It all started with an idea by a thirty something year old rocker and a fruitless search for a decent social networking website for rock fans, without chavs and endless ads for really crap pop bands or spot cream.
The search began for a decent script to power the website, and a hosting package that would carry the site and be powerful enough to cope with unlimited numbers of uploads and downloads.
Then a domain name. If I built the site and got it working the way I wanted, what would I call it? Haven't all the best domain names gone now? I tried a few variations until I decided on Time To Rock, but the .com version had already gone. I grabbed the .net and .co.uk versions and contacted the owner of the .com version, which wasn't live at the time, to see if he was willing to sell. Apparently it is going to be used for a rockabilly website somewhere in the states so that one is out for now.
So I had a name and a couple of domain names to use. Now I needed a hosting package. Standard hosting packages were not big enough to cope with the size of database required or the bandwidth needed for this sort of site. So a dedicated server was needed. How ***kin' much? OK thanks I'll try somewhere else. Eventually I got one that would do what I wanted and suited my limited budget from
www.gohostit4me.com Now then. A rock music website needs a logo. Just typing a name onto the site in Ariel or Times New Roman doesn't really look very rock n' roll so a proper logo was needed.
A quick web search brought me to a rock logo designer, James Gaden at
www.solitaryvision.co.uk , he has been involved in some major rock album cover and poster designs and was an obvious choice for this site. Armed only with the webite name and a very (very very) vague idea of what I actually wanted, James created the Time To Rock logo at the top of each page on this site and also the 'guitar player' logo seen on several other pages. Top Man. Its all starting to come together.
So I have a good website script, a dedicated server and an ideal logo. Now how the hell do I put them all together into a working website??
After another search on the net I came accross a web designer based just a few miles away from me. That's useful. I'd rather use someone close by. At least then if I get ripped off it's not far to go to break his legs.
As it happens I got lucky again. The designer was Richard at www.l22.co.uk and he did a cracking job of setting everything up for me and tweaking the few little design bits that I didnt like until I was happy with the end result. With the assistance of another programmer, Adrian, we got the site working and after I added a few bits of content it was finally ready to unleash on the public.
So now here it is, www.timetorock.net , the social networking site just for Rock Fans. It's brand new and it's free to use. Im happy with it and I hope you will be too.
Mark
Administrator
Update: 22nd April 2008
We eventually agreed a price with the owner and bought up the domain name www.timetorock.com
Tags: Timetorock Rockmetal Website Social Network Community
