Category Archives: google

New interface of google analytics

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Google has been developing new interface of google analytics for a while, I have switch to test the new interface before, but found some features missing and really can’t get used to the new design so I switched back to older version.

new interface of google analyticsRecently, for some reasons like error or they intended, when I was using old version, it automatically switches me over to the new version. Since it’s been a while, I can dig in to see what has changed.
After 2 days using it, I am start to getting used to it, but it does take some learning curve to figure out where is the link you used to click in the older interface. During my use, I can find all the links that’s doing the same work as in the older version, and since they are going to move to new interface, I think there will be no reason for me to switch back. Also they got a few deep analysis features added in, like trace the user’s landing page, 2nd page, etc, really awesome. And if your site has a big traffic hit, they also have a real time visitor graph to display the real time users on the site, very cool, wish my site could have so many users to make use of this cool feature.

Conclusion:

  1. New interface is not as familiar as the older interface, you need to take a little time to find out where those links do the same time in the older interface, but it does add some cool features you may like.
  2. I don’t see why they are using orange now.
  3. As the time of writing, it is still beta, so could tolerate some looking issues like text not well aligned, wrap to the next line, and too much space in the menu items.
  4. I will still use this great tool.

Very useful google service but is closed or closing

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Very useful google service but has closed or is closing, I do like to use them, very helpful in the life. Wish there could be another way. Things are created to be useful, it remains being useful but has to be closed.

1. Translation api

2. Google Code search

code search

New interface in gmail

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Gmail has just rolled out it’s new UI, looks great.
2 shining points are:

  1. new colors set for the whole interface, except the big red compose button.
  2. improved conversation view, it will display a summary of the message for the hidden message, and click on it will show the whole message, much better than the old version. And it also diplays people’s image along with the message. This makes email much like doing an instant message. They definitely borrow the design from IM.

It does has a short learning curve:
toolbar
See the toolbar here, sure you can guess the meaning of what they do from what they look , will get used to it after a few times I think. But I do feel not so comfortable with them, I think it’s something need to work on, or simply have some text displayed there.
And big red compose button
It’s just too attractive, ruin the whole clean interface.

host your email on gmail with name@yourdomain.com address

Are you still trying to use the not user friendly email interface? It’s time to make a change.

With the free version of google apps, you can have your emails of your domain hosted on the google without charge, but they do have a limitation like 10 accounts (not the number of email address, it allows one account to have many email addresses), if you are a heavy user, you may need to consider a business plan which is much expensive and I don’t recommend for small organization use (since free email is quite available nowadays).

Next let me show you how to get it:

1. Registration

first of all, go here http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html and click the “get started” button, you can start the registration process, and may need to verify your ownership of the domain in between.

2.Login

after registered successfully, you will end up with a login url here: https://www.google.com/a/<yourdomain>, the good thing is you can have any user name you want in the username textbox, since it’s under your own domain.

3.Setup email address

go ahead login with your admin account and in the dashboard, click “Organization & users” tab in the top, this is where you can create account and assign different nickname which is email address we want to the account. And one account could be assigned with multiple nickname (email addresses), which is pretty cool if you want to manage many addresses in one place.

4. Login to your email box with gmail interface

to login, use this url: https://mail.google.com/a/<yourdomain.com>, (be careful without www), and you will have a gmail interface but it ends with: @yourdomain.com.

5. Create a convenient login url for your mail access

the login url is long and not friendly to remember, you can setup a cname record under your domain like: mail.yourdomain.com, this will feel much better. Setup the cname record in the domain control panel like this:

HOST   IP ADDRESS/ URL

mail      ghs.google.com

6. Go head access your email box with: http://mail.yourdomain.com

7. Integrate with your personal mailbox

If you already have another emailbox for personal use, and it could fetch pop3 email, this allows you to integrate your domain email with your person emailbox. To do, just login to your domain emailbox hosted on the google, I believe it’s here: http://mail.yourdomain.com if you have followed to the step 6 above, and then go to the email settings and enable pop3 access. Then logout and login with your personal emailbox, under the add pop3 box, set the pop server to: pop.gmail.com, use 995 as the port, and check: use SSL access, it’s “Always use a secure connection (SSL) when retrieving mail. ” in the case of gmail.

8. Testing

Send a test email to your domain email and see if you can receive it in your google hosted mailbox or your personal email box.
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