OK this post is going to sound weird, but it is a basic request.  If you are trying to reach this site or if you have a link to this site, please use http://www.USSTiconderoga.org. 

Back when we first started the USS Ticonderoga website in the late 90’s it had a very long website address.  It was originally hosted on a crew member’s private AOL homepage.  Later it had moved to other free spaces that comes with different ISPs.  This made it difficult to post it on flyers and other advertising in an attempt to promote the group.  We eventually discovered a free service that shortened the address from http://userpages.isp.com/~username/ussticonderoga.html to http://beam.to/ussticonderoga.  It was shorter, it was trekkie, it was free (something very good for a fan club that didn’t charge dues to join).  When the beam.to service was started, it didn’t have ads.  Later we found a service that allowed us to register the domain name that we have today for a reasonable cost.  We have been using this domain name for 6+ years. 

Setting up our new site we wanted to know more about our visitors.  How did they find us, what did they look at, how long were they on the site, etc.  Google Analytics is one of the tools we use to track this information.  It has helped us check to see what areas need to be improved and what areas visitors like to see.  It also brought up an interesting result.  Someone using and ISP based in Utah has visited our site from the old beam.to address.  (when we first set up the domain, we forwarded the beam.to address to the domain name)  This isn’t a once or twice thing, over 30 hits to the site from this one visitor come from the beam.to address.  Google Analytics will tell us some things about our visitors, but it won’t tell us specifically who the visitor is.  So to our beam.to visitor, 1- Thank you for coming by on a regular basis.  We hope that you are finding the information on this site informative and entertaining.  2- Can you update the bookmark to the proper www domain name?  If this is from a site that has a link, let us know which site it is and we will contact them to get it updated.  I’m not certain if beam.to still has pop up ads, but if we can make your visit more enjoyable by avoiding them, that would be a plus as well.  To all of our other loyal visitors, I hope you enjoyed this brief history into the Ticonderoga website.