Every now and then, I find it interesting to delve into the server logs for PCMech and find out what you guys are using in your system. The PCMech audience is pretty representative of the “normal” computer-using audience. We don’t have an uber-geeky crowd here. We have what I think is a normal cross-section of the computer using public. So, what do the server logs say about you?

The Stats

All of these statistics are coming straight out of Google Analytics. This is the freely available web statistics package I use here at PCMech. All of the data gathered are usual facts that can be gotten any time you visit a website. For the security paranoid, don’t worry, I cannot tell anything about your system that it isn’t putting out there publicly. It is normal.

All stats included are from the last 30 days.

Your Connection Speed

A majority of our audience is using broadband. This is awesome. A small group is still running dial-up, but almost everybody is using something faster than dial-up. There is, of course, a group which we cannot tell what they’re using.

Your Network Location

Roadrunner (from Time Warner) and Comcast seem to dominate the ISPs used by our readers. Verizon also comes in with a leading showing.

Your Web Browser

Internet Explorer and Firefox are coming in almost neck-and-neck.

Around 60% of our Firefox users are using the new 3.x version, as shown in the following breakdown:

As for Internet Explorer, 70% are using IE 7. 28% are still using version 6.

Your Operating System

As expected, Windows dominates the OS scene. Only about 10% of our readers are using something other than Windows. Interestingly, the Mac and Linux are showing almost equal usage here at PCMech. This isn’t really reflective of the rest of the world, where Apple OS X most definitely beats out desktop Linux in terms of real world usage. It does go to show, however, that we have some Linux fans frequenting PCMech - and that is a good thing.

And, while the share is small, it is interesting to see the Iphone come in at #5. A sign of things to come?

But, which version of Windows are you guys using?

Not surprisingly, you guys are mostly an XP bunch. And I do feel a bit sorry for those 0.5% or so still using Windows 98 or ME.

Your Screen Resolution

It is still amazing to me that so many people use 1024×768. My guess is that they are either using old monitors or are of an age where they like the larger text on screen so that they can see it. PCMech actually does have a fairly large crowd of older folks who read and that most certainly does reflect in the stats.

And Where Are You?

Let’s look at the top 10 countries:

A Look at Trends

If you compare these numbers to the last time I did a look at the stats, you notice some trends.

• More people have converted from Internet Explorer to Firefox. Firefox usage has jumped by about 5%.
• Of those who use IE, more have converted to IE 7.
• Windows usage as dropped about 2%. It looks like, statistically, these are mainly Mac converts because Mac users went up roughly 2%.
• Vista usage increased by around 11% while usage of XP decreased about 9%.
• People are moving to larger screens. 1024×768 and 1280×1024 are still our leading resolutions, but both decreased in favor of larger resolutions (which saw increases). We are seeing increases in typical native resolutions for widescreen monitors which shows that more and more people are switching to widescreen LCD monitors.