As you may or may not know; In November 2010, due to a combination of circumstance and decision, I totally rebuilt this blog. I rebuilt it on a new host’s web space, as the existing hosting basically sucked, as well as going so far as to change even the DNS nameservers.

- So, for those interested, I’m going to take the unusual step of publishing my site statistics just this once. There’s a rather large copy of my stats page at the foot of the text in this article to which you can refer to check the validity of my writings herein.

Now there is a reason for doing so, other than just showing off to whatever extent: that being that a few unexpected trends are revealed, at least with regard to my readership.

Let’s Crack on: –

The first thing you’ll notice is that I had a rather huge number of visitors on November 16th 2010. That was a bit of a “freak of cyberspace” I guess, but a nice one all the same. Generally I’ve noticed, ever since I’ve been blogging, that visitor numbers tend to start to increase from around the beginning of September, peak around mid-to-late November, and then suddenly tail-off towards the holidays and New Year. Following that there’s usually a rapid increase throughout January, a slight drop-off through February, and another peak in March/April, which gently tails off into and through the summer; usually reaching its nadir around late June, and then rising slightly again from there onwards up until September when the increase gains momentum again. This familiar trend seems to be being borne out by the figures again this year.

Operating System

…But here’s something I particularly didn’t expect to see, in the next section, “O.S.”: -

20,618 of my visitors were using Windows XP, compared to 27,771 visitors using other operating systems. – That is rather phenomenal if you ask me, and it demonstrates that Leo Notenbloom was right last year when he said that a vast majority of computer users are still using XP as their operating system of choice.

- But look at the next figure below… You’d expect maybe Windows 7, or Maybe Mac OS X to be the next-placed os. – But no; it’s Linux! – And that’s not counting Ubuntu Linux. (Pronounced “Oooboontoo Linux”, according to Linux user Rich Menga, assistant at of pcmech.com .) Together that’s 8809 visitors using Linux; which works out at around a third of those using Windows XP. – Impressive eh? – Those who say that Linux is crap and Linux is dead as an operating system; think again. – From my figures it appears to be thriving! – Doing better than Windows 7 at 5159.

Next, surprise surprise, comes Windows 2000 – with over 80% of as many users as Windows 7, as has Mac OS X. – I knew it had to be there somewhere. Now OS X – Yes I expected it to be on the up, particularly with American entrepreneurs, who must at least occasionally demean themselves to visit this woeful excuse for a blog from time to time. -But I really wouldn’t have expected 2K to be ahead of OS X at this point in time if the truth be known.

If my stats are anything to go on then Vista’s doing almost as poorly as I expected it to, in an inferior position to Ubuntu Linux, with the old fogies trailing further behind with much smaller numbers.

Browser

In the way of unexpected figures in this section… Well OK I did expect Firefox 3 to be in the lead, granted. – It’s what follows it that appears conspicuous by its unexpectedness: -

“Mozilla” – wtf! – Firefox 3 is made by Mozilla, as is Firefox 2: That makes things a little hard to fathom in a way… But worryingly, look at what’s in the number 3 position with over 12,000 visitors using it: Yes, the worst and most horrible, buggy, unsafe, bad-functioning browser known to humanity: Internet Explorer 6.

That is so sad, so very very sad: 12 thousand people aren’t getting a decent online experience because they’re using that heap of crap that even its makers have all but disowned. I am just appalled, speechless.

Look you visitors; I know IE6 ships with XP; but that isn’t an excuse to use it. Please do yourselves a favour and upgrade it or change it to something else; Firefox for instance, or Google Chrome, Safari, even K-Meleon if you like. Just change it, and I promise you that you will enjoy being online so much more.

Yes I don’t even try to hide the fact that I utterly loathe IE6: I HATE IT. – It was the worst piece of e-excreta that Microsoft have ever produced from their Anal Department; worse even than Vista, and on a par with but just a little below Windows ME. I seriously would like to be able to have all IE6 users imprisoned and their computers sent to a half-way house where they could recover from the terrible abuse inflicted upon them by being forced to run that pitiful excuse for a Windows Component. I have been known to display symptoms of anaphylactic ceasure upon seeing it being used. – I think many developers and other techies would sympathise with me, even agree with me and defend me on that point should the need arise.

Knock it on The Head

I think on that note I’m going to end this commentary: You can see the rest for yourself and make what you like of it – I think I’ve covered the major points I wanted to make.

Well I hope that you found this to be of some interest. I’m expecting to receive a few commendations from Linux zealots maybe, as well as various criticisms from all types; constructive and otherwise. – I’m not saying that these figures are a representative sample of what’s going on with regard to the cyber-situation today as a whole. I’m just presenting them to you because I find them strangely fascinating. I wonder if they are similar to anybody else’s blog statistics? – Any offers?

- Oh and yes; I did attempt to hide a few things for the sake of privacy – but I failed – because I cba really, well I just forgot to complete the blanking-out of bits of the image. – I doubt it matters that much. :L

I was just wondering – is it worth placing any adverts here? I don’t think that many people are going to be fascinated enough to see anything I put here – this low down on a rather long page… But wtf. – Let’s give Google a chance anyway.