NEWS AND NOTES AT ROOTSWEB ROOTSWEB ANNOUNCES BETA TEST OF UNLIMITED FREE WEB SITE SPACE Beginning today, RootsWeb will provide unlimited free Web site space to all RootsWeb users. A user may maintain multiple Web sites on RootsWeb at no charge, each containing literally hundreds of megabytes of material. The initial rollout of this program is a beta test. We expect that problems will arise and ask that you have patience with us as we solve them. To the best of our knowledge, this offer is unprecedented in two ways. First, no major Web space provider offers more than 25 megabytes of free Web space. Second, each RootsWeb webmaster may use such Web space to host multiple Web sites, with each such Web site located in a different section on RootsWeb. For example, a user with multiple interests may locate Web sites in different RootsWeb communities, such as genealogy, crafts, military history, etc., or locate multiple Web sites in the same community. Other sites may have one or both of these features, but if they do, we have not heard about it. This offer is particularly aimed at encouraging our users to post genealogical information that, owing to its storage and bandwidth requirements, has been prohibitively expensive to bring on line. Examples include large collections of photographs and scanned documents. We are sure that you will come up with many uses which we have not considered. (We encourage you not to place GEDCOMs in this Web space, as soon we will announce a better GEDCOM posting and editing solution.) To obtain your free Web space, please fill out the request form at <http://cgi.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/acctform.cgi>. Please allow us up to two weeks to process your request, as we expect an initial surge of demand. We will process requests as quickly as possible on a first come, first served basis. The Fine Print: 1. This is a beta test. We will change features of the offering based upon your feedback. You can expect that there will be malfunctions, problems, delays, etc. in this beta test. Please be understanding and please provide your complaints and suggestions for improvements to the RootsWeb HelpDesk at <http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/help.cgi/>. 2. Commercial advertising banners will appear at the top and, possibly, at the bottom of each Web page. These banners will require no programming by webmasters Simply upload your Web site to RootsWeb and the banners will appear automatically. Unlike free Web space provided by other major Web space providers, there will be no annoying interstitial "popup" advertisements on your Web site. 3. We will provide free Web space for any non-commercial use that, in our sole judgement, is not offensive to other RootsWeb users (for example, pornography, bomb formulas, excessively spicy recipes, any site that makes fun of the RootsWeb CEO, etc.). If you are interested in locating a commercial Web site on RootsWeb, please contact us at <rrti@rootsweb.com> and we will discuss other arrangements. 4. Webmasters may locate their Web sites in whatever RootsWeb communities they feel are appropriate. We suggest that Webmasters building Web sites that do not obviously fit into any of the existing RootsWeb interest area communities place those Web sites in a miscellaneous area we will be providing, and then move them into appropriate interest area communities as such communities form. RootsWeb reserves the right, in its sole judgement, to determine whether a Web site has been located in an inappropriate community. 5. Webmasters may choose their own account names as part of the registration process. We will allocate account names on a first come, first served basis. 6. At present, we cannot support non-rootsweb.com domain names. For the non-technical among us, this means that all account names must end in rootsweb.com. 7. Free Web space may be used only for publicly accessible material and not for online backup. 8. We ask that webmasters intending to use more than 100 megabytes of space indicate the amount of space that they require so that we can properly configure their accounts. Please make a realistic estimate. If you need more space later, we will provide it. 9. Webmasters should also be aware of two new mailing lists relating to Free Pages: Freepages-Announces -- a moderated list for making announcements to the Freepages webmasters (similar to Listowners-Announce). Freepages-Help -- a list to help webmasters with Free Pages accounts. The configuration of a Free Page web account will be slightly different than a regular Web account. * * * -- Toodles! Shirley