For those of you that work somewhere that relies on the interweb for its sales or primary source of income there are few things more important than analytics. The ability to measure your marketing efforts is unparallel in today's economy and a lot easier than you think.

If you are not tracking analytics or measuring the impact of your campaigns the first thing you need to do is read this article. Then you need to learn everything you can about analytics, then come back to this once you are sufficiently frothing at the mouth for the power of analytics.

Have you ever launched a campaign and were so eager to see the results that you lost sleep that night waiting for the results to start coming in the next day? Have you ever wanted to be able to make changes to your campaigns on the fly and see if they make an impact in real time?

Well, with Woopra, these are now a reality. In plain English Woopra is awesome because it takes the power of analytics and makes them real-time. You can literally watch what people are doing on your site, where they are going, what they are clicking on and where they came from, what OS and browser they are using, their screen resolution and many, many more things all as it's happening. It is truly an amazing tool for any marketer, or anyone with a website for that matter, because it's pretty fun to watch as well.

I highly recommend that you sign-up for an account and test it out for yourself. If you work in a marketing department, show it to your boss as soon as possible then sit back and bask in the warm glow of all the praise that will come your way.

What is Woopra?
Woopra is the world’s most comprehensive, information rich, easy to use, real-time Web tracking and analysis application. And it’s free!

Woopra delivers the richest library of visitor statistics in the industry, and does it within an unmatched user interface designed to be aesthetically pleasing as well as highly intuitive. But Woopra is more than simply statistics.

Our client application is built as a framework for expansion, complete with an open API, plugin capability, and a wide range of additional feature / functionality currently being readied for deployment.

I have been using woopra for about a year now since @ccalilewis mentioned it in her geek brief show and I instantly fell in love with it. Some of Woopra's features include:

Live Tracking and Web Statistics

Woopra’s revolutionary server architecture, combined with its intuitively designed client software, enables seamless tracking of visitors. Webmasters can track over 40 different statistical events and analytics. Never before has so much information been instantaneously available to Webmasters.

Most analytical and site statistics are updated once a day at the least, or several times during the day. With Woopra, you get live track of visitors coming and going and moving through your site. You get the stats now.

Rich User Interface

Woopra’s interface was designed to display information clearly and efficiently, without upsetting the balance between design and function. Links to data and various pageviews are easily recognized and accessed. As the program runs on your computer, there is no delays in the response time as comes with web-based programs.

Woopra’s interface is designed to be flexible, with plans for future development of various color schemes and themes. The information is at your finger tips to access a wealth of statistics and data about your site and visitors.

Real-Time Analytics

Woopra redefines Web Analytics by enabling instantaneous information transfer combined with the ability to immediately act on each action. Woopra changes website management discussions from “how should we change things in the future” to “what should we do right now?

Webmasters can respond faster to sudden influxes in traffic and help monitor trends in search and traffic patterns. Woopra helps web owners generate content based upon customer needs and trends now, not after the fact.

Manage Multiple Blogs and Websites

Woopra creates a one-stop service for monitoring all your blogs and websites. Through the quick site tabs at the top of the Woopra panel, you have one-click access to your registered blogs.

Deep Analytic and Search Capabilities

Woopra breaks the Web statistics mold by allowing lightning quick search functionality along any data point in the system. What information do you need to help you manage and develop your site? Specific user names, IP addresses, geographic locations, user browsing data, visitor history, visitor paths, arrival and departure points – what do you want to know?

The data is searchable. Using the Search panel, you can reach into the data to find specific information about your site’s visitors, learning more about your site’s demographics and loyal readers. Woopra simply digs deeper.

Click-to-Chat

Woopra enables websites with both “proactive” and “reactive” chat functionality. Webmasters can remotely initiate sessions with visitors, or embed “Click-to-Chat” buttons within a site to accept inbound requests. This breaks the virtual wall between visitor and webmaster. Customer service sites could offer personal service directly through the Woopra interface, with no installation of software by the visitor. Woopra breaks down the barriers of the static web.

We would love your feedback on your experience with Woopra or other analytics programs that you use.

Climate change is one of the most serious issues facing contemporary society and is rapidly taking center stage as a global concern. CU-Boulder is a leader in energy and climate change research and environmental stewardship and is, thus, eniquely positioned to provide leadership in addressing this issue at a local level.

To address climate change in Colorado, CU-Boulder partnered with Landlocked Films and Sovereign Pictures to create a series of educational videos that would help demystify the science behind climate change. These videos will be broadcasted, one per week, in the fall of 2009.

Our job was to create a website to support this important initiative by delivering the videos, news and other resources in an accessible online format. To view our work (and to learn more about climate change) please visit: http://learnmoreaboutclimate.colorado.edu

The benefits of using a rewrite engine include:

• Making website URLs more memorable to users
• Making website URLs more relevant to search engines
• Masking the inner workings of the site by hiding file extensions

I ran into an issue the other day where I needed to run a legacy application that was being protected by basic .htaccess authentication. The legacy application was located in a subdirectory.

Typically, you would just add the following line of code to your .htaccess file to instruct the rewrite engine to ignore the directory:

RewriteEngine off

Unfortunately, this won't work as expected. For basic authentication, the server writes a "401 Unauthorized" header and then looks for an error document based on a pre-defined path. Most of the time, the error document won't exist in the directory that you want to protect, so the request gets handled by the rewrite engine which throws a 404 error.

The solution to this problem is pretty straightforward. You need to add a single line of code to your .htaccess file instructing Apache to ignore the error document. When you're done, the code should look something like this:

ErrorDocument 401 "Unauthorized Access"

RewriteEngine off

AuthType Basic
AuthName "Administration"
require valid-user
AuthUserFile "/home/user/.htpasswds/public_html/admin/passwd"

Hopefully this will save somebody a bit of aggravation.

Even though I had all of my z-index values correct, drop down menus were being placed underneath a relatively positioned <div> that occured further down the page.

There is a very elegant solution to this problem that requires jQuery and a few lines of javascript code at the bottom of the page. The following code traverses through your <div> tags assigning the ones at the top of the page a higher value. Worked like a charm for me!

jQuery(function() {
    var intIndex = 1000;
    jQuery('div').each(function() {
        jQuery(this).css('zIndex', intIndex); intIndex -= 10;
    });
});

Special thanks to Vance Lucas for posting this function on his blog.

The other day I received a series of photos from a client that totalled over 8MB. It took over 2 minutes to download the photos to my inbox and the network performance at the office was noticably slower during that time period.

For this reason, I recommend services like YouSendIt which let users send large files through their website. It's easy to use, just type in the recipient's email address (or multiple addresses) and upload your file. That's all there is too it, and nobody's email server has to suffer.

What's even better, YouSendIt offers a free Outlook plugin which makes it convenient to send large email attachments right from Outlook.

Other file sending services worth mentioning are Drop.io, GigaSize.com and SendSpace.com. I'm just partial to YouSendIt because of the handy Outlook plugin.

In order to acheive something like this, you need to open a Local Connection between the two movies and send a function call and (optional) argument over that connection. The following snippet of code would go in the sending movie and could be attached to a button:

on (rollOver) {
    obj_sending_lc = new LocalConnection();
    obj_sending_lc.send('_ConnA', 'traceMyName', 'Peter');
}

In order for this to work, we will need to add code to the receiving movie making it ready to receive this information. The following snippet of code would go in the receiving movie:

obj_receiving_lc = new LocalConnection();
obj_receiving_lc.connect('_ConnA');
obj_receiving_lc.traceMyName = function(str_argument) {
    trace(str_argument);
}

In this example, my name would be traced to the output window of the second movie. Obviously, you would want to make changes to the function name and what it does, but this will get you going quickly.

Before you try this out on your own, be forewarned that you can't run the webpage in multiple tabs (which can happen during development) as only the first one will work.

Raster Files:

A raster file type is an image or graphic composed of a grid of pixels or squares. Raster files are ideal for photographs, web and screen images. These files can be scaled down and look good, however when scaled up lose quality and end up looking like big colorful blocks.

Advantages:

• Amazing gradient and shading display
• Very common file types

Disadvantages:

• Large File Sizes
• Can be scaled down, but not up without losing quality
• Some file types require special software to view/display

Common Raster File Types:

• .bmp, .cdr, .ccx, .cdt, .cmx, .ico, .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .pdf, .png, .tga, .tif, .tiff,

Ideal Useage:

• Photographs
• Web Graphics
• Screen Graphics (TV, DVD)

Vector Files:

A Vector file is an image or graphic composed of connecting points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon(s), which are all based upon mathematical equations, to represent an images. Vector files are ideal for any design, illustratopn, icon, or logo that needs to be scaled and retain a crisp clean look.

Advantages:

• Can be scaled up or down and retain quality
• Small file sizes

Disadvantages:

• Not as good at shading as raster (i.e photograph)
• Some file types require special software to view/display

Common Vector File Types:

• .ai, .cdr, .ccx, .cdt, .cmx, .eps, .pdf, .svg, .swf,

Ideal Useage:

• Logo's
• Print Materials (Usually a combination of vector type and raster images)
• Illustrations
• Typography
• Flash 
• Anything that will be scaled

For a detailed file type comparison chart: Wikipedia

Here's how it works:

1. Dial 1-800-GOOG-411
2. State the Location and Business Type
3. Connect to the Business for Free

You don't have the luxury of speaking to a real person, but the program is very accurate and easily recommended.

For more information and a video, visit the official page:
http://www.google.com/goog411/

Say you want to enforce a minimum height of 200px on a container, simply add the following code to your identity or class:

min-height: 200px;
height: auto !important;
height: 200px;

That's all there is to it. I didn't come up with this on my own, so a special thanks goes to Dustin Diaz for publishing this hack.

3 Easy Steps:

1. Find out which carrier the recipient uses.
2. Compose an e-mail with your intended text message in the body.
3. Send the e-mail to the e-mail-to-SMS gateway for their carrier listed below.

Source: wikihow.com

Even though using "lorem ipsum" often arouses curiosity due to its resemblance to classical Latin, it is not intended to have meaning. Where text is visible in a document, people tend to focus on the textual content rather than upon overall presentation, so publishers use lorem ipsum when displaying a typeface or design in order to direct the focus to presentation. "Lorem ipsum" also approximates a typical distribution of spaces in English.

The most common lorem ipsum text reads as follows:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Source: wikipedia

It seems that Zend is concentrating on Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) in this release as they are now providing support for Adobe's Action Message Format (AMF) which allows developers to easily share data between PHP applications and Flash (including Flex and AIR). While I haven't had the opportuity to test this out personally, I'm sure it will be a huge time saver for our developers.

Version 1.7 will also offer integration with jQuery's AJAX library. This is great for our team as we already include the jQuery library on all of our projects. In addition to outstanding AJAX support, jQuery's lightweight code base is great for HTML document traversing, event handling and animating.

Zend has also provided us with a little goodie that will make it possible for developers to add Twitter to their site without requiring the Twitter interface. Twitter is making a big impact on the Web so I'm glad that this service is available to developers.

Finally, I'd like to mention that the Zend has made done some fine tuning to improve performance. You can expect a 25% to 50% improvement in load times by upgrading your Zend library. This could be the best enhancement of all.

Thanks to the entire Zend community for making this new release available!

1. Embed Special Characters in Flash
For starters, we need to make sure that all of the special characters (i.e. á, é, í, ó, ú, etc.) are embedded in our flash movie. You also have to make sure those characters are available for the font you're using. The "Character Map" application in Windows will be a big help. If you're not familiar withCharacter Map, you can find it here: Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map

2. Use UTF-8 Encoding
Next, make sure that your XML document uses UTF-8 encoding. To endcode the XML as UTF-8, make sure the first line of your XML file looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

3. Save as UTF-8
Almost all text editors default to ANSI encoding. When saving your XML file, be sure to select "UTF-8" from the "encoding" drop down menu.

4. Upload as Binary
When uploading, it's important to note that your XML document should be transferred as a binary file. Most FTP programs will auto-detect this, but if you're having problems set the transfer type to binary before you upload the file.

¡Buena suerte!

We lost a nice piece of hardware, but we were greatly relieved that absolutely no project or client data was lost. The machine was last used by our summer intern and was wiped clean in September. In a way, we got lucky...if one of our other machines were stolen, we'd be spending the remainder of the day changing passwords and writing apologetic letters to our clients.

Client data and security is something that we take very seriously and this experience had led me to do some research on security software. Here are two products worth mentioning:

Computrace LoJack for Laptops
Computrace LoJack for Laptops is part of a full suite of security solutions that protects your data and secures your computers. It's built in to the BIOS or firmware from major computer manufacturers to prevent removal by unauthorized users...and it's backed by a theft recovery team.
http://www.lojackforlaptops.com/

LocatePC
LocatePC is free software that runs unobtrusively on your computer. In the event that your computer is stolen, LocatePC will send a secret email to you containing the details that you need to track your hardware. Obviously, your computer must be hooked up to the Internet for this feature to work.
http://www.iconico.com/locatePC/

All of our laptops already have LoJack for Laptops installed. Looks like it's time to protect our towers as well.

At Myriad Interactive, we use CuteFTP Professional for file transfers and remote text editing. Its interface is very intuitive and the lockstep folder navigation (which keeps local and remote folders syncronized) is a must for developers. The built-in text editor is also outstanding. HTML files are color-coded and you can perform find-and-replace operations across multiple open files. The only downside to CuteFTP Professional is the $59.99 (per user) price tag.

While my endorsement obviously goes to CuteFTP Professional, not everybody needs a fully featured FTP client, they just need a way to upload large files or to make a backup of their website. If you fall into this group of users, the following programs should do the trick...and they're free.

CoffeeCup Free FTP
http://www.coffeecup.com/free-ftp/

FileZilla
http://filezilla-project.org/

What are you doing right now?
Writing a blog entry about Twitter.

Now anybody who follows my Twitter account will know what I'm doing at this very moment. Pretty simple right? That's the genius behind Twitter...it's extremely easy to create an account and updates can be sent and received both online and via mobile devices. It's a highly effective communications tool and just one more marketing channel for web savvy businesses. It's estimated that (at the time of this post) over 10 million poeple are using Twitter, so it's safe to assume that many of your customers are on there too.

So, will Twitter will replace blogging? No way, blogging is still the best outlet for talented writers and reviewers who have something meaningful to contribute to world (or their niche audience). Twitter can be thought of as a micro blog that keeps people in touch. For businesses, it's a great way to generate buzz and to provide product or service information to your loyal customers.

Bobby B. Well and friends have been given a fresh a new look. The recently launched Eat Well Be Well website sports a new design and operational enhancements.

"Do you want to allow this webpage to access your Clipboard?"

Luckily, this security feature can be disabled. Here's how:

1. Go to Tools > Internet Options
2. Click on the "Security" tab
3. Click on the "Custom level…” button
4. Scroll down to the "Scripting" section and locate the "Allow Programmatic clipboard access" sub section
5. Click on the radio button next to "Enable" and you will no longer be prompted.

That's all there is to it.

October 5, 2008 - Scottsdale, AZ:

“Prom is a light-hearted event for a serious cause.  We needed an eye-catching logo with a retro feel, and invitations and promotional flyers that would stop people in their tracks – online and off,” says Sue Michalowski, Development Director for WTAP.  “I’d worked with Myriad before and knew they had that special combination of technical know-how and sheer hipness that would deliver just what we needed.”

Myriad’s invites for WTAP’s Prom have circulated throughout Phoenix both on paper and via the internet.  For the over 1,000 WTAP supporters and volunteers, the Prom logo has become a recognizable icon for an original, musically charged and emotionally moving night.  Since its launch in 2007, The WTAP Prom has raised over $50,000 to pay for furnishing the homes of refugeees newly arrived in Phoenix from war-torn countries worldwide. “For about $200 WTAP can cover our costs to furnish one apartment for a refugee family of four,” says Michalowski.  “Thanks in part to Myriad’s pro bono creative help, we’ve covered those costs for over 200 refugee families in the last few years!”

“We are happy to help, especially an original local cause doing hands-on work right here in Phoenix,” says Nate Allen, founder and Creative Director of Myriad. “We specialize in web and multimedia projects, so this gives us a great chance to let loose and get back to our roots – designing brand identity and designing for print.  Knowing that we’ve contributed to the comfort of refugee families starting new lives in Phoenix is the bonus on top.”

About Myriad Interactive
Myriad Interactive is a new media agency specializing in integrated marketing solutions. The firm offers a complete suite of creative services including graphic design, animation, 3D, copy-writing, custom audio and digital video.  Located in Scottsdale, AZ, Myriad focuses on providing its services to the business communities of Arizona and the Southwest.  With a successful blend of marketing strategy, creative talent and technical expertise Myriad has served clients in the region for over five years.

About The Welcome to America Project
The Welcome to America Project, a 501c3 non-profit organization established in 2001, helps newly resettled refugees transform their bare apartments in Phoenix into comfortable, warm homes.  This volunteer group collects high quality furniture and household items from donors throughout the Phoenix area, and delivers them free of charge, every Saturday to refugee families arriving from Africa, the Middle East, and other war-torn regions.  Since November of 2001, WTAP has delivered home furnishings and necessities to over 500 refugee families, raised over $550,000 of in-kind donations, and logged thousands of volunteer hours.  The organization has won numerous awards and accolades for its grassroots, volunteer organization and work.

For more information, please contact: Sue Michalowski, sue.michalowski@wtap.org or visit www.wtap.org.

We're pleased to announce that Maracay Homes launched it's new website today. This is the second website that Myriad has created for Maracay Homes, and while are still proud of our first effort, we feel that this site trumps it in many ways.

The new site is wider than the first, catering to a lowest common denominator of 1024 x 768. This increase in screen real estate has made it easier for us to present content.

We also worked closely with Moses Anshell to ensure that the website and print collateral share a similar look and feel to reinforce the company's brand.

For the past three months we've been working closely with former Ditech.com executives to create a new online lending website. Lendability.com launched on September 1st and promises to be the leader in both cost and transparency for a variety of mortgage-related products.

Design impact and the overall customer experience was very important. Lendability.com offers numerous resources to their customers (inlcuding mortgage calculators and a custom "Lendability" scoring system) so it was a challenge for us to design a site that was fully featured, but not intimidating.

In addition to the website, Myriad also launched AbilityBlog.com and produced 3 banner ad concepts which have run on major websites such ad Yahoo! and Bankrate.com.

Take a look at the site and leave us your comments!

Do you ever want to use a button to trigger an action in flash but avoid get the mouse hand since it doesn't actually click through to anything? No problem, just a simple line of code and you're all set.

From the Main Timeline:
(button or mc name).useHandCursor=false;

Within a Button or MovieClip:
this.useHandCursor=false;

Bestop® is a premier manufacturer of soft tops, hard tops and accessories for the enthusiast Jeep and truck owner. They recently expended their product line to tap into the growing UTV (Utility Terrain Vehicle) market and asked us to help them create their consumer website at www.bestoputv.com.

Users can browse the website for the latest applications, product additions, installation guides, updates and tips for the ever-growing line-up of Bestop® UTV accessories. The site is well-designed and extremely easy to use...we encourage you to take a look.

I really enjoy working with SimpleViewer because all image information (including captions) are provided by an XML document whose path is read in from a flash variable. In my application, I wrote a PHP script to generate the XML output from a database query, using SimpleViewer as the front end of a photo gallery.

If you haven't already heard of SimpleViewer, I highly recommend that you take a look. For more information and download instructions, please visit: http://www.airtightinteractive.com/simpleviewer/

October 1, 2003 - Scottsdale, AZ:

Drawn to the region's natural beauty and tremendous growth potential, Nate Allen and Peter Schultheiss decided to start their new business in Phoenix. While new to the area, the duo has worked together for over four years producing a number of award winning projects for a leading interactive agency in Denver, CO. Today, the Myriad team is comprised of several highly-skilled professionals who together possess a range of multi-disciplinary talents including graphic design, programming, animation, 3D, copy writing, custom audio and digital video.

"In today's business world, a company's website and digital presentations often dictates how a customer perceives the value of that company." said Schultheiss, who has been developing web and multimedia applications for over five years. "A successful website should not only be visually appealing, but should be able to convey information in a simple and effective manner without compromising speed or usability." Strict adherence to this philosophy will leave Myriad poised to become one of the premier new media agencies in the valley.

Myriad's services include web development, corporate identity and branding strategy, online marketing and lead management, search engine optimization, and multimedia development with Macromedia Flash and Director.

Allen comments, "We have worked with a number of different companies across a wide range of industries. Businesses rely on us to apply our expertise to their objectives, helping them to define goals, develop ideas and discover opportunities. Since the success of our business depends on the satisfaction of our clients, it is our mission to meet and exceed their every expectation."