About The Work That Was Put Into This Site About Martin's Home On The Web
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[ Viewing Tips | The Statistics | The Tools | The History | Credits & Remarks ]
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Viewing Tips

Although 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.

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The Statistics

At the last count on July 1, 2006 without taking admin space and subhosted sites into account my personal site contained:

Total disk space used: approx. 53MB
CountFile TypeFile Description/Purpose
169HTMLHTML Document
274GIFGIF Image
2554GIFGIF Album Cover
416JPGJPG Image
22PLPERL Script
34LSTText Data Base
6TXTText Include File
1CSSCascading Style Sheet
2JSJavaScript File
7MIDMIDI Sound File
21WAVWAV Sound File
1LZHLZH Archive
102ZIPZIP Archive

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The Tools

Tools used past and present to build and maintain this site (main software tools in bold):

  • Software
    • A Smaller GIF 1.21 (image size optimization)
    • CompuServe Home Page Wizard 1.0 (very early HTML design, discarded)
    • CompuServe Publishing Wizard (file transfers to CIS, discarded)
    • Corel Paradox 8, 9 (record collection data, some data analysis)
    • Corel Photo-Paint 5 Plus, 7 Plus and 9 (image creation and touch-up)
    • CuteFTP 1.4 - 6.0 (ftp site uploads and transfers)
    • Edit Master 2.5 (writing HTML and text, discarded)
    • GIF Construction Set 1.0L - 2.0a (GIF animation)
    • GrabIt 2.11 (video capture from camcorder and VCR)
    • Linkbot Pro 3.6b - 6.0 (checking for dead links, site maintenance)
    • LView Pro 1.B (GIF transparency)
    • Microsoft GIF Animator 1.0 (GIF animation)
    • Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 - 6.0 (HTML display testing)
    • NCSA Mosaic (testing display, discarded)
    • Netscape Navigator/Communicator 2.0 - 4.7x (preferred browser, HTML display)
    • Norton Commander DOS and Win95/98 (file management, HTML/text editing)
    • Paint Shop Pro 2.0 (some image conversions)
    • OmniPage Pro 9.0 (optical character recognition)
    • Opera 4.02 (some HTML display testing)
    • PERL (guest book, album cover image access, various other CGI scripts)
    • PhotoFinish 3.0 (image touch-up and design, discarded)
    • SAS 6.11 - 6.12 (generation of record collection and Loony Labyrinth pages)
    • SnagIt 2.0 (Windows screen captures)
    • SPRY Mosaic (testing display, discarded)
    • ThumbsPlus 2.1 - 7.0 (image management and conversions)
    • UltraEdit 5.20 - 11.20b (writing and editing most HTML and text)
    • Various homespun UNIX csh and DOS bat scripts (file editing/management, stats)
    • WinQVT 3.9 and QVT/Term 4.3b (telnet access to shell accounts)
    • Word For Windows 6.0 (writing of long texts and conversion to HTML)
  • Literature
    • HTML & CGI Unleashed by SAMS Publishing
    • JavaScript 2nd Edition by O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
    • PERL By Example by Prentice Hall
    • Programming PERL by O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
    • Various technical online resources, search engines etc.
  • Hardware
    • HP ScanJet 4070 Photosmart Scanner
    • HP ScanJet 6300Cse Scanner
    • Canon IX-4015 Scanner
    • AIMS Lab GrabIt! Video Grabber
    • Dell Dimension XPS 600
    • Dell Dimension XPS B1000r
    • Dell Dimension XPS D266
    • Micron Millenia P120 PC
  • Operating Systems
    • Windows XP (PC home use)
    • Windows 98 (PC home use)
    • Windows 95 (PC home use)
    • Windows For Workgroups 3.11 (PC home use)
    • ULTRIX (former virtual domain host)
    • LINUX (virtual domain host, running this server software)
  • Hosting
    • OLM (Jun 2000 - present, virtual domain hosting)
    • AzTech Network Services (Mar 1998 - May 2000, virtual domain hosting)
    • Primenet (Oct 1996 - Mar 1998, standard user account)
    • CompuServe (Dec 1995 - Oct 1996, standard user account)

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The History

In 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.

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Credits & Remarks

Gratuitous oranges for the color contrast... 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:

  • David Hamburger has provided valuable input to the Pinball Simulation Reviews page.
  • Dave Williams has provided the concert poster and set list for the Angels page and the article the band biography is based on (The Angels Tell It Like It Is. published by What Goes On in association with the national Drug Offensive and The Angels).
  • Russell Moran has sent t-shirts which I used for additional graphics on the Angels page.
  • The various software boxes, book and record covers scanned are copyright by the respective artists, authors and publishers.
  • The artwork on the Dogs D'Amour/Tyla page is copyright by Tyla. The early band history is based on an article by Linda La Ban.

Some remarks about assorted items you may have come across:

  • The pocket computer on the Computer Page is my ancient Sharp PC-1401 with a whopping 4.2K of RAM and enhanced BASIC in 40K of ROM...
  • The cube on the Miscellany Page is a project we had to do in metal workshop.
  • The Ford Mustang on the Need For Speed Download Page was once my own, a 1992 Mustang LX 5.0L V8 Convertible.
  • The car key on the Revision Archive page is an old (50's or 60's) Opel key that belonged to my grandad.
  • The Route 66 after shave on the Route 66 Gallery page I found on a trip to Switzerland.

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Last updated July 1, 2006 by Martin Mathis, e-mail lastbandit.com
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