I got an email this morning from someone who tried to use the search functionality of this website, and got a "Generated with the default ContentController.ss template" error. Apparently, the search function has been broken since I upgraded to Silverstripe 2.4.0, and no-one noticed (obviously, I didn't), or bothered to tell me up to now. Anyway, it is now fixed, and I have updated the Silverstripe JRank Integration page with a new archive.

For those who are interested or just curious, my Ph.D. thesis is now available online at the University of Toronto. Titled, "3D-tracking of A Priori Unknown Objects in Cluttered Dynamic Environments," this thesis represents my research in computer vision for the last five years. It details an object tracking system that is capable of tracking the 3D pose (position and orientation) of an object without requiring a model of the object to be provided a priori. This allows it to track objects that it has never seen before.

This website now features a search function which can be found in the left column. I have opted to use Google custom search since I have found that Google's search engine often is better at locating information than a website's own search engine. Google's search technology is simply far superior to many of the other search engines provided with various Content Management Systems (CMS). Adding search functionality was relatively easy, although it did require that I create a custom page type for the search results page. The reason for using a custom page type is because the HTML insert functionality in the Silverstripe CMS won't embed the Google search results page code properly; it performs some sort of operation after closing the HTML edit window that destroys it.

Google Webmasters Tools has a statistics page that tells you what the top searches were that your site was listed in, and what your position was in the search. To my surprise, this site's top ranking was in 3rd place for the search "Google Polska." How did that happen? I am not Polish; I am a Dutch Kiwi. Whilst someone did once ask if I had any Polish ancestry, there is no way that the Googlebot could see my blond hair and ask that question. Not to mention that the Poles are not the only blond-haired Europeans in this world.

According to Google Analytics, the first few human visitors have stumbled upon this site. They came from the USA, Germany and Australia. I'm actually surprised how quickly this happened as this site still is not linked to from other websites, and still has little content (I'm working on that).

It appears that the single link to my site that Google indexed was enough to entice Yahoo in for a snoop, or should that be slurp. Yes, Yahoo's search-bot is called "Yahoo! slurp." Google describes their "Googlebot" as a spider that crawls the web; Yahoo is a little less delicate and slurps instead. Branding at work, even if only website administrators see it in their logs.

... but just the login page.

Yes, I've finally set up my own website, and hence, yet another blog has been added to the internet. But fear not, this won't be another spewing out personal opinions for everything from politics to gardening; nor is this a corporate blog set up to promote a career. It will mostly be covering things that will appear on this site. The main reason that I got round to making this site was that I finally found a web-host with the right features at the right price. This will be a place for me to give others information about some of my projects, many of which are Amiga OS 4 related. Additionally, I may post articles which I think will be of use to others with similar interests to me. Most content will be related to computers, engineering and technology.