Changes Are Being Made to the Transfer Point Family of Web Sites.

The B24 Blog, a member of the Transfer Point Family of Web Sites, is pleased to announce certain changes which will be taking place among the other family members. The blog itself will not change. I will continue to make posts to the blog as I see fit. However, there are some changes that need to be done on the other web sites. Many of these changes have already taken place.

Here's a summary.

• Transit Sounds Millennium has been discontinued. Its content has been archived into a freely downloadable file hosted on ^zShare.
• The following pages are MOVING from the Bravepages server to the Prohosting server: Gallery of Absurd Stuff, Rollsign Gallery, Subway Bullets 
• The following sections will be DISCONTINUED: Bus Signs, BVE, Download Center, Transit Cow! Pictures, Transit Info, Voting Place.
• There will be some reorganizing on the Bravepages server as the site there is dismantled. The dismantling is expected to be complete some time in August.
• Work will be done on all pages to ensure compatibility on the four major web browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.

Now a little explaining as to why this is being done. When I first uploaded my site to Bravepages, I had it good. Advertising was kept to a bare minimum, and I could upload any kind of file I wanted. Then, they put the squeeze on me. There were the very annoying pop-up ads. Then the pop-under ads. Then the file type restrictions. Then came the most annoying thing: Those DHTML ads that pop up and appear directly over my content. Those things are spreading like cockroaches. It got to the point where I had to warn people to turn on any and all ad blocking software before clicking onto my site. Then, I discovered that Wikipedia was linking to my Rollsign Gallery. By this time, the only option I had was to move my files off of Bravepages onto some hosting service that wasn't committing such an atrocity.

The answer came recently. I was reading a thread on some new 6 train announcements, and I posted that I had recordings of older announcements. I later commented, "I should put them online somewhere." That's when I remembered I had a site called Transit Sounds Millennium, which was separate from the Bravepages site, and wasn't updated in several years. I Googled it, and discovered that it was still there. The Java applet at the top of the page was gone, and I discovered that not only were my pages and images still there, the pages were all ad-free! I turned off all my ad blocking software to see if it truly was ad free, and it was. This discovery sparked the movement shown above.

Now, a little bit of explaining as to why I'm discontinuing some sections of my sites.

Bus Signs: There was a big following a few years back when I posted a GIF image of a bus sign with an improper text layout. There was a QuickBASIC program, and even a Visual BASIC app written to simulate bus signs. There's even a project on the back burner (which is currently set to OFF) for a version written in Java. Since that following has diminished significantly, I've decided to pull the plug on it.

BVE: The Japanese train simulator Boso View Express also had a big following. My first route, the G was quite popular, and it was the second New York City Subway line to be released for the program (the first being the 7). I followed it up with the E (which I released either late 2001 or very early 2002 as the "9/11 Tribute Version," which turned out to be the only version), then the L. I released the L as a skeleton version because I was preparing for a mission, and I wouldn't have time to complete it fully before I left in late February 2002. Upon returning, I found the BVE-New York crowd very into making BVE routes, and there were some nice creations. The most notable one is the 2, which, at the time of its release, ran from Flatbush Avenue to Times Square. There was talk of making an extension, but there was no action. The only action done was by me, extending it (as a skeleton) all the way to its northern terminal (Wakefield-241st Street). No other full version of the line was ever released. Later, the developer of BVE, who called himself Mackoy, released more advanced versions of BVE that completely depreciated the file format the route builders were used to making routes in. Additionally, since the G, E, and L are no longer hosted anywhere, and my various standardization efforts seem to have deflated, I'm pulling the plug on BVE.

Download Center is going simply because the hosts won't allow me to put anything available for download.

Transit Cow! Pictures is a weird one. In the summer of 2000 (Yes, seven years ago! I can't believe it either.), a bunch of fiberglass cows were placed throughout the city, and I set out taking pictures of these bovine creations. Nobody seems to remember it anymore, so I'm putting it out to pasture.

Transit Info. Not much of it here, just an outdated subway map and other junk.

Voting Place: When I first put it up, I thought it was cool. Then every few months, I would get some random notice in my e-mail about some random visitor casting a vote for some old question, like "What's your favorite subway car?" Your choices are Redbird, Brightliner, R40 slant, R42, R44, R46, R62/A, R68/A, R110A/B. No mention of the arriving R160 cars. They weren't even a major point of discussion as they are now. Since I'm not going to bother updating the questions, I won't bother keeping it anymore.

As for browser compatibility, I think it's quite obvious. There are browsers out there that are far superior to Internet Explorer. Much of the site was written when I believed the opposite to be true. The four browsers I listed ("The Big Four") are ones that I see being used all the time. Now that Apple has released a version of Safari for Windows, I'll be able to check compatibility on Safari as well as the other browsers which have versions for Windows. Way to go, Apple!

In conclusion, new and (hopefully) exciting changes are in store. Stay tunes, and keep watching the B24 Blog for the latest.