David Chen & the Muddy Basin Ramblers

Spy Ware

This title has nothing to do with our last performance. Instead, it refers to the site tracker embedded in this page's html code. Besides indicating how many times the page has been loaded, it reveals information about where visitors are coming from, known as referring links, and also indicates a visitor's host ISP, location, time spent on the page, the type of browser used, and other technical information. I wasn't aware exactly what a site tracker program did when I installed it on the page; I just wanted to see some indication of how few people were actually visiting this site.

What has become the most interesting part about having this program on the page is that I can try to guess who is actually stopping by. I'll give you an example. Today, May 9, 2006, the page was loaded 6 times (so far) by someone in Omaha, Nebraska. This just happens to be Slim's hometown. I figure this is one of his friends. I've met several of them when they've visited Taipei.

Other visits have come from people conducting Google searches. I've mentioned these visitors before, in connection with my fixation on Shar-peis, and they keep coming. Sandy's post about Don Mo's ukuleles attracted a fair amount of attention when that post was more current, but recently Slim's article on whiskey jugs has been pulling in the hits also. Just today we recieved one visitor who performed a Google search on the phrase "how to play a whiskey jug." Most of our visitors are not visitors at all, but members of the MBRs. More than 90% of the site's visits are from fewer than ten ISPs located in Taiwan. No surprise there.

The surprising visitor of today is more mysterious. This visitor is reading this blog from an ISP (internet service provider) located in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. That in itself is not so unusual. Blogger has that "next blog" button up at the top right that takes visitors on a tour of random blogs. Visitors can and do come from all over, even central Asia. What is unusual is that this person has accessed the Muddy Basin Ramblers blog over two dozen times. I believe that makes you an honorary Rambler. If this is you, please drop us a comment and let us know who you are so we can send you your membership card and kazoo. For those of you who want to know the context to the photo at left, check this link.

I apologize to any of you who feel your privacy is being violated. It probably won't come as a surprise to most of you to know that your Interent activity is being monitored. If you want to sneak around on the Net, try something like this.

Edit:
The Onion for May 10 carries a picture of a (different) band and the following headline:

Local Band Attempts to Track Down

Mysterious Visitor To Its Website