 June
1999,
Well, I am still in the process of learning html. Not that you would care too much, but I'll tell ya how it all started..... My husband (Allen, he is a CPA and you can see his page here) started his own accounting firm three years ago. With this new business he need some office equipment; which included a computer. He got a Compaq at that time it was cutting edge, right? Well, about six or seven months later, he decided he needed "bigger/faster". You know how it is with men and their toys, but especially toys that are revenue producing; how could I argue with that! The truth is that his business was doing so well, he really needed something that was faster and stored more. This time is got a pentium 133, 64 megs of ram and a 1gig harddrive; again, at the time it was "state of the art". Well, "what to do with the compaq?" Oh, Oh, I've got it, give it to me! Right?! Well, I had no idea what to do with it but I knew I had a computer and wanted to learn. I spent the next three or four months adjusting the backgrounds, fonts, colors, wallpapers, etc. (you know the options you have in the "display"). It was all I could do. For hours I would play with the display. After a few months of playing with the aesthetics I ventured out of the safety of the "display" and started playing with a few games and then with Microsoft paintbrush. I thought that paintbrush was the most sophisticated software EVER! I could not believe all it could do Oh, those of you who came to shop for backgrounds,
presets for Bladepro (another fun toy)
For the rest of you who have absolutely nothing to do but read how I got started on the computer; I'll wait while you get a cup of coffee and pull up a more comfortable chair...... Wait, maybe you came by to see one of my boys. I have a 18 years old, named Jesse (Jesse's Page) (fourwheeling, muddin', etc keep him busy). He will be graduating this year. Or maybe you came by to see my other son's page. Kish (Kish's Page) is my 17 year old son. (skateboarder, feet never touch the ground) You can check out the webrings I belong to or the awards I have won! The first webring I got in was probably one of the best because the expectations were less than low, I also figured it was the only ring that would let me in.
Anyway, let's see, where were we?....... Well,,,,,,God Blessed Allen's (my husband) business. You know what that means don't you? (Oh, before I forget, we got internet service at this time also. Boy! Was I impressed!!! The information, the colors, the entire concept just blew me off of my chair.) Well, back to the business. It has been about 6 months since Allen bought the 133 and wanted/needed "bigger/faster", "more power", ouungh, ouungh, ouungh! Well, "what to do with the 133? Lemme guess.....ok, I'll take it off his hands. Now I am cruising the web and feeling "ok" on the computer. (just to give you an idea of how intimidated I was when I first got on the compaq, when the screen gave me a choice of "ok" or "cancel", I always hit "ok" cuz I thought that if I hit "cancel" that the entire harddrive would be cancelled or voided. The, what I call the blue screen of death would make me break out in sweats and my head would tingle. And then the "has performed an illegal function", I locked the doors, closed the curtains and waited for the CIA/FBI. Years ago, people wouldn't take the tags off of mattresses and pillows because of that oversized tag that said "DO NOT REMOVE THIS TAG UNDER PENALTY OF LAW!" Realistically, how was anyone to know, yet we didn't take the tags off, right? It was sorta the same with my computer, I thought, somehow THEY would know it had performed an illegal function. God is good. Business is great and a bigger/faster computer is a must! Allen bought a 200, 68meg of ram, 2gig hd; again, at the time, the best one. Now......I get a pentium! I wasn't sure what that meant but I knew it had to be good! And it was. Now I am cruising the net and downloading freeware and shareware, always looking for a better, faster, funner way to do stuff. Mostly I looked for icons and icon programs to change the icons on desktop and customize the looks of windows, cuz that IS what I am best at. Well, I finally did it! I got a program named "dog/cow". Yeah, what the heck is that? It is a program that changed the startup screen. I never did get to see it cuz I crashed the computer and got rid of the program. The instructions said something about changing the system "ini" files; so I did.......that was the last I saw of windows95 (atleast for awhile). Well, that was not the last time I crashed it; I crashed it a few more times thinking I knew what I was doing, Once I thought I would clean out the registry! I saw references to programs I had long ago deleted; I guess the "uninstall" had just forgotten that part of the program. You guessed it, my computer was down for a couple of days and in the shop. (it has been said that I have the "hindenburg effect on computers".) I don't even "look" at the registry today, and another place I don't go is into the deep dark steamy bowels of "DOS" Even our mouses don't go there. Besides, who can really work in words with eight letters or less? When mouses go to DOS, I'll check it out. Well, let's get on with the saga...... If you need a break from the excitement you can check out some good
freeware here. So now I have a pentium 133 with a GIG of harddrive. I am experimenting with programs like Microangelo, Icon Edit and other programs of that sort, still trying to get my computer to look "just right". I had gotton into some of the chat stuff, and at first got mirc. Boy, the neat little things you could do in chat, sending little sounds and pictures. Then I got pirch, I started making my own popups, etc. This lasted a couple of months. In one of the chat rooms I met Nitequest (Niteeyez). She offered assistance when I got hung up on my computer. Well, a few months later Allen gets a Dell laptop so he can take his computer to clients. I get the 200 with TWO gigs. By the way, all of the computers have had 64 megs of ram. Now this lady, Niteeyez tells me about her home page and I got pretty interested in the HTML thing but surely would not attempt it on my own. But after several times chatting with Niteeyez she convinced me to try. Ironically, of all the millions of people in chat rooms, I met Niteeyez and she lives about 5 miles from me, also in a little Texas town. She came over to my house one evening and showed me some of the basics of HTML. She let me have one of her books and told me where and how to get a free homepage. Well, this was enough to keep me busy for months (and it has). If not for Niteeyez, you would not be enthralled in this bio! Well, I got my home page up, but as anyone who has a personal homepage
knows, you are never satisfied with it and tinker with it continuously. And so it
was with me. I found a little HTML program called Arachnophilia. It was free
and helped me to learn more about HTML along with some books that I ordered online from
Amazon It was not too long before I ventured across some technical help pages which eventually led me to the PaintShop Pro Users Group.
I finally learned to make some graphics. Actually, all of the graphics on my web site are courtesy of myself (oops, the duck and computer at the bottom of this page is microsoft) and a whole lotta help from tutorials and helpful hints and tips from the PaintShop Pro Users Group Forum. I am really getting into webdesign and making graphics. Now I am hit with the bigger/faster bug. For my anniversary/valentines day gift, I got a Dell 333, 8gig harddrive, 128 meg of ram, sony trinitron monitor, DVD, stereo surround sound. I am in business! I am now using my PaintShop Pro5 on a daily basis. I have purchased FrontPage 98 and it is the program of my nightmares. If anyone has tips, hints or good basic tutorials, please e-mail me. The program is great but very extensive. I want to thank Niteeyez for all of her help. If it had not been for her, I never would have even know that a web page could be obtained for free and certainly would never have attempted HTML. I also want to thank all the users in PaintShop Pro Users Group. I would still be making buttons if not for the tutorials they linked me to and the help they provided. Some more of my ramblings..... I had this candle on my patio in the shade this summer. It does get hot enough in Texas to fry an egg on the sidewalk
If you are interest in a good Bible, this one is King James Version. It has maps, dictionaries, weights/measures and a whole lot more, and it's free!
When I first learned how to do mouseovers (rollovers or hover buttons), I nearly went crazy. (Below is a picture of me after hours of playing with one.) I finally decided that I would just copy the code from page to page changing the image names. I did run into a program that will generate the script. You can check it out here. It is also free. I have used a lot of freeware and most of it proves tobe quite good. On my "Friends, Banners and Links I like", I have included links to some great freeware places.
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. As I cruised the
personal web pages I find that most people are making their own graphics. How could
they do this with paintbrush? Well, they couldn't. Most of them had some
other program with more capabilities. So, I got
Me working
with mouseover. I am sure you have been there too, for one reason or another
