As the year 2003 dawns, I feel the urge to write something that will constitute the final entry in this page.
I think I should start with something related to the website. First, I managed to avoid using advertising to finance the website and when I think about it, this would probably not have been a very good move. Also, back in 1998 this site receives more than 29,102 visitors and it has doubled every year until 2002 where it will probably reach around 183,000 visitors. While this is slightly above the attendance of 2001 (with 172,885 visitors), it is nevertheless a number I did not even expect to reach back when I started to code html.
However, this popularity has come with a price: there was a steady increase of spam, and it will probably reach the 3300 emails of useless advertising before 2002 comes to an end. As this slowly get out of control despite the tougher measures to control it, I think that I should merely abandon my former email and make the complete transition to Tempest[at]Colba[dot]Net. Tomorrow, I will probably began removing the old address from the site and from the last few places where I still use it. I still plan in a near future to do some changes to the site and update sections that were forsaken.
Now unto personal stuff and the traditional New Year resolutions. I am a few courses away from getting my Bachelor's degree in biochemistry and I cannot say that I am displeased with my grades so far; this a good news considering my charged schedule. As for the New Year resolutions, I think there is only one serious thing I could do this year and it is to become a better talented artist. My inability to produce high quality artwork has made it toll felt on the website and it is a "problem" I always wanted to correct... If I manage to be successful on this one, I will probably more cheerful when adding the last message in the 2003 page ;)
Where in all of this I will be at midnight? Well, certainly not waiting for the clock to change a 2002 into a 2003; after I reset the website counter, I will go fight the Shivans' Armada. It is perhaps not the best way to use my time right now but I will take comfort in knowing that it will be good for my reflexes and "pilot" skills.
Despite all, I still wish each and every one of you a healthy, happy, and prosperous New Year.
- Tempest
Webmaster
Today, I have taken the initiative to purchase more server space and this website has it own domain name: www.dragnix.net. This come from the contraction of the word "dragon" with the word "phoenix", the fist word represent obviously the main theme of the site while the second word take it meaning in the mythological creature that die in flame before raising from it ashes. You can disagree with me but I think it is a nice symbolic, especially for a site dealing with mythological creatures.
However, I admit that purchasing an account on IPowerWeb was something I have done with reluctance. I always wanted this site keep it Canadian location, all this because I am definitively more aware of the laws and Canadian regulation. In fact, the only thing that make the balance tip for IPowerWeb (a server located in California) rather than CanadaWebHosting (my second choice in this decision, a server located in Ontario) was the free domain name offered by the first. It would have appears very amateurish to have such a long host name for a popular website. Also, while this server do not come close to the quality and reliability ColbaNet has offered me during these all these years, I admit they compensate by having useful administrative tools such as reporting 404 errors (i.e. I am notified of the problem when they occur rather than waiting for someone to report it).
Bottom line is that I have now 400 meg of webspace and 30 gig of bandwidth per month, something I do not plan to exceed anytime soon. This will allow me to continue moving forward by making this site one of he most resourceful website of the 'net about dragons. But all this come with a price, while I can say that I get the most from the least, this has cost me 166$ US for a two years contract. If you find this site useful and if you do not mind parting with a dollar or two, it would definitively be appreciated that you support this website. Remember that with or without your support, this site will always be here in a foreseeable future, I will never put a price on information.
- Tempest
WebMaster
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Five Years Already!
Well, what an unspectacular site anniversary for this special occasion - you're right, the website has turned FIVE YEARS... about ten days ago... It's a bit disappointing that I can't spend as much time on it as I'd like but it's amazing that you all bear with that and still keep visiting this site...
Looking back at it, that's a long time. While some will probably say that five years is not much from a human perspective, a 5-year-old website is in its golden years. So many updates during these years and countless of emails and feedbacks (and a few flames as well). In general, I can say that I am happy at look of the site, though I always wanted to make it more objective and include additional scientific information...
A lot of things have happened to me in those five years as well, and while some has been good and some has been bad, I can says that I've enjoyed it and changed for the better, I think...
- Tempest
WebMaster
This site receives around 20,000 hits per months and while my server ColbaNet was more than generous by giving me 10 meg of web space and an unlimited bandwidth for $14.95 CAN ($10 US) per month, I am seriously lacking of web space and I really meant it. ColbaNet offers me one additional meg for $2 CAN, as you can see there is a limit to their generosity (an additional 100 megs would cost me $200 per month, and that is not very competitive).
As most persons, I dislike ads and I think this world would be a better place without them but I need a way to lighten the cost of buying more web space. I have used many geocities accounts (the GW128642TM series) but without FTP access, the management of these sites is just painful not to mention the extremely low transfer rate I am allowed to (1.13kb/sec; a 14,400 bauds modem would have a higher bandwidth per month than that). So far, I found a company in Ontario that would give me 400 meg of web space and 10 gig of data tranfer rate that would fully satisfy my expansionist needs but that also mean additional fees which would not be warm welcomed these days. That absolutely doesn't means the site would go offline, that just mean that some extra web space would be greatly appreciate.
So here the options available:
1- I continue the GW128642TM series and this cost me nothing but it is not very reliable (these site often go down because they exceed their data transfer rate)
2- I add ads to the site (by this I means dealing directly with those interested to advertise on this site and making ads as related to dragons merchandises as possible.)
3- I start my own PBS-style funding campaign.
If you feel to comment this or if you have a rather good amount of web space you can provide me (at least 25 meg and 5 gig data transfer rate), you can use this thread to do so or contact me at the usual email address.
- Tempest
WebMaster
Apparently MSN staff have removed this site from their "featured site" list and replace the whole section (for the dragons topic, at least) by a new "sponsored site" list. As you can expect, quality has parted to make place to the all mighty dollar sign bag of some corporate who thought that adding the name "dragon" aside their product would necessarily increase their sales.
So I guess the absurdity has been pushed a bit further by removing a site related with dragon by some sites totally related *ahem* with dragons, such as Dragon Natural speaking voice recognition program, Dragon (tm) Sunglasses at Low Prices (take note that they specify you should expect a cheap product of poor quality and also note that these sunglasses are just plain ordinary sunglasses, and no they do not even have a little dragon logo on them) and the last one but not the least, Ebay which is renown for being a site with vivid descriptions, legends and general information on dragons *end of sarcasm*.
But seriously, it is a shame that they drop they policy to reward sites for the quality of their content and thus deserve be displayed as *the* resource sites associated with the specific keyword. I wouldn't mind that my site would have been replaced by another that would have been better. This would have pushed me to come with something new and improved; a principle of evolution that would push some to make sites aspiring to a quality of ever-increasing excellence and aesthetic refinement... but now you just have sites that have absolutely no relationship with the keyword. It is also unsurprising that all "featured site" I have found so far are directly linked with Microsoft Inc. such as Encarta Encyclopedia articles.
Bottom line is MSN Search could have been a place where hard-work is rewarded, but as everything else, it just become another source of income for a company that would not even notice the difference if they have or not switched to accept this kind of advertisement on their netsearch.
- Tempest
WebMaster
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Site Revampting
Well this site didn't have a proper update since a long time. And I am a bit tired to "patch" the site instead of creating new stuff. So I plan to change several things and correct several mistakes as well as improving the general design. So yes expect the site to go down or that entire section to be unavailable for some time but for those who remember how horrible (in design, I mean) was the Artistic Section (called the Miscellaneous Section back then) and what it looks like now I guess re-writing the entire site could only be benefit.
- Tempest
WebMaster
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Back to the Future
Don't forget to switch to daylight saving time at 2 a.m. on Sunday.
- Tempest
WebMaster
