New Visitors Globe Widget

I'm sure you're noticed a little format change and the new globe that marks our visitors' locations. I like this globe feature and it is an attraction in itself but does not fit well in a forum category space. I had to create the new third column down the right side and fill it with other features so it does not leave a long white column of empty space under the globe.

I am finding the Latest Topics widget I put in that space helpful for spotting new posts and topics that otherwise can get lost as our site grows. I already spotted a post from several days ago I had missed previously thanks to this new feature. There was the option available to let the topics scroll but I found that somewhat distracting so made it a static display. The spinning globe is distracting enough but hopefully not too much so. Also the RSS selections at the bottom of the column might be useful to some. This feature allowed me to direct a new news block to My Yahoo homepage that now previews new posts from this board. This works with a variety of homepage options.

I have long boasted about our international guest readership but know not everyone will use the Who's Online feature like myself to see where our guests are logging in from. This globe now puts a permanent dot on the globe and will put up a country flag banner for about 5 minutes when someone new comes on. This shows up automatically on the globe without need to refresh so you will see when many of our Amigos join us online. This could make it more convenient to use the Chat feature which currently sees little use. If you notice an amigo coming in that you would like to converse with directly it is now easier to see when they are coming online. This doesn't work for everyone that comes by, however, and only about half have a good location stamp. For that reason it is not a good hit indicator but you will notice the dots accumulating on almost every continent so far now that this feature has been in-place just over 24 hours.

I don't suppose I need to draw anyones attention to the webcam display in Morelia's Centro. Poor orientation of the camera makes much of the day rather poor for a good view, the afternoon when the sun is behind the camera is much prettier. This is a live camera that will put updated photos out every few minutes on its home site, here however, it is necessary to refresh the page to see updated photos. This is good for me to see what is going on in our old colonia downtown.

Well, we try to bring new and interesting features to the site. Not every experiment I have tried in the past has worked well but we had to try those things. Hopefully our current configuration is suitable and interesting to most of our Amigos here. If there is something more you would like to see or have any comments about these new features then please leave us a post with your comment or suggestion. -Peter

The visitors globe is down for maintenance this afternoon-evening according to the service provider. I see it is still in-place revolving but without any location tags and none of the dot markers. Seems a possibility that we may lose those markers and have to start all over again, so it is good this site has only had it in-place for about two-and-a-half days.

I was rather surprised to not see some of our regular guests from Japan marked on the globe. Perhaps it is a good sign that Japan is getting back to normal after their catastrophic events recently. In fact it was unusual not to see many of the Asian and European guests appear that I have seen in the past. Besides the Mexican, Canadian, and American visitors there were few international hits recorded. Among those were guests from Ecuador, Colombia, Switzerland, Finland, and multi-visits from at least three locations in the Russian Federation. In less than three days of recording though I guess that is not too bad and goes along with my claim that this site attracts international visitors, perhaps more international guests than local ones.

Not all visitors are recorded on the globe, it would appear to be only about one-third at best. It only records those whose rough locality can be determined quickly. It appears Pátzcuaro-area visitors are recorded as Morelia and those from Chapala are listed as Guadalajara. I would need to watch and gather more data to determine if that is always true. Other Mexican visitors I saw this morning were coming from Mexico City; Manzanillo, Colima; Tepic, Nayarit, and Queretaro, Qro.

So, for now we appear to have a dead globe spinning but that is no indication of global events or economic factors, it is just the service is conducting scheduled maintenance. If I see we lost all our previous contact information after it comes back on-line I may decide to change color of the globe or color of the pinpoints or some other changes perhaps. I think it is a nice feature and sometimes just sit and watch where our visitors are coming in from.

I see our globe is back and with the original "hits" marked. Some don't show up though, I noticed a visitor from Germany identified by the site's "Who's Online" function that did not make it onto the globe, so it's not marking all, maybe only the ones whose location can be determined most immediately.

Also, I see smaller town hitting. San Juan Cosalá, Jalisco is being marked so not all Chapala hits are logged as Guadalajara. I'll see more as time goes on.