Better late than never!
Welcome to the February issue of MyAtari. This month I have both good and bad news to deliver. What would you like first?

The bad news, ok...

The bad news is that after several months of e-mails, phone calls and general hassle, MyAtari has finally lost its fight for the domain name, www.myatari.co.uk. Back in January 2002, we launched myatari.co.uk with the good intention of making it a 100% mirror of myatari.net just in case it ever went offline. We took all the usual precautions such as hosting the site with another supplier on a different server, but fate was not smiling on us.

In August 2002, Square Internet - the company hosting myatari.co.uk - suddenly went offline taking the majority of the sites it hosted with it! A few weeks later, it reappeared shortly for a few days before going offline for good. Following several days of investigative work, I found out that Square Internet (also known as Starhosts) had gone bust taking its customers sites and money with it!

With this news, I approached Trading Standards and the Editors of the mainstream UK internet magazines as well as posting comments on several related forums. However, Square Internet / Starhosts have never (to my knowledge) replied to any e-mails sent to it by its customers, Trading Standards or the press. Knowing that they had gone bust, I attempted to move myatari.co.uk to a new server. However, against their own terms and conditions, Square Internet had registered the domain myatari.co.uk as their own! Consequently, a recent conversation with a very helpful chap at Nominet UK (the domain registrar of all .uk domains) resulted in the news that we have lost the domain name :-((

The good news...

The good news is that after weeks of careful planning, myatari.net has successfully moved to a new server. Although this sounds a relatively simple, this process is very delicate. It took just a few days to complete (during which myatari.net was unavailable), but I am pleased to report that the transfer process is now 100% complete. What does this mean for you? Well... on the surface, not a great deal. However, this does mean that we now have greater control over the site (technically speaking) and can finally provide our contributors with an exclusive myatari.net e-mail address.

Please update your address books with the following:

Regular visitors to our site will have noticed this issue has been released slightly late. This has been due to a number of reasons. Since our January issue, I have been working flat out at work on a Drama for the BBC which has left me with little or no free time. I was also working away from home without an internet connection (except for during my lunch break), which compounded the delay.

When I find myself working such long hours, Shiuming usually steps into my shoes until I am free again. However, Shiuming recently started a new job - so is out to impress ;-) - and MyAtari recently completed its move to a new server.

Anyway, enough of the excuses. Enjoy the issue!

Matthew Bacon, Editor

P.S. MyAtari will soon be holding its annual awards. The awards were very successful last year and we'd would like to make them even better this year! With this in mind, please send your suggestions for the category titles. I look forward to receiving your suggestions.

Flying visit
Lots (more than usual) to do recently so I'll make this short... I'm going to Retrovision III, the classic gaming event for the UK, on Saturday 8 March 2003. As of writing, that's only six days, sorry for the short notice. I'd be very pleased to meet MyAtari's supporters there, both contributors and readers. Contact Mark Rayson at the web site below and order your tickets as soon as possible, tell him MyAtari sent you.

If anyone needs more incentive, special guest at the show will be Jeff Minter of Llamasoft!

See you there?

Shiuming Lai, Features and Technical Editor

MyAtari magazine - Feature #1, February 2003