6Mil and Counting

I just noticed that the counter on SMBHQ has passed 6 million.

Thanks to all the people over the years that helped reach this milestone.

10th Anniversary: One thing down, a billion to go

I finished my redesign of the SMBHQ front page for the 10th Anniversary.

Other than navigation, it's not too different than the current one.

However, there is still lots of preparation in the two weeks we have left.

I've discovered that SMBHQ is compatible with a Nintendo Wii... Also, I merged my Blogger accounts with my gmail account.

And I'm back.....

It kind of sucks saying a tearful goodbye, only to return 6 hours later.

However, my mom made a good point to me by saying that if I have time to go to the movies and play video games I have time to update this site.

As such, I'm giving it another go.

So, get ready for a new era of SMBHQ with me and MetalMan making things pretty busy around here.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

As many of you no doubt read last night, Sean has decided to cease his duties as webmaster of SMBHQ to focus on his schoolwork. We thank Sean for his years of service to the site and wish him the best of luck in his current and future endeavours.

Taking his place as the main webmaster for SMBHQ will be MetalMan88, formerly of the Super Smash Quest section and more recently an updater for the Super Smash Stadium. In his tenure, MetalMan promises to "help get some of the cobwebby sections back up to spec, so look forward to plenty of updates with my name on them."

I also plan to take a more active role in the site, striving for at least weekly updates to some of the more stagnant sections of the site. Look for regular posting to pick up starting in April, and thanks for bearing with us during the transition.

Time to say goodbye

In November 1997 Kyle let me take over the guides section and I have been with SMBHQ for the last 8 1/2 years or so.

There was a point it seemed like I was running half the site, as I kept adding more and more sections to my repertoire on the site. There is of course Mysteries, which ended up being my main contribution. There is also the chat room, the mailbag, and who knows what else.

Then in August 2004, I was rewarded for my dedicated contributions by becoming co-webmaster of the site.

But now, 4 months before SMBHQ's 10th Anniversary and 2 weeks before my 25th birthday, it is time for me to move on.

I would stay if I could, however, real life has that habbit of sneaking up on you. As some of you may know I went back to full-time studies at York University in Fall 2005. I have tried to keep updating the site like normal, but things like readings, essays, and classes can really eat into one's schedule. Looking back, I can see how the updates really slowed within the last few years.

Kyle really wants SMBHQ to be updated more frequently by someone with more time on their hands. As such, I am stepping down and MetalMan is stepping in.

I wish him the best and hope that with him (and Kyle), SMBHQ would be in good hands.

The Pains of Finding a Ticker

It occurred to me that Gage was doing such a good job keeping the new current (much better than just me), however there were no notices of his reports on the front page.

As such, this morning I set out to find a way to convert the page's RSS feed into a news ticker on the front page.

Sadly, finding a good quality script was harder than I thought. To have an on-sever script, we needed to have things like PHP and CGI, which is not really easily available on SMBHQ's server.

As such, I had to settle for a third party option. It should settle our needs for the time being (though the little ad tends to get in the way).

I also had to get rid of the events ticker (most because it wasn't loading along with the new ticker. Hopefully, I'll find a new way of linking site events.

Peachfan will be at I-CON!

For anyone who reads this and is going to I-CON at the end of this month, I will be attending! I'll be rather obvious, in my Princess Peach costume, so if you see me around, feel free to say hi! I half-expect to see someone dressed as Bowser try to kidnap me, eheh.

Headaches in web design

You may not have noticed it, but the new mailbag look has been giving me a headache.

Apparently, most browsers except for I.E., are very picky about how CSS (that's Cascading Style Sheets) are coding. So, some new features that were appearing in i.e. (which doesn't care about the quality of the code) did not appear in Firefox.

After hours of tinkering, I believe I finally have it acceptable.

The torment I have to go through just so you can have some nice looking pages....

What to expect in the coming weeks at SMBHQ

I thought I would update you on what's planned at SMBHQ in the near future:

• Very soon (maybe even later tonight) we will finally have the next edition of the mailbag. Hopefully, we will be able to get these out more often.
• Since Christmas, I have been very busy playing Yoshi's Island DS. You could probably expect a game page for the game within the next week or so.
• I'll probably start a new mini-contest for the 10th anniversary (I should point out that the memories have been very good so far -- it would be hard just to choose a few)

That's all I have planned in a nutshell. Kyle was planning a little something, but I'll keep under wraps until I know it's ready and/or still going to happen.

SMBHQ New Years Resolutions.....nearly a week late

• Create new game pages for most, if not all, of the Mario games
• Get someone reliable to run the Fan Fiction section
• Relaunch Super Mario Mysteries
• Find some way to get people to actually check out the chat room
• Come up with something halfway decent for SMBhq's 10th Anniversary (especially after missing the 9th anniversary)