Well, it’s been some time since I last blogged – nearly three months. Eek!
Partly, it’s because I’ve been very busy at work, writing the lectures for a new course on 3D graphics.
I’ve also been busy rehearsing and recording with my new band Angles (with Cliff Stapleton & Richard Jones) and playing with my new G bagpipes – a lovely sweet-sounding set from Sean Jones.
For anyone who’s around in Kent, Gloucestershire or Brighton, Angles have got three gigs coming up in January – my first chance to play the pipes in public.
So – not much time to work on the abc website.
However, there have been a few things going on behind the scenes so this is just a quick update – exactly six months since the website was relaunched.
First of all, the tune search has been growing all the while – I’ve just updated it today and it now includes over 53,000 tunes. I’ve also done quite a lot of work on the crawler (that searches for abc files across the web) and I think it’s much more robust now – though not much to see from the user point of view.
Secondly, I created an abc facebook page a week or so ago. Not much activity there yet, but I’m hoping people will drop by and say hi.
There is also a (long overdue) move in-hand to formally adopt an updated abc standard – check the forums for details.
Finally, although I haven’t had time to start it yet, I’ve got plans for a whole series of blog articles – watch this space.
Apart from that things are ticking along well. The crashes I was getting early on have not reoccurred so I’m confident my fix worked.
What’s more, the website has had over 54,000 visitors since the relaunch!
Looking at the logs, it’s clear that some of that is just passing traffic – perhaps arriving via a google search, taking a quick look around and leaving soon after. However, there are steady stream of returning visitors who spend a considerable time on the site, with an average of 12.5 pages viewed per visitor!
Anyway, watch out for more improvements in the New Year.
Merry Christmas!
Chris