The Newest, Greatest, Bestest-Ever Website This Week

Tonight, I was trying to save an audio file embedded on a website to my hard drive.  

Quicktime wasn’t having it. 

Unless, of course, I upgraded to QuickTime Pro (for $30).

So, I searched Google: “how-to-save-an-audio-file-without-quicktime-pro-and-be-snappy-about-it”.

16 million-some-odd links popped up including one to instructables.com (my savior).

What a find. Clearly understanding my pain on a deep existential level, the post offered a solution. 

Defined by the creators, the website is a ”web-based documentation platform where passionate people share what they do and how they do it”. Just simple language to solve simple (time-consuming) problems—separated into 16 different categories. 

Here’s a snapshot:

And it worked. 

Minutes later, I had the audio file downloaded because the instructions weren’t jargon-laden or pulled from a computer technology handbook. 

Exploring the site, I found posts like How to Have a Great Time at a MLB Game for Less Than $20 and How to get on Xbox Live with Dialup to be just as niche or cool, written by members in a smooth fashion with easy-to-follow steps listed at the top.

Such as this:

It orients you and should you want a quick review of any one step, just hover your mouse over its icon and a summary-bubble pops out.

Posts can easily be embedded, emailed, printed and saved. Or you can show your appreciation in the comment box.

Like this guy did (apparently, he didn’t have QuickTime Pro either):

 

Oct 9, 2008. 6:47 PM  - gwest says: You, my friend, are a God.                    Have me in dirty ways.

 

-

How to Track Blog Stats for Free — SiteMeter.Com

Tracking hits to your blog is easy—with WordPress.com. You log-in, hit “blog stats” and get a nice little summary. Like this:

Or maybe you want a global scope of your WordPress blog?  Alexa.com will tell you where you rank in the world:

The best-selling blog Margaretandhelen.wordpress.com, which is run by two old ladies with a 60 year-old friendship, for instance, is at spot 246,001 in the world. 

And the equally popular (though not as-of-yet “best-selling”) WordPress blog crowdnoise.wordpress.com is at spot…well, never mind. 

Nonetheless, as a WordPress blogger, I can check my global rank at Alexa.com. Not so for Blogspot folks.

Type in your blogspot web address on the Alexa search engine (such as, www.myblog.blogspot.com) and you only get stats for “www.blogspot.com” (ranked 9th).

But there are alternatives for Blogspotters. 

Such as Sitemeter.com, which will track your blog stats for free. After you register, you’ll see a summary of your hits, updated immediately. 

On the left side of your account page (see pic below), click “by detail” and get a look at each individual hit with summary of the visit, which tracks things like “page views” and “length of visit”:

You can also see each hit by its world location with a nifty little globe:

However, sitemeter is not without its flaws. For instance, though you can theoretically track a hit by its “referring URL”, most times the referring URL will be labeled “unknown”:

In fact since Friday, Sitemeter has yet to identify a single referral by its URL. 

Sitemeter will also track your own blog visits, which is another flaw. But that’s easy to fix. To do that, click the “Manager” tab at the top of the screen. Then, click “ignore visits” tab on the left. This will allow you to toggle between tracking or not tracking your own visits, either by IP, browser or cookies. 

Once you register, embed Sitemeter on your blog by clicking “Manager” and then “Overview”. Under “Adding Site Meter to your site”, you’ll see instructions by blog site.

After clicking “to a Blogger.com site”: 

1. Copy the HTML code (below) onto your clipboard
2. Login to Blogger
3. Click on the Layout link on your dashboard
4. Click on the Add a Page Element link on the page titled Add and Arrange Page Elements 
5. A window titled Choose a New Page Element page will pop-up
6. Click on the Add to Blog link 
7. Paste the Sitemeter HTML code into the Content section
8. Click Save Changes and you’re done. 

Sitemeter HTML code: <script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://s41.sitemeter.com/js/counter.js?site=s41MyWebSite“>

www.sitemeter.com