Webmaster's speech

While I'm delighted that you've come to visit, I have limited time to create and maintain this page, especially if the weather is good. Like you, I'd rather be out flying than sat behind a keyboard.
This page has to be viewed with browser that can handle Java and javascript to get all the features to work at all, most of those made in the last century will do. You'll need to have the Flash plug-in too. Some of the animations I made with Flash 5, the newer ones will probably only work with Flash 6. Some have alternate content like a .gif and imagemap, some don't. Minimum resolution is 800 x 600, but the whole site was designed for 1024 x 768.

The front page has a news panel that's powered by WordPress. I just installed this (December '05) so it's still on trial. If it works out I may eventually start using more of it's functions. It was really easy to set up and install and so far it's been pretty easy to customize to fit my own stylesheets and layout.

Since I went to the trouble to include the cute Java stuff, and write html to W3C HTML 3.2 or 4.0 standard, I don't take it very well when Microsoft decide to launch their own version, or set up IE to recognize only some bastardized MS version of Javascript. If you are using IE, you are just encouraging MS to defy open standards, so please use Firefox, Netscape, Opera or any other browser instead. I cannot be bothered to reconfigure the javascript every time MS decide to defy the standards. I've done what I think is reasonable to ensure the pages load in Mozilla and IE browsers back to 3.0 and render in an acceptable way, though I stop short of adjusting every little thing so I get the margins or borders exactly as intended.
I want the Mozilla / Firefox browser to succeed. I want developers to develop for it and users to use it. This is not out of any particular malice towards Internet Explorer, but because I believe that if there is seen to be a major contender, then Microsoft will have no choice but to fight back in the same way, by implementing standards. The Mozilla browser is important because if it gains market share, even a little, then it changes the name of the game.

Mozilla is still the best hope for an open, interoperable Web where anyone can contribute and participate, regardless of whose products they buy. Internet Explorer had its chance at a monopoly; versions since IE5.5 were released under little pressure to out-perform the competition, but the result was not satisfactory. Mozilla must succeed, if only to force Microsoft to clean up its act. It's been said too many times, but the guys at Redmond could use a bit of a challenge.
Some of Microsoft's planned crimes against computing humanity are documented here. If that doesn't change your mind, then how about this; 90% of the virii out there were written specifically to attack Microsoft products...

If you are an IE user and have a problem with this statement, take it up with Bill.

Spammers please note that I do give a damn and actively track down and pursue every spam attack on mail accounts on this domain, including mailing lists. Since my mailbox has begun to overflow with spam, I've been forced to remove the 'mailto' links from the pages and put up a form instead. This uses an aliasing system so that the mail address itself doesn't show up the page code for harvesting. Sorry if that's an inconvenience.

You might be curious as to why I bother so much with presentation for a small pilot population and a fringe sport. Well, some of my work involves web development and this is a good place to practice. I just have low tolerance for ugly sites, even when they have good content.
My favorite tools for the task are the usual suspects; Arachnophilia, Macromedia® FlashMX™, DreamweaverMX™, Adobe® Illustrator 9.0™, Photoshop 7.0™, and Notepad™
I get tired of jinxing myself by giving props to my hosting company, only for them to shaft me. Safe to say that if you're reading this, I have hosting.

if you want to chat about any of this, but if you have technical difficulties to report please copy and paste your browser info (CCBot/1.0 (+http://www.commoncrawl.org/bot.html)) and IP address (38.103.63.61) into the body.