Frequently Asked Questions

The following are some questions about Thorn Valley that seem to be on everyone's mind. Or if they aren't, they should be. If your question isn't answered here, contact me and I'll answer it.

1. General Questions
1. Can I use any of the images on Thorn Valley for my own website?
2. I'd like to make a contribution to or help out with Thorn Valley. What do I do?
3. Are you ever going to finish The Return to NIMH?
4. Is The Return to NIMH a rewrite of or based on NIMH 2? Initially they seem somewhat similar.
5. I'd like to submit some Fan Art or Fan Fiction for you to post! How do I do that?
6. I keep hearing about this NIMHmuck thing on the Forum and Art Gallery. What is that?
2. Website Questions
1. I'd like to make my own (Secret of NIMH) website. Can you help me?
2. Will you do a website for me, if I tell you what to do?
3. What do I need to make my own website?
4. How do you do [insert technique here] on your website?
5. What programs do you use on your website?
3. Linking Questions
1. Can I link to your site?
2. I have a way-cool NIMH or NIMH-related site. Will you put it in your links page?
3. I've got a nifty little banner/button for my site. Will you use it on your links page?

General Questions

Q: Can I use any of the images on Thorn Valley for my own website?

A: Since I do not own the copyright to any screenshot, scan or picture of Secret of NIMH merchandise, I cannot control your use of the images for your own purposes. Be aware that they are copyrighted images, and you will be responsible for your own usage of them. NIMH Merchandise means screenshots, scans of books or official merchandise, etc, all of which are in the Studio Art Gallery. If you do decide to use them, I do request that you upload a copy of them to your own site instead of linking directly to the copies on my server.

You absolutely may not use fan-art, images that are used as part of the site layout (like the image map on the main page), or other original images, without the author's permission. Fan art includes any image within the Fan Art Gallery For more details, see the Thorn Valley copyright and disclaimer statement.

Q: I'd like to make a contribution to or help out with Thorn Valley. What do I do?

A: Well, Thorn Valley can always use more fan-art or fan-fiction stories. If you're an artist or author and want to have your work displayed here, just contact me. If you're not artistically inclined, you can also join the message board-- There's always people asking questions and posting there, and especially since I may not have the time to get to them all, help is always appreciated. Who knows, I might decide your help is valuable enough to warrant making you a forum moderator. Unfortunately, due to the nature of this site, I cannot take monetary contributions for the upkeep of Thorn Valley.

Q: Are you ever going to finish The Return to NIMH?

A: Well, sort of... I've decided that I didn't much care for the original direction Return to NIMH was taking (too close to NIMH 2 for comfort), and so I'm working on a rewrite that takes a fairly major change in the story's direction from what I'd originally planned. Trust me, it'll be worth the wait. A thanks to Gregg Anderson for helping me get interested in it again, with all of his great ideas.

Q: Is The Return to NIMH a rewrite of or based on NIMH 2? Initially they seem somewhat similar.

A: NO! In fact I came up with the idea nearly a year before the release of NIMH2. Admittedly the plot of both is based on a fairly obvious question, "what happened to the mice that got left behind at NIMH?" but, even if their are a number of similarities between the two, it was, is, and never will be a "rewrite." See the above question.

Q: I'd like to submit some Fan Art or Fan Fiction for you to post! How do I do that?

A: Just read the submission guidelines for Fan Art or Fan Fiction, then send me an email with your story or art attached.

Q: I keep hearing about this NIMHmuck thing on the Forum and Art Gallery. What is that?

A: NIMHmuck is a multiplayer, text-based, online, role-playing game based in the world of the Secret of NIMH. If you're interested in joining, check out this thread on the forum. You can also visit the Official NIMHmuck Website.

Website Questions

Q: I'd like to make my own (Secret of NIMH) website. Can you help me?

A: See the answers to the two questions below.

Q: Will you do a website for me, if I tell you what to do?

A: Unless you're willing to pay me, the answer is generally no. I've got better things to do with my time, like work on my own website. :) However, read the next question, and I might be able to help you get started.

Q: What do I need to make my own website?

A: It depends on how lazy you are. :) First you'll need a place to host your website, like Yahoo! Geocities or your ISP's^[?] server (i.e. if you get your internet through Comcast, they give you 10 MB of space to put your website on one of their servers). You can also do a search on Google for other places to host your site. If you are very new to the internet/computers, the easier to use Geocities or Tripod may appeal to you.

Once you have some webspace lined up, you have two options in creating a website.

• You can learn HTML. HTML is the language that nearly all websites are made in. It is fairly easy to learn, and it doesn't require programming experience or anything. To get you started on learning HTML, try looking at The Webmonkey Intro to HTML and HTML for the Conceptually Challenged.
• You can use a WYSIWYG^[?] HTML editor. These programs allow you to create HTML like you would with a word-processor. There are a number of free editors available; my current favorite is Mozilla Composer, which is part of the Mozilla Suite. You can also buy more advanced editors like Macromedia Dreamweaver (my personal favorite) or Adobe GoLive. However, I personally believe that, even if you do use a WYSIWYG editor, you should at least know the basics of HTML, to appreciate how it works and more importantly, what you can and can't do with it.

Q: How do you do [insert technique here] on your website?

A: Generally, the best way to tell how I do something on my site is to look at the HTML source of the page. You can do this by choosing View > Source from Internet Explorer's menu, or View > Page Source from Netscape.If you need help understanding a specific thing, and you can't find an answer anywhere else (like here), I'll be glad to help. Note that some things need more than just HTML experience to be done, such as the graphics and programming used on this site. I'd be willing to answer questions about these as well, but please do some research first. See the question below for starting points for that research.

Q: What programs do you use on your website?

A: Okay, this isn't a frequently asked question, but I would like to put in a plug for those programs that have been most useful to me.

• Server-side programs (these run on the server that I host Thorn Valley on)
• PHP Hypertext Preprocessor - PHP is an open source scripting language (similar to Perl) that allows me to do neat programming things on my site, like the Art Gallery and message forum.
• PostgreSQL RDBMS - This is the RDBMS (Relational Database Management System) that I use to store the database for the message forum and other things. One of the best free RDBMS's out there.
• Apache Webserver - There's a reason that this webserver serves over 50% of the websites out there.
• Linux - A very powerful open source Unix clone. If you've been anywhere near the computer trade press, you've likely heard about it. :)
• Content creation programs
• jEdit (Freeware) - One of the best programming IDEs, HTML and text editors known to man. I do most of my website editing/programming with jEdit nowadays. And it's cross-platform, too. :)
• Crimson Editor (Freeware, Win) - Another very good text editor that has a couple of nice features that jEdit hasn't caught up with yet.
• Adobe Photoshop - The best professional image editor on the planet. Just about any image that you see in Thorn Valley was touched by Photoshop at one time or another.

Linking Questions

Q: Can I link to your site?

A: Yes! You can even use one of the buttons and banners I made to do so. Linking to a specific page ("Deep Linking") is fine too, but please don't link to specific images or other non-text files without permission.

Q: I have a way-cool NIMH or NIMH-related site. Will you put it in your links page?

A: I will, as long as your site meets the requirements below:

• No "Adult" (X or R rated) sites. This includes sites with pornographic, sexual, violent, or otherwise inappropriate content. Thorn Valley strives to be a family-friendly site.
• The site must actually be there. No sites with "Coming soon" or "Under Construction" notices where the NIMH content should be are accepted.
• Your site should be hosted on a fairly reliable server.
• A significant portion of your site should be dedicated to NIMH. A page of links, a picture here and there, or a simple mention of the film is not enough. Fan-Art is the only exception. You can get a listing if your site has decent fan-art, despite any lack of other content.
• If you are deliberately copying another site, you will not be listed.
• If you are copying sections of another site without permission, you will not be listed.

If your site meets these requirements, e-mail me and I will look it over to see if it is acceptable to list.

Q: I've got a nifty little banner/button for my site. Will you use it on your links page?

A: If your site is listed in as one of my "Favorite NIMH Sites", yes, I will, as long as the banner is in good taste (no adult stuff) and/or doesn't take forever to download. Generally I will not post banners or buttons for other NIMH sites. I do this to keep the size of the links page down more than anything else.