endtwist

Compared with CrazyEgg and ClickTale, I think the prices are actually very affordable.

CrazyEgg, while great for click analytics, does not offer scroll or form analytics.

On the other hand, ClickTale does, but they price by Page Views (individual pages), not Sessions (all pages browsed by a single visitor). If you do the math (assume 2 pages/visitor @ 20,000 page views for $99/month is equal to only 10,000 sessions), ClickTale is actually more expensive.

Of course, I'll have to let my potential customers decide the pricing, but I tried to choose prices that fit within the current market.

The form metrics feature was, in fact, based on feedback. I had some very basic form analytics in Tapefailure, but got a number of requests asking for more. I gave it a lot of consideration and came up with the current version as my initial solution.

Sorry about that. I'm having a few minor problems that didn't pop up during testing; nothing that can't be fixed with a process restart, but will be fixed.

Just to give you all a little background: This business originally started under another name, Tapefailure, but unfortunately, I had to shut it down due to major problems with the way the analytics were condensed (PHP caused major problems). However, I was determined not to let this idea go...

So, I've spent over a year re-planning and redeveloping the entire thing from scratch. This service will analyze everything from where users click, to where they pay attention when scrolling. It takes the concept of sites like UserFly one step further and breaks down the data for you.

I just launched today, so please let me know what you think.

Or methanol (under the right circumstances): "Pure alcohols burn with a nearly invisible flame in daylight." (http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/transportation/alcohols.html)

Which was done in (yeah, I know) an episode of CSI:Miami: http://csimiami.wetpaint.com/page/207:Grand+Prix

Though, of course, hydrogen is far more exciting.

While you have a legitimate opinion, I would like to make the counter-argument:

Why allow an ISP to force one service or website to pay for "enhanced" access, while another service gets a free pass?

If you run a website, you are already paying for your bandwidth to your ISP and the customer of the ISP on the other end is already paying for their bandwidth. By throttling websites until they pay for "enhanced" access to customers, the ISPs would be getting paid twice for the bandwidth.

The consumer ISPs could then charge exorbitant rates -- should they so choose -- to companies (such as Google and Microsoft) if they want their website(s) un-throttled. Meanwhile, the ISP could run their own "competing" service, pay nothing, and make a run at unfairly overtaking another service (for their group of customers) because the other service couldn't/wouldn't pay up.

Doesn't seem quite so fair to me.

Also: "Areas where less than 50 percent of households have no access to broadband will be considered underserved and eligible for grants."

Perhaps it's just me, but it seems there is an extra "no" in there?

I personally don't mind the full number pad; it comes in handy when entering a set of numbers. However, if you're on Windows, you can also use the number pad as a way to control your cursor: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Use-Mousekeys---Move-...

It isn't exactly a trackpad, but it works.

I have a lot of experience with motion-recording web apps like this (built one and launched it a couple years back, and it worked exactly as this one does). Rendering issues can become a major problem with some pages, as well as things like Javascript executing "on page load" (while the recording has already started playing), or an element changing size/position, that can throw off an entire recording.

This is not to mention the fact that if you change the page (unless Clixpy has some provision for this), your old recordings are entirely useless.

With regards to accuracy, ignoring the aforementioned problems: a script like this can be fairly accurate, and the actual "recording technology" behind this is fairly simple (albeit still interesting). The data can be useful, provided you enjoy wading through many, many very unhelpful recordings.

The real challenge, and what I believe is more useful, is extracting and distilling the data into heatmaps, graphs, and the like. This would provide someone with more of an overview based on the recoded data (think CrazyEgg, but even more in depth). This is something which I am working to solve, as is -- as someone else mentioned -- ClickTale.

Regardless, I commend Clixpy for diving into this space.

That is exactly what it should say in the large blue text at the top of the page, instead of the vague sentence that is currently there. ("Tonido is an open personal web application platform that runs on your desktop which safeguards your privacy and online freedom")

I see freesound.org as #1 on Bing. I'll be honest, though, the first two pages of results on Bing look as good -- or better -- than Google's results.

Disclosure: I go to WashU, but I don't know too much about UMich outside of what I've heard from friends.

grandalf: I don't think you give a WashU a fair shake describing it as "if your parent(s) make under $400K you'll feel poor there."

Sure, there is a significant number of students whom do have quite a bit of money and you will surely know it. However, the majority of students are very down-to-earth and there are many students who are not wealthy that feel perfectly at home there, and don't feel excluded or "poor." There are numerous students I know of receiving financial aid, and they blend right in along with everyone else.

It's noticeably a "private" school, but I wouldn't call it a "boutique" school. UMich, of course, is much larger in scale being a public school, whereas WashU is a fraction of the size.

Despite the fact that most students at the school are fairly motivated, it is still very possible to stand out through hard work, or by doing something unique with your skills. The engineering school is fantastic (I am an art student myself, but most of my friends are either engineers or med students), but the sports at the school lacks. The teams aren't terrible, but they aren't very good -- if you must have sports, that's where UMich shines.

The dorm situation, if you haven't seen it, is very nice. The "South 40" is where all the major housing is (especially for Freshman and Sophomores), and they are actually building some brand-new housing for next year (they took out some of the older housing). The community aspect within the South 40 is great, lots of events held by RAs, student groups, etc.

As well, in your Junior and Senior years, you can live in "The Village", some of the school-owned apartments, or off-campus (there are lots of apartments and houses for rent within walking distance to the school). All are great living arrangements, though cost differs widely between them.

Both of the schools, as grandalf concluded, are great and either one makes for a fantastic choice. The major differences are the scale, weather, and "rah-rah"ness of the school.

I like the simplicity of the concept, however, it would be very helpful to provide a Javascript widget (a la UserVoice). As well, having the ability for the user to choose (or change) the given URL to be more readable would be a plus.

After looking into HAML again (I've looked at it before, and I'll admit, I clearly missed the point), I'll concede.

It does make HTML look significantly cleaner since it seems to run along the same general concept as Python (indents are blocks), and that is something I can support.

I'll be looking into giving it a try next time I have a good chance to...I appreciate the explanation.

Oh please. The time you spend learning HAML or Markdown (and all their potential intricacies) could be better spent learning to write clean HTML. I'm sure that both of those "alternatives" have their own quirks that must be worked around, not to mention the fact that you don't know exactly what HTML the parsers will spit out (yes, you can learn the output, I suppose, but why?).

I can see these tools being useful in certain circumstances, such as a way to provide HTML-esque markup somewhere where you don't want to bother cleaning up someone else's potentially malicious HTML (a wiki, a comment form, etc.). However, for building actual websites, just do it the right way.

Sure, these alternatives are nice in that you can avoid the scary HTML, but in the end it is all HTML anyway -- so why not learn it from the start and produce better code than what a parser will spit out based on your abstraction?

Whoops, didn't see that one! Sorry.

Out of curiosity, what individual problems did you run into with TurboGears, web.py, and Pylons that caused them to "fail the test?"

I'm a student (and an art student, at that, which requires a lot of physical presence, if not always mental), and it definitely requires a bit of effort to avoid burnout. I go to class during the day, and work for most of my evenings: wash, rinse, repeat.

How do I avoid burning out, then? Many breaks of a medium duration (2 - 5 hours every few days, generally, with much shorter breaks in the interim) -- go out with friends, go to dinner, see a movie, nearly anything will do. If I'm feeling particularly unmotivated or tired one day, I'll reduce my to-do list for the day and shift the extra stuff to the next day or two.

Even if you think you can just keep going and going without any sort of side effects, you're fooling yourself. Everyone needs breaks, otherwise, at some point, you lose either your determination, will, or sanity.

Whatever you do, do not punish him for this. While what he did was not right (though your use of "hacking" here is very broad), instead of telling him how wrong it was, simply try to push him in a more positive direction. My suggestion would be to ask him to work on some sort of project for or with you, perhaps even get him involved in something small and open source. Starting a website may even push him in the right direction.

An alternative would be to talk to the school and see if they could give him some sort of credit for helping administer the network, or work on a special project for the school.

To give you an anecdote: in high school (and this was only a few years ago), me and my friends consistently were cracking passwords and breaking into various parts of our school's network. We never did anything harmful, nor did we ever cheat, but we did it for the fun and the challenge. One day, we happened to find a file containing all the passwords to every user on the network -- teachers, guidance counselors, and principal included -- and we turned it into the principal. Instead of telling us we were wrong for "hacking the network" and questioning us, he thanked us profusely and got the file deleted from the network. No punishment.

In middle school, however, I got in minor trouble for "hacking" by using proxies to skirt around the school's filtering system. The "techs" in the computer lab quite literally pulled me out of class and angrily questioned me, telling me how I was wrong and what I did was bad. What happened? I continued doing it, and just made sure not to be caught.

My point is that telling him he is wrong will not stop him, and he will likely continue what he is doing because it stimulates him and he finds it exciting. By nurturing that excitement and funneling it into something constructive, such as an alternative project, he will learn what the better avenues are and likely forget about "hacking"/cracking almost (if not) completely.

You're completely missing the point. There is a huge difference between illegal and dishonest. As far as I know, yes, it isn't illegal to pay for a published review but it surely is a dishonest business practice.

At the very minimum, this website is probably deceiving their readers by publishing these so-called "positive" reviews.

Oh please. His main complaint is that Craigslist isn't "doing more."

Why should it? Do the users like it as is? Yes (with some exceptions, of course). Then they don't have to do more.

If someone thinks they can do better, no one is stopping them. This is a really weak argument.

Perhaps I'm missing something important here, but how are these companies (Facebook, Twitter, et al) being valued? I know there is "potential" value here, but who comes up with the actual numbers?

Washington University in St. Louis

I'm not trying to moralize against anyone, nor am I trying to sound like I am in any way more "right" than someone who cannot afford to simplify as much. I only stated that the quality of these items these stores sell is generally terrible. You are entirely correct in your statement that places like Wal-Mart bridge a gap or present a temporary standby until someone can afford to "upgrade" and simplify.

As it stands, I'm likely going to be buying Ikea-produced furniture next year because I need to furnish an apartment cheaply, and I will only be keeping it for a couple years. I don't have the money or the means to buy furniture that will last me a long time at this point...but that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about what I am doing. I still am aiming to buy as little furniture as is necessary, and avoiding anything I can do without or simply don't need.

Yes, the idea is simplistic, but that is the point: if you can reduce and purchase quality then you should, and if you can't, at least have an awareness (and perhaps simplify another aspect of your life). I'm at a point where I can do both, but understandably, not everyone can do that.

It's all about reducing as much as you can, within your current circumstances. I'm not trying to say that you need to buy that $100 knife now, but in that case, perhaps you could do with one or two less forks (this isn't a literal example, mind you). Less waste and less worry, without entirely sacrificing comfort.

Though this article isn't all that well written, it brings up what seems to be a (very good) trend lately: people exploring the idea of living with less.

I'm only a college student right now, and already have limited expenses, but I've been exploring the idea of reducing the amount of things I own; a more minimalist lifestyle. I've realized something that Jelliffe points out towards the end of his article:

"Simplicity is great if it is coupled with quality household goods, but terrible with commodity goods that bust all the time."

Most items you can get at Wal-Mart, Target, or any major chain store are not well made...and, well, crap. Yes, the nicer things are more expensive and more difficult to find, but they are worth it. Which makes more sense: owning one quality $100 knife for 30+ years, or going through 10 $20 knives over the course of 30 years?

That's just the beginning of living simpler, though. It isn't just about replacing your stuff with better stuff, but about reducing the overall amount of stuff you own. Do you really need X, Y, and Z, or can you do without Y and Z?

Relating this to my own experience, I like to see it as an interesting challenge. Since I fly back and forth from my school (and I don't own a car), everything I own has to be packed away in a storage unit at the end of the school year. Therefore, the less I own, the less I have to store, and the better off I am. I've been working to get rid of a lot of things I don't need (how much clothing do I really need? Electronics? Trinkets?) and avoiding buying new things. The major advantage this has is that it frees up a lot of money to spend on things I really want to do, such as a trip to Japan I have planned for this summer.

I wish this idea would go more mainstream, though, as I think the whole US could do with a little downsizing. Perhaps this current economy will help push us in that direction?

I have a lot of experience with considering the tradeoffs necessary to do click analysis on a decently large scale (and the results of that will be shown, provided I can finish VisTrac).

Analysis and collection presents a very interesting problem, given the mass of data being collected. Determining how much depth will be provided and how/when to aggregate is really important. I'm not advocating premature optimization, but this stuff requires a lot of structural consideration.

The biggest hangup I've come across is filtering data by things like location/browser, and similar, as they would require aggregating data in many permutations...at least, as far as I've found. In the long run though, it seems that those levels of granularity aren't as important as they might seem and can often be dropped (as it will be, to an extent, in my case).

(Random side-note : I'm potentially looking for a second brain to work on VisTrac with, as I haven't found one yet.)

I want to live my life, not just exist within it.

I hate to sound like wet blanket, but from my personal experience, browsing sessions by themselves aren't all that useful in learning about your users. Over the past few years, I've worked a lot with recording browsing sessions (I was the creator of Tapefailure, and now VisTrac.com, which is a work-in-progress).

The main issue is that the sessions aren't focused (you don't know about the goal of the user) and watching tens/hundreds/thousands of recordings to get an idea of what users are or aren't doing on your website is simply impractical.

What, I believe, is really important is summarized data; taking the data and boiling it down to more specific bits of information about how the users are browsing: What are they doing on the page? How long does it take them? Collectively, what is and isn't being focused on? What about how users interact with forms?

These are just some very broad examples, but there are many ways in which you can distill the recorded data, and I find those to be far more insightful than the browsing sessions themselves (look at some of what ClickTale is doing).

There is a lot that can be done in this field (otherwise I wouldn't be working in it myself), but I think recording user sessions is only the very least of it.

Despite my reservations, I'd love to have a chance to further discuss your plans. What would be the easiest way for me to get directly in touch with you? (My email is available via the "Questions? Comments? Contact." link on VisTrac.com)

Looks like it isn't "officially" released as the main site hasn't yet been updated, but it probably will be soon.

I have to say, though, of all the web frameworks for python, I particularly like this one for its simplicity (and it's released as public domain, to boot).

Erm...too late to edit it now, but that should have read POP3. Yeesh.

While in all likelihood, this was done for cost-cutting purposes (as the article states), I actually like the idea.

I'm a college student myself, and while I have an email address with the school, I just have all my mail forwarded from that account (which uses the awful Outlook Web interface and doesn't offer PHP3 or IMAP) to my GMail account. It's considerably more convenient.

Some people will probably disagree with me, but even if more colleges just offered the option to make your account either a full account or simply a forwarding address (as opposed to just forwarding mail from the mailbox, as my account does), it would be worthwhile.