A cautionary tale about cyberstalking

Hi Folks

Just a quick bit of geeky stuff I wanted to share with you that has nothing to do with smoking (or not smoking).

It's the Easter weekend and cold grey and miserable where I am. As a result I've spent a bit of time on my PC. This is never good as it often results in my aimlessly wandering about the net installing would be must have gadgets and gizmo's that, often as not, slow down or just plain kill my old PC. Will I ever learn? Hell no. I like it and for every 100 bad applications that I either download and delete or that try to delete me I usually find at least one good one that becomes part of my 'default installation' and that I recommend to friends who think I'm dead computer savvy as a result.

Results have included:

VLC media player that can play just about any media you throw at it
CC Cleaner that completely, forensically, removes your browsing history
AVG Anti virus. As irritatingly intrusive as Norton but free
Vistamizer. All the good bits of Vista, and now windows 7, without Vista or windows 7 (slows your start up though)
Divx and Xvid. Not quite sure what they do but if you struggle with a movie file one of these badboys will sort it out
Yahoo widgets. You probably shouldn't but you sooooo will want to. (Slows start up to a crawl)
Adaware. Kills tracker types dead
NCH Software. A variety of free stuff that helps with things like CD burning and web cams.

All of the above are free and, by my reckoning, essential. But now try this. Google analytics. It's something they used to sell that has now become free. It monitors your web-site and reports on things like how much traffic you've had and even where in the world it's from. I discovered this on Saturday and installed it straight away. By Sunday I had fascinating stats telling me what pages people had viewed, how long they spent on the site and even where in the world viewers come from. Fantastic. Wish I'd had it from the start. Today I spent a bit more time working with the various reports and found that I could find out how you got to: http://tquittinwithchampix.blogspot.com/
It showed me what site you had linked from like google or blogger. But, and here comes the stalker bit, there was also a site whose name i recognised from here. It was their personal blog. On their blog site they had a link to this site and someone, who viewed their site, must have clicked that link.

Of course I followed this and got to someones personal blog. I then felt guilty because if they had wanted me to go there they would have invited me. Suddenly I felt like a parent must do when they discover their childs diary.

Anyhow, no harm done, but be aware that when you access a site via a link, that link can work it's way right back to you. Can I also thank you for linking my blog from yours.

Having said all that. Install it, it's mad fun.

And by the way if anyone would like me to link their site from this one they are more than welcome. Just send me your URL and you can sit below Allen Carr and the NHS.

Speak soon