John G.

Rentacoder is good for certain types of software development projects - I've used Rentacoder several times and have had mostly good experiences. These are my takeaways:

- Make sure the project deadlines are well-defined. Coders have a tendency to over-promise and therefore projects can drag on and on unless you set strict deadlines and stick to them. Rentacoder's dispute resolution system works well so don't be afraid to use it.

- Complicated projects are hard to manage remotely. Small, simple projects work best on Rentacoder.

- Rentacoder ratings are generally correct. If someone is highly rated, they are usually capable and responsible.

- Prices are generally cheap on most projects so it can make sense to give bonuses for extra work or to incent your coder to finish more quickly.

- Rentacoder prices are generally a lot lower than using a software development firm and can even be lower than using an India-based firm since coders are typically bidding as independent contractors.

- Try to find coders that have had experience doing precisely what you are looking for (you can read this in their profiles).

Hope this is helpful.

Google Analytics should probably be used alongside another service - Google Analytics uses a something called Page Tagging (using javascript) to measure traffic. While this method is fairly effective for measuring unique users and tracking events that don't involve making requests to a web server (eg, flash action scripts), it is not good for measuring page views that occur when a page is (1) already cached in the user's browser or (2) being viewed in a browser that has security settings that block this sort of tracking.

Another way to measure traffic is through log files, used by services such as Awstats. Log files may give a more accurate page view number but a less accurate unique visitor number.

In conclusion, if you use Google Analytics (it has a nice interface, and is good for setting Goals and coordinating with Ad Sense/ Ad Words) it may make sense to use it alongside one of these other services.

Here's a good article on the topic: http://www.developmentseed.org/blog/analytics/faceoff_google_serverlogs

Find the cheapest gas in your neighborhood - Just type in your Zip Code and the site outputs the cheapest gas stations near you. They update the prices multiple times a day, so the prices are pretty accurate. There seem to be a bunch of sites that do this now, but other ones like www.gaspricewatch.com and www.gasnearu.com don't seem to be as good -- fewer stations listed and the prices seem to be updated less often.

Good idea for a site, but can anyone get it to work? - I put in my CA area code and I get a list of gas stations, but no prices, just addresses. This site seems to be better: http://www.gasbuddy.com/