arghyle

Anyone who runs a multi-author site knows that tracking of all the articles is a constant challenge. Keeping tabs on who is writing what is hard enough, but then trying to follow who is getting the job done is another thing altogether. Whether you want to track word counts, reads, comments, etc., there just isn’t a good way to break things down by author.

So here’s what I’m looking for: a plugin that allows me to track a few very simple metrics, broken down by author. Specifically I’d like to know:

• number of articles posted over a given period
• average articles per day
• comments (total and average per article)
• pageviews (total over a time period, per article)
• some other ideas, though less important ones, could be: average word count per article, what categories are being written in, etc.

Basically it would just be a simple way to track who is writing and how successful their posts are. It wouldn’t have to be a comprehensive package, just some insight into the performance of each of the authors. The hardest one of these would be tracking pageviews, but a rough estimate would be fine.

Are their ways around a custom plugin? Possibly, but nothing great (at least that I can think of). You could possibly use Google Analytics for this, but you would have to have a unique code for each of the authors in the URL (or URI, whatever you want to call it). This requires some customization and adds to the length of your URL stucture, but could possibly be OK. The downside is that you are stuck using an analytics package that won’t be able to track comments, calculate post totals, or other site specific metrics.

From what I can tell, it really has to be done within Wordpress to be done well. All the data is readily available (if you know how to get it) so then it’s just a matter of calculating the totals and presenting them in a friendly manner. Part of the challenge would be creating a slick UI and also not having the plugin be a resource hog (maybe it could update only once an hour or once on a day). Based on plugins like Wassup we know it’s possible to do fairly extensive analytics packages within Wordpress.

Any takers? Anyone know of a plugin that I haven’t found? An easier way to get these results? I don’t think its asking for a whole lot (and I’m surprised that it hasn’t been done yet).

If you have been reading this site you know that I recently set up a NAS. A lot of NAS devices have built-in iTunes Media Server functionality, which makes sense as a NAS is an obvious place to store your music (most people have at least a few gigabytes these days…).

As you probably guessed, I did this with my NAS and I was immediately disappointed with the results. iTunes Server is extremely limited and while it can play music (the most important function) that is about it. You cannot drag songs into playlists or get them to play easily on your iPhone/iPod (this ability is tied to playlists). Also, if you buy songs, you have to store them locally, and then move them to your server, (then the server has to scan them, which can be every 5 minutes, hourly, etc., before iTunes will update). To put it simply, songs on your server don’t have the same accessibility or usability as songs in your Library.

My problems did not stop there though. Sometimes iTunes would see my NAS’ iTunes Server and not let me access it (I gave me a weird error about a firewall issues that did not exist). Just today iTunes did not recognize my NAS, this means you have no way to access the music (even though I could get to my mapped drive through Windows). Even restarting iTunes did not help… restarting the NAS and/or computer would have probably done the trick. Also the music on the server is a bit slow to load initially. It will take a few seconds for iTunes to list all the tracks. This is a minor annoyance, but it’s just one more thing between you and you music.

What does iTunes Server do well? Well most of the time it’s automatically recognized by iTunes, so it’s very easy to setup (at least with Windows, I’m guessing it’s just as easy on a Mac). Sadly, that’s all I can think of.

So today, after iTunes could not find my Server, I was done with the experiment. The solution was pretty simple, I just needed to change my iTunes Library folder to the folder where it live on the NAS using a mapped drive. So rather than the Library living on my C: I changed it to my Y:. I have a pretty substantial amount of music so it took a long time for iTunes to rescan the folder and organize it but afterwards I was all set.

It begs the question, why did I do an iTunes server in the first place? Well this is a feature on most nicer NAS devices so I wanted to give it a shot. It also lets more than one computer use that music. Finally, because of your limited permissions, it means that your music is blocked from iTunes’ tampering (changing folders, converting file types, adding tracks to the library, etc.) Ultimately it just wasn’t worth it though and I can’t see an iTunes server being something that NAS owner would want to use.

To summarize all this: iTunes Server can only play music, that’s it. If you want anything more, and you are storing your music on a NAS, you should map a drive and use that as your iTunes Library folder.

For as long as I have been reading/writing about computers I’ve always loved articles where people walk through the building of their own computer. Buyer’s guides are fun, but that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about someone who is building a computer for a reason and then talking about the components that they used, how they went to together, and the result. It doesn’t matter if it’s the smallest/cheapest/most powerful/etc. what matters is your goals and how you went about building a computer to accomplish them while working our real life limitations, like space and price.

If you are interested (or have no idea what I am talking about) you can check out my latest PC build article or Josh Korwin’s, which also ran on Geek.

Logic Supply just did a great one on their blog using a Chenbro case and a Gigabyte Mini-ITX motherboard. It’s very well done and reflects the advanced understanding of the components and how they work together that make these articles so interesting. Being an online retailer they have access to all sorts of great gear as well as a more experience working with the parts than almost anyone else. It’s very interesting, and it’s got to be the best way I can think of to inform consumers about your products.

Tech Report has been doing them for a long time as well, though I can’t seem to find my favorite on their site. (I’ll keep looking, but I thought it was called the “Danger Box”…)

These articles are a lot of work- not just on the writing side, but the research, the building, troubleshooting, testing, etc.- so we don’t see them that often. We do see a lot of “Build a $500 gaming computer” type posts, but these are generally just going through Newegg and picking out some parts. They can’t be helpful and fun to read, but without a computer being built, you don’t get the same insights into the final product.

I used to do these posts much more frequently. They were not only loads of fun, but they were generally my most successful articles (see “The Mini-ITX Project”). I don’t do them as often largely because of time and space constraints. Additionally interest in articles like this has been waning. I won’t get into it too much here, but with so many people moving to laptops and thanks to recent hardware advances outpacing software ones you don’t have to build to have a great computer.

Christopher Hitchens has an excellent post on Slate. He doesn’t pull any punches…

This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just “people of faith” but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity.

Worth reading before you vote next week.

http://www.slicehost.com/…

Congrats to the SliceHost team on their sale! I’ve had a chance to do some hosting there and I was really impressed with what they did. It’s pretty incredible what a few very smart people who clearly love their field can do in just two years.

That said, I’m not sure that this is the best news. Who knows what is going to happen to customer service and that sort of thing once the company is gobbled up by RackSpace. It looks like SliceHost is remaining somewhat independent, at least initially, but we are going to see a lot of technology crossing over in both directions, which is good in a lot of ways, but when it comes down to it SliceHost customers might not be able to expect the same level of support and interaction with Slice’s main team as before. I don’t have any specific issues with RackSpace, but it’s a big organzation and working with them won’t be like working with Slice, even if so much of the process is automated.

Definitely worth the 37 minutes. A lot of his ideas challenge the typical notion of business life, but based on 37 Signal’s success they are doing something right.

World of Goo is here!

Just finished the download (only 70MB) from Steam and just started up the game. Been looking forward to this one for some time. Should be one of the better indie titles this year.