What people really want when they browse sundial web sites
	Some time last year I read the NASS survey results of what people wanted from the world of sundials. It ocurred to me that this was very important information. One element was a low cost booklet on sundials, short, sweet, to the point.  It ocurred to me that we were surveying people alreay in the fold. We were not surveying the casual browser. It ocurred to me to conduct some tests, and this page is the result. I produced several small booklets two of which met a comment in the  NASS survey      Micro Shadows   14 pages                           40%      Simple Shadows 51 pages                           60%                      [indicates learning vs rote] At extremely low cost using paypal, not one copy sold, not too surprising since free items are often considered "junk".   After that trial period they were made free. However, when made free they were popular. The printed book Illustrating Shadows has sold very well as has Illustrating More Shadows, with sales correlating to main web page hits. Most sales are for both books concurrently. A large percentage of sales are to non NASS and non BSS members. An interest was expressed in CAD and in programmed systems. To that end sundial programs were written for a number of languages, C, FORTRAN, Pascal, BASIC were non graphic, java, visual Basic, DeltaCAD and TurboCAD were graphic. Free easy to use compilers were identified for all but Delta and TurboCAD.        C      COBOL   dCAD      Fortran      java      jBASIC      Pascal      tCAD      vBASIC        1       - -           34            2               6           21             6              14           16        percentage of interest       [indicates DeltaCAD as clear gnomonic CAD system over TurboCAD, however TurboCAD still popular]        [indicates BASIC (free just BASIC) more popular than Visual Basic (also free)]          [indicates marginal JAVA, and minimal legacy language interest (all have free easy to use compilers)]
		2007 percentages (sample was around 10,000 downloads)            (excludes Micro & Simple Shadows, see above)            (programming material, see above) 16   TurboCAD TCW files (not scripts) 14   vrml and CAD 11   pictures of sun dials 8    free books 7    paper pop up dia;s 7    free supplements and articles 5    free software 4    paper cut out sun dials 3    methods of calculating dial plates (vs pure formulae) 3    case studies 3    what not to buy 3    the astrolabe 3    the EOT 3    lunar dials 3    nocturnal dials 2    free spreadsheets (Excel) 2    calculating wall declination 1    the astro compass 1    making a store bought dial work 1    parts of a sun dial 1    stained glass and the sundial 0    formulae with no usage techniques 0    declination and calendar lines methods
					[indicates both pure CAD as well as vrml interest] [indicates play dials are of interest (paper as well as popup)] [interest in designing astrolabes] NOTE: statistically, DeltaCAD and Excel were almost even NOTE: the case studies have been up for less than a year but are already very popular.
			declination line drafting methods 0.6 north and south hemispere differences 1.2 astro compass and true north 2.3 getting a store bought dial to work 2.3 formula collection 2.4 Middleton scale usage 2.8 building an astrolabe (newer document) 3.7 star nocturnal dials 4.0 ecliptic dials 4.2 cube dials 4.7 equation of time notes 4.7 calculating a wall's declination 5.2 lunar dials 5.9 paper cut out dials 8.0 build, dont understand, a horizontal sundial, 14 pages 8.6 how to build spreadsheets 9.5 build as well as understand a horizontal dial, 51 pages 11.5 paper pop up sundials 18.4
I also measure started, aborted, and completed downloads, to measure the strength of interest, however I am still assesing those figures, but they seem to be equally distributed The bulk of hits are referred to this web site (www.illustratingshadows.com)  by general google search engines, then next they come come from the infraroth listserv web site, then next from NASS and BSS about equally, and then other dial web sites. That the bulk come from a general google search suggests a wide demographic group. This is not fuly scientific since not all documents were available for the entire period, and many other considerations not evaluated. This is raw data, and presented for your interest only.