Cav's Place

Nearly a year and a half ago, I was posting Google Analytics statistics for my blog’s first two years at that location. Now I guess I’ll need to post the final statistics for it, which will be split in three parts: Total (including what I listed last time), since the previous listing and only the last month (including the last week, when the site no longer existed, as there were a few views recorded from people who accessed cached versions of the site).
This shouldn’t interest anyone, but the posted statistics will be much more detailed now than they were the last time, seeing as this is a final report. There has always been a filter set to make Analytics ignore my own visits, so those won’t mess with the statistics. Having a screen width of less than 1280 will make the table look really weird, and in fact a width greater than 1280 is required to make absolutely everything fit properly.

Notes:
* There are multiple Google entries, mainly caused by people who loaded the page from the Google cache. Only entries listed in the top 25, namely the main one, “google.com” and “google.nl”, have been added together to produce the listed result. The actual percentage of visitors coming from Google is therefore slightly higher than the one listed, while the total number of sources is lower. This doesn’t apply to the last month, where I added all Google listings accurately.
** Due to cached pages and pages generated by internal searches, the actual percentage for that page is slightly higher than the one listed, as only the entries that showed up in the top 25 have been added together. It’s possible that a few other pages could benefit slightly from this, but the impact would be negligible. On the other hand, for this same reason, the actual number of different pages is much lower than the one listed. This doesn’t apply to the last month for landing pages, where I added all listings accurately, but does apply everywhere for pages viewed.

I should also add the records for one day: 169 visitors, 180 visits and 257 pageviews. All of these have been set on August 16th, 2009, when somebody apparently decided to promote the Perfect World International Information Dump on StumbleUpon.
And while I’m at it, I’m uploading screenshots of the full visitors, visits and pageviews graphs. Notice what happened as soon as I wrote that post… (The significant spikes in pageviews not associated with similar spikes in visitors or visits tend to reveal when someone who knows me, or at least used to know me, first got to my blog.)

The landing pages and viewed pages could say that there’s no point in me writing anything anymore, but seeing as I don’t write to be read, but just to let some things out and, hopefully, turn just a little more of the mess inside my head into human-readable concepts, I’m not going to care about that…

Cav’s Place is dead; long live Cav’s Place! This time sitting nicely in its own home and no longer depending on people who could, and did, throw it away like a worn rag…

Please update your links, as I will need to do the same with those placed inside posts. Which will be a very tedious task, as there are hundreds of them, if not over a thousand, but I guess it has to be done. Let’s just hope that a search for the old address will return all posts that have links to it, so I’ll just need to take it from there. Changed posts as far back as June and there seem to be 118 of them left to modify. Don’t expect them to be updated right away though, as this is not a priority. But at least I’m putting in the links properly now, so another move won’t require a similar process.
If you notice any problems other than broken links inside posts, please let me know immediately. Thanks in advance.

The plan would be to eventually create a larger site and have the blog be just a part of it, so it’ll at least make some sense to have my own domain and a hosting package. But don’t hold your breath for that, because I highly doubt I’ll even start planning it this year. There could be one other project started in the next few months, but that’s pretty much it.

Otherwise, I expect the tremendous majority of visitors will still be looking for the Perfect World International Information Dump page, which is why it’s getting a link right here. For anything else, I guess you’ll need to wait for search engines to learn the new address…

Edit: This is strange. Apparently if I replied to someone’s comment very shortly after they posted it my comment now shows up before the one I replied to. Can get confusing…

Note (May, 2012): The “huge disappointment” option mentioned there at the end ended up being the correct one for them as well. I must apologize if my posts led anyone to believe otherwise.

In a turn of events that initially surprised me so much I thought it was only a joke, though after a little consideration I realized I should have seen it coming, Remus Cernea stated today that he and certain other leading members are leaving our Greens to form a new party. The message lists the following reasons for the move: “The viewpoints we have publicly expressed, validated even by official documents from the European Greens, have been systematically ignored, blocked or strongly opposed by some of the party’s leading members. […] When it became clear to us that the values of the European Greens are not shared but even challenged by some of our colleagues with decision making prerogatives inside the party, we decided that we can only serve these values by initiating a new political construct.”

The new party they mean to create is currently referred to as “Snow White” because of a recent blog post by presidential adviser Sebastian Lazaroiu. That post was written “for those in the know” and gave the results of a recent opinion poll without specifying which party got which percentage, then went on to predict election results, whether they would be organized now or at the proper time, in 2012. Those predictions were:
“Now:
• Little Red Riding Hood 26%
• The Little Match Girl 25%
• Santa Claus 23%
• The Goat and Her Three Kids 15%
In 2012:
• Snow White 35%
• Little Red Riding Hood 26%
• The Little Match Girl 12%
• Santa Claus 12%
• The Goat and Her Three Kids 8%”
The only explanation given in the post was: “If a single party will dominate in 2012, then I can guarantee just one thing: It won’t be any of the ones you already know. If no single party will dominate, then three will. And all three [will be] fairy tale characters.” So people started trying to work it out, assuming that Little Red Riding Hood means the Social Democrats (PSD) due to the party’s official color, The Little Match Girl means the Liberals (PNL) for reasons that escape me, Santa Claus means the newly created People’s Party due to the utterly impossible promises its founder and president keeps making and The Goat and Her Three Kids means the Democrat Liberals (PDL) due to the three groups known to exist inside the party. As for Snow White, it was assumed to mean a new party, made up of members untainted by involvement in the kind of politics Romania has seen so far. Which is why the term was used to refer to the new party before its official name will be announced, next Wednesday.

About who will the members of this new party be, the message states: “Alongside us, besides former members of the Green Party and other environmentalist parties, public figures who have not previously been involved in politics, members of some nongovernmental organizations, young businesspeople who had successful private endeavors without being subscribed to State contracts, people who studied abroad and returned to help develop Romania, as well as many, very many intelligent and capable youths, will be a part of this new construct.” It also states that the party could comfortably accommodate “those sensitive towards environmental issues but with a modern Social Democratic bent, as well as Liberals fond of defending individual rights and free initiative“.
As for their doctrine: “The new party will be a Progressive one, which will focus particularly on knowledge (scientific research and education being priorities), preserving the environment, defending and promoting human rights, fairness and social solidarity, a well-functioning democracy, developing a sustainable economy and fighting corruption. We will also take it upon ourselves to promote the rights of national or religious minorities, the separation of Church and State, LGBT rights or a much more significant representation of women in politics.” And if there was any more need, the message also states that they will approach topics that have so far been taboo in Romanian politics and publicly express viewpoints that may currently go against the will of most Romanians.

Remus’ views, most often supporting the separation of Church and State, LGBT rights and the rights of the Hungarian and Roma minorities, are obviously in stark contrast with those of the vast majority of Romanians, who vehemently oppose all those things, but at first it looked as if the Greens could accommodate them, though it was obviously a case of “the independent Remus Cernea supported by the Green Party”, with his views being grafted upon theirs. But it appears that the support and grafting only went so far and problems soon arose, though his first real mention of them was very recently, when he said that he “came under heavy fire” even inside the party because of his last post supporting LGBT rights.
Yesterday, while replying to a comment posted on Facebook, he stated that: “An entire mechanism aimed at setting me aside was recently set in motion inside the party (saying that I was a “Satanist”, “betrayer of kin and country”, that I “turned the party into the gay party” and other such nonsense). It’s not by accident that I recently posted that picture of [me holding] The Satanic Verses – believe it or not, in the case file they made for me it’s “evidence” that I’d be a “Satanist”. This really is how some people think… If it’d just be random people it wouldn’t be much of a problem, but when they’re at the top of a political structure and their vote matters in making decisions, things get complicated… […] You will soon see violent attacks aimed against me. Basically, some people, including some trained by the secret service, made a goal out of harassing and stopping me as much as they can… […] I’ve obviously been expecting this ever since I got involved in politics and will continue what I started, one way or the other… I don’t give up so easily…”

Someone suggested “The Progressive Party” as the name for the new party and I also think that’d sound just about right, though the term “progress” may make some remember the Communist days, which could be a problem, plus that the PP abbreviation has also been used by The Pensioners’ Party, is currently most notably being used by The People’s Party and in the future may also be used by The Pirate Party, if they’ll manage to get themselves officially registered. Though The Pirate Party, in its current form, already had an agreement with the Greens and Remus seems to fully support them, so they may be absorbed into his new party, and in fact I think it’d be a bad idea to not do so.
Either way, it’ll be interesting to see what will happen next. This may really turn out to be what the Romanian political scene needs just as well as it may be a huge disappointment. I’ll certainly be keeping my eyes on them every step of the way, especially when it comes to making sure that the environment doesn’t end up being a lesser priority than the other issues listed in the statement…

It seems that the inevitable finally happened and my site’s gone. What’s interesting is that the whole domain is gone, apparently for over 24 hours now, so there’s still a chance that it might only be a problem with the host, but also a chance that Jen canceled it since she wasn’t exactly using it anymore. There’s also a chance that she deleted my blog and banned my IP from accessing the rest of the domain, of course.
Either way, I said I had to be out of there by the end of the month, so guess I need to act on that. I would have liked some more time to look for a good host, but I’ll go with the one I was leaning towards after looking over the offers I already knew of and hope my choice won’t be too wrong. Though unfortunately I’ll need to involve dad, as he’ll have to go to a bank to pay…
But there is also the little issue of the domain name I want being taken by an ISP. They have the .net one, which is what I wanted, but I’ll just sigh and take the .com one. However, I’d rather be safe than sorry, so I sent them an e-mail asking if they had any problems with me registering a domain with the same name and waiting for a reply. I wonder if they will reply, in fact… If they don’t say anything by Monday, I’ll just assume they have no problem with it and go ahead with registering it.
Then it’ll only be a matter of setting everything up… And hoping that my last backup is in perfect order, of course, because I really don’t want to lose anything.

Otherwise, I seems that I just keep coding lately. Just wondering both why did I think to restart learning programming now and why did I stop in the first place, considering how immersed into it I now am. Gave up on Ruby though, since I didn’t plan to learn something that doesn’t compile anyway.
The bad part is that whenever I stop for a moment and let my mind go where it wants to go, I’m gripped by a paralyzing fear, thinking of what is likely being hidden from me. And that will only get worse the more time passes without me knowing exactly what’s going on, but I’m too afraid to try to force someone’s hand because I’m too afraid of what may be going on… So there’s no way out of this, just like there hasn’t been any way out of the nightmare I’ve been living in for the past five years so far either.

Since I mentioned that, exactly five years ago it seemed as if there could still be a chance, as it was the night when she talked to me again, after those three weeks during which she wouldn’t let me be in the same room with her while she was awake. Of course, that proved to only be false hope, just like all the other times when I hoped that something good could happen to me and last… And yet, somehow, I’m still not crazy enough. Or at least not in the right way…

Since this is what I’m looking at and I often think better with my fingers, as they say, I’m going to put the ten hosting options I’m considering in a table and post it here for comparison. The ten options are from seven hosting firms because two of them have more than one in my price range, which tops at €25 per year, all taxes included. All but one of the firms were picked after looking through a couple of forums about a month and a half ago, when I first realized I may well need to start looking for such options, seeing as Jen was already ignoring me for some time.
The tables will only include details that seem relevant to me and where there are differences between the offers. If I find conflicting values listed, I will post the range. All prices will be per year, since the hosting firms usually require payment for a year in advance for their cheapest packages, in Euros, and will include the 24% VAT and any listed exchange fees. If the price is given in lei, I will convert using today’s rate.

Notes:
* As there was no mention of VAT, I assumed it was not included in the listed price and added it myself.
** Starting in the second year. First year free.
*** Taking into account the 20% discount valid until the end of September. Not cumulative with the free domain offer.

Other observations:
DespreGazduire: Not sure about adding them as I hadn’t heard of them until just now, when I was preparing to publish this and went to look for some more data about the others. They’re supposed to be a group of hosting firms who joined to provide such offers. The interesting thing is that they claim to activate the accounts as soon as you order them, deleting them if you don’t pay within seven days, so you have a week to test the service before needing to pay. They mention payment by SMS as well, but only up to €3 per message for the network I’m in.
eGazduireWeb: I’ve seen their services praised pretty much left and right on sites and forums that deal with the issue, without others contradicting the posters. However, the plural doesn’t seem to be the right choice, as it appears that a single person manages the entire operation.
EvoHost: I remember a few people recommending them, but the site seems suspicious to me because you can’t exactly find out detailed information unless you log on as a client and it seems like it hasn’t been worked on in quite some time.
MxHost: I remember choosing them several years ago, when dad wanted me to pick a host for his firm’s site. He gave up on that idea, but the name stuck, so they were the first ones I checked this time as well. A huge advantage is that they normally allow payment by SMS, which would add €1.24 to the price but allow me to handle it myself, without needing to ask dad to somehow go and pay in my name and therefore also avoiding even letting him know that I have my own domain. However, right now they say the system is suspended. Forum posts say that their services are good and they have entered a partnership that allowed them to set up a great data center, but also that they artificially inflate the traffic generated by those who have the cheapest hosting packages in order to force them to upgrade.
RedHost: There is some praise sent their way on forums as well, but what I noticed was that their staff is very active on said forums, answering any complaints about their services and trying to sort things out right away.
Webfactor: All I can say about them is that they’re extremely active on sites and forums that deal with the issue. Even if some posters would honestly recommend them, I couldn’t trust those recommendations because their staff is all too likely to jump in and recommend themselves whenever someone asks for a decent hosting service or complains about their own host.
XServers: Like eGazduireWeb, I have seen their services praised left and right. They seem a more serious company as well. The problem is that they made a very bad impression on me, because when I first started looking their site kept crashing and timing out, and it didn’t recover for nearly a full day. I haven’t seen that happen since, but it really didn’t help their cause.

At this point, I’d rule out EvoHost and Webfactor simply because something doesn’t feel right about them, and DespreGazduire Start 25 because that’s too tight even for me. eGazduireWeb, RedHost RH-1 and XServers simply seem too expensive for my needs, though if I was in fact wrong and either eGazduireWeb or XServers included the VAT in the listed price then it’d be quite reasonable, but I somehow doubt it, considering what they offer. Same goes for DespreGazduire Start 150 if I take the normal price into account. MxHost stays in contention thanks to the option to pay by SMS, assuming it’ll be made available again soon enough, no matter what else happens, but I am very worried about those reports about them inflating traffic…
RedHost RH-0 and DespreGazduire Start 75 may be the obvious choices at the moment, as the only ones that’d actually fit inside my price range in the long term, if you add together hosting and domain prices, and also offer quite enough for my needs. Unlimited traffic certainly makes the RedHost offer sound even more interesting, but there’s also the question of speed, which is something that XServers makes a point of stressing, as they guarantee at least 2 Mb/s at all times for every site hosted by them. On the other hand, I’d strongly prefer to have at least two MySQL databases, which would point me towards DespreGazduire, but the severely limited subdomains really rub me the wrong way. And the fact that I just learned about them now make me be quite suspicious anyway, so I’ll need to look into this further to see if they really are an option.

In conclusion, eGazduireWeb and possibly XServers seem to be the safe options, but also the expensive ones. RedHost RH-0 edges ahead of DespreGazduire Start 75 as the best option at the moment because I know a little more about them, but that can change depending on what else I’ll find out about DespreGazduire, and either way there are some problems with both offers. MxHost remains a possibility, but I’m certainly far more likely to dismiss them than I was before writing this. As for the rest, I think I can quite safely rule them out at this point.
If anyone happens to read this and has any further information or advice for me, please go right ahead and post a comment, because I most likely need to be out of here by the end of the month and really want to make the right choice.