I’ve recently become a convert to Stata for data analysis tasks, and it seems to be an excellent piece of software. One thing that interests me about statistical software in general is the proliferation of different programs. Aside from Stata, there’s SAS, SPSS, R and Eviews, to name a few. Unlike operating systems or wordprocessors for example, there’s no one dominant standard, and each has its own quite loyal and sizeable user base. I guess data file sharing is less common among users of this software compared to wordprocessors, but there still are some network benefits associated with support that you can get from other users of the same software. So it’s interesting that so many varieties can persist in this market but seemingly not in other software markets.

Technorati rankings are back in business and I’ve recently added these blogs to my directory:

Geary Behaviour Centre: the blog of the Centre for Behaviour and Health at the UCD Geary Institute.

Rigotnomics: a blog by ‘wannabe economists’ (their words, not mine) of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.

Game Theorist: musings on economics and child rearing by Josh Gans (an old blog that I’d somehow overlooked till recently).

Also not currently listed on Technorati are two other econ blogs I was alerted to by faithful reader Steve Balassi:

SBVOR: An anonymous macroeconomics blogger, with lots of charts.

Hawkonomics: Another anonymous blogger, from the University of Iowa.

Alex Kirtland and I have an article published in the online web design magazine Boxes and Arrows about how to design online reputation and rating systems. Check it out here.

I got a new computer, and with it comes the hours of installing programs and configuration. Would you believe I had to download and install 92 Windows updates for a brand new computer (Dell).

Anyway, it’s interesting to compare the process of installing Windows Live Messenger to Google Talk.

Google Talk: Go to web page, download small installer, install it, default options are good, done.

Windows Live Messenger: Go to web page, unselect options to prevent MS from hijacking my homepage, installing their toolbar, changing my default search engine, and installing data collection software. Then download an installer, which first spends 10 minutes checking my computer for existing Windows Live programs (why the heck does it take so long?), and prompts me to also install a bunch of other unnecessary software like Writer, Mail, Toolbar (again!), Photo Gallery and Family Safety. Finally, it spends another 10 minutes downloading the massive Messenger program and installs it. Then I have to change some of the settings to prevent Windows Live Today from popping up every time I turn on my computer.

Technorati is down (again) which is preventing me from updating econ blog rankings or adding new blogs.

I’ve heard rumours that Technorati are abandoning their blog rankings and this may be an early indication of that. They do not publish rankings on their own website at the moment, but (until now) they’ve still been available to web developers. Also ominously, Technorati’s information for developers has not been updated in a very long time.

So it looks like I may no longer be able to use Technorati to rank blogs. Any other suggestions?