[Slideshows, slideshows and slideshows! Twenty-six to be exact of all your favorite holidays, on waterfalls and sunsets and on the X-Files to boot! A must see! Want to learn how to make one? He also has a slideshow tutorial! His page also contains webtools, an F-Key saver (150 links), midis, worldwide live cam's and so much more! Drop in and stay awhile!--ck]
Once upon a time, there was a family of four who trekked across the high plains to settle in the Denver, Colorado area. The husband, Don, had just retired in Omaha after 20 years serving his country in the Air Force where he had been flying an LSD (Large Steel Desk). Don, and his boss-wife (currently in their 46th year of partnership) began making a new life as their son and daughter struck out to find new friends while finishing their schooling.
Life in this new frontier wasn't difficult because Don soon found a new occupation and after another 20 years with the same company, retired somewhat early in life. The children were grown and the son had helped produce two wonderful and beautiful grandchildren, Krista and Eric. They obviously get their looks from their grandma. The daughter provided a fun grand-dog, Sasha, who gets her looks from grandpa! All the family remain in the Denver area except at the moment, the daughter is in Saipan where her husband is wrapping up a 2 year contract with the judicial department. Guess where the grand-dog has spent the past two years? ;-)
Don and the boss enjoy traveling and often get in the car and go. Or, occasionally jump on an Amtrak for a trip. Having family members on the wife's side in Ontario and California, and Don's side, in Kansas, they often use these as destinations with interesting stops or side trips along the way. Don's hobbies include wood crafts, decorative painting, and gardening. Fishing and camping were popular pastimes just a few years ago but they sold the motor home and put the fishing gear away "but within reach if they are really biting." Don has a few webpages which reflect these hobbies, to wit: Don's Crafts; Perennial Flowers; and Railroad Modeling.
Being continuously intrigued with the capabilities expressed in print, TV articles and ads about the Internet, Don decided to purchase the WebTV unit. Although experienced somewhat with personal computers (owning an old 8088 driven vanilla PC), Don had no use for anything but an appliance that would access the World Wide Web. He bought a Classic model on sale for $79 at Best Buy in early 1999 and immediately got hooked.
For the first couple of months, Don just surfed the web and began using the e-mail function to and from the Saipan and Kansas based family members. He doesn't recall how he discovered that he could also have a webpage but he signed-up with Angelfire and built his first homepage using the basic Angelfire templates. After a few weeks and some study of HTML, Don made the jump and created some advanced pages, three of which still exist...the Perennial Garden mentioned previously, plus a page of garden and home-improvement links, and a small humor page for "groaners" .... short and clean!
Don occasionally visits the newsgroups such as A.D.HTML and the "animated gifs" group. He even admits that he infrequently posts and responds to others. He doesn't chat nor is he heavily involved in e-mailing. He has a few friends that he e-mails almost daily but that's about the limit. Now that his daughter and son-in-law are about to leave Saipan, the number of e-mails will diminish even further.
Many people helped Don to learn HTML, none particularly more than the others. Some of the notable were Draac, Zen of HTML, and Big Daddy. Since starting at Angelfire, he has branched out to 3 other homepage hosts and keeps his major homepage residence at Tripod Don's Pages.
Don soon discovered how clever slideshows seemed to him. Here was a way to display images and pictures in an interesting theme and format. He built his first slideshow with a Halloween theme since it was drawing near. After that, it was on to Thanksgiving, then Christmas and his collection of slideshows is probably the largest on the web; now numbering 26. He invites you to visit an index of them at one of two locations: Slideshows #1, or Slideshows #2.
In addition to constructing pages, which hold special interest to him, Don has provided three pages, intended to help others in their Internet experience. The first was an F-key saver. He constructed it as his private collection of help sites, but as it grew, he felt obligated to publish it even though there were literally hundreds of others on the web. Don's F-Keys now contains nearly 150 help sites...from free images to JavaScript help.
He also saw the need for a plain language tutorial on the use of "Freeloaders" and the "Transloader." He had some difficulty when he first started transferring images to his webpages because some of the help pages teaching the method assumed he knew more than he did. He saw from the newsgroups that this was a problem with many. This prompted him to publish more thorough and basic instructions in his Freeloader Tutorial. This same problem was faced when he began making slideshows, so he again formulated a plain language and thorough slideshow tutorial wherein he not only provided the HTML needed in a slideshow but explained the purpose of unique elements so that the user could apply these unique elements to other situations and webpages.
He is not quite sure what new territory he'll branch into in the future. He keeps his webpages fairly simple with little or no "tricks" but he has some thoughts to include some JavaScript "treatments" on a few of the pages. He also wants to add some pictures of his perennial beds to his gardening site. He is dedicated to slideshows and will definitely increase the count in 2000.
Don is more than happy with his WebTV box and states, Where else can you get such important interaction and entertainment for $20 - $25 per month?" He is amused at the people who constantly complain about WebTV's shortcomings and wonder what expectations they had when shelling out $100 to $200. He likes and appreciates the continuous improvements being made to the box with periodic updates because he knows you don't get updates to your TV, refrigerator, or automobile....at least not without cost.
E-mail Don[Community Editor's Notes: Don, the slideshows are awesome! I loved the majestic waterfalls and breathtaking sunsets! All of your slideshows left us wanting more! Please keep adding to your shows! A pure pleasure to sightsee!--ck]
