Have fun, gain prestige, make a little money.

In association with PowerMax, I’m very happy to announce a new program intended to thank Applefritter contributors for all their hard work. Starting today, June 10, writers will receive a commission for every story they submit. The commission will be paid annually in the form of a gift certificate to PowerMax.

This program applies to Hacks, Projects, Guides, Reviews, Documentaries, and Computer Specs.

It is thanks to PowerMax’s generosity that this program is possible. As such, I’d like to publicly thank them for their support of the Applefritter community. Take a moment to browse PowerMax’s website, and you’ll be impressed by the breadth of their inventory. Look closer, and you’ll be amazed by the quality of their support. PowerMax will build a system to your specifications, tests every Mac before it ships out, and is still able to beat any mail order price. We're happy we have the opportunity to work with them.

Writers will be paid $1 for every 2,500 people (unique IPs) to look at their article (that's about $40 for a good slashdotting - if the server stays up!). This amount is based on what I project Applefritter will be able to afford, given the volatility of advertising income. Come December, we will look at advertising and I sincerely hope to increase the amount paid. The writer continues to receive payment for each article on Applefritter so long as this program exists, no matter when the article was written. You won’t get rich writing stories for Applefritter. What you will get is a little extra money to put towards your next computer or software purchase.

Understand that this program will not result in an over-commercialization. You will never see a flashing banner on Applefritter. This program is merely intended to share what money is made and to increase article submissions. Contributors even maintain copyright of the articles they submit. You just grant Applefritter the right to use it.

List your stories in the "My pages on Applefritter" field of your profile. From the navigation bar on the left, go to my account->edit account. In the aforementioned field, list your stories one per line, in the format, [node:#], where '#' is the node id of your story.

The first payment period is June 10 to December 31, 2004. For detailed instructions on contributing a story, read Submitting content to Applefritter. Once your story is listed on Applefritter, be sure to promote it to any relevant news sites.

Join us for the Grand Opening of Applefritter IRC tonight at 9:00 EST.

Participate in a friendly technical discussion and hear a number of exciting announcements about our plans for both Applefritter IRC and Applefritter in general. If you want to get involved, be sure to come!

About #Applefritter

#Applefritter is always open, but busiest on weekday evenings and Saturdays. We use the Freenode network. A list of servers is available, but irc.freenode.net, port 6667 is recommended.

Your patience is appreciated as we upgrade to the latest version of Drupal.

Thanks to the hard work of danamania, Applefritter now has a gallery for vHacks!

A vHack is a "virtual hack" - a hack that exists only in Photoshop and in the imagination of the artist. Here are a few of Dana's:

The new Applefritter server is up. Thanks to everybody for being so patient. The new Server is a 2.4GHz Pentium IV with 2 GB RAM and a 180 GB hard disk, running Slackware Linux 9.1

Compared to the old server, that's about 5x the processing speed, 8x the RAM, and 4x the disk space. And we ditched Red Hat for Slackware.

The server is not inclined to stay up.

We've been experiencing extremely high load the last couple of evenings, combined with hardware trouble (it looks like the IDE controller is on its last leg).

Pre-Order your copy of Hardware Hacking now! We expect orders to begin shipping in about two weeks.

$39.95 + $5 shipping

To order, send an email to owad@applefritter.com. Include the following data:

• PayPal Address
• Number of copies (limit: 3*)
• Any notes

Once your order is received, you will receive a "money request" via PayPal confirming it. You have 48 hours to send payment or you will have to place an order again. Only 128 copies are available. Books will be sold in order. As of this posting, all are available, so if you want a low number, hurry!

I apologize for the awkward setup. Hopefully the PayPal store will be up and running in a week or two.

* Each additional book is an extra $3 shipping.

Shipping on foreign orders:

• Canada: $16
• United Kingdom: $23
• Other: upon request

These shipping amounts are for Economy Parcel Post. If anybody knows a cheaper way, please let me know!