The VH Trade Site Official History
Originally this site was created as a "companion" site to the newly-created VH Trade list on egroups (now Yahoo! Groups), which was set up by longtime VHML-ers to set up trades, discuss new boots, etc. The site has grown quite a bit since it's inception, but still has the same "special-interest" focus on trading unreleased material that it always has.
Updated 8/21/06
In it's nearly 8 year history, the site has averaged around 12,750 visitors per month and is approaching the 1,250,000 mark all-time.
It has also been the top rated site on VHLinks.com for over six years (currently at 9.70 out of 10).
The VH Trade Forums is one of the most popular VH boards on the net today, with over 4,100 members and over 85,000 posts since opening in April 2001 -- quite a lot considering it's merely a special-interest board, whereas other VH boards cover all general topics.
Site Revisions
Like any other website, VHTrade.com/VHTrading.com has gone through many designs and changes. I've tried my best to document them below, but I'm sure there are a few holes/mistakes in the chronology as I've kept less-than-perfect records.;-) Here it goes:
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 Version 1.0 (1998) - This one debuted in September '98. Very simple, with an image map to links on the left and a guitar logo on the top. Added during this period were the trader profiles (which were e-mailed to me via a webpage form, all of which I had to add by hand one by one), and the bad traders list.
For the first several weeks of it's existence the site was located at http://www.greatminds.net/vhtrade.html until I purchased the VHTrade.com domain name for it in November.
Version 1.1 (Jan. 2000) - Made in January 2000. Slight modifications to the graphic design and news on the front page, but nothing much different to the site pages themselves.
I added bottom banner ads (simply to cut down on then-outrageously expensive server costs) for CD-NOW.com and a few smaller sites but I only kept them for about a year because I made VERY little money with these ads. In fact, I still haven't gotten paid from two places because I never made the minimum amount of money they would allow before they would cut you a check (which was $100 each, I believe). It wasn't until almost three years later that I would ad banner ads to the site again (the more profitable Google Ads).
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 Version 2.0 (Early 2000) - Major redesign. Featured a "liquid", scalable table layout and lots of red. I got rid of almost all graphics in favor of links and tables. An early favorite, but it could have been improved (and has improved) in many ways. Added many pages, including the vinyl boots list, "bootlegs by the numbers", bootleg & music news links, polls, and others. Also added site search using Atomz.com.
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 Version. 2.5 (August/September 2000) - Same basic template/color scheme as version 2.0, but I got rid of the left navigation menu and put up a "drop down" DHTML menu at the top. I also cleaned up the site structure and introduced more pages including the (still not finished to this day!) solo singers lists. I remember being very pleased with the design, but there were browser issues (mostly with Netscape) that prevented this design from lasting very long.
I remember around this time a group of traders and myself decided to catalogue every circulated VH and solo singer boot in existance (going far beyond the scope of vhboots.com) by giving the details of each show, the set list, song times, MP3 sound clips, etc. Jobs were given to each volunteer. Unfortunately, only a few traders really worked on this while the others did little or nothing (I admittedly was one of the later group) so this project never came into fruition.
Around this time there was some dispute between myself and my old web host about cancellation of my hosting account. They illegally took control of the vhtrade.com domain name for several months, and I in the meantime had to register another domain for the site. VHTrading seemed to be the best alternative, so the site was renamed. I had later acquired VHTrade.com once again, so I had it redirected to the new site.
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 Version 2.6 (Late 2000) - I had tried to place a "table-ized" sitemap on the home page with color-coded graphics to indicate which site sections had been recently updated. THAT by itself was too much for me at the time to keep updated;-), so it was scraped after a while.
Small amounts of blue were added to contrast with the constant red bombardment. It was a light, almost "feminine" shade of blue and I dubbed this slight revamping as the "eyeshadow look";-).
I had become infatuated with the idea of having forums/message boards, mostly influenced by VHLinks.com's impressive UBB forums (now VHForums.com). I tinkered around with a pirated copy of UBB before I made the forums public, and finally bought an official UBB license and threw it up on the website in April 2001. I wanted the forums to be better integrated with the site's current look (which still had the DHTML menus), so a full site redesign was in order...
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 Version 3.0 (Early 2001) - Sick of the red that seemingly was on EVERY VH fansite, I ditched it and instead used blue and light gray everywhere in this version. I was partially influenced by cnet.com/news.com's design at that time; it had nice-looking tabs at the top, and therefore I wanted them, too. There were repeated elements (besides navigation) on many or all pages such as polls. The artwork gallery and other sections debuted. Tight integration and a uniform look were important to me.
At the time, I was very happy with the redesign, but looking back it's probably my least favorite.
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 Version 4.0 (designed late 2001, never debuted) - This version was never seen by the public eye except for one small thumbnail image. I scrapped 4.0 because the colors I used -- mostly dark shades of blueish-purple and gray looked too bland for me after designing it. This major redsign was heavily influenced by the styles of Windows XP and MSN.com. For the first time icons were added as navigation. I added forums login to virtually every site page to try for a more consistent look.
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 Version 4.1 (Mid 2002) - Debuted in July 2002. It kept the same layout and iconic design that 4.0 had. Lots of behinds the scenes tweaks and modifications. Trader list page hosting and Guitarhead Radio debuted. The Auctions came and went. The VH swirl in the site logo was removed because of strict copyright regulations from the band.
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 Version 4.5 (January 2004) - The site has moved to virtually all PHP, allowing easier editing of dynamic and repeated web page elements. The Audio and Video boots pages are now in a database and are searchable and sortable. The header has changed, allowing search fields for both the site and the forums to be at the very top right (where I originally wanted them located). Site History created. Many pages, such as the FAQ's, Help For Newbies, and Trees, have gotten much-needed updates. Donations Page was added. Google banner ads added to the bottom of nearly every page. The Site Map has been completed. It lists nearly every page on the site, save for the individual forum categories and topics. A few minor things have been moved around and/or renamed just for better categorization.
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 Version 4.6 (July-August 2004) - The forums have been converted from UBB to the faster, less server-intensive PHP-based phpBB. An all-new, site-wide login system has been put into place, and the bootleg artwork gallery has been upgraded to be integrated with the phpBB. Forums pages have been added for mobile devices and phones. Site search was moved from Atomz.com to a Google-based local site format. Also started adding set lists to the individual shows on the audio boot lists.
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 Version 5.0 (August 2006) - Several months in the making (it was to originally debut in December 2005), The VH Trade Site got a "Web 2.0" facelift that gave it a cleaner, more-stylized look. The once-dominating blue color palette gave way to greens, light blue/grays and gradients. The VHTrading.com's logo was changed (no more Zurich font), now making it completely different than the one that debuted in version 2.0 in 2000. Icons were removed from the navigation links.
A torrent tracker was added, more features added to the forums, and many sections were reshuffled around. The Articles section was reborn as a frequently-updated blog. Multiple RSS feeds were made public. In addition to minor tweaks too numerous to mention, a few bigger features debuted in the following weeks, including the VH Trade Spy.
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VH Trade Forums - Van Halen Bootlegs and Boot Trading - The complete, definitive Van Halen bootleg, CD, CD-R, DVD, DVD-R, VCD, and bit torrent site. Discuss current issues facing mp3's and unreleased music today, talk about burning or artwork software, ask technical questions about CD burners, DVD burners, DVD Replicators, DVD drives reviews, drives, and equipment, where to buy the cheapest blank CD-R and DVD-R media, give reviews, or talk about any other miscellanious topics here.
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