High Contrast Google Analytics is Easier to Read

I am not a big fan of the design direction Google has been taking lately.... great products (mostly) but supposedly for the sake of consistency they are ugilifing, and more importantly, making less usable various applications of theirs.

The primary manifestations of their misguided UI direction can be seen in:

• Terrible contrast (especially the use of small or thin gray fonts on off-white or light gray backgrounds) 
• Lots of empty / wasted space (vertical space is at a premium on laptops and tablets, yet they are opting for more scrolling and pushing everything down the screen for no better reason than to make the search bar stand out more)

 Google Analytics v5 will soon be the standard interface for all GA users.  A lot of the functionality is very welcomed (new user flows, better custom reporting), some is a waste of time / fad (real time reporting is the antithesis of web analytics for most purposes), and some is a step backwards (readability, more use of sampling, "fast access mode").

I have made a new userscript that addresses the problems with contrast I have found in GAv5.  Please give it a try.

Download the Better Contrast Google Analytics Script directly from userscripts.org

Better Contrast GA Script Homepage

Here is an example comparison showing GA without the script and after applying the script

I was blind but now I can see...

Download the Better Contrast Google Analytics Script directly from userscripts.org

Important Note: Google is updating its UI and CSS fairly regularly (seems about every 1 to 2 weeks they upload a change) and there is the chance that the class names or CSS may change.  I will try to keep the replacement CSS loaded by the userscript fairly up to date, but there may be times when it is out of sync.  If you find something that breaks the  CSS at some point, please post a comment to let me know.  Thanks!

Bringcast Podcatcher for Mango V3 feature requests

I just received my Nokia Lumia 800 from Nokia yesterday thanks to their developer program launchpad. I now have the SDK installed and hope to start tackling my first WP7.5 app soon.

In the meantime, I had to get the phone setup with the microSIM (cutting my old SIM down to size did not work I think because my previous SIM was way way too old and had a different chip pattern). Also, I started loading the phone with apps. WP7 may not have as many apps as iOS or Android, but the list so far is much more impressive then I have seen for Symbian, especially considering how short of a time they have been in the market with this platform. Mango is less then 6 months old and WP7 only launched publicly in Oct 2010.

One of the most glaring faults with the OS is the lack of a podcatcher and the need to sync with Zune on a PC. I download podcasts every day and I do not want to have to turn on my PC to get new podcasts. Nor do I ever listen to podcasts on the PC.

The good news is that I found BringCast for WP7. They apparently released a Mango optimized version in December (v2) and I decided to give it a try. Well, after 30 seconds I went ahead and bought it. From what I have seen and read so far it is the best podcatcher for WP7.

I saw that the developers are considering v3 new features so I wanted to give them a list it consider for v3 (and if not v3.5 or v4):

• Automatic updates to check for new podcasts in the subscribed feeds that is configurable (every 2 hours, 4 hours, 6 hours, 12 hours, 24 hours, only manually, etc...)
• Automatic download of new episodes with configurable general defaults (none, N, all) and also per feed settings (for example, I want all Slate podcasts, but only the newest episode from WTF?, 2 newest from Fresh Air, and none automatically downloaded from the Economist)
• Perhaps automatic deletion of old podcasts (x days after 100% completed). I do not like how from the playlist you can delete it but you cannot delete the actual media. You need to go 1 by 1 in BringCast to delete the media
• Live Tile integration:
• # of new episodes
• Now playing
• Status (updating, downloading, etc...)
• If possible, full podcast integration with Zune player on the device, not just via playlists. For example, from Zune, I cannot delete the downloaded podcast episode, I can only remove it from the playlist.  To delete it I need to go back into BringCast to delete media.

While not feature requests, I also found two things that seem like possible bugs:

• While trying to do background downloading of podcasts, I received an error saying that the OS policy does not allow non-WiFi downloading of podcasts.  However, in my settings I have the checkbox set to allow 3g downloads.
• I tried importing an opml file from a public dropbox url and the app just did a refresh of the screen but did not import anything.

So I hope clarkezonesoftware.com will take my requests into consideration.

For any WP7 owner who needs a podcatcher app, check out BringCast.

Fixing the bad Google Reader redesign with a userscript

Updated  16-01-2012: list view preview improvements were added in early December and added fixes in mid January for sometimes improper loading of additional posts due to Google script bug

---

Updated 08-11-2011:  Fixed a regression that was not properly calculating the iframe height for previews. FIXED. thank you to @addadi for pointing this out

New TODO:

• Add preview to list view
• Add style a couple of style improvements to list view

PS: If you like the script please share it with others.

Download the google reader script directly from userscripts.org

---

Updated 07-11-2011:  Now you can toggle open or closed the nav sidebar pressing Shift+W.  Hope to add a little icon in the next version. thank you to @magorrias for the suggestion

---

Updated 04-11-2011:  I have made the following improvements to the script since yesterday:

• Better layout for search area and fixed search problems (it was a z-index problem)
• Reduced whitespace in the nav bar and slightly smaller fonts
• Preview Function - Now you can see the full post inside gReader (similar functionality to Google preview enhanced which broke with the gReader redesign). It works by clicking the preview link as well as using the keystroke SHIFT+V.  It also manages the number of IFRAMES created to keep memory usage reasonable.

Download the updated google reader script

---

This will be a short post. I may write something later commenting on the bad design choices I see Google making. I have a hard time believing that they have solid data supporting these changes to the UI of various sites, especially Google Reader. As a daily user this change has been a step backwards in a big way in the name of "unity".

OK, for those who are interested I have made a Greasemonkey, Scriptish, Chrome userscript that vastly improves a lot of the problems with the latest redesign of Google Reader

• Greatly shortened the height of the fixed header area....removing the logo, collapsing the search with the other feed/nav buttons
• Made the subscribe button a normal color since it is something not used very often and should not scream read by default
• Tightened up the nav area to make better use of the vertical space
• Added a border separating the nav area from the post/feed area
• Added a top and bottom border to better identify the currently active post

Here are the links. Works with scriptish, greasemonkey on firefox as well as Google Chrome.

Download the google reader script directly from userscripts.org

Pimp My gReader Script Homepage

This is Google Reader after using the script....making a bit of lemonade from a lemon of a redesign

This is gReader using the Preview functionality

 


To Do for the Future:

• The search is not working completely well with this script.  I will need to make some adjustments
• If no one else does it soon, to fix the script that allows for full post previews in Google Reader that broke with the redesign.  It was part of BetterGReader and I hope someone will fix that soon. Otherwise, I'll add it to this script.
• Add a feature to collaspe / expand the side nav bar - Shift + W

Google Analytics Premium - Finally what I have been looking for

I am very excited about GA Premium announced yesterday.  I am hopeful that the pricing is reasonable because it seems like a great leap forward for businesses who find GA today a bit too limited in speed, functionality, and especially "fast-access-mode friendly".

Also I am very curious as to when it will be available outside of the US, Canada & UK.  Perhaps we could just signup via the UK and then use it for all of our other sites...?

Great intro commercial for the new service.  The only thing is that it seems perhaps a bit too inspired from a 2009 video from Grasshopper communications.  There sure seems a be a recent wave of videos/motion graphics pieces that all come from a common ancestor.  Mannatecheurope soon after Grasshopper seemed to have done a complete ripoff of Grasshopper the same year it came out. I wonder who was the first to do this type of piece. I think the first video that I can remember with some of this same style-DNA or at least something that could be an ancestor were the end credits from An Inconvenient Truth.

Look at the similarities between these 3 videos and you'll see what I mean.  You even get a nice audio effect if you start the first two videos at the same time (or start video 2, let it run 10 seconds and then start video 1). They complement each other quite well.

If you know of any other similar videos with the same DNA, include them in the comments.

Updated Script: Yahoo! Mail Ad Removal plus Better Layout

As with most user scripts they break from time to time when webmasters introduce changes to their sites. In this case, Yahoo! looks like it implemented some new standardized CSS strategy into its Mail app. In the process the userscript code broke because it was looking for old IDs that no longer exist. The script has been updated to work with the new CSS for Yahoo Mail and works well both in Firefox and Chrome. Please download it again if it has stopped working for you. Original post about the script  

Available for Firefox* & Google Chrome  
Download the user script directly or from the Userscripts.org script page>

Slate Culturefest Dry T-Shirt Entry

I had hoped they were going to include my entry in the Slate Culture Gabfest T-Shirt contest.  I guess I'll just stick to business, SEO, analytics, and coding....leave the "art" to others...

If you like this one.... you can at least put me in as a write-in candidate.

Modern motivation philosophy: more companies need to understand this

Today, not enough companies (or more broadly organizations) understand yet the need to adapt the way that they approach talent and intellectual resources.  Although so much of our work has moved from the factory to the office, so many firms still maintain an outlook on management and labor relations that reflects the characteristics and aspects of an industrial age, low to semi skilled economy.

Perhaps it was the way I was brought up, the friends that I have been fortunate to have during my life as well as the mentors that have helped me, I have always known inside that the traditional mindset to managing organizations does not fit with the informational economy we live in today and have been moving towards since the explosion in IT and personal computing.

Two years ago, I read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, and it struck a nerve because it was one of the first times that I came across something very digestible that focused on the importance of meaningful work.  I recommend the book (as well as his other writings) quite often because it is so relevant to everyone, from parents to leaders.  We all want some sort of success, however you want to define it, for someone.  Understanding the points he makes in that book can give people a clearer sense on how to achieve success (again, however it is defined).

Now I had the fortunate chance to come across this talk about motivating teams.  This encapsulates in a short and entertaining way, so much of what I believe is necessary for successful organizations today and tomorrow.