Things change on the Internet. Yet, you can often go "back in time" to see what used to be around. The good folks at archive.org maintain a history of many web sites.
Have a look at my web site 9 years ago. It looks a lot simpler and has a lot less content.. and of course it was four years before I started blogging. Time flies!
Showing posts with label web. Show all posts
Showing posts with label web. Show all posts
Saturday, May 01, 2010
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Do Not Use GoFTP
There is a fast FTP client out there called GoFTP. It looks great and works well, but DO NOT USE GoFTP. The free version embeds links in your files. This borders on malware. For example, it stuck this link at the bottom of many of my web site's files:
"Further info on new and further information on brunswick"
That link pointed to http://www.searchallinone.com.
GoFTP secretly stuck these links in my files without asking. GoFTP sucks. Do not use GoFTP! I'm back to using FireFTP in Firefox to maintain my web site.
Thanks for indulging my rant... back to trains in a minute. :)
"Further info on new and further information on brunswick"
That link pointed to http://www.searchallinone.com.
GoFTP secretly stuck these links in my files without asking. GoFTP sucks. Do not use GoFTP! I'm back to using FireFTP in Firefox to maintain my web site.
Thanks for indulging my rant... back to trains in a minute. :)
Thursday, February 14, 2008
An Interesting Phone Call
I get the occasional email or phone call out of the blue. People do a web search and stumble across my web site and/or blog, and then contact me about their question. I usually enjoy getting these contacts!
Last night I took a call from a woman named Nikkie who was looking at a house in Ontario that was near some tracks, and wondered how heavy the rail traffic was. I was curious how she decided to contact me, in New Brunswick, about Ontario rail traffic. It turned out that she knew the line was a Canadian Pacific line, and was searching for CP timetables and came across my site. As it happens my site is #1 on Google for Canadian Pacific Timetables. (try it yourself: Google)
I told her I didn't have any idea what the traffic would be, but I knew where to find out. I took down her address and contact information, then posted a message to the Yahoo groups C-P-R mailing list. Within a couple of hours I was told that the house was on the CP MacTier subdivision, CP's main line between Toronto and Vancouver, and that traffic would be quite heavy. I called her back and left a message to that effect.
One poster pointed me to the Proximity Issues web site, run by the Railway Association of Canada, that has maps of different regions of Canada showing which railway owns which line. That's a useful resource!
Ain't the Internet great?
Last night I took a call from a woman named Nikkie who was looking at a house in Ontario that was near some tracks, and wondered how heavy the rail traffic was. I was curious how she decided to contact me, in New Brunswick, about Ontario rail traffic. It turned out that she knew the line was a Canadian Pacific line, and was searching for CP timetables and came across my site. As it happens my site is #1 on Google for Canadian Pacific Timetables. (try it yourself: Google)
I told her I didn't have any idea what the traffic would be, but I knew where to find out. I took down her address and contact information, then posted a message to the Yahoo groups C-P-R mailing list. Within a couple of hours I was told that the house was on the CP MacTier subdivision, CP's main line between Toronto and Vancouver, and that traffic would be quite heavy. I called her back and left a message to that effect.
One poster pointed me to the Proximity Issues web site, run by the Railway Association of Canada, that has maps of different regions of Canada showing which railway owns which line. That's a useful resource!
Ain't the Internet great?
Monday, January 14, 2008
Traingeek
Depending on how you got here, you may notice the new domain name - traingeek.ca.
Since I use traingeek as my handle in a lot of places, I figured I would get the domain name and migrate to it over time. I was going to buy traingeek.com but someone just renewed it, so I went Canadian and got traingeek.ca. Since someone gave me a referral for their domain name registration, I got it for free from Sibername.
This blog feed stays the same, since it comes from Feedburner.
Please let me know if you experience any problems!
Since I use traingeek as my handle in a lot of places, I figured I would get the domain name and migrate to it over time. I was going to buy traingeek.com but someone just renewed it, so I went Canadian and got traingeek.ca. Since someone gave me a referral for their domain name registration, I got it for free from Sibername.
This blog feed stays the same, since it comes from Feedburner.
Please let me know if you experience any problems!
Friday, June 15, 2007
Web Site Ramblings
I thought I'd share a few more statistics on my web site, just in case you needed something to put you to sleep.
Web traffic has been pretty constant over the past month, which is fine by me. I'm doing this mostly for myself, and I cover a very specific topic, so I don't expect huge growth or popularity. I'm just glad people find use in my site.
The people who use my site tend to live in North America, more specifically in the northeast portion of the continent, which should be no surprise. Nobody from Greenland or Alaska looked at my site last month - what a pity!
Judging by ad clicks, the most popular section of my site is the videos (27%), with the NB Southern section a distant second (17%) and the CN, New Brunswick East Coast and general New Brunswick sections about tied for third (around 8% each).
I intend to go through my web site and embed some YouTube versions of videos into the basic web pages to provide not only pictures but videos of each unit, if possible. I want to script that so I don't have to go back and update the page itself when I add a video. Similarly, I want to replace the pictures in my web site with references to my photo gallery so people can download higher resolution photos if they are available.
Do you have any thoughts on how I can improve the site for you?
Web traffic has been pretty constant over the past month, which is fine by me. I'm doing this mostly for myself, and I cover a very specific topic, so I don't expect huge growth or popularity. I'm just glad people find use in my site.The people who use my site tend to live in North America, more specifically in the northeast portion of the continent, which should be no surprise. Nobody from Greenland or Alaska looked at my site last month - what a pity!
Judging by ad clicks, the most popular section of my site is the videos (27%), with the NB Southern section a distant second (17%) and the CN, New Brunswick East Coast and general New Brunswick sections about tied for third (around 8% each).
I intend to go through my web site and embed some YouTube versions of videos into the basic web pages to provide not only pictures but videos of each unit, if possible. I want to script that so I don't have to go back and update the page itself when I add a video. Similarly, I want to replace the pictures in my web site with references to my photo gallery so people can download higher resolution photos if they are available.
Do you have any thoughts on how I can improve the site for you?
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