 About Martin's Home On The Web |
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[ Viewing Tips | The Statistics | The Tools | The History | Credits & Remarks ]
Viewing TipsAlthough the site is designed with various browsers and desktop sizes in mind, it is best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.0 or higher and the default font settings (Times New Roman 12 variable, Courier New 10 fixed) or MS Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher with the 'medium' text size setting. Page layouts are optimized for a 640xAnything screen resolution. To avoid dithering of the graphics a 16-bit color display palette (65536 colors) or higher is suggested. All of these settings are with regard to a Win3.1/95/98 platform. Browsers under other operating system may exhibit slight variations in rendering the pages inspite the same settings. It is also recommended to have JavaScript enabled for the most enjoyable visit. |
The StatisticsAt the last count on July 1, 2006 without taking admin space and subhosted sites into account my personal site contained:
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The ToolsTools used past and present to build and maintain this site (main software tools in bold):
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The HistoryIn November 1995, CompuServe made 1MB of space per member available for a Web page. I decided to give it a try and originally planned to make a home page for Phoenix local band "One Foot In The Grave", thus the site started out as ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ofitg/ (One Foot In The Grave has since found its own and seperate home at www.onefoot.com). I started out with CompuServe's Home Page Wizard and soon realized that it didn't quite cut it. I looked at the generated HTML code and learned and went from there. I bought the book "HTML & CGI Unleashed" by SAMS Publishing and from then on wrote HTML exclusively in plain ASCII text editors (except for the record collection and Loony Labyrinth pages which are conveniently generated by SAS programs I've written for the purpose). In January 1996, I decided I needed an account with a real ISP for decent Internet access and chose Primenet which added another 5MB of usuable Web space (extended to almost 20MB for an extra fee). I wanted to keep CompuServe but, exceeding the 1MB, started using the Primenet space for larger data and image chunks and additional pages. Around the same time I began the above mentioned One Foot In The Grave project and a work colleague agreed to host it on his personal Web server. This opened the opportunity to store my own CGI/PERL scripts (which I also had to familiarize with first) without the hassles of code review fees and the likes. So the guest book and the access to the album cover images came into existence. In October 1996, I finally decided to prepare for the cancelling of my CompuServe account and take the plunge of moving my home page to Primenet entirely which brought about a new home page URL of www.primenet.com/~mmathis/. In February 1998, I decided to take another plunge by registering my own domain name with InterNIC (now Network Solutions) and moving the site to yet another server in March 1998. I decided on the hosting services of AzTech Network Services & Consultants, a small local business that provides individual, friendly service. They are not an ISP, I still dial-up to Primenet, but the advantages over a large, commercial ISP in flexibility and pricing are great. In June 2000, during a massive month-long outage and technical problems on behalf of AzTech.Net I shopped for and signed up with a new hosting company. Normal service resumed. If you are interested in how the site has grown and changed over time, check out the anal-retentively detailed Revision History, an archive of the monthly "What's New" items. |
Credits & Remarks
Some remarks about assorted items you may have come across:
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While the entire site implementation is my own work and most texts and a lot of the photos and graphics
are my own creations, as well, I tapped occasional outside sources for content or scanned commercial items
for display as a reference. Credits are due to:
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