shot first (see question below). Han dammit! Greedo didn’t shoot first! Well, not originally. And… why do I know this?

I also remembered that the Ferengi have the best hearing - thanks to my geeky star trek mom. I don’t like them by the way… I’m a little FerengiPhobic. Their teeth creep me out.

By the way, this question with the blue links is just a picture - a screenshot from that website. And I scored a 72%.

What?

Okay, I’ve been watching woot.com’s daily deals. Woot is an online store that has a “daily deal” on something cool for cheap. Each day they add a limited quantity of some product and “wooters” can comment about the product or buy one (or a couple). Nothing has struck my fancy, until today…

But let me back up a little. I’m desperate for a music player while I’m in the gym. Last night the girl working turned on the country station. Country… in the gym? Ugh. But even the usual “classic rock” makes me want to poke out my ear drums, so I need my own music.

I went to K-Mart to look at the prices of generic mp3 players. The cheapest one (with a screen so I can navigate my playlist) was $50. I needed to think on it.

Whilst thinking on it, I went to woot.com today like I usually do each day. Today’s offer was a pocket GPS system that plays mp3s. YES! The LOOX is much bigger than my little nano - but I planned on paying $50 for a player anyway - add another $60 and I have a GPS unit. Plus, it plays video and comes with games. Sweet!

Here is a funny notice from Woot when I bought my LOOX:

This picture above is from GPS Magazine’s website (I hope they don’t mind that I used it).

Check out Woot.com for yourself!

Firefox (my browser of choice), keeps forgetting my password and log-in information even though I checked the “remember me” on the website. Each time I went back to the website, I had to type in my login credentials again - annoying!

I couldn’t figure it out! I allow cookies for websites, so what’s the problem?

Well, I accept cookies alright… but only until Firefox closes! Duh! So, if you’re experiencing this problem, go to Preferences > Privacy > and in the cookies section choose to keep until “they expire” from the drop-down menu.

Happy browsing!

Firefox introduced a “Campus Edition” of their browser for scholars and students. This version combines the most popular add-ons for students into one easy download.

Since I already had Firefox, I just downloaded the extensions suggested for students. And… I found one of the most useful computer features I’ve ever used as a student! Zotero! This extension helps me collect, manage, and cite my research sources. It rocks! I save so much time in my research by clicking a button instead of writing an entire bibliography.

This video explains Zotero’s useful features:

Update: I don’t like meeboo. I switched to Google Chat.

I installed a chat widget on the sidbar of my blog. You can send me an instant message so we can text each other. No need to sign up for an account or download any software… just start typing (but please tell me who you are when you write. )

« Look for “Live Chat” on the left sidebar. Chat me up homies!

Add This To Your Website

Carol and Mom skip this info! It’s just for those who want this technology on their own website.

1. Sign up for a meebo account.
2. Get the code for a meebo me widget.
3. Add this code to a text widget through your WordPress Admin.
4. Add this account to your Adium chat (or other) program.
   1. File > Add Account > Jabber
   2. Jabber ID: yourname@meebo.org
   3. Options Tab > Connect Server = meebo.org, Resource: Home, Port: 5222, Security: Allow plaintext authentication.

I can’t figure out how to automatically allow “allow anyone.” Adium keeps asking me for authorization when my blog loads. Luckily I don’t get that many visitors.

Since my purchase of the original Nintendo, I want to stock up on all my favorite childhood games. I know I like Super Mario Bros 1, 2 and 3. And I like Kung Fu, Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers, and Spy VS Spy.

But I can’t remember all the other games I used to play. I found a website that reviews video games. I can tell by the description of the game if it’s something I used to play. I noticed that the web address had a weird ending. Instead of .com it was .vg. Cool… Video Game?

I looked it up on Wikipedia and found out that some websites use this ending (or top-level-domain if you will) for video game websites. Although the original use was for websites in the British Virgin Islands.

Here is the website for the game reviews: videogamereviews.vg. But don’t go there when you can play classic games for free at play.vg!

Your internet browser temporarily saves the web pages, and the images on those pages, in order to load those same pages faster when you go to them again. This “cache” is a great way to visit pages over and over without waiting forever for the page to load.

Some webmasters design their pages to automatically refresh each time you visit their site in order to make sure that your browser is loading the most current images. Other websites irritatingly refresh your browser every five minutes or so (like they change their information that fast - yeah right).

Anyway, you can reload the page yourself. Press the “refresh” or “reload” button on your browser. This will force your browser to load the website from the source, rather than the saved files on your computer.

Depending on which browser you use, your button will look something like one of these:

Happy browsing!

We’ve come a long way from scrolling text and the annoying <blink> tag. But why do we let our advertisers annoy the crap out of our visitors?

Some websites have so many advertisements that it’s hard to find real content. I surf the net without cookies, javascript, flash and image animations. This sucks for site owners who want good general statistics about how people navigate their site. It also sucks for me because I might be missing some good content in an effort to block the crap.

But I understand that people need to make a living. I just wish there was a better way. So, to make me feel better, I’m going to vent about all the website advertising that annoys me by writing a top-10 list.

1. Lying ads: “you’re a winner!”, “you have new messages.”
2. Ads that resize my browser window.
3. Ads that flash or blink.
4. Too many ads - page takes forever to load.
5. Ads between pages I navigate (skip this advertisement).
6. Floaters. Those stupid windows that obscure content.
7. Ads with noise. They usually scare the crap out of me.
8. Articles written on 10 pages (one paragraph on each page) in order to show me more damn ads.
9. Ads that look like links that belong to this site, but in fact, take me to some advertisement site.
10. Ads in the middle of the page - right smack in between one article’s paragraph and the next.

Of course, these are just the advertisement annoyances. I could go on and on about websites in general (coming soon, logo not a link to the homepage).

Let’s be smart and stop using intrusive advertising that pisses me off!