Steve “Micro Persuasion Rubel” points to a Comscore Media Metrix study that shows that Canada has the largest percentage of blog readers in their online population, followed by Spain, France, the U.K., Netherlands, the U.S., Italy and Germany:
As the Canadian half of Global Nerdy, I'm getting the sudden urge to re-jig my Google Ads layouts. It's Christmas, you know.
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When I get a new computer, I generally put away the mouse that came with it and plug in my trusty Logitech MX 500 mouse. Whether it's for filling out TPS Reports, blogging or coding, it's the one mouse I swear by (actually, two mice — one for the Mac, one for the Windows box, but they're both the same make and model). I hear that its button action isn't that hot for games, but since I prefer console gaming these days, thats not a really big problem for me.
As both my Logitechs approach their fourth year of daily use, one of them is showing signs of poor motion tracking while the other's button action is getting a bit “bouncy”. I've been eyeing replacement mice, and the recent new York Times piece on the MX Revolution caught my interest. The article describes it as…
…a high-end mouse designed not for those shooting games, but for an activity far more fearsome: handling the vast pile of reports, Web pages, spreadsheets, e-mail threads and other materials that the average desk jockey can face each day at the office.”
Implicit in that description is that it'll make going through code and ebooks — and I'm going through increasing amounts of them these days — like a hot knife through butter.
The speed boost comes from a new scroll wheel, “a heavy, finely balanced wheel that spins through distances that would normally require many scrolling motions and many minutes,” and software that allows for high-speed “coarse” scrolling — great for zipping through hundreds of pages at high speed — as well as standard “fine” scrolling, when you want to scroll line by line.
As a bonus, it's cordless, unlike my current MX 500s.
The MX revolution requires some software to be installed to take advantage of its hyper-scrolling capabilities. Windows XP is supported out of the box, you have to download the Mac OS X software and there's a Vista beta available from their site (the final version of the Vista driver is promised for January 2007).
The price tag is a bit steep — the Logitech site prices it at US$99 — but considering that I recently blew $60 on an XBox 360 wireless controller that I use nowhere nearly as often as a mouse, it might be worth it.
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You've probably heard by now that we — er — “You” are Time magazine's person of the year. Let me tell you, this wasn't how I planned to get that title.
I'm that this title will please some people, make some others groan and will probably annoy the hell out of one of their advertisers. Case in point: if you were to navigate to Time's “Person of the Year” section as of this writing, you'll be treated to this Chrysler Sebring ad first:
Here's a closer look at that video window in the center of the page:
Well, if there's something positive to say about this, it's that it would appear that there is a “Chinese wall” between Time's editorial and advertising departments…
Cisco/Linksys picks a fine time to introduce an "iWhatever" product. Ripping off Apple's marketing 11 years ago has finally paid off! Gizmodo opens the Giz-kimono on their "iPhone on Monday" tease:
It's not what any of us expected. The iPhone is a voip phone made by Linksys. Cisco, their parent company, has owned that trademark since 1996. And they're announcing their product in a few hours.
So the iPhone is a VOIP handset, and not by Apple. Now, the bigger story presents itself: What will Apple call its cellphone?
I guess the "i" in Cisco's "iPhone" stands for "instant letdown." As for what Apple might call their own iPhone, now that the name is taken, my guess is they'll call it an iPod, since one way to sell a $300 handset is to sell a $250 iPod with a $50 phone attached. If you call it a phone, people start comparing it to the thing from Samsung that Cingular is giving away for "free."
In The Official Google Webmaster Central Blog, they've got an article that talks about points that were covered in the Images and Search Engines session at the recent Search Engine Strategies Chicago conference. The panel apparently had some great points about using images on your site, and we're passing these points along to you:
(Cross-posted to the Tucows Blog)
Quite possibly the most disturbing PageRank graphic out there.
[via reddit] Here's something interesting: Vincent Kräutler has written up some code and accompanying documentation that purports to show the inner workings of Google's PageRank algorithm — and in a mere 126 of Python code to boot.
I'll have to give it a look see and perhaps “laymanize” it in a future article.
Engadget is reporting that Nintendo is issuing new straps to all Wii users in the light of so many reports of strap breakages (and flying wiimote controllers):
So yeah, your strap is on the list for recall if you own a Wii. Whether the broken strap claims were bogus or not is now moot, the perception certainly exists that there's a problem with California class-actions sure to follow. So kudos to Nintendo for acting relatively quickly to address the issue before it snowballed into another Sony “rootkit” fiasco.
You don't have to return your Wii or any part of it; simply fill out the Wii Strap Relacement Form to get your replacement straps.
Of course, those new straps still look pretty wimpy next to this solution:
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