About ReBoot Mayhem

ReBoot Mayhem has been online for 10 years now, starting out as a couple of pages on a larger site then moving around the net until it found a home on the smooveNET network. Eventually even smooveNET had to close down so the site moved again late 2009. The site has been through a number of incarnations (this is version 9) but on the whole it has tried to maintain that feel of bringing the fans together and showing our commitment to the series of ReBoot.

A Little History: 1998 It Begins
ReBoot Mayhem began as a really small section of a larger site called "Site of Mayhem". This was originally created back in 1998 and contained a few other fan sections like "Star Wars" and "X-Files" and a little stories section. It wasn't terribly big and there wasn't a lot on it at the time but it was my first foray into the world of creating websites and I was pretty well messing around with one of those WYSIWYG programs. It was a bit of fun really but eventually I realised that there were bigger possibilities here, mostly since I'd learned that Season 3, which had just aired in Australia, had not yet aired in the US. I was surprised but figured this was a good opportunity to expand on the site. But having it all bunched into a small amount of space with some non-ReBoot related stuff wasn't going to work, so the site was shifted to its own little space on Tripod.

Although the site was officially born in 1998, I don't really count it as its first year as it was not yet a site outright dedicated to ReBoot.

1999: The "Almost but not quite" Move
Although it was good to have the site in its own little corner of the universe, there was the issue of space. One of the other sites I was running on "Site of Mayhem" got shifted about numerous times including going to a hosting company calling themselves SnG. They were eamarked as a possible moving spot for ReBoot Mayhem if I ended up getting really desperate for space. Unfortunately their services were lacking and I ended up losing the entire site (it was a Star Wars fan site) when I could no longer log in and received no help from the administrators. So ReBoot Mayhem was not going to move after all, it just ended up being split up to spread out the 'love'. I ended up creating two more sites using Geocities and Tripod, which were interlinked to the main site. One 'sub-site' contained all the music videos and movie clips and the other was home to all the fan art.

2000: Sweeet Move
Around July/August of 2000 I finally found a host that wanted me and could offer good support and lots of space. The Sweeet Network (SweeetNet for short). The whole of the Sweeet Network was about fan sites, whether it be anime, gaming, tv shows or music they were all welcome and we were all made to feel welcome which was an awesome thing. On top of that I finally decided to buy the domain name for the site. Unfortunately the time at SweeetNet didn't last. The network was hosted on a gaming site which was very popular. That gaming site, earned money through advertising, and the advertisers requested that all sites on their network host their ads which was fine by me. However, we were later told that unless we were a game site, the advertisers would look elsewhere and that would mean no revenue for the host. SweeetNet had to close down and all sites were encouraged to look elsewhere. ReBoot Mayhem was originally 'saved' by one of the former SweeetNet hosted sites that had started up their own hosting site 24/7, who helped us shift from Sweeetnet before it completely shut down.

2001: Smoovest Move
The 24/7 Network was a nice place to stay but I felt that it was only temporary. The guy running it was still having a few difficulties in keeping things running like they did on Sweeet Net so I thought I'd try looking elsewhere. Surprisingly I discovered that a few sites that were hosted on SweeetNet had moved to another hosting site called SmooveNET, who was also set up specifically for fan sites in mind. SmooveNet welcomed RebootMayhem (and Mayhem for that matter) with open arms when I decided to apply. At that moment I knew that SmooveNet would be ReBoot Mayhem's permanent new home. It was a great network and I received great support with the many technical thingys that I had no idea how to fix.

2006: Where for art thou, ReBoot Mayhem?
Towards the end of 2005 it was obvious that very little activity was happening on the site. I had very little news to offer and my other sites seemed to be eating up my time (along with life in general) so come the middle of 2006, the site itself went into what was supposed to be a temporary hiatus. What was Mayhem doing between June 2006 - July 2007 (when the front page was finally updated to show a preview of the new site)? Well she was working on a rebuild of the website in the spare time that she had (which in many cases was no spare time at all) and because Mayhem is a Virgo, she changed her mind about the look of the site about 6-7 times before she decided to go 'Faq it! I'm using a template!' which she did. Thus the site finally was born anew in September of the year 2007.

2008-09: Reborn Again!
You've got to admit it, it never gets boring at ReBoot Mayhem! Yes reincarnated once more, the site has gone through yet another change, however in this day and age where time is really important I opted out of the long lengths of time spent on hand coding and instead switched to something that suits the needs of this site without taking up too much of that precious time. I mean I'd rather be spending time just posting up news and information than having to code pages to enable that news and information to appear.

2009: A significant downturn and another move
Unfortunately during 2009 it became obvious to myself and many other sites hosted by SmooveNet that their support had practically disappeared and the server was coughing up problem after problem causing many site issues and a lot of downtime. I was again running out of space but this time SmooveNet were not able to support and suggested that I move 1 or all of my sites elsewhere. It was rather sad and kind of a shock to realise that the home that felt like it could be a permanent place for ReBoot Mayhem and my other sites was now letting us down. Eventually they came forward and confessed that they would be shutting down and would give all sites on their network one month to find a new host. Prior to this I had managed to find a new home for two of my other sites and they had been there for about two months with no issues, so it was only natural for me to move the Edge of Beyond forums and Reboot Mayhem there too. Although they are not dedicated to fan-sites like mine, Surpass Hosting does host fan sites so it was safe to say that the site would be in good hands. Of course, with a new move I figured, why not make a couple of changes to the site as well!!

Like the games "Final Fantasy" there is no actual 'final' version of ReBoot Mayhem. Instead it's likely to continue to develop and grow as a website as well as a community site for ReBoot fans worldwide.