Displaying forum info in a web page

[Vitesse]

Hi there,

I know it's possible but am unsure how to accomplish this, is there a way to display the number of members my forum has and the number of people online in a separate php webpage, for example i am going to write an index page which is basically just a welcome to the site that redirects to the portal i am using and i'd like to siaply something like "PerformanceXtreme currently has xxx registered users, xxx are currently online".

As i'm a complete php newbie i was hoping someone could give me a little guidance on what i need to do to accomplish this (did search on here and i couldnt find anything similar already posted) but in really simple terms as i do struggle to follow php code.

Many thanks