FileMaker 101 turns 20!
This issue marks the 20th installment of Fenton Jones' popular FileMaker 101 series. It's hard for me to believe, but it was way back in issue #35 of March, 1998 that Fenton started his awesome instructional series here exclusively in My Mac. Coincidentally, that March we were all talking about Apple's decision to dissolve Claris Corp and fold it back into Apple. (For new Mac users, Claris was the parent of FileMaker and ClarisWorks‹now known as AppleWorks.

Thanks for a great 20 columns, Fenton! I look forward to the next 20!

WOW!

So there I was, checking out the website of one of my heroes, Steve Wozniak. (Yes, the co-founder and electronics genius who, with Steve Jobs, founded Apple Computer!) And what do you think I found on his Mac Links page under the title, "Our Current Favorite Link?" You guessed it, My Mac! They had this to say:

Wow. All I can say, for myself and the whole family here at My Mac, is thank you!

Web Page Statistics
A while back, I shared with you some of the numbers I gleaned from our own web page statistics. Recently, I took another look and found a few things that were not only interesting, but that gave me a new perspective. Here they are:

65.7% of all visitors to mymac.com uses a Macintosh.
10.5% were Windows 95 users.
Windows 98 made up 9.2%.
NT systems made up 7.8%.
0.3% labored under Windows 3.1.
WebTV comprised 0.2%.
Linux OS was 0.2%.
"Other" filled in the remainder.

By these numbers, nearly 28% of the visitors to our website were on Windows machines! Funny when you realize we're a magazine dedicated to and focused on the Macintosh computer market. I also find it amusing that there were more Window 3.1 users visiting our site than Linux users, when I've heard so much about the "explosive" growth of Linux.

Also reported is which web browser people are using. Here are those numbers from most to least:

19.3% Netscape 4.6
17.1% Explorer 4.5
13.1% Netscape 4.0
10.9% Netscape 4.5
9.8% Netscape 4.7
9.5% Explorer 5.0 (Windows-only)
8.5% Explorer 4.0
2.4% Netscape 3.0
2.2% AOL 4.0
0.6% iCab 1.7
0.4% Explorer 3.0
0.1% Cyberdog 2.0

Hmm.... While Cyberdog is a pretty tiny number, it was still somewhat a surprise to see people are actually still using it. What a promising product Apple had...

The last thing I want to share are the search strings people used from portals, like Yahoo!, to get to our site. Some of these I can understand, but some...

Here are a few of the things people were looking for. Their search strings are in bold characters, and what my thoughts are in plain text.

Searches from Netscape's search engine:
review Corel draw
Okay, I can understand this one. People are interested in buying Corel Draw, but want to read a review of it first. We have that review!

pictures of washing and waxing a car
Huh? Netscape said we had a picture of people washing and waxing a car? Besides, why would someone want a picture of that? Perhaps someone was having a car wash, and needed a picture for a website or something...

Spider Man Comic books
Again, how the heck did WE show up in this search?

sears super sale
Come see the softer side of My Mac...

Searches from InfoSeek's search engine:
cd-rw cd-r cd-rom mp-rom cd-mp
Welcome to acronym central!

FileMaker fields as functional html
Hey, Mr. Fenton (FileMaker 101) Jones, see what people want here?

crash or crack
I can understand this one. I have almost cracked a few times after a computer crash myself.

freemac.com
Yeah, sure. No such thing as a FREE Mac, people. There is always some catch.

Searches from Excite:
Mac G3 Cases
I think someone had an ashtray too close to their tower here, and is looking for a replacement.

mac AND wireless
One word, AirPort!

blast mac
NOW I know why all these Window users are coming to My Mac! They're looking for ammunition against us Mac users in a debate! HA! And they end up at a pro-Mac site! HA-HA!

Searches from Webcrawler's search engine:
mac p.c
The horror, THE HORROR!!

i mac
No no no, that is iMac; it's just one word. And notice the small case "I" followed by the uppercase "M."

Well, what do you think? How many sites do you visit which have nothing to do with what you were looking for? Do these search engines really work all that well? Have you ever been looking for one thing, but ended up at a site with a subject more interesting than what you were searching?

Drop me a line and let me know!

Tim Robertson
Publisher@mymac.com

SETI & My Mac
Are you a SETI user? Hey, if you are, why not join our team here at My Mac? Stop by our website, or go directly to http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/cgi?cmd=team_lookup&name=MyMac and join up!

Tim Robertson
publisher@mymac.com