Here's the deal...
This site is a place for me to indulge myself by 'experimenting' while I learn how to use some of the really inovative things one can do with:
- HTML (hyper text markup language) - the language of the web.
- CSS (cascading style sheets - a place to put - on one web page - all your information about what fonts, sizes, colors, etc that you want your HTML code to use for all (well almost all) of your web pages). That way if you want to change a font or something - you just change it once on the style sheet instead of having to comb through all your web pages.
- Flash - allows one to include complex animations on your website - among other things.
- javascript - makes possible some quite complex manipulations, interactions and animations on your web pages
with just small snippets of code. There is a growing library of downloadable code which enables
wondrous things to be done with a minimum of code and effort.
- For example:
- Code enabling input from the viewer.
- Those annoying, to some, 'tooltips' that pop up to tell you something about the text or symbol the mouse is hovering over.
- An array of libraries - some of which seemingly by magic - take some photos and put them into the form of an album or slideshow.
This is also a place where I can evaluate the ease of use and versatility of some of those special websites now available for uploading videos, photos, text and slideshows:
- YouTubeGoofy Stuff
- Picasa Example
- Flickr
- Facebook - Jim Nelson introduced me to this site. It is still a major puzzle to me although I have managed to upload some pictures that are formed into an album viewable by other Facebook aficionados. Example
- Twitter - it appears to be the internet equivalent of those kids that always have a cell phone plugged into their ears. What is it useful for? - I haven't a clue.
- Photodex - a true 'streaming' website for display of high resolution slideshows.
I am slowly learning how to generate some Google Earth 'flyby-like' material for use in slideshows.
You can check out my initial efforts by clicking the 'Highest Peaks' or the 'Fly-By Tour' links in the yellow box.
My apologies to those who don't get their kicks by puttering around with this sort of stuff.
This past year I put a lot of my effort converting my PowerPoint presentations to slideshows using Photodex Pro Show Gold.
Photodex has recently upgraded their online slideshow sharing website to allow streaming of high resolution material.
If you would like to see how some of my stuff looks on their streaming website.
After a one-time download of the Photodex Viewer (if you have a problem with the download - pause your anti-virus/firewall for a couple of minutes) you may have to wait a bit for enough data to download for the slideshow to start. When it starts you can run the mouse over the bottom of the screen to get some controls. Click on an icon at the right side to see the show with full screen.
Below are links to a couple of my slideshows if you want to check them out.
A Trip to Ice Lakes in Golden October - 18 minutes
The ski ascent of Seance Peak starts out as a fiasco - 23 minutes
Also on the Photodex site you can see one of my 'goofy' productions - an imaginary ride down a world-class zipline by Eli, a second grader, who lives in Stehekin. The zipline runs from the summit of Tupshin Peak (8320' elevation) to the new Nielsen 'straw' house - a drop of 7100 feet in about 4 miles.
Other Fun Stuff
I'm using the following link to learn some Flash... Morphing etc (be warned - this spoof is a little goofy!
It is a 'SWF' file so it make take a bit of time to download enough material to start.
Dumpster Diving - Climber Style)
At present I am spending a good deal of time seeing what I can do with javascript to enhance my web pages. An example of one of the many interesting things that can be done with javascript - check out this page turn code that flips the pages of my 1953 High School Yearbook. This example also uses some Flash to put some unauthorized words in the mouths of my senior classmates (which puts this stuff in the goofy category).
And these are future projects... websites I am slowly pecking away on.
A place to gather some of my alpine pictures and stories
It's time to talk about where we are going with our wilderness areas. How do we balance the desire of some for turning certain wilderness areas into 'Sanctuary Wilderness' while still maintaining the broadest possible support for wild places by allowing all Americans the widest access possible to our precious wilderness?