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My domains
The first domain I bought was vindieselgallery.net, in late 2002. The site Diesel Driven, a Vin Diesel image gallery which had started out as a small thing, had grown big enough I thought it warranted its own domainname.
It started out as a sort of a personal project in 2001 on a free webhost, because I'd grown tired of trawling through internet looking for good quality images of Vin Diesel. I was at the time helping out with co-moderating a fan run messageboard for Vin Diesel and we all wanted more to add to the newsservice.
There were no good sites, in my opinion, that kept a high quality on all their images or was even remotely easy to navigate. There were a few, on free webservers who back then had very little allowed bandwidth and space -- so to save both they lowered the quality of the images at hand.
Once I had started gathering a big enough collection on a free webhost, which shut me down when I'd used up my allota, I was already a year or so into studies at the university. This was when I found out about ACC (Academic Computer Club), you could join for a small amount of money and get a really advantageous online account. Whoosh! Suddenly I had webspace that was no longer riddled with popups and advertising banners -- and bandwidth that was like a dream come true. Once you've seen the difference with a paid account, you can never go back to free hosts really.
My friend Kriszta whom I co-moderated the messageboard with, decided to join forces. She loved to track down the news and keep her website updated with all the current information, and I handled the graphics and design. From what was probably 2003 (?) we worked together with the fans at the messageboard who posted new images and scans and e-mailed us with new stuff.
With time the gallery has grown into what it is today. 980,294 visitors so far. The daily visitors has at the moment dropped from it's highest 1300 to circa 400 per day, it fluctuates with Vin's movie premiers and activity in the press. [stats from 2007-july-31].
Domain Vin Diesel Gallery.net:
Diesel Driven - vindieselgallery.net/gallery [visit site]
The now largest, if not the most organized and continuously updated gallery of actor, producer and writer Vin Diesel.
A clean gallery only site where the images are clearly sorted into categories and dates. Over 8900 images at the moment. [Stats 2007-july-31] Layout by me, except the colorscheme that was inspired by a Wordpress design.
Earlier layouts
anno ca 2005 (I have unfortunately lost count, version #20? something)
2004 -ish
2002-ish
2002-ish
Vin Diesel Screencaps - vindieselgallery.net/screencaps [visit site]
The now largest collection of high quality screencaps of Vin Diesel's movies. Darth Screen Capture removed their large collection of Vin Diesel screen captures, and I was allowed to move them over to my site. And so a new part of the gallery was born. This part of the site holds only screen captures of Vin Diesel's movies, no other images.
A clean page by page gallery where the caps are sorted by movie, easily navigated by java menu. Over 2641 capped images at the moment. [Stats 2007-july-31] Layout by me; colorscheme, images, everything.
Earlier layouts
Vin Diesel Screencaps older version (#4? something)
2004-ish
2003-ish
June 2002 - when I took over from Darth Screen Capture
My second domain purchase was bitdark.com (aka Better In The Dark - it comes from a title of a book by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro). This domain happened because in dec/jan of 2004 I needed a new webhost for vindieselgallery.net. I was graduating from the university and no longer allowed to stay with ACC as I would no longer be a student. I had some troubles finding a host that was big enough and still something I could afford.
I ended up finding Gisol.com and with their package offer there was a free domain. Ergo new domain. Unfortunately Gisol.com is one of those hosts that offer a lot for cheap money and doesn't come through on what they promise. My MySQL heavy site ended up with lots of downtime as it became apparent they squeezed in as many accounts as possible on the servers. This I specifically mentioned when I e-mailed them and asked whether they could handle my site. I got lucky and was moved after the first complain. Unfortunately, that was also my only luck. because after that - I got no help at all when the site went down. It was further in between to start with but ended up happening more the longer i staid. I paid for a year which I thought went ok. This is what you accept when you're a newbie at paying for hosting services. You accept a lot more than you should, and you end up signing on for another year. I was lucky though to only have very short downtimes and few in between - because you couldn't count on having any support really.
Friendly advice - check out hosts thoroughly before you pay a one year fee. For example webhostingtalk.com offers lots of ideas and help. I survived okay anyway, just unneeded hassle. But there are others who really had a bad experience with GISOL - see www.gisolsucks.com.
bitdark.com used to hold free site-designs, wallpapers, icons, scribblings, novel recs amongst a lot of other stuff. When I moved after my 12 months was up to a new host, GISOL got to keep the domainname as I didn't bother buying it off their hands.
Thanks to thorough research and e-mailing webhosters for offers to compare packages, I found myself a new host. At servint.net who I thank for their repeated efficiency, and adore their support. As I mentioned above - GISOL kept the old domainname so I needed a new one to tie with my brand new virtual private server -- neoblonde.com. I don't have a good explanation behind this name. I'm blonde, I wanted something new and I was MSN'ing with a friend and she came up with it. It like it.
Domain Neoblonde.com
As explained on the first page, this site will hold a little of this and that and will be useful for me to show what I can do and keep my portfolio of sitedesigns in one place.
Now showing Version 4 - Linné 300 year anniversary
Earlier layouts
Version 1 - Shirley Manson from Garbage
Version 2 - Arctic white
Version 3 - Chaos in your hands
Dead and closed sites
- miscellenous
Domain bitdark.com that I mentioned above
Design and content © by Maria. Images © Nordens Flora, 1917. Version 4 (july 2007) was made in mind with Linne's 300 year anniversary.
neoblonde.com since march 2005 (formerly known as bitdark.com dec 2003 - febr/march 2005)