Wise Buys Product reviews of American Express' Private Payments credit card security program and The Image Factory New York's AtomicLog site traffic monitoring software

Private eyes:AmericanExpress now offers cardholders unique credit card numbers goodfor a one-time use. The Private Payments program, which aims tostrengthen security for online shoppers, allows Net shoppers to geta user name and password when they register-for free-for thePrivate Payments program via the company's Web site. Whenthey're ready to buy, shoppers return to the Private Paymentshome page, where they receive a unique, randomly created cardnumber and expiration date. They then simply transfer the number tothe order form to make the purchase-without having to share theirAmerican Express card number with you or any other merchantthey'd like to buy from.

Popularity contest:TIFNY (The Image Factory New York), a producer of Web applicationsin New York City, has released AtomicLog, a software program thatlets you monitor your site's traffic in real time. AtomicLogexamines the huge log files produced by your Web server and allowsyou to see the top-referring sites, the most popular domains andcountries from which visitors come, the documents and files yourvisitors are downloading and traffic levels-all by the hour, day ormonth. You can sort AtomicLog's charts by unique page-viewhits, unique host or amount of data downloaded. AtomicLog runs forfree on your PC. For details, visit www.atomiclog.com.