http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=32608&hl=en
Finally, Google acknowledges that even with constantly growing storage, there are e-mails that are obviously not worth keeping, and we can now delete them easily.
Thank you!
Tools
7
Jan 06
Google’s Pack
Google’s just given me an extra 6 months of Norton, so I gladly installed the Google Pack, since most of its contents were already on my computers. The more puzzling is the screen saver – unless I’m mistaken, there isn’t anything here that’s earth shattering. I wish for a strong integration with Picasa.
20
Dec 05
Another Google free proxy – Google Hack
Bigthisle comments on how to use Google’s translation service as a free proxy: Google free proxy!
Another method is to use Google’s mobile phone gateway and compressor. The page format is lost, but the content maintained:
http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=www.oreilly.com
(insert your own URL after the u parameter)
See Bigthisles’ post on Google Mobile:
http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/h/4807
22
Nov 05
Google Analytics, and others
For once, let’s talk about the usual application of the term “web analytics”: the analysis of web site traffic data. If the web site you’re analyzing is your own, and you have access to its traffic data, understanding how your site is used and visited is essential. Since this is turning into a platitude, and the topic is exhaustively documented, here are the two most appealing tool options for this task:
- The newly released Google Analytics, which is the best of the freely available tools. Google Analytics has a lot of depth out of the virtual box. This site is now tracked by Google Analytics
- Analog, which is included by some hosting services, but is the best free choice for those who control their own server and/or have direct access to the server log files. Analog is also more customizable.
20
Oct 05
PDA Testing
PDA Browser Spoofing
One effective technique for basic PDA smoke testing is to use browser spoofing, in effect making a desktop browser lie about its identity to the server and thereby requesting a PDA version of a page.
Spoofing Advantages & Disadvantages
Spoofing is useful to look at pages and track basic functionality, but it is not subsitute for device or emulator testing, becaus spoofing will not necessarily render the page as intended for the target device.
On the other hand, spoofing has its advantages:
- Allows a tester to make sure a PDA version of a page is present on a test server (since PDAs can’t usually access the internal network)
- Allows easy screenshot capture (when the problem is not a rendering issue)
- Much faster to go through a set of links
- Can test server scripts rapidly, ensuring that the right versions of pages get shown
How to spoof using Firefox
- Get Mozilla Firefox.
- Firefox can be enhanced by extensions (read more about it). In Firefox, go to this page to install the extension “user agent switcher” – http://www.chrispederick.com/work/firefox/useragentswitcher/
- (note: the same developer has also created a “Web Developer Extension”, which I highly recommend). Once you restart the browser, user agent switcher is available as a menu item under “tools”.
- You can now add specific user agent strings in the Options. The user agent string is the text that the browser passes to a Web server to identify itself
20
Oct 05
What color is this?
Many hours are lost by the analyst trying to figure out what color(s) is used in a Web site. To simplify this task, I recommend two different tools:
- Colorzilla, a Firefox extension which places a color picker in the status bar, and helps determine the color of any item in a Web page in Firefox.
- Cpick, an amazing freestanding utility that allows the same for anything on your screen.
29
Sep 05
Firefox for Analysis
This is a little bit of a foundational post, but one crucial tool of the web analyst is firefox. Several of the tools referenced here require firefox, so get firefox now!
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is also foundational, but the assumption is that you already use it. It is also extensible, but few have bothered to create free useful tools for Web analysts.
13
Sep 05
Can you recommend a good text/code editor?
There are many fine free text/code editors out there. I recommend “Crimson Editor,” which is a richly featured tool to view code and edit it.
Update: after some additional research, I also recommend PSPad.
With this Windows tweak, you can use your new favorite tool as the viewer for “View Source” in Internet explorer.
6
Sep 05
Sorry, I can’t open your PSD/Photoshop file – Irfanview
How many times do you hear that somebody can’t view a Photoshop file because they don’t have Photoshop installed?
The solution is Irfanview, a freeware graphics viewer. Have them install it, and they’ll be able to take a quick peek at the file (but not manipulate it).
5
Sep 05
What is in my site?
A frequent question the web analyst has to answer is “what is in my site?” If you have access to the developer or the site’s server, you can easily create an outline of the site’s content.
Often, however, you’ll be limited to analyzing the site from a visitor’s standpoint. That’s where spider software comes in.
There are many good spiders available, but the most reliable and helpful is “Xenu Link Sleuth.” Despite the odd name, Xenu is a solid tool that spiders the whole site and creates useful reports for site structure and errors.
Tip: the report in HTML can take a long time to write and load in a browser (for large sites). I usually skip this step, and export as csv instead. Then I manipulate the csv results in Excel.