Statistical surprise!

I am often surprised when I look at the stats on Blogger.

Who would have thought that 101 page views would come from Japan, or 119 from Russia? A similar number from the US but only 18 from the UK!

The other thing  about the stats is how erratic they are - 2 days at 23 page views, then the next day up in the hundreds. Single spikes from one particular server, presumably from one person, happen every now and then, which makes me a bit paranoid, as in why should someone in Russia
be checking my blog? One can be charitable and say that  some innocent person has found something of interest and is happily reading all the pages (since 2007?  H'mmm)

But the world is such a "scammy" place today that it is so easy to think the worst.

Any day now Blogger is going to force me to switch to its new format. It did this earlier in the month, but the page was totally unresponsive so I reverted. Hopefully they will have sorted the problems before they do the change-over again. I see people complaining that Facebook has forced them to change format and they don't like it. I don't know if I'm on Classic Facebook or the new one, but I'm praying that they both just keep working as they are!

Glitches all round

The last week has been a struggle. Not only did I have a cold but my other half was diagnosed with something quite painful that causes inflammation of the muscles. Thankfully the weather wasn't too bad, in fact it was warm and sunny, which made walking Tim easier than it might have been. He hasn't had the long runs he is used to, but at least he got to stretch himself on open ground and use up some of that boundless energy.

Some problems with IT, too. Blogger's stats counter seems to have gone haywire. I check every morning to see if anyone is reading, and for the last three mornings the counter has a recorded a number that is a hundred or so LESS than the previous day. Looks like someone has set the thing to count backwards!

I've been trying to use curly quotes rather than the straight marks intended for use as dialogue quotation marks in my software, (Microsoft Word 2010) but don't seem able to manage it. I suppose the software is considered old by now, so perhaps I'll think about an upgrade. It would seem such a simple thing to change to curly quotes, but nothing I've tried seems to do it. Maybe it's me. If I try next week, when my cold has gone, maybe I'll suddenly see the light!

False Figures

I picked up my new glasses yesterday and wore them this morning from first waking up. Every blade of glass was crystal clear during Tim's walk, and I saw two white tails bouncing up and down as deer escaped through the bracken and trees. Only saw their tails, but I was pleased, because deer bones have been found in the last couple of weeks. A hind leg has made the rounds of the field as different dogs found it and trophy-carried it around for a while. Another dog-walker tells me he's seen a couple of heads in a different part of the wood. Coupled with the tyre tracks across the grass I've seen  recently, it looks very much as if poachers have been at work. I was relieved to know that there are still some of the wary creatures around.

Came back and checked my blog stats and was truly amazed to find that today's total was less than yesterday's total. Very odd. I can only assume I misread Friday's total, so perhaps it's just as well I've got new glasses!

On the other hand, it may be Blogger that is at fault. Out with Tim yesterday, I spotted the rabbit (see pic)  and Tim, who was a good deal closer to it, did not. He loped off in the opposite direction without ever sensing it while I took a couple of pictures. Just shows the value of sitting still, saying nothing and minding your own business!

The mysteries of Blog stats

Does anyone understand the stats on Blogger?

I have the Clustrmap counter on my blog, which gives me the number of visitors to my blog and which country they are from - which is fascinating in itself. Russia? Alaska? Somewhere in the middle of the Pacific?  I assume they are chance encounters and dare not think I have regular visitors from those places - but it would be cool if I did!

Then I looked at the post stats on Blogger and see something called View Counts is given there. Now, I think I can understand the difference between a visit to the blog and a how many posts/pages a visitor looked at once they got to the blog. But why do the view count numbers change from day to day? Is that because Blogger adds one day's views to another day's views? In other words, it totals the view counts made against a particular blog post? If so, that is very clever and an indicator of what readers want to see on the blog, which is useful to me and all other bloggers.

But I'm not totally sure that is what is happening. If a knowlegeable person out there  can explain, do let me know!

Normal service?

I'm not sure if Blogger is back to normal yet. I know there is one post missing, so I''l try this brief message to see what happens.