Google Analytics Bug - The Sum of its Parts is More Than the Whole

Google Analytics is a great product, in general, but sometimes I come across things that are totally head-scratching.

Their relatively new feature for Advanced Segmentation will be very very useful once it reaches some semblance of reliability. As for now, though, I cannot rely on it.

The image does not lie.  I have 2 segments applied:

1. All Visits (basically, unfiltered)
2. True Non-Paid (all visits that are not CPC)

GA tells me that yesterday I had about 110 more conversions coming from my non-cpc traffic than all of my traffic combined?????

I know that the little red tag says "Beta", but we have come to expect very reliable behavior from a lot of other "beta" products from Google (eg., Gmail , Google Earth , Maps for the longest time, etc...).

This is something that needs to get fixed quickly.  The worst thing that GA can do is put doubt in the minds of its users about the accuracy of the data.

New Version of Analytics Export to Google Spreadsheet Script

Newly updated script (v0.3.6) for exporting from Google Analytics to Google Docs / Spreadsheets.

Some of the improvements:

• Exports now properly handle applied filters, changes to dates, segments and any other AJAX-style update made to the report (previously only went off of the query in the URL)
• Enables user to name the report
• Cleaner UI that blocks the screen during loading

New links:
Download GM script directly
Greasemonkey Script Page

Thanks to sallymander for the input!

Original post

Cheers.

Watching UCLA Hoops from Barcelona using Orb, FFMPEG, and Zune

I am a big UCLA Bruins basketball fan. I started following the Bruins when I was probably 11 or 12 years old. This was during the Trevor Wilson/Pooh Richardson era. My brother was attending UCLA and I was really starting to get more interested in sports of all kinds.  Even when I first attended UW for my first 2 quarters out of high school, I found myself rooting for the Bruins against the Huskies in Pac-10 play.  After I transfered to UCLA, I could see the games in person as a student as well as always catch them on local TV.

After graduating, I still followed the games and other events closely, which was quite easy in the LA area between local cable (Fox Sports West) and the LA Times . Once moving to Spain, however, it has been a much bigger challenge to catch games that are:

1. Broadcast regionally only in the USA
2. Scheduled in the evenings (California time .... 9 hours behind Spain)

The first 2 years I had used a Tivo  connected to a Slingbox  at my parents' house.  It worked well enough but the quality was not great and the hard drive of the Tivo finally died this summer.

I now have a setup that is working quite well for the 2008-2009 season.  I bought a Haupauge 1600 TV card for my parents' PC and installed Orb.  Orb is a fantastic service that principally turns any computer into a powerful Slingbox with a built in PVR.

It is very easy to use and runs in the background.  I schedule the recordings using the web interface here in Spain.

I just look up the channel and the time (I have the schedule setup as an RSS feed from Google Calendar to have it all on the same page) and I click record:

Once the game is scheduled, I just wait.  Orb records video in dvr-ms format, which uses MPEG-2 video.  Although, very high quality, MPEG-2 makes just way too big of files to download (average size of 1 game is 3.2GB!).  

I could stream the games directly using Orb, but the PC at my parents house is not very powerful and the Internet connections are just too slow and far away between Spain and CA to maintain a stable streaming connection for 2 hours.  Additionally, since I have 2 young children, it is rare that I ever get 2 whole hours to sit and watch something, let alone 2 times per week during the season.

So, generally I watch the games partially on my PC and partially on my Zune (when it is working ).  To make the dvr-ms file, small enough to download (700MB) and is in a format able to be viewed on the Zune (WMV), I run a script to transcode  the video using FFMPEG.  It runs nightly and checks if a newly recorded video exists and if has not already converted that video, it quietly makes a copy in wmv.

I wake up morning following the game and initiate the download via Orb:

After the multiple hour download, I can start watching it on the PC or sync the game to my Zune to watch later.

This has worked so far after a lot of trial and error, especially with the file conversion (tried DVRMSToolbox and MCEBuddy before writing my own script with ffmpeg) and syncing.  I am about 3/4 done watching the UCLA vs. USC game and will finish watching it later today.  

Do not tell me who won please!

Hopefully, Orb will eventually be able to record directly to other formats like wmv or H.264 and soon I plan on changing my Zune for a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.

Go Bruins! 

Our First Snow in Spain

This is now our 3rd winter in Spain and it finally snowed. It had snowed the previous 3 years straight in the town where we live, but there was nothing since late 2005/early 2006. We woke up this morning to find the whole neighborhood blanketed in white.

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Zune Y2K8 Global Meltdown (1st Gen 30GB) (AKA Z2K)

UPDATE: My Zune now works.  The MSFT people "jumped onto the problem" and came up with the precise technical solution of telling us to wait and see if all is good come Jan 1st 2009.  So they worked really hard to tell us to do nothing and excuse their error.

They need to make amends and win back the group of users that the likely have lost due to this mistake.

Also why does the Zune have an internal calendar anyway?  What purpose does it serve? Perhaps for syncing....would have been nice if they gave a real explanation.

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I am a rabid user of my Zune.  I bought it on woot last year for $99 and have greatly enjoyed it.  I use it to listen to about 20 regular podcasts, house my music collection and photos, and keep tons of videos on it (especially useful with the TV out to have movies to entertain my kids just in case when at other people's houses).

So this morning I was listening to the zune without problem as I went to work.  I even showed some xmas photos to some coworkers right after I arrived.  However, soon after 9 AM in Spain (where I live) I tried to listen to the Slate weekly Gabfest and the device rebooted but froze in the bootup screen.  I just sat there with the loading bar full but non responsive.  None of the normal reset options were working.

Quickly I found some recent forum posts in Google and saw that this was d-day around the world for the 1st Gen 30 GB zune.  Later generation zunes seem unaffected.

I was able to fix the problem by unplugging the battery.  To do so:

• Remove the clip covering the connector port
  
• Remove the 2 small Phillips screws
• Gently open the case (I used a credit card) starting from the bottom and moving to the top slowly
• Unclip the battery connector (small ribbon coming from black battery)
• Let it sit for 10 seconds
• Reconnect everything by following the above instructions in reverse order

It will be interesting to see how MSFT responds to this disaster.  I sure hope that they make things right for their loyal users.  Giving freely the firmware updates to all users was a very smart move in my opinion (unlike some others who charge for their updates ).  Now they need to continue in that direction and do the following:

1. Make a big public apology
2. Get a fix out ASAP via firmware update
3. Offer some good compensation (Free $ for music in their marketplace or decent discount on new device)

If they do not do this correctly:

• They will have a big PR problem - the last thing they need is to hurt the Zune brand, especially if they are looking to expand it to mobile (for other branding problems see Vista)
• They will undermine one of their differentiating factors against Apple.  Apple basically screws ignores its users and makes most pay for updates or ignores them completely (hello copy/paste in iTouch)
• They will lose a large group of potential repeat purchasers that feel alienated and have lost their trust in MSFT.

Some of the more active forum threads:
http://www.zuneboards.com/forums/gen-1/38112-stuck-load-restart-screen-help-2.html

http://www.zuneboards.com/forums/gen-1/38110-help-total-freeze-20.html

http://forums.zune.net/0/32/403986/ShowPost.aspx#403986

Pimp My iGoogle – Greasemonkey Script

Update May 2011: Complete rewrite to handle new internal structure of iGoogle.



Update: I ported the script to Chrome:

Pimp My iGoogle - Chrome Version  use the main userscript on userscripts.org

Pimp My iGoogle – Userscripts.org
I am not a big fan of many of the changes to the new iGoogle. I tried it back many months ago when it first was launched. I sent them a lot of feedback. Unfortunately, a lot of that feedback seemed to fall on deaf ears at Google (what a surprise - sarcastic emphasis added).

Anyway, there are 3 main things that Pimp My iGoogle does:

1. Simplify and reduce the space needed by the header - I also unbury the link to Google Reader
2. There is a button to hide/show the annoying left-hand nav bar (they really should allow users to customize the order and styling of those links in the nav bar).
3. Brought back the max/min button to load and unload modules. Google decided to move this funtion from its original home to the options drop down layer...forcing users to make 1 more click to move open and close the modules. This script puts the function back where it belongs (on the header of the module)

Sadly, I have not yet fixed my last main gripe with the new iGoogle.
Individual feed items used to have the same max/min functionality as modules. That was great if I wanted to read a post then and there without really changing the screen. Well, that is gone now and you only get a snippet of each post. That makes each feed module take up too much space by default and it forces users into the expanded mode.
UPDATE: Google has since brought back the old functionality

My suspicion is that these moves are mostly aimed at forcing more people into canvas mode where Google will have more ability to show ads targeted to the active module's content. If they try that, I'll just update Pimp My iGoogle to block d'em ads.

Blog - "I am the Diva" giving away Zune

A Free Zune for me = a Free Zune for you! is the title of a contest that the blog i am a diva is holding for a free little Zune.

I sure would like to win it. I have a Zune 30 and am quite pleased but would like a small one to along with it.