| [List of News Articles] July 12,2021
| TOLKIEN FAN FICTION IS BACK!
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By: Mike
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There is still a long way to go to refurbish the whole site, but the library is back on line as a read only archive.
To read the long version, click on the link below marked, [Read].
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This has been a long process, much longer than I anticipated. Last Summer, 2020, I decided it was time to get this site back on line. I literally had to start all over. I had not written software for a decade. This meant I had to start from scratch. In order to do this task, I needed find and install a development server on my current computer, find today’s best code editor, and start looking up links on how to run Apache Server, and tutorials on the current versions of PHP and mySQL. I was out of touch with all of this. It took a month before I was ready to begin working on the code. I started making this site in 2003, when I was creating it, PHP 4 and 5 were current. When I restarted, PHP 7.4 was current and 8 became the current release last November. Everything had changed.
The site had been reliable and needed no attention from me to keep operating. I got more and more lax and finally quit paying attention to it altogether, as I had moved on to other things. If you are one of those who applied for an author account during my absence, I apologize for my lack of effort. I’ll try to keep on top of things in the future. I still have the list of unanswered applications, and will contact them once the author section is reopened.
The site was taken down when, in September and October 2018, the site was repeatedly breached and spamware was installed on it. This created a recurring headache. I finally gave up, removed the site, and had my host set me up as if I was a new user with none of my software on it, so I could keep my three email addresses alive. It was again breached and I realized that it was the free shopping cart software they gave away as part of their standard package that was being breached. At that point, I quit using them for anything, after transitioning my email to an email service.
Returning to the current situation, I began writing code for the site the last day of August 2020. By March this year I had rewritten just short of 100 scrips. The software was obsolete, acceptable syntax in commands had changed, some of the commands and functions had been dropped by PHP and replaced with new better ones, and some of the original software I had written left much to be desired. TFF was my first project using PHP, mySQL, and HTML. I learned as I did. That meant the first stuff written was rather poorly written. Once it was up, I always had to choose between rewriting stuff that worked and adding new features. New features always won that decision.
I was at the point where I was going to start testing everything for the library when I had a computer disaster and lost all my work. I had not backed up any of my work, and paid a heavy price for that negligence. I literally had to start over in mid March this year. In the end, I believe it made for a better site, because the first half of the scripts I rewrote could have been better. As I worked on the code, my understanding of the best practices improved. The new site may look the same, but the updated software is a large change, and this is very much TFF 2.0.
As I publish this, the TFF library is back on line and is working reliably. The next step is to begin work on the author section, which will take a few months. Once that is done, I will start issuing new passwords to current authors and adding new ones. That being done, I will start making improvements and adding new features.
So, enjoy having our library back on line and stay tuned for updates. When there is significant news, I will post another news letter.
I have a favor to ask of all who use this site. If something fails when you use it, report it to me. In the left side menu on the front page and library main page there is a link titled, Contact. Click on it, click on my name, and use the contact form to let me know what happened. Please include the address of the page that malfunctioned if you can. Copy it from your browser address line and paste it into the contact email. Thanks in advance.
Mike
BTW: The old Yahoo group Henneth Annun still exists in a new home. Instructions can be found in the side menu of the front page and Library page. Click on Join to learn how.
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