By way of a welcome, our subject invites you to "get lost"....get lost, that is, in the labyrinth of help links in his site. To quote from a portion of his site, "some links lead to a single web site, but many others lead to sites that contain still more links. In fact, one link alone will transport you to a site that has 4000 additional links, and another site contains access to 500,000 images!"
A labyrinth? Yes! Most definitely a site you could be "lost" in if not disciplined to find what you need and then leave rather than continue surfing the additional links found therein. Who is this person capturing our interest within the walls of his labyrinth? He is Bill642, a fortyish gentleman living near Springfield, MA. Bill is happily married and boasts of 3 teen-aged sons and is employed by the federal government in the health care field. Claiming to be a product of the '70's, he enjoys classic rock and in particular, Pink Floyd...a real sucker for a screaming electric guitar.
Bill came into the web world kicking and screaming. "I found it a bit annoying as more and more advertisers began including references to their web sites. I felt the Internet was just a passing phase." It didn't take long before "Dot-com-this and dot-com-that were everywhere..." driving Bill even crazier. Then he saw an infomercial about the Phillips WebTV unit. Soon after, he bought one and it is now an appendage "rooted firmly to my body."
Bill has owned it one year, and confesses "that this silly little machine has thoroughly captured me, and gives me hours of enjoyment." He admits he had always been a stay at home kind of guy (a couch potato), but with a deep thirst for knowledge. "I spent a great deal of my free time watching television shows on A&E, Discovery, and anything else providing useful information." (He was also a Seinfeld junkie...LOL). According to Bill, those days are gone! He still watches television occasionally, but most of his free time is now spent online with "my trusty WebTV. It gives me the same brain stimulation as the educational TV...but now, I am actually a part of that stimulation."
He spent the first weeks online just randomly surfing in wide-eyed amazement and was a frequent visitor to chat rooms. "I was unaware that such a thing as personal homepages existed." His only exposure to web sites in these first weeks were those that were professionally produced. As time went by, he began to see the customization of e-mails with background images, colored text, marquees, and the like. Upon asking how this was done, he was referred to Draac's tutorials. It was here that he first learned about newsgroups. "My first customized e-mail signature was a weird outer space background with a song by Pink Floyd." He was so proud of it, that he would think up questions to post in the newsgroups so people could see his "work of art."
As interest of HTML grew, an ever-increasing amount of time was spent in newsgroups devoted to HTML. "The group I 'joined' happened to be frequented by a literal who's- who in the WebTV/HTML community. People like Draac, The Professor, Jerry Hollingshead, Owens4, Nook, and many others." Recognizing the value of the posts in the newsgroup, he bought a printer and printed hundreds of posts, which he put in a binder for reference. He still uses these when he needs to refresh his knowledge. It was from the newsgroups that he learned that he too, could have a personal homepage.
Soon, he was no longer satisfied with just making his e-mail fancy. He wanted a bigger challenge and constructed his first website which is still online. It's called Link Labyrinth and features hundreds of links geared toward teaching others how to build their own webpages. Soon after putting it online, he received his first thanks and praise for the site. "I still get 2 or 3 similar e-mails per week and I find this very satisfying." (Bill, you should feel this way because it is a very helpful site). Next, he constructed a very challenging maze to entertain visitors. This is called The Ultimate Maze. He put hit counters on both the "Start" and the Finish" pages to see how visitors fared. When he last looked, only about 1 out of 30 people, who started, made it to the finish. When it first went online, as many as 20 to 30 e-mails per day were received from hopelessly lost visitors, begging for clues. Finding he was unable to handle this, he enlisted the help of an experienced programmer and installed a robot, named "Clue-Bot," that automatically dispenses clues to the players when they get lost.
These days he is doing his best to learn JavaScript. "I admit that I'm not learning it as quickly and easily as HTML. I find I'm just baffled by the books I've bought on the subject." He has gleaned a little JavaScript know-how by dissecting, improving and reassembling existing scripts he has found along the way. This effort has produced a number of online tools that "Webbers" may find helpful, which he calls WebTV Power Tools.
Bill has a love-hate relationship with WebTV. "I love WebTV for providing me with a stimulating and satisfying hobby, but I hate the fact that there seems to be such a chasm between them as a company, and us - their customers." He sees in the newsgroups the frustration of users with some aspect of their WebTV use, or some contact they had with customer service that has left them exasperated. Also, Bill feels WNI is putting an increasing emphasis on the television side of the WebTV box. "I wonder why. I am in contact with dozens of other Webbers...all of whom tell me that they no longer watch TV." Bill believes the Internet terminal is the wave of the future despite what we hear from PC users. "The big question mark in my mind is whether or not WebTV will be part of that future."
E-Mail Bill[Community Editor's Notes: Ok, Bill, are 20 attempts through the "Ultimate Maze" a surprise to you? LOL. We are still trying to get through the maze. And your Labyrinth of links...oh, my! What a treasure trove of fun, fun, fun. So much to see...and still looking!-ck]
