Global Nerdy

I’d have published this earlier, but my recent hospitalization has delayed a number of projects, both personal and professional.

It’s the start of a new year, which means that once again, it’s time for an article on the statistics for the two blogs I own:

• my personal blog, The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century
• my technology blog, Global Nerdy

Accordion Guy

Here’s the StatCounter graph for visits to The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century from January 1st, 2010 to December 1st, 2010:

Here are the year-end summary figures – not quite 2.5 million pageviews in 2010 (1.9 million uniques), with a daily average of about 6,600 pageviews a day (or about 5,200 uniques). 

	2010 total	Daily average
Page loads	2,421,543	6,634
Unique visitors	1,897,620	5,199
First time visitors	1,789,299	4,902
Returning visitors	108,321	297

 

For comparison’s sake, here’s how Accordion Guy has been doing since I started measuring it in mid-2005. The blog itself has been around since November 2001 – that’s right, it turns ten years old this year!

2008 remains the biggest year by a couple hundred thousand, and that’s because it was a rather interesting year: I worked at three different places that year: Toronto’s worst-run startup, then b5media, then Microsoft. I got laid off and hired during the econopocalypse of 2008, and my getting hired by Microsoft, a very unexpected move, got a fair number of hits.

2011 should be an interesting year for the Accordion Guy blog, and hopefully, for you readers as well. I’ve already been hospitalized (a long blog post about that is coming soon), there’ve been some rather interesting changes in my personal life and I’m slated for some interesting travel soon. There should be stories aplenty!

Global Nerdy

Here’s the StatCounter graph for visits to Global Nerdy from January 1st, 2010 to December 1st, 2010:

Here are the year-end summary figures: just past 1.5 million pageviews in 2010 (1.2 million uniques), with a daily average of about 4,200 pageviews a day (or about 3,400 uniques).

	2010 total	Daily average
Page loads	1,548,619	4,243
Unique visitors	1,238,732	3,394
First time visitors	1,160,962	3,181
Returning visitors	77,770	213

 

Here are Global Nerdy’s year-by-year numbers since the blog was started in the summer of 2006.

Global Nerdy’s numbers for 2010 are roughly the same as 2009’s. Generally, when I write a tech article, I tend to post it to both Global Nerdy and Canadian Developer Connection, Microsoft Canada’s developer blog. When I announce a new article on Twitter, I provide the Canadian Developer Connection link first, because while Global Nerdy will make me a couple of bucks a day with AdSense, the performance of the Canadian Developer Connection blog is one of the ways my performance is measured at work.

There’s a lot going on this year at work in the tech world and at work, and as with Accordion Guy, 2011 should be interesting in Global Nerdy.

This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

The good news is that there’s a wealth of information online about what people like to refer to as “HTML5”. It’s actually a catch-all for a bunch of things: HTML5, naturally, but also CSS 3, JavaScript, some clever programming techniques, calls to the back end and use of some features being put into the latest versions of browsers (including Internet Explorer 9).

The bad news is that there’s so much information on HTML5 that it’s hard to know where to begin. Luckily, the folks at Pragmatic Bookshelf have just released HTML5 & CSS3: Develop with Tomorrow’s Standards Today, which is a great guide for the web developer or designer looking to get into building beautiful, functional, usable web applications with web standards. Weighing in at a very manageable 265 pages, this book starts off with an overview of HTML5 and CSS3 features, then covers goodies like Canvas programming and embedded audio and video, and then goes beyond HTML5 with look at working with client-side data, playing nicely with other APIs and even a quick jQuery primer.

HTML5 & CSS3: Develop with Tomorrow’s Standards Today is now available at your favourite bookstore as well as online. Pragmatic Bookshelf offers it in many formats, including the environment- and wallet-friendly ebook version (available in epub, mobi and PDF formats) for a mere USD$21.00 (CAD$20.86 as of this writing).

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

If you’re new to Microsoft web development technologies, take a look at WebMatrix. It’s an open source, all-in-one package that gives you what you need to get started building web sites and applications using Windows, including:

• A development web server – IIS Express, a development version of our full-fledged web server, IIS
• A web development framework – ASP.NET
• A database – SQL Server Compact, a development version of SQL Server, which powers a lot of businesses
• Development tools – An editor that makes it easy to build sites and that makes it easy to move your project to the full-fledged Visual Studio when it’s time
• Built-in web apps – Makes it easy to add web applications like WordPress, DotNetNuke and Joomla! to your site
• SEO tools – A built-in SEO reporter helps you make your site more indexable by search engines
• Site publishing tools – Support for FTP, SFTP and WebDeploy to move your site from your development machine to the real thing

Want to find out more about WebMatrix? Watch the online stream of our Enter the WebMatrix presentation at the CodeMash conference this Thursday at 12:30 p.m. EST (9:30 a.m. Pacific) and see it in action!

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

Silverlight is incredibly useful, because it lets you write applications with rich user interfaces that can live on the desktop, in web pages and on Windows Phone, backed by the .NET framework. A lot of businesses use it to create web-based applications that have all the UI power of desktop apps, plus the benefit of being able to interact securely with files on their machines, devices, data and other applications.

The fine folks at ObjectSharp, whose office is right by the corner of Yonge and King in downtown Toronto, are great trainers for people who want to learn how to get the most out of Microsoft’s development tools and technologies, and they’ll be running another Silverlight course soon: from Monday, January 31st through Thursday, February 3rd. The ObjectSharpies are great guys who do great presentations (we’ve called on them to create and present TechDays sessions many, many times), and the classrooms in their new office (featuring a lot of cool gear, including the giant screen I wrote about earlier) are stunning.

If you’re a new registrant, you can save 15% off ObjectSharp’s upcoming Silverlight training course. You get the second-to-none ObjectSharp training, all done in their state-of-the-art classrooms, you’ll pick up mad skills for a valuable (and a make-you-hireable)technology – and all at a reduced price. What’s not to like? Register now, and tell them Joey sent you!

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.