RE: [cobalt-users] How many users are on my site?

[Rodolfo Paiz <rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> How can I tell how many people are currently accessing my
> site? I have to take it down to perform some maintenance
> on the backend system and I want try and do it when nobody
> is in the middle of a purchase.

Advise your customers of scheduled maintenance Monday morning at 3:00AM.
At midnight, put a visible warning on the pages noting that the site
will be down from 3:00 to 6:00 (or however long you need... multiplied
by two as a margin for error). At 3:00, put up a simple index.html that
says that site is down for maintenance, and take it down.

If there is one customer online at that time, and you properly
forewarned everyone, they'll understand.

DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT try the old trick of "I'll just change this
real quick while nobody's actually purchasing... it'll be done before
the next guy tries it. Something will break, you'll take hours, you'll
look like a fool, and you'll lose business. That's my buck-and-a-half
(trust me, I've earned this one the hard way!). Do it at 3:00AM, and
schedule downtime for at least twice as long as you expect. Nobody will
complain if you bring the site back up ahead of time.

--
Rodolfo J. Paiz
rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>