When in 2001 Deep Space Nine (DS9) was finished on Dutch television,
I wanted to see more Deep Space Nine. What did I do? I went on the internet to search for clips, movies and special
things about Deep Space Nine, but also Star Trek in general. I found a music video of DS9. It was made by Sabatoj,
that's everything I knew about it. I found it on Kazaa and not much later I found another music video from the same
author. I loved the videos and watched them too often. A week later I went on vacation and afterwards I spent more
and more time on Star Trek. After a long time I found more music videos on the internet and on Kazaa. Every fan I
talked with had never heard of the videos or had just seen one or two. Well, I was thinking: "Okay, maybe it's
time to make more fans aware of these music videos." |
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| The idea was formed, but it took a long time to finally carry it out. In 2002, after a meeting with
fellow fans, I decided it was time "to draw the line". Then it was time to take some action. Two weeks
later Final Frontier Media was born. It looked amateuristic, but soon two friends of mine metamorphosed the whole site.
The only thing for me was to change the details. The site was in Dutch and most movies and pictures were placed on
several servers. In January 2003, I finally got my own FTP server. I was so happy I had one, that I decided to enlarge
my site and want to improve it. I decided to change the site language to English. Since the beginning of 2006 the site
can be found at www.finalfrontiermedia.nl. In spite of the site language
being English I've chosen for .nl, which stands for my country, The Netherlands. |
(Me and Rene Auberjonois at the Dutch StarCon 12 may 2007 in the Netherlands)
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| In 2006 the website is changed a lot. The movie clip section is renamed into Music videos
section. At the same time the whole layout of this section is changed. There were to many music videos to hold on one
page. The music video section is now divided into 13 sections. Also the FTP server is upgraded in 2006 with a bigger hard
drive. Since then the GB's used for this site is quadrupled. In total there is over 8GB of data on this website. In 2006
more sections were updated. The links section is renewed with also bannerlinks and textlinks.
At the end of 2006 the archive section is updated. It is divided
into years, instead of everything on one page. After all renewed
sections, there were also some new sections added to the
website. The Newsletter section is added in 2006 and since then
every month there is a newsletter send to the members. The other
new section is the awards section. In 2006 Final Frontier Media
has accumulated a total of seven awards. |
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| In 2007 the website did go on and
on. The amount of music videos available for download is more
then doubled in 2007. Three new categories were added, with lots
of music videos. Final Frontier Media has accumulated four
awards in 2007. New links were added, new newsletters
created and the website is updated every month. Beside that is
the website finally over to PHP in December 2007. |
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| 2008 started slowly. Yes, this
website won the Omega Award 2008, but the updates really started
in February. The year also ended early November because I moved
to a new home. All though, a lot of things have been done in this
year. A total of 62 music videos have been added and several new
sections and sub-sections have been added. The Final Frontier
Media Gallery has been removed, but the link and pictures
section have been renewed. 2008 was the year of standardization
of the website. This is off course a progress which
will go on in 2009. |
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| The website was fully updated and
ready at the start of 2009. Quickly a lot of music
videos were added, this process wasn't stopped, even
not after the removal of my YouTube account. In 2009
a total of 99 music videos were added. 2009 was off
course the year of the new Star Trek Movie. Every
month updates were done with the latest trailers and
pictures. But the new movie didn't stop the decrease
of visitors to Final Frontier Media. All though
there were less visitors there was only a marginal
change in the total of downloads. What you're
looking at now is the new site and I hope you will
enjoy my music videos, pictures, links and
everything else. |
Yours Sincerely,Sebastiaan van Mierlo |
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Site history |
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| The website of Final Frontier Media
(FFM) has changed over the years. In this part of the history
section I will show you just that. Images will show you how FFM
looked in his early days. The overall look of the site is only
changed twice. After that section by section is "upgraded". You can
click on the images to see them in full resolution. Enjoy reading
it. |
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25 September 2002
This is the first design of Final Frontier Media, created by me. The site language was Dutch. As you can see the design is not something to be proud of.
The website was only one page divided in sections. "Filmpjes" was
the equilevant of the section "Music videos". There were no images
and the files were spread on several free online servers. The green
text was moving from right to left. My way to attract attention.
Image 2 and 3 shows parts of the link section. The only working
image is that of StarTrek.nl forums. All the other images are
offline. This was because I linked to the images, in stead off
hosting them self. "Foto's" on image 2 is now the section
"Pictures". "Reacties" is the section "contact". |
(1. top of page)
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(2. center of page)
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(3. bottom of page)
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Rainbow coloured website
Right after creating the website I knew
it wasn't that good. Because I don't have any graphical skills I
started a competition at the StarTrek.nl forum and Federation forum.
I asked people if they want to create a logo and a banner for my
website. This way the website looked better and I could change links
with other websites. At this time my website was hosted on one of
the several tripod accounts I had. When the discussion about my
website really took off, two people worked together to create a
complete new look. They are Tom Lokhorst and Martin Hoogslag. They
created a new one page website with cool looks, something to work
with. As you will see, you shall recognize the design. |
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5 October 2002
As you can see the design created by Tom Lokhorst and Martin
Hoogslag is the design I still use today. The look of the menu, the
section names, the logo and top banner and the separation beam. The
language used on the website is still Dutch. The menu worked with
bookmarks. Every section was a bookmark on the page. A new part of
the website was the section "nieuws" what stands for "news". All
updates of my website was put there. This system was used until the
end of 2006. The layout of the website still wasn't fixed to one
width or completely flexible. At image 2 you can see the bottom of
the music videos section (filmpjes). The information visible about
the music videos is still available at this site. |
(1. top of page)
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| This was the name of the music video, the length, a
short "about", how large the file was and who created it. Also the
date when the music video went online and the creation date was
added. That last function was deleted after a while because for some
music videos I couldn't determine that date. All music videos were
still hosted on several free severs on the web. All music videos
were compressed using Winace at the time, later it would be winrar.
This would mean that a non-windows user couldn't unpack the music
videos. The focus of the website was just local/national. I know if
I wanted to grow, that had to change. I had enough ideas but not
enough space. Soon everything would be changed. The way the website
looked and the one page design, did stay until January 2003. |
(2. bottom of page)
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Bye bye "one page website"
In January 2003 I had changed several
Hard disk in my computer. This way I could set up a FTP server for
my website. This way all music videos could be available for
download in one file. Sometimes you needed 20 files to download
before you had the music videos, Imagine the time needed. This new
space triggered a jump forward in the design of Final Frontier
Media. I decided to have more than one page. All section did get
there own page except the news section. A section that was really
large was the pictures section. From one page I did go to 43 pages
in just 6 months. That means 6 pages for the normal website (main
page, sections) and 37 pages for the pictures section. |
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22 January 2003
Not the design, but the language of the website was changed. I had
chosen to change the language to English. Andre Posthumus helped me
to translate. My English wasn't great especially my grammar (You can
still see it). The section "filmpjes" was renamed to "movie clips".
That's also the reason why the main music videos page is called
movies.php. The focus of the website was to the picture section.
Pictures of StarTrek.nl meetings were posted there and divided per
user. This created a total of 37 pages in July 2003. After having
some banners, I added in June 2003 a banner section. There was now a
total of six sections. The FTP was a step forward, but not more.
Just 16kb/s per seconds on upload and a lot of downtime. |
(1. Welcome page)
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A very long hibernation
In the years that follow Final Frontier
Media was asleep. In the year 2004 and 2005 there were some attempts
to keep the FTP server online, but nothing more. I wanted to spent
my time to other things. So all sections created in 2003 were still
in use when I bought a .nl domain. Again a great step forward. Final
Frontier Media was now located at
www.finalfrontiermedia.nl.
This was not the only thing that changed. The problems with the very
unreliable FTP server were now located and solved. A special server was set
up and from
there people could download the music videos. Because I also changed
of Internet provider, the upload rate changed from 16kb/s to
128kb/s. After adding some music videos I knew this section become
to large. I decided to change this section. This happened in March
2006. |
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(1. Movie clips section - 2003)
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(2. Renamed to Music videos and dived in categories - 2006)
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(3. Current looks of music videos section home - 2008)
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(4. Current looks of the category FFM - 2008)
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Section: Music videos
In image 1 you can see the movie clips
section. This section was designed in January 2003. In this way the
information was better presented for the visitors. All music videos
were accompanied with two screenshot from the video. On the left, one
closely in the beginning, on the right one more to the end of the
music video. As you can see the lay out of that page was flexible
and also not. A great disadvantage was that the webpage was becoming
very large and you had to scroll a lot. As told earlier in 2006 this
would change. I needed a way to present a lot of music videos, easy
to find and very quick to load. After some concepts and talking with
a friend of mine the new concept was chosen. This is what you can
see on image 2. I renamed the section from "Movie clips" to "Music
videos". On the image you can see the Music videos home. All music
videos were divided into categories. This would mean short loading
times and the music videos were easy to find. In 2006 also the total
lay out of the website became flexible. This was my solution for
people who were having a larger resolution than 1024 X 768. In 2008
I decided it looked awful and changed it. Everything was centralized
and had a fixed width. This is what you can see in Image 3. In the
last month of 2006 the information part on top of the categories
were added. This would show people how much music videos were online
and from which series. From the original 8 categories there are now
21. The look of a category is what you can see on image 4. This
haven't really changed since March 2006, except the centralized
lay-out. The music videos are presented two on a row with a maximum
of 20 music videos per page. The images used in this new
lay-out are much smaller than the two in image 1. The information
per music video is also better organized. |
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Next!
After changing the music videos section the site could grow and it did. In
2005 the section "Archive" was added to the website and in May 2006
the section "Newsletter" was created. Also this month the links
section get a whole update. It was necessary because I had to much
banners and therefore the page became to large. |
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(1. Links section - 2003)
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(2. Divided in categories - 2006)
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(3. Current looks of links section home - 2009) |
(4. Current looks of the category Star Trek links - 2008)
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Section: Links
In image 1
you can see the Links section. This section was designed in January
2003. The Link section was always on the front page. This information
was just copied to a new page and there it was. In May 2006 I
decided the page became to large to load quickly. After the change
the link section looked like image 2. A special text category for
text links and the banner links were divided in several categories.
In March 2007 I decided to change the link section a bit. I didn't
like the link menu and the way the text links were presented. The
text links were incorporated into the Links home. The menu is than
changed. In October 2008 the link section is renewed and adapted to
the looks which is used in the other sections. This
means for one part the horizontal menu. Image 4 shows how a category looks like into
the links section. Because the text links were created, it wasn't
important for the banner links to have a fast load time. Therefore I
have chosen for a simple setup. The menu and vote links are above
the header "Star Trek Sites". After the small renewal in
October 2008 this section doesn't need to be renewed
soon. |
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The bear is released
One
month after the renewed Links section, in 2007, my FTP server was upgraded. A
new hard disk was added. In just 6 months the amount of 50 music
video was gone to 87 in December 2006. The Music videos section was
growing rapidly. Also a lot of new links were added over the time.
In April 2006 all music videos were mirrored by the Rik Report
server. After receiving several awards, the awards section was born.
The award from stnet.tk received in November 2006 gave a hint to
improve my website. This hint would change the face of Final
Frontier Media, the homepage. |
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(1. Welcome page - 2003)
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(2. Little has changed - 2006)
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(3. Renamed to Home page, current looks - 2008)
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(4. The old welcome story is the new section History - 2009) |
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Section: Home page
The
welcome page was until January 2007 not much changed. The welcome
story had little grammar changes and some extra information. Since
2005 old news was transferred to the Archive section every month.
Therefore the welcome page in 2006 on image 2 has less news than on
image 1 in 2003. Also changed along the way is the date before the
news. In 2003 till 2005 every news line had a date, even if it was
the same as the news line above. This is changed in 2006, as you can
see on image 2. Since January 2007 the welcome page is changed. I
have renamed it to Home page, which I found more appropriate. The
date is now much more clearly visible. All news items of that day
are now listed below the date. There is a maximum of 2 months of
news at the home page, to ensure quick loading times. The old
welcome story is still available and can be read on top of this page
in the history section. Image 4 shows this section as it is now. The history section was for a short while a
separate section, but is since April 2008 part of the "About" section. |
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Sections, sections and sections
In April 2008 after all the important sections were
renewed and/or renamed one section did look a lot like
when it was created in 2003. In my eyes all the
necessary upgrades have been done. The new sections
Awards, Newsletter, Archive, History and StarTrek2009
were satisfactory at the time. All the updates are small
and don't have really a great impact on the lay-out of
that page. One other section is missing and that's the
banner section. With the in April 2008 created "about"
section, this section also had a small change in
lay-out. That also counts for the section Awards and
Contact. Also three new sections were created. These are
Sitemap, Statistics and Timeline. |
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(1. Pictures section, with links to galleries - 2003)
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(3. Current looks, with link to a real gallery - 2008)
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(3. Renewed pictures section as it looks today - 2009) |
(4. Current looks of the category BBQ Pictures - 2009) |
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Section: Pictures
The
section pictures has little changed over the years until October
2008. Back in 2003
(image 1)when the section was created, the information from the
front page was just copy-pasted into a new page. After a while I
added more subpages. This pages would be some sort of gallery. All
pictures were manually resized and put online. After that manually
links to the full size pictures were added. I could have used a
Gallery, but I choose to do everything manually. This means that for
a while the website exists of 37 pages for the section pictures
alone. It took a long time to create a new page for this section
with pictures. In 2005 I've decided to stop with that kind of
gallery. Every picture could just be downloaded, and that's it. The looks weren't changed, only there were
no subpages. In the summer of 2007 I decided that it would be easy
for people to watch the pictures in a gallery. I added a Coppermine
gallery. This look op pictures section, as you can see on image 2,
stayed till October 2008. The Gallery was only for the
people of the StarTrek.nl forum. Therefore you need to
register to watch the pictures and is the site language
in Dutch. All ready in September 2008 the gallery was
removed because of the little extra's it had to offer
and security problems. This was the moment that I
decided I had to renew the section, as soon as possible.
One month later is was done. The looks of the Pictures
section is now comparable to that of other sections
(Links, About, Archive). Image 3 shows you how the
section looks now. The pictures are divided into three
categories. In image 4 you can see how an category looks
like. This looks a lot more attractive and still it's
easy to download the pictures. |
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Last but not least
The
website has changed a lot over the years. Back in 2006 quick
loading, multi-browser support and multi-resolution support were big
issues. Now from the last months of 2007 till present day all those
three issues have been resolved. They're not the primary problems
of this website anymore. With the arrival of PHP for Final Frontier
Media the maintenance has become much easier. The fixed width has
given Final Frontier Media the same looks for everybody. This in
combination with a style sheet has created also more continuation
across the pages. Last but not least I want to talk about some small
sections with small changes. These are the Awards, Banner and
Contact section. Furthermore I will discuss a little about the
relative new sections About, Newsletter, Sitemap,
StarTrek 2009, Statistics and Timeline. Also the section Archive
will be discussed. |
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(1. Awards section - 2006)
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(2. Little has changed - 2008)
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(3. Banner section - 2003)
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(4. New banners and slightly changed - 2008)
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(5. Contact section - 2003)
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(6. A lot has changed, behind the scenes - 2008)
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Section: Awards, Banner and Contact
As we look at the Awards section (image 1 & 2) you can see not a lot
has been changed. Since September 2006 the section Awards exists and
has undergo two changes. One was the Fixed width change in April
2008, second is the new section About. Awards is now part of that
section and does have therefore also a horizontal menu. Because I
didn't like the layout of this section I removed every text I had
added with an award. In the near future possibly in 2008 the award
section will be updated with an Final Frontier Media Award. The
banner section (image 3 & 4) has the smallest changes of all pages.
There are only several new banners added. Since May 2008 the banner
section is part of the About section and has therefore also a
horizontal menu. The Contact section (image 5 & 6) is mostly changed
behind the scenes. In 2006 when I changed to a paid domain, the
contact section was offline for some time. The form used in the
section used the possibilities from Tripod, which did not exist on
my paid domain. In 2007 after receiving hundred of spam messages a
week I used an other form. It's still in use today and protects me
from spam. Also the contact section is now part of the About section
and has therefore also a horizontal menu. |
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(1.
Archive section - 2008)
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(2.
Current looks of the Archive Section - 2009) |
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(3. The About section - 2008)
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(4.
Little has changed - 2009) |
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(5. The Newsletter section - 2008)
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(6. What does a newsletter look like? - 2008)
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Section: Archive, About and Newsletter
Image 1 shows the section archive as it looks like from the
beginning.. Because the news on the home page
became too much for quick loading I decided to create an Archive.
This way every news item will be saved and watched at a later time.
Without that section I couldn't create this section (Site history).
The lay-out was very easy. But the lay-out also didn't
fit into the rest of the website. So I decided in March
2009 to change the looks of it. When the section About
was introduced in May 2008 with the new horizontal menu
I've adapted it to multiple pages on the site. This is
now also done with the Archive section, as you can see
on image 2. The news before 2006 is collected in one
category. This way the section can go on for several
years. The section About as seen
in image 3 is a section which is created in May 2008. It was my
opinion that the menu went to large. Also I wanted to add some
statistics and a sitemap. So I decided to create this section.
Specific for this section and all pages below in it, is the
horizontal menu. In this section you can also read something about
me. Since then, little is changed (image 4). Only the sub-section
Timeline is removed. This sub-section wasn't visited and
I didn't have time to do more with it. The newsletter section (image
5) is created in May 2006 and was
a way to attract more people to my website. I tried to reach a lot
of people when I had some new stuff posted online. There are now
around the 50 people who get the newsletter. The newsletter is just
a text based e-mail with links to the online newsletter. (image 4).
The online newsletter does look good and is witch the Final Frontier
Media lay-out. This would be a very large e-mail, therefore I have
chosen for text-based with links. The newsletters are also visible
for visitors. |
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(1. The sitemap section - 2008)
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(2. The Statistics section - 2008)
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(3. Star Trek 2009 section - 2008)
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(4. Star Trek 2009 section - 2009) |
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Section: Sitemap, Statistics and StarTrek 2009
Image 1 shows the sitemap section. This
section is created in May 2008. In this section you can see where
everything can be found. Some people aren't aware of sections or
pages at this website. That's the reason why this section is added
to the website. Image 2 shows the statistics section. It looks
similar to the sitemap section from a distance. You can
find a lot of information there, Like the Music Video
Top 50. In this list you can see the top 50 of most
downloaded music videos on this website. Also you can
see several Top 10 downloads, per month and per year.
Image 3 shows the special Star Trek 2009 page. Final
Frontier Media doesn't have any actual Star Trek news or
something like that. This section is only devoted to the
media released around the new movie. Everything I got
from the Webmaster program from Paramount will be
available here, if appropriate. This section is
transformed into it's final stage, after the release of
the new movie. You can see the current look of the
StarTrek 2009 section on image 4. Eventually this
section will move to the Archive section. |
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