Also if you place the counter in a table it will take your page longer to load. The browser has to get the counter digits before it displays the page. That would scare away alot of the dial up users..
If your using a windows server I can recommend
http://www.whoson.com as I use it. It's a little costly but for windows it's nice that it will auto block hack attemps in IIS. It also allows you to set what it calls "prospects", IE:You tell it anyone who goes to X page from a referal is a prospect. So it's easier to see who is sending you sign ups, etc.
If you are using a Unix/Linux server then AWstats (free) is the only one I have used that I like and it will give you more info then you can shake a stick at. With nice shiny colors too.
But either way there are a ton of free stuff out there.