Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

So Jeremy and I have been playing around with Google Analytics since around June of last year. (He got into it about a month before me, as with most things, Jeremy is recon or guinea pig.)

The past few weeks I have been logging into my Analytics account and looking at my stats for this month. They provide you with some of the best (free) web statistics reports that I have seen.

The interesting thing that I have noticed is that the month of February has been possibly the most popular month for my blog. Now, I am not political pundit, nor am I making a living off my blog.

I try to post things on the blog here that are more interesting than what I had for dinner or what cute thing the dogs did this week. However, I do occasionally give posts that are somewhat of that nature. In part, because my family reads my blog to keep up to date with what is happening down here in Tejas. Given that I work in the telecom industry I should probably call and give said updates more often, but a lot of the time my schedule doesn't meet up with theirs, or they might be over their cell phone minutes (Rachel).

Anyway, for those of you who might happen to find my blog, read more than one post and enjoy it, thank you visiting. For those of you that found my blog by way of Google and didn't find it interesting, sorry, check back later, it will probably be more interesting then.

Anyway, here are some partial screenshots from the Google Analytics dashboard. I love the graphs and "Geo Map Overlay" thing they do.

January


February


In the month of January I had enough referrals from Jeremy's 90in9.com site for it to show up in the top 5. This month not enough to get it's own listing in the pie chart, I just checked and 10 referrals this month.

But the month isn't over quite yet so maybe 90in9.com can make it into my Top 5 referral list.

I really do have to say that if you have a blog or any sort of website. You need to sign-up and use Google Analytics, it is a great package. There is a ton of functionality that I have even yet to begun to tap into. One thing I know is that my site ends up being visited by folks because of the name "Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words".

Of which, I don't really do any lists of Three-Letter Acronyms or Four-Letter Words. Maybe I will have to setup some sort of little project to do just that.

As a whole, I don't really market my site. One of these days I will. But for now, I am content with passing on information of what has been happening to friends and family. And occasionally posting my pontifications about something I found interesting, or sometimes I just like to make a post about the funk.

Picasa2 is pretty neat. I am going to upload my desk photos and go to bed.

Last night as I was finishing up the assembly of the CPU holder for my desk (we went to IKEA yesterday), I saw on TV something that surprised me.

It was your usual sort of Internet commerce commercial. Someone was looking for something making jokes about it, then there was the obligatory search box with the item in question being typed into it. However, at the end it was Microsoft's AdCenter that was referenced rather than a YellowPages or Yahoo or some search engine optimization company. (From what I know of Google doesn't really do TV advertising, I think they get enough press without it.)

The launch of Windows Live (their Yahoo & Google like search engine product) was met with little fanfare by the online community, this was my take on it anyway.

Now, down here in Austin we get TV ads for services and gadgets that might not be advertised elsewhere. I remember that I started to think everyone gets bombarded with Symantec and Western Digital hard drive ads. Or billboards for the same, or even a billboard for my favorite online store NewEgg.

I did a little search for the AdCenter to see what folks are saying about it, maybe I have just had my head in sand. I am not a huge fan of Microsoft, aside from the 360, so I don't look for news about them on the 'Net.

Articles:
Seattle Times

Google Watch - eWEEK
Clickz


Apparently the AdCenter launched back in May and I just wasn't paying attention. However, their TV ad got my attention.

Speaking of TV ads, I caught the end of a Cingular commercial the other day. And at the end it said "Cingular is now AT&T."

Yeah, ok I knew that SBC had renamed themselves to AT&T, but Cingular, that was ridiculous, I was just at the Cingular Store it wasn't an AT&T store. Course, it is very, very funny, because the AT&T store at the mall became a Cingular store when Cingular bought out the AT&T Wirless assets.

Now, Cingular is going to be AT&T (wireless?).

I made a comment on Anil's blog about this circle of AT&T. I can only hope that this time around AT&T is more open minded about telecom than they were in the past since they are just a few acquisitions away from being put all back together again. My comment wasn't in direct reference to his post, but the circular nature discussed in his post reminded me about the AT&T mergers that have been occurring.

There is also a great explanation on YouTube from the Colbert Report show. Definitely check it out.

Great Scott!!

So it is a three day weekend, I wish I could say that I have been spending it near a lake or being ultra productive.

But no such luck. I have been a wee bit productive. Playing for of a support role today.

Gina and John have been doing home improvement today. John arrived this morning at about 8:10, Gina had woken me up around 6:30 or so.

She made us breakfast consisting of blueberry pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns (like the ones @ IHOP) and crispy bacon.

Since I am a bit more technically inclined than industrially inclined I have been playing more of a gopher role today. I did get to play with a neat belt/disc sander thing. They had taken off the base boards and wanted me to sand some gunk off the back of them. It was some sort of caulk mixed with paint.

The idea was to get the base boards to a point where they could put them back on the wall, but flat. I apparently had a little too much fun with the sander, as they did not lay flat on the wall after I was done.

So off to the "Home Despot" to buy some base boards. I called Gina after I left to find out the size I needed. They have quite the selection there you know. I needed to get two very, very long pieces about 13 ft. The base boards start out @ 16 ft.

I found a style that I liked and then proceeded to walk around with 2 x 13 ft base boards standing straight up (I foolishly did not choose the lumber cart). I also had to pick up some caulk and some hinges, I also split a base board into two 8 ft pieces. Hopefully I won't have to go back to the Home Despot tomorrow, but I probably will.

I also had to make soda run. Then I picked up dinner from Delaware Subs.

However, I did have a chance to perform a role that I am familiar with. John had recntly built a pretty slick pc. However, due to a minor over-clocking incident it wasn't booting up properly. So I had a chance to flex my technical muscle, I looked up the model and found out that they make an ISO based BIOS package. So one burned CD later and John's pc was back in action. I won't try to say that this was a uber complicated problem, but it felt good to help out when I can.

So whats up with 1.21 Gigawatts?

I have been watching "Back to the Future" while working on migrating sites from the old Spry host to the new server.

"Earth Angel, Earth Angel"

But I digress.

So not many probably know that Google will soon be controlling our Internet interactions. As Jeremy is fond of saying "I welcome Google as our new lord and masters." Did I quote you accuratley there Timmy?

I have offered up the hosting of my personal domain's email to Google. Well, more accurately I applied to Beta their latest service offering, it is primarily oriented @ small businesses but they decided to let me play too. Google Apps for Your Domain

I found out about this offering by way of Anil Dash's blog that I try to stay current with, made all the easier thanks to RSS feeds.

Well, I got my technosnobs mail configured the way that I wanted. I also forwarded my regular gmail account to my new technosnosbGmail account, this way I'm not having to check multiple spots for mail. I am not sure whether I will try to use POP3 to get my mail or if I will just use gmail in the browser. Since I usually have googleTalk running I get notified of mail that I have waiting for me in the system tray.

Anyway, I have a few more domains and websites to finish transfer in the morning. But things are rocking and rolling. I already transferred Gina's blog over. I still need to do Amanda and Henry's blog, along with the sites related to uRevoo. But after tonight's practice those should go pretty quickly I have a nice little system working.

Jeremy needs to apply for Google's Beta too, since I haven't fully configured the mail functions on the new server, and now I don't want to bother figuring it out. Thanks Google, you appeased my inner lazy man.

Well, I better get to bed. John will be back early in the morning I am sure to finish up in there. We have to put up the new base boards still. But they are definitely done with the floor.

Narcoleptic time, laterz.

Just a quick note.

Google's Analytics rocks the house. As with most things my buddy Jeremy checked it out first. He tends to be like the recon squad for technology, he tries it out and likes it enough to tell me about it. This honestly has been quite the trend.

For anyone who has had the every so fun pleasure of trying to read the tea leaves of some web server logs, the Google product (free mind you) seems to be easier to deal with.

You sign-up for an account then paste in some code to your site and away you go.

I was looking over some of the stuff and I found that someone hit mysite from "Project Management Blog". I haven't had the opportunity yet to read it fully, but with some of the topics on there so far I am quite impressed and will have to give it a much deeper read.

"The importance of non-judgment and non-attachment in sales and entrepreneurship"

"The absolute importance of failure"

All for now, gotta get back to the grind.

We made it home last night about 9:00 on the dot, give or take a minute.

We made a quick run to HEB for some dinner along with food for the weekend.

Gina and I will be spending some quality time in Dallas next week together. She is going to be receiving training for her new job with NetworkIP and I will be spending time there in some PrivateTel related meetings. So no point in buying groceries for the whole week.

Gina is going to do her signature oven roasted chicken on Sunday night. I will be grilling a couple of pork loins tonight.

Well, I have to go tame the lawn and I best get to it before the temperature raises too much out there.

Also, in case you guys haven't heard.

Google has come to Michigan. They are building some sort of tech center there. I believe the primary purpose relates to Google's plans to digitize all the books in the world. I will have to find the article, but I remember something about Google and the University of Michigan have teamed up for that.

However, they are also hiring for some adWord positions, so some sort of regional sales account management office is being formed as well. Here is some more info: (article)

Well this is probably the last entry before we hit the road.

I will might try to do an entry when we stop for the night, we will see. Might be too groggy by then.

It is going to be a fun adventure.

Now, for anyone who knows me. You know that I a bit anal retentive.

Last year's trip i kept all the receipts that I incurred for gas along the way, but never did anything with them.

Not so this year. I plan to keep a running total of the cost of gas along the way. From my travels around texas I have noticed that the price of a bottle of Dasani varies by about .20 - $1.00. I think while I am at it I will keep a list of that.

Of course I am going to throw this into a database, but the real interesting bit will be if I can easily "Mash Up" the db with the google maps api, to allow for a visual of the trip and the prices along the way.

Well I best shutdown the puter and get to loading the car, or I very well could get left behind.

if you need to reach me you can use my Click-and-Connect button which I have routed to my cell phone.



laterz

(Warning overly broad generalization follows)

Web 2.0 = AJAX

I still need to locate the first article that I read that spoke about Web 2.0 and AJAX. At the end of the article I had come to the conclusion that Web 2.0 meant websites that used AJAX.

While I am sure that the Wikipedia entry is most informative and can explain AJAX to anyone reading this post. But let me make it real short and sweet. Google Maps uses AJAX, Gmail uses AJAX, Google Talk inside of Gmail uses AJAX. (also the google spreadsheets)

AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And XML). AJAX allows web developers to break out of the layout restrictions of standard HTML. There are some other nice technical nuances that it eliminates.

Pros:
1. You can build applications that look and feel like desktop apps. You can have drag and drop elements.
2. You can update information on the screen without having to do a whole screen refresh.

Cons:
1. You have to know a lot about Javascript and probably how to build a webservice.

Now, I have played around briefly with Google's AJAX web toolkit. It was very cool. However, it was designed to allow you to write JAVA code and have it converted to AJAX. Yippeee, I don't know JAVA, and don't really have a desire to learn it.

Note: Google will soon finish their secret SkyNet project and take over the world, but until then there are plenty of other AJAX kit developers out there.

The one that I found out about today through my new best friend Digg , is MuseStorm. They offer a good looking tutorial on how to build an AJAX desktop. The thing I liked about it most is that it will let me create a desktop look and feel page that manages my RSS feeds. (Think of RSS feeds as a magazine subscription, but you get to pick the types of articles you want.) There are services out there that will aggreggate your RSS feeds for you, even firefox will do that for you, to a degree.

But this seems like the perfect project to cut my teeth on about AJAX and get some benefit, my own RSS feed manager. They have a nifty little demo.

Well back to the grind.