Entries from March 2009 ↓

It seems that Microsoft have decided to finally take the IE8 browser out of beta and its now available to download in its complete form (despite the fact that its still not secure – yet more secure than apple’s safari!).

Download IE8 (Final)

One of the most irritating things about Google Analytics is it doesnt give you stats related to the time of day (this is something we use Woopra for)… well that was the case for me until I worked out how to do this using a custom report.

Hits by time of day are important as it helps you identify not only when your getting the most hits, but also when you’re attracting the least amount of traffic which comes in really handy if you’re swapping some key information and/or want to make significant changes to your site.

This simple report has started to make us think. As our most popular time for new hits is 8pm, should we stagger the telesales team to provide phone support up to 9pm? Should we turn off adwords between 12pm and 9am as we only get around 3-4% of visitors during this time (although is this worth it as the saving would be minimal)

Ok heres how to quickly set up this report:

• Open Analytics
• Go to Custom Reporting
• Create a new report
• Give it a name
• Drag Entrances from the vlue Metrics Panel
• Drag Hour of the day from the green Dimensions panel
• Preview/save the report.

Easy as that.now you too will be a little more informed.

One of the most irritating things about Google Analytics is it doesnt give you stats related to the time of day (this is something we use Woopra for)… well that was the case for me until I worked out how to do this using a custom report.

Hits by time of day are important as it helps you identify not only when your getting the most hits, but also when you’re attracting the least amount of traffic which comes in really handy if you’re swapping some key information and/or want to make significant changes to your site.

This simple report has started to make us think. As our most popular time for new hits is 8pm, should we stagger the telesales team to provide phone support up to 9pm?, should we turn off adwords between 12pm and 9am as we only get around 3-4% of visitors during this time (although is this worth it as the saving would be minimal)

Ok heres how to quickly set up this report:

• Open Analytics
• Go to Custom Reporting
• Create a new report
• Give it a name
• Drag Entrances from the vlue Metrics Panel
• Drag Hour of the day from the green Dimensions panel
• Preview/save the report.

Easy as that.now you too will be a little more informed.

Just looking into an indexing issue we’re having (it’s taking AGES!) and came across this nifty post by Googles resident sphinn doctor and head of search spam, Matt Cutts.

In this post he explains how that ‘back in the day’ google had a 100k per page indexing limit meaning pages over 100k were trunkated and not properly indexed and that the more recent google changes mean that the big G is happy to index pages over 100k.

This is a point ive been arguing for a few years now and im happy for it to be announced officially (tho you cant always take Mr Cutts at his word – Vince update change anyone?)

Theres also a nice chart outlining the OBL’s from several popular sites to confirm.

This week at Click 4 we’ve decided on possibly the best way to make money for comic relief. Some climb mountains, others sit in baths filled with beans, but we’ve decided on a swearbox.

3 days in and all I can say is you have no idea how much money we’re raised so far (mostly due to Steves outbursts) which are taken to a new heights when messing about.

I’ll announce this weeks total on Friday.

Just working on a wizard for the chesterfield site allowing people to configure their sofas before a final price is presented.

As part of this I need to illustrate a set of options with associated radio buttons for choice. I wanted the user to be able to click the image and/or text descriptions in order to make the selection and thought this simple technique would prove beneficial for people considering javascript and lots of junk code as my solution is really elegant.

The solution is simple and requires no associated scripting…

Just wrap it all in a label tag i.e.

<label for=”foo”>

<img src=”foo.gif” alt=”alt text” />

Descriptive Text

<input type=”radio” name=”foo” value=”Item Value” />

</label>

Now anything you click inside the label will automatically activate the radio button.

I know it’s a simple technique however im sure it will help ease someones pain of interactive form design!

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-GB&#038;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:a517b260-bb6b-48b9-87ac-8e2743a28ec5&#038;showPlaylist=true&#038;from=shared" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','video.msn.com']);" target="_new" title="Future Vision Montage">Video: Future Vision Montage</a>

This is how Microsoft see the future – I WANT IT ALL!