The Index Page
You're at: https://57296.neocities.org/index.html
(last worked on: June 9th, 2020)
contact: craig er oochi  a t  outlook dotty com
*Click* here to see how these simple pages were composed.

* Please let me know if you have problems with my web pages or their links.

9/11,
A better abacus,
A better mouse trap,
Abortions,
Amazon.com,
Beans!,
Being poor,
Bikes-n-Trikes,
Bird feeder,
Black-box Voting,
BMI,
(cheap old) Books and Movies,
Butter,
The candidates,
Celestial Vault (astronomy),
Chromebooks,
Clothes dryer alternative,
Clouds,
Coffee,
Daylight Saving Time,
Democracy,
Dentistry,
Dog & cat fleas & Ants,
Dogson-2 Telescope,
Ancient Egypt,
Energy alternatives,
Evolution,
Ezekiel's UFO,
Fluoridation,
Fuji S4800 camera review,
Giant bubbles,
Granny-D,
Growth,
Hot car interiors,
Intentional Community,
Invention,
Kitchen Range,
Living lightly,
Medicare & Wellness,
Music,
Oat bread,
Our bird feeder,
PBS fundraising,
Politics,
Printers,
Quiet,
Radiation,
Rock tumbling,
Sand pipers,
Slugs,
Small Is Beautiful,
Sports,
Stereography,
Technocracy,
Time capsuling,
Tomorrow,
Travel,
TV antenna,
Two-way books,
Uniform keyboard piano,
Water (bottled),
Weather,
Whither radio?,
Words-2,
Your weight at the North Pole,

I like Kyle Drake's Neocities philosophy (as quoted from the Wiki) of facilitating the publication of basic web pages: "I want to make another GeoCities. Free web hosting, static HTML only, 10MB limit, anonymous, uncensored." So thanks much Kyle (although in a better world we'd all stand behind our work).

This is the last counter graph under the URL: https://craigeroochi.neocities.org/index.html (I take it that these are
the combined counts for my (now) 80 or so HTM/L files (15 subordinate to the 65 pages indexed above --or orphaned).
 

An early counter graph after I took down "craigeroochi" and rebuilt the web site as: https://57296.neocities.org/index.html
(I wanted to redo several pages, but the Neocities system was painfully slow at deletion, so I killed it all off.) Hopefully, my previous
high counts were due to content --and not because folks took to the cute name "craigeroochi" (which is still my email handle).
 

This recent counter graph (June, 2020) is typical and shows a rather slow come-back. My pages/subjects are nearly the same
as before, but with a multitude of corrections, additions and updates.

Even though the counts are down, those minutes of browsing my pages really add up. I sure hope my pages worthy of all that time and attention.

Each week-long counter graph has always looked the same: feast, then famine. It hit a thousand clicks once, then a steep drop off. I'm imagining that people happen upon one of my pages in isolation from the rest, get enthusiastic about it, but soon find another that repels her/him (and her/his friends).

Knowing the counts per page would (of course) focus my efforts on polishing the pages which others care about --but I appreciate that Kyle (probably) intended for each of us to dwell upon one subject, learning to use our HTML skills effectively along the way. Instead of being web-weaving oriented, however, I've used an old GUI application to hammer out a crap-load of pages here on a number of subjects.

So thanks for tolerating my departures from the spirit of Neocities, everyone. If it helps my case any, I've not taken up much web space.

Most of my pages originated years previous to Neocities and they cleave to an old fashioned "static" style. (My wife created a number of Geocities pages, but I've always posted finished pages to complimentary web space.)

* The original content of my pages is --of course-- unencumbered by copyright.

* Those of you perusing my pages with an out-of-date browser might notice that they're giving you no trouble --thanks to the reach-back of most browsers to accommodate legacy page coding --and that I've (painlessly) composed them with a good old 1999 edition of Netscape (version 4.7). Netscape was a combination email, browser and GUI composing program which you can probably still find somewhere as a free download. (I don't suggest that anyone use it for email or on-line browsing anymore, however.) I run it on a typical desktop "tower" PC under the XP operating system (updated to Service Pack 3).

* Our home computers have been off-line for years. Paying^ $55/month for Internet service (alone) made me angry. (That's what we pay for water and sewer, and twice what we pay for 4 trash plus 4 recycle pick ups per month.) Since cable cutting, we've been going onto the Internet via public WiFi using a pair of Chromebooks --which painlessly update themselves and are fairly bullet proof to on-line attacks. (They totally reboot and recover nicely.) (We of course avoid commercial transactions via public WiFi --and I gather that even with a private ISP, you need VPN to securely make purchases over the Internet.)

On the up side of that: we consequently have no headaches caused by the updating of our old computers' operating systems, their anti-virus/everything programs, or the myriad applications which use to clamor to be first in line to call home and suckle down updates/upgrades when they boot up.

So: when my Web pages look good enough on our home computers, I take them on a flash memory stick to where we find some public WiFi, then upload them to Neocities with one of our Chromebooks. (Actually: only one Chromebook remains. The other one suffered the "Black Screen of Death".)

* Unlike a web page saved by (say) an old copy of Firefox --which places all the image and other non-HTML files into a sub folder ("name_files"), and unlike modern authoring software which saves as a combined "MHTML" file, Netscape-4.7 simply parks everything at the "root" of the drive being used --so make that a dedicated flash --and that's how you must work on them. Afterwards you can copy all the files into a folder on the flash stick memory that you take to the library/wherever for uploading.

Again: if you get a copy of Netscape-4.7 for your own use, make sure that you compose and save at the "root" of a flash stick of memory. Again: when you move the files to another flash stick, sub-folder or drive, copy them over from your composing flash stick/s. Don't open and resave them. (You might want to have a flash stick for each web document that you create, so as to stay out of trouble, but I use just one --plus sub-folders/directories.)

I find that this old HTM/L stuff has everything I need to express my thoughts and link to those of others. I use no "frames", special Java scripts, or even "tables" on my pages (although Netscape-4.7 can do tables). I simply insert a GIF or a JPEG of a graph, table or chart when and where I need it. Sometimes I build up a chart or table with Netscape by using a monospace font, so that my columns stay straight.

Motivations:

* Even after working with (mostly GUI interfaced) HTML and the Internet for 20 years, the scope of possibilities, the potential reach of our efforts, the connectedness we might realize --is still a "Wow!" factor for me. We share a privileged place in history, where we can internally and externally link/weave our words/thoughts and images together in a network with others.

* There's a sense of community with my --at least imagined-- readers and potential responders. (There's been less than one cold contact per year, aside from e-friends who I've directed to a particular page).

* Then there's the personal and spiritual "clarification" aspect (as Bruce MacEvoy puts it) --that experience of not knowing if one is thinking coherently or usefully --until a set of observations, ideas or approaches can be bounced off of another person --for comments, criticisms, amendments and "reality checks". We need to see ourselves and our thoughts as reflected and refracted in our others, even if it's only an imagined audience. "Presenting" via web pages goes a good distance in that direction.

* There are 57.296 degrees in a radian --handy to know.

 ...Craig