European Internet Usage Statistics

Eurostat 2006: Internet usage in the EU25: “Nearly half of individuals in the EU25 used the internet at least once a week in 2006 and a third of households and three-quarters of enterprises had broadband internet access.” Statistics Denmark 2007: Access to the Internet: 78% of population has home internet access.

Checkouts Vs. GPA?

Cindy Harper, Systems Librarian at Colgate University, posted to the IUG list with this notion today:
I’m clearing out a large group of expired student records, and wonder if anyone else has had the same idea that has occurred to me. [Our ILS] keeps track in the patron record of TOTCHKOUTs (total checkouts). At the [...]

bsuite Bug Fixes (release b2v7)

[]Work on bsuite3 is progressing well, thanks to help from Zach and Matt, who are collaborating with me on completely rearchitecting how stats are collected and reported. This, however, is not bs3. It’s a transitional release intended to fix some bugs in b2 and make upgrading easier. This upgrade is recommended for all current bsuite [...]

Damn Daylight Saving Doesn’t Save

NPR covered it like an eclipse or astronomic curiosity, and did little to question the claimed energy saving benefits. But, as Michael Downing asks in Spring Forward, how can something understood by so few be done by so many? And why go through this twice annual madness?
Supposedly, we subject ourselves to the rule of time [...]

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Thanks to MetaFilter for pointing this out, and Matty, for putting it to good use.
Yes, you really can use this to make authoritative looking reports on anything.
esolutions, lies, statistics, data, pirates, ninjas, bullshit

Competition, Market Position, and Statistics

Watch this video a few times. It’s funny. It’s catchy. It’s kitsch.
Now watch it a few times more. The ad, for a Lada VAZ 2109, appeared sometime in the 90s. It reflects the influence of MTV and other cultural imports from the West, but the details betray it’s command economy provenance. The snow appears trodden [...]

bsuite Bug Fixes (release b2v6)

[]Update: bugfix release b2v7 available.
It’s been a while since I released a new version of bsuite, my multi-purpose WordPress plugin. I’d been hoping to finish up a series of new features, but those have been delayed and this is mostly just a collection of bugfixes. This update is recommended for all bsuite users.
bsuite Features

Tracks page [...]

US Census on Internet Access and Computing

Rebecca Lieb reports for ClickZ Stats that, based on US Census data (report), most Americans have PCs and web access:
Sixty-two million U.S. households, or 55 percent of American homes, had a Web-connected computer in 2003, according to just-released U.S. Census data. That’s up from 50 percent in 2001, and more than triple 1997’s 18 [...]

bsuite Bug Fixes (release b2v3)

[]I’ve fixed another bug in bsuite b2, my multi-purpose plugin. This update is recommended for all bsuite users.
Fixed

Previous versions would throw errors at the bottom of the page when the http referrer info included search words from a recognized search engine. 

Installation
Follow the directions for the bsuite b2 release. The download link there will always fetch [...]

bsuite Bug Fixes (release b2b)

[]I’ve fixed a couple bugs in bsuite b2, released last week.
Fixes

A bug with search word highlighting that caused it to litter the display in some cases. 
A silly mistake of mine that cause a mysql error for some users.

Installation
Follow the directions for the bsuite b2 release. The download link there will always fetch the current version.
Upgrades [...]