I figured I’d do a little analysis on my traffic. This site launched in Dec of 2004. In the first month it got a total of about 50 unique visitors and 140 or so visits. That’s about 3 per visitor.
Last month saw a total of 8841 visitors, still with about 3 visits per person. Since 2004 it’s seen 217,491 unique visitors although the real number is less than that since AWStats doesn’t weed out duplicates across months. Not bad for a home-grown blog I suppose. Here’s a little graph:

At …

Finally, someone was nice enough to post a review of my book [LINK]!  The review is up at CSharp-Online.net here: [LINK]
Here’s an excerpt:
"Mashups are becoming ever more important to Web 2.0 applications. (A mashup refers to a combination of various third part data feeds into a new harmonious feed or presentation.) If you are not yet excited about Web 2.0, you will be after reading this book!"
Here’s probably the most critical commentary:
"The book is a bit of a jarring experience for the reader. Much of it reads like …

A quick update on my book [LINK]. The "Search Inside" feature from Amazon is on its way but in the interim you can read a sample chapter (Chapter 15) from this book here: http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-303068.html
This chapter covers the Amazon S3 platform and shows you how to build a generic interface into it. For those of you on the fence as to whether to buy the book this might push you over the edge and for those who’ve already bought it, thank you, this might be a useful online reference for you.
Jeff …

In the words of Pat Ingolsby, welcome to my head, please remove your shoes.
The Irish Blog Awards are currently open for voting and this blog is nominated in the Technology category [LINK]
It’s nice to be nominated in the Technology category but more so it’s nicer to be nominated in the IRISH technology category. It’s also a great way to uncover other Irish bloggers in this space.
I often struggle with categorizing this blog as it covers a weird mix of stuff.
The list includes various projects I’ve written such as the …

Ever wonder how much your PC costs to run? With PCs becoming more and more powerful, they’re consuming more energy than ever. By looking through your PC’s spec with some back of the napkin calculations you can get a general cost for your PC and maybe turn it off every once in a while.
* USB accessory draws about 5 Watts per unit.
* Typical DVD ROM drive draws about 25 Watts per unit.
* Todays processors can draw up to 140Watts of power but most idle lower than that. …

I’m pleased to announce Amazon is now shipping my book.
 
Here’s hoping you all had an enjoyable holiday.

Two years back I built a gingerbread house from scratch and kitted it out with some miniature LED christmas lights.
I don’t have time to build a new one this year but here’s the video [LINK] to help get you in the spirit
"The tenants have setup their own Christmas tree as can be seen by peering through the stained glass windows, here. I don’t know if I’d do it again, perhaps something smaller the next time.
This was a fun project and a nice break from the cut-throat world …

I’ve created a new experiment using ClearForest‘s Content Analysis services. It’s called SixDegrees and is located here:
http://www.francisshanahan.com/sixdegrees
SixDegrees is a Semantic Web experiment using Ajax, RSS and RDF combined creatively with the Content Analysis services of ClearForest. It’s a mashup but not in the typical sense.
SixDegrees uses the notion that there are Six Degrees that separate everyone in the world. My idea takes this to a new level by trying to figure out the degrees of separation in terms of everything rather than everyone.
Here’s how it works.
A …

My book Amazon.com Mashups launches in less than a month and websites/stores all over the world are beginning to list it. I compiled the following list of the different prices and websites. Just for kicks I converted the local price to USD for comparison. It’s interesting that the although the Euro is a stronger currency with more buying power, the price of the book is inflated so as to cancel out this savings. As a result you end up paying significantly more than in the USD market. I have known …

I recently upgraded my PC to Vista Ultimate which means Robocast podcasts are now generated using the enhanced voice from Windows Vista.
Robocast, for those that don’t know is a free service I created. It takes RSS feeds (you can email me yours for inclusion[LINK]) and it converts them from Text to Speech. The resulting MP3 files are included in a new RSS feed which you can link to from my website. Here’s an example of the Robocast for my own blog: [LINK]
You can learn more about Robocast here: [LINK]
Having …