How do I change the Time Zone of my BlogPatrol Account?

Question: How do I change the time zone of my BlogPatrol account?

Answer: You can change the time zone of your BlogPatrol account at any time by (1) logging into your BlogPatrol account, (2) opening the list of timezones, (3) selecting a different timezone, and (4) clicking the "Modify" button to save the change(s) you have selected.

For more information, see the screen shot below. (Click on the picture to view an enlarged version of the image.)

Mining the Detailed Analysis Report for Blogging Treasure

The BlogPatrol Detailed Analysis of the Last 25 Visitors report can provide insight into the reading behavior of your blog audience. After recently simplifying the instructions for installing BlogPatrol on Blogger blogs, I wanted to find answers to questions such as:

• Are new users trying the instructions?
• Are users getting all the way through the instructions?
• How long are users taking to complete the instructions?
• Are any other patterns of behavior emerging from this data?

I've compiled a set of screen shots representing the two types of behavior (ideal and anomalous) recorded by BlogPatrol for the The Patrol Blog, namely the 5 pages comprising these instructions.

To illustrate, the screen shots are highlighted with green color on the start time and red color on the end time.


Screen shot 1 of 4: Representing the ideal scenario, two visitors went through the instructions in the intended manner from steps 1 through 5 in 2 minutes 52 seconds and 8 minutes 36 seconds, respectively.




Screen shot 2 of 4: Another sampling of the ideal scenario in action, two other visitors also went through the instructions in the intended manner from steps 1 through 5 in 3 minutes 58 seconds and 4 minutes 49 seconds, respectively.




Screen shot 3 of 4: In contrast to the first four visitors, this user had a much different experience with the installation instructions. The visitor spent a total of 48 minutes 16 seconds on the instructions.



A closer look shows that the visitor cycled through the steps three different times for the following durations:

• Cycle #1: 3 minutes 34 seconds
• Cycle #2: 9 minutes 41 seconds
• Cycle #3: 4 minutes 52 seconds

It is possible that the visitor signed up for three separate BlogPatrol for three separate accounts, but this is unlikely. With each successful installation, the visitor would learn and remember at least some of the process which would be reflected in the instruction pages subsequently visited for the other installations. Our interpretation is that this user had a more difficult time using the instructions than the first four visitors.


Screen shot 4 of 4: The final visitor in our illustration also shows an anomalous use of the instructions. The first impression is that the user spent a lot of time on the site because so many pages were visited again and again. However, the total time spent in the visit was only 3 minutes 4 seconds.



We interpret this data to mean that visitor refreshed various pages multiple times as part of a very quick use of the instructions.

Meaningful Collaboration and Useful Web Stats

Thanks to all of you who commented or emailed feedback on the general login problem. In our follow-up with the users reporting in problems, everyone confirmed the ability to login as of July 29. Your timely collaboration quickly informed us when our efforts worked and when they didn't. Thank you!

During the week (July 20 to 26) that the login problem escalated to a majority of users, the BlogPatrol Web Browsers in Use report helped us to figure out that 62.35% of BlogPatrol users who accessed their account could not login successfully.

We obtained this info by doing the following nine (9) steps to:

• access the Web Browsers in Use report
• interact with the report using the pie chart rotation and pie chart slicing features
• manually add up the numbers to determine the total percentage of users affected.

Step 1 of 9: Go to the BlogPatrol.com homepage and click on the Demo Stats link (located under the Signup Now menu).

Step 2 of 9: Click on the report link labeled Visitor Technologies.




Step 3 of 9: You will get three reports: Operating Systems in Use, Web Browsers in Use, and Screen Resolutions in Use. If you need to, scroll down your browser so that the Web Browsers in Use report is in full view, as shown below.




Step 4 of 9: You can hover your mouse over the (?) question mark that appears after the Web Browsers in Use report title to view instructions for interacting with the report: "Left click on a pie slice to move the slice away from the pie. Right click on the pie and Enable Rotation to rotate the pie chart."




Step 5 of 9: First, do the PIE CHART ROTATION by following the instructions: "...Right click on the pie and Enable Rotation to rotate the pie chart." When the mini-menu appears, as shown below, click on the Enable Rotation link.




Step 6 of 9: Once rotation is enabled, do a click-and-drag motion with your cursor to turn the pie chart in one direction or the other.




Step 7 of 9: Second, enable the PIE CHART SLICING by following the instructions: "...Right click on the pie and Enable Slicing Movement to rotate the pie chart." When the mini-menu appears, as shown below, click on the Enable Slicing Movement link.




Step 8 of 9: Click on each of the pie sections that you want to slice out. The section you click on will slice outward and away from the rest of the pie chart.

You can do this by clicking on the graphical part of the pie slice (1) or by clicking on the text for a slice (2). The second method is useful for slices that are too narrow to easily click on the graphical portion. Both methods are illustrated by the arrows in the screen shot below.




Step 9 of 9: Slice out all of the slices that you want to analyze more closely.

In our illustration, we sliced out the browsers that we knew were affected by the login problem: Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Safari, Opera 7.x, and Opera 9.x.

The values of these slices are listed below in the order presented by the pie chart:

• MS Internet Explorer 7 = 19.07% (1,047 instances)
• Safari = 2.8% (152 instances)
• Opera 9.x = 2.4% (132 instances)
• Opera 7.x = 1.8% (99 instances)
• MS Internet Explorer 6 = 36.28% (1,992 instances)

The total, which we added up using a spreadsheet, was 62.35%.

So that's how we used our Web Browsers in Use stats report to determine that 62.35% of all BlogPatrol users were affected by the general login problem. We're pleased to report that 100% of users are currently able to access their account.

As always, if you're having any problems or issues with your BlogPatrol account, please let us know through our contact form.