OK class, let's get started. We have a lot to cover today.

On the social end of the spectrum, Cima, Amy, Fran, and I went to Bennigan’s for Monte Cristo sandwiches last night. We all have been anticipating the delicious goodness of that sandwich ever since we read the article - A Monte Cristo to Remember by our friend Lara. John Raymond Veno introduced me to my first Monte Cristo years ago at the Old Forge Diner in the Adirondacks. The two sandwiches I experienced were very different. John Raymond’s version was a ham and cheese on French toast. The Bennigan’s version was a ham, turkey, and cheese sandwich that was then beer battered, deep-fried, and sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar. If that is not enough artery-clogging good/bad-ness for you, don’t worry because it also comes with fries. They should rename it the Monte Crisco. We all ordered one and I think that one for the table to split would have been plenty. It was raining last night, so we couldn't even find a bum to give our leftovers to.

On the business end of the spectrum, we are continually trying to make improvements on the site. I have added direct emailing to the comments section of the site. This way, everyone’s email addresses are hidden and protected from spammers, robots, spiders, and stalkers. Previously, we were handling email through Outlook Express and it was fairly easy to get a person’s email address. Now, you can sleep better at night knowing that your email address is resting safely in our database instead of dangling it’s ding-dong out in cyberspace. That’s just one more way to show that we care at pnf.com.

Let's go over an example:


1. Say you see Matt's comment and you are not sure what he means. Simply click on the email link next to his name and a webmail page will come up already addressed to Matt.

2. Fill out your name, email address, and message.

3. Click the Submit button and voila! In a matter of seconds, Matt should have your message.

Fran and I have been tracking our stats since June 2003 with some great free tools developed by reinvigorate.net. We track hits and referring websites, as well as resolution, browser, and platform stats. We thought you might enjoy taking a look at some of the data.

Take a look at the browsers people are using to access our site

Here is a snapshot of the platforms

Here is a look at screen resolutions

We are getting a little bigger every month. The next two bar charts take a look at monthly "Unique Users." A Unique User is logged only once per 24 hour period.

Finally, here is a look at daily traffic for March 2004.

-Pat