10 Years Ago...

It was 10 years ago that I first moved the NHS Yearbooks project to another web hosting site. Since then the site has received plenty of visitors, most of them Titans from back in the day. I hope that my efforts that began nearly twenty years ago have helped to keep the spirit of Northside High School alive. Thank you to those of you that have reached out to me to provide feedback in some form. I've enjoyed getting those random touchpoints from classmates and fellow NHS students. In just a few short years we'll see the first graduating class celebrate their 50th reunion / anniversary. Congratulations to all of you that were part of that first year of NHS. Hope that your lives -- like mine -- were shaped by your experiences as a Titan. Fly the Red and Blue!!! -- Steve

2018

It's been several years since my previous post. Plenty has changed since then. The biggest change has been that I am now the generation in my family that would be considered the patriarchs, having this passed to me when my folks died in September 2015 (three weeks apart). Over the past year, my web stats tell me that nearly a thousand of you found the Northside Yearbooks online by using Google Search and took a look around. I hope that what started nearly two decades ago as a learning project for me still is appreciated by my fellow Titans. Our high school has been closed as a high school for 20 years, and I'm sure that Muncie's school landscape will continue to evolve as the city's needs continue to change. I'll continue to keep the free website going as we move closer to having the first graduating class's 50-year reunion. "Hail Northside Titans, Fly the Red and Blue!!!"

Paying for web hosting?

Per my last post, if you're not reading this blog, you don't care about my costs for keeping up this website. But for anyone that does care, I'm giving up on spending my own money just to have a cool domain name associated with the Muncie Northside Yearbooks website. It started out on Geocities for free, and now it's moving back to another free webhosting site -- x10host. Sorry if this screws up your bookmarks. You get what you pay for. [sorry Mother G.]

Ahem... Anyone listening?

So it dawned on me the other day that it's quite likely that no one actually reads this blog. After finding the yearbook web site and looking at the senior photos, you probably don't care what I have to say in a blog. And I kind of agree. Blogs now seem somewhat outdated in today's Internet world. Maybe I should post a video on YouTube and plaster links all over social media sites if I really wanted people to click through to my posts. Bust alas, that's not something I care to do. Life is too short to worry about being on-line. Go out and enjoy yourself. Do something that doesn't require a keyboard, a mouse, use of your thumbs for typing, or a "Like" button. Quit reading this post... Now do it! (And just maybe in another 3 or 4 years I'll post something to this blog. Or maybe not.)

Happy New Year 2010!!!

With the "new" website being on-line now for more than six months, I thought it was time to add another short post to this blog. It comes as somewhat a surprise to me, but since switching to the paid web hosting site, I've heard from a number of NHS grads encouraging me to keep the site available. Thanks for your words of appreciation and encouragement. It's nice to know that the Internet isn't all about Facebook and Twitter. Drop me a line when you have a moment.

Goodbye Geocities Website

The notification from Geocities was somewhat unexpected. Sure, nothing's free ... but after more than nine years of having the Muncie Northside Yearbooks website hosted for free by Geocities, it came as a surprise to find out that they would be shutting down their free webhosting service. What to do? Should I pony up the $12/month that it would take to convert to their paid service? Should I let the NHS on-line yearbooks site slip into oblivion? Or should I get off my rear end and look around for cost-effective webhosting alternatives? If you're reading this, you've likely already figured out that I choose to move the website to a paid service.

I spent the better part of two weekends and quite a bit of time in the week between getting the website ready to go live on the paid service. Don't get me wrong: it's not costing lots of money to host MuncieNorthsideYearbooks.com, but IT IS NOT FREE. I'm not fishing for money, so don't look for any pleas to help out by sending me contributions through PayPal or the like. After nine years of getting "something for nothing," it does take a slight mental adjustment to using a new hosting service that I HAVE TO PAY FOR!!!! (Sorry Mrs. Gouveia. That last sentence should have read, "... using a new hosting service for which I have to pay. But that just doesn't have the same ZING as how I wrote it first.) Enough venting...

So I hope you've enjoyed the last nine years with my yearbook site at Geocities. Now that the new site is up and running, I hope you continue to enjoy it at its new location: MuncieNorthsideYearbooks.com. Let me know what you think by posting a comment here on this blog, or by sending me feedback through the form on the yearbook website. Go Titans!

-- Steve