Incoming!
Back in November I mentioned something called Browsershots, which shows you reasonable facsimiles of what your blog will look like in various combinations of browser/OS. I got thirteen different samples back.
But that was last fall. Their sampling is more extensive these days:
Anyway, I entered the URL of this blog and clicked the “submit” button. After a couple of minutes of processing, the site returned thumbnails of how this blog looks in all of those different browsers. Great.
A few minutes later, I happened to stop by to check my Sitemeter report. TerryHull.net is a new blog, and I am still a little obsessive about seeing if I’ve attracted any new readers. I was surprised to see that my traffic had jumped by about 40 hits in less than an hour! The hits were coming in from all around the world: Brazil, France, Germany, Netherlands, Finland, Poland, the UK.
And where did all those hits come from? Right:
At first I had no idea what was going on. Had some big-time blogger mentioned one of my articles? My heart began beating a little faster. Then it occurred to me. This is just the result of that website test.
As the guy who runs the place explains:
When you submit your web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will open your website in their browser. Then they will make screenshots and upload them to the central server here.
I suppose if you absolutely, positively have to have a couple dozen hits in the next half-hour, you could try this yourself.
Bill Peschel »
20 August 2008 · 10:05 pm
If you want to see a longterm gain, sign up for one of those services that checks to see if your site is up.
I was having trouble reaching planetpeschel.com to post. I’d try to enter through the front door. Nothing.
Turns out that, under FF3, I’d have to clear my cache and that seems to have cured the problem.
Meanwhile, my site stats were going up. When the e-mails from the company reassured me that I was 100% up, I killed the free service.
Just saw last weeks stats. It looks like the stock market.