Handy Web Hints

Google Analytics - Alternatives to the problems

2010-10-17T16:00:00.000-07:00

Google Analytics was once an indispensable tool for me. It was free, easy to set up and provided enterprise style analytics.

But after a while the headaches and frustrations of managing multiple sites with this tool becomes evident.

Here are some of Google Analytics flaws:

1. Google Support - does this actually exist ? Trawling support forums usually leads to the same outcome, bugs and frustrated users waiting years for fixes ... I have very rarely been able to contact a real person from Google. This is probably the biggest problem, not just with Analytics, but Adwords, Adsense and a whole range of other mission critical Google products for websites.

2. Deleting profiles and accounts without admin access - power users of Analytics will know what I'm talking about here. You've been managing a clients stats in the past as a report user and then the incompetent customer loses their admin details. You are stuck forever with this dud account. There is absolutely no way to delete the profile/ account from your Analytics and it just sits there festering away for years annoying you and Google does not seem to feel it is an issue and can't or wont help.

3. Moving profiles from one account to another is not possible - We've all been through it. Google Analytics accounts and profiles can be can be confusing at the best of times. You're never sure the best way to manage it. But what's worse is that if you make a mistake, you're stuck with it. There is no way to move a profile from one Google Analytics account to another. This is a truly terrible situation and a source of frustration for many. Again, Google seems unwilling to find a solution due to design issues and the problem of Analytics IDs.

4. Exporting and importing data profiles is not possible - This would probably make #3 a little easier and solve a number of other issues, such as archiving and restoring a website statistics profile after a hiatus. But again it is not possible to export and import data from one profile to another and Google does not seem to have any current plans to support this.

There are obviously more issues but these are my top gripes as from my own perspective they are pretty serious flaws and it is disappointing to many including myself that Google does not address them.

So I've been looking at alternatives to Google Analytics and found a few helpful blogs along the way. Some look promising, although some are free and it is a question of whether you put up with the above to persist with an otherwise good free product.

Anyway, here are some blogs reviewing some free alternatives to Google Analytics:

http://regulargeek.com/2010/05/29/25-free-google-analytics-alternatives/

http://www.harshajmera.com/blog/2010/04/best-alternatives-to-google-analytics/

Anyway I'll let you know what I find once I've tried a few.

Free Auction Sniping Tools - The Best

2010-09-09T18:56:00.000-07:00

If you're sick of losing eBay auctions like me then you might want to get into Auction Sniping.
Auction Sniping is watching a timed online auction and placing a winning bid at the last possible moment. This virtually guarantees a win.

I am a bid sniper and for years I have been using AuctionSniper.com. This service works really well, you just enter your eBay logins, the ID of the auction you wish to snipe and maximum bid. however they only give you a certain number of free snipes before you have to begin to pay for the service. There are ways to earn more snipes, such as recommending friends or affiliate banners, but once you run out you may wish to look at alternatives. Fortunately there are now plenty of them.

Some of the alternatives include Bidnapper, AuctionStealer, JustSnipe, Gixen, Bidnip, EasySniper, Powersnipe, BayGenie, JBidWatcher, Hidbid, AuctionSentry, QuickSnipe, BidBall, Snip and HarvEX.

Most of these offer similar features and a few free snipes to start with.

Make Money simply by viewing Ads (Paid To Click or PTC)

2010-07-06T19:21:00.000-07:00

I've recently discovered a way to make money viewing ads.

A number of multi-level pyramid type schemes exist which pay you to view ads. They are called "Paid To Click" or PTC sites. Some will pay as much as 2 cents per ad view. Others are a scam. Using a referral system so that other people's clicks ad to your earnings and diligently viewing about 5 ads a day has topped up my account and sure it is not much but it all ads up !

The one I've used is one of the most established, is definitely not a scam and genuinely does pay out.

Template Monster vs ThemeForest

2010-06-16T01:21:00.000-07:00

Previously I've compared Template Monster to various Open Source Web Design directories for out-of-the-box website templates.
Well I grew tired of those options a while ago due to a lack of depth and the frustration of their search interfaces. Additionally many of the licences would require that you link to the designer's website, which isn't always idea.

One site I have been using recently is ThemeForest, part of the Envato network. This site offers paid templates including HTML and Content Management System (CMS) ready templates for most of the popular systems including Joomla and Wordpress. As a community based site they are much better value for what you get i.e. massively cheaper than Template Monster and unlike Template Monster the HTML, CSS and custom code is typically of a very high quality all zipped up with adequate documentation. Additionally it is great that purchasers can post comments about what they like and don't like about each product on offer.

Some things that I don't like about ThemeForest that I truly wish they would fix for better customer satisfaction.

1) Search - the problem with all these services is how to find a template. While Themeforest supports tags and item attributes the thumbnails and lists used to showcase the templates just aren't adequate to sift through the pile

2) Searchable comments - again search. The ability to search comments would solve major headaches. When you're using this as the primary support tool for their products, comments can span many pages and with no option to view all you sometimes have to skip through dozens of pages trying to solve a particular problem, sometimes simply to find whether a feature that is purported to be supported actually isn't.

These things aside, ThemeForest is so much better than Template Monster it really isn't funny.

In text ads and Infolinks - Alternative Pay Per Click

2010-02-12T06:40:00.000-08:00

I've recently discovered Infolinks, an affiliate program and pay per click (PPC) network and been trialling it on several sites so I thought I'd run a quick review.

Advertisers will be disappointed that Infolinks appears to focus on publishers and the website not allow advertisers to create an account. In fact everything is done manually via email with their support staff.

I have been using Infolinks as a publisher, however, with moderate results. Infolinks claims to be the highest paying context advertising. However, the revenue per click is as low as 1 cent. Adsense is capable of generating a hundred times more than that. However the click rates for Infolinks are far higher than Adsense. So a direct Infolinks vs Adsense comparison doesn't stack up. On my site Adsense generates about 5 times more revenue each day. However the good thing about Infolinks is that it can work together with Adsense and other programs in combination. Together it can be an effective complement. It also seems to be consistent based on page impressions, whereas Adsense doesn't work great with low traffic blogs.

Other things I like about Infolinks is the low payout threshold and regular payments in comparison to Adsense which has a high threshold and confusing payment system.

However Infolinks tends to be very distracting for users and I've had some feedback about misleading and offensive ad content which is unrelated to the highlighted keywords.

But as a means of generating revenue from a website or blog, Infolinks is worth a try.

Amazon Associates vs Borders vs Fishpond - Website Affiliate Programs and Commission Comparison

2010-01-20T21:48:00.000-08:00

A few years back I began an experiment with commission based affiliate programs and began with Amazon.

I started with Amazon Associates and went to great lengths to target specific pages with specific products. But eventually gave up having made just $3 in commissions for a product that I hadn't even advertised and never qualifying for a cheque. The problem it seemed was that my websites had a primarily Australian focus and Australian buyers it seemed had bad experiences with Amazon's delivery prices and timeframes. My Adsense ads were earning far more each day than Amazon Affiliates was worth for a whole six months.

I continued to experiment with other website affiliate programs including Payloadz and Commission Monster, but digital products just don't have the same effect as books and DVDs.

Anyhow, in the last two months I have joined the affiliate program of Fishpond.com.au. While I was a little skeptical given that I found the interface for creating ads to, it was not long before I made my first sale. Within three weeks I qualified for my first payment. I think they have done a lot in their marketing to make Australian consumers feel comfortable buying them and as a result my websites were a very good fit. It is great to now see some quality affiliate programs emerging for content publishers.

I have been tempted to give Borders more of a go given its strong brand in Australia, however its commissions are relatively low and Fishpond has the advantage of being 100% Australia. I also wish that Readings, one of my favourite booksellers would start an affiliate program.

You'll find below a brief commission comparison of the various website affiliate programs for online DVD and booksellers.

Commission Comparison

Amazon - 4% to 15% (typically 10% for books)
Borders - 5% to 8% (typically 5% for books)
Fishpond - 10%

Things that annoy me about Wordpress

2010-01-03T02:41:00.000-08:00

As devout I am a disciple of Wordpress, I have to say there are definitely things that bug me about this publishing system / CMS.

#1 Links in image captions - as of Wordpress 2.6, if you try to put hyperlinks in image captions, Wordpress strips them out. Which of course means that you can't effectively credit the author of an image or photo (whether it be from Flickr or some other website) and link to the appropriate licence. This can be frustrating and there aren't really any plugins which properly address the issue. However I've found a couple of workarounds here and here. However this is something essential that really shouldn't require a plugin or hack. Memo to Wordpress ... fix this in the next version please !

More in due course

My top 10 essential Wordpress Plug-ins

2009-11-18T23:37:00.000-08:00

Here are my top 10 essential Wordpress Plug-ins as I use Wordpress a lot.
I manage over 100 blogs using this great software but pretty much use similar plugins on each.
There are many plugins that do the same thing and some times it is a process of trial and error, installing, activating and deactivating until you find one that is right for you.
So I thought I'd share my list to make it easier for everyone:

1. Wordpress Database Backup - Helps me sleep much easier at night. Daily backups in my email what more can I say.

2. Platinum SEO Pack - Don't know what I'd do without this great plugin. My blogs rank so much better with it running. This plugin is highly customisable and a must have.

3. Google XML Sitemaps - Like #1, this is very handy for getting better results in Google and does all the work for you

4. Share This - Great way to generate some word-of-mouth action

5. Feedburner Feedsmith - Feedburner helps keep an eye on who is reading your RSS feeds.

6. Ultimate Google Analytics - Avoids your Analytics codes getting blasted away by updates and your stats stopping running

7. Get Recent Comments - Indispensible little plugin helps other users to see which posts on your site people are talking about.

8. Akismet - helps control that annoying comment spam.

9. Geo Mashup Plugin - a fantastic little plugin that makes it very easy to generate Google Maps. A little fiddly at first but once you get your head around it and get your API key it is very powerful.

10. EasyTube or Smart Youtube - six one or half a dozen the other. Basically easily embed YouTube into posts - only thing I hate about Wordpress is it makes it difficult to do this and Google Maps without plugins ...

Hope this helps ! Interested to hear if I've left some out that others find indispensable.

Cushy CMS vs Surreal CMS - which is the best Lightweight free CMS

2009-10-05T21:32:00.000-07:00

I've used web content management systems for a while, but only began recently to use some lightweight web content management systems with some smaller websites - first Cushy CMS and now Surreal CMS.

A couple of free lightweight content management systems are out there that are application hosted and use FTP to hook into websites and CSS tags to define editable areas (in the case of Cushy it is class="cushycms" and in the case of Surreal it is class="editable"). They are offered free because their business model is aimed at web designers rather than end users.

One of the big limitations with these systems is that they are only really good for existing webpages, not for creating new ones. There is also the issue of FTP security when someone else is hosting your access logins.

But once you overlook these, the systems are neat, quick and (mostly) very easy for end users to pick up.

Cushy had some great design ideas, but a newcomer, Surreal gives it a real run for its money.

There are two reasons why I have switched from Cushy to Surreal:

1. A frustrating bug in Cushy resulting from when I moved my site from a staging server to a new server, I could no longer edit the pages, even if I re-added them. Resulting in me having to create a new account

2. Surreal CMS is now set up to accept Cushy's tag class="cushycms" making it easier to migrate from Cushy

3. Surreal editor is hosted off a separate purpose built domain - edit-content.com. I've found downtime on Cushy which makes Surreal more suitable for higher demand websites

While it is clear that Surreal capitalises on Cushy's mistakes to gain marketshare and I found Surreal as easy to setup as Cushy, there are However a couple of the setup things weren't quite as easy as they could be. The interface and tabs for editing different fields initially confused me and tripped me up and they quite aren't as easy as Cushy. The rich text area is also a little trickier to use, and a little difficult to find the View HTML Source option initially.

However despite these things I'm quite happy to now use Surreal.

Gmail's threaded messages system is confusing and you can't turn it off

2009-08-19T18:24:00.000-07:00

I usually like Gmail, much better than hotmail at least for reliability.

But one thing that gets me is the threaded messaging system.

I don't mind the concept and see where it can be useful. But in practice it can be incredibly confusing and difficult to find individual email messages.

Gmail's groups functionality can be useful, however Gmail isn't a discussion forum or mailing list, it is first and foremost a personal email application. Trying to be everything isn't always the best way to go.

I've also found that it can sometimes also cause confusing situations of replying to the wrong person because you've picked a message out of a thread. I've found the confusion gets worst when you're switching from using Gmail in groups to sending and receiving individual emails.

But its not a mode and I'm yet to find a way to turn this feature off ... there is a Google groups thread about it here ... perhaps there is a better email service that is not as confusing !

Embedding Flickr into Websites - FlickrSlidr vs PictoBrowser vs Plug in

2009-08-05T19:29:00.000-07:00

I've recently had some success embedding Flickr into websites and blogs and found that there are many ways to skin this cat.

The easiest is online services, of which there are two main ones ... FlickrSlidr and PictoBrowser. Both generate code which you can simply copy and paste into your website HTML.

FlickrSlidr is the easiest and has some basic configuration options. However its limitations is in end users browsing pictures.

PictoBrowser is more of a traditional gallery and also supports Picasa, however the builder uses Flash and although the interface looks simple it is in fact clunky and just about crashed my PC.

However there is a simple way, using a direct Flickr API and iFrames using a piece of code supplied on this site. The code can also be made to be standards compliant.

I'm not sure about slideshows though, and I'd prefer to randomise static Flickr images. There are plugins available to do that too.

Interested to hear any other ways people have been able to achieve it.

How to tell if your website is being copied

2009-07-13T04:37:00.000-07:00

I've had several websites completely ripped off lately. I mean content design, the whole shebang. I used to only be able to find them if they slipped up and left links to my site.

But searching around, I found this great website called Copyscape. You just type in your website's URLs and it catches the culprits red handed !

So if you are concerned about copyright infringement, then visit this highly recommended service and check for yourself:

http://www.copyscape.com/

Facebook Advertising Ineffective

2009-04-26T21:41:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post this for a while.

I have become somewhat skeptical of Facebook and social media advertising.

Initially I found it was cheaper than Google Adwords and provided more profiling power. At least initially it appeared effective.

However despite dozens of clicks delivered in a very short space of time, after tracking conversions I have found that it has been about 1/10 as effective in conversion than standard banner ads and Google Adwords.

So the overall value of Facebook advertising, at least that I've found, is minimal.

This is a shame as it seemed like the platform had plenty of promise. Perhaps this is due to the type of advertising and the frame of mind of consumers using social media.

I have, however had success with Facebook Business Pages where your customers can become fans of your business. This has worked well. Perhaps the two could work better in conjunction than a standard Facebook ad. All the same though, I've been slightly burnt by my Facebook advertising experience.

There was a problem with the Windows Live Hotmail service - Gmail is better

2009-04-20T06:42:00.001-07:00

Just about every time I try to search my Hotmail email I get this message:

There was a problem with the Windows Live Hotmail service (a temporary network connectivity issue that has nothing to do with your computer). Please try again.

Trying again is just a waste of time. It doesn't fix the issue.

I'd move from Hotmail for good, but unforunately I was an early adopter (It was a good webmail system once) and I rely on it and can't forward the email to Gmail.

Gmail is 1000 times better and more reliable than Hotmail and I can think of at least 100 reasons to switch permanently.

Google Ads with sound ! Offensive and inappropriate but difficult to disable

2009-04-06T16:59:00.000-07:00

Google should be ashamed of creeping in Flash Video ads with sound on its Adsense Network.

I was alerted to by members of my thriving online community that everytime they visited my site, a loud spinning wheel sound would start. It was driving users away in their dozens. Noone could work out why my site became offensive all of a sudden.

The culprit - a Google image ad in the footer of my website was displaying online gambling content. Appalled, I went into my Adsense settings to disable the audio, but couldn't find a setting for it and in any case, I would have to recreate the Adsense code, reupload and change the page code on my site.

I searched the Internet to find out what I could do about it, but came up with nothing.

However I decided to contact Google directly to report the offensive ad, after searching extensively I found this link for "Feedback on a Google ad in the content network":
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/request.py?contact=adfeedback

I am yet to receive any response from Google over this.

Apparently offensive ads sometimes slip through the cracks. But when it does, as a publisher, it can do some really bad damage to your sites reputation. To date I was impressed with the performance and relevance of image ads. However as a result of this experience, if Google don't change their policy on Flash ads, I'm considering moving back to text ads or moving away from Adsense altogether to a more discrete context advertising providers (as there are now plenty of Adsense alternatives out there).

Wikipedia and American English

2009-03-30T17:52:00.000-07:00

One of the things that really gets me with Wikipedia is the use of American English for the titles of many of its articles. Not to mention that the English version of Wikipedia's whole world view is imbalanced toward the United States and Australia, where the highest number of Internet users per capita are located.

American English is not the authoritive version of English, it is a regional variation, but Wikipedia doesn't agree. American English its own language, riddled with idiosyncrasies of laziness. Even when I set English (UK or Australian) in Microsoft Word, the evils of American English keep creeping in. Now the definition of 21st century knowledge is also spelled out in stars and stripes.

Wikipedia should have a language definition purely for American English to rid Wikipedia from the problems that it creates and enable those who speak the Queen's English, the proper language, to continue to use it.

Can't find the Create Group feature in the New Facebook ?

2009-03-18T22:47:00.000-07:00

You're not alone there. After the recent Facebook layout change I simply couldn't find the link to it anywhere. Not in the homepage, applications or even (where you'd expect to find it) in the groups section .....

However after searching Facebook and the web extensively for the create group feature I found this direct link which you might find useful:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/create.php

Bookmark it.

The new interface on Facebook is a disgrace. Groups and communities are a big part of what makes Facebook popular but it has been overlooked in favour of a focus on the Twitter style status updates system. As a result I've already moved to Orkut for social networking and Twitter for microblogging. They obviously don't do much user testing over there at Facebook HQ .....

Unless they find a way to quickly change direction from these latest changes I doubt it will be too long before the ship hits the Zuckerberg so to speak.

New Google Street View Interface Sucks

2009-01-07T15:11:00.000-08:00

Yet again, Google have to ruin a completely good idea with a revamp which introduces usability headaches.

Google Street View used to be a really useful way of finding locations. It had the little option in the More Tab and you could click anywhere on the map - simple. Then you could use the arrows on street view to navigate the street scenes. Perfect.

But about a month ago, obsessed with going virtually full screen, Google went and made this handy app almost impossible to use. In the guise of "interface improvement" they've hidden it deep within the Google Maps navigation so that you have to search for an address first then find the link and click on it.
Then the street view appears in a little screen in the bottom corner while the map is still there.

But that's not the really tricky part. The interface for moving around the streets is now extremely awkward. There is an icon that you have to drag and you can no longer simply click on any point of the map. If you happen to miss your target, you almost have to simulate walking there by dragging the person icon over the map which is both tedious and annoying.

They've also introduced a split screen concept which reminds me of Nintendo 64 and makes me want to throw up. Bot the map and the street view become very clumsy to use in this mode.

All I have to say is why Google ... why ruin a perfectly good app with poorly executed ideas. I can only hope they learn from this and either return it to normal or try a different interface.

"Switch to a different publisher ID" doesn't work - More Google uselessness

2008-10-20T21:32:00.000-07:00

It would be great if I could scrape up all the pennies from blogs I've published under a different name. But when I try to use the Google standard "Switch to a different publisher ID", it doesn't work and just does nothing.

Judging by their support response, apparently Google aren't really keen to fix it either ....

Wordpress Categories - where did they go ?

2008-10-19T21:27:00.000-07:00

I have a Wordpress blog and I'm using version 2.6.2.

Recently, without having changed anything at all, all of my categories on posts mysteriously disappeared as well as my category list on the page.

I have combed the Internet for an explanation, but as yet - nothing.

Very frustrating. I'll let you know when I find a fix

Hotmail's annoying "Upgrade Your Web Browser" Message

2008-10-09T18:42:00.001-07:00

Noticed that this message appears even for the latest web browsers ?

How annoying.

I'm running both Firefox v3 and IE 7 and I still get this message from time to time.

All the more reason to move to Gmail I suppose.

Cheapest .com.au domain names

2008-10-04T16:27:00.001-07:00

I buy a lot of domains for clients and search engine optimisation campaigns and I've done a lot of searching, so I thought I'd post a brief review of .com.au (Australian dot com au) domain companies for 2 year registrations:
* SmartyHost - $20
* Jumba - $22
* Hostess - $25
* Domainworld - $25
* Crazy Domains - $25.90
* Web City - $34.95
* Planetdomain - $35.55
* Cheap Domains - $38
* Netregistry - $44.95

I've had a couple of poor experiences with Planetdomain, but SmartyHost has been outstanding.

How to get PayPal to validate as XHTML

2008-10-01T07:34:00.000-07:00

I've been building XHTML strict websites for some time now, but only just started using PayPal on my sites.

Well I pretty soon discovered that the code that PayPal supplies does not validate out of the box.

But after a bit of massaging I finally got it to validate just fine, using some of the tips in this thread.

Cheap Web Hosting that I recommend

2008-10-01T04:28:00.000-07:00

I often get asked about cheap web hosting.

Well the hosts that I use are:

* WebHostingBuzz - great support, very cheap web hosting
* Smarty Host - good local Australian support, reasonably cheap hosting
* FreeHostia - A great free option but requires delegation to the server

But I'll let you know if I change my mind .... ;)

URL cannot contain a google host - My latest Adsense headache

2008-09-25T16:58:00.000-07:00

So with the release of Google Knol, it appears that Google Adsense are no longer allowing you to track Adsense revenue for their web applications, which of course includes the popular Blogger tool ....

It is very disappointing to discover when I already have several sites tracked under Adsense.

When you go to add a new Adsense Channel for Blogger or Knol, the following message appears:
"URL cannot contain a google host"

I have checked the Google blogs and support and they don't mention anything of these new restrictions.

A real shame and very frustrating indeed.

Easy Social Bookmarking using AddThis or ShareThis

2008-09-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

Social bookmarking can drive more traffic to your website with people being able to tell others about your site by word-of-mouth. There are plenty of applications online, like Delicious, StumbledUpon and Newsvine to name a couple.

One way to make it easier for people to bookmark your website is to make it convenient for them to do it and offer as many popular social bookmarking options as you can.

This can make it difficult with a lack of available screen real estate to work with.

Fortunately there are plenty of drop-in applications out there.

The most popular is "AddThis" and I personally like to use this. It is responsive, looks great and can be easily added to Blogger, Wordpress, MySpace and a whole range of other Web 2.0 applications.

Another popular option is "ShareThis", which tries to use an icon to make it familiar. Unfortunately, unlike RSS icons, there isn't really a standard icon for social bookmarking and more people use AddThis at the moment, meaning that the ShareThis icon is unlikely to take off.

But check out the AddThis facility that I've used at the bottom of each post.

Figured a workaround for Google Adwords My Client Center

2008-09-24T00:20:00.000-07:00

After agonising over no support from Google regarding their My Client Center not sending request emails to clients, I discovered that only once you have set up your client's first campaign through their login, it will prompt them to accept the link invitation. While there isn't much documentation on this from Google, it worked.

Still waiting to hear back from since the issue was "escalated" some time ago though in their last email they indicated that the problem was "of some concern" to them.

But at least I'm able to now use Adwords for my clients, though having to request their login details to do it, does kinda defeat the purpose of the whole My Client Center concept ;)

New Facebook review - in a word - " it sucks"

2008-09-15T17:41:00.000-07:00

I've tried hard to like the new Facebook. I sampled it for a couple of weeks when they first introduced it, but decided it wasn't for me and then reverted to the old, familiar style.

You see, it just didn't let me easily access the applications, the wall, my news feeds, groups and all the other things I used to like about Facebook. It used to be on the one handy page, now in their pursuit of cleanliness, the interface is in fact an ugly mess.

About a week ago, Facebook, probably the most popular social networking application among adults, forced their new design onto their millions of users.

Well it seems that I am not alone. A protest group within Facebook called "I hate the new Facebook" has over a million members !

The Facebook people just can't seem to turn a trick. They've been criticised for privacy issues related to their news feeds and their horrible use of social advertising.

My use of Facebook is getting less and less, while I have been using applications like Linkedin more. If it wasn't a place where I have all my old contacts, I would have stopped using it long ago. Bebo and MySpace are unfortunately not for me. Come to think of it, should any new social networking application that is half decent has the ability to import my "friends" and contacts, I'd be to it in a minute.

Googling Google and Other Google Issues ...

2008-09-10T16:28:00.000-07:00

I wonder if Google have noticed that when you type any query with "Google Help Centre" as keywords, it enters a circular abomination of a search.

Google redirects you to "Google Help" search. But when you click one of the links, it simply refreshes the screen with the keywords "Track ASP" (whatever that means) in the Search field.

Google Help is a misnomer, because it is completely not helpful, nor are their support staff, most of which don't have a clue what they are doing.

I have now waited 3 weeks for a reasoned response to the reason why my whole Adwords My Client Center broke down for me:

I've decided to escalate your issue to our technical team, which will perform a thorough investigation to determine the cause of the issue. These investigations can take some time, but I'll contact you to let you know when our specialists have found a resolution.

But after no response for some time, I emailed out of frustration ans here is the response that I received:

First, I would like to inform you that according to your screenshot which shows that there is no password field available and this is exactly the way it is. I apologize for any inconvenience caused due to any mis communication in the help center.

I note that they have since updated their Help Centre documentation on this, but for a while their documentation was completely wrong and they kept sending me incorrect advice. Unfortunately changing it does nothing to help my situation where clients are in limbo and cannot authorize me to manage their accounts.

And Analytics support is just as bad. It confounds me that in order to delete duplicate unused accounts that the delete button is greyed out and that you have to contact support, but then they don't actually tell you how you can contact support and do their best to discourage you. Then when you do manage to contact support through their online form and provide all the necessary information, this trivial issue requires toing and froing of about 10 emails until they understand what you actually want, but still can't manage to do it.

Hopefully Yahoo or someone else realises just how bad Google's service really is. There is a definite market there for any savvy competitor who can provide reasonable support and customer service. Afterall, it is not rocket science. I have no idea why Google decided to make their login systems so complex and convoluted that even they can't get a grip on them ....

Web browsing with Google Crome, Initial review

2008-09-03T04:22:00.001-07:00

I've just been playing around with Google's new beta web browser and I thought I'd write a few things first up.

I'm actually using it right now.

At first glance, I think the whole "less is more" approach to user interface design has been probably a bit overdone.

The back, forward and go navigation icons tripped me up a bit initially, and I kept looking for the drop down list to access my recently visited sites. However I'm impressed with the way the recent and most visited sites with screenshots automatically appear when I open a new tab. Chrome really takes tabbed browsing to the next level.

Importing settings from Firefox seems easy on the surface, but even though I closed Firefox as advised, it still didn't recognise that Firefox was actually closed.

There are some interface bits and pieces to get used to. I found myself accidentally adding sites to my favourites. But Chrome is much quicker and easier to sort bookmarks into folders which is a definite plus.

It has taken a bit of time to get used to less right click options. In particular, I find myself looking for "Refresh" and "Find" options, only to find them in the toolbar. The page icon is a bit counter intuitive and a bit of a catch all and working out what is in either this or the Tool/spanner icon is a bit tricky at first.

I like the inbuilt developer tools and History tab is great.

As a web developer, I'm really interested in how it renders sites. But having checked out many of my favourite sites, I can't yet see any obvious rendering differences between Chrome and Firefox, which is another real positive. However I did notice that while Hotmail works, rich text editors on Blogger and many content management systems (CMS) don't. I'm told this is a problem WebKit, the engine that both Safari and Chrome are partly based on. But more on this to come soon.

Overall, Chrome Beta is not a bad first up effort by Google, although I still think Firefox is better and will probably remain my favourite browser ...

Are Google to busy creating new things to fix their current things ?

2008-08-27T15:30:00.000-07:00

That is the impression that I get.

I am starting to get disillusioned by their systems because each one seems to be buggy and in beta, even those that have been around for some time.

Perhaps they are having growth problems, because there are real issues which I can't seem to get any quality support on with Adwords, iGoogle, Blogger and a whole range of other applications for that matter ....

YouTube is great and seems to be going ahead full steam, but most of what Google touches these days is far from turning to gold.

Google Adwords Login Issues driving me nuts

2008-08-25T15:26:00.000-07:00

Trying to set up anything Adwords or Adsense related on Google is like trying to teach a baby to walk.

While managing Google's My Client Center, the amount of times I've dealt with emails not being sent by Google for Adwords invitations is unheard of.

And don't get me started on the whole "This account is already a login to another AdWords account. Please select a different Google Account login to access this account." mobius loop.

This thread at Webmaster World typifies the sorts of Google garbage I have to deal with on a daily basis.

Furthermore, Google's own Adwords Learning Center, at least for me, appears to have completely wrong details on how to link accounts. It says it can do it easily by:

Retrieve your client's AdWords external Customer ID and account password (which establishes your client's permission to link the account to yours).
Log in to your MCC.
Click the Link existing account link above your client accounts table.
Enter your new client's Customer ID and account password into the appropriate fields.
Click Submit.

However in my "My Client Center", there is absolutely no option to enter the account password and when I click submit - nothing happens. No email to the client, no notification in their Adwords account - nothing !

I'm nearly fed up with the then I get support people who don't even know what they are talking about and sent generic mail merged responses. If only they realised that if their systems were usable and they answered their support queries, they might actually get less of them.

No wonder advertisers are moving to Yahoo. Pretty soon I'll be one of them.

Bug Tracking Revisited: The trials and tribulations of "Fogbugz"

2008-08-22T18:37:00.001-07:00

I started using Fogbugz, a web based project management system for work about 4 months ago. I'd previously used a hacked version of a PHP and MySQL program called Mantis, which I found to be adequate.

Fogbugz was hyped up as being the simple "be all and end all" solution to project management that would work out of the box, handle enquiries by magic automatically responding to email enquiries and help solve data duplication and a whole bunch of other problems. Certainly the sales pitches on the Fog creek website are pretty slick.

The interface, I was told, was so uber Web 2.0 and friendly that even a baby could use the thing.
In reality I was given a 1-2 hour second hand walkthrough.

The reality is far from easy. It certainly is different. In fact, personally I've found it to be one of the most complex and awkward tools I've ever used. After my walkthrough session I had absolutely no idea how to use the thing and a mountain of questions a mile high.

Well I guess I was always told that it wasn't like the many CRMs with bug tracking added on, and it wasn't a bug tracker trying to be a CRM, but many times you do need both.

I got sold the solution saying that it was going to be something that the programmers would use and it would have all sorts of poweful and useful reports like discrepancies in estimates, overdue cases and the like. But in reality, everything ended up getting pushed through the system, so reluctantly, I had to learn to work its way. And most of the reports turn out to be pretty useless.

I'm just now getting used to circumstances when I should use my own email and its email.

Then there is setting signatures. I was told that it was easy. So rather than ask for help (I'd rather use "user friendliness and initiative), I searched and searched my user settings and all sorts of other things. Nothing. So I did some Googling. By a couple of hours later I'd found that you can use some sort of thing called "Snippets". But further reading only discovered what they could do and not really how to use them. (If only I had a manual). Finally only after stuffing around for literally ages, I discovered that my laptop keyboard doesn't have the default snippet character ... great, so if only someone had told me I could change it from my options, I'd be a step further from smashing something. ...

Fogbugz also uses a whole lot of filters and reports and uses cookies to save queries. Which is fine until you want to do something and then spend whole minutes deactivating filters and trying to work out which filters have been set.

Then there are timesheets. Unless you're one of those people who works using "What am I doing now" style of worker with minimum distractions, the system is clumsy. I constantly find myself entering times for the wrong days, then entering a time only to find that I don't have the case number and guess what, those funky AJAX style floating box consistently sits smack bang on top of that case number and guess what, it won't move, so I have to close the whole thing off, remember the case number and start over.

Then there is the way that the system categorises things and of course being an email based system when you get bounce backs and spam, you have to deal with them too. As a project management tool I have to get used to this whole process of projects and releases and release candidates. But at the same time, its no web based project management tool either ...

So we're also at the point where we're again hacking it (not always progammatically though) just to try to get it to work the way we want. What was supposed to save time has, at least for me, become a huge time waster. And there is more duplication of data then ever.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm not saying that Fogbugz is bad, just to scratch the surface of the slick sales pitch. Maybe I should have read the manual afterall ...

First impressions of Firefox 3.0

2008-08-20T19:40:00.000-07:00

I've recently run an update of my web browser to Firefox 3.0 and I must say, superficially I can't see too many differences. Some of the interface elements have increased in size. Although I suspect many of the improvements are under the hood in terms of rendering and new standards support. However I have experienced numerous severe crashes, particularly on some sites and incompatibility issues with some rich text editors which has seen me go back to Internet Explorer.

Google Street View, Blogger and Firefox

2008-08-18T21:28:00.000-07:00

Several times I've tried to use Google Street View and Blogger by embedding street views into my posts.

On Firefox at least, there seems to be some real problems with this. After doing so, you can no longer edit your post. It currently comes up blank in both "Compose" and "Edit HTML" views.

After upgrading to Firefox 3.0, it seemed to fix the problem.

YouTube goes Google with Insight video analytics and Google Maps integration

2008-08-18T09:49:00.000-07:00

Logging into YouTube recently I first became aware of some new features I've had on my personal wishlist for some time.

Probably the most significant is Insight, which provides a Google Analytics type view of who is watching your videos. It has some great statistics including daily view charts, referrals (such as from related videos, YouTube searches or embedding) and even which countries the viewers are from and even some basic demographic information. All this is fantastic and really improves the experience for video uploaders.

The other features I've discovered is that you can now set a date and Google Map location for your videos. While I'm not sure how this benefits the video uploader in terms or exposure or how it will affect the search (I suspect they intend to add a whole range of new end user features around this), it is certainly refreshing and the whole interface now has more of a Web 2.0 feel than ever.

Google Street View - Awesome !

2008-08-05T17:50:00.000-07:00

Check out the new Google Street view.

http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/

Scary stuff.

Certainly makes touring the world a lot cheaper.
I think it could revolutionise city planning and community consultation.

Big Brother is watching ...

It also opens a minefield of potential problems. Scratch the surface of privacy issues and you'll find a plethora of potential problems. It could make life a whole lot easier for burglars for a start, and not to mention graffiti vandals and a whole range of other nasties ...

Template Monster Alternative - Open Source Web Design

2008-08-04T04:13:00.000-07:00

Template Monster is easily the most popular place to get website templates on the web, but I've often tried to find free alternatives because the quality on Template Monster can often be a mixed bag. Some of the templates have terrible HTML with embedded tables with images used for headings, poor CSS and poor source PSD files or restrictive Flash/swf and a dose of general search engine unfriendliness.

So I recently discovered the whole Open Source Web Design movement, the quality and diversity of site templates is increasing all the time.
And here are some of the better sites I've found so far:

http://www.oswd.org
http://www.openwebdesign.org
http://www.opendesigns.org
http://www.oswt.co.uk

Dashes or Underscores in URL - Google no longer care

2008-07-27T16:49:00.000-07:00

After months of re-optimising URLs on various blogs and websites, I discovered today via this announcement that is was all for nothing ...

Once upon a time people thought that search engines like Google recognised underscores. Apparently Google at least now recognises both dashes or hyphens (-) as keywword separators ...

I guess you can't win them all.

Personal Start Pages - iGoogle vs Netvibes vs Protopage

2008-07-24T17:50:00.000-07:00

Those who know me well would know that I've always been a big fan of Web 2.0, RSS, the mash-up and its potential and I've been getting into personal start pages recently which are starting to see that potential realised. I've tried iGoogle, Netvibes and Protopage. Some of these things have been around since about 2005, but they were very clunky in the early days. With the widespread adoption of AJAX, they are becoming much faster, more usable and practical. As for my personal preferences, well While Protopage is probably easiest in terms of user interface and adding RSS feeds, I find that Netvibes to be a lot faster and more fully featured. Forgive me, but I just haven't managed to persevere with Google's offering. I think it is still in beta and it looks it. So full of bugs, I couldn't even get the basic weather widget to work. Plainly put, at least at the moment, iGoogle sucks ...

Royalty Free Stock Images - iStockPhoto vs stock.xchng vs Dreamstime

2008-07-08T04:04:00.000-07:00

For royalty free stock images, I personally prefer Dreamstime. The prices are great (although not as low as they might appear). I used to use iStockPhoto exclusively, and even contribute photos, until their payments and criteria got too ridiculous and their prices for photos went through the roof after beinb bought out by Getty.

While stock.xchng is also good, it still doesn't offer the range or quality of Dreamstime.

Viewcount returns to YouTube

2008-05-25T17:47:00.000-07:00

Looks like they listen afterall. YouTube has apparently overhauled their interace and put the sort by view count back - hooray !

Sort by View Count removed - Why I'm using YouTube less

2008-03-25T17:46:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd share a frustration that I have with YouTube. Once apon a time, YouTube allowed you to sort videos by relevance, date and view count. For some reason, that I can't explain, in a recent site tweak they removed the ability to sort by viewcount and now you can only sort by relevance and date - which is annoying. This is one of the ways I'd tell which videos are the most popular and therefore worth watching. I guess they are trying to steer people towards viewing channels, categories and regions, which means that they can use this to upsell to premium channels in future. In any case, because of this feature, I don't find YouTube as useful anymore and find that I am using it less. But if anyone can explain the rationale behind this minor change it would be much appreciated.

Want to find out who owns a domain name ?

2008-01-24T16:12:00.000-08:00

The best way to find out is by doing a "Whois" search.

Most domain registrar websites have a facility like this, but there are also a lot of dedicated websites for performing whois and all sorts of other searches which can tell you who owns and maintains domain names just by typing in the domain.

For Australian domains, in particular, there is Ausregistry.
http://whois.ausregistry.net.au

Some sites enable you to do multiple lookups, such as www.whois.com.au

For worldwide searches there are sites like www.whois.net

Wikipedia - Closed for business ?? The lame notability policy.

2007-07-02T17:48:00.000-07:00

Something I touched upon here really gets my goat - Wikipedia's notability policy.

I used to find wikipedia fascinating, in that it was what an encyclopedia should be - an ever expanding treasure trove of information.

Wikipedia used to be "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit".

It is now more appropriately "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit - but your contributions will most likely be speedily deleted".

Nowadays, many of the best articles have been deleted due to notability, and the site is creating a new breed of "content Nazis" with little better to do than exercise their collective destructive rights.

And this notability policy is flawed.

I fear that by this policy of only notable articles being included, then wikipedia simply becomes an encyclopedia of popular culture - or worse still, the encyclopedia which only covers what everyone already knows.

Wikipedia is always going to be full of junk. Any nerd can argue that Jabba the Hutt is notable, therefore Jabba the Hutt's wife, who appears in half a second of Episode I of Star Wars deserves an article of their own, and there will always be thousands of American geeks in support of this notability case. While an Australian Football club that has existed - in the real world - with over 100 years of history and probably seen thousands of players and spectators pass in and out of its doors deserves a speedy delete on the completely subjective grounds of "notability". And an amateur gridiron or soccer club which has lasted for all but a couple of years in Australia is kept - because they are more supposedly notable sports ?????

Who is wikipedia really for anyway ?? Is it the people's encyclopedia, or some sort of

It is the content consumers that have donated both their time and money to continue to make wikipedia a success. Are they merely throwing their money and time down the toilet ?

Do we really have to draw the line ?

I mean if there can't it just be tagged and edited by one of the every growing community of free knowledge supporters ?

I still use wikipedia, but the days of the occasional contribution are well and truly over for me. I have moved on.

RIP Wikipedia - we knew you well.