My company uses a user environment detection suite called Browserhawk (http://www.browserhawk.com/) which sells for around $1k per server. It detects a number of aspects about a web surfer's environment. The detailed info on what it provides found can be found here: http://www.browserhawk.com/showbrow.aspx. Currently we're using an older version of BH and we're deciding whether or not it's worth it for us to upgrade as we really only "use" ONE of the pieces that BH provides, the bandwidth test. We do store some of the other data, but it's only used in helping us determine when to upgrade Flash, screen res, and all that jazz. My manager came to me yesterday and asked me to see if there was a way for us to collect that information without using BH. So I spent the last day coming up with this: <http://www.commadelimited.com/browsertest/> http://www.commadelimited.com/browsertest/ . It's a one for one match for all of the pieces that we're storing and I think it's pretty accurate. So this post is serving four purposes. 1) I need help finishing this. I collected little snippets of code from various tutorial sites I found so I'm sure it could be improved quite drastically. The BIG issue though is the bandwidth test. The original code I found dynamically wrote an image to the window, then ran a function via the image's onLoad method. That worked really well, but I preferred to use an AJAX call. So the code "runs", but it's not accurate, I think because my call is asynchronous and the code needs the value right away. So how can I force my code to 'wait' for the results of the image load? 2) I'm offering this code to anyone who would like to use it [link to zip file below]. The end result of all of this is that I'm going to do a post and submit all of the collected data into our Stats database, as well as store it in a user's session for use in various portions of our site. 3) I think something like this could be VERY valuable as a jQuery plugin, but I have no idea where to begin with. 4) I'm trying to get a good mix of browsers and OS to make sure that things are working as well as possible. If you wouldn't mind running this page: <http://www.commadelimited.com/browsertest/> http://www.commadelimited.com/browsertest/ , then copying and pasting their results to me OFF LIST, I'd appreciate it. Here's a zip file if anyone would like to look at it locally: <http://www.commadelimited.com/browsertest/> http://www.commadelimited.com/browsertest/userInfoDetection.zip The server side stuff is written in ColdFusion, but it's only basic code. Could be easily altered for PHP, ASP, or Ruby I suppose. ____________________________________ Andy Matthews Senior ColdFusion Developer
Office: 877.707.5467 x747 Direct: 615.627.9747 Fax: 615.467.6249 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.dealerskins.com <http://www.dealerskins.com/>
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