CompleteFusion

I use Thunderbird for my mail client, and have my client set to automatically update itself when new "Shredder" builds are released. A few days ago, my Thunderbird was updated to version 3.0b4 (beta 4). As of 3.0b4, Thunderbird has implemented a new globally indexed search feature called Gloda, which is turned on by default. After trying it for the past few days, I decided I preferred the old search behavior. To revert to the old search behavior, go to Tools->Options->Advanced and uncheck "Enable Global Search and Indexer", and then restart Thunderbird.

Its often useful to know which browsers, screen resolutions, operating systems, etc. are most frequently used by your site's visitors. I was recently looking through Google Analytics reports for CompleteFusion, and thought it would be interesting to share the results.

To be able to draw some conclusions on browser and operating system popularity over time, I compared visitor traffic from two time periods: April 10, 2008 to December 31, 2008 and January 1, 2009 to September 23, 2009.

Browsers
Firefox: 61.95% -> 61.40% (-0.55%)
Internet Explorer: 30.61% -> 25.06% (-5.55%)
Chrome: 0.93% -> 5.69% (+4.76%)
Safari: 3.65% -> 4.74% (+1.09%)
Opera: 2.19% -> 2.13% (-0.06%)
Other: 0.67% -> 0.98% (+0.31%)

Operating Systems
Windows: 80.74% -> 67.08% (-13.66%)
Linux: 11.49% -> 22.87% (+11.38%)
Mac: 7.44% -> 8.92% (+1.48%)
iPhone: 0.07% -> 0.47% (+0.40%)
Other: 0.26% -> 0.66% (+0.40%)

Browsers and Operating Systems
Firefox / Windows: 46.88% -> 34.57% (-12.31%)
Internet Explorer / Windows: 30.61% -> 25.04% (-5.55%)
Firefox / Linux: 10.89% -> 21.55% (+10.66%)
Chrome / Windows: 0.93% -> 5.60% (+4.67%)
Firefox / Mac: 3.78% -> 4.87% (+1.09%)
Safari / Mac: 3.38% -> 3.86% (+0.48%)
Opera / Windows: 1.86% -> 1.46% (-0.40%)
Opera / Linux: 0.13% -> 0.65% (+0.52%)
Other: 1.54% -> 2.40% (+0.86%)

Screen Resolution
1280×1024: 21.98% -> 20.24% (-1.74%)
1280×800: 14.48% -> 16.73% (+2.25%)
1024×768: 17.00% -> 14.32% (-2.68%)
1680×1050: 18.06% -> 13.76% (-4.03%)
1440×900: 8.17% -> 9.76% (+1.59%)
1920×1200: 4.91% -> 7.26% (+2.35%)
1600×1200: 4.18% -> 3.22% (-0.96%)
1400×1050: 3.59% -> 2.47% (-1.12%)
1024×600: 0.46% -> 2.22% (+1.76%)
1152×864: 1.20% -> 1.74% (+0.54%)
Other: 5.97% -> 8.28% (+2.31%)

Java Support
Yes: 90.97% -> 83.55% (-7.42%)
No: 9.03% -> 16.45% (+7.42%)

Firefox and Internet Explorer, the mainstays of the browser market, both lost market share over the time period. The explosive increase in Chrome usage seems to show that Google has entered a real contender in the browser wars. Previously, Chrome was behind Safari and Opera in usage, and now it is solidly third in popularity among CompleteFusion visitors. It will be interesting to see if Chrome's growth continues or stagnates in the future.

1280×1024 has been a popular, fairly standard 4:3 resolution for quite a while, although it seems that widescreen (16:9) displays are becoming more popular since 1200×800 usage has grown (and surpassed 1024×768). Interestingly, there seems to be growth at the high end (1900×1200) and lower end (1200×800), but virtually nothing in between.

Also, I initially would have expected Java support to have grown over time, but Java support among CompleteFusion visitors has fallen by 7.42%. I'm not sure why, since an obvious correlation to browser usage doesn't seem to exist, but I suspect the main reason is that mobile browsers that lack Java support have become more popular. Additionally, it could be that people who have recently switched to Chrome, Firefox, or an upgraded version of Internet Explorer haven't installed the Java plugin for their current browser yet.

By default, the HTC Touch Pro 2's music library will only add music on the device to the library. Of course, it would be nice to be able to add and play music from a storage card, since the device's internal storage is relatively small. Unfortunately, there isn't an easy configuration option or setting to add music from a storage card to the music library; however, there is a registry value you can modify.

If you don't already have a preferred registry editor, I successfully used the "Smartphone 2002,2003 (ARM/PXA)" version of PHM Registry Editor. I used it to navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\HTC\HTCAlbum\Ignored, clicked the "Values" button on the bottom left, modified the path under "Music Gizmo1" to \Storage Card\Music, loaded music onto the storage card, and rebooted the device.

After getting my statistics and reports from Splunk, I wanted to automatically generate Excel spreadsheets from the results. I found pyExcelerator, and after massaging the output from Splunk into a comma separated values (CSV) format, it was easy to create Excel spreadsheets. To get the Splunk output into a more usable CSV format, I used: awk '{ printf "%s,%s", $1, $2 }'

Example script:
# Import pyExcelerator and date modules
import pyExcelerator as pycel
from datetime import date, timedelta

# Write out Excel file
wb.save("splunk_output.xls")


Although ice cube trays aren't the first thing that comes to mind when you think of technology, Tovolo's "Perfect Cube" ice trays are pretty high tech. They're made out of silicone, which allows you to make nearly perfect cubes without the difficulties of removing and breaking cubes from traditional style trays. Four cubes fill a tall glass, and the lower amount of exposed surface area means the ice melts more slowly and drinks are less diluted.