The software is inexpensive: much of it is free.

The page starts with the Composer application that is part of the Netscape Communicator suite, free for the download. It's simple and straight-forward software that creates basic pages. The author is so slow to upgrade software that it wasn't until the spring of 2003 that he stopped using version 4.7 of Netscape Composer and switched to version 7.02.

Communicator is behind the times when it comes to multi-media features, Java scripts and frame creation - but that's not a disadvantage for the purposes of this page. After all, the idea is to create something quickly, not to dazzle with bells and whistles. Composer does a fine job of placing words and pictures next to each other in tables. There are a few trial-and-error tricks in creating the tables and page templates, but the results look decent in all browsers and the pages are quick to load. It's important that the table layouts and text from Composer-authored pages load quickly, so readers have something to view while the images appear.

For table layouts, Netscape Composer works better for this author than any of the competing programs that are basically free - Microsoft Front Page Express and AOL Press (defunct but still useful and available after a little searching).

Simple software means a better chance that HTML pages will work on all browsers. Cascading style sheets, Javascript, Shockwave and CGI applications look great, but they slow down loading times and require users to have plug-ins loaded in the browsers.

The page designs you see for each convention are variations on the same theme: tables are used to hold boxes of text and pictures. So each convention's reports don't look the same, there are minor differences from one event's pages to the next. Still, the combination of images and words are used to tell the stories from each convention, the best story-telling technique the author knows.

Much of the differences in the convention pages come from the color schemes. The gradient fills come from ArcSoft PhotoStudio 2.0SE (supplied with the Sony camera). The fractal tiling that started to appear in 2000 came from the freeware Buttonz & Tiles programs.

Changing the background colors lets readers know that the site changes from week to week (and from day to day during a convention). The occasional change in the main page design also sends a signal that this is an active page with constantly new content. For that reason, you won't see "new" buttons or "under construction" banners on this site. The page always changes.

Those page designs are created months in advance and templates are stored on the hard drive so they can be updated at the convention. Changing the site is a matter of plugging pictures and text into the patterns that have been created for each event.

Building the templates in advance means the author can concentrate on filling them in, instead of building fresh pages at each event.

And the impatient world of Internet time leads the author to constantly update the site at each event, instead of waiting until it's over. Frankly, the author is a lazy procrastinator at heart (is that redundant?), and the site would never be changed if he waited until he got home to build the site.
 

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