Welcome, one and all, to the new and improved News Askew! We’ve worked our collective asses off for the past 6 months to put this puppy together. It’s a pleasure and a relief, after months and months of promises, to finally bring the new site online for you to enjoy.

The idea first came about when we realized that, while the main page looked okay on the surface, it was a mess underneath. A lot of areas were getting lost in the shuffle, and the site was tough to maintain with all the news archives. We’d also been wanting to add a search engine for the longest time, but our current archive structure (1 month = 1 big file) didn’t lend itself to any good search program out there. So, we decided to take a different approach and start fresh. This was back in November of 1999.

Why did this take so long, you may ask? Well, here’s the big part — We re-entered and archived EVERY news story in this site’s history. We’re using a new database-driven news engine, which will enable us to make faster updates, handle the archiving of news stories automatically, provide search capability, and more. Why did we do this? Well, it was either that or just scrap 3 years of news, and we didn’t really find that to be a viable option. So, we spent the last 6 months re-creating each and every story, down to the graphics, scooper names and e-mail addresses, links, and more. We didn’t want to lose any of the history that made News Askew what it is today. So, we’re happy to say, you’ll find it all intact. Keep in mind that our 3 year news database is HUGE, so searching it takes a while, but when you consider all that’s being searched, and the way it’s being done (on a story-by-story basis), it’s not all that slow. Remember to use double quotes (“like this”) to surround phrases that you search on. It makes a big difference. The searches are also returned in random order (not by recent to oldest date or anything). Sorry. It’s not the best search engine, but it definitely works. Search smart, and you’ll be fine.

In addition to the new news engine, we’ve added some noticeable new features to the site. First of all, things have been completely re-organized to allow more logical access to things. Our “Featured Story” area keeps an archive of all the stories that were too long or too important to just use as single news items. The “On Location” area keeps a record of any View Askew related event we’ve attended, along with detailed descriptions of what went on there. Read the stories below for more features and announcements regarding what else is new in this massive update.

Our beautiful new logo comes to us courtesy of Clerks Cartoon artist extraordinaire Chris Bailey. We loved it so much when we saw it that we didn’t have the heart to shrink it down to a banner size. We think it’s the perfect look and feel for a first impression on the front page, and want to thank Chris a ton for helping us look a lot classier than we really are. New hand-designed header graphics & drinking game logos, courtesy of graphics wiz Dave Blumenstein, adorn our subpages. Thanks to Dave, we were able to get away from our boring old text headings and spice things up a bit. We dig his work immensely, and thank him very much for helping us out with a crucial area where we’re basically talentless.

Finally, we are very proud to present our Talkbacks area. Each news item will now provide this much-requested feature. Please log-in, reserve your user name, and read or participate in some of the discussions. We’ll be monitoring TalkBack closely to ensure that it stays an enjoyable, useful addition to this site. This is our favorite new feature, and we hope it gets a lot of use. Like the search engine, TalkBack IS admittedly slow, due to the massive amount of data we’re dealing with. We’ll make improvements as we go.

While we’ve done our best to test the site across platforms and browsers, we also realize that with newer technology comes greater chance for error. So, if you are experiencing problems with the way the website works or looks, we STRONGLY suggest that you upgrade your web browser of choice to the latest version (We recommend Internet Explorer 5.0, though the latest Netscape should work as well). WebTV boxes should also work, though you’ll be missing on some of the cooler nuances that the new site offers. Also, try and run your PC in a FULL SCREEN browser window and at LEAST 800×600 resolution (though 1024×678 is ideal) for the perfect effect.

As with any new site, we expect there will be some degree of an adjustment curve to the new look, as well as some bugs to iron out. The archives will have missing graphics and broken links, which we’ll tend to as we have time, so don’t worry about those. If you find any major problems with the site, please let us know. Have fun!