-------------------------------------------------------------------
Application: jdtracker 0.1
Author:      John Douglas Rowell me@jdrowell.com
Homepage:    http://www.jdrowell.com/Linux/Projects/jdtracker
-------------------------------------------------------------------

DESCRIPTION
	jdtracker is a CGI/JavaScript combo to track usage statistics on remote hosts (where you don't have access to the server's log files). With one line of HTML code on each page you want to track you can generate complete log files in combined Apache style (host/referrer/user agent). Post process the file with jdresolve and webalizer and you can have graphics and statistics on any pages you want.

INTRODUCTION

	I could make a fancy story about this project, but the truth is I did it for my Mom. She's a die-hard Geocities fan and wanted to have full tracking of her pages without using payed services or having to display ugly banners. Since many people like the convenience of free web hosting services, I figured that allowing others to offer more free tracking services would be a nice touch.

HOW IT WORKS

	To track if a page was hit, you could always just place a transparent gif on it and pull that gif from some server in which you have access to the log files. Then all you have to do is take the referrer, put that in as the actual page, and you have yourself a nice log file.

	Of course, you would need a small script to do that too. And what about the _real_ referrer? You wouldn't know from where your hits are coming from, and that's probably the most important information that log files give you. You can accomplish that with a little trick in JavaScript, and that's what jdtracker.js does. This code calls the CGI as the target to an IMG tag, so the CGI returns a 1x1 transparent gif (43 bytes) and saves the request info.

	By feeding the referrer as a parameter, you are able to get all the data that forms a combined log file. All you need is a small CGI (jdtracker) that takes that information and translates the parts. Since we're not using the http server's logging facilities anymore, we also need to take care of file locking, etc. That's all taken care of.

HOW TO USE IT

	First, follow the INSTALL file's intructions to get it working. Then place the <SCRIPT> code in any HTML pages you wish to track.

	Now you have a standard combined Apache log file. Use jdresolve (http://www.jdrowell.com/Linux/Projects/jdresolve) to turn that into a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) log and the run Webalizer (http://www.webalizer.org) on it to get all the stats, graphics and charts.

SUPPORT

	If you have dificulties using this program or would like to request a new feature, feel free to reach me at me@jdrowell.com.

