Background
I got started working on this site for a couple of reasons. The main reason is that it offers me a forum in which I can express whatever I want, whenever I want, in whichever way I want. It is by no means a commercial site. And as such, I am free to say non-commercial, non-popular, and non-politically correct things. Someone once said any fool can say something. And with the web, they do. Well, welcome to my foolishness. If you don't like it, don't come back. But I can humbly say that you will be the loser for it.

Another very important reason is so that I can experiment with web sites. That is, I can learn about things like HTML editing, Unix, Perl, SMTP, POP3, and all of the other things that make up the mechanical side of a web site. I have been able to directly transfer the knowledge gained through this site to my work environment. Some things you can learn by reading a book. And other things you can learn by doing. This site is a combination of both.

What HTML editor I use
I use HTML-Kit to create and edit this site. As of this writing, it is still in version 1.0. Thus, there are a few rough edges. But what I like most about it is a module called Tidy (read about here and download it here) that is integrated into the editor. Tidy is from the W3C consortium which was "created in October 1994 to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability."

Towards that end, Tidy validates the HTML on this site to ensure that it complies with the W3C recommendations. By doing so, you should be able to read what's here with any browser that is W3C compliant.

What hosting service I use
I switched to my current host after encountering more and more problems with my previous service. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that my previous service was undergoing a change in ownership at about that time. But for whatever reason, it became clear that a change was required.

After checking in with the Daynotes Gang, Dr. Pournelle and Robert Bruce Thompson both recommended pair.com. While pair is definetly not the cheapest service around (over $300/year), I have had much fewer problems with them (although there have been some problems).  Eventually, however, I had to move the blog part of my site to Wordpress.com because pair.com was limiting the CPU cycles that the Wordpress software needed to update the blog. Since I could no longer run my blog on pair.com, I switched to their cheaper level of service on their pairlite.com site as a temporary location until I decided where to move to next. Eventually I landed on Google's site and this is where this is now hosted.

This site is dedicated to my Dad.

Updated - March 17, 2012