Yesterday, the folks over at OpenSuSE.org announced that the latest version of OpenSuSE will be released today at 13:00 GMT (which translates to 8 a.m. today). If you are a fan of OpenSuSE, or are interested in Linux, you should check it out.

I’m definitely going to download the release when I get to work this morning and install it on VirtualBox. I’ll have to see how it performs before deciding whether or not to replace Mandriva 2009 with OpenSuSE 11.1 as my third operating system (the other two being Windows Vista Home Premium and Linux Mint Elyssa) on my home computer.

This is intended to be an open letter to all development teams working on media player software (from open-source all the way up to big companies like Microsoft).

Following is an outline of the ideal way to sort music by default. I know I can’t be alone in feeling this way (though I probably am one of the few that actually organizes his physical musical collection the same way), yet it seems to be the last feature any media player includes.

1. Sort everything by artist name
   1. Sort albums by release year
      1. Finally, sort individual songs by track number

If two albums exist by the same artist, then you can sort them in alphabetical order.

Most importantly, you should have the option to choose, on each individual level, whether you want the items sorted in ascending or descending order.

While many people realize and recognize that there are wonderful possibilities offered by Google Analytics, few people (including myself) understand just how much you can accomplish with the service. This evening, I want to spend a few minutes showing you how you can schedule your reports and have them automatically e-mailed to you or any other recipient you choose.

I am slowly moving more and more toward using Linux instead of Windows. As a result of that fact, and the fact that I just don’t feel like paying Adobe’s prices anymore, I have started looking into alternatives to Adobe’s suite of development and design programs.

The first program I want to discuss is Adobe’s InDesign. For those of you that might not be familiar with InDesign, that is basically Adobe’s new branding of PageMaker. Quite a few years back, Adobe bought PageMaker from Aldus and continued development for a while. Finally, however, Adobe tried to integrate as much of PageMaker as possible into its own program called InDesign. When the change was made, Adobe didn’t really bring much from the old versions of InDesign, they simply renamed PageMaker.

This post is intended to be a very quick overview about what “bounce rate” means when viewing and interpreting a Google Analytics report.

The official help documentation for Google Analytics defines the bounce rate as:

Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. Use this metric to measure visit quality – a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors. The more compelling your landing pages, the more visitors will stay on your site and convert. You can minimize bounce rates by tailoring landing pages to each keyword and ad that you run. Landing pages should provide the information and services that were promised in the ad copy.

TopStyle founder Nick Bradbury has announced that the TopStyle app has been acquired by WIndows developer Stefan van As. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. I’ve never really used TopStyle that much – it always came bundled with the HomeSite install but I can’t say I’ve spent a lot of time with the app. It’s interesting to learn today when I checked out the TopStyle site that a full, robust HTML/CSS client is available.

Apparently Stefan is already hard at work on the next version of TopStyle which includes: Unicode support, “Live” FTP editing and extensible toolbuttons. Nick says he will remain around to help Stefan as he moves forward with the application.

In mid-November, Microsoft released a new update to the Zune software and device firmware. The update adds three new games to the Zune device, but doesn’t offer much else. Microsoft is calling the software Zune 3.1 (though the official Zune Web site is still promoting Zune 3.0).

The updates are pretty well covered on Paul Thurrott’s blog. As I said, there wasn’t much added to the new software and firmware except for a few extra games for the device.

A new version of Boxee was released yesterday. The new version is currently available on Mac, AppleTV and Windows. While this is just an update for the Mac and AppleTV users, this is the first version released on Windows.

Those of us using Linux have been told we’ll have to wait a few more days to get our update, but I’m okay with that.

I am very curious to see how Boxee performs on Windows, but I am not one of the lucky few (214, to be exact) that got an invitation to test it on Windows, yet. Hopefully I’ll get one in the next wave of invites.

Unfortunately, there are few good options for sidebars in Linux. With the advent of the Vista sidebar on Windows Vista, I find myself missing those nifty widgets when using other operating systems.

I am slowly moving toward using Linux Mint more than I am using Vista, so I went in search of a good sidebar for Mint. After trying a few things that failed miserably, I happened upon Google Gadgets for Linux (GGL). It is important, at this point, to mention that Google Gadgets is also available for Windows and Mac. For purposes of this article, though, I will be referring exclusively to GGL, as I have not tested the application on any other operating systems.

Online video is big business nowadays. Websites dedicated to video like Youtube, BBC iPlayer and 4oD have taken off in a big way, and an increasing number of websites are introducing video content to keep users engaged. This spread of online videos is in no small part due to the ever improving connection speeds – 90% of internet connections in the UK are through broadband (source: UK Statistics Authority). However, if you’re considering introducing video content to your site or looking to make the best of your existing video content, you must put the user experience at the forefront of your proposition. Here are some guidelines to enhance the usability of online video:

It’s a video…

The first step to getting your users to play the video is letting them know that it is in fact a video and not an image or text. Obvious as this may seem, it’s particularly important on websites where users aren’t expecting to see video content. When using a still as a thumbnail, provide a big, clear play button in the middle of it to show that it’s a video. If it’s a link, you can still use a play button in line with the link text to differentiate it from a regular link.

The MSN video site has an unmissable play button in the middle of the still.

The BBC effectively indicates links that lead to videos or audio files.

Descriptive title & summary

Set users’ expectations as to what’s in the video, what its purpose is and why they should spend their time watching it. Convey the essence by providing videos with descriptive titles that contain keywords. You must use relevant keywords which are good for search engine optimisation (SEO) as well as usability, as these are likely to be the terms people are typing in searches. Offer a summary of selling points to persuade users to watch it. This summary should be no more than a couple of lines or bullet points so it’s quick and easy for the eye to scan.