Friedbeef’s Tech

My dad once told me that learning how to type was a solid investment for the future and I wish I had listened to him more…

I have a horribly bad habit of only using 6 fingers to type.  Fortunately, for slow-poke typists like me (I average 27 words a minute), there’s an open-source application in town called TypeFaster which helps out by teaching you to how to improve your typing speed and learn touch-typing.

It even comes with built in games, adjustable levels, and the ability to save progress to make things more interesting.

It also comes with a numeric keyboard trainer for all you budding accountants and bankers out there. What more could you ever want? :)

[tags] freeware, typing, learn typing, type faster [/tags]

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Look around the net, and I’m sure you’ll find TONS of free storage sites online… but very few of them have managed to carve out an almost cult-like following like Box.Net.

This is one of the few such services which just ‘gets it’.  It’s not all about space, it’s all about the user experience.  Case in point - Box.Net launched with 1GB, and it’s STILL 1GB, but skim through their blog, and you’ll see one Web 2.0 company hell bent on continuous upgrades and improvement. 

Here are the key reasons why they have succeeded where others have failed.

Winning Ingredient #1: It works everywhere

• Upload files just by attaching them in email
• Upload directly from a Firefox widget
• Compatible with mobile devices

Winning Ingredient #2: It plays nice with other Web 2.0 companies

Taking advantage of open APIs it can

• Work directly within start pages like Netvibes
• Edit documents directly within downloading it because it’s compatible with Zoho

Winning Ingredient #3: It makes file sharing social

• Share folders and files with friends
• Make entire pages or boxes public
• Post widgets your own blog
• Allow friends to subscribe to your box via RSS

On top of all that - they have an incredibly intuitive drag and drop interface! This service really looks like a winner.

Meanwhile sit back and relax to the tunes of Jonathan Coulton’s Tech Anthem - Code Monkey (brought to you by Box.Net and distributed under a Creative Commons license)

Get your own Box.net widget and share anywhere!

“Code Monkey get up get coffee
Code Monkey go to job
Code Monkey have boring meeting
With boring manager Rob
Rob say Code Monkey very diligent
But his output stink
His code not “functional” or “elegant”
What do Code Monkey think?
Code Monkey think maybe manager want to write god damned login page himself
Code Monkey not say it out loud
Code Monkey not crazy, just proud…”

If you liked this song, you can drop Jonathan a buck, and download the remixes here

What form of online storage do you like?  Let us know in the comments!

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If you want to get more out of your site analytics, set up a free trial with CrazyEgg, a service which tracks your readers clicks so you know what they like, and how to optimize your page to suit their needs.

You’d be surprised at what you can learn with just a simple session.  Here are 5 types of analyses you can perform with it, and how I’ve applied it to my site:

Lessons from the Home page:

Friedbeef.com (1000 visits 241 clicks)

Issue: “What topics are my readers interested in?”

Observation: Freeware and Firefox are the most popular categories on my site taking up a 6.2% total of clicks. 

Action: Perhaps I should consider skewing my writing towards these subjects.

Issue: “Which areas of my site should I focus on to improve a readers overall site experience?”

Observation: ‘Popular posts’ and ‘Links’ pages get a fair amount of attention

Action: I’ve left these pages static.  I need to work out ways to make them more interesting so it rewards the reader more.

Lessons from the most popular single page:

Google + Firefox = Free Music Downloads (1000 visits 471 clicks)

Issue: “Are users navigating my site effectively?”

Observation: 6.3% of clicks was on the post title link

Action:  Clicking the link above essentially brings them to the same post - adding no value whatsoever to the user! Perhaps I need to remove the title link for a better site experience.

Issue: “How are readers subscribing to my site?”

Observation: Many more readers used my dropdown menu to subscribe to my site than my Feedburner button.

Action: I need to add the number of readers which can be selected via my dropdown menu to increase the subscribers.

Issue: “Should I consider implementing more image ads?”

Observation: People like to click on the pictures even though they aren’t links!  (see above heatmap of clicks) - A whopping total of 19.7% of clicks was on an unlinked picture in the post!

Action:  I’ve always limited my Google ads to text ads.  Perhaps image ads within the post would get a higher click rate than I initially thought.

…Which leaves me with a whole long to-do list to optimize my site.  Unfortunately for me, analyzing is one thing - finding time to do the fixes are another… Nevertheless I know where to start :)

Note: All percentages are based only on identifiable clicks which is why they may not tally with actual clicks

Did you discover any interesting observations with Crazy Egg on your site?  Leave a comment and tell us about your experience!

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