One of the WordPress plugins that I have been meaning to write about is Comment Referrers by Donncha O Caoimh. Very lightweight, and single purpose, it simply adds a line to e-mails that you receive when new comments are made on a post at your site. If the browser sent a referral URL upon arriving at the page, it is copied in. So if someone has been searching Google for “WordPress Astana ExPat”, I can figure this out if they leave a comment. This can be useful for tailoring your reply to their the visitor’s specific needs, or at the other end of the scale, it is normally very simple to see if someone has simply left a comment to gain a backlink. It also works as a simple way of keeping tabs on which sites or search engines are sending you traffic.
Dec 09 2009
Wet Sound
OK, so having checked through SEO SearchTerms 2’s output so far,
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sonic focus drivers must be installed for this application to work
tewksbury flood 2007
intel audio studio sonic focus drivers must be loaded for this application to work
funny double barrelled names
happy birthday
tewksbury floods 2007
sonic focus drivers must be loaded
sonic drivers must be loaded for this application to work
linkedin problems
alreader2 english
twitpic badge
pocketwitter
alreader english
poi amsterdam
intel audio studio controller sonic focus drivers
spitoons
green tea asthma
Free Bed Plans
skype scams
funny links
Funny Double Barrelled Surnames
intel audio studio sonic focus drivers must loaded application work
intel audio studio controller sonic focus drivers must be loaded
green tea and asthma
intel audio studio controller sonic focus drivers must be loaded for this application to work
BBC Prime keys
Executable PHP widget
free log bed plans
karabatan
free waterbed plans
barcorama
intel sonic focus drivers must be loaded for this application to work
intel audio studio controller sonic focus
happy birthday cat
tewksbury flood 2007
have all brought people to this site.
I’ve stopped at the point where search terms only bought me less than 10 visitors since I installed the plugin. You can see from the list that the sonic focus drivers error message that I encountered a long time ago are by far and away the biggest crowd pulled, closely followed by the floods in Gloucestershire (specifically Tewksbury) back in 2007. That second one is all down to Irina spotting some photos online that other people seem to find interesting, I guess.
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Nov 29 2009
My thanks to Oleg for the goog…
My thanks to Oleg for the google wave invite. I’d been meaning to find out what it was all about. Anyone want an invite?
Oct 17 2009
Anti-Bling?
OK, so this one is out of order compared to the other Lucky21842 videos I’ve been catching up on, but I wanted to embed it now in case I forgot and closed the tabs down in Firefox on Monday when we return home. So, if you haven’t already seen them, there are a lot of YouTube videos that feature elite vehicles and excessive car accessories, parading up and down (and occasionally crashing) Almaty (& a couple of Astana) streets. The video below is a sort of antidote to such clips.
If you click the video, you’ll be taken to the proper page for it, where you can check out his other videos and see the comments left by other YouTube videos. I can understand where 777kuku777 (and indeed Jason/Lucky himself) is coming from when 777kuku777 says
Wahaha, you are so right about the Almaty cars, personally I don’t see the point of those videos. If it’s your car, then do whatever you want with it, make a video for you tube and what-not, otherwise, waste of time. P.S. Dude you being a gangsta is priceless though! Oh and next time for your version of almaty cars use some local songs would be even? funnier:)
However, if I was aware of the sort of media attention that Kazakhstan attracted in some of the tabloids abroad, and I felt proud of Almaty/Astana/Kazakhstan as well, I would want to make sure that people understood that cars were not pulled by donkeys, and that in all likelihood, there were more über-expensive dream machines parading around Almaty (at least) than in the European/American city of your average YouTube viewer…
Yes, I could have just left this as a comment on the video, BUT… 1) I’m currently signed into GMail. Which is tied into my old banned YouTube account. I’d have had to sign out, delete all Google related cookies, sign into YouTube, leave a comment, then re-sign into Gmail (I haven’t yet set up a separate FireFox profile on Ira’s Mum’s PC). Unless you have a banned YouTube account, you have no excuse – go check all the videos out, leave comments, and if you like Lucky’s output as much as me (you there, stop sniggering at the back), consider subscribing …. oh and 2) I ramble too much. Youtube comments are restricted to around 1000/1500 characters? I normally exceed that length. It is a miracle of modern science/txt speak & deliberate lazy spelling that I ever manage to convey anything in a single tweet!
Aug 24 2009
Kittens Available Soon In Astana
Tishka (Dasha’s daughter) has had four kittens this Sunday, and once they have been weaned and are ready for the big wide world without their Mummy around, they will be available (free) to anyone prepared to give them a good home.
So, if you live in Astana, know how to look after cats, and are interested, click the Contact page for e-mail addresses etc., or leave a comment here.
(Fairly) Obviously, the image above was just a google search, as the kittens themselves are very small, and living over at the in-laws. Will try and grab some proper ones next weekend. By which time, Dasha, these kitten’s Grandma, may have had her litter.
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Aug 13 2009
Caffeine Hit On Bling?
With Google claiming that the new back end workings for their search engine having been in the pipeline for a while, and Microsoft explaining it merely as a kneejerk reaction to their Bing search engine, who should we believe? Does it really matter?
Well first I would like to give you the opportunity to see Microsoft’s chosen viral ad for Bing. I’d recommend moving sharp objects, small children and pets from your immediate vicinity first.
Next we have the Onion’s take on Google and their privacy policies. This one might make you laugh, you might not, but you won’t be wanting to time travel and stop the conception of the video maker at least 🙂
So, back to the story, what changes can we expect from Caffeine? Well, searching for a term like “Kazakh Yurt Rental” would not simply just use the old Google algorithm where the site with the most (with weight for relevancy) links would be in first place, allowing for on and off page SEO obviously. When implemented, if the rumours are true, when two sites of roughly equal ‘value’ to the reader (as pre-determined by Google) contend for a search term, the site with the most recent article/post would nudge ahead, and therefore place higher in the search results.
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Jul 28 2009
SearchTerms Tagging 2
Just wanted to write a quick post about a (WordPress) plugin I’ve started using recently. It is called SearchTerms Tagging 2 (I’m guessing I missed version 1?), and the idea behind it is quite simple.
As you may know from my posts about the WP GotLucky plugin, I find it interesting to see what people were searching for when they found my blog. Obviously a lot tends to be based around Astana or Kazakhstan in general, but sometimes people are looking for quite specific information about a software configuration issue they have, or for other people’s thought on a holiday destination. With the GotLucky plugin, I have an RSS feed and e-mails sent each time this site is found via a google search, but without running the search myself, I can’t tell specifically which post they ended up at. With SearchTerms Tagging 2, each post has a list of the search terms used to find the post (if this has occurred since the plugin was installed), and on the config page, I also have a list of which terms (and associated post) were found most regularly.
So, head on over to the page linked above if this sort of plugin sounds of interest you. If you have any queries/feature suggestions, check out the comments, where you’ll see the author is pretty quick and helpful in his responses/upgrades 🙂
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Jul 24 2009
Swine Flu Confirmed In Astana – Pics Added
The first hint that things had changed were when we drove Anna for her (regular) immunizations this morning. I noticed that bus drivers and conductors were wearing face masks. One driver was indeed wearing the mask, just not actually using it – the mask was done up behind the head, but hanging below his chin! I’ll leave the discussion on whether face masks are actually much use except when worn by people who may have already been infected, or in societies where (some) people spit in the street and regularly cough & sneeze without covering their mouth, for another day.
Irina then spoke to someone who had heard that Astana now had confirmed cases of the A/H1N1 virus, and that either local or national authorities had declared that shop and public workers would now be wearing the aforementioned masks.
So, am I worried, about to go and buy a dozen boxes of face masks? Well, with Anna around I’m naturally concerned, but given that Britain currently has approximately 100,000 new cases declared each week, and that the current variant of Swine Flu hasn’t yet mutated to be highly deadly and/or drug resistant, I’m not about to seal all the windows and doors and demand temperature readings from anyone we come into contact with.
It appears that the three (confirmed, as opposed to six including suspected) cases were with people who had been in Britain for academic studies.
Oh, in case 3rd hand information is not (understandably with this sort of topic) official enough to be considered valid, here is an Azerbaijan site’s report on it! I’m not sure whether this Google News search will work for other people, and whether it will stay up to date with new stories, but you can currently see that only the Asian/Central Asian news services seem to have picked up on the reports.
In case they disappear from Google’s listings, here we have Gazeta.kz’s almost translated into English story, and here we have the Indian branch of Reuters summary. Finally, Kazakhstan Today’s bulletin can be found here.
[edit]
OK, just been for a walk in Astana park. Out of a sample size of approximately 200 people, five were found to be wearing masks. That is if you include another bus driver who had it on, but slung under his chin.
Couple of photos below…
Astana Park Ride Attendant Face Mask Swine Flu
Bus Driver Face Mask Not Worn Swine Flu
Jul 06 2009
Amsterdam 2007 Photos #8
Next we have a typical sight around the streets – someone passed out, not appearing to move at all. (Shots taken out the fire exit, still in Coco’s Outback Steakhouse.) Eventually someone saw he was moving, and therefore not about to die probably. He makes the transition from lying down on a stone slab, to sitting up, to proudly making it to a cafe table and chair!
Wow, tried to find the restaurant on Google Maps, and several candidates presented themselves. Until Alex or Chris can provide clarification, or I find that notebook, I’ll not publish the map.
Jul 02 2009
The Day Before
So, just one day before Anna came into this world, we were at the hospital, with a contraction and baby heart rate monitor attached to Irina. We saw a few other soon-to-be Mums in the ward, who we’d met at pre-natal classes & during previous trips to the hospital. I was a little over-protective, and asked the cleaners to come and sort out the dried blood I’d noticed on the angle-poise like lamp. Ooops, turns out someone who had used the bed prior to us had had chocolate on their hands!
As we looked out the window together, wondering just when Anna would decide that the time was right, Irina noticed a medical building across the road that looked vaguely familiar. Turns out that her old company (PKL healthcare, where she worked when we lived back in Cheltenham & Bourton on the Water), had constructed it! Small world…
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- View Out The Window (PKL Building)
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- Ira, Anna & Their Monitor
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- Irina Smiling On The Bed
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- Where Is Ira? The Window With The Coke Bottle In It!
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