New Experiment: "Popular Pages Today"

I am experimenting with a new "widget." In the menus to the right, you will see a new section labeled "Popular Pages Today." It shows which pages (articles) in this newsletter have been read the most in the past few hours.

I am not yet sure if this new section is a good idea or a bad one. Your comments are invited.

Comments

[Hank Brouwer]

It does not work in standard browser.
Perhaps it is JavaScript crap?

[Dick Eastman]

It is working here in Firefox, Opera and Safari on the Macintosh, Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer on Windows and in Firefox on Linux. Is anyone else having difficulties seeing it?

- Dick Eastman

[norm p]

Although my machine seems to be loading some sites at a snail pace this morning, I did try the Popular Page and after several tries it loaded the pages using Firefox on Windows.
My one question pertains to the statement: "which pages (articles) in this newsletter have been read the most in the past few hours"
Find it strange if it really is the last few hours as one article came from several years back about the school house in Irwin.

norm

[Dick Eastman]

That would not be unusual. It indicates that someone, perhaps more than one person, read the article in the past few hours. It might be an article that was written years ago, but someone read it in the past few hours.

Several of the old articles have remained popular for a long time. This new "experiment" gives me a better tool to see which articles are the most popular.

- Dick Eastman

[Amelia]

It works great!
thanks Dick : )
(another Macintosh user, Firefox browser)

[Bennie Halden]

Does not work in Firefox 2.0.0.13.

Only see text "Get great free widgets at Widgetbox".

Not so "great" if it dont work..

[Dick Eastman]

Strange... I was using Firefox 2.0.0.13 when I created that. In fact, that's what I am using now and it still looks OK.

- Dick Eastman

[Happy Dae]

Mr. Eastman, it also works with the odd-ball AOL browser, too. How's THAT for cross-browser compatibility!?

Happy Dae.
http://www.ShoeStringGenealogy.com

[Penny in Texas]

What a nifty little gadget, Dick! I like it and, yes, it's showing up nicely in both IE7 and Firefox.

Penny

[Bob Paulson]

Popular Pages works fine with Opera 8.65 for Windows Mobile on my Dell Axim Pocket PC. Only problem is the text is so tiny compared with the main articles, that I have to keep changing the display zoom.
- BobP

[Sandy Coulter]

I see it fine in IE 7.0. I notice on some items the widget lists the whole newsletter, while on some just an article is identified.

[Donde]

Works fine in Safari 3.1. Is there any way to limit it to maybe 3 or 5 items? It does add a whole page to the right side menu which is already very long: informal count on my MacBook is 12 pages!

[J. Brown]

Regarding Firefox - if you have an add-on called "No Scripts" it will not work until you manually allow feedjit.com. Took me awhile to figure that one out.

[Dunham Swift]

I see the "Popular Pages Today" menu on the right hand side but where is the widget part?

[Connie]

It works fine with my Firefox set-up, but every article begins with "Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter" and some have only that title...would be nice to see just the article title if that's possible.

[Jj. Eason]

Worked fine in Seamonkey after I clicked on your webpage.

Jean

[RayK]

All worked fine with IE7/Vista-SP1/TrendMicroPro

[Craig]

Works fine on my Mac running Camino...

[Caroline]

What time frame are you using? Sometimes I wait a day or two before reading the articles.

[Martin Wohl]

It works well on AOL with its Internet Explorer browser. It is an interesting column but I am not sure that everyone else's interest level tells me much about how relevent the material is to my needs.

[Ann]

Do the percentages mean the percentage of total visitors to the site who read that article?

[Bart Lilwijn]

It only works if you allow JavaScript.... major suckage!

[ellen]

Neat widjet. Works fine on IE 7.0

[Nancy]

Dick,

I think it's a nice idea but I would like to see 2 changes.

1 - Make it a shorter list.
2 - Remove the "Eastmans Online Genealogy Newsletter:" headline before each entry. It's repetitive, not necessary and makes the list too long.

Hey, since I wrote this I think you already made the changes.

Nancy

[Mariam Stockman]

Can't u use something that works without JavaScript?
I'd like to keep my browsing safe.

[Dino (All Dino, All the Time)]

Dick,

Although it is a cool gadget and I'm sure a masterpiece of programming, I really don't care what other people are reading.

[Oxa]

I agree entirely with Nancy's comments-- the EOGN prefix to every title is unnecessary, makes the titles hard to read, and makes the list longer, necessitating unnecessary scrolling. I'm not sure what the % represents-- the percent of viewers reading that article? If so, making the list shorter (e.g., 5 items) would also make sense, as who wants to know about an article that only 1.6% of people read.

[Cathie]

I like them, and they work fine for me on AOL...
Thanks

[theKiwi]

My tuppence is that if you want to experience and use and enjoy the www these days you need to have Javascript enabled.

It is far too widely used now, and requests to site owners to "do it with something that works without Javascript" will likely fall on deaf ears.

I know that all the Javascript that makes features on my genealogy site work will not be being replaced with something else, and while it might seem harsh, my attitude is that if a user disables Javascript it's their loss when site features don't work.

Kind of like how I to a very large extent now ignore dialup users when thinking about what things to add to my site, and what size to make the image files etc.

Dialup users over the last 18 months on my site have been 8.4% of the total visitors. Compared to DSL 30%, cable 28%.

For the first 3 months of this year dialup users were down to 7.6 %

So while every time I'm at my mother in law's house and have to use dialup I feel the pain of dialup users, I'm not going to design my site's content so it's a very pleasant experience for a dialup user.

I use a Macintosh, so can't speak to what security risks there are from Javascript that wouldn't be stopped by any decent antivirus/antimalware software, but I think these days the number of people who don't have Javascript enabled is probably quite small.

plink plink

Roger

[Minnie Darfong]

You obviously have not been paying attention to all the browser defects and identity thefts going on. Most of them use JavaScript.

Security-conscious ppl have JavaScript turned off. That has nothing to do with Macs, dial-ups or browsers. It has everything to do with staying SAFE.

I don't want to compromise my computer just because some web noob cant make a website without JavaScript crap. Either get with web standards like CSS or go the way of the dodo. More and more ppl are turning javacrap off.

[Dick Eastman]

The decision to turn Javascript on or off is a personal one. Each person should make his or her own decision, based upon whatever input they wish to believe. HOWEVER, anyone who turns Javascript off can expect that tens of thousands of web sites will stop working for them.

They need to realize that they are in a minority and the rest of the world isn't going to change simply because of their fears. More and more web sites successfully use Javascript every day. I suspect this growth will continue because Javascript works well.

If you disagree and if you have a fear of Javascript, I respect your right to have that fear. But please don't expect the world to change because of your fears. You will be forced to live with web sites that do not work for you, even though they do work perfectly for nearly everyone else. After all, it is YOUR decision to remove the capability to run Javascript.

- Dick Eastman

[anonymous]

Dick, care to listen to someone who is an actual security expert?
I handle military security, and we spend lots of time explaining this to all the self-styled experts claiming JavaScript is safe. Sigh.

You can cling to outmoded techniques because you are to lazy to learn how to do things right, but all the big name companies are switching away from it, and making damn sure their sites work without it.

People clinging to JavaScript must understand that they are endangering the web, and reducing their own readership. More and more people refuse to turn JavaScript on simply because you are to lazy to build a proper website. Keep using JavaScrfipt? OK, be pigheaded, but don't expect me to come back to your site, cause your site don't even work right!

People are demanding standards over JavaScript will affect your bottom line. Your readers will go elsewhere, you will loose advertisers and income. And one day, you will be sued because you share the blame for some major virus outbreak.

You can try to dismiss facts as fear, but anyone who suffers a cross-site scripting attack because you said Javascript is not dangerous, will think twice of ever following your ill advice again....

Perhaps you just you don't understand that JavaScript is dangerous. That is your problem, not ours, but that you lie about it makes you responsible for the consequences.

To be less diplomatic: please read a few browser security reports before making wildly inaccurate claims about JavaScript security.

[Dick Eastman]

Dear Anonymous,

As I wrote earlier, "The decision to turn Javascript on or off is a personal one. Each person should make his or her own decision, based upon whatever input they wish to believe. HOWEVER, anyone who turns Javascript off can expect that tens of thousands of web sites will stop working for them."

You listened to and read all sorts of input and you came to a decision. I read what is probably the same or similar input and came to a different conclusion. Nothing wrong with that, differences of opinion is what makes the world go round. I respect your opinion, whether I agree with it or not. I would suggest that you continue to practice "safe computing" in whatever manner that you think is best.

Thanks.
- Dick Eastman

[anonymous]

Dear Dick,

The decision to demand that users turn on JavaScript on your site is yours.
It is distinctly unfriendly to make such demands, but if you want to do so, and turn them off, well, it is your site to destroy.
However, anyone who demands JavaScript must understand that their site will not work right in safe browsers.
A site that demands Javscript is defective and people tend to stay away from defective sites....

So learn CSS and you will have a perfectly working site without having to make unsafe demands ever again.

Now, go and read these browser security reports. Read the harsh facts.
Yes, you will have to admit you are wrong. But you will be a better man for it.

Just google "javascript vulnerability" to find a few hundred thousand links.....