Firefox is attempting to set a Guinness world record with the most software downloads in 24 hours, from 10:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time 17 June 2008. Firefox 3 boasts 15, 000 improvements from the previous version and will, in my opinion, set the bar for all other internet browsers to come. I’ve always been an avid supporter of Firefox as well as all other Mozilla software, so I’m planning on downloading the new Firefox distribution at least twice during download day, just to show some support. I have also been using the beta version of Firefox 3 for some time now and it works great. The link to the page where downloading of the new browser will take place is : http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/products/firefox/. The download day official site can be found at : http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/

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Filed under: Software, Firefox, Guinness world record, Mozilla, Software, Web browsers, World record | Post a comment

Google analytics is a great tool used by web developers and web media professionals to monitor web traffic to a particular domain. The analytical data generated by Google analytics can be used to streamline a company or brand’s web strategy to reach a much greater or focused audience in a way that was never before possible using conventional web server tracking systems. The problem however arises when, for example, a particular company has different sub divisions or different unrelated campaigns which they require analytics data for, but wish to view this data independently of the analytics data for the rest of the site.

A friend and colleague of mine, Gary Greenberg from GIGtech (http://www.gigtech.co.za), has come up with a rather interesting way of accomplishing this and has decided to accompany me in creating this post. So a big thank you to him. The following is meant to be a step-by step guide to setting up multiple Google analytics accounts on a single domain. It is by no means perfect and may require tweaking , but the main idea and working model will be presented. This tutorial assumes you already have a gmail account that you can use to set up analytics accounts.

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Filed under: Analytics, Code and scripts, Networking, Tracking, Analytics, Google analytics, Multiple accounts, Website tracking | 2 Comments

I would like to extend my sincerest apologies for the lack of blog posts on Techmongrel recently. To be quite honest, it has been a bit of a source of shame for me and I am going to be remedying this situation soon. I am busy working on a post concerning an aspect of Google analytics and how its functionality can be extended and focused for more detailed use on domain sub folders. All the articles I post on Techmongrel I try to write with very high standards in mind. I don’t want to waste my readers time by posting junk, or by posting articles that don’t really work or have parts and elements missing. This is why I appreciate feedback on any posts or tutorials I have written so that I can amend them and answer any questions to the best of my ability.

I want this site to become a rich information resource, but that said, I do not want it to simply become a site that draws on other sites and duplicates the work of others without adding value. I utilize the work and articles of others, to create more informed, amalgamated tutorials that work and are hands-on tested by me. I believe that the future of information lies in how semantics and misunderstandings are removed and in how many sources of information about a topic can be drawn togeather into one solid, cohesive unit that is more useful and easy to understand by the people who will ultimately use it.

Thank you for all your continued support and a big thank you to all who have contributed by providing additional information on any of my posts.

Matthew Vorster - Techmongrel Admin

Filed under: Site notices, Apologies, Site notices | Post a comment

The site has recently received a great makeover all thanks to Robin Pietersen from Noboxmedia! After a long day’s work, Robin was still able to formulate a great new logo. I would therefore like to formally thank Robin for his hard work on the new design and again encourage everyone to vote for Noboxmedia in the SA Blog Awards.

Vote for him here: http://www.sablogawards.com/2008/vote/voteforme/2561,2562

Any comments about the new logo, positive or negative, please drop them in the form of a comment, thanks!

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Filed under: Site notices, Design, Logo, Techmongrel | 3 Comments

One of the main limitations of the Nintendo Wii is its ability to perform media playback functions. There are quite a few solutions that allow you to set up quite a cool system for streaming content to your Wii, but the problem I have is that I live in South Africa (high broadband costs) and streaming over the Internet to my Wii is simply not an option. One such great option is Orb (http://www.orb.com/) , which has a great interface that also allows for all streamed content, to be directed over the LAN connection rather than the internet where necessary (it compares the IP addresses of the server and the Wii).

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Filed under: Hardware, Media, Networking, Software, Tech, LAN, LAN media center, Media, Media center, Media streaming, Nintendo, Streaming, Weezo, Wii | 2 Comments

A friend and colleague of mine, Robin Pietersen, created Noboxmedia (http://www.noboxmedia.com), which has made it to the finals of the SA Blog awards in two categories, namely best SA blog about design, and best SA blog about technology / computers / web development. He could really use your help in the next round of the voting process so please get voting!

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Filed under: Site notices, final, Noboxmedia, SA Blog awards, vote | 2 Comments

I have always been a bit of a fanboy when it comes to Logitech audio products. Their speaker systems, in my opinion, provide great value for money along with great sound quality for both conventional audio as well as for gaming applications. Thats why, if I had some money to spare, I’d throw it at the new Logitech Squeezebox Duet which allows for full audio streaming to an audio receiver.

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Filed under: Hardware, Networking, Tech, Audio, Audio control, Audio streaming, Home entertainment, Logitech, Squeezebox | 1 Comment

Last year I was faced with a rather taxing problem of incorporating a single-sign on process into one of the intranets I was writing. Basically, the company did not want users to be forced to log on to the intranet after they had already logged on to the company domain, but the intranet still needed to know who they were in order for any intranet functions to be carried out. This lead to a huge headache for me and tons and tons of research as up until then I had no experience outside the realm of conventional web based form authentication and definitely little experience in active directory (the database containing user details of all authorized users on a windows domain) . Read more…

Filed under: Networking, Software, .Net, ASP, C Sharp, C#, Integrated, Single sign-on, Windows, Windows authentication | 9 Comments

Mozilla always uses the names of real places for the code names of any new alpha release builds of the Firefox web browser. The newest in development release of Firefox has a rather apt name, Gran Paradiso (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Paradiso), named after the highest peak of the Graian Alps in Italy. This article provides some insight into the impact that this browser may have on the web as we know it and the features being developed to hopefully make this much loved browser a household name. The new features and developments taking place on Grand Paradiso are presented in a list format below:
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Filed under: Software, Tech, Firefox 3.0, Firefox 4.0, future, Gran Paradiso, web browser | Post a comment

Dell and canonical have paired up for a while now, with Dell making the rather gutsy move, excuse the pun, of independently pre-installing fully certified Ubuntu releases on a range of their products. Canonical also offers full commercial support for Ubuntu on all machines that came with Ubuntu pre-installed, which I think is pretty damn cool. These machines are unfortunately only available in the UK, France, Germany and Spain. System specs of the machines are listed below:
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Filed under: Hardware, Linux, Software, Tech, Bundled, Canonical, Dell, Desktops, Laptops, Ubuntu, Ubuntu 7.10 | Post a comment