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www.linuxjournal.com august 2008 | 17
[ UPFRONT ]
LJ Index,
August 2008
1. Number of new toys the average child gets
per year:
70
2. Size of the “baby industry”, in trillions of
dollars:
1.7
3. Number of computers donated to the World
Computer Exchange:
26,695
4. Schools, orphanages and libraries served by
the World Computer Exchange:
2,543
5. Youth connected per year by the World
Computer Exchange:
1,079,110
6. Number of languages other than English
among contributors to DistroWatch:
42
7. Number of countries covered by
Linux-hosted Global Voices Online:
192
8. Number of authors for Global Voices: 101
9. Number of languages into which Global
Voices is being translated:
11
10. Number of computers in the Windsor Unified
School District (California):
2,500
11. Percentage of computers at Windsor Unified
to be replaced by Linux thin clients:
50
12. Estimated thousands of dollars in energy
saved annually by Windsor Unified School
District, thanks to Linux servers and thin
clients:
25
13. Estimated thousands of dollars in energy
saved annually by Windsor Unified School
District by switching to free software:
50
14. Estimated thousands of dollars in equipment
costs saved annually by Windsor Unified
School District by switching to Linux gear:
280
15. Number of dollars in four spent on energy
in schools that is unnecessary:
1
16. Months children at Villa Cardal, Uruguay,
had spent with beta XO OLPCs:
6
17. Average number of files created per XO by
Villa Cardal kids:
1,200
18. Number of MB, +/–10, produced per machine
by Villa Cardal kids:
40
19. Thousands of XOs due for Uruguay in 2008: 90
20. Thousands of XOs ordered by Peru in
December 2007:
260
Sources: 1, 2: Pamela Paul in Parenting, Inc.
3–5: World Computer Exchange (May 10, 2008)
6: DistroWatch.com | 7–9: Global Voices
Online (www.globalvoicesonline.org)
10–14: The Press-Democrat (pressdemocrat.com)
15: Ed Tech Magazine (edtechmag.com)
16–20: Ivan Krstic
One could play for hours with Google
Trends (trends.google.com). Not only
does it show the spikes and slopes of
search volume across time since the
beginning of 2004, but it also lists the
current top ten regions, cities and lan-
guages for each search. You can search
for multiple keywords, comma-separated,
and see colored lines for each. The
results are usually more interesting than
revealing. Such as:
I Searches for Ronaldo and Beckham both
spiked in 2005 at the last World Cup.
I Searches for John Paul and Ratzinger
peaked one after the other in early 2005
when the former died and the latter
succeeded him as pope.
I Searches for Linux and Microsoft have
both gone down, the former slightly
more than the latter.
I Searches for Red Hat, SUSE and
Ubuntu show declines for the first two
and a steady rise for the third. Add
Linux and find that Ubuntu has almost
overtaken Linux in search volume. Does
the rise in Ubuntu account for the
decline in Linux searches? They seem
somewhat reciprocal, but who knows?
What’s more surprising are the top
ten regions, cities and languages for each.
Some results for Linux:
I Russia is the top region, closely followed
by India and the Czech Republic. The
US is not among the top ten.
I Beijing is the top city, followed by
Tokyo and San Francisco, which is the
only US city. The rest, in order, are
Milan, Frankfurt, Augusta (Italy), Paris,
Amsterdam, Madrid and London.
I Russian is the top language, followed
by German, Japanese, Italian, Chinese,
Polish, Finnish, Portuguese, English
and Swedish.
Some results for Ubuntu:
I Norway is the top region, followed by
Italy and Russia. The US is not on the list.
I Milan is the top city, followed by San
Francisco and Augusta (Italy). The rest are
Helsinki, Madrid, Paris, Santiago (Chile),
Frankfurt, Zurich and Mexico City.
I Italian is the top language, followed
by Finnish, Swedish, Russian, French,
Spanish, German, Polish, English and
Portuguese.
Google’s qualification: “Google Trends
aims to provide insights into broad search
patterns. Several approximations are used
when computing your results. Please keep
this in mind when using it.”
Also keep in mind that these were
results on May 13, 2008. Try them when
you read this to see how they change.
Having used Google Trends for a while
now, I can assure you the answer is: a lot.
—DOC SEARLS
Polynational Tux Curiosity
On the Web, Articles Talk!
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