Although years go on, some parts of this website have not really been updated since its creation. Even if it makes sense that My Software and My Music sections are being updated more often, I'm also aware that the articles, links and online games sections are constantly attracting new visitors each day. That's why I decided to update the secondary sections of this website this year.

Most significative changes should be focused on the Articles section. More than a simple glossary of some technical terms used on this website, it will become a place where I'll post all the hardware and software reviews I published on specialized websites, either being simple reviews on a particular product, or more complete articles describing all their interesting features. As this website does not really focus on IT news, this major section update will not aim at challenging IT-related news websites, but will help to centralize what I have written on other websites, without having the pretention to publish complete reviews of latest high-tech products regularly.

In the meantime, the Links and Favorites section will be also updated, to include, among others, a renewed Partners category, similar to what used to be in the Information section, featuring websites which asked to appear on these pages after linking to Arachnosoft. If you sent me a partnership request with your website in the past, I invite you to contact me if I haven't honored this request yet.

At least, the online games section should also be updated with new games to complete the older ones. I must first find Flash replacement games for those previously hosted by JOGG, which have been offline for a while now. As usual, if you have some suggestions, or ideas about interesting games that could be featured on this website, don't hesitate to contact me.

To planify these updates, I uploaded a new poll to grab all your wishes for the forthcoming Articles section update. Other polls should follow this one for the updates of the other sections.

You should also notice that, since the last update of the website in December 2008, I made some bug fixes, mainly related to the download links and poll systems. If you previously experienced some difficulties to download some files on this website, you should try to renew your requests.

Once again, thanks for your support, and hope to see you later for the future major 2009 news!

VSo today, the site has been online for eight years. And, as the time flies, the technology evolves as well, and so do the users' little habits...

Should you be more or less interested by new technologies, there's little probability that you could avoid the trend represented by the netbooks, those very small low-cost computers, designed to be a cheap, light and extremely portable way to access the internet wherever you are, becoming a true alternative to those clumsy heavy bigger-sized notebooks you usually carry on your shoulder. However, despite being useful, these ultra-portable machines also come with something being both their main strength and weakness: a small-sized screen, and its lower resolution compared to the other display devices available on the market.

As a result, most of the websites designed to be displayed under a given screen resolution, such as the one you're reading these lines from, now suddenly appear to be barely adapted to this new emerging netbooks market; being in constant growth since the beginning of the year, and with the holiday season approaching, it's not going to stop really soon; and I didn't mention the case of mobile phones, most of them being nowadays perfectly able to surf on the internet just like any other computer.

As a result, I thought it would be pretty accurate to start adapting this website so that it can be displayed smoothly on any screen resolution. That's why, after several years spent dealing with a fixed width of 800 pixels, you'll now be able to choose to view this website in stretched mode, automatically fitted to the available space. The "Auto Size/Fixed Size" buttons on the top part of the website serves this purpose. Using it, you can switch to a fixed width display to an automatically stretching display and vice-versa, from any webpage, to your convenience, no matter if you choose to use frames or not, the two display modes being completely independant and self-completing.

Nevertheless, this new feature is only a first step: it will quickly be enhanced so you could be able to choose global site font sizes, independently from your browser's text display settings. This kind of feature being somewhat tricky, it requires quite a number of extensive tests. That's why I decided to only enable the size adjustment features in a first time. As usual, feel free to play with it and send any feedback you may have about it.

On these final words, let me leave by wishing you an happy holiday season.

Here is an easy wordplay to introduce some improvements over the file download system of this website.

As of now, all files currently available for download on Arachnosoft are mirrored on several servers, so you can choose to get a file from another location in case you'd experience slow download speeds or incomplete downloads, for example.

Technically, all files are now available from an anonymous FTP server which you can explore as you want, using a dedicated FTP client, a FTP-enabled file explorer or any conventional Web browser.

Additionally, all the files are mirrored on another server hosted by Free, and, as a third alternative, some of the most recent files are also available on the Web server hosting this website.

Of course, the usual download process and links remain unchanged: you can still use the links available on any software/music page to get the files you're looking for, just as before.

The download page will automatically redirect you to the main FTP server, and switch to another available download mirror if the current one is too busy or unreachable. In any case, you'll always be able to choose another download server manually, if necessary.

I've thoroughly tested this new download process to ensure that any file can be downloaded from any server without hassle. Anyway, should you encounter any problem with this new system, don't hesitate to browse the main FTP download server to find the file you're looking for. Of course, you can always contact me for any help.

That said, let me end by wishing you, once again, an Happy New Year 2008! See you next year :)

To celebrate quietly, but surely, the website's seventh year birthday, I prepared a somewhat light update, which should nevertheless interest some of you.

Effectively, among the comments I get from time to time about this website, many are related to the use of frames. This technology, once massively used to split a webpage in several distinct and independant parts, has quickly suffered from a number of limits, which can be annoying in some particular cases, when, for example, trying to print a whole webpage with its headers and menus, or when trying to browse it with a non frames-compliant software.

That's why I'm introducing a new feautre which will allow you to browse this website without these famous frames: you only have to click on the "Disable Frames" icon located in the above toolbar, and you're ready to go.

Hence, I invite you to experience this new navigation mode to choose the one you like most, as I actually decided to keep a frames-enabled navigation mode, available for the regular users who could have been disturbed by such change seven years after. To switch from a display mode to another, you can use the same above-mentioned icon.

As the implementation of the feature required to change many root concepts of the website, I must admit that I've been unable to work on other significant changes for this year ending update, mainly because of a lack of time. Also, you should be aware that new bugs may arise because of this update. That way, I invite you to report me any suspect behaviour you may be experiencing while browsing this website, with or without frames, of course!

That said, let me leave you with all my best wishes, hoping happy holidays for everyone.

Nearly one year without any music updates, until now! You'll effectively find the new version of "Green Hills" in the My Music section. A music I composed more than five years ago; needless to say that an update was really necessary, not to say more!

More than a bare lifting, it's actually a brand new interpretation, entirely reworked from scratch, like I did for "Arabian Feelings" nearly one year ago; new instruments and new melodies for new ideas. Extended by more than one minute compared to the first version, you now have access to more than 8 minutes of music, and, as usual, in IT (ImpulseTracker), MIDI, MP3 and OGG Vorbis formats. Grab it, it's free!

Apart from this new music, the website itself did not benefit from any new major update this time. Only some minor internal modifications to enhance, even more, the site's compatibility with W3C's recommendations, even if the current version is naturally compatible with most important browsers and operating systems of the market.

And, to finish, let me remind you that I can always be reached by e-mail for any question or comment you may have about this website or its contents. Don't hesitate, particularly, to give me your opinion about this new version of "Green Hills" !