Hello everyone,
I really need some help with this one.
What I need to do is track how many times a user logs into the website.
This is to see who is using the site and what demographics are being targeted. I will be using a login page for the tracking. All the usernames will be stored in a d/b.
Some thoughts I have:
 writing to a text file or creating a separate d/b to collect the information.
using a counter field in the d/b and update it each time the user logs in.
I know that most websites have stats but my boss wants more detailed information than just an IP Address.
Is this project possible and what would be the best way to go?

Does any one have any suggestions? Please help point me in the right direction. This is a major undertaking for a newbie.
thanks
dink

you could use a counter in your db as you mentioned and make sure you index the table columns you will need demographic info from, such as age, region, etc.

;;;What I need to do is track how many times a user logs into the website
I would place a one to many relationship between your 'users' table and a EG 'userHits' table. Its realy quiet simple. Every time a user logs in insert a record (userID, date, time, etc) into the 'userHits' table

;;;writing to a text file or creating a separate d/b to collect the information
Why would you want a seperate DB. You just need a new table as described above.

sols said 'you could use a counter in your db as you mentioned '
Yes you could however creating another table using a one to many relationship enables you to capture all sorts og information. Incrimenting a counter in the users table limits you for obvious reasons.

Wind is your friend
Matt