Geoff Wagstaff's blog

Monitor your Magento online store in real-time

Fri, 06 May 2011 17:16:58 +0100

Monitor your Magento online store in real-time:

GoSquared is proud to announce the release of our GoSquared for Magento plugin.

Users of Magento, one of the premiere ecommerce solutions on the web today, can now integrate the GoSquared…

TJ Holowaychuk: Cluster Live 0.0.1

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:15:44 +0100

TJ Holowaychuk: Cluster Live 0.0.1:

tjholowaychuk:

cluster-live is a plugin for the Cluster server manager written for node. Cluster is similar to Ruby’s “Unicorn”, however is extremely extensible via a simple plugin system.

Cluster is built with the Express web framework, Jade for templates, Stylus for CSS, and Socket.IO for communication.

Below is a screenshot of cluster-live in action. Each worker process is represented by its own

Adding a sexy admin panel to underlying node processes. Cluster is epic.

Introducing Map View (beta)

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 22:55:33 +0000

Introducing Map View (beta):

Today we’re releasing Map View (beta) into GoSquared’s Labs. Check it out.

What is Map View?

Map View is the same beautiful map that you will instantly recognise if you’ve been using…

Techfluff Interview with James and Geoff of GoSquared

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 14:06:23 +0000

Techfluff Interview with James and Geoff of GoSquared:

jamesgill:

Geoff and I discuss the benefits of GoSquared and give a quick demo of LiveStats with Lucy of Techfluff TV.

GoSquared is 5 Today, announcing Angel Investment and LiveStats 3.1

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 03:58:32 +0000

GoSquared is 5 Today, announcing Angel Investment and LiveStats 3.1:

Today is a very special day for us. Today is GoSquared’s 5th birthday, and what a birthday it is.

Angel Investment from Stefan Glaenzer and other top Investors

The GoSquared Team is thrilled…

New in LiveStats 3 – Exclude visitor activity from Trends

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 05:20:12 +0000

New in LiveStats 3 – Exclude visitor activity from Trends:

The last 2 weeks have been very exciting for GoSquared. The hugely successful launch of LiveStats 3 on 11th January led to some fantastic reviews from some of the largest blogs on the web…

An Update to GoSquared Accounts and Settings

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 22:24:38 +0000

An Update to GoSquared Accounts and Settings:

Today we’re announcing two huge improvements to GoSquared. We’re introducing a new structure for user accounts and plans to make GoSquared more affordable, easier to join and simpler…

RapidWeaver 5 – now seamlessly integrates with GoSquared

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 21:12:54 +0000

RapidWeaver 5 – now seamlessly integrates with GoSquared:

Our friends at Realmac have just launched the latest version of their award winning app for creating beautiful websites in minutes. And we’re very proud to be a part of RapidWeaver 5 -…

5x Faster. Introducing the New GSTC

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 14:44:20 +0100

5x Faster. Introducing the New GSTC:

We’re always improving the speed and efficiency of all components in the GoSquared system. We believe a well oiled machine is paramount to operational success. This week we decided to…

Trends – Web Analytics without the Analysis

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 05:56:13 +0100

Trends – Web Analytics without the Analysis:

Need to see who’s been on your website in the last day? Week? Month? Want to monitor your website’s traffic without having to read a manual first? Want an elegant web analytics solution…

2 Web Apps. One Price. New Plans and Pricing

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:44:23 +0100

2 Web Apps. One Price. New Plans and Pricing:

We quietly launched a new web app into beta a few weeks ago called Trends. Trends enables you to monitor your website’s trending traffic data from a single dashboard, with a separate…

So true via imgs.xkcd.com

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:09:58 +0100

So true

via imgs.xkcd.com

Introducing Affiliates & more

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 21:22:20 +0100

Introducing Affiliates & more:

Your chance to earn money from GoSquared has arrived. Today we announce the release of our Affiliate program, which enables you to earn cash from promoting LiveStats to your audience….

Pixel-Perfect Keyboard Icons

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 15:21:08 +0100

Pixel-Perfect Keyboard Icons:

It’s been too long since we gave away anything on Liquidicity, so here’s a few icons we’ve been working on.

Unlike our previous icons, these aren’t vector. Don’t cry yet. They’re pixel…

Introducing FutureStats

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:42:55 +0100

Introducing FutureStats:

Today we’re incredibly excited to announce an entirely new product from GoSquared - FutureStats.

We’ve been working on our second app for many many months, and we think you’re gonna…

Learn from the Masters of Design

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:40:43 +0000

Learn from the Masters of Design:

We don’t often write about other sites, but this month on Elite by Design, there’s a series of interviews that are simply too good to miss. So to ensure you check them out - we thought…

LiveStats 2.1

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:58:04 +0000

LiveStats 2.1:

We launched LiveStats 2 on February 3rd and so far the response has been fantastic. We’re thrilled with your feedback and you’ll be pleased to know we’re continuing to dramatically…

Retail Rip-Off

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 21:46:17 +0000

Why is it so difficult to find affordable quality in retail stores these days? Sure, we’re painfully dragging ourselves out of the midst of an economic downturn at the moment, but why does that warrant retailers to relentlessly swindle us out of our hard-earned cash? We’re all part of the same economy, it’s tough for us too!

I’ve noticed that more often than not these days, “affordable” just doesn’t cut it. It seems that in the retail world, “affordable” is just synonymous with “junk”, as retailers fervently encourage you to splash out on the “wise investment”, “necessary expense” or whatever other terms they use for the stuff that actually works. If you decide you’re gonna fight the power and insist on something affordable that seemingly does the job, quite often you’ll find you end up with a huge amount of stress, time, energy and money spent that all congeals into a snarling heap of opportunity cost. That is, in the long run it seems that, you’d be better off just succumbing to the bullies in marketing and buy the expensive model that works.

So far, quite general. Now a personal anecdote: buying a printer. This is the main motivation behind this post, because the buying process was so infuriating I could not just let it go without a rant. Printers aren’t cheap at the best of times, but if you want one that doesn’t completely SUCK and will break the first time you extend the paper tray, you’re already looking at a moderately expensive version.

Then there’s the salesmen. As soon as you hear the word “sales” in a store worker’s personal introduction as they greet you, run a mile. They’re not there to help you. They’re there to warp your finely tuned, carefully logical common sense so that you start to think buying something you don’t need, don’t want, or can’t afford (any combination or all of those three) would be a sensible idea. Utter bull. Those people don’t help. They pocket mine through lies, sales fluff, faked empathy and an unrealistic ploy that they care for your situation.

For example, I had a good chat with a printer salesman working for a specific brand (I won’t bother name-dropping) in a popular UK computer retail store, and I sceptically listened to what he had to say. I found it ludicrous listening to some of the things he came out with, all carefully rehearsed of course.

First off: the USB cable. He said no printers came with it, and that I’d have to buy it separately. Ok, kinda believable I guess, but untrue. The printer model I eventually bought came with one.

Second, I mentioned I was looking for a wifi printer, and he immediately recommended one of the top-range printers from his own brand (of course), claiming that they were “the first to do wifi and therefore the best”. Sweeping generalisation. And besides, wifi is wifi. Apart from variations in specs, it ends there.

Third, printer cartridges, the most irritating part of the printing experience. This guy claimed that the particularly expensive model he was endorsing came with totally filled ink cartridges that are equivalent to new ones, whereas all other printer models were only partially filled and would only print “2-3 pages MAX”. He was adamant this was the case. The printer I eventually purchased has so far printed dozens of pages with no signs of running out.

So all this, compounded by all the other BS he was verbally exhuming, has contributed considerably towards the the cynic of the retail world I seem to be becoming. I was forced to, in the end, purchase a printer (not the one the sales guy was endorsing) that was nearly twice as much as I was expecting to spend, simply because all the others totally sucked, looked like they would be lucky to survive a week, or had some kind of unbecoming feature that ruined the rest of the product. And I see this everywhere, not only consumer electronics, but household appliances & furnishings, utilities, technology and quite often, services also.

Is it too much to ask to get what we need without wasting time/money/effort obtaining it?

jamesgill: benjacob: Epic Win FTW » Engineers, They Love...

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:31:29 +0000

jamesgill:

benjacob:

Epic Win FTW » Engineers, They Love To Drink

Physicist Discovers How to Teleport Energy

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 01:51:16 +0000

Physicist Discovers How to Teleport Energy:

mattlehrer:

Since energy and mass can be converted back and forth (E=MC²), it’s only a matter of time before teleportation is real. 2010!

All this is possible because there are always quantum fluctuations in the energy of any particle. The teleportation process allows you to inject quantum energy at one point in the universe and then exploit quantum energy fluctuations to extract it from another point. Of course, the energy of the system as whole is unchanged.