I made this page for testing and reading the counters that are displayed on the pages of this website.

If you are wondering, here's how I do it:

• The PHP code that runs the counters recognizes my IP address, and does not trip the counters when I visit this site.  In this way I am free to browse the website and read the counters.  And I can override this feature by using a special variable on the URL line.

• Alternately, I can use lftp to remove a special file from the host site.  Since this pauses the counters for everyone, I avoid using this method.

• Browsing to this page allows me to confirm that the counters are properly ignoring (or responding to) my visits.  And this page is helpful when testing changes to the counter software.

• Additionally, this page is good for observing the caching behavior of the browser.  You can do this too.  Just browse to this page (or any page of my site) and compare the effect (on the counter) of the "Reload current page" button to the hard refresh button.  In Firefox the hard refresh is done by holding control and pressing F5.  The "Reload current page" button often looks like a circle with an arrow.