>how do i create a counter thta displays current number of people online?
Question is how you want to determine the current number of people
online. HTTP doesn't allow for that as a stateless protocol. A user
comes, requests a page, gets the response and is gone, so the real
"online time" per request is only a few seconds at most.
There are some more possibilities on sites that require the users to
login, but even then the number of "currently logged-in users" is rather
pointless and of no real value.
Micha