The other day, Jem mentioned something about Firefox versus IE versus “other” browser users according to rev.iew.me’s Analytics settings. I figured, for the lulz, I’d show off my own stats on this one, because they’re pretty interesting. Well, to me, anyway. Probably not you.

Anyway.

Analytics: All Traffic

Okay, first off we’ve got the graph of void-star.net’s overall traffic, broken down by browser metric care of Analytics’ fancy new metrics… thingie. Anyway, the point here is that the yellow line is Firefox, the green one is IE and the orange one is “other browsers”; in this case mostly Chrome, but a few instances of Safari (including iPhone Safari) and Opera.

Note the green and orange lines fight for dominancy a bit, but otherwise they’ve got fairly similar numbers. But, woah, what’s that giant yellow spike in the middle there?

Analytics: Sites

This is the graph of all referred traffic during this time period. The first big humps here are the days following me adding my site to rev.iew.me; note the massivley out-of-proportion Firefox results. The second bump comes from StumbleUpon, and it’s got much the same sort of make-up.

So. Seems that if you’re the sort of person who’s likely to use SU or RiM, you’re also more likely to use Firefox. (Trendwhores.)

Analytics: Search

But don’t just take my word for it, check this out; search engine referrals, again broken down by browser. This one’s as stark as the previous graph, but here’s it’s how close it runs between IE and FF, with IE actually dominating on a couple of days (and “other” worming along the bottom). I chose the search engine results, incidentally, because I figured it was more of a “layman’s segment” of the population than the above, which is essentially showing traffic coming from two distinct and related groups of people.

Other fun facts produced from this graph include the fact that you’re more likely to use Yahoo!, AOL and MSN if you’re an IE user, with Firefox just coming out ahead from Google hits.

So… yeah. I dunno if this is saying much, really, and I’m sure I’ve just bored 90% of you to tears but… well. I thought it was interesting.

Mirrored from void-star.net β. Comments are preferred on the original.

Okay. So JournalPress isn't yet finished but every migration has to be taken in steps, and as an incentive to get me to hurry the fuck along I'm officially declaring this my final post here at the sk.log version of void-star.net. All future posts (and, actually, yesterday's as well) will now go via β.

Change is always painful, so those of you who read this via RSS may wish to point to the new feed instead (though it will be "temporary" until the full migration). Those of you who read this via LJ, IJ or JF won't be getting any direct cross-posts for a while, but will instead be receiving updates via Twitter posts (you know, that crap y'all ignore). Comments may, of course, still go on the respective journal entries. And for those of you who just land here randomly, or still live in 2001 and access this site via static links (yeah, I'm looking at you)… well, you'll be seeing an awful lot of this same post. But that's nothing new, right?

The actual full site migration is still scheduled for some time in the new year (and yes, all you Ulfrun detractors, it'll even have a new layout, and I'm sure you're all breathless in anticipation), so in the meantime you'll just have to deal with the mess.

Which is actually a pretty relevant metaphor for life, really.

Hey, maybe I can put up a long, ranty splash page about what I'm doing instead of just leaving this message up. With a progress bar! That's cool nowadays, right? I'm so hipnhappenin!

Mirrored from v-s.net. Comments are preferred on the original.

Check it out! I've got my first fanlisting.

Well, okay. It's actually not a fanlisting for me, per se; it's for vs.hive, and it's run by the lovely echo.

I'm still totally buzzing over the fact that someone actually thought something I did was good enough to open a fanlisting for, so excuse me while I go squee in the corner for a while.

In other news, void-star.net β is up. It's the "second phase" testing platform for the WordPress transition here at v-s.net.

At the moment, the plan is to continue to develop JournalPress locally. β is for "live testing", as well as for slowly migrating my posting habits, so I can get used to WordPress' feature-set (I'm typing this at β, for example, and will manually cross-post it later). β also interfaces with my iPhone, so I'll start to get a bunch of "look what I found on the road" type posts.

When JournalPress has reached a release state (probably sometime in early 2009), I'll archive the sk.log version of void-star.net, stick up the new WP version and get started on work on the post security plug-in. I figure all that should keep me busy into the new year.

Awesome.

Mirrored from v-s.net. Comments are preferred on the original.

Another one of those wonderfully sporadic and completely boring multi-topic blog updates? Don't mind if I do!

Mail Migration

I'm super-happy with the migration of void-star.net's email to Google Hosted Apps. The POP3 access is great for my laptop, the IMAP is perfect for my iPhone, the spam filters are beautiful for the catch-all address and the mailing lists work better than that bloody perl system that comes with CPanel ever did. In short, it's sweet. I'm not sold on the benefits of the other aspects of Apps (the Docs, Sites et cetera), but the mail is worth it. Even if it does mean Google is archiving all your stuff. Not like it wasn't doing that anyway.

Anyway, if anyone wants a (free) @void-star.net or @furced.net email address, give me a username and an existing email address (to mail your password to), and I'll set you up.

Material Goods

Season's changing, which makes me want to buy clothes. But… from where. I don't shop in stores much any more, but my usual online haunts are failing me. So, readers, where do you shop online?

I also bumped my hand against the back of my chair the other day and accidentally threw my Death Note mug across the room. I have a really bad track record with anime-themed mugs. Upshot: I need a new one. Anyone have any recommendations for something cool?

Plus I need to re-dye my hair and whinge at ~Mat [h] until he buys me some new RAM. Nothing new there.

SharePoint

After my SharePoint training a couple of weeks ago, I went through a fit of insanity and installed WSS 3.0 on my computer at home. For those of you who've never heard of it (which is probably most of you), WSS and it's "big (un-free) brother" MOSS make up Microsoft's CMS system. I guess it's sort of like WordPress on steroids, if WordPress was hideously ugly, aimed at the corporate market and tightly-coupled into Microsoft Office.

I installed it partly as a training exercise, and partly because I thought it's EDMS features would be cool for working on Urban Nordica in that hazy distant future where I get the time and energy to get back to writing. Alas, this was not the be the case. The system is up and working fine locally, but there's some r-tarded going on with its Alternate Access Mappings (Micro-speak for vhosts) and it keeps trying to resolve the external URL to the internal one. Which works great on my local LAN, and not so awesomely from everywhere else in the world. No idea what's going on there.

Oh, and my Office 12's WSS integration support appears to be broken for no reason at all. I ♥ Vista so much, srsly.

World of Warcraft

Shamefully, I started playing WoW again. Mostly at first because I noticed they'd finally released a Hawkstrider PvP mount. Seriously, I'd been saving my tokens up for one of those ever since BC came out and just when I spend them all… So a dozen or so games of WSG later (fuck but I hate WSG), I now have my Black Battlecock. It's awesome. Then I figured that I nearly had enough Honor for a new set of shoulders, and—

Goddamnit! Now I remember why I quit this stupid game!

Seriously, though, I recently heard WoW described (by one of the guys responsible for Warhammer Online, I believe) as a piece of "flawed genius". Which is really pretty well true. There are things I adore in WoW and things I loathe. Unfortunately, all the loves things are mechanically trivial (the art direction, lore and way the devs are constantly upgrading the UI based on player wants), while all the things I loathe have to do with the actual gameplay. And yeah, I'm starting to look forward to Wrath of the Lich King, but it doesn't look like it will be addressing any of the game's systemic flaws. The new quests and new zones will keep me entranced for a while, but as soon as I hit 80 I'm going to quit again. Because I don't grind, and in WoW there's really no point in endgame if you don't. And that's always been my problem with WoW, because I want to love it, but I never feel like I can actually achieve anything worthwhile. I calculate the amount of time it would take to get decent gear or a cool mount or whatever and it just ends up at, "Fuck that shit, I could be writing/drawing/playing other games/gardening/doing housework/sleeping/going to work/cutting my toenails." And the frustration of never achieving a state of satisfaction kills any enjoyment I might have otherwise found in the stuff I have done. Plus I kinda hate group content. Yeah, I know.

Still, we'll always have Diablo III…

Work

HP Service Manager 7 is a hulking pile of fail. Srsly.

Obligitory Crap Art

Finally, some art. This is all Zenntheartof: Smallville, because that's what I've been doodling most of lately. I need to learn not to draw right in the inside margin of my notebook, too.

Mirrored from v-s.net. Comments are preferred on the original.

Meme time! Stolen from svgurl.

Name a character and I'll tell you three (or more) facts about them from my own personal pseudo-canon.

Go!

Oh yeah, that was the other thing.

I got a couple of people telling me last Friday about this second review at PSGR. It was suggested to me that the reviewer may have had prior issues with butthurt. Well, I dunno about that but I vaguely remembered the name and, oh look, here she is. So I'm not sure if it counts, but my one and only history with Mallory seems to be that I wouldn't allow her to use my blog's comments as a platform for her to attack ~Jem [h]. Scandalous, I know.

Still, all publicity is good publicity, and inspiring strong emotions is what the artist in me likes to do. Honestly, apathy bothers me more than a negative reaction.

The one thing that interests me about Mallory's review, however (she had one good point about something, but I kinda forgot what it was in the midst of all the, "Do it more like I want!" foot-stamping), is that she's jumping off from a fundamentally flawed platform. I've said it before and I'll say it again:

I don't maintain this site for other people.

I maintain it for me. I blog for me. I create layouts that please me. I add and discard content according to what I think reflects, well, me. The reason I work so hard on the backend when I could just use WordPress? Because sk.log amuses me. The reason I use my own art in my layouts? Because it was made… by me. I could go on but I think you get the point; this is a personal domain. It's about me, not about you. Sure, you visit and I try and make your stay comfortable but, ultimately, my content is me (and, to a lesser extent, my interaction with you).

So here's a protip: If you have an opinion on my site, and it's starts with the assumption that the primary reason it exists is to please you… you're wrong.

In other news; I got my first Sharpie marker! These things are so lulz. I'm totally going to keep it in my bag and use it to graffitti on the walls of public toilets…

… or maybe just write on blank CDs. Something like that.

Mirrored from v-s.net. Comments are preferred on the original.

First off, thanks to everyone who offered their condolences about my grandfather. For those of you who missed the Tweet, he had a massive stroke on Saturday night and was rushed to hospital. There's not a lot the doctors can do for him – he's like, 90-something – and there's not a great deal of hope that he'll pull through.

So, yeah. We're mostly just waiting now. No, scrap that; mum just called to tell me he passed away this morning at about 3am. So.

Funeral's probably this Saturday.

In less sober news, my review at PSGR came up the other day. Go me.

I have been a sporadic visitor to your website for a while now. Not so much for your blogs as the content doesn't particularly interest me, but for the aesthetically pleasing layout you have up.

I have to admit this line threw me a bit. It's just… someone visiting multiple times just for the layout? Bizarre.

what I'm going to assume is fanart used in your header image

For the record, it's Ulfrun; my Troll Shaman character in World of Warcraft. So it's fanart, but fanart of… myself.

The only thing I can suggest here is that you link to the page about log.code from your comment form.

Yeah, I keep telling myself that. The reason I haven't is technical; the space where the link would logically 'go' in the comments form isn't part of the template, it's hard-coded into a function. Linking the log.code page from there decreases that portability I keep kidding myself the code has in it, since the log.code page is a custom page and thus theoretically won't be the same between installs. I probably need to add a line in the template or something, but I just… haven't. Bad me.

First, the link to the Wikipedia entry on 'Lokean' doesn't exist. Being a psychology student, I made the assumption Lokean refers to the ideas of the philosopher of John Locke, but I could be wrong.

You are. And, damn. Teach me to pick the most obscure reconstructionist heathen religion to not believe in; I guess the page got deleted for (non-)notability. Now I have to find a new reference source…

How do you keep up with all these communities and chat programs!?!

I have a very short attention span.

So. Yeah. That was a lot better than I was expecting, to be honest, and I've got my shortlist of things I need to clean up. So thanks to Nellie for taking the time to spot the things the contempt of familiarity keeps hidden from me.

FenPress got the start of a layout yesterday,¹ and I think it's evident that while ten years or so of practice has helped me in the layout department, I still struggle when it comes to logo design. Oh well. Not to mention I now need to re-write a bunch of WP's code which I told myself I wouldn't, but… it's just layout stuff, so… that's okay, right?

Right.

I've been thinking about my whole user profiles problem, and the real issue with it finally hit me somewhere on Friday night. The difference between WordPress and LiveJournal is that, in the latter, the relationship between users and journals is 1:1. You are your journal. WordPress is different. A user can have zero to n journals, while a journal can have 1 to n users. This impacts on the friending system, since how are you going to apply it across multiple users and multiple journals? See, I was thinking you have two levels of basic friending. A one-way relationship makes you a "Fan" of a user or a journal, while a two-way relationship is a Friend. Initially, posts will be able to have separate user levels for Everyone, Registered (anyone with an FP account), Fans and Friends. (Friends are, by definition, also Fans.) But my problem here is which Fans and Friends am I referring to? Fans and Friends of the user, or Fans and Friends of the journal?

At the moment I'm leaning towards the journal, just because it makes more logical sense. But then what's the point of being able to friend users?

It also means I'm going to have to make a profile page equivalent for individual journals.

Hrm…

Last thing (and, wow, I haven't done one of these multi-topic posts in a while). So ~Mat [h] and I went to see The Incredible Hulk on Friday night. I'm still not really sure what to think about it. I love Norton as an actor and so forth, and the film wasn't bad like Hulk was (mostly because it allowed Hulk to be heroic instead of just tortured, which is always nice in a superhero story), but…

I dunno. Maybe I'm just spoilt after seeing Iron Man, because this film certainly didn't tap into the same chemistry that one did. And that's no-one's fault, exactly. Because RDJ's Stark made Iron Man and while Norton does his best with Banner the character himself just… well, just isn't as fun. I think one of the reasons we all love Iron Man so much is simple wish fulfilment; we all want to be Tony, rich and brilliant and witty and slowly digging ourself out of apathy and into heroism (with superpowers pew pew). But no matter how much we empathise with Banner, we don't want to be him, and I think that puts up a bit of a wall between the film and the audience.

And this is a problem, because – like Iron Man – TIH suffers from having a kind of a crap villain. I said to ~Mat [h] as we left the theatre that there are essentially two types of superhero films; the ones where the hero fights a villain who is his opposite and the ones where the hero fights a villain who is pretty much exactly like him, but evil(-er). I'm not sure which one I prefer. On the one hand you've got films like Iron Man, TIH and Batman Begins, all of which had Big Bads that were, well, pretty lame. The drama in the films came from the journey rather than the destination, and you have to empathise with the hero (which is why Iron Man worked for me, TIH and BB not so much). And on the super-extreme other hand you've got Superman Returns whose villain was, well, so much more fun than its hero that you were kinda maybe rooting for him to win. Just a little bit. And, okay, Supes saves the day like you know he will and he's earned his victory… but you kinda wish he didn't. Maybe. Because Evil is Cool. Even though it shouldn't be. You know.²

… where was I again? Oh yeah; The Incredible Hulk, okay-but-not-great due to lack of interesting characters.

… man, work distracted me with stocktake and now I've got no idea where I was going with this.

1. Purple, cream, charcoal and green. Oh Dee… ^
2. This, incidentally, has always been my problem with Superman full stop. He tends to be either a Christ-like nice guy (and thus extremely boring), or a total self-righteous dick (leading to a Luthor Paradox)… occasionally both within the same episode/issue! It bothers me that all his best writing seems to be in fanfic… ^

Mirrored from v-s.net. Comments are preferred on the original.

Okay, so some of you may remember that I offer free domain and subdomain hosting. I have to admit that I don't get a lot of applications – maybe one a week on average – and only something like one in ten get accepted. Now, I don't send out rejecting letters mostly because I'm lazy, so I've decided in the interests of better applications in the future to make this as a kind of 'generic' rejection letter using previous denied applications and my reasons for not giving them hosting. So, here we go.

The Silent App

The first rejected app isn't actually an app at all; I can't quote it, because there's nothing to quote. Here's a hint, kids, the 'Comments' section of the application form is not optional. If you can't be bothered to tell me why you're awesome and suck up to me then I can't be bothered giving you hosting. Simple as that.

So, leave me a comment. The longer the better… so long as the information is relevant. 'Relevant' information includes your previous experience with websites, how technically adept you are, stuff about the site you want hosted as well as why you're so special and awesome that I should give you free hosting as opposed to all those other people who want it. Whatever you do, do not apologise for 'babbling'; if the stuff you're writing truly is babble, delete it before you submit the goddamn form.

The Fansite

Hi, I am currently starting a Paris Hilton fan site. My current host is a bit unreliable because she never contacts me back and is hardly online to fix problems. I own the domain p-hilton.com, and it was really hard to get. You can see that the site isn't fully furnished, but I had an awesome design and now I am looking for an awesome host :) .

It's not that I mind fansites per se, it's just that I'm really, really, really picky about the kinds that I will host. In general, I will not host celebrity shrines, especially not for celebrities I don't like. Show fansites I'm a bit more open-minded about, depending on what show, exactly, they're focused on. Fansites that cover creative and social fen activities I'm always cool with (fanfic and -art especially, and I don't even have to like the canon) because they showcase you rather than just a celebrity.

Paris Hilton already gets more coverage than she deserves; I've got no interest in providing free promotion for her. But you, on the other hand, are awesome. Promoting you is right up my alley.

The Kid

Hi!
My name's Carolina, I'm 13 ans I'm from Brazil.

Here's a hint; if you are under the age of majority, it's not a point in your favour. I'm 24. There are things on my site that aren't suitable for kids, and if you are one that means you I'm going to think twice about the hosting. Firstly because I don't want to piss off your parents and secondly because I left high school a long time ago and am not exactly itching to get back to it.

Being young isn't going to get your application rejected out of hand, but you'd better damn well convince me that you're articulate and emotionally mature.

The Grammar Reject

the site is for a webzine i am starting the link page explains more.

Yes. I would Love to Host with Yous so Badly. I will be very Greatful. This site is for the Actor Philip Bolden.

im geting late better luck next time

Grammar. It's not optional.

The None of the Above

So you took care with your application, you're of a reasonable age, made sure to punctuate and your site isn't about some vapid celebrity… but you still got rejected. Why? Well, to be perfectly honest; them's the breaks. The most likely reason is that I simply wasn't wowed by the example URL you submitted. Because while your comment is an important part of you app, the URL is as well. I'm offering webhosting and at the end of the day, I have to like your site. It has to be something I can feel proud to showcase, and here it's pretty much purely a matter of personal taste. The rejection doesn't say that your site is bad, only that it doesn't do anything for me, personally. Sorry about that.

And you want to know the secret? Since you read down this far and all? Unless I'm on holidays and thus away from my computer (fairly rare), I've read your application the day it's been sent in. If you haven't heard from me in the next three or four days, you've been rejected. If you want to know why, then ask. It's as simple (and as hard) as that; I don't reply to every application I get but I do answer every question. And if you honestly want to know where you went wrong, I will gladly tell you all the gory details.

I'll also give you the opportunity to fix up your application and re-submit it, if you want. The fact that you've bothered to get back in contact shows you're keen and – as long as you're not obnoxiously keen – I like that.

So there you go.

Mirrored from v-s.net. Comments are preferred on the original.