This post was to have appeared a couple of weeks ago, but due to me suffering a flu type bug,hasnt got done until now.
Now Excite is no more (see last post), I've had an 'interesting' email from Tripod, who I have 2 free accounts with; they are now offering a 'banner free' option, which made me smell a rat. I clicked on the link (click here and to my surprise, they had knocked free hosting down to 20 megs and there was no mention of CGI, apart from in the paid for package. Also, the same has happened to Tripod's sibling, Angelfire. Hmmmmmm.
The other day, I downloaded the newest update of ZoneAlarm, the free firewall, and when I tried to FTP to my site, found I couldnt. So I trawled my way through Zonelabs' site till about 1.00 am in the morning and finally sussed what was wrong (I wont bore you with the details.) Then, I tried to upload to a Freeservers.com account and found out FTP had been disabled from free accounts. Hmmmmm.
I noticed, also, that Cityslide has stopped taking any more new members. Hmmmmm.
On a more positive note, however, whilst recouperating from the lurgy, I had a crack at Javascript and have almost finished a neat piece of code to draw out the directories on this site. I have done the first one for the free webspace directory, but havent put it online just yet cos I want to make a few adjustments. But it enables me to store all the sites in an array, sort them into alphabetical order and print them to the page using HTML tags to format it; so what normally would have needed much cutting and pasting of HTML to add or delete a site, now simply requires me to add or delete the details from the array!

Well, Xmas and new years eve have come and gone and I've almost finished the basic new look site which is far quicker to download.
After reading Web User magazine, I read that several companies that provided free web mail had either started charging for the service they provided or severely limited the current service to try and force people to upgrade at a cost (ie: Hotmail..tut tut Mr Gates, with all your riches, you could surely keep it completely free. If Yahoo can...). This follows on from th last edition, where they said that Excite in the UK have gone tits up and any email etc has to be moved from the server or its lost. Now, you might think that my doing this site is becoming more and more futile; but the fact remains, there is a whole load of free email and web space still out there. Just take a look at this site.. and theres more to be put up here as well!!. Thats what keeps my enhusiasm for this site going. Its the thrill of the chase! Till next time!

PS.This site is now hosted on UKLinux.net.. not completely free, but just a local rate call to upload..