Analytics

New Relic, Software Analytics Service Review

Mike Hudson

New RelicThe web is home to a plethora of webpage uptime and performance monitoring, all bringing something special to the table. The majority of which also offer a completely free of charge option, so as a webmaster there’s really no excuse to not monitor your website offering. As there are so many services out there, it can be difficult to choose which one to use.

Hopefully on the back of this post, you’ll understand why I decided to go with New Relic for monitoring my servers and sites. New relic is a software analytics company that started out life as an Application Monitoring service back in 2008, founded by Lew Cirne. Headquartered in San Francisco, California with offices in Portland, OR, Seattle, WA and Dublin, Ireland.

Rather then detail all about the New Relic organisation check out this infographic

Worlds Apart

New Relic is not just your average site monitoring solution, it actually gives you access to full application statistics in real-time. Which can prove invaluable when trying to track down your site/application/servers bottleneck. Not only do you have easy access to site dashboards, allowing a ‘at a glance’ view of your application and servers performance – you also get in depth transaction and cross application tracing facilities. Whats more, as most web developers are busy people, New Relic offers email alerting, meaning you don’t have to (unless you want to) sit and watch the dashboards and reports until there’s an issue. A true ‘setup and forget’ solution for those on the go.

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Google Analytics gets an iOS App

Mike Hudson Leave a comment

It’s fair to say Googles analytic service truly is the market leader for website visitor analysis.

The analytics service has been on the go for many years now, and features lots of advanced features for tracking an reducing bounce rates.

There’s always been one downside of the Google analytic service, and that’s been the mobile website, which can be temperamental to say the least!

Well that’s all about to change! Google have just released there own analytics iOS app. Which features all the facilities found on the website. Tied up nearly into a native app.

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Google Analytics Goes Realtime [beta]

Mike Hudson Leave a comment

If you really are serious about web development, Google analytics will play a large part in your monthly/weekly/daily reporting. Analytics is a free service offered to web developers by Google. Using tracking code in your website and an online control panel you can obtain in-depth data about your website and online campaigns.

The boffins over at Google have recently released a ‘closed’ beta offering something never seen before in the analytics control panel.. A true ‘real time’ view of your current sites visitors, with statistics updating every second. Currently when switching to the beta view, you get:

  • Overview pane
  • Current visitor count – Shows the number of people visiting your website right now
  • Page views per minute – Shows the number of page views in the last 30 minutes broken down into 1 minute segments
  • Page views per second  – Shows the number of page views in the last 30 seconds broken down into 1 second segments
  • Top referrals – Shows the number and names of referring websites
  • Top active pages – Shows you the busiest webpage on your site
  • Top keywords – Shows you how your current visitors found your sites by the keywords they used
  •  Top locations – Shows an interactive map of where your current visitors are located
  • Locations pane – With a break down of active visitors per location, with not only a count but a bar chart view:
  • Traffic sources pane – With a breakdown of all your sites current referes
  • Active content pane – With a breakdown of what your visitors are current viewing right now.
    • The overview pane works much like most of Google’s sites, giving you the ability to totally customise what widgets are on display and where.
    You can read more about the arrival of Analytics Realtime over at Googles Blog
    If you don’t currently have access to Realtime Analytics, you can submit a request for access
    Although analytics play an important part in web development, I always offer the same advice to up and coming budding web entrepreneurs. Try not to get disheartened with slow visit rates in the first few weeksmonths and sometimes even years of your online presence. Depending on what you set out to achieve on the internet – getting large amounts of traffic to the site without spending large volumes of  cash on advertising isn’t easy. So stick at it, and make sure you don’t neglect your site maps and meta data.

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    iPhone application must have's.

    Mike Hudson 1 Comment

    Below is a list of applications I don’t think I could live without on my iPhone. This list will never be complete, thanks to the fantastic app’s in constant development around the iPhone app store!

    1. Analytics Agent Lite by Global Agent Inc. – Invaluable app for keeping a keen eye on your Google Analytics account. A must have for every serious webmaster.
    2. Blog Press by CLT Studio – Handy little app for posting to your website whilst on the move! Supports most CMS systems
    3. Bump by Bump Technologies LLC – Brilliant little app for sharing via bluetooth, with the added novelty of having to bump hands to initiate the transfer.
    4. Chris Brogan by MotherApp – A fellow bloggers very own app, novel way of delivering a blog site.
    5. CoPilot Live by ALK Technologies – Possibly one of the best tom-tom replacements out there. Fantastic, faultless sat nave app! 
    6. Doodle Jump by Lima Sky – Has to be the most addictive game I have ever played! Really simple concept and design!
    7. eBay Mobile by eBay Inc. – Speaks for it’s self really. But this app is ideal for catching that bargain and bidding whilst on the move!
    8. Engadget by AOL – Technologygadgetry blog from a team of expert columnists all over the world.
    9. Export for Google Docs by Four Meisters System Consulting Inc. – If like me, you are embracing the whole cloud computing lark, Export is ideal for working closely with your google docs.
    10. Facebook by Facebook – I am not a huge fan of the whole facebook concept and the annoying app invites you constantly get, however most of my friends seem to use it as a communications hub, so find myself chatting on it far too often! 
    11. Google Mobile App by Google – Has some excellent search facilities and features, a must have for internet power users!
    12. Gorrilacam by Joby Inc. – A top notch replacement for the featureless built in iPhone camera app.
    13. Green Flag Rescue by Altaine Ltd – for that ‘just in case’ backup.. Handy if you don’t know where you are and have broken down.
    14. Jumsoft Money by Jumsoft – Sync your online bank statements with your desktop PCMac and your iPhone.
    15. LinkedIn by Linkedin – Linkedin is social networking for professionals. The LinkedIn app enables most website features direct from your iPhone.
    16. LogMeIn Ignition by LogMeIn – Access your PCMac direct from your iPhone using the LogMeIn client
    17. MobileMe Gallery by Apple Inc. – Access you MobileMe gallery from your iPhone
    18. MobileMe iDisk by Apple Inc. – Access your MobileMe files on your iPhone
    19. Movies by Flixter – Brilliant little app for keeping an eye on up and coming movie releases and reading peoples ratings and reviews. 
    20. NetAwake by Power of Two Software – Simple little app for remotely waking your networked devices using WoL packets.
    21. Network Ping Lite by MochaSoft – ping entire subnets straight from your iPhone in minutes.
    22. OOFy by Polyideas – control your Microsoft Exchange out of office settings and message from your iPhone.
    23. PAC-Man Lite by Namco – it’s PacMan! Enough said..
    24. Palringo Instant Messenger by Palringo – Instant messenger client 
    25. Paper Toss by BackFlip Studios – A nifty little game, in which the object is to flick balls of paper into a bin
    26. Pastefire App by Sens Digital S.A.S. – Share content from your PC to your iPhone simply by pasting it into a box on a website. Seemless transfer of data, saves emailing your self! Brilliant!
    27. Q Contacts by Addy Mobile Inc. – A powerful alternative to the built in contacts app, which shortcuts to common contact functions.
    28. QR App by Block5 – ReadProcess 2D barcodes on your iPhone
    29. Rally Master Pro 3D by FishLabs – Excellent car rally game for your iPhone with fantastic graphics.
    30. Rightmove App by Rightmove – Brilliant little app for viewing advertised house sales from your iPhone
    31. Rowmote Pro by Evan Schoenberg – No need for a hardware remote for your mac, this is an excellent direct replacement with constant development and improvements!
    32. Shazam by Shazam – Tag unknown music tracks by placing your iPhone near the speaker.
    33. ShopSavvy by Big in Japan – Scan products barcodes and search the web for cheaper prices within minutes
    34. Skype by Skype – Make free skype to skip phone calls, reduced rate skype to normal phone calls and sendreceive instant messages with other Skype users.
    35. Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock by Lexware Labs AB – Alarm clock which monitors your sleep cycle and wakes you at the optimum point (inside a specified window)
    36. SPB Wallet by SPB Software – Keep track of passwords, serial numbers, codes, registration details, logon information and more.
    37. Spotify by Spotify Ltd – Stream music direct from the net, to your iPhone
    38. Subnet Calc by Matthew Galloway – an subnetIP Address calculator for your iPhone
    39. Tap Tap Revebge 3 by Tapulous – Guitar hero style game for your iPhone
    40. Traffic Rush by Donut Games – Novel little game in which you essentially act as traffic lights, controlling traffic at a busy crossroads
    41. Direct.Gov Traffic News by Direct.Gov – Up to date traffic and roadworks information on your iPhone
    42. TV Guide by Jersey Productions – A free TV Listings utility for the UK’s “fantastic” TV channel selection.
    43. Tweetdeck by TweetDeck – A powerful and feature rich Twitter client for iPhone
    44. Twitteriffic by The Iconfactory – Yet another powerful Twitter client
    45. Urbanspoon by Urbanspoon – A fantastic little app for finding that place to eat out when you stuck for ideas.
    So that’s it.. For now anyway! No doubt I will install more as they come out! I also plan on doing a similar list for Mac OS X. If you have any you would like to add, drop me a line! Or comment using the form below.

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