If you have ever wondered how this site began, below is the explanation.
In the summer of 2001 I took a communications class. I was in one of many small groups that were given an assignment. I offered to put the material from our group in web form. I had been thinking of doing some web authoring but wasn't sure how to go about it. I looked to several different resources, but they made things more complex than they needed to be. I finally found Web Monkey, which explained basic HTML, or hypertext markup language (the language of web pages), concepts in a simple and easy to understand way. Within about 10 minutes, I had the basic elements of a page, such as the title, body and paragraph tags, on a sample page. I got excited. I finished the assignment and showed it to my classmates. They weren't as enthusiastic as me, since I made one big error. I had saved all of my HTML files as text files, not knowing that in order to make the codes and links work, I had to save them as HTM or HTML files. I found that out later when I talked with a fellow computer geek. You can imagine the reaction of my classmates when I printed out the pages, and all you saw, in addition to the words and sentences, were endless codes all over the place. It wasn't until I resaved one or two of the files as HTM and then opened them up in Internet Explorer, did I truly see the fruits of my labor. That's when I really started getting excited and when the wheels in my mind started turning.
In the fall of 2001, I took another class called, "The Information Age," where I was given another assignment to design a simple web page with links on it. Not all of the link names made sense when you saw them on the web page in IE, but they did work. Those mental wheels started turning some more and I began to think of having my own website. That site did not come until the next semester.
Next, I took a web design class. By the middle of the semester, we were given the task of designing our own site and ultimately publishing it to a personal web space on the school's server. I had a lot of fun with this. I was finally able to do a site on things I was interested in. I learned about how to make some other content with HTML, such as frames, forms, and tables. Funny, I look back on that course and see how much I struggled with understanding tables and how they worked. Picture trying to explain the rows and columns of a table, much less how they fit together, to a totally blind guy. The concept didn't really click until late in the course. However, after designing, maintaining and publishing pages to my personal website, things really began happening and those wheels were really spinning.
In the summer of that year I decided on a domain name (wayneism.com), and went out and bought the name from Go Daddy, as well as obtained web hosting services from Ultra Host.
It took awhile for me to understand where to put files in my own site's hierarchy system in order for them to actually show up on the web. Over time, I obtained an FTP (file transfer protocol) program in order to upload the pages faster to my site, and have gradually expanded the site. I think I started with around 6 pages, and at last count, there's 13 or more. I have also added other things, such as the hit counter, a feedback form, an easier navigation area, the "What's New" list, and more. Most recently, I've also put pictures on my site, which is something else that I never thought I'd have there: why would a blind guy want pictures on his website?
You might have noticed that the address for this site is wayneism.com, but its name is Wayneisms. Some people have asked me why the different titles? Honestly, I didn't think about the differences until after I had registered wayneism.com. I suppose I could go back and get "wayneisms," but I haven't bothered to do so. As for what "wayneisms" are, refer to the explanation on the home page.
Here's another question that has been asked several times: Why don't you have your email address on your site? The fact is, I used to have it on every page. In the last couple of years, I've come to realize that having those email addresses on each page has allowed people to contact me yes, but it has also opened the flood gates for spam and junk email. A vast majority of the spam that I get on a daily basis comes to one or more of the email addresses that are associated with my site. In 2005, I was able to get together with a friend that I had met on Skype and develop a feedback form. That person knows who he is. He also helped with the counter, and the navigational links on each page. I've always wanted to thank him for that. I haven't talked with him since those projects, but I'm eternally grateful for his assistance. While I love HTML, I'm not as much of a fan of other types of web codes, such as PHP, and others. HTML is one of the few codes, perhaps the only language, where an extra space or capital letter or line break doesn't matter. So I've stuck with HTML and have asked others to help when needed. Anyway, that's why I don't have my email address on my site. I still get tons of spam, but I think that not having my email address displayed has helped, for the short term anyway.
My intention since the early days of this site, even when it was back on the university's server, was to be a place of resources, for myself and others. Ever since I can remember, I have keptup with different companies, their contact information, products, and various other pieces of information. Having this site has given me a chance to give these lists of resources a home. In the first few years, and even today, I find myself going to my own site in order to look for a link to some site, product, review, or other link that I'm looking for. Many of the sites you see here have come from items that I've had in my IE Favorites lists at one time or another. Others are ones that I've come across in my own surfing. And still others are ones that people have suggested to me. Whatever the source, any site that is added will be reasonably accessible. I figure that if I have trouble using it, then other blind people might have the same trouble.
There you have it. As always, I'm open to any comments you might have on this site, its organization, or even sites to add. Drop me a note on the feedback form. By the way, those submissions come to me directly and are not displayed on the web. And, I will never sell or give your email address to spammers. Everyone says that, but unlike everyone else, I know how annoying it is to get hundreds of spam per day, :)
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