Twenty Years!!!
Aug. 2nd, 2007 | 10:41 am
Fear not, fkfanfic.com will be around for at least the next 9 years:
Domain Name: FKFANFIC.COM
Record expires on 08-Oct-2016
Record created on 07-Oct-1996
This will make the site 20 years old (wtf?) when I next need to renew the domain
Also, mega happy birthdays to immajer today, who did the original site design and graphics.
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JADFE progress update
May. 23rd, 2007 | 07:49 pm
mood: busy
I was able to contact the JADFE archive owner and:
a. her site is back up
b. I'm still going to rehost JADFE on www.fkfanfic.com
c. I've decided to scrap re-doing the pages (frontpage mess) and just move JADFE to Efiction (in progress)
Now I'm not sure how many stories are missing, as I just figured out that a bunch of the stories were done in frames (ugh). Which is also why moving to Efiction will be much much better, in addition to allowing new stories to be added.
It's going to take alot of work but it will be a good test of how well the archival software is working
Anyone with JADFE old or new stories that would like to test it out for me, let me know! Existing stories - your stories will likely get added manually by me but it will help me alot if you can add your own.
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JADFE
May. 21st, 2007 | 10:15 pm
mood: busy
It appears the website that was hosting JADFE is no longer available. If anyone knows how to get in touch with the owner, let me know.
In the meantime, since I have some time and have been working on the fanfic site a little (stuff incoming again!), I've decided to try and host it on www.fkfanfic.com. Short term, maybe long term so we can have one definite and home spot for it. I have the room and bandwidth now.
I have a backup copy of the website, but it appears to be missing some stories and files. If anyone knows who might have a backup of some of the stories, that would help. The first ones I noticed missing were the LaCroix/Divia ones.
Additionally, the HTML in these pages is horrible (no offense to whomever did them, but Frontpage was used and it does horrid things to HTML code). Thus, I'm working on updating the pages and making them a tad bit more usable and customizable with a CSS, also a good practice for me, and using Dreamweaver, which I'm going to be using to update the old archive and V4S site, as it is a faster way to update HTML without having to handcode everything..
Unfortunately, I also terribly suck at graphics, but I can at least get a functional website up and working, so thus, I'm gonna try and get this up and working this week. Anyone who would like to design some graphics, especially a logo, let me know!
Here's a preview of what I'm working on. The links aren't working yet, but you can see the layout. When I'm feeling more ambitious, I might redesign it with a database etc. and reformat the stories, as well. Feedback on colors, readability, etc. welcome. In the long run, I can add links, history and maybe a way to submit stories, or to add the stories to the new archive once ready.
Let me know what you think!
In the meantime, since I have some time and have been working on the fanfic site a little (stuff incoming again!), I've decided to try and host it on www.fkfanfic.com. Short term, maybe long term so we can have one definite and home spot for it. I have the room and bandwidth now.
I have a backup copy of the website, but it appears to be missing some stories and files. If anyone knows who might have a backup of some of the stories, that would help. The first ones I noticed missing were the LaCroix/Divia ones.
Additionally, the HTML in these pages is horrible (no offense to whomever did them, but Frontpage was used and it does horrid things to HTML code). Thus, I'm working on updating the pages and making them a tad bit more usable and customizable with a CSS, also a good practice for me, and using Dreamweaver, which I'm going to be using to update the old archive and V4S site, as it is a faster way to update HTML without having to handcode everything..
Unfortunately, I also terribly suck at graphics, but I can at least get a functional website up and working, so thus, I'm gonna try and get this up and working this week. Anyone who would like to design some graphics, especially a logo, let me know!
Here's a preview of what I'm working on. The links aren't working yet, but you can see the layout. When I'm feeling more ambitious, I might redesign it with a database etc. and reformat the stories, as well. Feedback on colors, readability, etc. welcome. In the long run, I can add links, history and maybe a way to submit stories, or to add the stories to the new archive once ready.
Let me know what you think!
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Happy 10th birthday, www.fkfanfic.com!
Oct. 20th, 2006 | 03:15 pm
mood: accomplished
I sent the following today to FORKNI-L (in case you're no longer on the list)
Posted with the permission of Lisa. Forgive me if this is a bit long, but I figured some old and new people would like to know the story.
Posted with the permission of Lisa. Forgive me if this is a bit long, but I figured some old and new people would like to know the story.
It was over 10 years ago today that I launched www.fkfanfic.com. In the beginning, I started hosting stories when I noticed that the original archive was no longer updating. This was when the web was still young and new and we didn't have fancy HTML generators or PHP etc. I first hosted stories on my own personal webspace but after a while and some guidance from my good friends, including Jamie Randell and TJ Goldstein, I obtained my own domain name in October, 1996 and www.fkfanfic.com was born.
The web design changed over time. I got better about organizing stories (again thanks to Jamie who designed most everything) and used an excel database to track everything. HTML for the story listings was generated from the database. It was a ton of work back then, assembling and reformatting stories, adding them to the database, generating new pages, and uploading them all to the website. Updates could take hours and hours of work. But I loved doing it.
Then somewhere in there, Real Life intervened several times, and I confess I lost interest a bit when I got involved in MMPORGs and I had a number of health and RL issues that really limited the amount of time I could devote to FK. Then I lost my pc hard drive and the database and was overwhelmed by the amount of work it would take to recreate everything (over 2500 stories?!!). I also was majorly broke for several times in there due to job layoffs but I kept the site up as best as I could, with the moral and financial support of Stephanie Babbitt. You can ask Stephanie, when we went over my budget together, the fanfic site was never negotiable. Well, the past few years have been better finally.
And this past year, I have been working on fixing things up again. I was forced to find a new web provider last year, but this was a blessing as I was able to find a much better one that provides all kinds of bells and whistles that I can and have now put to work improving the site to something better. It's amazing what wonderful things you can easily get for websites nowadays. Fortunately, I was able to recover an old copy of the database and spent many hours rebuilding the database to make it current again. I am also in the process of implementing a new auto-archival system for authors, Efiction. I am just waiting for the new release to come out before I make this available. I do plan on regenerating the old pages here in the near future, to allow for updates/changes. No new stories will be added to the old archive, however, in lieu of the new archive, where you will be able to add your own stories. Stay tuned on this.
I have also been implementing a new front end for www.fkfanfic.com. You can see it up and running now. I'm still ironing out some of the kinks and making changes, but it should be working (feel free to test and comment on things). The site is also available via RSS, and will have an RSS feed from the new story archive so that you will be able to see new stories on the front page. The old archive will always be available via a link on the main page. If you have any suggestions, submissions for articles, links, quotes, etc., feel free to use the Contact page or email me. I am hoping to put together some pages of reference of the many great sites people still are keeping up and running about Forever Knight as well. If you'd like for me to host any material, let me know too, as I know there's alot of scattered information out there still and some outdated sites and I'd be glad to host things in a central site..
Anyway, thank you to all of you out there for all your moral support and visiting the site over the years. And thank you to the many authors who shared their wonderful stories that have kept Forever Knight alive and well in our hearts. It's hard to believe it's been 10+ years.
Feel free to forward this to other lists if you wish, or post on your sites. And a big hello again to old friends, sorry for losing touch and disappearing there for a while. I'm better now and I'm back.
Thanks and hugs to all,
Mel Moser
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Teaser!
Oct. 16th, 2006 | 01:07 pm
mood: 
cold
I spent alot of time last night working with the new front end. It's still under construction and I have a redirect in place to keep the default www.fkfanfic.com going to the old main page, except for when I'm working on the new site.
If you'd like to see what it will look like (none of the links will work because of the redirect):
http://www.fkfanfic.com/index.php
I added in a ton of quotes last night, which was fun. I'm also working on the glossary.
As for the new story archive, you can see the link to it on the right side, but I'm not going forward with it quite yet, as I'm waiting for the new release of Efiction to come out. It's version 3.0 and in beta right now and supposed to be released any time now. It's really not worth doing much with the release on fkfanfic.com as I'm not sure how rough the upgrade will be, or if I'll just need to install it from scratch. Err, scratch that, it seems that my Efiction site has gone in the tank again (nm fixed it finally).
Anyway, let me know what you think. I'll be able to post articles, have users to log in and be able to add content (on a limited basis), comments, suggest links as well as receive RSS feeds including feeds from the new story archive. I'd like to start a weekly question thread, like Mr. Happy used to have. I'm tempted to just go live with it as is, but I haven't been able to test it all that much (like user logins and stuff). Maybe I should just say the hell with it and go for it.
I'll be posting something soon to FORKNI-L (October 20, bonus points if you know what this date is).
If you'd like to see what it will look like (none of the links will work because of the redirect):
http://www.fkfanfic.com/index.php
I added in a ton of quotes last night, which was fun. I'm also working on the glossary.
As for the new story archive, you can see the link to it on the right side, but I'm not going forward with it quite yet, as I'm waiting for the new release of Efiction to come out. It's version 3.0 and in beta right now and supposed to be released any time now. It's really not worth doing much with the release on fkfanfic.com as I'm not sure how rough the upgrade will be, or if I'll just need to install it from scratch. Err, scratch that, it seems that my Efiction site has gone in the tank again (nm fixed it finally).
Anyway, let me know what you think. I'll be able to post articles, have users to log in and be able to add content (on a limited basis), comments, suggest links as well as receive RSS feeds including feeds from the new story archive. I'd like to start a weekly question thread, like Mr. Happy used to have. I'm tempted to just go live with it as is, but I haven't been able to test it all that much (like user logins and stuff). Maybe I should just say the hell with it and go for it.
I'll be posting something soon to FORKNI-L (October 20, bonus points if you know what this date is).
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Still Here, Still Working on Things
Aug. 1st, 2006 | 01:29 pm
location: work
mood: busy
I've been a bit busy in RL lately with work and other stuff, so I haven't had alot of spare time to work on the site.
I have been playing around testing several site management utilities for the new frontend, and I think I've decided to go with Drupal It's pretty configurable, and has alot of the features I like without being as complex and restrctive like php-nuke. Plus it lets me use my own forums.
Now, none of these things will have fancy designs or graphics unless someone is willing to donate the time and energy to make me some. Thus, I'm probably going to go with some free skins for them for starters. I do have immajer working on a skin for the new story archive, however.
One of the neat features Drupal has is a news aggregator, where I will be able to automatically list updates to the new story archive on the front end, as well as updates to this journal, and any other blogs I want to add. I can also add alot of the old pages (like links, etc.).
I am hoping to send out that email soon to FORKNI-L and FKFIC-L asking for updates. This part will take alot of work once people start mailing me.
That and I might be brave enough to go ahead and install Drupal for real on the main site and start cusotmizing it.
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This week's goal
Jun. 13th, 2006 | 03:12 pm
mood: 
okay
My goal for this week is to draft and post a major email requesting any authors wanting stories removed, updated, etc. to contact me at a new email address I'm setting up just for that.
I want to word it carefully, as I don't want people to remove their stories, but in this day and age of too much personal information on the Internet, I want people to be able to remove or have their stories updated on the website.
And/or they can add them to the new archive once I have it ready, which is what I would prefer.
This will be sent to FORKNI-L and I will ask permission to send it to FKFIC-L as well. I'll probably put up a webpage with more information as a link off the main page as well.
As for the DOS attack, it stopped fortunately, and I banned the IP addresses. My web hosting didn't offer much in help other than doing what I did plus they can increase my bandwidth if needed. I am keeping a close eye on it in the meantime. If traffic remains normal, I should be okay for June, I think.
I'm still catching up on a few back emails and things (waves John) since my Internet was out for 5 days last week. Stay tuned!
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"Dying to Know You" Discussion
Jun. 13th, 2006 | 02:12 pm
mood: blah
"Dying To Know You" is the Forever Knight episode being discussed this week in Ith's journal. Join in the discussion!
"Last Act" was last week's. I missed it mostly since my Internet was down for about 5 days or so.
Past discussions:
For the ongoing list of discussions: Forever Knight Livejournal Episode Discussion List
"Last Act" was last week's. I missed it mostly since my Internet was down for about 5 days or so.
Past discussions:
For the ongoing list of discussions: Forever Knight Livejournal Episode Discussion List
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Argh! DOS Attack?!
Jun. 9th, 2006 | 10:36 pm
mood: 
annoyed
I happened to check my weblogs tonight and realized the site has been under a DOS attack since yesterday sometime. It has been eating up this month's bandwidth (almost all of it), 80%).
I banned the IP addresses that they seemed to be coming from:
208.66.195.9 - - [08/Jun/2006:16:36:13 -0700] "GET /fanfic/c/chri3227.txt HTTP/1.1" 200 4445 "-" "psycheclone
Doing a google on psycheclone and the above ip addresses results in some hits on various web logs, so its likely this is a known DOS Attacker.
I submitted a ticket to my web hosting provider asking about my options etc.,
I just need to keep a closer eye on things, I guess. I am glad I caught this.
Not alot of news to update, as my Internet was out for 5 days so I didn't get my online stuff done and have been catchig up with email in the meantime.
I banned the IP addresses that they seemed to be coming from:
208.66.195.8The actual log entries look like this:
208.66.195.6
208.66.195.9
208.66.195.3
208.66.195.2
208.66.195.4
208.66.195.5
208.66.195.7
208.66.195.10
208.66.195.11
208.66.195.9 - - [08/Jun/2006:16:36:13 -0700] "GET /fanfic/c/chri3227.txt HTTP/1.1" 200 4445 "-" "psycheclone
Doing a google on psycheclone and the above ip addresses results in some hits on various web logs, so its likely this is a known DOS Attacker.
I submitted a ticket to my web hosting provider asking about my options etc.,
I just need to keep a closer eye on things, I guess. I am glad I caught this.
Not alot of news to update, as my Internet was out for 5 days so I didn't get my online stuff done and have been catchig up with email in the meantime.
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"For I Have Sinned" Episode Discussion
May. 30th, 2006 | 04:07 pm
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Sample webpage from the database
May. 28th, 2006 | 09:17 pm
mood: busy
Database changes have been completed, it was a bunch of work (worked most of this afternoon and into the evening), but easier than I thought, especially after I removed the category and summary stuff.
Here's a sample of what it looks like now with the updated links at the bottom:
Sample page
I can regenerate the pages now. Yay!
I also uploaded the FK Scripts directory back, so the FK Transcripts link and all the scripts should work once again..
Here's a sample of what it looks like now with the updated links at the bottom:
Sample page
I can regenerate the pages now. Yay!
I also uploaded the FK Scripts directory back, so the FK Transcripts link and all the scripts should work once again..
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New Icons!
May. 28th, 2006 | 02:06 am
mood: 
ecstatic
Many many thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
gryphons_lair for making me some cool www.fkfanfic.com icons! Thank you! They (and you) rock!
gryphons_lair for making me some cool www.fkfanfic.com icons! Thank you! They (and you) rock!Link | Leave a comment {6} | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Database = All Stories Added
May. 28th, 2006 | 01:43 am
mood: 
tired
10+ hours of work today and I finished adding the last of the stories to the database, the last being the story "Deja Vu" by Megan Hull. The bulk of the data entry work is now complete (Whew!)
And now looking at the database, I know that we had a major formatting difference between this version of the database and the one that's one the website. Thus, I am going to have to redo the format of the database so that it generates content close to the existing pages now. But I am going to take off the categoriies field, and maybe the summary and characters too, simply because it would probably take a lot of rework to go back and add that back in for the small amount of stories that actually have that, plus it will save on webpage size to not have that in there. And, it's not my plan to be adding new stories to this version of the archive. New stories will be added on the new self-archival site.
Here's an example of this old format (yuck) but it's what the database is set up for:
I like the last format that's on the site currently the best. Thus I need to fix the design of the database so that I can regenerate the webpages. I am going to try to work on this tomorrow.
And now looking at the database, I know that we had a major formatting difference between this version of the database and the one that's one the website. Thus, I am going to have to redo the format of the database so that it generates content close to the existing pages now. But I am going to take off the categoriies field, and maybe the summary and characters too, simply because it would probably take a lot of rework to go back and add that back in for the small amount of stories that actually have that, plus it will save on webpage size to not have that in there. And, it's not my plan to be adding new stories to this version of the archive. New stories will be added on the new self-archival site.
Here's an example of this old format (yuck) but it's what the database is set up for:
I like the last format that's on the site currently the best. Thus I need to fix the design of the database so that I can regenerate the webpages. I am going to try to work on this tomorrow.
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100 down, 200 more to go
May. 27th, 2006 | 01:22 am
mood: tired
About 7 hours tonight adding 100 stories back into the database. I did a count and I have about 200 stories left to go..
My eyes are seeing double. I'll respond to some of the email etc. I've gotten this weekend sometime.
Thanks for all the warm support I've been getting from folks. Much appreciated.
My eyes are seeing double. I'll respond to some of the email etc. I've gotten this weekend sometime.
Thanks for all the warm support I've been getting from folks. Much appreciated.
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Episode Discussions: Dark Knight I/II
May. 24th, 2006 | 01:05 pm
ithildyn is starting Forever Knight episode discussions about Forever Knight Episodes in her journal, beginning with Dark Knight I and II. She was doing this for Highlander Methos episodes and has now started discussions for Forever Knight. Go and join in! Reminesce about the old days of Nick & Co. x-posting to
fkfanfic, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
fk_freaks and wherever else I can.Link | Leave a comment {2} | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Database Status
May. 21st, 2006 | 12:41 am
Yesterday and today, I've added about 200 stories back in to the database. I have about 300 more yet to go. It's tedious work. I forgot how much work it was originally adding all the stories, and this time, I'm just adding them to the database alone. I probably put in about 13 hours this weekend on this (while watching movies).
It will be really nice to get tha self-archiving site up and working once I'm all done. Archiving the old way was ALOT of work! I forgot it used to take me 10-20 hours per update, at least, if not longer. Where did I find the time?
With luck, I should have the database update done in another month. I'd dearly like to update the webpages and remove all the dead links (at the bottom). The categorize links will also go away since I no longer have that feature anymore. I am going to have to go back and add back in the Characters, Summary, and Categories for all the stories again, since I lost that. I will also make an appeal to FORKNI-L once the database is done asking any authors for email address changes, pen name changes, etc. before I regenerate the pages again.
I also had to remove all the guestbooks and probably won't put them back in because so many spammers were trying to use them. I still have spammers trying to hit them, heh, as I see it in my web logs.
Anyway, I'm off to bed. It has been a good weekend of work and I'm taking Sunday off for other things (like exercise and WoW).
It will be really nice to get tha self-archiving site up and working once I'm all done. Archiving the old way was ALOT of work! I forgot it used to take me 10-20 hours per update, at least, if not longer. Where did I find the time?
With luck, I should have the database update done in another month. I'd dearly like to update the webpages and remove all the dead links (at the bottom). The categorize links will also go away since I no longer have that feature anymore. I am going to have to go back and add back in the Characters, Summary, and Categories for all the stories again, since I lost that. I will also make an appeal to FORKNI-L once the database is done asking any authors for email address changes, pen name changes, etc. before I regenerate the pages again.
I also had to remove all the guestbooks and probably won't put them back in because so many spammers were trying to use them. I still have spammers trying to hit them, heh, as I see it in my web logs.
Anyway, I'm off to bed. It has been a good weekend of work and I'm taking Sunday off for other things (like exercise and WoW).
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What I am working on....
May. 19th, 2006 | 10:16 am
There are a number of things I need to do before I am able to get the fkfanfic site and its new features ready for public announcement. They are:
- new livejournal icons for this journal
- recover the old fkfanfic database I lost in a hard drive crash by adding in the 700+ stories back into the database. I need this so that I can regenerate the current archive webpages. Status - currently working on this, about 200 stories done so far. Fix the database for page generation for current design
- Update the old archive webpages to remove old links, old content, etc. Dependent on database being recovered
- Obtain a new Efiction design tailored for www.fkfanfic.com
- Implement a new front end for www.fkfanfic.com. This will be in php-nuke and I need to find a good theme to use for it. Design new graphics for topics. Implement blocks to point to the old archive and new archive. Decide if I'm going to use phpnuke forums or my own
- Solicit donations if anyone is interested in helping (paypal already set up)
- Beta test Efiction website
- Make public announcement (yay!)
elycia has volunteered to help some, but she's been pretty busy lately. I am always open for more volunteers.
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First Post
May. 18th, 2006 | 03:31 pm
I figured a weblog of some sort would be nice to keep track of what I am doing for www.fkfanfic.com, rather than just my own blog/journal. This will be an open journal.
Last year, the web site provider of www.fkfanfic.com went under and I moved the website to a new provider that offers alot more features. This has encouraged me to get the website back together (in additions to improvements with my health, which had been a factor) and make some major changes that will help the usability of the website, and more.
Stay tuned!
Last year, the web site provider of www.fkfanfic.com went under and I moved the website to a new provider that offers alot more features. This has encouraged me to get the website back together (in additions to improvements with my health, which had been a factor) and make some major changes that will help the usability of the website, and more.
Stay tuned!