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Credits

I owe a great deal to a lot of people, most of whom I will never meet, for this site. In the years since I've been on the 'net, I have learned so much from websites that others have worked hard to build in order to share the knowledge and experience they've gained with others. There is no way I could thank all of the folks who I have learned from, but below are the sites that I have directly referenced in making this site and some of the tools I have used. For most of them, no money changed hands. For those that I did pay for, I feel I have received more than my money's worth.

 AOLPress

AOLPressThis is a freeware WYSIWYG html editor that I think is better than many of the ones you have to pay big bucks for. I started using it when I knew nothing at all about html and now that I'm more familiar with the language, I still find that it's an indispensible tool.

 Art Today

Art TodayMy hard drive is bulging from the fonts I have found here, as well as a great selection of graphics. This is a subscription site, but I have never begrudged them their completely reasonable rate. I picked up the "Agatha" font from there, which I have used in all of my titles and buttons, as well as the "portait" of me on the JPDeni page.

 Astigmatic One Eye

Astigmatic One EyeThe Astigmatic One Eye font foundry makes the niftiest freeware font for making buttons, called ButtonButton. The only character I'm using on my site is for my little "teardrop" bullet, but I know I'll be using more of the characters later on. While your there, be sure to check out the other fonts AOE has to offer.

 BladePro

BladeProI have only had BladePro for a little while, so I can't say that it has made all the difference in the world to me. However, the main reason I paid the shareware fee is that there are a zillion sites out there with Paint Shop Pro "presets" to download and you can get some really nifty effects that way. One day I may even make my own!

 Boogiejack's Web Depot

I stole this award from Boogie JackBelow is a suggested description of Boogie Jack's site, written by Booj himself:

Boogie Jack's Web Depot is a webmaster's delight featuring excellent original graphics, HTML and Graphics Tutorials, product reviews, and too many other great features to list. The casual surfer will love the humor, contests, and other amusing diversions. A great resource, but it's also a funny and fun place to be. I highly recommend it!

Still another suggested description of the site, also written by the Boojster:
Visit this weird guy's site. He's an alien with no life.

Oddly enough, I agree with both of these statements. I found Boogie Jack's Web Depot to be extremely informative and the most painless way to learn about web design. Whatever is right with the design of my site, I learned from Booj. Whatever is wrong with it is where I didn't follow his advice.

He is also a little, well, eccentric would be a good way to put it. His sense of humor is unique and at times even bizarre, but at the same time he writes some of the most beautiful philosophical pieces I've read in a long time.

While you're at the Depot, be sure to sign up to receive his newsletter. If you have ever even considered creating a website, you will appreciate his tips and tricks. If you aren't a budding webmaster, the newsletter is still worth its weight in bandwidth for humor and philosophical musings.

 CGI by Cliff

CGI by CliffWhen I found Cliff's SpamBot Killer a while back, I knew I just had to use it. To see it in action, click in the little green square at the end of this paragraph. The link is connected to a transparent .gif file, but you should be able to find it. What you'll get is a page of 100 fake (but real looking) names, each of which is connected to a fake (but real looking) email address. The point of the script is to give bogus email addresses to robots that go from site to site harvesting them for spammers to use. The hope is that they will get so many of these bogus addresses that maybe it'll start costing them big bucks and they'll quit flooding our mailboxes with their spam. I don't know that it'll work, but it gives me a feeling that I'm doing something. There is at least one of these critters on every html page on my site.

 Iconolog

Here's where I picked up the smilies I use for the ratings in the bookstore. Iconolog has more graphics than any 10 sites I've come across.

 Paint Shop Pro

Paint Shop ProI'm sure there are fancier graphics programs available, but I doubt if you'll find anything this powerful for so low a price anywhere. I have always considered myself to be "artistically challenged," but with Paint Shop Pro, for the first time in my life I could create something that at least looked good to me. In addition, there are a myriad of sites on the internet that helped me to learn just what the heck I was supposed to do with this program once I got it. The graphics here (except for the background) were all made by me, with Paint Shop Pro. If I can do it, anybody can.

 PSP Links

PSP LinksI mentioned that there are a myriad of sites available to help you learn how to create beautiful things with Paint Shop Pro. Finding the sites and wading through them can be a rather daunting task, though. Have no fear. Angela has made a site that lists hundreds of tutorial pages for PSP, nicely organized into sections and alphabetized to make finding what you need pretty darn painless. It's a heck of a lot easier to go through Angela's list than it is to do a search on Yahoo or Google.

 Web Graphics on a Budget

Web Graphics on a BudgetMardi is another one of those wonderfully artistic folks who generously share their knowledge with those of us who are not so gifted. If you are looking for a way to make graphics for a site, especially if you're using Paint Shop Pro, head straight for Web Graphics on a Budget. If there is a criticism I might have of Mardi's site, it is that there are so many different things to choose from that it's hard to decide which ones to use.

Unlike a lot of other tutorial sites I have seen, Mardi's instructions are clear, concise, and accurate. Every time I followed one of her tutorials, I came up with the same graphic I saw on her page. Working with them for a while got me used to the controls so that I could start to see how to adapt the tutorials into something of my own. I was even able to finally figure out how to work with layers and masks, only because of the superb tutorials on Mardi's site. She also offers all of her tutorials in a PDF format so you can download them and have them available while you're working offline, as well as some very nice graphics that you can use for free.

The text in the title graphics is a combination of Mardi's Cutout Text and Outlined Text. I also used her "soft bevel" BladePro preset.

 Windy's Backgrounds

Background by WindyWindy has some very nice backgrounds and websets that she is offering for free. I searched through dozens of graphics sites before I found this one that was just perfect for me.

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Background by Windy