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Believe it or not, I started this site (1/19/97) as a personal page that would debunk "some" of the ignorance [Myths] about Macs and have a few of my favorite Mac Advocacy arguments. This was to be used (mostly by me) as ammo and reference against the ignorant troglodytes clogging the advocacy newsgroups. I did most of Myths section in Feb., and I told a few other people about it during the month.Then I figured "What the heck, as long as I am doing an advocacy and information site, I should try to do it right!" -- so here it is.
The lesson is -- "don't plant a web site seed, unless you are prepared for that sucker to grow!" [and consume all free time in its path]
How I do it -
This
site is created on a Macintosh (7600) using Claris Home
Page. I do some of my writing on a PowerBook 1400. (I also
have a left-over Quadra700, and a Mac128K -- but they don't
get much use).
I play with PC Web tools every now and again (know thy enemy), and find them clunky and primitive -- just like the PC development tools I work with. Poor guys don't know what they are missing.
I check my site out using both MS-Internet Exploder and Netscape Navigator (I gave up on CyberDog because the formatting is so "unique" -- but it is a good browser). I don't play with Communicator -- I find it a slow bloated pig.
If you find any problems (dead links, typos, grammatical or spelling errors, factual errors, omissions) please, PLEASE let me know so that I can fix them.
I have experimented with frames -- however, they suck in sooo many ways, that I'm back to tables. I apologize for any inconvenience. Frames are almost nice for web masters -- but lousy for most users.
I think I am qualified enough to say that HTML in general sucks as a page layout language. I realize it was not originally intended to be a page-layout language -- but we knew it would go there!I don't care if HTML (and the World Wide Web) was created on a NeXT Box (now Apple) -- it needs work! Unfortunately, it is growing so fast, that changes NOW will take years to get acceptance. <sigh>
I especially like the lack of a relationship between what you see, and what you get. Even though I like Claris Home Page - WYSIWYG HTML editor is an oxymoron (and a mouthful).
Dave's first rule of engineering -- If you don't do it right the first time -- you pay for it, for a long, long, long time.
My page looks different on every browser I view it with!
<grumble>
Why I do it -
Why? Because its there. Life is too short to cave in to ignorance or misinformation.
Confucianism believes that we all belong to a society, and have philosophical obligations to contribute and be a part of that society - and get along with each other and that society.
"The reasonable man adapts to society. The unreasonable man expects society to adapt to him. Therefore all [societal] progress is made by unreasonable men." - Bernard Shaw
My beliefs are partly based on a mix of proactive Confucianism, Taoism and that quote from Bernard Shaw.
I believe that we not only have obligations to society, but have obligations to change what is wrong with society. When I see something that is wrong (like all the misinformation about Macs) I must try to change it. Even if I don't win, at least I fought the good fight -- I know that I contributed to the solution (education) and was not a contributor to the problem (laziness, complacency, ignorance). That is winning enough. Each time we say "no" to ignorance and group think, we are winning (personally) -- no matter the larger outcome, because we stood up for what is right! I do my part, and hope that others will as well - and we will make the world a better place. If we can't make the world a better place, at least we die smug -- knowing that we were right and the rest of the world was wrong.
The taoistic part of my philosophy does not come out when I am talking about philosophy and what is right - but more when I am talking about interacting with others, living with society, and setting a balance for our lives.
Take it easy, and keep on Mac'in...
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