With all this commotion and ad-blocker evangelizing going on, one has to wonder – is AdBlock on the way to becoming the norm, and thus completely devaluing online advertising?

No. Not even close.

I’ve run the numbers. If current Internet usage trends persist, people who use AdBlock Plus (and other ad-blocking plugins) will always be a tiny minority. Sure, it might have some impact on the ad revenue of websites that target the tech-savvy crowd. But advertisers in general will probably always see AdBlock as just a minor annoyance – if that.

See the stats below.

AdBlock Plus Popularity

By last count, there were ~1,734 million Internet users in the world. AdBlock Plus, the most popular ad-blocking plugin, has ~10 million active users. Thus, only about 0.6% of all Internet users have AdBlock installed.

Growth Rates

In the last two years, the number of Internet users has been increasing by about 19.7 million each month, and this growth is accelerating. I wasn’t able to find complete historical data for AdBlock Plus, but judging by these stats (see the monthly view) the number of AdBlock users is currently increasing by about 315 thousand per month. And it seems to be slowing down lately.

With a growth rate disparity this huge, AdBlock will never catch up.

Sources : InternetWorldStats.com, AdBlock Plus usage statistics

Here’s a quick run-down of the techniques that are currently ranked the highest, with some pertinent links :

• Monoidealism (+9, 2 reviews)
  Have one and only one thought absorbing your non-verbal imagination. Do only one thing at a time.
• Collaboration with Others (+8, 2 reviews)
• Think It, Do It (+6, 2 reviews)
  As soon as you become aware of something that needs to be done and can be done (without major disruption), then I do it right away.
• Cripple your Internet (+4.7, 10 reviews)
  Install a browser add-on that prevents you from visiting time-waster sites like Facebook and Reddit.
  • LeechBlock (+5.4, 5 reviews)
  • PageAddict (+3, 1 review)
  • Freedom (Mac)
• Regular Exercise (+4.5, 2 reviews)
• Melatonin (+4.0, 5 reviews)
  Waste less time on sleeping  (the reviews note that melatonin does not work for everyone).
• Execute by Default (+3.7, 7 reviews)
  Instead of deciding whether to do something, come up with a plan that includes that something and decide to follow the plan.
• Getting Things Done (+3.3, 3 reviews)
• Utility Function Experiment (+3.3, 3 reviews)
  Attach point values to various actions and try to maximize your score.

See the LessWrong post for more details.

Google, and Avatar, and Windows 7, oh my. And CSS makes a delicious surprise appearance! Boom De Yada indeed.

You may be wondering how I got it to show suggestions that end with a specific phrase. Here’s the trick : First, enter your query as normal. Then move the cursor to the beginning of the text box and hit space. You should now get query suggestions that end with the phrase you entered. This works because Google takes into account the last known cursor position when generating the suggestion list.

The solution? Writing more, of course From now on, I will attempt to consistently post at least three times per week. Preferably four, if that’s feasible. I may also post more about some topics that I have previously ignored.

Sidenote : 3 posts/week may not seem like an awfully ambitious goal, but I feel it’s right in my case. For me, writing blog posts is a hobby.  I don’t want to become someone who blogs every day. I want to get better at blogging, not make it the focus of my life.

The rest of this post discusses the why’s and how’s, and how it affects you – the reader.

Why Write More?

Practice. In the immortal words of comrade Lenin : “Practice, practice and practice again!” If you ask any experienced writer how to get better at writing, chances are the first advice you’ll get will be “write more”. To improve a skill you must exercise it.

“Get into the groove”. Whether you want it or not, what you do on a day-to-day basis affects how you see the world around you and what opportunities you notice. Right now, I mostly view the world through a programmer’s lens. When I look at something, I see ways I could automate and simplify it. I see software to build, algorithms to invent, object hierarchies to map. It comes naturally. I want to get the same effect for blogging.

Clean out the idea list. It’s good practice to note down any interesting ideas that cross your mind. Then you can refer back to your notes if you ever run out inspiration or hit the writer’s block. The flip-side of this is that comprehensive idea lists can “go stale” – over time, the great ideas get implemented and the shitty ones get thrown out, but the “maybe’s” stay on the list. Instead of a source of inspiration, the list becomes a wellspring of self-doubt (“Is this article idea good enough? Should I try this project or just forget about it?”).

The solution is to find and eliminate stale ideas, either by implementing them or discarding them. This is what I intend to do – take some of the blog posts and post ideas that have sat on my idea list for a veritable eternity, and actually write them. More room for new ideas.

Cast a wider net. Finally, covering more topics and moving into new niches increases the probability of accidentally stumbling upon something great.

Why (This) Blog?

Now you might wonder : why not use a private notebook or text file instead of a public blog? Alternatively, why not start a new blog? Worry not – I have several unquestionably convincing arguments and justifications lined up.

• Doing it “for real”. If you want to become a better blogger, it’s common sense that you should train in a maximally realistic environment – i.e. posting on an actual blog.
• Getting real-world feedback instead of relying on biased self-evaluation. We’re all lousy critics when dealing with our own texts. If you want an unbiased opinion about something you’ve written, you need to show it to other people.
• Making a public commitment creates accountability and increases motivation.
• Finally, I’m too lazy to set up another blog.

What To Expect

So what does all this mean for you as a reader?

Believe it or not, but I have a pretty high standard for what is worthy of a blog post. In general, I’ve tried to stick with only posting stuff that is likely to be of practical use to someone – namely, software (plugins, addons, scripts) and tutorials. This can lead to long pauses between new posts when I’m working on a new software project (these take a long time) or when I run out of tutorial ideas. As a result, my posting schedule is sometimes very messed-up.

To have any hope of consistently meeting the 3-4 posts per week goal, I’ll need to change the criteria and post things that I normally wouldn’t. You can expect to see more opinion pieces, software/service reviews and pseudo-philosophical rants. To illustrate what that could be like, here’s a small selection of my earlier posts that fall into one of those categories :

• Quantum Immortality Is Useless
• Game Review : Love
• What “Be Yourself” Really Means
• The Teddy Bears of Climate Change
• AI Researchers Can’t Get a Break
• This post itself.

Of course, I will still post about WordPress and other tech-related stuff, too.

Gimme Ideas!

Got any questions about WordPress/PHP/etc that you’d like to see answered in the form of a blog post? Leave a comment on this post (or shoot me an email)!

There needs to be a way to link to a page on Reddit and automatically apply Readability.

That seemed like an excellent idea to me. In case you haven’t heard about it yet, Readability is a bookmarklet that can take an article or blog post with even the most cluttered, ad-infested and eye-bleedingly ugly design and turn it into a clean and readable work of art. As a side-effect, it also removes most kinds of ads.

Of course, you could just install the bookmarklet for your own use and have that be the end of it. But if you regularly share links to interesting articles with friends, or post them to social bookmarking sites, it would sure be handy to have a way give others the benefit of Readability without forcing them to install anything.

So I went ahead and created a website that lets you do just that – MakeReadable.com. Go check it out.

Here’s how to use it :

1. Enter a URL of the page  that you want to make more readable. Pages with lots of text – like news articles or blog posts – work best.
2. Click the “Make Readable” button (or press Enter).
3. Wait a few seconds while the server processes the page and redirects you to a new URL that already has Readability applied.
4. Share the URL of the new page with your friends, etc.

An even easier way to use this service is to simply append the URL of the page you want processed after http://makereadable.com/, like this :

http://makereadable.com/example.com/someblog/article-123.htm

Behind the scenes, MakeReadable.com also performs several other optimizations, like normalizing the HTML and stripping out all other scripts and most CSS. Since Readability completely restyles the page anyway, this post-processing makes the resulting page smaller and faster-loading (in theory) without hurting its looks.

Thoughts? Feature suggestions? Leave a comment below.

Here’s a more detailed overview of the new features.

Keyword Autolinking

So how does this “autolinking” stuff work? Basically, it lets you take any URL and specify one or more keywords that should be automatically linked to that URL. The plugin will then automatically analyze your posts and turn all instances of the specified keywords into links.

Of course, this feature is completely configurable. You can set the maximum number of automatically inserted links per URL/per post, exclude certain posts, give the autolinked keywords a unique look by applying custom CSS rules, make automatically inserted links open in a new window, and more.

Conversion Tracking

Some affiliate programs offer an option to insert custom tracking code on the order confirmation page. With the new version of Eclipse Cloaker, you can use this feature to keep track of how many of the people who click your cloaked links actually buy the product you linked to. You just need to place the tracker code that the plugin generates on the merchant’s confirmation page, and the conversion stats will start showing up in the Cloaked Links tab.

Conversion tracking settings (click for full size image)

A sample link statistics chart. Clicks are in yellow, conversions in darker yellow.

Other Improvements

• Localization support. The current release is still English-only, but the necessary code infrastructure for translation support is already in place and a French  translation should be available in the first half of January. If anyone’s willing to translate the plugin into another language, let me know. You could get a significant discount on the cloaker
• Search box. The list of cloaked links can get huge and unwieldy quickly when using automatic cloaking. Search box to the rescue! Enter a domain name (partial names also work), a keyword or part of the link’s name, and the plugin will filter the list to display only the links that match your query. You can also sort the results by name, URL, hits and so on.
• Interface improvements. Version 1.1 also includes a number of small UI changes intended to make the plugin easier to use. For example, the plugin will now automatically select the entire contents of the cloaked URL box when you click it.
• Bug fixes. The combined clicks & conversions chart has been updated to use your blog’s configured timezone. Invalid pass-through URL parameters are filtered better. The free version’s .htaccess rules are correctly removed even if it is still active when Eclipse Cloaker is installed.

The list is ranked by the number of downloads from the WordPress.org plugin directory. You can also check out the huge Top 1000 table or the last year’s Top 10.

1. Michael Torbert
   4 534 779 downloads. Co-author of the most downloaded plugin ever, All In One SEO Pack.
2. Arne Brachnold
   2 968 046 downloads. Author of the wildly popular Google XML Sitemaps plugin.
3. Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan
   2 303 984 downloads. Author of WP-PageNavi and other cool plugins.
4. Matt Mullenweg
   2 194 744 downloads. Matt is the founding developer of WordPress, and has also created many highly acclaimed plugins.
5. Alex Rabe
   1 655 442 downloads. Author of NextGEN Gallery.
6. Andy Skelton
   1 508 312 downloads. Author of WordPress.com Stats.
7. Takayuki Miyoshi
   1 365 010 downloads. Author of Contact Form 7.
8. Joost de Valk
   1 154 124 downloads. Author of Google Analytics for WP and dozens of other plugins.
9. Donncha O Caoimh
   1 059 256 downloads. Author of WP Super Cache, and many more.
10. Vladimir Prelovac
    845 346 downloads. Author of Smart YouTube and many other plugins.

Special Mentions

• Most prolific plugin author : Scott Reily has 44 plugins hosted on WordPress.org.
• Most user ratings : Google XML Sitemaps by Arne Brachnold, with over 800 votes and an average rating of 4 ½ stars.
• Most confusing data point : Sociable. This extremely popular plugin has changed hands three times now, going from Peter Harkins to Joost de Valk, and most recently to the privacy-loving folks of Blogplay.com. I omitted it from the Top 10, but you can still find it in the Top 1000.

By the way, I’m #24 on the Top 1000 list. Yay

For those not in the know, Google Wave is the latest communication & collaboration wonder-tech invented by the wise and just overlord of all the Internet(s), Google. Here’s an introductory video :

Offer only valid while supplies last. No refunds. No cucumbers were harmed in the production of this post.

The URL field supports wildcards, so “pla*.com” will match place.com, plan.com and plaza.com. Also, when searching by response code, you can specify a a single code, a comma-separated list of codes or a range (e.g. 400-410), or any combination thereof. For example, “301, 303, 400-500, 501″ works. Finally, you can save any search query as a custom filter and re-run it later with a single click.

Here are some ideas about what you could do with the search feature :

• Create new filters to show just missing images, or only broken links from custom fields.
• Find any generic “click here” links you might have created and replace them with properly optimized links with descriptive anchor text.
• Find all links to a specific site, or all links to PDF files, or all internal links, or…
• Find all images you’ve used in your posts. This can be useful because the Media tab only shows the uploaded images, but not the embedded/hotlinked ones.

Introduction

Love is a persistent-world, not-really-massive online FPS with a focus on base-building and exploration. It currently features highly unusual graphics, spherical maps the size of a small planet, terraforming, AI opponents and a decent selection of buildings and devices to decorate your base with. The game is in the Alpha stage of development, so there are still lots of bugs, balance issues and unimplemented features. I’ll touch on some of those later.

Love is pay-to-play – a 30 day voucher costs approximately 3 euros.

Gameplay Overview

Overall, Love has no explicit goals, no story and no win/loss conditions. You simply pick something you want to do and do it. The flip side of this is that there is no tutorial either, so new players will often be at loss about what to do.

The Settlement

The center of the game is the settlement. The first task of a new player is usually to find an existing player settlement by following an in-game compass, or start your own by finding a Monolith token and placing it in a suitable spot on the map.

Getting to an existing settlement can be an adventure of its own, as people tend to build settlements in extremely out-of-the-way places to protect them from AI attacks. The fact that the game world is rich in steep cliffs, deep unescapable pits and seas filled with highly corrosive acid makes this adventure of rather dubious quality. Luckily, once you’ve actually joined the settlement, you can always instantly teleport back to its monolith just by clicking an icon on the toolbar.

Terraforming

The settlement monolith creates an “area of influence” that lets you modify the terrain and deploy tokens. The terraforming is pretty basic – you can raise or lower the ground, change the surface material (grass, pavement, roof, etc) and cut horizontal holes in the terrain to create caves. However, if you’re hoping to build an elaborate underground base a-la Dr. Evil, prepare to be disappointed – the “one cave per terrain tile” constraint makes it pretty much impossible.

Tokens & Buildings

Another way to expand and improve the settlement is by placing various building, either decorative of functional. To do this you need to find tokens – small, wedge-shaped widgets that can be seen floating over altars in the wilderness and AI bases. Naturally, all the best tokens are located in the AI settlements, so getting them can be tricky (or exciting, if you enjoy hit-and-run tactics).

Once you bring a token to the base and deploy it, it will turn into a structure of the appropriate type. The majority of deployed tokens serve as tool dispensers/equipment racks – for example, if you point at a deployed “Hyperblaster token” and press one of the inventory keys, you will get the Hyperblaster weapon in one of your tool slots. Other tokens turn into functional buildings like a power reactor, a force field or health pod manufacturer. Overall, there are currently about two or three dozen available building types, and presumably more to come.

Several placed tokens

More Power!

Love has only one “resource” – power. All terraforming tools and weapons consume power, manufacturing facilities need power to run, and you can heal damage by picking up power pods.

Power deposit

Power comes in two forms – “power beams” emitted by certain structures that can be routed around the map with power reflectors and used to power various buildings, and the player’s personal power reserve that is used for terraforming and firing weapons. The power reserve automatically regenerates when it’s very low. You can also quickly replenish it by picking up power pods dropped by dead enemies or manufactured by the “Manufacture Power” building.

Alternative energy in Love

It may take a while to learn how to use map coordinates and the configuration tool to route the power beams, but overall he resource system is pretty easy to understand.

Artificial Intelligence

This jumble of polygons is an AI character

The horribly unbalanced AI is one of the major gripes I have with Love. It’s not that the AI opponents are overpowered – if you’ve ever played a FPS you will be able to easily deal with a group of two or three AIs all by yourself. The problem is that players and their settlements are defenceless against AI settlements.

When it comes to base defences, a fully developed player settlement will usually have a force field that can stop normal projectiles, a bunch of explosives linked to proximity sensors, and a couple of relatively weak blaster turrets. A big AI settlement will have most of that and one or more rocket turrets that can rain spammy death on your head faster than Grad.

BM-21, AKA Grad

One AI weapon in particular deserves a special mention. Any self-respecting AI base will also include artillery – a veritable superweapon that can hit your settlement from halfway across the planet and pound your entire base into dust in a matter of minutes. The best part is that there’s simply no way to prevent it – even the force field doesn’t stop artillery shells. The only thing you can do when your settlement comes under bombardment (and, invariably, it will) is rush madly to the AI base and hope to destroy or cripple it before their artillery battery finishes off your settlement. And if you do manage to destroy the AI settlement a new one will spawn shortly in a different location.

Other minor crimes by the AI include re-routing power sources without ever touching them, noclipping through terrain, flying, terraforming stuff outside their settlement limits and placing buildings underwater (the corrosive acid kind of water, yes).

Despite all that, I wouldn’t say the Love AI is overpowered. In most games computer opponents need an unfair advantage to pose any challenge at all and be fun to play against. The problem with Love is that the players themselves are underpowered. Give me a force field that can stop artillery bombardment. Give me buildings that don’t die after a single hit. Oh, and some of new shiny guns would be nice, too.

Interface & Inventory

Love’s interface is very straightforward, even minimalistic. All you have you have is a row of tiny icons at the bottom of the screen. Everything from weapons to map coordinates to graphics settings goes onto this toolbar and can be activated either by clicking the icon or pressing the associated hotkey.  The inventory system is also rather simple – you get four tool slots that can contain either weapons or terraforming tools, and four token slots that you can use to carry tokens you’ve found.

Controls

To pick up a tool/weapon, point at a deployed token and press a number key between 1 and 4. Use the same keys to select a slot, then left-click to use the tool or to fire the weapon. Terraforming is performed by clicking and dragging terrain tiles. Tokens are even simpler – walk over one to pick it up, then press F1-F4 to select it in the inventory and left-click a spot on the ground to deploy it.

As for movement controls, Love follows the standard WASD convention, with spacebar for jumps. However, the controls can still take some getting-used-to due to how sharp turns and jumps work in the game. In most other first-person-perspective games your view stays level no matter what crazy acrobatics you engage in, but in Love it will pitch and bank disorientingly whenever you move the mouse sharply during a jump. On the plus side, with some practice you can even perform a backwards somersault.

What pleasantly surprised about Love is that it’s completely free of the ubiquitous Insurmountable Waist High Fence syndrome that afflicts so many other games. In Love, you can easily jump on top of boulders and buildings as tall as you are.

Graphics

After I started Love for the first time, I spent the several minutes expecting my computer to crash. You see, my video card has a faulty fan controller, and what I saw on the screen after starting the game and connecting to the server made me think of the visual glitches you sometimes see before the video card overheats and shuts down.

Love’s graphics are, for lack of a better word, fuzzy. Imagine an old video recording of a dry landscape of some kind, strewn with weathered rock formations. Maybe something from National Geographic. Apply the blur filter 30 times. Then put in some lens flares and blooms, and you’ve got something that’s clear as mud, which is how Love looks.

Some trees, and ... a piece of a bridge?

As you might have guessed, graphics are my second major gripe with this game. They’re so blurry and over-processed that for the first few hours you can barely tell what you’re looking at. The “blurry brushstrokes” shader is known to make some people’s eyes hurt. And no, you can’t turn off the shaders. It’s supposed to be “artistic”, remember?

To be fair, the graphics have gotten a bit more palatable in the latest releases, but  you can still only see clearly for some 30 meters in front of yourself during daytime.

One of the cleaner daytime shots

Sound

There is none. At this stage, Love has no sound effects and no music.

So, Is It Fun?

Kind-of. The core idea is certainly promising, but the current implementation suffers from multiple balance issues and a lack of clear goals. The graphics also seem to betray that sour “eye-candy > playability” feel that indy games sometimes have. Still, building/terraforming settlements on an alien planet and waging wars with the hostile high-tech natives sounds like it could be a fun pastime, if done right.

I recommend waiting until the final version is out.