Google Antimatter?

Summer 2008: in a planet called Earth, which we seem to inhabit for now, a new power seems to have taken over. A once-little search engine has rose to dominate our specie’s most vital method of communication: the Internet. No one dares compete with them. Erstwhile monoliths are courting this new entity like timid schoolgirls, and bright new start-up dream of being assimilated into this new power’s all-encompassing aura. You and I have already been assimilated. Resistance is futile. [This space for lease for your own cliché.] In case you haven’t guessed it yet, it’s Google of course. The Mater of the Search.

So, in the peak of Google’s success and popularity, in the world where we “google” things before we search for them, where Gooogle is a subject, verb, object, and all other parts of speach, what’s a mom-and-pop startup to do?

Enter Cuil, stage left. Now, I’m not sure whether their owners have any kids, but for those to whom it matters Cuil’s owners are married. (To each other). They decided to do what us normal google-fearing won’t dare do: Start a new search engine. And the Internet is abuzz.

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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?

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: 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

So, video of an alleged easter egg and testing the “press this!” bookmarklet. wow.

Wordpress 2.6 easter egg. on Flickr - Photo Sharing!.

update

the “press this” simply adds a link…it does not embed.

WordPress2.6 was released today, a month of ahead schedule…  yes, you read that correctly, a month ahead.  And, by the time I finish writing this, more than 60,000 copies will have already been downloaded.  Along with significantly new feature upgrades from 2.5, this upgrade comes with 194 bug fixes.

Yes, its time to upgrade.

Couple of important new features that we like out of version 2.6:

• You can now track changes made to your Posts or Pages
• Publish anything from the web to your corporate blog

Here’s WordPress.org’s fancy video tour of the latest features in 2.6:

Tracking Changes to Posts & Pages

WordPress has moved very quickly over the past two years from a blog publishing platform to a full fledge Content Management System.  It’s done such a good job, at the beginning of this year, all new websites IGT creates are based on WordPress or Drupal frameworks.   Goodbye static websites, goodbye brochureware websites, goodbye kludgy simple CMSes.

WordPress has moved to create multi-user environment that is easy to manage, create content, and publish it.   The entire platform is standards compliant and search engine optimizaton friendly and best of all, free.

With this new change tracker technology, we expect to give even our Drupal interested clients something to reconsider.

Publish anything from the web on your blog

Ever been browsing the web, saw a picture, video, or story and thought “I should blog about this.”  But, the world being hectic and all, you don’t have the time for that.  You’d have to get back to your blog, find the original article, fiddle with ways to embed it…it’s like the bad side of an infomercial.  

Enter Wordpress 2.6 

2.6 now includes (or reintroduces, depending on your point of view) Press This!, a bookmarklet that allows you to blog while you cruise.  You see a photo on Flickr and are inspired to blog about it?  Push the Press This! bookmark on your toolbar and it will bring up a pop-up with the picture already embedded.  See a video that moves you on YouTube?  Same thing.

This feature could make blogging as easy as bookmarking.  It can increase the frequency of blog post and even change the style of your blog.  You can easily add interesting pages, videos, images, etc as you find them on the web.

These are only two of the new features…the full feature set along with significant security enhancements and bug fixes should convince anyone to upgrade to 2.6