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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

<h1>Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)</h1> 
	<ul> 
		<li> 
			<a href="#what">What is S3stat?</a> 
		</li> 
		<li> 
			<a href="#amazon">Is S3<small>STAT</small> associated with Amazon.com?</a> 
		</li> 
		<li> 
			<a href="#trust">Then why should I trust S3<small>STAT</small> with my AWS account information?</a> 
		</li> 
		<li> 
			<a href="#price">How come it's only $5/month?  You can't possibly be making money at that price!</a> 
		</li> 
		<li> 
			<a href="#free">Why are you charging money???  Isn't everything on the web supposed to be free???</a> 
		</li> 
		<li> 
			<a href="#standalone">I want to run S3<small>STAT</small> on my own server.  How do I do that?</a> 
		</li> 
	</ul> 
	
	<p/> 
	<a id="what" name="what"></a> 
	<h2> 
		What is S3stat?
	</h2> 
	S3STAT is a service that takes the detailed server access logs provided by Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3) and Cloudfront offerings, and translates them into human readable statistics, reports and graphs.	
	If you want, we can tell you 
	<a href="/web-stats/what-it-does.ashx">what it does</a>,
	<a href="/web-stats/how-it-works.ashx">how it works</a>,
	<a href="/web-stats/features.aspx">what features it has</a>,
	and even give you a 
	<a href="http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/11/roll-your-own-web-stats-for-amazon-s3.html">step-by-step tutorial to build it yourself</a>.
	
	<br /><br /> 
	
	<p/> 
	<a id="amazon" name="amazon"></a> 
	<h2> 
		Is S3<small>STAT</small> associated with Amazon.com?
	</h2> 
	No, we're a 3rd party service that you can use to process the scary-looking logfiles that 
	<a href="http://aws.amazon.com/">Amazon AWS</a> 
	 provides for its S3 service.
	<a href="http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2008/02/s3-stat---usage.html">Amazon is aware of us</a>, 
	and we've had occasion to work with their developer team from time to time, but they don't own us or take 
	any responsibility for anything we do.
	<br /><br /> 
	<p/> 
	<a id="trust" name="trust"></a> 
	<h2> 
		Then why should I trust S3<small>STAT</small> with my AWS account information?
	</h2> 
	Good question.  
	
	Your AWS credentials are similar to your credit card details in that you should be careful not to give them out to just anybody.
	We think we're pretty trustworthy, being a small 
	<a href="http://www.expatsoftware.com/">public facing</a> 
	company with a history of good relationships with our customers and clients.
	<p /> 
	We've been running S3<small>STAT</small> for quite some time, and people seem to trust us.  In the end, you'll have to decide for 
	yourself whether to trust us too.

If, however, you don't mind exchanging a little effort for some extra peace of mind, we do offer the option to set your own buckets up by hand and run {s:s} in <a href="/web-stats/self-managed.ashx">Self-Managed Mode</a>.
	<br /><br /> 
	<p/> 
	<a id="price" name="price"></a> 
	<h2> 
		How come it's only $5/month?  You can't possibly be making money at that price!
	</h2> 
	Indeed.  We bring in enough to keep the server alive and that's about it.  
	No worries there, since this was never intended to make us millionaires.
	S3<small>STAT</small> is a service that grew out of our own need.  
	It seemed like it could be useful to other people too, so we released it at a product.
	We're just happy to see that people are using it!
	<br /><br /> 
	<p/> 
	<a id="free" name="free"></a> 
	<h2> 
		Why are you charging money???  Isn't everything on the web supposed to be free???
	</h2> 
	I think it's safe to say that we're not going to be acquired by Google anytime soon,
	so we can't really use the standard Web2.0 business model for S3<small>STAT</small>.  
	It costs money to keep the service running, so we charge money to use it.  I know that
	seems strange, but it's a model that's worked well in other areas for quite some time, so we
	thought we'd give it a shot.
	<p/> 
	If, like us, you don't have any money of your own, you might want to check out the
	<a href="/web-stats/cheap-bastard-plan.ashx">Cheap Bastard Plan</a> 
	and see if it's right for you.<br /><br /> 
	<p/> 
	<a id="standalone" name="standalone"></a> 
	<h2> 
		I want to run S3<small>STAT</small> on my own server.  How do I do that?
	</h2> 
We're working on a 
	<a href="/web-stats/stand-alone-version.ashx">downloadable standalone version</a> 
	that you can use to run reports from your own server.  It is currently in Private Beta, but we are still accepting applications for beta testers.  If you're interested, <a href="/web-stats/contact.ashx">contact us</a> and ask to get involved with the Beta program!<br /><br />	<p/><br /><br /> 
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Web log analysis and statistics for Amazon S3

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

About S3STAT

Getting Started

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