A longtime Domania member passed on this Memorial to Craig Daniell. Just a simple page with a photo of our beloved founder of Domania. Craig loved his baseball as evident here. He was quite a guy and we still miss him.

For those unfamiliar with Domania and the man who began what was a boon to WebTV webmasters, here is a capsule history. Back in the late 90's, when WebTV was in its heyday, we users of this wondrous Little Black Box had already begun our foray into the world of website design. We had — still have — and maintain a wide variety of personal and business sites: Family photos, slide shows, graphic shares, HTML help and tools, original writing, games, handmade items for sale. You name it we have it.

Of course, back then we relied on free web hosting such as GeoCities, Tripod, Angelfire. We knew those hosts' TOS forbid remote loading of images and sounds, but what else could we do? WebTV doesn't have a hard drive to save images or sounds. If we wanted to display images or play midis on our email signatures that's what we did: remotely loaded or hotlinked our stored files. Then came the big bummer. The free hosts pulled the plug on remote loading and hotlinking unless we paid for it. Then again, looking back on it, those free hosts really didn't have a lot of bells and whistles. Just a place to store our files and host our pages with stringent strings attached. Oh yes, don't forget all those ugly banner ads and annoying pop-ups mucking up our pages.

In 1999, enter Craig Daniell and Domania. Domania was the first truly WebTV friendly web host. An easily navigated file manager, a file mover (similar to the transloader), a directory mover to transfer entire directories from previous hosts, and friendly, very helpful customer service. All this and no banners or pop-up ads spoiling our pages. Finally, a place to store our files to use whatever way we wanted. We could use the space for pure storage or, of course, to build a website. We couldn't do that with the free hosts. For as little as $5 a month, Domania offered the WebTV community a viable alternative to the major free hosts.

Domania also provided a true user community when the major web hosts (Tripod, Angelfire, GeoCities, Free Yellow, Freetown, et.al.) were either on the verge of being gobbled up by the Yahoos and Lycos of the world or going belly up, thus that sense of community gone forever. Craig provided an active member forum for timely updates on service, help for newbies, a place to show off our page building efforts, or just to chit-chat and make friends. It can be generally said that without Craig and Domania, subsequent, and highly successful in their own right, WebTV friendly hosts — Zone, ZBox, Webbywarehouse, PDHomes, Amish Hosting, etc. — might have never been born.

Since Craig's death in 2004, his legacy lives on. We've weathered hackers, changes in owners and managers, but that sense of community is still with us. And Craig Daniell is looking down from Heaven and smiles.

Mare's Menagerie has something for everyone. Image shares, clipart, sound files, links to newsgroups, WebTV/MSNTV help sites, seasonal web graphics, and so much more. The site is perfectly accessible and navigable with all browsers (a big plus for WebTV users), and it's easy on the eyes. Love that triple back effect!

I love Eleanor's pages. So much variety from slide shows to image shares. This time Domania's Site Showcase is proud to show off her Halloween image shares. Just in time for the spooky holiday, this page is full of graphics, clipart, backgrounds, and animated gifs for your email sigs or web pages. Snag away!

This has to be one of the best neighborhood organizaton web sites I've seen in years. Even my own 'hood's site doesn't quite compare to the Highland Gardens Civic Association. Very neat layout, easily navigable (with PC browser or WebTV), easy on the eyes (love the color scheme), and so much information!

The site describes the neighborhood association, projects and activities past and present, its members. Every activity every civic organization pursues – and if it doesn't, it should! – is listed and described in detail. This is one busy group! Even has a link to Hollywood, Florida's site. Well done, Highland Gardens residents, and hats off to the webmaster! Makes me wish I lived there.

Re-introducing Domania's Site Showcase blog. Let me familiarize those who don't know what this is.

Back in 2005, when Paul Ding owned Domania, I was asked to head up a new venture: Site Showcase. This was an opportunity to promote Domania member's sites. Members would submit their site information, and I would review the site then write a brief descriptive article and supply links to said sites. Most were personal sites: Writing, WebTV/MSNTV tool pages, travelogues, family photos, slide shows, etc. Since Site Showcase's first entries, several Domania members saw their traffic and page views increased tremendously. However, in recent years, once the old Site Showcase blog no longer functioned (I couldn't create new content and/or delete outdated links), and Domania once again changed ownership, interest in SSC waned. Back in the day I would have at least a half-dozen submissions a week; now submissions have dwindled to one every other month or so. Hopefully, now that Arbor Hosting owns Domania, and that Craig Daniell's (Domania's originator) vision will live on, interest in Site Showcase will be revitalized.

Last year, I needed another blog host for Site Showcase. I didn't know I could make another blog here at Blogstream, so I made one at Dreambook. However, as nice as it is, the Dreambook weblog doesn't have a tagging system nor does it ping the search engines once a blog updates. Now that I have this blog, I can use those Technorati tags, and Blogstream pings updates to the search engines. Links to updated blogs are always on Blogstream's home page, so more exposure to the general public means more possible page views for Domania members' sites.

Since this is very new, and there isn't much to post – yet! – why not drop by one of our past Site Showcase blogs. The original is already linked in this entry; the one on Dreambook is still available. One more thing: A few links on the old blog may be dead; the ones on the Dreambook blog are good to go.

To all Domania/d21c members who come to this page: If you want your site featured on Site Showcase, please see the FAQ page before submitting your site information. Thanks!