Tag Archives: Blog

News

Spam, trackbacks and web statistics

Some would say that it can only mean that I have far too much time on my hands. I claim that I’m merely interested. As is often the case, the truth maybe somewhere between the two. But the fact is, I do like to keep an eye how many people are visting ZX81.org.uk and what they’re looking at.

Tea Leaf, Sri Lanka
Tea Leaf, Sri Lanka
Sometimes people get here by the least obvious route. For example, most months I get a few hits from people searching for the words “my website.” What are they hoping to find? Are they expecting Google to figure out what they mean by “my”? Or is it just that there are an awful lot of very bored people just searching for random phrases?

There are also some oddities, I think anyway. My most popular picture is just of a tea leaf! (From when I was in the tea growing region of Sri Lanka.) It’s basically just a standard record shot, and even has a horizontal line across the middle where the lab scratched the negative. Not my greatest photograph. Some day I’ll invest the time to clean it up in Photoshop.

I figure I get a number of disappointed readers when they hop onto my site after searching for “Cuba girls.” I don’t know, maybe they are looking for girls chatting while leaning against a rusting old American car but somehow I suspect not. (This image from my time in Trinidad, Cuba.)

Girls chat in the street, Trinidad, Cuba
Girls chat in the street, Trinidad, Cuba
Most comments, it turns out, are not from “real” people at all. It was depressing to learn that most of my “readers” are just computer programs, and not very intelligent ones at that.

For a few months now I have been using the Akismet spam filter which has been doing an excellent job of removing such messages before you or I have to see them. I recently decided to bolster this with Paul Butler’s JS SpamBlock, which means that if you don’t have JavaScript enabled you may have to enter a random number when you post a comment. If you do have JavaScript enabled — and if you don’t know what I’m talking about you probably do — then everything should Just Work. In return I have seen my comment spam drop from around five thousand a month to virtually zero.

While I’m talking about changes you might see, I have also installed Imthiaz Rafiq’s WP-PDA which allows ZX81.org.uk to be readable on a PDA or smartphones web browser. Seems to work well from my phone.

News

RSS Feed Links

If you’re subscribed to my RSS feeds you may well have noticed already, but I have started, as an experiment, adding interesting links to my del.icio.us account and syndicating them from here. Is that a good idea? What do you think?

If, on the other hand, that first paragraph made no sense, read on.

First, let me explain terms. RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is a way to get your web browser ((Yes, there are programs that do this specifically. And programs like Outlook can read RSS feeds too. However I think most people still use a browser.)) to tell you when a website changes. If you have Internet Explorer 7 you should see the feeds icon (an orange square with white lines) next to the home icon on the top right, just below the search text box. In Safari the bar with the URL will have a blue RSS icon to the right. And Firefox has “Live Bookmarks” which do the same thing. Simply click the appropriate button and see what happens.

And if your browser does not support RSS — time you upgraded! — there are a couple of other ways of catching up. Look to the right of your screen and you’ll see buttons to add ZX81.org.uk to your “My Yahoo!” or to your Google Reader or Personalised Google Home Page. And, if that wasn’t enough, you can also subscribe by email ((Really, there’s no escape. You may as well give in now.)).

If you do that you’ll see brief articles there that you won’t see here, where “here” is directly on the zx81.org.uk website.

And del.icio.us? That’s basically just a website where you can share interesting links with your friends. I’ve just made it easy by merging my bookmarks with the ZX81.org.uk RSS feed.

Blog

Python Theme

SpamalotI don’t think my birthday last Thursday could have had more of a Monty Python theme if I’d tried. A few weeks ago B booked up tickets to see Spamalot, the West End musical based on the Monty Python film “Holy Grail.” She also hid away a copy of “The Very Best of Monty Python,” a small book with pictures and scripts from the Python series.

Quite independently, I got a text a few weeks ago asking what I thought of a DVD box-set where each Python talked about and showed their favourite sketches. I’d not heard of it at the time, but it sounded like an intriguing idea. And they are greate to watch — thanks Mum and Dad!

I took the day off work and was able to spend much of the time “revising” for the evening at the theatre. (That was my excuse anyway.) It’s amazing how good a lot of it still is. Some dates badly, but much is probably just as funny now as when it was first broadcast. I was reminded that a lot was first broadcast even before I was born!

Spamalot, the musical, didn’t disappoint. B wanted to go before January to make sure we saw the show with Tim Curry in the lead role. He was certainly worth seeing, having quite a stage presence and a great voice. Not to say that the rest of the cast had anything much to worry about. The lady of the lake warrants special mention, not just because she looked and sounded the part but because she got some of the best lines. Her song about “What ever happened to my part?” was a highlight. One of the songs — you’ll know which one if you go to see it — maybe works better on Broadway, but I thought they all hit their mark. The French insults still make me laugh, although, knowing all the lines from the movie, I don’t really know why!

Overall it was a neat mix of some of the “best of” Monty Python with some new material more suited to its new format. Very enjoyable — thanks B!

News

Consolidation

As I mentioned previously, I am in the process of reducing the number of websites that I need to support. To that end, some time ago I moved the content from StephenDarlington.com to here with the intention of decommisioning the old site. That day is coming shortly. The actual domain isn’t going away for a while yet, but soon it will redirect to www.zx81.org.uk/blog/.

Similarly, DarlingtonPhotography.com is going to go away too, to be replaced by www.zx81.org.uk/photography/. In the next few weeks I will be transitioning the content, and shorly after that the site itself will vanish too.

Why am I doing this? Well, the short story is that it’s a pain having to maintain three distinct systems. It makes the most sense to stick to ZX81 as is already gets the most page impressions and has a bizarre mix of technology, opinion and travel photography. What difference is a few more pictures of people going to make?

News

We apologise for the inconvenience

If you can read this, you are accessing my new web server. As with all of these things, there is no such thing as a completely clean transition, so if you notice anything amiss please do let me know.

On a similar note, moving my domain from my ISP to another provider has also affected my email. So if you have sent me email in the last day or two and it bounced back (or I’ve not replied) that is why. Please try again!