My Archives: January 2002
Monday, January 28, 2002
We were expecting a few extra hits after the release of the Fellowship of the Ring movie, but the boost in visits has been shocking. In January alone we are expecting to use up almost 25 gigs of bandwidth! This is the limit to what our host offers us. We are waiting to see how the stats are in February, but so far there has been no sign that they will go down. The relocation of our mp3 files to an external server has alleviated the strain somewhat, but constant activity at the Entmoot message board remains troubling in terms of bandwidth consumption. If they continue in this manner we may have to purchase another account for the Entmoot message board. This would mean doubling the amount of money we spend on the site. We are already in need of more money to pay, and, if we have to do this, it could be a serious problem. We are currently looking for advertisers. However, the fact is the big money is in pop ups and pop unders. Now I know how annoying these can be, and we really don't want to put them on the site. However, we may have to unless you all can help us out. The Tolkien Trail Shop is full of some wonderful site related merchandise. From every purchase you make there $2 goes to the upkeep of the site. That means 8 purchases will keep The Tolkien Trail pop up free for another month. So please, buy as much as you can. I think we can all agree we'd rather have Tolkien Trail shirts then pop ups!
Posted by Darth Tater @ 08:48 PM EST [Link]
I have added 4 images to Sakata's Gallery and have created a gallery for Spug.
Posted by Darth Tater @ 07:09 PM EST [Link]
Sunday, January 27, 2002
Our MP3 collection has been increased. Patrice Deceuninck's most recent pieces are now available, along with the Lord of the Rings Symphonic Suite by LindsayAnne Klemm. Including midis, our library now stands at over 50 songs - one of the largest Tolkien song collections on the internet. Once again, thanks to Eric for allowing us to store the songs on his server (they're still accessed from our mp3 page, however).
Posted by bmilder @ 08:32 PM EST [Link]
Saturday, January 26, 2002
We have won the Yahoo Internet Life contest for best creative Tolkien site. Thanks to everyone who voted!
Due to extraordinary traffic levels, we had to take the MP3s off of our server. Eric Jen was gracious enough to allow us to use his server to host the MP3s. Note that the songs are still accessible from the same page that they always were - the only difference is that they're physically in a different location. There shouldn't be much of a problem for the regular users.
We have received a lot of fan works in the past month - fan fiction, poetry, music, and fan art. We're planning a major update of Rivendell starting tomorrow to add all of this new material. Also in the works is a new contest. It may be a fan art contest - start drawing those pictures :).
Posted by bmilder @ 11:34 PM EST [Link]
Thursday, January 17, 2002
Our host is performing system upgrades which will hopefully put a stop to recent server troubles. On Friday, a test of the transfer will be made, and the server will be down for 15-30 minutes. The server is being physically moved to a new location. The process begins 6 pm Eastern time on Saturday and could last for a maximum of five hours. That's all I've been told, and I just wanted to let everyone know in advance.
Also, due to heightened bandwidth levels, we have implemented new style sheet features at Entmoot in order to cut down on bandwidth usage. Apparently some very old browsers (certain versions before IE 4.0 and Netscape 4.7) may not display the board correctly because of this. We recommend updating to the latest version of the browser if this happens to you.
Finally, I'd like to apologize for the lack of major updates lately. I have been busy with various concerts and auditions. Expect a big update this weekend.
Posted by bmilder @ 09:59 PM EST [Link]
Friday, January 4, 2002
Finally, Rivendell has been updated. There are two new stories in Fan Fiction and four new MIDI songs.
Entmoot 2001, which took place December 28th-30th, was a lot of fun. I will post pictures soon. December 31st was my birthday, and I turned 16 :).