Where Did All The Counters Go?
Posted on | December 3, 2007 at 7:26 am | 12 Comments
Remember back to the dawn of the Internet age, when we were all just discovering the World Wide Web? We all put up our little websites, usually on a minimal amount of space provided to us by our ISPs. And we all had “hitcounters” on our sites. Those were the numbers that said “You are visitor #xxxxxx visitor to this site” or some such phrasing. Whatever happened to those? You hardly see them anymore. I think I miss them. They always disrupted the flow of the main page and they never really meant anything real. Did people brag when their hitcounter displayed more hits than their friend’s site?
Of course, hitcounters are still around. They’re invisible to the website visitor, though the website maintainer can see them. This site uses statcounter to track the number of hits and to find out where people are coming from and all that. There are many such services. StatCounter has options for displaying the hitcounter on the site, but I don’t have that enabled. If you don’t want to use a service, there’s also the good old access logs that you can download if you know how. And most webhosts have ways of displaying statistical reports for you.
At some point, I guess it just became gauche to display that hitcounter. This blog gets anywhere from around 15 to 55 unique visitors a day on average, according to the weekly reports that StatCounter e-mails me. Weekdays are a lot busier than weekend days, and the hits always go up a lot when I post regularly (surprise). I don’t know how that compares to my friends’ blogs, but I suspect it’s a bit on the low side.
Hmmm, maybe I should start a new trend and display the hitcounter again. Maybe I’ll even make it look like an odometer! Wouldn’t that be cool? And all my blogrolled friends could do it too, and we could have a contest!
Nah. That’s one Web cliche I was not sorry to see go.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ °F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “My Impression Now (Acoustic)” (Guided By Voices)
- “Something Against You” (The Pixies)
- “You Know What You Are?” (Nine Inch Nails)
- “Clouds over Eden” (Richard Barone)
- “Suffering” (Frank Black)
- “Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her” (XTC)
- “Love’s a Dangerous Language” (ABC)
(XTC followed by ABC – Weird!)
Today’s Weight: 163.8 lbs
Lunch Yesterday: None.
Pet Peeve of the Day: Those impossible to open plastic bags that they have inside cereal boxes now (Kellogg’s brand, at least). You can’t get them open without tearing them to shreds, which makes it harder to pour the cereal. Who’s brilliant idea was this? The old bags worked fine to keep the cereal protected, and were much easier to open.
Latre.
Comments
12 Responses to “Where Did All The Counters Go?”
December 3rd, 2007 @ 12:19 pm
I keep a pair of scissors in my kitchen drawer to cut the cereal bags open. I agree it was easier when you could pull ‘em apart with your bare hands, though.
December 3rd, 2007 @ 12:33 pm
I keep a pair of scissors in my kitchen drawer to cut the cereal bags open.
I could do that too, but that’s just admitting defeat. I am BEOwulf and I must show the bag who is King.
December 3rd, 2007 @ 4:12 pm
Re your stats: mine’s pretty comparable…maybe a handful more. That actually surprises me, since you have far more regular commentors than I do.
Packaging: the hard plastic shells that come with many consumer products, which require a scissors to open and leave razor-sharp edges. I dread trying to open these when I’m a wizened old man with skin the consistency of paper. I wonder how many news reports I can find of old people bleeding to death after cutting themselves on such plastic packaging?
Plus: drinking straws. They redid some aspect of the paper surrounding them…because it used to be quite easy to lightly plonk the straw end down on the table and have the top of the straw poke through the paper so you could remove the wrapper. Now, try that, and most often the straw just bends while the paper remains intact.
I blame Beowulf.
December 3rd, 2007 @ 4:24 pm
Re: On the stats. I don’t think the “unique visitors” count is that accurate, since it counts the same people as unique when they’re coming from different IP addresses. I would think that proxy servers and firewalls and people surfing from both work & home would throw that count off so that it’s higher than it should be.
Agreed on the hard plastic shells. I opened one of those just the other day and nearly killed myself.
Also agreed on the straws, now that you mention it. It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to do the “table plonk” thing.
When Shalini & Mitch were in town, we ate at Ted’s Montana Grill, which actually had paper straws instead of plastic ones. I applaud the pro-environmental thinking there, but I didn’t like the taste.
December 3rd, 2007 @ 6:04 pm
I always make a point to visit your blog from as many different sites as I can each day. It’s how I make up for all the little kibbitzing comments I post.
As for the whole plastic-vs-kevlar debate, I’ll say one thing: the Greatest Generation may have defeated global fascism, but then they raised kids who are having trouble with plastic bags. Why doesn’t Tom Brokaw write about THAT?
December 3rd, 2007 @ 6:53 pm
OK, with straws, ya feel through the paper wrapper for the bendy part, and carefully tear away the portion of wrapper encasing the bendy part. Then you remove the shorter of the two remaining wrapper pieces, hold the exposed straw end to your lips and shoot the longer piece at your dining companion(s). Easy.
December 3rd, 2007 @ 9:19 pm
Bendy part? I haven’t gotten a bendy straw in ages…
December 4th, 2007 @ 5:45 am
Maybe it’s an Ohio thing. Bendy straws are not uncommon at our finest pubs and bistros. If I ever get around to composing a celebration of the C-Bus per your fine “My City” post, I’ll certainly note the ready availability of bendy straws.
December 4th, 2007 @ 10:15 am
Maybe it’s an Ohio thing. Bendy straws are not uncommon at our finest pubs and bistros.
But what about at your Wendy’s and Arby’s?
December 4th, 2007 @ 9:37 am
I throw away the straws and drink the beverage in a manly fashion.
December 4th, 2007 @ 10:14 am
I throw away the straws and drink the beverage in a manly fashion.
But I don’t want to “burn” my lips on the ice cubes!
I am BEOwulf!
December 4th, 2007 @ 3:05 pm
But what about at your Wendy’s and Arby’s?
As I was saying, Rog…!
OK, just kidding – the C-bus is one of those unexpectedly great restaurant towns. But we never forget that we’re also the home of Wendy’s. AND White Castle!