Internet on Graeme's

Does web design matter?

Mon, 30 Oct 2023 10:31:46 +0000

I recently visited the website of a amateur theatre company, and any web designer would say it is awful. Anyone with the slightest aesthetic sense will say it is ugly. As a user of the site, it is perfectly good and better than most sites a designer would like.

AirBNB hosts can block bad reviews - and my AirBNB horror story

Fri, 03 Feb 2017 11:42:51 +0000

If an AirBNB “host” needs to give a refund because the accommodation was terrible, they can block the bad review by cancelling instead of refunding. It does mean a 100% refund, but that is clearly preferable to bad reviews and AirBNB have confirmed that this is deliberate.

Beating Node.js with TCL

Sun, 14 Jun 2015 20:58:43 +0000

This is partly a reaction to people who talk as if Node.js is unique, and partly to test my code against something that has seen production use. There are all sorts of problems with doing this sort of comparison, and while I would have liked to compare more servers, used a better environment, performance tuned everything, done more measurements etc. but I think what I have done is enough to prove my point.

Why you should not use Wordpress

Mon, 06 Oct 2014 12:24:01 +0000

The appeal of Wordpress is obvious: cheap and easy, and lots of “developers” know it. The biggest problem with Wordpress is that something originally designed as a blog platform, has evolved general CMS features, and is widely used a development platform. The problems are that it has security issues, and is neither flexible nor productive when used a a development platform and cheap developers are not good developers.

Smarterer - a broken recruitement tool

Wed, 14 Aug 2013 11:21:57 +0000

Having taken a number of Smarterer tests I find it scary that people use it as a recruitment tool. The tests are unreliable and meaningless. First, I will explain what is wrong about my scores — and I am complaining more about scores being to high than too low, so there is no personal grudge here. Then a few quick thoughts on the reasons.

Takeover Panel claims copyright on regulatory information

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 05:50:42 +0000

The Takeover Panel (which regulated mergers and takeovers inn the UK) has sent me an email telling me that reproducing the list of takeover offers (i.e. a list of company names and dates) would be a breach of copyright, and that they would be unlikely to allow commercial reproduction except though “official news channels”.

List of Django IDEs

Wed, 16 May 2012 14:12:31 +0000

I have a more detailed review of Python IDEs that is probably a lot more useful.

As requests for IDE recommendations on the django-users mailing list/Google Group, and as I assume that anyone developing with Django knows they should search for answers on the net before asking, here is a summary of the most often recommended options.

Twitter the productivity killer

Fri, 11 May 2012 09:49:41 +0000

Nothing can destroy my productivity the way Twitter can. There are a lot of potential distractions, especially the multitude available over the internet, but Twitter’s nature makes it far more distracting than web browsing, email or even other social networks.

The build a platform and squeeze business model

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 10:16:50 +0000

A business model that excludes competition, reduces consumer choice, and creates monopolies is the anti-thesis for free markets, but this is exactly what threatens both software and the distribution of media (ebooks, video, and music) over the internet, and much more.

The website owners guide

Tue, 03 May 2011 09:21:10 +0000

It is an unfortunate fact that many websites work badly, from individuals’ blogs to small organisations’ simple sites to expensive sites belonging to large enterprises. The problem is that the managers of the organisation do not understand the web. This is my attempt to provide what they need to know without getting too technical.

Are newspapers content farms?

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 14:37:18 +0000

I disagreed with a recent blog post by Alan Patrick which described the Huffington Post as a content farm. I do not think that the alleged lack of original content at the Huffpo is any worse than at many newspapers: so I concluded that it is not a content farm. It could be interpreted the other way: newspapers are content farms too.

The Huffington Post and AOL

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 09:14:34 +0000

The Huffington Post may not be a bad buy at the price AOL is paying, but that does not mean that AOL is right to buy it.

The internet as an instrument of control

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 12:46:44 +0000

Conventional wisdom has long been that the internet (and IT and modern telecommunications) are hard for governments to control and empower anyone willing to use them — activists and protesters in particular. I have long been sceptical, but I think its now clear I was right.

Demand Media IPO

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 07:37:15 +0000

I usually comment only on British companies (as investments, that is), but I also like to keep an eye on tech and internet companies, and on anything that illustrates a point. Demand Media falls in to both categories.

Google's "concession" to Murdoch

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:12:39 +0000

Everyone seems to be interpreting the changes made by Google News as a victory for Murdoch and others who are trying t extract payments from Google in return for making their content searchable through Google. I disagree, and think it is designed to make life more difficult for those putting up pay walls.

Peak Google?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:34:25 +0000

Alan Patrick is sticking his neck out and calling the top on Google’s growth. I am not convinced, and there are specific points that I have comments on.

LA Times false accusation of Facebook

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 06:49:36 +0000

Yet more examples of the wonderful fact checking that we can rely on journalists to do, the LA Times has a story that relies entirely on the authority of “someone’s blog said so”, accusing Facebook of using user’s photos in ads without permission. It was soon convincingly re-butted by Facebook.

Google hatred

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 06:37:53 +0000

The usually intelligent Willem Buiter has written a great example of the irrational hatred that Google seems to sporadically evoke. He attacks them with a list of charges, all of which are easily refuted.

The Wall Street Journal gets spun

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 05:29:34 +0000

The Wall Street Journal seems to have been completely fooled by telecoms spin-doctors into claiming that Google, and other prominent advocates of net neutrality, have changed their views.

The internet is easy to censor

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:56:46 +0000

It has often been said that the internet is hard to censor because “it treats censorship as a defect and routes around it”. This could not be more wrong, the internet is the easiest medium to censor.

Dandelion web server

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 06:56:41 +0000

I have written a small lightweight pure TCL web server called Dandelion — because it is small and light, like Dandelion seeds, and I am no good at thinking up names (its a better name than GIMP though, and that has been pretty succesful!).

Download the Dandelion server: dandelion1.0.zip, or dandelion1.0.tar.bz2.

Websites do not need to support Internet Explorer?

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 10:12:06 +0000

As much as I dislike Microsoft Internet Explorer, and as much as I wish that people would make their own lives and those of website developers better by using better web browsers, I have always taken supporting it as a necessary evil. It is bundled with Windows and most people take whatever it suits MS gives them.

Blog split

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 09:57:57 +0000

I have effectively split this blog into two. I will stop posting on investment and finance related topics here, and instead post on my new blog on my Moneyterms site.

Moneyterms RSS feed

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 19:26:22 +0000

Rather than keep posting repetitive “what’s new on Moneyterms” posts here, I have added an RSS feed of the latest additions to Moneyterms, it can be added to any feed reader, to Firefox as a live bookmark, etc. The latest additions to Moneyterms are also now shown on the home page of this site, at the bottom of the side bar.

New Moneyterms site

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 08:10:59 +0000

I have moved Moneyterms to new hosting and to the wonderful Modx platform. The time spent developing the new site was minimal, but I also replaced all the automatically generated “related page” links with manually chosen lists, which was a lot of very tedious work. It should improve site navigation.

I also removed the “Guides” section, as it was simply not good enough. It will reappear with rewritten material.

Now that is behind me I have started adding new entries again, starting with style index, discount rate, long term PE, market neutral and synthetic security.

Modx light document tree

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 11:29:17 +0000

Download: modx-fast-doctree.zip, or modx-fast-doctree.tar.gz.

Moneysupermarket IPO and web business valuation

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:15:10 +0000

Whenever there is a website IPO, those of us with profitable websites pay attention. While a small, privately owned website will need to be valued at a steep discount to a large, listed business, it is a useful indicator of value.

Web metrics are insane

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 11:55:30 +0000

To be precise, trying to find a single set of metrics to compare the audience of different types of websites it insane. That is why Nielson/Netrating’s decision to measure time spent on websites, rather than page views, does not really matter much. Those looking for a single measure across all websites are reducing a mistake of the dotcom boom.

Sedo domain appraisal rip-off

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 11:30:45 +0000

It is not often that someone manages to sell me a rip-off, but internet companies have managed it twice in the last few months. I will write about my experience with SEO some other time, for now, I will write about the clearer cut case: getting an appraisal for domain name.

Counter-signalling web-sites

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 06:08:24 +0000

Since I read this post on countersignalling, I have been bothered by a feeling that there was a good example I could not bring to the front of my mind. I just realised what it was: ugly websites.

Help! Suggestions please

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 03:27:28 +0000

My biggest problem with Money Terms is the difficulty in thinking up new ideas.

I do not want to end up like some of the competition: defining lots of terms not more than tenuously related to investment, or so obvious that an ordinary dictionary defines then more than adequately.

On the other hand, I do know that there are a lot of gaps, because every so often I identify one or two gaps, and any other new pieces follow on from them in a rush.

More new on Money Terms

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 04:59:41 +0000

Another bunch of new pages on Money Terms.

Firstly I finished off last weeks insolvency related definitions with …err.. insolvent.

Once again news stories suggested some new pages: CLO, CBO and CDO, as well as mean reversion.

Living in Sri Lanka, it is hard to be unaware of window dressing or creative accounting.

Finally, historical cost and current cost accounting, as nuts-and-bolts pieces I had been delaying for too long.

Change of licence

Wed, 09 May 2007 07:51:54 +0000

Sharp eyed readers may have noticed a subtle change to the Creative Commons licence notice in the side bar. The logic is quite simple. I do not, at the moment, intend to directly make revenue from this blog. I do intend to use it to spread my ideas and to enhance my reputation. So I should encourage people to reproduce my material, as long as they attribute it.

Stumbleupon sucks

Wed, 09 May 2007 07:35:38 +0000

Sorry for the title, but it matches what people search for. I have been seriously trying out “web 2.0” social networking for the first time and I got very annoyed.

Economist deflates some hype

Wed, 02 May 2007 07:41:04 +0000

I am not always nice about The Economist, which I feel is not as good as it once was. However, their chief information officer, Andrew Rashbass seems to be as independent minded and analystical as one could wish, deflating technology hype, and being amusing while doing it.

Funny search query

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 08:43:55 +0000

Someone got to a page on Money Terms that explains a metric for airline’s capacity by using the following search at MSN search “google airline seats”. Obviously someone had been advised to “google” for the term

The future of newspapers

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 10:28:58 +0000

Judging by this interview, it appears that at least one major investor in newspapers in the US is over-optimistic about the impact of the internet. It reflects the same problem as the trends we have seen in British newspaper circulation.

The amazing Slashdot dupes

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 13:41:41 +0000

IT website Slashdot, is well known for repeatedly posting the same stories. Most readers no longer even comment on this — or even notice. I am therefore keep an online record of the worst examples .

Guy Kawasaki's blog numbers do not add up

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 10:14:10 +0000

There is something that does not really stack up about the numbers in Guy Kawasaki’s review of his first year of blogging.

Ten effects of DRM

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 13:11:50 +0000

For those who do not know, DRM is the technology that prevents users from taking copies of various types of videos, audio and even written material in electronic form. It is an abbreviation of Digital Rights Management – and its your rights they are managing.

I baked a site

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 06:49:28 +0000

My most successful website, Moneyterms used to run on Wordpress. I have found it linked to as an example of Wordpress running something other than a blog. However things changed.

New site

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 07:56:21 +0000

I have decided that I should blog about investment on a separate site.

The new site is The Strategy Blog. I intend to put a fair amount of work into it - have a lot of ideas that simply do not fit into any of my other sites and it seems a shame to waste them.

Bad modelling

Sun, 12 Feb 2006 06:52:10 +0000

A flawed analysis of trends in the number of blogs, and the increase in the number of spam blogs, has lead people to think that the number of non-spam blogs is falling. In fact the growth trends remain strong.

Thanks

Mon, 18 Jul 2005 06:20:26 +0000

I have mentioned my other sites and the various changes but some thanks and acknowledgements are needed.

All three of my sites are running on Wordpress. Although known as blog software (and that it what it is in the default configuration) it is very versatile and makes a great CMS for many sites. The support forums are very invaluable. The most useful for me of the many plugins I have tried have been The_excerpt Reloaded (which allowed my to show excerpts to the length I wanted) and WP-Cache (which made my sites noticably faster loading).

New website

Fri, 13 May 2005 12:51:52 +0000

After a very busy week that left me hardly any time for writing, I have split the investment definitions pages off from my investment research site.

Hopefully this will improve usability and make the site more visible in search engines - although the risk is that they may take time to catch up on the change.

Google still has not got page rank flowing through my site five weeks after I changed the URL structure. Yahoo and MSN seem to have been faster at this, but on the other hand Yahoo took much longer to index my whole site in the first place and MSN has still only indexed about 10% of it.

Successful site move

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 11:07:38 +0000

Lots of work, working late Saturday and Sunday, but I moved my investment research site site to the same platform as this blog.

So far so good, now I have to go back to writing stuff. I have about 30 more pieces planned for the re-named “what is?” section, so if it intersts you visit it next week and it should all be up. I think it compares very will with other similar sites on the web, I (most of that section is written by me) have taken the trouble to give detailed explanations and to explain how to use numbers, not just given defintitions. In any case my defintitions are mostly better, not all the accounting defintitions are technically perfect but they are pretty good given how accessibly it is written. In any case I am aiming at an audience that is looking at things from a finance (especially valuation) perspective, not accounting.