traffic posts

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Windows x64

Turn your keyboard LEDs into network activity indicators with a free app

by Lee Mathews Nov 12th 2009

Most keyboards built in the last twenty years or so sport three LEDs - number lock, caps lock, and scroll lock. I'm pretty sure that over those same twenty years I've used each one for a combined total of five minutes.

It sure would be nice if I could somehow force the LEDs to perform another duty. Say, for example, blinking in time with my network activity? That would be pretty slick.

And that's exactly what Network Lights does. Download the 44Kb .zip file, extract it, and run the executable and your LEDs will go to work, flashing in time with the flow of network packets to and from your PC.

I'd recommend against running Network Lights on a laptop which doesn't have a full numeric pad on the keyboard. As the app flicks the LED on and off, your dual-mode keys (usually on the right side around J-K-L) will periodically become unresponsive.

While this is an older app and hasn't been updated in quite some time, Network Lights runs just fine under Windows 7.

[via Raymond.cc]

Tags: keyboard, led, network status, NetworkStatus, numlock, traffic

Filed under: Web services, Google

Google adds mobile tracking and intelligent alerts to Analytics

by Jay Hathaway Oct 23rd 2009

Google has announced some major improvements to its Google Analytics traffic tracking package, mostly focusing on improving the way it tracks mobile devices. Adding a new snippet of code to the mobile version of your site will get you traffic analysis from mobile devices, and it works regardless of whether a visitor's mobile browser supports Javascript. Google has also added features for iPhone and Android developers to track how users are engaging with their apps. Aside from these mobile features, users will also be able to customize which variables Analytics will track.

The other big news is something called Analytics Intelligence. Analytics Intelligence watches the traffic patterns on your sites and alerts you if anything changes. It handles huge spikes or drops in traffic, but it can also drill down to look at changes by location and other factors. Alerts are customizable, so you'll only get email about changes you actually care about.

[via CNET]

Tags: analytics, google, statistics, tracking, Traffic

Filed under: Internet, News, Humor

11 p.m. is officially party time on the Internet

by Jay Hathaway Sep 2nd 2009

A new study has determined that Internet usage is highest at 11 p.m. Eastern Time. Although there's a big jump around 4 p.m. - people at work getting bored, probably - and a gradual increase in traffic starting at 8, it turns out that 11 is peak time. I can definitely speculate about what so many people might be doing online at that hour of the night, but it turns out that I don't have to. The study looked at that, too. If you guessed "porn," you're right! Traffic for pornography (and Internet video in general) plays a big part in the 11 p.m. spike.

While YouTube viewing is at its highest around midnight, gaming peaks at 8 and stays strong until 11. The study's authors speculate that's because a high number of World of Warcraft raids are planned around those times. No word from 7-11 on whether sales of Funyuns and Mtn. Dew see a big increase around 7. The study seems to have used a large enough sample to be reliable: the participating ISPs account for about half of North American traffic.

Tags: internet, nighttime, study, traffic, usage

Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters

I Love Traffic - Time Waster

by Jason Clarke Jun 22nd 2009

I Love Traffic is a unique take on a flow-management game. In it, you play the part of traffic computer, turning lights green and red to control the flow of traffic. Some roads you have control over, while others are free-flowing. This means that to avoid accidents, you need to carefully manage which lights you turn green, and for how long.

The game view is top-down, and while the graphics are simple, crashes have satisfying skid marks and believable motion accompanied by a solid "crunch" sound. Sometimes it's actually not all that disappointing to fail a level when your mistake results in a multi-car pileup, with cars being bounced into other lanes of traffic. A failed level also results in a random fact being displayed, which is sort of fun until they start repeating and you realize you're having too much trouble with that level.

I Love Traffic is a short time waster, and it should take only about 15 minutes to complete the game. My biggest pile-up resulted in about 8 cars shooting off in different directions. Let us know how badly (or well) you do.

Tags: accidents, cars, crashes, crunch, i-love-traffic, time waster, time-waster, TimeWaster, traffic

Filed under: Fun, Games, Internet, Time-Wasters

Keep vehicle traffic flowing (or not) in Crash - Time Waster

by Lee Mathews Jan 20th 2009

When I was working in downtown Cleveland 12 years ago, I remember this amazing traffic cop that used to dance in the middle of the rush hour craziness to direct the vehicles. The guy sure made traffic management seem like a lot of fun.

Fortunately for all of us, anyone that wants to give it a go can do it by playing Crash rather than throwing on a bright orange vest, grabbing a whistle, and busting a move in the middle of a four-way stop.

It's a simple concept: click on a car to speed it up, click again to slow it down. Time everything just right and avoid causing collisions, and you'll score points when cars make it safely across the screen.

When a crash car appears, things change a little. They're free game, so don't hesitate forcing another vehicle to plow into it at full speed. You'll actually lose points if they make it across unscathed.

One more thing: keep your eye on the turns signals.

Tags: cars, crash, time-waster, traffic

Filed under: Internet, Google, Search

Google takes on Compete, Alexa

by Brad Linder Jun 20th 2008

Everybody knows that Alexa, Compete, and other web services that track web site traffic are inherently flawed. Because they compile third party data instead of looking at your actual server data, you can never be sure that the statistics you're reading are accurate. But hey, if you really want to see whether Engadget is more popular than Gizmodo, they're the only game in town, right?

Now there's a new player in the web traffic comparison game. Google has added the ability to search for websites in Google Trends. While there's no guarantee that the stats Google spits back are any more accurate than the ones you'll find from Alexa or Compete, the service does give you one more source for comparison.

Search Engine Land reports that Google grabs its numbers from a combination of sources including search traffic, anonymous Google Analytics figures and other third party marketing data.

[via VentureBeat]

Tags: alexa, compete, google-trends, traffic, web-traffic

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Google, Microsoft, Search, web 2.0

Google Maps adds traffic predictions

by Brad Linder Apr 17th 2008

Just a few days after Microsoft rolled out a new traffic prediction feature for Windows Live Maps, Google has followed suit with traffic predictions for Google Maps. Both services use historical traffic data to predict likely congestion points and travel time in the future. But there are two major differences:

Windows Live Maps will suggest the best driving directions for avoiding traffic, Google Maps will not
Google Maps lets you choose the day of the week and time of day to see projected traffic patterns, Windows Live Maps will not.

While both services are pretty useful, what we really want is a service that will combine both of these features. Mapquest, we're looking at you.

[via Google Operating System]

Tags: google-maps, predictions, traffic, windows-live-maps

Filed under: Internet, Web services

Alexa tweaks its ranking system for more accurate results

by Brad Linder Apr 17th 2008

Web site ranking service Alexa has long been one of the most used, and one of the least trusted ways to figure out how popular a web site is. That's because it's difficult to determine a site's actual traffic without access to the owner's private data. But Alexa's reliance on a small army of users who installed a browser toolbar had an obvious tendency to skew the results toward tech-heavy web sites.

Now Alexa is using data from "multiple sources" and not just the toolbar to create more accurate rankings. The company isn't really saying what those sources are, but many web sites will see an adjustment in their Alexa traffic reports. Alexa also isn't admitting that its rankings were incorrect before, just that they were "different."

You'll also notice that you can only get graphs for the last 9 months of traffic. Alexa is recalculating older data and will add multi-year graphs soon.

[via TechCrunch]

Tags: alexa, ranking, traffic

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Microsoft

Avoid traffic with Windows Live Maps

by Brad Linder Apr 10th 2008

Over the past year or so, pretty much every major online mapping service has added some sort of real-time traffic detection system. But while these systems will let you know which roads to avoid, for the most part they don't do a great job of presenting you with alternatives. Now Microsoft has added a new technology called Clearflow to its Live Maps service which will let you choose a route based on traffic.

What this means is you can now choose to search for the shortest route by time or distance, and you can also have Live Maps redirect you to avoid heavily congested areas. The system is available for 72 US cities at the moment.

The system predicts traffic by time of day, weather, sports events and other factors, so it doesn't rely solely on real-time conditions to determine the best routes although live data is taken into account as well. While the interface is clean and easy to use, we don't see an easy way to let Live Maps know what time you plan to make your trip, which sort of defeats the purpose.

[via New York Times]

Tags: clearflow, directions, maps, route, traffic, windows-live-maps

Filed under: Internet, Web services, AOL, Search, web 2.0

MapQuest adds real-time traffic info

by Brad Linder Mar 18th 2008

MapQuest has finally gotten around to adding a feature that Google Maps has had for over a year: real-time traffic info. When you search for a location or driving directions on MapQuest, all you have to do is click the traffic button in the upper left corner of the screen and all of the major roads will be highlighted with color codes showing the traffic conditions.

One thing that MapQuest has added that Google Maps lacks is construction and incident alerts. If you hover your mouse over the exclamation points or construction icons you can find about traffic accidents and other conditions that could affect your travel time. Clicking on the icons brings up more detailed information.

Tags: google-maps, mapquest, maps, traffic

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Google

How many Google Reader users subscribe to our feed (or yours)?

by Brad Linder Oct 15th 2007

There's a neat little trick that lets you see how many people are subscribing to a site's RSS feed in Google Reader.

All you have to do is fire up Google Reader, click the "Add Subscription" button and type a web site name or keyword. Google Reader will spit out a list of blogs and news sites along with the number of users who have subscribed to that site using Google Reader.

These numbers are only kind of useful. After all, Google Reader is just one of hundreds of RSS readers. And only a small percentage of web users actually subscribe to RSS feeds. But Google Reader is probably one of the more popular readers out there, and this data provides yet another way for people to argue about which web sites are more popular than others.

For the record, Download Squad has over 9,000 subscribers according to Google Reader. This represents a fraction (although not an insignificant one) of the overall number of people who subscribe to our RSS feed. But then, since we're a technology-oriented blog, a higher percentage of our audience knows about and uses RSS feeds than audiences for many other sites.

Tags: google-reader, rss, subscribers, traffic, trends

Filed under: Business, Fun, Internet, Utilities, Features, Productivity, Web services, Yahoo!, web 2.0

On the road and at home with Yahoo Go 2.0

by Chris Gilmer Aug 8th 2007

Over the past few weeks DLS has had the chance to check out Yahoo's GO 2.0 application for mobile devices at home and on the go with a Blackberry 8800 and a Nokia 6126. So how did the application fare out? Is it worth having on your device? What were the benefits and downfalls? And what would we change?

We have covered Yahoo's GO mobile application since it first was released in Beta to the public at the beginning of the year. We initially tried the mobile application out on a Motorola RAZR and Blackberry 8700 among other devices, and agreed that Yahoo had developed something rather special. However, it wasn't until we tried it out long term in our everyday lives that we really understood the benefits to the application.

Yahoo GO was developed by Yahoo for users to instantly search and connect to email, news, weather, stocks, finance, and Flickr, all through an intuitive interface Yahoo has named a carousal. After tooling around with the initial Beta release, Yahoo has released yet another version that reduces load times, and adds in some new tools like a calendar and address book to help in day to day time management. However a big integration has to be Yahoo GO's ability to use GPS on select devices, perfect for when on the go, and what makes this application stand out.

Tags: blackberry 8800, Blackberry8800, calendar, email, local, maps, mobile, mobile application, MobileApplication, nokia 6126, Nokia6126, traffic, weather, yahoo, yahoo go, YahooGo

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Google

Google adds traffic delays to driving directions

by Brad Linder Aug 2nd 2007

You've got an appointment in Manhattan tomorrow, so you visit Google Maps and print out the driving directions today. (Don't ask why you're driving from Brooklyn into Manhattan, this is just hypothetical, OK?). You're going less than 10 miles, so it should only take about 23 minu...what???

Like most online mapping services, Google Maps calculates estimated travel times based on speed limits, not on actual road conditions. And if you live in a busy metropolitan area like Los Angeles, San Francisco, or New York, you know that you have to more than double the times Google Maps spits out.

Well, a few months ago Google added traffic updates to its maps. And now it looks like the company's done something useful with that information and added a second estimate for driving time to your directions. Type in any two addresses (in limited metropolitan areas at the moment) and Google will tell you how long it should take to get there under ideal conditions, and during rush hour. Of course, there's no way to account for traffic accidents.

[via jkOnTheRun]

Tags: delays, directions, google maps, GoogleMaps, traffic

Filed under: Business, Design, Developer

Twitter out hunting for VC

by Chris Gilmer Jun 29th 2007

Could we soon see some crazy new developments from Twitter? Maybe not, but we might see some increased usage.

Twitter's cofounder Biz Stone recently said that Twitter is on the road to raising its first round of venture capital funding. Big news from a company who's traffic rate has leveled off, and is not yet profitable. Twitter has attracted about 226,000 unique visitors in May, compare that to 94,000 in April, but down from 397,000 in February. Still not bad for a company that only launched last winter. Twitter is extremely focused on growing their network of users before making money, and they really don't have an evident business model as of yet.

As Stefanie Olsen mentioned, could Twitter be snapped up by Google before funding goes through, as Blogger was?

Tags: biz stone, BizStone, business, ev, obvious, traffic, twitter, users, vc, venture capital, VentureCapital

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Productivity, Web services, Google

New York's live traffic Google Map mashup

by Chris Gilmer Apr 11th 2007

The New York State Department of Transformation has their Google on. They've created an intuitive Google Maps mashup that makes traveling through the state a little easier.

A Real-time transportation status map plots live camera feeds, roadwork, critical incidents, road closures, weather or alerts, and traffic speeds. A legend on the left side of the map allows users to plot one topic at a time to get a birds eye view where their might be trouble. Clicking on the pinpoints gives the user a larger description of the problem, including times for construction or lane reductions.

It's a great site to bookmark and load up just before taking a trip through the coverage areas. Unfortunately, it's not that great while you are already driving along, but then again, you can always call up a buddy and have him or her check the site out for a report!

If you find yourself in a traffic bind while in NY, you can always check out some mobile applications such as the DOT Traffic Management Center's Advanced Travel Information System, that is accessible by mobile devices and shows real time traffic cameras. We've also covered the WCBS mobile application that covers over 400 roadside traffic cams in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut areas.

[via InformationWeek]

Tags: api, construction, drive, google, map, mashup, new york, NewYork, traffic, travel

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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