Translating this blog with a gadget

Somebody just posted a comment that I should add a translator to this blog. True! I had one here previously but it looked so ugly that I removed it and now I couldn´t find any blog translators. :P So help me and suggest me one that you like. :)

----

Thanks to Kathi we now have a translator here :). I needed to use an html gadget with the code found on this page.

Mini treasures in Flickr

Our Flickr group is filled with amazing mini treasures. So far the slide show in the main page have had the wiki´s theme image as a cover. But I challenged myself to rethink this and from now on I will change the picture from time to time to keep the main page fresh. I choose the pictures e.g. by their colors and subjects. The first cover picture is from emaniraresulfare´s theater - really interesting project :).

Miniature projects of different themes

I have been doing a lot of work with my Mini treasures wiki lately and therefore I am promoting it to you . See e.g. the projects page with list of different theme projects:

http://minitreasures.pbworks.com/projects

Some ideas from that page for you to think - what would you like to do next:

apples, bags, cats, dogs, easter, fireplaces, geeks, hello kitty, italian, japanese, kebabs, laundry, mice, nursery, office, pandas, queen mary, rabbits, shabby chic, trash minis, uglydolls, victorian, witches, yellow, zen?

There are nearly 700 pages already so I bet you will find something that interests you there :).

Have a nice time in the wiki!

Wiki metrics

Some time ago I shared metrics from Google Analytics with you and as I found it really interesting I do it again. :)

TOP-10 countries (wiki visitors)
1. United States
2. Finland
3. Canada
4. Spain
5. United Kingdom
6. Netherlands
7. Germany
8. Australia
9. Denmark
10. Philippines

Are these the countries with most miniaturists also?

On average people stay 5 minutes in the wiki and visit 3.13 pages.

I started measuring the wiki in November and now there are 50 people who have visited the wiki 100-200 times during these months. Quite a lot :).

The most popular search phrase was ´how to make dollhouse from foam core´ so I made a new page for that.

The most popular wiki pages during the last 30 days were:

1. printables
2. main page
3. trash_minis - I am very glad about this since I am one of those miniaturists who love to turn trashes to treasures :)
4. diy - do it yourself is number 4 while shops are lower...
5. projects - my favorite page as I always want to do theme projects
6. hearts - well, we just had Valentine´s day :)
7. roomboxes - interesting, roomboxes are more popular than dollhouses...
8. shops
9. advent_calendar_2009 - people were still looking at our advent calendar and I am not surprised - it was very nice indeed, thanks again for everyone who participated :)
10. facebook - a new page I created to collect all those nice fan pages and groups there in Facebook for us miniaturists and doll lovers.

Top-10 sites bringing traffic to the wiki:
1. google
2.(direct) - via bookmarks
3. flickr.com - via our group I guess
4. nukkekoti.pbworks.com - this is my dollhouse wiki in Finnish
5. facebook.com - via our Facebook page I guess
6. bing
7. schifka.vuodatus.net - via Nanna´s blog
8. yahoo
9. ca.mc539.mail.yahoo.com - via Canadian Yahoo mails
10. hannajaleijona.blogspot.com - via Hanna´s blog

Nanna and Hanna both belong to a dollhouse discussion group called Nukkekotielämää which I started with my friends 7 years ago and now we are like one happy family with about 40 miniaturist (we are limiting the amount of members so that we can know each other). I am very happy to have them in this list :).

The more I study the results the better I can customize the wiki for you. I just wish I had more time for this...

Our wiki is premium now

It was a tough decision but I was pushed to do it: I bought a premium version for one year for Mini treasures wiki. This was the first time I paid for an Internet service and I was not that happy to do it. I am giving a lot of my free time for improving the wiki and I thought it should be enough. But it was not, now also my money is envolved...

But with the earlier free version of PBworks I could not do as much as I wanted.

E.g. any spammer could come and add links to our main page or sidebar. :( Linda, my right hand, told me that she could not do proper searches any more. And when I posted links to Facebook it refused to show the pictures like it used to do. :(

But now those problems are solved :).

With premium version I was also able to add a logo which is now shown in every page. :) If you click it you will be landing to the main page. And the most visible change for you: I was able to customize the colors. :)

Tell me if you have any problems with the new wiki!

And now something with small print:
If there are wiki lovers out there who want to help me in raising the money there are several options. You can buy stuff from our Cafe Press shop or buy books or other stuff from Amazon using the links in the wiki (e.g. from the books page). And as I am a miniaturists I wouldn´t mind if you decide to send something small for me, e.g. one of those mini treasures that are shown in our pool... In that case ask me to send my address as I don´t want to share that in public. A sponsorship deal is worth negotiating too.

But don´t get me wrong now: I am not pushing you to pay me (like PBworks kind of did to me): the wiki remains free of charge for readers and you can add links to your favorite sites and shops as you wish. Have fun there - I certainly do. :)f

Customizing your Firefox with MTW

Did you know that you can customize your Firefox? I did not until yesterday. I tried two different Personas but started to miss one with miniatures in it so I created "Mini treasures wiki Persona". If you want to use it just click the orange Wear this Persona button. Here's another one. I know some of you could make a really cool Persona for Mini treasures wiki, so go ahead and do it :). Then add a link to this blog entry or to wiki itself. :)

PS. Just of my curiosity I checked which browsers are used by MTW users. Green is Firefox, blue is Internet Explorer (IE), the smaller ones are Safari, Chrome, Opera and Mozilla. I am so happy with Firefox I have not tried other browsers.

Visitor number 5000 on wiki's main page

I have been busy elsewhere so there's a delay in this interview. But some weeks ago a magical number was broken again, there have been more than 5000 visitors in our wiki's main page (not everyone are using that page when they visit the wiki.)

Hi Mervi - How Does It Feel to Be the visitor number 5000 in our wiki's main page? It feels really great to be 5,000 visitor. And greeting all the dollhouse enthusiast.

Tell a little about yourself: who you are, where do you come from and what do you do? I am Mervi Kejonen, 46 years old, married with two children. I live in Nurmes, eastern Finland. I'm not at work, I have the support for rehabilitation because of eye disease. I have not a home page for my dollhouse yet.

Do you have any hobbies other than miniatures? Miniatures in addition to a variety of tea, crafts, mm. sewing, duct work, weaving.

When and how did you start doing miniatures? I have been doing miniatures all my life, but actually I started about two years ago, when I bought houses from Piironki and Lundby.

What is your latest / next mini-project? The latest and the following projects are related to furnishing Piironki and Lundby houses.

How did you find Mini Treasures wiki and what is your favorite page in the wiki? Mini Treasures Wiki I found when I began to put the first doll house. I put the google search the word doll's house and then I found this wiki. Mini Treasures Wiki is a really good in overall, but perhaps the best are the blog pages, where you can be find other miniaturists and their miniature projects: objects and furniture, etc.

What would you like to see in the wiki in the future? Can not think of what I would like to see the Wiki in the future. But there is alread a lot in Mini Treasures Wiki what I follow.

Thanks for the interview! And when you get the homepages don't forget to add the link to the wiki :).