January 2002 - Tee

Tee owned a website called Da Fast Lane (DFL for short) which was co-owned with his real life friend Shaka. It originally started as a download website that had been themed on his favourite game; Jones in the Fast Lane. I personally had not been aware of Tee until he converted DFL into a community website, which incorporated news articles ('Da News') which allowed the community to write and publish articles (prior approval by a DFL team member required - however, a majority of articles would be published) that gave the user the ability to comment too. The Giant Abanadonware Ring List (TGARL) which would showcase and archive all the Abandonware Rings of past and present. There had also been plans to open up 'Da Games' which would be a download section and 'Da Ring' which would be an abandonware ring. It had became apparent quite fast, that as the 'community' would be split into 'cliques' that 'Da News' would serve as the centre stage for discussions (also spats) to take place and have a wide array of input. In my opinion, this had been and would become the most succesful of any community websites that the Abandonware scene had encountered.

The Saint: Hi Tee, since relaunching DFL into a resource site instead of the download site it used to be, how have things been going? Have you had any issues so far? In your opinion has it been harder running, opposed to just as a download site?

Tee: I always wanted to create a resource site, and Da News is working great as a news service... our problems has always revolved around servers... The old university server was good, but denied me in getting ftp-access - so I had to send stuff to shaka, then he had to upload. Real time-consuming and not to mention boring method. That's why TGARL had long runs without updates. After we moved to Diskboy's server, I got ftp-access (wee) but some IE6 users had problems with the site because of the servers incompatability, and the server was also quite slow. Now Diskboy is deleting his hosting account, so we have to move servers again :( We moved all the stuff back to the uni-server, but it's not working properly... don't be suprised if DFL is down for a while in the time to come... Our code and design has worked great, so we actually managed quite fine. It's just as easy running the news site as the download site, as long as the system is created. But the creation process is a long and hard one, shaka worked several weeks to create the download system, and a long time on the news site too... but as I said, after it's created it's a walk in the park. The problem with the game site is that it takes a long time to write reviews and find screenshots for all the games, so I guess it's easier now when we dropped it. We plan to launch the game site again, but then we're going to hire crew that can run that section. After Jason, Diskboy and NeoPickaze joined the crew as newswriters, I've gotten more time for TGARL... thank god..

The Saint: Do you have any further plans for TGARL? When will we see 'Da Games' section and 'Da Ring' added?

Tee: Hmm.. I'm not actually sure about TGARL... I think I'll add some more features to it later, but ATM I don't have any certain plans of sudden changes. Da Games and Da Ring, the question already asked 1000 times unfortunately still can't be answered yet :( What I can tell you though is that Da Ring isn't even under construction, so Da Games will definately be released first! The problem is lack of time from shaka's side, he has to focus on his University education - something I have total respect for and don't want to rush him too much! Afterall, real life comes first!

The Saint: What would you say your goals for Da Fast Lane are?

Tee: Our goals...
- To release Da Ring and Da Games
- To help visitors in an informative matter
- To serve kickass godlike aw-news
- To get lots of awards :P
- To get a visitor or two ;)
- To keep ruling Da Lane & live 4ever...


The Saint: If there's something about DFL you could change what would it be and why?

Tee: I would change our server into a permanent stabil compatible working one... I would also get rid of namezero and buy a real domain... A moron detector could also be installed, keeping all the weirdo posters out of the site... I guess some people are just born stupid ;)

The Saint: What are your views on the current state of the scene? Is there anything/anyone that's really getting on your nerves?

Tee: The state of the scene is the same as always. I'm not saying that it's negative, becuase that's the scene I love. Sure there are bad elements, as it is in every scene, but the good elements are truly good - and makes up for it all. About people getting on my nerves, sure.... but I'm not going to go deeper into that subject now, next question please ;)

The Saint: If you could sum up in just only one word to describe DFL, what would it be?

Tee: l337 ;)

The Saint: If you could sum up in just one word to describe the state of the Abandonware scene, what would it be?

Tee: wicked ;)

The Saint: What are your views on other community websites, such as TAG and ToT? And what is your relationship like with those webmasters?

Tee: ToT is a nice site, but I still feel that they need to post some descent articles. Since their reopening, I haven't seen a truly good article yet... the "Welcome to the circus" had some interesting points, but was way to bias, and wasn't objective at all. But if that's the way they want to run their site be my guest, just don't ask me to have any part of it. I used to comment there, but in the latest time their subject has been so damn dull, that I didn't even care. I don't really have a relationship with the ToT webmasters at all. I'm sure they're all nice people, when not throwing dirt around ;)
TAG is a really really really good idea, carried out in a terrible way. Don't get me wrong, I like TAG - but they've started on a task that they can never complete. Their reviews is usually very well written, and of great detail - but unfortunately due to the great amount of reviews horribly outdated. Just read the review they did on DFL. Truly amusing I tell you, though sad for TAG. I've had some nice chats with LuNaTiC, a nice guy... but I do sometimes feel that he opens his mouth too much. He has a way of thinking that he's God's gift to the scene, something that has been proven wrong time after time after time... I don't know the other webmasters, though I've chatted with Bunny which is very nice!

The Saint: Your time spent in the scene as up to yet, if there is something/someone you would like to see return to the scene, that has departed?

Tee: Hmm... I truly miss PsOmA - the first guy to ever really support TGARL when in it's early stages - and his kickass ring Ring of Ages. I also miss The Keep, which I thought was as high quality as HOTU. Another thing I miss is the time when I was an aw-downloader, I don't download much abandonware anymore... I eventually got bored, but I miss the old search for those golden oldies.

The Saint: Now you have more staff, how often can we expect TGARL and Da News to be updated?

Tee: TGARL is going to be updated whenever something new happens to the rings.... Da News should at least have a few articles a week....