Dramatically Increasing Traffic, Dramatic Changes on the Way; Software Upgrades

• Web server stats: Traffic to this site is getting serious
• Vicious behavior: Increase traffic to bring down this site
• New promotion: Upgrade software for a fee
• Rule of international law: War to remove a dictator

Written on February 19, 2003 - Revised June, 2003 (3 WE).

I've just written on the Search page on a surge in web traffic to my website. Beginning 2003 (3 WE), SALIU.COM receives over 20,000 visitors a week. Over 150,000 hits a week are registered.

Web Server Statistics

Week of 02/09/03 to 02/15/03
Overall Statistics

Totals

Listing the top 30 query words by the number of requests, 
sorted by the number of requests.
 
#reqs: search term
-----: -----------
 3467: lottery
 3246: lotto
 1799: probability
 1657: formula
 1405: roulette
 1382: number
 1291: winning
 1214: socrates
 1196: free
 1183: generator
 1146: calculator
 1128: pick
 1063: combination
 1044: numbers
 1035: software
 1005: standard
  970: deviation
  916: strategy
  876: generate
  854: odds
  835: win
  834: gambling 
  825: systems
  796: pick-3
  756: system
  720: saliu
  710: online
  710: ion
  667: belmont
  667: calculate
45737: [not listed: 1,432 search terms]


Listing the top 30 referring sites by the number of requests, 
sorted by the number of requests. 

 #reqs: site
------: ----
631840: 
144959: saliu.com/
 12118: www.google.com/
  5453: search.yahoo.com/
  2604: search.msn.com/
  1441: www.google.ca/
  1072: pub66.ezboard.com/
  1030: www.google.com.au/
   888: web.ask.com/
   841: aolsearch.aol.com/
   576: 216.239.39.104/
   484: saliu.tripod.com/
   438: www.google.co.uk/
   418: 216.239.37.104/
   352: www.google.nl/
   271: www.altavista.com/
   247: www.lotterydirectory.com/
   235: sitelevel.whatuseek.com/
   235: www.google.de/
   216: www.iaea.org/
   185: 216.239.39.100/
   176: 66.218.71.225/
   176: 216.239.51.100/
   172: www.google.be/
   169: www.geocities.com/
   163: groups.google.com/
   161: 216.239.37.100/
   156: search.iwon.com/
   153: search.netscape.com/
   152: www.dogpile.com/
  6525: [not listed: 271 sites]

Click here to see a comprehensive list of complete search phrases, search engines referring visitors.

Soon thereafter I received notice that things went even further. Unexpectedly further and unexpectedly rapidly. My web hosting provider (westhost.com/) informed me that:

“Your website is doing very well and many visitors are going to your site.  We want to make sure that the hosting package you're subscribing to is best suited to your needs.  Your account, saliu.com is currently on our Starter 1 hosting package.  This package comes with a monthly bandwidth usage of 5 GB.  We will allow you an extra 5 GIGs of bandwidth because you are a valued customer that has been with us for a while, bringing your allotted total to 10 GIGs.  You are currently projected to use 15 GB this month.  For each GIG of bandwidth over your allotted amount you will be charged $4.50.  We recommend that you upgrade…”

Generosity does have a price. I still want to do it. It is compliant with my theory, mind you. We do things not only by conscious choice, but also by design. There are blueprints we carry our entire lives. We may wonder often: “Self, why am I doing it? I didn't think about taking such an action…” And my self often answers: ”Because I am yourself, but I am not you!”

No matter what the self and the ego are doing, we always try hard to strike a balance. I want to send a strong message now. There is one particular web site taking a whole lot of bandwidth. I noticed not long ago that a site located in France accesses my web site on a daily basis and on an unusually large scale. It appears the site automatically accesses my site from several computers running several operating systems: Windows, Linux, MacOS. The accesses are performed in Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, and Opera. I am not enchanted by this form of faux amour: wanadoo.fr. I hope this is not a case of The Three Musketeers and Richelieu maneuvering.

Just look at how much traffic wanadoo.fr provides! Over 40% of bytes (bandwidth)! That's unacceptable!

My own IS provider is not listed because I avoid accessing my site too often. I read sometimes the news headlines on the message board. The message board is no longer active, mainly to save web space and keep the bandwidth under control. AOL, the world's largest Internet service provider sends quite a few visitors to my site, but they come over via searching or bookmarks. AOL should be the top site served, logically. The xnet.ro IS provider appears to be Romania's largest Internet provider. All the visits from xnet.ro always serve a purpose. That is, they come over via searching or bookmarks. Granted, many Romanian visitors see my site on nationality reasons as well. It is clear nevertheless that I am a man of the human species. Socrates considered himself a citizen of the world in the first place, and only then a citizen of Athens. He was truthful to his word, because he swore by the dog in Egypt. These days I swear by the dog in Alaska.

I hope wanadoo.fr will take voluntary action. There are ways to enforce good cyber behavior. I can ban visitors by IP address, by remote host, or ban an ISP entirely. I would hate to ban every visitor from wanadoo.fr. Many of them may be bona fide visitors. How about law enforcement taking action, for law appears to be broken purposely now?

All that being spoken, you would expect some other changes soon. How about a reasonable downloading fee, without ever charging for the use of my software?

It may sound as a contradiction in terms, but generosity can be expensive! Now I get a better handle of why Uncle Sam applies (or enforces?) taxation to gift giving. Uncle Sam makes an intelligent point. There is no such a thing as free lunch. They say the lions provided free lunch to the pre-human scavengers. NOT! The humanoids paid with life for the gourmet bone-breaking-and-marrow-sucking dinner. We should be grateful to the lions for charging a fee. They have to be our primordial Almighty. Almighty never giveth; It always giveth and taketh.

• I made up my mind. I have received a sizable number of requests from users of the freeware MDIEditor and Lotto 01_WE to upgrade to the full version. Some suggested a registration fee of US$50. Most suggestions were in the US$20 neighborhood. I just checked to see how the freeware MDIEditor and Lotto 01_WE was doing at various download sites. I understood better why so many people requested an upgrade. I was really surprised to see how many downloads the freeware MDIEditor and Lotto 01_WE registered in one year at a single download site: 42814 and counting! 85,646 on February 27, 3 WE. O, Nellie! 685,244 on March 15, 3 WE! I didn't make up those numbers. I never make up numbers, for Almighty Number only can and may and shall make up numbers as Its Almighty randomly pleases. Nevertheless, my software will be deleted from the CNet/ZDNet downloads sites on March 21, 3 WE. They asked me for a US$ 79 fee to list one piece of software on their sites. Sheesh! I shall list my software on my web site. Let them list a bunch of paid-for garbage on their hygienic-paper lists! Almighty Number takes care of everything in due time.

•• Addendum 2005
ZDNet, part of CNet has corrected its policy. There is a free software hosting service in addition to the pay-for listing. It certainly makes sense to offer a free listing service. They had put themselves out of listing great software because of the outrageous costs. They offer now more than a dozen of my free programs. My programs are free alright. Could I have afforded to pay $79 x 10 every year? Why should I have paid for something that I offer for free? CNet offers my freeware at www.downloads.com. In 'Advanced Search' type Ion Saliu in 'Author/Publisher' search field. The result list shows all my programs currently available for download from CNet/ZDNet.com.

There cannot be a fairer deal. People get the chance to use for free great software. No beating around the bush. My freeware is by far the best software in its respective categories (it's the plural!) If it's not good, it's so easy to discard of it. Nobody paid NOTHING to acquire and use my freeware! But the overwhelming opinion is that my freeware meets usability at a level of excellence. To make a long book short, there is the chance now to upgrade some of my freeware packages to much more powerful versions. Indeed, there are more powerful versions than what is largely considered mighty freeware! I know how surprised some people were when they received the upgrades. They even shocked other persons when they extended my generosity to other people. (In truth, I dislike when others extend my generosity and paint it as being theirs; I am the only one entitled to be generous with my own creations.)

Here is another startling surprise: the price to upgrade super grade freeware.
• The upgrade to the full-blown version of MDIEditor and Lotto WE is US $10 (ten US dollars).
• The upgrade to the full-blown version of LotWon632 is US $5 (five US dollars). The package is the complete version of the lotto-6 module in the freeware LotWon.
• The upgrade to the full-blown version of LotWon532 is US $5 (five US dollars). The package is the complete version of the lotto-5 module in the freeware LotWon.

There cannot be a fairer deal on a planetary scale. People all over the world have personal computers. A user in a poor country had the discretionary income to buy a personal computer. He or she definitely has the discretionary income to upgrade to the three licensed LotWon packages. Paying $20 is virtually meaningless compared to the PC price. Besides—this is a very important point—LotWon is the most powerful tool out there that can dramatically increase a person's income. To erase any doubt, I make this truthful statement. I have not been a consistent user of my software, in case you wonder why my income is not dramatically higher. I spent big time on developing software and discovering rules in game theory. But I always have good feelings of things to come. I am certain I'll start taking action soon. I'll solve soon web hosting (even home hosting, too!) issues. I swear by the dog in Egypt that I will honor this upgrading action for at least one year.
I am also certain that a number of users will hit the jackpot. I have already computed an accurate percentage of human fairness for various issues. I can count that a percentage of jackpot winners who used my software for their achievement will want to share the prize with me.

•••
The promotion certainly helped me with my Internet expenses. Many thanks!
The offer is discontinued at this time, since I'm unable to take care of it.
The What's New page always shows the current status of any offers, if available.
•••

Well, the fairness percentage is virtually the same, regardless of the issue. Roughly, the human fairness percentage is set to '9 out of 10'. You know how much humans are divided on issues such as religion, abortion, capital punishment, war. Regardless, the percentage of those expressing a fairness opinion is '9 out of 10'. Let's take a current world affairs topic, 2003. The US administration of George W. Bush conducts a very active campaign to start war against Iraq's president Saddam Hussein. We know that a large majority of people worldwide opposes the idea of such a war. Some will be surprised to discover that a '9 out of 10' fairness percentage definitely want brutal dictators be removed from power by any means. Unfortunately, there is no Constitution of the United Nations. If it were, then it would provide for enforcement of the '9 out of 10' fairness percentage.

I know, 'cuz I lived under a less brutal dictator, the one who had the “honor” of being Saddam Hussein's role model: Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania. I don't think Ceausescu killed people physically, like Saddam has done. But Ceausescu certainly smothered creativity and human development. Assuredly, a '9 out of 10' fairness percentage definitely wanted the Ceausescu dictator be removed from power by any means. I talked with friends—friends always meant very trustful people. The matter was extremely dangerous. We dreamed of other people performing the removal task. Hopefully, a crazy guy will do it for us all…, we hoped.

Saddam Hussein should seriously consider running the hell out of those palaces, before being executed. I don't believe he'll get the chance of being killed in the act of war. He'll be executed by his own before the real war starts. It would be brutal justice, as brutal as his power has been. The place of his remains would be kept strictly secret, for '9 out of 10' of his own would want to desecrate the place. Humans always resort to desecration as the last resort of righting wrongs.
(See also Social Lottery or Numeric Sociology; The Philosophical Science of Prediction and History .)

The upgrade revenue will cover my Web hosting expenses. Thousands of people will still be able to get great software for free. I love this expression from an Asian user of my software:
"Thanks for your great free freeware!"