I am Big Brother's Little Brother

Okay, I have to talk about one more addiction before we move on. Have you ever wondered what your computer is telling people about you? What happens each time you click on a new site on the Internet?

A month ago, I added an "analytics" element to my blog. Basically, I was trying to find out how many people drop by to read in a day, a week, a month. I'm not proud, I'll admit it, it's an ego thing. But it was also a wake-up call for me.

I did not realize how much information I transmit when I visit a website. I'm no techno-wizard. This counter system was easy to install and is easy to use. And the volume of information it collects shocked me and I've become somewhat addicted to watching it and trying to figure out what it all means.

In the month that I've been keeping track, I've had 351 visitors to my site. Each visitor, on average, has read 1.95 pages for a total of 684 pageviews. And each viewer has spent an average of 2 minutes and 16 seconds reading. Cool, eh? But wait, there's more.

I've had 279 visitors from Canada, 58 from the U.S., nine from Brazil (I really don't get that one!), one from Greece, one from Oxford in Great Britain and four from a country the analyzer could not identify. Not sure what that means. I'm still analyzing the analysis.

Oh yes, in Canada, I've had visitors from 15 different cities (and I can see each city on a map provided). In the U.S., from 20 different states, with New York leading the way, followed by South Carolina, Pennsylvania, California, Illinois, Minnesota and, yesterday, one from Anchorage Alaska. Yes, I can see which cities in those states have visitors to my site.

I can tell you that 52.1 per cent of you, my readers, use Mac computers and 45.3 per cent use Windows-based systems. (The other 2.56 per cent is from that guy from that country that my analyzer can't put its finger on.)

Okay, and here's where it really surprised me. The vast majority of my readers' computers have a screen resolution of 1440X900, followed closely by those with computer screen resolutions of 1024X768, and on down the line to one reader with a screen resolution of 1920X1200.

Man in Black: Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

Vizzini: Wait til I get going! Now, where was I?

A little quote from the Princess Bride. Couldn't resist.

Now where was I?

As for the browsers you're all using, Safari leads the league with 182, followed by Internet Explorer with 125, Firefox with 34 and Chrome with 1.

Spooky, isn't it?

And sometimes it's funny. I can view the "key words" that people googled to find my blog. Well, I suppose a lot of the time they weren't looking for my blog, they were looking for something else.

For example, yesterday, someone googled "what's the first impression of wife to impress husband most?" And my blog was the fifth hit on that search. I'm guessing I'm not what she was looking for. Much like all of those that searched "trophy husband" and found me. Hehehehe.

Other searches of note?

"wgt.com"

"crazy swim parents"

"they disconnect my star choice subscription can I get service through another dish"

"wife control issues"

You know, now that I see what key words, or tags, can do, I'm am sorely tempted to include "sex" and "porn," and a few others like that in my keyword section, just to see what happens to my traffic levels. Be an interesting study, yes?

And finally, I can see that 86.5 per cent of you need to clean your desks, 27 per cent prefer boxers over briefs, 12.4 per cent believe Caddyshack was the greatest movie of all time and 97 per cent of you did not get a complete breakfast including all five food groups.

Okay, I made those last few up.

But remember people, your computer is talking about you. The Internet is not only a place for information and entertainment, it is a massive marketing tool that is working overtime to collect information about you and your surfing habits. Not to make you paranoid or anything, just to let you know. As I said, my analyzer was free and easy to install. There are those out there that cost a lot more and collect a lot more information, each time you click that mouse.

Sleep well.