Writing to a file / Server Load

Hi Guys,

First post here but long over due joining this great site - i hope I’ve put this in the right thread though.

My question relates to this example: http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx/hitcounter.htm

I was wondering if you could read/loadVariables from a text file located on different server?

Also how well does that script handle simultaneous file transactions and what would the load be writing to a file like this (if any?). Eg. if you put one of those hit counters on the front page of the nytimes.com is it going to accurately count or would the high level of interactions cause the file to overwrite itself with the same number a couple of times, or worse yet find the file is already open for writing and not do anything.

Thanks in advance for any help,

Cheers,
Mal