It’s that time.  Some of these events aren’t until October, but that’s ok.

1. InfoCamp on Oct. 10/11 2009! It’s in its 3rd year, and this year I fully intend to go. From what Rachel Elkington tells me, it might sell out this year, so you need to get tickets soon.  Find out more about this “unconference” on UX/IA/information here.
   

   InfoCamp design by Aaron Louie and Josh Walker

2. Baron Brewing is awesome. Not only are they making beers for the Pillager’s Pub (pirate-themed) in Greenwood, they also have this tiny taproom in South Park only open on Fridays from 4:30-8:30 that I must go back to pronto.
3. The band formerly known as Ladies and Gentleman but now known as The Head and the Heart, is having an art/music show on Sept. 27th at the Jewelbox Theatre.
4. Everyone raves about Fremont Oktoberfest, but I think I’ll skip that in favor of the less crowded Enumclaw Oktoberfest this year on Oct. 9th and 10th.
5. Web Analytics Wednesday is back on Oct. 7th at Cobalt. 3rd time’s the charm for me and hopefully ZAAZ will not have a conflicting party.
6. There is an excellent SEO and GA post on Yoast (unintentional rhyme), on how to set up a profile in Google Analytics just to track keyword positions–not just pages. At first it didn’t work for me, and then it did and I don’t know why. But still, its good to know versus the basic page info you get on Google Webmaster Tools.
7. Most importantly of all…today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  To celebrate, here is a pick-up line:

“That’s the finest pirate booty I’ve ever laid eyes on.“

Otherwise, UW beat USC and Cal beat Minnesota!  I spent all day trying to re-educate myself on SEO and figuring out how to insert an Excel scorecard into the body of an email and not have it look janky. It took way too long to get a workable solution for that.

It’s time to pimp out events that I am a fan of again.

1. Monthly IA Meet-up at a new location, Rendezvous! It’s the 2nd Tuesday of each month (in Seattle), and usually has lots of cool/interesting people in attendance like librarians, iSchool peeps, and UX/IA professionals.
2. Its Web Analytics Wednesday again! This time I hope to not have an epic fail again, and will stay the whole time. Hopefully I can put faces to handles for some followers on Twitter! Once again, POP is generously hosting.
3. And Houghton Market in Kirkland is having a beer sale for 20% off as they are going out of business. Sad times, but beneficial to beer lovers.

GA Rant

OK, I hope that Google Analytics was having some random, never-will-happen-ever-ever-again technical issues going on today, because I was really annoyed. First, I kept getting compiler errors for the graphs that are automatically generated. Then, GA had all these horrible error messages that were not informative and did not assist in user recovery. The first error message I got was: “There was an error fetching data for this view.”  So, you know, I didn’t know what to do other than refresh the page. Next, I got another error message on a different metric that read “An Error Has Been Detected. Please try again. Thank you for your patience.”

Besides the fact that they used incorrect capitalization on the 2nd error message, it clearly violates one of Jakob Nielsen’s 10 heuristics for interface design:

Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors. Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.

I generally really like the UI and UX of the Google Analytics tool, I think its easily manipulable and employs clear, simple design. However, the errors were frustrating, and I didn’t know how to fix any of them. I still don’t know what went wrong! #UXFail.

Also tomorrow is ZAAZ kickball and I’m on Team Tom Selleck. I hope to represent well.

I thought today would be as good as any to promote worthy people/events/music from the blog.

1. Web Analytics Wednesday! Its a networking/social thing, that will (obviously) include beer and food. I’ve never been to one, but I’m planning on attending this.  My favorite part is the “drink responsibly” warning at the bottom. RSVP here.
2. Brazen Lungs.  A band based out of Dublin, the name comes from an Edgar Allen Poe poem (so you know they’re legit). Check them out here.
3. Guinness Record Zombie Walk.  The super cool and fun Fremont Outdoor Cinema is trying to organize the world’s largest zombie walk finished off with a viewing of “Shaun of the Dead“. Its happening tomorrow, July 3rd. Details here.
4. Free Online (or in person if you’re in Seattle) Flash Classes.  Generously hosted by CreativeTechs, and a very useful skill to have for prototyping or general web development. Sign up here.
5. Ladies and Gentlemen.  Another awesome band with an acoustic/folksy vibe, in Seattle (specifically Ballard-ish area), who I think is playing on July 27th. Listen to them here.

And finally my song of the day: Herringbone by Department of Eagles.