I have moved to a Linux server, so it is senstive to upper and lower case letters. The same banner was in use on several sites, so I have changed the file name on the server. If you use http://www.tolkienbooks.net/BiblioBanner.gif it should be ok now.

The servers used by Webfusion do seem faster than the slug-like 1and1. Hopefully they will be reliable as well.

I updated the banner link, working again now.

I've gotten burned by the case sensitivity too - rowns.com file uploads are case sensitive, and the web interface automatically changes everything to lower case. That caused a few headaches until I switched to a great ftp client - Bulletproof FTP - that lets me schedule uploads, picks up broken transfers where they left off, remote file rights management, everything. The perfect tool for hosting my websites on remote servers.

Fresh, modern look you have there, Deagol...
But does this mean I have to subscribe again for the mailing list?

I just updated the Tolkien Online section with your new RSS feed Deagol, it looks to be working great!

I also like the new front end. Are you putting energy into moving your static HTML to a database?

Jeremy

If you were subscribed to the old mailing list then you will carry on receiving the updates from the new service. The emails may come from a different email address though so spam filters might intervene. I just have to run a few tests to make sure everything is running smoothly.

Thanks to Rowns for suggesting Wordpress - it took a while to adapt to my needs, but seems to be doing the trick.

I hope to get the whole of the main bibliography running from a database, but it will take quite a while to achieve - there are over 1000 html pages at the moment, and I think that there will be 300 or 400 additional items when I have all the letters, artwork and 'miscellanea' on there as well. I have started work on the 2000-Present section and this will hopefully be completed by late April or early May.

Can I get a few opinions from you all?
I have started to add details of published letters, artwork, interviews and recordings, etc but am worried that this type of material is swamping the books by Tolkien or contributed to by Tolkien. See the 1963-1967 section for instance.
Any thoughts?

Also, does anybody miss the forwards, backwards and up arrows used on the static pages? I use them to navigate a lot, but I am flicking through pages looking for problems and mistakes. I can set something up, but wonder if anybody else uses them much.

It seems to me that you have an excellent (I can't repeat that enough) gathering of information, that you have chosen to organize solely in chronological order. If/when you are comfortable, having these sorted in other orders as well (I wouldn't want to lose the ability to sort them chronologically) would be nice. Totally up to you where you want to spend the time!

I seem to be much better taking other peoples information into my database than entering my own (something to do with the fact that the scanner is attached to my 3-year old's computer, so I never get to use it), if you would prefer to put your time elsewhere. Seems like we have so many people generating content AND developing websites, there must be a way to streamline our efforts.

[added note: I don't mean to imply pulling tolkienbooks.net into my site - just offering services for website tinkering if it would help]

I will have a think about how to offer alphabetical and chronological options. You have a good point there.

One of the pieces of information I have entered for each item in the database is the section of Wayne Hammond's bibliography it fits into, i.e. A, B, C , D, E, F.
My original idea was to include a drop down menu on the gallery page that would allow you to filter what was displayed. I played around with it for days but couldn't get it to work properly. I didn't have many entries in the database at the time, so I might revisit the idea and have another crack at it.

Thanks for the offer of assistance - I will bear it in mind - working with php and phpmyadmin has been quite a step up from good old html, so I'm a bit out of my comfort zone.

PS. The package of goodies arrived - great stuff, thanks!

Though the input is late in coming and perhaps not now useful, I've got a reply to "questions for you all"...

I usually go looking for information about a specific book or set that I've found f/s somewhere, so the added materials (not by or contributed by Tolkien) are usually extraneous, but they're certainly not in the way. The pages load quickly, and your viewers will notice that such information is there in case they want it in future, which they might not realize (or know to look for) otherwise. In short, no I don't think those entries are clogging the pages.
Personally, I use the back button rather than the arrows, since I'm usually looking at covers and/or publishers before dates (often I am looking to establish a correct date), even though date is often of little less importance to title, depending on what you're looking for. But others may have different reasons for visiting, so there's no reason not to leave the arrows... more functionality seems better than less.

If I may take the opportunity to say: if it weren't for tolkienbooks.net, the U.S. Guide might have become a PDF document and stayed on my computer. It was the incredible amount of information on your site and how often I use it that convinced me it was worth the effort to put ut online at all (not that it's anywhere near as detailed, but adequate, perhaps, for the fewer and more readily available U.S. editions). I'm glad now that I did, for as big of a project as it was getting the U.S. Guide to where it is today, people seem to find it useful. It's still nothing compared to your contribution. Hat's off sir... you have inspired us all.

Thanks for your very kind words.
Mr Hammond's book was what started me off - I name check him on most pages, so I guess I might have sold a few extra copies for him!

The decisions on the naviation arrows have been made - or rather made for me because my PHP and SQL skills weren't up to it.

I ended up splittng the 'books by or with contributions' from 'letters, art and miscellanea' because the sections were becoming too large - 2000-Present would have been over 80 entries - which slows down load times, especially for dial-up users. YES there are still quite a few of them around!

Have recently finished upgrading the Hobbit section - all new images and extra information in each entry. Will be doing LotR next, or maybe Silmarillions.