OK

Here's what happened....

In late March, I set up a counter on my iceland photo page by using a cool and helpful counter system at http://www.ualberta.ca/GEO/Counter.html. I had to do this since my internet provider, Infinet, currently does not provide stat and usage info for its users.

The counter provided from the system in canada worked pretty well. I then got listed the page in Yahoo's What's New (on April 27th) and got a few thousand accesses within a couple days. Kinda neat. Then, the page was listed in Netscape's What's New? area and I started to get at least 1000+ accesses per day. At the same time, more and more people also started to take use of the same counter system I was using. All of this apparently caused too much stress on the system (in canada) that holds the usage info. The guy who runs (and created) the counter thing decided to stop allowing new counters. He also decided to get rid of counters that had heavy accesses. So the counter for my iceland page was basically tossed out the window. When this happened (on May 16th), I already had over 40,000 accesses to the iceland photo page.

So now I have no idea how many people are visiting my page. Not too big a deal - but it's sorta interesting to watch the numbers grow and grow.

Update: On May 19th, 1995, around 6pm EDT, I installed a new counter onto the Iceland Photo page. This counter method was found at http://www-mae.engr.ucf.edu/~ssd/counter.html. Within three days, there were nearly 7,000 accesses registered through this new counter method. Unfortunately, the guy running this counter forced me to stop using this service he provides. He sent me three nasty-grams that you can read by clicking here. They are milding amusing.

So I took away this second counter (which worked quite nicely) and this leaves me counterless once again. If you know of a counter system that I can use, then contact me . If you would like to tell the Infinet support staff that they should allow stat information for its users, then click here.

6/1/95 Update: I found another source for counters and I started to use my third counter on the Iceland Photo page today. How long will it last? I have no idea. Let's sit back and find out...

6/2/95 Update: Well, Netscape's What's New area finally was updated (it gets updated about once a month) and so the Iceland Photo page is no longer listed on that page. This means a lot less people are accessing the site. Previously, it was about 1300/day but now it's about at 100/day (if that).

6/26/95 Update: Somewhere around June 19th, the counter I put into place on June 1st automatically (?) reset. It had reached the 4000 mark before starting back at zero. I may have to start looking for a new counter...

7/4/95 Update: Got rid of the http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/cgi-bin/counter/iceland counter I was using (which recorded about 1058 hits between 6/20/95 and 7/4/95). You can create your own counter by using that URL, but remove the word iceland and put in your own word.

I went back to using the counter system available through http://www.ualberta.ca/GEO/Counter.html. This was possible since he started offering new counters - so get 'em while you can.

7/8/95 Update: Well, the counter system at http://www.ualberta.ca/GEO/Counter.html was turned off - and not just for me but for everyone. And it looks like it may be shut down for quite a while. His notes about the counter project and the status of it can be seen on this page.

As a result, I've gone back to putting http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/cgi-bin/counter/iceland into my Iceland Photo page. This counter isn't as exiting as the counter offered through ualberta, but it gets the job done. I'll also have to put in a similar counter on my other pages. Hopefully the system that my account is located on, Infinet, will soon offer the ability to use a local counter. But I don't see this happening anytime soon, unfortunately...

7/11/95 Update: Hum. The http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/cgi-bin/counter/iceland counter stopped working days after I started using it again. So...I went back to the counter offered at http://www-mae.engr.ucf.edu/~ssd/counter.html. It works - at least for now. If you want to use this type of counter, check out his rul es before you put the counter in place.

7/21/95 Update: Unexpectedly, I got kick off the counter system offered through http://www-mae.engr.ucf.edu/~ssd/counter.html. Seems that I broke one of his "rules" - specifically, the rule that states "your page gets fewer than 500 hits per week." My counter had just under 500 hits after a week - but he turned off the counter after nine days since I was up to the 700 mark. Hmm. His mail to me this time was not quite as exciting as his past mail to me.

Went back to using one of the counter systems I mentioned in a previous Update, so http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/cgi-bin/counter/iceland95 provides the new counter on the Iceland Photo page.

10/15/95 Update: Hey, what happened? It seems that the counter reset itself sometime over the weekend. Last time I checked (a few days ago) it was over 6100. Now it's down to 300 or so.

12/22/95 Update: I changed over a few of the counters on my site to the counters provided by the people at http://www.digits.com/web_counter/. They seem to work fairly well and the counters are free as long as you have less than a 1000 hits per day.

That's today's story.................... -lee


leep@infinet.com