torvalds commented 6 hours ago

On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 1:48 PM, Dominik Dabrowski wrote:

You might have fun raging on the internet, but I think your goals would be better served if you expressed your thoughts in a clear (maybe even polite) manner that doesn’t embarrass the people whose actions you’re trying to influence.

Umm. I think I’ve been able to reach my goals on the internet better
than most people.

The fact that I’m very clear about my opinions is probably part of it.

If people get offended by accurate portrayals of the current state of
github pull requests, that’s *their* problem.

I hate that whole “victim philosophy”.  The truth shouldn’t be sugarcoated.

                        Linus

(Go, read it. I’ll wait…)

Personally I think it’s confused on the important differences between tablets and smartphones, and also the difference between mobile websites and mobile apps.

In spite of that it’s a good read with some startling figures, including:

The Commonwealth Bank says 30 per cent of its online transactions now come from mobile devices, compared with just two per cent two years ago.

and

More than 25 per cent of tablet sales in the year ahead are expected to be to companies for their employees.

That second quote interests me mostly for what it’s not saying. Up to 75% of tablet sales are not being purchased by companies.

What are all those personally bought iPad / Android tablet / Windows tablet owners doing with their high tech toys? Have you checked your website analytics to find out? (Here’s a hint, a lot of them are spending incredible amounts of money…)

A fine sentiment, but shouldn’t _everyday_ be “in support of web standards”?

(Well, except for days I’m out riding the bike. Every _other_ day I care deeply about web standards – when I’m halfway through the twisty mountain roads, whether you’re using Flash or IE-only javascript or whatnot is the furthest thing from my mind…)

There’s a great post here about measuring visitors video performance – do you know how often visitors end up with pauses while rebuffering? Should you be compressing your video more? Could you get away with higher quality video? How can you even find out?

Go read Simons post – it’s a bit technically specific to his Omniture SiteCatalyst analytics setup, but it asks some good questions and provides ideas about how and what you can measure to monitor your site’s video playback performance.

I use two of those free services as part of our website strategy at the web design firm I work for in Sydney. mon.itor.us is great for tracking uptime and response times over the previous two months, and www.montastic.com have a really good email notification service. I recommend both of them.

Anyone who has a website needs to decide if they care about downtime, and if so, how much. Unless you don’t care at all, you need a way to measure it. And you probably ought to care because there are lots of implications of unscheduled website downtime, from the appearance of poor customer service to the SEO (search engine optimisation) implications of a flaky or slow website. It might not matter if your pictures-of-cute-kittys website disappears for a few hours or days (but I’ll bet the icanhascheezburger.com people know exactly when their site is down), but if your website is a reflection of your business you need to ensure it’s reflecting the image you try very hard to portray in the rest of your professional life. You wouldn’t leave you shop/office/showroom/studio closed up and not answer the phone at times your clients expect you to be available, right?

Ask your web people if they’re monitoring your site for downtime. If they’re not, ask them if they can. Or use one of these services to do it yourself.

Call us at Mighty Media for advice, or for a free “Website Health Check”, or let us help you with full a website strategy consultation.

Remember, if you aren’t measuring it, you can’t improve it. How is your website performing now? How can you make it perform better?

SEO In A Nutshell

People treat SEO like it is black magic, but at the core it is very simple: Content + Links = You Win.

A good explanation of “content” and “links”, and how to generate both. Some interesting numbers on the costs and profits from targeting long tail search keywords. The post is aimed at people producing and selling software, but the ideas and principles are applicable to any website…

It was Steve’s 50th birthday – Happy Birthday mate! It was a _great_ gig.

That's not the ships propeller, that's just the bow thruster!

So work’s just put this new www.tcmarine.com.au site live, check out that picture – it’s from the home page gallery. That great big taller-than-a-man-propeller? It’s not a ships propeller, it’s just a teensy little bow thruster!