piksels

Mint vs Google Analytics
Five days ago I decided to purchase a copy of Mint. For those who aren’t familiar with Mint, it is a web analytics program (tracks visitors, referrals, popular pages, etc).
I had read about Mint several times, and even visited their website once or twice before, but never decided it was worth forking up $30 for, until now.

I’ve been using GoogleAnalytics for about 1,5 years now, and it is truly great. There is so much to love about GoogleAnalytics: it’s free, it’s accurate, it’s relatively easy to use, and it’s possibilities are endless. You can track visitors, traffic sources, keywords, content, marketing campaigns, etc. You can do so much with it, that it is unbelievable that it is free.

Mint can’t even do half of what GoogleAnalytics can, and costs $30 more, so why did I switch? Because I was curious. But luckily they ended up being the best 30 dollars I spent last week, and here’s why:

Fast & Lightweight
Mint is fast. Very fast. Both for tracking visitors as well as displaying data. The visitor tracking script is less than half the size of Google’s, so for the people worried about bogging down their website with nasty scripts, Mint is definitely for you.
From the moment I open my browser, using Mint it takes me less than 8 seconds to display all data I am looking for (honestly), and it shows it to me all on one page. This is truly refreshing after having to spend a minute or two going through Google Analytics.

Instant updates (yes, instant)
Unlike GoogleAnalytics, Mint’s data is stored on your own MySQL server. And every time you refresh your analytics you get fresh results. Sure this may not be important for many people, but having to wait in 4 hour intervals for GoogleAnalytics to update may be annoying for some people.

The great thing about this as well is that you can have hourly reports and see during which time of the day you have the most visitors.

And here another example of hourly reports:

Local Data
Having data on your own server means you have complete access to it. Trying to make a third party application for GoogleAnalytics is quite difficult as they haven’t opened up their API (yet). But this is great for PHP or flash Gurus who want to make some nice live visualizations of the data.

Plugins, 3rd Party Apps, Themes
Using Mint reminds me of Wordpress. Similar to Wordpress you download plugins and install them through the dashboard. Good examples of 3rd party apps are Widgets for OSX (or Gadgets for Vista) which allow you track the number of visitors straight from your desktop (very handy).

But I think my favourite plugin is the Feedburner plugin, and I love it twice as much because Google still hasn’t gotten around implementing it into GoogleAnalytics (even though they own Feedburner now…)

Oversight
Displaying all of the information on one page allows you to easily and quickly find anything you are looking for. You can customize the order in which the information is displayed, and you can choose which information you want to hide.

This is what it looks like on my wide-screen monitor:

Bea-u-ti-ful!
Mint looks good, no doubt about it.
And yes, functionality > looks… but Mint is definitely a sight for sore eyes.

But it’s not all peachy…
Mint does cost $30 dollars per site, and is therefore not for everyone.

Conclusion
Purchasing Mint was the best $30 dollars I spent last month, but mostly because it truly matched what I was looking for.
Anyone who uses the advanced features in GoogleAnalytics will miss them in Mint. But if you are like most people who are only interested in tracking the number of visitors, traffic sources, popular pages, visitor location, browser/platform/resolution, etc then Mint is definitely for you.

I highly recommend Mint for anyone (with $30 bucks) who is looking for a fast, accurate, lightweight replacement for Google Analytics.

The AppleTV has been out on the market for a couple months now, and the general consensus seems that it is just plainly satisfactory. I admit that the slick looking box, with its beautiful eye-candy interface are by far the most beautiful I have seen, yet I can’t help but desire more. It seems when anyone talks about media hubs or streaming media through a network, there are only two things they mention, AppleTV and the Xbox360. But both are seriously flawed. Although I am both an Apple fan and a proud Xbox360 owner, I would never use either as a media center solution. Well, what’s missing? Well just to mention a few, xvid/divx playback, larger or hassle-free upgradeable hard drives, .mkv support …

Because I have seen little about better alternatives to the Apple TV or Xbox360, I give you now, the Best Alternatives to the AppleTV:

1. DViCO - TViX M-5100SH/M-4100SH

Hands down, this is the best HD multimedia player out on the market. Just released a couple of months ago, this supports all video formats you can think of(even 1080P). No worries about whether you can play that Xvid movie or even those 720p MKV x.264 files, this machine plays them all. These players come with an easy loading hard drive slot, where you can insert any SATA drive. Prefer to have your all your content on your PC? or even on an external hard drive? No prob, this bad boy can stream content through your home network or just plug in any external USB drive. In the back of the player you will find every connector you will ever need (HDMI, component, composite, s-video, optical audio, stereo). And DViCO seems to have thought about everything this time, because you can even upgrade your 4100/5100 with a TV tuner and use it to record TV! (People who aren’t interested in x264 playback, might want to consider looking at the 4000/5000 model, which would save you about 100 bucks)

So what’s the difference between the 4100 and the 5100, its purely aesthetics, and about 50 bucks extra for the 5100.

Final thoughts: Although a bit more expensive than the AppleTV, this player has everything every savvy tech user has ever wanted. Worth every cent. Only downside is that it has no DVD player.

Starting price, 330 euros

2. Linksys - KiSS 1600

Coming in a close 2nd, KiSS is a great networked media center solution for users who don’t playback any x.264 content. If all you want to do is play back some dvix/xvid files (you innocently found on the web) this player is perfect. Unlike the TViX, this player does not have any built in hard drive, and all media is streamed through ethernet or wireless network. Most media will stream fine wirelessly, but ethernet is recommended for HD files.

One great thing about the KiSS is that is comes with a built-in DVD player, which upscales to 1080i. Connectors on the back resemble those of the TViX, everything you need (HDMI, Component, Composite, Optical out, SCART, ethernet, etc)

Final thoughts: Great player for anyone with a home network and no need to play x264 files.

Starting price: around 250 euros

3.Budget PC / Mac Mini

Well everyone knows that there is no media player better than a PC. Although a dedicated media player will save you some money (both on starting cost and electricity bills), they are no match for having a fully functional PC in your living room. Anyone who has a standard def TV, stop reading now. There is nothing worse than reading text on a SDTV hooked up to your PC. Anyone fortunate enough, will know how beautiful it looks to hook up your PC to your glorious HDTV set, and from that point on the possibilities are endless. Add a wireless media center keyboard, lay back on your couch, and your in heaven.

Windows Media Center rocks, yes it does. For TV playback, video playback, just install a couple codecs and your good to go. Want to play those x264 files you downloaded, no prob, just download VLC player and you will be able to play anything you like. Put a PC in the living room and the possibilities are endless, it will be your media hub, it will replace your TIVO, replace your DVD player, and could even be dedicated to downloading torrents or to keep your to-do lists on.

So just how rigged should your system be? Well depends on what you are looking for… want full HD playback? then I would settle for a low Core2Duo processor and a mainstream video card, because you won’t need more than that. But if you want to just play back just some dvix/xvid files and some DVD’s, then you’ll be fine with a Pentium D, or even a budget Athlon X2 system.

Keep in mind that your PC will be consuming more electricity than most multimedia players, and there for it might be wise to buy a pricier small form factor PC (which is based on laptop architecture which will use much less energy). Personally I would go for a Windows PC just because the only budget Mac is the MacMini which struggles playing back some HD files at 1080P because of its integrated video card.

Final thoughts: You want the full experience, get a PC or MAC. Setting it up will take a little bit longer and require some basic computer knowledge to install codecs and such, but the rewards will be endless.

My recommendation: Core2Duo 1.8ghz / 1gb RAm / XP MCE or Vista Premium / nVidia 7300

Starting price: around 430 euros (Mac Mini’s start at 599 euros)