SQL Server: SQL Server maintenance solution

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Today we are going to see a wonderful set of utility, we might need to manage our SQL Server.
We are talking about SQL Server maintenance Solution.

"The SQL Server Maintenance Solution comprises scripts for running backups, integrity checks, and index and statistics maintenance on all editions of Microsoft SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2, and SQL Server 2012. The solution is based on stored procedures, functions, the sqlcmd utility, and SQL Server Agent jobs. I designed the solution for the most mission-critical enterprise environments, and it is used in many organizations around the world. Numerous SQL Server community experts recommend the SQL Server Maintenance Solution, which has been a Gold and Silver winner in the 2011 and 2010 SQL Server Magazine Awards. The SQL Server Maintenance Solution is free."

Google Analytics: real time statistics

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Yesterday, I have checked some statistics for The Web Thought in Google Analytics as usual, and I discovered that the Google Team introduced a new spectacular section: real time statistics.

If you go in the home section of your web site profile, you will see, just before "Intelligent Events" a new menu: "Real-Time (Beta)". It is clear that the service is still in beta version, but as far as I can see, it's incredible.

On the right side of your page, you can see the visits flowing in a real-time panel. The overview is showing the active visitors number, top referrals, top active pages, top keywords and top location.

There's then the possibility of watching live in depth reports.

In the "Locations" section you can see where your traffic is coming from, using a map or - hurray! - Google Earth.
The "Traffic Source" section is displaying the medium, source and active visitors.
The "Content" section is showing the active page and active visitors.

All the subsections have custom filters and columns ordering for tables, making statistical analysis very simple.

It's a pleasure to see the traffic coming and going in real time. It might be just a toy - at first - but I believe it could be a valuable tool to check how things are going on and eventually take immediate action when needed.

Please, let me know your experience with the tool.

Web site statistics: why are they important?

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I have recently published two articles in which we saw how to benefit from Google Analytics and which browser is the most popular, globally. The articles seem unrelated, but they are not. When we manage a web sites, statistics are fundamental and give us the right point of view in planning future developments. What I'm saying is that before changing something in our web site, or - more importantly - when we plan to change the whole web site, we do need to look closely at web statistics in order to plan our future work efficiently and effectively.

Recently, I have published other articles incidentally related to this one. For instance, I've been talking about the new mobile generation and handheld devices used to surf the net. That new way of surfing the web, is changing the way we develop web sites. There's - apparently -  the need to create handheld devices compatible designs, and target screen resolution becomes a nightmare for all of us.

That is all true, however I would like you to focus for a moment on the issue. We are basically assuming we need to change an old web site, or just add some features to it. Our web site statistics can really make a difference. And let me explain why.

Google Analytics

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I've been using Google Webmaster Tools for a long time, but just a few months ago I've started to have the feeling that it was not enough. What I wanted was something that could analyze my web site traffic source, visitors, search engines and so on, giving a clear idea on how my web site was performing. Thus I approached Google Analytics.

Browser statistics: which is the most popular browser?

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When publishing recent post on CSS3 and HTML5, I started wondering about browser compatibility. What's the point in using state of the art technologies when - potentially - only few browsers can benefit from it?
Recently some well known blogs have published statistics about browsers popularity and so I thought I should share some thoughts about it.