Birth of a Webmaster

I have enjoyed helping Lydia with her artistic endeavors throughout our entire marriage. That started with finding rare paints, unique brushes and huge canvases. Then I finagled a transfer to the Far East to expand her artistic horizons. Then it was off to Europe to visit the museums of Amsterdam, Paris, London and Berlin. When we finally settled in Tampa, she decided to give up painting!

But what a beader and weaver she is!

With all that background in color and design, she quickly mastered her new artforms.

All along this way, my real job was the design of computer applications. So, when Lydia decided that the best way to communicate with her bead and fiber buddies was over the Internet, guess who got tabbed to set it up.

There are about five computer languages used in website design: HTML, CGI, VRML, Java and Perl. I didn't know any of them. I knew Fortran, Basic, GPSS, Simscript, Pascal, Prolog, Lisp, C++ and a few others. But, like everything else in the computer world, when something new comes along, somebody has to invent a whole new language to go along with it. With the Internet and the World Wide Web they outdid themselves. They invented five new languages. Actually, they weren't all invented just for the web. But, nobody had to learn them until the web came along.

So I got picked to design a webpage because I knew what a computer looked like. Actually I didn't know much more about this Internet stuff than Lydia did. But I do now. Boy, did I learn a lot.

It's been fun. If you've visited the site since the beginning, you know that I have already redesigned the website three times. And, as your browsers get more capability and your telephone, cable and satellite connections get faster, I'll be adding a lot more. Full screen video, live conversations among all the website visitors, live voice and video connections with shop owners, virtual reality tours of museums and galleries and lots more. Most of this just requires faster connections. The browser capabilities for all this already exists. So, do everything you can to promote the improvement of Internet connectivity. Start your own webpage. Introduce others to the fantastic research capabilities of the web. Shop around for better service. And oppose any steps to hinder the free and open exchange of ideas and information.

This is a very exciting time. And, thanks to Lydia, I am now an active participant in this historical revolution.

It always amazes me when someone visits us that has never touched a computer keyboard before. They have usually heard about Lydia's website, but they don't have the faintest idea what it's all about.

So, as the proud designer of the Beadwrangler's Bead & Fiber Junction, I sit them down at my computer and show them how to get onto the Internet and call up Lydia's website. After a couple of clicks of the mouse, their eyes light up and they just lost all interest in this fantastic website I spent two months designing. Now they want to find something on the Internet that I had never dreamt of looking for - Dead Sea Scrolls, Japanese Enroes, Turkish Tourist Sites, DisneyWorld. So I show them how to use the search engines and they are off into a new and exciting world. We have had people with absolutely no computer experience spend six hours on the Internet and they still weren't ready to stop.

So now I'm a webmaster. Need a website designed? Drop me a note at webmaster@beadwrangler.com.I'm hooked now. So, when Lydia isn't giving me updates to her website, I'm designing websites for other people.  I can also arrange for your website to be hosted on one of the big national web servers and help you with getting sharp, colorful images or your work on the Internet.

Because of a tremendous increase in traffic on Lydia's website, I have made a major redesign to facilitate navigation around this huge website.  Hope you like the changes. Let me know if something doesn't work right or you have an idea for an improvement. With all the different computers, operating systems, browsers and peripheral hardware out there, it's hard to make everything compatible with everyone. But there is usually a way. So, let me know if you run into a problem.

Beadwrangler's - the most fun you'll have on the web!