• 195 new entries.
• 134 comments were published in 2008, compared to 223 in 2007. That reminds me (yet again) of just how far our traffic tanked in the second half of 2007 and the first of 2008, and how much the last few months has simply been about rebuilding that traffic.
• We peaked in December with 22,044 total page views for the month, from 13,146 unique visitors. That’s an average of more than 400 unique visitors each day, typically looking at one or two pages on the site. This is another reminder: 1-1/2 years ago those numbers were double this!
• Our visitors use about 13 GB of bandwidth each month, or a little over 400 MB every day.

Regular readers will notice that there have been more frequent updates to this site over the past few weeks. For those who have felt a little flooded, I have created a weekly summary e-mail option. Sign up for weekly updates.

And of course, the newsfeed is available if you use an RSS reader.

And so, I changed the e-mail subscription system. Rather than using Movable Type's system, I switched to FeedBurner's. FeedBurner will automatically send notifications, so it'll happen much more... reliably.

How do you sign up? If you're visiting the site you may notice two new orange icons to the right of our photo in the header: the standard feeds icon and an e-mail icon. Click the e-mail icon and sign up! Of course, this is a great opportunity to grab the newsfeed, too, if you prefer. If you're reading this in e-mail, try the Up to Date? page for a sign-up form: http://danandsherree.com/up_to_date.php

Lastly, I'm discontinuing use of the old notification system. I did not move current subscribers to the new list. It's been so long since the last notification, you may not even remember who Sherree and Dan are! Or, maybe you're just not interested anymore. That's ok, too. We'll get over it.

By the way, if you're still reading, you might be interested to see photos from our recent vacation to Walt Disney World: http://danandsherree.com/2008/05/15/vacation_at_walt_disney_world.php

And yes, the idea for the name came from the show My Name Is Earl.

Our publishing schedule varies quite a bit. I usually aim to have two new entries each week and often fail at that (particularly obvious by the past month).

• At the start of it all, in July 2003, we published seven entries. Since that was in the last two weeks of July, equaling about three posts/week, that was pretty good.
• The lowest point was certainly December 2005, when we only published three entries. That's less than one each week!
• The high point was September 2005. I had absolutely nothing to do at work and was being laid off at the end of September. I spent my days job hunting and writing 25 entries.

I suppose publishing six entries this past month isn't too bad, but not too good either. I'm always amazed at the people who can find the time to write something new every day, but I'm sure I'll never be able to achieve that.

Some of the largest growth has been on the content of this site. There were 403 new pages added in 2005 (compared to 287 new pages in 2004). Lots of commenter growth, too: 427 comments were made in 2005, compared to only 99 comments in 2004!

It’s due to Hurricane Wilma. The datacenter that houses the server this site is hosted on is located in Florida and had… significant problems. First power failed, then generators failed, then the Internet connection failed… a catastrophe all around. Anyway, the site is back now (and hopefully for good).

Grrr.

All is better now, though.

I'm sure it's no surprise, but this site is now powered by Movable Type version 3.2. I could go on and on about the great new features... but I won't. A few links to those who have, though:

• Announcing Movable Type 3.2
• Movable Type 3.2!
• Movable Type 3.2: Our 32 Favorite Features--unfortunately, they're only up to number 26!
• Movable Type 3.2 goes LIVE! Huzzah!

To summarize, it's an excellent upgrade (worthy of the v4.0 badge, as I wrote before) and I don't hesitate to support Six Apart or recommend it to others. In fact, you can take advantage of the 3.2 Release sale--$30-off a personal license!

(By the way, the above "badge" is from Movable Tweak.)

• There are a total of 5,052 files in 507 folders that make up this site.
• On this site there are a total of 2,084 pages of HTML.
• There are 2,660 photos, screenshots and similar files that complement an entry or add to a photo gallery.

This design reflects Sherree and I more than the previous one did in quite a few ways. The scrapbooking elements--layered papers, leather photo frames, and "coin" letters--represent one of Sherree's big interests. (Though I picked out much of it!) The XHTML, CSS and PHP that drive it represent some of my interests. The brown monotone reflects a part of us both pretty well, I think, giving a nod to our Scouting and outdoors interests. It's also not too feminine or masculine, important to keeping things inviting. (Though initially, we were planning on either a blue or green monotone design.)

And most importantly, it's something we did together (on several levels). The previous design was from my late-'90s personal site. When we started this site, I just used that old design and adapted it as necessary. Ideas that seemed good at the time--like a menu with "Dan's Stuff" and "Sherree's Stuff"--proved wrong once the site's content and visitor base grew. With nearly 800 pages of content, knowing where to go became much more important. Similarly, if you didn't know us or our interests, how would you know which menu to look in? The need for a site design that unified us and our content--as well as simplifying such things--was necessary.

Since I've started using Feedburner to serve up the feeds, I've been able to track viewers a little easier. I'm pleasantly surprised at how many are reading the feeds (particularly in the Movable Type category): as many as 30 circulate (150 hits) daily total, according to Feedburner. I doubt that any of my family is reading via RSS... so who is?

I haven't gotten subcategories set up yet, or any of the other nifty new features. I did get the TypeKey comment system working, though.