euss online -- how popular are we?

euss online -- how popular are we?
by john harvey, ex-vp geek

The EUSS has been online for more than a year. In, netlingo it gets about 750 hits a day - which translates roughly into 30 to 50 people visiting a day. Of those people, on average one or two visits are from SFU, the remainer are from everywhere else in the world.

Why do we have web pages at all? Several reasons. First, as a service to students (that's what the EUSS is all about), we put up student's web pages. Second, we put Enscquire articles online so students away, can keep up on current events. Finally, we try to put current events online so students can keep up to date.

Figure 1 shows a list of how many hits we get from what parts are the world (This list was gathered for Wednesday, September 18). By far the largest % are US commercial, which kind of makes you wonder what these workers do all day. You can see there are a number of hits from foreign countries. Japan, and European countries are the most common foreign entries.

So what are all these people coming to see? The top three destinations for our web pages are: (in ever changing order) Kevin's Home pages, Ben's Home pages, and Enscquire Articles. The most popular Enscquire articles are the jokes, the horoscopes, and the travel articles. What brings visitors here? Search Engines mostly. We are most frequently visited by Webcrawler, Alta-Vista and Lycos. Occasionally, there are other search engines (such as hotbot and excite), but they are rare.

So why would anyone bother to write a home page? There are three common reasons. Some people write home pages as a starting point for internet exploration. My home page has several search engines, and links to my most commonly used sites. Other people use there home page to express themselves. Ben Ko's and Kevin Cheng's home pages have a collections of information that describe "some of their favourite things". Finally, Wei Hai (and others) use their home pages as an online resume, helping them stake their own bit of cyberspace.

Many other engineering student societies have home pages. For those not familiar with other student societies, the 42 engineering schools in Canada are broken into 4 regions. WESST - Winnipeg west, ESSCO - Ontario - COFIQ - Quebec, and Atlantic region. All engineers in Canada belong to CFES - the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students. SFU students attend three conferences a year - the Canadian Conference of Engineering Students (CCES) in January, the Western Engineering Competition and Conference (WECC) in February, and the Canadian Engineering Competition (CEC) in March.

The WESST region (Winnipeg west) was the first region to have all schools online, whereas the Quebec and Atlantic Regions are least online. At the last Canadian Conference of Engineering Students (CCES) one of the workshops discussed putting engineering societies on the web. It turns out that in the Quebec region, every school is within 3 hours car/bus ride from every other school, whereas the west is at least 5 hours by plane. Our home pages have links to every other known engineering student society online, which gives you a flavour of the rest of Canada.

So what's new with the Web pages? You will have to ask Ben Ko for the latest news, but we in general, we are trying to put the exam file online, and we are continuing to put the latest Enscquires up. Every semester students bring new home pages to put up, and we are always looking for a great new idea. Do you want to help, or need help? Ben Ko is the current VP Electronic Communications, and he would love to help you.

Figure 1: Total Transfers by Reversed Subdomain

   
   %Reqs    %Byte    Bytes    Requests   Reversed Subdomain
   
   17.06    17.23    1100083    159      | Unresolved
   0.64     0.21     13168      6        | au.com.ozemail
   0.97     1.25     80013      9        | au.com.wr
   3.54     0.82     52454      33       | ca.acoa
   0.21     1.67     106856     2        | ca.bc.intergate
   0.54     0.15     9376       5        | ca.bc.trinet
   0.11     0.10     6286       1        | ca.bell
   0.43     0.84     53540      4        | ca.cyberstore
   0.54     0.13     8181       5        | ca.dfo.ncr
   5.69     0.37     23841      53       | ca.direct
   0.11     0.93     59369      1        | ca.fcs
   1.07     1.04     66436      10       | ca.nf.nlnet
   1.29     0.73     46606      12       | ca.sfu
   6.33     7.88     503446     59       | ca.sfu.ensc
   0.11     0.03     1788       1        | ca.sfu.math
   0.64     0.21     13168      6        | ca.sympatico.qc
   0.43     0.46     29218      4        | ca.ualberta.re..
   20.17    18.99    1212584    188      | ca.uvic
   0.11     0.62     39712      1        | ch.swissonline
   0.64     2.86     182366     6        | com.amdahl
   0.11     0.93     59369      1        | com.amsinc
   0.32     0.08     4997       3        | com.aol.proxy
   0.86     0.84     53805      8        | com.cadvision
   0.11     0.05     3488       1        | com.dec.pa-x
   0.86     0.67     42556      8        | com.deltanet
   1.39     0.58     37052      13       | com.electricit..
   0.64     0.20     12782      6        | com.gene
   0.75     0.72     46087      7        | com.glenayre.g..
   0.64     0.16     10189      6        | com.gnn.client
   0.97     0.73     46908      9        | com.gnn.proxy
   1.72     1.15     73566      16       | com.honeywell...
   0.11     0.62     39823      1        | com.honeywell...
   2.04     7.01     447444     19       | com.ibm.austin
   1.39     0.87     55423      13       | com.ibm.raleigh
   0.11     0.06     3710       1        | com.lycos
   0.21     0.13     8413       2        | com.mobility
   1.07     0.38     24438      10       | com.netcom.ix
   0.75     0.51     32424      7        | com.ohioedison
   0.86     0.62     39834      8        | com.rogers
   0.54     0.19     12219      5        | com.wstnres
   0.11     0.12     7451       1        | edu.hofstra
   0.32     0.06     3917       3        | edu.pitt.history
   1.93     3.43     218816     18       | edu.raritanval
   0.86     0.67     42791      8        | edu.rpi.stu
   1.93     4.72     301236     18       | edu.umbc.gl
   0.75     0.30     19394      7        | edu.umich.engin
   2.15     5.02     320824     20       | edu.uop.eng
   0.64     0.16     10189      6        | edu.utexas.ots
   0.11     0.05     3488       1        | edu.washington..
   0.64     0.18     11791      6        | edu.washington..
   0.11     0.01     684        1        | es.upm.dit
   0.11     0.56     35625      1        | fr.cnrs
   0.75     0.18     11715      7        | hk.net.spider
   0.11     0.01     628        1        | mil.af.usafa
   1.82     2.23     42614      17       | mil.navy.navai..
   0.54     0.19     12219      5        | net.att.dial-a..
   0.64     0.35     22371      6        | net.centuryint..
   0.11     1.08     69249      1        | net.iadfw.ppp
   0.11     0.04     2697       1        | net.infi.orf 
   0.11     0.05     3222       1        | net.kansas
   1.82     2.23     142614     17       | net.onramp 
   0.54     0.19     12219      5        | net.oz
   0.64     0.18     11791      6        | net.pipex
   0.75     0.27     17555      7        | net.region
   0.11     0.07     4763       1        | net.tip.ita
   1.18     1.59     101295     11       | net.total
   1.72     1.15     73566      16       | pt.ip.net
   0.43     0.82     52203      4        | se.gu.hdk
   0.75     0.34     21400      7        | sg.com.singnet
   0.75     0.20     12887      7        | th.co.icc
   0.11     0.09     5908       1        | uk.ac.hensa
   0.11     0.05     3488       1        | uk.co.demon
   0.54     0.13     8181       5        | uk.co.npl
   0.64     0.22     13949      6        | us.me.state.ddp