Hacking Google Analytics: Ideas, Tips and Tricks originally shared this post: Hacking Google Analytics: Ideas, Tips and Tricks

Yep! In case you didn’t notice, I’m rocking the new Swany SX’s there on the home page. Swany America is a new ally in my corner this season and will be in charge of keeping my digits nice and toasty, but that isn’t why I am hyping their new product lines. Put simply, Swany Gloves [...]

Okay, so for anybody who has been struggling with this ridiculous process of accessing the Facebook status feed since the first week of June 2011. Here are some tips.. A. It is a pain in the ass, so have some patience. B. Feed now requires an authentication token for non public data so you must [...]

Working and living in the Sierra Nevada’s, the weather becomes a quick topic of interest for many reasons. As storms roll through they bring the sweet aftermath of bluebird powder days and the more the better as far as I am concerned. When I first came to Lake Tahoe, I really had no idea what to expect or if there would even be any snow. I am originally from Tennessee and had no real exposure to the weather trends of Northern California. But now I have lived here going on about 9 years now and I have definitely gained some key insights to the weather patterns.

Perhaps one of the coolest websites I have run across lately, the Graffiti Archeology website is extremely intriguing… a photographic retrospective / timeline of graffiti tags, murals and stencils all rendered with some fancy flash coding. Check it out!

Below are some useful AS3 snippets that I use quite frequently. Thought they might come in handy for you too! 1. Get a url when the button is clicked. import flash.net.URLRequest; import flash.net.URLLoader; import flash.events.*; // ADD EVENT LISTENER AND FUNCTION TO THE BUTTON button_name.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, go); function go(event:MouseEvent):void { var url:String = “http://www.yourdomain.com”; var request:URLRequest [...]

Kellogg Co. is introducing new technology in the U.K. that allows it to burn its famous signature onto individual cereal flakes by using lasers.
Kellogg’s Corn Flakes with brandingEnlarge
The technology, which was developed in Britain, is being used in a trial to stamp out imitation cereals — which Kellogg calls “fake flakes” — by branding Corn [...]

Some might argue that game design is an art form, something not meant to be taken apart and analyzed, but researchers at IT University
of Copenhagen believe that
making the game design process more scientific could actually enhance player
experience. Their goal is to create games that
adapt to players’ personalities, which they believe would make video and computer games more entertaining.

For their experiment, described in full in an article in New Scientist this week, the researchers broke down Nintendo’s successful Super Mario Bros. in an
attempt to quantify what aspects made the game fun or frustrating for different
players. Some players, the researchers found, preferred fun tasks, such
as kicking turtle shells and acquiring coins, while others seemed to take more
pleasure in challenging tasks like clearing difficult jumps.

The research team has been presenting their preliminary data
at various computer intelligence conferences this fall. Their early results
suggest that controlling for certain features, such as reducing the number of
challenging jumps for fun-seeking players, improves players’ reception of the
game. But, for now, the researchers are still primarily focused on collecting and
analyzing player data. You can take theSuper Mario test yourself at this Web site (it requires a brief survey, then four rounds of a modified Super Mario level).

[Image from Pedersen, Togelius, Yannakakis 2009]

Funny, I was just talking to my buddy Derek the other night about how nice it would be to have a tri-fold monitor that hinged and would allow a user to have multiple screens with the sleek performance of a laptop. Well, as it turns out, they may not be that far off!

Dual-screen notebooks are [...]

Millions of revellers are due to raise pints of the world’s most famous stout to toast the birth of Guinness.
A raft of global celebrations will mark Arthur’s Day and 250 years since the Irish brewer went into business.
Dublin’s St James’s Gate will host the hub of festivities to commemorate founder Arthur Guinness and patrons will [...]