I first started a wargames’ website in 1996 on space provided by a long defunct Internet Services Provider who went bust owing me more than £2,000 for public relations services. First carry out shop in Scotland to take orders over the web anyone?
In the early 2000s I transferred the site to my own domain, www.hodgenet.co.uk, where I continued to post lots of wargaming material. I kept updating hodgenet fairly regularly until May 2006, when I discovered blogging software and set up Derek’s Wee Toys on Blogger. In early 2010 I moved here to my own domain and started using WordPress.
I left hodgenet.co.uk largely alone until May 2012 when I took a look at the site and decided it was quite frankly embarrassing. The design was OK for a hobby website when I started it in the 1990s, but it now looks antiquated and distinctly amateurish. Most of the pictures there were taken with a film camera and then scanned. They are not good quality.
Worse of all it’s what shows up when you do a Google search on my name.
It’s just too much like hard work to revamp the site and bring it up to current standards, but there are still some useful resources there, for example a number of print out counters which you can download and use as markers in wargames, and an index of models that can be used in AK47 campaigns where you can see pictures of models from various manufacturers.
There’s also Ztum-Setum Online News, a journal of an AK47 campaign that ran for several years at the South East Scotland Wargames Club.
Anyway I’ve decided not to delete the old web site, I’ve just moved it to www.hodgenet.co.uk/old/ where it can hide behind a disclaimer and save me from embarrassment.
Hodgenet will become a personal blog for non-wargames stuff.
