web

Once in a while I am still amazed by something new for web browsing. Today it was a application sent to me from my buddy Jay. He is heavy into photography and digital editing so I can only imagine he found it through one of those avenues while searching around (feel free to correct me in a comment).

Piclens is an application that can be run with IE6 or 7, Firefox and on Windows XP, Vista or Mac OSX. They have made it an addon for Firefox and seeing as this is my browser of choice, that’s how I am using it under OSX. This is a very nice application. They have kept it simple in what it does but made sure that the features they created work very well. Their tag line is simply “Your favorite sites. Full-screen. 3D.”. When you load the application you get a full screen experience unlike anything we are used to. It organizes everything into thumbnails that are browsable by scrolling through side to side. When you want to view something you can double-click it. If it is a picture then it will blow it up full screen for best viewing and if video it will blow it up and start playing the content. The best way to get a real feel for how it integrates with your browser and then displays content is to go watch the demo here.

I was instantly hooked. After I installed the application I was drawn in by a feature called discover which allows you to browse content that they have organized into categories. For example, I wanted to look at some news items. Click on the button on the left for news and I was looking at thumbnails.

Would I recommend it? Yes, it’s good to entertain yourself. Google is still the place for me to go when I need to know something in particular but this will be good when I want to browse around.

I have a son who is starting to use a computer and like his dad, getting very comfortable with it Makes me happy but given that he’s 4, yet I am weary of a mis-click or a something popping up on his screen if he is on the internet. Even when you are watching your kids on the internet these days, even sitting right beside them, there is still a chance that you end up somewhere that was unintentional by the child and not foreseen by you.

KidZui is in the business of making an alternative browser for kids. What is amazing about this kid product is that it is geared towards the child. The browser interface is something that I am sure my 4 year old will like (and we’ll be getting that installed soon) but something that would make you or I want to use a crayola crayon on the LCD. Their other huge selling point in my eyes is that instead of limiting the websites that they feel are negative or could be deemed inappropriate, the took the opposite approach. They have white listed sites that they feel are of good value for kids and parents. Their reviewers are “trained parents and teachers” so that makes me feel good about the filtering.

I am new to the service, but I think it has been around for some time. I found it because it is now free and they seem heavy into a marketing campaign to let us all know.

Check it out, it’s free!

I have now started to think about website stats and tracking. Mostly because I am getting more serious about thesleepygeek and need to know what kind of traffic I am generating. After some homework I have found a number of websites that track site statistics and each of them seem to have their own strengths. I often am looking for the option that “just works”. I am a firm believer that 10 features that work flawlessly is better than 20 that are only ok.

Google Analytics is the product that I chose in the end for just those reasons. It has the most popular type of information you need to know about your site and it’s traffic. Where people are accessing it from, what kind of browser they are using, what site they came from, what page they looked at, etc, etc. The site is very nicely laid out as well; a very clean looking summary of all your stats and then it offers the option of digging down to see more specific information. It has the option of sending you daily or weekly reports with all the same information you would find on the main dashboard page. To install it on my different sites was absolutely simple. I opened a single account and was able to track stats from more than one URL. This site, was the easiest because someone has made a plugin for Wordpress. I have another site that runs on Gallery2 which hosts my family pictures. It was a simple google search away and instructions with clear steps to enter the generated code on the correct line. DONE!

I have also used in the past statcounter.com. They have a great service with about the same feature set. It seems to be a little more robust but it also is more confusing to find the information you want when you need to dig. I would recommend them if Google Analytics is not your cup of tea.

I did a search for “free web stats comparison” on google was amazed at how many options there are. So now I am going to turn it around. What do you use for web stats? Email me at marcus@hamaker.net.