If you would like to unsubscribe from XSWeekly at any time, simply send an e-mail to xsweekly-unsubscribe@wuzzle.org and you will be removed. You can e-mail me at XSWeekly@xsweekly.com with any questions, suggestions, etc. XSWEEKLY SPECIAL EDITION #3 - Shell of a Site ----------------------------------------------- Litestep.net is one of the main web sites of the LiteStep community. c0mrade, the current web master, took a dead site and turned it into what it is today. While the site has gone though some tough times, it remains the official LiteStep site. Here follows a very interesting and information packed interview I held with c0mrade. The past, present, and future of LiteStep on the web and some personal questions are answered. +-------<*>-------+ Seeing as we all know about litestep.net, tell us what got you interested in starting it. Well, back when I started, I started with my personal site called LiteStep UNLiMiTED. Litestep.net wasn't updated at all for almost a year, and abyssal was down for even more than that. There was no place for current litestep themes so I started my own site which got popular pretty soon. Then it's transformed into litestep.net by the wish of the domain owner. Of course I was the one who approached him with the idea. How did Chris feel about that? As I remember, he was a bit hostile then. He just didn't want to go through the hassle, but when he saw the potential of my work, he changed his mind. So after the transfer to you, how long did it take for people to start realizing that ls.net was back alive? I'd say immediately. I had to put up what I had, which was not really a complete site but people could already submit their work to the site and it was dynamic. So immediate submissions within the first day. Thats quite impressive. Did that make you do more for the site? Of course. I love to contribute...and LiteStep was something that really got my attention right away. The more responses I got, negative or positive, the more I wanted to get done. It's sort of a stimulator. You know, for us, developers, or web guys, a single positive email a month does it for us...gives us second wind. I can relate to that. After that the site just started to get larger of course, but then came the mess with the b24.5 release and a lot of problems arose. How did that affect you and the site in general? It didn't. The litestep.net team continued to do what we were supposed to do. Keep people up to date, have new themes, and screenshots. So, as far as site goes, we didn't get affected at all. It didn't affect you, personally, at all? Yes it did, but in a better way. Well, dev team internal problems, then personal problems of webmasters of headdomains. Me for litestep.net and warewolf and bob wells for litestep.com and .org (then). Where did it lead to? Well... we lost valuable dev team members, we embarrassed ourselves, and litestep in general, and well...nothing positive came out of there. So, I started a peace process and now warewolf and I are combining forces to not have anymore separate sites. We are in fact meeting about final details tonight. That's how it affected me in a good way. So now that the TLD's of litestep are combining, what is next for ls.net? What is next for litestep.net... well... there will be no more litestep.net. The site's called litestep, that's it. All tlds are the same site, we are not planning to divide responsibilities. Litestep.com, believe it or not, is a HUGE repository of information about litestep since the early age. If we combine what's there and what we already have, plus something that we don't yet have, we get a one stop litestep site. Now, we ARE planning to have subdomains for ease of remembering. Like themes.ls.net,.org, .com will just point to the theme archive and so on. Support.litestep.net,.org, .com, etc... The main innovation and main accent will be made on creating SOME type of support for LiteStep besides just having a good documentation archive online. Of course, the whole site is being rewritten from scratch as you know. Visually there might not be any big changes, unless someone contributes a nice layout, but structurally it's totally different. It's more compact on the screen and in code, as well as better organized, and easier to maintain as well as easy for customization, and much faster. It's started with the fact that there will be no separate sites anymore in mind. That is some huge news. It's also a bit controversial. Some people feel that the combining of the TLD's into one site is too much control. How do you feel about that? Control? Over what? We are creating a community site for the litestep community. We are going to host themers. We are giving @tld web based email. We are going to SUPPORT, not try to ELIMINATE. That's why I approached jalist for instance when he was mumbling about uselessness of his site. So whoever thinks that, they are wrong, and if they don't believe it, I'll prove them wrong when everything is in place. I think the main feeling on that is that this huge site will push aside other, independent sites like ls2k into the background. I don't agree with that. We are not trying to centralize EVERYTHING in one spot. When I say "one stop shop" I mean a user comes to main site, looks at official resources, but hey, it's impossible to have everything. Look at FPN, or LS2K for instance. They have so much useful help and interesting information there besides just news. Or desktopian.org for instance, although tin_omen stepped away from LS theme for some reason. True, but what will make them stray away from litestep.net if 90% of what they are looking for is there? We are going to have a lot of references to third party sites. Ok, if you want, here are the things that are in mind to keep these sites alive. You know the commercial banners we have now? How about we setup litestep ring banners or a shell banner system of our own. Or have a random or features site with ss and everything on the front page? How about a community site. My.litestep.net type of site? Sounds like you have thought everything through pretty well. Any other plans? Near or far in the future for the site? Well... I don't really want to unveil ALL the plans...but generally, yes I've thought of everything, but not all by myself. I've got ideas from people like yourself (I give you official credit for my.litestep.whatever idea yes). Everyone contributed, I'm just executing. But there are no long term plans for at least another year. The new site will be up and running (hopefully) and then we will see. As for any particular new features, I guess you guys will have to be a bit patient, wait and see :) Just follow http://www.c0mrade.org/changes.txt whenever I bring it backup tomorrow. It looks like we have something new and interesting to look forward too. Tell me a little about yourself. I'm originally from Moscow, Russia. In 1994 I came to the United States and since then I've been living in Lincoln, NE. How was that transition like? It was fairly easy. I grew up post hardcore communist era, and was more "Americanized" than my older brother for instance. Although, of course, cultural shock is unavoidable. So what do you do besides work on ls.net? I work for a company called Globabilities, Inc., a startup company, doing pretty much everything. My official position is VP of Intelligent Interactive Systems. So I do anything from sysadmining, installing, troubleshooting, web design and backends, manage projects. Mostly I do web development, but like right now I'm upgrading FreeBSD on our web server. Do you have any other interests outside of work and ls? Of course. I like techno music and I like to dance. I play tennis occasionally. I like reading science fiction and technical books. I like fishin'. I like to relax on sundays, and do absolutely nothing, although last time that happened, was looooong looooong time ago. I LOVE playing guitar and singing. I learned how to play guitar so I can sing, but I mostly do Russian songs but mostly I'm a computer geek. :) Arn't we all (= Yeah, who else would sit all day at computer with buncha IRC windows open, with HomeSite open and so I can code, couple of browser windows, but at least I have a beautiful girl sitting right next to me. Do you have anything to add that I haven't asked? Thanks to all the litestep users, devteam, and any one else that I have forgotten. +-------<*>-------+ It should be interesting too see what becomes of LiteStep with the combined sites. No matter what happens, it's going to be an interesting ride to say the least. - demigod .................................... All content Copyright (c) 1999-2000 XSWeekly. All rights reserved.