Xenite.Org News

Changes and updates in progress

April 10, 2002 at 01:53:37

While it has been a long time since we last posted any information about what has changed around here, rest assured we have not been completely idle.

As Xenite.Org and SF-FANDOM continue to grow, we strive to keep the servers running as smoothly as possible and are always on the lookout for neat new things to offer.

We've expanded the list of merchants we are partnering with to help keep people interested in science fiction and fantasy-related merchandise. Our hosting fees, as always, are underwritten by the small commissions we earn from referral link sales, and we appreciate your support.

New Line Cinema has joined the ranks of our referall merchants. We hope fans out there will browse their online store. If nothing else, you can gape at all the cheese merchandise the movie studios expect people to buy.

We've also signed up with Calendars.com, and our first calendar store is, of course, devoted to The Lord of the Rings.

On a less commercial note, we were recently contacted about one of the Brilliant Digital Webcasts we have been linking to. It appears there is a trademark issue regarding one of Brilliant Digital's shows. While investigating this dispute, we discovered, much to our dismay, that all our Brilliant Digital links were no longer working. They've made some changes on their servers and they either neglected to mention that to us or we were too preoccupied to notice. We have removed all of our Brilliant Digital Webisode pages for the present time. We do not know when, or if, they will be restored. But we are still carrying Bloop the Green Monkey.

It is now possible to pre-order the DvD for "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring", and we have added links to our Lord of the Rings movie news site. You'll see tower banners in the left-hand margins of all the main pages (but not the news articles). We've also updated the appearance of our main pages for the LoTR movie news site. The "Bare Facts" sections have been brought up-to-date with current information.

We've also added an Extra Stuff page to the LoTR movie news site. Now, while the extra stuff mostly consists of book referrals to help keep our affiliate commissions coming in, the first item on the page is a link to the new eBook edition of Parma Endorion: Essays on Middle-earth. This is a free eBook. You don't have to spend any money. You don't have to buy any subscriptions. Parma Endorion: Essays on Middle-earth, Third Edition debuted on Free-ebooks.net in January and it immediately zoomed to the top of the list of downloads.

Parma Endorion has been enjoyed by tens of thousands of people around the world for years. The old Web site is still in place, but you can only get the Third Edition as an Adobe Acrobat Reader eBook. The Third Edition includes selected artwork from Anke Eismann and Rich Sullivan, who (in our opinion) are among the Internet's best fan artists (in the Tolkien and Middle-earth community).

Work on The History of Xena: Warrior Princess has, regrettably, once again come to a halt. Our editor has had to withdraw from the project, and we are not sure of when the remaining episode summaries will be posted. However, after the Web site has finally been updated, we do have one more major plan for it. Look for an announcement during the summer. God willing and the river don't rise, we'll get to the final phase of that long-running project. We're excited about what we have in mind, but we could still use a little editorial help. If you have the time and some basic English editing skill, please feel free to contact us and let us know that you would like to help.

We've also received quite a bit of correspondence about the White Cheese Dip Web site. We have new information to add to the page, but we're not sure of when it will be updated. Please keep sending in those suggestions, folks. We are just absolutely thrilled to know that so many people share a passion for the cheese (well, Michael is...).

We've also begun withdrawing Xenite.Org sites from various Webrings. The Webring service has been a good one for us, but with over 40 sites to keep track of, it's just become too much of a hassle. So, you'll undoubtedly see some broken Webring code here and there. We apologize for the mess and hope to remove all the dead code as soon as possible.

We will, however, continue to administer a few Webrings. We have no immediate plans for shutting down those rings, but if any of you would like to help watch over them, we'll be glad to discuss the Ringmaster position with you. Basically, you need to review all submissions and approve or reject them based on content and whether the sites meet our criteria.

Many people have also contacted us about putting up reciprocal links. This has not been a priority for us lately. We understand how important it is to get connected and stay that way in today's immense World Wide Web. But we just have a lot of projects in process and the reciprocal links are a low-priority item for the foreseeable future. Please be patient! We will review all link requests as time permits. To learn more about our reciprocal links program, please visit Reciprocal Links page.