So in the gist of getting the site up and running again, I decided that I once again wanted to start checking where traffic was coming to the site from. At this point, I would be surprised if there is any traffic coming to the site. Considering that the site now has a horrible color theme and, with this post, 3 whole entries, if anyone is coming to the site it is for laughs.

Traffic analysis. That is why am here today. There are a ton of stat programs out there, and my provider has one, and they all have their pluses and minuses. The one provided by my Web hosting provider was awstats. I have used this in the past, and while the information is not bad, it is not great. Currently, DiscountASP.net, my site hoster, said that they are changing web stats programs, and for the short term I would be without stats. I am fine with that, but in the meantime I still would like to know if there is any traffic coming to the site, and if so, where is it coming from. So this means installing Google Analytics. 

As a side note here. After the new stats package is installed, I will continue to use both for checking my traffic statistics. It is not that I do not trust Google or whatever the new package is, but I like to compare stats to ensure the honesty and integrity of the information. Hopefully the two programs will never be more that just a bit off from one another, but that will have to wait till later. If they are not, then I am not sure what I am going to do. Probably try and compare the two with the raw logs and see which one is really accurate.

Back to the main discussion, installing Google Analytics on BlogEngine. Installing Google Analytics is very simple, and can be broken down into a list of three steps.

1. Log into your BlogEngine site and go to the Settings page.
2. Log into Google Analytics and get the java script code for the page tracking.
3. On the Settings page in the section labeled "Tracking script" and paste the code into box.
4. Click on the "Save" button.

That's it. Guess that is 4 steps, but who's counting?

I do have questions about whether or not the code is added to the pages when you are logged in as an administrator. Until I have a chance to peak into the code I will not know. The advantage to this would be that the statistics on the site would not be thrown off by ones own visits. If the site is getting a large amount of traffic, I guess that this would really not be an issue. However, if your site is like mine, then just my traffic alone could make me happy. Ha.

Hmm. Guess that was anticlimactic. Sorry that this was a lame post on how to install analytics on BlogEngine, but who was I to know that it would be so easy. I have used other blogging software in the past, and it has always been amazingly difficult to setup analytic with these systems. I remember having to hack a number of PHP pages in WordPress to get it to work. There may have been an easier way the last time I set it up, but I cannot remember if there was a plug-in for it at that point. 

Just know that setting up Google Analytics is easy to setup and use with BlogEngine, and that it is a good tool for monitoring the traffic going to ones site. 

I am glad to say that the site is now being powered by BlogEngine.net. This is a dramatic change from the technology that this site used to be running on. If you were unable to tell by the name, BlogEngine is powered by dotNet. Previously all the sites that I had used had been powered by either PHP or Java. While both of these have programming languages have their pluses, I felt that it was time the .Net was given a chance.

It is true that there is a limited number of Open Source blogging software for the .Net framework. This is probably more due to the fact that most open source advocates learned PHP, perl, python, etc first. Also, most open source advocates would not be caught dead using Microsoft technology. Having been a long time user of Linux and Unix systems I can understand this veiwpoint. At the same time, I find it extremely limiting when people are unwilling to accept or at least try an alternative. Just because a company is out to make money does not mean they are evil. The argument could be made that Google is more scary with the amount of information that it has on people than Microsoft, but I digress.

Back to the original topic at hand, that of Blogengine.net themes. In that past, I have always grabbed a theme by someone else, and then tweaked it to meet my needs. I thought about doing this with BlogEngine. However, after looking at what it takes to make a theme, I believe that I am going to make one myself. To my surprise, unlike most php blogs that I have used in the past, there is a nice separation of code and html. Never know, I may continue on to work on some extensions.

Reality calls, time to take out the trash and fold laundry. Ah the pains of home life ;) Till later