TechCrunch notes:

An eye-candy app, written about by Lifehacker:

Argh.  I'm a big fan of Google, but ran into an annoyance with Chrome today.  When Chrome is installed on a Vista or Windows 7 machine, it actually installs itself into a hidden directory in your User folder.  I have a Logitech mouse that can be customized for each program on my system.  Unfortunately, the Logitech program won't see programs installed in a hidden folder, even if that folder is set to be viewable in Windows.

The solution is to install Chrome via the Google Pack, instead of via the normal install method.  Doing so will install Chrome in the typical Program Files directory.

I then tried to switch to the Dev Channel version of Chrome, so that I could use extensions with Chrome.  Unfortunately, using the normal link for the Dev Channel won't work if you installed Chrome using the Google Pack (you get a message indicating that Chrome is already installed for all users).  The solution to this is to download the Chrome Channel Changer, which will allow you to switch to the Dev channel version of Chrome.

So, I now am able to customize my Logitech mouse for use with Chrome, and also use the Dev version of Chrome.  But should it have been this hard?  I've heard Google's reasons for installing a program in the user directory (allow users to install without administrative access, allow each user to have his own installation, etc.), but this flaunts all the "rules" of good computing.  Frankly, it really seems amateurish to not allow users the choice of where to install a Program.  It's like Google is telling us, "you will do it OUR way."  Hmm, maybe I should say it is a bit "Apple-ish."

At first blush, Google Analytics only provides statistics for previous dates, as the main statistics graph does not extend into the current date.  You can use Analytics to get statistics for the current day, however.  Simply click on the date at the top right of the graph, and select the current date as both the start date and end date, and Analytics will provide you with statistics for the current date.  Given that different traffic monitoring applications may not measure visitors, page visits, and others statistics in the same manner, there is no way to know for sure that the stats are 100% accurate, but I've compared the visitor count with the real-time count on my site from Clicky, and the two are typically very close, and sometimes identical.

For several weeks, the bounce rate at 40Tech has been in the low single digits.  According to Wikipedia, bounce rate "essentially represents the percentage of initial visitors to a site who 'bounce' away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site.  The formula used to calculate bounce rate is: Bounce Rate = Total Number of Visits Viewing One Page ÷ Total Number of Visit."

Yesterday and today, though, the bounce rate at 40Tech shot up dramatically.  That left me scratching my head until I realized that when I had upgraded my theme to a new version, I had forgotten to carry over the code for Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP), a WordPress Plugin.  YARRP "gives you a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site."  You can see it in action at the end of any post on 40Tech.

Most sites that I visit already use YARPP, or something similar to it.  If you don't use it, go get it.

I've activated the CommentLuv plugin on 40tech.com, and will be trying it out for a while.  CommentLuv allows a commenter to plug his or her own blog, by automatically detecting the latest post on the commenter's own site, and posting a link to it along with the commenter's comment.  Are any of you using it?  If so, what has your experience with it been like?

After exhaustive research, I recently purchased my first netbook, a Toshiba mini NB205.  Look for a review soon on 40Tech.

As much as I'm really loving the netbook (when I can pry it away from my wife), I'm learning that netbooks require a change in user behavior, due in part to the small screen real estate.  Lifehacker to the rescue.  Gina Trapani has posted some code to modify Firefox's userChrome.css to maximize the usable screen space in Firefox, by rearranging or eliminating less useful space in the browser.  The image above shows the top of my browser before (top) and after (bottom) applying the code snippet.  Click the image to enlarge it.  The changes are subtle, and do the following to your browser:

- remove the new tab button
- remove the search box magnifying glass
- remove and combine disabled buttons, such as Back, Stop, Forward, and Reload

I'm also using the Tiny Menu Firefox plugin, which combines the File, Edit, View, History, Bookmarks, Tools, and Help menu items from the toolbar into one dropdown menu.  These changes together combine to make Firefox a bit more usable.  But I have a dirty secret to tell - as much as I am a Firefox fan, Chrome runs better on my netbook.

You can check out the Lifehacker article, which contains the code, here.

Last week, I wrote an article over on 40Tech in which I set forth five suggested improvements for Google Voice.  It appears that I have the ear of Google.  OK, maybe not, but today Google announced changes that show improvement in two of the five areas I covered.  One of the suggestions was that Google improve tagging and filtering for voicemail messages, while another suggestion was that Voice provide for seamless playback of e-mailed messages.  With the new changes, Voice now forwards messages to you as embedded audio files, along with transcriptions of messages (note: this only works if you use Gmail.  Otherwise, you are emailed a link to the message, and taken to the Google Voice page to play it).  This means that you can now filter and archive your messages from within your Gmail account (you'll still need to go into Voice on occasional, and do a "select all" and then "archive" to keep things tidy in your Voice account), and you can now play your messages from within Gmail seamlessly, via an embedded player.  While non-Gmail users don't get the same benefits, this is a step in the right direction.

If Google implements my other suggestions, then I'll really start to feel special.