I really like Mint
A couple of months ago I finally decided to bite the bullet and pay for Mint, a statistics package for websites. What? Yah, I couldn’t believe it either, but you know I loves the numbers. $30, to be sure, is a lot to pay for what amounts to nothing more than a somewhat simplified stats program, but I love it. I love everything about it.
I’m not going to go into detail about the product, lord knows the blogosphere had its way with it when it was first released (mostly with regard to its admittedly high price), but I will say that I’m more than pleased, even if a bit miffed that I actually paid for it. It actually reminds me a lot of the old Reinvigorate system (which was *cough* free).
It’s not Analog or Urchin (now available for free from Google Analytics), but it shows me the information that I want to see, and beautifully I might add.
I think my absolute favorite feature is the RSS feed for new referrers. No need to follow anything else; Technorati, PubSub, and all the other ways I used to track incoming links have been obviated. Shaun gets around the referral spam problem by “validating” every hit with JavaScript, which really seems to do the trick.
One other really nice feature regarding referrers is that it can usually deduce that different URIs are the same site (e.g., www.foo.com, foo.com, foo.com/foo.html) and record/present them as such.
Pepper
The “Pepper” plugin interface is fantastic and as soon as I think of something I need that hasn’t already been created, I’ll be sure to release my own addition to Mint.
I currently use the following Peppers:
Mild complaints
There is no way to filter the RSS feed. In other words, there is no way to remove from it things that come up often, but in slightly different contexts (e.g., I get a ton of referrals from Google Images which I couldn’t care less about). Yes, I know of the Referrer Filter Pepper, but it only filters the page view pane, not the RSS feed.
Another thing I would like to see is the ability to switch between various color schemes. Sure, I could whip up a custom CSS file, but, well, I’m a busy man, and for $30 I would expect at least one alternative color combination.
All in all though, it’s a great piece of software and something I see myself using for years to come.
Busch Gardens
Yesterday I went to Busch Gardens with a bunch of friends for the first time in ~10 years. It was an absolute blast and everything I remembered. I think it’s always been my favorite theme park and yesterday just helped to solidify its position at the top. The new big ride, SheiKra, is completely insane, and were it not for the ridiculous wait times, we probably would have rode it all day.
WordPress 2.0
WordPress 2.0 was released yesterday (from v1.5.x) — I upgraded my installation last night and had no issues. Great job guys.
Also, both of the plugins I maintain for WP work fine under 2.0 (I’ve updated the list of working plugins to reflect this). On a related note, I’ll be releasing Smart Archives v1.1 sometime in the next few days and am working on two new plugins.
As you were.
I just can’t keep up
Too many friends to see. Too many voicemails to respond to. Too many conversations to have. I’m afraid that there just isn’t going to be enough time to fit it all in this break. If you haven’t received a response from me (other than through SMS/e-mail), trust that you are in the queue.
Uhh, at some point I should probably do some patent bar studying.
I ended up getting the EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens I spoke of in an earlier post, but haven’t had a chance to shoot with it yet; hopefully tomorrow I can find some time. I’m currently sitting on about 10 pictures I think are good enough to post here — expect them to trickle in over the next few weeks.
Florida sunset
Today was the first day since I’ve been home that I’ve been able to take any pictures (my previous efforts had been thwarted by rain and lack of transportation), but even today I was only able to go out for about 45 minutes before it got dark.
You can find another, similar sunset picture below this one in my Flickr photostream (I took a ton of pictures because the sky kept changing colors) along with a B&W picture of a parked train that I took before I got to the water.
Expect many more photos, weather and transportation permitting.
I am a workaholic
That’s the first step, right? Now what? It’s no doubt getting worse with age, and, well, it kind of scares me.
What’s a GSM fanboy to do?
UPDATE: I actually ordered the i-mate SP5 again. Should be here tomorrow.
Am I going to be ‘forced’ to move to Verizon? Of all the phones I’ve owned and services I’ve used, the only major carrier I’ve never gone with is Verizon (for various reasons). However, that might have to change given that they seem to have both the Palm Treo 700w and the Motorola Q locked for the foreseeable future. Not sure if we’ll see unlocked GSM versions of these phones until well after the Verizon launch-hype has worn off.
This puts me in a very contentious position. Perhaps I’ll have to try and get the i-mate SP5 again(!) (obviously not from Expansys) or just wait for the Nokia E61, which I think might be a huge hit next year, assuming of course that Nokia doesn’t follow their usual practice of pricing “high-end” phones completely out of the market.
Still reluctant to move to Verizon
My love for GSM really has nothing to do with the underlying technology. That used to be the case, but as this industry progresses we’re starting to see that the big three (Sprint, Cingular, and Verizon) are converging toward similar ceilings. I think the biggest reason I’ve never gone with Verizon (or Sprint since about 2001) is because the [CDMA] phones they use are locked to the carrier, and so phones without the carrier’s “seal of approval” simply will not work. What does that mean exactly? It means that the latest and greatest devices (read: those available anywhere but America) can’t be used on these networks. If you flip mobile devices like I do, you not only want access to the newest gadgets, you also want to be able to sell them easily, which becomes a bit more difficult if your ad is limited to a specific carrier. When locked in with either Verizon or Sprint, you’re at the mercy of the respective provider as to which phone you’ll be using next — unless they decide to pick up the phone you want (and the manufacturer decides to let them have it), you’re shit out of luck. This has never sat well with me and I’m not sure the Q or the 700w can change that. Couple this inability to control your device with the fact that Verizon’s unlimited data plan for devices is $45/mo., where Cingular’s is $20, and the possible switch quickly becomes a non-decision.
I actually purchased a RIM Blackberry 8700c after the whole SP5 fiasco, but returned it the same day after realizing that there was no way for me (err, Cingular wouldn’t allow me) to use my all-I-can-eat data plan with the RIM device even though I didn’t need/want any “push” functionality; I simply wanted web and POP/IMAP access, but this required a separate $50/mo. “BlackBerry” plan. Just one more way to get your money. I’m so sick of the providers here I can’t see straight and could talk at unbelievable length about the inequities and ineptitude of the entire mobile phone industry, but I’ll save everyone the bore (for now!).
On the lack of new pictures here
Yes, I know I’ve been a little lax with pictures here lately — I’ve been busy. Truth be told, I haven’t taken a single shot in about two months — I’m itching to get back into the swing of it and plan to shoot a ton while here in Florida.
While on the topic, I should mention that I might be adding the EF 50mm f/1.4 USM to my arsenal fairly soon.
On having luggage lost
Well, as usual, the black cloud of luck that hangs over my head decided to rain on me again today — American Airlines lost my luggage, which included both my patent bar study materials and some rather expensive clothes. Hopefully they’ll find it and rectify the situation. This is just what I needed after the last month and a 7:00AM-midnight transit from California to Florida. Same shit, different day.
What a month
I had my last law school final of the semester last night and am completely burnt-out. Not sure why, but finals really took their toll on me this semester. They always do, but this semester seemed a bit more intense for some reason. I’ve essentially been a machine the last few weeks and am now devoid of energy. All that’s really left to do is wait for my grades to start trickling in and ruining my day(s). Luckily, I’ll be able to drown my sorrows in good company, Chik-fil-A sandwiches, and fried okra from Sonny’s (see below).
Unfortunately, there’s really no downtime — today is the girlfriend’s birthday and tomorrow morning I head back to Florida for about three weeks. On top of the fact that there are 2342353 people I need to see and hang out with in Florida, this break is likely going to be a lot less fun than years past because I’m going to have to spend the majority of it studying for the patent bar, which is not the most exciting thing in the world. In fact, I dare say it’s the most boring, god-awful thing I’ve ever been made to do.
Notwithstanding the fact that I’ve got all of this stuff going on and that the next few weeks will arguably be as busy as the last few, you should expect a ton of posts from me over the next month or so — there’s a whole lot I’ve been wanting to say, but just haven’t had the time to say it.
We’re now off to find Midway Arcade Treasures: Extended Play for my PSP. This cartridge comes with the original Mortal Kombat trilogy (I’m an MK god; it’s been a while, but…) and ~20 other games. I can’t wait!
We also plan on seeing King Kong this afternoon, and from what I’ve heard, it’s nothing short of brilliant.
As you were.
Del.icio.us alternatives redux
I received quite a bit of e-mail regarding the Del.icio.us alternatives post I put up a few weeks ago. As is always the case when I write something like that, much of the feedback comes from similarly situated people looking for the same solution and asking me to let them know if and when I come across it.
However, not all of the e-mail was from end-users — I also got feedback from various del.icio.us competitors hawking their wares. In fact, the CTO of Furl, the service I commented on in the earlier post, e-mailed me to get a better understanding of what I was talking about regarding the URI-forwarding and has since told me that a “furl”-free referrer is now on the to-do list. I really hope this actually comes to fruition.
For what it’s worth, I did try out quite a few other social-bookmarking services, but all of them suffered from the same no-HTML-in-comments shortcoming.
Something tells me that at the end of the day I’m going to have to migrate the entire thing back to my own CMS to get this very simple feature. I explained how to create a “linkblog” with Movable Type a while back, though I’d likely use WordPress this time around if it comes down to that.
Out of curiosity, has anyone come across a del.icio.us importer for either WordPress or Movable Type (either would work — importing/exporting between those systems isn’t too terribly difficult)? When I say “importer,” I’m referring to moving the actual bookmarks (+descriptions) to the CMS (i.e., each bookmark ends up being a separate post); I’m not looking for a way to present del.icio.us bookmarks on a site powered by either of those CMSs.
Gmail and Lynx
Not sure why I’m writing about this here, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Gmail works, and works well, in Lynx, the text-only web browser for *nix terminals.
A few days ago there were some network problems on campus (surprise, surprise) and about half of the sites I was going to were not coming up. I desperately needed to check my e-mail and my phone’s battery was dead so I couldn’t do it from there. I didn’t know of any proxies off the top of my head and so I ended up SSH’ing into my webhost and using Lynx to get to Gmail.
Now, I fully realize that Gmail has an HTML-only version that is triggered when JavaScript is disabled (or missing), but for whatever reason I just assumed that the site would somehow break under Lynx. Lucky for me it didn’t break, and honestly, the navigation isn’t that bad in a pinch.
Note to self
It’s probably not a good idea to do this again. Finals are killing you this semester.
