| Time since I screwed up Production: | [clock] |
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Google Analytics
I've been using Google Analytics on this website since the beginning.
It's an absolutely amazing tool. It allows you to view statistics on site usage from so many different angles. The only thing required is inserting a few lines of javascript on your template (for blogger anyway), and stats are collected.
The dashboard (the main page) allows you to take multiple views of your data and drill down if necessary. It includes a drop-down to select the date range (flash I believe) and also to compare up to 2 metrics at once.
I spend an inordinate amount of time on the site. Any new visitors? How many so far today? What pages are being viewed?
Of course it's not perfect. I'm not sure, other than requiring all users to login, how you can determine the number of unique visitors.
Far and away my favorite view is the one that shows you the distribution by continent, sub continent region, country/territory, or city. Recently they added the ability to drill down as well.
It's definitely cool to see the different people from all over the world who have viewed the site.
Wait, how could I forget? The cost? Free!
Doesn't get any better than that. ¶ 5/14/2008 10:05:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
It's an absolutely amazing tool. It allows you to view statistics on site usage from so many different angles. The only thing required is inserting a few lines of javascript on your template (for blogger anyway), and stats are collected.
The dashboard (the main page) allows you to take multiple views of your data and drill down if necessary. It includes a drop-down to select the date range (flash I believe) and also to compare up to 2 metrics at once.
I spend an inordinate amount of time on the site. Any new visitors? How many so far today? What pages are being viewed?
Of course it's not perfect. I'm not sure, other than requiring all users to login, how you can determine the number of unique visitors.
Far and away my favorite view is the one that shows you the distribution by continent, sub continent region, country/territory, or city. Recently they added the ability to drill down as well.
It's definitely cool to see the different people from all over the world who have viewed the site.
Wait, how could I forget? The cost? Free!
Doesn't get any better than that. ¶ 5/14/2008 10:05:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
Socially Networked Employees Are Better?
Here's one for Jake from AppsLab.
Apparently one person has equated the Social Networking to performance in the [IT] work-place.
I thought it was a pretty good article. I would hope that I am one of the people that others choose to go to, but I'll probably never know.
Apparently one person has equated the Social Networking to performance in the [IT] work-place.
I thought it was a pretty good article. I would hope that I am one of the people that others choose to go to, but I'll probably never know.
Labels: work
¶ 5/14/2008 08:01:00 PM 1 Comments Links to this post
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
ApEx: Oracle Marketing WTF?
At the time of writing, the score is 68 have not used ApEx leaving only 8 who have. Obviously this poll isn't scientific, but it does have to represent a small bit of the community. Perhaps Oracle Mix would be a better place to ask the question?
I guess my followup poll would be why? Why haven't you used it?
Did you not know about it?
If that's the case, then it's definitely an Oracle Marketing WTF.
Did you know about it but just never got around to trying it?
I'm completely dumb(quit snickering)-founded.
I believe the very first time I heard anything about the product was when it was referred to as Marvel (Project Marvel?) on AskTom. Am I the only one who read the site for enjoyment (probably, but it was the only thing I could read at work). That must have been 4 or 5 years ago. I started using it in May of 2005, now three years back.
Yes, Oracle has boatloads of products. I still don't know what the whole Fusion thing is (please don't say middleware, I don't know what that is either).
As someone pointed out in the comment section, it's one of the busiest forums on OTN.
I wonder if John and Dmitri run into this? Probably makes cold calling difficult.
As a [ApEx] community, what can we do to help promote it?
I guess my followup poll would be why? Why haven't you used it?
Did you not know about it?
If that's the case, then it's definitely an Oracle Marketing WTF.
Did you know about it but just never got around to trying it?
I'm completely dumb(quit snickering)-founded.
I believe the very first time I heard anything about the product was when it was referred to as Marvel (Project Marvel?) on AskTom. Am I the only one who read the site for enjoyment (probably, but it was the only thing I could read at work). That must have been 4 or 5 years ago. I started using it in May of 2005, now three years back.
Yes, Oracle has boatloads of products. I still don't know what the whole Fusion thing is (please don't say middleware, I don't know what that is either).
As someone pointed out in the comment section, it's one of the busiest forums on OTN.
I wonder if John and Dmitri run into this? Probably makes cold calling difficult.
As a [ApEx] community, what can we do to help promote it?
Labels: apex, database, oracle, wtf
¶ 5/13/2008 10:01:00 PM 4 Comments Links to this post
Monday, May 12, 2008
ApEx: What is it?
Surprisingly it seems, very few Oracle professionals know about ApEx. At WellCare, no one knew about it. Many others I have talked to have no idea what it is.
How can this be?
I'm hard-pressed to believe I am an early adopter. I like to think of myself as such, but perception and reality are two totally different things.
In a nutshell, ApEx (or Application Express, aka HTMLDB) is a rapid application tool that allows you to quickly build web based applications on top of an Oracle database. If I remember correctly, it was initially billed as the Microsoft Access killer.
It is also the front end for Oracle XE.
I've personally built 3 (professional, i.e. paid for) ApEx applications. One for my former day job with 350 pages (1.5 years to build and maintain), one for my fellow baseball alumni at the University of Florida, and one for my now defunct business, CABEZE.
I believe the question I get most often is: "Can you format it?"
Which I take to mean can you make it pretty or design it anyway you want?
The answer to that is a resounding "Yes!"
So, what follows is a list of ApEx applications for you to evaluate on style and design (borrowed from the unofficial ApEx wiki housed at shellprompt):
In summary, you can do with ApEx what you can do with any other web tool/environment. Want AJAX? Done. CSS? Done.
You're only limited by your imagination.
(Polls are fun...I'll stop apologizing for it soon)
How can this be?
I'm hard-pressed to believe I am an early adopter. I like to think of myself as such, but perception and reality are two totally different things.
In a nutshell, ApEx (or Application Express, aka HTMLDB) is a rapid application tool that allows you to quickly build web based applications on top of an Oracle database. If I remember correctly, it was initially billed as the Microsoft Access killer.
It is also the front end for Oracle XE.
I've personally built 3 (professional, i.e. paid for) ApEx applications. One for my former day job with 350 pages (1.5 years to build and maintain), one for my fellow baseball alumni at the University of Florida, and one for my now defunct business, CABEZE.
I believe the question I get most often is: "Can you format it?"
Which I take to mean can you make it pretty or design it anyway you want?
The answer to that is a resounding "Yes!"
So, what follows is a list of ApEx applications for you to evaluate on style and design (borrowed from the unofficial ApEx wiki housed at shellprompt):
- Dance Tunes - arguably the best designed ApEx application out there.
- AskTom - We all know, or should know, this site. 40,000 page hits a day on a 4 CPU box.
- Metalink - In my opinion not the best implementation of ApEx, but it's a busy site.
- Shellprompt - host your applications here for a very reasonable price.
- View other examples here
In summary, you can do with ApEx what you can do with any other web tool/environment. Want AJAX? Done. CSS? Done.
You're only limited by your imagination.
(Polls are fun...I'll stop apologizing for it soon)
Labels: apex, development, oracle
¶ 5/12/2008 07:34:00 PM 12 Comments Links to this post
