Grupenet

Up until this point in time I have been using Google Analytics for statistics on my two websites. And although I’ve been somewhat happy with using Analytics, it just doesn’t seem to offer the right ingredients I’m looking for in a website statistics service. I’m also beginning to feel more uneasy about using Google’s products seeing as they have been buying one company after another and stashing even more of my personal information on their servers.

The reason I’m writing this review is to tell you about a great new website statistics service I found recently called pMetrics(aff). This service is run by Performancing, and if you’re in the blogging business you may be familiar with them.

My favorite feature about pMetrics which Google Analytics does not offer is the Spy view. In short, the Spy feature is a live view of any visitors who are currently viewing your website. The time this feature becomes most exciting to use is when your website is featured on the front page of Digg or Slashdot.

One of my biggest gripes about Google Analytics was that it wasn’t able to function with Javascript disabled. Luckily pMetrics is still able to function regardless of a user having Javascript disabled. Now I don’t need to worry about not being able to know when Steve Gibson reads my blog.

My next favorite feature is the Google Maps integration. I’m still scratching my head as to why Google hasn’t implemented their Maps service into Google Analytics. Nonetheless, pMetrics does a wonderful job of integrating Google Maps into their service. This is very helpful for quickly finding out where a majority of your traffic is coming from.

Instead of me explaining every single advantage pMetrics has over Google Analytics, you can check out the pMetrics comparison table.

Today Apple released iTunes 7.2 along with the new iTunes Plus feature which allows users to purchase DRM-free tracks encoded in 256kbps AAC. After reading the comments on the Digg story, I realized many people were unsure of how to enable iTunes Plus. Unfortunately, Apple didn’t make it very apparent how to enable iTunes Plus, so here’s how you go about doing just that.

To begin with, go to your account page by clicking the button in the upper-right with your email address. When prompted, enter your iTunes password to progress to your account page.

You should now be at your iTunes account page. As you may have already noticed, the first option on the page is iTunes Plus. Go ahead and click the “Manage iTunes Plus” button. On the next page, make sure the box is checked next to “Always show me iTunes Plus music and music videos when available” and click “Save Changes”.

That’s all there is to it! Now any music and music videos which are available DRM-free will show a plus (+) sign next to the price, which is $1.29 for each track.

The Windows Sidebar is a greatly welcomed feature of Windows Vista. But how do you stick all your gadgets (more commonly known as widgets) on your desktop and do away with that sidebar? Apple’s Mac OS X operating system also has a widget application named Dashboard and will only display widgets on the desktop. If you’re a Mac addict but stuck using Vista at work, this trick may help you feel more at home with the Windows Sidebar.

First you’ll need to drag all the gadgets off of the sidebar and onto your desktop. You can do this by hovering your cursor over a gadget and using the dotted area to the right of the gadget to drag it.

Once you have all your gadgets on your desktop, right click the plus (+) at the top of your sidebar and select “Close Sidebar”. That’s all there is to it. To unhide the sidebar, just right-click the Windows Sidebar icon in your system tray and select “Open”.

Don’t get me wrong, VLC is a great media player, especially since it includes so many different video codecs and is cross-platform. Unfortunately, getting the video playback to work on your brand-spankin’-new Windows Vista machine may take some configuring on your part. This little tip will get you back on the road, playing your videos in no time. But before you move on, make sure your installation of VLC is up to date. You can do this by choosing “Check for Updates” under the Help menu.

Open the VLC preferences from under the Settings menu. You should now be in the main VLC preferences. Make sure the “Advanced Options” in the bottom-left corner is checked. From there, expand the “Video” item in the left menu and select “Output modules”.

Now you can select whichever video output module you desire, though “Windows GDI video output” will be your best bet. If you’re the adventurous type, you can try each output module to see if any work better for your computer. You will need to restart VLC each time you change the video output module.

So I’ll start off by saying that I’ve finally decided what I’d like to do with this site. I’ll basically be posting my personal experiences in the world of technology and give some tips to others who may be interested in the same. It won’t be too personal that it’s as if I’m telling you my life story though (isn’t that what Twitter is for?). I’d also like to post lots of tutorials, how-to’s, and possibly some DIY projects of mine.

If anyone’s interested, I’ve got two invites to Swaptree. Just post a comment saying you want an invite. Just sent out my last Swaptree invite. Sorry folks.