Just when I thought it was safe to put away the statometer, I hear that Google page ranks are being updated. Google PageRank DataCenter Watch will tell you the current status of your site's page rank, according to Google's 72 data centers. Just relax, think links, a more valuable website, and a huge hydro electric plant generating the power for the Google machinery hard at work.

By the way, as a stat whore, I am obliged to announce that 25 of the 72 data centers rate the Pisstakers a PR5. That's nice, if the rest follow suit. Thanks for reading and making The Pisstakers an authority on --------- (complete the blanks cause I sure as hell don't know what we are rated on!)

This is one of my favorite spoofs for software packaging. Universal to the end with this one, Microsoft have managed to appeal to every sector of society, every creed and race. Good choice of model, MS boyzzz.

The story behind the picture is: the crack developers took a break from bug testing in 2002 and posed for the MS cameras. Their bitches held on to their bling while the shooting was in porogress, then when it was over, they all denied even being there. The sorry bunch are still admiring themselves in the reflection of their CDs and are coping well with the insinuations that they are responsible for the delays in the release of Windows Vista XP, as well as the death of rap.

Integrated East Asian languages

The integrated languages in Word include Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Maybe the instructions are more complicated than the actual action, but on Windows it looks well difficult to switch language. Even if it isn't rocket science, I think that any user will be happy with the way you go from English to simplified Chinese on a Mac. It is such a doddle- even in a simple text editor! 往日听一四面偏离偏吃呢色。The written word is so powerful, as long as you don't want it written in Chinese, in a hurry, in Word for Windows.

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Below are the last 130 visitors from MyBlogLog to visit The Pisstakers. This pretty rogues gallery is just one example of some clever back-end work from Solo SEO, a programmer making even more sense of Yahoo's blogger community, MyBlogLog.



It never ceases to amaze me how hard working and humanitarian some people are. Imagine the work required to produce this graphic, plus a way to Compare Blog Visitors, how to see the members common to your favorite community AND you, plus other subsets of subsets of stats to help build a better picture of where you are at in the MyBlogLog world. And all the SEO Solo guy wants is a trip to Yahoo HQ in Sunnyvale. (The 1% of revenue was a joke, right!)

SEO Solo and the gummi bear pay day

I wonder if, in return for a pound or two of gummi bears, they could do some jiggery pokery over at SEO Solo and produce a neat sidebar widget for MyBlogLog Sunday? Like, display the 11 MyBlogLog members featured on The Pisstakers' MyBlogLog Sunday spot, sorted by the highest referrer of MBL members to The Pisstakers between Sunday afternoon and the following Saturday at midnight.

I know it sounds like a bit of a narrow field of endeavor, but such a widget could form the basis for any number of ideas/contests requiring statistical proof of referrals of MBL members.

The gummi bears await.

Newshutch Nathan spends hundreds if not thousands of bucks on the slickest laptop on the market, and then is too much of a tight wad to buy a $30 case to protect it.

Even worse, he publicises how he spent money on fricking duct-tape to produce a solution that could at best be described as hideous, and at worst... well, you don't need me to fill in the spoofy gaps, Nate!

I can't stand it any more, the pressure of rankings and linkings and popularity has stopped me from blogging. All I can do now is search the net for stats telling me how little I am read, how low I figure in the heirarchy of blogs. It is quite liberating.

Free from the pressure of writing original content with a sarcastic tongue-in-cheek twist, I am now working out ways to create link farms, and tit-for-tat Technorati favorite schemes. And bring on ways to game ranking toolbars like Alexa. Yay, if I pull it all off, I won't have any readers, but boy, the traffic will be phenomenal.

And to keep track of the decline of my site, I am going to refresh the following page on an hourly basis.



Link Popularity Tool - Instant, online reports of a site's link popularity rating in 6 top search engines, including Google, Yahoo! Search, MSN, and others - FREE! (A score over 5000 makes The Pisstakers vaguely popular already. The future popularity linking orgy looks bright and blog post-less.)

Good luck, thanks for reading my drivel so far. I promise you, there will be no more drivel. Just stats to relate my popularity. Before you leave forever, please do not add my blog address to your technorati favorites link games. I want to be popular off my own bat!!

According to Techboggle, scientists have broken the internet speed record, previously set at 7.67 Gbps. What this means to the average Joe is - nothing, yet. For Tokyo inhabitants, it means they can brag about a scientist with the ability to download Lord of the Rings within a few seconds.

Science, one step forward, 2 back

The downside to this advance is that we now need a scientist to invent a kettle that will instant heat the water for the coffee you were going to make before you sat down to watch the movie.

If a cold drink is your beverage of choice with a good ole film, then we suggest investing in a flask of nitrogen. This isn't recommended for cooling the drink, but for powering the cooling system required to stop the downloading cables in the back of your computer from heating the ambient temperature of the room to a point where the ice in your Pepsi or mai tai melts.

Any more envisaged side effects to mega fast download speeds are most welcome.

And if you want to know how badly a US internet connection sucks, try this test.

Did I say yesterday that Technorati top 100 (A-List) ranking isn't necessarily all it is cracked up to be? Well, all change!!!! Now, after careful reconsideration, [irony] I think a spot in the A-list is an underpinning goal of the Pisstakers.

Look, ranked at 57,000 and rising, the blog is worth how much? Extrapolating and multiplying like crazy, if I get to number 57 in Technorati, hey, I might be able to swap the blog for the Taj Mahal, or some other modest abode.[/irony]

So, everyone currently blogging for fun, time to change the chip. There is money in this lark. And lots of it. And them that are currently blogging for money, do as we do - blog for fun and earn your money later - at sell-out time. (End of irony part 2)

The word on the street is that you should research keywords that appear on Google, then target your posts in that direction. Fair enough, so according to the correct mode of research, expect to see articles on ass linking. I don't think so! Given the huge influence of the Googloids, you do need to take them seriously, normally, but they aren't the only web search tool with keywords passing through their fingers.

The Pisstakers Swicki

We have a Swicki, a cross between google and wikipedia, which generates about 40 searches a day. Wow wee you may say, but hey, the searches are done from our site and relate to articles on the Pisstakers. So that makes the Swicki pretty valuable in its own minor but targeted way.

Analysing the results brought to us daily by Swicki robots, you can expect to see some articles on Rubens tube, Dave Barnes, the scintillating Scion and Snapvine, the most under-used commenting system on the Pisstakers!

What is the weirdest search keyword you have seen on your site. Are we there yet? had a few.

According to a pyramid image thingy at Change is good, an A-list blog is one that appears in the Technorati top 100. Languishing at 58,000 and change, that elevated Rank One position seems unattainable to me. After a comment from Hmmm Harry Hnetka, I began to wonder, though, if it is actually worth aspiring to this A-list. Ratings are so open to manipulation, interpretation and statistical masturbation. So I took a quick look through Technorati to see if A-listers provide the best blog posts on the internet.

Favorites

Boing Boing top the list by number of favorites. We did a review of them, a long one, but I don't suppose it was ever read by the boing boing main protagonists. In summary, I rate their posts on all things wonderful, I rate their pioneer status in blogging, and I think their podcasts, in the early days at least, were the worst sound quality ever. The best posts ever, though? Well researched, well-written, but surely nothing you can't read anywhere else - unless I am missing something.

Techcrunch come in at number two by favorite, number 16 overall on the A-list. 377,000 RSS subscribers too! Unbelievable! They must have copied the code from our Feedburner feed? As far as quality blogging, I guess you have to give it to them, they do announce news rather than rehash it. With intros like, This afternoon, so-and-so will release... you have to take them seriously. Their best post in recent times was the convoluted April Fool, taking over Fucked Company. Some of the commenters were seriously fucked over by the con, and came out with some indignant remarks that made them sound more full of A1 crap than the article.

Problogger gives the world of bloggers its pro dose of daily posts. Third most favorited by the Technorati faithful, 68th in the rankings, Problogger is of no interest to anyone except the 71 million bloggers already out there, and the 120,000 joining the blogosphere daily. Is that a big enough audience and are their articles of sufficient quality for them to be taken seriously as an A-lister. I suppose so.

Britneys of blogging

So where are the wolves in sheep's clothing? Which A-listers got famous on the back of link whoredom, with little or no substance to back up their fame? Let's call them the Britneys of blogging!

What is the Daily Kos?

Number 29 in Technorati. Big guns on the A-list. Obviously full of content, but having read a latest post on protest, my first impression is that I think they are a bunch of rude fuckers whose f-word bandying commenters need a lesson in manners. But this is what they think they are about, according to the wiki

A Democratic blog, a partisan blog. One that recognizes that Democrats run from left to right on the ideological spectrum, and yet we're all still in this fight together. We happily embrace centrists like NDN's Simon Rosenberg and Howard Dean, conservatives like Martin Frost and Brad Carson, and liberals like John Kerry and Barack Obama. Liberal? Yeah, we're around here and we're proud. But it's not a liberal blog. It's a Democratic blog with one goal in mind: electoral victory. And since we haven't gotten any of that from the current crew, we're one more thing: a reform blog. The battle for the party is not an ideological battle. It's one between establishment and anti-establishment factions. And as I've said a million times, the status quo is untenable

Good luck with the mission, but really, shouldn't it be called the Daily rant, or the Daily Fucking rant? Too rude for me to revere them, even in their A-list state of the nation!

Perez Hilton dot com

Self styled most hated blog on Hollywood. I didn't think it was too bad, a bit pink, a bit gossip column predictable, so nothing outstanding to write home about as far as content. So why is it an A-lister? Probably the author's name. Can I admit to something? I thought Perez was Paris' sister. What a dumb ass Ed can be sometimes. But there is a clever About section which reveals that she is a he and proud to be inclined towards a she. I am tempted to call myself Paris Pisstaker or Perez Pithtaker. Which do you think will catapault me to A-list status quickest?

Rank 1 in Technorati

I really don't know who is number one in the A-list. What I do know, is if you search on Technorati for Rank 1 in Technorati, you might find a mention of the Pisstakers! This is living proof that rank 1 in Technorati probably mean absolutely nothing in terms of quality and credibility, but I imagine it must be good for egos and business if you are included on the A-list?

Time to go back to that story I am writing on Fucked Company taking over the Daily Kos. They are thinking of calling it Fucked Kos of the A-List Company we Keep. Do you think it has potential?

By way of recognition of a great comic talent, this is a Spring Widget tribute to Lord Likely, courtesy of Feedburner.

In a class, a car park, a piece of wasteland, in fact anywhere that it can be on its own is fine by us.

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I just had an alert from my web hosts at A Small Orange, reminding me in their polite way, to go and sort out my damned email box and clear the crap out of it. OK, OK, I am on the case. Now, in my sanctimoinious state, with 500 emails deleted and sorted, I can ask you guys the following questions. Hands up:

1- who doesn't check their email regularly?
2- who doesn't check their email properly?
3- who doesn't reply to the emails that should be replied to?

To set the ball rolling, I raise my hand, guilty as charged to number 2 and a little bit guilty of number 3. (In my defence I do make a point of responding to anyone who isnt a spammer, but hey, I'm human and don't get it right every time.)

Why manage email?

I can assure you that some good comes out of the mundane act of managing digital mail. After cleaning and sorting and re-reading email, (just like when you clear out an attic, you can't help but read the old cards, newspapers and gawp at long lost artefacts), I have re-discovered several gems of sites, and found lost contacts and useful info - a good return on 30 minutes of so-say boring work.

Renew old acquaintances

For instance, I forgot I was even in bloghub or klik us and this is my CBox! It will be interesting to see what is or isn't going on here.

I realize that I never even got round to confirming my account with Sharesale, and I found out that I was, after all, accepted at BuzzBums and it was me who hasn't followed through to check what is going on. (On further investigation, I do wonder why I was so keen to be in BuzzBums. I never see a hint of traffic from them, despite having had their logo in my looping ad box on every single page of The Pisstakers for weeks and weeks!)

Rediscover good sites you registered to.

I really need to call by Outpost-Earth and Eat My hamster to remember what it is that attracted me to them in the first place. (I just checked and I guess Eat My Hamster's inital lure will remain a mystery, because it now seems to be viral video charts!) I should also get a hold of Pankaj too, and see what happened to my application at 777media. I am ready for take-off, matey, where's my confirmation email?!

Rediscover old posts

I have also been reminded of some blog carnivals I entered, and wow, it looks like quite a few tech heads bothered to read a post I did about customising The Pisstakers theme to fit on a mobile device. I am not worthy of high tech critique, but thanks anyway.

Remember the good guys when they were young

And how cool to re-read the replies from owners of blogs I have reviewed. It is actually quite unusual for people to take the time to email to say thanks for the post and the links. One, who was a newbie at the time of writing, seems to have become quite a hit in the web business blog world, so cheers, Collis. (But a guy called Bill, I have no idea what you were talking about or where you came from!)

Reply to all worthy emails

As I said, I do like to jump on mail as it comes in, it is the least I can do. But I ain't no robot and make mistakes. So, when I get round to emailing a couple of people whose worthy emails slipped though the net - I will have total peace of mind.

For instance, I never recalled receiving a reply to a query about TicTap's excellent use of the Amazon database, but there it is, from Alex Choo who, in turn, has been awaiting a reply back from me! So I owe him one.

But I have just been a good boy and sent our Tell a Friend code to Natasha at dreadlocks.com - 3 months late! Ooops.

Do you owe The Pisstakers, or others, an email?

Having laid bare my inadequacies, I was thinking of naming and shaming a few big kahunas who never replied to my polite requests for assorted help. But they know who they are, at The Onion. And I suggest that others do what I just did and check their cluttered email. Sort out the lost emails, and at least say thanks but no thanks where appropriate. If not, karma will bite them on the bum.

At the Pisstakers proposed 3rd year anniversary convention in the Caribbean, 2009, I will be revealing the names of everyone who has snubbed my emails. My 50,000 members all flown in from around the world will consequently email those names to their friends. Naturally some of my members' friends will not bother reading these emails and so it will go on, year after year.

Happy Birthday 365



All week the humorous internet marketing 356 ads blog will be featured on The Pisstakers homepage. Enjoy their funny stuff and creative marketing ideas.

OMG, according to Techboggle, the release date of the iPhone has been delayed by quality control issues. This is crushing news to me, because the mighty Apple have had their fingers on a tiny corner of the Pisstakers credit card ever since the announcement of the wonder phone months ago.

Fingers are getting itchy, but the most vexing aspect, however, is not the prospect of even more months without a cell phone, but Apple's about-turn so late in the game.

Does a leopard ever change its spots?

What has induced this dramatic change of attitude from Apple? Normally they don't give a toss about dodgy batteries. and just recall them when poo hits the fan.They even used batteries that would catch fire if you run more than 2 applications at once. And build quality has never troubled them before.

Oh, sorry, I misread the name of the manufacturer in all those examples As you were, Apple, carry on, the money will be there when you decide to let us have a perfect sample of what only a few hallowed humans have so far seen from inside a goldfish bowl.

A while back I visited Harry Hnetka's humor site and he posted a widget that shows how popular his blog is. I felt degraded in comparison to the impressive score on Hmmm's medal. I had to console myself with the fact that he is a witty guy with a lot of SEO under his belt, so he deserves to shine.



And then I was perusing another amusing blog, this time from Claire Pitt, who, coincidentally, was simultaneously blogging about our gummi bear contest for MyBlogLog Sunday. On comparing her medal to mine, I realised that a 4.2 makes Claire a BJ goddess, and momentarily my self confidence was dashed.



I got another Blog Juice smack in the popularity nuts, pardon the analogy, when I read how the Blog Juice ranking is arrived at. Talk about holey stats. Technorati ranking + Alexa ranking + Bloglines popularity? + number of inbound links = Blog Juice rating. I am not worried about having such an inadequate amount of juice for blogging, but I am saying...

Alexa relies on a dodgy tool bar used (and manipulated?) exclusively, almost, by webmasters, not real people

Technorati was gamed easily in 2004, & the 2000 bloggers trickery continues

Who are Bloglines and who cares about incoming links?

Bah humbug. Funny and popular people everywhere, enjoy your own 100% pulp, I mean Blog Juice medal, and fellow upstarts, relax!

It has been hard accepting that I languish in the nether regions of the Blog Juice funny heirarchy - but I will survive, maybe. Just throw money, that should console me.

According to Techboggle, the sun is flaring like a good ole fat-splattered BBQ right now and could be torching some GPS satellites in the process.

If you absolutely rely on your GPS system in order to get from point a to point b, it might be best for you to hold off on that trip for a little while or else you might end up 300 miles away from the destination, especially if you have no idea how to read a map.

Oh dear, back to the old map!! A map is that piece of paper that never folds up correctly and is best held upside down by people who don't know their left from their right.

Like all clever ideas, which the MyBlogLog Sunday feature seems to be, according to Say No to Crack and MyBlogLog themselves, there may be more advantages to the idea than meets the eye. In addition to gooey link love and prizes, participants get free info that may be useful for SEO and Search Engine ranking (SERP) purposes.

Back up, what is MyBlogLog Sunday?

MyBlogLog Sunday was one of many goofy ideas floating around The Pisstakers head (quarters.) The process is:

Every Sunday whenever Ed the editor starts blogging, he takes a snapshot of the last 10 visitors on the MyBlogLog widget in the sidebar. He visits each of those ten blogs and does a fun mini-review. Those ten blogs are then eligible to win the weekly prize of the gummi bears and the full blog review. You accomplish that by being the blog to send him the most traffic during the week (MyBlogLog)

- everyone happy.

And on reflection, Ed the klutz is offering one more perk hidden in the mini-reviews

MBL Sunday mini review aids SERP

Instead of just looking at participation in MBL Sunday as an extra link in your Technorati bragging rights, treat it as a chance to see what someone going cold to your blog thinks about it. The smart ass remark is based on a fairly serious look around your blog, and may even throw up a word, phrase or angle you never even dreamed of for SEO purposes.

Like Boing Boing but funnier. (SNTC);

A quick-fire colloquial trip around the world of music, film and boobs...(Billion Dollar Baloney)

So a mention on MyBlogLog Sunday provides free info on keywords, taglines and market research about your "blog feel". This is all useful info to improve your campaign for a higher SERP/ place in the google web search heirarchy.

Pisstakers and MyBlogLog

To me it is very cool when I read that other blogs don't think I am associated with urine - or are they taking the piss behind my back and telling people they wouldn't pee on Ed if his blog were on fire! But on fire The Pisstakers certainly were (by my standards and MyBlogLog community stats at least) last Sunday.




Why not join the Pisstakers at MyBlogLog. It's free and easy, and the community is modestly sized, like Ed.

See you Sunday, MyBlogLog bloggers looking to improve your SERP! And those advantages again? Check out the pros in my contribution in Comments Friday

As a follow-up to the blog post about the Oscars of the blogging world, I can confirm that without any overt persuasion, coercion or bribery, I was nominated for the Best Blog Design Award.

Money-Making Mike picked up on my recent post and with a swoosh of the pen from Polliwogs Pond owner, Polli, it looks like the site is votable at this address.

Sweet, and let's hope the positive fall-out goes the way of the theme designer and magister, Bonsai Studio.

Quite interesting to me was the accompanying text for the nomination.

The Pisstakers is a multi-faceted humor blog covering web, tech, world news and quirky stories. As you can tell from the blog's name, articles are somewhat cynical, sarcastic and humorous (and have nothing to do with urine.) For the purists, content is based on genuine events and topics and never strays too far from the truth.

I forgot I wrote that, or did I!

Bloggers Choice Awards are like the Oscars for bloggers. To be honest, I am not a fan of the Oscars, too much glitz, not enough substance and debatable voting. When blogging is at stake, though, I thought that maybe I should peel back my cynicism of this style of competition, and get stuck into the Bloggers Choice Awards. So I did.

Best of what award section?

I maintain that at this stage of my blogging career, it is daft to try to enter as Best of...blogger in one of 29 sections, because I am not even 7 months old in bloggy years. So, to play fair, I have tried to get nominated for best blog design, the theory being, that judging for that category relies totally on the here and now, an instant impression.

With a design, there is no requirement to dive through the archives to the first post, then shoot back to the here and now to compare the consistency of writing. No need to hunt through the content looking for Best of... material to eulogise about. Just load one page and go on your gut instinct.

I am still awaiting a nominator, but when I get one, I will be glad to do my bit to further raise awareness of the many designers striving for recognition in their field of endeavor. Especially Bonsai Studio, who designed our theme.

My Best Bloggers Choice votes so far

As far as worthy Bloggers Choice Awards winners in other sections, I've been busy-ish. I did vote for Mikes money Making Mission as Best Business Blog, Polliwogs Pond is a Best Blog about Stuff winner in waiting, MyBlogLog has an outside runners-up chance at Best about Blogging, Bobbarama will do well with his best humor blog, and MyExtraLife Radio should be Best Podcast, based on the review we did of them, alone.

And I went mad and selected Wil Wheaton for best celebrity blogger. (I felt for Wil Wheaton when Diggers get thuggish with him, just for being him, and he responded with plenty of gusto.)

Talking of Oscars

The definition of Oscars is: a panel of pompous judges who waffle over lunch about what they think is the most politically correct winner.

This was never illustrated better than when El Woody Allen won best foreign film at The Spanish "Oscars" at the Santander Film Festival last year. It was so obvious he was going to be the winner when they announced the nominations. He was simply the biggest box office name, giving the competition most credibility. Shame the cynics saw straight through the strategy, and the quirky Mr Allen earned 3000 pesetas for the 3 DVDs that got sold outside the ceremony that night.

As I say, I feel a little skeptical of any Oscar-like competitions, in whatever sphere of endeavor, but in blogging, I think any good excuse for a mutual love-in, and a bit of extra publicity for the winners, is fair enough, and no harm done. Keep track of our voting.

If you were flying the airways and wanted to beat the boredom with retail therapy, just ask your friendly stewardess for the Skymaul catalog. She may wrap it around your face for not referring to her as a flight attendant, but it would be worth the temporary discomfort.

PS. This is the fake catalog and the real video demos the iPod Shredder. (I updated the original article with a video link that works.)

We all like widgets and sideshows to give us a break from the heavy stuff in the main content. Unfortunately, like all good things, widgets tend to get abused and, as you can see above, they can end up breaking sites rather than aiding usability.

In fact, widgets have effects beyond belief. ie too many can make a site unusable, inaccessible and frankly, irritating. That is a shame because if bloggers go the trouble of setting up and then spicing up their theme, then they probably have something good to say - and see!

Is the person in the banner image sexy in red? First time round, I had no idea because for the first 3 minutes I sat like a lemon, waiting for the content to load. When I can't see a thing apart from great widgets for miles, it sort of loses the appeal of an intriguing blog at least by name.

But hey, I am persistent.



.Now I know it is a blog about general stuff and `I learnt that to get into Technorati top 100, you need to be favorited 115 times. If that happens for her, she should be sure not to add yet another widget. Sometimes, less is more.

The pesky widgets

and

Widget box

And if you cant help yourself...

I don't know, you mention that Cadbury's creme eggs are getting smaller, and the next thing you know, the place is awash with Stumblers. Must have upset a few folks?Although, Snowman Poop wasn't that sad about their demise.

What is Stumble Upon exactly?

I have to look a little deeper as to how that whole SU deal works, ie just ask,

"Excuse me, does anyone know if there is any evidence to show how so many people first got wind of that particular story on SU?"

If so, and it was anything to do with someone on this week's MyBlogLog Sunday contest, I guess they deserve the gummi bears and then some!

Oh well, back to the grindstone to find the next big thing, which, judging by the stats may be angles on designing a website for mobile devices .

Not wishing to intrude on your meander through the site, but I would be interested to know how quickly or slowly this web site is loading for you. It is great for me, because I have a mega Comcastic crap cable connection and near enough the whole site is cached in my browser! But maybe it isn't such a smooth experience your end?

Perhaps you could set your watches and tell me, via the survey, how long it takes to open this plug-in loaded page? Thanks.

And I highly recommend any visitors with their own site or blog, to check this poll widget out, (via View button). The Pollcode guys seem to have nailed the code, so don't be alarmed by the speed at which the results page opens!

We've linked to several web search engines offering random payments & prizes! Click the icon & search our keyphrase funny stuff or web search. It is a win-win, perhaps!

The Community Manager at MyBlogLog, Robyn, has spotted our interesting angle with the MyBlogLog Sunday feature. After a matter-of-fact review, she ends

For a major amount of Gummi Bears and a site review (link-love baby, yeah!), check out their Sunday MyBlogLog day.  I hope you get a toothache!

I like her style.

Another interesting usage of MyBlogLog

If you are a dentist looking for work, you could do well to track the weekly winners of our competition and send them your card. Just a thought.

We've linked to several web search engines offering random payments & prizes! Click the icon & search our keyphrase funny stuff or web search. It is a win-win, perhaps!

I was following a discussion over at MacNN where they were discussing the future of the humble CD and DVD drive. Before all PC users glaze over and scrabble for the Next button, it seemed as if some fanatics were actually breaking out of the closed Apple world for just one moment, and were talking in general terms.

CD, DVD or USB pen drive

Basically, the question was, do any of us need a CD or DVD burner, in view of the increasingly popular USB "pen" drive? And before you think, pen size, tiny, they are morphing into boxes now approaching the size of a small filing cabinet.

As usual, the Mac faithful, the first to dump floppies, were so far ahead of the rest of the human race, it was almost funny. Not that many were in favor of dumping CDs and DVDs, after all, most important software comes on discs these days. And when we burn music, a CD or DVD is usually the best way to give someone a present of pirated tunes. So, basically, the concensus on the forum was, optical media, dude, is here to stay.

The funny bit, to me, though, was what they think we, the plebs, do with CDs and DVDs.

What do we do with CDs and DVd?

What is really laughable is the assumption that everyone burns CDs and DVDs for the same reasons computer power users do. Firstly, the enthusiastic power users think that discs are part of our daily, best computer practice ritual. You know, to back up, to back up and to back up your important data. And then to exchange and preserve multimedia, and finally, to install software. Hmmmm.

Back up your hard drive

Maccers are of course a wee bit out of touch there, as hardly anyone makes a copy of hard drives these days, especially onto a set of 50 poxy discs. And no, guys, hardly anyone has a 30GB/disc blu ray DVD burner yet.

Most folks live in hope that a hard drive crash and burn won''t happen to them. Most glaze over at creating disk images of hard drives. Like, er what? Admittedly, a few people have external hard drives, and a few of those even have the latest version of their computer's hard drive on it. But in general, the majority of computer users aren't using CDs for constructive life-saving purposes.

So, on the point of discs still being essential for back-up, I would disagree with the concensus on that forum. I would dump my CD drive in a heart beat for a laptop with an extra big hard drive. Now you are talking.

Who needs music CDs/ DVDs these days?

CDs are for music, right! and DVDs are for videos - that you downloaded, usually free, off the internet. Not exactly critical stuff, but even if you are attached to your pirated media, or honestly acquired entertainment, there are so many options now that make a piece of scratchable disc obsolete.

First, I heard the latest Linken Park crap from a kid who stuck a USB pen drive in my laptop. It didn't drain my laptop battery on contact, didn't scratch or wear out any moving parts. I would take that pen drive over a CD any day, and so would the lad - it didn't stretch his designer pockets into the shape of a square, and it was easy to carry around as extra bling.

Second, I would accept a music track over the internet in a New York rap minute.

Third, I would copy any music or software over to a big ole external USB, or firewire hard drive in a second too. Back-up or play with a CD/DVD drive, no thanks.

CD drives are vital for installing software from discs

Really? I can't remember the last time I installed software off a disc. Updates and extra software come off of Versiontracker in my world. And there is no reason why Apple or MS shouldn't provide the full original Operating System over the internet. Lose the CDs, lose the packaging. It's all good and sooo 21st century green.

You are just saying CD drives are useless

Wrong, I am living the fact! And to make a point of how unnecessary a CD drive is, I have a nifty Mac laptop, but I haven't burned a CD in months. Not since the battery started dying and any sniff of a CD killed the juice in seconds. And I haven't neglected to back up my stuff, not since I put all my music and photos and really vital files on an external drive for safe keeping.

My god, who wants to sift through CDs for back-up stuff, when you just plug in a mega fast USB hard drive/pen drive and everything appears on your screen to drag and drop into place.

And when I give people music, it is over the internet. And when I send work files, it is over the internet. It may be slow to upload 700MB, but it's a darned sight faster than Fed Ex and at 3am when you are asleep, who cares how long it takes your computer to upload anything.

And if I wanted to, I could back up my whole hard drive onto a remote server that is 20 times more secure than a hard drive on my desk, and far more aesthetically pleasing than a stack of CDs floating around in a cupboard.

CD, DVD burner or USB pen drive?

In answer to some of those Maccers who say CDs are indispensable because we need to have our data in a handy format and usable when out and about - and be able to share music with friends or colleagues, to them, I say bolleaux!! There are several workable alternatives to a disc that scratches.

Death to the CD or DVD burner in my laptop, let me have a bigger battery or hard drive, or both - with one of these Deal of the Day USB thumb drives thrown in!

Wot, you think I am too far ahead of the game, just because you haven't got a 100MB/sec internet connection? hehe!!

We've linked to several web search engines offering random payments & prizes! Click the icon & search our keyphrase funny stuff or web search. It is a win-win, perhaps!

Sometimes a basic idea is so good you just have to marvel. Feedburner is one such example - they are soooo versatile in the way they handle a mind-numbingly dull piece of xml code to produce variations of that wondrous entity, the RSS feed.

Not only can they turn a typical dog's dinner of RSS code into a slick reader counter of beauty, they can carve your RSS feed into a snazzy Spring widget that even your old gran will appreciate and understand.

Spring Widget Saturday

In celebration of a great idea, yes, folks, every Saturday this spring, expose your Spring Widget-ized RSS feed at The Pisstakers, or send it to someone else to show in their's. This is Highena's.



And this is one of our Feedburner feeds that is now part of the Mega feed mix