sent from you blackberry?

About a year ago, I was sitting next to a business executive type on a plane back to DC.  As soon as we touched down, he brought out his blackberry and started feverishly tapping at it.  Someone asked him about the blackberry, and he confidently exclaimed that it’s made him 25% more productive, or some such.  So I said to myself,  Hold your horses, there, skippy!

Now, I don’t know the guy.  He may have data to support his claim. But let’s break this down. His grand claim means that in an average 10 hour workday, his blackberry allows him to reclaim 2.5 hours for other tasks.  What does he do on his blackberry that gives him that time back, that would be done less efficiently without the blackberry?  Email is a lot clunkier to type on a blackberry, so it can’t be it.  Most people claim that they can get rid of email quicker since they check it on a blackberry while not at the office, and act on it, freeing up on-computer time.  And it’s fair to assume that this guy may have a one-hour commute each way. Hopefully he has someone driving him around too, because I know none of us are so dangerous to reply to email on the blackberry while driving.  Then, there’s meetings.  You can of course check your email in the middle of a meeting.  Speaking of efficiency, if your meeting is so trivial that you use it to check your email on your blackberry, wouldn’t it be more productive to not have the meeting in the first place?  Or do you think your lunch buddy really enjoys watching you check your email?

I’ll tackle a few other points in a bit.  I, like many of us these days, look at efficiency and productivity as it relates to our full lives: our work, of course, but also our hobbies, our personal time, our family.  The blackberry and similar devices has, for better or worse, erased the work/personal lines that used to exist at 0900 and 1700 every day.  I check email at home, at the restaurant, while I volunteer…If I’m not efficient in these places, I’m not efficient at work either.  Spending 2 hours working at home after dinner does not mean I am 2 hours more efficient.

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Are you still using your old Google Analytics code

?  Well you probably should take a few minutes to upgrade to the new and improved version.  There are several features that unlock when you run the new and improved “ga.js” version.

Oh yeah, what’s the new stuff got for me? vytorin 10 20

Lots of improvements.   For starters, it runs faster and a smaller foot print on your webserver, your system administrator would be happy to know.  But wait!  There’s more… Google several of improved abilities to customize you tracking code.  Ecommerce business owners in particular have a lot more customizing options made available to them when they upgrade.

Do you have PDF’s or files available for download that you could like to track?  You can now track those in your reports as well!

If you have subdomains, you can also setup ga.js to track those.

You can even track users as they jump from domain to another, which interest us since we have www.infamia.com (our corporate website) and www.webconsultingdc.com (our blog), and if you have more than one website, it should interest you too.

You can also segement your visitor types into your reports.   This is really important for associations in Washington DC that like to track their members seperately from non-members.

And then there’s the future: Google has said that it will support the legacy code up to a year… maybe a bit longer,  but eventually they will discontinue it.   You’ll see new features appear for those that have converted, why be left behind now?

Google Analytics Urching.js or Ga.js, which one do I have?

Okay, what version of Google Analytics do I run?

Easy, open your browser, pull up your website, and select View Source.   PC users right click on the page and and Mac users…  Mickey?

[Mickey's note for Mac users lanoxin : In safari, hit command-option-U or select "View Source" from the View menu; in Firefox hit command-U or select "Page Source" from the "View" menu.]

What you’re looking for is whether you have a bit of code that has urchin.js or whether it has ga.js.   The thumbnail on the right is a snippet from Google’s Migration Guide.

Alright, so how do I implement the new version?

Well, you can either contact us and we’ll do it for you.  Or if you’re crafty enough replacing the code pretty straight forward.   Customizing it to your business needs is another article but you can get it started.   Log into your Google Analytics account, edit your website’s profile, and click on “Check Status” at the top right.

Kinda hidden, click Check Status for your website's Profile (top right)

Once you’re in there you’ll see the code at the bottom, you’ll want to copy that and replace your Legacy GA code with this new code, on every page of your website.   This goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway, careful not to mess up any other code within those pages.  In fact, do a backup first!

Keep in mind the appropriate location for your ga.js code is at the bottom.  For large websites, the best place is to put it in a dynamically referenced footer so you don’t have to keep adding the same code into every page.

With complex websites such as e-commerce websites, you may require some programming particularly if you’re interested in taking advantage of some of the customizing features available now available to.   Get in touch with us, we would be delighted to help.

In the past few months my Blackberry has started misbehaving. The clickwheel has become erratic, mostly scrolling down: sometimes it will scroll down, and sometimes it won’t. Also, it wouldn’t “click”. So I decided to opt for surgery.

First job: get rid of the retaining ring. Just pry it off gently from the left, right, and bottom sides.

blackberry clickwheel extraction

Then pop out the clickwheel assembly. This can pop out (it is held in place by a small magnet) or you can gently lift it off with a small screwdriver.

The contact at the bottom looked awful. A cotton swab (that’s “q-tip” for the rest of us), some alcohol and a can of compressed air is all that’s needed to clean all around. Dab, don’t smear. Also clean the little wheels on the clickwheel assembly.

Pop things back together…and…wait? did you not keep track of the orientation? Not a big deal. The contact at the bottom of the clickwheel assembly can point up or down.

blackberry clickwheel extraction

The verdict? Not sure how well it works yet. I’ll have to give it another day or so to make sure. It scrolls better now, and I am able to click again, though perhaps the clicking is too sensitive.

Here are some more annotated pictures of the process.

Mickey

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iPhone

Recently, some of our clients that love their iPhones have been having some difficulties making them sync up with Microsoft Exchange so here is a simple step-by-step to configure their devices.

We provide an excellent Microsoft Exchange Hosting & Wireless Synching service for small businesses. It is a fully enabled Microsoft Exchange Shared Hosting service that allows small business owners to purchase only what they need (per account), avoid the hassles and expense of managing their own Microsoft Exchange server locally.

How to configure your iPhone to work with your Microsoft Exchange account

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OpenID

21 October 2008

As of 1400 EDT, AOL’s openID provider, openid.aol.com, is down.

For better or worse, I use openID.  For worse or better, I use aol.com.  The reason is simple: When I started checking out openID, AOL had an openID provider that gave every AIM account an openID account. (If you have an AIM account your openID URL is http://openid.aol.com/aimusername ).

Things have been peachy.  I have a single way to log in to many places, including all the 37Signals products, many blogs, Wikis, etc.

Except for today.  It seems my openID provider is down, as is presumably every other AOL openid account.  DNS does not resolve.  Which means now I can’t log into any of these sites. 

Well, that’s not entirely true.  I could bypass openID, wait for my non-openID account pasword to get emailed to me, etc.  But the bottom line is I can’t log in.  

This brings up some questions about relying on openID.  Admittedly, I’ve not had an issue with this so far.  However, it may be nice to have some work-around.  For now I’ll wait and see.  More as this develops.

Impact

In pure numbers, this potentially affects the more than 63 million AIM users, assuming they all use openID. If only 10% use this feature, that’s still over 6 million users. The frustrating thing here is that there is no “status” page or other way to find out the current status of the provider.