Mary Worth, 2/6/12

Ooh, fancy Nola has fabulous apartments plural, something sure to send condo queen Mary into paroxysms of jealousy. “Why, when you tire of your view of the parking lot from Unit 51, you can cut across the courtyard to Unit 16, just in time to catch the sunset rays peeking over the top of the freeway sound barrier!” Mary has prepared the sort of meal you’d expect for such a fancy guest: a steaming layer of green glop that she’s shoveling out of a shoebox with a trowel. “Dear, would you like some butter on, uh, whatever the hell this is?”

Apartment 3-G, 2/6/12

I’d like to believe that the sudden and pointless brunettification of Nina is a result of ongoing tension between artist and writer over the strip’s direction, and that the latter recently received a memo from the former that read in its entirety “ANCILLARY CHARACTERS WILL NO LONGER INCLUDE WHORISH BLONDES.”

Funky Winkerbean, 2/6/12

Sometimes Funky Winkerbean readers ask themselves, “My God, is there anything that happens in this strip other than misery and death?” Well, sometimes there are terrible malapropisms, delivered by people whose facial expressions make them look like they just received a cancer diagnosis

Curtis, 2/6/12

“He’s not tech-savvy like us kids, who print out emails when we want to show them to someone!”

Pluggers, 2/5/12

I’m more than a little embarrassed to admit how much time I spent trying to figure out this Pluggers. Was there some site in the Belgian Ardennes where part of the Battle of the Bulge took place that had a name that sounded vaguely like “à la mode?” Eventually I figured out that it was just a dumb pun on “Alamo” because pluggers have only the vaguest sense of history, but know they saw something about couple o’ battles on the History Channel once, and also they eat ice cream compulsively. I HATE YOU MORE THAN EVER PLUGGERS.

Panel from Mary Worth, 2/5/12

One of Mary Worth’s sinister missions is to present brief quotes from radicals and weirdos in an attempt to make them seem bland and unthreatening. Today’s epigraph comes from a parallel universe where John Lennon wasn’t assassinated but instead took up a new career as a corporate motivational speaker.

Panels from Slylock Fox, 2/5/12

Oh look, the snowman is frowning because its very body is liquifying! It’s sad because it’s helpless to prevent its own horrible death, plus there’s some kind of monstrous demon-thing on its head grinning maniacally as it crumbles. This is a whimsical cartoon for children!

Apartment 3-G, 2/5/12

Ha ha, I’m really loving the way that Apartment 3-G, despite its dated aesthetics, is embracing America-in-decline’s warped values. “Whatever, Tommie, I guess saving lives and helping bring new babies into the world is just soooo important that you don’t have the time to churn out some forgettable pop hits that could make you and the multinational conglomerate bankrolling you a crapload of money. I’m not mad, just disappointed.”

Mark Trail, 2/4/12

Oh my God, can we please spend some time dwelling on the insanity that lurks in the few words bandied about by our cheerful bank robbers, and the abrupt transitions between them?

“Relax, Jamie, we dumped the car we stole…”

[Remember when we got into that car we never saw before, Jamie, and then I made it go without a key? That's called "stealing." Kind of like we did with the money! And then we just left on the side of the road, which I like to call "dumping." Doesn't that sound more exciting than just "leaving"? More daring?]

“…all we have to do now is hike a few miles to our hideout!”

[That's why we brought these absolutely enormous backpacks on our crime spree. For the hiking!]

“This is bird hunting country … no one will be looking for us in these woods … We’ll be safe as long as we stay out of sight!”

[They'll be all, "They dumped their car right near the edge of those woods, but why would they go in there? That's bird hunting country! Bank robbers wouldn't go and hunt birds, that'd just be silly."]

“I hope you’re right, Jeff … I told my wife we were going on a fishing trip!”

[If she finds out that we were in bird hunting country the whole cover story will be blown to pieces! Why wasn't I kept in the loop about the kind of recreational animal-killing landscape we'd be fleeing through?]

Luann, 2/4/12

When I read this strip, I said to my wife, “Oh, that wacky Knute!” But then I had to clarify that I wasn’t talking about Newt Gingrich. Which brings up an important question: Is the K in Knute silent, as I’ve always assumed? Discuss, as said discussion will certainly be infinitely more rewarding than actually talking about this comic.

Let’s no waste any time, but get right to this week’s top comment!

“Thieves stole over 200,000 dollars from a bank! Now back to our much less interesting story about a dog that does taxes or whatever I don’t even care anymore.” –Chyron HR

And the very funny runners up!

“Yes, Nola, the Charterstone Tramp who’ll talk to anybody, dares to talk to married men at the pool party, but Wilbur — poor, poor unmarried Wilbur! — can only console his inner-scream loneliness at the Buffet of Round Objects.” –mojo

“Look at the expressions on Dennis’ parents’ faces. They’re not stupid, they can smell weakness and Dennis is pumping it out by the barrel. In 24 hours Dennis is either going to be in military school or in a gunny sack … maybe both.” –Mumblix Grumph

“Am I the only person here totally confused by Toby’s use of the phrase ‘under wraps’? Keeping something ‘under wraps’ means keeping it a secret, right? So she thinks the only way she can keep her husband from cheating on her is by refusing to tell anyone he exists? Unless … unless he’s dead and she just remembered that it’s time to change his mummy wrappings! That makes Mary’s response make more sense, too, since clearly Ian can only walk on consecrated ground.” –Spyglass

“Speaking of Dawn, I don’t see her standing reverently next to her father, complimenting his food stacking abilities. Could it be she’s off in her room Face-tweeting, Twit-booking, saxting or whatever it is the kids do with their technologies?” –Effluvius Erratus

“I’ve been hypnotized by the hastily-added megasideburn in the 3rd panel of Mark Trail. Now I need a doctor’s note to return back to work.” –Jocelyn Knockersbury

“Considering the current economic climate, Tommie sure seems to get a lot of offers of pity-employment.” –Nekrotzar

“Well, Mary Beth, it’s also been said that boys don’t make passes at girls who look like they have progeria.” –Dono

“Don’t worry Mary Beth: boys think it’s awesome when a girl can cook possum.” –NoahSnark

“It says a lot about the artwork in Family Circus when Daddy Keane’s absurdly dainty ankles are the creepiest thing going on in a panel where the only possible inference is that Jeffy is about to bludgeon his father to death. Dad can’t even make a run for his life, because his ankles would snap if he placed any weight on them.” –DaveyK

“All sentences from here on out will start with OBSEQUIOUS TIGER” –Stickerz

“I must commend the writers of Mary Worth for having the sheer decency to use their signatures to prevent any further exposure of that guy’s chest hair.” –Irrischano

“C’mon, Tommie. Let the Status Quo reassert itself. You know you want to.” –Mibbitmaker

I must thanks to all who put some cash into my tip jar! And we must give thanks to our advertisers:

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To find out more about how you could be thanked in this spot, and more about sponsoring this site’s RSS feed, click here.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/3/12

I have to admit that I’ve had a hard time following the current Rex Morgan plot, which involves one of Rex’s patients who died and left him everything, and a mad (ex-?)wife, and a mysterious daughter who may or may not be the (ex-?)wife’s daughter too, and an equally mysterious book, but I am pretty amused by June’s seemingly very firm knowledge that whatever it was Foster Woods wrote about, it was not for little girls, not even creepily precocious ones. Despite June’s best efforts, though, Sarah has already stumbled upon the CD-ROM containing the audio-visual component of Chasing Mildred: An Erotic Multimedia Experience.

Six Chix, 2/3/12

“Don’t worry, we’ve left you this scalpel and this hypodermic as weapons. How long can you fend off the residents’ unnecessary and invasive procedures? A nationwide TV audience will be watching to find out!”

[This post is by Daniel Lehmann, Tech Lead on the Android Apps team. — Tim Bray]

[We’re trying something new; There’s a post over on Google+ where we’ll host a discussion of this article. Daniel Lehmann has agreed to drop by and participate. Come on over and join in!]

With Android Ice Cream Sandwich, we set out to build software that supports emotional connections between humans and the devices they carry. We wanted to build the most personal device that the user has ever owned.

The first ingredient in our recipe is to show users the people that they care about most in a magazine-like way. High-resolution photos replace simple lists of text.

The second ingredient is to more prominently visualize their friends’ activities. We show updates from multiple sources wherever a contact is displayed, without the need to open each social networking app individually.

Android is an open platform, and in Ice Cream Sandwich we provide a rich new API to allow any social networking application to integrate with the system. This post explains how apps like Google+ use these APIs, and how other social networks can do the same.

A few basics

Since Eclair (Android 2.0), the system has been able to join contacts from different sources. Android can notice if you are connected to the same person and different networks, and join those into aggregate contacts.

Essential terms to understand throughout the remainder of this post are:

• RawContact is a contact as it exists in one source, for example a friend in Skype.

• Data rows exists for each piece of information that the raw contact contains (name, phone number, email address, etc.).

• A Contact joins multiple raw contacts into one aggregate. This is what the user perceives as a real contact in the People and Phone apps.

• A sync adapter synchronizes its raw contacts with its cloud source. It can be bundled with a Market application (examples: Skype, Twitter, Google+).

While users deal with contacts, sync adapters work with their raw contact rows. They own the data inside a raw contact, but by design it is left up to Android to properly join raw contact rows with others.

Contacts sync adapters have a special xml file that describes their content, which is documented in the Android SDK. In the following paragraphs, we’ll assume this file is named contacts.xml.

The Android SDK also contains the application SampleSyncAdapter (and its source code) that implements everything mentioned in here in an easy to understand way.

High resolution photos

In Android versions prior to Honeycomb (3.0), contact photos used to be 96×96. Starting with ICS, they now have a thumbnail (which is the 96×96 version) and a display photo. The display photo’s maximum size can vary from device to device (On Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S, it is currently configured to be 256×256, but expect this to vary with future devices). The size as configured can be queried like this:

private static int getPhotoPickSize(Context context) {
  // Note that this URI is safe to call on the UI thread.
  Cursor c = context.getContentResolver().query(DisplayPhoto.CONTENT_MAX_DIMENSIONS_URI,
      new String[]{ DisplayPhoto.DISPLAY_MAX_DIM }, null, null, null);
  try {
    c.moveToFirst();
    return c.getInt(0);
  } finally {
    c.close();
  }
}

This value is useful if you need to query the picture from the server (as you can specify the right size for the download). If you already have a high resolution picture, there is no need for any resizing on your side; if it is too big, the contacts provider will downsample it automatically.

Up until now, pictures were written using a ContentValues object, just like all the other data rows of the raw contact. While this approach is still supported, it might fail when used with bigger pictures, as there is a size limit when sending ContentValues across process boundaries. The prefered way now is to use an AssetFileDescriptor and write them using a FileOutputStream instead:

private static void saveBitmapToRawContact(Context context, long rawContactId, byte[] photo) throws IOException {
    Uri rawContactUri = ContentUris.withAppendedId(RawContacts.CONTENT_URI, rawContactId);
    Uri outputFileUri =
        Uri.withAppendedPath(rawContactUri, RawContacts.DisplayPhoto.CONTENT_DIRECTORY);
    AssetFileDescriptor descriptor = context.getContentResolver().openAssetFileDescriptor(
        outputFileUri, "rw");
    FileOutputStream stream = descriptor.createOutputStream();
    try {
      stream.write(photo);
    } finally {
      stream.close();
      descriptor.close();
    }
}

For best results, store uncompressed square photos and let the contacts provider take care of compressing the photo. It will create both a thumbnail and a display photo as necessary.

This API is available on API version 14+. For older versions, we recommend to fallback to the old method using ContentValues and assuming a constant size of 96×96.

Update streams

The API for update streams is the biggest new addition for contacts in Ice Cream Sandwich. Sync adapters can now enrich their contact data by providing a social stream that includes text and photos.

This API is intended to provide an entry point into your social app to increase user engagement. We chose to only surface the most recent few stream items, as we believe that your social app will always be the best way to interact with posts on your network.

StreamItems rows are associated with a raw contact row. They contain the newest updates of that raw contact, along with text, time stamp and comments. They can also have pictures, which are stored in StreamItemPhotos. The number of stream items per raw contact has a limit, which on the current Nexus devices is set to 5, but expect this number to change with future devices. The limit can be queried like this:

private static int getStreamItemLimit(Context context) {
  // Note that this URI is safe to call on the UI thread.
  Cursor c = context.getContentResolver().query(StreamItems.CONTENT_LIMIT_URI,
      new String[]{ StreamItems.MAX_ITEMS }, null, null, null);
  try {
    c.moveToFirst();
    return c.getInt(0);
  } finally {
    c.close();
  }
}

When displayed in the People app, stream items from all participating raw contacts will be intermixed and shown chronologically.

The following function shows how to add a stream item to an existing raw contact:

private static void addContactStreamItem(Context context, long rawContactId, String text,
    String comments, long timestamp, String accountName, String accountType){
  ContentValues values = new ContentValues();
  values.put(StreamItems.RAW_CONTACT_ID, rawContactId);
  values.put(StreamItems.TEXT, "Breakfasted at Tiffanys");
  values.put(StreamItems.TIMESTAMP, timestamp);
  values.put(StreamItems.COMMENTS, comments);
  values.put(StreamItems.ACCOUNT_NAME, accountName);
  values.put(StreamItems.ACCOUNT_TYPE, accountType);
  context.getContentResolver().insert(StreamItems.CONTENT_URI, values);
}

You can also specify an action that should be executed when a stream item or one of its photos is tapped. To achieve this, specify the receiving Activities in your contacts.xml using the tags viewStreamItemActivity and viewStreamItemPhotoActivity:

<ContactsAccountType
  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
  viewStreamItemActivity="com.example.activities.ViewStreamItemActivity”
  viewStreamItemPhotoActivity="com.example.activities.ViewStreamItemPhotoActivity">
  <!-- Description of your data types -->
</ContactsAccountType>

Update streams are available on API version 15+ and are intended to replace the StatusUpdate API. For previous versions, we recommend that you fall back to the StatusUpdates API, which only shows a single text item and no pictures.

“Me” profile

Ice Cream Sandwich is the first version of Android that supports the “Me” contact, which is prominently shown at the top of the list of the new People app. This simplifies use-cases that used to be a multi-tap process in previous versions — for example, sharing personal contact data with another person or “navigating home” in a navigation app. Also it allows applications to directly address the user by name and show their photo.

The “Me” profile is protected by the new permissions READ_PROFILE and WRITE_PROFILE. The new functionality is powerful; READ_PROFILE lets developers access users’ personally identifying information. Please make sure to inform the user on why you require this permission.

The entry point to the new API is ContactsContract.Profile and is available on API version 14+.

Add connection

Previously, connecting with users on a social network involved opening the respective social networking app, searching for the person and then connecting (“Friend”, “Follow” etc.). Ice Cream Sandwich has a much slicker approach: When looking at an existing contact in the People application, the user can decide to add this person to another network as well. For example, the user might want to follow a person on Google+ that they already have as a contact in Gmail.

Once the user taps one of the “Add connection” commands, the app is launched and can look for the person using the information that is already in the contact. Search criteria are up to the app, but good candidates are name, email address or phone number.

To specify your “Add connection” menu item, use the attributes inviteContactActivity and inviteContactActionLabel in your contacts.xml:

<ContactsAccountType
  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
  inviteContactActivity="com.example.activities.InviteContactActivity"
  inviteContactActionLabel="@string/invite_action_label">
  <!-- Description of your data types -->
</ContactsAccountType>

Be sure to use the same verb as you typically use for adding connections, so that in combination with your app icon the user understands which application is about to be launched.

The “Add connection” functionality is available on API version 14+.

Contact-view notification

High-resolution pictures need a lot of space, and social streams quickly become outdated. It is therefore not a good idea to keep the whole contacts database completely in sync with the social network. A well-written sync adapter should take importance of contacts into account; as an example, starred contacts are shown with big pictures, so high-resolution pictures are more important. Your network might also have its own metrics that can help to identify important contacts.

For all other contacts, you can register to receive a notification which is sent by the People app to all sync adapters that contribute to a contact whenever the contact’s detail page is opened. At that point, you can provide additional information. As an example, when the Google+ sync adapter receives this notification, it pulls in the high-resolution photo and most recent social stream posts for that user and writes them to the contacts provider. This can be achieved by adding the viewContactNotifyService attribute to contacts.xml:

<ContactsAccountType
  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
  viewContactNotifyService="com.example.notifier.NotifierService">
  <!-- Description of your data types -->
</ContactsAccountType>

When this Intent is launched, its data field will point to the URI of the raw contact that was opened.

These notifications are available with API version 14+.

Summary

With Ice Cream Sandwich, we improved key areas around high resolution photos and update streams, and simplified the creation of new connections.

Everything outlined in here is done using open APIs that can be implemented by any network that wants to participate. We’re excited to see how developers take advantage of these new features!

Apartment 3-G, 2/2/12

I was going to make fun of Dan Diller for having a studio full of primitive, Eisenhower-era electronic equipment, but then I noticed that the UNIVAC I unit in the background seems to have sprouted a mechanical arm between panels one and two. “WHO’S LAUGHING NOW, FLESH-UNITS?” the vacuum-tube-controlled machine barked out, as its deadly new limb dealt out death to all biological life.

Beetle Bailey, 2/2/12

You know, much as I root with varying degrees of subtlety for legacy comics to one day realize that they’re relics and that they should just pack it all in, I admit that it can be hard to come up with a suitably dramatic ending for decades of newspaper comics entertainment. But I think we can all agree that, say, having all of your irritating characters being eaten by bears, one by one, would probably be a good showing.

Hagar the Horrible, 2/2/12

Hmm, it seems Helga has been saying for three years that she asked God to improve her husband ten years ago, which is chronologically confusing. Perhaps instead we are meant to understand that all of Hagar the Horrible takes place in some fractured, Tarantino-esque chronology, where we jump back and forth between different episodes (the castle raid, the shipwreck, etc.) in a non-linear fashion. Thus, assuming this is actually the same incident as the previous strip, my speculation in 2009 that Helga will offer the Nordic pantheon human sacrifices if they would only hear her plea seems to finally be confirmed.

Mary Worth, 2/2/12

Whoa, it looks like Nola isn’t just a sinister sexual she-predator; she’s a master of interpersonal judo as well! Rather than attempting to escape Mary’s meddling powers, she’s instead turned her opponent’s greatest strength into a weakness. All she has to do is ask for tips on bedding every man in the condo complex; Mary, having sworn the Biddy’s Oath to always offer friendly advice, will be forced to aid and abet her reign of erotic terror.

Phantom, 2/2/12

Meanwhile, the Phantom is infiltrating the lair of the Ten Tigers, a sinister Chinese crime syndicate! I’m glad to see that bloodthirsty Asian gangsters use the exact same speakerphone that I’ve seen in every conference room in every bland, low-slung suburban office building I’ve ever been in.

Hi all! As part of my awesome social media strategy, I am going to do a once-a-month reminder that I have a social media strategy! Apologies to everyone for whom this is old hat, but I figure the first day of the month is a good a place as any to let new and/or intermittent readers know that I have a:

• Twitter
• Facebook fan page
• Tumblr, which also serves as an ordinary blog, which you can subscribe to via RSS (this has just today been redesigned by Adam Norwood, let’s hear it for him!)
• Google+

I put the same material up on pretty much all of these, so really you should just pick the service you like best and subscribe to that one. Or none! I won’t be mad! (Just disappointed.) I’ll also link to new Comics Curmudgeon posts daily from each of these, so perhaps you will find them a good way to keep up with the blog? Or not! SEE IF I CARE.

A comic about lying.

View

Family Circus, 2/1/12

[Insert joke about Jeffy assaulting his father with a hammer here]

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/1/12

[Insert joke about how the impoverished residents of Hootin' Holler are on the brink of starvation here]

Marmaduke, 2/1/12

[Insert joke about Marmaduke's owners being terrified of him, and about how his ear looks like it's about to unspool into a horrible tentacle that will soon wrap around their throats, here]

Beetle Bailey, 2/1/12

[Insert joke about General Halftrack's weird infantilizing sex fetishes here]

“The W3C is emblematic of the inclusive, multistakeholder approach that is critical to the continued development, operation, and use of the open, global Internet,” said Raúl Echeberría, Chair of the Internet Society Board of Trustees. “We look forward to continued cooperation between the W3C and the Internet Society to advance our shared values through independent voices.” Read the press release and ISOC and W3C FAQ.

• RDFa Core 1.1,
• RDFa Lite 1.1 and
• XHTML+RDFa 1.1.

Together, these documents outline the vision for RDFa in a variety of
XML and HTML-based Web markup languages. RDFa Core 1.1 specifies the
core syntax and processing rules for RDFa 1.1 and how the language is
intended to be used in XML documents. RDFa Lite 1.1 provides a simple
subset of RDFa for novice Web authors. XHTML+RDFa 1.1 specifies the
usage of RDFa in the XHTML markup language.

A number of improvements have been made to RDFa 1.1 over the past year
by working closely with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and the other search
engine developers. Public review and comments have resulted in a number
of further refinements to the language that eases the learning curve for
beginner Web authors.

The release of these documents as Last Call Working Drafts is a signal
to the public that the Working Group believes that all of the technical
requirements, public comments and reported issues have been addressed.
It is also an open invitation to the general public to review and
provide feedback on the finalization of this technology via the RDF Web
Applications Working Group mailing list, by 21 February. Learn more about
the Semantic Web
Activity.

Click Add New to enter your caption. Visit The New Yorker to enter their caption contest. You can also vote for your favorite finalist and view previous contest winners.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/31/12

Nobody should be at all surprised that virulent anti-intellectualism makes good grades a romantic liability in Hootin’ Holler. However, I think we should take note of the variant of the common rhyme in panel two. Usually you hear “Boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses,” but this isn’t the local version of the saying — and with good reason! Having long been isolated from flatlander optometry, Hootin’ Holler residents must make do with the few pairs of eyeglasses that have managed to come into the community via extended trading networks. Girls who wear glasses, far from being considered undesirable as mates, are viewed in awe for their ability to see at a distance or at night, and in some circumstances even read.

Apartment 3-G, 1/31/12

Well, being a nurse midwife is really more of a specialization you decide on when you’re getting your graduate degree in nursing, rather than just a course you take online from the University of Phoenix or whatever, but, uh, sure, Tommie, why don’t you go to it? “Are you serious? I’m going to get to pull people out of ladies’ hoo-hoos? Oh boy!”

Mark Trail, 1/31/12

“Yes, Mark, I too was on the verge of a violent life of crime! I’ve got a gun and everything. So your friend better come through with this TV movie deal or else I’ll probably have to kidnap you and hold you for ransom, ha ha! No, but seriously, get down in the crawlspace.”

Luann, 1/31/12

So, the past week in Luann has been dominated by an eternal teenage conflict: Gunther likes Rosa and Rosa likes Gunther and, uh, what now? Today we learn the answer. No couple in Luann can come together until a man defeats a romantic rival in passive-aggressive combat.

[This post is by Reto Meier, Android Developer Relations Tech Lead. — Tim Bray]

I’ve been fortunate enough to be involved with Android since the 0.9 preview SDK was released to developers back in 2007. A lot has changed since then, but one thing that hasn’t is the rapid pace at which new tools, resources, and information have become available for us Android developers. Just look at the last few months.

In December Android Training launched, with its first set of classes designed to demonstrate the best practices behind building great Android Apps.

Earlier this month, the Android design site went live — offering a place to learn about the principles, building blocks, and patterns you need to make good design decisions when creating your Android app interfaces.

We’ve got a lot more planned in the coming year, so to help you keep abreast of all the latest Android developer news we’re launching the +Android Developers page on Google+!

One of my favourite things about Google+ is the quality of conversation around posts, so +Android Developers will focus on being a place for the people behind the Android developer experience, and Android developers all around the world, to meet and discuss the latest in Android app development.

We’ll be posting development tips, discussing updates to the SDK and developer tools, highlighting new Android training classes, and posting video and pics from Android developer events around the world.

We’ll also be using Google+ Hangouts to help us all interact even more closely. Starting with weekly broadcast office-hours on Hangouts On Air to answer Android development questions. These will happen every Wednesday at 2pm Pacific Time (10pm UTS) in Mountain View—expect to see these hangouts in more time zones as our teams in London, Sydney, and Tokyo get involved. Each hangout will be recorded for YouTube, so if you can’t join us live you won’t miss out.

It turns out that hangouts are a lot of fun, so we’ll be doing more of these that feature interviews with Google engineers and 3rd party Android app developers willing to share their tips and experiences.

We’re looking forward to interacting with you even more closely, so add us to your circles, join the conversation by commenting on posts, and join the hangouts. We can’t wait to hear what you have to say.

By Jim.

Mary Worth, 1/30/12

For far, far too long we Mary Worth trufans have been denied the Charterstone Pool Party that is our due. And now, it seems, we’re getting one with a vengeance. People lounging around in various hideously colored and patterned outfits? Check! A lonely Wilbur loading up a plate with earth-toned blobs of food-esque material? Check! Mary and Toby furiously gossiping about Nola Wolverson, well known local sex-hussy? You’d better believe that’s a check!

Even better than Mary and Toby sniping about what a whore Nola is (what sort of woman with a boyfriend would try to steal another woman’s husband? everyone knows that’s a single gal’s prerogative!), and indeed even better than Toby’s delusional belief that someone, anyone, might actually try to steal Ian from her, is the fact that Nola’s man-hunting actually refers back to one of the greatest plotlines in recent memory, The Erotic Adventures of Delilah. Delilah almost strayed from her marital vows before she realized that sex was gross, and so she got back together with Lawrence, culty motivational speaker husband and made a baby with him instead. Good times! Anyway, as much fun as it would be to delve back into Delilah and Lawrence’s sexual psychodrama, I hope the real direction of this next storyline involves Toby’s doubts about her own marriage, since nothing could be as delightful as the Camerons in emotional turmoil.

Slylock Fox, 1/30/12

My God, can you imagine the moral dilemmas that confront an exterminator in a world of sentient animals? And this guy’s a rat, so half the time people are probably paying him to massacre his own relatives. Presumably he found the offending bats and told them, “Look, the squirrel downstairs wants you dead, I don’t know why! Clear out as fast you can, I’ll feed her some bull about eggs or something. Just go! GO!” But no, Slylock is here to impose the iron-clad Law of the Wild: You take someone’s money to murder someone, you’d damn well better murder them.

Funky Winkerbean, 1/30/12

You’d think, with all the complaining I do about it, that I’m 100% opposed to modern-day Funky Winkerbean’s weird vibe, where the current depressing, realistic mood is slathered over a base layer of cheerful wackiness. You’d be wrong, though! I do occasionally like the strange tonal mismatch that results. For instance, our “wacky neighbor” character here (he is actually named ‘Crazy’) says something silly that in zany-world would get a laugh from the audience, but instead our redheaded waitress recoils in confusion and distaste, just as someone would in real life.

Dennis the Menace, 1/30/12

Now I know what you’re thinking: There’s literally no way to be less menacing than by helping your mom do the dishes when she asks you to, right? Oh, I don’t know, I’m guessing that the conversation before dad showed up went something like this: “Sure, mom, I’d love to help you do the dishes. It always seems like you’re doing them yourself. Why doesn’t dad ever help? Mostly he just watches TV after dinner, but how important can TV shows really be?” BAM. The seeds of discord are planted. Advantage: Dennis.

Blondie, 1/29/12

It’s been well established established that Dagwood and Herb use aggressive, angry breakdancing as a way to express extreme negative emotion. But perhaps today’s instance of this odd display gives us insight into just what kind of concert Blondie and Tootsie are trying to drag their husbands to. “Damn it, we don’t want to see any of your pop-punk or indie rock or adult contemporary or modern mainstream country or what have you! For us, there’s old-school hip-hop and only old-school hip-hop!”

Family Circus, 1/29/12

I’m not an expert, but I think that something has gone horribly, horribly wrong with the perspective in this cartoon. Either that or the Keane Kids have suddenly grown to be twice the height of their parents while somehow maintaining their stumpy, gnomish proportions, in which case God help us all.

Mary Worth, 1/28/11

Oh, man, why is this hilarious “I [heart] Santa Royale” mug not available for purchase at the Mary Worth CafePress store right now? Since the action here is happening in Mary’s condo, I’m assuming that’s her mug, which seems to be rubbing it in the face of the Smith family a bit. “Just showing my civic pride, new friends! Santa Royale is great, unlike your hometown of Goleta, which is of course lousy with kidnappers.”

Crankshaft, 1/28/11

Nobody in the Funkyverse in general and in Crankshaft’s orbit in particular is ever allowed to experience joy of any sort, so, yes, he has every right to be suspicious.

Your comment of the week momentarily, but first, I must share with you an awesome letter to the editor of the Providence Journal that faithful reader Dub Not Dubya shared with me. In it, Mike Fink of Providence earnestly pleads for Rex Morgan, M.D., to be restored to the paper’s funny pages. The best paragraph is this:

Is it just too realistic, and therefore, in fact responsible, for current tastes, editorial or popular? I mean, the anecdotes do raise genuine issues of health and human behavior. True, there is a sort of camp or funky almost unintentional hilarity about its style and content, but on the other hand there is also a timeliness and even truthfulness about the adventures and misadventures of its characters.

But really you should read the whole thing, which also mentions breast feeding, for some reason. Don’t miss it! And the Journal absolutely SHOULD bring back RMMD, it goes without saying.

And now, your COMMENT OF THE WEEK!

“I love the Avengers’ high tech deterrents to someone sneaking in to their headquarters. ‘Let’s turn out the lights and pretend like we’re not here!’” –hogenmogen

And your runners up! Very funny!

“Having solved the mystery of the exceedingly-inept kidnapper, perhaps Mary can turn her crime-fighting skills to discovering who embedded that turbot in the back of Jeff’s skull. From the way he’s clutching his head in the second frame, it looks like he may have suffered a brain injury. This may also explain his apparent insensibility to Mary’s endless litany of self-congratulation.” –Higgs Boatswain

“We have to find some time to spend together, mostly so I can ask you what in the living hell is going on with your jacket lapels.” –Chareth Cutestory

“When they make the movie about Old Butch, they should probably skip the part where a group of rabbits enjoy a spirited game of ‘who can hop closest to the blind dog.’” –Just Bob

“It is possible Lu Ann’s adoptive parents don’t know they adopted her? Maybe she was just put under a cabbage leaf one day and they figured, well, that’s how it always happened before.” –Chip Whittle

“If the best tattoo you can think of is just the initial of your home town in your high school colors, you’re probably not cool enough to look good in a tattoo.” –AndyL

“Margo thinks eating feces ‘sounds delicious?’ Somebody’s been reading my erotic fanfic!” –Doctor Handsome

“I think Jughead is, in his own passive-aggressive way, commenting on the fact that the cast of Archie comics can no longer be considered famous.” –Cotton Candy Beard

“Are we just going to ignore how COMPLETELY adorable it is that Mr. Weatherbee likes Glee? I mean, in the context of this comic, and its superior, too-cool-to-stay-awake-in-geometry high schools kids. Mr. Weatherbee just loves to kick back and relax by watching some musically talented teens who really care about school, who have non-food-based, non-laziness-based problems. And he’s just plain SICK and TIRED of having to tape it!” –Margaret

Thanks to all who put some cash into my tip jar! And this is where we’d thank our advertisers — if we had any this week. To find out more about how you could be thanked in this spot, and more about sponsoring this site’s RSS feed, click here.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/27/12

Aww, isn’t that sweet? Hootin’ Holler must be the most loving, romantic community on the entire planet. I say this because Barney Google and Snuffy Smith characters wag their tongues and roll their eyes constantly. Look, they’re wagging their tongues right there in the second panel, as they’re talking about people wagging their tongues! I’m glad to learn that these are symptoms of an overabundance of affection, as I had assumed that residents of Hootin’ Holler were just prone to seizures due to some combination of inbreeding and malnutrition.

Archie, 1/27/12

As noted, the current run of newspaper Archie strips consists of reruns from the ’90s, which is fairly clear when you have it pointed out to you. But never let it be said that Archie Comics is simply digging out strips at random from its no doubt enormous archives (side note: I dearly hope that Archie Comics refers to its archives as “the Archie-ives”) and mails it out to the syndicate. No, first they have some entry-level employee make sure there aren’t any blatant anachronisms in the strip and quickly fix them. Fun game: what non-Glee TV show do you think Mr. Weatherbee was originally referring to in the third panel? I’ll bet its name is significantly longer than four letters!

Dennis the Menace, 1/27/12

Dennis seems to think that his baby sitter will find his mastery of bound morphemes menacing! Sorry, Dennis, but this is not the case.

A preview of the comics found in ‘Yehuda Moon and the Kickstand Cyclery’, Volumes 1 – 4.

[This post is by Scott Main, lead tech writer for developer.android.com. — Tim Bray]

Before Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), all Android-powered devices included a dedicated Menu button. As a developer, you could use the Menu button to display whatever options were relevant to the user, often using the activity’s built-in options menu. Honeycomb removed the reliance on physical buttons, and introduced the ActionBar class as the standard solution to make actions from the user options immediately visible and quick to invoke. In order to provide the most intuitive and consistent user experience in your apps, you should migrate your designs away from using the Menu button and toward using the action bar. This isn’t a new concept — the action bar pattern has been around on Android even before Honeycomb — but as Ice Cream Sandwich rolls out to more devices, it’s important that you begin to migrate your designs to the action bar in order to promote a consistent Android user experience.

You might worry that it’s too much work to begin using the action bar, because you need to support versions of Android older than Honeycomb. However, it’s quite simple for most apps because you can continue to support the Menu button on pre-Honeycomb devices, but also provide the action bar on newer devices with only a few lines of code changes.

If I had to put this whole post into one sentence, it’d be: Set targetSdkVersion to 14 and, if you use the options menu, surface a few actions in the action bar with showAsAction="ifRoom".

Don’t call it a menu

Not only should your apps stop relying on the hardware Menu button, but you should stop thinking about your activities using a “menu button” at all. Your activities should provide buttons for important user actions directly in the action bar (or elsewhere on screen). Those that can’t fit in the action bar end up in the action overflow.

In the screenshot here, you can see an action button for Search and the action overflow on the right side of the action bar.

Even if your app is built to support versions of Android older than 3.0 (in which apps traditionally use the options menu panel to display user options/actions), when it runs on Android 3.0 and beyond, there’s no Menu button. The button that appears in the system/navigation bar represents the action overflow for legacy apps, which reveals actions and user options that have “overflowed off the screen.”

This might seem like splitting hairs over terminology, but the name action overflow promotes a different way of thinking. Instead of thinking about a menu that serves as a catch-all for various user options, you should think more about which user options you want to display on the screen as actions. Those that don’t need to be on the screen can overflow off the screen. Users can reveal the overflow and other options by touching an overflow button that appears alongside the on-screen action buttons.

Action overflow button for legacy apps

If you’ve already developed an app to support Android 2.3 and lower, then you might have noticed that when it runs on a device without a hardware Menu button (such as a Honeycomb tablet or Galaxy Nexus), the system adds the action overflow button beside the system navigation.

</style> </resources>

For Honeycomb and beyond, include the following theme in res/values-v11/themes.xml that inherits a NoActionBar theme:

<resources>
    <style name="NoActionBar" parent="@android:style/Theme.Holo.NoActionBar">
        <!-- Inherits the Holo theme with no action bar; no other styles needed. -->
    </style>
</resources>

At runtime, the system applies the appropriate version of the NoActionBar theme based on the system’s API version.

Summary

• Android no longer requires a dedicated Menu button, some devices don’t have one, and you should migrate away from using it.

• Set targetSdkVersion to 14, then test your app on Android 4.0.

• Add showAsAction="ifRoom" to menu items you’d like to surface in the action bar.

• If the ActionBar doesn’t work for your app, you can remove it with Theme.Holo.NoActionBar or Theme.DeviceDefault.NoActionBar.

For information about how you should design your action bar, see Android Design’s Action Bar guide. More information about implementing the action bar is also available in the Action Bar developer guide.

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) faced precisely this challenge when it made the decision to use GA Data Grabber by AutomateAnalytics.com. GA Data Grabber works within Excel and uses the Google Analytics API. Users create or choose reports and GA Data Grabber automatically retrieves the Google Analytics data from any number of websites. And with multi-login capabilities, users can seamlessly combine data between Google Analytics profiles that reside under different Google Accounts.

Designed for non-technical users, GA Data Grabber generates great-looking visualizations and can automatically highlight important changes in key metrics over a date range. It’s also possible to use Excel’s visualization and data processing features. For example, formulas can be added to calculate Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) based on any set of metrics.

Amy Sample, Director, Web Analytics, Public Broadcasting Service explains the challenges that PBS faced and how GA Data Grabber was able to help. “The PBS.org and PBSKIDS.org web sites are made up of hundreds of individual companion sites to broadcast programs.  From a business perspective, there is a need to evaluate performance of individual program sites relative to each other.” As is common for many large organizations, PBS has separate Google Analytics accounts for each program site. “While multiple accounts works well to evaluate the site content and performance, it makes it difficult to look at all of the sites side-by-side without a lot of manual effort.  Our previous attempts to create this type of report were time-consuming and often subject to data input errors.”

“Using Google Analytics, combined with GA Data Grabber, we were able to create a benchmark report for our program sites. The monthly report pulls a standard set of KPIs from each of the program accounts and ranks the programs by traffic. The report is used as a management tool by both the PBS.org and PBSKIDS.org teams to monitor monthly performance of programs. The teams have also used it to identify opportunities for programs that are no longer being broadcast but still getting significant online traffic.  Our program producers use the report to benchmark their performance against other sites of similar content or size and determine ways to improve audience engagement. As a result of using GA Data Grabber to pull the data, we can produce this report quickly and accurately on monthly basis.”

GA Data Grabber
Mikael Thuneberg, Founder & CEO of AutomateAnalytics.com has been using the Google Analytics API since its launch. “I’ve been very happy with the API. Having developed for several other APIs, I can say that the Google Analytics API is by far the easiest to develop for. It’s logically structured and flexible, the documentation is excellent, and it’s easy to get help through the forum. I’ll certainly continue developing for the Google Analytics API. I’ve expanded to other APIs as well, but Google Analytics is still by far the most important one for my business.”

GA Data Grabber can be found through the Google Analytics App Gallery and can be downloaded from the GA Data Grabber website.

If you’re interested in developing solutions for the Google Analytics platform, visit Google Analytics Developer Program.

Posted by Pete Frisella, Google Analytics API Team

The participants came to the conclusion that solutions to the data integration issues can be the result of better integration of tools helping going cross-stacks. They also discussed how to architect RESTful services in the enterprise, with a plan to create a group to work on Linked Data Patterns, specifically REST-based patterns on RDF and other formats.

The participants came to the conclusion that solutions to the data integration issues can be the result of better integration of tools helping going cross-stacks. They also discussed how to architect RESTful services in the enterprise, with a plan to create a group to work on Linked Data Patterns, specifically REST-based patterns on RDF and other formats.

Click Add New to enter your caption. Visit The New Yorker to enter their caption contest. You can also vote for your favorite finalist and view previous contest winners.

Archie, 1/26/12

I don’t know why, but Jughead’s statement that “a lot of famous people take naps” really bothers me. I mean, I guess strictly speaking it’s almost certainly true, as a nontrivial portion of the human race takes naps, and celebrities are humans, but is there anyone who’s actually famous for their napping? (Rip Van Winkle doesn’t count.)

I’m also unsettled by just how vigorously Jughead is laughing in the final panel. It reeks of desperation. “HA HA HA HA TRIGONOMETRY HA HA HA NAPPING HA HA HA but seriously I need to take a God-damned nap right God-damned now.”

Ziggy, 1/26/12

If you weren’t repulsed by Ziggy before when you thought he was just bald, are you repulsed by him now that you know that his smooth, pasty flesh is completely hairless? Do you think he scoops up big piles of dog hair and makes wigs and merkins for himself, of varying styles? Will you ever be able to stop thinking of it again?

Archie, 1/26/12

I don’t know why, but Jughead’s statement that “a lot of famous people take naps” really bothers me. I mean, I guess strictly speaking it’s almost certainly true, as a nontrivial portion of the human race takes naps, and celebrities are humans, but is there anyone who’s actually famous for their napping? (Rip Van Winkle doesn’t count.)

I’m also unsettled by just how vigorously Jughead is laughing in the final panel. It reeks of desperation. “HA HA HA HA TRIGONOMETRY HA HA HA NAPPING HA HA HA but seriously I need to take a God-damned nap right God-damned now.”

Ziggy, 1/26/12

If you weren’t repulsed by Ziggy before when you thought he was just bald, are you repulsed by him now that you know that his smooth, pasty flesh is completely hairless? Do you think he scoops up big piles of dog hair and makes wigs and merkins for himself, of varying styles? Will you ever be able to stop thinking of it again?

By Waz.

Based on their research, the answer to the question “What is your rank in search results?” is the first position of a link to your site. Previously we reported the average position of all links to your site. Now your Google Analytics reports will be updated to reflect the first position.

An example calculation

We anticipate that this new method of calculation will more accurately match your expectations about how a link’s position in Google Search results should be reported.

How will this affect my Google Analytics data?
This change will affect your Search Engine Optimization reports, when your data in Google Analytics Search Engine Optimization reports will be calculated using the new method. Historical data will not change. Note that the change in calculation means that the Average Position metric will usually stay the same or decrease, corresponding to the same or improved search ranking.

We look forward to providing you a more representative picture of your Google Search data. Please let us know any feedback you have.

Posted by Chris Anderson, Google Analytics team

This publication is part of the Incubator Activity. This work is not on the W3C standards track.

Gil Thorp, 1/25/12

By the way, I’m still totally enjoying the Gil Thorp teen tattoo plot, I don’t care what you think! The latest development is the strange alliance between the transparently gay Lini (who’s against tattoos because, ugh, so tacky) and the assertively Christian Cortez Beecher (who’s against tattoos because Leviticus 19:28). Anyway, if we’re going to have the gay teen saying “Heavens!” and wearing bowties constantly, probably because someone saw it on Glee once or something, I’m pleased at panel three’s revelation that they’re real bowties, not some pre-tied clip-on nonsense. And also I’m going to assume that’s an ironic “Heavens!”

Another fun fact from panel three: Tim Summers thinks that voting, military service, and legal adulthood in general are all nothing but a big pile of garbage.

Family Circus, 1/25/12

Oh, thanks, Jeffy! I had barely noticed your little zipper problem, but now that you’ve called it a “mouth” I can’t stop staring at it, since it looks exactly like a monstrous lamprey-maw leading directly to the infinite blackness of some unspeakable hell-dimension.

Apartment 3-G, 1/25/12

In other news, Lu Ann just told Margo to eat shit! Watch it Lu Ann, you just learned about your real biological parentage, but that doesn’t give you superpowers.

In the right hands, technologies like Google Analytics can do great things, but unfortunately not every organization is able to hire resources to dedicate to web analytics. What’s more, there are thousands of talented individuals out there who would love to work in this field but don’t have the hands-on experience required to get their first web analytics job.

Two years ago Web Analytics Demystified looked at this problem from both angles and decided to create a solution – The Analysis Exchange. The Analysis Exchange pairs a non-profit organization with pair of web analysts — one a student wanting the experience and the other a mentor with years of direct work in the field.  The trio work together to have the student learn to use Google Analytics to “tell a story” with the data about how the non-profit can better meet their business goals.

Thanks to the generosity of all of our sponsors and participants, Analysis Exchange projects are completely free. Google Analytics is the standard analytics tool for Analysis Exchange for a few key reasons:

• No cost means it is accessible to all non-profits
• Nearly 100% of the non-profits we work with already have it installed
• Our students find Google Analytics incredibly easy to learn
• Our mentors, even if they don’t use Google Analytics day-to-day, pick it up immediately

Most importantly, Google Analytics attention to ease-of-use dramatically improves our non-profits likelihood to continue to use web analytics after Analysis Exchange projects.  Our mentors and students teach them to fish, and Google Analytics becomes the fishing pole.

Most Analysis Exchange projects take less than a few hours for non-profits and mentors.  Students spend more time, but students have the most to gain as they develop the types of “Analyst Ninja” skills that are required to get a great job in this field. We’re looking for more partners to sign up to the The Analysis Exchange – who are interested in supporting this initiative.

You can learn more about our effort at www.analysis-exchange.com or write our Executive Director Wendy Greco directly at wendy.greco@analysis-exchange.com.

Posted on behalf of Wendy Greco & Eric Peterson

Most importantly, the privacy policies and controls you have over your website data will not change. Just as it was before, your website’s data is governed by the data sharing settings, which you control directly. You can still choose how much, if any, of your website’s data to share with Google to help us improve our products, provide anonymous, aggregate statistics, or make enhanced features like Conversion Optimizer available to you. Your website data will not be used for purposes other than those that you specify in your settings, which you may change at any time. You can find more information about data sharing settings here.

The way that we handle information about your website’s visitors is also unchanged. Their data will continue to be governed by your website’s privacy policies, and their actions will remain anonymous in Google Analytics to both websites and Google. The only change for Google Analytics users under the new privacy policy is that now, information about how you interact with the Google Analytics interface may be shared with our other products.

Helping you understand our privacy controls and giving you meaningful choices to determine how you want to share your data is very important to us, and we encourage you to take the time to read through the new privacy policy changes and our data sharing options.

Posted by Paul Muret, Director of Engineering, Google Analytics

The Working Group has also published a W3C Note: XML Security RELAX NG Schemas, a document that provides RELAX NG schemas corresponding to the normative XSD schemas for XML Signature 1.1, XML Encryption 1.1, and related specifications.

To address patent disclosures related to the XML Signature 1.1 and XML Encryption 1.1 specifications, W3C has chartered a Patent Advisory Group. Concerns related to XML Signature 1.1 may also apply to XML Signature 2.0.

Learn more about the Security Activity.

Six Chix, 1/24/12

I’m totally in love with this drunken lump’s extreme level of dishevelment! I especially like the incredibly awkward position he’s passed out in, and the fact that he’s still clutching his precious, precious tallboy, even in unconsciousness. Also, that slice of pizza, just sitting on the couch with no plate or anything and almost certainly permanently grease-staining the cushion, is charming to me in its disgustingness.

But still, ladies! Do not fear that any man you meet on the Internet will be gross! My wife found me online, and I have rarely left any kind of mark on the upholstery in her house in the eight years or so since I moved into it.

Mary Worth, 1/24/12

Well, if against all odds and good taste Mary’s victory lap is going to be extended for another week, I guess having Emily and her family do the worshipping is marginally OK, considering. “It’s good to see you too Ms. Worth! We are so very grateful! And we thought to ourselves, what gift could possibly be adequate to show our gratitude to the God-woman who rescued our daughter? So we now present you the dismembered torso of Emily’s kidnapper, wrapped in a plastic bag for your convenience. A blood sacrifice for you, O divine being!”

Archie, 1/24/12

If you need proof that the current run of Archie strips are repeats from a pre-Internet era, consider this: can you imagine any news event so horrible that would reduce a seasoned TV anchor, cynical to the core and used to smiling his way through whatever words the teleprompter spit out at him, to tears, that you wouldn’t learn about until the six o’clock news? Anything worth ol’ Dan Brenon’s anxiety here — nuclear holocaust, one or more coastal states falling into the sea, a mass outbreak of zombie plague, what have you — would surely have been chatted up on Twitter or something hours ago.

Spider-Man, 1/24/12

Having realized that he’s far too incompetent to defeat or even find Thor, Spidey has decided to seek help from the Avengers, just in time to be four months ahead of the Avengers movie! Anyway, they’ll probably rescue MJ for him, but they’re gonna smack him around a bit first, just for fun.

I made some Valentine’s Day cards.

View

Mark Trail, 1/23/12

OK, here’s a thing that has been persistently confusing to me about the current Mark Trail storyline: Tommy keeps insisting that he runs a “dog training business,” which, to an effete urban dweller such as myself, summons up an image of an obedience school where a Cesar Millan disciple explains to you how to establish an inter-creature dynamic within your household that prevents your adorable little Pomeranian from urinating on your newly restored hardwood floors. But Tommy only talks about Butch the blind dog and the rest of his business in terms of hunting, so I guess out in Real American “dog training businesses” are all about training your dog as a hunting companion, seriously, why would you even own a dog if you weren’t going to hunt with it? And so obviously a blind dog would be useless in such a context … unless Mark can prove that Butch has what it takes after all. Of course, the fact that Tommy is so transparently eager to get a 10-minute segment about Butch onto Animal Planet or the Outdoors Channel or Pointing The Camera At Nature or whatever basic cable channel Mark’s friend works for just goes to show that even Real America is desperately in thrall to the coastal media elites.

Hi and Lois, 1/23/12

It’s really quite sad that this is what Hi and Lois think a “quickie” is. And Lois isn’t even fully committed to it! You can’t drink tea at a coffee quickie, Lois.

Apartment 3-G, 1/23/12

Ha ha, Tommie is so boring that Lu Ann is going to call her “Margo” as she waves the MapQuest page she printed out all by herself at her. In the background, the actual Margo sees where this conversation is going and quickly decides to be anywhere else.

Cyclelicious and the Kickstand Cyclery have teamed up for a winter race: The Kickstand Cyclery Virtual Alleycat. When the race begins on January 30th, you’ll race other participants from Internet checkpoint to checkpoint as you visit various bicycle websites. Prizes will be awarded for speed, agility, and creative comments left at each checkpoint. Register now and get a chance to win an Onda bicycle trailer, Bicycle Times magazine subscriptions and merchandise, Walz Caps merchandise, Commute By Bike t-shirts, cycling books, Yehuda Moon merchandise and memberships, and more.

Panel from Slylock Fox, 1/22/12

Wow, how hardcore is Slick Smitty about committing petty, pointless crimes, constantly? Hardcore enough to sneak out of his own hospital room and steal flowers and chocolates from a heavily sedated goat, for no good reason. One imagines that he had to cradle the the things in his tender and heavily bandaged hands, trying not to grunt in pain at the pressure on his still-healing flesh, all the while leaving an incriminating trail of toeprints behind him. And how do you think he burned his hands in the first place? Probably from trying to steal a hot frying pan from a duck or something. It’s a sickness, Smitty, get help!

When I first read the puzzle question, the detail my mind settled on was that Smitty claimed the flowers and candy were from his girlfriend. I half expected Slylock’s solution to be “Wrong! Slick Smitty doesn’t have a girlfriend. He only stole these gifts to fool the world — and maybe, in the process, to fool himself — into believing that someone, somewhere might love him.”

Panels from Hi and Lois, 1/22/12

Hey kids! You might have heard a lot of socialist talk about how corporate media consolidation is bad! But without it, you wouldn’t be able to enjoy seamless cross-platform entertainment experiences like these, where you can check out the adventures of your favorite licensed characters in multiple media simultaneously. (Just remember, don’t download movies illegally off the Internet, the Internet is full of child molesters and demons.)

Gil Thorp, 1/21/12

Ha ha, the one even remotely sinister/badass thing happening down at Milford Ink — underage kids getting tattoos without parental consent — isn’t even happening, apparently! But don’t worry, we’ve at last got to the dramatic meat of this basketball season storyline: arguments about tattoos are going to tear the Mudlarks apart, just like tattoos are tearing apart the very fabric of our nation. If these nice young men with flat-top haircuts can’t keep their cool when conversation turns to body art, then what hope is there for any of us? Ban tattoos forever, I say!

Mary Worth, 1/21/12

Oh, no, Mary isn’t happy just being a hero anymore; after all, heroes are mortal. Mary Worth works miracles. Let’s thank God, and Mary, who is the Prophet of God! ALL HAIL MARY!

[Who is death cat?]

Within a few short years, we built a successful business based on Urchin and “Urchin on Demand”, an online version of the product. In early 2005, we were acquired by Google because it saw the potential of data to create a better web. By liberating this tool we could empower companies of all sizes to become smarter and more effective online. We assigned considerable resources to our online solution and released it to the public for free. Google Analytics has since grown beyond anything that we could have expected.

The success of Google Analytics has been incredibly rewarding and humbling, and we are very thankful for the support of our early Urchin customers and investors. The Urchin Software product has now been completely overshadowed by its tremendously popular offspring. And so, it is time that we now complete the cycle by officially retiring the Urchin Software product and focus exclusively on online analytics. On behalf of the original Urchin crew and Google, we thank you and hope that we can continue to serve you with amazing products.

Urchin has only been available during the past several years through Certified Urchin Resellers, and new sales will officially discontinue at the end of March 2012. We are encouraging Urchin users to migrate to Google Analytics, although expect that current installations of the software will continue to work fine on most systems for years to come. You can learn more about the retirement of this product on the Urchin Website.

Posted by Paul Muret, Director of Engineering, Google Analytics

Hi all, happy Friday, and happy comments of the week! Before we get to the week’s top comments, check out the Worthy Awards, in which that fantabulous Mary Worth and Me blog picks the greatest panels and plots of 2011. Will your favorites come out on top? It’s like the Oscars, but not as subtle.

And now, your comment of the week!

“Who in the hell is the plugger lady talking to? I know the animals are anthropomorphic, but is the furniture also? I don’t even want to consider that the can of whipped cream is sentient and splooging away from all the sexy, sexy shaking.” –Mumblix Grumph

And the runners up! Very funny!

“Momma’s books are all where they belong: too high for her to reach them. Because seriously, fuck reading.” –Doctor Handsome

“It took me a moment to realize that the MW panel took place on a boat. I thought Mary’s hero status had entitled her to a car twice as wide as a school bus.” –AndyL

“Haha, Mary and Jeff look like escaped drug kingpins from Miami Vice.” –Calico

“First off, in Hootin’ Holler, a ‘yard with junk’ in it is more succinctly known as a ‘yard.’” –Anonymous

“Let’s see … It’s dark outside the windows, Rex and his woman are in their PJs, and the woman in green is … shopping for a coffin?? Good god, she’s gone to one of those sleazy 24-hour coffin shops! Why did you even bother to get out of the car, lady? You might as well have used the drive-through.” –Oregonian

“How did I get in the will? Hurry up and tell me, so I can get back to my idle rich pursuits, such as self-taught karate with my wife. Come on, hurry, we have our outfits on and everything.” –Chareth Cutestory

“That ‘PSSSSS…’ coming out of the can seriously worries me. I imagine the ‘whipped topping’ was all squeezed out hours ago and now our poor chicken-lady is deluding herself by trying her get out every last particle out of the can before giving up and deciding to turn to a less degrading habit, like using heroin.” –Irrischano

“Not only is Lu Ann already calling the people who raised her by their first names, but she’s still calling Ruby ‘Ruby’ instead of ‘Mom.’ Lu Ann is so damaged she can never trust anyone again! Either that or the new information that she’s adopted took up the space in her brain that used to hold ‘things to call your parents that are not their actual first names.’” –Windier E. Megatons

“I’m actually kind of amused by the concept that this mollusk has evolved modern-day defense mechanisms against humans. Instead of spines or poison, it’s going for ‘fake laws.’” –Carly

“I will, however, remark that what appears to be a coffee mug in panel 1 has transformed into a one-time-use plastic cup in panel 2, and Chip is reading first On The Rope and then On The Rood. I’m glad that small inconsistencies in the artwork are still present — they give the comics a desperate, human touch.” –Notebooked

“Today I’m wishing Ziggy was a three-panel strip, if only because watching him get his ass kicked by a seashell would be incredibly cathartic.” –Snuggs

I must thanks to all who put some cash into my tip jar! And we must give thanks to our advertisers:

• Finding Clarity: Satire in the People’s Republic! A misfit mom takes on the Berkeley elite in this hilarious gender-bending mystery by New York Times contributor Laura Novak. “Novak is as funny as Janet Evanovich, as clever a plotter as Sue Grafton, and as deft in creating compelling characters as Laura Lippman.”

To find out more about how you could be thanked in this spot, and more about sponsoring this site’s RSS feed, click here.

Hi and Lois, 1/20/11

All week I’ve been trying to figure out what if anything to say about the distinctive shift in art in Hi and Lois this week. I can’t decide whether it’s a sort of simplified version of the previous artwork representing a move to a more digital process, or if it’s just a new hired hand taking over at Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC coming up with a more stylized take on the characters (which, I have to say, I kind of like). I was about to trouble my pretty little head more about it, but then I realized that I was troubling my pretty little head about Hi and Lois, which really hasn’t earned the trouble. Any artists out there who have better insight into how cartooning actually works should compare today’s strip to, say, this and give us your expert opinion. Or, you know, don’t! Lord knows we won’t hold your refusal to think about Hi and Lois against you.

Apartment 3-G, 1/20/11

Ha ha, Lu Ann has known that the couple that raised her weren’t her biological parents for maybe an hour or two now, and already she’s calling them by their first names rather than “mom and dad.” She is so done with Ken and Vera, you guys.

Ziggy, 1/20/11

Oh, man, those environmental regulators: overzealous, amiright? But seriously, no matter what your opinion on the EPA and the Endangered Species Act and the spotted owl and what have you, I think we can all come together and celebrate the fact that Ziggy is going to prison.

Marmaduke, 1/20/11

It had been a long time coming, this moment. Phil had watched so many innocent souls go down Marmaduke’s gullet, heard so many screams for mercy, saw so much carnage, so much blood. Years ago he knew that he couldn’t be just an observer in the awful process forever, that one day the demon-hound would come for him. “Hungry?” he asked. There was no fear in his voice, only sadness, and a small bit of relief. The huge, gore-soaked paw on his chest was almost gentle.

Individual Qualification with Google Analytics
Whilst you’re improving your measurement skills and campaign results using Google Analytics you can also work towards becoming individually qualified with a recognised Google certification.  Learn more at www.google.com/analytics/iq.

Live Training & Events
We have a stellar partner network who offer a range of courses and live training to help you through the basic and advanced capabilities of GA. Google certified trainers run regular 101, 201 and 301 seminars – you can find a Seminars For Success calendar here for North America, Australia and the UK.

Another great way to learn about GA and meet the GA team is to attend one of the GAUGE events. This series is hosted by our partner network and is a great way to learn from experts within the network and within other companies likes yours. The next event takes place in San Francisco on March 8-9 where Phil Mui, Group Product Manager and other members of the product team will share some of our newest developments and maybe even hint at what’s in store in 2012.

European events are already planned in Brussels (March 20th), Amsterdam (March 21-22nd), and Stockholm (May 8th). Keep an eye on the blog for the schedule and registration details.

Online Resources & Best Practices
We also have published many articles to help you find your way around GA in our help centre and also have a vibrant forum. If you prefer watching to reading, visit the Google Analytics YouTube channel for a range of educational videos and webinars covering our latest feature releases.

What else do you want to see or learn about in 2012? Let us know, leave a comment and we’ll try to accommodate in our curriculum or within our partner events.

Sophie Chesters, Marketing Manager for Google Analytics

The results of the internet banging some pots and pans for a day

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Every time it snows in a big city everyone is having the exact same conversation

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Mary Worth, 1/19/12

“They seem like good people! I think she’ll be all right! But of course you can never be too careful. I suppose that horrible kidnapper seemed like a good person, at first! My only choice is to monitor the situation to make sure that her parents aren’t kidnappers too. I might have to rescue Emily from them! Then I’ll be a hero twice!”

Luann, 1/19/12

OK, I take it back, this might be interesting after all. Haha, TJ, always the hilarious trickster! Remember, the best pranks are the ones where you leave a paper trail behind you that can lead to your arrest and imprisonment.

We’re extremely pleased with the new capabilities around multi-channel measurement, real-time analytics, flow visualization and improved device reporting to name a few. Our goal was to create a faster, more intuitive platform for the future and I think we’ve met many of these goals.

Before we fully move to the new version we’re ensuring that you have the key functions you’re used to and which enables GA to be integral to your organization. We’re working hard on some priority features – email scheduling and PDF export as a top priority, alongside profile copying and dashboard sharing – and want to let you know that we’ll only fully be moving over to the new version once these are in place.

We’ve collected a lot of feedback on things you love and things you miss – but if there is still something you just can’t live without let us know by filling in this survey.

We’re excited to bring you more in 2012 – we have a lot on our to do list – so keep reading and I hope to hear from you so we can continue to make GA the most intuitive, useful analytics tool available for marketers and site owners today.

Posted by Phil Mui, Group Product Manager, Google Analytics

I know I am a little late on this, but: today (Wednesday) is a day when Websites everywhere are protesting SOPA and PIPA, two very bad proposed laws that would do bad things to the Internet. By “bad things” I mean “breaking the basic infrastructure of the Internet, and taking away the due process rights of Web site owners, in an attempt to stop piracy, and also those attempts to stop piracy won’t work.” If you want a silly cartoon explanation of the issues, check out today’s The Oatmeal. If you want a more serious explanation, just head on over (today only) to Wikipedia, which has blacked itself out for the day in protest, and also offers you a method to contact your Senators and Representatives (assuming you live in the U.S.). Anyway, do those things!

Participants of the Workshop agreed that W3C should create a Working Group to define a “Linked Data Platform”. This is expected to be an enumeration of specifications which constitute Linked Data, with some small additional specifications to cover specific functionality such as pagination. We anticipate a draft charter will be available in the coming weeks.

Pluggers, 1/18/12

Today I said to my wife the words that any woman longs to hear: “Honey, can you come in here and explain Pluggers to me?” Her take was that pluggers don’t know what an “app” is and assume that it’s derived directly from the word “apply,” and that therefore “applying” whipped topping (yes, obviously “topping,” not elitist whipped cream, what are you, some kind of fancy ooh-la-la gourmet French person) to a pie is an “app.” This makes at least as much sense than my own interpretation, which was “A plugger’s favorite app is eatin’ pie, or maybe just spraying wipped topping straight down their beak-mouths.” Which doesn’t really mean much of anything, but seriously, look at this panel, what the hell.

Gil Thorp, 1/18/12

Boy, Coach Kaz is all dressed up and being nice to everybody, which probably means that a break-up is in the offing. “Welp, good game, kids, but I’m leaving forever to take up my new job as an FBI agent in 1964.”

Luann, 1/18/12

Hey, remember, like, a month ago, when having TJ work for Ann Eiffel seemed like it would be an awesome idea? Well, we changed our mind, so that won’t be happening anymore. Don’t worry, we’ve long established that TJ has no need for a job for his income, so there are absolutely no consequences involved in today’s actions, which is an important element of drama.

B.C., 1/18/12

I’m always vaguely amused that B.C.’s ants are used as the players in various generic domestic melodramas. But they’re still ants! Ants who could be devoured by a predator at any time! I’m not sure if the surviving ant spouse means that the departing ant was appreciated for its nutritive qualities, or that it will at last find unconditional love in the chitinous bosom of some kind of ant-God in ant-heaven, but either way it’s all pretty grim.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/18/12

For a long time Rex has been losing badly to Sam Driver in the competition to see which smug, sexually repressed dick in a Woody Wilson-penned soap strip can have become more financially comfortable due to no real work or merit on his part. But maybe today is the day when the tide begins to turn!

An animated GIF about the SOPA / PIPA bill.

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To make the forums even better, we’ve migrated to the new Google Product Forums on January 12, 2012 as they offer increased stability and the potential to add exciting new features in the future – here’s the link to the Google Analytics forum using the new platform. The most popular forum features – including levels and marking a best answer – will continue to be available in the new forum. The old forum will be archived and any links to old forum content will redirect automatically to the corresponding content in the new forum.

Here’s a getting started guide so you can learn about some of the new features.

Top Contributors were given a demo of the new platform at Google’s first ever Global Top Contributor Summit in September and I’d like to give special thanks to Top Contributors Phil Pearce (PPC_Guru) and Bronwyn Vourtis (Whims) for attending the event. Thanks also to Rachaell and Nayan for continued involvement in the community and to all of you who have provided feedback and participated in testing.  We’ll continue to listen to your feedback to improve the platform and ensure the migration goes smoothly.

Aruna, Community Manager – Google Analytics

Click Add New to enter your caption. Visit The New Yorker to enter their caption contest. You can also vote for your favorite finalist and view previous contest winners.

Dick Tracy, 1/17/12

Hey, everybody, the Dick Tracy gang is on the case, going undercover in a hip (?) nightclub to track down an actual gang, of the drug-smuggling variety, who something something son of old friend of Dick yadda yadda guy named Cueball blah blah cocaine hidden in instrument cases. (Hint to the cops: There are two Cueballs, or Cueball has a twin, or something!) Anyhoo, I mainly want to bring your attention to the little explanatory label in the first panel. Normally these kinds of boxes-with-arrows in Dick Tracy are used to identify bits of improbable high-tech crime-fighting gear, but today’s example mostly seems to be all about assuring us that our law enforcement officers aren’t having even the slightest bit of fun on their mission, so please let’s not have Internal Affairs auditing our expenses, please.

Luann, 1/17/12

Oh snap Ann Eiffel just outed TJ! Or maybe she just intended to insult him in a somewhat homophobic and mildly actionable manner? Either way, even though we’re only like two days into it, I think Ann vs. TJ is going to be less fun than I’d hoped, like everything else that ever happened in Luann ever.

If this describes you, drop by the ADL page and sign up. You should hurry, because these are not large-scale events and there are more qualified people than there are seats.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/16/11

When I saw the first panel of this strip, I thought, “Wow, it’s a representative of the Hootin’ Holler law enforcement apparatus who isn’t Sheriff Tait! You almost never see them!” Then in the second panel I realized why. Sheriff Tait may have come to some sort of modus vivendi with the violent criminals who inhabit his jurisdiction, but those scofflaws won’t hesitate to murder one of Tait’s employees in cold blood when he tries to do the basics of his job.

Hagar the Horrible, 1/16/11

This wizened Viking chieftain may no longer be physically fit enough to join in on his murderous clan’s annual expeditions of rape and plunder, but he still has enough social standing to demand that the raiders bring him back the sex slaves that are his right.

Six Chix, 1/16/11

I may be revealing my failure as a plugged-in consumer of popular culture here, but I’ve never actually seen the Saturday Night Live “More Cowbell” sketch. My understanding is that it involves Christopher Walken as a music producer, demanding more cowbell over the course of recording a song? I don’t really see how that relates to the scene here, which makes me suspect that the reference was a last-minute nonsensical substitution for the original text, in which this beady-eyed cat expressed its contempt for and violent intentions towards its sleeping family in terms that simply could not be published in a family newspaper.

Panel from Mary Worth, 1/16/11

Oh, and hey, is Mary Worth using her recent kidnap-foiling to demand that everyone kiss her ass even harder than usual? You’d better believe it!

Beetle Bailey, 1/15/11

This is another strip where the top row of throwaway panels — so called because they’re often discarded by newspapers to cram the strip into various arrangements — completely change the tenor of the strip. Without those first two panels, we have the story that we’ve always been sold about Beetle: that he’s smugly and pathologically lazy. But with those added strips, we see that he only spends as much time as possible in bed because he’s in constant physical pain, no doubt because of some combination of forced manual labor and the beatings he receives daily from Sarge. So too his final panel fantasy becomes much more poignant: it doesn’t represent some kind of apotheosis of sloth, but rather his dream of a job that helps alleviate his all-pervading agony.

Mary Worth, 1/15/11

So Mary Worth and this waitress have basically been congratulating themselves on saving Emily since about Tuesday, and you know how sometimes something irritating in small doses can become awesome in mass? That’s pretty much how I’m starting to feel about this. I’m hoping the two of them just keep saying this stuff back and forth for another week or two. “Do you think she’ll be OK?” “Hopefully! But the real important thing is that we saved her, together, as a team! We’re amazing!”

Panel from Slylock Fox, 1/15/11

I don’t know what I like best about this: that the sentient lobster is making a desperate bid for freedom to avoid being eaten by the sentient mouse, knowing that it’s either kill or be killed, or that Slylock finds the whole thing so amusing. “Ahh! Ahh! Ahh! It’s tearing my nose apart! For the love of God, Sly, why won’t you help me?” “Heh, heh, Max, looks like you’ve bitten off more than you can chew! Should have had your food-animal killed and slaughtered before you tried to eat it, like I did!”

Funky Winkerbean, 1/14/12

So I’ve been pretty much ignoring this week’s Funky Winkerbean, which has been all about the crisis caused by the removal of the vending machines from the school, because, enh, vending machines. Really the only thing of interest so far has been the fact that everyone insists on calling the machines “vendos”, which ranks up with “solo car date” on the list of Formulations In Funky Winkerbean That Are Linguistically Probable But Nonetheless Never Uttered By Living English-Speaking Humans.

BUT! Today we learn that all the angst about this move is not just because everyone loves delicious vending machine food. No, it’s because, like all death-haunted citizens of the Funkyverse, the teachers and students at Westview wish that death would stop haunting them and just show up and take them away from their suffering once and for all. Too terrified to hurl themselves from a bridge or put a shotgun in their mouths or even take up smoking, they at least hope that each day is the day that a bag of sodium-laden chips triggers a massive stroke, after which would come blessed emptiness. But even rides on the carousel of death are now denied to them by their cruel creator.

Momma, 1/14/12

Ha ha, it’s funny because Momma is an unlettered philistine! Or maybe she got a Kindle? Gah, who can tell, with this art.

Family Circus, 1/14/12

Now that the Keane Kids, previously Yahweh’s most loyal servants, have switched their allegiances, I guess it’s time for Him to hand over the rulership of creation to our new God, the iPhone.

Click Add New to enter your caption. Visit The New Yorker to enter their caption contest. You can also vote for your favorite finalist and view previous contest winners.

Hitting you a little early with the week’s top comment, but first: longtime reader/commenter Mibbitmaker has a new Web comic, called Pop Culture’s Kids. Check it out, won’t you?

And now, your COTW:

“Oh no! It’s the Santa Royale PD in their purring police cars! rrrrrrrrrrr! You have the right to remain adorable!” –pugfuggly

And your runners up! Very funny!

“I like Niki’s expression at ‘Thanks for the hang.’ There’s definitely a subtext of ‘Oh god, are they really making me say this? Doesn’t anyone know how teenagers talk?’” –Shmebber

“The first thing you need to have a dog-training biz is a non-blind hunting dog to drag the customers in. It’s a whole lot cheaper than advertising!” –Squeak

“There, there, Emily Smith, it’s ok. It’s ok. You’re not from Goleta any more.” –Nate

“It only took Mary five short weeks to solve the Case of the Girl from Goleta with her patented combination of living in comfort and thinking kind thoughts! Well done, Detective!” –Effluvius Erratus

“The better question is, when don’t I have ‘Yakety Sax’ on autostream in my brain? The only alternative is ‘Fast Banjo Getaway Music.’” –Old School Allie Cat

“Yes, my ‘girlfriend,’ this freakishly large disembodied hand that’s resting on my shoulder as we speak. Sure, I summoned it from an alternate dimension thanks to an evil spell, but you would not BELIEVE the handjobs, man. Anyway, so … how much do I owe you?” –Windier E. Megatons

“The Menace’s all too well-documented aversion to bathing has come to the inevitable conclusion of flea, lice, and tick infestation. Oh, the hilarity.” –sully

“Wait, did No-Ink Tattoo Man and Tattoo Face Woman just apply the ‘First taste is free’ theory of drug marketing to DVDs? Soon, Milford teens will be huddled in alleys around DVD players. Looking wide-eyed and shell-shocked, they’ll stumble in the back of Milford Ink. ‘C-come on, man. I just need one hit. One hit from a blockbuster nearly as old as I am.’” –bunivasal

“Well this is a shocking development. I would never have dreamed for a moment the Ruby had ever had sex.” –Zerowolf

“Will we see proof of the dog’s blindness, i.e. walking into a tree? Based on the illustration I believe it’s nothing but a possession which is easily remedied by Mark punching a bible against the dog’s face.” –Stickerz

Thanks to all who put some cash into my tip jar! And this is where we’d thank our advertisers — if we had any this week. To find out more about how you could be thanked in this spot, and more about sponsoring this site’s RSS feed, click here.

Marvin, 1/13/11

In this shocking panel, Marvin has taken two thousand years of theology and turned it on its head. In a direct riposte to Calvin, who started from the premise of an omniscient, omnipotent God and declared that our ends were predestined before we were created, leaving any seeming room to maneuver an illusion, Marvin instead preaches the existence of a smug, all-knowing narc, who gave us the power to shape our own destiny just to revel in the certain knowledge that we’ll screw it up and condemn ourselves to damnation. Whether or not you agree with him, you have to admit it’s a welcome change of pace from the constant poop jokes.

Spider-Man, 1/13/11

It strikes me as a pretty short trip from “I’ve no way to follow them” to “So why should I even try?” and from there to “I wonder what’s on TV!”

[This post is by Christian Robertson, who leads the Android visual design group. He is also the designer of the Roboto font family. —Tim Bray]

Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) is our biggest redesign yet — both for users and developers. We’ve enhanced the UI framework with new interactions and styles that will let you create Android apps that are simpler and more beautiful than ever before.

To help you in that mission, we’re introducing Android Design: the place to learn about principles, building blocks, and patterns for creating world-class Android user interfaces. Whether you’re a UI professional or a developer playing that role, these docs show you how to make good design decisions, big and small.

The Android User Experience Team is committed to helping you design amazing apps that people love, and this is just the beginning. In the coming months, we’ll expand Android Design with more in-depth content. And watch this blog for a series of posts about design, and invitations to Google+ hangouts on the topics you care about most.

So head on over to Android Design, and make something amazing!