Notes from the Help Desk…

How many people are visiting your website as you are reading this?  Are they new or returning customers?  Where are they located geographically?  Were they referred from another site?  Did they use a bookmark or favorite?  If they found you through a search engine, what key words did they type?

You can answer these questions with Google Analytics’ new Real-Time feature!

To view Real-time data:

1. Click the Home tab at the top of the Google Analytics screen.
2. Click the Real-Time (Beta) category in the navigation panel on the left.
3. Click Overview.

Google will display the following screen:

Have you checked your website on a mobile device, such as an iPad or iPhone?  The best current estimate is that 10% of website visitors are using mobile devices.  If you have Google Analytics installed (which you should), it’s easy to find out if this is true for your website.

(If you don’t know about Google Analytics and you need to track visitors to your website, consider signing up for our online Google Analytics workshop.)

To find out the number of visitors to your website using mobile devices (with Google Analytics):

1. Click the Standard Reporting tab.
2. Expand the Audience category in the navigation panel on the left.
3. Expand the Mobile category.
4. Click Overview.
5. The table will display the number of visitors using Mobile Devices (Yes) and those not using mobile devices (No).

For a further breakdown of which specific mobile devices are used by your visitors, click the Devices subcategory under Mobile.

You can also add a pie chart to your dashboard for a quick look at the number of mobile visitors.

Google Analytics includes built-in alerts whenever there are significant changes in the traffic patterns on your website.  You can also add custom alerts to specify the changes you want to track, and you can have Google Analytics automatically send you an email when any of these changes occur.

For example, suppose you wanted to track the performance of a specific landing page named services.htm.  Specifically, you want to know when the Bounce Rate increases by more than 20% over the previous week.  (The Bounce Rate is the percentage of users who view the page and leave without clicking on anything.  Ideally, bounce rates should be under 50%.)

To create this alert:

1. Click the HOME tab at the top of the GA window.
2. Click Intelligence Events in the left navigation panel.
3. Click the Custom Alerts tab.
4. Click the Manage Custom Alerts button.
5. Click the Create New Alert button.
6. Type a name for the Alert.  (e.g., Services Page Bounce Rate Increase)
7. Select how often you want to check the data — day, week, or month.
   (You might want to check a Bounce Rate daily, but weekly revenues weekly.)
8. Check the appropriate options if you want GA to notify you by e-mail or text when the alert triggers.
9. Select the Alert conditions you want.  The picture below shows the conditions for the alert described above.



10. Click the Save Alert button to save and close the custom alert.

When the custom alert is triggered, GA will notify you via email or text message.  You can also check the data yourself or edit the alert:

1. Click the HOME tab.
2. Click Intelligence Events / Overview in the left navigation panel.
3. Click the Custom Alerts tab, and then click the Custom Alert you want to view or edit.

If you are a user who has ever had difficulty explaining a tech support issue to a technician, or if you are a technician who has ever had trouble understanding a user’s problem, then you need…the Windows 7 Problem Steps Recorder.

This is a nifty little feature of Windows 7 that lets you automatically record screenshots of a problem you are having.  After the screenshots are recorded, Windows zips them up so you can send them to a technician, who can unzip them and view them in a browser.

To use the Problem Steps Recorder:

1. Type PSR in the Start Menu search box.
2. Windows will display the Problem Steps Recorder:



3. Click the Start Record button.
4. Perform all the steps you want to record.
5. Click the Stop Record button.
6. Windows will offer to save all the steps and screen shots in a zip file.
7. The zip file will contain an MHT file which can be viewed in any browser.

If you want to snap a window to the left side of the screen quickly (technically Aero-Snap), hold down the Windows key and press the Left Arrow Key.

If you want to snap a window to the right side of the screen quickly (technically Aero-Snap), hold down the Windows key and press the Right Arrow Key.

If you right-click a file in Windows Explorer, and then select Send To, you’ll see the standard list of Send To options.

To reveal a list of additional options on the Send To menu (in Windows 7), including often-used folders, hold down the SHIFT key before you right-click the file.

Get used to dragging things around in Outlook.

For example, if you drag an e-mail message to the Contacts button, Outlook will create a new contact for the sender, with Name and E-mail fields already filled in.  The body of the e-mail message will appear in the Notes field.

If you drag a Contact to the Mail button, Outlook will create a new e-mail message to that Contact.  Very cool!

Drag a Contact to the Calendar button, and Outlook will create a Meeting Invitation ready to be sent to that person.

Drag a Contact to the Tasks button, and Outlook will create a Task Request addressed to that contact.

All Office 2010 applications now include a screen capture utility to help you quickly capture any area of the desktop screen.

The tool will automatically take screenshots of all open applications on your desktop (that are not minimized), and let you insert them directly into your document.

Inserting a Full Screen Screenshot

To insert a full screen screenshot:

1. Click Screenshot in the Illustrations group on the Insert tab of the Ribbon.
2. Word will display thumbnails of all open applications that are not minimized.



3. Click the thumbnail you want to insert the screenshot in your document at the insertion point.

Office 2007 introduced a new graphics engine that lets you add special effects to text and graphics.  These effects have been expanded and enhanced in Office 2010.

Text Effects

To add special effects to text:

1. Select the text you want to change.
2. Click the Text Effects button in the Font group on the Home tab of the ribbon.



3. Click the effect you want, or select additional effects from the menus at the bottom (Outline, Shadow, Reflection and Glow).

Artistic Effects

Word 2010 includes a number of new ways to modify graphics in a document.  All of these options are in the Adjust group on the Picture Tools/Format tab of the Ribbon.

The options in this group are summarized below:

To select a cell in Excel, you have two basic methods: RANGE and CELLS:

Range ("A1").Select

Range("RangeName").Select

Cells(3, 4).Select   'Selects Row 3, Column 4, i.e. cell D3

Range works well for hard-coded cells. Cells works best with calculated cells, especially when you couple it  with a loop:

For i = 1 to 10
     Cells(i, 1).value = i   ' fill A1 through A10 with the value of i
Next i

Note that your focus does not change. Whatever cell you were in when you entered the loop is where you are when you leave the loop. This is way faster than selecting the cell, changing the value, selecting the next cell, etc. If you are watching the sheet, the values simply appear.