So much happened this week. Apple iPads went on pre-order, Microsoft lost another patent case, Canon made a travel mug that looks like a lens, and Playstation announced they’re going to rip-off the wii-mote.
FourSquare Tools for Business
Mar102010
The New York Times blog, “Bits” announced that FourSquare, a well known location-based social network, will soon provide free analytics tools for businesses. As the use of location-based applications continues to grow, the analytics will offer valuable information for businesses about their customers.
Some of what the analytics will provide:
- Who has “checked-in”*
- When they arrive
- Male to Female Ratio
- Most active times of day
- Option for instant promotions to engage customers
*Note: There will be an opt-in, opt-out setting in the privacy panel that will give Foursquare users the ability to keep their information private.
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Wordle.net – Make Images From Keywords
Mar92010
Wordle is a great service which will take an RSS feed from your site (or anybody else’s site) and convert it to an image. Larger words are found more often, smaller words are found less.
Here are a couple of examples.
From our very own blog (http://www.merrellgroup.com/blog/feed/):
And from my personal site (http://www.joshuarcraig.net/feed/):
Go try it out for yourself!
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Google Analytics Annotations
Dec172009
Finally! Google has added annotations to Analytics. This is the one feature I’ve been asking for since I began using GA. It allows you to leave small shared or private notes on the over-time graph. So now I won’t have to refer to the media flowchart to see when certain banner ad campaigns were launched or changed or when a change was made to a website and for what reason. This will make it much easier for the entire team to see those changes how they are influencing traffic patterns and usage of those websites.
Check out the video below for an overview:
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Horrible Travel Gadget
Dec42009
I’m a gadget freak. It it has LEDs or a USB connection, I own it.
It’s true.
But here’s a gadget that I’ll never buy and you shouldn’t ether: a baggage locator.
I didn’t know that these even existed until just a few moments ago and I thought “wow, that’s a really BAD idea.”
Now don’t get me wrong, locating your luggage in record time would be great. Heck, I’d get a gadget that let me track luggage from my phone (they call that a GPS tracker, but they’re pricey) and we could call it even, but no, someone HAD to go nuts and make a gadget that attaches to your bag and blinks/makes noise when you press a button on a cheaply-made fob.
“What’s the problem” you ask? The problem is that you’re attaching a remotely activated light/noise maker to your bag and intend to set it off in an airport. Imagine the hysteria you could cause with an odd device strapped to an unclaimed bag on the carousel that suddenly starts flashing and beeping. Put it inside the bag for more “fun” while TSA is scrambled to intercept it after you activate it from “over 60 feet away.” That’s far enough to activate it before it even gets inside baggage claim.
Just think about the look on the handlers’ faces when your bag starts making noise. Priceless.
So just say “no” to these gadgets and put a piece of string on your bag. It’ll save you $15 and it’s a much more elegant solution to a problem that no one really has.
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BASF Field Trip
Nov42009
A group of us just took a farm tour of Indiana, Minnesota and Upstate New York on behalf of our client, BASF Plant Science, to see NutriDense out in the field. Literally. Nutridense is a trait that, among other things, gives corn (for grain and silage) a nutritional boost. You can learn all about it at nutridense.com. We learned a ton. Met some amazing grain growers and dairymen. And yes, got our hands a little dirty. There’s no better way to learn. See a few pics from the trip here:
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Google Analytics Adds New Features
Oct222009
Google Analytics has added some new features that enable tracking of mobile websites and mobile apps, the ability to set engagement goals, the ability to filter based on different metric conditions and use multiple custom variables. Another new feature is called Analytics Intelligence. It will provide automatic alerts of significant changes in the data patterns of your site metrics and dimensions over daily, weekly and monthly periods. Very cool stuff! Check out the video: 
Read the entire article here.
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AT&T Announces ‘3G MicroCell’
Sep212009
AT&T is releasing an amazing new pi
ece of hardware: The 3G MicroCell. The 3G MicroCell puts a 3G access point in your home and uses your internet connection to route calls and data to the AT&T network. If you have crap service in your home like I do, you can plop down your cash for one of these miracle devices and have full service in your home instead of having to lean on a window or go outside for better service.
No word on pricing, but if it’s a flat fee, I can see many users grabbing these up. Also, at launch, they aren’t available everywhere (like Raleigh).
Even if you aren’t interested in the 3G Micro Cell, check out the official AT&T site and watch the cheesy videos. They’re good for a laugh or 2.
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Fixing SNMP in Mac OS X Server 10.5.7
Sep102009
I monitor our network with PRTG Network Monitor. After recently upgrading one of our Xserves from 10.5.4 to 10.5.7 (server), its status changed in PRTG to “in alarm” and was unable to connect via SNMP to collect any data. It turns out that the default configuration of the SNMP agent changed with the 10.5.7 upgrade, tightening access restrictions for the community string “public”. The fix is fairly simple. Edit line 97 of /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf and restart the SNMP daemon to reload the config file. Continue Reading >
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In-Depth Review of Snow Leopard
Sep32009
John Siracusa has posted an exhaustive review of Apple’s latest OS release, Snow Leopard. Great read if you really want to learn why you need to upgrade.
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