National Do Not Call Registry

I've made my first complaint to the FCC for a company calling my home phone. TruGreen called tonight at 8:15, saying they saw the condition of my lawn and left some papers in the front door. I tried to explain that they were not allowed to call me, but I got the standard response ~ I just work here, never heard of the 'Do Not Call list', but I will add you to our don't call list. That's fine, I said, and I'll add you to the FCC's list too.

It's the same response I've gotten for the previous two calls from two other companies. Well I guess three unwanted calls is my limit. One earlier caller indicated that she just dialed my number, after I told her she was not allowed to call. err, if she could dial my number than she is allowed to call me. I should have reported her too.

To sign up just go out to the National Do Not Call Registry web site and add your phone number and an e-mail address. It that easy to file a complaint as well. I think I'll make a point to just get the company name and number and up-load it to the FCC.

Web Site Sitemap

I took a few minutes to update the site map, located off the main page. It's been about a month since the last sitemap up-date. I only had time to add a few new links that have been added to the web-site over the last few months. I just kept finding a number of redundant link or page entires inside the sitemap that needed to be corrected / deleted. So I ended up deleting those redundant pages instead of adding new pages that now appear in the website.

So the site map is now a bit smaller in size because of the reduction of redundant links, but at the same time contains a few of the newer pages added to the site in the last few months.

Optimizing Page Code

Following yesterdays blog about reducing monthly bandwidth by 259M Bytes by implementing the new adsense code, I've added the new code to yet another 9 pages. These would be the next nine best performing pages after the first four or so listed yesterday. The pages include: PCIe, Wire Color Codes, IDE description, SATA description, PCI Bus, Voltage Thresholds, Interface Buses, and Firewire.

There was one other page that was updated based on how it was placing, but because it was an old page address I do not list it here.

Although these pages do get less pages views then the previous 4 that were updated, when combined they get many more. So I expect better than a 259M Byte reduction per month in bandwidth. The addition of the two up-dates should produce a reduction in server bandwidth of better than 600MB/ month. Normal Bandwidth per day is around 460 MB, so the monthly bandwidth was reduced by more than one day.

This is yesterdays blog page;
http://interfacebus.blogspot.com/2008/01/page-optimization.html

Page Optimization

I traded out the older Google Adsense code on the top four viewed pages of the web site with their new code. The new java ad code is about half the size it was before. The older code required 577 characters, while the newer code only requires 292 characters.

The top four pages are AWG sizes, Index page, CanBus, and the DVI bus. Looking back at some random month, their combined pages totaled 37,881 page views.

The difference in ad code is a reduction of 285 characters. Or 285 x 8 bits per character = 2,280 bytes. For one typical month that equates to a savings of 86,368,680 bytes; 2,280 bytes x 37,881 page views. An 86MB saving per month is pretty good for 5 minutes of work. It's a faster download and less of a strain on my server.

Wait a minute there are three ads per page, or a difference of 855 characters not 285.
So 3 x 86,368,680 = 259,106,040 bytes.... 259MBytes reduction in bandwidth.

General Page Up-dates

I think I've blogged about part of this before, but I'm in the middle of a general web site update. I can only track a few changes at a time with out lossing my copy/paste funtion and the up-date taking much longer.

So the three major changes that are going on from about Dec 15, is;

1. Changing the Google search bar so the search function defaults to search from interfacebus.com first. Also the new search page contains a banner for interfacebus that is view-able, while the older one was not. I noticed a few months ago that a buddy of mine did not realize he was searching the web or my page because the page was to busy. So it's better to start the search from interfacebus, and I display a banner.

2. Some pages have to many html comments. These comments are un-seen, but they effect the down-load so they are being deleted, maybe about 1/5 of the site pages. Again, the code comments are not displayed on the site, it's a down-load issue

3. I also up-date the copy right date, not that it matters

4. I don't touch pages that need a content up-date, I'll made those changes later ~ when I have content to add.

5. There was one other change I was making, but I'll stop making that upgrade. Within the manufacturing pages, I was moving the 'all links' index for a letter to a 'next page link' at the bottom of each page. Well I have three Complaints so far, that don't like that, I'll stop doing that

Google Search Bar Usage

The Google AnSense report for the last year is showing a pretty good increase in the number of people using the Google Search bar on interfacebus.com. Over the last few months I've been adding the search bar to more and more pages. I may have a few hundred pages to add the bar to, but I'm not really sure. The search bar must be on at least a 1,000 pages by now.

I can't post the revenue because I have not received payment for December yet. However the earnings have been increasing as well. Of course, I still have low earning days but the trend is increasing.

The added benefit; visitors to the site can perform a site search regardless of the landing page. In addition to adding the bar to new pages, I've also been changing the bar on existing pages so the search defaults to the site and not the web.

If you are an AdSense user I highly recommend adding the search bar for those very reasons: you make money and you assist your traffic find what they are searching for.

The amount of money I make via searches is [very] small compared to what the site generates from running ads ~ that chart includes searchs on this blog as well......

How to Promote a Web Site

So the numbers are in for 2007, unique visitors have increased by 100,000 from last year.
AWSTATS
Unique Visits = 1,651,854,
# of Visits = 2,354,985,
Page Views = 4,063,901

I guess any increase is good, kind of hoping for a bit more. Checking the what's new to the Site blog, I see 35 posts over the last few months. Most of those posts represent more than one new page address that was added. For example, this post listed 6 new pages. So come January or February these new pages will start to get a google page rank.

By moving some of the graphics off my main site and compressing html code I've been able to keep the server bandwidth constant between 2006 [136.57GBytes] and 2007 [140.44G Bytes]. However; I did receive more page views in 2006 @ 4,227,644.

One reason for an increase in bandwidth while having a decrease in page views: I've been adding the Google search bar to all the pages on the site. The search bar code contains 1927 characters, or 15,416 bytes.

Now I have to figure out why I have 200,000 fewer page views. I have had a lot of server issues this year. I have also been reducing physical page sizes, by moving information to new pages. So many pages have just one specific topic, so visitors may be hitting the exact information searched for on the first hit to the site.

Google Analytics Traffic Sources
Google Search Engine = 1,764,196
Wikipedia = 17,938
Direct Traffic = 131,634
Images.google = 5,361
My blog = 938
Stumbleupon = 742
mail.google = 443
Groups.google = 444

Related posts:
http://interfacebus.blogspot.com/2007/12/how-long-does-it-take-to-get-web-site.html
http://interfacebus.blogspot.com/2007/12/new-google-site-map-upload.html
http://interfacebus.blogspot.com/2007/12/web-site-status.html
http://interfacebus.blogspot.com/2007/11/awstata.html

Blogger Pages Views

Here is a chart of page views for the year. This chart does not include people that only view the news feed for the blog. That last dip in hits that lasted 2 months may indicate low page rank.

When blogger came out of Beta and I switched to the live version my page rankings went away. I do have a page rank for the main page, but anything posted before 2007 does not. So it appears that any post made during 2005 and 2006 has a zero page rank. Of course any 'one' post made in the last three months also does not have a page rank, but that's expected.

Here are a few examples:
CableCard; Oct 05/2006
AMD Processor Socket; May 12/2006
VME Bus; March 31/2006
IDE Hard Drive Bus; Dec 27/2005
Removing Standards Bodies from the PC; Dec 10/2005
DDR SSTL Interface; Nov 15/2005 ... This does have a page rank

One sentence was removed by the editor......

Google Sitelinks

Out checking my Google Sitemap report [Webmaster tools]. I noticed under the Links tab .. Sitelinks, that Google has included sub pages that will show up in a Google search for my site. The pic is an example they use to show people what they are talking about. I did a few Google searches but I don't see the additional links showing up. Looks like they picked the major site pages, which happen to be located at the bottom of each page of the site.
Components - http://www.interfacebus.com/Components.html
Buses - http://www.interfacebus.com/Interface_Bus_Types.html
Reference - http://www.interfacebus.com/Reference_and_Information.html
Equipment - http://www.interfacebus.com/OEM_Equipment.html
Design - http://www.interfacebus.com/Logic_Design_Descriptions.html
Standards - http://www.interfacebus.com/Standards_and_Publications.html
Software - http://www.interfacebus.com/Software.html
Distributors - http://www.interfacebus.com/Parts_Distributors.html

Google Webmaster Tools

Google Sitemaps reports pages that have internal and externals links pointing to any one page. Looking at pages with external links, I've taken note of the pages with only one external ~ which would be coming from the site map, which happens to be located off-site. Pages need external links to get a page rank from the search engines.

Cable Ferrites Manufacturers,
Charge Pump IC Manufacturers,
Computers Laptop Rugged,
D-Sub Connector Mechanical Dimensions,
Convoluted Foam Manufacturers,
Desiccant Manufacturers,
Design Termination, Signal Reflections,
ECL Logic Manufacturers,
EMC Mezzanine Board Pinout,
Ethernet 1000KX,
Ethernet over VDSL,
Federal Aviation Regulations,
Floppy Disk Drive Manufacturers.
ICMB; Intelligent Chassis Management Bus.
This does not represent all the pages with just a single external link. I only scanned the first 400 pages in the list, of 975 total. I'll check it again in a few months when it occurs to me again. Giving time for the list to be up-dated.

Remember that external links help a particular page, but also any other internal page that it links to.

Getting the word out on the site

Commenting on a few news group posting's today, leaving the web site address behind. Also went out to a few other sites leaving posts. It may help to get more people coming into the site. 4,462,055 page views so far this year

Working on two of the pages in the to-do list of pages that really need to be updated. I keep a list of a dozen or so pages that were up-loaded but never had any content provided. Two military style D-Sub connector pages; MIL-DTL-83513, and MIL-DTL-32139.

From the connector on the FCT site, D-sub right angle adapter. I'm not sure I've seen one of these before. The main page for D-Sub connector manufacturers.

Oh, this is posting 307 to this blog.

New Google Site Map Upload

Using GsiteCrawler, I'm generating a new site map. I have also up-dated the on-site sitemap. Which is really located out on my Google pages site to save band width, plus that would give me an external site that points to my pages, helps with page rank.

The local site-map is used to help people find pages or to show the structure of page links on the site. When this map is generated it comes with a large number of duplicate page listings. Tonight I removed some [a few] duplicate listings and added links to the pages that have been generated within the last few weeks.

While the Google site map is used to inform Google of the pages that exist on the site. For Google's version, duplication does not matter ~ just that the spider sees a list of all the pages on my server.

I think it worked, I'm up-load the site map now, then clicking the button to indicate to Google it has a new site map.

Recommendations; always have an on-site site map This helps pages that are linked more than 4 levels down from the home page. With a site map off the home page, all pages are 2 levels down regardless of what they really are. A site map located off site [like mine] also makes it appear that an external page points to all your pages, that helps in page rank. Being off my server also helps with down load speed, as the site map which is still over 200k bytes is on another server.

Morse Code Requirement

The FCC has dropped the requirement to know Morse Code for all amateur radio licenses. I guess this occurred in Feb of this year, but I don't remember reading about it. I'm not sure but I think the navy may still use Morse code for ship-to-ship signal light communications. Looks like the International Telecommunication Union [ITU] dropped the Morse code requirement in 2003.

SOS: Contrary to popular notion, the letters S.O.S. do not stand for "Save Our Ship" or "Save Our Souls". They were selected to indicate a distress because, in Morse code, these letters and their combination create an unmistakable sound pattern.

This page shows the web site version of Morse Code.

Google Trends does not show any steep decline in the number of people searching for the term "Morse Code", but there is a decline.

Vista Speed Improvement Tweaks

I made a few changes to increase the speed of MS Vista booting up. I always open the same programs when starting my computer, such as a web browser or e‑mail program, you might find it convenient to have them start automatically when you start Windows. Programs or shortcuts placed in the Startup folder will run whenever Windows starts.

First I added the programs and files I use when working the web site to open on boot-up:
1. Click the Start button , click All Programs, right-click the Startup folder, and then click Open.
2. Open the location that contains the item to which you want to create a shortcut.
3. Right-click the item, and then click Create Shortcut. The new shortcut appears in the same location as the original item.
4. Drag the shortcut into the Startup folder.
The next time you start Windows, the program will run automatically.
Note; You can also make an individual file, such as a word-processing document, open automatically by dragging a shortcut of the file into the Startup folder.

I set up the Firefox browser to open up with each of the tabs normally used:
Open the tabs like you want them when you open Firefox. Then, go to Tools/Options/Main and click the "Use Current Pages" button.

I also setup MS Explorer to open with all it's tabs that are normally used:
IE7 is to have the same tabs open up next time the browser opens. To do this close the browser containing the tabs you want to open again next time. This will bring up a prompt asking you if you want to 'Open these the next time you open Internet Explorer'. Check the box!

Of course I added both Explorer & Firefox to open on startup. I also checked msconfig to see what else was loading at startup, but it did not look to bad. That's 'start' / 'search' / 'msconfig'.

Do not use "msconfig" to disable services, type "services.msc" in the Run box instead! Service settings are global, meaning changes apply to all users. All of these services are "Standard" with Windows Vista. If you discover a service that is not listed here, another application, driver or program

HDTV Spectrum

Here is the new spectrum allocation for the 700MHz band. The one you may be reading about in the news, being bid on by Google and others for an estimated 15 billion dollars. Google is interested in the 'C' band and is willing to pay 4.2 billion dollars.

The digital switch narrows the spectrum needs of broadcast TV. All the stations that now use channel 2 through channel 69 for analog signals will broadcast their digital signals in the spectrum space now used by channel 2 through channel 51. Most stations will keep their original station number. The switch over from analog to digital happen in 2009.

This blog post shows the older frequency spectrum. This web page show the new DTV Channels and their frequency bands.

Remember TV stations had to switch to digital transmissions, but are not obligated to transmit in High Definition. They can use their entire band to transmit in High Definition or just transmit in normal digital and run two or three different programs at the same time.

Relating topics;
High Definition Television Technologies, just a few terms.

Webmaster Tools Sitemaps

Google added a few new things to their sitemap tool. Under Diagnostics / Content Analysis, they indicate meta-tag issues. The tab shows pages that have duplicate meta descriptions, and then long or short metatags.

Unfortunately, under the 'short meta descriptions', it indicates that I have 208 pages with issues. Most of the pages look like 'don't cares', their just Dictionary pages. Other than to say it's a dictionary page of letter what-ever, what more can you say.

I'll check it again next month, as I try it get that number lowered.

In the Google Blog I saw that, for people that run the Google tool bar, 404 not found pages will show a suggestion from Google as to what page they may be looking for. That's good news because interfacebus gets a lot of mis-spelled incoming hits.

Physical Page sizes

I can't remember if I've blogged about this or not, but I really regret updating my pages to XML. It increased the size of all my pages, increasing the download time and really hitting my bandwidth.

The so-called 'strict' coding approach is "BS", all those spaces that were added. On many pages the down-load time is doubled if your on a modem. Who came up with this idea?

Any way, the page still indicates it complies:
DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd

But, as I edit a page, I'm deleting some of those spaces ~ 1 byte per space. Maybe save a few 100 bytes a page [not removing all spaces, just a certain type]. What 130,000 visits x 2 page views x 300 bytes = 78,000,000 [78MB/month].

No wonder the internet is slow ~ it was conceived to be so

Still playing with Windows Vista

So far the only thing I don't like about the Velocity Micro PC is the Keyboard. The keyboard doesn't use printed letters on the keys, instead it uses LED light. The LED light just doesn't seem to be bright enough. Worse still is that the keys get darker as you go off angle, so you really have to sit just above the keyboard. I also seem to be hitting the Caps Lock key a lot, which is annoying.

The USB Mouse is great.

The computer did not ship with any unneeded software or sign-up programs [AOL]. I did see 3dMark on the desk top, guess it tests the PC's gaming speed ~ it's gone.

I like the Sidebar in Vista, but not how Folders and Directories work, or layed out.

New Computer Software updates

I booted up the new Velocity computer over the last half hour, picked it up today over lunch.
The PC seems pretty fast so far.
I stated with a Microsoft OS update patch which was 20MB.
Followed by the Mozilla Firefox browser.
Than, downloaded the Google Tool Bar for Explorer, followed by the Google Tool Bar Firefox ~ both very small programs.
Next came Open Office, a free version of an Office suite by Sun Microsystems ~ 120MB.

While that was going on, I turned on the second monitor and set each to 1280 x 1024 resolution ~ while deleting and preforming a defrag on the Alienware PC. The 'C' drive was over 50% full and heavily fragmented, while the 10,000 rpm 'J' drive was 3% full ~ I worked off the 10,000 rpm drive soon to move to this PC.

Now installing Ulead PhotoImpact 10 ~ looks like an upgrade CD, and I don't feel like loading Ulead 6.0 tonight.

Maybe I need to figure out if serial ATA 2.0 x 7,000 rpm is faster than SATA 1.0 x 10,000 rpm's anyway.

Hmm, I don't really like Ulead PhotoImpact any longer, many of the graphics are on their server and always refuse to download. You get this nice lib of pic files, but you don't have access to them.

Velocity Micro Desktop Computer

Order a new computer today from Bestbuy. The Velocity Micro - ProMagix Q6600. The Q6600 contains a quad core Intel processor, an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS graphic card and 2GB of DDR2 memory, and or course Windows Vista.

The Quad processor is clocked at 2.4GHz, but the ad does not display which DDR2 memory [Speed Grades] is used and I didn't see the system listed on the Velocity Micro web site.

The Video card comes with 1 S-Video port, and 2 DVI-ports ~ I use dual monitors so I need both DVI interfaces.

The system has 2 Firewire interfaces and 6 USB interfaces, and a built-in media reader.

Of course the Hard Disk Drive [HDD] is Serial ATA [SATA], but it does not indicate which specification version.

Spare expansion slots include 1 PCI slot, 1 PCIe x1, and 1 PCIe x16 slot. So I can still add another video card, a digital tuner card, and a 7-to-1 digital audio card.

I purchased this system from Best Buy so I could just drive over and pick it up. However my first issue is that my order did not make it off anyones desk. I came home to a call saying I have to confirm the order..... what's up with that.

I never used the HP system purchased last year from Bestbuy, I didn't see any speed improvment so it just sat around and collected dust ~ until I gave it away a few weeks ago.