[ The PC Guide | Site Guide | Version History and Old Site Updates ]

Old Site Updates - December 2000

December 31, 2000:

• Happy New Year: I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish you all a safe evening of merrymaking, and a happy and prosperous 2001. The past year has been a pretty good one here for my family and for the site, in part due to all the help and support from you, my loyal readers. I am hopeful for great things in the year to come, and hope the same for you as well.

December 24, 2000:

• Thanks: I just wanted to thank everyone who has responded to my request for assistance last week. Many people have filled out the Reader Survey, and provided me with useful feedback and demographic information--if you have not done so you, please fill it out if you have the time. Many of you have also ordered the Disk Edition, and thereby have supported the site in a real and tangible way. Please know that I appreciate all of you who support the site in a variety of ways, from reading to recommending to directly sponsoring--it all helps.
• Feedback! One interesting result from the Reader Survey is that I have gotten more direct feedback from the "like" and "dislike" boxes in the survey in the last week than I have in many months from direct email. This is great, and I hope it continues. Since the survey is anonymous, I have no way to reply to these comments, but know that every one is being read and considered. In some cases, a reply may be of general interest, and so I have decided to address certain feedback comments, which I will do every week as part of .....technobabble.
• Happy Holidays: For all of you celebrating one holiday or another this week, I wish you a pleasant time with friends and family--and the same even if you aren't celebrating a holiday this week. :^)

December 18, 2000:

• Your Assistance Needed: The PC Guide has been online for over three years now. For the last two years, I have devoted my energies full-time to working on the site. This was a risky move on my part, but it has worked out well so far... I have been able to continue providing value to you, my readers, while doing something I enjoy. To continue to offer the site for free I have supported myself in large part through online advertising. Unfortunately, the online advertising industry has hit a major slump over the last two or three months--in fact, that's an understatement. Therefore, I am now being forced to spend time working to address the significant drop in the income produced by the site so that I may continue working on it full-time.
  I regret the necessity of going public with this in this manner, but I figure it is best to be honest with you, my readers, about the current state of the site. If you're a fan of the site and have always wondered how you might be able to contribute to its success, your help would be very much appreciated at this time. Here are some ways you may be able to assist, if they are relevant to your particular situation. Thanks for any support you can provide:
  • Sponsorship: I am currently looking for some new sponsors to advertise on the site. There is a prominent space on the front page available, and lots of space across the ad rotator as well. If you sell a product or service nationally or internationally, you can expand knowledge of your products and build your brand name recognition by reaching thousands of technology-savvy readers who use The PC Guide. At the same time, you will help enable the future success of this site. See here for more details or contact me directly.
  • Disk Edition: If you like the site a great deal and read many pages, you may want to be able to look at it off-line at your leisure. If so, consider The PC Guide Disk Edition. I have now instituted a policy of free download upgrades for those who purchase The Disk Edition; see below for more. I'm not asking anyone to buy the Disk Edition who doesn't want to; the site is free and you should feel free to continue using it online with no obligation. However, if you think the Disk Edition is something that would be valuable to you, you can now at least be assured that future updates will be free or at least very inexpensive.
  • Reader Survey: Please take The PC Guide Reader Survey. This will help me both with obtaining sponsorship in the future, and with steering the site in the right direction in terms of content.
• Disk Edition Changes: I have drastically reduced the cost of upgrade purchases of The PC Guide Disk Edition. Those who choose to download the Disk Edition may now upgrade for free; CD-ROM upgrades have been reduced greatly in price, though they are not free because of the time and material costs needed to process the order, burn the CD-R and ship it. I also made some changes in the Disk Edition pages to make them easier to comprehend.
• .....technobabble: I have started a new weekly column, where I babble about technology, hopefully entertaining and informing you in the process. See here for more, or read the start of the current column higher up on this front page.
• December Industry Update: I have posted the Industry Update for December 2000, written as usual by Dean Kent of Real World Technologies. Dean is a friend of mine and a knowledgeable insider in the computer industry; his updates will tell you the latest about what's happening in the world of PC technology.
• Minor Site Guide Changes: I made some rather minor changes to the Site Guide.
• No-Frames Topic Index Fixes: I changed some links on the no-frames version of the Topic Index, because it didn't previously provide any way of accessing the Tips of the Day archive and a couple of other site areas properly.

Next: Old Site Updates - November 2000

Home  -  Search  -  Topics  -  Up