Those of you that have websites, or are seeking cool web buttons, bars and such......

[Starfish]

This first part isn't really what this thread is for, but it is important for me to inform you about why I am just giving away all my hard work.

I have just been informed, via email, that Homestead.com is making all of their free personal sites into pay sites. They have lost their sponsorship, supposedly, and now all of my hard work is going to shit. I can't afford to pay for a site I don't make money on, so I can't keep my site. I guess I could start from scratch, somewhere else but, when you've been working for 4 months to find out that you are fucked, then you loose the courage to start another, that could easily do the same thing in the middle of it.

What has me so upset is that 80% of my website was geared to be an educational tool and would be an online resource for my college, and other Agriculture/Horticulture/Science schools throughout my region. One part of my site, The Herbarium, was to be my Independant Research Project that I have to do for my degree. I was trying to save my school some money, but now, they will have to pay for a site for me. Which means I have to pay for a site for me to do that.

Many of my friends here will be recieving a whiney email with links to all of my pages. To those of you who do not, but wish they would have, I am sorry, I just don't have your email addy.
If you would like to see the whole, but incomplete, SOON to be trashed website, send my your email adress at

Lavenderandroses@hotmail.com

Anyway, This thread is about my webdesign work.......

I have spent many long hours making what I call Web Jewels for the adornment of my website. (I know that many of you think I hang out here all of the time but, that is plainly not true. )
Now that it is all going to shit, I wish for those of you who like them and can use them to have my work, for their webpages...
I hope, at least, someone can get some use out of them.

Here is the link to the page that they can be found on.
They are all after the bonsai stuff.
Please just include the stupid, Starfish icon thingy in memory of my hard work...


On this page, at the bottom, are Web Jewels that I worked very hard to make. If you have a website, personal or business (I don't care which) and like these, you are welcome to them. Just uses my stupid icon thingy on the page somewhere, in memory of my dead efforts.


My Bonsai and Web Jewels Page

Please enjoy them.......

*boo hoo, sob sob*

 

[Mistress]

ACK! Homestead is going into a pay site? Fuck now I"m really screwed sighs

 

[Starfish]

Didn't you get the email, Mistress?

 

[Mistress]

Didn't you get the email, Mistress?

Not sure, was it from you or homestead? If it was from homestead then I just delted it like everything else I get.

Those are some beautiful graphics dear, I"m sorry your so upset.

 

[Starfish]

Thank you for the kind words.

It was from them.

The header was.....

Homestead Important changes being made to your...........

 

[Guru]

 

[YoungGun69]

Theres allways geocities.com in a pinch!

 

[April]

Yes, they are, but not completely. Right now, they are soliciting feedback. G.R., you should have given them feedback. It's the only way to be heard. I spent nearly an hour on mine.

I will wait to see what the outcome is. It's especially hard on me, because I will be gone while they do whatever it is they will do. I might come back to my site being simply gone! I don't know. I have two days of comp time left. What the hell can I do in that time? At least y'all have the luxury of being able to transfer your sites. I'm pretty much SOL.

Anyway, what they want to do is to have their Professional section, a new personal (pay) section, and a free personal section. With the free one, you get 8 MB of space, and are limited to 3 pages. You also get limited tech support, but how often do you really use that? I've never used it.

I think this whole thing sucks, but what can you do? I've given them my opinion, and I strongly suggest everyone else with a Homestead site to do the same. There is a feedback form in their message forums, I think. Use it!

 

[Starfish]

Thank you guru and Younggun,
I have had problems with moving my site, within Homestead alone, so who knows.

Two things:
I don't want to use a site that is going to spam my pages with banners and whatever, for their benifit, even though I understand that they need to make money.

The page above is only a fraction of what my site is, and was going to become.
I have worked 4 months on this site, and I am too discouraged to use another free site, when they could pull the carpet out from under me at anytime.

I will have to give it a couple years, when I get out of college, to do a pay site, where I can sell my aquatic plants, dresses, and art, and then have my edu pages go with that.

Who knows? With as many aquatic plants as I have, and am generating, I may Need to go into business, before I finish school.

I just wanted people to have a chance to snatch up these goodies, while they can.

 

[Mistress]

April love, you know I"d be willing to help you take care of your site if you need me too! Xander and I are already Admins at your Ezboard site, so why not let us help with Homestead while your away?

 

[Mistress]

Thank you guru and Younggun,
I have had problems with moving my site, within Homestead alone, so who knows.

Two things:
I don't want to use a site that is going to spam my pages with banners and whatever, for their benifit, even though I understand that they need to make money.

The page above is only a fraction of what my site is, and was going to become.
I have worked 4 months on this site, and I am too discouraged to use another free site, when they could pull the carpet out from under me at anytime.

I will have to give it a couple years, when I get out of college, to do a pay site, where I can sell my aquatic plants, dresses, and art, and then have my edu pages go with that.

Who knows? With as many aquatic plants as I have, and am generating, I may Need to go into business, before I finish school.

I just wanted people to have a chance to snatch up these goodies, while they can.

Well, I dont plan on using all of them, but I saved them all just in case. I"d hate to see beautiful work go down like that!

 

[Starfish]

April, I did.

My site is WAY to big to fit in three pages. I am a college student and am on a budget.
Either way, I would have to pay, and there is no way to do that.

It would be a minimum of 120 dollars a year, and that isn't even set in stone. It could be MUCH higher!

With internet business failing left and right, I totally understand, and am not bitching about them, just frustrated with all of my lost time.

I have everything I used on my site, saved to disk, so I will always have them. But I just want others to be able to use and enjoy this stuff, that's all.

 

[April]

I understand, G.R. I was just trying to clarify things, as per my understanding of the situation. I think it sucks, too. But the price is still to be decided. And at $10 bucks a month, is too high. Hell, for that price, I can have my own name, and hosting. I might do that at some point. We will see. But I think to be safe, I might put up a mirror site for now.

 

[Starfish]

That's cool, April. You are a doll...
That'll help others understand the details better, since I was to bitter to go into all of it.


BTW, Your icon has made me feel better.

 

[p_p_man]

I'm pleased I visited this thread...

...I knew nothing about Homestead going all paysite and I've had no e-mail...

Off now to try and do some damage limitation...

thanks all...

 

[p_p_man]

I've just been there...

...and filled in my feedback form.

Apparantly the change takes place at the end of June but current Personal Members will have a further 60 days to decide whether they are going or staying.

Trouble is there are fewer and fewer free websites now and I reckon there won't be any shortly. It's sad considering the hard work most people who belong to Homestead have put into their sites but the sign was on the door when they introduced the Professional version.

Incidentally the e-mail contract they have with CommTouch terminates on the 26 June. They recommend people who use it to find another one as soon as possible like hotmail or yahoo.

 

[Starfish]

I won't be surprised if they have a hard time making money at this. I also see this whole "internet sponsorship is failing" bullshit to be a con. I see people being sponsored all of the time, and successfully too! I just see this as another way to make the fucking benjamin's without concern for what the real reason to provide a service like that is for.... To make the world a better place. Besides, I thought that the Professional version was there to make it so the free version can do it.

Okay, I am not too clear on how all that works. Does anyone know what U.S. federal tax laws apply to internet trade and commerce. I know, in my state, that a vending license is 30 bucks a year, and that provides a wholesalers licence. What is the deal with the net?


I am going to look into a site transfer, but all that does is mass loads all of your shit into a filemanager.... I think you still have to put everything back together, the way you want it. I don't know for sure, but will post info about what I find out.

Thank you to all who have made suggestions. I am feeling a bit better about what the future of my site holds. I am going to go to Geocities and see about something there.

I mentioned to a friend today that it isn't that hard to put a site together, or time consuming, as long as all of your content is available. Most of the time I have spent on this site, is gathering free graphics, and making my own, when I found out that the web is sort of barren of truely free, good imagery.

Everyone is out to make a buck nowadays. I am glad that there are still people in the world like Laurel and Manu.

 

[p_p_man]

That's The Spirit...

GR...

Don't let the bastards grind you down...

 

[Starfish]

You know it!


Power to the people!
Power to the people!

 

[April]

I thought you might be interested in this site. I know nothing about it yet, but am investigating it tonight.

http://www.homepagebuilders.com/

I also think their email system is terribly flawed. I got an email about this under a secondary member name. Didn't get one for the name I always use over there. It all goes to the same email, but I wonder how many people did not get any email at all?

 

[Starfish]

Ahhhh!

Maybe we should make an announcment thread. Huh?
Well. I went to you link and it looks cool. More memory! I have to do as you are doing and check it out further, but thank you so much. Very cool. They even have a site transferer.

 

[April]

Damnit, the site transfer does not work with Homestead because they (homestead) do not allow ftp download. Bastards!!

 

[p_p_man]

You can transfer your site...

...to your hard disk and figure out what to do with it later...

 

[p_p_man]

Re: Ahhhh!

Maybe we should make an announcment thread. Huh?
Well. I went to you link and it looks cool. More memory! I have to do as you are doing and check it out further, but thank you so much. Very cool. They even have a site transferer.

Good idea. Then as Homestead people look around for alternatives we can post what we find to it.

I've just started one called HOMESTEAD WEBSITES IMPORTANT THREAD

 

[April]

That whole setup sucks! Difficult to use and it won't let me edit it easily.