Examples of great ‘info-graphics’ (data visualisation)

For work, I create online surveys and analyse data. Lots of data and after a while the results charts get a little … boring. Smashing magazine’s latest post Data Visualization and Infographics Resources has lots of great examples of alternatives to the humble bar chart or pie chart.

Trânsito 3 final (2007)

Would love to create executive summaries like this one above. I imagine it takes a lot of time (and some talent). My favourite screenshot from the Smashing magazine post is this:

$400 Million Club Infographic

It’s really very simple (fundamentally it’s just a bar chart underneath with nice graphics).

How much does a farmer earn for 1 chicken?

This question was a comment that was randomly posted on planetdan by a blog spammer, but I would be interested to know.

I’d also like to know how much milk a cow produces (so I just looked it up – some jersey cows at Punchards Farm in Rattlesden produce 20 litres/day [source]), and also how much the farmer gets paid and what it costs to look after and feed a cow…

Just curious. I shall tag this Chicken economics!

How to improve your search engine ranking

I had a chat today with someone about the basics of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). He just can’t get his two websites to show up in any of Google’s results so where is he going wrong?

If you have read on the internet (or in a book) that one of the tasks to undertake is to add META keywords to your website pages then you are reading a guide that is perhaps 15 years out of date (example below)…

<META NAME=”KEYWORDS” CONTENT=”Mac, pc, consultancy, support, management, maintenance, installation, networking, FileMaker, Windows, SBS, Vista”>

KEYWORDS meta tags don’t help. (Don’t confuse this with the DESCRIPTION meta tag which does have some value).

The basics of SEO revolve around three things:

  1. Your content needs to contain the words you want to be ranked for,
  2. Although bear in mind that other people might be searching using different keywords,
  3. Your keywords should be in a headline or page title near the top of the page (preferably inside ‘H1′ tags) and included in the title text (that appears at the top of the browser window). They should also be in the clickable text of any links that point to this web page.

It can help a lot if other websites can link to your website using these keywords too. It’s also easier with websites that have more pages because there are more opportunities to insert links to different pages. This is why blogs are a popular SEO tactic, which is fine if you have something to say…

How to get found on Google is another post I wrote on the subject (using plumbers/carpenters/tradesmen as an example).

Places to go in Norfolk with kids

There is a superb dinosaur park at Weston Longville, about 7 or 8 miles out of Norwich. I was really impressed by the dinosaur trail where we had to track down all the dinosaurs and collect stamps to earn the medal.

Dinosaurs in Norfolk!

We spent the whole day there (we took a packed lunch) – lots to do, the maze is a lot of fun, and there’s a huge adventure play area including a good area for toddlers too. Highly recommended.

The dinosaurs at Crystal Palace don’t quite compare.

Albert Wardle (1866-1936)

This page was first written in late 2000 – I’ve transferred it here for anyone ending up here hoping to find something about “Wardle” 4/8/09

Albert Wardle was my great grandfather, born 15-Jul-1866 in Kegworth (son of James Wardle 1839-1914) and married Sarah Jane Brentnall.  They had eight children:

  • Harold James born 9-Jan-1894
  • Eric Charles born 12-Oct-1896
  • Doris Mabel born 7-Mar-1898
  • Marjorie born 15-Apr-1900
  • Grace born Feb-1902 died 18-Apr-1905
  • Bernard Leslie born 29-Nov-1904
  • Frederick Cyril born 8-Oct-1907
  • Leonard Douglas born 2-Apr-1911

Albert went to London to manage a tea store in the 1880s. The marriage certificate shows Albert Wardle’s address as Farrant Avenue in Wood Green (N22 in North London today), but he moved to Kettering to manage Liptons before his first child, Harold, was born, and then bought a shop on the Market Place in the town.

In 1900, Albert went into business with Mr Jacquest to form Jacquest & Wardle – a haulage firm.

The horse and dray are standing outside Hawthorn Road School, Kettering (the school is still there today). Later, Albert Wardle used steam tractors – he is second on the right, working to move a redundant Midland Railway carriage to a site where the new owner used it as living accomodation.

Below: Albert, third from right, supervising his road steam tractor in Midland Road, Wellingborough. The picture was taken about 1912 where he was transporting a railway steam locomotive en route to Earls Barton ironstone quarry.

Wardle Bros Garage, Kettering

The photograph on the left was taken circa 1928. It’s a picture of my Grandad’s and Great Uncles’ garage on Stamford Road in Kettering (the brothers were Eric, Bernard and Len).

Wardle Bros garage opened in 1928, and became a dealer for Jowett cars in 1936. At the same time Great Uncle Harold was running a haulage company called Wardle & Keach.

The next photograph was taken in January 1950. The lady by the car was the secretary at the garage, Jean Lucy.In 1952 Wardle Bros changed over to selling Austin motors. Then in 1965 the garage was taken over by H. A. Saunders, and five years later Mann Egerton took over the business.

Today the garage is still there, although its incarnation is as Corby Motors, a Peugeot dealer (I think).

Fairey Aviation (factory in Stockport)

During the second world war my grandad moved to Stockport, near Manchester, where he worked for Fairey – the airplane manufacturer. With a little help from my dad I knew that there was a Fairey factory near Reddish in Stockport, and after a couple of google searches worked out it was actually in Heaton Chapel, but when I first started looking (around about 2001) that was as much as I could find.

Today, type Fairey Heaton Chapel into Google and … there are quite a few results (mostly repeating one other), although a couple of years after I first wrote up what I had found, George Nixon emailed me about his new website (a history of Levenshulme) where he has a very good history (and several photos) of the Fairey Aviation factory through the years.

Fairey Battle at RAF HendonMy grandad was an airframe fitter making/finishing off the wings on Barracudas – they were an all metal aircraft with an airframe clad with aluminium panels which were riveted on. I knew that the Fairey Battle was built at Heaton Chapel (so too the Fairey Fulmar) – although the Battle was only built up until 1940 (513 built in 1939, 218 built during 1940)*, but I don’t know if my grandad also worked on these (or what other planes he might have worked on).

* Source: Fairey Aircraft since 1915 (H.A. Taylor)

Left: is a Fairey Battle (the only Fairey aircraft at RAF Hendon in London).

Below is the fitting room in the factory at Fairey (not dated, via George Nixon and Stockport Heritage magazine). Maybe my grandad is in the photo…

VJ Day, 1945

This photograph was taken in Sunnyfield Rd, Heaton Mersey outside nos. 21 and 23 (click on photo to zoom in). We think the street party was for VJ Day (August 1945).

Back row
1st left – Len (grandfather)
2nd left partly obscured – Doris (grandaunt)
6th left – Geoff Marsh (1st cousin once removed)
7th left very obscured – Frank Marsh (granduncle)		 3rd row
2nd left – Granny Wardle		 2nd row
1st left – Richard (my Dad)
2nd left – Helen (aunt) on Richard’s left shoulder
3rd left – Brian Lowe (friend of Richard)
4th left – Sam Hall (later an ITN reporter)		 Front row
7th left – Muriel Marsh (1st cousin once removed)

Except for christmas 1941 when they returned to Kettering, my grandad and his family remained in Heaton Mersey until 20 July 1947.

Installing Windows 2008 – bootmgr is missing error

At work I’m installing Windows 2008 server onto a brand new PC which has taken a couple of hours figuring out how to get started. The PC was ordered without an operating system, but it did have Vista installed (as a trial) which Windows 2008 didn’t like trying to overwrite first time I tried.

Using Windows 2008′s setup – when asked “where do you want to install Windows?” I deleted the existing partition ’0′ (where Vista was installed), created a new partition and then formatted it (all via the setup program) which didn’t seem to take the Installer very long to complete. Then I waited for setup to copy the files (very quick) and expand files – but it just sat on 0% for eons and then it restarted the PC with the error

Bootmgr is missing
Press ctrl-alt-del to restart.

So I booted off the setup CD again, and this time chose Repair (underneath “What to know before installing Windows”). In the System Recovery Options window I selected Command Prompt and then took a look at the C: drive. It looked like the drive still had Vista files in place! So I formatted the C: drive using the command prompt (and this time it took a lot longer to complete), then ran setup again. This time the expanding files took a couple of minutes but it completed. Total installation time was just 7 minutes!

Although I now suspect somehow Windows has only installed server core installation so my first impressions of Windows 2008 (setup) are mixed.

In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt

Welcome to Planet Dan

Planet Dan logo

I set up this website ten years ago although it was neglected for the last 5. It’s currently enjoying a revival for reasons not fully thought through…

My old site had various details about my family tree – Wardles from Kegworth in Leicestershire, and Killick (of Cheam in Surrey), and a few random pages about Ghost Hill in Taverham, Fairey Aviation, the floodlights at Crystal Palace and the oh-so 2001 homepages that showed off holiday photos and the like. I still have a couple more pages to transfer over (I’ll save you the holiday slide show :-) ).

If you like something or find it helpful please rate it (click the thumbs up icon at the bottom of the post) or leave a comment.

Thanks for visiting!
Dan

Choosing a new anti-virus?

AVG popup's windowI have recommended AVG’s anti-virus to friends and family a lot for quite a few years now. It was a good anti-virus solution, didn’t slow down your PC like Symantec or McAfee always seems to do, and best of all it was free for home/personal use. I bought a subscription for 3 or 4 years for my work computer.

However, I evntually changed to VIPRE from Sunbelt software when my subscription ran out. AVG is still an ok anti-virus, but it’s in danger of turning into Norton with all its add-ons. What didn’t impress me was the increasing requests to reboot because an update required it, and their approach to getting free users to upgrade. Ok, I accept they need to convert a proportion of their free subscribers but they lose some kudos by trying to confuse my dad and a few friends into taking the paid upgrade… Are there better ways to get customers to upgrade from free?