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Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Who remembers the Montauk parade?



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Our Lady of the Snows Stormy Knights 
Jr. Drum and Bugle Corps Alumni News Letter 

The Knightly News Letter, Issue 3
March 17, 2001

Contents: 
1) Web Site: Changes in service.
2) Get Together?
3) Affiliates Page.

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1) Stormy Knights Web Site: Changes in service.

If you haven't visited the Stormy Knights web site in a while, some
of you may be surprised with a new Guest Book, and a different
look and feel to the site. That's because I had to find a new web host.

Our old web host Bizland.com changed their terms of service. They
no longer provide free web hosting. I can understand that. By now,
we all know that the old Internet business model doesn't work unless
you've got megabucks to throw at it, or start charging for services.

Since the Stormy Knights web site is not a business, I had to find a
new web host. Our new free web host provider is Hypermart.net.
I actually like them better than Bizland. They provide more capabilities
at the free level than Bizland did. So I've got a few more "toys" to
play with in terms of software tools. All I need is a few more hours
in the day to get around to it.

Hypermart also requires banner ads for their free web site hosting.
The default choice is "pop-up" ads. Every time you bring up or
refresh a page from the web site, a small pop-up window will appear.
You can just ignore it, or close the window, or click on the larger
Stormy Knights window to make it the top window.  This is an
alternative to the other style banner ad that appears at the top
of every page.  I think I can choose which one to display.
Do you have a preference? Banner ad at the top of the page,
or a pop-up window on each page access?
You can e-mail me at: stormyknights@yahoo.com.

I also had to change the Guest Book. I archived the old entries
on a link from the main Guest Book page. I found a really good
site that provides free tools to web site developers. They will
allow me to host both a Guest Book and live Chat. The site is
www.bravenet.com.
The new Guest Book in my opinion is better, and easier to maintain.
The new Chat is worth a try as the old Chat service was not
very friendly.

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2) Get Together?

A "get together" has been brought up a few times on the Guest Book
and in a few e-mails to me. While I love the idea, I definitely do not
have the time to handle this, especially on my own. If anybody wants
to take the initiative and form a committee to work on this idea, I think
we just might be able to pull it off.

In the mean time, St. Claire's is hosting the Suffolk-Nassau standstill
championships on April 29th. I think that would be a great place to
meet. It's reasonably located, (Rosedale) and we would be
supporting one of the last few remaining drum corps on Long Island.
Best of all there's no planning involved.  Just show up.
I plan on going, I hope some of you can make it too.

I'll provide more details as I get them.

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3) Affiliates Page

While the Stormy Knights site is not a business, there are costs
involved. By using the Stormy Knights Affiliates page to make your
Internet purchases (where appropriate), some of those costs could
be defrayed. Believe me I'm not making money on this site. (I haven't
quit my day job!) I think Amazon sent me a notice two months ago
that I had about $0.75 in my account after four months in their program.
They won't send out a check unless the commissions exceed $25.00.
I'm not holding my breath. I enjoy working on the site, so I would
do it even if there weren't any Affiliates.


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See you at the finish line...
Sal Gambino
salgambino@yahoo.com