ShortStats
Posted by Jonathan Ng | Filed under Technical
Ever since the very day I started my own site, I’ve always wanted to track my visitors. AwStats doesn’t really work for me as I would need to wait for it to be refreshed by my host, and most importantly, it logs my visits too!!
So I went in search of a PHP-based alternative that would not log my own visits. TraceWatch particualaly impressed me as it was able to track visitors, one by one. And of course, it uses cookies so that I wont be part of “statistics”. But it needs FOUR queries to log each visitor, making it sorta “heavy”.
Then Danny introduced ShortStat to me. A simple Wordpress plugin that logs some simple statistics. However, it also logs my visits. Here’s the best part: I’m on static IP! Unlike Streamyx users who use dynamic IPs, I connect via a network provided at hostel. Thus, I’m assigned a static IP through the NAT protocol on the network (I’m no whiz at network stuff, so excuse the mis-information, if any).
Simply put, I just need to add 2 lines of codes (if you don’t count the curly braces) to stop ShortStat from logging my visits:
if ($ip == "218.208.66.170") {
return; // i'm checking my own pages.. don't log me!
}Ain’t that wonderful?? Hehe… I guess I’ll work on a cookie based mod when I have the time next time. So the next time you visit this page, you’re (meaningful) statistic!
Tags: jnls.net, web_apps, wordpress
