Wow, is the year over already? Here are this blog’s five most popular posts of 2012.

Don’t Use Third-Party Links in Email – Object Lesson: Comic-Con Registration (March)
Being both a comics fan and a long-time email administrator put me in the perfect place to analyze what went wrong when Comic-Con International tickets went on sale. I got linked to by a couple of high-profile sites, resulting in a lot of views during the first few days after the debacle and making March 3 the blog’s busiest day of the year. It quickly trailed off to almost nothing, and didn’t even get a blip when tickets for next year’s con went on sale. It’ll probably be forgotten next year.

Tablet Tip: Using Bookmarklets with Chrome for Android (August)
The two things that seem to pull in perennial traffic are popular images and troubleshooting articles. In this case, I describe how to use bookmarklets on Chrome for Android, since the normal way (clicking on a menu/icon) doesn’t work. (Two words: auto complete.) This one started slow, but since mid-September it’s pulled in more and more views every month.

Nexus 7 + USB Cable = Finally! Photo Uploads Without a Laptop! (October)
This post detailed how I was able to connect my Nexus 7 tablet to my camera, to thumb drives, and to keyboards and mice. It turns out all you need is a $1 cable adapter and a $3 app. This has been another slow but steady post, with a spike in visits shortly after Christmas. These two troubleshooting posts are actually in the top three for December (

Photos: Solar Eclipse from Los Angeles (May)
I went out to a hilltop park in Palos Verdes to watch May’s solar eclipse, which was an 85% partial eclipse in Southern California. I stumbled into an impromptu eclipse festival, with lots of individuals and groups who had all brought different equipment and were happy to share. A link from Patch.com brought in a lot of visits for the first week or so, and then it trailed off with a couple of spikes, one in June (not sure why) and another during the November eclipse.

WonderCon in Anaheim – A Great Weekend Comic-Con (March)
Another post following the typical event pattern of a sharp initial spike and steep drop-off, but this one hasn’t vanished quite so thoroughly as the others…probably because of the uncertainty for most of this year as to where next year’s con would be. What I find particularly interesting is that more people have viewed this post than my write-up of this year’s San Diego convention.

According to the USGS, the frequency of large earthquakes has remained constant over the last century. In a typical year, the planet has roughly 17 “major” earthquakes (measuring 7.0 to 7.9 on the Richter scale) and one “great” earthquake (measuring 8.0 or higher).

So, no, earthquakes are not increasing as a sign/symptom of the impending end of the world.

(via @2012hoax)

Update March 1: 2012hoax has a nice page showing how recent quakes fit into these statistics, including Haiti, Chile, and the one in Illinois a few weeks ago (which was really quite small — there are 130,000 quakes that size in any given year!).