Looking for information about GreenAsh? You've come to the right place. Check out who we recommend, which is a large repository of links to other businesses and web sites that we find useful, or that we just like the look of. And don't forget to read our policies, for all our legal terms, disclaimers, and so on. There is also our list of frequently asked questions.
This page is a directory of other businesses, web sites, and technologies that we recommend. We feel that all the sites listed on this page are worth being linked to by us. It's our way of expressing our praise of these sites, and also of sharing our 'top sites advice' with you, our users.
Terms and conditions, disclaimers, and general legal information.
All users who register as local GreenAsh users are expressly bound by the policies of this site. That is, by undertaking the registration process, they are formally acknowledging their understanding and their acceptance of the policies by which they are bound, as users of this site. On the registration page, users are clearly told that by registering, they are aware of the policies that are in effect and that they are subject to.
Affiliate and anonymous users are not required to make such a formal acknowledgement. As such, they are implicitly bound by the policies of this site. Such users are not required to read the site's policies, but nevertheless are encouraged to do so.
The policies that currently apply to GreenAsh users are:
This policy was last revised on Saturday, 19 March, 2005, by Jaza. GreenAsh Services reserves the right to modify this document at any time, without notification.
The GreenAsh resource library is a freely available collection of notes, essays, and other texts, designed to help you with your educational studies. Education should be free, and so should information. That's why anyone who registers with us (no cost involved) gets unrestricted access to all of our resources.
But although our resources are free for you to look at, each of them is still the intellectual property of its author. So as the saying goes, our resources are "free as in speech, not free as in beer". This means that while you may look at our resources all you want, there are some restrictions on what you can actually do with them.
The following list explains what you can do with our resources:
And this list explains what you cannot do with our resources:
All registered users, by creating a local GreenAsh account, have indicated that they accept these policies, and that they agree to abide by them when using the GreenAsh resource library.
This policy was last revised on Friday, 25 February, 2005, by Jaza. GreenAsh Services reserves the right to modify this document at any time, without notification.
GreenAsh encourages the free and open exchange of information and opinion via the Internet. On this site, almost every page can be commented on by anonymous, affiliate, and registered users alike. Authenticated users can post new forum topics, and users with special privileges may post other content, such as articles and images.
While we are more than happy for you to become a participating member of the GreenAsh community - by posting content on this site - there are a number of rules that must be followed at all times. The following is a list of unacceptable content posting and commenting practices:
The administrators of this web site reserve the right to decide, on a case-by-case basis, what constitutes a breach of any of the abovementioned offences. Actions that may be taken against those who violate the abovementioned rules include (but are not limited to):
This policy was last revised on Thursday, 24 February, 2005, by Jaza. GreenAsh Services reserves the right to modify this document at any time, without notification.
Here we have composed a list of frequently asked questions about who we are, what we do, what this site is all about, and anything else that people have asked us about, or that we think people would be interested in knowing. We have also been kind enough to provide answers to each question.
Let us know if you have a question and it's not answered here - if we can answer it, and we think other people would be interested in hearing the answer, then we'll add it to this page.
GreenAsh Services is a small business based in Sydney, Australia. We provide a number of services relating to Drupal-based web development. We have been a registered Australian business since early 2004.
The aims of this web site are as follows:
Actually, it's just me! GreenAsh is a one-man show run by Jeremy Epstein, who is 22 years old, and who recently graduated from an Information Technology (IT) degree at the University of Technology, Sydney. Since launching it in mid-2004, this site (and the technology behind it) has become an ongoing project and hobby for me. If you want to get to know me better, then [ideally you should meet me in person - but as the next best thing] you should visit Jaza's World, my personal web site.
Our name is derived from a type of tree called the Mountain Ash. The scientific name of this tree is Eucalyptus Regnans: the latin word regnans, meaning 'to rule', refers to the enormous height that they can grow to. We took the 'Ash' from 'Mountain Ash'; and since this tree (like most trees!) has plenty of greenery on it, we decided to join it with the word 'Green'. Hence the name.
We chose the Mountain Ash because it is native to Australia (to Tasmania in particular), and because it is one of the tallest species of trees in the world. Although the tallest trees alive today are the Sequoia Redwoods in coastal California, the Mountain Ash is a close second, and it is believed that in the 1800s there existed Mountain Ashes that were taller than any known Redwood. So that makes the Mountain Ash the tallest tree (known to man) on Earth. Basing our name on such a tall tree is a symbol of the high standards that we hope to constantly maintain, in the quality of our services, and of this web site.
The Mountain Ash is also one of many species in the Tasmanian wilderness that is currently under threat from logging. Tasmania is home to some of the world's most precious old-growth forests. But to date, over 90% of these forests have been destroyed forever, with the majority of the wood being exported overseas as woodchips. Neither the Australian Federal government nor the Tasmanian State government has made any significant efforts to stop this disaster from unfolding. Environmental action groups such as The Wilderness Society and Greenpeace have been relatively alone in the fight to protect this important expanse of forest.
The logging in Tasmania is nothing less than a global environmental catastrophe. By choosing the Mountain Ash as our name - a tree that symbolises the beauty of Tasmania's wilderness, and the hideousness of its destruction, more than anything else - we are demonstrating our heartfelt support of this worthy cause.
The logo represents two things. Firstly, because it is grey (ash-coloured), and because it's shaped like a 'flake of ash' (if there is such a thing - anyway, the point is that it's flake-shaped, and that ash often falls in flakes), it's meant to match our name (the 'ash' part, at least).
Secondly, the logo is also shaped like a natural sign, which is a special symbol used in musical notation. By using a musical symbol as our logo, we hope to represent positive things associated with music, such as being upbeat, being in-tune, and having a bit of spark in what we do. The natural sign is also significant, in that its purpose is to restore a note to its 'natural' pitch. This matches the environmental symbolism in our name (as explained above).
The look of this site was designed from the ground up by me (Jaza), and was then implemented as a Drupal theme, which I called Lorien. My template for theme development was the Bluemarine theme, which is the default theme in the core Drupal system. The Bluemarine theme is a collaborative and ongoing effort of the Drupal open source project.
The previous look of this site was based on the Chameleon theme, which is also included as part of the core Drupal system.
No. You can post comments anonymously, you can participate in forums anonymously, and all voting in polls is done anonymously (that is, only the votes are recorded, not any record of who casted each vote). Note that you must be logged in as a registered (or affiliate) user in order to start a new forum topic.
If you are a member of another Drupal-powered site, then you are an affiliate user: you can log in to this site with your existing (i.e. affiliate) account from that site, and you will be able to post comments and forum topics using that account. If you have no affiliate accounts, then you will have to register with us in order to post new forum topics.
Yes. No ifs, no buts. In order to access our resource library, you must register for a local GreenAsh account. You cannot access our resources with an affiliate account. Note that you may browse our resource library whilst logged out. When browsing, you are shown a preview of every resource on our site. It is only when you try to view the full text of a resource that you are required to log in.
All new users must wait 72 hours (i.e. 3 days) before they can access our resource library. After this time period, your account will automatically be updated to have access privileges to all resources. You will not be sent an e-mail when you are granted access to the resource library. You simply have to come back and check if you have access yet.
If you have an essay due at 9am tomorrow morning, too bad: you should have started looking for research material earlier.
No. We do not accept money for advertising of any form on this site. Feel free to suggest a site to be added to our 'who we recommend' list. If we feel that the site is indeed worthy of being recommended, then we will add it. But you cannot pay us to list a site in this directory, under any circumstances.
First, you will need to log in to GreenAsh, either as a registered user, or as an affiliate user. Once you are logged in, for every piece of content on the site (that can be commented on), there will be a link labelled subscribe post. Click this link, and the system will email you as soon as someone posts a comment on that post.
We have worked very hard to make our statistics as accurate as possible. Every time a post on this site is viewed, the system identifies the person viewing that post, and checks to see if that person has already viewed that post in the past month. If they have, then the hit counter doesn't go up. We have also put in place measures to stop search engine bots from affecting our statistics. If a bot views a post on this site, then the system identifies it as a bot and ignores that viewing completely. In doing this, we hope to instil some confidence in the accuracy and the reliability of all our statistics site-wide.
Yes: our site map. You can also search if you're looking for a particular piece of content.
You can find all rules governing site use in our policies. Most of them are concerned with the posting of comments (and content), and with your use of our resources.
Basically, you can use them to help with your studies, and you can quote them (if you acknowledge the author properly). You cannot sell them, charge other people to view them, or quote them without acknowledgement (or quote the full text of them at all). For more details on this, see our resource use policy.