Analog (program)
| Original author(s) | Stephen Turner |
|---|---|
| Initial release | June 21, 1995 |
| Stable release | 6.0
/ December 19, 2004 |
| Written in | C |
| Operating system | Mac/Windows/Unix |
| Platform | Various |
| Available in | Many |
| License | GPL |
| Website | www.analog.cx |
Analog is a free web log analysis software program that runs under Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and most Unix-like operating systems. It was first released on June 21, 1995, by Stephen Turner as generic freeware; the license was changed to the GNU General Public License in November 2004. The software can be downloaded for several computing platforms, or the source code can be downloaded and compiled if desired.[1]
Analog has support for 35 languages,[2] and provides the ability to do reverse DNS lookups on log files, to indicate where web site hits originate. It can analyze several different types of web server logs, including Apache, IIS, and iPlanet.[3] It has over 200 configuration options and can generate 32 reports.[2] It also supports log files for multiple virtual hosts.[2]
The program is comparable to Webalizer or AWStats, though it does not use as many images, preferring to stick with simple bar charts and lists to communicate similar information. Analog can export reports in a number of formats including HTML, XHTML, XML, Latex and a delimited output mode (for example CSV) for importing into other programs. Delimited or "computer" output from Analog is often used to generate more structured and graphically rich reports using the third party Report Magic program.
The popularity of Analog is largely unknown as no download count information has been released on its historic dissemination. In a 1998 survey by the Graphic, Visualization, & Usability Center (GVU), Analog was reportedly used by 24.9%[4] (up from 19.9% the year before[5]), with its nearest rival, Web Trends holding some 20.3% of the market.
It is not clear how Analog's usage has changed into the decade leading up to 2010, neither on how its usage profile has been impacted by on-line analysis services such as Google Analytics. Analog does remain relevant however given that it can operate on an individual or web-farm basis from a single process, requiring no modification of web page or web script code in order to use it. As it is a stand-alone utility, its use does not raise issues of privacy or data protection as are often concerns highlighted over the use of on-line services. Additionally, unlike with on-line script included services, it is not possible for visiting clients to block all of the logging of traffic directly from the client - improving the reliability of the log data.
Analog has not been officially updated since the version 6.0 release in December of 2004. The original author moved on to commercial traffic analysis. Updates to Analog continued informally by its user community up until the end of 2009 on the official mailing list. Currently the only formally compiled updated redistributable of Analog is that of Analog C:Amie Edition, which has focused on fixing issues in Analog's XML DTD and on adding new operating system and web browser detection to the original code branch.
History
Analog was first released in June 1995, as research project by its creator Dr. Stephen Turner, then working as a research fellow in Sidney Sussex College in the University of Cambridge.[6]. Some of the larger release milestones include:
- 14 June 1995
- Analog 0.8b, the initial full testing build.
- 29 June 1995
- Analog 0.9b was the first public release of Analog.
- 12 September 1995
- Analog 1.0 was the first stable release.
- 10 February 1997
- Analog 2.0 was the inital release of a native Win32 version of Analog.
- 15 June 1998
- Analog 3.0 included support for HTTP/1.1 status codes and included a more refined log parsing engine in addition to the ability to parse non-standard log file formats.
- 16 November 1999
- Analog 4.0 supported new reports including the Organisation Report, Operating System Report, Search Word Report, Search Query Report and Processing Time Report.
- 1 May, 2001
- Analog 5.0 is released with support for 24 languages, a range of new configuration commands and a new LaTeX output format.
- 19 December, 2004
- Analog 6.0 is released, including support for Palm OS and Symbian OS detection and all other changes from its 21 month beta period. Analog 6.0 was the first stable release made available under GLP license terms.[7]
- 2 October 2007
- Analog 6.0.1 C:Amie Edition the first release of the C:Amie maintenance branch. Included support for Windows Vista, improved support for Windows 3.11 and Windows NT 3.5 detection and allowed for the detection of the NetFront browser.
- 4 April 2009
- Analog 6.0.4 C:Amie Edition was a bug fix release to Analog 6.0, containing bug fixes to Analog's XML output rendering and new configuration options.
- 18 July 2011
- Analog 6.0.8 C:Amie Edition, current maintenance release with support for Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango), Apple iOS 5.0 and all current Android releases.
A full list of the changes in each release is recorded in the Analog What's New Changelog[7].
A full list of changes in the maintenance release is recorded on the Analog C:Amie Edition page[8].
References
- ^ Peterson, Eric T. (2005). Web Site Measurement Hacks. pp. 38–40. ISBN 0596009887.
- ^ a b c Gasson, Gaelyne R. "Web Analysis Using Analog". Linux Journal. 2000 (72es). ISSN 1075-3583.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Maximum Security. O'Reilly Media. 2003. p. 252. ISBN 0672324598.
- ^ http://www.analog.cx/survey.html Analog: The most popular logfile analyser
- ^ http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/user_surveys/survey-1998-04/graphs/webmaster/q42.htm GVU's Ninth WWW User Survey Graphs
- ^ [http://web.archive.org/web/19981203003507/http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~sret1/home.html Stephen Turner's Home Page
- ^ a b [http://www.analog.cx/docs/whatsnew.html Readme for analog -- what's new in this version?
- ^ http://camie.dyndns.org/qlink/?id=2 Analog C:Amie Edition
External links
 | This network-related software article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |