It’s a project that I’ve been working on for a while and it’s finally starting to show some information that is hopefully of some use for people.
If you head over to StatShare you can see the first of a monthly round up of analytics from August.
The idea of the project is to allow people to anonymously share their web stats to give us a picture of an “average” website.
If you would be so kind then why not share your web stats with the project? Every site added helps to improve the quality of the final stats we collate.

I nearly forgot about linking to this, my first article for a while.

For those who may have noticed I’ve been doing a few Google Analytics articles for Six Revisions and the latest published a few weeks ago looks at the basics of tracking searches on your site and what you can start to glean from the information available in Google Analytics. Click on the image to go and read the article.

For those unaware I am no longer working full time in web development and instead I’m flying planes around Europe for easyJet. That does not however mean I’m not doing web stuff anymore, I am! I’m pleased to still be involved at Armitage Online and they recently launched two sites that I’d been working on. The first is Leonardsfield House, a website for a Keswick guest house which is based on the nifty little CMS Perch, which is brilliant for straight forward no nonsense CMS needs.

The second site is VMC Developments, a Lancaster based building contractors. Based on WordPress I started the design and build on the site and it was finished off by the fantastic Ryan Downie who made it look a damn site better than I had with some great work and finishing touches.

In other bits and pieces I’ve been slowly piecing together the stuff for my analytics project StatShare.net which is now massively behind the timescale I had been working to but will hopefully start to show something useful in the next few weeks. I’ve also been working with Rugby League website Last Tackle on adding new functionality to their fantasy league system and also a few other projects with them.

Which I think about covers the update, there’s some writing being thrown in for good measure, another long overdue article for Six Revisions should be on it’s way soon as well. So with any luck you’ll have some more stuff to read about on here in the not too distant future.

Well I’ve not posted on here for a while but it doesn’t mean I’m not busy. In fact it means I am very busy.
For those who don’t pop onto Smashing Magazine too often you may not have noticed but I wrote an article for them a while back which has just been published. It’s about using decision making models and applying them to web design scenarios, so why not go and check it out.
Decision-Making Models In Web Development

This was requested on the original CSS hover tabs post and as usual it has taken me ages to get around to doing it.

Anyway it is just the previous version realigned and also with an added tab to show you how easy it is to customise and add extra tabs.

You can view the demo here, it’s pretty straight forward and I won’t go into detail as it is all worked using the same principles as the original post so read that first and then take a look at the source of this one. It’ll do you good to do some thinking and look at what’s changed!

Lake Windermere, see it’s really nice up here. (image Flickr)

Well do you? Are you a great web designer or developer looking to work for an upcoming web agency? You get encouraged to use new web technologies like HTML5 and CSS3 and get to work in an area with some great scenery to boot?

Do you want my job!? – quite literally. I’m leaving as a nice man with an orange airline has offered me a job flying his planes. However I’m still sad as Armitage has been a great place to work and Andrew is a brilliant boss.

So if you feel you’d like to work in the Lake District and spend your weekdays building great websites for some great clients and then have the weekends to freely explore the Lakes then head over and read the full job spec on the Armitage http://www.armitageonline.co.uk/about/jobs/ and retweet this and pass it on to anyone you think might be interested.

This doesn’t mean this site will go to rack and ruin, I’ll still be blogging and still doing some web stuff it just won’t be full time so expect the same little tips and tricks and musing from me.

This weeks interviewee for the randomiser is the designer behind the great blog Web Designer Notebook, Inayaili De León.

Random email interview number 8 – Inayaili De Leó
With lucky numbers
13, 6, 26, 18, 5, 22, 1, 17, 11 and 25
Lets get started!
First things first describe yourself in a tweet – 140 characters – Go!
I’m a web designer. I’m from Portugal. I live in London. I like chocolate, pizza and cats, and I order too much delivery food.

1.(Question 13) – What are the best presents you’ve given and received?

I remember receiving a guitar when I was like 11. I was totally overwhelmed when I got it — I loved it! I like to think every present that I give is good — I’ve given a few trips to London to my sister recently and concert tickets, I think that’s a cool present to give, right? Oh, and spa days, people like that because they often forget to treat themselves.

2.(Question 6) – What’s your favourite TV series?

Ooh, wrong question, my friend. The best TV show of all times is the Sopranos. My top 5 would also include Arrested Development (very close first, and I’ve watched it like 3 times already), Lost, Curb Your Enthusiasm and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

3.(Question 26) – You know how sometimes you get a tune you don’t really care for stuck in your head and you can’t get rid of it and it drives you nuts – what tune is it?

(Added by Sneh Roy)

It depends, I usually have very depressing, sad songs stuck in my head, but I have none today.

4.(Question 18) – What is your favourite book?

Every book by José Saramago. He’s a Portuguese writer, won the Nobel Prize, etc. I love him because he’s so subversive, you have to adapt to his way of writing — he uses almost no punctuation, you have to guess what’s a question, what’s an exclamation — it’s not easy at first, but after one or two books you just realise what a genius he is. Every time he has a new book I run to the closest bookstore to buy it and read it, he’s that good.

5.(Question 5) – Are you a sports fan and who do follow/support?

Yes, I like football (soccer?…). My team is Sporting Clube de Portugal (or Sporting Lisbon, for people outside Portugal).

6.(Question 22) – If you had to ‘become’ an application for the day on your Mac or PC, which would you be and why? And what would you spend the day doing?

(Added by Grace Smith)

This is a very strange question! I’d be Firefox, of course. I would want to see what you’re seeing and doing on the web.

7.(Question 1) – What’s your favourite movie?

Se7en. It’s dark, it’s clever, it’s timeless, and for me it’s a classic. I’ve watched it too many times — it’s sad actually.

8.(Question 17) – Can you play any musical instruments? If you can’t what would you like to play?

I started playing the violin when I was very young, but I couldn’t properly hold it, and I quit. Then I tried the guitar for a few years, but I got bored of it. I guess I prefer to listen to music than to actually make it. If I could play anything, I’d probably pick the guitar.

9.(Question 11) – What’s the longest you’ve been without a shower?

Assuming my parents bathed me everyday when I was a kid, probably a whole weekend, just staying at home being lazy…

10.(Question 25) – Who was your first kiss, in what circumstances?

(Added by Bruce Lawson)

Can I have another question? Or is it really depressing if I confess I don’t remember?

And the all important final question – what question do you want to add to thequestion bank?

If you could have a super-power, what would it be?

A big thanks to Yaili for taking part, you can of course visit the Web Designer Notebook or head over to her site http://yaili.com/ if you don’t think you’ve read enough about her!

Head over to Six Revisions for my new guest article on Google Analytics Goals and Funnels, the start of a series of posts digging into some more advanced Google Analytics set-ups.

If you’re interested in Analytics you may also want to check out my new side project StatShare.

Well I have a new project I’ve been looking to start putting together for a while but I’ve got as far as a domain and a holding page. The project is called StatShare and is at http://www.statshare.net. The aim is for people to share their website analytic reports via the site, anonymously, and they will then be collected together and analysed to produce useful data on bounce rates, visitor numbers and conversion rates amongst other things. By giving sites profiles the site will hopefully deliver reports on bounce rates for blogs in various traffic bands for example.

If you’re interested head over to http://www.statshare.net and pop in your email address and be sure to follow the official StatShare twitter account @statshare.

Oh and there’s a bit of webkit animation in there if you can find it! – enjoy.

The randomiser makes it way to number 7 after a little break, and it’s web designer and developer Sam Brown who joins in those all ready randomised.

Random email interview number 7 – Sam Brown

With lucky numbers 23, 5, 3, 13, 18, 16, 21, 11, 10 and 2.
Lets get started!

First things first describe yourself in a tweet – 140 characters – Go!
Sam Brown is a freelance interface designer and web standards developer from Edinburgh Scotland who is passionate about great code & design.

1. (Question 23) – Which celebrity do you most look like?

(added by Chris Spooner)

According to my friends, Eminem. Thus I turned up to our annual New Year fancy dress party sporting a grey cotton tracksuit, red baseball cap, bandanna and some bling. I’m trying my hardest to keep the photos under wraps!

2. (Question 5) – Are you a sports fan and who do you follow/support?

I’m a big Formula 1 fan and have a particular fancy for McLaren but I’m not religious about supporting the team – I just genuinely love the sport. Really looking forward to the forthcoming season. I also enjoy Champions League Football and International Rugby.

3. (Question 3) – Who’s your favourite movie star?

Probably someone like Denzel Washington, he has starred in a lot of movies that I have really enjoyed. I like a vast array of movie genres, picking a single movie star is rather difficult.

4. (Question 13) – What are the best presents you’ve ever given and received?

My Dad bought me my first MacBook Pro which was easily the best I have received, I like giving people presents that involve activities such as helicopter rides or a an abseiling adventure – one of those I’d imagine.

5. (Question 18) – What is your favourite book?

Not sure I have one to be honest, I tend to buy books and read them once. Actually, to tell the truth, I tend to buy books just to stock my bookshelves – I rarely find the time to read them.

6. (Question 16) – If there was a film of your life who should play you?

Matt Damon, but not Bourne Matt, more like Good Will Hunting Matt.

7.(Question 21) – When you were little who was your favourite super hero and why? (added by Jacob Gube)

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and I have absolutely no idea why! I was a little obsessed with them for a few years.

8. (Question 11) – What’s the longest you’ve ever been without a shower?

Only a few days, but it was rather unpleasant. We checked out of our Vegas hotel room in the morning – spent the day on the strip in the blazing heat before leaving Las Vegas in the evening but due to bad weather over New York we had to land in Philadelphia where we spent the night sleeping at the airport. We then flew the 15 minute flight from Philly to JFK the next morning and our flight back to Edinburgh didn’t leave until 2200, so we got the train into NYC and spent the day in the summer heat before flying the 6 hours back to the UK. All in all it was a solid 2 days in the same clothes and without a shower!

9. (Question 10) – If you had an elephant where would you hide it?

Probably at Tim Van Damme’s House.

10. (Question 2) – Where are you from and what’s the best thing about it?

Edinburgh, Scotland and easily the city itself particularly the old town.

And the all important final question – what question do you want to add to the question bank? Do you have a vice or bad habit, what is it and do you wish you could change it?

A big thank you to Sam for taking part you can catch up with him at his blog http://sam.brown.tc or on Twitter @sambrown