Older News - April to June 1998



Tuesday, June 30

       I noticed that today's extremely small update is listed out of order by the new Recent Additions CGI script. We are currently trying to fix it. (Mike Newman)

Sunday, June 28

       The Recent Additions section on the front page is now automatically generated by a CGI script. Today's update is first use of the new script, and it enabled me to do the update in record time!! (Mike Newman)

Saturday, June 27

       A couple days ago, I found out that Final Fantasy 7 had finally come out for the PC! I rushed out to the mall and bought the last copy (out of 30) at a local software store. The game is truly amazing. It runs pretty well on my Pentium 233 computer with Matrox Millenium (4MB VRAM), 32MB of RAM, and 16x IDE CD-Rom. My computer doesn't have a 3d accelator, but the box says you don't need one if you have a P166 or better. For more info about FF7 for the PC, visit Eidos's site about its release. I was confused at first, but Eidos published the PC version, while Squaresoft is listed as the "developer". (Mike Newman)

Thursday, June 25

       I "accidently" deleted kungfu.mid and kungfu1.mid. Oops. I can't imagine why? It's only been renamed for a day and a half and it's only gotten over 2,000 hits. If kungfu2.mid gets linked/embedded like this, it's going to be removed, too. (If you really want this file, visit our IRC channel, and if I'm there, type !Powerlord kungfu.mid) (Powerlord)

Wednesday, June 24

       The Commodore 64 page has been converted over to the new format. (Mike Newman)

Tuesday, June 23

       According to the server statistics, one file gets accessed more than than the main background for all our webpages: kungfu.mid. Either it's really popular, or someone is linking to that file. If you know where this file is being linked from, please tell me. If this does not stop, we will be forced to use a cgi "opener" to open midi files for play.
On a related note, I used cgi to rename kungfu.mid. (Powerlord)

Sunday, June 21

       Many WebTV users and other people with slow connections have been complaining that the NES and SNES pages are too big. In response to this, I have changed the script on those two pages to show 3 buttons with a range of the alphabet to view at a time. Because A-Z will remain the default range of the alphabet that shows, my recommendation is to go to the normal page, wait until the buttons appear on the screen, and then hit escape (which halts most web browsers), and then click the alphabet range you wish to view. That way, you will save time. (Mike Newman)

Saturday, June 20

       I decided to switch the logo back to the "Mario-Megaman" version. I like this one better. It doesn't have as much wasted space in it. (Mike Newman)

Tuesday, June 16

       RPGStuff is leaving us and heading back to Simplenet. Apparently, they are going to go to a new server at the end of the month.

I added IP listings to the Message Board for security reasons.
I also formed a Dalnet IRC channel: #vgmusic. Other Videogame Music Site Admins, contact me if you are interested in forming one large channel for all our sites. (Powerlord)

Sunday, June 14

       Does anyone know of or have a program that can compare a local versus a remote FTP directory, and update one of the directories depending on any differences present? Please let me know. It would be a big help. (Mike Newman)

Thursday, June 11

       I finished the NES, Gameboy, and Nintendo 64 pages this afternoon, with more on the way. I also added a Telefragged Telenation Pulldown menu to the pages, as a courtesy to the other sites (they all have this type thing on their pages). All 6 pages I changed have forwarding pages and automatic counters for this page.

I used my new script to redo and move the Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation, and Super Nintendo pages today (and that's only by 3am here!). (Powerlord)

Wednesday, June 10

       I redid and moved the Sega Genesis page today. (Mike Newman)

Tuesday, June 09

       I redid and moved the Sega Master System page today. I also officially added the only file for Sega Master System that I could find in the new-files directory. And thanks to Powerlord's help, the number of midis is now counted in each directory. Through my own doings, the total number of midis for the turbo and master directories is now automatically updated on the front page's "Music Archive" section!! (Mike Newman)

Monday, June 08

       It dawned on me a couple days ago that the site just doesn't need a semi-automated CGI updating script, but more importantly a CGI script that automatically lists the files in a directory with info just like in the new-files directory. The first full example of this is the Turbo-Grafx 16 page. With this new system, files can be very quickly moved from the new-files directory to the corresponding archive directory. To show how great this is, I added all the Turbo-Grafx 16 songs that were sitting around in the new-files directory. It was a breeze! In a week or two, the entire site's archive pages should be converted over to this new format enabling us to add songs for all systems extremely fast! (Mike Newman)

Sunday, May 31

       The first VGMusic Newsletter was sent out today. We are looking for future article submissions. Please email me with any potential articles you would like to share with everyone on the mailing list. To see the first newsletter, check out the newsletter archive. (Mike Newman)

Tuesday, May 26

       RPGStuff has officially become hosted by us today when Amber posted the first page in RPGStuff's directory. Oddly enough, that page said that the site was being redesigned and would be completely up in 1 week.

RPGStuff will, as I understand it, host MP3 and midi's here, and digital music and other information at their Simplenet Site. (Powerlord)

Sunday, May 24

       VGMusic received its 200,000th official visitor today at around 11:00am EST!!! The site's first 100,000 visitors took 12 months (Dec 1996 to Nov 1997), but the next 100,000 visitors took about 6 months (Dec 1997 to May 1998). It will be interesting to see if the site reaches 300,000 within 3 months...

       I also put up another mailing list to serve as VGMusic's own weekly newsletter. Before we officially go forward with it, we are curious to see how many people are willing to subscribe to it. If you have a website to promote, see the sponsorship info in the description of the newsletter below its sign up box. (Mike Newman)

Saturday, May 23

       I just created a new mailing list to inform VGMusic fans about the site's online status and/or URL location. This way, no one will ever have trouble finding the site ever again. This is in no way saying we are against Telefragged. We love them, more than any other web hoster we have had before. But if you have been with this site since Enchanted Forest in Geocities (and I know there are quite a few of you) you know how unlucky I am with sticking around on the same server. (Mike Newman)

Wednesday, May 20

       Two new banners have been added to the Add Our Link page. I was bored, so I started playing around with images in Alchemy Mindworks' Gif Construction Set. (Powerlord)

Tuesday, May 19

       The newest site logo (I like to rotate these around a lot!) is made by Steve Sicherman. (Mike Newman)

Monday, May 18

       The unfriendly folks at Neurogamer have asked us to take down the Yoshi logo because they designed it. Geez. I thought it had too much empty space in it anyway. (Mike Newman)

Saturday, May 16

       I completed working on an idea come up with by Mike: standardizing all the pull-down menus and links at the bottom of the pages. These are now located in one place so that they can be changed on every page without hassle, but thanks to SSI, your browser sees them on every page. (Powerlord)

Tuesday, May 12

       I'm pretty sure now that all the midi files that were officially added into the archive before Neurogamer disappeared are now online! Thanks to many people for sending in the files that we were missing! (Mike Newman)

Sunday, May 10

       Yesterday the website had another record for hits in one day: 1,701. This smashes the old record of 1,576 that was set on April 18, 1998. (Mike Newman)

Friday, May 08

I think I've fixed all those pesky 404 Errors with the CGI scripts. It was caused by the same problem we had at Neurogamer: We can't use cgi-bin as a directory name. If you find any scripts that don't work, contact me. (Powerlord)

Thursday, May 07

       The VGMusic.com domain name is working again on most internet providers (it takes up to a week to go into effect in all areas). We are now hosted by Telefragged.com. Neurogamer doesn't appear to be coming back online anytime soon. But once it does, we will snag all the rest of the files (only a couple, mostly newly submittted songs) that we are still missing. In about a week or so, look for a mailing list that we will be compiling for you to join so that you know where the site is or what is going on in case of future "disappearances". (Mike Newman)

Monday, May 04

       The Soundcard Help Board is now up. Feel free to post any messages there until we retrieve the old message boards off of Neurogamer. (Powerlord)

Sunday, May 03

       The Upload and new-files scripts are up and running again. I'm not sure what exactly was keeping them from running, but uploading my master copies (changed to run from here) fixed the problems.

Note that the upload script takes about 1/2 to 1 minute, depending on the file size and number of tracks (because of the Midi TrackName Analyzer. Be patient! Also, the server admin installed LWP::Simple Perl module, allowing the Midi TrackName Analyzer to work again!

The Wishlist and Main Message Board will come back with all there messages once neurogamer comes back online. I'll set up a temporary message board sometime tomorrow. Most of the contents of the new-files directory is still on Neurogamer. We will collect these files and add them to the directory when Neurogamer comes back online.

We are running a new counter because our old counter files are still on Neurogamer. (Powerlord)

Saturday, May 02

       Neurogamer is taking too long to put their server back online, so we have decided to take advantage of the superior webhosting services of Telefragged.com. Please bear with us as we fix all our links and get all our files reuploaded. (Mike Newman)

Friday, April 24

       An index has finally been put up in the new-files directory. It is a CGI script, so it no longer requires updating when new files are uploaded.
To see if there are any new-files, simply reload the index. It also includes sort filters located at the bottom of each column (The Default is sort by Date Descending).

Oh, I am removing the Upload Log because it no longer has any use. (Powerlord)

Sunday, April 19

       Yesterday the website broke its hits/day record of 1,546 hits in one day for the first time in months with a new record of 1,576 hits in one day. The old record had been standing since January 24, 1998. I was starting to get worried the record would never be broken. (Mike Newman)

Saturday, April 18

       The Upload Script has been modified again, this time eliminating the "File to be saved on server" box. This is because I figured out how to use the filename of the file you select on your computer.
The Upload Log has a new look. This new look may carry over to other areas of the site, but we are not certain of this yet.
I updated the pulldown menus. They were way out of date.

Oh, I almost forgot, Mike added the Voting Booth for the logos yesterday. Vote for your favorite VGMA logo! (Powerlord/Ross Bemrose)

Saturday, April 4 - Thursday, April 16

       The bad news: the site was down for a week and a half and we weren't given any prior warning. The good news: during that time span the Neurogamer network, on which this site is hosted, was upgraded from a T1 to dual-T3 bandwidth. (Mike Newman)

Wednesday, April 1 -

       The April Fools index was put up. If you missed it while it was up, I have renamed it april1.htm. I've moved some of the news from the past two weeks to the older news page. (Ross Bemrose)



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