A couple of weeks ago I found a very comprehensive web tracking and analysis web application called Woopra. After a quick look through it’s feature section I signed up for a free (in beta) account then added my website details in the members section. It took around 5 days for my site to be approved then I was able to choose from putting a few lines of code on the site or installing a plugin for Wordpress. Incidentally, in order to add a website, you need to have direct access to the server in order to install the Woopra tracking JavaScript.

Once I’d installed and activated the Wordpress plugin I then downloaded the Woopra desktop client for Mac (must be a 64-bit Mac to work). There were a few niggling problems with that as it repeatedly told me I needed the latest Java 1.6, which I already had. A quick look through the Woopra support forums and I soon resolved the issue which I will outline here just incase anyone else experiences the same problem. Go to Applications > Utilities > Java > click on Java Preferences and ensure that Java SE 6 (64-bit) is at the top of the Java Application Runtime Settings list, as you can see in this screenshot. If it isn’t then simply click, hold and drag it to the top of the list. You should then be able to install the Mac desktop client without issue.

The desktop client is feature rich and packed with information about your site visitors with lots of tabs to flick through within the Analytics menu. It’s live tracking means it knows who is on your website the minute they hit it and you can view their details (IP, platform, browser, screen resolution, country, referrer etc…). I can easily see which keywords and queries have brought visitors to my site, how long they stay on the site and so much more. Sure, there are stats packages provided with my web hosting, but nothing beats live up to the minute information that is available as a desktop client. A ticker tape also runs along the bottom of the Woopra app window with up-to-the-minute details such as how many visits today, how many new visitors, how long they’ve spent on the site and so on. Woopra is easily the best web tracking app I’ve tried.

A couple of days ago I logged into one of my IM accounts with iChat to test something out when I noticed my main iChat accounts was online…but I clearly wasn’t (yes, I have myself added as a friend on my other account ) I logged into Adium which was showing this account as offline, but I logged out again just to make sure. I thought maybe iChat had automatically logged in as I fired it up, but in iChat it wasn’t online. I didn’t think anything more of it until yesterday I saw the online status next to my iChat username in Facebook. Again I logged in through Adium to make sure, but this account wasn’t logged in. Strange behaviour and quite frustrating as I hope my contacts didn’t think I was online and ignoring them…especially if they sent me messages. If you did then I apologise but I most certainly wasn’t online. I rarely ever log into IM (once every 3-6 months usually) but I’ll leave my explanations for that for another time

Anyone else experienced funky behaviour like this from iChat?

I’ve been thinking over the past few weeks how music is such a great motivational tool for me. I have looked at my workflow during times when I don’t have music playing and it’s far less than when I do have music playing - and from studying my ‘creative moments with music’ it’s almost always in the evening after 8pm, with me peaking at around 11pm. I tend not to listen to music quite as much during the earlier part of the day. If I do then it’s pretty much DI.FM Deep House streaming through iTunes or DJ ALA’s Dive Radio mix session podcasts, not a selection of my personally picked music from my music library, which brings me neatly to Last.fm.

I’ve had an account for a couple of years but rarely ever enabled scrobbling via the Lastfm software. Then a few weeks I found out that I could ’scrobble’ using CoverSutra, a full registered program I have had installed on my Mac since buying the MacHeist bundle earlier in the year. It’s far prettier than the Lastfm software, with quite a few nice features including music search, cool album art in a virtual jewel case on your desktop, shortcuts and more.

Today Last.fm Beta launched with a whole new design but is currently only accessible by subscribers. I wasn’t one, but it didn’t take me long to pay up £1.50 for one months subscription just so that I could have a look around this exclusive little club. Beta gets a big thumbs up from me. It feels cleaner, much less cluttered and easier to find what you’re looking for, like wandering through an airy room.

So, back to music that motivates me and perks up my creativeness. At the moment I am going crazy over Tales From The Beach, Incognito’s new album which was released two weeks ago. It’s not often I buy an actual physical CD, but Incognito had me up and out the door in search of this just 5 minutes after hearing short track samples on the HMV website. It wasn’t for a couple of days more that I was able to locate it and paid £11-99 for the privilege from HMV. Usually I’d download my most favourite tracks from iTunes rather than a whole album…but since they didn’t have the album I was forced to buy the CD. Since I have all of Incognito’s work on this format then I didn’t mind keeping up that tradition too much.

When I’m not listening to Incognito (a rarity at the moment) then I listen to Miguel Migs, Jamiroquai, Basement Jaxx, Daft Punk, Royksopp, Groove Armada and Scissor Sisters amongst many many others. Those are the artists that ‘move’ me the most. Take a look through my Last.fm profile and feel free to add me as a friend. It’s fun to see who I have the best music compatibility with

A few days ago I downloaded Fluid which enables you to create Site Specific Browsers (SSBs) to run your favourite web apps as a seperate desktop app for your Mac. I didn’t know such a thing existed until I happened to be looking at Twitter just before sleep a few nights ago and Chris mentioned it. Sometimes it really does pay to be a nightowl

I set up Hahlo (like Chris) in Fluid and it looks great as a desktop application.

If I wasn’t such a big fan of Twitterrific then I’d be using that as my desktop Twitter client. I use Hahlo 3 on my iPod touch, so it’s a very familiar interface not to mention clean and uncluttered - two very important things to me when it comes to desktop apps.

At the moment I haven’t got any other SSBs set up in Fluid, but when sites such as Socialthing! extend their services and sort out the problems with their existing ones then Fluid is going to be absolutely perfect for that.

I have 10 1 invitation for Evernote to give away. Simply respond to this entry and one will wing it’s way to the e-mail address you comment with.

Okay, so what’s Evernote? It allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at anytime, from anywhere.

Sorry I can’t give my own thoughts on it but I’ve just recently received an invitation myself. I hear they’re hot property so wanted to offer the invites to others. You can find out more about it all, here. Evernote is available in desktop versions for Mac OS X Leopard and Windows XP/Vista. A Mobile version is currently compatible with Windows Mobile.