Month: July 2010

No matter how large or small your online business is, you should be using some sort of web analytics software. Today, Web site traffic analysis is an industry complete with high-end enterprise solutions like Omniture and Websidestory to free lower-end solutions like Google Analytics. But for the customer, the tools many of these companies provide can turn your Web log data into some slick and useful reports.

Web site analysis tools aim to help you get the biggest return on your web investment.

Using these tools, you can discover:

How many users visit your site, how many return, and how often
How users are navigating through your site
Where in the “conversion funnel” or purchasing process, they’re getting stuck and leaving
How your various marketing campaigns, such as banner ads and keyword buys, are performing, from clickthrough to checkout
What content your visitors are looking for, and whether they’re finding it
Exactly which form fields are driving people away rather than bringing them in.

The amount of information available can be almost overwhelming. But even more overwhelming is the number of companies out there ready to help you find it. This article will help you through the process of understanding and evaluating your Web analytics options.

Top Vendors

Google Analytics
http://www.google.com/analytics
Free – formerly Urchin. You just need to create or login to a Google account. Great for small to medium-sized businesses that have little or no budget with basic reporting needs.

Omniture SiteCatalyst
http://www.omniture.com
Their clients include: AOL, Apple, eBay, Ford, GM, HP, Sears, Time, Wal-Mart, Aveda, Blockbuster, Microsoft. The best enterprise solution with many customizable features and great reports.

WebSideStory
http://www.websidestory.com
Their clients include: FedEx, BestBuy, AT&T, Warner Bros, Viacom, Bank of America. Used to be the market leader but just hasn’t inovated enough over the past few years. Not bad but 2nd-tier.

Pricing

Most analytics vendors don’t post pricing structures online. You will most likely need to talk to their sales staff to ask about your particular needs, as most solutions are priced based on number of pages monitored and amount of traffic.

But as a rule of thumb, expect the prices to range from as low as $30/month for online monitoring, to as high as several thousand per month. If you go with an installation, expect to pay from under $1,000 to over $5,000, depending on the add-ons you choose. And this doesn’t include ongoing upgrades and hardware costs.

Then there’s Google Analytics which is free and perfect for companies with basic analytics needs. Once you register, you just drop a little bit of code on your web site (easy for developers) and watch the data roll in.

While you’re discussing pricing options with an analytics vendor, be sure to ask about additional services. Many companies offer consulting services, as well, such as software installation, specialized reporting, or strategic consulting to help you get the most out of your new software.

Good luck in your analytics quest and once you start seeing those reports, you’ll be glad you took the plunge!

If you’re familiar with the Sony Ericsson mobile phones, you know that the Sony Ericsson C902 is the newest entry into the Cyber-Shot line of camera phones. The C902 replaces the K850i and has many of the same features. The major differences you will find between the two phones are the size of the screen and the type of flash for the phone. The two phones have similar capabilities although there seem to have been some issues with the Xenon flash that was used with the Sony Ericsson K850i.

Because of the touch screen capabilities of the Sony Ericsson C902, the screen is somewhat smaller than that of the K850i. The additional commands are related to the camera itself and make it easier for users to operate the camera. In fact, the C902 has more camera features than any other mobile phone including the Sony Ericsson K850i. The differences in picture quality depend upon the users—some people feel the quality on the K850i is poor while others rave about the clarity.

Sony Ericsson had problems with the Xenon flash in the Sony Ericsson K850i, so when the Sony Ericsson C902 came on the market, they used an LED flash instead. Though the LED flash is usually a weaker flash than the Xenon, Sony Ericsson’s decision to eliminate it because of a series of problems was indeed a good one. The LED flash that the Sony Ericsson C902 uses is not the regular LED flash and thus is of superior quality. The general consensus is that the flash works very well and the pictures are high quality for a camera phone.

A comparison of the Sony Ericsson K805i and the Sony Ericsson C902 shows that the two cameras phones are quite similar as far as the features themselves. On the other hand, reviews tend to show that the K902 was riddled with many problems including freezing and complete shutdown of the system. Whether these problems were rampant prior to SE’s decision to replace the “K” series with a newer and higher quality Cybershot camera phone is unclear.

Both of these cybershot phones have capabilities beyond that of camera phones, but the music, Bluetooth and other capabilities do not appear to differ between the Sony Ericsson C902 and the Sony Ericsson K805i. The C902 does appear to have more touch screen capabilities as indicated by the smaller screen size. This is most to accommodate the features of the camera, which tends to be more versatile and complex than the average camera phone.

The decision to use one phone over the other is personal indeed, but it’s important to remember that since the C902 replaces the K850i, most people will need to upgrade in order to be relieved of some of the problems that plagued the earlier model. The new “C” series of cybershot camera phones are destined to be the wave of the future and provide more quality service for both phone and camera users.

Having learned several painful lessons after introducing the bulky Macintosh Portable in 1989, Apple turned to industrial designers and adopted a product strategy based in three portable devices.

In Write Room’s default full-screen mode there are no menus, toolbars or ribbons; no extraneous windows inviting me to check e-mail, read RSS feeds, search the Web, rearrange my virtual desktop, or otherwise shirk the task at hand. There’s nothing but green text, a black background and a cursor.Power-Book users enjoy fewer upgrade options than owners of desktop Macs, but you can still buy higher-capacity hard drives for many older models. You can also find CPU upgrades for relatively recent PowerBooks such as the 1400 and early G3 models.

Balancing Distraction and Interruption
My writing tool of choice will surely remain emacs, that faithful companion of two decades and counting. Thanks to Write Room’s built-in support for some of the basic emacs key bindings, I’m immediately productive with the program. As a result, I’m reminded yet again how cruelly oxymoronic the phrase “productivity software” can be.The paradox, of course, is that interruptions are vital, too. They are all required to be interrupt-driven in ways that vary according to the circumstances of our lives and our work. The trick is to find the right balance. Sadly, by inviting us to interrupt ourselves more than necessary, software tends to contribute more to the problem than to the solution.

With the emergence of the Web page as a preferred application style, the pendulum began swinging back toward simplicity. There were only a handful of core widgets to work with, but that constraint turned out to be profoundly liberating. The page refresh model was clunky, to be sure, but its minimalism made applications easy to create and easy to use.

Now with AJAX, the pendulum is swinging back again. As the new generation of so-called rich Internet clients arrives, let’s be careful what kind of richness we wish for. We don’t need Web recreations of the feature-bloated monsters that our office suites became. What we need instead, and what’s starting to appear, is a breed of lightweight single-purpose Web applications for basic tasks: writing, communicating, spread sheeting, charting.

As the reaction to Write Room proves, there is enormous pent-up demand for applications that do one thing well. When the platform for those applications is the service-oriented Web, the office suite can be reinvented as a loosely coupled set of communicating parts. The individual parts can and will grow richer over time, but the new software ecosystem happily lacks the perverse incentives that created the baroque monoliths we’re abandoning.Consider the effects of the graphical user interface. At hospital admitting desks, in accountants’ offices, and at video retail stores, I watch people perform tasks for which the desktop metaphor—with its cluttered surface and overlapping resizable windows—is at best a distraction and at worst an impediment.

Due to increase in demand for many parts in many suppliers find it profitable to sell their products online. The online dealers have their websites, which offer information on the various types of computer parts available for purchase. Whether you want to reviews computer hardware on water-cooling, flat screens, memory modules, video cards, and the latest in gaming and technology news, just go to http://www.dvwarehouse.com they have something you’ll enjoy. It is one stop shop for the Video Editing Solutions, as we aim to provide the widest range of video editing products available nationwide.

They have consistently enjoyed a strong growth year-after-year and offers Used Mac Computers, A great inventory on Apple Parts; plus one of the largest selection of Digital Video Solutions for Broadcasting, Editing and Production work. They also produce a timely, information-packed catalog mailed to your home or office that many consider to be the “ultimate” shopping guide.

Manufacturing Journalist Thomas R. Cutler profiled Warehouse Control Systems in Managing Automation. The article can be read in it’s entirety at http://www.managingautomation.com/maonline/exclusive/read/Commentary_Get_Ready_The_Next_Generation_Warehouse_Management_System_is_Coming_12419073.

There is a significant shift between (Warehouse Management Systems) WMS and WCS (Warehouse Control Systems) in the area of merging local data warehouses into enterprise data warehouses.

This convergence is being caused by:

Technology Advancements: The use of open software, relational databases and componentized applications architectures are enabling WMS vendors to provide real-time data management and interface responsibilities of the material handling system.

Functional Enhancements: The WMS has, over time, taken over more of the work handled by the ERP system, in areas such as inventory control, resource scheduling and order management.

New software tools are also enabling continuous monitoring and work flow functionality, thereby providing the means to efficiently and economically operate a warehouse or distribution center.

Consider the WCS a floor general or a traffic cop. Capturing real-time data such as pick rates and pick efficiencies are more geared toward this type of system than to a generic WMS focused on upper level management data.

QC Software is the leading provider of Tier 1 warehouse control systems to the warehousing and distribution industries. Since 1996, QC Software, utilizing state of the art technology combined with extensive research, development, and rigorous testing, has developed the QC Enterprise suite of products. Designed to be modular in nature, easily configurable, and platform independent, this highly scalable solution satisfies the needs of any size warehouse.
The solutions provided by QC Software (www.qcsoftware.com) enables companies to streamline their warehouse operations with the lowest total cost of ownership in the industry ensuring increased corporate profitability. With a commitment to total customer satisfaction QC Software is the obvious choice for warehouse control, order management, and inventory management needs.

There is a significant shift between (Warehouse Management Systems) WMS and WCS (Warehouse Control Systems) in the area of merging local data warehouses into enterprise data warehouses.

This convergence is being caused by:

Technology Advancements: The use of open software, relational databases and componentized applications architectures are enabling WMS vendors to provide real-time data management and interface responsibilities of the material handling system.

Functional Enhancements: The WMS has, over time, taken over more of the work handled by the ERP system, in areas such as inventory control, resource scheduling and order management.

New software tools are also enabling continuous monitoring and work flow functionality, thereby providing the means to efficiently and economically operate a warehouse or distribution center.

Consider the WCS a floor general or a traffic cop. Capturing real-time data such as pick rates and pick efficiencies are more geared toward this type of system than to a generic WMS focused on upper level management data.

Manufacturing Journalist Thomas R. Cutler profiled Warehouse Control Systems in Managing Automation. The article can be read in it’s entirety at http://www.managingautomation.com/maonline/exclusive/read/Commentary_Get_Ready_The_Next_Generation_Warehouse_Management_System_is_Coming_12419073.

QC Software is the leading provider of Tier 1 warehouse control systems to the warehousing and distribution industries. Since 1996, QC Software, utilizing state of the art technology combined with extensive research, development, and rigorous testing, has developed the QC Enterprise suite of products. Designed to be modular in nature, easily configurable, and platform independent, this highly scalable solution satisfies the needs of any size warehouse.
The solutions provided by QC Software (www.qcsoftware.com) enables companies to streamline their warehouse operations with the lowest total cost of ownership in the industry ensuring increased corporate profitability. With a commitment to total customer satisfaction QC Software is the obvious choice for warehouse control, order management, and inventory management needs.