|
|
||||||||||||||
|
Home Improvement Videos & DVDs Home Improvement Videos & DVDs 
|
Since there have been some questions about how the club started, where we get our information, etc. I thought I'd put it all down here in one place... browse at your leisure... FIRST off, I think it's most important to say up front that the information you see on these web pages is the result of the efforts of a large number of fans and a few really dedicated "staff" who have been willing to track down new information about the cast and forward it to me for inclusion on the page! What to these people get in return for providing this information... money... NOT! The club is a 100% non- funded volunteer effort, the funds required to store the web page, host the mailing list, etc. come straight out of my pocket. So, we do what we can... the people providing info get credit for the info they provide! Many people have recently been saying "Your pages are pretty cool, but how come you don't have Home Improvement pictures and sound files like some of the other pages out there on the Net". This one is pretty simple to answer, it's a copyright issue. All of the video clips, screen snapshots and sound recordings from the show that Disney has posted on their web pages are explicitly prohibited from "redistribution", and any recordings, etc. made by individuals and distributed on the net are in breach of Disney's copyright on the show. Pretty much the same goes for scans of pictures from magazines, etc. I would *love* nothing more than to be able to put a copy of the Home Improvement logo and some real show pictures up on the page, I could fancy things up that way... however, until I can get permission from Disney, it ain't gonna happen... I will respect their copyrights as best I can. I know you're gonna say "But everybody does it", which is true; but *HEY*, wouldn't you rather see pictures of the cast taken by YOU, the fans... that's the kind of photos I just love to post on the page, because there is a story behind each and every one of them [and on that topic, if you've been somewhere and taken a photo of one or some of the cast and are interested in sharing it with the world, please e-mail me]. Where does the information come from... well, it comes from any number of places. Naturally, there are always a steady stream of articles in the teen magazines like Bop, Teen Beat, etc about the boys... video clips and interviews on entertainment programs such as Entertainment Tonight, E!. There are press releases on new movies and upcoming projects, newspaper articles. We rarely use more than a snippet of information from a particular source, but we have been lucky enough on occasion to be granted permission by a publisher to reprint an entire magazine article on our web site. Every once in a while, someone will haul a camera off to an appearance that one of the cast is making and snap us a few photos. Naturally, we also keep an eye on a number of mailing lists and Internet newsgroups in which information is posted on occasion. There are also a number of sites around the Internet from which we have found information on some of the past projects the cast have been involved with. Most recently, we have started a collection of links to other web pages around The Net that have to do with the cast members (mostly Jonathan, hmmm :-) We have also been lucky enough to receive, on occasion, a little "care package" from a cast member with a fresh bio and maybe a pic or 2. When did it start... can't recall the exact date, but it would have been in November or December of 1994. I had just gotten full Internet access and began a search in earnest for information on my fave. TV program (ya, Home Improvement, imagine that). Checked for newsgroups... NOTHING, checked for mailing lists... NOTHING, checked for web pages, a few but not a lot. Ran into a chap that worked for Disney on the net one evening (sorry to have forgotten his name), grilled him and found out that he had not seen anything around either. His next statement was probably the start of the club "why don't you just go out and start something up". Thinking that it would be an easy task I "went for it". I certainly didn't realize the hassle that was to come, let alone of starting up a newsgroup. We floundered around for a few months with a bare minimum of information on the page (about 1 1/2 printed pages). Ryan Hallett was kind enough to manually start a mailing list for those who did not have access to the newsgroup because of propagation problems (including myself :-) Things started to turn around a bit... a few people sent in information, the newsgroup and mailing list started to pick up traffic... in the background, however, I was EXTREMELY frustrated with the EXTREME amount of effort that it was taking to put information into place. Not too soon thereafter, however, the club took off, almost literally... the traffic to the web page was growing exponentially, the mailing list was booming, the newsgroup was even going pretty well. What about the email addresses for the cast, you ask. GREAT question, I created those addresses because for some strange reason, as much as I could post in BIG letters not to, I was getting 20 or 30 messages a day for the cast to my personal email address. It was getting a little overwhelming... I still do get a certain amount of mail for them to my personal address, but the email addresses have at least made the volume of mail bearable. ... ... ... Soooooooo... That puts us in warp speed to the present day... I haven't looked back, there just isn't enough free time in the day to do what needs to be done... the information comes in by the truckload, the mailing list has almost too much traffic to read... and, of course, we have now won a number of net awards for the page. I *REALLY* need to thank the club volunteers, the many people I don't even know who have sent me information to post on the web page, my friends who have supported my efforts with the club (and who have boosted my spirits when I got frustrated). Last but not least we need to thank the cast and crew of Home Improvement for making a wholesome family show that's not afraid to tackle some of the tougher issues when it needs to, that keeps us laughing week after week, and gives us something to go a little FANatical about! A huge round of applause for the wonderful folks at StarMANIA, and StarMANIA Productions for their donation of website and graphics design and for providing us server space with which to run our mailing lists and chatrooms. The StarMANIA folks specialize in designing and hosting Internet based fan services, as well as talent management and other career services for talented celebrities like Phillip Van Dyke, Sandee Van Dyke and Jesse Rutherford to mention a few. Special thanks to
Interplug Corporation for
providing the MORE POWER server space on which this website has been running flawlessly
for years. AMAZING stuff!!!
The Cyberfan Trophy Case:The Home Improvement Cyberfans sites have won a number of net.awards for our sites, below you'll find the tale of those achivements. Thanks to those who have taken the time to nominate us for these honors! Listed by:
The Staff / Contributors:Here's a list of the MAJOR contributors to the club (the folks that hold the club together):
And here's a list of some of the folks who have helped us out, or who's information has been used
on the club web pages (in no particular order, apologies to anyone I've missed):
|
