About this site

Chris writes:

I am a software engineer, working for a semiconductor tool manufacturer, writing control system software, and have been involved with software for over 13 years, since getting my PhD in Physics.

I put together Danelle's first web page in 1996. At that time, I knew little about HTML and web pages, but already having a keen interest in computers, networking, and the internet, was willing to learn.

My aim was to put together something that was simple, yet effective, and didn't look too amateurish. I had already seen several web sites, and was getting a feel for what looked good, and more importantly, what looked bad.

At the time I started, we had just got an account with AOL in England, and were using their version 2.5 software, with their bundled web browser. This, was frankly appalling. I was used to using Netscape, and after some time studying HTML and seeing how to do things, found that AOL's browser lacked many features that Netscape (and the HTML standards of the time) included. I had to write my HTML code to support the lowest common denominator browser (AOL's).

Now time has passed, and the browsers have become more sophisticated, and the HTML standards have advanced. I now think it is reasonable to make the assumption that most people who visit this site use web browsers that are functionally equivalent to Netscape v3 or Internet Explorer v3 or better and can view tables and JavaScript with their browsers. These features of HTML (and the browsers that interpret the HTML markup tags) make it possible to be more creative with the page layout.

I've been learning some Java and Javascript, and have added a small amount of JavaScript code to some of the pages. Of course, if you have Java and/or JavaScript turned off in your browser, you won't notice anything! Hopefully it shouldn't detract from the content of the page.

If you're one of those people who cannot see tables with your browser, you really ought to think about upgrading your browser. Many, many web pages use tables, and other neat features, like JavaScript, not all of which are frivolous use of internet bandwidth.

I try to avoid over-use of graphics, and large images, and frames can get complicated, especially if I have to keep the content of the frames and non-frames pages consistent. The pages are prototyped on a Windows 95 PC, part of a home Linux network. I don't use any special layout software, just an ASCII text editor and enter my HTML by hand. To ease development and maintenance I make heavy use of the Unix tools make, cpp and sed.

I have designed these pages so that you can view them using any web browser, but they will look their best when using a decent web browser such as Netscape. Some of the pages have tables, JavaScript, and images that look best using a color display capable of displaying 16 million colors. I preview all the pages using Netscape (v2, v3, v4 -- MS Windows and Unix), and Internet Explorer (v3, v5 -- MS Windows).

If, despite my best efforts, you should find links that don't work, or odd formatting, then please tell us about it!