Tag: Bowblog

According to my web site stats over 11,000 people are visiting bowblog.com every month. That sounds quite good doesn’t it? In fact, if I look back at how much I’d have paid in the past (at another.com, for instance) for 11,000 uniques per month it begins to look quite sickening. I’m clueless, though, as to how many of those are real human beings and how many robots or RSS aggregators (or dead people or extra-terrestrials). The numbers are interesting: for instance, apparently, 13,767 out of my 32,373 monthly pages are ‘not viewed’ (what’s going on there then?) and 80% of my search engine referrals come from Google Images (I’m number one result for ‘badges‘). I’m sure at least half a dozen of those 11,000 ‘uniques’ are web stats experts so, do me a favour, tell me how many real people are actually seeing this site every month!

Not many people can say that. The master has very kindly been picking over the entrails of my blog and it should now be working nicely on all platforms and browsers. I trust him because he’s got the distinctive coat-of-arms of the Guild of Master Blog Fiddlers painted on the side of his van (and because he looks like he was such a nice boy).

I’ve been to Ireland with the family for a few days. We stayed on my cousin’s farm (complete with ducks and calves and so on) and we are now sorely in need of a rest from listening to my Dad going on about… well, the kind of things grumpy old Stalinists go on about. I took some photographs, of course (actually I took about 400 photographs – you should consider yourself lucky).

Now that I’m back, and the election campaign is under way (exciting, isn’t it?), and the bloggers are looking pretty important all of a sudden, I’m interested to read the fiend’s thoughts on the scary obligations of bloggers (yes, you) as journalists and publishers.

First of all, this wasn’t supposed to happen. I didn’t expect dozens of you to chip in with solutions to my HTML/CSS problems (well, 19 in all, including the emails). So now I either have to bankrupt myself shipping Champagne to every corner of the English speaking world… or draw lots. I think I’ll draw lots. If you were one of the lovely people who helped me to sort out my three-column layout, watch the skies. I’ll be in touch with one of you for an address (or perhaps I should just send it to Alex who seems to have prompted most of the responses. Thanks Alex!).

Right. This is your last chance to save bowblog’s three-column layout. Most of you (the Explorer users, basically) don’t even know this is a three-column web site because, for you, the third column displays somewhere down there (underneath the left-hand column). Some of Britain’s finest minds have examined my CSS and HTML and no one seems able to fix it so that the right-hand column displays where it ought to over there on the right (although the esteemed Phil Gyford did improve things markedly). So (trying not to sound desperate), if you reckon you’ve got what it takes, why don’t you sort it out for me and I’ll send you a bottle of Champagne (own brand, natch). I guess you can just view source if you need the HTML and here’s my stylesheet.