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Well, after a few months of up and down, network problems, and poor customer service at ManageMyBox, I've finally settled in with my new host.  WiredTree.com has provided me exceptional customer service, follow up with my questions, setup my VPS, and all for a very reasonable price.  I'm using their VPS512 package for $59 per month, along with a nifty little coupon I found on the web, so it's more like $40 per month.

This package has handled my handful of popular websites (1000k+ unique visitors per day) and all my slow sites (under 300 unique visitors per day).  There hasn't been a slow down, hiccup, networking issue, nothing.  This is a huge load off of my mind, considering I was at my wits end with ManageMyBox where I was using a fully dedicated server.

Just goes to show you can save money by purchasing a good managed VPS over a crappy managed dedicated.  I'm looking forward to being a customer of WirdTree for years to come and hopefully will eventually need their highest tier web hosting option.  Until then, thanks, my blood pressure has finally dropped down to respectible levels.

SimpleMachinesForum script has released an update to 1.1.8 which addresses some security and bug issues.  Furthermore if you are one of those living on the bleeding edge, there is also an update to the latest Release Client 2.0 RC1-1.

The upgrade process from 1.1.8 to 1.1.9 was easier than expected and was a breeze compared to other forum software that I've used.  Literally 2 clicks later the update was applied without any issues.  To make sure you are using the latest version of the SMF forum software log into your admin panel and follow the prompts.

Like any other website script available, always stay up to date.  There are plenty of nasty script kiddies that love to wreak havoc on online communities, no matter how popular they are.

A few weeks ago I talked about the issues I had with giving away all of my traffic data to Google, by using their free traffic stat software Analytics.  Since then I have tried about 3 different stat tracking software and sites.  So far I've tried using Piwik, W3Coutner, and now HiStats.  I think I may have found the best Google Analytics alternative in HiStats, if only for a few negatives, but let me explain why the others didn't work out first.

Piwik

Piwik was great, provided minimal stats, but the ones necessary to properly develop and form a website.  I got keywords, graphs, time on site, and visitor data.  Of the information provided with Piwik, my complaint lied with no IP tracking, clumsy reports, and no direct links from keywords to the search engine results page.

The absolute nail in the coffin reason why Piwik is not a good alternative to Google Analytics is that you have to host the tracking software yourself.  This means that if you have high traffic websites that you are tracking then it has the potential to bog down your system.  There is no question in my mind that Piwik was hurting the response time and up time of my dedicated server.

W3Counter

I tried out the free version of W3Counter and really thought I had found the stat program I would stick with.  The free version only allows the tracking of one site, but provides ample time to test out before upgrading to paid version which allows tracking for up to 10 sites.  The tracking was spot on and it allows for real time reporting, so you don't have to wait 24 hours for information like you do with Google Analytics.

Unlike Piwik, W3Counter is hosted on it's own servers, so it's not taxing on your system.  Unfortunately the servers W3Counter is hosted on is not sufficient to handle the load.  Regularly I was faced with timing out errors or worse, sealing the deal with W3Counter being marked off my list of potential Analytic tracking alternatives.  Hopefully in the future the creator of W3Counter will create more efficient code or break down and buy top notch servers.

HiStats

I think I have decided to start using HiStats.com as my Google Analytics alternative.  It provides all the information I need, complete with keyword, day reports, real time stats, and even exporting for record keeping.  Furthermore, HiStats.com is a free service, but laced with a ton of annoying ads.  I'm not against someone earning a buck for their hard work, so I can look past the ads.

Also, the free version allows for unlimited site tracking, as far as I can tell.  It seems that HiStats is also accurate with it's visitor tracking, keyword lists, and can even provide future traffic potential.  I've been using it for a few days and have never ran into downtime like I did with W3Counter and unlike Piwik the code is hosted on their servers.

I'd recommend anyone looking to have an alternative to Google Analytics to try out Histats.com.  If you are worried about putting ugly counters on your site, don't, they offer plenty of tasteful buttons and promise no hidden link code.  For now, that's where I'll be tracking, until a less Ad laden paid service shows up.

FireFox allows you to do it, Internet Explorer allows you to do it, but guess what?  There is no function within Google Chrome to give permission to a website to automatically allow popups.  This means, that every time you try to open an external PDF, login screen, or game on some websites you are forced to click the allow button everytime.

This would seem like a no brainer to fix, almost immediately after launch.  But here we are, months after Chrome's initial release and there has yet to be a patch for this.  Furthermore, I'm still waiting on Chrom Add-Ons that helped drive FireFox's p0ularity.  Unfortunately the lack of addons and now the lack of ability to allow popups based on domain have sealed the deal for me.  It will be awhile before I start my Chrome browser up again anytime soon.

Also, if you feel like giving Google an ear full, drop a line over at their complaint department.  There are plenty of other people pissed off that there is no way to allow popups in Google Chrome.

*Update - Google Now Allows Popup Authorization to Websites, How To Allow Popups In Chrome

By now everyone has heard of AdBlock Plus, a small tool that effectively disables advertisements from loading within a web browser.  Slowly but surely this FireFox addon has managed to garner over 5% of the FireFox user base and growing.  While this may seem like a small percentage, it's important to know who is being affected most.

In the past few months I have tracked a loss in total affiliate and Adsense revenue.  There are a number of reasons for this and obviously Adblock Plus is not the primary reason, but it still hurts.  I work very hard to create every website I own and therefore should be compensated for people using them.  When I'm fighting spammers, cookie thieves, bots, etc, why should I have to worry about legit visitors cheating me?

Apparently I'm not the only one that feels this way and Wladimir Palant has addressed the issue on the Adblock Plus blog.  Essentially, for the first time that I've noticed, Adblock Plus is suggesting an easy method for plugin users to opt-in to displaying ads on a website.  However, what he is proposing takes into consideration only a small portion of websites with repeat traffic, which relatively speaking is a small portion of the internet and affiliate websphere.

Adblock Plus will then check the browsing history to see whether the user frequents this site (this could be specified for example as “visited the site on three days of the last week”) and then display a notification like the following (unless a notification for this site was already shown recently):

The majority of visitors to my websites are one time visitors, probably less than 5% return.  This is in regards to my affiliate sites and not my personal blog.   It's not because I have a bad website, a spammy website, it's because the user finds what they want and complete a sale.  Or, the visitor searches on a specific question and then finds their answer.  So, what Adblock Plus is proposing will not benefit me in the slightest and only caters to the largest of affiliate and news sites.

This post is just a child of a frustration with the direction the internet is taking.  It's an entitlement complex by users and a handful of programmers that think they should control whats being shown and published on the web.  The issue is growing, becoming it's own beast, and slowly starting to resemble Net Neutrality issues.  After all, if Adblock Plus can effectively and accurately block ads, sure it's on the radar of those that want to block other content.  Filter or not, Adblock Plus has no place on the internet in it's current form.

Recently my Newsleecher Super Search function stopped working.  The program would load fine, download articles, and subscribe to newsgroups just fine, but the Super Search would hang when the search button was pressed.  After some fiddling around in the settings, cursing, and eventually walking away I figured out the issue.

About the time my Super Search stopped working I installed a new antivirus program.  As it turns out Avast On Access protection will block the incoming results from the Newsleecher Super Search site.  Therefore while OnAccess was running, I could not get search results.

Easy fix, just turn off Avast OnAccess Protection while you are using Newsleecher and problem solved!

Newsleecher is software that enables the archiving, subscribing, and downloading of articles from newsgroups.  It requires a yearly subscription for access to the Super Search function.  Also, actual access to the downloading of articles from Usenet is required for Newsleecer to function.  For more information and support for Newsleecher please visit their forums.

Recently I've been doing more thinking about a statistics program for my websites.  Of course, money is always a concern so I've been looking at free alternatives, namely Google Analytics.   Now, I used Google Analytics for over a year, was happy, but always a little bit paranoid.

Why would I give total and utter information of my website over to the company sending me traffic and providing me a monthly pay check?  I mean, Google provides the search traffic, will have access to my statistics through Analytics, and then will be writing me a check for my Adsense earnings every month.  It just doesn't make sense and always made me feel uneasy.  Especially once I started hearing more and more about Google adjusting SERPs based on bounce rates.

Now, more information has surfaced that indicates that Google in fact does not take bounce rate into consideration, but I trust Matt Cutt's as far as I can throw him.  Why take the chance of giving over valuable statistical data on your visitors to Google when there are other options available?  Thus my search for a quality statistics program began.

First, Piwik Stats was great!  However, it bogged down my server, seemed buggy, and needed updated far too many times in the short span I was using it.  I needed to take my web statistics program out of house.  What I found was that statistics programs are not generally free, like Google Analytics, and to get the good stuff plan on dropping around $10 per month.

Right now I'm testing out the free version of W3Counter, which limits you to a single domain tracking and less than 10,000 visitors per day.  The single domain is a problem, but I'm nowhere close to the visitor limit.  So far I like the reports, layout, and general live tracking that W3Counter boasts.  However, my only complaint right now is that their website is slow to respond on occasion.

I'll be trying out some new web statistics programs here over the next few weeks.  I also plan on using free and paid tracking software so I can finally settle down with a program I can use for years to come.  I'll report back with my findings as I go, so look for a W3Counter review in the next few days.