My first real encounter with computers was back in 1980, when a friend showed me a programme he had written on his Acorn Atom, a simple Basic programme that allowed the computer to give a series of random answers to statements or questions inputted by the user. Data was stored on audio tape. It was my first introduction to arrays and strings. I credit him with arousing my interest in computing.Malcolm now writes electronic music and you can catch his site here.
Since then I have tried to teach myself Basic, HTML and a host of other goodies.Some efforts have been more successful than others.For several years now, I have been using Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Premiere and Flash and each new addition means more learning and quite often more frustration.
Over those years the internet has changed out of all recognition, and having rather late in the day, bought my own web space again, I decided to have a serious look at blogging and vlogging.New skills were required and I am afraid I balked at the idea of teaching myself PHP and any of the other scripting languages.I wanted to get my new site up and running. It was now that Google introduced me to a whole new world called “Open Source”.The majority of this site is now put together with Dreamweaver, WordPress and the Weaver theme. My thanks go therefore to the following people and organisations in particular:
- WordPress.org & all who contribute to the forums
- Bruce E. Wample who designed the Weaver theme
- Alex Tingle & Stig Ulfsby – who designed Event Calendar 3; the only Event Calendar I have ever been able to get working.
Please visit their pages, their work is an inspiration to all web masters and I hope that I will do their designs justice.
For the first three years of the site I used the Cutline theme, which served me very well but I decided recently (September 2011) that it was time for a change and decided to take on the challenge of Weaver. The random headers have gone for the moment, whilst I get to grips with the rest of the layout.The forums on the Weaver Info page are very helpful and have already pulled me out of one design mess. (Thank you Joy whover you are)!
Thanks as well to all those who design widgets, they have made my life much easier.
John (Updated September 2011)
