Question about 'Who's Online'

Right, I worry about that too since I'm in and out and leave the computer on. FYI, if anyone's curious, I'm actually here maybe 5% (if that) of the time that my name appears.

I do the same, sozobe. I just don't want people to think I'm ignoring them (or feel ignored myself either).

Darn good question.

Surely you've noticed that when someone says something is a good question, they don't know the answer either.

It should drop you off after a set time period of inactivity. Most sites use either 5 or 15 minutes. I'm not sure what Craven setup here.

Have you ever looked and not seen my name up there? I never log out...

Your name is often missing, fishin', so that answers the question, at least if your computer is also on all the time.

Gee, you guys don't read the explanations I put on the pages do ya? Just kidding! There is no explanation on the index page but I was careful to explain this in detail on the who'd online page.

Here's the rundown:

The who's online stats is really who's on the forum at the time stats.
If you are not viewing pages on the forum you will not be counted in those statistics. So if you stay logged in to the site but navegate away you will not be counted as "online" even if you ARE online.

On this site "online" means "browsing the forums".

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More about who's online etc:

The stats are based on the last 5 minutes. So you will be on that list for 5 minutes after you leave.

Due to this 5 min window you might see some guests (on the who's online page) posting, viewing private messages etc. Those actions are supposed to be for members but that doesn't mean the security has been compromised. It just means that someone who has logged in within the last 5 minutes is using a rotating IP address (several ISPs do this, most notably AOL).

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To preempt a future question:

Search engines use robots to index pages, they don't like dynamic pages so I have added code that will allow google to index the site without a guest session ID. So if you ever see google in the who's online section it just means the google robot is indexing the site. This will probably inflate the who's online stats as it will be a spider not a human viewing it.

If that part about google sounds too techie here's the simple version:

Google's robot has a backdoor to the site so the forum can be indexed. So don't be suprised if every few months google shows up in the who's online section. It's just their bot.

2 more things about who's online:

If you add your ICQ number to your profile the flower changes from red to green when you are onlien in the button displayed in your profile.

The button on the forums does not do this.

Another thing:

I have a bit of a weird setup: I use this site as my homepage and also have modyfied Kazaa (a P2P program that runs almost 24/7 on my puter) to use my default homepage with that program.

I did that because the Kazaa default page launches popups and simply disabling the page (like with Kazaa lite) loses some functionality that I added to that program.

This means that when Kazaa is running on my puter I am counted as online here. This is not a traditional setup though. Unless you do something really weird like that it's simple. Not on the forums not on the who's online list.

Thanks for the info, Craven. Sorry we made you repeat what is already elsewhere, but you really should have realized by now that many of us (i.e. especially me) tend not to read instructions, etc. I believe it's called laziness -- or maybe learning by the 'hands on' method.

I have no problem with explaining it! I'm glad you asked because now if someone asks when I'm gone there will be people here who know the answer.

Only if there's someone here who has a better memory than I do.

<snork!> Ok, I had to laugh at that one bandylu!