|
Almost every day we are adding new items. In order to help you find the newest additions we have added this page. Here we will try to log changes and additions by date as we make them. There will always be daily changes in the Virtual Hammer-In and the Guru page. Last year we launched the following new features:
What's New archive I (12/98) What's New archive II (6/99) What's New archive III (12/99) Last Summer we reported: "anvilfire! had 5,500 hits to the main page in May (a slow month). That's some 12,650 hits in aggregate . . ." At the close of 1999: Our aggregate hits were up to an average of 21,350 per month with a peak of 25,000 in November. Total traffic doubling every six months. We are archiving over 200Kb of Q&A from the guru page every month. We now archive it every 10 days. The Slack-Tub Pub logs must be cleared every 24-36 hours. Sales traffic is picking up on the V.Hammer-In. There were 33 iForge demos, 31 posted at year end. January 3, 2000 @ 191,000 / 12,955 Archived this page. Made progress on JYH page (not posted) January 4, 2000 @ 191,100 Archived the guru page. January 6, 2000 @ 192,700 Corrected the link to the above archived guru page. :o( Been busy setting up ABANA-Chapter pages and debugging the system. 8 Chapters are already taking over their pages. 3 that wern't listed as having pages have been corrected. Things are going better than we hoped! January 11, 2000 @ 195,442 Posted another link in the NEWS Father Helias Forge, Francis Whitaker Gone Home, by Jim McCarty. Kiwi got the last two iForge demo's posted. We are still working on the ABANA-Chapter pages. Most of the bugs on the server end are fixed and we are adding support for chapter webmasters. Posted the BORAX info on the 21st Century page. January 20, 2000 @ 201,000 Today, added two new links to the list, PROJECTS and PLANS and RUBY FAIRE. We have also been working on the ABANA 2000 JYH Event page and helping the NEW ABANA-Chapter.com Webmasters. Also listed HABA The Houston Area Blacksmiths Association on the ABANA-Chapter page. These guys are independents but operate like an member chapter. Also archived the guru page and posted both the first and second 10 days of January 2000 (244 Kb for 20 days). January 26, 2000 @ 204,150 / 13,660 HAPPY BIRTHDAY PATRICK and MOLLY! BIG Changes at anvilfire! We are now part of the Flycast Network. That means lots of NEW banner ads for all types of things. The new banners are bigger than our old ones so we will be redesiging many of our pages. There is lots of new Java-Script behind the ads so there is a lot more to go wrong. . . . Please notify us of problems. We already know about the one for OUR ad (below). The one on the top banner has a broken Java reference (not sure why). PLEASE visit our sponsors sites! Click throughs pay the bills! ALL Of our regular blacksmith and metalworking advertisers will be given priority as this IS a metalworking site. The new ads have a "filter" on them and are not supposed to serve Adult, Suggestive, Tobacco or Viagra ads. Its not that I am against some of these things but a LOT of children access anvilfire and our intend is to keep it educational AND PG. The new banners are the standard 468x60 pixels. @ 1250 We also placed a prominent link to the ABANA 2000 JYH Event page on our Home page. The JYH page is NOT ready but it is coming along.. . . 167 Days to go. . .
January 28, 2000 @ 205,700 Anvilfire's home page has been redesigned for the new banners and they are up and running. Links to and from the Whats New archives were repaired. . . I'm surprized how many times they are looked at! The ABANA 2000 JYH Event page has had the banner bar refitted for the new banners and we are testing that page also. Change, change change. . . February 1, 2000 @ 211,500* January was our busiest month EVER!
*Corrected by addition of guru page, 3.4k. Also removed earlier 40k correction from home page count as site counter is now more closely reflecting total traffic. February 2, 2000 @ 212,100 - WE Launched the NEW Guru Page! The Guru's Den page has been redesigned for the new banners PLUS the forum format itself has changed. We have dispensed with the gaudy colored INK and replaced it with color signiture bars. The new style is designed to add readability and to bring the forum "up to date". A side menu has been added with a "site map" replacing the previously hidden navigation bar on the input form. Most of these changes are based on custom cgi and Java programming in order to provide you with the best possible web environment. Due to the completly new format of the Guru page we archived the third part of January a little late. The archives still display the same as before. The new banners are "pay per click". Help support anvilfire by checking those ads! We need every user to "click through" once per access! February 4, 2000 @ 215,100 Upgraded the banners on the Slack-Tub Pub. Been debugging all the changes . . . February 8, 2000 @ 217,300 Added TWO more hammers to the JYH catalog of user built hammers. The First French JYH! and an AIR-FAB hammer by Phil Rosche. Also added a link to Larry Zoeller's new Zoeller Forge II to Emile's links and added the French la Guilde des Couteliers Forgerons (Guild of Blade Smiths). February 11, 2000 @ 219,500 Archived the first 10 days of the NEW guru page. Also repaired a few links in past archives. Moving them to the archive directory messed up the links. February 12, 2000 @ 220,122 Updated our review of Anvils in America by Richard Postman. The book is now in its second printing and it now comes with a beautiful color slipcover! More later. . February 13, 2000 @ 220,825 Posted the first installment of the "Guru's Sketchbook" on the ABANA 2000 JYH Event Page. Includes the "Spring Helve" drawing I promised and gravity fall calculations. February 14, 2000 @ 221,800 Posted a new Beaudry page on the Power hammer Page. Also added NC-TOOL forges to Bruce's Wallace Metal Works page. February 15, 2000 @ 222,500 Posted a second Beaudry page with manufacturers setup instructions. Added the brass name plate from a scrapped hammer to both pages. February 16, 2000 @ 223,450 Updated the "THE GURUS" page adding BILL EPPS to the color guard. Also added mini-bios and e-mail to same. Dissabled auto-refresh on the Guru page log. It was causing more problems than it was worth. February 17, 2000 @ 224,356 11:00 pm EST - Trying something new. Have an eBay sale linked to Bruce Wallace's page and to the new Beaudry page. February 19, 2000 @ 225,000 Posted NEW address for BLACKSMITH ASSOCIATION of MISSOURI (BAM) http://www.bamsite.advertisnet.com/home.htm on ABANA-Chapter.com. Please note that this LOOKS the same as the old address but some things have been swapped around. If you have a link to BAM please update your links or link direct to ABANA-Chapter.com where we keep on top of this things for you. February 20, 2000 @ 225,900 Have taken over maintaining the Steelworkers Webring. If you are on it you need to update your links. If you'd like to BE on it then we will process your request ASAP. This is a ring primarily for welders and fabricators. Added a link to a Coal History page to Emile's Links. Looking for all the coal links Ntech sent me. Must be on the other PC. . . February 21, 2000 @ 226,665 Archived the guru page with over 192k for 10 days. Will have to go to weekly archives is this trend continues. Changed background color on this page to off-white as its a little easier on the eyes. February 23, 2000 @ 228,150 Added another COAL DATA link on the anvilfire links page and both to the new coal catagory on Emile's links. Added Minitawa's Forge page to Emile's links. Edited the original Emile's links forwarding page. Bill Epps demoed how he makes a fullering tool. February 24, 2000 @ 229,347 Added another page of images to the Beaudry power hammer page. February 25-26, 2000 Spent two days scanning images and editing two articles by Bruce Blackistone. Will post ASAP. February 27, 2000 @ 231,196 Posted a link to neotribalmetalsmiths.com. Mainstream or fringe? March 1, 2000 @ 233,140 Archived third part of February with 160Kb. Another record month on all indicators.
NEW! All (7) of the long awaited iForge: demos have been posted! March 4 - 6, 2000 @ 237,420 Been working hard on an all new News! Its being redesigned and upgraded like our other pages. Posted numerous changes: Louisiana's LAMA web address changed and has been reposted on ABANA-Chapter.com and on the anvilfire LINKS page. The Texas TABA site lost its host and webmaster and is now going to be on ABANA-Chapter.com. New Jersy's NJBA is also getting ready to post a new site on ABANA-Chapter. We posted a link to our multi-lingual TheForge info on ABANA-Chapter.com AND last but not least, we finally archived the Virtual Hammer-In March 7, 2000 @ 238,262 Performed as much maintenance as could be done on The Blacksmith's Ring as could be done without the cooperation of yahoo/webring. Ten sites were added and numerous others were contacted about replacing their code so they could be addmitted. We also edited the ring's ersatz home page inviting folks to join the ring. We put ABANA-Chapter.com and the AFC on the ring. This took all day so the new edition of the news still waits. . . March 8, 2000 @ 239,400 / 15,400 We welcome www.mirarca.com The Blacksmith's Ring! We have now added 13 sites to the Blacksmith's Ring! Six more have been invited to try again! We have also edited the review for Anvils in America adding a link to the sales page and NEW images from the second printing. 
Can now be ordered on-line - Click HERE! March 9, 2000 @ 240,050 Archived the guru page. We are now on a 7 day archive schedule. March 10, 2000 @ 240,500 Reduced above banner file size. Posted the new edition of the NEWS which is still in progress. Hope to have the photo content posted this weekend. March 12, 2000 @ 241,500 Posted all but the last pages of the new edition of the news. Posted news about our last CVBG meeting rather than going to this one :( Wrote up our adopt-a-page policy for the news. . not happy with the way its written. This edition of the news has information about Spring Fling and the Batson Blade Symposium. Added a link to the Blacksmith's Ring on all the ABANA-Chapter.com site sample link pages. Wrote more letters to Blacksmith Ring Members and helped straighten out a few more sites on the ring. March 13, 2000 @ 242,650 Added West Virgina and Wyoming to our order forms (they came that way. . .). Posted pictures of Nazel-2B air hammers on the Power hammer Page and updated sales notes. Added a link to endangeredspeciesart.com and www.forgemaster.com on Emile's Links. Located the former Blacksmith's Ring, Ringmaster. Maybe we have a chance of straightening things out. March 14, 2000 @ 243,329 Posted the last planned pages of the news and added a 13th for the John Elder Gallery press release. Also added a link to the The Dorset School of Blacksmithing under International on the news. All that is left to do is post Amit Passi's Gallery and write a note about all the technical changes on the News page. March 15, 2000 @ 244,050 Posted NEW Nazel 7B Photos and another great Nazel illustration on the Nazel pages. SOLD the Nazel-2B before we got a chance list it on ebay! Did the iForge demo last night on a Peter Ross scroll we saw demonstrated in Colonial Williamsburg. March 16, 2000 @ 244,520 Posted changes on page 2 of the NEWS. Gave credit to all the Williamsburg smiths and to MASA for putting on the event. Also made another weekly archive of the guru page. IF you think that the above record looks like we do a lot on anvilfire!, this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg! Every day we answer questions on the guru page AND in the mail. We constantly update links on our pages and several others. We are constantly tweeking the programming trying to make anvilfire better. We also maintain two web rings (Steelworkers and Blacksmiths) and edit the blacksmithing catagory on DMOZ. March 20, 2000 @ 247,920 As of March 18th, your guru is also the Ringmaster for The Blacksmith's Ring. We revised the ring's home page, made it the OFFICIAL! home, posted rules and have setup a Friends of The Blacksmith's Ring. Last night we sent mail to the 60 members of the ring and the 20 in the queue announcing the changes. We have also posted a new NC-TOOL Forge catalog for Wallace Metal Works. We will soon have an on-line order form for the catalog. March 24, 2000 @ 250,500! Posted the second half of the NC-TOOL Catalog. Archived the third week guru page. Continue to work with our webring sites. Added The Valentine Armoury, American Farriers Journal and Joel Becker's Anvil Page (French) to Emile's Links and other places. Our AD in ABANA's The Anvil's Ring came out Wednesday a week ago but we have not seen our copy. . . March 26, 2000 @ 251,800 Updated the NEWS. Corrected some names. Had Michael Walker's name wrong and missidentified Tom Boone's sister as his wife. Added more info about Spring Fling. They are asking about signed (stamped pieces) to enter in the Iron in the Hat. Added a link to Crafts Report On-line Fixed the margins problem in the hammer-in. The problem had me going for a while. Posts including links with embedded control codes were the culprit. March 29, 2000 @ 253,500 Posted an ALL NEW Blacksmiths Ring home page. March 30, 2000 @ 254,840 Posted River Bluff Forge Council's Smithing on the River VII info on page 8 of the Spring NEWS. |
