What's new - Jan 2008

As mentioned, we have obtained the new remastered TOS episodes - and in high definition, no less! We have started the long slow process of going through and replacing out TOS image set. Today, we have replaced a bunch of the images from the first half dozen or so episodes and added a few more of the new look Enterprise model. Go to the episode reviews and bring up the first episode to see the new images - you can work your way through episode by episode that way.

Since we are capping in HD now, we have decided to increase the standard image sizes as well - so large images have gone from 650 to 800 wide, and small ones from 280 to 310 wide. We think the new images are a huge improvement, and we hope you enjoy them. Watch this space for more updates...

So Ron Moore stormed through to a huge victory as the best Trek writer ever.

This week a site-relevant poll. We have decided to get hold of the remastered version of TOS with the new special effects shots in it, and replace the images on the site with new ones. So this week we ask whether you think this kind of tampering with an old series is the perversion of a classic or a cool new spin on Trek!

Congratulations to Lynn Campbell, who is storming up the honour roll with her third win! This week, a shot from Enterprise "The Xindi".

Manny Coto was the best Enterprise writer... time for a poll of polls for the best writer in Trek history!

Congratulations to jg, winner of last week's competition. This week, a shot from Voyager's "Macrocosm".

We've updated the buttons in the quicklink panel to the standard size, which is only two pixels taller than they were. It's made them much clearer. Thanks to Teaos on the Forum for the idea.

So Ron D. Moore was the best Voyager writer. This week, Enterprise steps up.

As you can see, we've revamped the look of the site. We've brought all the menu buttons to the top; we figured it made more sense to have them all grouped in place, and it was a little more true to "real" LCARS design. We've also taken the quick links that we had on the front page of the site and put them in the top row, upgrading them to graphical buttons.

In terms of operating the site, it works exactly as before - the changes are purely cosmetic. We think it looks pretty good once you've gotten used to it, and our forum members have had their say and agree! So we hope you'll like it too. Note: If you wish to use the old interface it is still available on http://www.ditl.org/index1.php

Congratulations to Schizo-Hal, winner of last week's competition - his first ever win, so yay Hal! This week, a pic from DS9... can't remember the ep! :)

Great congratulations to Caleb Trapp, our five millionth visitor!

Back when I started what would eventually become DITL, it used to get a visitor every few days. Now the norm is to break 2,000 a day - that's in excess of 60,000 visitors a month! You could fill a stadium with that! It's a truly amazing and humbling thought, and Ian and I would like to thank each and every one of you who come here - and who now, through the forum, help to make this place what it is.

I was way off in my prediction, by the way - I figured it would take us until April to get here, but we beat that by three whole months! Right now it's looking like we will hit six million around February 2009... but to be honest, it would not be at all surprising if we hit that mark within 2008.

For the record, Caleb's historic visit was dated around 17:15, GMT, on Tuesday 8th January 2008. I hope you enjoyed your visit Caleb! Come join us in the forum why don't you? :-)

The ships page has been updated to add a Affiliation entry. This displays the species/group the ship is affiliated to. Again a link can take you to the species entry where appropriate.

So Ronald D. Moore was the best DS9 writer. This week, we ask about Voyager's best writer. Or perhaps that should say Voyager's least worst writer...

We've put a new list up today. This one contains all the ship classes we have in the system. As with all of our lists you can sort it by any of the available columns. Links from this list can take you to the species or ships entry for that class. We've also linked the title of the Ship Classes data point in the episode guides to this list.

Congratulations to Sondak, winner of last week's competition - his second win! This week, a pic from TNG "Where Silence has Lease".

As it's the 12th day of xmas we've taken the decorations down. Happy new year to you all.

Well, 2007 was another great year for DITL. We saw a grand total of 896,403 visitors to the site during the year; an average of 74,700 per month. January was the leading month with 89,732 visitors; even in our poorest month of December we managed 62,079. But for a dip in the last couple of months of the year, we would have made 900,000 visitors in 2007!

2007 also saw the addition of the DITL forum. This is an idea we kicked around for like two years or more before finally deciding to give it a whirl. We were worried that we'd get too many people, or not enough people, or the wrong type of people... but instead we've got exactly what we wanted, a nice little corner of the web for friendly conversations that have a massive tendency to go hugely off topic!

So what for 2008? Well, within the next ten or twelve days we should have our five millionth visitor to DITL. We're pretty excited about that... we're hoping to be able to get the person's name so we can congratulate them and Ian has been beavering away to make that possible. We're hoping the forum will continue to grow and grow. With a new Trek movie due to come along we should be able to have some substantive additions to the site again... and who knows, with the interest the movie is likely to drum up we might even get a million visitors this year. So watch this space!

We fixed a nit on the caption comp honour roll; the links weren't working properly. Thanks go to Niall Johnson for pointing this out.