Timer

[Whitecrest]

Yup. You'll know exactly when the user hit the login page and when the
user hit the logout page. You still don't know anything for the
intervening time -- your user could've been off at some other website, or
had his browser closed, or not even near the computer.

By the same logic, knowing the circulation of a Newspaper is useless,
because someone might not open your section of the paper, or your insert
may fall out. Or what ever.

Yes, the statistics you can get are not exact, but they are more than
usable for studying trends, and understanding that can make you a lot of
money

 

[Whitecrest]

Login time is exact. Logout time is a total unknown.

Unless I log you out. The smaller the inactivity time, the more
accurate I can get.

 

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Yup. You'll know exactly when the user hit the login page and when the
user hit the logout page.

Exactly. That was, by the way, the original question that started this
thread.

You still don't know anything for the
intervening time -- your user could've been off at some other website, or
had his browser closed, or not even near the computer.

Quite true, but that's an obvious given as far as I'm concerned. No one
claimed otherwise in this thread as far as I have seen. (Haven't read
every single post, though.)

 

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

By the same logic, knowing the circulation of a Newspaper is useless,
because someone might not open your section of the paper, or your insert
may fall out. Or what ever.

Yes, the statistics you can get are not exact, but they are more than
usable for studying trends, and understanding that can make you a lot of
money

My sentiments exactly.

 

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Somewhere around 1/23/04 4:26 PM, Nicolai P. Zwar typed wildly with
reckless abandon:


not if the person doesn't log out. I can't recall the last time I
actually logged out of anything. I just let it time out and I normally
leave a site long before that happens.

I usually log out at my bank.

 

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Login time is exact. Logout time is a total unknown.

Not if the user logs out correctly. If they don't, you can still get an
estimation, for better or worse, depending on a variety of things.