The start of XfireSystems was an idea that ended up never happening. When was getting ready to get my first paid domain name and hosting with Dell Host I had to come up with a cool name. I knew I wanted to use the name XFIRE, but I couldn’t get the domain XFIRE because it was on hold by someone. Before I came up with the name, I had come up with others, like XfireDarkness. Finally, I went with XfireSystems. Reasons was the site was going to be a programming site. I was going to make software and games, but about a week after setting it up and starting my new site, I found that my skills in programming were not as good as I thought them to be.
Finally, after two weeks, I gave up on the idea. So now I had a domain name and hosting space and nothing was planned out. Plus I wanted to make loads of money with my site. So I basically started making stuff for the site. Basically, it was a portal site for all my other sites. Everything I came up with was its own site. Some of these ‘ideas’ became OK sites that I even last past the old XfireSystems (1999 – 2001).
The Old XfireSystems (1999 – 2001)
After I started working on the site I basically had everything I could think of on it such as anime info, reviews games, and links, and I had a lot of links. The biggest section on the site was my Dragonball section which was its own site named Dragonball Millennium: The Unofficial Dragonball Source. Some other sites I had were Pokemon GS which had a guide for the first Pokemon Red and Blue Game Boy games as well as other codes and info. Some images as well. There was my Gundam Site called Gundam Unlimited, which was one of the best Gundam sites out there at the time. The reason I say that is because there weren’t loads of Gundam Sites out there, and most only had info on Gundam Wing, while I had info on all of the series at the time, which I believe was A-Turn Gundam.
I created a network called “The Xtreme Network” which was basically all of my sites in it. A total of about 15 sites I had done, most of them were like a section of what I should have been doing. The problem was all my work went into making money with my online store, which I called XfireSunShine. Which one I never made any money because who would buy anything from me and everything was overpriced it wasn’t even funny. But being as stupid as I was, I was blind and should have stopped and redesigned, being that XfireSystems was basically started when the internet was just on the edge of taking off, as if some of you may recall that the internet was not mainstream or really an apart of our everyday life’s like it is today.
Most people can’t even remember a time when they didn’t use a computer, email, or visit or even talk about a website. Some do, in any case about the start of 12th grade for me in 2000, my website became very big due to my school. It seems like things would take a run for me and I be making lots of money. However, my story was shut down because I didn’t make any money within 90 days. So right when I start to get traffic and visitors my store is closed down. As things go, from 200 to 2001 was the best year for the old XfireSystems. After high school, well that was a different story.
XfireCollector (2002)
In the fall of 2001, I started working with my father out at his job. I worked there for about 4 months this time I couldn’t keep the site up as I hardly work on it anymore and really just lost the will to even do anything with it. So I closed it in the Fall of 2001. Well from 2001 to spring 2002 I was working on and off. Nothing seems to make me happy. That spring I reopened the site but my host had a hold on my domain name and because it was first signed up under my mom’s name I couldn’t get control of it. So I had to basically make a new site. I call it XfireCollector and it was a trading card game site. That was what I was into at the time. However 3 months into the project, only about 50% open I started working because I needed the money.
This was the first time I took on a staff member, there was this nice guy I met online and we got to talking and he started to help me out on things about a month before I started working. Once I started I basically gave him the site, I came and did some work when I could but work was 40 hours a week and it really made me tired every day. I was lucky to work on the weekends. Before long I started working 6 days a week and never had time to be online at all.
Well, two things happened in the 2-3 months I wasn’t online. First off the site was closed and I didn’t find out that my host had dropped me until I got my bank statement and noticed I hadn’t been charged being that I still pay the bills. When I asked my host why they closed my account I was told that I had broken their terms of services. I then learn that my so call staff member had gotten tired of running a TCG site and turning it into a porn site, basically all the work that was done, as the site also had all the old content from XfireSystems was lost because I had no backups and being that my host close the site I had no chance to move it.
Whatever happened to the guy to this day I do not know. Hopefully, he just went back to his little porn site. I have nothing against them but just not something I am into being how badly the whole community is, if you can even call it one. In any case, I finally got my email account back and once I told my host what had happened they agreed to reopen my account, however, I still had lost everything. I try to rebuild but not really knowing how long the site was a porn site or what else may have happened I change the domain name to Anime-Ent.com in 2003.
Well, that is all for right now, I will finish this article at another date. I hope you all learn something from this: not to trust anyone online, not even someone you know, because everyone lies online. The best way to meet people is to get out and meet them in the real world. Not all people are bad, however, always stay on your toes because if you don’t you will get into big-time trouble.