denbushi.blog » Software

Google Launches Analytics API

michael — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:39:33 +0000

According to the Google Analytics Blog, Google today launched a new Application Programming Interface (API) for Google Analytics, their free service for tracking and analyzing website traffic and usage. We use Google Analytics extensively at Netwise, of course, and are thrilled about the things that will be possible now thanks to the API. Google says:

The API will allow developers to extend Google Analytics in new and creative ways that benefit developers, organizations and end users. Large organizations and agencies now have a standardized platform for integrating Analytics data with their own business data. Developers can integrate Google Analytics into their existing products and create standalone applications that they sell. Users could see snapshots of their Analytics data in developer created dashboards and gadgets. Individuals and business owners will have opportunities to access their Google Analytics information in a variety of new ways.

The exciting possibilities? Positively endless! One obvious one is to create mashups of selected GA data and your own internal business intelligence, thus making the jump from from where GA effectively ends (e.g. – an online quote request “conversion”) to the final business outcome (e.g. – estimate approved or rejected). This ability to “close the loop” in terms of business intelligence means more accurate monitoring of ROI and the ability to more effectively refine and improve marketing campaigns.

Data collected via the API can also be used for automatically generate reports that are sent via email or displayed on mobile devices, or stored in your own database to be comingled with your other business intelligence. Simpler still, the API also makes it possible to extract selected metrics and plug them in to your own website or Intranet, with the look-and-feel completely up to you! We’re positively giddy just thinking about it.

Google Announces New SLA for Google Apps

michael — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 02:04:41 +0000

On Octoner 30th Google announced a new Service Level Agreement for many of the Google Apps applications for Premier Edition customers. 99.9% uptime is now guaranteed for all of the business-critical core apps, including Gmail, Calendar, Sites and Docs. Full details on the new Google Apps SLA available on Google site.

Windows Desktop Search: More buggy software from MS

michael — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 23:29:52 +0000

I don’t remember installing Windows Desktop Search (WDS) on my notebook but one day it was there. I think they maybe slipped it into the installer for a trial app or something I tried and then dumped for being crap. The trial app went away but for some reason WDS stayed.

The two things I noticed after it appeared were the new Search Desktop input field hogging much of the Taskbar and the new searchindexer.exe process hogging most of the CPU. The mostly nonstop churning of disk activity also suggested something was amiss.

Troubleshoot, isolate, try different settings, pray: I tried all of the standard steps one tries when trying to get buggy MS software to work properly, but all to no avail. Finally I disabled the service and will remove the thing altogether in a few minutes. Thanks, Bill, for another couple hours of wasted time.

On a sidenote, I also like how the WDS product information page throws a JavaScript error. In Internet Explorer 7. Typical Microsoft.

To summarize, if you’re looking around the net for info and reviews of WDS and found this, take my advice: don’t bother with it. There are better desktop search options out there, use one of them instead.