Thursday 21 October 2010

Opera 11 Alpha

Today Opera 11 Alpha was released. I decided to see how the different counters recorded Opera 11 Alpha on its first day.

Opera 11 Alpha used on FreeBSD:

Opera/9.80 (X11; FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE i386; U; en) Presto/2.6.37 Version/11.00

No result:

BraveNet - Fails to count Opera 9 / 10 and now 11!
Belstat
GoStats - not working at time of test
W3Counter (Browser ID: Identification Blocked 0)

Opera 9

OneStat
SiteMeter
24Log
ExtremeTracking

Opera 10

Clicky

OPERA 11

ShinyStats
Statcounter
Motigo

Full marks / flexibility to ShinyStats, Statcounter, and Motigo. I'm also sure ExtremeTracking will register Opera 11 before too long.

Monday 5 July 2010

iPad Identification.

I recently had a play with an iPad in a local shop. Once I got over the problem of it auto-correcting the address from blogspot to bloodsport I was able to see how the different counters recorded my visit:

iPad / Safari:

ExtremeTracking
StatCounter
Shiny

Mac OSX / Safari:

SiteMeter
Brave Net
24Log

iPhone / Safari Mobile:

Clicky

Max OSX / Safari Mobile:

OneStats

Saturday 5 June 2010

Are Apps a Good Thing?

There are thousands of apps. They can do the most amazing things; but are all these apps. a good thing? Especially apps. that allow the use of established web-sites.

I was using my favourite currency conversion site XE.com when I noticed a link for the Android XE.com app. I then realised that there are XE.com apps for the iPhone and Blackberry too.

My reaction was why would you want an app. to convert currencies, you can do it so easily in the Android/Blackberry/iPhone browser? Not owning a mobile phone I tried XE.com on a divice (Nintendo DSi XL), Opera Mini simulator, and Opera Mobile Emulator for Linux. XE.com performed beautifully on all three.

I continued to wonder why bother with an app. I thought that having the app. would make it easy to go back to XE.com again, but then so would bookmaking the site!

I asked my other half why bother with an app. for a job which is easily accomplished in the browser, and she suggested that apps. suited people who were not too conversant with computers. This I can not see because it requires no more technical ability to use a browser than it does to use an app.

I wondered if apps. were to make use easier on a small screen, but I have tried .mobi versions of sites and would generally prefer the full site with extra scrolling, or change to column mode to actually read. I find it infuriating that Wikipedia defaults to the .mobi on the Wii.

So why bother with apps? The web should be open to all, are we not just making bits exclusive to those with the right kit?

Friday 7 May 2010

Disappearing Google Chrome Hits

A couple of Google Chrome anomalies. Surely I can not be the only person to have noticed.

1. Extreme Tracking does not include Google Chrome in browser totals:



Browser Totals: 29 Opera = 100%

Browser Details: 29 Opera + 1 Google = 100%

If you check Extreme never includes Google Chrome in Browser Totals (above example used for ease of view).

2. OneStat have stopped including Google Chrome in their Stats:

Last years OneStats browser stats for a Dutch web-site:



Google Chrome accounts for 1.64% of browser visits.

However, same site this years stats to date:

Monday 3 May 2010

PLD Linux

For many people their first experience of Linux is to try a Live CD, giving a taste of Linux without installation on their PC. PLD is a live CD I have been playing with recently which is very good, and seems to run better/faster as a live CD than some of the better know distributions (live CD are not quite as fast as installed operating systems).

PLD

Version ~ Titanium LiveCD 4.4.0 Stable fits onto a standard CD. Upon booting the CD PLD does not require the user to answer any questions, and goes straight to the desktop, and connects to the internet automatically (unfortunately I have not tried on a machine that relies on WiFi, and not asking for preferred keyboard layout results in the juxtaposition of @ and "):




Unfortunately, it does not load on my AMD Phenom II, or Via C7-M machines, on a Pentium 4 machine with 192 RAM, PLD loaded beautifully, but did not have enough memory left to load Opera.

PLD give their minimum requirements as:

"Minimum System Requirements: Intel/AMD Processor (i686) with 600MHz, 256MB RAM, CD-ROM Drive
Recommended System Requirements: Intel/AMD Processor (i686) with 2.0GHz, 1GB RAM, DVD-ROM Drive, Graphics Card that supports DRI (recommended Intel i945GM or higher)
"

Everything seems to work well, and efficiently, not lots of hanging waiting to the CD to spin as happens on many live distros. Opera is up to date Version 10.10, and surfs very well - flash is not included, but I have added the file libflashplayer.so from a USB to the desktop and amended Operas preferences (Tools, Preferences (do not use Ctrl + F12), Advanced, Content, Plug-in Options, Change Path), and this has worked very well. One niggle I have found is that the system does not shut down when commanded!

Overall a simple and straighforward LiveCD.

Saturday 3 April 2010

Google' Wireless Transcoder

I was looking at recent hits on ExtremeTracking and realised the big "G" was not a visit by Google Bot but a visit using Google' Wireless Transcoder. Not knowing what Google Wireless Transcoder was I looked it up, and found out that it is a way of rendering of websites to obtain the essential information, making them suited for display on a PDA.

Although I do not have a PDA I decided to have a play with Google' Wireless Transcoder, its URL is here. Steves Stats is a site I obviously tried:





Much simplified, but all the information is available.

From the above visit, how did the verious counters register Google Wireless Transcoder:

1. No Icon. Hence, nothing registered:

ShinyStats
BraveNet
BelStats
SiteMeter
24Log

2. Icon, but nothing registered:

Motigo

3. Browser identified as Safari:

GoSats (Safari 52513)
GetClicky (Safari 3.1)

4. Visit registered as Google Bot:

OneStat

5. Correctly identified as Google Wireless Transcoder:

StatCounter
W3
ExtremeTracking

From the user agent it becomes apparent why it is mistaken for Safari:

Mozilla/5.0_(en-us)_AppleWebKit/525.13_(KHTML,_like_Gecko;_Google_Wireless_Transcoder)_Version/3.1_Safari/525.13

Friday 26 February 2010

Sales Assistants and Linux

I had some tome to kill whilst waiting for my car to be fixed, so I popped into Currys to look at computers. Currys are a major UK PC retailer, so you would expect some sound and knowledgeable advice from their staff!

I was looking at laptops when a sales person, whose badge identified him as a laptop specialist, asked if I needed any help?

I stated that I was just browsing, because I have just completed a new PC- which I added is a fast machine.

He enquired about its specs, and was surprised that it has two hard drives.

I said that one runs Linux and one FreeBSD.

He pulled a face and said that he did not like Linux.

I asked why?

He said that it was difficult to use.

Wondering why he had had problems, I asked why he had found Linux difficult to use?

He then stated that he had never actually used Linux!

Sunday 7 February 2010

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to encourage government departments to upgrade away from Internet Explorer 6.

The above is an online petition, which UK citizens, and residents, can use to petition our Prime Minister.

Why have I signed it?

Internet Explorer 6 is slowing the implementation of Web Standards. I enjoy browsing with Opera 5, but accept that many sites do not work with this historical browser, yet sites are being forced to work with an equally old Internet Explorer 6 because it accounts for 20% of internet hits.

Certainly in the UK, very few people use Internet Explorer 6 on their personal computers; even at work no one has IE6 on their home computer(s). The problem is mainly workplace usage. I work for a Government department, and we run nothing but IE6 on XP, just our small unit alone must account for thousands of IE6 hits a day - there is no option. At lunch time I pop to the library, there are 30 internet access machines being used intensively all day, all running Windows 2000 with IE6. The biggest employer in my town uses XP with IE6. Its the captive hits make up the bulk of IE6s usage. Hence, if Goverment stoped using it it would make a huge dent in usage and encourage companies to drop this old liability. Then sites can be written to standards, and if a browser fails to render properly its the browsers fault, and not a side effect of a work arround to make Internet Explorer 6 cope.

Thursday 21 January 2010

No Opera 3!

I have often wondered why Opera 3 and 4 never appear on counters. Even Extreme tracking which records all visits since the counter was set up does not have early Opera versions listed; even tough you feel that for long established sites someone must have arrived on Opera 3 or 4.

Recently, I have been playing with Haiku OS, an OS inspired by BeOS, and although only released as a first alpha it is excellent, and shows the potential to become an established operating system.

In 2000 Opera released Opera 3.62 for BeOS, which I installed onto Haiku to see how counters reported Opera 3. Unfortunately, not one counter managed to count a visit by Opera 3, and only one recored Opera, without a version:

* Most counters failed to load with Opera 3, and if counter does not load theres no counting:

ShinyStat
BraveNet
BelStat
SiteMeter
StatCounter
GoStats

* Four counters appeared using Opera 3.62, but two failed to record as a result:

Extreme Tracking
Motigo

* Leaving just two who registered something:

Onestat - Internet Explorer 5
24Log - Identified Opera, but no version number.

I retried with the settings as "Spoof Entirely as Mozilla" but this site failed to load.

Saturday 16 January 2010

Opera Private Tab, Not So Private

Added 03/08/2010: I have tested the latest versions of Opera (10.60) on FreeBSD and Linux, Opera have now resolved this issue and Private Tab is not leaving a cookie record anymore.

Opera 10.5 pre-alpha is available, and I have enjoyed playing with it on a Linux machine. It works very well, but there is one thing which I find odd, the introduction of "private tab" and "private window". When Internet Explorer 8 introduced this concept I was sceptical - how can this be better than a Linux live CD? With Firefox also including this feature, it became inevitable that Opera would have to have it.

What I find strange is that when you close your "private tab" the cookies still remain! Hardly private.

I still believe the Linux live CD to be a better option, even with the drawback that most which include Opera are still on version 9.