[Admin]

Hi everyone,

This is Howard here, main site admin and co-founder of Neoseeker, and now the new OCC site admin. In the wake of the HD crash Dave (bosco) and I had been hoping to avoid making any major announcements while we were trying to recover from the crash's horrible effects. However, some people have been speculating about "the new admin" and we felt it was better to let everyone know formally what was really happening around here before there was any misundestanding. Basically, I took over the site from Matt last week. Matt has become increasingly busy in his day to day life and we both thought that the arrangement would actually work out for the better for OCC. Before I took over the site I did talk to Dave to make sure everything would be ok and since then he and I have been working closely.

Shortly before I officially took over the site, The Crash took place, and ever since that day I've been spending the majority of my time trying to recover data, working with the ISP, and generally working against the after-effects and bugs of the crash.

Unfortunately the HD crash and loss of data is a depressing prelude to announcing myself, but the only thing I can do is make the best effort possible to do what CAN be done to recover anything at all possible. Tonight we finally got the ISP to take out the HD in question from the server so we can mail it to data recovery experts that bigred recommended. Speaking to Data Recovery Group they seem to think something can be done so I have some hope that we can recover the data. I want to reassure everyone that I am serious about maintaining a more robust backup schedule including offsite backups to try to avoid this type of thing in the future.

Aside from this, no earth shattering changes will be made to OCC. OCC is no different now than it was before I stepped in. Matt was mostly doing server admin and site admin duties while Dave was managing the day to day activities of the site. Dave and I have talked a LOT the past few days and I feel I have his full support. He is still very much the Site Manager and Senior Editor. What I'll be doing is working with Dave and the staff here to provide whatever they feel is necessary to help improve the site and also helping to fix various bugs on the site. In effect my role will be similar to what Matt's was, except I hope to be able to devote more to the site since this type of thing is my full time job. This isn't to say that some changes won't occur, but I believe they will all be very positive for the site, visitors, and the community.

For now let's all hope that we can recover the data and get back to the normal swing of things. In the meantime we appreciate your continued support and patience

PS. As far as announcing myself goes, I didn't want to make some huge fuss about the whole thing and shock the community while recovering from the HD crash. Hopefully you guys don't mind as we tried to maintain a low profile in favour of working on the more important problems. I'm not asking for a full welcome from all of you, and I understand there may be some trepidation on the part of some. I'm not a high profile sort of guy and I just want the chance to do my work and help the site from here on out, so please do give both me and Dave a chance to show you that OCC will be in as good, if not better hands than before.

PPS. I do not have a 7 year old daughter, as some people have speculated .