en
news & updates 2001
les nouvelles du site 2001
This page contains news of notable updates and changes to the site as they occurred in
2001.
Cette page contient les nouvelles et les changements majeurs sur ce site comme ils se
produisaient pendant 2001.
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2001-12-20 Merry Xmas and a happy New Year from Renault 4-Play! Unfortunately, I have been stung with some news from Angelfire - the provider of the webspace this site resides on - that is not a very nice Christmas present. A special page on this has been added. It includes some important information, which I shall summarize: Recent developments with Angelfire will mean Renault 4-Play will be moving to a new webspace provider in the new year. If you currently have this page bookmarked as - or enter it by typing directly - the address http://play.at/renault4play then you will hopefully be automatically redirected to the new site when necessary. However, if you have reached this site on its long address (which includes the word 'angelfire'), you will need to bookmark or make a note of the main address shown above to continue accessing Renault 4-Play. Update 2003-03-22: Ignore that remark. Unfortunately, neither address will now function, since the company that provided the redirect URL has gone bust! The main address of this site is now http://www.renault4.plus.com/. Further notices will be added to the home page as the process happens, so don't panic just yet (providing that I don't experience further problems uploading pages to here in the meantime). Fear not that this website, wherever it is hosted, will continue to grow and become bigger and better during 2002. There will be few updates to these pages over the Christmas period whilst I am away, so please excuse any problems with advert forms or guestbook entries not reaching me, and with any other issues such as extra pop-up advertisements that you may experience. These are all issues with Angelfire, and normal service will hopefully be resumed in the new year when I can start sorting them out. |
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2001-12-08 Just a small update this time. There's not been too many additions to the site of late, due to some other events diverting my attention. Slight changes to the Gift Shop offers: I understand the discounted shipping rates and free plush toy offer now all end on 17th December; the special edition products will all expire around the end of the year. Problems continue with the form mailing service. Adverts and guestbook entries appear to be heavily delayed in reaching me, if at all. Please email me if you experience problems. Finally, some more photos on the People's Pics page. |
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2001-12-03 Get down to the Gift Shop! Limited edition 40th anniversary t-shirt and mug, and special R4 teddy bear all only available until the end of the year, along with discounted international shipping charges. Hurry along now before it's too late. New poll in Vote 4 It! What is the best way to dispose of an R4? In the previous poll, you imagined Beavis And Butthead as the most likely culprits to be driving a Renault 4. Not sure what that says about you the visitors. Interesting though, that nobody voted for Bryan Ferry, as I know for sure from comments by him on a website that he used to travel in one back in the '70s during his early gigging days. Another two milestones for this website have now been reached: 10,000 unique hits have registered on the counter, and 100 entries have been added to the guestbook, making for the easy calculation that 1 in every 100 visitors bothers to sign the guestbook; you lazy gits! Unfortunately though, as described below, this may be in part due to another form mailing problem. Finally for now, there's more new pictures in the Gallery and on the 4-play Babes page in the Playroom. Update 2010-11-20: The old Babes page has now been renamed 'Top Models'. |
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2001-12-01 It appears there may be another problem with the form mailing services on this site. As a result, classified adverts, guestbook entries and site surveys may either be reaching me late or not at all. This is a problem with my webhost and is currently under investigation. Unfortunately, this problem occurred last year and continued for several months, as you can read on last year's history page, meaning the whole Classified and Guestbook sections became practically redundant. I shall see if I can find an alternative form mailing service this time, as it's clearly not acceptable. Please email me if you suspect your form never reached me. |
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2001-11-17 Great news at the Gift Shop! Special discounted international shipping rates until the end of the year! Also on offer is a very cute special edition R4 teddy bear. Please order early in time for Christmas. And that's not all. A free plush toy is available on orders made before 2nd December! |
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2001-11-01 I've been overloaded recently with pictures to upload to the site, they've been coming from everywhere. My brother just added to the total by sending some more from the event in Arnhem, which will appear soon. One of them was of the Yellow Submarine, which is rather handy. Please continue to send stuff in, however, it just means there might be a delay in publishing it. Also, visitor numbers are at their highest ever. Eighteen months from launch, up to 300 people per week are now viewing these pages, with the total unique hits fast approaching 10,000. Have you thought about reaching this audience of R4 enthusiasts with a free advert in my Classifieds section? |
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2001-10-22 I have just received my first two products from the Gift Shop, and am very impressed with the results. They took only a couple of weeks to arrive in the UK, and rather unexpectedly I had to pay nothing for customs duties. I bought a 40th anniversary t-shirt and mug (the two limited edition products), and was particularly pleased with the mug which is not only large but very professionally finished. I can now personally recommend these gifts to anybody. Christmas is coming.... |
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2001-10-19 There's been several changes to the colour schemes around the site, most noticeably the Classifieds, which should now make advertiser email addresses easier to read. The 40th anniversary Arnhem report is still growing, and has all sorts of weird and wonderful new pictures, including an R4 camper van and a 'Renault 4½'; there's plenty more good ones to come. The car parts affiliate advertising has gone for good as I never made a penny out of it, and I'm starting to worry about using up all my webspace so soon. By the time I finish all these 40th anniversary pics I'll have used about 40MB of 50MB available, and I still have a very big video and many more photos and other features to implement. I cannot really consider finding a new host for now as Angelfire provide various special features that this site relies on. So, some cuts are going to have to come somewhere. When I get running with a new, unmetered ISP, I'll see if I can complete a massive upheaval of all the photos and try and compress them a little more without losing much in the way of quality. This should take me about 6 years.... |
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2001-10-11 Babe alert! Babe alert! Yes, at long last there is a beautiful new addition to the 4-play Babes in the Playroom. See also the Star Car page in the Gallery for something rather special. I've still only uploaded about half of the enormous bundle of photos from the 40th anniversary in Arnhem, so keep checking for more each day. Update 2010-11-20: The old Babes page has now been renamed 'Top Models'. |
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2001-10-01 You may note that this History section has had a makeover, with the new contents table tidying things up a bit. More photos are being added day by day to the 40th anniversary Arnhem report. New Gallery pics, and your old favourite, the star signs, are once again updated for the autumn. |
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2001-09-26 The World Cup Rally begins at the end of September, and two British drivers are competing in a Renault 4GTL against dozens of other vehicles, old and new. It is the first such rally to be held since 1974, and aims to recreate the classic rallies of old, focusing on standard hatchbacks rather than racing cars or specially adapted vehicles. The rally begins in London, and involves a round trip across Europe to Morocco and back. The two drivers, James Sims Williams and Tristan Connell, purchased the R4 this year for a pittance, and have been working hard on preparing it for the thousands of miles of driving they'll be doing throughout October. There has been increasing media attention, including articles in the Daily Telegraph. They stand a good chance in their R4 compared to many of the other cars, due to the high ground clearance and excellent suspension, which will be essential on some of the desert roads, plus of course the R4's renowned reliability. It isn't short on pace either, as I rather stupidly discovered recently when I conquered my previous record, reaching 97mph and orbiting Mars before applying the brakes. I hope to add further details of their experiences to Renault 4-Play when they return. If they pull it off and win, or even finish in a good place, it will be a tribute to the Renault 4, particularly in this, its fortieth year. The R4 has had further attention recently, now starring in a Super Noodles advert on UK television. Let's just hope it doesn't become too popular and some git comes along and designs some horrible new version, in the same style as the ugly new Beetles and Minis. We like being a niche, us 4 owners. I actually spotted an R4 this week in Manchester, a very rare occurrence. A red, A-reg GTL; if you own it, drop us an email. |
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2001-09-23 A full report on the Arnhem event can now be found in the 40 Years section. Photos will follow over coming days / weeks. New poll in Vote 4 It! Which person can you most imagine driving a Renault 4? Brigitte Bardot? Bob Geldof? The Spice Girls? Or one of the other choices? See the Articles section. In the last poll you decided that the colour red best suited the R4, although it was closely followed by both blue and white. Interesting, as these are the three most common colours for a car. If you ever look at aerial shots of car parks, those three colours stand out above any other. One might have expected R4 owners to go for more fetching oranges or purples, but not so. I can't really deny though that a good red R4 is a sight to behold, as was my first car when it was in good condition. |
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2001-09-21 Well, I'm finally back home following the 40th anniversary R4 event in Arnhem. What made it even more special was that it was the jubilee event of the Dutch R4 Club, so it was quite an occasion. As I stopped off in Sussex both before and after, my car did a round trip of over 1,200 miles, and unfortunately acquired a damaged near-side drive shaft on returning from Holland. However, the bill for replacement (parts and fitting) was only £82, which was nowhere near as bad as I thought it might be, and the part was available within 24 hours. My sister, on the other hand, is a jammy git as the R4 she recently acquired for free - courtesy of me and this site - and which cost her only £120 on the MOT, sailed there and back without a hitch. Credit must go to Ronnie Peters and the organisers of the Dutch event, as there must have been a lot of hard work involved in arranging it all. It was definitely worth the journey and the cost, and I only hope there'll be more big gatherings in the future. Having only seen about twenty Renault 4s in Britain in recent years, it was quite staggering to be on a campsite surrounded by 150 or so. If you were there, you should find a photo of your car on this site in coming weeks, as I took about 150 pictures. I originally intended to photograph every one, but soon gave up on that idea as it spoilt the enjoyment of being there. There's bound to be a few which I didn't get pictured, so if you want to send your own photos or any other info, please do. In particular, if anybody has pictures of the 'yellow submarine' R4 I would be grateful for them, as despite taking some shots of it, I don't now seem to have any after developing. I arrived home as usual to a torrent of post and emails, and have a huge amount of things to upload to this site, so please keep checking back over coming weeks as I get it all sorted out. I even have some video footage that I hope to edit at a later date. Note that the Classifieds, Guestbook, etc. are all fully functional again. |
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2001-09-05 It's here at last. The 40th anniversary celebration of the R4 in Arnhem, Holland is about to begin. I'll be attending the event from the 7th to 9th September with my brother and sister, and I will include pictures and articles from the event on this site when I return home, which won't be until around the 17th September. In fact, I'm planning to try and get a picture of every single car there, but that will doubtless depend on how inebriated I am. In the meantime, any other updates such as the Classifieds and Guestbook will have to wait, but you can still send them in. Anybody at the 40th event will recognise my car a mile off as it glows like a radioactive blueberry. I've just finished spraying all the trim parts (i.e. bumpers, door handles, side panels, grille and air inlet) in bright yellow (or illuminous tunnel paint yellow). Add that to the mainly blue paintwork, which has splodges of red all over where I've been touching up the rust, and the turquoise back door, and you have some kind of toytown car, but I rather like it that way. There are updates to the pets@play page in the Playroom and the My Pics page in the Gallery, along with the wonderful September calendar image on the Four Files page. Many more photos of the paintwork done on my car will appear on the Technique page at a later date. Hope to see some of you in Holland! |
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2001-08-03 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE R4! 40 YEARS OLD TODAY! Yes indeed, it was on this day in 1961 that production of this incredible car began at the Ile Seguin in Billancourt, Paris. Could it ever have been predicted that the car would sell over eight million models around the world, and stay in production with virtually the same design for thirty-one years? Why did they ever stop? Today, R4s from all over are converging at its birthplace for a celebration. Probably the biggest event is yet to come, when R4 owners meet in Arnhem, Holland next month. This is an event that I still intend to be at, along with my sister and her new R4. It's not too late to book your place. See the 40 Years page on this site for details. Today is a double celebration for this site, as I launch my new gift shop, something I've planned since the beginning but been unable to implement until now. Full information can be found in the Gift Shop section, and you should now realise at long last what happened to the yellow. This was the 'missing colour' from this site, originally used for this History page until it was integrated into the Home section. Many items are available to buy, and a special edition 40th anniversary mug and t-shirt have been designed, which will only be available for a limited period. Finally, there's a new Star Car in the Gallery. Unfortunately, since typing this last night, I found that my website address was not functioning, on today of all days, and access to this site could only be made using the long URL which few people know. This problem lasted around twelve hours and was due to an upgrade being performed by the company (rename.net) who provide my redirect address. This was very irritating as no prior notice was given. Clearly, there could have been no worse day for this to have happened, and I can only conclude that they are bunch of amateurs who don't deserve your service nor mine. Update 2003-03-22: The company has gone bust, what a surprise! |
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2001-07-29 The beady-eyed amongst you might notice there is a new Gift Shop section about to be launched. I hope to have this up and running within the next week. Items ranging from t-shirts to hats, bags, mugs and even boxer shorts will be available, with limited edition 40th anniversary merchandise included. There's various new pictures dotted around, including some in the Articles section of the factory in Billancourt where production of the Renault 4 started forty years ago. The Classifieds section has undergone a slight change too. If anybody is attending the 40th anniversary gathering at Billancourt, France on 3rd August, I would be grateful for any news or pictures from the event. Update 2010-02-11: Should be pretty obvious, but the English language Gift Shop section has now been renamed the Boutique, in line with the French version. |
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2001-07-20 The desktop theme has arrived! At long last, you can now customize your computer with a collection of Renault 4-related paraphernalia. See the Four Files page in the Gallery. Only a year or so later than scheduled; I must get up earlier in the afternoon. |
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2001-07-04 New summer star signs in the Playroom. After considerable effort sat here late one night in the sweltering humidity of the current British climate, I forced myself to write another load of twaddle for your enjoyment. Various minor updates have been made recently, and keep an eye on the People's Pics later on today for a wonderful new addition - you'll be green with envy! |
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2001-06-20 The Rants page has been reorganised to match the structure of other parts of the site. There's a few new articles to browse in there. More pictures added around the Gallery, with several others waiting to be uploaded. I've finally settled with a new Internet Service Provider and have 24-hour unmetered access, so it's easier to spend time online without worrying about my huge phone bill. That doesn't mean I'm connected 24 hours a day, I just can be if I want to. Hopefully, I can spend more time researching things for the site and attending to the countless exterior functions that are associated with the site and which make it all work. Then again, perhaps I'll just emigrate to Upper Volta for a laugh. |
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2001-06-03 More news on the 40th anniversary event in Paris; see the 40 Years page. You need to book before 14th June so be quick. You can now vote for my site in the Top 50 Renault Sites, just click the banner near the bottom of the home page. I am very grateful to the owner of the 'Renault in the Sixties' site who has kindly agreed to host my banner in order for me to make use of this service. |
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2001-05-31 New poll in Vote 4 It! Which colour best suits the R4? See the Articles section for more. In the previous poll, you chose the Renault 4 - quite remarkably - as your favourite classic car, easily outscoring the 2CV, Beetle, Mini and Morris Minor. I wonder what the results would be if the same poll was posted on the Morris Minor club site? The June calendar image is now available on the Four Files page, and the Guestbook is updated with some far flung entries. |
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2001-05-30 I've just returned from a twelve-day break pet-sitting in Hove. My R4 posed no problems on the 500-mile round trip, although I did have to get a new back box and two new rear tyres before setting off. So anyway, I've updated the Classifieds at long last with about twelve changes. I returned home once again to a Ben Nevis of emails and other post to wade through, and have only just finished all my replies a day later. For some reason, every time I go away and post messages on this site to say that adverts and stuff will not be updated for a while, everybody decides to flood me with emails. R4 owners.... don't you just love 'em....? |
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2001-05-08 The 'Boring Homepage' has been updated. When I first launched this site, I put it there as a sort of joke, and to answer back any tedious critics who moaned about the psychedelic coloured backgrounds, but despite it having the luxury of a link from the main home page, it was pretty pointless. Although I've not had any complaints, I guess some people might have an epileptic problem from viewing all my hippie colour schemes, so the boring page now contains a complete index for all the main pages of the site in a toned-down style. Basically, it's just the same contents table from the Index section, but it allows you to find things without suffering so many visits to the opticians. I've recently discovered a site that offers a service I've been searching for, which will be an interesting addition to this site. Won't say too much about it now, but hopefully you might soon find some greetings in the Playroom. As for that desktop theme, I've been doing little bits and pieces but have had problems finding the right software to create some of the bits I want. So it could still be a while yet in coming. But who really cares? |
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2001-04-23 Happy Birthday to Renault 4-Play - one year old today! Cheers to everybody who has contributed to make the site what it is: the biggest Renault 4 site in the world! Good points: - The number of visitors is approaching 5,000, which was my initial yearly target, and has increased to up to 150 per week. The site is bigger than all my expectations after such a short time, and I've had an enormous amount of interest. I've managed to implement most of the things I'd intended to, with barely any reports of bugs or problems. I also would never have got hold of my new R4 had I not started this website, as it was the early advertising that prompted the previous owner to contact me. I hope this deserving car now truly has a home on the Internet to suit its character, and for fans from around the world to enjoy and make use of. Bad points: - Listing on search engines has been a pain. Unfortunately, there is a common move towards a two-tier system these days, whereby you pay for a good listing. Aside from Yahoo / Google, and more recently AltaVista, other major search engines have been poor in recognising this site. Thanks to everyone who has listed me elsewhere, although there's one or two notable exceptions who have decided to totally ignore me from the start, for no apparent reason. I was tremendously disappointed recently to discover that another website has stolen my screen saver amongst other files, rehashed and utterly ruined it for their own needs, and removed all reference to this site or my hard work in creating it. If they had completely reworked it and simply made use of the program, that would be acceptable, but instead they kept some of the images and logos which are specifically relevant to this site, edited others callously, and cheaply knocked up a poor version of it to advertise their own site. I set out last year to design a site that was original in almost every respect, as I was fed up of seeing the same tired ideas elsewhere. I designed all my own graphics and didn't borrow other people's ideas, and parts such as the world maps are totally unique, but there's always some lazy people who come along and steal things because they can't be bothered making the effort themselves. Shameful. Finally, a few more updates: You can now fill in my Site Survey to help me improve things in the future; see the Contact Me section. I've had another stack of photos sent in, all to be found around the Gallery, tonnes of adverts and much more, and I promise the desktop theme will appear eventually, but it keeps taking second place on my list of priorities. Enough said for now, here's to the next year...! Update 2010-02-05: The site survey has now been withdrawn. Just send me an email instead. |
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2001-04-07 New debate in Vote 4 It! Choose your favourite car from a selection of all-time classics. In the last poll, you decided the Renault 4 was more of a man's car than any other creature's. Read about the exploits of two Portuguese World Rally drivers on the Your Articles page (number YA6). The spring star signs are now uploaded; a classic example of how bored and warped I can be. Over 4,000 visitors have now been clocked on this site, and I've not been going a full year yet! Help keep the site buzzing by sending more of your material in! |
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2001-03-22 Many new additions and updates have been made to the site, it's been non-stop the last couple of weeks. The Articles section now contains a new page called 'Technique', which focuses on repairs, tips and advice, specifications and technical info. This has always been one area missing from the site, because as you may know, I'm not particularly clever with all that, and I wanted to focus more on the entertaining things in getting this site up and running. But I've now collected some bits and bobs together and launched the page, so I'll be grateful for any further contributions that you can add. At long last I've now got a few more pictures of my second R4, which you can find on the My Pics page (number MP9) in the Gallery. My latest film, as mentioned below, did thankfully come out this time, although judging by some of the results, the camera appears to have a crooked lens since many photos came out unexpectedly lop-sided, and I'm not getting old and shaky (well, I am a bit). Not only that, but the film was rubbish quality, so my pictures of the car by the beach at dusk look like they were taken on the dark side of the moon, and to top it all off, the developing wasn't great so they were badly cut around the edges, which always annoys me because you carefully line up a shot knowing exactly what you've got in view, only to find they just callously chop them at the sides and spoil your efforts. Look at the negatives and you can see how it should have been. I've still yet to find a single developer that doesn't do this. Hoorah for digital cameras I say, but I can't afford one yet. Anyway, there's plenty of other pictures recently sent in to be found around the Gallery. I've decided to scrap the Blind Date idea in the Playroom, at least for the time being, and concentrate on other areas. There's a tonne of structural changes and other minor modifications with more to come, but you won't really notice any of them. It makes me happy though, as I'm a bit of a sad perfectionist, and it standardizes the format of the site. Finally, there's a new link on the 40 Years page to a site where you can book your place an the anniversary event at Arnhem in September. |
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2001-03-13 Following the horror of my lost camera film containing many wonderful photos that would have made it onto this site (see the Rants page), I have had to start all over again. But during my trip down south in the last couple of weeks, I did manage some consolation in snapping a few Mystery Cars around Brighton which, providing my film latched on this time, will appear in due course. I returned to find a huge mountain of emails (let alone post through my door), which was somewhat unexpected, and it seems everybody wanted to send stuff to this site whilst I was away. I've been wading through it all the last couple of days and added various bits, with more to come. There's a new Star Car, more pictures in the Gallery.... oh God, hang on, there's another crappy ad for the Ford Focus on the telly. All Ford's adverts have been atrociously ostentatious of late.... anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, the Links, Classifieds and Guestbook have been updated, and I'll hopefully be launching another new section soon. |
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2001-02-23 Birthday warning! This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Renault 4, and various events are planned to celebrate. I have created a new section especially for this. Just click the '40 years' link in the top frame. As yet, details are still a bit sketchy, so if you know any more about any of the events please email me and I'll add the info to this site. Update 2010-02-26: The 40th anniversary pages are now housed within a new 'events' section. |
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2001-02-17 New debate in Vote 4 It! Is the Renault 4 more of a woman's or a man's car? Cast your vote now in the Articles section. In the previous poll, you decided Renault should continue to manufacture the R4, but with modifications. I have had further problems with my ISP recently and my mail is frequently delayed. There is also a possibility of emails being lost. If you have sent anything to which you would have expected a reply and haven't had one, or you have submitted an advert or guestbook entry that has not been added within a couple of days, please send the details again. This situation will eventually be rectified when I find a more reliable ISP, but that may still be some weeks away. |
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2001-02-08 Firstly, as you'll notice, the home page has had a slight transformation. This is the biggest change to the home page since the site started, and it completes a series of updates designed to make pages display better for people using a resolution of 640x480. It's also more spangly and generally tidier. Let me know what you think. Secondly, I've received the first pictures of 2001, at long last, from Fernando Palma once again. See the Peoples Pics (number PP23) and Mystery Cars (MC7 to MC10) pages in the Gallery. |
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2001-01-28 The pets@play page in the Playroom is now open; indulge. Don't forget to download the new calendar image; the February picture is now available on the Four Files page. Links and Classifieds updated. |
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2001-01-16 An add-on image pack for the screen saver can now be downloaded from the Four Files page in the Gallery. Fifteen of the best from the year 2000; simple to install. The Four Files FAQ has also been improved. Someone's clearly been rigging the current poll in Vote 4 It! after about twenty votes for the same option were registered in a day or so, but I don't really care so long as someone's voting. I've tidied up the guestbook as well. All the entries are still there but the main guestbook page now shows just those entries for 2001; you'll have to click the link for the previous ones. This is simply because the page was so massive that it was off-putting, and took too long to load. |
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2001-01-14 New winter star signs in the Playroom! You'll also notice this page has been tidied up for the new year. All the previous updates for 2000 can be found using the link at the bottom of this page. Unfortunately, some things never change, and my Internet Service Provider, X-Stream, are continuing to be as useless as they were last year. I've been unable to access the Internet or send/receive emails for three days, so apologies to anyone who sends or has sent things such as advertisements without receiving a quick response from me. I thoroughly intend to switch to a better and more reliable provider at some stage, but to date have been unable to find one that meets all my requirements (I'm very fussy about these things). That's not to say that X-Stream are good, I'm just lumbered with them for the time being. |
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2001-01-03 A new desktop calendar can now be found on the Four Files page in the Gallery. All your favourite R4 images combined with a handy date reminder sit atop your screen, updated every month. Easy setup instructions. |
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