Squidge.org Quick Facts

Full Name: Squidge Production Facilitators

Created: September, 1994

Domains Hosted: 12

Archives Hosted: about 20

Users: about 200

Most Popular Site: The Wonderful World of Makebelieve

Least Popular Site: Squidge.org own owner’s webpage!

The History of Squidge.ORG

Squidge.ORG came about in 1994, when the Internet was still not quite caught on for most folks. A group of folks, spun off of the main X-Files mailing list because of their fetish for actor David Duchovny, went in search of a home of their own. After trying a couple of mailing list hosts, the list (known as The Duchovniks) was left in the hands of Walter Hopgood, one of the only male Duchovniks at the time.

Being a bit of a geek, Walter went out and secured a domain name that "fit" the group well, squidge.org. The first machine was an old laptop computer running OS/2 and a free list-server piece of software. Other lists were requested, and Squidge.ORG outgrew it's initial computer. In Spring, 1995, Squidge.ORG became an early adopter of Linux, running the Slackware version of the product, over a dialup line. The server was connected up partially, the dialup connection going up and down many times during the day, to process and route email.

The success of Squidge.ORG was showing, and it's popularity grew wildly. Soon, it was running ten mailing lists, and upgraded the connection to a full-time dialup connection in the Fall of 1995. The system was now running an updated version of Slackware, with the SmartList add on to ProcMail as it's mailing list management software piece.

As the popularity of the Internet grew, so did Squidge.ORG. With the implementation of DSL in it's "backyard", Walter upgraded Squidge.ORG's connection to a true, full time digital connection in early 1996. And with a full digital connection, came Squidge.ORG's foray into website and email hosting. Many slash sites needed a home, thanks to the TOS'ing (Terms Of Service) that many large website hosting providers decided to implement. The number of hosting clients Squidge.ORG helped grew greatly.

With the large number of mailing lists and websites being hosted, Squidge.ORG went through some more growing. With the popularity of web interfaces, Squidge.ORG abandoned open source software for it's mailing lists, and purchased a software package called Lyris. Though adequate, it required more resources than normal software systems. When a free alternative that was open-source became available in 2000 (Sympa), Squidge.ORG upgraded to it, along with an integrated "one server" approach for webhosting and mailing list software.

Squidge.ORG Today

Today, Squidge.ORG is eclipsing it's thirteenth year of being. It hosts several major and a few smaller fan fiction archives, as well as quite a few personal homepages. Domains that are hosted besides squidge.org include senad.org , Greenwoman's HalfAft, Hot Hockey Players , and The Wonderful World of Makeblieve. The Sympa mailing list software hosts over three hundred and fifty lists, from friendship based chat lists, to slash fiction, to beta-reader request lists.

Though it's not exactly cheap to keep running (DSL line alone is $150/month and thousands of dollars in hardware and software purchases), Squidge.ORG has always been free. Free to use, free to have host, and free from advertising. It's Squidge.ORG's purpose to maintain a place where people can have freedom over what they want posted on their webpages, and websurfer's need not worry about spyware or viewing habits being monitored. Freedom and privacy are number one with Squidge.ORG.  In a word, Squidge is for fen, by fen.

Squidge.ORG In the Future

Squidge.ORG (and all of its incarnations) will continue to provide a worry-free, advertising free environment for it's users and websurfers *knock wood*. Barring anything devestating happening to Walter's environment, Squidge.ORG will continue to grow and provide for writers, archivers, and the community for a long while to come.

Keep an eye out for a new project, “SquidgeWorld”.  With all of the problems going on with LiveJournal, authors and fen need a safe place to go.  That’s what the purpose of SquidgeWorld will be for.

Behind the Scenes

There've been many people who have helped out with Squidge.ORG over the years, and one main person running the show. Walter Hopgood has run the show from day one, from installing and maintaining servers and software, to tech support and helping people with their webpage and listserver questions, as well as pay the bills. Patrick Mathews, Walter's partner of fifteen plus years, has helped out tremendously with the technology and hardware as well. When Squidge.ORG was using the Lyris product, Patrick helped with the Windows side of the setup.  Many others have helped out, from logo design to beta testing.

The Geeky Details

Squidge.ORG is currently three servers, hosting multiple domains and subdomain names. The main server is single Xeon CPU with 4 gigabytes of RAM, running Fedora Core Six Linux.  There is a listserver that is a single Pentium server, upgraded to Fedora Core 7 Linux.  And finally, there is now a database server that is a quad core Xeon with 4 gigabytes of RAM, running Fedora Core Seven Linux.  There is a SonicWall firewall to help with keeping the hackers out.

In late September 2007, a second DSL line will be installed to double current speed.  Over the next year, look for two additional DSL lines to quadruple Squidge’s speed!  A few nanoseconds faster to get that image, story, or video from Squidge to you..