What's New at anvilfire!

Almost every day we are adding new items. In order to help you find the newest additions we have added this page. Here we will try to log changes and additions by date as we make them. There will always be daily changes in the Virtual Hammer-In and the Guru page.

Last year we launched the following new features:

  • iForge
  • Web-Ring Nexus
  • Emile's Hot Links
  • AnvilCAM
  • International Registry of Blacksmith Touchmarks
  • ABANA 2000 JYH Event
  • ABANA-Chapter.com
    • What's New archive I (12/98)
    What's New archive II (6/99)
    What's New archive III (12/99)
    What's New archive IV (1st Qtr 2000)
    Summer of 1999 we reported:
    "anvilfire! had 5,500 hits to the main page in May (a slow month). That's some 12,650 hits in aggregate . . ."

    At the close of the 1st Quarter of 2000:
    Our aggregate hits were up to an average of 22,150 per month. Total traffic has been doubling every six months. We are archiving over 400Kb of Q&A from the guru page every month. Double what it was in 1999. We now archive it every 7 days. The Slack-Tub Pub logs must be cleared every 24 hours. There are now 45 iForge demos, 14 posted this Quarter.

    This page is now being archived every 3 months (down from 6).

    We adopted The Blacksmiths Ring and Steelworkers webrings.

    April 1, 2000 @ 256,103 / 16,223 Another record month on all indicators.
    • 1,617,132 Files served (up 170,000)
    •    361,266 Pages served (up 40,000)
    •      17,943 IP addresses served to (up 2,150)
    •      23,000 Hits counted (up 2,250)
    • Referals from 630 sites. (up 30)
    • Found under 3400 keywords (up 1,000!!)
    • Archived 457Kb of the guru page!
    • @ 2,864 ABANA-Chapter.com had 560 hits (up 60 - still not on the indexes)
    • Served 29,750 Flycast banners and 180,000 local banners.
    • 72 countries accessed the page. (up 6)
    • Archived the guru page, ran our end of quarter stats . . . Spent half of day chasing an April fools joke burried in a piece of commercial software. It was NOT funny. Updated all our keywords lists and submited to search engines.
    April, 2, 2000 @ 257,380 Posted a link to Jöel Becker's unbelievable collection of antique anvil photos at couteaux.free.fr on the anvilfire links. Also added a link to the new English Version of the French Guild of Bladesmiths web site on Emiles links. Continued to tweek our keywords. Setup the page for i.Forge.cc Web Hosting. Still a lot of details to work out. - Archived this page and posted stats.
    April 5, 2000 @ 259,500 Added instructions for demonstrators to the iForge page including printable work sheets. Also upgraded the icons on the page and reorganized a little.
    April 7, 2000 @ 260,762 ABANA 2000 JYH Contest rules have been updated (better late than never). The deadline for the photo contest that was extended to April 15th is now officially posted. You still have ONE week to get those photos in! The first submissions have arrived and they are pretty good. . .

    Posted a set of old FAQ's on Spiral Staircases on the 21st Century page.

    April 12, 2000 @ 264,200 Kiwi posted the past 5 iForge demos (HURRAY!!!). The iForge demonstrator instructions have been updated.
    April 14, 2000 @ 266,500: William S. (Bill) Pieh founder of Centaur Forge Ltd., died. Posted a new edition of the NEWS with his obituary. Updated on Saturday 15th.
    April 17, 2000 @ 268,000 Updated the anvil rebound test information. Removed some code from the news that made it not print with NS 4.0. Corrected Bill Wojcik of The Plains, VA name in the Spring Edition of the news. Added sites to the Blacksmiths Ring. We are back up to 68 and growing! Prepared and posted Ralph's demo for Wednesday night. Added Wildrose Little Giant Video to the Power hammer Page power links.
    April 18, 2000 @ 269,500 Updated all our order forms to make them easier for out International customers to use. Added BABA to the Friends of the Blacksmith's Ring. Corrected an error in the index of the Spring Edition (17) of the news.
    April 21, 2000 @ 270,958 Added TWO more sites to The Blacksmith's Ring TODAY for a total of 70 sites! That's four sites in four days! And we have 3 recent applications waiting in the queue! As soon as their code is added they will be added to the ring. I also corrected the sloppy metric conversions I had made in a guru page post about precision.
    April 24, 2000 @ 273,225 Archived the guru page @ 82 Kb. Tax time and Easter made for a few slow days on the net.
    May 1, 2000 @ 277,500 / 17,236 April was a slow but steady month on all indicators.
    • 1,537,694 Files served (dn 90,000)
    •    364,170 Pages served (up 3,700)
    •      19,332 IP addresses served to (up 1,389 - 57,300 for year)
    •      21,400 Hits counted (down 1,600)
    • Referals from 650 sites. (up 20)
    • Found under 3690 keywords (up 290)
    • Archived 453Kb of the guru page (same as March)
    • Added another 4 iForge demos to total 48
    • @ 3,406 ABANA-Chapter.com had 550 hits (dn 10, member site hits were up 300%)
    • @ 1,739 The Blacksmith's Ring home page had 1,200 hits
    • 71 sites on The Blacksmith's ring (added 11).
    • Served 12,690 Flycast banners (down 60% after removing from main pages)
    • Served 200,000 local banners. Removing Flycast as unprofitable.
    • 73/81 countries accessed the page.
    SO WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN? Despite a slow month anvilfire's growth is independant of user access rates. We had less total hits but users stayed on line longer (more pages served per user). Every month anvilfire is being found on more search engines, indexes and linked pages under more keywords (over 10,000 words and 7,000 phrases). Our support of ABANA-Chapter.com and The Blacksmith's Ring and the traffic generated on those pages more than offsets the slight drop in traffic for the month. Estimated users have doubled in one year while total traffic has increased by four.
    May 6, 2000 @ 281,181 / 17,414    Posting 19th Edition of the NEWS with info on the Judd Nelson auction next weekend. The news is not complete but this is a time critical announcement. Dona Meilach has also extended her submissions deadline to the end of the month (see same NEWS).
    May 7, 2000 @ 281,953    Continue to post the 19th Edition of the NEWS including a meet of the Philip Simmons Artist-Blacksmith Guild, the BGOP Spring Fling 2000, An article about a Monkey that cranks his master's forge blower and the BABA Journal Poll. More to come!
    May 8, 2000 @ 282,467    Added three new JYH articles to the Power hammer Page Catalog of User Built Hammers. Tony Bartol's winning contest entry, Dan Dreyer's entry and Jerry Allen's "Rusty" the Appalachian Power Hammer. Most of the May Edition of the NEWS is now posted. AND as always the captions are changing as our reporters see they should have written more! (Added Paw-Paw's text at 5:30 EDT)
    May 9, 2000 @ 282,987    Archived the guru page. Added Calgary Stampede information to the NEWS last night. Will be adding details today.
    May 10, 2000 @ 284,000    Finally posting details of Calgary Stampede Creative Forging competition. "SmithinScout" (Robert Hogg) is doing his Dragon Striker iForge demo tonight on the Pub! Made corrections in the BGOP coverage. Submitted all the chapter maintained ABANA-Chapter web sites to the DMOZ index.
    May 12, 2000 @ 285,246    Last night I discovered that I had overlooked mail in my "contest" mail box. There was one more entry in the JYH Photo contest. I'm totally embarrased. Please accept my apologies.
    Shannell Sugrue's JYH from Australia. Its posted now in the JYH catalog of user built hammers. AND it has an MPG video that was sent to me nearly a year ago.

    Added contact information for the Calgary Stampede Creative Forging Competition.

    May 14, 2000 @ 286,323    Posted a review of the new Dave Manzer Powerhammer Cycle video on the BookShelf page. If you own a Little Giant you NEED this video.
    May 16, 2000 @ 287,600    Corrected an error in the site count and news. New versions of news were missing the site counter. Spent today and yesterday answering a flood of good questions while working on a new form. Made it even harder.
    NOON - May 17, 2000 @ 289,510
    We have shut down the guru page.
    Hopefully this is temporary. It was a VERY hard and emotional decision. I really DO love doing this but we can no longer afford to do this 18 hours a day.
    GURU page poll
    May 18, 2000 @ 290,173    Corrected the NEWS (Edition 19 pages 4, 5). Ken Schwarz was the unnamed Williamsburg smith. Keith Kuck is the NEW BGOP president and was awarding the certificate to Dave May.
    May 21, 2000 @ 291,850    Debugged the i.forge.cc FUSS search engine submission routine.
    May 22, 2000 @ 292,550    Updated the Arizona Blacksmiths Association web page with a link to the conference page. Kiwi updated the BGOP and INVA records. Corrected some possible errors in the guru-poll form added an "undecided" selection. Setting up and testing some new pages.
    June 1, 2000 @ 298,800    REOPENED the GURU PAGE! Within minutes of opening the page there were questions posted!

    After 2 weeks of poll taking and weighing the responses we are setting up an anvilfire MEMBER Group. We have setup the password system and member database. * Thankyou Kiwi! *
    Tonight (very late) I am working on the membership forms. The member services will take time to fully develop but we have made a lot of headway. The ad free MEMBERS pages are setup as well as a member color for the guru page.

    THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
    June 3, 2000 @ 300,000!   The anvilfire! MEMBERS Group (Oranisation of Cyber Smiths International ???), membership form is now ON-LINE! The mail order form is in progress but you can fill in the existing credit card form and print it just as well. Those of you that responded to the poll will soon be recieving mail with access information to the new pages being tested. - 18,326
    June 4, 2000 @ 300,900   Both the Credit card form and mail forms are now on-line. We have already had several members join using the forms within minutes of their being posted. Thanks folks! Other member pages are in progress.
    The Members Group forum is now on line.
    June 7, 2000 @ 304,000   Kiwi got all the back iForge demos posted AND last night's!
    The First prize in the JYH competition is now a 152# Peddinghaus anvil rather than a 110#.
    June 17, 2000 @ 310,043   Archived both the guru page and the Virtual Hammer-In. Been working on members pages and the new iForge classroom so do not have a lot to report.
    AGAIN May was a slow month (15,000 hits). We are starting to see seasonal patterns. They reflect general business trends in some ways but are opposite in others. Shutting down the guru page for two weeks had a significant effect but we still had three times the traffic of a year ago.
    June 20, 2000 @ 312,400   Posted 4 new book reviews and made minor updates to others.
    June 21, 2000 @ 312,687   Added Blacker Hammers and ForgingHammers.com to the Power hammer Page manufacturers list.

    The Dave Manzer Little Giant Videos are here! Now sold exclusively in the U.S. by anvilfire.com!
    ON-LINE ORDER FORM

    June 26, 2000 @ 312,687   Started posting the new edition of the NEWS. Check the weather in Flagstaff, AZ live! Added photos to John Neary's review of Bob Terzoula's book, The Tactical Folding Knife. More reviews on the way!
    July 1, 2000 @ 319,000   Continue posting the NEWS in spurts.
    July 2, 2000 @ 319,610   Posted the long delayed book review of Jim Hrisoulas' The Pattern Welded Blade, Artistry in Iron. Review by Patrick McGhee.
    Key Resource
    Links2Go Key Resource
    Blacksmithing Topic
    		 July 7, 2000 @ 322,000   anvilfire is now a Links2Go Key Resource!
    July 9, 2000 @ 324,390   Posted a new home page with link to the AnvilCAM We will be netcasting nightly video from the ABANA 2000 Conference in Flagstaff, Arizona!

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