WebTrends 8.1a - Reissued

During a routine call to WebTrends technical support a couple of weeks ago, I was asked an interesting questions by them. The question was "Which download of WebTrends 8.1a was I using?".

This question took me a second to digest. I dug a little deeper to only discover that some time in the middle of January of this year, they posted a revised version of WebTrends 8.1 on their FTP site. This posting had no fanfare and no announcement. I guess they just assumed that anyone installing 8.1a would simply download the newer version automatically. They didn't think about people like myself and my firm to help companies install their product. We keep the latest version of WebTrends on our USB keys so our clients don't have to download them.

Not being told there was a revision is a little disheartening.

However that being said, I've personally did one complete install of WebTrends 8.1a from stratch and was by far the smoothest install of 8.1a I had to date. In fact, there were any problems what so ever. Of course, this client had a properly sized server with ample RAM and hard drive space.

I just completed a reinstall of 8.1a on my company's test WebTrends sever and all went smooth. We're going to be doing a bit more testing, but it is starting to look like the upgrade to WebTrends 8.1 might finally be good enough to recommended it clients. Let me test it a bit further before you take that big jump.

However, if you're planning on simply installing it from scratch on a new server without porting all your existing data, I'm very happy to now recommended it. As always, read the installation guide first and make sure you have a minimum of 3 gigs of RAM or 4 gigs of RAM per processor if you're planning on using the WebTrends GeoTrends module.

As always, if you can afford it, I recommend having a firm like my company (K'nechtology) or WebTrends itself come out and help you install and configure the product plus get your WebTrends Administrators some training. WebTrends is not a simple product to manage and a lot more difficult to install correctly than an out of the box product like MS Office or Adobe Photoshop.

European Link Building

I'm happy to announce that my firm K'nechtology Inc. has just been engaged to by Shred-it UK a firm specializing in secure mobile paper shredding and confidential waste destruction to help develop and implement a UK focused link building strategy.

K'nechtology has worked for years with the Shred-it UK's parent company Securit (www.securit.com) implementing various SEO and SEM strategies throughout its world-wide operations plus managing its web analytics software and measuring the success of all on-line marketing activities.

PubCon 2008

The dates for PubCon (http://www.pubcon.com) 2008 have just been announced. This years PubCon is happening November 11-14 and once again will be held in Las Vegas.

While the speakers list and agenda haven't been finalized, it looks highly likely that I'll be speaking during at least one session at the conference. If this year's conference is anything like last years conference it promises to be highly informative, a great networking opportunity and one great time.

So block off these dates and get ready to say hello to Vegas. One word of advice, don't plan on leaving early on the 14th. This has traditionally been the day of the big networking event and something you really don't want to miss.

As always as I know more, I'll post more on this event.

New SEM Conference

I know its been a while since I posted, and now I have a backlog of news items. So here is the first one.

A new Search Engine Marketing conference has been announced. The conference entitled SEM Canada (http://www.semcanada.org/) will take place in Calgary Alberta on September 4 and 5. At a cost of $895 Canadian for a two day event, this conference has a very attractive price tag.

The conference features some great speakers including Andy Beal, Christine Churchill, Todd Friesen, Ken Jurina, Richard Zwicky and of course myself. As it stands now (agenda hasn't been completely finalized), I'll be speaking at two sessions and moderating a 3rd.

For those who've never been to Western Canada this is a great excuse. The conference is on the Tuesday and Wednesday right after labour day, so I'd suggest flying out early and spending the weekend in mountains (i.e. Banff or Lake Louise) or head out to one of my favourite spots in Canada the Alberta Bad Lands especially Drumheller and Dinosaur Provincial Park.

More on this conference as I find out, but for now check out SEM Canada web site and think about registering.