Traffic Signals
I keep a counter on my blog to count visits to the site. I've had the counter since February 2006, when I told friends and family about the site. Very recently I discovered the depth of information that counter keeps. Relax, it doesn't collect information about the visitor, just the visit.
That's how I discovered I had a visit from someone who was connected to the internet through the server of the Government of the Province of Ontario. I don't know which pages were viewed during the visit, but that person was on the site for 22 minutes, 59 seconds. Most visits don't record that much server information.
The counter is how I found out that I have a regular reader in Finland. I don't know anybody in Finland, but a user who logs onto a server in Finland reads about my circumstances 1-2 times each week.
Most visits are recorded as IP addresses, which isn't very meaningful to me. Seventy-seven percent of readers are in Canada. Nothing surprising about that stat. The average visit is about 4 minutes.
The optimist says today's visit would've been somebody at MOH checking the site; the practical part of me says it was probably the District Assistant to the Field Administrator of Miscellaneous Services on his break, surfing to the next blog.
Home to Very Random
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6 comments:
You realize of course, that by posting that, you have just reported that a Government of Ontario employee is using government resources to access the www. Hopefully it was work related and that person won't be fired for an innappropriate of government resources.
Now, if he/she had used those 44 minutes to write the letter to the MOH or the Hamilton Health Sciences Board, that would be a productive use of government resources.
Suppose for a moment that person earns $40.00/hour, the $29. spent on the blog could have been invested into the pacemaker fund.
R
Clarification: It was a 23 minute visit to the site.
It's already cost $40,000 too much for treatment, maybe she figured another $15.35 was worth it.
Re: Your comment about IP numbers of your visitors.
At http://www.neoworx.net/blue/index.php you can download a program that shows IP locations on maps. Click on NeoEarth. I haven't tried this one.
I have a previous version by the same people. Quite satisfactory. Type in an IP number and you get a map location plus a name and address of the Internet Service Provider in most cases. Used to use it a lot years ago to see where all that junk mail was coming from!
I visited you tonight to see what feedback the Star story produced. I hope you get the boost you deserve.
Duggan in Bronte.
It actually scares me to know that I can gather that much information about people who read my blog. Scares me because if I have access to it, so does anyone who has a site...and what do they do with that data?
Not that I'm worried - the tracks we leave through our personal internet usage is pretty banal.
I'm sure that for some businesses the visitor information is critical to their success.
Thank you for the encouragement.
CL
That program doesn't gather info on those who read your blog, rather it identifies the ISP that provides Internet service for each one of us. That same information is a matter of public record available to anyone.
But I know what you mean! Some of that junk email contains attachments that install themselves in your computer and record key strokes, like passwords and account numbers, or look for and copy certain files and sends such data back to the originator of the junk. Good security programs protect against that. My computer tech at the Maplegrove Village mall advised me to use "avast!" a multipurpose program that's free.
Last night I couldn't get the "comments verification window" to accept what seemed to be there for us to verify. Finally another set of letters appeared.
I read more comments today. Sounds like things might be looking up for you. Please keep up your spirits!
D from B.
Comments on the site are moderated, so there is a delay before they appear on the original posting.
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