September 2011 - TheOnlyCog

Google Analytics goes real time

Sep 302011

Google Analytics has been around since November 2005 offering free analysis of traffic for website owners. As well as basic page visits it will also track search terms, referrers and pay-per-click advertising.

Although a very complete service, one constant criticism is the reporting delays. Typically GA reports on site traffic several hours, and in some cases, 24 hours behind. In the fast moving world of the internet, and especially in social networking where stories break in an instant, this delay was considered a hindrance.

Diaspora — more social networking, coming soon

Sep 302011

Question, do you have space in your life for another Social Network?

It seems the guys over at Diaspora* (the * is part of the brand!) think we do. In September 2010 they came to the market with an idea to hopefully lure you away from Facebook; the guys were fed up with the privacy issues over at Facebook Towers and set out to design a whole new system.

Spotify backtrack — offer private listening

News from the field 2 Responses »

Sep 292011

After the outrage in the last few days over Spotify and Facebook getting all chummy and sharing your music listening habits with the world, Spotify have today confirmed in a tweet(!) that they are making a small change to their software.

You can now temporarily turn on Private Listening in the client to mute any updates to Facebook.

Enable Private Listening in the FIle Menu

This only last for the duration of the Spotify session; next time you start the app it will default back to broadcasting your listening habits in FB. Apparently there will be a preference option to turn off integration completely.

Spotify still require a Facebook account if you wish to sign up. Is this enough to placate the enraged users who are not interested in linking the two products?

Firefox reaches release 7

News from the field 1 Response »

Sep 282011

Just in case you missed the update, Firefox have just popped out release 7 of their browser.

It’s difficult keeping up with their releases these days. Gone are the days of the X.1 releases and Mozilla pop out major version numbers almost at the drop of a hat.

The all new Amazon Kindle / Touch / Fire!

News from the field No Responses »

Sep 282011

It’s been a busy day of announcements for Amazon at their press conference — everyone assumed it would be the announcement of a new device, but it has turned in to a complete product refresh!

Review: Fusion 4 or Parallels 7 ?

Review 6 Responses »

Sep 242011

Parallels and VMware have recently updated their virtualization software for the Apple Mac — both designed to better support Mac OSX 10.7 (aka Lion)

Parallels Desktop is on release 7 and VMWare Fusion is version 4.

As a long-term user of both products I have taken some time to consider, compare and review the various aspects of both.

Playbook prices on the down

News from the field No Responses »

Sep 232011

Hot on the heels of this post a mere 7 days ago berating the Playbook comes news that prices in Canada are being heavily discounted.

Best Buy and Staples have knocked 20% off the price but there is also chat of 50% reductions. It is only a matter of time before the discount flows to the USA and beyond.

Research In Motion have promised a significant update to the Playbook operating system – notably email and calendar; which should have been there since day one!!

RIP RIM Playbook

Google+ opens the doors at 100

Google+, Social Networking No Responses »

Sep 202011

After 90 days of testing to a closed group of people Google+ is to open the doors to everyone — Vic Gundotra announced today. (By ‘closed’ we mean almost anyone who really wanted an invite!)

In the announcement he notes that just under 100 changes have been made since the field trials started. Changes in the 90′s include some new features to ‘hangouts’ and, finally, integrated searching within G+. Change number 100 was reserved for the announcement that Google+ is now open to anyone who visits google.com/+

Who reads the software license agreement ?

Miscellaneous 1 Response »

Sep 182011

Recently I asked my readership a simple question, “Do you read the license agreement when installing software?”. You know, the one you must ‘Agree’ to at the start of the installation. There were three possible responses: Read it carefully; Quickly check for restrictions; Never read it.

280 people took the time to complete it and the results are quite clear….

Google Chrome 14 with Native Client turned on

News from the field, User Experience No Responses »

Sep 162011

Today Google flicked the switch on Native Client with the launch of Chrome version 14. Last month it was enabled on the developer version but it has now made its way onto the stable channel for release.

Native Client has been three years in the development and is an open source project carrying some serious controversy. Basically Native Client (NaCl) allows C+ and C++ code to run directly within the Chrome browser. The objective to offer a robust platform for the development of more serious apps, such as web editing and 3D gaming, which JavaScript can not accommodate.

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