Well, since the acquisition of Measure Map over 12 months ago, it seems the UI team has been working over time on this one. Analytics 2.0, for want of a better expression, appears a major improvement on the original and allows major customisation over the interface allowing you to create views that apply to your business and market. With ‘flexible graphing tool’ allowing you to compare trends over different time periods, reporting appears vastly superior and with increased integration with adwords this looks as though it will be a valuable tool to website owners and marketeers.

A feature that was lacking though, something that PulseRSS has made available, is web stats through RSS; I covered this briefly here but I for one am hoping they have made this valuable feature available.

It seem Google has learnt from the original massive demand for Analytics when originally released though and will be rolling Analytics ‘2.0′ out over the next month to everyone. So if you haven’t had the upgrade yet, in the mean time, check out the feature tour for more information.

Personally my major gripe with Analytics over the last 18 months has been the slow or patchy updating of ‘my’ data. Providing the speed issue has been addressed though then Google really could have another corner of the web covered.

Pulse is a hosted web app that gives you the basic of statistics for your website available as a RSS feed or through their site. Simply sign up and add the JavaScript to the footer of your site’s (x)html to start tracking visits, incoming links and search keywords. Then log in and subscribe to the RSS feed using your favourite reader and check out the stats while reading the headlines and drinking your morning coffee.

With the data available in xml format too, I am just waiting for someone to develop a Wordpress plugin. Stats available in your dashboard would be very handy.

Best of all though….. its FREE and with more features to come it can only become more useful.

USB2 had turned back into USB1, I was getting read / write errors all the time and little messages about software I had never heard of. Sick to the back teeth of searching for adware or virus scanning I had to give in. Trouble is I had about 20 DVD’s of backups (general non vital stuff) to do first, but with a Saturday and Sunday spare I wrote off my weekend!!

I am now finally up and running again (must get another external HD) with the only significant issue is a load of documents I had encrypted and forgot to decrypt before the change.

Well worth the agro though, its like having a new PC and finally the nightmare ’s over (until about this time next year when Windows dies again)! I think the Mac fan boys might be finally winning me round to the dark side. Mmm OSX…….

With the screen mysteriously dying on my w800i, I decided was forced to upgrade early. It turns out not to be a bad thing and can honestly say I am really impressed with the K800i. The camera is first class, the ui quick and well designed and the hit on size and weight I have taken compared to the w800 is bearable. This truly is the first 3G phone that I would consider having after all the bricks I have seen my friends with.

I digress though…. naturally Vodafone UK doesn’t really push email on the K800i, presumably due to larger margins on their MMS messaging or whatever Vodafone Live options they are trying encourage you to use. The K800i does have a very usable email client though, which is more than can be said about the standard web browser, and is just waiting to be utilised. After a lot of trial and error, reading and re-reading of conflicting forum posts, I have now got my K800i working with Gmail.

I am not certain but I would expect these settings to work with most of the current generations of Sony Erriccson handsets and could be quite easilty adapted to most new mobiles with email.

1. First up, log into Gmail / Googlemail and enable POP for your account. Click on ‘settings’ in the top right hand corner and click on the ‘Forwarding and POP’ tab. I would recommend selecting ‘Enable POP only for mail that arrives from now on’.
2. To send Mail using Gmail you need to download and install two certificates. Equifax_Secure_Certificate_Authority.cer and ThawtePremiumServerCA.cer, these can be downloaded from here. To install either send them to the phone using Bluetooth or the supplied cable and S E File Manager software. For the latter, connect the phone to the PC, keep it in phone mode, open File Manager and drop the file individually on the icon and follow the on screen (phone) instructions.
3. Navigate to Messaging\Email\Settings on your K800i and create a new account called ‘Gmail’ -though this can be called anything.
4. Edit the account and alter or confirm the following options:

   • Connect Using : Contract Internet
   • Email Address : (Your full Gmail or Google Mail email address)
   • Connection Type : POP3
   • Incoming Mail Server : pop.gmail.com
   • Username : (Your full Gmail or Google Mail email address)
   • Password : (Your full Gmail or Google Mail password)
   • Outgoing Mail Server : smtp.gmail.com
5. Select Advanced settings and alter or confirm the following options:
   • Download S+R : Subjects only
   • Encryption – Incoming Server :SSLOutgoing Server :TLS
   • Outgoing Username :(Your full Gmail or Google Mail email address)
   • Outgoing Password : (Your full Gmail or Google Mail password)
   • Icoming Port : 995
   • Outgoing Port : 587
6. That’s it you are done! Try sending and receiving to download your messages and then sending a couple of test emails.

Including the obligatory web 2.0 revenue model centred around different subscription plans will keep the investors happy; these range from ‘free’ (5000 visits a month and two pages tracked) up to pro for 250,000 visits and unlimited number of pages tracked. Based on the price plans available, it will be interesting to see how popular this service will becomes and / or how soon one of the big search engines eats them up. My personal gut feeling is that Google will probably be prime suitors and snap them up to integrate them into their existing stats services like Google Analytics and Measure Map.

Combined with a first class statistics package like Mint, I firmly believe this sort of usability testing will become as valuable to site owners / designers as SEO in the future if it isn’t already now. Take a look at Crazy Egg and see for yourself, it can show up some surprising results!

(5:00AM PST): Digg temporarily down while we switch over to Digg v3.0.
(6:10AM PST): Digg v3 is live.
(6:20AM PST): Demand is so high we’re adding more machines.
(7:50AM PST): We are making a run to bestbuy to pick up some more servers (kidding). Seriously though: We are seeing much higher activity than we normally do, so bear with us as we turn on additional machines and tweak the site throughout the day.

While not quite as much a revolution in the design as v2, v3 certainly benefits from the expansion of various different topics such as ‘Science’, ‘Entertainment’ and ‘World & Business’. Adding the ability to sort the stories based on popularity such as top stories this year also expands the feature set.

With sites like Newsvine and Netscape building on Digg’s features and I feel like Kevin Rose, Jay Adelson and the team behind Digg are realising the potential threat of competition that increases each day.

Though topic expansion has no doubt been on the cards for a while, Digg has begun grow its service no doubt feeling sure that they have the basic site refined enough to cope with the growth into other subject areas. Naturally as the success of Digg increases so the attraction and financial benefit of rigging the system will increase proportionally. On the back of VC funding back in October, no doubt much of the work has gone on the backend, putting the infrastructure in place to cope with the growing click fraud Digg appears to have been suffering from. With all that at stake lets hope that in the time they have taken to expand into these areas they have done everything they can to minimise the possible effect this may have on genuine news articles. Good luck guys.

For those that don’t know, Box.net offers 1GB of free online storage or for just $4.99 per month you can have up to 5GB. Seriously cheap storage so where’s they catch? Well there doesn’t seem to be one. I have used the service now for a fair few months both in professional capacity upgrading and troubleshooting systems (it’s much handier than a USB key when working remotely!) and from a personal point of view sharing files with friends and family. In this time I have only found the site to be unavailable once which was for pre-planned maintenance and both download and upload speeds have generally been good.

This isn’t the first online storage to become available but what they do, they do very well. Since the much needed re-design Box.net now has the interface and feel that compliments this reliable file storage service. What it lacks is the killer app to convince people of this valuable service which might not be immediately apparent….. fortunately this isn’t too far away!

I have been privileged to get my hands on a couple of early pre-releases of the ‘Box.net Desktop’, a small app that enables you to backup files to your account. Sitting fairly unobtrusively in the task bar the ‘Desktop’ can be scheduled to backup or ‘sync’ certain files or folders, acting as an automatic off site backup system.

The application also acts as an extension of the Box.net site in the form of a quick uploader that, as you can set it to load on start up, is always logged in and doesn’t require you open a browser to upload or share a file. Further the ability to check your capacity and access your account at the quick click of a button gives additional value to this little app.

Most importantly for this excellent service is how reliable the backup app seems even at this beta stage. This latest version is yet to crash through normal everyday use and the peace of mind with critical files stored offsite and accessible at any internet connection is invaluable.

While the ‘Desktop’ app is not finished yet, and no confirmed release date, it’s unlikely to be far off with this current feature set. With intuitive design, backing up turns into a 3 click process of adding a ‘sync’, selecting the folder and clicking ok to be safe in the knowledge it will be stored reliably offsite.

While well designed and easy to use, the system is still has the odd bug and UI issue though. For instance on booting, the app opens and requires you to close the window even when there is no other requirement for user intervention. Further there doesn’t seem to be a way to remove old ‘syncs’ that you have set up, only to alter what is being backed up. Perhaps most importantly is the upload speeds I am receiving, though passable as a backup running in the background, the speeds are significantly slower than when uploading through the website. These are relatively small issues though and hopefully will be simple to fix.

Essentially this ‘Desktop’ add-on for Box.net makes an already excellent and popular service quite simply priceless. Full credit should go to Aaron Levie and the team for the work they have done making this service as accessible as they have. If Box.net doesn’t already own the online file storage market upon release of this app they soon will.

The second has the previously announced and more respectable, 60GB hard disk and will also offer Wi-Fi functionality. The ‘premium’ model will also offer slots for memory sticks, SD cards and compact flash cards and have a more extensive range of ports. Though less than expected and demo’d at last years E3, the ‘premium’ PS3 will have one HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) port, 4 USB and one Ethernet ports. Clearly this is the model to go for when considering linking up to your brand spanking new High Def TV, HDMI offers considerably more bandwidth with its uncompressed digital signal than more traditional cables, though the omission of a second port is a disappointment.

It appears Sony has bowed to the negative opinion and the rumours about a redesign of the ‘boomerang’ controller are actually true. The controller now more resembles the current PS2 controller with actual triggers as the R2 and L2 buttons and will connect to the system using Bluetooth. The biggest interest will be in the motion sensors introduced to the controller in place of the rumble packs found in the PS2 pads. According to GamesIndustry.biz,

” The controller will sport a ’six-axis sensing system’ according to Sony – three for roll, pitch and yaw, and three for 3 dimension acceleration information along the X, Y and Z axes.”

Pricing has been announced as $499 / Euro 499 (c. £342 at current exchange rates) for the 20GB model and $599 / Euro 599 (c. £411) for the 60GB premium PS3. Realistically here in the UK we are gonna be looking at £349 for the basic model and £419 for the 60GB though that sub £400 barrier would be ideal. While this appears a lot of money for a games console, (its likely to be at least twice the price of the Nintendo Wii (Revolution) and over £100 more than the Xbox 360)  lets not forget we are getting a Blu-Ray drive with both systems.

The system will be launched in Japan on November 11th 2006, closely followed by a simultaneous US and Europe launch on November 17th (Still in the launch window so still a simultaneous world-wide launch, eh? J Allard?).

Though the E3 Keynote speech by Sony appeared rushed, badly organised and left many viewers feeling a little cold, this has certainly got me excited. The thought of Metal Gear 4, GT4, GTA 4 and Heavenly Sword, honestly has me salivating. Regardless of the price – it be will worth the wait!

Check out the MGS 4 preview here.