First, why I made it, the history of Space Dock.
I made this page originally for one reason, to get a pic of myself online so people in chat could
see what I looked like instead of having to send a pic everytime someone asked. In the days when
the net was new, one of the only chats was IRC (internet relay chat). This was and still is a straight
ASCII text chat. You could not put up pics. So if someone wanted to see you, you had to send it to them.
This got to be such a pain in the ass that I started this 1 page web site on Angelfire.
A couple of years later, when HTML and other chat programs appeared that allowed you to put up pics
and profiles, there was really no reason for the pic page and I actually forgot all about the angelfire site.
Many months later, I got an email from Angelfire saying that many new features were added to the free
web pages. I went to my page and remembered when I created it. It was such a lame site but the hit counter
said 1000 hits. Can you imagine an unknown site with nothing more then 2 pics of me and a quick BIO would
get ANY hits? I thought it was pretty cool and it ignited the spark in me to try and add more. Angelfire supplies
a very simple to use editor and away I went. 1 week later, I had 2 pages plus the original pics page. WOW. I did
it, I had a simple page on the net. During this time I was doing some reading on basic HTML and started adding
and editing some of the stuff on my 2 pages. As I saw other pages online, I wanted mine to look a little better.
As I learned more HTML, I converted my pages from a basic editor to the advanced editor (straight HTML). As I
added more and more content, the page started to look to cluttered so I seperated some of the content onto other
pages. WOW, I now had about 6 HTML pages, COOL! While I am adding content, I would think of other stuff I would
like to put online. Every time I would add more pages, I would get more hits. It was so cool that people I don't even
know enjoyed checking out my page. Well, to make an already long story come to an end, we have what we have
now, 59 pages of HTML, over 50 pics and ICONS. Through the years of surfing the net myself, I found I was constantly
getting annoyed at peoples pages because of POP UP ADS and banners. They irritated me so much that I said to myself
I would never put them on my site. So here we are with a site that was made just to help people kill time, enjoy
themselves and not be plastered with ads and banners. The only ads and banners on my site are Angelfire's
(required to have the site), an ICON or 2 for each company that allows me to bring in data (like CBS Sportsline),
and any companies or services I think are good or may be of interest to viewers of my page. I will not put up any
ads or banners just to make a couple of pennies. There are no pop up pages after you leave my site or in my site!!!
This page is for me to learn and practice what I learn about HTML, JAVA, FLASH and other stuff and I do not make a
penny from anything on here except the Space Dock Shop (which as of 6/30/2000 is $0.00). I work very hard to make sure
everything works, spelling errors DO NOT EXIST, and that you need a minimum amount of plugins (currently you only need
a MIDI player and Macro Media's Flash). I believe this makes the pages display faster and more pleasent to view.
As always, any problems you have viewing my pages or any errors at all no matter how small (like spelling), should be
brought to my attention in an email so I can fix it!
How many hits do I get now?
This is one of the most popular questions I get in email. It is a great question! I used to keep track of the hits manually writing
down the numbers from the counter every couple of days. Now thanks to Domain Directs (the company I registered my web
page address with) new feature, I can track hits on a daily basis. Here is a screen shot showing the hits for most of this month
and only goes back as far as the date Domain Direct started tracking...
How often do I update or add content?
I update the page many times per week. Many of the updates are not seen by the viewer. These updates are changes I make
to the HTML code itself. Most of these changes consist of changing code to make the site look the same between the many
differant browsers out there but mostly Netscape and Internet Explorer. Also, as I learn more efficient ways to format and code
like using JAVA Scripts and tables to achieve certain effects and looks, these replace current code thus the page may look the same
to you but will actually work better or more efficiently through your browser. These changes usually take the most time. Pages are
added generally as soon as I get a new idea. Even before I have content for that page. I do this because I have a terrible memory
and when I get the idea, I like to put it on the site. As I check my site several times a week, I see the new page and I eventually will
start adding content to it. From the viewers side, it may look like there isn't much being updated or added, but because there is a lot
of pages here, there may be things added that you just don't notice and it can take some time for me to go back to older pages and
add more to them. I assure you I am constantly looking to add content and more stuff to help you kill even more time and enjoy it
while your at it.