I made a few changes to the code this morning. All related to improved cosmetics and error handling. Same links still apply.

Here's a simple VB.NET program I wrote to look at all of the log files for my dasBlog blog, and report all of the search terms people used in Google to get here.

Most Popular Search Terms, v0.1 - Source Code

Most Popular Search Terms, v0.1 - .NET Binary

Here's how the program looks at startup:

Here's how it looks after searching:

Suggestions/comments appreciated.

In the spirit of Eric Lippert's post, I wrote a small VB .NET program to search my own dasBlog web logs for Google's search terms. I found 767 references from Google. I will post the source code shortly.

Here are some of my favourites:

“What is a marriage license?”

I am number 12 on Google for this term.

Hmm. That's a tough one. Some would say that it is a license, issued by the government, to allow two people to get married. There may be a joke in there about marriage licenses and prison sentences, but I'm not going to go there.

Average 40 year old single woman in toronto has in savings

I'm number 52 on Google for this term.

That's a pretty specific request. I don't know that many 40-year-old women. Maybe one or two. And I don't have the nerve to ask them how much they have in savings, so you're going to have to do that yourself.

Donald Trump's toupee

Apparently, Donald does not wear one. He does his natural hair that way (although I am sure he colours it). Hey, it works for him, so who are we to even mention it?

Is Bill O'Reiley married?

Well, I believe the gentleman you are talking about spells his name O'Reilly. I tried to find out that information on the web, but Mr. O'Reilly keeps his private life very secret. However, I would not be surprised to learn that he has been married and divorced several times. From watching his successful television show a few times, one can see that he never lets anyone else win an argument, which from my experience, is the opposite what is required for a successful marriage.

This whole post is hilarious. Eric Lippert responds to some of the strange Google search terms that have led people to his blog. I sometimes see odd Google search terms in my web log as well. Someday I'll have to post some of them.

Slate does a really good job of reporting these odd things the President says every now and again:

"[B]y the way, we rank 10th amongst the industrialized world in broadband technology and its availability. That's not good enough for America. Tenth is 10 spots too low as far as I'm concerned."—Minneapolis, Minn., April 26, 2004

Given that there are only 9 spots higher than 10th (1st through 9th), the President is once again asking for the impossible.

I am one of those people who's “to do” list seems to keep growing, and hardly ever shrinks. The only time (it seems) items come off my list is when I procrastinate long enough so that the task becomes irrelevant. Of course, that's not entirely true, but it sure feels like it sometimes.

There has been a lot of blogger buzz recently about a productivity book by David Allen, called “Getting Things Done”. I have to admit, if this works it could really help me get on top of my “to do” list.

Bloggers have been reporting some great success about this methodology. The most famous tenet of which says, “Keep your Inbox empty”. What that means is when someone sends you an email, act on it (in some way) right away. Either delete it. Or reply to it. Or file it in the appropriate folder in your email archive. Or create some sort of task for you to do later if it will take some time to respond. But if you keep your Inbox empty, you will stop things from falling through the cracks.

There are also other methods in this book for managing your task list, keeping your desk free of clutter, filing paper, and such. Sounds interesting. I think I will try and find the book next time I am at Chapters, and read a bit of it to see how likely it will be that I follow through.

Many times in consulting, it is easy to get caught up in “the hourly rate” as being the most important consideration when taking a contract. I myself have, at times, turned down the opportunity to persue a contract simply because the rate did not meet my minimum expectations, despite how exciting and enticing the actual work sounded.

Last month, I worked at a place that was at least 80 kilometers (50 miles) from my home. It would take me about 45 minutes (driving quite fast) to get there in the morning, and another 45 minutes to 1 hour to get home.

My latest contract is 6 minutes from my home. The driving distance is about 1 mile, or 2 kilometers. Living in a big city, it is easy to become accustomed to 1 hour commutes. Only when you start doing a 6 minute commute on a regular basis do you realize the insanity of it.

Of course, I might change my mind if the price was right...