visualize activity on a website

hi all --

I've been asking this around.

I'd like to have a real time visualization of all the visitors on my website. That is, a list of all the people currently on each page, updated in real time.
Does anyone have an approach they could share? I'm curious what technologies people find useful for this kind of thing.

Also, if you don't mind, if you were to code something like this, how many hours do you think it would take?

Regards

It would be a combination of a database, javascript and server side scripting language.

I would use mySQL and then PHP for the ajax....

If you already have the database with users etc, it would take only a couple of hours but if you're coding the user database and PHP from scratch it could take anywhere from 4-15 hours depending on what info and how solid you need.

I am currently on this tutorial too...
I might stick for this..

I already use one such script:
You can see it at http://www.biologyformhtcet.com/wus.html
You would need a password to access that page.
Use the folowing login details
Username: rohan
password: webforumz

It uses PHP-MySQL.

I can even see bots with that! Thats an added advantage over statcounter, etc!

I too was thinking about this when I read that creative coding needed 2 tutorials.
What language will you be using. I am using PHP-MySQL. I just hope that we both don't submit the same content!

and yeah, I am making some improvements to the already existing script of mine!

and yeah one more thing, do you remember that javascript MCQs script I was working on? Well, I completed it but dropped it when I realized the power of PHP-MySQL. (I know its foolish of me that I imagined that I could do it better with JavaScript )

thanks for all these starting points! I'll look forward to a tutorial or two in the future!

Hai Rohan, I am using ASP-MySQL. Currently learning PHP!

Could you be more specific with your link there ^, coz I am not sure what the pages are all about! I thought it was some kind of a sample working tutorial of AJAX

I'm using PHP/MySql, CSS, and little javascript. I have no idea how many hours it will take. It depends on the person's skills and knowledge about the said languages...

It shows me activity on my website. I can track users, the time he spends, the pages he views, the no. of times he visits my website, etc. I have increased the no. of records to be shown to 150. See it now.

Coloumn 1: Id: It is the record no in the database.
Col 2: Unique ID: When a visitor comes first time to my site, I set a cookie containing the date and time of first visit. This allows me to have approx. time hes been tracking my site.

Col 3: Date and time: Shows date and time of the activity
Col4 and 5: IP address and Hostname of visitor
Col 6: Page visited by visitor
Col 7: The Referrer
Col 8: Client specifications such as OS, browser name and version, etc.

I have already thought some improvements for it. Just need to translate it into code!

Me used PHP-MySQL and completed it within 2 hrs. Of course some part of it was etched in my mind. not counting that!

Its simple. Just obtain the variables and insert them into the database.
To view the statistics, just run a select query from the database.

Another option would be to use a currently existing system like Mint and then write your own plugins or custom queries on the database....