Blog Security Updates

Blog Security Updates....

I have just enabled a forced HTTPS redirect on my blog, unbeknownst to me you could still get to it via an unsecured link!  Thanks google for not making that more obvious.

I've also changed the comment rules to require you to have a google account to comment.

Believe you me I do read every comment, I reply to quite a few.  But for the most part I spent time removing adverts, and I have had some bizarre adverts posted as comments.  However today I had the most in appropriate advert ever for illegal items, which I not only completely disagree with but found abhorrent could be posted anonymously.

So you now need to have a google account.

Thanks for sticking with me!

New Blogger is Bullshit (and Slow)

The new blogger interface.... Gah, so I hate it, they've moved things around and it's so very very slow, I just wrote my first blog post with it and getting the labels on took literally minutes as you type and it flickers about and then just terrible.

It was sluggish to do anything at all, including formatting.  Literally to select all then justify took tens of seconds.

It's instant in here, always has been... stupid new interface...

It's a great example of change for changes sake.

Ukrainian Viewers

I just took a look at my blog statistics and for the first time in year a new country is the number 1 source of viewers.  The usual top 3 have been:

United States, United Kingdom and then France, followed by Canada, Australia and then Russia.

Over the last week however one country has not only appeared on the list, but rocketed to the top spot above the United States... And that country is...

The Ukraine...

I like the Ukraine; I'm not making a political statement about the current strange activity and rhetoric coming from Russia; but I do like the Ukraine, I remember watching the celebrations in Kiev as they won independence in the 90's.  An old man crying like a baby, it struck me as quite a deep moment, almost like the fall of the Berlin wall.

I also remember the Ukraine for the coverage of Chernobyl when I was very young.

But quite what's bringing Ukrainian viewers I'm not sure... Would any of them like to tell me?  I don't know which post you're being directed to, and no post shows a sudden peak in interest... So I'm just in the dark.

500

This is my five hundredth post, I never expected to post this many entries, but here I am.  Some say  you throw enough shit and some will stick, well this is the definition.

My most popular posts are by far the ones concerning code, especially the ones writing my own virtual CPU, something I do promise to revisit as soon as I get some time.

And anything I mark "review" gets visits.  But yeah, 500 posts... No idea I'd be here.

There have been over 55,000 views too, from around 41,000 unique sources, so there's at least a few people who come more than the once, thanks a bunch, lets see where Christmas and the New Year take us.

Blogger View Counts at Zero?

I noticed this on the 19th, all the view counts listed in the posts page of my blog show as zero.

My stats page shows hundreds, if not thousands of views, and other demographics, but the original old, working, view count per post is currently zero on every single post, even posts I know have multiple views...

I have no idea why, but the latest 100 posts on my blog all now have zero views… they had hundreds… now zero… and then the second 100 posts have stats as normal… then the third 100 are missing stats…. And then the remaining 187 all have stats…

100 without… 100 with… 100 without… 187 with….

And its not my viewing them in lots of 100, because if I switch to lots of 25, I get 4 pages… 4 x 25 being 100… all without stats… then 4 x 25 with stats… and 4 x 25 without again… the pattern is consistent, but these are posts which I know have been viewed, I can see comments on them, and people going to them on the other stats pages….

Something really odd is going on somewhere, and it's on their side.


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Addendum: Whilst writing this post, the stats have all returned to normal... something was going on.. something odd.