coxy's blog

Yeah, so today feels a bit weird. I don't know what I should be doing, or what I want to do. So far the morning has mostly been housework based; I woke early and washed Rendell's car, washed all the dishes and cleaned the kitchen a bit, done some clothes washing and nipped to the local shop. If you're reading this on my blog (and not through Facebook Notes or whatever), you may notice I've also played with some CSS too.

Last night a bunch of people who I originally knew from Flickr stayed over and we got pizza in, played video games and watched a movie. It's not very exciting in my house, but whatever. They didn't seem massively bored - just a little. Ha!

Half of me wants to go for a walk and get out the house, otherwise I'll feel like I've wasted the day; the other half of me wants to sit in all afternoon and play Xbox 360. Rendell is crashed out on the couch because she's not feeling too good. Bless her.

My good friend Emily Walker has started a blog on Opera Community. If you could all spare a moment to welcome a new member, read and / or comment on her first blog post, that would be epic.

A few months ago, someone on Opera Community (I can't remember who!) posted a blog post about their Hitslink stats. I figured I'd pay for a month's worth of full-on Hitslink stats goodness so I could be as cool as other Opera Community blog posters and do the same. So this is it. Welcome to my September Stats Sampler 2008 (SSS).

First I guess the logical step is to find the most popular search terms for my blog. These are words or key phrases that have been searched for and then my blog found and it's no surprise that the top keyword to find my blog is 'sexy' with 4.16% of total visitors finding coxy the sexiest mutha on the web! Damn right!

It does make me wonder what sort of people click though so many pages of search results as to find my blog from the keyword 'sexy' - I'm not in the first ten pages of results on any search engine - why bother?! Alas, people do, and this apparently makes me sexy - so let's move swiftly on.

Facebook Phishing / Hacking / Scams

SSS reveals that lots of Facebook users and social network enthusiasts are worried about their Facebook account being hacked, phished or falling victim to any scams. My blog gets a lot of visitors because of a blog post I wrote uncovering a Facebook Phishing page.

If people are worried about Facebook phishing scams you should ensure you're using a browser with built-in fraud protection, and always check the URL of the login page before hitting submit on those precious login details!

Xbox 360 Towel Trick / Gamertags / Windows Live Passport

Following hot on the heels of Facebook Phishing comes lots of eager gamers trying to find out how to solve problems with their Microsoft Xbox 360 consoles. Right now I could probably adopt my own advice as my second Xbox 360 has just flashed it's red ring of death and refused to be used.

For the addicted gamer, desperate to get their gameplay fix, The Towel Trick is a temporary DIY solution to this problem. The Towel Trick is a method of wrapping a bath towel around your console in an attempt to fix the unit and restore it's gameplay abilities. The idea surfaced on the web and has become a popular resolution method - however, if you are having problems with your 360, it's no way a permanent solution and I recommend getting a replacement console.

The second Xbox 360 related issue that people are searching for is the link between your Xbox Live Gamertag and Windows Live Passport. The problem is that once you've connected a Windows Live Passport to your 360, you cannot change it - which posed problems when Microsoft introduced the Messenger features to Xbox Live - and everyone realised the passport they had tied to their console was not the one they used for their Windows Live Messenger.

The latter of these two problems is described in a long-winded and probably ultimately confusing blog post by myself. If you want a solution; the only option at the time was to delete your gamertag and your Windows Live Passport and start over. This wasn't an ideal solution and so many people complained that Major Nelson posted on his blog that there would be a way around this in future - according to a blog comment, this issue has been resolved.

Virb 2

SSS shows that social networking is popular. You'd think that for people that spend so much time sitting in front of their computer, not interacting with people face-to-face, that socialising would be so high upon their agenda. But, along with Facebook's popularity, it seems most people are eagerly anticipating the release of Virb 2.

The original build of Virb established itself as a social network for those who have a little more style, class and finesse to be using MySpace - yet retains the same basic features that a social network requires to be social - plus added little extras, like VirbTunes which would track what music you're playing in a Last.fm style. The site comes off the back of PureVolume, which was the original project of the Virb team.

Virb 2 has been in development for possibly far too long. The staff have been working long and hard on it, and it's currently in private beta with a launch imminent. Unfortunately, I'm not part of the private beta and so know nothing about the new version; you can follow progress on the Virb Twitter profile.

Last.fm Mobile

Following on the trend of social networks, SSS reveals that there are lots of people who want to find Last.fm related stuff; mostly applications for scrobbling tracks from their mobile phone, or streaming tracks from Last.fm to their mobile phones.

Last.fm Build, a new section to Last.fm, showcases a whole range of third-party developer applications. There you will find a range of applications that will allow streaming and scrobbling to and from your Windows Mobile device, Blackberry, S60, iPhone and more. I personally used to use Pocket Scrobbler for Windows Mobile devices, but have moved onto Mobbler for my Nokia N95 8GB - the latest build of both apps supports scrobbling from the phone's media player, and also streaming Last.fm Radio to the phone.

Search Engines

The most popular search engine was Google, followed by Google UK, Google Canada, Google Turkey, Google India, Google France, Google Australia, Google Germany and then Yahoo!. Seven more Google countries later we reach Microsoft Live Search and then AOL, but not before another seven Google countries.

You Googlers should be ashamed of yourself! This just backs up my claims of Google knowing too much and being used too much. Granted, they are a bit good; but it would be awesome if people used other search engines like Yahoo!, Clusty or Ask too. I've been using Ask for the past few weeks; it looks good visually, but the results aren't always accurate. Clusty and Yahoo! are generally spot-on however, with Yahoo!'s results being pretty much identical to what you'd see on Google. Give it a try - change the way you search!

Countries

Slightly different to what you'd expect after looking at search engine usage, most visitors were from the USA (23.4%), closely followed by the United Kingdom (19.81%), with Egypt, Russia and India making up the top five. Norway (1.22%) came 14th and Lithuania (0.43%) came 36th.

Time

Whilst most people spent less than 1 minute on the site (84.49%), more people spent 5-10 minutes (1.94%) or 10-15 minutes (1.01%) reading my posts than those that spent 3 or 4 minutes (0.57%) on the site. The less than 1 minute is expected; but it is somewhat comforting to know that people will read my posts, even if they're not leaving comments.

Most Visited Blog Post

Thanks to EspenAO posting the story on the front page of Opera Community, my most popular blog post for the month of September 2008 was the 'Blog This' post, relating to the photo blogging feature on Flickr.

Number of Visitors

For the month of September, my blog received 3,880 unique visitors. With a total of 6,267 page views, this means that each visitor viewed 1.62 pages.

Browser Stats

I'm not entirely sure these browser stats are sampled uniquely from my blog; but possibly more a general overview of Opera Community. Regardless, Internet Explorer still takes hold of the browser market at 32.02%, but closely followed by Mozilla Firefox at 29.58%. Opera Web Browser comes in third place with 14.21%, followed by Opera Mini at 13.71% - a combined result of 27.92%, which still doesn't knock Firefox off the second spot.

Search Terms

Whilst I've already ran through the most popular search terms there were plenty of humorous or interesting queries. I'll close by running through a few of these:

• love note, post-it, post-it love
  My blog post 'Post-It Love Note' shows a cool little note that I found about a year ago.
• watch porno cinema in manchester
  You will be looking for Big In Amsterdam. Trust me.
• wengo or skype?, wengo vs skype, WengoPhone, wengo, skype alternatives
  I wrote a blog post about Wengo being an alternative to Skype. I was wrong; use Skype.
• grundon, girls sexy pictures, emily grundon, oneyearwithoutlight
  Emily Grundon is a girl who takes sexy pictures. She's also in a sexy band called Encyclopedia.
• the old romantic killer band, lovers pass, old romantic, killer band, you don't know how to love
  The Old Romantic Killer Band are one of my new favourite bands for 2007/2008 - they have a new single coming out soon called 'Lovers Pass' from their debut album 'The Swan With Two Necks'. Find out more at their official MySpace.
• konica auto s2, konica s2
  I got a film camera for Christmas - it's hot. For more info about the camera, visit Camerapedia. To can see all my photos with the camera, visit my Flickr photostream.
• remembering house chores statistics
  If you searched for this; I remember that house chores need doing 90% of the time. I do the house chores 5% of the time.
• pop bubble rock, bubble rock, pbr
  Yes! Pop, Bubble, Rock! One of Manchester's finest club nights. Get to it!
• letter from pixar
  I got one of those!! It was thoroughly disappointing.
• are there any hairdressers open on sunday in ellesmere port?
  Ummm. Maybe?
• i want to download my fucking flickr sets mac
  There's nothing quite like swearing at a search engine to get your answer!
• i hate matt cox
  Oh. Was this you Ramunas?

Once again, as part of the Manchester Literature Festival, the Manchester Blog Awards are accepting nominations for 2008.

Nominations are being accepted in the following categories, short-lists will be formed and a blog awards soiree held to dish out prizes to winners of Best New Blog, Best Writing on a Blog, Best Arts and Culture Blog, Best Personal Blog and Best Neighbourhood Blog.

The year before last, emails from Opera Community members flooded the Manchester Blog Awards inbox 'voting' for my blog in the Personal Blog category, where just a single 'nomination' was required. Whilst I appreciated the reaction from members, I think this did more harm than good as I didn't even make the shortlist for the category (nothing to do there being superior blogs out there, obviously!).

So, this year, if you wish to show your support for my blog, do so in the way of commenting on this post. Hopefully I can make the shortlist and show my face at the event - it'll be fun.

http://manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk/

http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1027169/

It seems that I've performed a re-skin of my blog. It's now red. So, if you're seeing blue bits still, you need to hit F5 a couple of times. I welcome all feedback; so long as you leave it in the comments section.

Elsewhere, and amid going to work and back each day; I've managed to get a few more 'Sketchy Stuff' stickers around the place. Clicking on that link will take you to the set of photos on Opera Community. The images down the right will take you to flickr.

Right now, I have to tell you about all the post I had today - and most of it was in parcel form. Or a 'packet' as the new Royal Mail post guidelines would have you believe.



Parcel Number 1
A book that I'd found in Waterstones and was tempted to buy. Only, in store it was £14.99 and I didn't want it that much. So, I went online and managed to order it from Green Metropolis... for £3.75, free delivery. Bargain!

Parcel Number 2
As I was browsing the online bookstore, I realised I could probably get another book that I've wanted to read for a similar price. I did a search on books about Bill Oddie, and then Rolf Harris. I bought this for £3.75 too - but delivery was £1.50 because it's a hardback. Still, BARGAIN!

Parcel Number 3
This wasn't as big as the other two, and I wasn't quite expecting it so soon - so it was a surprise to see Encyclopedia's new single arrive on my doorstep. It's there in all it's mini-cd-single glory. Twice. You can buy it twice from Alcopop too.

Parcel Number 4
Now, this was a nice surprise. I'd totally forgotten about these until I slid them out of the envelope. The site that everyone seems to be blogging about at the minute, Moo (they love printing, so I hear), sent me my 10 free MiniCard prints.

They are really nicely presented 'business cards', if you will. The idea is that you pick a load of your flickr photos and they print them for you. I only upload lo-res 640x480 JPGs, so was surprised that these came out at such a good quality. I'll deffinately be paying for some more.

Parcel Number 5
Last but not least was the parcel I was expecting to receive when I was told I had post. This was from Jhon out of Pickled Dick. He sent me a bunch of the latest run of I <3 Dick stickers. They're lovely. Thank you Jhon.

So, maybe getting to see the sort of things I get delivered to me wasn't as exciting as I'd imagined when I started writing this post - but hey, I managed to update my blog.

Until next time.