We get a lot of mail from a lot of people. Often, the letters ask similar questions. So in order to answer questions for you easier, check out our answers to these Frequently Asked Questions.

WHERE CAN I FIND WINDOWS 95 STAR WARS THEMES?

Do you need a Star Wars theme for your Windows 95 Desktop? If you have Microsoft Plus, then you can Click Here and get some really cool ones like a Yoda theme, a TIE pilot theme, an X-Wing theme, and more!

WHAT IS THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL AND HOW CAN I GET A COPY OF IT?

The Holiday Special came out on TV back in 1977 or 78. It was an incredibly horrible show that was about Chewbacca trying to get to his family and home planet for Life Day (i.e. Christmas) All of the original actors were in it, plus Bea Arthur, Harvey Korman, and Art Carney. It was sooooo bad. Lots of disco, endless growling by Wookiees, Jefferson Starship, and an awful life-day song sung by Carrie Fisher (to the tune of the Star Wars theme). Lucas hates it and Fisher denies she ever did it. The only good part is a short cartoon that introduces Boba Fett, his first appearance ever. All the original actors (Ford, Fisher, Hamill, Daniels) did the voices for the cartoon, too. It is the only redeeming part of the show. Though it is bad, it is an interesting part of Star Wars history that most fans will want to check out once. (Yeah, once is enough)

If you want a bootleg copy of it, go to the collectors newsgroup and say you want to buy one. Somebody should help you out. You can also try a comic or sci-fi convention. Don't pay more than $10 for one (we bought ours for $7 at a convention). It will probably never be released by Lucasfilm, so don't hold your breath waiting for a clean copy.

DO YOU KNOW HOW I CAN GET A PART IN THE PREQUELS? HOW DO I GET IN TOUCH WITH LUCASFILM?

Sorry, we don't know the number of the casting agency for the prequels. While we do have some contact with Lucasfilm representatives, they don't want their addresses released to the public. Plus, we try not to bother them, so we only talk to them on special occasions.

CAN YOU GIVE ME NATALIE PORTMAN'S ADDRESS?

Almost 2 years ago, somebody wrote us pretending to be Natalie Portman and her friends Rachael and Amber.  They were very convincing, but in the end, the best we can figure is that some guy liked to pretend to be teenage girls.  So, no, we can't give you Natalie's email address.  We'd suggest you send what you want to send to the Star Wars Insider, so that they can route it to her.

WILL THE MEN BEHIND THE MASKS TOUR BE COMING TO MY TOWN?

We don't know, but call (818)759-8396 and they can tell you. It's the headquarters for the Tour.

WILL YOU SELL ME ONE OF THE BOOKS OR TOYS I SAW ON YOUR PAGE?

No. But we can try and help you find one of your own. Just ask us.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THOSE ABBREVIATIONS YOU USE?

Here's a few of the abbreviations you may see on this page:

MTFBWY - May The Force Be With You
SW - Star Wars
ESB - Empire Strikes Back
ROTJ - Return of the Jedi
SE - Special Edition (Example - SWSE = Star Wars Special Edition)
RASSM - The newsgroup news:rec.arts.sf.starwars.misc

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE INTER-FIDO STAR WARS PAGE?

Mike Farnham, the owner, had some problems with a hacker. The hacker called AOL and told them to close Mike's account, which they did. So Mike was out of luck, as far as AOL was concerned. So Mike moved the page to another ISP. Well, during the transition, he realized how much time and money Star Wars was taking up in his life. So, he decided to shut the page down and quit Star Wars cold turkey. He said he might try to start the page up again, but not in the foreseeable future. If he does, we'll let you know.

WHAT SOFTWARE DO YOU USE TO PUT THIS PAGE TOGETHER?

A variety. Since we have several staff members, and each has his or her own preferences, the list varies wildly. For example, Darin is a command line Unix type of guy, so he edits files on his Linux machine using emacs, or sometimes Netscape Composer. Some of the other guys are Windows users, so they edit off-line using Netscape or Frontpage or Wordpad, or whatever. For graphics, Photoshop is the tool of choice, though Darin uses the GIMP (a free Photoshop-like tool for Linux). Things like Lview and Paintshop pro occasionally get used too.

WHAT KIND OF NETWORK?

Our host has multiple T1 connections to the internet.

WHO HOSTS YOU? HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?

Currently, Simplenet hosts us. Check out their page at  www.simplenet.com  for more details. We have been hosted at Texas A&M University, the Internet Nexus, and Global Internet Solutions. We keep having to move because we keep taking up all the available bandwidth...just too popular I guess...   But we seem to have stabilized a bit now.

HOW DO I (USE SSI, DO FRAMES, MAKE ANIMATED GIFS, WRITE HTML, WRITE CGI SCRIPTS, SETUP A MAILING LIST, ETC.)?

We'd like to help you out, but we all have school or jobs in addition to doing the page. You should check out Netscape, Builder.Com, or browse around Yahoo for help.

WILL YOU HOST MY SITE?

We get a lot of requests to join TheForce.Net, but joining is by invitation only. Sorry.

WILL YOU MAKE ME SOME COOL GRAPHICS?

We really don't have time for that. If you offered some $$$, some of us might make some time though. :)

AREN'T YOU AFRAID LUCASFILM WILL FIND OUT ABOUT YOUR LITTLE OPERATION AND SHUT YOU DOWN?

"It's always been a shadow that looms over us, but..." Lucasfilm already knows about us and visits almost daily. Seriously. We've tracked them in the logs. But since we put up plenty of disclaimers and try to credit our sources and attribute copyright, they're cool with us. LFL is not out to shut down fan pages! They do want fan pages to be clean and responsible, though.

CAN I RIP OFF STUFF FROM YOUR PAGE?

We can't very well keep you from hitting that right mouse button, now, can we? However, if you "Xerox©" our site, we can almost guarantee you won't get as many hits as you would if you were simply putting up something original.

WHAT ABOUT NET-PSYCHOS?

An individual has been going around impersonating us, trying to soil our name. He has broken several laws. Note that impersonation of someone by forging an email address is against the law. So don't do it. The FBI and local law-enforcement agencies do follow up on reports of such abuse. If you receive a harassing message that appears to be from us, please check the headers. You will find that it did not originate here or from our personal addresses. Please let us know (in a kind manner if possible!) that you received such a message and forward it to us including the full headers.