Ewan's Corner

Archive for the ‘weblog’ Category

The Mail & Guardian online article SA Blogging bonanza talks about the relatively recent rapid growth of the South African blogosphere – more traditional media is taking notice :-)

Farrel Lifson, who started Politics.za (www.politics.za.net) in July 2003 to keep up to date with local politics, says that in the early days local blogs were few and far between. “I remember searching for South African blogs back in 2003, when I started mine, and having to sift through Google’s results trying to find one. I think at the time I managed to find two,” says Lifson.

I wonder if one of those was mine – I was using Blogger at the time (then run by Pyra before Google bought them out). My first post is dated September 2nd 2003, so it looks like I may have missed out being the first (at least still active) by a few months. This blog was never intended to be a business or attract readers, it is mainly an experimental way of record keeping and playing with new technology / software… looking back it seems my blogging premise was pretty accurate. Life was simpler then, but my reason for a fascination with online journals blogs is still the same.

When you read this journal–when you read any journal–keep in mind that there are a lot of people with something to offer you. I’ve come to believe that you can learn something from pretty much anyone who crosses your path.

Inspired by Kyknoord’s “You were looking for” post, I present a list of popular or just interesting search phrases / keywords people use before stumbling on this blog. Almost 80% from Google (more than half of those Google Images), 15% via Yahoo and the rest spread across miscellaneous engines (sorry Microsoft, only 1% via MSN).

My blog may have been around longer, but it’s far geekier and not nearly as interesting as the other side of the mountain – Kyknoord’s list is far more entertaining, as is he :)

• derivco (my provider of gainful employment, popular because the word is so unique)
• lesbian thumbs (*I* know why this hit my blog, but what were *they* looking for?)
• broken fingers (this is one of the most popular phases since the post, no idea why – the image is cool though)
• wikipedia astrology (I’m insulted, I would have hoped this would be astronomy instead)
• rabbits (lots of hits, comments and emails generated from this simple search keyword – rabbits are apparently more popular than I thought).
• unfortunate domain names (it’s funny, and linked from a few jokes sites)
• durban storm pictures (most recent term, huge spike in hits since the recent events – this kind of search has made a few local Durban bloggers famous)
• fallacy wikipedia (um…)
• proof that online poker is rigged (“online poker” makes this popular, and there are plenty of nutters who think any kind of online gambling is rigged, despite evidence to the contrary)
• aliens on pluto (I hope there are, maybe this was a vanity search :)
• gmail smiles (makes me smile, for sure)
• seti candidate signal (from Pluto perhaps… meantime I’ll carry on with seti@home)
• automatic cs paper generator (rats, i’ve been caught out! Lazy students?)
• interviewing at microsoft (never done that, never will unless all else fails :-)
• what spacecraft was the first human-made object to travel to an outer planet and take photos (via ask.com obviously)
• thank god for kids (except when you want to kill them)
• radioactive snails (someone worrying about snails that glow in the dark?)
• type of rocks (try be more specific… or do you come from Pretoria?)
• uranus is next (yikes, i’m afraid)
• goo theory
• www.nurse immunisation photo.com (how this lead here I have no idea)
• cement shoes (script writers looking for ideas for the Sopranos finale?)
• nothing to do with snowmobiles (global warming? dead skiers?)
• pronutro (proudly south african. How can there be no Wikipedia Pronutro entry? The best Wikipedia can do is List of breakfast cereals)
• i am lost (you truly are if you ended up here!)
• pooh biscuits (too scared to try this phrase myself)
• i gave my mom flowers blog (how sweet)
• killer washing machines (the stuff of nightmares. and crappy movies.)
• the empire of ice cream (a brilliant short story)
• choosing a new pope (I know Catholics are nuts, but turning to the web for advice?)

Stats from my webserver logfiles (awstats), Google’s webmaster tools and Google Analytics.

This is brilliant – Amatomu (Zulu for “reins”) has been launched by the Mail&Guardian. It’s a (limited, only for now I’m sure :-) Technorati for the South African blogosphere. Still in alpha but seems great, hats off to the M&G team and everyone involved for a proudly South African offering – the M&G seems to be rapidly producing interesting products at the moment, getting in at the ground level while the South African blogosphere (i hate that word :-) really takes off.
Update 2007/03/22
See Vincent’s post “Introducing the public Amatomu alpha: notes from the developer” for the official announcement.

Gargoyle is a brilliant (South) African search engine, built using Nutch – hats off to Peter Hart-Davis for a lightning fast engine with enough detail to keep my inner geek happy for ages!

It’s getting lots of commentary on SA blogs as expected – still alpha (hopefully that includes the messy URL :-)

Far better (and faster – both at returning results and including new content) than my quick attempt at using a Google Custom Search Engine to search SA blogs:

The included sites are automatically generated from URLs tagged “sablogs” on del.icio.us, crudely ranked by number of saves.

And no adverts…

One of the strangest comments (and definitely the most unexpected) this blog has ever received. Makes a nice change for all the usual rubbish the filters (usually) block, I think i’ll reply to Barry. At least he isn’t offering me… let’s see… over $10k a month (from home, nogal!), wonder weight loss products by the ton, over $1k free startups at various poker rooms / tournaments, rubbish overpriced software, movie merchandise and review sites (seems to be a new type of spam), share buy and forex recommendations, online casinos, amazing deals on “internet degrees” (at $150 you get to choose your own schedule for your MBA), ringtones (*sigh*) and dating sites, debt solutions (not to mention IRS “workarounds” ;-), acne treatment, cheap Disney tickets, shady diamond deals and Neil Diamond music (?). At least blog spam seems a little more cultured (sic) than the traditional email spam – I don’t seem to get any ads for penis body part enlargement creams and the like. Small blessings.