Kagnew Page News
January 16, 2008
Hi everyone,
Another year is here, welcome to 2008!
As in the past few years, I can again report the Kagnew page hosting has been very stable with rare short server downtimes. My host has been very reliable, so it shows you do get what you pay for. Try to go cheap with web hosting, and usually you suffer. It is still possible you may see errors when accessing the guestbook or forums, or even the page itself. If you can't access the Kagnew web site and can still access other sites, it's likely there is a host problem so try again later. No service I know of can give you 100% uptime, but my host has been very close. I have a monitoring service that emails me when it is down so you won't need to. If you see a problem with one page while the rest of the site is working for you, please contact me immediately and I'll get it corrected as soon as possible. In the past many have helped out here and I need and appreciate the input.
The web site usage has increased dramatically from 469 megabytes of storage on the servers in 2006 to 1.458 gigabytes this year! That's 3 times the usage from 2006 and 15 times greater than the original kagnewstation.com account allowed. This does not count the databases that are used for the roster, maternity ward, forums and guestbook. That is growth! The total number of individual visits to the site for 2007 was 150,789 from 74 countries. That might not sound like a lot compared to some sites you hear about, but this site does have a limited audience.
Toward the end of last year I started looking at the Kagnew map again and trying to document the building photos people have already sent in. This year I'll try to categorize them and get the map page expanded. As always, I'll need everyone's help as Kagnew had many changes from the beginning to the end. Your input helps me identify the buildings and their use. After emails with Dave Handlin, a new aspect to this map will be personal recollections of your experiences with the buildings. I'm going to use Dave as a pilot for this part of the map. Hopefully that will add a special touch to having basic pictures. Last year, several people were discovering Google Earth and maps so you now see satellite pictures of Kagnew and Asmara on the Images page. As I find time I'd like to identify all the sites we worked at, which will require a lot of help from you. Watch for that page and if you can help identify some sites, I'll provide a way to send that in. One other thing, as the page has grown and new pages and links have been added, I think finding some information has gotten a little unwieldy. I'll try to come up with a new scheme to make finding specific information easier. I am not talking about a rework of the page but better organization. Also, I have always shied away from all the flash and bells and whistles you see with some web pages. The goal here has always been and will continue to be to make it easy to find what you want.
Recently, a huge cache of official 8x10 glossy pictures of Kagnew, Haile Selassie from the '65-'66 era and other pictures by a Kagnew photographer came up for sale on ebay. Ralph Reinhold, Chuck Moulton and I conspired to purchase this lot now knowing what to expect. As it was during the holidays and with family travel and commitments, we weren't sure how we would coordinate this bidding. In the end, Ralph came through, put up a maximum bid and the lot was purchased for over $800! Ralph and I are beginning the scanning process, first by scanning very high-resolution images for archiving, and second, smaller web-friendly images for the web site. Ralph will then be returning the images to ebay for sale, and possibly offering a DVD of these images for sale to recoup the expense of his purchase. I will post a notice on the web page when the scanning is completed if Ralph wants to make those available.
I passed my 10th anniversary year of doing the Kagnew page last summer and had doubts about how much longer I can keep doing this. I'll get one email in a hundred that can't do anything but complain, ask why I haven't responded to their email they sent two days ago and why I haven't done what they asked me to do. I take it to heart and just want to quit. With some gentle prodding from the other 99% of you out there I was convinced that I should continue.
On the sponsorship side, as always, a huge "Thank You" goes out to ALL the sponsors because I absolutely could not do this without them PERIOD! I'm locked into about $75.00 in monthly expenses to maintain the page, and as I purchased all of my hardware and software 5-plus years ago to work on the page, I am now working on upgrading my computer, so you can see how important everyone's support is. I have been holding off because of the move to Windows Vista, but my machine is getting so slow I'm going to have to do something soon. The downside is I'm afraid most of my software won't work on Vista so if anyone is a techie and has any experience with Vista, please email me with your suggestions. I'm sending out a "special thank you" to Jack Hill for his support and to John Sims (63-65, ASA, Ops. Co., C Trick) of Adamsville, AL for supplying me with a new scanner and printer (mine were 8 years old!). If you get a minute, send Jack and John an email and thank them for helping. This type of friendship in my book is priceless (thanks Jack and John). For anyone who would like to continue to help support the Kagnew page, you can check out the details below.
For those of you who visit the Kagnew page regularly, why don't you take a minute and send someone on the sponsor list an email and thank them. This growth truly would not be happening without them. Last year I started eliminating using email links on people's names as I update, instead using an encrypted type of link. This will take a long time to get to everything. If you don't see a link on a sponsor's name, just look them up in the roster and email them a thank you.
Thanks again to the sponsors for helping support the cost of doing this page. I get comments every day and "newguys" coming in all the time and that makes it worth it. Especially when I hear the stories of finding a lost friend of 30-40 years ago.
Here are the updated sponsorship details:
| up to $50 |
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| $51-$100 |
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| $101-$150 |
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| Super Sponsor $151-$200 |
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| Mega above $200 |
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Your personal email address on the Kagnew
Station server. That is, you can have any name you choose with a .com address,
such as yosemitesam@kagnewstation.com with 10megs
of disk space! And you can keep using it until I retire or the Kagnew Station
Home Page closes it's doors.Mailing address:
Rick Fortney
3704 Windshire
Dr.
Springfield, IL 62704-6718
If you have any questions about anything you've seen on this
page, or any questions at all about the Kagnew page, don't hesitate to at any time. I like hearing from all you, it never gets
old.
So until later, as always, thanks for all your
support,
Rick