Whoops – It’s Woopra
I don't normally get my jollies out of software.
Software is just something I install on my computer to cause it to crash.
But I installed a piece of software last week, and it actually got the pulse rate to increase [very slightly].
If you run a blog, then this software is a cracker.
DON'T INSTALL IT. If you do, you will regret it, because it is hypnotic. You'll spend hours just watching it.
I have to curse thank Bock for introducing me to it.
It's a thing that goes under the horrible name of Woopra. It kicks Google Analytics into the middle of last year.
You have to sign up for it, which isn't easy, because it is only in the testing phase, and they have to approve your application. This takes a while. Then you add a tiny piece of code to your site [a much smaller piece of code that GA, I might add]. Lastly, you install the software package on your puter.
So what does it do?
Basically, it does all that Google does. But it does a hell of a lot more.
First and foremost, it shows things as they are. Now. At this instant. You can watch people arrive on your site and watch them browsing from page to page. You can see exactly what they are reading at any instant. And if you want to scare the shit out of them, you can send them an instant message that pops up on their browser, and you can then have a chat. It's great when people come looking for 'senior porn' – I can send them an instant message – 'We're watching you. You little pervert'. They tend to disappear fairly quickly [usually less than a nanosecond]. I have caused a couple of my regular readers to wet themselves, and I apologise. I won't do it again, unless you ask me to.
It does have its little problems, but then it is more Alpha than Beta, so that's to be expected. It drops out occasionally, and can be difficult to reconnect but that's rare. They also haven't implemented a method of filtering users, so all my hits are counted [except those to the Admin area]. On the plus side, it runs on the PC so it is a lot faster than Google. Its graphs and statistics are very comprehensive with a very powerful drill down. You can do searches, and set alerts. It doesn't have a proper help section yet, so a lot of it is trial and error, and I keep finding new features every day. Because of the tiny code, it tend to be a lot quicker off the mark so its figures are more accurate than Google's. I'm getting more hits and page views than I thought! It also has a nice trend feature in its graphs. It knows how many visitors or page views I should expect for the time of day, and graphs that against the actual figures. It even gas a ticker-tape that shows how your trends are doing for the day.
I haven't mentioned this before, but there are a couple of sad fuckers out there. They are pals. Each of them only has one friend and that is the other sad fucker. Their hobby at the moment is to trawl my site looking for offensive material. They are absolutely obsessed with it. Neither has a sense of humour so they take everything I say literally, which causes them a lot of angst. They have never commented on the site, though one of them wrote to me, and the other is spreading slander about me. They really are a very sad pair.
I watched them last week. They went through the site page by page. They paid particular attention to three or four pages. They spent three hours going through the site, and one of them notched up around 250 page views. They really are obsessed. It was fascinating to watch though. One was even mailing the other, telling him which page to view. I was very tempted to send an instant message asking if I could help them find anything. I resisted though.
I didn't want to spoil their fun.
You would love to see their expression when the instant message comes in!
Of course the ultimate would be if I could watch my visitors’ expressions when they are browsing! The final arbiter on whether a post is funny or not?
So, you found me out! Big deal! My trawl of your site did throw up a lot of offensive material. At least, you are right about this!
Seriously! Your puns are nowhere near pathetic enough, you talk big about shooting tourists, but I do not see even a half decent body count mounting up, and you are much younger than you let on to be. As a psychotic supercentenarian with an awful taste in humour, you sicken me big time.
(P.S. I actually do hate that kind of informative software. Internet being a place of free expression and all that sort of yadda, yadda…)
Goodness, this sounds very Big Brotherish. Even worse than CCTV. Grandad following me from page to page to see which bit of porn sorry humour I’m attending to. And a harsh reprimand about to leap out of the screen at me. I’m getting scared, very scared. I think I’d better log out quick before my evil reading habits are revealed in too much detail and go somewhere more discreet. I guess that K8 is still fairly safe.
Grandad, “CIA” and “NSA” are not typical users. Let me tell your more about them……..connection terminated…
In case any of you are worried, I have a hell of a lot more to do with my time than to sit around watching you lot browse my site. I’m not that nerdy, or sad.
I have set a trap for K8 though, so when she browses this site, her PC will explode ๐
Hey! how long does it take to get confirmation? I’ve just downloaded it and put all 11 of my blogs on it, now just waiting for confirmation of all of them ๐ I can’t wait! I’ve been toying with the idea of putting sitemeter on each and every page and that would just suck. besides i’m not real happy with it anyway. i wish i had known about this when that person from google kept trawling through my site for 3 friggin days, for hours at a time…had to do a whois on her. i have her phone number now. didn’t call it though, figured i’d get a switchboard or voicemail anyway. if it was just the page rank checker then she could have left me a thank you note or at least upped my page rank ๐ have a good one and thanks, for now…next week when i’m all bleary-eyed from staring at my stats I might come back cursing you for telling me about it ๐
Do me a favour Grandad, I’m still adjusting to the colour change on my site!
Prin – You have to submit your site to them [and I think they are only taking one blog per person at the moment]. I got my registration within 36 hours, but some are waiting weeks. It seems to be luck of the draw.
Those Google people are a pain in the hole. They keep calling around here wanting to photograph my house for Google Earth.
Maxi – It looks like you forgot to pay your electricity bill??
Yea, I gotta’ go with Nick here and say that sounds awfully Orwellian. As to the two sad fucks trolling your site, How do you know that one was emailling the other? In other words just how intrusive is this app to your visitors?
I’m not turning the lights on!!
The text alteration is just for you though.
Ooooooh….from a bloggers standpoint I love it!…..but from a readers standpoint, I’m not so sure…kinda takes away my annoniminity…but I’m going to go check it out anyway….
Brianf – It’s not really, as I don’t [as I have already said] hang around watching people come and go. It doesn’t tell me anything that I can’t find out from my log files anyway.
As for the two fuckers – I have been watching them for a while, and know their IP address ranges, and I know the pages they visit. I also know which e-mail provider one of ’em uses, so every now and then one would open a page, and the referrer would be an e-mail from that provider, so I would guess the other fucker sent it. Simple. And it’s all there in the logs anyway. It sounds Orwellian, but it isn’t really.
Maxi – The text is a vast improvement! A blog designed just for me?! *wow* ๐
Olga – It doesn’t take away your anonymity. And anyway, if I happened to have the program open, and I happened to be watching it at the time of your visit, then what the heck? I get a warm feeling because Olga is reading my site. It would save you having to comment to say you’d been!
Very cool. Can’t wait until I get confirmation. Thanks for the tip. IM me anytime as long as your screen name isn’t HotMama69!
Aagghh! I just saw it – top right on the screen: ‘The eyeball in the sky! Sob… it was ‘orrible.
I’m feeling all self-conscious now, Grandad ๐
“It would save you having to comment to say youรขยยd been!”
Whoopee! That would make life much easier.
Does Woopra bring you coffee too?
Sixty – Could you possibly be anyone else? ๐
Geri – No. That wasn’t it. It appears as a glowing eyeball all right, but it hovers over your head to see what you are typing.
Steph – Jayzus! I’ve made everyone paranoid now. I’m sorry I mentioned it. I didn’t see you visit, so it is as well you commented. It’s switched off at the moment [as it is most of the time] so I have to make my own tea/coffee.
I signed up both my sites for Woopra and that was about a week and a half ago. Guess I didn’t draw as well as you did, Grandad but hell, I can wait. Then, when finally approved, I can spend even more time not posting or visiting around so I can sit here comatose watching folks be-bop around my sites until my wife divorces me. Presently, I have to find other things to keep me from posting like mowing the lawn, cleaning the house, vacuuming the floor, doing the dishes, torturing the cats not spending money ’cause I don’t have any, gimping down to the store since I can’t afford to buy gas anymore, blah,blah,blah,whine,whine,cry,complain…
…oh..uh..sorry…got carried away and all. Must be low blood sugar or something like that…better have lunch then.
Just in case you think it’s me searching for all the busty blondes, sorry famous Irish celebs, it’s not me it’s the Other Fella who does that. The real Nick would only be searching for sophisticated political arguments on the Lisbon Treaty, the Health Service and such.
You mean there are TWO eyeballs watching me?…..tic… and it’s not the ‘Great Giant Head’?…..twitch…
Well all right then, let them watch each other – I’m off to watch Netherlands vs. Russia on the box and ‘we’re (Dutch) going to w-in! We’re going to w-i-in!!
Hup Holland Hup!!!
Kirk M – Obviously they don’t approve of you? Can anyone blame them? And what are you doing having lunch in the middle of the evening?
Nick – I know. I have problems with The Other Fella too. I think he’s in the other room monitoring Woopra now, so he’ll know I’m on-line. Shit!
Geri – Is there a match on, or something? Or has someone declared war?
Hey Grandad,
It’s that time zone thing again. As much as I would like to think that you’re my favorite next door neighbor, fellow schemer and pub partner alas, it is not so. I ate lunch at 14:10 or 1:10pm or there abouts (which ever type of time you prefer, sir).
Woopra doesn’t approve of me?? So who does I ask you? Who does? ๐
Gawd all a bit over my head! I’ve got Sitemeter on mine but can’t be bothered matching IP addresses or analysing graphs. I spend too much time gazing at the screen as it is. Glad it floats your boat though . . sounds very ‘clever’.
You always find the coolest gadgets, Grandad. I’m going to give a go! ๐
Ooh interesting stuff indeed. Will have a play around with this one. As Jefferson said, you always find the coolest gadgets!
So when will you give a class on blogging?
“So when will you give a class on blogging?”
Hahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!