RobiNZ Personal Blog

Google FeedBurner: unreliable rubbish or deliberately misreporting?

I don't chase blog stats but wondered what the demise of Google Reader would mean for RSS use. It appears that Feedburner (which I use for watching that) is either broken or blatantly lies. My Feedburner Subscribers (the green line below) plummeted from ~9500 to ~250 after Google Reader closed. I wondered if there were thousands of zombie Reader accounts boosting the FeedBurner stats? Now it appears FeedBurner is randomly fluctuating between reporting several hundred and tens of thousands of subscribers. My conclusion: Google FeedBurner is either totally unreliable rubbish or is deliberately misreporting stats. If that is the case... Read more →

2012 Blogging Highlights

Click through for my 2012 Blogging Highlights (as posted on CAD Blog) Read more →

RobiNZ Blog makeover, tweaking my TypePad design templates

A while ago I decided it was time for a blog redesign. After considering lots of options, including radical change based on entirely new templates and a fun diversion, I have settled on some simple tweaks: Simplified Font: “Lucida Grande” Verdana replaces Arial — and no italics except for quoted text (from linked content). Simplified Sidebar: A lighter background, border and header font colours and some content revision to reduce clutter. Simplified Banner: Squared up logo and banner image panels with no more gradient transitions on the image(s). Back to the future? This squaring up may be slightly influenced by... Read more →

Odd Todd’s dog math cures Odd Dog?

It was great to find Odd Todd on Twitter last night. Had been a while since I visited his site and I did not realise he was tweeting. Little did I know it would also help cure Alfie’s recent annoying behaviour of barking, seemingly at nothing, from about 19:00 till bedtime. As I read Odd Todd’s recent tweets Alfie started barking, again. Then I saw this: When I ask my dog 'What's 1+1?' He looks at me like I can go f myself for mocking his dog brain... — Odd Todd (@OddTodd) April 13, 2012 What is bizarre, ok maybe... Read more →

Flashback? The 1984 Sony D50 Discman after 28 years

My first thought when I saw the “Friday Flashback” post on the Sony Blog was: “What do they mean, Flashback?”. My first CD Player is still in regular use, as good as the day it left the factory! Flashback Friday: The Sony Discman (1984) « SONY make.believe 1984: Ghostbusters made its ways onto the big screen, Los Angeles hosted athletes from around the globe and the first ever flight in space by a human untethered using jet back packs happened. What better way to rock out to all these 80’s milestones than by pulling out a Sony Walkman® CD player.... Read more →

2011 Blogging Highlights

See RobiNZ CAD Blog 2011 Blogging Highlights Read more →

Work comes to my blog, via Google

I didn't click, not allowed on your own site, but thought it kind of cool to see Google Ads had placed "The Warehouse" advert on my CAD blog... Read more →

Derek’s last post

I only knew Derek K. Miller from his blog but have been following his feed for years. That the last post came is no surprise and his view of death matches my own: “I haven't gone to a better place, or a worse one. I haven't gone anyplace, because Derek doesn't exist anymore. As soon as my body stopped functioning, and the neurons in my brain ceased firing, I made a remarkable transformation: from a living organism to a corpse, like a flower or a mouse that didn't make it through a particularly frosty night. The evidence is clear that... Read more →

Christchurch Earthquake – My updates

I’ve pinned this post to stay at the top of my blog and have been jotting EQNZ thoughts into a single post. It also has some links to EQNZ info for readers (and me!). UPDATE 2011-03-31: I spent two nights in Christchurch before & after my cycle trip. Didn't go out of my way to see the quake impacts (seems ghoulish to do that) but just travelling around it's impossible to avoid. While the broken roads, fallen buildings are apparent it was the others things that I found more disturbing: Imagine being in a bar where somebody accidentally drops a... Read more →

2010 Blogging Highlights

See this post on my CAD Blog Read more →