January 16 2007: A New Beginning
Filed under Online
I’m sure there are a lot of people (ha!) wondering why this site is here. Let me try to answer a few of your questions.
What happened to Obsidian Rhapsody?
It exploded and all files disappeared into the spiraling mass of nothing that is cyberspace when a hacker got to it. I moved to Jingwen as a result.
What are you going to use Obsidian Rhapsody for now?
Total truth? Not a whole lot, nothing to be precise. It’s paid till 2008, so my hostees are welcome to stay there until then, but then I’m just going to let it expire. Jingwen is my new home now.
What happened to all your content?
I still have all my writings and reviews on my USB drive, yet I have no intention of adding it to this site. This is just going to be a blogging domain…blogging only.
Gasp! Just blogging? What about your fanlistings, and more importantly, what about Umb-Rella Reviews?
I’m giving up all but two of my fanlistings (Wang Lee Hom and Chinese Language). You can see my post here on the TFL board advertising those of my fanlistings which are still open for application - please apply!
As for Umb-Rella Reviews, I’m officially resigning from my position as creator, administrator, reviewer. I’ll quote myself, from the email I sent to all reviewers explaining my decision:
To be perfectly blunt, I have lost interest in running Umb-Rella. I’ve lost interest in reviewing, and to be as blunt as I possibly could, I’ve lost interest in a lot of my former online activities - frequenting message boards, creating and maintaining fanlistings, designing. The one and only activity which I actually still have interest in is blogging - you have may noticed my increased blogging frequency.
For this reason, I’ve decided to do what’s best for Umb-Rella, and that is to hand the reins of control over to one of you who has been with me since the conception of Umb-Rella…and when I say the start, I mean the very very start when I said to her in my n00bie days, “I wonder if I’d be any good at reviewing other people?” and “Um, so what do you think a review site actually needs?”.
Tracey will be taking over as administrator, owner, and general power-hungry dictator of Umb-Rella Reviews. She will be moving Umb-Rella over to her own server over the next few weeks, and Umb-Rella will open at a new home, with myself bowing out and forsaking all involvement. Further details will no doubt follow.
So yes, go and bug Tracey.
Last but certainly not least, for God’s …WHY?
Again to save energy, I’ll quote myself from an email to Rhiannon:
I myself am doing what I’ve been planning on doing for the past few months - and that’s to downgrade and minimise the amount of time I spend online…I’m giving up all but two of my fanlistings, and Umb-Rella has been adopted out to the care of Tracey who’s going to move it to her own domain - I’m giving up on the reviewing game….
I would have liked to make a proper announcement about all of this on O-R, but considering how quickly everything went down, it just sped up my decision to significantly downsize ASAP…don’t worry, though I won’t be participating personally as much anymore, I will still be around! I’ll be blogging, I’ll be following my favourite sites, I just won’t be reviewing and wasting five hours each day on the computer!
In Conclusion
I still love you! I’ll still be around doing what I love most - blogging. I just won’t be a ‘personal website maker’ anymore, or a ‘fanlistinger’ or a ‘reviewer’….I’m just going to be a plain ole blogger. Give me love…I’ll certainly still be lurking around your sites! (Um…if you want to update your links, I’d be much obliged!)
17 Responses to “A New Beginning”
Leave a Reply
I reserve the right to edit or delete your comment as I see fit, though I only delete comments from anonymous commenters, or people with multiple aliases. Using a genuine name/email combination will ensure that your comment is approved.
Why did you have to ask them to bug me? Now I will be inundated with emails… Not. Anyway, hello to your new home and I honestly expect you to blog ALL THE TIME now that you will have nothing else to do!
Tracey on January 16 2007 #
Ditto what Tracey said (”I honestly expect you to blog ALL THE TIME now that you will have nothing else to do!”). Congrats on your new site, and I can’t wait to see what you do next (although hopefully it’s nothing as drastic as, say, closing down for good!).
Mandie on January 17 2007 #
I’ve been “watching” your site for the past couple of days (not stalker watching! I noticed it wasn’t there and checked back a couple of times to see what happens…).
Congratulations on the new domain!
I look forward to reading your blogs! :P
(I’ll go and change your link now. :))
Lirae on January 17 2007 #
You are braver than me. Just the other day I was thinking about cutting my site down to the bare minimum. I didn’t have the guts though. Plus, I didn’t have a cool new layout either. :( I need to get working on that.
Kimmie on January 17 2007 #
Aww man, I’m gonna miss all those nifty pages you had on your site. But still! This is your site, and you do what you feel most comfortable with! :D I understand the need to clean up (argh I’ve got stuff on the net that dates back years and years *so embarrassing*), good for you for having the guts to do away and start again. *thumbs up and changes links*
Belinda on January 17 2007 #
Oh! Good that you will keep on blogging! :D Congrats to your new home :D
Malin on January 17 2007 #
Amanda! I’ve missed you loads! There’s something about Jingwen that fits much better than OR ever did, in my opinion. And this design is neat! (Greeen! *gasp*) You know I’ll stalk this site even though it’s “just” a blog.
Linda on January 17 2007 #
Oh my gosh! This is all so sudden! I love the layout by the way :)
I agree - the Internet does steal a lot of your time from you, and so blogging by itself is a sensible option!
Thank you for not deleting O-R suddenly - thank you for paying for us to be hosted for another year!
All I can say is…wow! I’m gobsmacked.
Laura on January 17 2007 #
yay for blogging!
marilyn on January 17 2007 #
Does this mean you’re going to blog more? :p
Mike Haddad on January 17 2007 #
I’ll miss OS but well…I can’t lead your life. (and it would be great if I cut down on online time myself)
I’m glad to see OR is back up (still need to check I can still log in) and I just wanted to note that I had done a backup of my members lists just a few day before the site disappeared. Which leads me to wonder whether you know what could have opened a way to hackers?
Julie on January 17 2007 #
I think your own repsonse to one of my previous blogs is a good response to this. :P
I’ll change my link to you, and I hope everything goes well on this new site! :D
Is Jingwen your Chinese name?
Belinda on January 17 2007 #
I went to O-R the other day and I saw that it was completely gone and I thought a hacker got to it! :( Silly hackers. I’m glad you’re still sticking around, although I understand completely about downsizing. Just don’t leave us! ;)
Manda on January 17 2007 #
Ick, hackers. When I got that e-mail from InfluxHost (well, the hackers, methinks), I thought I was dreaming, until I came to your site and found that everything had been deleted. Then I kinda got really depressed, since my parents don’t take things like this too well. xD
But they were nice, and bought me a new domain name, too~! Wowsers. I just have to wait for it to be activated. :|
I’m going to miss all your content and stuff, but your blogs shall keep me content enough so I don’t think I’ll mind that much xD; Good luck with Jingwen!
Retti on January 17 2007 #
Join the frickin’ club. I was so fed up with Vexels.net that a few days ago I deleted all of my vexels and went! Of course I’m curious to see if anyone’s noticed and so far, they have not, some people have even messaged, ‘lol no vexels or messages’!
All I do online is read blogs and watch TV episodes on youtube and abc.com.
I have to admit, I was a little sad when you said you wouldn’t be reviewing anymore. I was planning on requesting you for a review when Roarr gets more than 3 articles.
I have never actually seen the reason in fanlistings, except for hits. I can’t understand how people are addicted to fanlistings… how?!
Carina on January 17 2007 #
I know exactly what you mean and have done the same thing myself.
Congrats on the new domain. :)
V xx
Vixx on January 17 2007 #
Sorry to hear about what happened to O-R. Stupid hacker. But, I’m liking Jing Wen. :-D Good luck with everything!
Hannah on January 18 2007 #